Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie

Jon Ronson's Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie is a memoir of funny, sad times and a tribute to outsider artists too wonderfully strange to ever make it in the mainstream. It tells the true story behind the fictionalized movie.

In the late 1980s Jon Ronson was the keyboard player in the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band. Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong.

Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank, inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won many prizes, including Best Screenplay (for Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan) at the 2014 British Independent Film Awards; it starred Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Domhnall Gleeson, and was directed by Lenny Abrahamson.

'Frank works as satire, as memoir, as comedy bromance, but it works mostly because it is just so weird' – Guardian