"Telstar" starring Kevin Spacey and Con O'Neill

To watch the trailer of "Telstar" click the play > button

By Ali Catterall

Appropriately, 'Telstar's' tone-deaf creator made Phil Spector or Factory's Martin Hannett look the very zenith of psychological fitness. This former RAF radar operator and electronics genius's revolutionary approach to studio engineering saw him transform his flat above a leather goods shop in north London's Holloway Road into an unlikely hit factory. A spaghetti junction of wiring and knobs and mysterious electronic devices, giving rise to striking-sounding records, drenched with echo, reverb, 'compression' and God knows what else; a very English, kitchen sink approach to hit making.

But Meek's tale is tragic. The hits dried up; the biggie, 'Telstar', Joe's tribute to the first communication satellite, had its royalties frozen in a drawn-out plagiarism case; he was arrested for cottaging, then implicated in the murder of a rentboy found dismembered in a suitcase. Already nuttier than a crate of cashews, he sunk further into speed-freaked, pill popping paranoia and alleged Satanism, before shooting his landlady, then himself, with a shotgun on February 3 1967, the eighth anniversary of his hero Buddy Holly's death.

With raw ingredients like that, you'd have to try quite hard to serve up a dull Joe Meek biopic. Or be an actor-turned-director with a self-penned script and a cast that resembles what might tumble out if you shook an issue of 'Heat' magazine upside down.