Browse content similar to 28/10/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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On the review show tonight, Tintin, as a very smooth operator, rough | :00:10. | :00:15. | |
stuff in the drug-fuelled drama Top Boy, politics on stage and in 50 | :00:15. | :00:25. | |
:00:25. | :00:27. | ||
Thundering typhoons it is Tintin in 3D, does Spielberg's version take | :00:27. | :00:32. | |
flight or fall flat. What do you know of the Unicorn? Not a lot, | :00:32. | :00:38. | |
that is why I'm asking you. Surely some mistake, Private Eye | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
turns 50, as the scrappy scandal sheet, does it still have the power | :00:43. | :00:48. | |
to shock. In our name we can all be better, in our name. Modern London | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
tworbgs ways, in 13, Mike Bartlett's new play about | :00:52. | :00:58. | |
politicians of protest, unmissable or just unlucky. | :00:58. | :01:05. | |
In Top Boy, already compared to The Wierbgs the capital as a - the Wire, | :01:05. | :01:11. | |
the capital as a drug market, dangerous or way out of line. Live | :01:11. | :01:19. | |
in the studio, sitar music from Anouska Shankar. | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
On the panel with me are the wider and actor, David Schneider, | :01:24. | :01:31. | |
novelist and stand up comedian AL Kennedy, journalist and former | :01:31. | :01:37. | |
editor, Rosie Boycott, and Natalie Haynes, comedian and classist. | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
We are monitoring your tweets right now. Here is a challenge, who else | :01:41. | :01:48. | |
should be on the list of famous Belgians apart from Magritte, | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
Hercule Poirot and Tintin. Tintin has greater fame now that Steven | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
Spielberg and Peter Jackson has joined forces to bring him to the | :01:57. | :02:02. | |
screen in the motion capture an nation, Tintin: The Secret of the | :02:02. | :02:08. | |
Unicorn. Tintin began his adventures in 1929 at the hands of | :02:08. | :02:11. | |
Belgian artist, Georges Prosper Remi, better known as Herge. Tintin, | :02:11. | :02:19. | |
a young travelling reporter was the reporter young Herge wanted to be. | :02:19. | :02:22. | |
He reflected the author's hopes, fears and dreams of distant land. | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
The world fell in love with the quiffed crusader, 350 million | :02:28. | :02:33. | |
copies of the book in 80 languages, adapted for film, stage and radio. | :02:33. | :02:39. | |
Now Tintin is born-again in the form of Jamie Bell, with motion | :02:39. | :02:42. | |
capture veteran, Andy Serkis, supplying the moves and voice of | :02:42. | :02:52. | |
:02:52. | :02:52. | ||
his side kick, Captain Haddock. is a story I'm working on, a man of | :02:52. | :02:59. | |
war, triple masted and 50 guns. What do you know of the Unicorn? | :02:59. | :03:04. | |
Not a lot that is why I'm asking you. That ship is known to only my | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
family. Herge was a film maker in his own right. Most of the time the | :03:08. | :03:13. | |
books were like a storyboard for a movie. On this movie Stephen was | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
very much stepping into the role of an illustrator rather than film | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
maker, he said the technology made him more of a painter than before | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
it's taking it for panel for panel as Herge was when coming up with | :03:25. | :03:35. | |
the books. Turn the ship round, get me a flare. | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
The screen writers had to choose which of the 23 completed books to | :03:38. | :03:46. | |
adapt for the film. We combined two books, we combined the Golden Claws | :03:46. | :03:52. | |
and The Secret of the Unicorn. Because the Crab with the Golden | :03:52. | :03:57. | |
Claw is the first time Tintin meets Captain Haddock. It is when the | :03:57. | :04:02. | |
Tintin universe and character and locations start to form in Herge's | :04:02. | :04:08. | |
mind and our's. Herge is a great story-teller, the simplicity of it, | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
or the deceptive simplicity of it is what endures for kids of all | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
ages. Are the adventure of Tintin better told in the original comic | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
books or is Herge's hero in 3-D about to find a new generation of | :04:22. | :04:31. | |
fans. Rosie, is a film like this ever | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
going to satisfy the aficionados? I'm not sure that it will. Tintin | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
has really big fans. I wasn't one of them, I think they are | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
incredibly male these stories. They are very lacking in emotion. Tintin | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
is this strange character, he has no mother, father, nowhere that he | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
lives, no apparent means of support. There is nothing emotional at all | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
about him. I have never related to him as a kid. I spent today reading | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
Tintin in America, I didn't relate to it again. I did go and see it | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
yesterday, and I took my step grandchildren, who are 13 and 10. | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
Boit had read some of the Tintin and the girl hadn't, they loved it | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
and completely got into the animation. They didn't worry about | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
the lack of the back story? They didn't. They loved the big set | :05:19. | :05:23. | |
pieces. The bits say when the two boats are battling in the sea and | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
the big chase at the end. For me it became a bit too much like a rather | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
weird Indiana Jones, and you wondered which speil spol you were | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
in. They liked it. - Spielberg you were in. They liked it. For people | :05:35. | :05:42. | |
who are real fans they will find it a pretty strange experience. David? | :05:42. | :05:46. | |
The vocabulary of watching films and superheros in films and Tintin | :05:46. | :05:53. | |
is a sort of superher rofplt you want the back story, was Tintin | :05:53. | :05:58. | |
bitten by a strange hair-do! It took me a while to accept I wasn't | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
going to learn about his mother or father. The animation took over and | :06:02. | :06:07. | |
the fantasy, the excitement of the adventure took over and I did go | :06:07. | :06:14. | |
with it. It is abstract. There is so little information? That is the | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
point, Tintin was bitten by an accountant, the point is he's the | :06:17. | :06:20. | |
straight man and everyone else insane. He was the boring annoying | :06:20. | :06:28. | |
one when I was a kid. I read them as a kid, I loved Captain Haddock | :06:28. | :06:33. | |
and Snowy. He's more of a character? He's very vanilla. What | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
upset me is the style with the motion cap tuerbgs and a lot of the | :06:38. | :06:44. | |
vocal performances were unanimated, they looked like vocal corpes. | :06:44. | :06:47. | |
want to stick with what you are saying about vanilla, all the | :06:47. | :06:53. | |
nuances in the cartoons and the dilemmas and things, and the little | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
tropes, are all missing? It is all ironed out. Particularly Haddock, | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
he's a lot more out of control. I don't think that is disturbing for | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
kids. When I was a kid and I met children, I don't have them but I | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
do know some, it is wonderful for adults to be completely | :07:11. | :07:17. | |
irresponsible, dysfuntional and fail, and be hysterically funny at | :07:17. | :07:23. | |
one stage, Haddock delivered that, you don't wanted a dults to be | :07:23. | :07:29. | |
sensible all the time. What about the other actors, motion captured | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
does it do the actors justice or not? I hated the film on two counts. | :07:34. | :07:38. | |
Both of them because they tried too hard to be close to the comic books. | :07:38. | :07:44. | |
One, the story is rubbish, I love Joe Cornish, it breaks my heart to | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
say it. Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright. I love them less, | :07:48. | :07:55. | |
now I have made me say it. I love Joe Cornish. In the comic books it | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
doesn't matter Tintin is passive, in a film it really matters. Every | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
time anything happens it happens to Tintin, he's not pro-active. Snowy | :08:02. | :08:07. | |
is more pro-active than him. That is where the motion capture is | :08:07. | :08:11. | |
interesting. It is worse, it should look like the comic books, no it | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
shouldn't, it is a film, you are Steven Spielberg, how could you not | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
know this. I'm still cross, I will be cross at the end of the clip. | :08:18. | :08:28. | |
:08:28. | :08:57. | ||
That's cool. Wait for this let's Snowy's a hero. He is, they should | :08:57. | :09:02. | |
have named the film after him, and he should have got it. It should | :09:02. | :09:06. | |
have been Snowy and Haddock, because Tintin is boring. He's not | :09:06. | :09:10. | |
motion capture. He's properly animated. A lot of the motion | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
capture is amazingly laboured, and the delivery of lines is | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
fatastically slow. He sort of shows how to do it, he slightly | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
exaggerates his movements so you connect emotionally and physically. | :09:24. | :09:28. | |
I felt some of the background, some of the drawing is absolutely | :09:28. | :09:33. | |
beautiful. The rendering of the town is fantastic, and the ship. | :09:33. | :09:39. | |
Speil spol did - Spielberg had the enormous joy of the animators | :09:39. | :09:44. | |
putting it together. The long books they weren't something like a comic | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
you read quickly. Actually you could read them at your own speed. | :09:48. | :09:52. | |
I think you get flung through this at such, it doesn't let you up for | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
a minute. There is something happening. Actually you can go | :09:56. | :10:01. | |
slowly. No-one has any expressions. All Herge is doing is projecting | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
the idea that this is this hero, the hero he could never be because | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
he was never very heroic, Herge himself, he has Tintin, that is | :10:09. | :10:15. | |
enough to get him through the book. The idea that Tintin is good and | :10:15. | :10:20. | |
evil. He is an unhero, the thing with the film is the craziness of | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
the other people has disappeared. In Spielberg's hands you expect him | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
to do something extraordinary with it. You take actors who can act | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
really well, with motion cap tuerbgs you cover them with | :10:34. | :10:42. | |
something much - capture, you cover their face with it. When I think of | :10:42. | :10:49. | |
Spielberg I think of ET and I still cry at it. It is not with heart | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
this. What happens normally in a film is you build and build and | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
build, this is where the jeopardy occurs, it is very linear. It is | :10:57. | :11:02. | |
because they stayed with the comic book, it has to be Captain going | :11:02. | :11:07. | |
after the hidden treasure, but Captain owns a ship, he's not | :11:07. | :11:13. | |
starving, what is the jeopardy. They gave Captain a lot of sudden | :11:13. | :11:22. | |
dough AA lines. And set up a sequel before the end of T we set up the | :11:22. | :11:28. | |
idea at the beginning of the show you could give us other famous | :11:28. | :11:38. | |
:11:38. | :11:40. | ||
Belgians. Dries Van Notten. Jean- Claude Van Dame. It is not often | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
the hallowed halls of the V & A have laughter. There was scattered | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
hilarity to a new exhibition about Private Eye, the satirical manage | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
zeen has been appearing every fortnight since October 1961, | :11:53. | :11:58. | |
featuring some of the best cartoonist from Britain. Now the V | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
& A is marking half a century of. During its 50 years in print, | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
Private Eye has what can only be described as an eventful life. | :12:08. | :12:14. | |
satirical manage zeen, Private Eye, has won its libel damages appeal. | :12:14. | :12:18. | |
Ian Hislop didn't attempt to disguise his joy when he left court. | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
The Court of Appeal has officially declared I'm not a banana. It was | :12:23. | :12:32. | |
bought in 1962 by Peter Cook, after being a student manage zeen. Then | :12:32. | :12:42. | |
:12:42. | :12:44. | ||
investigative journal I was was introduced. It became the a | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
different vehicle. It is a good reason to keep it going. Private | :12:48. | :12:53. | |
Eye is the biggest selling news and investigative affairs magazine, and | :12:53. | :12:57. | |
shifts more than 200,000 copies. The challenge for the museum's | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
curators is how to bring to life a magazine that has changed so little | :13:00. | :13:06. | |
since it began. The idea for the show began with plieft private, we | :13:06. | :13:12. | |
got a call - with Private Eye, I got a call and a message. I went to | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
Ian Hislop's office and was struck by the meem beelia and chaos and | :13:16. | :13:22. | |
confusion, and I thought this was the show. Cartoons, yes, but create | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
this creative mayhem, it is so far away from what you think a | :13:26. | :13:32. | |
newspaper usually works in. In the exhibition are 50 iconic front | :13:32. | :13:39. | |
covers, chosen by current editor, Ian Hislop, and some cartoons from | :13:39. | :13:45. | |
the extensive archive. This is the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, | :13:45. | :13:50. | |
portrayed as if he's Christine Keeler. This got the magazine | :13:50. | :13:57. | |
banned by WH Smith. Here is a great raffle Steadman in the spirit of HM | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
Baitman, he did a series of cartoons called "the man who...". | :14:02. | :14:07. | |
Here is a man asking at WH Smith if they have Private Eye, all the men | :14:08. | :14:13. | |
with their girly magazines are recoiling in horror at the | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
disgusting inquiry that anyone could ask for it. A new book, | :14:17. | :14:22. | |
Private Eye The First 50 Years, written by a staffer is the life of | :14:22. | :14:27. | |
Private Eye. Filled with tales of larger than life characters, | :14:27. | :14:33. | |
lawsuits and internal rifts. With such a rich history and colourful | :14:33. | :14:41. | |
cast, can a moderate two-roomed display at the V & A do it justice. | :14:41. | :14:50. | |
You are the sat teirist here, David, was it a - satirist here, how was | :14:50. | :14:54. | |
it for you? Private Eye is something in my life I have wanted | :14:54. | :15:01. | |
to write for and avoided because I wanted to write satire. It is the | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
front bench, they give you the weekly fix of funny. Everyone is | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
talking about the institution, but it is so part of the fabric of our | :15:10. | :15:14. | |
satirical life. I found it was great seeing this exhibition. And | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
particularly the time line. What is excellent about Private Eye is it | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
is not only funny, great sat tierbgs shouldn't just make you | :15:21. | :15:26. | |
laugh, should - satire, shouldn't just make you laugh but your jaw | :15:26. | :15:35. | |
drop. There was a piece about the SAS shooting in Gibraltar, and they | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
were asked why did you only shoot 16 times and it was because they | :15:38. | :15:43. | |
ran out of bullets. It was to embed points you might ignore if they | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
didn't make you laugh, Private Eye is great at doing that. It lasts, | :15:47. | :15:52. | |
when you think of all the things that happened, That was The Week | :15:52. | :15:58. | |
That Was, Spitting Image, we still have Have I Got News For You, but | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
why did it last? Because it is incredibly good journalism, and | :16:01. | :16:07. | |
they kept that up. There are lots of things incredibly impressive | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
about Private Eye, I'm always impressed by the amount of stories | :16:11. | :16:15. | |
they have. In this current issue they have a page, you read it here | :16:15. | :16:20. | |
first, it is the story of Aitken, tax evasion, this, that and the | :16:20. | :16:24. | |
other, which then go on to huge scandals. Underneath the belly of | :16:24. | :16:28. | |
the fun and the satire and the jokes and the schoolboy humour is | :16:29. | :16:32. | |
this serious, serious getting at the establishment for being on the | :16:32. | :16:37. | |
gravy train and other such corruptions. It is great. When | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
Richard Ing rams game in he put in the investigative journalism. It is | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
about the cart soons and in the V & A they are there, but not there is | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
how many different stories they have drilled in to. It was a | :16:50. | :16:56. | |
buesful exhibition and the V & A is about art and they will look at art, | :16:56. | :17:01. | |
but it was undercurated in that, if you didn't know the famous | :17:01. | :17:04. | |
Christine Keeler photograph, and some may have not known who Harold | :17:04. | :17:08. | |
Macmillan was, you needed more background. It is such an important | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
part of a lot of the humour. A lot of the cartoons. It is gorgeous | :17:12. | :17:18. | |
drawings. They had this fantastic drawing of the judge in the Oz | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
trial, if you didn't know about that trial, yes it was a wonderful | :17:22. | :17:28. | |
piece of art but you don't know what you are looking at. It was | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
undercurated, a lot of people like me were affectionate, you end up | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
with warm wet ears, because people are laughing when they look at | :17:37. | :17:42. | |
things. There were laugh out loud moments, I had never seen the | :17:42. | :17:48. | |
cartoon that bade Barcelona 0 and sur-real Madrid 2. These were | :17:48. | :17:52. | |
British cartoonists over the 50 years? Everybody funny was working | :17:52. | :17:57. | |
for Private Eye in some way. agree that the exhibition was | :17:57. | :18:00. | |
undercurated, because you end up missing out on exactly the | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
journalism, the seriousness that underpins it, the cartoons, yes, | :18:04. | :18:09. | |
there are ones that are incredibly resonate, there is a great one of a | :18:09. | :18:13. | |
choir master going into church saying it is like everyone I ever | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
slept with there. They could have done an exhibition just about | :18:17. | :18:21. | |
cartoons? You got the impression that V & A are slightly embarrassed | :18:21. | :18:27. | |
about having it. It is not listed as an exhibition, when you get to | :18:27. | :18:31. | |
it and it is welcome to the display. They haven't put it in the | :18:31. | :18:35. | |
janitor's ku cupboard, but not far away from that. I'm not sure why | :18:35. | :18:39. | |
they bothered, if they weren't going to commit to it. It is a | :18:39. | :18:43. | |
better magazine than exhibition. is a magazine that resonates with | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
you, do you still read it and like it? I do read it because my | :18:47. | :18:50. | |
boyfriend is a subscriber to it. But I don't read it with the same | :18:50. | :18:56. | |
degree of commitment that he does. It has, like Rosie I very much like | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
their kick-ass journalism, I don't particularly like cartoons, | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
generally. Is it offensive enough now? Almost never, I don't think. I | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
like it when they get the whole, at one time they included a coupon for | :19:07. | :19:13. | |
you to write in and say, I withdraw my subscription. I wish they were | :19:13. | :19:17. | |
edger, I'm glad they have stopped getting sued for libel every 20 | :19:17. | :19:25. | |
minutes. But I wish they were still so strong. When Ian Hislop went | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
after the superinjunctions, it wasn't for the paper, but he | :19:29. | :19:32. | |
believed it was wrong, it is a campaigning vehicle not just | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
putting it on the page? That is what satire is about. You get that | :19:35. | :19:40. | |
from the wall, that is the benefit of the wall of covers, is that it | :19:40. | :19:45. | |
shows an element of the campaigning. I agree, in the cartoons, they are | :19:45. | :19:52. | |
funny, but. The place that Private Eye occupies, the exhibition in the | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
V & A is completely irrelevant, but it is this thing that people see it | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
as a moral guardian, something that began as an underground paper in | :19:59. | :20:02. | |
the 60s, that was the scourge, that didn't come from the left or the | :20:02. | :20:08. | |
right. It didn't come out of a Marxist belief or any known | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
political thing, it is somewhere that people want Private Eye to | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
approve of them. And Private Eye's blessing is a great thing. People | :20:14. | :20:19. | |
don't want it to be very nasty about them. It is like as though | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
Ian and the cast of them have become in some sort of way the | :20:23. | :20:26. | |
keeper of our moral flame. It is a strange thing to have achieved in | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
50 years. It is a pure form of sature. Satire is the only literary | :20:32. | :20:36. | |
form invented by the moments. went after the injunctions because | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
he thought they were wrong. And he did it. It is pure juvenile, | :20:40. | :20:45. | |
because it mocks everybody, he's the first great satirist, people | :20:45. | :20:48. | |
who are dead because he doesn't want to get killed, but after | :20:48. | :20:52. | |
everyone, it is a very pure satirical form. It is interesting | :20:52. | :20:55. | |
to see how Private Eye is doing fine, eventhough there is the | :20:55. | :20:59. | |
Internet, where there is lots of satire on the internet. It is still | :20:59. | :21:06. | |
so hand knitted. The design has not changed. They have not gone glossy, | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
they will carry on being funny, doing the journalism and being | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
satirical. Eventhough the Internet is on them. It is the time when you | :21:14. | :21:20. | |
were a comedian and you can't go on tele or go on a game show, it is | :21:20. | :21:25. | |
when you thought comedy was the voice of truth and power. Another | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
half century of Private Eye perhaps. Still to come the TV drama by Ronan | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
Bennett, which has East London all fired up. | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
Why have we to make it to hard for the customers, the Feds know people | :21:38. | :21:43. | |
are selling and buying, as long as we don't make no noise, they don't | :21:43. | :21:48. | |
really care. That is still to come. If Private | :21:48. | :21:53. | |
Eye is being grappling with the fast failure in Uganda affairs in | :21:53. | :21:58. | |
British politics over the past 50 years, on stage writers, such as | :21:58. | :22:02. | |
David Hare and Howard Brenton are doing the same thing. Mike Bartlett, | :22:02. | :22:09. | |
just 31, might just be an inheritor of that tradition. His new play, 13, | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
which opened in the National Theatre in London, is an ambitious | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
contemporary piece set in the City of Dreams, and visions of street | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
protests and political uncertainty. The world of 13 is both familiar | :22:21. | :22:25. | |
and strange, the economy has stalled, the population is restless, | :22:25. | :22:30. | |
and across the capital, Londoners are haunted by the same terrifying | :22:30. | :22:33. | |
nightmare. Meanwhile, a female Conservative Prime Minister | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
deliberates over whether to join a hawkish US administration in | :22:37. | :22:43. | |
invading Iran to put a stop to its nuclear ambitions. As the prospects | :22:43. | :22:50. | |
of war draws closer, the emegmatic figure of John returns to the city | :22:50. | :22:58. | |
to preach a message of renewal. He takes 12 members of society, | :22:58. | :23:04. | |
cleaner, soldier and pensioner, he leads a peace movement. There can | :23:04. | :23:09. | |
be no progress without belief. Belief in the capacity of mankind, | :23:09. | :23:14. | |
belief that we can be better, that we can be more than animals, more | :23:14. | :23:18. | |
than selfish, more than war like tribes, pushing each other out of | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
the way in brutal competition. is the work of Mike Bartlett, the | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
current writer in residence at the National Theatre studio, and a | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
graduate of the Royal Court theatre's young writers programme. | :23:29. | :23:34. | |
His first play for the national was last year's Earthquakes in London, | :23:34. | :23:39. | |
staged to great acclaim. Now, given the vast space of the Olivier stage | :23:39. | :23:43. | |
to fill, can Bartlett's take on the state-of-the-nation offer a | :23:43. | :23:46. | |
convincing analysis of international diplomacy and people | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
power. In our name, in this time, we can commune Kate to people in | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
every home, in every place, instead, in our name, in this time, we can | :23:55. | :24:01. | |
reach out and empower them, not batter and destroy them. In our | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
name, we can demand freedom for Iran, we can encourage and support | :24:05. | :24:10. | |
them to have a say over their future, in our name we can all be | :24:10. | :24:19. | |
better. In our name! Natalie, Mike Bartlett takes all | :24:19. | :24:22. | |
these different themes and strands, our emotions and anger and throws | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
it back at us. Does it help make sense of our surroundings? Yes it | :24:26. | :24:30. | |
kind of does. It is something he did incredibly well for the most | :24:30. | :24:33. | |
part with Earthquakes in London last year or the year before. I | :24:33. | :24:37. | |
liked it very much for the most part here. I think the problem is, | :24:37. | :24:41. | |
that although they filled the stage with the most beautiful and | :24:41. | :24:49. | |
brilliant set, Tom Scutt well done you, there is a huge cube, moving | :24:49. | :24:53. | |
forwards and backwards, down and up, lit from one side and not the other, | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
it is extraordinary. Although the performance fills the stage really | :24:58. | :25:03. | |
well, and the story interlock in a twiterish way. You can have a small | :25:03. | :25:08. | |
shot having a conversation, and another pair for another another | :25:08. | :25:12. | |
story will walk in and cross against them, because it is well | :25:12. | :25:16. | |
directed and rehearsed you are never confused. It sets up a really | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
brilliant premise, which is the ultimate urban malaise, here is | :25:19. | :25:24. | |
everyone in the city, panicky and worried and no-one can sleep, | :25:24. | :25:27. | |
everyone having nightmares and no- one can sleep. This is the best | :25:27. | :25:31. | |
idea you have heard for ages because you don't sleep, and the | :25:31. | :25:40. | |
second act it ebbs away. The first thing you set up I wanted and it | :25:40. | :25:44. | |
ebbs away. It didn't deliver did it in the second half all the things | :25:44. | :25:48. | |
it seemed, it was as if it was going to come into some sort of are | :25:48. | :25:53. | |
you by-election cube and come into focus at the end - rubix cube and | :25:53. | :25:56. | |
come into focus at the end, you didn't know if you were harking | :25:56. | :26:00. | |
back to Iran or Iraq, and whether we had any belief at all. Did it | :26:01. | :26:06. | |
deliver? No after the interval, you heard the balls dropping off the | :26:06. | :26:10. | |
thing that should have had balls. It seemed to be a continuation of | :26:10. | :26:13. | |
the conversation that was Earthquakes in London, but the | :26:13. | :26:16. | |
continuation of the bit that people thought was weak, which was the | :26:16. | :26:19. | |
strange obsession that Bartlett seems to have at the moment, about | :26:19. | :26:22. | |
if we could all tap into a collective unconscious, without | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
having opinions and without there being facts, and without believing | :26:26. | :26:29. | |
anything, then we would call mind meld and everything would be happy. | :26:29. | :26:35. | |
But all of the things he opened, all of the relationships he opened, | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
it didn't go anywhere. You have to have character that is you really | :26:38. | :26:43. | |
believe in to do that, don't you? You definitely have to. I couldn't | :26:43. | :26:49. | |
agree with more with what is being said, he sets up something | :26:49. | :26:53. | |
fatastically exciting and then the rug is pulled out beneath you. John, | :26:53. | :26:58. | |
the character people are meant to be emmobilising about is not strong | :26:58. | :27:02. | |
enough. David Hare can do it, but you think this is somebody | :27:02. | :27:09. | |
addressing what is going on across the river right now. It felt very | :27:09. | :27:14. | |
current with the people protesting. You can't believe you are going to | :27:14. | :27:19. | |
be here. He is writing it as he's going along? But the answer doesn't | :27:19. | :27:24. | |
come and you feel let down. talk about David Hare, it was less | :27:24. | :27:28. | |
obvious, he was not clear cut about which side he was on? It was play | :27:28. | :27:33. | |
of two halves and slightly disappointing. Once you accepted | :27:33. | :27:38. | |
the second half I felt it was interesting, and unDavid Hare-like, | :27:38. | :27:43. | |
we weren't all celebrating mass of liberalism, he offered other | :27:43. | :27:47. | |
alternatives. Like what? There was a parallel universe that sort of | :27:47. | :27:49. | |
allowed him almost to defend Tony Blair's decision to go to war. You | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
can only do it by creating a whole parallel universe, the big cube, | :27:54. | :27:58. | |
but on the National stage there was a justification for going to war. | :27:58. | :28:01. | |
There was, even if it were three lines, a justification of the | :28:01. | :28:07. | |
market, which you don't normally hear in that. Only because you were | :28:07. | :28:10. | |
taking the most boiled down versions of a dated left-wing | :28:11. | :28:17. | |
approach, and the most boiled down dated right-wing approach. | :28:17. | :28:21. | |
wasn't real people offering real views. It is like a digested | :28:21. | :28:26. | |
Guardian from a while ago. We are in a state of turmoil, so we have a | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
lot of plays which are contemporary, we have Enron, Jerusalem in a | :28:30. | :28:36. | |
different way as well. There is room, isn't there, for sharp | :28:36. | :28:40. | |
writing about our contemporary problems? Absolutely, that is why | :28:40. | :28:45. | |
we are having so many revivals, like at the RSC, you have Saved | :28:45. | :28:49. | |
coming back, all of the playwrights of the 60s are not bringing new | :28:49. | :28:52. | |
work, it is the all work bringing forward. It comes from a different | :28:52. | :28:56. | |
time. An underlying problem is because directors run the theatre | :28:56. | :28:59. | |
and they want plays that don't really have much couldn't tent | :28:59. | :29:05. | |
because they want to impose their concept of the play, - connent, and | :29:05. | :29:11. | |
they want to impose - content and they wanted to impose their content | :29:11. | :29:19. | |
on the plays. It was like he had Tourettes on it, he didn't give us | :29:19. | :29:22. | |
an answer. Don't you think there should have been some message. None | :29:22. | :29:27. | |
of the messages got realised, Twitter can do it, other can do it, | :29:27. | :29:31. | |
it was little nibbles. It was a tabloid version of modern day. | :29:31. | :29:35. | |
was like believing is better than not believing. But believing what. | :29:35. | :29:39. | |
That was the question that was not answered strongly enough. We will | :29:39. | :29:43. | |
have to leave that believing or not believing it worked. Coming on to | :29:43. | :29:46. | |
something which is a question of belief in the human spirit or not, | :29:46. | :29:54. | |
Ronan Bennett is on a bit of a role, no sooner has its - has his | :29:54. | :30:02. | |
conspiracy theory drama Hidden has finished, he starts another four- | :30:02. | :30:07. | |
night drama on Channel 4. Top Boy is set on the Summerhouse Estate in | :30:07. | :30:11. | |
London's East End, a mixture of gangster thriller and social | :30:11. | :30:15. | |
realisim, which aims to reflect the lives of young people in our inner | :30:15. | :30:19. | |
cities. It was created by the writer, Ronan Bennett, whose | :30:19. | :30:23. | |
previous work includes The Hamburg Cell, and the dock can you drama | :30:23. | :30:30. | |
based on the September 11th attacks, and Hidden, a small town solicitor | :30:30. | :30:35. | |
forced to delve into his murky past. Bennett was inspired by seeing a | :30:35. | :30:39. | |
child selling drugs near his Hackney home. And over a long | :30:39. | :30:42. | |
period interviewed locals, from dealers to senior police officers. | :30:42. | :30:47. | |
Top Boy shows a world in which crime is an all-too easy option for | :30:47. | :30:56. | |
young people in particular. Broadcast over four nights, the | :30:56. | :31:04. | |
drama centres on 13-year-old Ramell, left to his own devices after his | :31:04. | :31:09. | |
single mother is hospitalised. put her in a mental hospital. | :31:09. | :31:15. | |
is she coming home? I don't know. We also fall deShane who will stop | :31:15. | :31:19. | |
at nothing to win a turf war and become the main supplier, rather | :31:19. | :31:25. | |
than continue as a mere foot soldier. Why make it so hard for | :31:25. | :31:29. | |
the customer, the Feds know we are buying and selling in Hackney, as | :31:29. | :31:33. | |
long as we don't make no noise, they don't care. Few of the | :31:33. | :31:36. | |
characters are played by professional actors, instead | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
castings were held in schools, youth clubs and boxing gyms. Little | :31:41. | :31:46. | |
Michael, ten years old, making his money. What are you lot saying, you | :31:46. | :31:51. | |
want to make some paper. I do. Top Boy a dramatic depiction of | :31:51. | :31:55. | |
life in places where drugs and violence are all too common, or a | :31:55. | :31:58. | |
sensational story, which two months on from the riots, and less than a | :31:58. | :32:07. | |
year before the Olympics, just reinforces negative stereo types. | :32:07. | :32:11. | |
We began with the clear-cut write and wrong and evil and good in | :32:11. | :32:17. | |
Tintin, but this is a much more ambivalent, ambiguous drama. Lots | :32:17. | :32:22. | |
of shades of grey, lots of depth of character. I remember being sad | :32:22. | :32:26. | |
when I watched the one when people were being happy about it making a | :32:26. | :32:31. | |
fuss. Thinking this is what British television did in the 1960s and | :32:31. | :32:37. | |
1970s and forgot what to do, not having dramas based on things | :32:37. | :32:42. | |
blowing up. Caring about characters and being interested in them and | :32:42. | :32:46. | |
allowing actors act. It is a beautifully directed piece, he | :32:46. | :32:50. | |
allows you to see actors acting their socks off. The kids, | :32:50. | :32:59. | |
particularly, Malcolm Kamoletti, they are doing things, if you talk | :32:59. | :33:03. | |
to grown-up actors, moving through a scene and carrying it with | :33:03. | :33:09. | |
movement. It respects the variety. I love the very newspapers that | :33:09. | :33:12. | |
like to demonise marginalised communities, rabble roused a | :33:13. | :33:17. | |
response that the whole of Hackney was outraged. This is looking at | :33:17. | :33:22. | |
partly why you might end up rioting or being in something that would be | :33:22. | :33:26. | |
a criminal situation. But also why you might not. It takes the | :33:26. | :33:30. | |
Darwinian community, but caring, a genuine community, it is all shown. | :33:30. | :33:34. | |
It gives people dignity, it is a lovely world he makes. I couldn't | :33:34. | :33:37. | |
agree more. I think it is an extraordinary portrayal of a slice | :33:37. | :33:42. | |
of life that people are not aware of in London any more. London has | :33:42. | :33:47. | |
become such a deeply schizophrenic city. The highest prices in central | :33:47. | :33:50. | |
London are actually still rising as against everything else in the | :33:50. | :33:53. | |
world falling apart. At the same time in the underbelly of the city | :33:53. | :33:56. | |
we have situations like this. Where people don't have any option. I | :33:56. | :34:01. | |
think it is brilliant, because it doesn't glamorise it, it doesn't | :34:01. | :34:07. | |
try to garpbish it, it is very down - varpbish it, it is very dourpb to | :34:07. | :34:11. | |
earth, we need to know it. It is great that Channel 4 have it on. | :34:12. | :34:16. | |
I'm sad, it should be on the BBC, we should know about this. How are | :34:16. | :34:22. | |
we going to change it, not have more riots. But it is not | :34:22. | :34:29. | |
preaching? It is a brilliantly subtle posing of problems. There is | :34:29. | :34:36. | |
one fantastic scene where one of the young lads, 12 or 14, the | :34:36. | :34:40. | |
Gemcharacter, is finally taken under the wing. He's finally going | :34:40. | :34:45. | |
to sell some drugs. He sits in the car and the director keeps the | :34:45. | :34:48. | |
camera on his smiling, he feels he belongs, his dad is around but not | :34:48. | :34:52. | |
very much. He's got a family, and you are challenged, because you can | :34:52. | :34:57. | |
see how the drug dealers are a community for him. When I was | :34:57. | :35:02. | |
watching it and also realising as you say, so many of these actors | :35:02. | :35:06. | |
are amateurs. They are the real thing. It is almost, they are | :35:06. | :35:10. | |
beautifully underplaying it. It is because they haven't been trained | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
by theatre schools to be hopelessly overacting. So instead of getting | :35:14. | :35:18. | |
that overacting which then looks wood on TV, you have exactly the | :35:18. | :35:23. | |
same thing when it was Fishtank where the lead character was having | :35:23. | :35:28. | |
a fight with her boyfriend on train station, and getting one of the | :35:28. | :35:33. | |
most brilliant perm formances out of anyone. They get actual real- | :35:33. | :35:39. | |
life children behaving like actual real-life children. That | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
understated performance, when so often he's actually saying nothing, | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
I think the bravery of the directing on television to do that, | :35:46. | :35:50. | |
really takes the audience with it, doesn't it. It takes you between | :35:50. | :35:55. | |
worlds. What this does incredibly well, which is actually not in The | :35:55. | :35:59. | |
Wire, and it doesn't serve it well to compare it to that, it looks at | :35:59. | :36:05. | |
the dual existence of people. Some of it is young black men selling | :36:05. | :36:11. | |
drugs, boo to Hackney. But there is also a pregnant white woman with a | :36:11. | :36:15. | |
marijuana farm, who wants to provide for the baby. Then you see | :36:15. | :36:20. | |
her by day and she's selling tickets at a tube office and you | :36:20. | :36:24. | |
see her world shift. The character of the young boy goes through both | :36:24. | :36:28. | |
of the worlds on the right and I don't think sides of the tracks. | :36:28. | :36:31. | |
Also when Ronan Bennett set up all the characters so clearly, there is | :36:31. | :36:35. | |
not one character that is not in danger. I find that, I was almost | :36:35. | :36:40. | |
thinking what will I see next? Remember how there was no jeopardy | :36:40. | :36:47. | |
in Tintin, it is all in this. not silly, nobody will die, nobody | :36:47. | :36:52. | |
blows up. Is this lovely frailty. His mother, Lisa, the way she is | :36:52. | :36:55. | |
dealt with in it, and the way she is. Taking something like this, | :36:55. | :37:00. | |
almost like event television, you are stringing it across four nights, | :37:00. | :37:03. | |
you are actually building it up to be something rather important? | :37:03. | :37:07. | |
are making a statement with it. You are actually really wanting to | :37:07. | :37:10. | |
shove it in people's faces and say open your eyes here and look at | :37:10. | :37:15. | |
this. Who is it for, for white middle-class people, who is it | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
actually for? I think it is for people who say everything's all | :37:19. | :37:22. | |
right, and actually, in this society we have lots of | :37:22. | :37:26. | |
opportunities. This is showing that some of the people we don't have it. | :37:26. | :37:30. | |
You made a good point about the groups, if you don't have father | :37:30. | :37:33. | |
figures of course you will cleave to that. It is the reason why | :37:33. | :37:43. | |
people end up in the BNP. Mid- Summers Murder, wonderful black | :37:43. | :37:47. | |
actors, why don't we see more. Before we move on I should mention | :37:47. | :37:53. | |
after last week's show our panelist, cazcazcaz wanted to apologise to | :37:53. | :37:57. | |
anyone offended by her reference to autism in the discussion about We | :37:57. | :38:07. | |
Need To Talk About Kevin. Earl, that is Karen Krizanovich. | :38:07. | :38:12. | |
Miriam Margolyes is appearing in A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg, we | :38:12. | :38:16. | |
asked her about her favourite roles on stage and on screen. It was a | :38:16. | :38:20. | |
great delight to be in Harry Potter number two and eight, particularly | :38:20. | :38:24. | |
number eight because I will earn a lot of money from that one, I think. | :38:24. | :38:29. | |
And to be in something which has appealed to so many millions of | :38:29. | :38:36. | |
people, that's a thrill. Plenty of pots to go around, grasp your | :38:36. | :38:42. | |
mandrake and pull it up. I worked with Baz Lurhman on Romeo and | :38:42. | :38:48. | |
Juliet. I owe him a great deal, the studio didn't want me, they wanted | :38:48. | :38:52. | |
Cathy Baits, she's more famous and a brilliant act stress. For some | :38:52. | :38:58. | |
reason he wanted me. He told me to play it Cuban. I had to blink | :38:58. | :39:04. | |
slightly when I accepted it, he asked could I do it. I said, of | :39:04. | :39:10. | |
course. I desire some conference with you. I also like to test to | :39:10. | :39:16. | |
myself in serious stuff because people think of me as someone funny. | :39:16. | :39:23. | |
So when I do serious and End Game with Mark Rylance, that was a | :39:23. | :39:28. | |
career high for me. I was in a dustbin for 15 minutes, but it was | :39:28. | :39:34. | |
a rich time, dramatically. I'm now appearing in A Day In The Death Of | :39:34. | :39:42. | |
Joe Egg by Peter Nichols, one of the most extraordinary plays of | :39:42. | :39:50. | |
modern times. It is a mixture of hysteria and normality, of banality, | :39:50. | :39:54. | |
cliche and terror. It is quite a tall order to get it all in the, I | :39:54. | :39:59. | |
don't know, 20 minutes of the last act, which is when I appear. It is | :39:59. | :40:06. | |
a mixture of farce, and tragedy. It confronts very genuine issues of | :40:06. | :40:12. | |
dealing with a child who is disabled, critically disabled. And | :40:12. | :40:18. | |
how husbands and wifes manage. It was first done 47 years a it was | :40:18. | :40:23. | |
incredibly shocking. And you know I think it still is. I want very much | :40:23. | :40:28. | |
to continue being an actress, but I would like to be at the National | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
Theatre. I have written to them and have had no reply. I'm now putting | :40:33. | :40:38. | |
out a public request, on television, please give me a job at the | :40:38. | :40:44. | |
national theatre and why has it taken you so long. | :40:44. | :40:50. | |
Take that. And you can Kashmir yam in A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg in | :40:50. | :40:55. | |
the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, after that possibly available for | :40:55. | :40:59. | |
the national. Everything is on the website. Let us know what you think. | :40:59. | :41:05. | |
I will be back next week with a book special featuring the latest | :41:05. | :41:08. | |
from Umberto Eco, Stephen King, Joan Didion and Aleksandr | :41:08. | :41:15. | |
Solzhenitsyn. My thanks to my guests. We hope you will stay tuned | :41:15. | :41:22. | |
for Coldseal Group Ltd, Ryan Adams all joining Jools after. | :41:22. | :41:32. | |
:41:32. | :41:32. |