All Bands on Deck: Pirate Radio and The Boat That Rocked

FOR A FEW WEEKS last spring, a corner of Shepperton Studios became the nerve centre of the fictional pirate station, Radio Rock. Mounted on a hydraulic platform, which tilted with the imagined tides, was a small, cluttered room heaving with racks of vinyl and plastered with posters of Dylan, Donovan et al. Actors such as Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy and Nick Frost manoeuvred around box-like studios containing vintage turntables and mixing desks. Beneath the ON AIR sign hung a calendar announcing the date as January 1966.