Everybody's Talking About Jamie on Amazon Prime: Film's global streaming release 'can have Full Monty effect' for Sheffield

Kate Brindley, who is project director of South Yorkshire’s arts, culture and heritage sector, said the release of the film this week represents a “great opportunity” for the county’s creative industries. A summit exploring how to make the most of the opportunities presented by the film is taking place in Sheffield on Friday as it has its global release.

The film had originally been planned for a cinematic release last October but after being delayed by Covid, the rights were purchased by Amazon Prime from the Disney-owned 20th Century Studios.

It will still have a theatrical release in selected cinemas including the Sheffield Showroom but Ms Brindley said the "massive global reach" of Prime will bring the film to a potentially larger audience than the original release plan.

There are more than 10 million subscribers to Amazon Prime - which doubles as a shopping and entertainment streaming service - in the UK alone and tens of millions more across the world.

Ms Brindley said that while Jamie is being released in a different way to 1990s’ hits The Full Monty and Brassed Off it still has the potential to make as large an impact as those two fondly-remembered films.

“Those films in the past have been so important but I think what is great about the Jamie film is the sentiment of the story,” she said. “We think it is a great opportunity and a great thing because obviously the world has changed in terms of the Amazon and the distribution of films - so who knows, it might be even bigger.”

Ms Brindley was appointed to her role in South Yorkshire earlier this year by Mayor Dan Jarvis with a focus on working with the region’s cultural businesses to attract investment, grow participation, and increase tourism opportunities for the county. A culture, arts and heritage report released by Sheffield City Region last year said public funding for the sector in South Yorkshire is “significantly lower than both national averages and in equivalent city regions” when it come to spending by both the National Lottery Heritage Fund and local councils.

Ms Brindley said: “I was brought in by the mayor because the cultural and creative industries are seen as an emerging priority. They’ve appointed me to start work with the sector and local authorities to look at where we might develop a more strategic approach to what we do and strengthen and maximise the opportunities.”

She said success may lead to a future City of Culture bid for the region in future. “We’re at the beginning of that process, but we’ve got an ambition for what we want to do and achieve and I think when the mayor was elected he said there’s no reason why South Yorkshire car couldn’t aspire to be in a city or region of culture in the future.”

Ms Brindley said the ambition is that in five years, South Yorkshire’s creative industries “are recognised nationally, and indeed globally” through schemes like City of Culture. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t be in that place, and that we wouldn’t be in the position as a region to really have that confidence to go for the big prizes when they come up.”

Call for new connections to creative network

Kate Brindley says she is keen to connect with as many people as possible working within South Yorkshire’s creative industries as they recover from the pandemic.

“We know who we know but of course we would love to know about new and emerging opportunities,” she said. “It can be from a start-up to a major business.”

Ms Brindley will close Friday’s summit with a discussion about the future of South Yorkshire’s Cultural and Creative Industries Network with Ian Wild, chief executive of the Showroom Workstation in Sheffield. The invite-only summit includes artists, musicians, and producers who work in South Yorkshire.

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