The Damned United

Last week the red carpet rolled out in Leicester Square for the world premiere of ‘The Damned United’. The biographical film tells the life story of Brian Clough the outspoken and astonishingly successful football manager, widely celebrated and fondly remembered as a unique sporting genius. The film focuses on Clough’s sensational but disastrous 44 day attempt to manage Leeds United. It has courted minor controversy after the late Clough’s family publically shunned both it and the book it’s based upon.

Oscar nominated screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) and director Tom Hooper suggest the film gives a more rounded and affectionate portrait of Clough than the book. Explaining the film's decision to focus on one of Clough’s brief periods of failure, Oscar winning cast member Jim Broadbent says that it is simply more inherently dramatic and revealing to watch someone fail rather than winning.

Early reports and his co-stars suggest that the film’s star Michael Sheen has produced yet another uncanny performance as the flamboyant young manager. His performances as Tony Blair in ‘The Queen’ and as David Frost in ‘Frost/Nixon’ have earned the rising British star a reputation for skilfully dramatising familiar public figures. Sheen himself has been quick to make clear that he is more than just a mimic. Much of the film’s success will hinge on the credibility of the film's fictitious private moments, built around real lives and events.

Accompanied by appropriate seventies tunes, the stars of the film were joined on the carpet by broadcasting legend Michael Parkinson and Emma Watson out supporting her Harry Potter co-stars Broadbent and Timothy Spall. The film is on general release on 27 March and aims to be an engaging drama accessible to more than just football fans.

The link below is to interviews with the cast at the premiere to help you make up your own mind
http://www.lsq.tv/red-carpet/the-damned-united-world-premiere-red-carpet.html