Richard Curtis's Pirate Radio features a collage of misfits played by some of the U.K.'s greatest comedic actors with Philip Seymour Hoffman bringing a taste of America to the story. The story isn't true, but is loosely based on a very real situation in the 1960s when the government-backed British Broadcasting Company (BBC) broadcast barely played two hours of rock and pop music every week over the U.K. radio airwaves. Compare this to the 571 American radio stations playing the same music 24 hours a day and you can immediately understand the dilemma. Curtis took this event, filled a ship with pirate radio broadcasters of his own creation and asked himself, "What would happen?" Pirate Radio is the result of that question.

Set in 1966, writer/director Richard Curtis was ten-years-old at the time and wrapped up in the tradition of hiding his radio under his pillow late at night and listening to The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who the only real way he could, as broadcast from a boat. His script imagines what life must have been like for a group of eccentric and egomaniac males on board that boat where the only day-to-day female companionship is a lesbian chef all while half the British population hangs on their every word and the government tries to silence them. Consider Curtis's directorial debut, Love Actually (a personal favorite), bring back Bill Nighy, add Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost and Kenneth Branagh and you suddenly have a party.