Turns out I’m in a film in OD

The Tory candidate for Middlesbrough in last years General Election is a documentary film maker. Turns out, he made a film about the election, called Tory Boy: The Movie.

He had a free screening, followed by a Q&A, last night. I decided to go along.

Part of the film was about the hustings I attended that Stuart Bell missed out on.

I got a bit of a shock when, during a montage sequence, about 2 seconds of me asking my question was shown. Particuarly as I had no idea they were filming the hustings.

As for the film itself?

Meh.

We were promised that there was something in the film that may lead to a by-election. All we really got was the same old, same old about Bell (he’s never here, doesn’t hold surgeries, no-one knows what he looks like…). The ‘smoking gun’ turned out to be a rehash of the ‘Postergate’ incident (a Labour poster was stuck on the window of another candidate and Bell is supposedly shown walking past).

There’s just something off about the film. At times, it seems more like Walsh is not actually a big fan of the party he is representing and a lot of the comments about the other party leaders seem to be simply rehashing things others have said. I have read that the whole project was planned as an expose of the Tory party and that seems to fit the narriative better than the ‘disillusioned Labour supporter switches sides’ argument put forward.

All in all, it’s an entertaining film, but not very enlightening, with some bits appearing to be mean for the sake of being mean.

Will