Lord of the Fans

Locke On

I’ve never liked seafood, so I was dubious about Crust (2001, directed by Mark Locke). But I needn’t have been, because it shared absolutely nothing negative in common with the prawns I so love to hate. Locke, a little known but well established director from Birmingham, UK, is a comedy genius: someone to watch this year and to come. And the man has experience. He’s behind a slew of ingenious short-films, such as Eat In and Lube and created a whole new crustacean-action genre with Crust (big in Japan–) which sees a giant shrimp turned in to a ruthless boxer, trained by British acting legend Kevin McNally (who went on to do Pirates Of The Caribbean). Want to see a giant-shrimp beating people up left and right? I didn’t either, but I’d seriously advise it. Look no further because there’s plenty here…not that you’d need to look further…it isn’t like Locke has much competition in the crustacean stakes…

After 2001 something happened: Locke suddenly seemed to disappear. Or did he? Well, of course not, he was just biding his time, and doing a fine job of it. Instead of continuing with a load of killer-shrimp sequels, Locke wisely turned his hand to music videos, producing them for the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and Jeffrey Lewis, as well as Misty’s Big Adventure.

And now he’s back in the game with a brand-new feature film: Three Stags, the story of–you guessed it, stag do’s Locke style, is set to get the comedy touch. Casting is already done, in fact, and shoots will soon commence across the country.

What can we expect from this new venture? Well–a lot of laughs for one. Anyone who has seen Locke’s acclaimed short films (heralded by The Guardian, amongst others, as comedy-gold) will know the kind of thing they are in for (although I am sure there will be less jobs for vets in this film…). Anyone else soon will, and, like I used to wonder after I saw Crust, I’m fairly sure they’ll be thinking “Who is this guy?!”

Comments are closed!