Rob Fennah explains: ‘This version is 4 minute taster.
Helen Jones added: “Having worked on the script for a couple of years I’m really looking forward to seeing the main characters come to life”.
Directed by Neil Alderton and produced by Pulse Records and Productions Ltd, Julia’s Banjo features: Eric Potts, John McCardle, Simon O’Brien, Carl Chase, Pauline Daniels, Peter Brooke, Helen Hurd and Stevie Riks (of youtube fame).
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For more information about Julia’s Banjo see below:
A brief insight into the facts behind the fiction - By Rob Fennah.
A few years ago I attended a Beatles Convention at Liverpool’s Adelphi Hotel. Accompanying me was Allan Williams - the group’s first manager - infamously known as ‘The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away’. Allan was there to sign copies of his new ‘spoken–word’ CD which I was involved with. Throughout the day I watched as Beatles memorabilia changed hands for huge amounts and commented to Allan how amazed I was by the relentless interest in a band that twanged its last chord over three decades ago.The subject soon got around to ‘pop memorabilia’ and, in particular, a piano formerly owned by John Lennon which fetched a cool ‘one and a half million pounds’ at a Sotheby’s auction. As we argued about the morality of spending such a vast sum on a piano - a Beatles fan, who’d overheard our conversation, perked up: “That’s nothing compared to what Julia’s banjo would fetch”.
Intrigued, I asked to hear more. The fan went on to tell me how Lennon’s mother, Julia, introduced her son to the world of music and taught him to play her banjo. “So where is this priceless pop relic?” I asked. “Where is the first instrument the greatest rock ’n’ roll legend ever learned to play – the catalyst that changed art, fashion and pop music forever?” “Missing”, replied the fan despondently, “and has been for over forty years”.
That should have been the end of the story but a couple of weeks later, while listening to a report on ‘Sky News’, my interest in Julia’s banjo was suddenly re-kindled. The report told the world how a suitcase, bought by a lucky bargain hunter for fifteen pounds at a car-boot sale, was found to contain a priceless collection of Beatles memorabilia. Apparently, it was once owned by ‘fab-four’ roadie Mal Evans (now deceased). How it wound up in a car-boot sale, God only knows?
Then, within days of this discovery, a further news item revealed that a rare Hofner guitar (probably Lennon’s) had been found in the loft of his Aunt Mimi’s old home in Liverpool (with whom John lived) together with a collection of music scores for – wait for it … a banjo!
My curiosity, now firing on all cylinders, prompted me to ask the six million dollar question: “Is it possible that Julia’s banjo could still be out there too - just waiting to be found?” After interviewing several Beatles experts on the subject including Lennon’s half-sister (also named Julia) I was enthused to hear that everything the ‘fan’ had told me at the Beatles Convention was true.
The banjo disappeared shortly after Julia Lennon was killed in a car accident when John was still a teenager – an event that haunted him for the rest of his life. In later years he immortalised her in his songs, ‘Julia’, and ‘Mother’. I think it’s fair to assume that the banjo – the only physical link he had left of her - must have been close to his heart. Indeed, Lennon not only talked about Julia’s banjo many times during interviews, it was also the subject matter of his opening statement in ‘The Beatles Anthology’. Surely then, it’s inconceivable to imagine this treasured family heirloom being thrown out with the trash.
“So, where would one start looking for the ‘holy grail’ of pop memorabilia?” I asked John’s sister jokingly, adding that, “perhaps John hid it somewhere?” An eerie silence engulfed our conversation as Julia pondered over what I’d just said. “Do you know, she replied, after our mum died - that’s just the sort of thing John would have done”.
“Bloody hell, I thought, what a great idea for a film!”
Genre: Comedy Caper – a fictional story based on fact
When hapless Beatles nerd Barry Seddon finds a letter - written by John Lennon - hidden between the pages of an old music fanzine he bought at a car boot sale, he unearths a clue to solving the greatest mystery in pop music - the whereabouts of Lennon’s first musical instrument which disappeared after his mother’s untimely death in 1958. Now, over forty years later, Barry knows why – Lennon had hidden it!
But Seddon’s loose tongue has alerted a conniving Texan antiques dealer, Travis Lawson, to the priceless relic and he hatches a plan to get to it first. The race to find the ‘holy grail’ of pop memorabilia is about to begin...
Rob Fennah talks about his new film script Julia's Banjo.
Julia's Banjo follows a group of Beatles enthusiasts on a mission to find John Lennon's first musical instrument given to him by his mother.
"The story is half fact, half fiction," said the film's creator Rob Fennah.
"It's factual in that the first instrument Lennon learnt to play was a banjo given to him by his mother, Julia.
He learnt to play That'll Be The Day on it, but nothing more has been said about it, and everybody I've spoken to who should know where it is, says it is missing.
If this was the first instrument the greatest legend in rock 'n' roll played, then it is more or less the Holy Grail of popular music. So it prompted the question, where is it?"
Musician Mr Fennah, 47, from Crosby, who adapted Helen Forrester's Twopence to Cross the Mersey for the stage, is currently working with co-writer Helen Jones to add the finishing touches to the film script, set in the present day.
Whereas Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code features the suave professor Robert Langdon, the hero of Julia's Banjo is overweight 30-something Barry Seddon, a guide on the Magical Mystery Tour bus.
Among a stack of Beatles fanzines he has bought from a car boot sale, Seddon discovers a letter from Lennon to his pal Stuart Sutcliffe, dated 1961. It explains Lennon has been forced to hide some of his belongings in a secret place to stop his Aunt Mimi throwing them away.
A confusing piece of poetry contains the first clue to the location of the star's treasured banjo, one of his only lasting reminders of Julia, who was knocked down and killed in 1958.
Seddon sets off on a journey around Liverpool, including John's childhood home in Menlove Avenue and old haunts such as The Jacaranda and The Cavern.
But the path to the banjo is not a smooth one. Travis Lawson, a Texan antique dealer who has fallen on hard times, gets wind of the search for the valuable instrument. He sends his beautiful wife Cheryl undercover to win Seddon's affections before bringing the bounty back to her husband. "It isn't a film about The Beatles, it's about the aftermath, or the legacy, of the band," added Rob. "There will be very little Beatles music in it, if any”.
"The film will feature locations around the city. I started writing it a couple of years ago before Liverpool was awarded Capital of Culture, but it would be great to have it finished by 2008.
"It is a movie that has an international appeal for obvious reasons, and celebrates Liverpool's culture."
