SoulBoy

I remember the buzz around this film a few years ago because it was shot in Stoke and part financed by the now disbanded Screen West Midlands. With whom I had some professional involvement.

Funny, nostalgic, some good tunes. Boy wants girl, other girl loves boy, boy makes right choice!!!!

Northern Soul is back, it's being pumped into bars and clubs with rising regularity. Understandably with every resurrected craze, it had been converted into a film last year.

It has taken far too long for a film about Northern Soul to come to fruition. Thankfully when it did happen it was a belter.

I was really excited about this film being released, based round the northern soul scene, the recreation of the Wigan Casino and all that, so was very pleased to see it was showing in Portsmouth to coincide with my visit.I left feeling disappointed.

Soulboy is directed by Shimmy Marcus and written by Jeff Williams. It stars Martin Compston, Felicity Jones, Alfie Allen, Nichola Burley, Pat Shortt and Craig Parkinson.

Once again we are presented with many different versions of the helpless, bumbling, western male until the lead male 'does a little dance' in order to impress a member of the opposite sex in the hope of some kind of redemption and therefore place in society and reason to exist. The film struggles to find a consistent tone, verging from someone getting a horrible beating in the toilets of the casino to the male lead's inane grinning throughout the film.

There are a lot of white blues musicians heavily influenced by black blues legends and yet ironically display racists views. Cough, Eric Clapton for example although he claims he was drunk at the time.

"SoulBoy" has as its background the Northern Soul scene of the 1970's. It's a dim little picture only partly redeemed by the charismatic presence of the immensely likable Martin Compston and some very decent tunes.