If you are among the many Hobbledehoy who love Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero and Gregory’ Girl, we’d love to introduce you to a lesser-known classic from the Scot director, Comfort and Joy. Here’s a wee clip with Bill Patterson (as radio DJ Dicky Bird) and Clare Grogan, and Alex Norton.

Comfort and Joy is about a war between two Italian families, the Bernardis and the Rossis, over whose ice cream vans can sell where in Glasgow. It’s also about finding meaning in life.

Oh, and that cool music soundtrack with the vibes? Mark Knofler. -who also wrote the original music for Local Hero.

There was a real “Ice Cream War” in Glasgow in 1984, and it led to murders within the city. It was really a drug-land turf war by gangs who used ice cream vans as a front. Writers Douglas Skelton and Lisa Brownlie cover the story in their 1992 book “Frightener”. The deaths of van-driver Andrew Boyle (who had resisted being involved in drug dealing) and his family happened in April 1984, four months before “Comfort and Joy” was released, and as star Bill Paterson acknowledges, this had an impact on the film’s reception: “It wasn’t a great time to launch a light-hearted look at the ice-cream business in Glasgow.

Wikipedia