Caspar Salmon trawls for the strange truth behind a fishy family legend

For Caspar Salmon, the opening of a marina – or was it an aquarium? – some time in the late 1980s with a guest list of people with fish-related surnames has become family lore. His grandmother attended, Michael Fish, the semi-disgraced BBC weatherman might have been involved, and fish corresponding to people’s surnames were purportedly handed out as gifts to those who made the trip. Some 30 years later, though, who can be sure? And moreover, does anyone really care enough to find out? In the charmingly peculiar Fish Story, Salmon’s friend, the UK filmmaker Charlie Lyne, equips himself with a camera and a phone book, playing both director and amateur sleuth as he attempts to get to the bottom of this tale. Peppered with Salmon and Lyne’s often bemused repartee, the film harkens back to a not-so-distant time when minor mysteries weren’t easily solved with a quick internet search.