Bringing the music home were rogue rock-and-roll deejays broadcasting from ships and marine structures anchored just outside U.K. territorial waters. But the pirate radio stations were targeted by the government, which did its very best (or, worst) to suppress the (technically illegal) transmissions coming from the waters into the hearts and souls of millions of Brits.
From that jumping-off point, in Pirate Radio writer/director Richard Curtis continues his cinematic explorations of the most telling and/or hilarious moments of love and friendship. The new movie is the first of his screenplays to be set in the past.
“For the last ten years, I’ve been thinking about it as a subject to explore,”-Film maker After completing work on his directorial debut, Love Actually, Curtis again found himself reflecting on childhood memories of nights spent staying up late and listening to The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, Janis Joplin, and Aretha Franklin – to name but a few – and the larger-than-life personalities providing patter and platters.
“Every person in my generation has the same memory,” recalls Curtis. “You would go to bed at night, put your transistor radio underneath your pillow, switch it on with its little glowing light -- and stay up late to hear this fantastic music and voices you could not hear elsewhere. Your parents would shout from downstairs, ‘Go to sleep! Turn off the light!’ It was one of the things that made me love pop music most, that slight sense of it being illicit and illegal.”
The soundtrack of his youth had earlier infused the soundtrack of Love Actually, where he carefully chose songs by Joni Mitchell, Darlene Love, Paul Anka and Lennon & McCartney, among others. To even more fully embrace his love of music from the 1960s, he would set his new movie in 1966 on a pirate radio ship and ensure that even more of his favorite songs made up the soundtrack.
Music supervisor Nick Angel was reunited with Curtis on the new film, as they sought to bring some of the best sounds from the 1960s back for a big-screen voyage. Angel comments, “Richard wore his heart on his sleeve for this film, and the music is an integral part of it. My job was to make sure that we got the songs he wanted in the film.”
Director
The director for the film was Richard Curtis, he has directed other successful working title films
such as "Notting Hill","Bridget Jones's diary".He is mostly known for directing Romantic Comedy's. Because he has made other well known Working Title films the institution brought him in to direct as well as write The boat that rocked because they trusted him.
Location
The setting of the boat that rocked was in international waters on the coast of England. The main setting is Britain.
Casting
- Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Count, "a big, brash, American god of the airwaves"
- Bill Nighy as Quentin, the radio station's boss
- Rhys Ifans as Gavin, Star DJ
- Nick Frost as Dr. Dave, DJ
- Katherine Parkinson as Felicity, the lesbian cook
- Tom Sturridge as Young Carl, Quentin's godson
- Tom Brooke as 'Thick' Kevin, Carl's cabin-mate
- Chris O'Dowd as Breakfast DJ Simon Swafford
- Rhys Darby as Angus Knutsford, DJ
- Will Adamsdale as newsreader John
- Tom Wisdom as 'Midnight' Mark, DJ,
- Ralph Brown as Bob 'the Dawn Treader', DJ, Carl's father
- Ike Hamilton as Harold, radio assistant
- Kenneth Branagh as Minister Dormandy (a loose parody of then-Postmaster General Tony Benn), who aims to shut the station down
Music
I've grown up in the era when music became more or less free. This means I can usually avoid iTunes — sorry, Steve — in order to download bootlegs (or mashups, if we're talking cover songs). It feels a little like cheating. But who cares if you're taking a page from classic rock's rulebreakers?
I'm talking about the people who pirated radio, a historical highpoint that's explored in a a British movie that lands stateside today. Though I haven't seen the flick, the history behind it is worth endorsing: In England during the early 1960s, rock bands including that little one named after some insects were blowing eardrums — just not on the radio. By law and tradition, much of it was considered unbroadcastable. So a couple of scallywags figured out a way to beat the system.
Radio Caroline and, soon, other stations began to broadcast from boats anchored in international waters, just offshore, to avoid the pesky bureaucrats that controlled radio programming. For these rule-breakers, we have much to be thankful for: The Who, for one. Same with the Stones, who produced this lovely song that was the first played on Radio Caroline. We also owe pirate radio for the proliferation of the Beatles, which means those swashbucklers deserve a pat on the back for modern pop music as a whole.
In these digital days, you can still stream modern Caroline online (and scour the archives), as well as other guerilla stations (offshore or otherwise) that get as specific as Trinidadian Rock (if this DJ is online when you are). But modern piracy is generally a one-person affair — no jockeying necessary — so allow me to remind you of the unending powers of The Hype Machine, the mp3 aggregator that rules — or at least curates — the digital-music world. In an era when pirates are once again the bad guys (or are they?), their bloggers are some vagrants we'd love at our next party. That is, if they bring The Who. Or, better, who's next.
Genre
The Boat That Rocked is a british comedy.
Location
The Boat That Rocked is a fictitious comedy set in Britain during 1966 in an era when the BBC, the only UK mainland licensed radio broadcaster (Manx Radio had already been licensed to serve the Isle of Man), played little more than two hours of any kind of recorded music each week. In the story a pirate station called Radio Rock began broadcasting rock music twenty-four hours a day from a boat anchored off the coast of England in international waters. Hosted by a colourful band of disc-jockeys, it soon gains an audience of millions and angers the government in the process. While the story does have some relationship to real events it does not represent any specific station that was broadcasting to Britain in 1966, although Radio Caroline has a page on the subject.
Filming Location
Gambardella's Cafe, Blackheath Standard, London, England, UK
London, England, UK
National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, St James's, London, England, UK
Osprey Quay, Isle of Portland, Portland, Dorset, England, UK
Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK(studio)
Portland Bill, Dorset, England, UK
Portland, Dorset, England, UK
Roupell Street, Waterloo, London, England, UK
Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK(studio)
Squerryes Court, Kent, England, UK(Sir Alistair Dormandy's home)
The Beach, Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK(Seafront)
