US hopes for new Welsh comedy movie

THE all-Welsh movie A Bit of Tom Jones? is going Stateside in an ongoing battle with the Hollywood blockbusters.

The movie, made entirely on location in Tredegar, South Wales, got the red carpet treatment at a West End premiere this week.

But now the people behind the low-budget flick are planning an assault on America.

The near-the-knuckle dark comedy was made for just £100,000 and features Good Arrows star Jonathan Owen, Eve Myles from Torchwood, and Margaret John, foul-mouthed pensioner Doris in Gavin and Stacey.

It quickly outsold big budget rivals like Michael Jackson’s This is It and the sci-fi drama The Fourth Kind when it was first shown in Merthyr Tydfil’s Vue multiplex before Christmas.

Staff even had to drag in extra beanbags to accommodate filmgoers.

Its makers claim it was even more popular than the Hollywood blockbusters 2012, Harry Brown starring Michael Caine and A Christmas Carol – despite their multi-million- pound special effects.

And its London premiere in Leicester Square on Monday night was packed out.

Jonathan Owen, whose character Henry Fielding attempts to sell the severed manhood of Tom Jones in the controversial movie, said: “The film is like a cross between Carry On and Monty Python.

“It has that surreal humour which people in the UK love and they love Python in the USA too.

“The movie has been running in London, Manchester, Bristol and Scotland this weekend and there is serious interest in America, so we’ll be heading over there in the next few weeks.

“And we are signing a brilliant distribution deal for the DVD as we speak.”

Even the stars of the film struggled to find a seat at its London premiere.

Actor John Henshaw, who played John Prescott in the ITV drama Confessions Of A Diary Secretary and who stars as a barman in the movie, was one of those left standing.

He said: “I’ve seen it so I would prefer to give someone who hasn’t seen it a seat and the chance to watch it.”

And the film’s writer and director, Peter Watkins-Hughes, was forced to call for volunteers to give up their seats.

Watkins-Hughes said: “Its success on Monday is a vindication of everybody who has supported it.

“The people of Tredegar have been extraordinary.”

Its London premiere attracted celebrities including Denise Welch, from Loose Women, and 1960s singer Geno Washington, who appears in it, and top chef Gary Rhodes.

Owen, who comes from Merthyr Tydfil, said: “I spoke to Gary Rhodes after and he loved it. We had a lot of family who’d seen it at least three times there, so they kindly gave up their seats so that people who hadn’t seen it before could see it.

“I thought the film party was brilliant. People didn’t want it to end.”

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