This weekend marks 25 years since two wide-eyed teenagers made the trip of a lifetime to Ibiza — raking in £10m at the UK box office in the process. Kevin & Perry Go Large saw Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke’s eponymous comedy characters head to the Balearic island — with Kevin’s parents in tow, much to his dismay — and dive headfirst into its legendary club scene, desperately trying to get the approval of their idol Eyeball Paul (Rhys Ifans) and meeting the girls of their dreams.
Kevin and Perry Go Large’s initial success and its subsequent cult following was as much down to its dance music-centred soundtrack as it was Harry and Kathy’s beloved characters. As well as its accompanying single Big Girl (perhaps better known for its lyric, ‘All I wanna do is do it’), the film featured music by the likes of Fatboy Slim, Underworld and Groove Armada, while its hugely successful OST — dubbed the Kevin and Perry Classic Ibiza Mix — opened up the world of Ibiza dance music to bedrooms across the UK and beyond.
To mark a quarter of a century since it first landed in cinemas, M spoke to a number of those who were involved in the creation and curation of the music we hear in Kevin & Perry Go Large: New State Entertainment music supervisors Tom Parkinson and Tim Binns, artist and DJ Judge Jules, composer Philip Pope and Steve Pritchard (Virgin EMI).
Tom Parkinson, music supervisor: 'New State Entertainment had done a couple of film sync jobs where we served as music supervisors. One of our business partners at the time knew someone at Tiger Aspect, and they got in touch to say, "You know the Kevin and Perry characters? We're making a feature film!" We were like, "Wow, OK. That's mental". Obviously as big fans of Harry Enfield, Kathy Burke and the characters, as well as our heritage being in dance music, it seemed like a great opportunity.’
Philip Pope, composer: ‘The Kevin and Perry characters were quite well-known at the time because of the Harry Enfield & Chums sketch show, and they'd scored a pass into the vernacular with [quotes] like, “I am not your slave!” So I didn’t really need to be sold the movie. I knew and had worked with Harry a fair bit before, and I knew the director Ed Bye as well. Ed asked me if I would be interested in doing some of the incidental music — so, of course, I said yes. At first I thought, “Well, hang on, I'd like to do more of the music,” but they made it clear that the main music would be all of the source tracks, such as the ones by Groove Armada.’
Judge Jules, artist and DJ: 'My involvement was an adjunct, if you like, to the music supervision. I was DJing very regularly in Ibiza at the time and had a house there, so there was an element of discussion about that. On top of that, I was then roped in to write the immortal track Big Girl alongside Harry Enfield, who wrote those very famous lyrics. It’s funny how you end up wondering at the time whether something might have a cringe factor, but with the passage of time, you come to realise that this is one of your finest bits of work! [Big Girl] is probably quite politically incorrect now. Would they get away with it now? Perhaps — it's like The Inbetweeners, which got away with extreme political incorrectness because it was such a parody of what it's like to be a teenager.’
'As big fans of Harry Enfield, Kathy Burke and the characters, as well as our heritage being in dance music, it seemed like a great opportunity.' - Tom Parkinson
Tom: 'At various points during our discussions with Tiger Aspect, it became clear that they didn't have anyone who knew about what they were proposing within the script: Kevin and Perry go clubbing in Ibiza, it all goes horribly wrong but then there's a fabulous resolution at the end. What it did mean was that there were going to be a lot of club scenes in the film, so Tim got in touch with Cream's James Barton. That’s how the Cream brand ended up in the film, because they had a residency at Amnesia in Ibiza at the time. That was where a lot of the key scenes were actually shot, like Eyeball Paul's residency. So the fictional side of the script melted into reality quite nicely! What you see on the screen is the club, as they shot on location. In terms of how the film was constructed with the music, it was quite a dynamic situation where you knew that they were using those tracks in the club.'
Tim Binns, music supervisor: 'It was a good time for dance music in 1999-2000. Jules was on the radio and was the king of trance and banging house music, so he was the rubber stamper when it came to the authenticity of all the tracks [in the film]. We just went for the biggest tracks that were around at the time, didn't we?'
Jules: 'I remember we had a lot of roundtable meetings about the music — I don't know if I was a music supervisor, but I was certainly part of the team. It's the combination of those musical factors and the immortal "All I wanna do is do it" track, of course, that make it so timeless.
'What works so well about Kevin and Perry Go Large is its authenticity, and the music is integral to that.' - Judge Jules
'I remember Harry Enfield talking about what the movie was about: it's about how we meet our idols and they prove to be absolute arseholes. Eyeball Paul is this stereotypical DJ — I felt rather sorry for my then-contemporary Tall Paul because it was all a little bit too similar to his name! While that might be a great calling card in the way Pete Tong had with [2004 mockumentary] It's All Gone Pete Tong, which was one of the other big clubbing movies, Eyeball Paul was that classic example of an icon that was looked up to by Kevin and Perry who was an absolute tosser. That anti-hero [presence], plus the boy-meets-girl element of the film, is the essence of what it's all about — all set in Ibiza to a brilliant soundtrack.'
Philip: 'As far as the brief was concerned, there were only a few scenes where they needed me to write original music. It then became, “Here’s the footage, can you do something to that? It needs to be this sort of style”. It wasn’t like a normal film or TV brief where you’d talk it through and have a spotting session, because it was already decided that the film would be mostly soundtracked by commercial music. So my involvement was really specific to a few areas and they said, “We need someone we can trust who's going to be able to do this very quickly to picture."'
Jules: ‘What works so well about Kevin and Perry Go Large is its authenticity, and the music is integral to that. It’s very reflective of the music of the time and what was being played in the Ibiza clubs. In the club scenes in the movie there's some silly stereotypes — like the moustached Germans — which have thankfully evaporated over time, but the club scenes are as authentic as you will see anywhere on film or TV. Of course, some of the storyline is quite predictable, like the boy meets girl stuff, but it's just done so humorously that it's transcended time. The music and the soundtrack, which is part-really banging club music, part-slightly more sedate tracks of the time, and part-bespoke tracks — like Chrissy Hynde's version of Kid — blend together perfectly as a combination.’
Tim: 'As Jules mentioned, it really is quite authentic. Some of these scenes where they have to blag getting in with the DJ and Paul Whitehouse is being mean to people in the queue — that's how it used to be! If you strip away the comedy and the boy-meets-girl, it's quite a close representation of the truth. While it some ways the film may have aged badly, in some ways the film has actually also aged very well and stands up to scrutiny.’
Steve Pritchard, Virgin EMI: 'I worked at Virgin EMI at the time, with myself and Pete Duckworth running the commercial marketing department. I was a bit surprised [to hear about the film] because the Kevin and Perry characters were quite a few years old by then. There were people who were really sniffy about it, but we loved it — so we just ignored everybody as usual!
‘New State Entertainment put all that effort in [and curated] a very accessible dance/club compilation. The soundtrack also had an artist, as in Kevin and Perry, to go on Top of the Pops, which they did! That was like a dream ticket. The Kevin and Perry Go Large soundtrack sold just over 200,000 units, and it was the perfect package, really.'
Tom: ‘As music supervisors we got invited to Denham Studios, which at the time had a 5.1 surround sound mixing studio. We sat in this huge auditorium with the sound engineer who had a joystick. He would say, "Shall we put the music up there? Shall we stick it over there?" That was early days in terms of surround sound stuff, and we were like, "Wow, this would be amazing if this ever happened in real life!" That has now of course come to life with Dolby Atmos mixes, which is now quite a common thing with streaming, but at the time it was quite revolutionary to hear dance music in 5.1!
'We made two proper music videos, and Jules starred in one of them. The video director Marcus Lyall, who has gone on to do visuals for Metallica and The Chemical Brothers, said that Jules refused to do something...'
Jules: 'I'm sure I had good reason, whatever it was!'
Tom: 'The main thing is that Kevin and Perry Go Large spawned this legendary compilation — although it's probably not available on digital, is it?'
Steve: 'The price range for a Kevin & Perry OST these days is £28 for the CD and £197 as a collectable item. The reason that the former is rare is because of the licensing term: it was licensed as a compilation and not as a soundtrack, so that lasted just three years. That, though, has since created an instant collect-ability.'
Tim: 'What made the soundtrack so great was the CD, because the second disc was just all the latest club tunes of the time. We did really well to get the stuff that we did, and that made it a proper dance compilation.'
'The soundtrack had an artist, as in Kevin and Perry, to go on Top of the Pops, which they did! That was like a dream ticket.' - Steve Pritchard
Philip: ‘I think I went to the premiere in Leicester Square. It was quite exciting. It was great to see [the film] because the soundtrack was immense and featured tracks from artists who weren’t very well-known. It’s one of those where the music supervisors had their fingers on the pulse! It was quite an exciting time and, watching it, it felt quite good to be aboard something which had a good vibe to it.’
Tom: 'It's got its own legacy. The film is the legacy of the TV show and Harry and Kathy's characters, yet it's created its own legacy within itself as well. It was a great experience working with the likes of Jules, Steve and Pete at Virgin, Harry and the Tiger Aspect team.’
Jules: ‘I think one of the great strengths of Kevin and Perry Go Large is the fact that there have been many, many dance music movies, but there are probably only three that in any way capture the spirit of what clubland's all about. The funny thing is that the others are dramatic movies, whereas this is a comedy — yet this does it better than any of them. It also appeals massively on a multi-generational basis, as my kids actually discovered Kevin and Perry independently.
'I never expected the film to age gracefully, but it has. The fact that it’s been on Netflix and Prime Video in the past year sums up how multi-generational it is. As someone who DJs 100 gigs a year, I can play any record off the Kevin & Perry soundtrack to somebody who is in their 20s and they’ll recognise it. That's the litmus test of just how important the film has been. In the trance genre, which makes up most of the soundtrack, there were actually records that did much better in the charts back in the day that a 20-something now won't recognise, but they will recognise every single record off the Kevin & Perry soundtrack.'
Tim: 'We also got our name in the end credits!'
Jules: 'And I'm on Kevin's bedroom wall!'
'I can play any record off the Kevin & Perry soundtrack now to somebody who is in their 20s and they’ll recognise it.' - Judge Jules
Steve: ‘You really can draw a line back from The Inbetweeners to Kevin and Perry Go Large, and then forward to People Just Do Nothing. It's almost like a lightweight take on blokeishness. I'm not trying to relate it to all this heavy-duty stuff that's going on at the moment, but there's been a pisstake of maleness going on for some time. I'm not embarrassed about anything that was done in the context of its era, really. The music lifted it up out of just taking the piss out of spotty teenagers. Some of that Ibizan trance music was very uplifting as well.'
Tom: 'The mood is uplifting, and the film has a happy ending. Even the losers get the girls! The quotable stuff in it is all from the TV show, and that was what they wanted to do: fill a 90-minute film with these amazing, quotable characters that Harry and Kathy created. Adding in the mix of the dance music scene and Jules' original music was the cherry on the top.’
Philip: ‘I do feel like a little bit of a fraud, but it's quite nice to be associated with it. The reason I say I feel a bit of a fraud is because my contribution was very specific — as I say, most of the music was banging tracks. But it's nice to be associated with Kevin & Perry Go Large, and I’m very happy to be swept up in any anniversary discussion.’
