Under the Mud

SYNOPSIS

This truly independent British comedy, with funding from a mishmash of grants and other sources, was written by 14 inexperienced youngsters from the Garston area of Liverpool, under the tutelage of director Sol Papadopoulos and producer Roy Boulter (the Hollyoaks writer whose Hurricane Films also distributed the elegiac Terence Davies documentary Of Time and the City). Cast using local unknowns - and Andrew Schofield (TV's Scully) - it's a magical-realist social farce about a Liverpool family's ups and down on the first Holy Communion day of eight-year-old "angel" Olivia (Jasmine Mubery). It's as unapologetically broad as the accents, with scouse sentimentality and silly slapstick jarring occasionally, while micro-budget car chases unfold and internecine squabbles are solved. Despite international festival interest, it's sad it never found a distributor, as the sheer do-it-yourself energy of the piece, which recalls earliest Shane Meadows, counts for much.