Latest film from Portsmouth-taught filmmaker lands himself a top accolade for second year running

Filmmaker Gavin Irvine, who studied at the University of Portsmouth, has become the first person to win the Best Comedy award at the Brighton Rocks Film Festival two years running.

His latest work, Daddy’s Note, scooped the prize in the online awards ceremony, with his film 2:40 to London winning the category last year.

Gavin said: ‘It's an accolade I'll forever cherish and to have created a little bit of history is wonderful, as you can imagine.

‘After watching Daddy's Note, James Rowlins, the festival director, described me as the sixth Python. I was like “Wow! What an amazing accolade! Thank you!”.’

Daddy's Note is a satire that looks at the theme of class with humorous Monty Python-esque interludes, shot in a phone box in Primrose Hill which the drug dealer characters use as an office.

Inspiration for the new film came from a moment when Gavin saw a young boy reading newspaper headlines in a supermarket, on the day MP Michael Gove admitted taking cocaine.

Gavin said: ‘My thought process and question going around in my head was basically; how had this type of headline become so normalised and at what age are our children losing their innocence with sex, drugs and violence now so mainstream?... It's obviously very young.’

‘So to cut it short, the big themes I wanted to explore were the British class system, the loss of innocence within the youth of our society and the hypocrisy that seems to be the norm within politics.’

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Starring in the film and working as extras were 11 young actors from the Young Actors Theatre in Islington, with 20-year-old Fred Woodly Evans taking a starring role.

This film follows Gavin’s recent foray into playwriting with his play inspired by self-isolation, Down The Plughole, which was written during lockdown.

Gavin is set to return to the city where he learned his craft to give a talk to University of Portsmouth students about filmmaking, following an invitation from his old lecturer Damian Toal.

For more information about Gavin’s work, visit gavinirvine.com

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