The music of T. Rex’s Marc Bolan, who died tragically young in a car crash in 1977, forms the spine of comedy-drama Bolan’s Shoes, partly filmed in Wales and featuring a smattering of Welsh actors. Written and directed by Flint-born actor Ian Puleston-Davies – a former Coronation Street regular, though most recently seen in Tin Star, DI Ray and Pennyworth – Bolan’s Shoes follows Leanne Best as Penny, the survivor of her own tragic bus crash.
Part of a group of kids from a children’s care home caught up in a road accident, Penny thought she had escaped the terrors of her youth and that the secrets she had been keeping would stay buried. However, when she and her best friend visit her childhood idol Marc Bolan’s shrine in London, Penny’s past resurfaces, as does her trauma.
Timothy Spall – with wandering Scouse accent, longhaired, bearded and glam rocked – lends his top hat to the proceedings as Penny’s troubled brother Jimmy, with an even darker secret hidden between them. Despite its challenging subject matter, the film is carried along and leavened by its actors, in particular a superb Best: she believably carries the weight of her past, making her secrets make sense, despite their improbability. A climactic monologue Penny gives to her very understanding vicar husband, the ever-excellent Mark Lewis-Jones (The Crown, Gangs Of London, The Last Jedi and Dal Y Mellt), is superb, Puleston-Davies allowing Best to run with his words.
Filmed on location in Anglesey, Holyhead and Menai Bridge and fully endorsed musically by associate producer Rolan Bolan – Marc’s son – this has T. Rex tunes featuring throughout for any Children Of The Revolution or 20th Century Boys (or girls).
A melancholic but ultimately uplifting tale of buried trauma re-surfacing and the need for the past to be shed to fully awaken the future, Bolan’s Shoes moves and entertains – so grab your platforms and glittery facepaint and Get It On…
Dir: Ian Puleston-Davies (15, 97 mins)
Bolan’s Shoes is out now on digital platforms.
words KEIRON SELF
