Browse content similar to 26/01/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
On The Review Show this month, | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
sex, lies and greed on the big screen, | 0:00:04 | 0:00:06 | |
the mother of all art exhibitions, | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
gender politics on stage, and on television, | 0:00:09 | 0:00:13 | |
a descent into madness in a debut novel, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
and chilled out music from Iceland's Asgeir. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:20 | |
Hello and welcome to The Review Show where tonight | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
we will discuss the first major retrospective | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
of artist Martin Creed, | 0:00:29 | 0:00:30 | |
feminist theatrical production Blurred Lines, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
and a new HBO drama about the lives | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
of gay men in San Francisco - Looking. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
Joining me to roam free over all this are author Denise Mina, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
playwright Mark Ravenhill | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
and our critical kingpin, writer Paul Morley. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
We start with two films battling it out for glory in the awards season, | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
though not against other. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
Both feature a spectacular fall from grace, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
one from the dizzying heights of Wall Street, | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
and the other from a bicycle. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
Lance Armstrong was the man who had beaten advanced cancer | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
and gone on to win the Tour de France | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
a record-breaking seven consecutive times. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
Despite worldwide adoration, his career was beset with | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
accusations of doping, a claim he denied with nothing short | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
of ferocity and threats of legal action. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
Emphatically say I'm not on drugs. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:24 | |
How many times I do I have to say it? | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
Enter Alex Gibney, | 0:01:26 | 0:01:27 | |
an Oscar-winning documentary film-maker known for his exploration | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
of the dark side of powerful figures. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
This time he was about to make a feel-good comeback story | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
about the power of sport, gaining unprecedented access to Armstrong | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
and his entourage. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:43 | |
The film was all but finished when in January last year, Armstrong | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
finally came out from behind the biggest lie in sport. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
I certainly was very confident I would never be caught. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
Sitting on what was now an essentially unusable documentary, | 0:01:56 | 0:02:01 | |
Gibney recut the film, putting himself in the story. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
When the truth came out, I told him he owed me an explanation. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
He agreed to sit down one more time. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
The film is an autopsy of a lie, hidden in plain sight. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
When everyone cheats, it becomes hugely distorted. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
It becomes a different contest, of who has the best doctor, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
who has the most money, who has the biggest risk tolerance, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
and the guy, who was that guy for this era? It was Lance. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:30 | |
My name is Jordan Belfort. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
At the tender age of 22, I headed for the place that fitted my ambitions. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:37 | |
The name of the game. Move the money from your client's pocket | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
-into your pocket. -If you can make a client's money at the same time, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
-it's advantageous to everyone. Correct? -No. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
A lighter approach to the demise of the deceitful can be | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
found in The Wolf Of Wall Street - | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
Scorsese and DiCaprio's fifth collaboration. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
DiCaprio plays real life stock swindler Jordan Belfort, whose | 0:02:54 | 0:02:59 | |
hedonistic memoirs inspired the actor | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
to commit this scandalous story to celluloid. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
What was so refreshing about the way he wrote this novel | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
was his absolute candid honesty about every, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:14 | |
every tumultuous radical endeavour that he went through. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:19 | |
-30,000 dollars in one month, Jordy? -They're business expenses. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:26 | |
-Look at this, 26,000 dollars for one dinner. -No, this can be explained. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:32 | |
Dad, we had clients... | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
-The porterhouse from Argentina. -Expensive champagne, | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
we had to buy champagne. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
-Tell them about the sides. -26,000 dollars' worth of sides? | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
What are they? Do they cure cancer? | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
The movie has been on the end of some harsh criticism, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
claims it glamorises what it is deemed to be | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
a morally repugnant era - the worst excesses of western capitalism. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:58 | |
Scorsese has defended the portrayal. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
Why bother telling a story of someone who is unremarkable? | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
He thought he could bypass morality, with a combination of money | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
and drugs, in actuality I feel it is us, you and me... | 0:04:08 | 0:04:14 | |
..and maybe if we had been born under different circumstances, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
maybe we would...maybe we would have wound up making the same | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
mistakes and choices, and doing exactly the same things. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
I am good with water for now. Thank you. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
It's his first day on Wall Street. Give him time. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
Paul, we have had Wall Street's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
We have had Lehman Brothers. Is this something different? | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
It is not a great Martin Scorsese, it is Leonardo DiCaprio in a way | 0:04:41 | 0:04:46 | |
on an ego trip to portray something he wants to portray. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
It is an actor's movie, look how great I am. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:52 | |
It's repulsively entertaining, there is no doubt about it, | 0:04:54 | 0:04:58 | |
but there's something about it, not just because Joanna Lumley | 0:04:58 | 0:05:00 | |
turns up, that makes it seem like he is doing Absolutely Fabulous. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
It's a grotesque farce and in that sense, it's entertaining | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
but you have to work out - is this a comment on the times? - | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
as Scorsese is implying, although I think he is | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
out of his depth, is it a comment on the times or part of the times? | 0:05:15 | 0:05:19 | |
This indulgent way of, you know, entertaining people. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
-Three hours of it. -The only thing is the fact it is three hours long. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:28 | |
Apart from that, you wouldn't know it was Scorsese as such, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
it is like a parody, it is Scorsese on Scorsese. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
What worried me the most is ultimately it is itself what | 0:05:35 | 0:05:42 | |
is wrong with the times, the fact we are being entertained by this | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
-kind of grotesque parody rather than it being a comment. -Denise? | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
I have read autobiographies by guys who worked on Wall Street | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
and went into rehab and found they didn't have any money. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
That's what the story is. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:57 | |
I think it's like Goodfellas, there are pieces to camera | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
and interacting with the audience and that kind of thing, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
I found it really convincing as a film. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
I kept thinking of it as a religious revival. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
At the beginning, he says I had this money greed, | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
this frenzy for money right from the very beginning | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
so whenever you saw the room... | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
So it doesn't need a moral current? | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
I think we've had the moral stories. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
These characters have watched Wall Street and read American Psycho | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
and read Bonfire Of The Vanities, and they know it... | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
And they even say "masters of the universe" in the film. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
-So we can sort of go on the same ride with them. -It's a caper? | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
In many ways, it is and there are moments of physical comedy. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
The moment he takes too many drugs... | 0:06:41 | 0:06:45 | |
there's almost a Buster Keaton element. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
That was what was Absolutely Fabulous for me, that bit. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
The Jennifer Saunders physical comedy. But it does have fantastic | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
moments of rhetoric. Leonardo DiCaprio convinces you he could | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
convince people to buy these worthless stocks. His speeches to | 0:06:58 | 0:07:02 | |
his company are great Shakespearean moments of rhetoric, so I think | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
as a part for an actor, from that physical comedy to high drama, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:12 | |
it is a very alluring character. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
I was held for three hours by DiCaprio. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
It's his movie, not a Scorsese movie. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
DiCaprio and Brad Pitt went after it. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
DiCaprio wanted to play this part. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
It is like they are given a gift. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
Here is a gift for DiCaprio to be this character. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
Once upon a time, it would have been rock 'n' roll. Now it's this. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
That is one of the things that strikes you, these people | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
are living the lifestyle in the '70s we would expect a rock star to have. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
Why do they have to be so explicit about expressing that | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
in such a vulgar way? | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
Isn't there a better way rather than positioning the women | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
-in such a way...? -Isn't there a problem with you go along with it, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
this is a virtuoso performance from DiCaprio, then there is | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
a horrific moment I shouted out at when he punches his wife in the | 0:08:00 | 0:08:05 | |
stomach, suddenly the film, I am not sure... | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
-There is a lot of orgy action. -A lot. -You never see a man's bits. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
-You do see one, when he is off his face. -I must have blinked. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:20 | |
-You see the Ferraris. -The women are unclothed. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
-Always objectified. -That is what I don't understand. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
If Scorsese is making this movie he says he is, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
I can't believe there is not | 0:08:30 | 0:08:31 | |
a better way or a more sophisticated way of representing that, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:35 | |
than just giving us the soft porn. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
I think we know that it is not a good idea to take that many drugs, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
we know it is a terrible thing to rip those people off, we know... | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
we know if you only think of women as pussy, | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
as the men do in this film, it is going to end badly. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
There is a generation now that... This is the real thing. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
That is why I think Scorsese has been hoodwinked into giving it, | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
because he could do it... | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
I think he is getting off on it a bit. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
If you see screenings of this near Wall Street, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:06 | |
people are shouting and screaming, and these masters of the universe | 0:09:06 | 0:09:10 | |
are there, maybe a bit younger, fitter. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
I think the DiCaprio character makes one point, | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
when he is caught on his boat. He says I am the little guy. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
I am the outsider, dealing with these terrible penny stocks, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
there are much bigger villains to go after. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
And that is a moment where you sort of have a moment to reflect | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
and think, "He is terrible, | 0:09:31 | 0:09:32 | |
"but maybe he is not as terrible as the really big guys." | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
I still think these moments are overwhelmed by the explicit | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
nature of the way it is sold as entertainment - | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
to get our rocks off. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
We are into Oscar season, | 0:09:43 | 0:09:45 | |
how many films are based on real life stories? | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
12 Years A Slave, American Hustle. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
The Butler, Mandela, this, what do you think the chances are for this - | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor...? | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
These prizes, they are political and Scorsese is now, | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
you know, prize giveable, so, and in particular, I think | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
DiCaprio's performance... | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
It is about the hype. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
The idea this movie is what it is, when, in fact, it isn't. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
For some award ceremonies, it has gone under the comedy category | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
because it does sort of sit between genres, it is more honest. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:20 | |
It is not a great film, but it is enjoyable as a comedy. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:24 | |
If it was on HBO, it would have been like Ab Fab. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
One film that is not played as a comedy is The Armstrong Lie. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
What do you think of the relationship between | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
Alex Gibney and Lance Armstrong? | 0:10:34 | 0:10:36 | |
I think Gibney is honest, that is what is fascinating about how | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
conflicted his attitude to Lance Armstrong is. I think | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
even when he discovers the lie, all the way into making the documentary, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:48 | |
he himself realises that he has a very interesting story now to tell, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:53 | |
so he resents Armstrong telling him the lie | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
but as a film-maker he knows he has a great story to tell, | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
at the same point Armstrong realises maybe this narrative, maybe this | 0:10:59 | 0:11:04 | |
redemption narrative of going on to Oprah and confessing, which has | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
saved politicians and celebrities before, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
Armstrong doesn't get what he wants, the Oprah thing doesn't go as great | 0:11:10 | 0:11:15 | |
as he thought, and Gibney ends up with this film which has got | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
a conflicted relationship to Armstrong | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
-but I thought that made it a richer film. -Paul. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
I felt the DiCaprio and this, the heroes are reality TV. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:30 | |
These are reality TV stories. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:32 | |
I felt this about Armstrong, he was like... | 0:11:32 | 0:11:35 | |
this in a way was a Big Brother story, a bachelor story, that was our | 0:11:35 | 0:11:39 | |
fascination with him, it was like... | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
it is a weird thing that has happened, | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
that we're now fascinated by villains and anti-heroes | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
as if they are living reality television, rather than reality. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
Do you think that Gibney sold us a pup in a way because | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
after the Oprah interview he said, "This was the Oprah interview, | 0:11:55 | 0:11:59 | |
"now you will get the true story"? | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
In a way, I felt there was a slight... | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
still a kind of being slightly in thrall to him. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
-A bromance. -I think you are right. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
What Armstrong did all the way through was control the narrative. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
He gave a simplistic narrative, cancer survivor, | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
went on to win and the tension between him and Gibney was | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
about who controlled the narrative, and I felt that Armstrong won. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
Because you get this version, | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
and then he touches on the fact he ruined lives. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
Yes, I think Gibney pulled his punches on that and was off mic. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
Here was the director making the big interview | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
and didn't mic himself properly. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
You never get the completed interview, post-Oprah | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
and it is a funny thing, Armstrong controls the movie, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
but it is Gibney's movie. He is not doing it very well. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:50 | |
He's so overwhelming. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:51 | |
Armstrong is the one controlling reality. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
It was... it was just sort of dissatisfaction, | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
it didn't have a neat ending that felt real to me. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:01 | |
I thought one of the abiding feelings I took away was what a grim | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
world all these characters lived in. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
Nobody said, "I love cycling, | 0:13:08 | 0:13:09 | |
"it gives me a thrill to see the crowds," | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
nobody expressed joy, it was relentless training | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
and this compromise. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
It never expanded into the world where what actually happens in sport, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
where 99% of those are taking drugs, it didn't really expand | 0:13:21 | 0:13:25 | |
and become sophisticated. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
When they were swapping blood to get the more red blood cells, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
they stopped a van and changed the blood. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
I wanted to pick up on something you said which was | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
he was controlling the narrative. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
But wasn't he always, what you saw from that film, | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
controlling other people round him? The way he treated people, | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
the way he treated Betsy and he won't admit what he did in the room. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
And his ex-team-mate he had fallen out with and betrayed, | 0:13:51 | 0:13:56 | |
but when he was going to give interviews, he gave them to that | 0:13:56 | 0:14:01 | |
team-mate who was a TV presenter, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
pulling him in, controlling the narrative. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
The strange thing about Armstrong is he has this incredible power, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
he is scary and yet he is a dull man, | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
there is something banal about him. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
The banality of evil. I wouldn't say he is evil. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
But the banality of lying. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
The moral dimension is dissolving. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
It's kind of beginning not to matter as long as it is entertaining. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
I came away thinking, let every cyclist say, "This is my doctor, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:32 | |
"these are the drugs I'm taking," and admit the whole sport is doped. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
Well, The Wolf Of Wall Street is in cinemas now | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
and The Armstrong Lie is released on Friday. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
"What is the point of it?" is something we ask | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
but this time Martin Creed has beaten us to it | 0:14:46 | 0:14:51 | |
because it is the title of the 2001 Turner Prize winner's | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
first major retrospective. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
We were granted access to the Hayward Gallery in London | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
as the show was being installed for the opening next week. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
It features sculpture, murals, film, painting and neons | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
alongside the musical recordings and new work commissioned for this show. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
So, prepare for art. Piles of it. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
I feel really weird about the whole thing. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
And scared about it. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:26 | |
And sick. I feel sick about it. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
I wake up feeling sick most days. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
I love this gallery. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:44 | |
I feel a bit suspicious of art galleries | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
because they are artificial spaces made to kind of protect things, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:55 | |
and I feel uneasy | 0:15:55 | 0:16:00 | |
about putting things in galleries, | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
because I feel like it is a cosseted environment. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
I feel like if work is any good, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
it should be able to live on the street, you know. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
I've been trying to work on music. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
I feel like you can't separate what you see from what you hear. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:25 | |
When you're looking at something, you can always hear something, | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
and when you listen to something, you can always see something. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
I feel like if I didn't work on music I would be ignoring half of life. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:39 | |
I got to thinking of trying to make a piece of music that goes with | 0:16:40 | 0:16:45 | |
the movement of a lift. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
# I'm feeling orange | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
# I'm feeling green | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
# I'm feeling purple | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
# I'm feeling cream. # | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
I was trying to think how you could make words a certain size | 0:17:07 | 0:17:12 | |
and a good reason for doing so. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:15 | |
For some reason, I thought that mothers would look good big. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
Later, I thought it was because | 0:17:19 | 0:17:25 | |
mothers have to be big. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
To be a mother, you have to be bigger than your baby, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:32 | |
you cannot be smaller. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
So mothers have to be as big as... | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
mothers have to be as big as possible. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
Once I thought I would make it as big as I could, I thought, "Well, I may | 0:17:46 | 0:17:51 | |
"as well make it spin round as well," so it goes in all directions at once. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:56 | |
And maybe to make it slightly dangerous as well. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:01 | |
# What's the point of it? | 0:18:04 | 0:18:05 | |
# What's the point of it? # | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
I don't know what the point of it is, | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
but I think it's good question. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:12 | |
I often ask myself that question. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
You walk in there and this amazing neon is starting to turn. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:27 | |
And swiping over a walkway as well which is taped off. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:32 | |
-It is so threatening. -Threatening? | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
I thought it was threatening - an element of danger. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
The whole exhibition is so joyous, that is what is lovely about it, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:44 | |
pulsing with joy. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:46 | |
I misunderstood everything because I read the catalogue afterwards. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
There is this crumpled bit of paper where he is trying to interfere | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
as little as possible with his materials, and it is in a glass box. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:59 | |
I thought it was a monument to discarded ideas and I was entranced. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
I just found it so stimulating | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
and really sort of breaking down barriers. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
And the bafflement that he expresses in that interview really comes over. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
I think that is what most people feel. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
It is lovely to see a retrospective as well, | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
to see ideas developing over time, | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
-spilling into each other. -This idea of layers and gradations. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:28 | |
You wrote a great essay, | 0:19:28 | 0:19:32 | |
I won't ask you to distil it into 30 seconds, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
but you know this work intimately. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
Is it different seeing it all together like that? | 0:19:40 | 0:19:44 | |
Well, the bits of everything go with the Hayward Gallery as well. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:51 | |
I love the signatures. He uses the building. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
What's interesting about Martin, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
joyous is absolutely a word I would use, | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
but also, artists are starting to become | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
something that there isn't a word for yet. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
He uses sound and sculpture, scale and comedy. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
But he's new and that is why this exhibition is so profound | 0:20:10 | 0:20:15 | |
and interesting and original. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
It's the beginning of something else that we yet haven't got a name for. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
What you said in the essay was he remains true to himself, whereas | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
a lot of artists across the world don't remain true to themselves. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
And that bafflement - when I first spoke to Martin, I was a bit cynical. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:35 | |
Surely not? No, it's true! | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
He is that. He is baffled. It is sweet. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
There is a sort of promiscuity to the amount of mediums that he uses. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:48 | |
I felt like I was being taken into somebody's world. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
It wasn't dark, it wasn't a world of obsession, like Tracey Emin, | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
but you're being taken into obsession. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
He doesn't seem to be an obsessive person. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
He seems to have patterns and he is fascinated by smiles | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
and chairs and boxes. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:08 | |
There are things that repeat but not in a kind of needy, obsessive way. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
There are beautifully painted walls in the gallery. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:18 | |
I said, "This will be painted over," and he said, "I'd do it | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
"again as house paint. It's fine." | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
He's also said he had a real aversion to labelling | 0:21:24 | 0:21:28 | |
and you can see that because it is hard to label Martin Creed. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:32 | |
I think he was being a bit critical of other galleries | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
labelling his work. It's better to just have numbers. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
Yes, like a composer. He's just given each piece a number. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:45 | |
Work number 25 or whatever. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
He has also done an amazing new piece | 0:21:47 | 0:21:51 | |
which was just in construction upstairs. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
It is diagonal steel window frames with etched glass inside | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
and balloons behind them, and again, this idea of almost wonderment. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
I loved what you said about artists no longer being boxed into producing | 0:22:02 | 0:22:09 | |
products for sale in one area, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
because that isn't people's lived experience. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
That's a perfect example of that. He is using the light. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
Balloons used up half the air in the room. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
You have to go in. They're up to about here on most people. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
But you have to sort of trundle about blindly and find your way. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
And also the way he's responded to the space. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
He's taken down some walls and he's built things | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
and the wall that he built complements the architecture | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
and he's used a window with curtains that open and close, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:45 | |
so the outside world is allowed in as well. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
Behind the balloons there's another window where light comes through. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
So he's really playing with the space, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
and the gallery has a conversation with the outside world. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
He's very, very... he loves movement, doesn't he? | 0:22:58 | 0:23:04 | |
Static is not necessarily something that he likes. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
It is inevitable in a way that he would be a musician | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
because he loves movement and scale. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
I love that when you look at some of the objects it is like music. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:20 | |
There is a lot of music around at the moment that sounds like | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
post-punk music from 1981. That's all it is. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
30 odd years later, I would have imagined being there in 1981 | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
looking at those people and what they would be including is all of | 0:23:30 | 0:23:35 | |
this as well. That's what's fascinating. And if you look at him | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
just as a musician making a certain sort of music, he's got all this | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
other stuff as well that represents the music and represents his mind. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
That, to me, is why it's interesting that he's inherited so much | 0:23:46 | 0:23:51 | |
that elsewhere we look at it as being nostalgic and ripping things off, here not. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:55 | |
Here he's moving forward. Very discretely moving forward. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
-With the broccoli wall... -A thousand images. He's never put it together before. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
It's sort of a reference to Warhol and his Campbell tins | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
but it's not cynical like Warhol. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
It's not saying, "We've all been commodified," it's just saying, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
"I can reproduce a piece of broccoli a thousand times." | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
And planting it in the world as it is now. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
I think that repetition is trying to make order out of a lived world. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
-You know, the constant repetition. -It's definitely control, isn't it? | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
Yeah, it's trying to find some sense. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
Control and harmony and beauty. It's very poetic as well. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:33 | |
-Sometimes it's farcical but it can be very poetic. -It's very calming. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:37 | |
And then you're hit at the end of the exhibition... | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
there's an explicit film of a penis being flaccid and then erect, | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
then flaccid again, but at the end, there is this room | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
where you see a film of basically defecation and sickness. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
I was going to take my kids but I think maybe not now | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
because that's the only way to get out of the exhibition. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
I even had a positive reading of that. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
You feel calm, you feel liberated, you feel joyful | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
and so I thought, "We're being purged," - it's a good thing. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
We've taken a really good effective enema purgative and we're just | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
letting it all out so I actually felt rather positive. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
It's not that I felt negative, I just thought what it did | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
was show the contrast. It shows he's capable of anything. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
It's also interesting in a modern world which is so self-conscious | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
that there can be this pure optimism, somehow, which is also incredibly | 0:25:21 | 0:25:26 | |
refreshing at a time when everyone is so inward and disconnected. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
-He's just so open. -He is so open. He won in 2001 The Turner Prize. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:35 | |
This is his first big retrospective, though he's had exhibitions. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
-Is there a danger he will become a national treasure? -I hope not. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
I wish I hadn't said that now. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
What's The Point Of It opens at The Hayward on 29th January. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
We Used To Be Kings is the debut novel by Stewart Foster | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
and is already being compared to success stories | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
such as the Booker-nominated Room by Emma Donoghue | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
and Stuart: A Life Backwards, | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
which went on to be adapted for both stage and screen. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
Set against the space race of the 1970s, Foster's novel deals with | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
the impact mental illness has, | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
focusing on the unbreakable bond between two brothers, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
one of whom is dead, and their missing father. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
The story begins in a mental health institution with Tom | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
who has been incarcerated because his dead ten-year-old brother Jack | 0:26:18 | 0:26:22 | |
continues to live on in his head. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
Tom has just turned 18. However, this is not cause for celebration | 0:26:25 | 0:26:30 | |
as he is about to be transferred to an adult facility. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
'We close our eyes. We smell damp mixed with soap, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
'hear the snap of a towel and a scream. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
'Our head is buried deep in the pillow but we can still hear | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
'the gargle of water trickling through the drains. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
'We need to be quiet to give ourselves space to think, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
'because tomorrow will be different, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
'tomorrow there won't be a Mrs Hunter or a Mrs Foulks | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
'or a Mrs Drummond. Tomorrow we won't be locked up with boys. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
'Tomorrow we will be locked up with men.' | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
The way they interact is Tom is always the narrator. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
If you look where the dialogue actually starts, | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
it's always Jack that jumps in and he starts the conversation first | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
which is why he's so irritating but he's always constantly interrupted. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
When I look at it now, I realise that Jack is a massive anxiety | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
all the way through it. He is the anxiety even though he's great fun. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:22 | |
Tom, with Jack's voice in his head urging him on, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
escapes from the institution in search of their father | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
who they believe has gone to the moon. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
The way that space came into it was | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
originally I had written a short story and... | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
where a father had gone missing but actually hadn't gone anywhere. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:41 | |
Once I'd decided that the father said he was going to go to the moon, | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
the only period it could be set was the '70s | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
because it was the time where everybody was naive | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
but also excited by travelling into space. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
'Dear Jack. Dear Tom. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
'I'm sorry I've not written. I am tired. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
'Jack, I love your rockets, even when they go the wrong way. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
'Tom, keep writing your book, lots of people will read it soon. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:09 | |
'I have to go. The Russians are coming. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
'Tonight the sun will burn a hole through my head | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
'and in the morning, when I wake up, everyone will be gone. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:23 | |
'Love, Dad.' | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
I got the interaction between the two of them, | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
they were two separate individuals to start with. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
Then I was writing the dialogue | 0:28:32 | 0:28:34 | |
and found they were bouncing off each other. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:37 | |
And it also came quite early in the piece | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
how much they loved each other. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
My main thoughts were if you love somebody so much | 0:28:41 | 0:28:45 | |
that even if they died, you wouldn't mind them back in your head. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
The strength of the relationship is they love each other so much that they don't want to be separated. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:54 | |
Unfortunately, it's destructive in the end, | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
but they just chatted like mad and I couldn't stop them. | 0:28:56 | 0:29:00 | |
There has been a whole slew of books about young boys' mental states. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
There was no research, by his own admission, done by Stewart Foster. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
Is it OK just to have a work of the imagination | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
when you're dealing with this stuff? | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
I know quite a lot about the secure units at that time | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
and what would've happened | 0:29:17 | 0:29:19 | |
and it's not been researched and I think it's wrong | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
and it's fine because it's a story. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:25 | |
I think the vast majority of people you get... | 0:29:25 | 0:29:27 | |
you can't make TV shows because policemen might watch them and say, | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
"You're not allowed to wear a belt like that." | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
So I think it is absolutely fine. It doesn't really matter. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
The narrative, you know, really pulls you forward. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
I had a bit of a problem with the two voices | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
which he said becomes a bit irritating. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
I couldn't... they're in different fonts | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
and I loved all that inter-textual stuff - it was very playful, | 0:29:47 | 0:29:51 | |
but I found the interaction and the characterisation | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
between Jack and Tom, they were so similar... | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
-I thought they were twins at first. -They're supposed to be twins. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
But I found after a while, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
the repetitiveness of it slightly lost me. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
Having said that, there is so much to love in this book | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
and he's such a beautiful, crisp writer. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
For a first book it's really amazing. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
I loved the sort of flashback section, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
which is probably half of the book, which is 1971, | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
Dad's going away and tells the kids he's going to be a cosmonaut, | 0:30:20 | 0:30:24 | |
he's going to go up with the Russians into space | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
and the kids believe him and you know Dad's going somewhere else. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:30 | |
That drove me though that section - that fantasy of a kid making | 0:30:30 | 0:30:33 | |
their father into a hero, as we all do as boys, | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
and you know it's going to end terribly. That drove me through. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:40 | |
Yet I did think the stuff that was set ten years later with the twins, | 0:30:40 | 0:30:44 | |
it is interesting you say about the lack of research... | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
and I'm not...I don't think all writers have to research, | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
but there was something a bit nebulous about that world | 0:30:50 | 0:30:54 | |
that didn't pull me in in the way the 1971 strand did. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
What did you think about the dialogue between the brothers? | 0:30:58 | 0:31:02 | |
I agree, they had such similar voices. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:04 | |
I thought...to be a dialogue you need two different energies. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:08 | |
We now know Jack was the younger one. We start out thinking they were twins. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
Paul, that whole thing about the space race, | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
-did he capture the excitement of that? -Not for me. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
In many ways the fault of the book for me was that it was an example | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
of creative writing, and I think the things you are mentioning | 0:31:21 | 0:31:25 | |
in a way was, for me, coming from that - | 0:31:25 | 0:31:28 | |
that it's a technical book, it's very technical | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
and it feels like it has had a lot of work at it to make it happen | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
and even the idea of the descent into madness and the space race, | 0:31:35 | 0:31:40 | |
they all seem like ideas that come out of studying the idea | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
of, "What kind of book am I going to write?" | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
I could never get away from that. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
At the end, I'm not going to give the end away, | 0:31:48 | 0:31:50 | |
but there's four pages of blank space and then his acknowledgements | 0:31:50 | 0:31:54 | |
and they were done in the style of the book. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
If I'd had doubts - did I believe it or not? - that would have given it away. | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
-To me that was that was really annoying. -I loved that. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
No, I thought, "Pencil, pencil." | 0:32:03 | 0:32:05 | |
-You loved it? -I did like that. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
It's an exercise and the book therefore became an exercise. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
It infuriated me. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
All those doubts we might have had about no research, it's a story, | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
it's imagination, for me it became about creative writing. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:20 | |
It was an exercise. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:21 | |
I can write a first book and it will be taken as a first book | 0:32:21 | 0:32:25 | |
and hailed as a first book | 0:32:25 | 0:32:26 | |
and I could never get away from the fact, it is not that great. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
What about the role of the mother? | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
She has a role where she tries to be protective, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
but she's a kind of shadow character. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
She's not really there that much. I found it hard to work out what ages the boys were | 0:32:38 | 0:32:42 | |
when their father went missing. I wasn't too sure. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
She did go missing a lot and they were left with a neighbour. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
Actually, that is what people did with kids in the '70s. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:51 | |
You forget we are so massively, clawingly overprotective. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
And people did just give kids keys | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
and let them in and out when they were eight. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
And that's interesting because even though clearly there were | 0:33:00 | 0:33:03 | |
difficulties with the children, she still let them roam free. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
-Everybody did in the '70s. -I remember my childhood. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
There is a moment where the mother becomes complicit in the lie | 0:33:09 | 0:33:13 | |
which I thought was very strong. There's a moment where she can | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
tell the boys, "No, he's not in space," because the cosmonauts | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
are under threat so they think, "Daddy's dead, Daddy's dead", | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
and she decides to let them carry on with the lie. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
I thought that was a strong moment. | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
But essentially it is the father and the dream of the father is what drives the book | 0:33:28 | 0:33:32 | |
and the mother and the female character they meet in the present | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
seem much shadowier figures. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
-It's almost like a children's book at times. -A teenage book. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:43 | |
It's one of those books you could market to teenagers and adults. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
Which was the case with The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, | 0:33:46 | 0:33:50 | |
-which is probably why a book like this... -It's almost become a genre. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:54 | |
This autistic child, seeing the world through...it's very appealing | 0:33:54 | 0:33:58 | |
to see something through naive eyes. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:00 | |
We can both feel we are naive but also more knowing than them. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:04 | |
-I don't think the book had the wonder. -No, it didn't. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:06 | |
Well, see for yourself or read for yourself, | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
We Used To Be Kings is published on 30th January. | 0:34:09 | 0:34:13 | |
Music now from Icelandic artist Asgeir, | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
whose album In The Silence was No.1 for nine weeks | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
in his homeland. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
It has been translated into English and is released this month. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:24 | |
This is King And Cross. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
# Glistening night-time dew | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
# And she is walking with me | 0:34:38 | 0:34:41 | |
# From the house of red | 0:34:41 | 0:34:45 | |
# I hear a child crying | 0:34:46 | 0:34:48 | |
# Foxes heading home | 0:34:48 | 0:34:52 | |
# Their prey hangs from their jaws | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
# And the forest knows | 0:34:55 | 0:35:00 | |
# But it won't share the secret | 0:35:00 | 0:35:02 | |
# When the king takes sides | 0:35:02 | 0:35:07 | |
# Leaving moral minds | 0:35:07 | 0:35:10 | |
# Soldiers take their share | 0:35:10 | 0:35:15 | |
# Nighthawks seem to sense that | 0:35:15 | 0:35:17 | |
# Now is the time | 0:35:17 | 0:35:22 | |
# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life | 0:35:22 | 0:35:29 | |
# He'll take back what he owns | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
# Death cannot take hold | 0:35:38 | 0:35:43 | |
# If I can keep momentum | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
# Fortresses of stone | 0:35:46 | 0:35:50 | |
# Turn into crystal tears | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
# Soothed by southern winds | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
# I've found my strength now | 0:35:57 | 0:36:00 | |
# And nobody knows | 0:36:00 | 0:36:05 | |
# And we must keep their secret | 0:36:05 | 0:36:07 | |
# When the king takes sides | 0:36:07 | 0:36:12 | |
# Leaving moral minds | 0:36:12 | 0:36:14 | |
# Soldiers take their share | 0:36:14 | 0:36:19 | |
# Nighthawks seem to sense that | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
# Now is the time | 0:36:22 | 0:36:27 | |
# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life | 0:36:27 | 0:36:34 | |
# He'll take back what he owns | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
# When the king takes sides | 0:37:19 | 0:37:24 | |
# Leaving moral minds | 0:37:24 | 0:37:26 | |
# Soldiers take their share | 0:37:26 | 0:37:31 | |
# Nighthawks seem to sense that | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
# Now is the time | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life | 0:37:39 | 0:37:46 | |
# He'll take back what he owns. # | 0:37:46 | 0:37:48 | |
And there will be more music from Asgeir later in the show. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
After some extraordinary comments on women's worth from Nigel Farage, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
an embarrassment of sexual harassment sexual scandals | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
and a salacious year in pop, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
gender politics is already firmly on the agenda in 2014. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
Now a brand-new national theatre production created by two rising | 0:38:13 | 0:38:17 | |
stars of the British stage aims to shift the focus away from the | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
power players to the plight of real women in a play that owes its name | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
and its inspiration to a very controversial song. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
It was the smash hit of last summer, | 0:38:31 | 0:38:33 | |
but the fallout from Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines is still unfolding. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
The lyrics and explicit video sparked outrage, | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
with some describing it as rapey. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
When theatre director Carrie Cracknell | 0:38:43 | 0:38:46 | |
and playwright Nick Payne were looking for a provocative title | 0:38:46 | 0:38:49 | |
for their new gender-political theatre piece, | 0:38:49 | 0:38:52 | |
they didn't have to look too far. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
Blurred Lines is based loosely on Kat Banyard's The Equality Illusion, | 0:38:55 | 0:38:59 | |
a book full of shocking contemporary statistics | 0:38:59 | 0:39:03 | |
asserting that the feminist revolution remains unfinished. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:06 | |
Cracknell and Payne determined to demonstrate | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
this masked modern-day misogyny on stage. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
Those are the ones who are being forced. | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
Those other ones from Eastern Europe. I don't use those women. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
Not any more. Not after that. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:21 | |
The women who work like that, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:23 | |
on the street, they are obviously the ones who have been trafficked. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:27 | |
I don't use those women. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
How much did it cost? | 0:39:29 | 0:39:31 | |
45 quid. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
-Jesus. -That one night was a one-off. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:37 | |
I wouldn't do it again and I haven't done it since. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:40 | |
It was like... It was... | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
Like a cup of cheap coffee? | 0:39:42 | 0:39:44 | |
It was like a cup of cheap coffee. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:46 | |
Meaning? | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
Disposable. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
At just 70 minutes, | 0:39:51 | 0:39:52 | |
and with one set, Blurred Lines is a dense performance. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:57 | |
The eight-strong female cast are on stage at all times, | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
and take turns performing vignettes demonstrating | 0:40:00 | 0:40:03 | |
the regular encounters with inequality faced | 0:40:03 | 0:40:06 | |
by the modern woman. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:08 | |
The cast includes newcomer Michaela Coel. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:12 | |
Do you need an African accent? | 0:40:12 | 0:40:14 | |
Cos you can just say so, | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
because I have descended from a lineage of blur and illusion. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:19 | |
AFRICAN ACCENT: And I am so game for stoking in the whole validity of your confusion, | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
to form a strange union of every African accent | 0:40:23 | 0:40:25 | |
I heard on the bus I took to get here. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:27 | |
Although the song Blurred Lines itself doesn't feature, | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
the play is peppered with pop songs past and present, | 0:40:31 | 0:40:35 | |
and the lyrics take on a new resonance | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
when performed by this troupe. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:39 | |
# Don't liberate me | 0:40:39 | 0:40:46 | |
# Just love me. # | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
Mark, calling it Blurred Lines, did it set up a certain expectation? | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
Absolutely. I think you expect a response to that Robin Thicke song, | 0:40:54 | 0:41:00 | |
and you sort of get one. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:02 | |
I think it maybe suggests we'll get a more direct response | 0:41:02 | 0:41:06 | |
to Blurred Lines than we do, | 0:41:06 | 0:41:08 | |
and in a way maybe the piece is too generalised, too ambitious. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
But I think we are still at this point where women in theatre | 0:41:12 | 0:41:14 | |
have looked around and said, "Hang on, most of us | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
"have called ourselves feminists now for 40 years," and are taking stock | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
and realising how little has changed in casting, directing, writing. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:25 | |
So, in a way, something has to go right back to the basics | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
and ask really quite naive questions about feminism | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
in a way that even a few years ago would have been embarrassing. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
This is just so simplistic, this is so naive. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
But women in theatre and men in theatre have said, | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
"OK, even if this is simplistic and naive, this is necessary. | 0:41:39 | 0:41:44 | |
-"We need to do this at this moment in time." -Do you think we do? | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
In this way? | 0:41:47 | 0:41:48 | |
Well, as someone who has been a feminist for 40 years, | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
I couldn't work out what was going on in the play. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:54 | |
At the start, I thought it was going to be a play about being an actress, | 0:41:54 | 0:41:57 | |
cos they were talking about who they'd been cast as | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
and doing lines from the parts they'd had, | 0:42:00 | 0:42:02 | |
which I thought would have been really interesting. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:04 | |
And then it goes off. There's just too much. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:06 | |
They're trying to do too much. To me it feels like, | 0:42:06 | 0:42:09 | |
"I've just found out about feminism, and it's not fair to women." | 0:42:09 | 0:42:12 | |
Because it covers everything. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:13 | |
And I've been hearing those songs that were performed | 0:42:13 | 0:42:15 | |
at feminist cabarets for 30 years, and I've heard them done better. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
So, I think it tried to cover too much ground. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
But a play about being an actress and what it is to represent | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
gender would have been fabulous, and they kept touching on it. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:29 | |
At the very end, there is a Q & A with the director. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
That would have been great, if there'd been more of that stuff. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
At the end, you sit down | 0:42:35 | 0:42:36 | |
and the point about the Q & A with director... | 0:42:36 | 0:42:38 | |
as one of the women plays a male director, | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
a kind of archetypal, well-established, | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
arrogant male director and that actually is very funny. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:45 | |
It's completely different to the rest of it, | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
which makes me think, had they done it all as a revue | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
or some cabaret satire or something? | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
It verged on that. It is sketches, really. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
It's like That Was The Week That Was, but going back to the '60s. | 0:42:55 | 0:42:57 | |
You're right, there is a quaintness and a politeness | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
about any form of protest or comment on this ridiculous piece of music | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
that actually we should be thoroughly ashamed we've even played it, you know. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:08 | |
We played that much of it, | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
we only played it because we thought it was Marvin Gaye. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:13 | |
This makes no sense whatsoever. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:14 | |
But it is interesting, there's a kind of quaintness. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:17 | |
And what really annoyed me the most about it, the politeness of it, | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
is that when they say they didn't get permission to play the song. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
Play the bloody song. What's going to happen? | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
Who's going to come and sort you out? | 0:43:26 | 0:43:27 | |
That's part of the politeness and the quaintness of protest at the moment. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
It's almost like you talk about the power that Thicke | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
and that ridiculous film we talked about at the beginning, | 0:43:34 | 0:43:37 | |
The Wolf Of Wall Street, and everything. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:39 | |
It's like somehow at the moment it seems wrong to say anything | 0:43:39 | 0:43:44 | |
about this as if you are ruining people's fun. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
I thought for the National Theatre it was far too timid. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
-Unbelievably timid. -It does feel like a tentative first step. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:54 | |
It was great to see such a fantastic cast, | 0:43:54 | 0:43:55 | |
Ruth Sheen, Marion Bailey, both wonderful actresses | 0:43:55 | 0:44:00 | |
and to start to explore this style where they don't have to pretend to be someone else, | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
they can sort of talk... There was something happening there that was really exciting. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:08 | |
It definitely felt like a work in progress. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
And I think there are companies out there who would have gone | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
further with this work. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
There's a fantastic company in Germany called SheShePop | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
who are a feminist collective who are, in a way, really asking | 0:44:19 | 0:44:22 | |
the questions of the '60s and 70s, but I think they do it with | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
the danger and the anger that maybe Paul is looking for. | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
It's getting more and more difficult to actually do that, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
and it to hold and not just be absorbed and in a way be dissolved. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
It just dissolved somehow. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:37 | |
If there is a new misogyny about, how do we tackle it, then? | 0:44:37 | 0:44:39 | |
It's not a new misogyny, it's the same old misogyny. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
-There's money to be made, that's the issue. -They're allowed more space. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:45 | |
The space they are allowed is extraordinary, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
that's what I can't understand - | 0:44:48 | 0:44:49 | |
why everybody's putting up with it and it's just extraordinary. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
There are responses to it. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:56 | |
Whether you think it is right or not to ban it, | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
that's a different question, | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
Blurred Lines isn't played in certain university campuses. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
What I mean is where is the serious riposte to it? | 0:45:04 | 0:45:08 | |
-To Blurred Lines? -Who's doing it? | 0:45:08 | 0:45:11 | |
Who's putting the money behind it to do it? Nobody. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:13 | |
I think every time a song like Blurred Lines is a hit, | 0:45:13 | 0:45:16 | |
maybe 400,000 young women think, "To hell with this, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
"I'm not putting up with this, this is nonsense. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
"You have no right to rape me." | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
I think these things are intensely politicising. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
It's like an army going into Iraq and saying, "We're here to help you." | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
That's how you create, you know, an armed response. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
And I think, actually, it's not... From my point of view, I think | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
it highlights a misogyny that's already there, | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
the problem isn't the song, the problem is | 0:45:40 | 0:45:42 | |
you don't get paid the same money, | 0:45:42 | 0:45:43 | |
and the police don't come if you're battered. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:45 | |
And you are embarrassed to tell anybody if you're raped. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:48 | |
Those are the problems, it's just a pop song. | 0:45:48 | 0:45:50 | |
Yeah, but it's the fannyness of the world now, in a way. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
Even talking about the films at the top, fans are reviewing things now. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:56 | |
The critical perspective is being stripped away. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
Therefore it's just about how enjoyable it is, how much value of money it is, | 0:45:58 | 0:46:02 | |
rather than looking at... | 0:46:02 | 0:46:03 | |
Except, I suppose, they're having a huge response... | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
Again, they have been butted out. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:08 | |
Amongst very young people getting politicised, listening to this | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
and thinking, "We live in a profoundly pornographic world, | 0:46:11 | 0:46:15 | |
"porn saturates the whole culture." | 0:46:15 | 0:46:17 | |
That can pass across someone's desk | 0:46:17 | 0:46:19 | |
and they say, "Yeah, all right, make that video." | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
I think these things are very politi... | 0:46:21 | 0:46:23 | |
And I think there are undercurrents that we're not dealing with. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:26 | |
We're really dealing with the cream on top of the trifle. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:28 | |
There's all sorts of stuff going on like the German theatre companies. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:32 | |
Talking of fannyness, I think there is a danger that any... | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
celebration of female sexuality, the female body becomes commodified | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
and that is one of the things that a theatre can do is actually | 0:46:39 | 0:46:43 | |
find women's sexuality and their bodies away from commodification. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
-In a more sophisticated time.... -And there is something quite puritan about this piece. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
Everything seems to be going backwards in terms of the emotional response. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:53 | |
Well, Blurred Lines is on at The Shed at the National Theatre | 0:46:53 | 0:46:56 | |
in London until 22nd February. | 0:46:56 | 0:46:59 | |
HBO, the major force behind TV successes such as Game Of Thrones | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
and Girls has a new offering on Sky Atlantic this month. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:06 | |
Described as a dramedy, | 0:47:06 | 0:47:08 | |
Looking focuses on the lives of three gay friends | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
living in sexually-liberal San Francisco. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
-I know what you're doing. -What? | 0:47:18 | 0:47:19 | |
-I'm alone now, and I need to find a roommate. -Oh, really? -On... | 0:47:19 | 0:47:23 | |
-OKCupid, huh? -I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
You know, get a boyfriend and a roommate. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:27 | |
Looking focuses on the lives of three close friends - | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
Patrick, Agustin and Dom, who are living, | 0:47:30 | 0:47:34 | |
but not necessarily thriving, in the gay metropolis, San Francisco. | 0:47:34 | 0:47:39 | |
Patrick, played by the actor Jonathan Groff, | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
is a 29-year-old games designer, | 0:47:42 | 0:47:44 | |
just getting back into the dating world in the aftermath | 0:47:44 | 0:47:47 | |
of his ex's engagement. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:49 | |
Why do you even care, you dumped him? | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
I know, I know we broke up for a reason, | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
but things are complicated and... | 0:47:53 | 0:47:54 | |
Yeah, the reason was cos he was boring. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:56 | |
Yeah, I know that he was boring. | 0:47:56 | 0:47:58 | |
But now he met Gabe and four months later, they're getting married? | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
How does that even happen? | 0:48:00 | 0:48:02 | |
Hailed as Sex And The City for gay men, | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
Looking is the work of British director Andrew Haigh | 0:48:05 | 0:48:09 | |
who received critical acclaim for his 2011 movie Weekend | 0:48:09 | 0:48:13 | |
about the fleeting relationship between two men. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
Looking takes the same naturalistic approach and at times | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
gives a forthright insight into the daily struggles of dating. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:25 | |
So, what was your longest relationship? | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
Like six months, I think. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:32 | |
-What about you? -About five years. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:37 | |
Five years is a good chunk of time. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:40 | |
I think I'm not making the best impression. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
-I think we should back it up. -I'm going to stop you, I'm sorry. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:46 | |
-You seem like a really nice guy. -Thank you. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:50 | |
But...you know, when it's working, you shouldn't have to try so hard, | 0:48:50 | 0:48:56 | |
and this obviously isn't working, you know. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
Unlike its well-known predecessor Queer As Folk, | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
the series doesn't aim to shock or to be controversial. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
Instead, we have a group of 30- and 40-somethings who merely | 0:49:11 | 0:49:15 | |
want fulfilled lives. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:18 | |
Listen, do you think you could help me with this? | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
Instagram filters have ruined everything and I can't tell | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
if this guy is hot or not. What do you think? | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
Ooh, Paddy...that is a lazy eye. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
-No, it's not. -The right one. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:32 | |
Oh, my God, it is! | 0:49:34 | 0:49:37 | |
All the kind of naturalism, everyday stuff, | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
does it matter there's no dramatic tension in this, particularly? | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
Well, it's kind of interesting that it is so boring, in a way, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:45 | |
and so everyday. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
There's part of me that says, | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
"Why didn't this happen 30, 35, 40 years ago?" | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
And I can't get that out of my head at all when I am watching it. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
Why is this such a big deal now? | 0:49:54 | 0:49:56 | |
I quite liked, if I liked anything about it, that it was so boring. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:00 | |
But on the other hand, I'm thinking, | 0:50:00 | 0:50:03 | |
"Well, if we have something now that is going to be | 0:50:03 | 0:50:05 | |
"the thing that people are talking about that it is, | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
"shouldn't it be more complicated and peculiar and strange?" | 0:50:08 | 0:50:11 | |
Well, you know, it is partly reflecting reality. | 0:50:11 | 0:50:13 | |
Gay men have become more boring. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:17 | |
Their lives and their culture are more boring than | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
when things were all a bit more illegal and a bit more... | 0:50:20 | 0:50:23 | |
Even when they started shooting this, gay marriage hadn't been legislated in California. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
When they got halfway through shooting, it had. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:28 | |
I think that's one of the things that gay men are discovering, | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
maybe to their horror, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
you get your human rights, you also get a whole heap of boredom with it. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:37 | |
I loved Andrew Haigh's film Weekend and actually that was almost | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
no story - two men meet and spend the weekend together. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:44 | |
But there was a sort of bubbling anger, political anger, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
underneath it. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
And quite a sort of objective eye of the world that they were living in. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:55 | |
I don't get the same sense of any kind of political anger bubbling away | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
off-screen that I did... | 0:50:58 | 0:51:00 | |
Somehow, the American actors can't help, | 0:51:00 | 0:51:02 | |
although they are very naturalistic, | 0:51:02 | 0:51:03 | |
be a little bit cute and for it to be | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
a little bit aspirational, so it does sort of want to sell you... | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
It's not glamorous, but it does sort of want to sell you | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
the idea of living in this slightly grungy San Francisco. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
-It's kind of aspirational. -It's slightly grungy, but not. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
Some of them aren't so grungy, | 0:51:16 | 0:51:18 | |
and it's very much 30- and 40-somethings, isn't it? | 0:51:18 | 0:51:20 | |
This is not a very young gay scene. This is a kind of middle-aged gay scene. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
-Which is quite interesting. -Interesting, given what they went through. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
We have a lot of dramas about teenagers and young men. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
And there is something, which I think is deliberate, | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
a little bit sad about these people - | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
30, 40, still sort of doing a circuit of clubs and bars and parties and hoping for dates. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:39 | |
A 40-year-old man talking about whether he will be successful on a date or not... | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
Partly, I'm sort of, "This is very dull." | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
-Part of me thinks, "This is tragic!" -Denise? | 0:51:46 | 0:51:49 | |
Welcome to 40. That's being 40, you're a bit disappointed. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:52 | |
I was watching and I was thinking, "What is this about?" | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
Because... I found because... | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
All the actors are so good looking. | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
I found it quite hard to tell them apart, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
and I was grateful one of them had a beard. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
They all live in San Francisco, but San Francisco is... | 0:52:04 | 0:52:06 | |
I find it quite chaotic. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:08 | |
I find there are always a lot of homeless people | 0:52:08 | 0:52:10 | |
-wandering about and they're really bolshie. -But in that area? | 0:52:10 | 0:52:13 | |
Didn't see any of them. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:15 | |
I don't think it's a realistic depiction of San Francisco. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:17 | |
Like you, when I went there, I was overwhelmed by the amount | 0:52:17 | 0:52:20 | |
of homelessness and mental illness on the streets. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:22 | |
This is an aspirational... It's a different type of aspirational. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
I think the thing that happens is because it is what it is, | 0:52:26 | 0:52:29 | |
everyone assumes it's going to be radical and strange, | 0:52:29 | 0:52:32 | |
-and it's like Thirtysomething. -It is! | 0:52:32 | 0:52:34 | |
It's a nice, soapy, you know, very banal. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:37 | |
I was glad as the episodes went on that the cast got a bit bigger, | 0:52:37 | 0:52:41 | |
because the initial three weren't quite interesting enough. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
I did think, "Are we going to come back week after week to these same three flat, dull people?" | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
But actually the cast does get a bit bigger and starts to open out. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:52 | |
Maybe I was just getting used to its rhythm... | 0:52:52 | 0:52:55 | |
I wish it wasn't half an hour. I wish it was longer. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
Maybe if it was longer, then there would be much more development | 0:52:59 | 0:53:01 | |
-of storyline, as well. -And even more boring, which would suit it! | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
I yelped with joy when Russell Tovey came on. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
Cos he's great in everything. He's so warm. | 0:53:08 | 0:53:11 | |
That was one of the things... | 0:53:11 | 0:53:12 | |
I couldn't work out why I couldn't get a handle on it. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:15 | |
Russell Tovey is warm and he's melancholy. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
There was a lack of warmth. | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
You kind of wonder what the point of it is other than | 0:53:19 | 0:53:22 | |
everyone hailing it as an arrival of something. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:25 | |
Maybe it will settle down once that... | 0:53:25 | 0:53:26 | |
What did you make of that whole social media? It really was social media heavy, wasn't it? | 0:53:26 | 0:53:31 | |
Everybody was looking at their Apple computers, | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
everybody's looking at phones. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:35 | |
Yeah, I mean that is the reality of our lives. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:38 | |
We were sort of supposed to buy into the idea that they were sort of | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
struggling to get by and they were sort of leading | 0:53:41 | 0:53:44 | |
a slightly bohemian life. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:46 | |
But nobody ever seemed that worried about money. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
Nobody ever seemed to be struggling to... | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
You sort of felt they were always going to be safe. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
So they were sort of grungy, but without any real worries | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
at the end of the month about paying the bills. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:57 | |
It's about loneliness as well. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
It's about dating, which is the big American thing. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
Everything is about dating, whatever that is. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:04 | |
-It's about loneliness in the modern world. -In that scene as well, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
there would be as well hopefully some credible female characters | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
that have been part and parcel of it rather than just one ex-girlfriend. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
I think one of the things that was really interesting about it, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:18 | |
when it did open up and got a bit more interesting, | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
it became more about the culture of San Francisco | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
and they go on a march and it's a leather match. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
That was really interesting. because I didn't know about that. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
And the scene in the baths, where suddenly we meet | 0:54:28 | 0:54:32 | |
a much older gay man who has a memory of San Francisco pre-AIDS | 0:54:32 | 0:54:36 | |
and then during AIDS, and those moments where you get | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
a sense of historical, cultural, social perspective, | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
actually I thought brought the show alive. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
That's true about everything we've been speaking to. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
Maybe why it's so dull is because we are in a different place here | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
to where they are in America, where it's still...young people | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
are killing themselves because they're gay and they live in Milwaukee. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:59 | |
That might be... We are speaking to different audiences. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
Looking is on Sky Atlantic, Monday nights at 10.35. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:07 | |
That's just about it, but if you'd like to see tonight's show | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
all over again, you can watch us on iPlayer endlessly for the next week | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
or catch our BBC2 repeat on 13th February at 24.20, | 0:55:13 | 0:55:17 | |
that's just the start of Valentine's Day. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
We'll be back with our next show on BBC4 on Sunday, 23rd February, | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
put it in your diary. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:24 | |
Thanks to my guests, Denise Mina, Mark Ravenhill, and Paul Morley. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:29 | |
We'll leave you with another song from Asgeir. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:31 | |
This time, it is Torrent, good night. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:34 | |
# Gods of iron clashing Wind in battle through the night | 0:56:06 | 0:56:13 | |
# Tears will fall and strength is needed to overcome | 0:56:19 | 0:56:26 | |
# This old house is full of leaks and mould on the walls | 0:56:32 | 0:56:39 | |
# Dragons of the mind are lurking in the shadows | 0:56:46 | 0:56:52 | |
# Torrents wash away everything | 0:57:00 | 0:57:07 | |
# Raindrops flowing all around | 0:57:08 | 0:57:11 | |
# Queen takes King | 0:57:24 | 0:57:26 | |
# The pawns are falling onto the ground | 0:57:26 | 0:57:31 | |
# Over you and me | 0:57:37 | 0:57:41 | |
# There is rising the pink moon | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
# Merciless, though the wind takes hold with freezing cold | 0:57:51 | 0:57:58 | |
# Come, my friend, sit with me | 0:58:04 | 0:58:08 | |
# Take counsel in the warmth | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
# Torrents wash away everything | 0:58:18 | 0:58:25 | |
# Raindrops flowing all around | 0:58:26 | 0:58:30 | |
# Torrents wash away everything | 0:58:38 | 0:58:45 | |
# Raindrops flowing all around. # | 0:58:45 | 0:58:49 |