Mediocre movies, millions in taxpayer cash: how scores of films from low-profile UK producers were funded mainly by public money

Creative industries are ‘crucial to the economy’ but film-making and tax have long had an uneasy relationship in Britain

Only the most geeky of movie buffs will have heard of him but Alan Latham is one of the UK’s most prolific film producers.

Credited on 81 releases dating back to 1996, according to the online film bible IMDb.com, Latham has been behind a string of barely known films fronted by much better known actors.

They have included Four Weddings and a Funeral’s Anna Chancellor performing a cameo in Latham’s 2019 romantic comedy For Love or Money, Samuel West (All Creatures Great and Small, Slow Horses, The Crown), playing a policeman in the producer’s 2020 thriller, Gatecrash, and Laura Fraser (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad) topping the bill in his 2019 sci-fi mystery, Dark Encounter.

None of those films are among those actors’ greatest triumphs: the top-ranked scored 5.6 out of 10 when reviewed on IMDb.com, while the Los Angeles Times called For Love or Money an “uninspired Britcom” that gave “a particular nod to the classic Four Weddings and a Funeral, but none of the grace”.