The Festival (2018)

Film4 Unveils Comedy 'The Festival' From 'The Inbetweeners' Creators
3:00 AM PDT 9/4/2017 by Alex Ritman

Jemaine Clement is among the supporting cast, while 'Inbetweeners' alumni Joe Thomas stars in this comedy set around a music festival.

Three years after the Brit comedy sequel Inbetweeners 2 smashed box-office records in the U.K., its creators have announced the first film from their new production banner, Fudge Park.

The Festival, the first feature to be greenlighted under Fudge Park's four-picture deal with Film4 and Entertainment Film Distributors signed last year, is currently in production on location in the U.K., with Joe Thomas (The Inbetweeners, White Gold), Emmy-nominee Claudia O'Doherty (Trainwreck, Love) and Hammed Animashaun (Black Mirror) cast in the lead roles.

Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), Hannah Tointon (Mr. Selfridge), Emma Rigby (Once Upon a Time in Wonderland), Kurt Yaeger (Sons of Anarchy) and Chris Geere (Ill Behaviour) make up the supporting cast.

Fudge Park co-founder Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners) directs from a script by Keith Akushie and Joe Parham (Siblings), with Claire Jones (Sightseers, Kill List) producing for the production company. Damon Beesley and Caroline Leddy are exec producing on behalf of Fudge Park, while Daniel Battsek and Rachel Springett exec producing for Film4.

In the same vein as college comedy The Inbetweeners, The Festival follows a group of students as they go to a music festival for the first time, with the gang falling in love with music and mud.

“Joe and Keith's script was too funny to ignore,"said Morris. "I'm delighted to be making this film with my Inbetweeners partners Film4 and Entertainment. It's great to be working with Joe, Claudia and Jemaine again. And I'm excited for the world to see Hammed's performance. Going to a music festival is a quintessential British rite of passage just like a lads’ holiday or backpacking so it seemed like a natural fit for me to try and find the humour and fun in festivals.”

Added Film4 head Battsek: "Film4 are delighted to be working with Fudge Park and Entertainment again for the first time since the phenomenally successful Inbetweeners movies. Although The Festival is an original premise, we’re confident Iain and the rest of the team will produce another very funny and very commercial feature film."

Film4 and EFD have developed and are co-financing The Festival, with EFD distributing the film in the UK in summer 2018.

Jemaine Clement on tour bus viewing and getting Whitesnake’s rider by mistake

The Conchord is back as a try-hard stepdad in comedy ‘The Festival’. Phil de Semlyen calls a band meeting



One half of the world’s favourite (and only) digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy-folk double act, Jemaine Clement has more than a ‘Flight of the Conchords’ reunion tour on his plate this year. When I call him in New Zealand he’s been working on getting ‘Wellington Paranormal’, his ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ spin-off, on to British TV. ‘It’s like “The X-Files” with police who are supposed to be doing other work,’ he explains. First, though, he’s got ‘Inbetweeners’ co-creator Iain Morris’s music-and-mud comedy ‘The Festival’.

Tell me about your character in ‘The Festival’.
‘I’m the overly keen stepdad who hasn’t been in the relationship with Nick’s [Joe Thomas] mum for very long. He’s trying to make a loving father-son connection, even though they don’t know each other that well. It’s very suspicious.’

Have you had any lost weekends in the mud?
‘I went to an electronic music festival for the millennium, but I don’t take the necessary drugs to enjoy that music. Flight of the Conchords played in the comedy tent at Glastonbury [in 2004]. I remember saying, “Belle And Sebastian are on in half an hour, let’s get over there.” And we got there for the last song.’


Jemaine Clement as try-hard stepdad Robin in ‘The Festival’

There’s a ‘Flight of the Conchords’ HBO special coming in October. What can you say about it?
‘We filmed that in London. It’s a mix of new material and a few old bits that we haven’t recorded live before. Is Murray cameoing? No, though we did consider filming some pieces with him [Rhys Darby]. It could still happen.’

What’s on the Conchords’ rider?
‘It’s pretty boring – a lot of cheese. One time we got a really exciting rider that had a lot of vodka and bourbon and brown bread and stuff. It turned out that Whitesnake were playing the same venue the next night and we’d got their rider. It was a funny mixture of hard liquor and health food. ’

‘We once got given Whitesnake's rider by mistake.
It was a funny mix of hard liquor and health food’

Do you think they got your cheddar?
‘I don’t know if they got our cheese, I was just excited that we were eating food meant for Whitesnake.  We’ve added bread to our rider since then.’

Your Twitter feed is pretty woke. Any tips for dealing with trolls?
‘When I was writing a script I used to see if anyone had trolled me and then insult that person. That little bit of adrenaline would help me get another three pages done. It’d be a good wake-me-up.’

What’s the Conchords’ tour bus movie?
‘The only thing I remember us watching regularly was “Saxondale”, the Steve Coogan show about a roadie. We’d hear that our show was common tour bus viewing for a lot of bands [laughs]. Florence And The Machine told us that and I heard it about Stevie Nicks. I don’t know if that’s true.’

‘The Festival’ opens Aug 14.

"You hope you’re gonna be a ‘likely sex symbol’. But we’ll accept ‘unlikely’": Jemaine Clement talks 'Flight of the Conchords'
Posted by Ralph Jones

We spoke to ‘Flight Of The Conchords’ Jemaine Clement on being a wannabe rock star, unlikely sex symbol, and his best festival experiences

Hi Jemaine. It’s 9.30pm in New Zealand. What are you doing? Tucked up in bed?

That’s a very personal question, Ralph. I’m not tucked up in bed, no.

Are you at home?

I’ve just come back over from Europe. I was in England a couple of weeks ago. I’m only just getting over my jetlag. I’ve been going to bed at 8pm. This is late for me.

You and Bret recently played the O2. What was the most surprising thing about playing a space that big?

The far end of the venue is like another town. The O2’s actually bigger than the town I grew up in. It’s about 2,000 people bigger than my home town.

You’re in a film coming out soon called Festival. Are you a festival fan?

I’ve been on both sides. We played Glastonbury and we were in the comedy tent. Glastonbury’s actually quite segregated with the performers – at Reading and Leeds you can get lunch with the bands, but at Glastonbury you’re in the comedy tent and you’re only allowed in that area for camping, so you can’t have lunch where the bands are. You have it with the jugglers and stilt-walkers.

Did you go to festivals when you were younger?

A little bit. I once had a terrible experience of going to an electronic dance music festival in New Zealand for the Millennium. And I don’t take drugs, so it was very monotonous. There are all these different sub-genres of electronic music that sound so similar to me but apparently quite different to other people. It was really like being inside a headache. It was a lot of neon.

What’s your best festival experience?

Bret and I played Glastonbury the year that James Brown and Paul McCartney played. So that was a very special one. I went to Coachella and saw Prince play. But we didn’t play that one, we were just watching.

The names that you mention there prove that you guys are in the upper echelons of…

Hold on, hold on, hold on. We were on a different stage to those people. We could just go and see them.

Still. I wondered whether you feel like a rock star and, if not, what would it take to make you feel like one?

I feel like that would take a mastery of my instrument that will probably never happen because I’m not a full-time musician. It’s something I do for two months a year.

What’s the marker of rock stardom? Is it when you employ someone to hold your drink while you’re drinking it?

That would make me feel so awkward. We sometimes try to get call-and-response things going and occasionally they work. But often they don’t.

Would you ever consider making a serious album? Maybe even a solo venture?

I don’t think I could actually do something completely earnest. It might be more serious, but I don’t think I could ever do something completely serious.

There’s not an inner Leonard Cohen scrabbling to get out?

I wish there was. He is my favourite songwriter. But no. At times I would try as a teenager, but it was really cringeworthy. New Zealand and England are culturally similar, but England has a lot of sincere songwriters. New Zealand doesn’t, historically. New Zealand men don’t really express themselves emotionally. Maybe they do a little bit more than English people. But in songwriting they don’t – for some reason it’s embarrassing.

Were there any songs you guys were working on that didn’t make it onto the setlist for your UK shows?

There was a love story about a couple who met on a dating app and we were describing the man sending a dick pic through the stratosphere, carried by satellite, in quite a beautiful way. We didn’t quite get that finished in time.

You’re no doubt aware that you and Bret are that dreaded phrase: ‘unlikely sex symbols’. When did you realise this was the case?

I think in setting out to do this kind of thing you hope you’re gonna be a ‘likely sex symbol’. But we’ll accept ‘unlikely’. I do remember that change. In our gigs, when we used to play to 10 people, we’d always make a joke about sex symbols and how women were attracted to us because we played comedy folk music. And people would laugh. And then, at some stage, they didn’t laugh any more and they’d just go, “WOOO!” At some point people did start sounding very interested.

It’s a good problem to have.

It made me blush.

The Festival is at cinemas from 14 August