As the credit crunch worsens economy and raises fears of job cuts, a team of bankers hopes to pursue an alternative career after creating a Star Wars spoof. The 10 minute spoof, titled Overtime, made by an IT support worker Geoff Harmer, shows two colleagues battling with lightsabres in a deserted office. The fight even takes the duo, played by Alan Blake and Andy Gray, into a lift where they meet a tall colleague who barks at them in the distinctive style of Chewbacca, Harrison Ford’s shaggy Wookiee sidekick in the original films. The battle between the two bankers is eventually brought to a halt by their boss, ‘Chad Fadar, played by Nick Rowntree. Decked out in a Darth Vader helmet, he tells them they need to stop fighting because it is disturbing him as he frantically works on financial reports.

The short film was created by staff from the Barclays bank office, in Basingstoke, Hants, with a cost of just £45 ($ 90). The spoof is a hit on the internet and has attracted more than 2,000 hits on online video sites and a popular social networking website. It is also set to receive added exposure at the POL-8 Film Festival in Poland, one of the top events in the European moviemakers’ calendar. “The logistics of filming it while everyone was at work was too much, Telegraph quoted Harmer, as saying. “So I thought we could set it after the day shift—and so came the Overtime idea,” he added. He said the film’s stars spent up to six hours with a martial arts expert, learning how to fight with a lightsabre. He added, “The best thing for me was watching them become so good at lightsabre fighting.” The group, in conjunction with Fraught Productions, are now embarking on the sequel—Overtime Two: Time an’ a half.
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