Graham Fellows’ film Father Earth records the Sheffield comedian’s trip to Orkney with his dad – and a bid to step out of his alter ego’s shadow
When I last saw Graham Fellows in character as northern singer-songwriter John Shuttleworth, back in 2015, I felt – after years of adoring the act – that Shuttleworth could use a break and Fellows could use something new to do. It turns out that was already happening, as now documented in Fellows’ new film. Father Earth – a follow-up to his previous DIY documentaries, It’s Nice Up North and Southern Softies – traces the comic and his ageing dad’s trip to Orkney, there to convert a tumbledown church building into an eco-friendly recording studio.
That was the film Fellows thought he was making back in 2010, when most of the movie was shot. It’s not entirely the film with which he’s now touring venues around Britain, and which is released online next month. It’s hard to pin down exactly what story his final edit is telling, not surprisingly given its convoluted journey to the screen. Idea #1, Fellows explained at a Q&A in London on Tuesday, was to film his effort to drive to Orkney in a dinky G-Wiz electric car. That idea was shelved when Fellows twigged to the logistical difficulties, but also when his 82-year-old father offered to join him on the trip. At which point, Father Earth became a buddy movie about a depressive comic and his dad trying to get a dream off the ground in the windswept wilds of northern Scotland.
