With its sheer warmth and likability, this good-natured documentary won my heart – a real-life The Full Monty or Billy Elliot or Pride. In 2000, Jan Vokes was a barmaid and part-time Asda cleaner in the Welsh village of Cefn Fforest, a place depressed both economically and emotionally. Jan conceived the idea of organising a syndicate to breed a racehorse: drinkers in the bar would get a share in return for a weekly £10 sub.
Her funding model was genius. When Jan and her fellow owners cheerfully rocked up at posh racing meets, toffee-nosed types would mock. But their horse, Dream Alliance, showed them what was what.
Jan herself is a vivid, wonderful character, looking much younger, almost girlish, than the photos of her 15 years earlier at the beginning of her great adventure. (I’d like to know a bit more about when she got that tattoo of hers.) And her husband Brian and chief partner Howard Davies are tremendous. It won’t be long before they are impersonated by Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent et al.
