Keswick Jazz & Blues Festival: George Melly - The Certainty of Hazard - May 12

The Certainty of Hazard was premiered more than a decade after George Melly's death in July 2007. Here at the 2019 Keswick Jazz and Blues Festival a Sunday afternoon screening in Rawnsley Hall attracted a good number of Melly fans. Director Chris Wade's 2018 documentary film focuses on two principal talking heads - Melly's widow Diana Melly and former girlfriend Louisa Buck - offering personal insights to the jazz singer, critic, writer and lifetime surrealist. 

It seems likely the film was made on a shoestring budget as there is precious little footage of the flamboyant singer in action and a marked absence of contributions from the many musicians who knew or worked with the man. Indeed, Wade conducts more than one interview by telephone!

Melly discusses his humanism in matter of fact manner and in the film's final moments we see several stills, equally matter of fact, of a man in his dying days. No doubt Melly would have approved of the lack of sentimentality.  

For all its (financial?) limitations Wade's film is clearly a labour of love and, given the chance, well worth seeing.  

Russell