The Last Mad Surge of Youth

John Barrett is northern, working-class and possesses petrol-soaked charisma. His band, Killing Stars, toured the world and enjoyed numerous Top Ten hits while holding on to an integrity they forged through the revolution of punk and new wave. Inevitably, the hits dried up, his time ran out. He's now washed up, an alcoholic who considers his current album utter s**t' and says so on national television. Dave Carey, his boyhood mate and a fellow cultural insurrectionist, was left behind years before, severed from the dream. After a string of humiliating public incidents, Barrett summons him from a humdrum job on a local weekly newspaper to ghost-write his autobiography. He undertakes the task by Barrett's hospital bed where the pair reflect on fame, addiction, the legacy of punk, girls they've loved (and lost), suicide, mortality, where it all went wrong. And right.