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REMEMBER A DAY narrates the acid excesses of late-Sixties rock star-turned-recluse Roger Bannerman, a man 'going far further than you ever could imagine,' a character not unlike Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett. Despite having effectively retired, Bannerman is being stalked by an unhinged fan who's determined to 'relaunch' Roger no matter what it takes, no matter how many laws are broken. Laced with black humor, drugs, psychedelic imagery and groupie sex, and featuring a stunning soundtrack--that includes works by Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, and The Edgar Broughton Band, REMEMBER A DAY is an early-1970s period piece shot by the people whose story it essentially is.

I think that this was probably intended as a joke, don't you?

Darryl Read has gone 'further than you could ever imagine' in his latest film, Remember A Day!

Despite the disclaimer at the end, &quot;Remember A Day&quot; employs a character quite obviously based upon the late Syd Barrett (who was still alive when it was made). It involves a number of people who were very close to Barrett: director Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon (who also has an acting role), Jenny Fabian as &quot;Lady Jane&quot;, agent of &quot;Roger&quot;, the Syd-character, and Peter Jenner (as a promoter, frustrated at Roger&#39;s disappearance on the eve of a confirmed American tour). It strives to recreate the bohemian ambiance of certain parts of London in the late 60s and early 70s. So it&#39;s a great film, right? Wrong! In order for a character to stand a reasonable comparison with Syd Barrett during this era he would need at the very least to be youthful and physically beautiful; Darryl Read, approaching 50 when the film was made, is plump, jowly and unprepossessing, in spite of his wild Barrettian pompadour and extravagant eye make-up. The embarrassing original musical numbers - supposedly evidence of Roger&#39;s wayward genius - prove that the Barrett style is probably impossible to pastiche accurately (at one point Roger strums a song that more strongly resembles Marc Bolan&#39;s &quot;Jeepster&quot;). Although Rick Wright - composer of the title song - is credited in the end titles, there is no counterpart to the remaining members of the Pink Floyd in &quot;Remember A Day&quot; (either through lack of production funds or fear of costly litigation after the film&#39;s release). Incidentally, the instrumental version of this song (with the vocals stripped away, but employing the original backing-track) is incontestably the best thing in the entire film. Whatever Mr Lesmoir-Gordon&#39;s other talents, and irrespective of his personal acquaintance with Barrett during his glory years, he has as much practical grasp of film direction as Vinnie Jones has of flower arranging. The composition of the individual shots, except for some mildly effective set-pieces, is generally poor and the quality of what I take to be the film stock (given that the film must have gone into production in the late 1990s, before digital became the standard format for theatrical films) is uneven and often shoddy. The editing and pacing are amateurish, and there are terrible anachronisms (e.g. the late 90s cars parked outside Abbey Road Studios, or the conspicuously modern blocks of flats close to the canal). Unlike Syd Barrett, &quot;Roger&quot;, despite his studied slowness and occasional drug-induced passivity, is often abrasive (especially to his improbably attractive (and young!) girlfriends) and always egocentric, given to coining semi-coherent aphorisms and spouting a kind of slack-brained philosophy. The obsession that Zoot Money&#39;s character (simply credited as &quot;The Fan&quot;) has with him is difficult to account for. Despite intermittent implications that he has subsided into a drug-addled retirement from the music business (in a way directly indebted to &quot;Performance&quot;&#39;s Turner, as portrayed by Mick Jagger), Roger, in contrast to Barrett, is - by what we must assume to be circa 1975 - still active (if frustratingly shambolic) in the recording studio, and still sufficiently connected to the industry to have both an agent (Fabian) and a promoter (Jenner). The name of the not-yet-famous Sex Pistols (implausibly impressed by Roger&#39;s oft-asserted but never-displayed genius) is invoked both to establish the approximate era and to confirm the longevity of his musical influence. (The implication here is that Punk is the &quot;far-off, divine event&quot; to which all popular music creation was thitherto moving, and that, like the Roman Catholic Church, it has the power to canonise its predecessors posthumously, so to speak.) The Fan stalks Roger obsessively, tracking him to his favourite pub (probably the quietest and least patronised outside Saudi Arabia), presided over by a genial landlord (Ronnie Carroll). Engaging his hero in inconsequential banter, The Fan manages to slip a Mickey Finn (the drug, not Marc Bolan&#39;s photogenic percussionist) unobserved into Roger&#39;s pint of Guinness. When the hapless Roger falls into a state of complete collapse, The Fan is assisted by a troupe of mime artists straight out of Antonioni&#39;s &quot;Blow-Up&quot; as he hauls the supine Roger into the back of his tiny Citroen van. Keeping the now-revived Roger prisoner in a living room-cum-live room, The Fan observes his captive through the double-glazed window of the control room of his home studio. The motivation for his abduction of Roger becomes apparent; he believes that he can resuscitate his hero&#39;s stalled musical career. Fed on beer and sandwiches, and supplied with guitars, Roger toys with his gaoler by performing competently during the set-up of attempted recordings, only to frustrate him by descending into chaos during actual takes. At other times he taunts The Fan with maliciously compliant passive-aggression and Zen-like pseudo-cooperation. (Perhaps this entire kidnap/imprisonment scenario is meant, in its clumsy way, to evoke Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar in William Wyler&#39;s slick, big-budget film, &quot;The Collector&quot;.) Probably the whole thing is intended as a joke, but I&#39;m still not altogether sure. If it is intended seriously, then this sort of thing has been done far better before, in &quot;Performance&quot; (already referred to) and even - although this itself is not lacking in absurdity - &quot;Stardust&quot; (since at least David Essex has the good looks and charisma to make a semi-plausible Barrett-figure). As an oddity it has undeniable amusement value, but even as a fictionalised portrait of Syd Barrett (or a Barrett-type) - its clear if expressly denied intent - it is an egregious failure.

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Remember a Day

&quot;Remember A Day&quot; is a great film and I love Syd Barrett just as much as the next Pink Floyd fan; however, people need to remember that &quot;Remember A Day&quot; isn&#39;t meant to be a biography on Syd! It is just a GREAT film! Period! And I really don&#39;t care about how much is based on Syd or not... as far as I am concerned it is just a film about a rock star, named Roger Bannerman that has gone too far, who has quit the music biz, who has changed his life by doing way too much (and in doing so, has turned into a recluse) and who is being stalked by a crazed fan, eager to re-launch Roger Bannerman&#39;s music career. Darryl Read, actor, musician, writer, and poet, does a superb job playing Bannerman! Read, who started acting at a very early age in his career, shows that he has not missed a beat and can still Rock! Read takes his acting to a whole new level, by mixing his true Rock n&#39; Roll talent, with that of a true actor, as portraying a very reclusive character whom is the by-product of the late Sixties Acid scene. Since its release, &quot;Remember A Day&quot; has become somewhat of a cult classic. However, it can still be found on his website. I highly recommend this for ANY Darryl Read fan or anyone who likes REAL Rock n&#39; Roll with a twist. It also has an Great soundtrack! -tagsartist

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Remember a Day

I think that this was probably intended as a joke, don't you?

Darryl Read has gone 'further than you could ever imagine' in his latest film, Remember A Day!

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