PRS the Movie (1989)

 

Another “something completely different,” filmography-wise.  PRS the Movie is a promotional video for the Performing Right Society – i.e. the organization that ensures British musicians are paid royalties for their work.  It won’t be topping any Best of PC lists, but it really is a lot more enjoyable than you’d think a promotional video for the Performing Right Society would be.

 

For the most part, the video takes place on a distant planet, a sort-of-parallel Earth in which the rights of musicians go unprotected.  In this world, poor Felix Fallop writes the hit of the last several decades, but despite the song’s ubiquitous presence on stages, radios, and TVs around the globe, he hasn’t seen a penny.  If only he lived on actual Earth, where PRS looks after songsters like him!

 

Yes, it’s incredibly pointed and more than a little preachy, but it has a kooky sense of humor that’s fun.  The sequence of Felix trying to extract money out of everyone from radio-playing pub owners to church choirs is especially funny.

 

PC appears very briefly (if he’d been famous in 1989, I’d have called it a cameo, but as it is, it’s just a bit part) as a radio DJ.  It’s a tiny role, but amusing – PC’s radio voice is pretty ridiculous.

 

Surprisingly, PC isn’t the only familiar face that PRS enlisted for their promotional video.  From what IMDb tells me, Jim Broadbent wasn’t hugely famous at this time, but he had a lot of film and television work under his belt, and Tony Robinson would’ve still been riding the crest of the Blackadder wave.

 

Accent Watch

 

I think it’s RP, though London wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.  More importantly, it’s completely bonkers.  I love it.

 

Recommend?

 

In General – Naw.  Points to PRS for making an entertaining promotional video featuring some skilled comic actors, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a promotional video.

 

PC-wise – For completists only, a few blinks up from “blink and you’ll miss it.”

 

Warnings

 

Nothing note-worthy.