Tony Wilson

• [First address to camera; after his hang-gliding news report] You're going to see a lot more of that sort of thing in the picture. I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more.
• I'm being postmodern, before it was fashionable.
• [At a gig at the Hacienda] And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.
• I'm a minor character in my own story.
• This scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD.
• [About the music scene surrounding the Hacienda] It was like being on a fantastic fairground ride, centrifugal forces throwing us wider and wider. But it's all right, because there's this brilliant machine at the center that's going to bring us back down to earth. That was Manchester. That is the Hacienda. Now imagine the machine breaks. For a while, it's even better, because you're really flying. but then, you fall, because nobody beats gravity.
• Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.
• Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I'm afraid we, er, we don't because that's, er, that's the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.
• I have protected myself from ever having to sell out by having nothing to sell out.
• [To Martin Hannett] You can't threaten me, Martin. You're a big man, but you're out of shape. Although you could sit on me.
• Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as spirituality.
• [About the Happy Mondays] Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.
• [After a stoned Martin Hannett tries to set fire to him] I am not a lump of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.
• Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the latest craze sweeping the Pennines. I've got to be honest with you... right now I'd rather be SWEEPING the Pennines.
• [after Shaun Ryder fires a gun in his general direction] You want to be careful with that, Shaun. You could take somebody's eye out.
• Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.
• [Whilst hosting 'Wheel of Fortune'] Welcome to the Wheel of Fortune. There it is, the wheel that throughout the centuries has been used as a symbol for the vicissitudes of life. Boethius himself in his great work 'The Consolation of Philosophy' compares history to a great wheel, hoisting us up, then dropping us down again. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Raise yourself up on my spokes if you wish, but don't complain when you plunge back down" Now spin the wheel.
• [When caught receiving an act of oral sex from a prostitute by his wife Lindsay] It's not what it looks like, love!
• [After Lindsay storms off when catching him with the prostitute; to Lindsay] I love you! [To the prostitute] Don't stop.
• [When catching Lindsay having sex with another man out of spite] I just got a blowjob. That's full penetration.

Martin Hannett

• [On Joy Division's drumming] There was nothing wrong with the drumming as such. It's just people have been playing like that for the past 20,000 years and quite frankly I'm fucking bored with it.
• [On learning how much came out of the music budget to build the Hacienda] Well, this is goodbye. I mean, we obviously have nothing in common. I'm a genius, you're all fucking wankers. You'll never see me again. You don't deserve to see me again.

Others

• Bez: Can I offer anybody like the best drug experience they ever had?
• God: It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths, but you were right about Mick Hucknall. His music's rubbish, and he's a ginger.
• God: Tony, you did a good job. Basically you are right: Shaun is the greatest poet since Yeats.
• The Real Howard Devoto: [On his alleged affair with Tony Wilson's wife Lindsay] I definitely don't remember this happening.
• John the Postman: [singing "Louie, Louie" drunkenly] Pogo like a bastard!
• Boethius: It's my belief that history is a wheel. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don't complain when you are cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away".
• Roger Ames [reading Factory Records contract, written in Tony Wilson's blood]: The artists own all their work. The label owns nothing. Our bands have the freedom ... to fuck off.

Dialogue

Tony Wilson: Can I buy you half a lager?

Rob Gretton: You can buy me a pint.

Tony Wilson: Martin, what are you doing?

Martin Hannett: Recording silence

Tony Wilson: You're recording silence?

Martin Hannett: No, I'm recording Tony fucking Wilson!

Tony Wilson: What's wrong with London Records?

Rob Gretton: The name, for a start.

Rob Gretton: You've dropped a bollock, haven't you?

Tony Wilson: Yes, I've dropped a bollock. I've dropped a big massive hairy bollock.

[On learning about Tony's 'contract' with his bands]

Roger Ames: Tony, you're fucking mad.

Tony Wilson: Well, that is a point of view.

[Tony Wilson has just had a vision of God - who looked exactly like Tony Wilson]

Tony Wilson: It's says so in the Bible, though, doesn't it? 'God made man in His own image'.

Rob Gretton: Yeah - but not a specific man.

Tony Wilson: You know, I think Shaun Ryder is on a par with W.B. Yeats as a poet.

Yvette: Really?

Tony Wilson: Absolutely.

Yvette: Well, that is amazing, because everybody else thinks he's a fucking idiot.

Rob Gretton: You know your trouble, Tony? You don't know what you are. You see, I fucking know what you are, but you don't know what you are.

Tony Wilson: My curiosity's got the better of me, Rob, tell me, what am I?

Rob Gretton: You're a cunt.

Tony Wilson: Well, that was something I *did* know, you see, I actually did know that.

Tony Wilson: This morning I was doing a story about an elephant being washed by a midget.

Charles: He's a dwarf.

Tony Wilson: It doesn't matter!

Charles: Well, it matters to him.

Ryan Letts: There's not calling you the new George Epstein you know.

Tony Wilson: Brian Epstein.

Ryan Letts: George Epstein, Beatles' manager.

Tony Wilson: That's Brian Epstein, dickhead.

Ryan Letts: George Epstein.

Tony Wilson: It's fucking Brian Epstein.

Ryan Letts: Brian Martin.

Tony Wilson: It's not Brian, it's George Martin.

Ryan Letts: Brian Martin, the producer ...

Tony Wilson: You're just fucking wrong!

Tony Wilson: You know broccoli?

Alan Erasmus: Broccoli the vegetable?

Tony Wilson: It's a little known fact that it was invented by Cubby Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond films.

Taglines

• [From film poster:] Share the Ecstasy.
• The unbelievably true story of one man, one movement, the music and madness that was Manchester.
• [Over images of Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder and Tony Wilson respectively:] Genius. Poet. Twat.

Cast

• Steve Coogan - Tony Wilson
• Lennie James - Alan Erasmus
• Shirley Henderson - Lindsay Wilson
• Paddy Considine - Rob Gretton
• Andy Serkis - Martin Hannett
• Martin Hancock - Howard DeVoto
• Chris Coghill - Bez
• Mark Windows - Johnny Rotten
• John Simm - Bernard Sumner
• Dave Gorman - John
• Ralf Little - Peter Hook
• Danny Cunningham - Shaun Ryder
• Paul Popplewell - Paul Ryder
• John Thomson - Charles
• Rob Brydon - Ryan Letts