No Rock And Roll Fun

JUDE LAW TIPPED TO "GROW SHIT BEARD": We are stepping back so far in our admiration for the PR department at Virgin that we feel we might be in danger of falling backwards into the sea. They've somehow managed to get the not-moving-very-fast plans to film Richard "Sir" Branson's autoborography cooked up into an exciting sounding project - the tale of record seller turned, um, whatever it is he actually does now isn't merely going to be a few scenes of him signing a record contract with Mike Oldfield, flying a hot air balloon into the ground a few times and dressing up as a bride. Oh no. It's going to be a British version of Forrest Gump. Now, if by this they meant it's going to be schmaltzy overlong pile of half-hearted folksy wisdom smeared across a plotless aggregation of crap stunts built around an irritating businessman who likes to pass himself off as an everyman, they'd be right. But what they mean is the movie will use Branson as "a reflection on society, viewing the world through his eyes." And they've even started to drop hints that Jude Law would be a likely actor to play Branson, although it doesn't seem like anything has been done to start casting beyond writing a wish-list of names. Someone should point out that, facially, Noel Edmonds would make a cracking Branson.

Still, there would be something rather pleasing about a film made about Branson's early career. As he's spoken about more than once, the early days of Virgin retail were founded on him selling off records at a cheap price, because they were meant for export only and thus had avoided the imposition of taxes. A tip-off before a raid allowed him to avoid a nasty case of the Custom & Excises, and he was able to use the money he made from selling records to found Virgin Records (now part of EMI) and later V2. Something to think about when you next see the BPI getting its knickers in a twist about record shops selling legal 'grey' imports - indeed, you might ask why they haven't thought of getting Sir Richard, or any of the artists from the Virgin roster, to front a campaign against this apalling affront.