Films

The Man Who Knew Too Little

Based on my novella Watch That Man, which has only been published in Germany (as Der Coolste Killer), this Warner Brothers feature is a comedy spy caper with references to James Bond and the Profumo scandal. Jon Amiel directed and Bill Murray starred. I wrote the first three drafts of the screenplay, and then some other writers came in after me. I shared the screenplay credit with Howard Franklin. The film was shot in Elstree and on location around London and released in 1997. I was proud of having brought Hollywood to London in my own small way, but indignant yuppies wrote letters to the Guardian complaining that filming had taken place in their leafy groves (for which they had been, of course, richly compensated).

Bedrooms and Hallways

This original screenplay about a gay man joining a straight men's therapy group, although not a "life story", had strong autobiographical elements, and it was filmed in West London in some of the locations where I grew up. Rose Troche, who had previously had an arthouse hit with the lesbian slacker-pic Go Fish, directed. I wrote ten drafts but was the only writer on the project. Simon Callow was particularly good, and there is a turn from a pre-Matrix Hugo Weaving as a sex-crazed estate agent. I put in a Hitchcock-style cameo as The Man At The Bus-Stop. I always suspected that Kevin McKidd, in the lead role, was dressing like me and imitating my manner, but I never challenged him and I might have been imagining it. The film won the Audience Award at the London Film Festival in 1997. Since then I have continued to develop projects with Ceci Dempsey, who co-produced. In fact we are hoping to make a movie together next year.

Sunday Morning

This 15-minute short, made in 2000, was my first outing as writer-director, even though I had previously dabbled in pop promos. Peter E. Richardson produced, and Alex McSweeney slapped Matthew Wait around in a fabulous modernist dream-home in Sussex. I'm not sure if my friends liked it much, but I did, and it was quite a hit at film festivals around the world. Latin audiences in particular found it hilarious. It was relased in France on a DVD entitled "Courts Mais Gay." The film was an important transitional project from me, being the most sexually neurotic thing I had written at that time. It helped me to reconnect with my underground roots and to let go of good taste.

(Matthew Wait drools over Alex McSweeney in Sunday Morning)

Donut

Completed in 2005, this 6-minute 35mm short was produced by Huda Ali and shot by Nic Sadler. It was the second time I had directed, and the first time I had been called "sir" on set. The story was based on an anecdote told me by my friend Phil Setren, about how he had attempted to persuade a prissy Miami muscle Mary to eat a donut during a night of passion. To the consternation of my then boyfriend, I heterosexualised the story for the film version, but then restored it to its full queer splendour for its stage outing as part of Lovers From Hell (see the "Donut" page). In the film, Annabelle Apsion was the neurotic and Vincenzo Nicoli the donut-devil, high on a sugar-rush. It was my thank-you letter to Almodovar, whose early films inspired me to pick up my Bic and write Bedrooms and Hallways in the first place. There was a time when I wanted to be the English Almodovar, but now I just want to be the English me.

(Vincenzo Nicoli torments Annabelle Apsion in Donut)

(Top pic: Vincenzo eats the donut)

Future Projects

Film is a strange medium for a writer, because it offers a very narrow spectrum of viable styles, from quite naturalistic to very naturalistic. The fact that the best filmmakers (Waters, Lynch, Almodovar) have always operated outside of this narrow spectrum doesn't mean it's a good idea to follow them. Film is, moreover, a highly conventional, standardised medium, with a rigid grammar and a fixed, limited set of genres. When you are immersed in an accepted genre and slavishly obeying those grammatical laws, the film writes itself and you're up and running. You can place an order for your Chinese rug, as Iggy Pop would say. I have decided that there is no shame in this. Various whorish plans will be unveiled next year.