HAVING SET HIMSELF THE CHALLENGE OF SHOOTING A FILM IN A MERE FIVE DAYS, SHANE MEADOWS COMES UP TRUMPS WITH THIS BIG-HEARTED, DELICIOUSLY ENTERTAINING SKIT FOLLOWING A COUPLE OF MUSIC-BIZ WANNABES.

Meadows regular Paddy Considine gets a co-writing credit and the movie’s essentially a showcase for his ability to take a character and run with it — in this instance a motormouth roadie nicknamed Le Donk, whose delusions of significance come with an unerring gift for the wrong word at the wrong time. Scor-Zay-Zee (Dean Palinczuk) is his latest ‘discovery’, a stoutly-proportioned aspiring rap star whose nervy demeanour hardly squares with his manager’s hopes of landing him a support slot at a forthcoming Arctic Monkeys gig. Considine’s Le Donk likes to think he can talk the talk, but can he really walk the walk as well?

Conceived as a change of pace from weightier outings like This Is England, this larky offering brings to mind the unreleased shorts Meadows and Considine have made together over the years, though the character dynamic pitting an over-confident blowhard against a naive innocent is a consistent thread in the director’s features too — most notably the touching A Room for Romeo Brass. With Meadows, producer Mark Herbert and even their editor (playing the new man in Le Donk’s pregnant partner’s life) in the cast, there’s a danger all this might play like some smug in-joke, but sharp observation, consistently chucklesome dialogue and genuine affection for the characters make it a winner. Just make sure you stay after the credits for a deathless backstage anecdote from maestro Considine. — Trevor Johnston.

Irish Shorts @ IFI
This screening includes Cathal Gaffney’s IFB-funded Ding Dong Denny’s History of Ireland, in which a hapless tourist walks into a Dublin pub and encounters one of the city’s colourful and thirsty historians. (Ireland • 2007 • Colour • 5 min)