Rock And Roll's Greatest Failure: Otway The Movie review

Stairway to obscurity

Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Paying tribute to tenacity and communal endeavour, Steve Barker’s docu-study of punk-rock one-off John Otway is an exuberant celebration of a very British underdog. Otway was a ’70s wild card whose anarchic antics never secured him lasting fame, but he inspired devotees who helped his loveably eccentric rock’n’roll dreams come true.

While hardly searching, Barker’s portrait is infectiously affectionate. You warm to Otway as he pursues bonkers fancies, like ‘Ot Air’ world tours by a crowd-funded jet plane. So what if the idea flops? His next one scores: how about a movie...

Freelance writer

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at 12DOVE.