How different is Telstar the movie from Telstar the stage play?
The film is written as a film, not as an adaptation of the play. It was my pet project but after Lock Stock, it went on the back burner. It started out as a play was because I thought that, as an impoverished under-employed actor I could probably get enough money to put it on over a pub somewhere. But it was always in my mind that it would eventually be a film. What drew you to Joe Meek? The Joe Meek story is something I stumbled upon, and I got rather obsessed with the humanity behind it. This is the story of a man who creates his own tragic device using the same tools that made him a success. The drive, compulsion, energy and the vigor that made him a success became the pigheadedness and the arrogance that led to his downfall. Joe’s story is like a Greek tragedy, it’s a story for every man. Whether you think the stuff is sordid or whether you think it’s justified, it’s a story of a man’s journey into loneliness and despair. That’s something everybody can identify with. But the thing
