Star Interview: Simon Jordan produces film Telstar

Think of Simon Jordan, think of Crystal Palace, right?

Wrong - from next week the Palace owner will be making his name as a film producer when Brit flick Telstar, funded entirely by him, hits cinema screens.

Starring Con O’Neill, Kevin Spacey, Pam Ferris, James Corden and Ralph Little with cameos from Justin Hawkins and Croydon boy Nigel Harman, it’s an ambitious project for a first film.

Telstar is the story of fifties and sixties music producer Joe Meek, a highly-strung, tone deaf genius who made music from a rented house in Holloway Road, North London and eventually shot his landlady and himself. Jordan has paid around £3.5 million to make it.

“I’d had the script for Telstar on my desk for a while. I was at my desk at Crystal Palace desperately trying to avoid signing cheques and I decided to write an even bigger one for this film.”

Telstar is directed by Jordan’s friend, actor Nick Moran, who also directed the stage version of the tale that was financed by Jordan.

“ I wanted the production values to be very high, unlike a lot of British films.

“We wanted to make the best film we could, and we couldn’t have got that quality of film if we’d been scrimping and saving.”

So how did Simon Jordan and Nick Moran end up making a play and then a film about music producer Joe Meek and his troubled life?

“Nick Moran fell out of a cab one night on Holloway Road, saw a plaque on the wall about Joe Meek and asked someone who he was. They said he was a mad old producer in the sixties and he researched the whole story, and met all the old characters like Clem (Cattini) and Chas (of Chas and Dave).

“Joe Meek has a very interesting story and he’s a diverse character. Certain parts of his life are similar to mine - he took on adversity and people bigger and better than him. It’s a story of flawed genius, a love story, a tragedy and humorous.

“I’m a music head so I love it, I spent the last five years reforming The Specials. Everyone knows the song Telstar, although it was before my time. When I started listening to the music, I remembered my parents playing Have I The Right but I didn’t know Joe Meek had produced it.”

As most films are funded by a combination of money from the Lottery, banks, The British Film Council, international sales and pre-sales, paying for the entire thing yourself looks like a risky business. But Jordan says he’s not afraid to do things his way.

“I’m a risk taker. Football is risky, films are risky, TV shows are risky, magazines are risky. But I’ve done all those things in the past, some better than others.

“I believed in this project and took a chance. I had the courage of my convictions, which lots of people in this country don’t have. I hope it is successful because if it isn’t a lot of people will have proved their way of doing things is right and I don’t think it is.

“Like football, film is a closed industry and if you don’t do things in a certain way, they don’t like it.”

It may seems a world away from Jordan’s day job as owner of Crystal Palace, but he insists the two industries aren’t all that different.

“Films are very similar to football - the director is like the manager, the actors are like the players, and it’s the director’s job to extract the best possible performance in the same way. Actors and footballers are both well paid, difficult to communicate with, arrogant and sometimes brilliant. I didn’t find the jump too vast because I’ve dealt with over important and extremely talented people before.”

Telstar began life as a play back in 2005, where it toured regionally and then had a 12-week run in the West End.

Despite good reviews, it hit a devastating stumbling block - the London bombings that July, which drained theatres of audiences because of travel difficulties and the general apprehension for spending time in a possible central London target like the theatres.

How did it feel to watch something fall apart for reasons outside of his control? Jordan has a brief, to the point answer: “I own a football club.”

Yet he kept ploughing money into the venture in the hope it would give Telstar a good future.

“I knew very early in the West End that in order to keep it open I was going to lose a lot of money. We couldn’t get a really good crack of the whip because no one was coming into the West End. If we’d shut early people would have thought it was a flop but if we ran the full 12 weeks we would lose money but still get the critical acclaim. I originally thought I might bring it back as a play later but then I changed tack to the film because I felt the story deserved a bigger audience.”

Jordan is glad he did go for the film instead - he says the script reads much better than the play did and is pleased with the results.

“I’m very proud of it but I’m not blind, I don’t think it’s flawless. However the performances, every one, are fantastic.

“I wanted a proper composition score done at Abbey Road and a cast that had real quality attached to it. Every part of the production has my footprint on it. Without wanting to be arrogant it’s my film - the only reason it was made is because I wrote a cheque out and had the desire to tell this story.”

Jordan, Nick Moran and Con O’Neill who plays Joe Meek remain from the stage play, but more big names appear in the film, including mutual friend of Jordan and Moran, Kevin Spacey.

“The majority of casting was done prior to Kevin getting involved, so it wasn’t like ‘Kevin Spacey in Telstar’, it was more understated like Brad Pitt’s role in Shaft.”

Jordan feels his original demand for high production values has made the film unique.

Its chaotic feel comes from Meek’s use of each room of the house simultaneously for recording, with some unusual sound effects from little-used objects and instruments.

“For the colouring of the film, we made a conscious decision that it should start out like Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday and darken as the film progresses to reflect the mood of what’s happening.

“One of the things I enjoyed most was the technical process and seeing the music being recorded at Abbey Road, and viewing the rushes every day.”

The football club owner, who has produced a TV version of Sweeney Todd for BBC in the past, says this won’t be his only foray into film.

“I would absolutely do it again. I’ve had many screen plays on my desk over the years. I wanted to do Telstar because of the subject matter. I want to be successful in making films, but not by quantity, by quality.

“I had some very humble lessons to learn in film making, the same as in football - if you don’t know everything, there will be other people who do and who will make a fool of you and take your money. Now I know how to make films, what to do and what to avoid. I possibly paid for things I didn’t need to pay for, but that’s the benefit of experience.

“We had fun with what we were doing, there was a great feeling among the cast because we feel we made a good film.”

Telstar is released on Friday, June 19 with a special screening at Grants Vue cinema in Croydon on Thursday, June 18 - Simon Jordan, Nick Moran and some of the cast (TBC) will be there.

Look out for more on Telstar in Go! next week.

Katie Archer