Southern Softies

Take ‘Borat’, replace the fawning Kazakh journalist with a lanky, self-deprecating Yorkshire comic, America with the Channel Islands and Pamela Anderson with an ageing, lustful talent agent and you’ve got ‘Southern Softies’, in which regional treasure John Shuttleworth sets out to discover whether Southerners are really as soft as their reputation suggests. Shot on shop-bought camcorders for a budget of roughly £50, this is proudly DIY filmmaking.

It’s also very funny: Shuttleworth is a charming host, and his observations on life, love and the craft of cinema are drily delivered and extremely sharp. The film threatens to outstay its welcome – 79 minutes is a long time to spend on one joke, albeit a pretty amusing one – but never quite manages it, thanks to a rambling, unpredictable structure and the shambolic charisma of its leading man. The audience for ‘Southern Softies’ is likely to be small, but for aficionados of the obstreperous Northern pisstake this is well worth seeking out.