Taking the grim out of Grimsby

WITH a little bit of luck, reckons Ray Oxby, Grimsby might just be the new Kazakhstan.

It doesn’t sound much of an ambition, but then we are talking about a place that felt it cause for celebration to be beaten by Hemel Hempstead to the title of worst town in Britain.

And given recent history you can see where its council leader is coming from. The former Soviet republic enjoyed an unlikely surge in tourism after being sent up as a backward backwater by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in his film Borat.

Now Grimsby is about to find itself on the receiving end. And the results aren’t pretty.

Baron Cohen’s latest big screen romp, called Grimsby, revolves around a crude layabout from the town with a Liam Gallagher haircut whose hobbies include excessive drinking and football hooliganism.

Baron Cohen’s Nobby has nine children, an oversexed girlfriend and resides in a litter strewn Grimsby populated by drunk, violent locals and boarded-up shops.

According to the film’s premise, he’s the living, breathing embodiment of a port town that has never recovered from the sad, slow demise of the fishing industry.

Oxby, who has lived here for 30 years, says it’s a Grimsby he doesn’t recognise. But then that’s probably because, as he points out, none of it was actually filmed here.

“It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?” he says. “They reckon it’s grim up North but they couldn’t find the grot spots they were looking for in Grimsby so they ended up filming it in Essex. That speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

“We can take a joke in Grimsby though, we’ll take it on the chin.”

But not everyone is quite so phlegmatic. One of the film’s stars, Ricky Tomlinson, said in a recent interview that “people will either love the film or hate it, but people in Grimsby will hate it” and North East Lincolnshire councillor Matthew Brown believes it will disparage the town on the world stage.

“It is using the town’s name in potentially a poor light,” he said. “What also worries me is that there is no benefit to the local economy which is carrying the town’s name. “Anything that you associate with football hooliganism is going to be negative, but I hope people will be open-minded when they watch the film.”

Baron Cohen, who visited Grimsby and bought pints for fans of the town’s football club after taking in a game, ended up plumping for it ahead of Scunthorpe, Hull and Newcastle.

But why does everyone keep picking on Grimsby? It has been an ever present in the list of Britain’s Crap Towns, while Skint, a Channel 4 documentary on poverty in modern Britain, focused on parts of Grimsby and the surrounding areas.

For Great Grimsby MP Austin Mitchell, the Baron Cohen treatment is the final straw.

“This comes at the end of a succession of programmes like Skint that indicate we’re a sink of poverty, which we are not,” he says, branding the Grimbsy film “awful and appalling”.

“I’ve spent a long time opposing this (film) because it portrays Grimsby as a dump. It’s totally unfair and I don’t know why it’s always Grimsby that’s picked on.

“I’m upset and outraged that this film is going out and purports to be a picture of our town which is a total distortion of the reality of what is a charming and friendly place.”

He says there is a long tradition of painting the town as “grotty” and this isn’t going to help. It’s why his wife, Linda, put together a half-hour film showcasing the side of Grimsby the cinema audiences won’t see.

The idea was to have it shown alongside the film, but the cinemas weren’t playing ball. Not that too many of the locals seem to mind.

Sylvia Robinson, who owns bridalwear store Brides and Maids was surprised to see her old shopfront recreated in the film but renamed Maids and Brides. But she is happy to laugh it off and isn’t convinced too much damage will be done.

“If he comes with a cheque for royalties I’d say thank you very much,” she laughs, “but it’s not a film I would go and see because I don’t like his humour. I can’t see that it would damage us in any way because people know it’s a mickey take.

“Having seen the trailer there is a bit of truth in a few bits and bobs, there are a few areas of Grimsby that are not the best but there are some beautiful parts too. On the whole the people here are great, but you get good and bad everywhere. They have just picked out the worst bits of Grimsby, we’re not all like that.”

Ray Oxby is similarly philosophical and hopes to use the exposure, however unwanted, to the town’s advantage. The council’s press office has swung into gear and come up with a list of 50 great things about Grimsby as part of its Love Grimsby, Actually campaign, which it launched on Valentine’s Day.

He acknowledges that it’s always going to be tough to rebrand a town with “grim” in its name – a legacy of its Danish fisherman founder, the “by” meaning “village” in Old Norse – which has been through some tough times.

But he insists Grimsby has turned the corner, largely thanks to the renewable energy industry and the jobs and investment that have come with harnessing North Sea wind power.

“I was speaking to Greg Clarke, the Communities Secretary, last week and he said that Grimsby and what’s happening here is a vital part of the UK economy.

“We’ve got beautiful beaches down the road at Cleethorpes and a Holiday Inn and Premier Inn have just opened. We’ve had calls from a four-star hotel that’s keen to come here, that just wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.”

While the decline of the fishing industry hit the area hard, it can still lay claim to the country’s largest fish processing plant, while vacant spots on the town’s fish docks have since been filled by offices which provide maintenance support for the offshore wind farms. Then there is the National Fishing Heritage Centre, the Grade I-listed Grimsby Dock Tower and the nearby Donna Nook Nature Reserve with its population of grey seals. The Duchess of Cambridge certainly seemed impressed when she paid a visit three years ago.

And it’s not lost on the council’s leader that although the people of Kazakhstan initially railed against Baron Cohen and the country’s depiction in his 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, ultimately it worked in its favour.

The country’s government ended up thanking his creator for a ten-fold increase in the number of people applying for visas to visit. Oxby hopes this latest film could have a similar impact and talks of “seizing the opportunity”.

The message to cinemagoers is that despite on screen appearances, slowly but surely, they’re taking the grim out of Grimsby.

How comic’s other targets have fared...

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen previously chose Staines in Surrey as the home place of his first successful creatiion, wannabe rapper Ali G.

But the town didn’t exactly welcome the connection and changed its name to Staines-upon-Thames four years ago – reportedly in an attempt to shake off the associations with the hapless character.

His 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan resulted in Baron Cohen’s comedy national anthem being played in the place of the real one when a Kazakh team claimed gold at a 2012 shooting competition.

However, the film was also credited with boosting tourism to the former Soviet republic with a surge in visa applications on the back of it.