SciFiNow: Steve Oram on Aaaaaaaah!
Steve Oram on AAAAAAAAH!, monkey business and Battenberg
We talk to Steve Oram about his mad monkey movie Aaaaaaaah!
You’ve not seen anything quite like Steve Oram’s dark comedy Aaaaaaaah! Set in a dystopian world where everyone behaves like apes (complete with grunting, there’s no dialogue), it’s a viciously funny and totally odd piece of work that’s been building excellent word of mouth since its debut at FrightFest.
The film has been going round a few festivals, how have you found the reaction so far?
We’ve had various screenings all around the country, we had a little tour with Picturehouse Cinemas, so we’ve been going round with them and it’s been brilliant. We’ve been doing Q & As at most of these places and I’ve been blown away by the response, it seems people like no-dialogue films these days! FrightFest was a really good start for us, it was amazing. It really seems to be growing, which is great. We had a really good screening at Mayhem in Nottingham on Sunday, which went really well. Really great crowd there, very pleased.
Did you have actors in mind?
I did, I wrote most of the parts for the actors that ended up playing them. They’re gathered from the comedy world and most of them are good friends of mine, Tom Meeten who plays my beta male in it and Julian [Barratt] and Noel [Fielding] and Julian Rhind-Tutt, Holly Dempsey, they’re all really good friends, but Toyah [Willcox] was the one I didn’t know. I just sent her a script because I was a huge fan of her in Jubilee and Quadrophenia, her early work I think is just incredible. And she loved it and fit right in with all my mental friends! Which was really great, a really happy coincidence.
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