The 18-year journey of new movie dubbed ‘one of the greatest British films ever’

The Ballad of Wallis Island is finally in British cinemas after building steady hype since its January debut at Sundance Film Festival (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)

Today marks the release of one of the most quietly anticipated British films of 2025, one 18 years in the making which has been heaped with praise by critics.

Rom-com extraordinaire Richard Curtis has proclaimed The Ballad of Wallis Island ‘one of the 10 greatest British movies of all time’ and it’s currently sitting pretty at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The brainchild of actor-writers Tim Key and Tom Basden, alongside director James Griffiths, this feature-length film has been painstakingly cultivated from a 2007 short that was nominated for a Bafta.

Expanding the story of eccentric lottery winner Charles (Key), who invites alt-folk singer Herb McGwyer (Basden) to play a gig on his remote island, by adding three-time Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan as Herb’s musical and romantic ex, Nell Mortimer, has given the film an attention-grabbing Hollywood shine.

But it hasn’t in any way dimmed the comedic genius of Key and Basden’s writing, as they negotiate the central trio’s evolving relationship. Charles is thrilled to have McGwyer-Mortimer together again, while Nell, who finds Charles’s wittering endearing, is trepidatious – and Herb, who knew nothing of his ex’s invitation (and also finds Charles very annoying), is livid.

It’s the perfect set-up for a juicy drama, as well as providing an impressive barrage of one-liners and puns – mainly from Key’s Charles, who just can’t help himself, in a winning performance.

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Previous Page Next Page Tom Basden and Tim Key, who co-wrote the film, star as musician Herb McGwyer and eccentric lottery winner Charles, who invites him to play a private gig on his remote isand (Picture: Focus Features)

‘You just commit to these characters, however bizarre and observed they feel at the time. And Tim’s really good at finding the truth in those moments; even though he’s playing an eccentric character, you still have to believe that he’s a real person,’ director Griffiths tells me of the film’s impressive ability to expertly shape characters.

We’re speaking at Sands International Film Festival, held in St Andrews, at the end of April. The Ballad of Wallis Island screened as the opening film to a raucous reception; I don’t remember the last time I had such a joyous experience at the cinema.

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Despite the impressive rhythm and patter of the gags, Griffiths says that there wasn’t much improvisation on set – rather Key and Basden started ‘with a very clear observation of people’.

They have been a writing and performing partnership, on and off, for years on radio and the stage, as well as enjoying individual success – Key is recognisable as Alan Partridge’s Sidekick Simon, while Basden has been in Ricky Gervais’s After Life and is the co-creator of Plebs.

The two have worked together for years, developing this film for a 2007 Bafta-nominated comedy short (Picture: Focus Features)

Griffiths first met Key and Basden in the noughties while they were performing their slapdash double-act sketch show Freeze!, later collaborating with them on their short, The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island.

They’ve been in it for the long haul together since then, guiding Wallis Island carefully through to its feature-length destiny.

For Griffiths, who is fittingly wearing a McGwyer-Mortimer tour T-shirt for our chat, he’s clear on what he needs to bring to the table as the unofficial third member of the duo: capturing Key and Basden’s dynamic.

‘My job is to make sure that I’ve got the camera in a place that allows them to do that and not interfere with that process. So often I’m cross-shooting, or I’m putting both of them in the frame, just so we can capture the natural rhythm that they have, the natural music.’

As he points out: ‘A lot of it is these very small interferences with what the other person is saying, so that’s a delicate kind of musical balance to get right so it doesn’t feel annoying or jarring but just keeps the pace moving along.’

Director James Griffiths (L) also joins the duo again for The Ballad of Wallis Island, having directed the original short, 18 years ago (Picture: Dave Benett/WireImage) It’s a movie which takes the rhythm of its comedy very seriously (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)

This, in a nutshell, is what The Ballad of Wallis Island manages to do so supremely well, and the group’s longstanding friendship likely has a lot to do with that – Griffiths also notes that his role is to ‘set them up for success’.

‘I’m really passionate about seeing my friends shine – I love them, and I know I wanted to capture their magic,’ he adds. ‘But also there’s a discipline to that, and they’re very good at staying in their lanes, and hopefully I am in mine, and we all respect each other on set.’

I’m really passionate about seeing my friends shine

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I quiz Griffiths on how on earth they were able to exercise restraint in their approach to the film’s near-relentless humour to find that balance.

The director agrees that they could have ‘gone forever’ trying new puns (you may perhaps wish they did).

‘But you have to call it at some point – and that’s hard because I’m enjoying myself like they are. But there’s a thing with comedy, and I think we’re all quite allergic to it, when you can feel actors over-indulging that style of improvisation, and it kind of loses track and story.’

He may have known them and their characters for years, but Key and Basden still make their director laugh (Picture: Focus Features)

Griffiths admits that he still finds it really hard not to laugh while on set watching Key and Basden as the characters of Charles and Herb, after so many years.

And Maestro star Mulligan was the same, although it helped that her character Nell warms to Charles immediately.

‘The laughter in the scene is real,’ Griffiths says of the Suffragette actress’s reactions. ‘[Tim] genuinely tickles her, so that was a constant thing, having to kind of stay in character but also allow herself to laugh when genuinely the character would.’

Mulligan’s casting was ‘crucial’ for the film’s success Griffiths insists, with him, Basden and Key agreed on the direction to take.

‘We’ve obviously got a lot of friends in that comedy world who we talked about playing that role, but we were all keen to introduce a voice that wouldn’t necessarily play the same instrument as those two. And all of our comedian friends, you feel like a lot of them would assimilate to that rhythm, and then that becomes, I think, too much.’

Hollywood star Carey Mulligan was invited onboard to provide the yin to Key and Basden’s Yang (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features) She plays Herb’s ex, Nell Mortimer with her casting ‘crucial’ to the success of the film says Griffiths (Picture: David Fisher/Shutterstock)

In Mulligan, they found someone who could come in ‘with their own very strong point of view’, which for Griffiths ‘grounded’ the film.

She also became a producer on The Ballad of Wallis Island and had the handy addition of her Mumford & Sons frontman husband Marcus, who helped with the harmonies Nell would perform during the film.

Griffiths shares that the couple were big fans of Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme on BBC Radio 4, so much so that Mulligan had previously asked Key to do something for her charity, War Child. He had said no – ‘he doesn’t do that stuff’ – but it meant they had an in when they wrote their list of actors who could play Nell, and Mulligan ‘was absolutely number one’.

‘And [Tim] said, “Oh, I know Carey.” We’re like, “Yeah, bulls**t, of course you know her.” And he wrote her the most important email he could have written, and she said yes immediately. It was a lovely moment when Marcus and he met and they swapped and signed each other’s albums.’

While many have described The Ballad of Wallis Island as a rom-com, Griffiths is hesitant to lump it in that category, the same as he and Key and Basden didn’t want it to be a spoof either.

The film is neither a rom com nor a spoof according to Griffiths, but rather ‘a kind of fairy tale’ (Picture: Focus Features/Rex/Shutterstock)

‘I wanted the film to be a kind of fairy tale, to have a kind of magical realism – the setting of the island, and the sense of it being slightly timeless or placeless was intentional. Tonally, I wanted it to feel slightly other. I wanted it to be funny – obviously – entertaining, musical, and have a lot of heart.’ 

Griffiths isn’t a credited writer on the film, but he still considers the story a ‘very personal’ one – ‘that grief of a relationship lost and trying to get back to it but never realising you can’t get back to something’.

The Ballad of Wallis Island has been steadily building hype since it premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January, which led to its inclusion at Sands, hosted by St Andrews’ film studies department and lead sponsor AGBO, Marvel filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo’s studio.

For Griffiths, his film is an ideal example of Sands’ concept and mirrors the advice he would give to aspiring filmmakers.

‘Stick with your peers that you grow up with, find those creative relationships that you really love, that you gut will tell you that you have an alignment with, and just cling to them – like Tom, Tim and I.

The Ballad of Wallis Island has drawn wide praise from critics and the likes of Richard Curtis, with Griffiths confirming that he, Key and Basden have ‘had coversations’ about the next thing they may work on together (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)

‘Because however long that journey is, that’s the thing you’ll keep returning to. Don’t think about making the next Hollywood movie, think about making something with your friends and building your voice and your peer group into a bunch of really fun, good filmmakers.’

Considering the rapturous response The Ballad of Wallis Island has received so far, it seems sensible to take Griffiths’ advice.

With such a fairy tale end – finally – for this long-gestating film, I have to ask if he, Key and Basden have anything else in the works?

‘I think we’ve all been slightly surprised by it. I had a feeling that we’d need to get Tom and Tim working, because they take their time, so I was trying to get ahead of it a bit,’ he reveals.

‘But there’s conversations being had about the next thing, and there’s a few projects that we’re talking about. But it’s mostly starting with characters. What dynamic do we want to create?

‘[We’ll] make sure that we give it as much time and love as this one – not 18 years, but a few!’ he laughs. ‘So we’re not in a hurry, but we do want to ride the wave a little bit, and while audiences are enjoying it see if we can give them something else.’

The Ballad of Wallis Island is in cinemas from today.

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