''It's Nice Up North'' is a 2006

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

documentary made by comedian

Graham Fellows Graham David Fellows (born 22 May 1959) is an English actor and musician, best known for releasing the 1978 single "Jilted John", which reached #4 on the UK Singles Chart, and creating the comedic character John Shuttleworth in 1986. Jilted ...

as his alter ego John Shuttleworth. It was filmed by photographer

Martin Parr Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in p ...

and edited by Fellows on his laptop on a very low budget. In the film Shuttleworth travels to the

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

to test his theory that the further north in Great Britain you go the nicer people are, Shetland being the most far north part of the UK. He meets various Shetland people in unrehearsed situations. Many assume him to be a real person and not a comic creation, though some scenes are acted, particularly parts with famous local tour guide Elma Johnson. It had a limited theatrical release in some art-house and community cinemas around the UK in 2006, including some screenings in Shetland, with Fellows answering questions after the showing. The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

in the same year. The film has also been shown on Sky Arts.

References

External links

''Ken Worthington's YouTube Channel'' - clips from It's Nice Up North and more on Ken Worthington's YouTube website channel''John Shuttleworth Appreciation Society Website'' - The Official John Shuttleworth Appreciation Society Internet Presence
2006 films British mockumentary films 2006 comedy films British comedy films Mass media in Shetland 2000s English-language films 2000s British films {{2000s-UK-comedy-film-stub