Billy "The Kid" is the super-talented yet cocky, cockney snooker player who has the potential to dethrone six-time world champion snooker king Maxwell Randall. Going by the moniker The Green Baize Vampire he has nothing but disdain for the lad who he sees as a young upstart. The Kid's manager, T. O. (The One), is a compulsive gambler who falls into debt with the ruthless and psychotic loan shark the Wednesday Man. He offers to cancel T. O.'s debt if he can arrange a 17-frame grudge snooker match between Billy and Randall. With nothing to lose (apart from T. O.) and everything to gain, can Billy defeat his older rival and take his place as world champ?
What was the latest project from TV and film director Alan Clarke whose work had mainly consisted of that made for the small screen, Billy the Kid & the Green Baize Vampire was something of a departure for whose work comprised largely of that which dealt with social realism and deprived or oppressed communities. Perfect examples have been Scum, Made in Britain, and Rita Sue & Bob Too. Experimental in nature, and no doubt an attempt by Clarke to expand on his directorial range, this surreal and bizarre Indy musical, which undoubtedly attempts to be an eighties answer to The Rocky Horror Picture Show lacks any of the inspired madness, flamboyance or panache of Richard O' Brien's camp classic.
Purely studio-bound, with no location filming whatsoever, although Clarke had originally intended for there to be so. It was filmed completely at Twickenham Studios in London which ultimately lends it something of a theatrical feel. Although does the movie no favors, no doubt due to budgetary restraints its sets look artificial and all too stagy. Rocky Horror on the other hand, although shot on minimal finances had the luxury of being filmed on location, partly in Oakley Court, a country house near Maidenhead, Berkshire. However, this is the last of the movie's problems, the one most transparent being that of all the sports that Clarke selects to revolve his musical around, he chooses Snooker. Not the most electrifying or involving of spectator sports, and given the limiting nature of its players having to play around a four-sided square snooker table, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be little if any showstopping dance numbers. In fact. There's none at all!
The movie's surreal tone and its relatively idiosyncratic characters as well as the quirky parallel version of London that Clarke has created merely seem to be so for the sake of it. While Rocky Horror was at least a pastiche of 1950s genre B-Movies of the 50s Horror and Science-fiction, this Isn't sending up anything and is just apeing at least in terms of inspiration a vastly superior camp musical comedy classic. It is to his detriment that into the mix, Clarke throws in an operatic aria performed by Alun Armstrong which feels out of place within the otherwise retro-punk tone.
If Clarke gets something right it's at the very least the casting, with the role of the eponymous and cocksure Billy the Kid fitting then 26-year-old Phil Daniels like a glove. Essentially playing a variation on his role as young London Mod Jimmy in Quadrophenia. The aforementioned Armstrong gives it his all and is superbly supercilious and slimy as northern English Randall, the Green Baize Vampire. Somehow, even though he should appear embarrassed playing a snooker playing Dracula wannabe. He just manages to pull it off, although that's more than can be said for his brave attempt to pull off a misjudged operatic performance in a retro-punk musical. Bruce Payne, who had incidentally played Dr. Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror on stage, and was arguably the most accomplished and powerful vocalist on hand is ideally cast as Billy's equally cocky and cheeky T. O. With equal amounts of bravado and swaggering confidence, he is something of a melding of more youthful Del Boy Trotter and Boycie from Only Fools & Horses.
It helps to some degree that the songs written and composed by composer George Fenton are pretty catchy, with particular standouts being Supersonic Sam's Sonic Cafe, I'm the One, and The Fame Game. However, they're not enough to pull it from the sinking mire of a movie that is at best patchily written, with some less-than-memorable side characters, some of which consist of Billy's chavish circle of fellow cockney mates and Louise Gold's journalist Miss Sullivan, who is on hand as a means to assist in flushing out the movie's plot, that of it that there is. At least we get to see the welcome inclusion of Richard Ridings whose film credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Pianist, as Billy's gentle-natured Minder Egypt. While those with an even keener eye may spot a young Caroline Quentin as one of Billy's chorus of friends.
Billy the Kid & the Green Baize is a failure on nearly all counts, although it just has enough if scant virtues to save it from being entirely dire. If it is ever to be watched it's due to sheer curiosity value due to some of the actors involved as well as its offbeat if misjudged premise and its miscalculated execution. File under O for obscure but mild curio of a failure.
What was the latest project from TV and film director Alan Clarke whose work had mainly consisted of that made for the small screen, Billy the Kid & the Green Baize Vampire was something of a departure for whose work comprised largely of that which dealt with social realism and deprived or oppressed communities. Perfect examples have been Scum, Made in Britain, and Rita Sue & Bob Too. Experimental in nature, and no doubt an attempt by Clarke to expand on his directorial range, this surreal and bizarre Indy musical, which undoubtedly attempts to be an eighties answer to The Rocky Horror Picture Show lacks any of the inspired madness, flamboyance or panache of Richard O' Brien's camp classic.
Purely studio-bound, with no location filming whatsoever, although Clarke had originally intended for there to be so. It was filmed completely at Twickenham Studios in London which ultimately lends it something of a theatrical feel. Although does the movie no favors, no doubt due to budgetary restraints its sets look artificial and all too stagy. Rocky Horror on the other hand, although shot on minimal finances had the luxury of being filmed on location, partly in Oakley Court, a country house near Maidenhead, Berkshire. However, this is the last of the movie's problems, the one most transparent being that of all the sports that Clarke selects to revolve his musical around, he chooses Snooker. Not the most electrifying or involving of spectator sports, and given the limiting nature of its players having to play around a four-sided square snooker table, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be little if any showstopping dance numbers. In fact. There's none at all!
The movie's surreal tone and its relatively idiosyncratic characters as well as the quirky parallel version of London that Clarke has created merely seem to be so for the sake of it. While Rocky Horror was at least a pastiche of 1950s genre B-Movies of the 50s Horror and Science-fiction, this Isn't sending up anything and is just apeing at least in terms of inspiration a vastly superior camp musical comedy classic. It is to his detriment that into the mix, Clarke throws in an operatic aria performed by Alun Armstrong which feels out of place within the otherwise retro-punk tone.
If Clarke gets something right it's at the very least the casting, with the role of the eponymous and cocksure Billy the Kid fitting then 26-year-old Phil Daniels like a glove. Essentially playing a variation on his role as young London Mod Jimmy in Quadrophenia. The aforementioned Armstrong gives it his all and is superbly supercilious and slimy as northern English Randall, the Green Baize Vampire. Somehow, even though he should appear embarrassed playing a snooker playing Dracula wannabe. He just manages to pull it off, although that's more than can be said for his brave attempt to pull off a misjudged operatic performance in a retro-punk musical. Bruce Payne, who had incidentally played Dr. Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror on stage, and was arguably the most accomplished and powerful vocalist on hand is ideally cast as Billy's equally cocky and cheeky T. O. With equal amounts of bravado and swaggering confidence, he is something of a melding of more youthful Del Boy Trotter and Boycie from Only Fools & Horses.
It helps to some degree that the songs written and composed by composer George Fenton are pretty catchy, with particular standouts being Supersonic Sam's Sonic Cafe, I'm the One, and The Fame Game. However, they're not enough to pull it from the sinking mire of a movie that is at best patchily written, with some less-than-memorable side characters, some of which consist of Billy's chavish circle of fellow cockney mates and Louise Gold's journalist Miss Sullivan, who is on hand as a means to assist in flushing out the movie's plot, that of it that there is. At least we get to see the welcome inclusion of Richard Ridings whose film credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Pianist, as Billy's gentle-natured Minder Egypt. While those with an even keener eye may spot a young Caroline Quentin as one of Billy's chorus of friends.
Billy the Kid & the Green Baize is a failure on nearly all counts, although it just has enough if scant virtues to save it from being entirely dire. If it is ever to be watched it's due to sheer curiosity value due to some of the actors involved as well as its offbeat if misjudged premise and its miscalculated execution. File under O for obscure but mild curio of a failure.