Carey Mulligan, Tom Basden and Tim Key brought their comedy of a folk duo reunited on a remote island to the Ham Yard Hotel for its UK premiere.
Carey Mulligan, a three-time Academy Award nominee, attended the UK premiere of The Ballad of Wallis Island at the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho on Wednesday 28 May 2025. Tom Basden and Tim Key, who wrote the comedy, joined her.
Mulligan, born in 1985, walked the carpet on her 40th birthday. Joe Wright cast her as Kitty Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, and she made her Broadway debut as Nina in The Seagull in 2008.
Her Best Actress nominations came for An Education, Promising Young Woman and Maestro. She was appointed CBE in 2025 for services to drama.
The film grew from a short that Basden and Key made in 2007, The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island. Key plays a lottery winner living alone on a remote island. He invites the former folk duo and former lovers McGwyer Mortimer, to play a private show at his home.
Basden and Mulligan play the duo. James Griffiths directed, and the film premiered at Sundance in January. Sian Clifford and Akemnji Ndifornyen joined the cast on the carpet, and Focus Features released the film on 30 May.