Three Day Millionaire: Grimsby is the subject of a movie again – but this time the town is celebrated, rather than mocked
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’.”
Sam Glen, James Burrows and Michael Kinsey in Three Day Millionaire. Pic: Signature Entertainment
‘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.
‘We wanted to tell the story of the town’s real identity, rather than just the lazy tropes,’ says director Jack Spring. Pic: Signature Entertainment
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.”
TikToker Grace Long stars alongside Glen in Three Day Millionaire. Pic: Signature Entertainment
‘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.
The Who’s Zak Starkey is back in the band after reports earlier this week he’d been sacked.
A statement on the band’s official social media pages written by guitarist Pete Townshend said “communication issues” had been “aired happily” and Starkey was “not being asked to step down”.
Townshend also acknowledged the situation “blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen”, concluding “it’s over” and acknowledged his part in “the confusion”.
Titled, “News Flash! Who Backs Zak,” the long statement said Starkey was “not being asked to step down from The Who”.
It said: “There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.
“Roger and I would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line-up and he has readily agreed.”
Roger Daltrey and Starkey on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in March. Pic: PA
The rock and roll row followed the band’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows in March.
Townsend’s statement went on: “I take responsibility for some of the confusion. Our TCT shows at the Royal Albert Hall were a little tricky for me.
“I thought that four and a half weeks would be enough time to recover completely from having a complete knee replacement. (Why did I ever think I could land on my knees?) Wrong!
“Maybe we didn’t put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage. The sound in the centre of the stage is always the most difficult to work with.”
So what went wrong?
Going on to highlight the specifics of what went wrong, Townshend added: “Roger did nothing wrong but fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised. Albeit with a rubber duck drummer.
“We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It’s over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”
A review of one gig, published in the Metro, suggested frontman Roger Daltrey – who launched the annual gig series for the charity in 2000 – had been “frustrated” with the drumming during some tracks.
Townsend also said he owed drummer Scott Devours “an apology” for not “crushing the rumour” that he would be replacing Starkey in the Who line-up.
Devours is supporting Roger Daltrey on his solo tour, which kicked off this weekend.
Read more from Sky News:
The Last Of Us: The science behind the real ‘zombie’ fungus
Eurovision star and face of Bisto gravy dies
Starkey – who is the son of The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr – reposted Townshend’s statement, with the message: “V grateful to be a part of the Who family Thanks Roger and Pete xx”.
The 59-year-old drummer previously said he was “surprised and saddened” by news of his sacking.
He’s been with The Who for nearly three decades, after joining in 1996 for their Quadrophenia tour.
Starkey also drums for supergroup Mantra Of The Cosmos – along with fellow musicians Shaun Ryder and Bez from Happy Mondays, and Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis – and has previously played with Oasis, Lightning Seeds and Johnny Marr.
Entertainment
The Last Of Us: The science behind the real ‘zombie’ fungus – and is it an actual threat?
Could the next public health crisis be caused by a fungus?
Such an emergency is the basis of the post-apocalypse TV drama series The Last Of Us, which has returned for its second season on Sky Atlantic.
Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the show takes place in a world ravaged by a pandemic caused by a mass cordyceps outbreak, which transforms people into bloodthirsty abominations.
The prospect was outlined in its debut episode in 2023, when a prescient epidemiologist played by John Hannah warned how a warming climate could force some fungus to evolve into something more dangerous.
“Candida, ergot, cordyceps, aspergillus: any one of them could be capable of burrowing into our brains and taking control of not millions of us, but billions,” he said.
An extreme outcome with plenty of artistic licence taken – but is it entirely without scientific basis?
A mass cordyceps outbreak transforms people into blood-thirsty abominations in the show. Pic: HBO/Warner Media/Liane Hentscher
Do fungi really threaten humans?
“There are numerous fungi infecting the brains of human beings all over the planet, often with devastating outcomes,” says Professor Elaine Bignell, a world leader in the field of human fungal pathogen research.
“A number of fungal species are quite prominent pathogens and kill hundreds of thousands of people every year – it’s just the public is not well aware of this.”
A few of the dangers identified by The Last Of Us’s fictional epidemiologist previously featured on a list of health-threatening fungi by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Among the fungi deemed most high-risk was Aspergillus fumigatus, a common mould widespread in the environment in homes and outdoors, which can cause “chronic and acute lung disease” and can be deadly.
Aspergillus is a type of mould, common in homes
Candida species, which are behind complaints like thrush and skin rashes, are also one of the leading causes of bloodstream infection in intensive care patients.
Cryptococcosis neoformans – which infects the lungs and brain, causing pneumonia and meningitis in immunosuppressed patients – also made the list. It kills more than 100,000 people a year in sub-Saharan Africa.
“One thing killer fungi do have in common is they are able to grow at human body temperature, and that’s unusual for a fungus,” Prof Bignell tells Sky News.
“Most fungi in the environment are suited to growing in more temperate conditions, and it places quite a strain on any microorganism to counteract an immune response in a human body and cope with the high temperature.”
The main symptom of ringworm is a rash, which can spread. Pic: NHS
What about cordyceps?
Cordyceps was not on the threat list – but it is absolutely real.
The parasitic fungus infects and takes over the mind of insects, as it does to humans in The Last Of Us.
“There are about 600 species,” says Dr Mark Ramsdale, a professor in molecular microbiology at the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology.
“They are predominantly insect pathogens. It’s their insect host that they manipulate and change their behaviour. And so from that perspective, there is some basis there.”
A fly infected by a cordyceps fungus. Pic: Alejandro Santillana/University of Texas
Found in tropical forests, the fungus penetrates an insect’s body via spores, which are released to allow a fungus to reproduce and defend itself.
The fungus then guides its host into more humid locations to help it grow, before feeding on the remains and launching new spores from its corpse.
When it comes to humans, cordyceps is used in treatments and therapeutics – notably Chinese herbal medicines.
“There’s a long history of relationships between humans and this particular group,” Dr Ramsdale tells Sky News.
“There’s no evidence they’re causing disease in humans. However, in terms of their insect relationships, they do manipulate their hosts – and several fungi have evolved this capacity over time.”
Cordyceps growing from a caterpillar. Pic: L Shyamal/Wikimedia Commons
Ophiocordyceps caloceroides infecting a tarantula. Pic: Ian Suzuki/Wikimedia Commons
Could climate change the picture?
Another facet of The Last Of Us shared by the WHO’s landmark report was the potential influence of climate change on the nature of fungi and our relationship with it.
Prof Bignell says the impact of global heating will be “profound” for all microbes on our planet.
There are some 150,000 identified species of fungi in the world, well short of the millions estimated to exist, and few have what it takes to cope with the 37C temperature and other stresses imposed by the human body.
But some do, and more could – either those yet to be discovered or which adapt to survive on a warming planet.
Read more:
Fungus unknown to science discovered in Scotland
“It changes the selection pressures that are put on those huge, diverse life forms,” says Dr Ramsdale.
“Perhaps some could potentially make that transition from one lifestyle to another and become pathogenic in a context we haven’t thought of before.”
So the show’s pandemic may be far from factual, but it’s not completely without merit.
“What really is the most removed from the current status quo is the scale and the rate of the infections occurring in The Last Of Us,” says Prof Bignell.
“Some fungi can get passed from one person to the next – and in the environment we are exposed to them all the time – but it would take a very significant variant to be able to cause the sorts of species extinction event they’re dramatising.”
Humans are transformed into zombie-like monsters in the show. Pic: HBO/Warner Media/Liane Hentscher
So … no reason for alarm?
You can sleep easy knowing there won’t be a fungus that turns you into a zombie in your cereal tomorrow morning.
But COVID, researchers say, is proof we can’t rest on our laurels when it comes to public health threats and the potentially sudden nature of their arrival.
With fungal infection in humans being a relatively modern phenomenon, with few examples until the 1980s, and the absence of any antifungal vaccine research programmes, there’s certainly work to do.
“We have to be in a state of preparedness,” says Prof Bignell.
“We have to have a very good understanding of how different fungi can cause human diseases, how our immune systems cope with those microbes, and a good medicine cabinet with antifungal agents we know are effective.”
In the meantime, if you do happen to see anyone that looks like they’re covered in mushrooms and feasting on a member of their family – best steer clear.
The Last Of Us airs every Monday at 2am on Sky Atlantic.
Clodagh Rodgers, a singer best known for representing the UK at the 16th Eurovision Song Contest, has died aged 78.
The Northern Irish singer was described as “the rock of this family” by her son Sam, who said she died on Friday 18 April.
Sam Sorbie wrote: “With a heavy heart, my dear beautiful mum Clodagh has sadly passed away after battling an illness for the last three years. She passed away peacefully yesterday, surrounded by her family in Cobham.
“Mum has lived an incredible life, full of love and happiness. Her fantastic career performing, travelling the world, devoting her life to her two sons and being the rock of this family.
“Life will not be the same without Mum, but she will finally be at peace now with dad, nanny and pappa. We all love and miss her terribly.”
A regular face on the TV in the 1970s and 1980s, Rodgers performed Jack In The Box at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, finishing in fourth place behind Germany, Spain and the winners, Monaco.
Jack In The Box went on to reach number four in the UK singles chart, and although she entered the charts later that year with Lady Love Bug, the Eurovision track remained her biggest hit.
Rodgers began singing as a youngster and got her first record deal aged just 15.
Rodgers performing at the 16th Eurovision. Pic: BBC
She went on to appear on primetime shows including The Morecombe And Wise Show, The Two Ronnies, Top Of The Pops, Bruce Forsyth & The Generation Game and The Val Doonican Show.
She was chosen as the face of Bisto gravy in the 70s, following her Eurovision hit.
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(L-R) Rodgers with Ronnie Corbett in 1971, when they starred in Cinderella. Pic: AP
A talented live performer, she also starred in her own West End show Talk Of The Town, and West End musical hit Blood Brothers, as well as numerous variety shows and the pantomime Cinderella, co-starring comedian Ronnie Corbett.
Rodgers released six albums, five compilation records and numerous singles across her six-decade career. She insured her voice for £1m.
In 2001 she appeared as a recurring character in police drama The Bill.
Married twice, Rodgers leaves behind her two sons, Sam and Matt.
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