The Luckiest Nut in the World
[24min, Channel 4, 2002] Musical documentary about trade & globalisation issues.
Director: Emily James, Producer: Fulcrum TV
* ‘Pick of the day’ in Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Sunday Times, Observer & Time Out.
* Best Short Film at Full Frame Documentary Festival, North Carolina, 2003.
This was, and remains, one of the projects I’m most proud of. It was the third of my collaborations with the talented director Emily James. The other films were Wag the Dogma and A Brief History of Cuba. We worked very closely together on all three projects, with me writing the music and lyrics.
The film was made in the summer of 2002, commissioned by Channel 4 as part of their alt-TV strand (I don’t think it exists anymore). My studio at the time was a very pokey bedroom in a Dalston flat. I remember doing the recording sessions with the various singers (I voiced the barbershop nut chorus, but the main characters like the peanut were done by actors) and it getting absolutely boiling in there.
I always love writing lyrics about complicated and not-often-sung-about subjects –something I’ve been called upon to do quite a few times in my career. In fact, before all the more traditional scoring work took off, this was my main thing.
I have posted a few of my favorite clips here:
And you can also watch a fair chunk of the film on YouTube.
A scan of a selection of reviews from the time it was first broadcast can be found here.
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