Guy Ritchie’s real-life fight club role

Speculation about the future of Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie has obscured the fact that Ritchie has actually made a screen appearance himself in a new movie. He does some voice-over work and has a walk-on role in an eight-minute action feature. The setting is typically Ritchie-esque and features the murky world of London Mixed Martial Arts. The plot is centred almost entirely around an all-in fighting contest between Stuart Tyrie and Bobby Rich in which the two 90-kilo fighters grapple and punch their way through a couple of minutes of mayhem. The contest ends decisively when Rich thwacks Tyrie convincingly on the head with a right hook and knocks him to the floor.

Ritchie appears as one of Rich's ringside supporters who is heard shouting in support and who at the end of the fight is seen as he greets and congratulates the victor. The whole scene is captured in cinema verite style reminiscent of the early works of John Cassavetes.

In fact it is verite. The footage is real and was taken by a spectator who YouTubed the event. Rich, the star of the movie, is an employee of Guy Ritchie's. The two met at the Budokwai Judo Club in Chelsea where Ritchie has practised judo, jujitsu and karate and where Rich, a British champion judo player, also trains.

Rich, who was hired by Ritchie last year as a personal assistant, and counts acting as sparring partner to his boss among his various duties, is now keen to establish himself on the MMA circuit for which he has been preparing under the auspices of the formidible Brazilians at the Gracie Academy. Guy Ritchie has not commented on his debut movie performance, but insiders say that he will remain firmly behind the camera and out of shot in his next work, a new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Sacha Baron Cohen.