Writer: Graham Fellows
Director: Graham Fellows
When Father Earth opens, it is 2010, and Graham Fellows is delighted. His planet -saving tip is being broadcast on the radio, and he’d only just sent it in. “I’m a star”, he marvels endearingly, as proud as any ordinary person might be, even if they were not in fact starring in their own comedy show at a West End theatre.
Disillusioned and exhausted by his touring life, and anxious about the state of the earth, Fellows bought a disused church on Orkney in 2008, and set about turning it into an eco-friendly recording studio. The film covers the ten years it took him to complete the project. It’s not, however, a straightforward building -renovation documentary. The film seems at first – deceptively – to be a valiant effort to tell a story by patching together bits of footage, much of it from a phone. Things tend to go wrong for Fellows, just like they do for most people. His phone falls off the dashboard in mid-film, and his ingenious water-saving laundry/exercise/showering hack simply does not work. He tries to create a rainwater flushing system, only to have to shell out for the air polluting and fuel-guzzling construction of a septic tank. He has more serious personal problems too: he doesn’t see much of his children, and he suffers from bouts of depression.
Fellows created, and performs as, his comic alter ego, John Shuttleworth, a stolid middle-aged northern chap with a stolid family life and a passion for song writing. John is one of the elements that make this film so intriguing and original. We see him on stage; he’s mildly and reliably funny, fond of wordplay. He amuses a room full of pensioners with a little ditty – “Mary had a little lamb/With mint sauce and potaters”. Off-stage, in the dressing-room, he is a character in his creator’s life. They talk to each other while Fellows is making up, adding white to the sides of his hair – “humiliating” grumbles John – and tiny lines for wrinkles, then sucking in his teeth and squaring his shoulders. John dredges up the unwelcome questions. “You won’t be spending Christmas with your children. How do you feel about that?” he asks one year. Eventually Fellows is older than his own creation. “My life is in your hands,” says John, correctly. He suggests they hug, which turns out to be no easy task what with one of them being in a mirror.
At the core of the film, however, is a real character – Fellows’ father Derek, who gamely agrees to map-read all the way to Orkney, including stop-offs to pick up e-bay purchases. The two have a satisfyingly recognisable relationship. As they’re struggling to fix an enormous tank to the roof of the car one evening, Derek mutters about the “silly operation” of “filming in the dark”, and then notices the sky and can’t resist giving a little astronomy lesson. Discovered in his caravan one morning, reading Infinity in your Pocket, Derek gives the invisible but obviously present cameraman a lecture on dioptres. By the time the film ends, in 2020, Fellows has a different companion on the island – his own teenage son George, and he’s the one giving the instructions – this time on bread-making.
The film’s impact owes a lot to Mervyn Cloud’s editing. There are some delightfully comic moments, such as when, inside the spectacularly unattractive church, Fellows remarks that his massive water tank once held orange juice concentrate. The next shot is a close up of The Last Supper on the wall, with the apostles looking shocked. A boating scene involving Fellows and his son reflects one taken years earlier by Graham and Derek. Given the quiet strength of the story, the film could do without scenes of children silhouetted against the sun with emotive background music – it’s touching enough. One of the loveliest shots is of Fellows himself, on the ferry, his silvery lockdown hair blown back, and the greys and greens of sea and sky behind him.
In 1978, Graham Fellows gave a voice to millions of dumped disgruntled young men with his song Gordon is a Moron. Nearly fifty years later, he speaks for millions more people, who want to save the earth but are constantly distracted by events in their own lives.
Father Earth, the new feature film from Graham Fellows, is set to tour the UK Autumn 2022.
