WHOOPEE BLUES

SYNOPSIS

Brothers Mic & Jim Conway have been playing music since school days, when they  started the Jellybean Jug Band together, which subsequently morphed into the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. In the early 1970s Captain Matchbox were a tearaway  success with My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes and Fats Waller classics and  comical tunes of their own, like Wangaratta Wahine.

  Mic loves visual entertainment and vaudeville, and creating instruments out of anything  to hand. He has been in numerous band line-ups over the last 40 years, has performed  many hundreds of children’s shows, and then formed the National Junk Band which  lasted for 20 years (until COVID). All of these bands demonstrate his unique vision  of performance, circus and vaudeville.

  Jim on the other hand is a natural musician and a blues one at that. He found his  instrument early on in Captain Matchbox with the harmonica, proceeding to become  one of Australia’s foremost blues harp players, playing with the likes of Brownie  McGhee as well as long-term bands The Backsliders and Jim Conway’s Big Wheel.

  At the age of 30 Jim was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), and this has  gradually progressed over the last 40 years to the point where Jim is now confined  to a wheelchair and can no longer play harmonica.

  It has been said of them that the Conway brothers make sibling rivalry an art form,  but they are also very close.  Although their musical paths diverged for a while they have remained firmly side by side throughout the years in their personal lives.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1042895050?share=copy#t=0

AWARDS

Award of Excellence: Documentary Feature at 2025 Accolade Global Film Competition, USA

Winner for Performing Arts at 2025 Swedish Academy of Motion Picture Awards

Honorable Mention at 2025 Richmond International Film Festival, USA

Official Selection at 2025 Antenna Documentary Film Festival, AUS

Official Selection at 2025 Revelation Perth International Film Festival, AUS

Official Selection at 2025 STROBE Music Film Festival, AUS

Official Selection at 2026 Newcastle International Film Festival, AUS

CREATIVE TEAM 

Producer/ Director – Fiona Cochrane

Editor – Sioux Currie

Cinematographer –Mark Street

Sound – David Muir, Mark Street, Keith Thomas.

Music – Jim and Mic Conway in one band or another

To be distributed by Ronin Films from 2026

Screened theatrically at the NOVA cinema in Melbourne & regionally around Australia