Creators behind new British comedy react to ‘mad’ Richard Curtis praise

Curtis has hailed the comedy as ‘one of the greatest British films of all time’

Film Review - The Ballad of Wallis Island (© 2025 Focus Features, LLC. All RIghts Reserved.)

The creators behind a new British comedy have said it is “very flattering” and “quite mad” to receive praise from the king of rom-coms, Richard Curtis.

Carey Mulligan stars in The Ballad of Wallis Island, based on a short from writer-performer team Tom Basden and Tim Key.

She plays Nell Mortimer, the estranged professional and romantic partner of musician Herb McGwyer (Basden). Herb arrives on the remote Wallis Island for a performance hosted by eccentric millionaire Charles Heath (Key), to which Nell has also been invited.

In a recent interview, Curtis – known for hit rom-coms including Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Love, Actually – lavished praise on the movie and called it “one of the greatest British films of all time”.

“It’s very flattering to be anointed in that way,” Key told The Times. “It felt like quite an important moment. And quite mad.”

Basden added: “He’s not been involved at any point with the film. He’s just seen it and thinks it’s wonderful. It’s a lovely thing.”

Tom Basden, Carey Mulligan and Tim Key in ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’ (© 2025 Focus Features, LLC. All RIghts Reserved.)

In the same interview, Mulligan revealed that it was her husband, folk singer Marcus Mumford, who urged her to accept the offer to star, as the couple were already fans of Key’s late-night Radio 4 show, Poetry Programme.

“Marcus told me I needed to do the film before I even read the script because he was such a big fan,” the actor, who was recently confirmed to star in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia adaptation, explained.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to read it first.’ But he just said, ‘Be in the film.’”

Mulligan – who has sung on screen in earlier films Inside Llewyn Davis and Shame – admitted she found a recent screening of the film by Curtis “excruciating”, as the director asked her to sing live.

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“I can do it fine on set and in character but that just pushed me completely over the edge,” she said.

In March, Forbes reported that the film was “going down a storm” with American audiences at film festivals before its limited theatrical release in Los Angeles and New York.

Asked why it had taken 20 years to turn their short film into a feature-length project, Key said it had been “nagging at the back of our minds”.

“It was more waiting for that one bit that would unlock it, which is probably in the character of Nell, which opens up a backstory for Herb and opens up this world that doesn't exist anymore, that I fell in love with, he inhabited, and that became the engine room of the feature that wasn't in the short,” he said.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is in cinemas from 30 May.