Father Earth, the new feature film from Graham Fellows, heading to Cambridge Junction
Filmmaker, comedian and musician Graham Fellows - who is perhaps best known for his comedy character John Shuttleworth - has followed his two previous indie features, It’s Nice Up North (2005) and Southern Softies (2008), with his most personal film yet.
Father Earth, which is to be shown at Cambridge Junction this Saturday (November 12), is the touching true story of one man’s efforts to save his world, while attempting to save the planet.
Can Graham, armed with a G Wiz electric car, successfully convert a derelict church on a windswept island in Orkney into an eco-friendly recording studio? Or will life and relationships, particularly those between fathers and sons, get in the way? And where does John Shuttleworth fit in to all this?
This 83-minute documentary, which has been touring cinemas and arts venues around the UK, will be followed by a Q&A with Graham, who found fame as a pop star in 1978 with his smash hit, Jilted John.
Father Earth stars Graham Fellows as himself, and his aforementioned comic alter ego, and features guest appearances by children’s TV legends Sooty Sweep and Soo, as well as Graham’s eccentric and mathematically-driven father, Derek.
Filmed mainly in the Orkney Isles, Father Earth was directed and edited by Graham Fellows and stars Graham, Derek Fellows, Kevin Baldwin and George Fellows, with special guest appearances from John Shuttleworth, Richard Cadell, and the three famous hand puppets.
Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from a friend’s house in Devon, Graham says he’s looking forward to coming to Cambridge. “It’s a documentary film that’s taken a long time to make,” he explains, “but I hope it’s worth it.
“I basically stopped production in 2012 because my father was ill and then died, so I couldn’t really bear to look at the footage - it was too upsetting. Then in 2020, somebody approached me - a local filmmaker in Leicester, where I’d moved to - and said, ‘Can I film you at a local gig?’
“I said yes, not really thinking about the film I’d abandoned years earlier, and I found myself talking to John Shuttleworth in the mirror while we were filming - and that’s what I was doing in the film from 2010 - and suddenly realised that I could update my film.
“Revisit the earlier footage and re-edit it all, and then lockdown came and they came and filmed me during lockdown and suddenly the film was back on. So I spent the whole of 2021 editing, we got a couple of previews, and now it’s on tour and it’s going down great. I got the film I wanted.”
On how Sooty, Sweep and Soo became a part of it, Graham says: “Well that's because I got a part, as John Shuttleworth - not myself - as a policeman in an episode of Sooty, and they very kindly allowed us to film what they were filming. And that fits nicely into the film as well.”
[Read more: Cambridge filmmaker’s Kickstarter bid for Five Cars movie on track]
Father Earth, which The Malestrom magazine calls “Compelling, moving and mirthful”, will be on at the Junction’s J3 this Saturday (November 12), and will be followed by a Q&A. Tickets are £14.50. For more information, visit junction.co.uk. For more on the film, go to fatherearthmovie.com/watchthefilm/. Graham Fellows’ website can be found at grahamfellowsmusic.com.
