24 Hour Party People Review

"Twenty Four Hour Party People" tells the story of the Manchester Music scene from punk rock through to acid house and beyond as witnessed by Tony Wilson, local TV presenter turned record company guru, whose Factory Records signed Joy Division in the seventies and The Happy Mondays in the eighties. Steve Coogan takes on the role of Wilson, a self declared self publicist, who frequently talks directly to us – the audience – throughout the movie. Coogan gives a brilliant performance, highlighting the ever arrogant Wilson's genuine enthusiasm for the music and bands he championed.

Director Michael Winterbotttom's relatively low budget tale, half documentary & half fable, succeeds in recapturing some of the excitement of both the glory days of punk (with the Sex Pistols incendarary 1976 Manchester showed watched by an evangelical audience of just forty two!), and the elation of acid house (with legendary Mancunian club The Hacienda crammed to the rafters with ecstasy fuelled ravers). The film falls neatly into three acts (broadly speaking the seventies with punk and the tragic story of Joy Division, the eighties with the rise of rave and Factory records, and the nineties with the inevitable post party comedown and the collapse of Factory and the Hacienda), and there are hosts of familiar faces playing various musicians, managers, producers and promoters that helped shape the story. This highly stylised film might not appeal to mainstream cinema goers too young to (quite rightly) care about yesterday's music, but if you're old enough to remember the likes of Joy Division, New Order, and The Happy Mondays at their peak then this nostalgia fulled trip to yesteryear will have you looking for albums you haven't played in years the minute you return home!