Move over Bergerac! There is another island-based detective on the scene.

Mindhorn, which is released this week, is the latest feature film to be shot on the Isle of Man.

Written by and starring Julian Barratt, star of the BBC surreal comedy ’The Mighty Boosh’, and Simon Farnaby, who is part of the team behind Horrible Histories, Mindhorn is an hilarious coming together of any police TV show from the mid-eighties together with Barratt’s gleeful sense of the ridiculous.

Barratt plays Richard Thorncroft, a washed up actor who’s heyday was playing TV detective Bruce Mindhorn during the 1980s. Mindhorn was armed with robotic eye that could literally see the truth.

Cut to present day, and a deluded serial killer is loose on the Isle of Man, who thinks Mindhorn is a real policeman. Thorncroft realises that this poses a chance to establish himself back in the public eye and resuscitate his failing career.

From the outset, whereas the majority of movies shot in the island are set elsewhere, the island is very much a key feature in the film. The original series of Mindhorn was set in the island, much like Bergerac was in Jersey, and was key to the mindset of the script. And, while the film funding incentives to bring the production here played their part, the producers soon realised the island was ideal for the film’s location.

’The Isle of Man was perfect for this film,’ said Julian. ’We wanted to set it on an island, and we initially we looking at Guernsey and Jersey, the channel islands, with that whole Bergerac thing, but we thought that we’d find one that hadn’t really been used. Someone suggested the Isle of Man.

’When we started looking at it, we found all the brilliant geography of the place is great, and the strange architecture and weird very interesting and odd signias, things like that. It’s like it has its own universe, that not too many people know too much about, so it felt perfect.’

’Its very cinematic in a way,’ said Simon, who plays Clive Parnevik, Thorncroft’s stunt double for Mindhorn. ’It feels like its a good setting for a place because it is so unique. Everywhere you went has a feel and a look all of its own.’

’We wrote the script around the Isle of Man,’ continued Julian. ’The recce crew came here and looked at all the locations where we could set things. They saw the Laxey Wheel and thought that we had to have a scene around there. We wanted to have something on the Electric railway, to build it all around these amazing things.

’Also, it has a sense of - not wanting to be rude - but trapped in time a little bit, from an outside point of view. We thought that that was good for our character. He is going back to somewhere that things hadn’t really moved on and he is returning to his past when he went back there.

’He actually blames the IOM for the failure of his life. It is where he left everything. The love of his life was here, and the career that he wanted to carry on with. He left it all because he gambled and he lost on a future that didn’t happen for him.’

Local landmarks and events were lovingly utilised for scenes, including a key sequence based around, and shot during, Peel Carnival.

’We did want to base it a bit around Bergerac,’ said Simon. ’In that series, there would always be a shoot-out in the most picturesque place or in a tourist hotspot. The Peel carnival parade and the Laxey Wheel were our little nod to those.’

’It was great to have our fictional world intersect with the real world,’ said Julian. We had lots of floats and masks from the film that people didn’t know what they were from, but they assumed it was part of the Peel carnival. There was a bit of blurring of fiction and reality.’

There was also talks of how they could extend the Mindhorn character even further, with one idea of creating a series of original Mindhorn episodes having been discussed.

’That would be tricky, as you would have to make the Isle of Man look like the 1980s,’ said Simon, tongue firmly in cheek.

’But we might come back again with Mindhorn.. You might not get rid of us.’

The two stars were over on the island with director Sean Foley for a launch of the film, which goes on general UK release from this Friday.

By Mike Wade

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