Time to get your Teenage Kicks as Good Vibrations celebrates ‘greatest rock recording of all time’

GOOD Vibrations: Discover if the song hailed as “the greatest rock recording of all time” in the 1970s stands the test of time.

BELFAST MUSIC SCENE .. for Louise Goldsbury story .. Richard Dormer (portrays Terri Hooley) in a scene from Good Vibrations, a film about the punk scene in Belfast.

GOOD Vibrations is an irresistibly upbeat biopic of Terri Hooley, a colourful Belfast music fan who accidentally started a record company that captured some classic sounds when punk hit Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

What to watch: All the latest movie reviews from Leigh Paatsch

Richard Dormer, centre, is Terri Hooley in <i>Good Vibrations</i>.

If you’ve ever experienced the incomparable thrill of hearing Teenage Kicks by The Undertones for the first time, then Hooley is the man to thank.

The late British broadcaster and taste-maker John Peel believed Teenage Kicks to be the greatest rock recording of all time.

TITLE: The Undertones SIZE: 650x366px CAPTION: Teenage Kicks

Hooley made it happen by slipping the novice band into a cheap jingles studio, and then slipping the disinterested mixer a fiver and a joint.

Several other bands that blazed a trail through Belfast — as well as music fans right around the world — owe Hooley a similar debt of gratitude for his improvised ingenuity.

Remarkably, the intense political turmoil of the era in Northern Ireland — there was one pocket of inner-city Belfast that the CIA called “the most dangerous place on Earth” — hasn’t been watered down in this genuinely endearing movie.

The Undertones are depicted in a scene from <i>Good Vibrations</i>.

In fact, “the troubles” play a major role in explaining the glorious release(s) of energy associated with Hooley’s still-revered Good Vibrations label.

A charming, rough-house performance from Richard Dormer (recently seen as Beric Dondarrion on TV’s Game of Thrones) as the scheming, dreaming Hooley keeps everything on song.

If the recent Proclaimers musical Sunshine on Leith was too sugar-sweet for your liking, this relatively ragged affair will do the trick just nicely.

Richard Dormer gives “a charming, rough-house performance”.

Good Vibrations (M)

Director: Glenn Leyburn (Cherrybomb)

Starring: Richard Dormer, Jodie Whittaker, Dylan Moran

Verdict: Three stars. A legend in the shaking