Dreaming of You: The Making of the Coral

A music documentary taking a nostalgic look back at the journey of ‘the Coral‘, a band hitting in the 2000s, formed by a group of six high school friends, from a ‘tea-side’ town in the Wirral, Merseyside, who went from the school rehearsal rooms to Top of the Pops and touring the USA with Supergrass. In UK cinemas from 12th September 2025.

The title of the documentary “Dreaming of You” comes from their debut album and is the band’s signature track that pervades the documentary along with their other hits. Just looking at the home videos and clips of the band you can see they live up to their self-confessed moniker of a bit weird, whilst their musical influences become too many to mention. Some obvious ones are the Beatles, Oasis, New Order and Nick Cave but there is a lot more to unpick in their “psychedelic skiffle” and Merseybeat sound that gets Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds approval as a real guitar band at just 16 and 17 years old. He agrees to produce their first album but it is a long journey of ambition and self belief before that moment arrives as the band narrates each step of the way from their childhood meetings to performing at Glastonbury.

The band is made up of brothers James and Ian Skelly but it was Ian and Paul Duffy (guitar/bass) that start off jamming in the family’s pub basement before brother James joins on vocals and Bill Ryder-Jones and Lee Southall join on guitars followed by fellow lyricist Nick Power on keys.

The documentary shows how the band sticks together and manages to pick up the right connections along the way from performing at battle of the bands in Liverpool and at the Cavern for the tourist crowds to then being picked up by Alan Wills to manage them and getting a deal with Sony Music. Their song “Pass it On” sounds like a reference to all their influences they were absorbed in studying like writing lyrics based on hearing Noel Gallagher wrote a song from a Coca-Cola advert or the group’s collective listening to records together such as Captain Beefheart or going on an acid walk as did the group the Doors. But, it is their own collective vision, determination and talent that shines through with a creative energy that understands the importance of making videos and using home movies to express themselves, not just in music but by acting up in front of the camera with a silliness that mimics videos from the Monkees and the Beatles, adding further interest to this weird little gang’s rise together.

Directed by James Slater, who had worked on some of the band’s early music videos, he was tasked with putting together this ‘making of story’ using old family photo albums and home video footage with animations and illustrations to fill in the gaps of the story. The animation by Matthew Dolan includes a ghost hunting themed video game showing the band members joining up one by one in reference to the seaside arcades and the gang’s first business venture as ghost hunters, which corroborates the bands ghostly ‘Specials’ sound too. The illustrations from Stephan Lucas in a comic strip style also fit the band’s cartoon inspired childhood days of dressing up. Their developing artistic tastes can be seen through their budget music videos using a fisheye lens and stop motion effects as seen in an early video “Skeleton Key“, culminating in the wicker man pyrotechnics in “Goodbye“; and the pop art collages on the album cover are used throughout the documentary.

One of the band members says: “If you’re going to tell the story of the Coral, it would be a story about growing up. An adventure that led to an album”, which does sum up this endearing documentary, hearing of the childhood memories and a childlike dream that became an obsession for a group of kids to make it as a successful pop act – which they accomplished with bells on.

This provides a great road map into how to make it as a UK band. A rare and unique blend of circumstances, youthful exuberance and bags of …talent that results in the Coral leaving their own legacy on UK music that can be heard in the, acknowledged, influence on the Artic Monkeys and Blossoms. Eleven studio albums later, long may the adventure continue.