Filmed and directed

A one off observational documentary about how Blackpool, the ‘Las Vegas of northern England’, makes its summer season work. Following car park supremo Howard Plant, variety star Joe Longthorne and his promoter Tony Joe, guest house owner Claire Smith plus an array of other local characters. Zig Zag Productions. TX January 2013.

Pick of the day in The Guardian Guide, The Guardian, The Indie
‘a canvas as broad and long as the Golden Mile itself…I suspect Snow arrived expecting rigor mortis. To his alarm, Blackpool twitched with suggestions of life’. Andrew Billen The Times

My assistant producer Joe John took this good but unflattering photo of me filming the very entertaining Barry McQueen, Blackpool’s Town Cryer. Unfortunately for story reasons Barry didn’t make it into the final film.

Howard Plant is the one of the main characters. An entertainer at heart, he’s the car-parking supremo of Blackpool. His modus operandi is to buy land with buildings on, demolish the building and turn it into a car park. It’s brutal but effective. However, he recently bought a vast 1920s cinema and before he got the wrecking ball in, he made the financially costly mistake of falling in love with it. Now he’s pouring everything into a venture which would be the first major new venue on Blackpool’s South Shore for half a century.