23/11/2009

The £100,000 comedy A Bit of Tom Jones?, written and directed by former BBC producer Peter Watkins-Hughes, was pitted against Hollywood blockbusters 2012 and A Christmas Carol at Merthyr Tydfil’s Vue multiplex and is doing resounding business.

The success has led the film being released across Wales with a gradual expansion to England, beginning with Bristol planned in the coming weeks.

The film follows friends Henry (Jonny Owen) and Teddy (Roger Evans), who buy what is supposed to be famous Welsh singer Tom Jones’ severed “manhood”. What follows is a mad 24-hour journey involving gorilla fights, bubble bathing by randy pensioners and the world’s slowest car chase.

Watkins-Hughes got the idea when he was thinking of what to get his wife for her birthday. He said, “I was running out of jewellery ideas, then I remembered the true story about selling off Napoleon Bonaparte’s private parts after his death. Suddenly, I had this entire concept pop into my head of this secret underworld of people selling celebrity body parts and of a poor schmoe who gives his long suffering wife a bit of her favourite actor as a gift.

“Originally, the idea was set in 1960’s Los Angeles with a struggling actor giving Errol Flynn’s member. Then I realised, I didn’t have enough money for the airfare to LA – let alone the $15 million budget needed to shoot it stateside. So I brought the idea closer to home – and thought about Wales’ original sex bomb: Tom Jones. Although, one draft did put Shakin’ Stevens in line for the fateful chop!”

Produced and distributed by Andrew Jenkins for Tred Films, the film was originally called “Tom Jones’ Cock” before the team decided on the current title. The question mark was added to the title upon legal advice.