Which British group was first to top the US charts? Not the Beatles, but Billy Fury's backing band, the Tornados, with a record that lends its title to this film. The disc was cobbled together in a makeshift studio in London's scruffy Holloway Road and the producer was Joe Meek, central figure for a surprisingly appealing film about an early British pop pioneer before he is swept away by the 60s groups.

The strange tale of this stubborn oddball independent is well worth telling, with its shades of another gay provincial outsider, Joe Orton. Actor Nick Moran, a Lock, Stock alumnus, makes a confident first stab at directing, and Con O'Neill is convincing as the manic, paranoid producer.