Chas Hodges of Chas 'n' Dave and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple were members of his long-suffering sessions band.

Ralf Little, once little Anthony in The Royle Family, is cast as Chas and was conscious of a responsibility in portraying a well-known figure – "especially this particular story which is really important to them. They care about this era and they care about Joe Meek and preserving the legacy.

"I arranged to meet him just because of mannerisms and to hear the stories. But the best thing was I arranged to meet and he texted me and said, do you fancy lunch and I said yeah and he texted me an address to turn up at.

"I got out of the cab and it was a pie and mash shop in East London and I just thought I'm eating pie and mash and jellied eels with Chas out of Chas and Dave, it doesn't get much more cockney than this."
JJ Feild didn't have that option, playing Heinz Burt, one-hit wonder (Just Like Eddie) and the love of Joe Meek's life, who died in 2000. He was surprised when director Nick Moran approached him about the role.

"I said I can't play the guitar and I'm tone deaf and can't sing at all and he said, 'Perfect, Heinz was rubbish.' He said, don't worry you won't have to sing at all in the film and then on the day he made me sing the song where Heinz was awful and got booed off the stage."

More important, though, was trying to get a sense of the character. "I hadn't seen the play, I didn't know who Heinz was, I came in very blind," recalls the American-born, British-raised actor.

"I had been working in America and got there two days before and Nick gave me this pack of video footage and photographs and literature, every image there has ever been of Heinz.

"I remember getting in on the Friday and having to start on the Monday, so I just put the DVDs on loop at home on the telly and found he had a very distinctive voice.

"I talked to myself at the TV screen for two days and drove myself absolutely nuts until I felt I was talking to myself. I know that sounds a bit methody,m which is not my sort of thing, but I just had to do it, there was no choice, I was so scared. And then I peroxided my hair – my performance is only in the peroxide," he laughs.

Feild is in fact the son of Tim Field of the Springfields, Dusty Springfield's band.

"I didn't inherit the musical genes sadly," he reflects. He's very old now but I was very proud to call him and say I'm playing the guitar in the story of Joe Meek and he just laughed his head off.

"He said, who are you playing, and I said Heinz and he was crying tears. He was probably hoping I was playing someone like Gene Vincent but it added a sort of pride to somehow loop round the father-son thing."


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