Legendary Irish musician serves as inspiration on one of 2025’s best movies

JOE spoke to the director and stars of the new comedy available to watch now, which has a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently holding a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, the comedy revolves around Herb McGwyer (co-writer Tom Basden, After Life), who was previously one half of popular folk duo McGwyer Mortimer but has since gone solo.

He is offered £500,000 to travel to the remote but picturesque Wallis Island for a performance.

Upon his arrival, however, he is shocked to learn that he will be playing for just one person, Charles (co-writer Tim Key, Alan Partridge), a wealthy, awkward but enthusiastic fan.

Even worse, Charles has also invited Nell Mortimer (Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan, Drive) to the island, Herb's former McGwyer Mortimer bandmate, with whom he went through a romantic break-up.

Thanks to its gorgeous setting, its heartfelt and witty screenplay, and one of the funniest performances in recent memory from Tim Key, The Ballad of Wallis Island is a true crowdpleaser.

It's a film that should inspire big laughs and maybe even a few tears from those who see it during its current cinema run.

And JOE had the pleasure of talking to Basden, Key and their director James Griffiths (Bad Sisters) about the comedy ahead of its theatrical release.

One of the questions we had for Basden was whether there were any particular musicians he looked to for inspiration for the character of Herb McGwyer, both in terms of his music and his persona.

While the actor and writer said no one specific artist inspired Herb, he did add that he channelled elements from certain music stars, including Ireland's own Van Morrison.

He explained to JOE:

"Herb's kind of grumpiness, I was sort of channelling that kind of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Ryan Adams-y quite grumpy personality.

"Someone for whom being thrown in with their fans would be the worst nightmare for that person. I was definitely making use of that kind of thing."

Basden also said, however: "But there's no specific artist that inspired Herb. Really, it's more of a fable about creativity in general and compromise and someone who, through the course of the film, comes to see themselves honestly and actually faces up to what they've done and the choices they've made."

The Ballad of Wallis Island is an expansion of a Bafta-nominated short Basden, Griffiths and Key made back in 2008 called The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island.

As such, we also asked the trio if, over the intervening 18 years, they always intended or hoped to return to the short and make it into a feature.

In response, Basden said: "It was definitely the hope. It's the project we talked about together whenever we'd meet up. It's definitely the one that we probably had the most affection for, of all the things that we've done.

"Tim and I would often show it at gigs that we would do together, just because we wanted people to see it. We were so proud of it. We loved it."

Laughing, Basden adds: "And there comes a point where you've probably got to be quite hard with yourself and decide to actually make the feature, rather than just keep forcing the short film on people when they've paid to see something live.

"It's definitely something that we were desperate to come back to, a part of our lives and our careers that we were most fond of, I think."

The Ballad of Wallis Island is in cinemas now.