Paul McCartney tells us a true story of how, in the course of a live performance by Wings, the band encounters a family of animated mice: Dad, Mum, brainbox Swot, dollybird daughter Swoony, and would-be roadie Soily. Over the course of 53 minutes, the mice get up to not very much while Wings play a dozen or so numbers.
The idea of a family of mice living under the stage while interacting with the band was conceived by McCartney in 1972, and the script (which has McCartney's hamfisted fingerprints all over it) and live footage was shot then, with Wings mk 2 (Paul and Linda, Denny Laine, Denny Siewell, and Henry McCullough. By 1977 - McCartney's wheels sometimes turn very slowly - the animation was done, ditto the voices for the mice, these being provided beautifully by British comedy stalwarts Deryck Guyler, Pat Coombs, and Derek Nimmo, as well as a toe-curlingly embarrassing vocal performance of toe-curlingly embarrassing dialogue by McCartney as Soily. Linda also does a voice.
The mice are a nice idea, but nothing worthwhile is done with them. The live stuff is not bad, and shows that a) this iteration of Wings could cut it live, and b) some of the material from some of McCartney's weakest albums was actually tolerable on stage. The framing stuff, with Paul assuring the audience that this really happened, confirms what a bad actor he is.
It's pleasing to see Henry McCullough entering into the spirit of things, clearly on board with the notion that Wings was an actual group, not just Paul McCartney and a bunch of sidemen.
The fact that it didn't see the light of day until forming part of 2018's Red Rose Speedway archive special edition speaks volumes. It joins Magical Mystery Tour and Give My Regards To Broad Street as evidence that Paul McCartney was not suited to making films that involved him in doing anything other than being a musician.
The idea of a family of mice living under the stage while interacting with the band was conceived by McCartney in 1972, and the script (which has McCartney's hamfisted fingerprints all over it) and live footage was shot then, with Wings mk 2 (Paul and Linda, Denny Laine, Denny Siewell, and Henry McCullough. By 1977 - McCartney's wheels sometimes turn very slowly - the animation was done, ditto the voices for the mice, these being provided beautifully by British comedy stalwarts Deryck Guyler, Pat Coombs, and Derek Nimmo, as well as a toe-curlingly embarrassing vocal performance of toe-curlingly embarrassing dialogue by McCartney as Soily. Linda also does a voice.
The mice are a nice idea, but nothing worthwhile is done with them. The live stuff is not bad, and shows that a) this iteration of Wings could cut it live, and b) some of the material from some of McCartney's weakest albums was actually tolerable on stage. The framing stuff, with Paul assuring the audience that this really happened, confirms what a bad actor he is.
It's pleasing to see Henry McCullough entering into the spirit of things, clearly on board with the notion that Wings was an actual group, not just Paul McCartney and a bunch of sidemen.
The fact that it didn't see the light of day until forming part of 2018's Red Rose Speedway archive special edition speaks volumes. It joins Magical Mystery Tour and Give My Regards To Broad Street as evidence that Paul McCartney was not suited to making films that involved him in doing anything other than being a musician.
