FOLK music? On a soundtrack for a motorbike road movie?

It may sound improbable but when that road leads across the Peak District, the bike is a moped and the film is a low-budget, picaresque tale of a gentle darts player seeking a Blackpool showdown with his errant wife, then no wonder Kate Rusby and husband John McCusker said Yes to providing the soundtrack for Damien (East Is East) O'Donnell's Heartlands. At last month's world premiere at Kate's local cinema, the Penistone Paramount, producer Richard Jobson said: "In many ways, I think this film belongs to Kate Rusby", and he wasn't talking about her cameo screen appearance performing a brace of songs with John to a pub full of leathered-up bikers. McCusker may be Scottish but the 17-track soundtrack is a key component in Heartlands' celebration of the minutiae of English life. His newly composed incidental music - Weeping Crisps, Leafy Moped, Round The Next Corner - is quietly evocative while the cherry pickings from Kate's back catalogue, such as Sweet Bride and The Wild Goose, are as delightfully melancholic as Heartlands itself. Alas, the film is yet to play York despite the presence of local hero Mark Addy as a lecherous landlord.

Updated: 09:12 Thursday, May 15, 2003