For years, a team of friends have been pouring their hearts and souls into folk-music comedy THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND. We meet them to discuss tears and Calippos

WORDS JOHN NUGENT

Every performer’s career is destined to have that one doomed gig.

Whether you’re an actor, a musician, a comedian, or an experimental avant-garde mime artist, the ignominy of performing to a tiny audience is like a rite of passage — something you must endure, if only for the anecdote. For the comedian, writer, actor and poet Tim Key, one particular evening lingers in the mind.

“I once did a show in the Hen &Chickens pub in Islington, where there were two of us on stage, and two in the audience,” Key recalls, with a mordant laugh. “And then — we needed two volunteers [on stage].” He smiles. “Well, at that point, it’s real tree-falling-in-the-forest stuff.”

Tom Basden, Key’s longtime comedic collaborator, chuckles heartily at hearing this story about his friend. “Well, the maths does add up,” Basden notes. “Around this time we did a show at this big house in Devon, taking turns to perform in this living room, to six people after dinner. A bit like kids doing a song at Christmas for the family. There really is something very funny about doing a really small gig to someone really rich. That probably was an influence on us here.”

“Here”, to be clear, is The Ballad Of Wallis Island, a film that Key and Basden have co-written, and co-star in, about doing a really small gig to someone really rich. It’s a sweet British indie comedy concerning a lonely lottery winner named Charles (Key), who lives on a remote island off the Welsh coast. A charmingly bumbling motormouth who says things like, “To paraphrase The Beatles, there goes the sun!”, Charles decides to spend some of his millions on a private concert by his favourite folk heroes, Herb McGwyer (Basden) and Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). This, despite the fact that the singer-songwriter duo have long since split up, personally and professionally, and despite the fact that the only audience member will, in fact, be Charles.

Unlike Key’s sardonic poet stand-up character, or Basden’s goofy Ancient Rome sitcom Plebs, this sees the sometime comedy duo making something more earnest, heartfelt and naturalistic. A comedy laced with music, memory and emotion. “It’s really sweet,” says Carey Mulligan, Key and Basden’s co-star in the film. “Tim and Tom’s friendship is amazing, just how long they’ve known each other. I think that makes it all the more meaningful. They’re not just people who are making a film together.”