WAH-WAH

Acclaimed actor Richard E. Grant’s Wah-Wah is a semi-autobiographical “coming-of-age at the end of an age” story, told through the eyes of young Ralph Compton. Set during the last gasp of the British Empire in Swaziland, South East Africa, in 1969, the plot focuses on the dysfunctional Compton family whose gradual disintegration mirrors the end of British rule.

As an 11-year-old, Ralph witnesses his mother’s adultery with his father’s best friend. His parents divorce and Ralph is sent to boarding school. His father, Harry (Gabriel Byrne), not only loses his wife (Miranda Richardson) and best friend, but also his position as Minister of Education with the coming of Independence, prompting his rapid descent into alcoholism.

Now 14, Ralph (Nicholas Hoult) returns home to discover that his father has re-married an American ex-air “hostess” named Ruby whom his father has known all of six weeks. As round a peg as you could find in this square holed society, Ruby (Emily Watson) ridicules the petty snobbery of the restless colonials whose chief amusements are gin, adultery, and their foppish slang of “toodle-pip” and “hobbly-jobbly” ? that Ruby identifies as sounding like “Wah-Wah.”

Although Ralph is initially wary of Ruby, he bonds with her as his father’s drinking escalates and becomes dangerously out of control. It’s this chaos that stokes Ralph’s inner turmoil, and eventually forges his creative mind.

The sumptuously beautiful score is by the great Scottish composer Patrick Doyle. His music for Kenneth Branagh’s productions of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing earned him international acclaim. Doyle’s scores for films such as Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, Sense and Sensibility, Calendar Girls and Nanny McPhee have continued to show tremendous musical range and talent. Doyle is, without question, one of the finest composers working in film today.

CD will also feature an original piano suite of themes from the score, composed and performed by Patrick Doyle.

1. Swaziland (2:16)
2. Lauren Leaves (1:51)
3. Train Away (3:20)
4. The Key (2:14)
5. The Shooting (1:34)
6. The Bridge (2:31)
7. Fabulous News (0:47)
8. Monica (1:13)
9. Goodbye Swaziland (3:02)
10. Independence (1:33)
11. Months to Live (1:44)
12. Harry Dies (1:32)
13. Ngatsi Ngisahamba (1:46)
14. Please Forgive Me (3:46)
15. Wah-Wah (6:19)