Hello pod, I'm Chris Eward and welcome to an Empire Podcast special. The BFI London Film

Festival is one of the world's biggest and busiest film festivals and the 2021 vintage

is happening as we speak folks and runs all the way up until this Sunday the 17th of

October when it climaxes with Joel Cohen's The Tragedy of Macbeth.

We at Empire have long been a media partner of the festival, we're proud to be so and

we were delighted to continue that tradition this year by hosting a gala screening of

Craig Roberts' new movie The Heartwarming and Hilarious, The Phantom of the Open, which

tells the true life story of Morris Flittcroft and amateur golfer who somehow entered the

British Open Qualifying Round in 1976, shot an astonishingly inept round of 121 if you

don't follow golf and take it from me, that is bad. He was then dubbed the world's worst

golfer, was banned from playing golf in the UK by Jobsworth's and spent much the rest

of his life trying to qualify for the tournament again whilst donning a series of disguises

and suit-nubs. True story, true story folks. So this should be decided that rather than

just introduce the world premiere of the movie that we would dedicate a podcast to it

as well. So I had the pleasure of jumping on the Zoom yesterday with two of my favorite

interviewees, Craig Roberts and the film's writer Simon Farnaby who adapted his own book,

he co-wrote a book called The Phantom of the Open with Scott Murray a few years ago and

adapted that into the film. We had a good old matter about the movie, about golf and movies,

about how much they like golf, about Mark Rylands who plays Morris Flittcroft, about the

LFF and what it's meant to them throughout their careers. I always have a blast talking

to Craig and Simon and I hope you guys will too. Enjoy. We're delighted to be joined in

this very special edition of the Empire Podcast dedicated to the Phantom of the Open by the

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