Summary
Affectionate feature-length comedy drama about the glory days of professional snooker in the 1980s and the legendary rivalry between Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins and Steve Davis, featuring many of the key personalities of the time.
Affectionate feature-length comedy drama about the glory days of professional snooker in the 1980s and the legendary rivalry between Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins and Steve Davis, featuring many of the key personalities of the time.
It’s the 1970s, more people have colour TVs and Kevin Bishop’s fabulously mouthy promoter Barry Hearn believes snooker could “even be bigger than the wrestling” one day. But this delightful film (which premiered on iPlayer) is much more than a fond and cartoonish recollection of the sport’s heyday and those titanic battles from the Crucible.
Its dramatic heart is the moving decline of the wayward, super-talented Alex “Hurricane” Higgins (Luke Treadaway) and his rivalry with the metronomic Steve “Interesting” Davis (Will Merrick). Davis was the ginger-haired Essex kid who practised obsessively, preferred milk to booze and was, according to Hearn, so pale he probably got sunburn when he opened the fridge. And he’s only recently retired. Who had the last laugh, I wonder?
role | name |
---|---|
Alex Higgins | Luke Treadaway |
Steve Davis | Will Merrick |
Barry Hearn | Kevin Bishop |
Lynn Higgins | Nichola Burley |
Jimmy White | James Bailey |
Robbo | Daniel Fearn |
Ted Lowe | John Sessions |
Pete | Tom Fisher |
Oliver Reed | Rob Crouch |
Cliff Thorburn | Russ Bain |
Tony Knowles | Marc McCardie |
Dennis Taylor | Caolan Byrne |
Bill Werebeniuk | Gary Davis |
Terry Griffiths | Jimmy Watkins |
Willie Thorne | Konstantine Osipenkov |
Miles | Daniel Ableson |
Floor Manager | Phillip Laing |
Red-faced Irishman | Ross Gurney Randall |
Liam | Chris Corrigan |
Paddy | Fergal McElherron |
Bookie | Eamonn Fleming |
Nearest Waiter | Chris Grahamson |
Lauren Higgins | Maisie Jenkins |
role | name |
---|---|
Production company | |
Director | Brian Welsh |
Producer | Barney Reisz |
Executive producer | Peter Holmes |
Executive producer | Leo Daniels |
Executive producer | Shane Allen |
Executive producer | Victoria Jaye |
Executive producer | Gregor Sharp |
Scriptwriter | Shaun Pye |
Scriptwriter | Mark Chappell |
Scriptwriter | Alan Connor |