Way back in 2008, Rich Fisher headed to Mongolia with his friend Ed on a road trip. In the back of his mind, he always had the intention of making the journey into a film, but life got in the way. That was until the world came to a grinding halt, allowing Rich the time to finally create Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure – the story of two Forest fans on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to the other side of the world. Roshan Chandy catches up with the Notts-based filmmaker to find out more…
Rich Fisher always intended for his 2008 road trip to Mongolia to be a film. He and his friend Ed set out on the Mongol Rally in 2008 – a competition that has been going since 2004 with the basic aim that “you have to attempt to drive all the way to Mongolia in an unsuitable vehicle from London”. They both booked a month of work, “got a car and off we went”.
The years went by and Rich and Ed got back to work and the “humdrums of life”. The film wasn’t getting made. Then came the pandemic and lockdown, which gave Rich a new drive to make his long-running filmmaking dreams a reality. “The footage was still on a SATA drive in a drawer at my house. We always had a running joke that we had this grand plan to make a film. It had never happened, but one of the benefits of the pandemic was that I spent a lot of time stuck at home. I felt like I needed projects to keep myself occupied,” Rich tells me. “After six months chipping away, the film was finally finished in the early part of 2021.”
I met Rich Fisher at the Gamston Lock pub on Saturday 24 April. He’s a lovely chap – tall with scruffy lockdown hair. He’s also a die-hard Nottingham Forest fan which I realised from his published book The Church of Stuart Pearce. “I guess any sort of die-hard fan would probably say the same, that they have no choice,” he tells me, in answer to my question of what keeps him coming back to the team. “They’ve generally been pretty disappointing for the last twenty years, but I only hope they do get back into the Premier League at some point in my lifetime, but I can’t see it happening anytime soon.”
The title Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure takes obvious inspiration from the Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter 1989 cult-classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but Rich surprised me by saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” He does tell me he’s heard about it and the film was “huge in the early nineties. I think it was definitely a big film at the time.”
I’ve got no ambitions, to be honest... I certainly don’t see myself as a filmmaker
When I asked Rich what his favourite place to visit on the Mongol Rally was, he told me about Kazakhstan. “If you look at it on a map, it’s a huge country. I’m talking ten times the size of Britain. But a lot of it was so sparse, it just felt like you were in the absolute wilderness and it was really idiosyncratic. All the people were incredibly welcoming and helpful.”
Rich insists Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure isn’t the beginning of a long filmmaking career, despite my best efforts in pressing him to tell me otherwise. “I’ve got no ambitions, to be honest. And I’d always say, we’d always had this idea to make films. But I certainly don’t see myself as a filmmaker,” he explains.
In terms of when we can expect to see Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure, he says they are doing a private screening at Broadway Cinema in July followed by a Q&A. “It’s going to be available to download and also to buy on a USB stick.”
We can all look forward to sharing Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure then…
Rich and Ed’s Excellent Adventure is out in July
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