About the Film

Rupert Williams, James Mackie and Darinagh O’Hagan have made this film as a labour of love over about five years. Although we were working in one of the technical departments of the BBC, we were not recognised as programme-makers, so we had to work as independents in our own time. Eventually we managed to convince the Music department that we were doing something very special, and we completed the film as a co-production with the BBC.

The film is an affectionate portrait of Ronnie, which spares no blushes about his faults. The core of the film is our interviews with Ronnie’s friends, family and colleagues, plus Ronnie’s own voice, edited from radio and TV interviews. Every single contributor knew Ronnie well. We’ve also taken great care to keep the interviews relaxed and natural, filming outdoors in rural locations as much as we can. We have filmed by the River Thames, in the Welsh borders, in Ireland, Texas and Colorado.

We have found plenty of never-seen-before archive footage of the Small Faces, the Faces and Slim Chance, including performances from Swedish and German TV, News footage from the 1970’s, and a moving recording of one of Ronnie’s last performances when he was very ill. We have also had access to wonderful collections of still photographs, particularly those taken by Russ Schlagbaum on the Passing Show tour.

The short version of the film was shown on BBC4 (cable and satellite only) in the UK on January 6th and on BBC2 on 20th October 2006.

The longer version was premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas in March, and was released on DVD on 23rd October in Europe and 7th November 2006 in the USA.