No./7 The Sex Pistols show that Danny Boyle had to make
A music biopic always felt too obvious to the director. Yet the life-changing impact that the punk movement had on his formative years made PISTOL an irresistible project
Clockwise from far left: Fab four — the Sex Pistols (Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious, Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Jacob Slater as Paul Cook) bring chaos and culture to 1970s Britain;Director Danny Boyle on set; Wallace as guitarist Steve Jones, whose memoir Pistol is based on; Uh-oh, here comes trouble…
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MUSIC HAS ALWAYS been integral to director Danny Boyle’s work: Trainspotting wouldn’t be Trainspotting without the echoey opening bars of Underworld’s Born Slippy; Slumdog Millionaire will forever be linked to Bollywood banger Jai Ho; ditto 28 Days Later with the sinister, slow-building guitars of John Murphy’s score. A music biopic has always felt like it might be a natural fit for Boyle, and yet only now are we getting one from him: a six-part mini-series about the Sex Pistols’ rise to punk glory, based on guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir, Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol.