Flirting with Flamenco Jim Doyle UK 2006
‘You can’t have an alternative without a mainstream’. As spoken by producer Stephen Woolley, these were roughly amongst some of the most inspired words I’ve ever heard spoken about the film industry. Such wisdom is also remarkably applicable to the latest Jim Doyle feature, Flirting with Flamenco, an independent film with its heart in the mainstream.
A feel good comedy-drama, Flirting with Flamenco is an unashamed crowd-pleaser that the UK has forgotten how to make, unless penned by Richard Curtis and starring a token American. Our cinemas are full of similar films but they are all US imports. In years gone by this is exactly the kind of feature that could have been a television spin-off in the 1970s, and it carries similarities to the Carry On series or even to the Ealing Comedies or the films of the Boulting Brothers. Comparing Flirting with Flamenco to The Man in the White Suit is unfavourable but the lineage is unmistakable. The Ealing Comedies and Boulting Brothers excluded, these kinds of popular films are consistently derided as being crap, yet they seep into the national subconscious.
Despite its weaknesses, the Flirting with Flamenco is funny and derives considerable satire from the setting - a call centre. Seemingly outdated by cheaper overseas labour costs, the humble call centre has never really been used properly in popular culture despite their ubiquitous presence. Here the incessant battle between man and machine is lampooned scathingly by a call centre manager (played by Jeremy Edwards) who gloats over his worker statistics babbling business double-speak and then makes the weakest employees battle it out for their jobs each week like some reality TV show. The other issue the film playfully toys with is immigration but I can’t reveal much more on this without ruining the plot.
Carrying a reassuringly parochial feel to it, Flirting with Flamenco tickles ribs with its well trod plotline of the plain-Jane looking for love supported by a competent range of supporting characters notably including Tom Watt. The bizarreness of the UK film industry means that, at the time of writing, such an obvious crowd-pleaser has had a hard time seeking distribution. In effect, a mainstream film is being treated as an alternate one! With a bit of tweaking (or perhaps not) Jim Doyle could become a national treasure of the kind that the intelligentsia hate but everybody else loves, and if he somehow continues making films like this one he just might do it.
