Review – The Saints of British Rock

The premise of the show is that “the greatest rock band in the world” formed in 1959 disappeared in 1973 after a string of number one hits. We the audience are present at an interview with the band on BBC 7 after they mysteriously reappeared in 2009. This is to be their last appearance together unless a world crisis such as a massive oil spill occurs and they have to reform to tour the world warning of the dangers.

The video material is quite well done balancing between video clips of the band and BBC pages. The musician ship likewise is good. Most of the band are more than competent multi instrumentalists but they did seem rather hipped on late seventies style British indie music.

The story line is interesting, apparently in 1973 while experimenting with drugs and alcohol they discovered something called “backwards causality” and found themselves in King Arthur’s Britain. They got involved in various adventures there including saving Merlin’s magic book from the dastardly French and then came home.

For me it seemed that the humour was an attempt to tell a story of a band in the style of the Young Ones. It lacked the anarchic deconstructionism of the TV program and often drifted into banality. I was getting rather sick of sex drugs and alcohol jokes by the end.

The program is interrupted by an announcement of the 2009 Mexico Gulf oil spill and of course (after a rather entertaining broadsword duel) the band reforms to tell the world of the oil spill and the danger to sea turtles. As the band remarks several times “The rest is history. Look it up.”