Steve Stamp and Asim Chaudhry on the People Just Do Nothing movie Big In Japan

Steve Stamp and Asim Chaudhry starred as drug casualty DJ Steves and band manager Chabuddy G - the latter loosely based on Chaudhry’s own wheeler-dealer father - in five series of People Just Do Nothing, the BBC mockumentary about Kurupt FM, Brentford's number one garage pirate radio station. 

Here, principal writer Stamp and Chaudhry tell JAY RICHARDSON abiout getting the band back together for their first film, People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan, and Kurupt FM's debt to Wernham Hogg.

The Grindah-Beats bromance is all very well. But it's Steves' love life and Chabuddy G's lust for revenge that really drive this film isn't it?

Asim: [Laughs] We all have our individual things going on. The Beats and Grindah bromance is definitely at the core of it. But Steves is part of this love story that's he's not really aware of until three-quarters of the way into the film. And I'm part of this vengeance thing that Taka [Ken Yamamura] has no idea about. It's a one-sided war. But I think it's nice, it all comes together and they feed into each other quite well.

Steve: For me, it was quite a challenge not to deviate too much from the Steves that everyone knows, who is basically a eunuch. He's been a coke dick for 15 years or something. So the idea of him having any sort of romantic interest was a real task to get right. I'm glad that people who've seen the film feel like we nailed that. I'm very happy with how it ended up working.

Stephen Merchant has described People Just Do Nothing as the best of all The Office rip-offs. Yet this film is very different to say, David Brent: Life On The Road. You've been a lot more faithful to the television series haven't you?

Steve: That's the highest compliment from Stephen Merchant.

Asim: He says it all the time. When we did our Christmas film together, Click & Collect, he said that out of all The Office rip-offs, ‘yours is one of the better ones'. Not even the best! I mean, he's right …

Steve: It's an evolution. There was People Like Us …

Asim: Before that there was Spinal Tap. The mockumentary format has evolved. Of course, The Office is the Holy Grail and it's the bible we started off mimicking and imitating. But over the years, we've found our groove and our own style.

Steve: What The Office did that we were obsessed with was it was the most true to the realism and the documentary style. It was so detailed with what you were allowed access to and what you wouldn't be allowed access to.

In the David Brent film, there were moments with his psychiatrist and it felt like you wouldn't have a camera crew in there. In The Office they wouldn't have done that. It started to detour towards a slightly different format almost. Whereas hopefully, we've tried to keep it true to the same format that we had.

Asim: If you do a mockumentary, you have to always explain why the camera's there. There are some mockumentaries where the format it so loose. Like Modern Family. They do talking heads to the camera but it's not a mockumentary really.

Steve: Those things don't make sense to me.

Asim: They never reference the camera in a scene. But yeah, we are mockumentary purists!

Steve: The challenge was making sure that we kept that. There was anxiety around it because that's not what you're supposed to do in a film. Luckily, there are examples like Spinal Tap we were able to reference. They had moments where they broke up the action with those talking head interviews. So we managed to keep doing what we do well but just make it a bit smoother, a bit more cinematic. Give the story a bigger arc and add a bit more drama. We kept it real.

Asim: Kurupt. We kept it Kurupt!

Were you mindful to avoid too many Japanese stereotypes?

Steve: Yeah, I think that was key. We didn't want to make a film about Kurupt FM coming up against Japanese culture and doing a thing that felt lazy in terms of stereotypes or anything like that. We did our research. Me and Seapa [Allan Mustafa, who plays MC Grindah]  both went out there separately, experienced Japan for ourselves, had embarrassing, weird experiences on our own and ironed out what plots were more feasible and what felt like we were detouring away from reality a bit too much.

Hopefully, it helps ground it. And I think the film's really more about the music scene and the experiences of fame rather than about them struggling in Japan. That's only one level of it. The plot is driven by the pressures of becoming a pop artist.

Asim: We've said this many times but the joke is always on us. It's never directed at anyone or playing on any stereotypes or tropes. We are the idiots and we've kept that as a consistent theme throughout all our work.

Was it harder to sustain your vision for the broader canvas of a feature-length comedy?

Steve: To be honest, this is testament to BBC Film and Universal, they gave us a lot of freedom to create what we wanted to create and not change what was working. So we had the same director, the same director of photography, the same editor, wardrobe, everything...

Asim: Same cast! They were going to recast me.

With your actual dad?

Asim: Yeah. Or Omid Djalili.

Steve: They appreciated that if they changed stuff it might not work as well, it might ruin the chemistry that we have. That was always what was going to make this film work, the chemistry between the characters and the attention to detail that we put into it.

Was it difficult striking a balance between writing for established fans of the television series and for people who'd never seen People Just Do Nothing before?

Asim: Good question. I remember we reused some of the classic lines in the film. Chabuddy's famous line of 'I came here with nothing but £5 and my brother's passport. My passport ...'

Steve: The 'at least. Max' line, too. I wasn't really into doing that to be honest but at the end of the day, a lot of people won't have seen any of the TV show, so we're writing for a new audience.

Asim: Even when we saw the film last week with our family and friends, I remember the reaction to some of those lines. The new audience, it was the first time they were hearing them and they loved them.

But I also think the fans love it because it's a little thing for them. This film can be watched if you've seen the TV show or if you haven't. We kind of sum up the history of Kurupt FM in the first few minutes, where we last saw them. You can come into it cold and you will still enjoy it because it is just a story about friendship, about selling your soul, about experiencing fame.

It's a fish-out-of-water story. It's a getting the band back together story. A lot of universal themes that work in different ways. But if you're a fan of the show, hopefully you're going to love it even more. These characters that you miss. Because it's been a while since we've done anything. They're back. Tonally they're the same but on a bigger scale.

Has it stoked your ambition to make another film as a team?

Steve: Film's one of my passions and I'd love to write more. Whether it's another Kurupt film, that remains to be seen. If it feels like that opportunity's there and we can come up with a good idea. We always go on what's the right thing for these characters. But yeah, in the future I hope people will be watching other films I've written. So we'll see.

Asim: Likewise. We all love film and this is a great taste of it. Another Kurupt film. Or whatever. We need to sell this one first though.

Steve: It feels like a good foot in the door. A Reebok Classic in the film world.

• Read our interview with Allan 'Seapa' Mustafa and Hugo Chegwin ​here.

• People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan is released in cinemas on August 18 and Kurupt FM: The Greatest Hits (Part 1) is released on August 20. Order here.

Published: 14 Aug 2021