On paper, is sounds like any other British gangster film: “In the hard and gritty streets of London, one man wants to rule all the drugs gangs. This man will need to work his way to the top from a lowly drug dealer to the king of the jungle.” It’s a genre you’d associate with people like Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham, and characters called things like Brick Top and Rocky Goldfingers.
What makes it surprising is that Fall to the Top stars Paul Chuckle – 77-year-old beloved slapstick children’s entertainer from 292 episodes of CBBC’s ChuckleVision between 1987 and 2009 – as The Jackal. No, that’s not a printing error, or someone mucking with Wikipedia.
“Having Paul in a darker role is something truly special,” says director Pete Hirst. “He’s known for his comedy but in Fall to the Top, audiences will see a completely different side to him that will leave them astounded.” Indeed, watching Chuckle feed someone to the pigs, or dump a body tied with weights into the Thames is a far cry from watching him as a hapless window cleaner.
To celebrate the film’s upcoming release, Chuckle will be here to take your questions: from winning Opportunity Knocks in 1967 to coming first on Celebrity Coach Trip and collaborating with Tinchy Stryder – all with his real life brother Barry. (Their two older brothers, Brian and Jimmy, performed as comedy duo The Patton Brothers, and would often turn up in ChuckleVision.) And, since Barry’s death in in 2018, there’s his appearance on MasterChef and choosing English football clubs as his specialist subject on Mastermind to – as we’ve discovered above – reinventing himself as a drug-dealing gangster. Please get your questions in by 6pm on Tuesday 7 October and we’ll print his – to me, to you – answers here in Film&Music soon.
• Fall to the Top is coming to streaming platforms this month
