One day there will surely be a Bohemian Rhapsody-style movie about Oasis’s supersonic rise to fame. Until then, here’s a biopic of the man who sensed their potential and signed them on the spot: Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records.
As played by Ewen Bremner, he is initially presented as a well-oiled raconteur, recounting his hardscrabble origins for an attentive journalist (Suki Waterhouse) during a first-class trip to sunny LA. In a headlong blur we get his formative years as a music-obsessed wheeler dealer who leaves Glasgow for the bright lights of London and sets up a label almost by accident.
Directed by actor Nick Moran from a script co-written by Irvine Welsh, Creation Stories rattles along with suitably disreputable energy and even before McGee’s fateful encounter with the Gallagher brothers there is a thrill in witnessing the unexpected breakouts of bands like My Bloody Valentine.
But after a particularly brutal bender, the film shifts gears and seems to become more of a McGee score-settling exercise, with New Labour’s attempts to slipstream the Britpop explosion getting particularly withering treatment. As with Oasis, you might find you prefer the early stuff.
Three stars out of five
