Rock and Roll's Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie
Dir: Steve Barker
2013
*****
John Otway is a legend. This is his story of failure. As the title rightly suggests, he is probably the greatest failure in the world, his achievements are actually pretty impressive and the man is entertainment incarnate. In the dictionary under optimistic, there is a little picture of him. Same goes for the words funniest, enthusiastic and showmanship. One of England's finest for sure. This is director Steve Barker's first film, and without being unkind, it does show. Then again, he does an adequate job and the recovered recorded footage is presented in all it's impressive glory. It's a great little film if you know of him and just as great if you don't. It had a limited cinema release so that it qualified for the BAFTAs which it unfortunately missed out on even though a large Otway style campaign was launched. Instead of releasing a costly trailer, Otway made and circulated a flick-book with the famous moment in his career inside of when while performing on The Old Grey Whistle Test in the late 70's he accidentally slipped when trying to jump his speaker and squashed his testicles live on TV. Comedy Gold and it's all real!