ABB – Anything But British

Posted Rick O'Shea

The BAFTA list is out today.

Best British Film?

‘Hunger’ – OK, fair enough.

‘Mamma Mia!’, – film about the songs of a Swedish band, set in Greece.

‘Man on Wire’ – documentary about a Frenchman walking tightrope in New York.

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ – set entirely in India and with an Indian cast.

AND

‘In Bruges’ – written and directed by and Irishman, with 2 Irish leads, set in Belgium.

11 thoughts on “ABB – Anything But British”

  2. Was wondering the very same thing myself! But then again, the Irish are the worst offenders – we jump at the chance to call anything good Irish if there is any link whatsoever, no matter how remote 🙂

  3. Martin McDonagh (born 26 March 1970) is a contemporary English-born Irish playwright and film director

  5. Remember Rick, successful Irish folk can be british too when required !!!

    Apart from when talking to Samuel L Jackson mind :

    Interviewer: What was it like working with Colin (Farrell), cos he is just so hot in the U.K. right now?

    Jackson: He’s pretty hot in the U.S. too.

    Interviewer: Yeah, but he is one of our own.

    Jackson: Isn’t he from Ireland?

    Interviewer: Yeah, but we can claim him cos Ireland is beside us.

    Jackson: You see that’s your problem right there. You British keep claiming people that don’t belong to you. We had that problem here in America too, it was called slavery. “

  7. The rules of the United Kingdom are: If you’re Scottish, Irish, Northern Irish, Welsh or Cornish, the English will refer to you as “British” (unless you’ve done something bad – then it’s made abundantly clear where you’re from).

    If you’re English, the English will refer to you in all cases as “English”. Except maybe if you do a bad thing, and you’ll be demoted to “British”.

  9. i couldn’t agree with jimboeth any more. thats exactly right! In Bruges in clearly an Irish film! i couldn’t believe it when i first saw it.

  10. Weren’t all these films financed, produced and distributed by British companies? Just a point.

  11. Agree that the BAFTA list is hardly British at all in places, with In Bruges being the most puzzling.

    But I’m sick to death of hearing the old cliché about the English always referring to successful non-English Brits as “British”, but always “English” when they’re English. Last time I looked, Joe Calzaghe was invariably referred to as a Welshman, Sir Alex Ferguson a Scot and James Nesbitt an Ulsterman. In each case I can hardly think of an instance when they’ve been lumped under the “British” umbrella by the English media or people, unless some wider point about the UK as a whole was being made. And these days English celebs tend to be called Geordies, Mancs, Brummies, etc. rather than using the dreaded E-word.

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