The Rack Pack

[Stumpy Pepys]

Anyone caught this yet? It's on the BBC iPlayer, although I don't think it's been broadcast.

So, the story of 80s snooker, centered around Alex Higgins and Steve Davis, plus Barry Hearn and a bit of Jimmy White.

I mean this wouldn't pass as a feature film, but, still, the BBC is very good at this kind of thing, and it's very watchable. The young Davis is played more as a nerd than is probably necessary, although Will Merrick is excellent. Barry Hearn (Kevin Bishop) gets all the funny lines. Higgins (Luke Treadaway) is as tempestuous and emotional as you'd expect.

But it was a nice trip back to the 80s, when snooker was all-conquering. The period detail is really spot-on and the snooker scenes (particularly the White vs Higgins match) are really well done (I'm assuming they did it with CGI). Good soundtrack too.

[Crusoe]

The Rack Pack

I'm watching this today. It is very good. I'd forgotten just how many players were household names in the 1980s; like British wrestling, it seems bizarre in hindsight how big it was. I'm not enjoying so much the car crash decline of Higgins but as it is the central theme of the film it'd be churlish to expect it to be all sweetness and light.

[Crusoe]

The Rack Pack

Oh, I think it's on broadcast TV this weekend, too.

[Ginger Yellow]

The Rack Pack

I mean this wouldn't pass as a feature film, but, still, the BBC is very good at this kind of thing

Well, the Rockstar Games one they did was godawful.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The Rack Pack

Ginger Yellow wrote: Well, the Rockstar Games one they did was godawful.

Didn't watch it, but I'll take your word for it.

Micro Men was good.

"Games! Everywhere I go games! This is what my lifetime of achievement has been reduced to! Clive Sinclair the man who brought you Jet Set fucking Willy!"

[Ginger Yellow]

The Rack Pack

Yeah, Micro Men was fun (if by all accounts not entirely accurate). Which was partly why the Rockstar one was such a disappointment.

[Duncan Gardner]

The Rack Pack

Compelling story- if anything it made Higgins seem even more unpleasant than he really was.

David Agnew of this parish has suggested that part of the reason snooker had so many long-standing star names in the 80s was down to an effective closed shop.