Three Day Millionaire: Grimsby is the subject of a movie again – but this time the town is celebrated, rather than mocked

Published

1 year ago

November 27, 2022

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The town of Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire is synonymous with fish, a tumultuous political landscape, and the butt of jokes about poverty and the working classes.

Many will remember the Sacha Baron Cohen film about the town, The Brother’s Grimsby, which relentlessly mocked the town and its people – it left a sour taste in the mouths of Grimbarians, especially as it was filmed in Essex on a set made to look rubbish-strewn and poverty-stricken.

Meanwhile, there are numerous documentaries and shows that depict Grimsby as an end-of-the-road (the A180 and A46 to be precise) town with no prospects, full of poverty, and as having a fishing industry clinging to life support (only last week an Icelandic fish processing centre in the town was threatened with closure, with operators citing Brexit and the pandemic as reasons).

But this view of the town has been flipped on its head by filmmakers Jack Spring and Paul Stephenson, who used Grimsby as a backdrop for new comedy-drama film Three Day Millionaire.

Before we go any further, I must admit to having a conflict of interest here – I grew up in the town. I spent the best part of 20 years in Grimsby and will always have a deep love for the region. I was excited to see a depiction of Grimsby closer to the one I knew.

The film, which features British stars such as former Corrie actors James Burrows and Sam Glen, Gangs Of London legend Colm Meaney, as well as TikToker Grace Long, follows trawler men on shore leave for three days, who have a fat wedge of cash in their pocket, and the town of Grimsby, and everyone in it, at their disposal.

But while the lads go out and drink and snort their hard-earned wages, a plot to dismantle the town’s once powerful fishing industry and replace it with coffee shops and fancy restaurants is under way – led by politicians and yuppie London developers.

What follows is the townsmen doing anything they can to protect Grimsby’s heritage – and their jobs.

“It’s a lazy trope, isn’t it?”, director Jack Spring told Sky News of films that mocks the town.

“There have been previous pieces of media that used the Grimsby name in a very lazy, slapstick, kind of assumptive way.

“We wanted to tell the story of the town’s real identity, rather than just the lazy tropes of ‘it’s not a nice area’ or ‘it’s got nothing’.”

‘It’s about identity’

What the town’s “real” identity is, is different, depending on who you ask – a fishing giant, an industrial firepower, a market town, a political hotbed or a leader in the green revolution.

“The whole film, when you strip it back, is about identity in the towns like Grimsby, almost echoed in every northern industrial town that, at some point, had the same thing happen to it,” Spring explained.

“And holding onto that identity, and that’s perhaps stopping it forming its new one.

“Grimsby is now one of the UK leaders in the renewable energy space and the offshore wind farms and… big companies coming to town and creating new jobs – but it’s taken an awful long time.

“It’s only really in the last kind of five years maybe that you can really say that Grimsby has found its new identity and is kind of on the up.”

But it’s not just the town’s identity explored in the film – there are wider themes of opportunity and levelling up.

Writer Paul Stephenson, who hails from Hull, just over the River Humber from Grimsby, told Sky News that when he was growing up he was told: “If you were a bloke, you would be a plumber; if you were a girl, you’re going to be a hairdresser.

“And if you were talking about art or creativity or self-expression, you’re probably somewhere in between.”

It’s something he reflects in his writing, with two of the characters talking about their lack of prospects in the town, but still feeling guilty about leaving – which from experience is still a real mindset for many in their home towns.

Who is levelling up for – locals or billionaires?

Gentrification isn’t always a welcome idea in these working class industrial towns, as shown by the film, with generational livelihoods being turfed out, in favour of easy access shopping, new coffee shops, and flats overlooking the river.

Stephenson explains his rationale: “Cookie cutter retail parks that just pop up in every town – is that what we’re really asking for, or is somebody else asking for it? The billionaires who can get the thing through planning and get the buildings put there?

“And, some people will welcome that, but if retail is the way forward to give our towns identity, there will be people like the guys in our film who will say no to that.”

A sense echoed by actor in the film Sam Glen, who comes from Oldham – who suggests when it comes to levelling up, sometimes a step back is needed.

“My local theatre in Oldham just lost its (Arts Council) funding, and it’s supposed to be a levelling-up town,” he told Sky News.

“In terms of access to arts, in those cultural cold spots, in terms of funding literally being from all angles for those places… these organisations just come in and, yeah, just read the room.

“I think if it’s not fancy new apartments, every sector is getting slashed in different ways in these towns.”

‘It was a joy and privilege’ to film in the town

So how did Grimsby react to the best and brightest of British filmmaking swooping into the town to make a film?

“People were resistant,” Glen said.

“There was a feeling of like fear because… every time a film crew appears in this town, they kind of know where it’s leading to in terms of the story that it’s trying to tell.”

Director Spring added: “But everyone was great. The whole town really opened the door to outsiders.

“It was during COVID, so we were knocking on people’s doors saying, ‘Hi, can we come and look at your bathroom? We’re making a film’, and what a weird request, but people would let us in.

“It was a genuine joy and privilege to spend a couple of months there doing this.”

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In fact, the town was so enamoured by the attention, hundreds signed up to be extras, and when the premiere was held in neighbouring Cleethorpes, at the country’s largest independent cinema, (Grimsby’s Odeon has been left empty for almost 20 years) thousands of tickets were shifted.

Three Day Millionaire is out now in selected cinemas, or available to buy digitally.

Entertainment

Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Published

10 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.

Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.

Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”

In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.

Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.

“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.

“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”

Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.

“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.

“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.

“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”

Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.

His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.

He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.

Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.

Entertainment

Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

Published

12 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

Blue Peter’s youngest ever presenter has claimed disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage host of the children’s show.

Yvette Fielding, who joined the long-running BBC programme aged 18, told the Sun newspaper how the paedophile predator squeezed and patted her bottom after finding herself alone with him in a TV studio.

The now 55-year-old also recalled an uncomfortable experience with “grotesque” Jimmy Savile, who was later revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.

Fielding has questioned the role of the BBC in allowing their behaviour, arguing people in the industry “must have known”.

She became a Blue Peter presenter in 1987 and left five years later, going on to host a string of BBC programmes including The Heaven And Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.

Recounting the incident with Harris, she said: “It was very confusing and shocking – just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking ‘I don’t know what to do’.

“Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him.

“That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19.

“I think a lot of them did know.”

Harris was a household favourite for decades before his dramatic downfall after being convicted of a string of indecent assaults against young girls.

Stripped of his honours, he died of neck cancer and old age in May last year, aged 93.

He was also known to be associated with Savile, who managed to conceal his crimes until after his death in 2011.

On her meeting with the late depraved DJ, Fielding told the Sun: “He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’.”

“He was grotesque,” she added.

“I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”

Savile worked for much of his career at the BBC presenting programmes including Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.

The BBC has been contacted for comment.

Entertainment

Girls Aloud kick off reunion tour dedicated to late bandmate Sarah Harding

Published

17 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Girls Aloud kick off reunion tour dedicated to late bandmate Sarah Harding

Girls Aloud have taken to the stage for the first gig of their reunion tour with emotional tributes to their late bandmate Sarah Harding.

A 30-minute delay to the show blamed on “Dublin motorway closures”, did nothing to dim the delight of fans when Nadine Coyle, Cheryl, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh appeared on stage, standing on individual podiums singing their 2008 song Untouchable.

The comeback tour has been dedicated to Harding, who was diagnosed with cancer and died in September 2021 aged 39.

During the show, the group performed a duet with Harding, whose vocals to I’ll Stand By You played as they joined in live on-stage.

They later sang one of their biggest hits, The Promise, during which the singers stopped and turned their backs to the audience to watch footage of Harding performing the song on her own.

A post on the official Girls Aloud X account said: “Show 1 done. Dublin you were absolutely INCREDIBLE. What a start to the #TheGirlsAloudShow tour.”

The singers won Popstars: The Rivals in 2002 and formed Girls Aloud, going on to achieve four UK number one singles and a Brit award.

They reunited with new music for their 10th anniversary in 2012, while a second reunion was planned for their 20th anniversary when Harding was diagnosed with cancer.

Less than an hour before their expected arrival at the 3Arena in Dublin, the group issued an updated stage time on X.
It said due to “Dublin motorway closures”, the band would arrive 30 minutes later than expected at 9.15pm.

Ahead of the show, a post on the official Girls Aloud X account said: “Rehearsals? Done. Choreography? Ready. Outfits? Fitted. Girls? Aloud.

“…We’ve been working so hard to make this show special for all of you.”

After two back-to-back opening nights in Dublin’s 3Arena, Girls Aloud will play two concerts at the SSE Arena in Belfast on Monday and Tuesday, before heading to the Manchester AO Arena from Thursday to Saturday.

In November, the group had to add six extra dates to their UK and Ireland 2024 arena tour due to “unprecedented demand” following ticket pre-sales.