It's Def Leppard The Movie. But who's playing the one-armed drummer? And why?
Last month five million US TV viewers tuned into the premier of Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story. Part of VH1's new Movies That Rock series, Hysteria starred Orlando Seale (Sleepy Hollow) as singer Joe Elliott and Tat Whally (Joan of Arc) as drummer Rick Allen. The film was made by Madonna's film company MadGuy and boasts the tagline, "Music made them legends. Tragedy made them heroes."
Inevitably, the biopic relies on dramatic licence with generic British accents replacing the expected Yorkshire burr and Quebec standing in for the band's native Sheffield. This simplified approach also extends to Rick Allen being warned in words of one syllable about the dangers of drinking and driving just two minutes before the car crash tthat cost him his left arm.
"Some massaging of precise time and events has to be done to make the story flow," admitted scriptwriter Christopher Ames.
However, singer Joe Elliott is perfectly happy with the protrayal. "If some of the facts were distorted, it doesn't really matter," he says. "I saw every fault with extremely clear vision, but with a sense of proportion."
There are, as yet, no plans to broadcast Hysteria in the UK.