Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee
Director: Shane Meadows
Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee, the latest offering from the indefatigable Shane Meadows, was shot in five days as part of a do-it-yourself digital-cinema initiative pioneered by Meadows and his pals. It’s supposedly the chronicle of a week in the life of Nicholas, a scruffy, self-regarding Midlands roadie known to all and sundry (for reasons never specified) as “Le Donk” and played by long-time Meadows collaborator Paddy Considine.
This short feature – it runs 71 minutes – is effectively a showcase for Considine’s considerable comic skills. Indeed, it has more of the feel of an extended pilot for a television comedy. Meadows and Considine claim to have devised Le Donk many years before Steve Coogan’s not dissimilar Saxondale.
When Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee – the latter being the portly Nottingham rapper whom Le Donk takes on as his long-suffering protégé – premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June, there was little talk of cinematic release, but the sole screening proved such a hit that limited distribution was hastily arranged.
Something similar happened last year with Meadows’ Somers Town. Initially regarded as too small-scale for cinemas, it ended up obtaining quite wide exposure in art-houses. Le Donk, while very amusing, is no Somers Town. Still though after a very busy and rewarding half-decade with the likes of Dead Man’s Shoes and This Is England, it’s reasonable that Meadows wants to blow off a little creative steam with this scrappy, gleefully ramshackle and unassuming side-project.
Guaranteed a long afterlife on DVD, the picture is really only must-see big-screen viewing for Meadows aficionados, Considine devotees and fans of the Arctic Monkeys. The Sheffield rockers play themselves – somewhat unwisely employing Le Donk’s haphazard services and looking on benignly as the swaggering neophyte Scor-Zay-Zee takes the stage as their opening act at an actual outdoor concert. Sheer chutzpah can carry you an awful long way in show business.
Neil Young
