‘I find it dangerous that popstars don’t challenge each other anymore’

Toby added: ‘I don’t like anyone bullying; I don’t like anyone picking fights; but I do think artists having a healthy back and forth is not a bad thing.’

Toby himself, at least, is not lacking a bit of rock n roll in his life. For blur: To The End, he followed the band on the road for six months and up to 12 hours a day. Outside of filmmaking, he’s the co-founder of record label Transgressive Records.

He said he was keen not to cast the experience of Blur musicians Damon Albarn, Dave Rowntree, Graham Coxon and Alex James in a ‘nostalgic’ light. The foursome first found fame in the 90s, and are behind timeless classics including Song 2, Country House, and Parklife.

But it is decades after they first burst onto the scene that Blur, now all aged 50 and over, played their biggest gig to date at London’s Wembley Arena last year, the journey to which blur: To The Ends documents. Lots of their fans today weren’t even born when they released their first few albums.

Aside from the music, blur: To The End paints a touching picture of an enduring friendship between four men – and their vulnerabilities. Damon even bursts into sobs when listening back to most recent album The Ballad of Darren.

‘I was surprised, I think everybody was surprised,’ Toby said of Damon’s reaction.

‘But what was interesting was that Alex didn’t know he was crying: he thought he was laughing and misinterpreted it, which opens up this other layer in the film about how men communicate with one another – particularly Men of a Certain Age. And, actually, it’s not always the best of communications.’

‘It was a really profound moment and it happened on the first day of filming. So you can imagine, on my side, I was like, “This is going to be quite an intense experience”.’

But there are lots of moments of levity in blur: To The End, including when Damon and Graham revisit their former school, where they have now named a music room after them, and suggests it’s missing a cannabis plant. The current headteacher looks like all the blood has been drained out of his body.

‘I just love the way the band regressed slightly, in a way, like you just see Damon and Graham become little boys again, and they become cheeky and rebellious,’ Toby said.

It’s unusual to see popstars having fun and not worrying about their image. Toby, too, has noticed that artists today have a ‘fear of speaking out’ due to social media and so instead operate in a ‘PR controlled world’.

He said: ‘I think it’s sad that artists aren’t challenging the idiom. ”Artists are afraid about speaking about the things of our times that need to be challenged, particularly on a societal or governmental to moral level. I’m finding there’s less inquiry.’