Records on the condition that the film include 40 songs from Ronco's catalog of old hits, which Ronco could then package and sell on TV as a soundtrack album. Writing According to screenwriter Ray Connolly, the film was Puttnam's idea, who had worked in advertising and recently moved into film production. Connolly says Puttnam was inspired by Harry Nilsson's song "1941", in which an early-1940s father deserts his young son, who subsequently joins a circus; Puttnam suggested changing the circus to a fair. Puttnam hired Connolly, who a journalist he was friends with, to write the script. Connolly wrote the script in the evenings and said they would "ransack our own lives as we created the fictional character of Jim Maclaine, and steal moments from our favourite films, a bit from East of Eden here, something from Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows there." Puttnam offered the directing job to Michael Apted who turned it down, Director Claude Watham was given the job off the back of his TV movie Cider with Rosie - Puttnam was impressed with his period detail. Puttnam also liked the fact that Watham was not that interested in rock'n'roll and would provide a counterbalance to Puttnam and Connolly. Casting Connolly said that David Essex, who was then starring in a West End production of Godspell, was cast in an effort to make the selfish Jim MacLaine character more likeable to an audience, because Essex "was so good looking and likeable an audience would forgive him anything." Ringo Starr was cast as Mike after Connolly, who had never been to a holiday camp, consulted him and former Beatles road manager Neil Aspinall about their Butlins memories. Aspinall also helped to put together the camp band that appeared in the film. Several roles were played by prominent musicians who had lived through the same era portrayed in the film, including Starr, Billy Fury, Keith Moon of the Who, and John Hawken of the Nashville Teens. Filming Filming was done on the Isle of Wight because the area still had a late-1950s look in the early 1970s. When filming started on the 23rd October 1972, Essex had a seven-week break from his Godspell role to film the picture. Puttnam clashed with Watham during filming, saying the director did not understand all the subtext of the script. When Watham fell ill Alan Parker directed for two days. Soundtrack The tie-in