20/04/2012 The Review Show

On the review show tonight: Glenn Close's Oscar-nominated turn

as a cross-dressing butler in the movie, Albert Nobbs. Cate

Blanchett's dramatic return to London theatre in Big And Small.

Novelist and playwright Michae Frayn's new book, which moves farce

from stage to page. And Glee for grown ups, Smash, the latest hit

musical series from the states. Plus, Richard Wright, Wolfgang

Tillmans and Jeremy Deller, retour the Glasgow festival of

contemporary art. Joining me in the studio to discuss all of this, are

critic, jourpblgist and author of the book, Words and Music, the one

and only, Paul Morley, broadcaster and former lecturer at Oxford

University, Susan Hitch, prolific author and documentary maker,

Marcel Theroux. We will also have live music from

Rae Morris, specially selected for us by BBC Introducing, as ever you

are welcome to join in conversation if you are on Twitter. Glenn Close

is one of the leading actions of her generation, much lauded for

Fatal Attraction and and as the ruthless lawyer, Patti Hewes in the

hit series Damages. Her latest outing on the screen, Albert Nobbs,

has resulted in an Oscar nomination, her sixth, and has been 30 years in

the making. What is your name? Albert. Your real name? Albert.

Playing the role of Albert Nobbs has been a labour of love for Glenn

Close, a relationship which began when she performed the character of

the hard-working butler, at the start of her career in 1982, in an

off Broadway production in a play The life of Albert Nobbs. She now

reprices the role directed by Rodrigo Garcia. Set in 19th century

Dublin, in Morris's Hotel, Nobbs is one of a team of servants, Nobbs

has a closely guarded secret, Nobbs is a woman. And has been

masquerading to escape a brutal and impoverished existence. Having

hidden her true idea fee for so many years, Nobbs has ambitions to

escape service. Something she confides to a hotel guest, played

by Brendan Gleeson. I have been thinking I might purchase a little

business. A business, fancy that. What kind of a business? Perhaps a

little shop. What kind of a shop? I'm thinking, maybe tobacco.

Pauline Collins and Brenda Fricker make up the strong ensemble cast,

also made up of an unrecoginsable Janet McTeer, whose character is

married to a painter, with much more in common with Albert than

Albert realises. Mr Page is working in the morning, and is looking for

bad, I have told him he can go in with you tonight? With me, mam?

Mr Nobbs, with you. But. What are you trying to say? My bed is full

of lumps. Albert's quest for a better life is

complicated by the courtship of Helen, a maid in the hotel, also

forging her own escape from servitude, encouraged by her lover,

Joe. Does Albert Nobbs add up to more than outstanding performances

by two of the world's leading actresses. I could live here like

Kathleen. Neither of us would be alone.

Susan, did you feel you were engaged in this extraordinary

story? I felt I was engaged by some of it. The emotional heart of it is

the hotel household, and above all, the lesbian household. Which is

Janet McTeer, as Hugh, and the young woman that she has set up as

her wife. That is extraordinary, that is a real relationship, it is

the only one on offer in the film. Did you think that Glenn Close's

character, Albert Nobbs, it was almost so restrained, that you

needed Janet McTeer to bring some he can sub regins. She was a more -

- exuburance? You wanted her to be the heroine of the film. At times

Glenn Close was in a slightly different movie to everyone else.

The movie was naturalistic, and Rodrigo Garcia is that kind of

director, but she was a grotesque figure. Because you didn't know her

back story, it was one of terrible abuse and rape, you didn't

understand why she was so restrained and repressed? It is a

queer kettle of fish this film, I wonder if at the heart of it is

Glenn Close's character, but some how he seems to have no heart, and

you can't work out what sympathy you may or may not have with this

character. Janet McTeer, in one sense, completely dominates the

film. In another way, that is character that Glenn Close is

playing, that she is a shadow. locking at the story itself, the

literary heritage of this, Garcia himself, and others were involved

in it, a great heritage? There are traces of that remaining, combined

with traces of period drama. They are problematic, they have made it

much too little, they don't trust the medium, it is all overwritten.

Part of what goes wrong with the Glenn Close character, is she acts

it, and then she says it, she is given an enormous numbers of

speeches, trust it, she is a good actor, there is enough in the can

for that film for them to have made a slightly different and much

better film, cutting it differently A less stylised film, without the

speeches, there was a trace of a one-woman show inside. She did it

interestingly enough as a play first, that was the way she was

approaching, it, where everybody else around her was naturalistic.

The ensemble was terrific? It was brilliant, the look of the film is

beautiful. The begin something brilliant as the hotel wakes up for

breakfast, glos glees is -- Gleeson is amazing. And it doesn't turn out

and as Upstairs Downstairs Downton Abbey. Loved it, it was not done in

a cliched way, when I talk about the film it sounds like I'm

thinking it is a masterpiece, but in the end I'm not drawn to it.

are not allowed to say about the end? My feelings. From the nef

vessel la, they have had to do -- novella, to fill the Hollywood

three-act structure they have had to fill the story. The story comes

from novella written in the 1980s, it is thought it was based on a

real character, there were so many secrets in -- 1880s, it is thought

it was based on a real character, there were so many secrets in

Ireland, and it is not beyond that a you would bind yourself up to get

a job. It is true it may be that Albert Nobbs is a real character.

There is the wonderful scene on the beach, two women usually dressed as

men are suddenly dressed in women's clothes, Hubert Page is there

looking like Les Dawson in a dress, and Glenn Close looking like she

might become herself in a dress, she did briefly, and then she falls

over. It is the perfect metaphor, it tells you about her not being

able to become a woman and the ordinary discomfort of the clothe,

and the ambiguous sexuality. She doesn't understand her sexuality,

she doesn't get it about Janet McTeer, Hubert Page and her real

loving house hole. There is this comic thing about trying to find a

wife, and wondering if she will tell her before or after the

wedding that she's a woman. I love there was a lovely notion of

secrets, there are so many secrets, that the little childlike something

out of The Others, can look up and realise both these men are women.

It is good they have built skeets into the lives of the other --

secrets into the lives of the other characters. You thought it would be

Albert Nobbs and then it all fades into the background. I'm thinking

the reason why the film doesn't come off well. We are talking about

a great film, it isn't quite a great film, I wonder at the heart

of it is it can't get away from being a pet project. As much as

there is the ensemble and the great locations. It needs slicing. Glenn

Close's accent. I feel like to me that was also part of the accent

wandering somewhere across the Irish see, back to south London,

the East End and back again. You know, it feels mean spirited to

quibble, but with a film like that you have to be seduced to buy the

whole package. It is 48 hours since I have seen it, and it has stayed

with me, I think McTeer as Hubert Page is the most beautiful thing I

have seen. It is a shame to quibble, it could have been unbelievable.

could have been unbelievable, if you want to quibble, you ought to

see it yourself, Albert Nobbs is in cinemas next Friday. As we heard,

Glenn Close spent 30 years getting her character from stage to skron,

now a fellow Hollywood star is concentrating on her theatrical

roots. Cate Blanchett has returned to the London stage for the first

time in 30 years, the star of Elizabeth and The Aviator,

Blanchett, along with her husband, is co-director of the Sydney

Theatre Company, transfering from the bark can from Australia, Big

And Small is a transfer of the work of --

Blanchett's character is Lotte, a graphic designer who has separated

from her husband, and who is in the grip of an emotional breakdown. At

first she seems to deal well with the he is strangement, but as she

journeys through Germany, she encounters repeated rejection,

rather than the human contact and affection she craves. Part

philosophical inquiry, part road movie, the play examines themes of

despair, disconnectedness, and dissatisfaction, and appears to

offer a depressing view of a soulless society. And with Cate

Blanchett on stage for almost the entire performance, and with a

running time of almost three hours, it sounds like a gruelling

experience for both her and her audience. But does Blanchett's

portrayal of a woman in crisis transfix rather than depress? Let's

talk about the play in a moment, first of all we are talking about

all these fantastic actresses abounding tonight. Cate Blanchett,

her ability to command the stage, it is almost three hours she's on

for? And it is OK. Considering what the play is, as such, it starts

with a line that could have come from hamlet, it ends with a line

that could have come from Beckett, in the middle is like Alice In

Wonderland. She's journeying through what is essentially an

Alice In Wonderland series of events and things that happen. At

times it verges on clownish, at times it verges on she could be

speaking a series of things we have given her to say. It is almost an

extraordinary enthralling demonstration of technique, above

anything else. It is amazing, and beyond anything else, you are

basically watching Cate Blanchett do this. You can't get away from

that. Can you get beyond the idea that the technique is amazing and

she goes through all these different kinds of acting and

scenes? It is not just her, the ensemble is really amazing and the

staging is really amazing. When I saw it there there was a standing

ovation at the end. To me I don't think the play is very good. I

think it is a play from the 1970s, it is rooted in those times. There

is a sense of alienation making sense when there was two Germans,

and the red army was over -- Germans, and the red army faction

was blowing up people in west Germany, I found it baffling and

incomprehensible a lot of it. Her performance was what kept me in the

theatre. Her performance made sense of it. There is so much of about

that 1978 world not recoginsable for us any more. For women as well?

Especially for women. There is a sense that this is the wrong tool

for dealing with the difficulty of our world. It is this absurdism,

that was 1978, we do irony and satire. That is what gets us. What

you have here is something that doesn't make sense until she does

something total low recoginsable through it, that is part of the

brilliance -- totally recoginsable through it, that is part of the

brilliance. You talked about a terrific ensemble, with her

commanding the stage, could it have been done in a different way?

should have been a one-woman-show. You could lose everything else,

without a problem. It would be wonderful. We have seen two

vehicles, Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs, that wasn't a vehicle at all,

it was a proper ensemble piece, even if it was a bit skewed. This

one you want to slice it away with a one woman show at the heart of it.

I would Putin her in a different vehicle. Glenda Jackson did it in

the 1980s and people walked out. With another actress in the role it

wouldn't have worked. If you take away the celebrity aspect, that is

the essence of it, there is many things about this play that people

would be squealing in horror and walking out. Even at the Barbican!

What it enables Cate Blanchett to do is be extraordinary, we are

allowing it to be. So I thought of it as a one woman show, in way,

even though there is the ensemble, I thought it was a one woman show,

she's always there in tense different settings. The whole idea

is this playwright is talking about angst and break-up of relationships

and alienation. Unfortunately this thing, which is drained away by two

or three translations, by the feel of it, it becomes merely the

backdrop of Cate Blanchett to demonstrate how extraordinary she

is. The whole thing seemed to be leaning towards the inevitable

standing ovation, which she delivers, out of character, and yet

in character. We don't know if we have just been watching three hours

of Blanchett because in way she's still that character. There

something interest about where she found that character, I found it

enormously recoginsable because it is about the excessive enthusiasm,

and eagerness to please of the outsider at school. It is not the

geek outsider, the one person she makes a friendship at a bus stop,

but the one trying too hard to please and puppy like, you found

that, that makes an actress does it. Going to the old school friend she

hadn't seen since she was 13, and she was humiliated again. She comes

out of that scene with the school friend becoming heir ter kal

illness, -- hysterical illness, with a whooping cough-like terrible

breath, she has absorbed it from her school friend. What dominates

your mind, is what drew her to this, what does she think it is doing for

her. What it is doing for her is ultimately an A to Z of how great

she is. It was a three-hour by star solo, had you to admire the

musician and all that, but do you want to sit through three hours of

somebody playing Purple Haze. was the amazing bow they take.

There was all sorts of things, wrestling with God in a sequined

suit. She's physically very flamboyant, very appealing.

play throws up the possibility it might be religious, extension,

political, and then it is just all -- existential, political, but it

is all just about Blanchett. can catch it at the Barbican.

Michae Frayn has enjoyed a glittering career in theatre,

fiction and journalism, with a seemless ability to sash shai

between formal to the comedic. His award-winning farce, Noises Off, is

enjoying a revival in the West End 30 years after it first premer ined,

his first novel in a decade brings farce from stage to page.

Skios, Frayn's first novel in ten years s a mad cap farce set in the

Mediterranean. World renowned scientist, Dr Which have which have

which have, is on the way to deliver a co-note speech at a

cultural foundation, when his suitcase is purlioned by an

opportunistic cad, Oliver Fox. While fox ememploys his charm to

lap up the luxury of the intellectual retreat, the real Dr

Which have which have stumbles around the island on a series of

events with taxi drivers, women and goats. People have lives that are

all very predictable, they make one wrong step and everything falls to

pieces. And what is interesting is to see the fabric of causality

interrupted by some quite abitary action on the part of a particular

human being. "Gooden thought Oliver as he saw the smile, she thinks I'm

him. All at once he knew it was so, he was Dr Which have which have

which have." One of the things that makes farce possible in the theatre,

is that the audience is a corporate animal. When people laugh, it

enables other people to laugh. Whether farce is possible if you

just have an audience of a single reader, I don't know. I would like

to claim in this book, it is not just mere entertainment, it is

experiment mental literature. "What kind of lecture was he going to

give any way, had he some how got hold of the real Dr Norman

Wilfred's text, or would he create a mockery of the electionure, a

hoax lecture, in the spirit of the mass raid he was still performing,

or would there be no -- masquerade he was performing, or would there

be no lecture at all". It is a farce for you and no-one else, for

the single man or women, it was an experiment, did it work? It is a

very ingenious book. I used think there was two Michae Frayn, the

deep thinking one and then the farceer. In this book you can see

they are one in the same person. In the video we watched, he was

talking about the fabric of causality, that is the

preoccupation with the book. It is a philosophical novel about

uncertainty and randomness and chance, and how human behaviour is

absolutely contingent and unpredictable, it works as a

philosophical exploration of that. Writing in a sense to entertain

himself, did he entertain you with it? Not enough, I'm not sold on the

single person farce theory, I think you need a lot of people in the

theatre to have the patience for the long, long set up, and to enjoy

it. That is a collective enjoyment. This is full of good jokes while

you wait, it is a very long wait. Can I check your call ten times.

And Mr Fox Oliver taken as a Greek greeting. Full of very, very good

jokes. It is cleverly plotted, he puts it in the beginning and pays

off ten chapters later. I wonder if he produced it with algebra. But it

is cold, I don't read all ge bra for fun. -- Alg ebra for fun.

stops you in a moment spinning and takes you back in. I was impressed

by the ability, another technical challenge, can you make the idea of

the farce work in a world of mobile phones and e-mails. Because in way,

that should stop all, but it adds to it. Only if you believe the

premise, which is that the girl, we won't go into the detail too much,

so she's stupid enough to believe he's the main man. The girls are

very stupid. He doesn't write stupid women particularly, but

these are very stupid women. In a lot of films you have to get rid of

the mobile phone, he keeps it going. Keeping technology in there. I

enjoyed the dialogue and the characters, the minor character,

the Crispin, the writer in residence at Skios seemed like

familiar, struggling to write his poems. There was lots, you could

imagine it was 10thou post-its on - - 10,000 post-its on the wall.

Isn't there a lack of empathy in farce. It is also that there is

something interesting about working on stage, actual lean when Jamie

falls down the stage in the current production of Noises Off, you think

ouch, ouch, ouch, as you go, and restraining your own imperfect pain,

so with a distance of effort you see the distance between the actor

you care about and the character you don't care about. The character

didn't bother me at all, I cared about the conclusion, and I cared

about the fact it was like a semi- crazed essay, I understand when you

say about it being experimental. was thinking how is Michae Frayn,

what rabbit will he pull out of the hat now. You are watching a

magician saw his assistant in half. At the end he shows you the trick

almost. You can read this book, and see it entirely on the stage, or

you can see it in a goofy film. You can see it in either of those place,

in a sense you can see it more easily than on the page? It is

longing to be a film. It is such a reation from his previous group.

Wonderful, painful, difficult, memoir of his father. Now he has

gone back into all ge bra. He has never written the same book twice.

He's a wonderful writer. He's still taking risks. He put himself

through it and wrote it in a year, and managed to weave it together.

It bears relationship to this book, wrote, The Human Touch, a

philosophical inquiry. The mixture of order and chaos, that tipping

into chaos. The chaos being the fundamental nature of things. And

the lack of any absolute certainty about things. He's interested in a

deep quantum level, and understands it. And it comes off on a comedic

level. It is a quantum farce. don't think it is a philosophically

subtle book. It is, and very easy to read, that is a remarkable

achievement. A remarkable achievement, or not? Wonderful

technically, and I don't care. it for yourself, Skios is published

on the 3rd of May. If you prefer Michae Frayn on stage, or love both,

you can catch Noises Off in London's West End.

What links Marylin Monroe, musical theatre and Steven Spielberg. These

arem soft elements that make up Smash, Sky Atlantic's new series

set in the uber competitive world of musicals, which follows the

highs and lows of putting on a show. Mr Schu and his glee club geeks

became an surprise hit in 2009, with a mix of music and drama.

Where glee Glee is all about aspiration, Smash heads deep into

the big time. # Somewhere over the rainbow

Focusing on successful songwriting duo Tom and Julia, played by Tony

nominee, Christian Boyle and Deborah Messing, best known for

Will and Grace, determined not to rehash an old musical, the pair

come up with an original score, based on the life of Marylin Monroe.

You could do a baseball number. With the help of the producer,

Eileen, played by Anjelica Houston, who adds a sprig of comedic

chemistry. They just need a leading lady.

Katharine McPhee, American Idol runner up, whose innocence makes

her perfect for the young Norma Jeanne.

# Every day is so wonderful # Suddenly

# It's hard to breathe However, hot on her heels is Ivy, a

sexy, back row Broadway hoofer, desperate to be released from the

chorus, Played by the star of the hit music

of Wicked. It is not all American jazz hands, as London's glittering

West End vies for attention, with a couple of Brits starring in the

cast. Most notably, Jack Davenport, who stamped his mark on the UK

psyche in his role in This Life. Smash she is his return of his

bullying best, with the slightly dodgy director part of Derek.

Darling I need to see everything you have got. Mrs Plenty of

bitching and backstabbing, it is a surprise it is produced by firm

family favourite, Steven Spielberg. Smash has original music, written

by the team behind the hit show Hairspray, and rock, pop and

country cover, and it melds rehearsal run-throughs with

polished performances, will the more adult take on the genre be a

smash with the viewers. That was so great. Is it Glee for

grown-ups? I fell for the trailer and looked past by the givaway of

executively produced by Steven Spielberg. I thought it would be

for non-Glee fans and be an edgey take on the show. It is a soppy,

fairly heart warming version of that idea. And dreadfully throws up

all sorts of possiblities in terms of Spielberg joining in with Lloyd

Webber of being part of popular music. The Marylin musical at the

heart of it, will become the musical. You are so cynical.

Because it is written, it is plausible. It is written by the guy

who wrote Hairspray. Is it cheesey and camp enough? It is just cheesey

UN I thought it was a great guilty pleasure, I really enjoyed it.

There are sacharine moments, but what saves it from becoming too

sweet is Jack Davenport comes on like a squeeze of lemon and is

truck lent and repricing his Miles role from This Life. I really

enjoyed it, stick in a few song and dance numbers. Nothing like enough

lemon for me. There was something very interesting about the big

American musical with two English characters in it. One, Jack

Davenport, is straight out of Henry James, Europeans are difficult,

dishonest, you don't know how to read them, this one is British and

very dodgy indeed. I'm afraid he's the only moment I get interested.

Not even in Anjelica Houston? quite good. I love Anjelica Houston

and Deborah Messing, and The House at Pooh Corner house character is

disappointing. She could be more acid. It is a set up for a long run,

12 parts. I think it is very slick. There is a bit of a drop in the

third one, a drop in energy, they have resolved some of the plot

points from the first two. Do you think? Which of the two girls is it

going to be? It is the other side, we have the pop song, the popular

song, whether from Broadway or, what also happens outside the

Marylin musical, is the characters themselves have their journeys,

told through popular song, as you can see from Christina Aguilera,

Adele will turn up later, exploiting the history of popular

music without giving us a reading into why these things are so

engaging and enduring. What happens is they have all the rehearsal

sequences which turn into the full banana. Selling the musical, Kirsty.

So cynical. Do they sow in, it seemed to me by the third episode,

that stuff didn't meld at all, you didn't want any more of that.

did turn into Glee, it seemed a bit of an idiom. They are trailing the

musical. I don't think it will be that good. Marylin the musical is

an elephant's graveyard. We talked of course, we saw shall we have a

Joe deimaginey, shall we get a baseball line in. # Who's that man?

He's the first place coach. # Throw him out

# There isn't a doubt # That all men like to play

# The national best # And I was just a little girl

# I liked being dainty # And pretty

# But now that I'm giving M # Sports a whirl

# I find I kind of like # To get dirty

Maybe it would have been better if the two Marylins would have been

Glenn Close and Anjelica Houston. I do find musical theatre

embarrassing, it is like Morris dancing. They are both equally bad.

Both embarrassing. Paul's obsessed with this idea that we will have

Marylin the musical. He wants to see it. The idea of using Marylin

as fresh, minted music and using the covers. It is the Spielberg

that they are allowed to commission an entire musical and create a

slight weight soppy sitcom, that is an epic commission. There are dark

lines in it? It is all about struggling actors with the

rejection, that is ever green stuff. Going to auditions. It is cliched.

Everyone loves seeing that. woman sexy, the other tender and

sensitive, by the third episode the sexy one is now sensitive. What

will happen next? It is cliched stuff. And Jack Davenport will get

his jum uppance. He's in it to the end. With Homeland and House, the

Brits are doing well in terms of American films on television and in

the movies? If they are the only ones allowed to be complicated and

interesting, as in this country, I'm not surprised. They are great

on other roles, but capable to speak American. You don't get

anyone who can't can cannot speak American, and Jack Davenport can

speak American. Smash is on tomorrow evening at 10.00pm. Here

in Glasgow, the biannual Glasgow international kicked off a visual

festival this week, in every corner of the city. We sent these three to

explore before they came into the studio. Here are some highlights.

The festival's an event that happens across the city of Glasgow.

It takes place in a lot of familiar contemporary art venues, but also

in less expected places for contemporary art. Including

Kelvingrove Art Gallery, known for its historic art collection.

Richard Wright lives and works in Glasgow, we are looking at 14 years

of work, works using traditional art and stories called techniques

and spray-painting in enamel. There is a complexity in the work

reflected in the exhibition. Carla is another artist from

Glasgow with amazing opportunities all over Europe, not in Glasgow

until this exhibition in Goma, her most substantial thing to do in

Scotland. She has achieved differenciation in colour through

all the wood she has used. That contrasts with a more plastic

material that she has used. Wolfgang was the first artist ever

to win the turner prize as a photographer. There is a real

richness and depth, there is landscapes, portraits, still lives,

there is what you could describe as abstract work, it is all our

history in one exhibition. The festival very much grew out of the

arts scene in Glasgow, it wouldn't happen if it wasn't for the fact

that there is a healthy constituency of artists and

independent art organisations in the city. The it came along as a

moment to celebrate that. You might have spotted the fact

that one was a bouncey castle and it ofn't quite a bouncey castle, it

was a bouncey Stonehenge. You felt you were part of Stonehenge.

loved it. I I'm not sure I felt I was part of Stonehenge, the

original, I believed it in as a construction. It is beautifully set

on a rising hill. You look at everything else around it. There it

is. Everybody jumps an on the green bit, if you fling yourself against

one of the great rocks it falls over, it is terrifying and great

fun. How long did it take to blow up, I can't imagine. I thought

concept actual art is childish and that makes it explicit. Did you

jump around? I did, I thought more things like that around, in the

Millennium Dome, they could have done that. Did Jeremy Deller entice

you on to Stonehenge? He was standing around looking self-

conscious on the side. The artist is like a city planner, it is like

the wheel when it went up it brought pleasure to people. This

will move around. It was cunning to have it open in Glasgow. I think if

it had opened in the middle of the Olympics, which it is commissioned

for, we might have been nor jaundiced. Very clever to bring it

in Glasgow. Releases the joy. very hard work jumping on it.

you're not 0-5 you are knackered. At least you didn't jump on the

Karla Black, Goma, what did you make of it? I loved it, the smell

hits you when you first go in. It is extraordinary, it is

unreproducable, it is in the classical hall of Goma, it almost

hills it with this huge wonderful smelling perfumed, layered, with

the neo-classical, cellophane wreaths hung above it. It makes you

very excited about the building and, wonderful, it doesn't come across

in photographs. The point of it is the thing itself. That is rare and

marvellous. I went to see the Richard Wright, I love him, so much

about him is impermanent, this was works on paper over 14 years, my

big disappointing, I love the gallery, but it is so hard to find

it without much signage. What we want to sing from the rafters is

isn't Richard Wright wonderful. The intcy of the work is amazing. --

intricacy of the work is amazing, there he is, working away, making

no fuss, 2009 Turner Prize winner. I went to see the new artists, to

see, what does a young relatively unknown artist think about what

they are now. Do they create stunts and incidents and events and epic

scale. What was interested about this exhibition is you felt these

new artists were crushed into a koorn. There was very little for

them to express themselves in ways that we know. If there was one name

in this collection that I in theed, that I thought may become that kind

of artist was Ian Giles. In a sense here is someone that could begin to

explore what a modern artist is, different med ya a being famous.

Wolfgang Tillmans, the only photo- er to have won? This passed me by.

I went, they said eclectic, I thought random, I thought it was

abstract and heartless. I thought it was me. I thought my visual

sense may have abandoned me. There is a brilliant view outside the

window looking at the Clyde, it ofn't there. It is a selection of

highlights, the whole point about the Glasgow festival, it is

continuing until the 3rd of May. Just before we go, legendary by

starrist, Bert Weedon best known for his guitar manual Play In A Day

has died, aged 89, Eric Clapton, and others were some of the

celebrities. He talked about his passion for guitars. Are you ready

for rock'n'roll. What is it then about the guitar that makes it

something which has got such popular appeal, even if you want

play it well, people want to have one and play it? I don't know, it

has got a symbol, a sexual thing, it is a beautiful thing, it is a

thing of emotion, it is like a beautiful woman, you can cuddle it.

I don't know what it is about the guitar, but it is, to my mind, the

loveliest instrument of all. Can't be underestimated the impact

he had. Not at all, before Bert Weedon this country had no guitar

tradition, it was all coming from America, the blues and country, the

idea that he did was create the possibility for there to be British

guitar players. So he was basically the first guitar her ro. And he

basically gave people the per-- hero, and he gave people in this

country permission to be a guitar player, and we have become a

country of great by star players. The generosity of the book, and

hard learned skill over 40 years, made him a national treasure sure,

before there was ever really such a word. Essentially he was the first

then produced magnificent guitar heros because of Bert Weedon.

is almost all from us. My thanks to Susan, and Paul and Marcel. We will

be back with the book special on 11th of May. Stay with us on BBC

Two for later with Jools. To get you into the mood, here is the last

of the BBC Introducing musicians, Rae Morris, sheer she is with Don't

# I keep hoping that we'll find # Another reason to compromise

# And this time I'll break # Inside

# I keep staring # To the past

# And Alloa those feelings he compromise

# This time I'll break down in side # Don't go

# Don't go feel like you have to # Only if you want to

# Fill my world with hope again # Hope again

# Sometimes people make the wrong moves

# Walking in the wrong shoes # Make me feel like hope again

# Hope again # We keep on changing

# And all the answers are hard to find

# This time we'll go hand from hand # I'll shed some sorrow

# Shed some sin # I hate this state we're in

# This time I'll break down inside # So slowly

# falls from your mind # Falls from your mind

# Hope dies slowly # Falls from your eyes

# Don't go # Don't you feel like you have to

# Only if you want to # Fill my world with