Backyard cricket, a knockabout game often played with a taped-up bat, a tennis ball covered in dog saliva and a carton of beer for the fielders, is about to be celebrated in cinemas.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
From Wagga Wagga, with a lower profile than ''Peter Who'' when he was picked for the Test team in 1986-87, comes a new comedy about a game between Australian and English neighbours.
At stake are the ashes. The ashes of a neighbour's cat who met an unfortunate end in a barbecue, that is.
The team behind Backyard Ashes, which has its premiere in Wagga Wagga on Wednesday, are all new to filmmaking.
''We jokingly say this is the ultimate underdog Australian film,'' writer-director Mark Grentell said. ''It shouldn't exist for a multitude of reasons.''
Grentell, a theatre director who has worked on the musicals Rock of Ages and Spring Awakening, wrote the film with fellow theatre director Peter Cox then discovered they could not attract the funding to shoot it.
''We thought 'we can't let this slide,' '' he said. ''It's too good an idea. So in January last year, we said 'why don't we shoot it in Wagga? We've got enough contacts here, we know the people, we've spent our lives working in that community.'
''We were literally in mum and dad's backyard when we went 'why don't we shoot it here?' ''
They raised the budget of almost $300,000 by selling shares to the Wagga community, including a baker, truck driver and fruit shop owner. The film centres on two neighbours - an Australian fitter and turner (Andrew S. Gilbert) and an English financial administrator (Felix Williamson) - who decide to settle a dispute with a game of backyard cricket.
John Wood from Blue Heelers plays a publican who fancies himself as Dennis Lillee, complete with mo and gold chain.
''The whole idea of it was appealing and I hadn't done a movie for about 35 years,'' said Wood, who regularly played backyard cricket growing up. ''In the winter it was AFL, kicking the footie in the backyard. In summer, it was imitating your Test heroes, which for my era were people like Richie Benaud, Neil Harvey and Alan Davidson.''
After taking advice from Tom Gleisner, part of the Working Dog team who made The Castle and The Dish, Grentell opted for an initial regional release for the film.
The hope is when it opens in Wagga Wagga, Orange, Tamworth and Albury this weekend, the response will be strong enough for a city release. ''It's not the greatest feature film ever written but it's not too bad,'' Grentell said. ''People seem to find it really charming and familiar and likeable.''
With the real Ashes about to get under way, the timing has worked out well.
