Readers of the British tabloids may have read recently about a sensationalistic documentary on Oasis that was supposedly flagged by a British film board for its “strong language” and footage of the band drinking and smoking. Piqued by the news, plenty of Oasis fans probably can’t wait to see it, especially in light of their well-greeted reunion shows.
The only problem is that no such documentary exists.
As the marketing director of Creation Records in the U.K. in the Nineties, Tim Abbot was a key part of the Oasis team during the band’s heady early years. In 1997, he published Oasis Definitely, a photo-heavy book on the band and its rise to fame. In light of the Gallagher brothers’ return, Abbot decided to republish and expand the original book with additional images. To promote it, he launched The Lost Tapes Tour, a series of events in the U.K. where he talks about the band and the book and shows photos, posters, and artwork of Oasis. He also includes a portion of the footage he shot of the band in the studio, on tour buses, and in hotel pools, some of which made its way into a documentary called Oasis: Supersonic in 2016.
Worried about the future of movie theaters in his home country, Abbot opted to hold many of these events in the Cineworld chain of movie houses. “Cineworld is empty during the week because only Marvel blockbusters keep cinemas going on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,” he says. “So if we let them go, it’s just another part of the old cultural world passing into data.”
That’s where things got a bit complicated. Even though the footage seen during the book talks isn’t a stand-alone documentary in any way, the book tour was taking place largely in movie theaters. As a result, the clips had to be submitted to the British Board of Film Classification, a U.K. non-profit that, according to a spokesperson, “works to empower audiences to make informed viewing decisions” by way of “our age ratings and content advice.” After watching the 70 minutes of vintage Oasis footage that are part of Abbot’s presentation, the BBFC slapped it all with a 15 rating (appropriate for viewers that age and up) and cited its language and references to “drugs and alcohol” and “smoking.”
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When he heard the news, Abbot was amused. “I don’t mind the 15 rating,” he says. “I think it’s hilarious. I would expect it an 18, to be honest. ‘Shock, horror! Rock band drinks beer and smokes cigarettes in the Nineties!’”
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The only issue is that the British press reports on the ratings led people to believe that the so-called Oasisdefinitely (as it was listed on the BBFC site) is an actual feature-length documentary, rather than bits of footage shown during a talk. “It’s a question-and-answer forum in an interactive talk lasting approximately two hours, with 70 minutes of that being photo images and moving images to play in a cinema,” says Abbot. “It’s not a tell-all, opportunistic documentary. It’s not a documentary whatsoever, in any shape or form. It’s a respectful, delivered piece about my life around that band. It’s about the process of making music in Rockfield [a studio in Wales], being on the road, being young and approaching stardom, nervous exhaustion, and working on ‘Champagne Supernova.’”
At some point, Abbot is hoping to bring the 10-date book tour to the U.S. to coincide with Oasis’ fall American shows, although those plans are still in the works. But first he has to make sure people know what they’ve signed up for as opposed to what they’ve read about. “God, people are worried about this, but there’s a third world war looming,” he says. “’Oasis documentary, which never existed, about smoking cigarettes and drinking beer!’ Has the world gone mad?”
