Browse content similar to Episode 5. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Hello and welcome to The Culture Show, coming to you from the 2011 | :00:11. | :00:15. | |
Manchester International Festival, the biennial event committed to | :00:16. | :00:21. | |
premiering world-class new work across the city and across the arts. | :00:21. | :00:26. | |
Coming up: Victoria Wood on choirs and overweight insurance men in her | :00:26. | :00:33. | |
new show That Day We Sang, Damon Albarn's latest creative odyssey | :00:33. | :00:36. | |
culminates in Doctor Dee: An English Opera. The self-stifled | :00:36. | :00:40. | |
godmother of performance art Marina Abramovic presents the story of her | :00:40. | :00:45. | |
own life with a little help from Willem Dafoe and Anthony Hegarty. | :00:45. | :00:49. | |
30 years after its release, Rickie Lee Jones tells us how she feels | :00:49. | :00:55. | |
about returning to her breakthrough album Pirates for a special | :00:55. | :01:01. | |
performance at The Bridgewater Hall. Plus, Alastair Sooke experiences 11 | :01:01. | :01:10. | |
rooms of art and Ben Lewis takes a tour of the outdoor artworks, | :01:10. | :01:18. | |
Manchester's new mical -- musical Wu Lyf breaks the myth about their | :01:18. | :01:22. | |
mistaoeubgs. First, a show about how the power of music can revive | :01:22. | :01:28. | |
your love of life, played out against a backdrop of Wimpey Bars | :01:28. | :01:34. | |
and Piccadilly Gardens, That Day We Sang is the work of Victoria Wood, | :01:34. | :01:38. | |
inspired by events in 1929 when the Manchester Children's Choir | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
recorded their celebrated version of Nymphs and Shepherds. Singing | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
guru Carrie Grant has been speaking to Wood and the new Children's | :01:47. | :01:53. | |
Choir she's created especially for the event. | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
In 1929 the Manchester Children's Choir released a record that would | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
change the lives of those involved, offering hope in the midst of | :02:01. | :02:07. | |
depression. MUSIC | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
in 1979, the BBC broadcast a documentary that brought the now | :02:11. | :02:16. | |
middle-aged members of the choir together again. And a Young Vic are | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
toia wood -- Victoria Wood happened to be watching. | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
The seed of a story stayed with her and over 30 years later the | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
nation's favourite musical comedian has written a play with songs based | :02:28. | :02:38. | |
:02:38. | :02:42. | ||
# I want to make you proud # I want my song | :02:42. | :02:50. | |
# To let you see who I can be # When I belong. Writing it, did it | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
just flow? It didn't exactly flow. The problem I had with it was that | :02:54. | :02:59. | |
I had to write the strapline for the poster before we wrote the play. | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
So I was sort of stuck. I had the boy on the poster, so I had to have | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
a boy running in the play. How does it feel for you to be writing and | :03:08. | :03:13. | |
directing, but not appearing? great. I am delighted. It's a | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
complicated thing to put together because it's got an orchestra, a | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
choir, a child star who can only work every 20 minutes every fifth | :03:21. | :03:27. | |
Tuesday, it seems to me. We have an adult cast. We have filmed bits, | :03:27. | :03:37. | |
:03:37. | :03:39. | ||
it's a complicated show to put # We would glide by as if we're | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
tied by a thread # We would have an amorous and | :03:42. | :03:47. | |
glamorous affair... The power of singing is immense. | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
It's fantastic. The power of music is immense, the power of music to | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
move you and evoke emotion in you and that's what the story is about, | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
it's about somebody hearing themselves sing and thinking I | :03:58. | :04:01. | |
could have a different life. I don't need to live like this, coy | :04:01. | :04:07. | |
have more e-- I could have more emotions in my life than I have. | :04:07. | :04:14. | |
Sorry, did you say you sang or didn't sing, I got distracted? | :04:14. | :04:23. | |
sing?. No. Do you sing? No, I never sing. I never sing. I don't think I | :04:23. | :04:33. | |
:04:33. | :04:37. | ||
ever did sing. Was that me? Did I sing? Did my voice once soar? | :04:37. | :04:45. | |
Am I still that boy? For the original Nymphs and | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
Shepherds, whose childhood recording sold a million copies and | :04:48. | :04:53. | |
entered local legend, the power of singing has sustained. From the | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
mid-1920s the Manchester Children's Choir united 250 children from | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
disparate local communities in song. Florence was one of the original | :05:03. | :05:07. | |
school children who sang in the choir's pioneering concerts and | :05:07. | :05:17. | |
:05:17. | :05:19. | ||
recording at the Free Trade Hall. Nymphs and Shepherds... That's it, | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
that's the one they sang mostly, because it was going to be recorded | :05:22. | :05:28. | |
so we had to be sure about it. never thought it would be anything | :05:28. | :05:36. | |
big, just thought go along with it, yes all right. And lo and behold, | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
it's grown and grown. It was the highlight of our lives. I was a | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
quiet person, but after a period in that I seemed to get more | :05:44. | :05:51. | |
confidence in myself. Imagine the shepherds are over there and the | :05:51. | :05:59. | |
nymphs are there. OK. Now Victoria Wood's new play has | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
brought children from several local schools together to sing as a choir, | :06:02. | :06:12. | |
:06:12. | :06:12. | ||
like in 1929. These kids perform as the original | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
choir and breathe new life into Purcell's Nymphs and Shepherds on | :06:16. | :06:25. | |
stage. That's beautiful, well done. | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
How do you feel about thinking that 80 years later you are now the next | :06:29. | :06:35. | |
set of children that are going to sing? I am actually excited that I | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
am going to be singing such an old song, that's the first time I ever | :06:40. | :06:46. | |
heard that song. Do either of you want to be singers or actors? | :06:46. | :06:52. | |
might want to be an actor, singer, but I don't know yet. | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
That Day We Sang isn't simply a re- enactment of the 1929 choir moment, | :06:58. | :07:05. | |
the play with songs takes the story further, fastforwarding to 1979 | :07:05. | :07:10. | |
when nymph Enid and shepherd Tubby who wanted so much to sing as | :07:10. | :07:15. | |
children meet again in middle-age. Why isn't it just a play? It's | :07:15. | :07:20. | |
about music, it's about singing, whether you do or don't sing and in | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
my play the singing expresses the things they can't say. They can | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
talk about decimalisation but sing about love. Why can't they just | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
call it a new shilling? Because then they wouldn't really have | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
changed anything. It has to be something to be divided by 100 to | :07:37. | :07:45. | |
be decimal. I think people are going to be very cross. # Middle- | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
aged, buttoned up # It's safer to ignore | :07:51. | :07:59. | |
# Who we were # When we sang before | :07:59. | :08:07. | |
you often use middle-aged characters in your work. Guess why! | :08:08. | :08:15. | |
Because I'm middle-aged. That's why. Truly? I used to write about girls, | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
and now I am writing about people in their 50s, because I understand | :08:18. | :08:23. | |
it. It's often in that middle age where we have the opportunity given | :08:23. | :08:29. | |
to us to make a massive change for some reason. Yes, I think in 1969 | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
when the play is set 50 was probably perceived as older now. | :08:33. | :08:36. | |
Nobody wants to be old now, people would not think of themselves as | :08:36. | :08:41. | |
old, but then I think people perhaps expected that the exciting | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
part of their life, their romantic part of their life was finished, so | :08:46. | :08:49. | |
this is somebody saying, either of them, have never had a romance in | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
their life and they're going to have it now. | :08:54. | :09:01. | |
# If life were movies, we would know all the words | :09:01. | :09:11. | |
:09:11. | :09:20. | ||
I just want them to have a fantastic night and feel that | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
something's happened, that they've been entertained. That's all I am | :09:24. | :09:30. | |
ever trying to do, to 10.00, that's when the kids have to get back on | :09:30. | :09:35. | |
the coach so we have to stop then. That Day We Sang continues at the | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
opera House until the end of the Festival on Sunday. Next, musician | :09:39. | :09:44. | |
Damon Albarn likes a challenge. He has enjoyed chart domination with | :09:44. | :09:50. | |
blur and huge popular success with Gorillaz but he's also been a | :09:50. | :09:52. | |
committed contributor to every Manchester International Festival, | :09:52. | :09:58. | |
kicking off with the hit Chinese opera Monkey, creating music with | :09:58. | :10:04. | |
Punchdrunk and Adam Kurtis and now working with Rufus Norris on Dr Dee, | :10:04. | :10:10. | |
it's been marketed a -- as an English opera but Albarn muse it is | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
might be better described as a melancholy. Michael Smith has been | :10:13. | :10:20. | |
finding out more. History is full of forgotten men. | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
Brilliant, strange, complex men whose influence has reasonated | :10:25. | :10:30. | |
through our culture in ways that may have have become obscured. | :10:30. | :10:36. | |
One such man was the Elizabethan thinker and occultist Dr John Dee. | :10:36. | :10:43. | |
John Dee is a shadowy obscure figure at the heart of the English | :10:43. | :10:48. | |
rennaissance. Elizabeth I called him her philosopher and he was the | :10:48. | :10:54. | |
inspiration for Shakespeare's Prospero and Marlowe's Faust. A | :10:54. | :11:04. | |
:11:04. | :11:04. | ||
crypt owe graphier -- cryptographer whose codename was 007. He's the | :11:04. | :11:10. | |
man who came up with the idea of a British empire, the idea that | :11:10. | :11:16. | |
England could become a maritime power. He lived in an age where the | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
line between science and sorcery was blurred. Mathematics, like | :11:20. | :11:24. | |
magic was still considered to be an uncanny art, the work of the devil. | :11:24. | :11:29. | |
Dee plummed the mysteries of both. I never found any man living nor | :11:29. | :11:34. | |
any book I could yet meet with all, was able to teach me those truths I | :11:34. | :11:40. | |
desired and longed for, he wrote. Instead, Dee searched for these | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
truths through supernational communication with angels. -- | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
supernatural. This was a step too far, even for the Queen's | :11:50. | :11:53. | |
philosopher. His reputation tarnished he fell out of favour | :11:53. | :11:58. | |
with the Royal court. In 1596 Dee was made the warden of what is now | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
Manchester cathedral and he lived here in Cheetham library, the | :12:02. | :12:04. | |
oldest public library in Britain. It was somewhere he was free to | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
continue his occult research and tongues wagged that he was | :12:08. | :12:15. | |
conjuring up the devil. The legend has grown up that this burn mark | :12:15. | :12:21. | |
here was caused by the devil's hoof. Dee supposedly summoned him up one | :12:21. | :12:26. | |
dark night. The life of John Dee provided the | :12:26. | :12:31. | |
in-- proved the inspiration for Damon Albarn's latest opera showing | :12:32. | :12:41. | |
:12:42. | :12:49. | ||
I caught up with Albarn between performances and asked what | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
attracted him to the character of John Dee. I have always been | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
fascinated with history, it was one of the few things that I kind of - | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
history and music were the things at school that I was interested in. | :13:02. | :13:08. | |
OK. It's everything about him was elegant and I am a great fan. | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
you see a lot of threads between that Dee's time and our time like | :13:11. | :13:16. | |
was there a reasonance? The two Elizabeths was an easy starting | :13:16. | :13:23. | |
point for that. I am sort of an Englishman alive in the last embers | :13:23. | :13:30. | |
of the fire and he was an Englishman who kind of... Stoked | :13:30. | :13:37. | |
it? Stoked the fire, exactly. melancholy score features the BBC | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
Philharmonic Orchestra and a mixture of African and English | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
musicians, including Fela Kuti's legendary drummer and frequent | :13:45. | :13:51. | |
Albarn collaborater Tony Allen. I got a real sense watching the opera | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
that there's disparate things like African instruments and medieval | :13:57. | :14:01. | |
English things that could not easily have gelled. It really felt | :14:01. | :14:07. | |
they were tapping into some kind of force, if you like. Yeah, a force | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
that, you know, if you talk about intangible things like vibrations, | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
stuff you can't see or hear necessarily, I think absolutely. | :14:17. | :14:24. | |
They come from a same place and they all come from a very sort of | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
different sound world, you know. I mean, all those instruments sound | :14:28. | :14:33. | |
amazing together with no amplification. It's really nice | :14:33. | :14:40. | |
just to sort of leave the amplified world, although I couldn't leave my | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
microphone. Why did you put yourself in the opera, why did you | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
want to star in it? I never wanted to star in that, that's more a | :14:48. | :14:54. | |
marketing - I never really comfortable with that. It's been an | :14:54. | :14:59. | |
amazingly corroborative process and -- collaborative process and I was | :14:59. | :15:03. | |
singing some of the stuff myself and it's like I really love this. I | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
am completely comfortable being in this world and in a way it's kind | :15:07. | :15:11. | |
of - it's an opportunity to say something about England, which | :15:11. | :15:14. | |
there's no other frame I can imagine that I would be able to say | :15:14. | :15:24. | |
:15:24. | :15:42. | ||
# The sun out of the valley # Comes the song of our aaccord... | :15:42. | :15:46. | |
I find something strangely moving about John Dee. I think it's | :15:46. | :15:53. | |
because he embodies an esoteric current that runs through English | :15:53. | :15:59. | |
culture. It's in the myths of king Arthur of stone hedge. It's | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
something that our artists channeled. It's in the words of | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
Sheikh or the pibtuers of Blake. More recently it's in the songs of | :16:07. | :16:12. | |
Syd Barrett or Nick drake. A strange sense of the magical that | :16:12. | :16:22. | |
:16:22. | :16:31. | ||
Doctor Dee will form part of next year year's Cultural Olympiad | :16:31. | :16:36. | |
playing at the London Colisseum. Now, one major contributor it this | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
year's festival programme has been known to remain silent for hundreds | :16:39. | :16:45. | |
of hours at a time, to lie naked on a cross of ice, even to slash her | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
own skin with a razor blade, Marina Abramovic is nothing, if not | :16:49. | :16:55. | |
committed. Her work forms part of the group show, 11 Rooms. He is | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
presenting her own story, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic | :16:59. | :17:05. | |
produced and directed by Robert Wilson, starring Willme Defoe and | :17:05. | :17:15. | |
:17:15. | :17:26. | ||
by music by Antony Hegarty. I went along to take a look. -- One famous | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
early performance dared the audience to utilise an array of | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
objects including noose knives and a gun as she stood passive in front | :17:35. | :17:44. | |
of them. Last year she sat opposite members of the public every day for | :17:44. | :17:49. | |
three months in one of the longest pieces of performance art on record, | :17:49. | :17:55. | |
attracting over half a million visitors. Her offering at this year | :17:55. | :18:01. | |
marks a first in the career of the now 65-year-old artist. In Marina | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
Abramovic has always been careful to retain absolute control, here | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
she's done the opposite. She's given the director, Robert Wilson, | :18:09. | :18:14. | |
her life in the form of notebooks, memoirs, confessions and say, make | :18:14. | :18:18. | |
of it what you will. Stage me. In a rate me. Tell the story of my life | :18:18. | :18:24. | |
as you see. It it's an eccentric theatrical experiment in the | :18:24. | :18:34. | |
:18:34. | :18:36. | ||
surrender of control. Having fun. We are going to talk about dying, | :18:36. | :18:43. | |
apparently? Lovely moving for to die. The Genesis of the project | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
came from Abramovic's wish that Wilson would design her funeral | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
while Antony Hegarty would provide the music. Though it begins and | :18:52. | :18:59. | |
ends with a funeral ceremony, the play also takes a surreal episodic | :18:59. | :19:04. | |
journey through her life, especially her early years in post- | :19:04. | :19:10. | |
war Yugoslavia. What I call this piece is, Robert Wilson's The Life | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
and Death of Marina Abramovic, it's his vision. He has freedom to | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
recycle as he wants. I don't have any control of. It that not having | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
control is the most liberating feeling I have for a long time. I | :19:21. | :19:24. | |
have complete control about my own work. I didn't want to have any | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
control about my life. There is so many different things, like, you | :19:28. | :19:34. | |
know the me is played by the Carlos, Carlos is this man who is quite | :19:34. | :19:39. | |
small size with moustache, I can't believe he cast me, I said, "who is | :19:39. | :19:46. | |
this" he said, "this is Carlos, this is you" I said,, "who am I | :19:46. | :19:51. | |
going to be?" He said, "you are mother of course" that is a crazy | :19:51. | :19:58. | |
twist. I had a problem with my mother all my life. I play myself | :19:58. | :20:08. | |
:20:08. | :20:08. | ||
and then it's all mixed up. There are so many Marina's on the stage. | :20:08. | :20:13. | |
Robert Wilson is regarded as a visionary in the theatre world. He | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
has previously collaborated with Tom Waits and Philip Glass. You | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
have taken a performance artist. She delivered you her life. You | :20:22. | :20:27. | |
have turned it back into a work of art which you formalised using a | :20:27. | :20:32. | |
lot of devices drawn from the language of art That's true. I | :20:32. | :20:36. | |
didn't want to take her life and just illustrate it. We know what | :20:37. | :20:42. | |
she has done as a performing artist. For me to reproduce that on stage | :20:42. | :20:47. | |
stage would be totally wrong, I think. First of all, performance | :20:47. | :20:57. | |
:20:57. | :21:06. | ||
artist is different that theatre. - than theatre. | :21:06. | :21:12. | |
# Why must you suffer? # It's a collision of very strange | :21:12. | :21:16. | |
personalities. Willem Dafoe is more psychological, naturalistic actor, | :21:16. | :21:25. | |
I'm trying to formalise him. When I think of Marina's life, this dark | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
stories about how terrible her mother was, and how terrible her | :21:29. | :21:36. | |
life was a -- as a little girl. You hear this ethereal voice of Antony. | :21:36. | :21:46. | |
:21:46. | :21:59. | ||
Watching rehearsals I was really struck by how Robert looks at the | :21:59. | :22:07. | |
stage as much as an artist and as a lighting designer and as he does a | :22:07. | :22:10. | |
theatrical producer? One of the things I've always loved about his | :22:10. | :22:17. | |
work, he's a sculptor. He plays with light and he bends time. His | :22:17. | :22:22. | |
instruction to sometimes to me is, make it less natural. I share his | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
sensibility that way. The theatre is the theatre. It's a heightened | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
language. I'm a little bit of the opinion of, you yeah, you wanna see | :22:31. | :22:40. | |
life, go to the diner. Tell me about your role, your role seems | :22:40. | :22:50. | |
:22:50. | :22:51. | ||
very important? I'm part of the glue, I'm part of the structure. | :22:51. | :23:01. | |
:23:01. | :23:01. | ||
1972, she stops using -- she starts using her body as material. Pushing | :23:01. | :23:08. | |
her body to its physical and mental limits. Part in a rator, part | :23:08. | :23:18. | |
:23:18. | :23:23. | ||
chorus? Yeah. I'm like the old stinky actor element in the art | :23:23. | :23:29. | |
world. With this play marking her furthest move yet away from | :23:29. | :23:33. | |
traditional perance art, has Abramovic left her old radicalism | :23:33. | :23:41. | |
behind? You used to say that you hated the theatre. So how come this | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
is all right? I always like to do things I'm afraid and I don't know. | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
You go to another dimension and you learn so much about doing it. It's | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
so easy to do things you like, you never change, but when you don't | :23:55. | :23:58. | |
like, that's the really interesting, to give up control that's a really | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
liberating experience. In that way, your life always looks new to you. | :24:02. | :24:10. | |
It's a good trick. The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic continues | :24:10. | :24:16. | |
at the Lowry until Saturday. There will be more on 11 Rooms later in | :24:16. | :24:21. | |
the show. Manchester is a hive of cultural activity at the moment. | :24:21. | :24:23. | |
The success of the third international festival is another | :24:23. | :24:32. | |
sign of it. The other is the BBC's new home, media city. Sefton | :24:32. | :24:42. | |
:24:42. | :24:45. | ||
Samuals has been documenting changes and his collected works | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
have just been published in a new book, Northerners. What does it | :24:50. | :24:56. | |
mean nowadays to be a northerner? What makes a Mancunian from | :24:56. | :25:00. | |
Manchester in anyway distinct? It's all used to be so straight-forward. | :25:00. | :25:08. | |
Growing up in Manchester in the '80s and '90s you were part of a | :25:09. | :25:15. | |
tribe. After living down in London for years, I myself have become the | :25:15. | :25:19. | |
softest ever southerners and barely recognise the city I grew up in. | :25:19. | :25:24. | |
Challenge me nowadays to put my finger on what makes northerners so | :25:24. | :25:28. | |
northern and I haven't really got a clue. I have come back to | :25:28. | :25:35. | |
Manchester on the hunt to find the essence of northernness. This is me | :25:35. | :25:39. | |
and my dad, Sefton Samuals. He is a famous photographer with pictures | :25:39. | :25:46. | |
held at the National Portrait Gallery and V apbld A. If anyone | :25:46. | :25:50. | |
can help me define what it is to be a northerner, it's him. Sefton has | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
spent five decades photographing Manchester, the north of England, | :25:54. | :26:02. | |
and its people. In black-and-white, he captured their approachability. | :26:03. | :26:07. | |
Their sense of humour, their straight-talking swagger. I was | :26:07. | :26:14. | |
always struck by the soul of something he captured. I spent the | :26:14. | :26:18. | |
last decade asking him to bring together the collection of his | :26:18. | :26:25. | |
northern photographs as a book, which is being published as | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
Northerners, portrait of a no nonsense people. I am used to being | :26:29. | :26:34. | |
around your photographs, I haven't asked you about the ethos behind | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
them. No nonsense, that does that reflect your artistic style? Yes, | :26:39. | :26:44. | |
it does. I try to take pictures of life. Straight-forward depictions | :26:44. | :26:50. | |
of life. I'm happy for a photograph to look like a photograph. I don't | :26:50. | :26:55. | |
want it to look like an artistic painting. I don't go in for | :26:55. | :27:01. | |
pictures that are setup. I think they look very false anyway. I try | :27:01. | :27:11. | |
to be a, sort of, hidden observer of life. Sefton strategy has won | :27:11. | :27:20. | |
him the trust of some awkward characters. Sam's Chop house is | :27:20. | :27:30. | |
:27:30. | :27:31. | ||
where Lowry once popped up the bar. Rare pictures, thanks to to a | :27:31. | :27:36. | |
concerted charm offensive on Lowry's house keeper. We found we | :27:36. | :27:40. | |
had something in common. We had worked in a mill in her younger | :27:40. | :27:44. | |
days. She said, "I will drop you a line as soon as I know when he's | :27:44. | :27:49. | |
coming in. Give him a couple of days to settle in. Don't mention my | :27:49. | :27:55. | |
name, whatever you do". So, I said, "fine", she was as good as her | :27:55. | :28:02. | |
thwart. It was the foot in the door my dad needed to get his pictures | :28:02. | :28:08. | |
of Lowry. He said himself, "the best portraits I've ever had lad, | :28:08. | :28:18. | |
:28:18. | :28:20. | ||
lad". That's me aged 13 with my teenage hero Morrissey in 1989. I | :28:20. | :28:24. | |
tackled him outside his Manchester home to see if he would do an | :28:24. | :28:29. | |
interview for my school newspaper. To my utter astonishment he agreed. | :28:29. | :28:35. | |
My dad took the snaps. Maybe I had inherited some of that dogged | :28:35. | :28:39. | |
determination that had seen him track down some of the North's most | :28:39. | :28:48. | |
famous faces. One of the most widely used set of photo that is | :28:48. | :28:53. | |
Sefton took needed almost no struggle for access. Footballer | :28:53. | :29:00. | |
George Best used to run a Men's Wear shop on Bridge Street. He was | :29:00. | :29:06. | |
leaning against the door post. Enjoying the spring sunshine. I was | :29:06. | :29:11. | |
walking back from lunch, I spotted him. I came over and said, "would | :29:11. | :29:17. | |
you mind if I took a few pictures, gorpbl?" He was obliging and | :29:17. | :29:23. | |
relaxed and said, "that's fine". It was only a few moments. I didn't | :29:23. | :29:26. | |
realise then I'd get such significant pictures. These would | :29:26. | :29:36. | |
:29:36. | :29:38. | ||
end up in the National Portrait Gallery, Paul Weller's covers. Who | :29:38. | :29:44. | |
is the equivalent to George Best. Rooney. You would never get near. | :29:44. | :29:49. | |
Mirroring the change in football, it's a parallel that goes from | :29:49. | :29:55. | |
being George's boutique to now a big chain here? From a star to | :29:55. | :30:03. | |
Starbucks. Have you rehearsed that Everything in Sefton's photos | :30:03. | :30:07. | |
appears older than it really is. The 60s' images feel almost | :30:07. | :30:11. | |
Victorian. But I think they reflected a | :30:11. | :30:21. | |
tendency the north itself once had to look a decade or so out of date. | :30:21. | :30:26. | |
Come on, quickly please! It would take an act of violence to shake | :30:26. | :30:32. | |
off Manchester's timelag. The 1996 IRA bomb in the heart of | :30:32. | :30:37. | |
Manchester shook the city to the core. | :30:37. | :30:45. | |
From the pull srerised shopping precinct sprang a determination to | :30:45. | :30:51. | |
renew and re-invent. The torrent of regeneration with Salford the | :30:51. | :30:54. | |
harvest, the back streets documented by Sefton, the character | :30:54. | :30:59. | |
which inspired the birth of Coronation Street, swept away for a | :31:00. | :31:04. | |
shiny future. Back then when you were taking | :31:04. | :31:07. | |
these photographs of Salford how would you have felt to show | :31:07. | :31:10. | |
Manchester is going to have an International scan festival and | :31:10. | :31:15. | |
Imperial War Museum, the BBC is moving here? I wouldn't have | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
believed it. It's so totally unrecognisable today. It changes so | :31:21. | :31:26. | |
rapidly that sometimes I have a job to find my way around. | :31:26. | :31:32. | |
Sefton's north is the north of Joy Division, coronation street and the | :31:32. | :31:36. | |
Smiths. I wonder if that north is gone forever now, and whether it's | :31:36. | :31:40. | |
still clinging on? For all the changes afoot here, | :31:41. | :31:46. | |
coming back does seem there's still a distinct culture, a way of | :31:46. | :31:49. | |
viewing the world up north. For me the essence of being northern is | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
best bottled by the photographs I grew up around. Frankly, it would | :31:53. | :31:58. | |
be impertinent to argue with something your dad has spent five | :31:58. | :32:01. | |
decades defining. Northerners was published last week. | :32:01. | :32:05. | |
Next, for over 30 years Rickie Lee Jones has been a musician who's | :32:06. | :32:09. | |
defied classification and she was at the Festival to give a rare UK | :32:09. | :32:15. | |
performance of her classic album Pirates At The Bridgewater Hall on | :32:15. | :32:20. | |
Sunday. We sent Clemency Burton Hill along to meet her. | :32:20. | :32:26. | |
Aged 14 she ran away from home and hitchHicked around California. Aged | :32:26. | :32:31. | |
21, she had major major record labels vying for her signature. Not | :32:31. | :32:36. | |
long after she was on the front cover of Rolling Stone and won her | :32:36. | :32:44. | |
first Grammy. She might be best known for her single Chucky in Love. | :32:45. | :32:48. | |
But it's Pirates fans still Cherish the most. | :32:48. | :32:54. | |
Pirates was released in 1981 and is considered the definetive sound of | :32:55. | :33:02. | |
Rickie Lee Jones. It's eccentric, witty and a bit soulful. But 30 | :33:02. | :33:06. | |
years on, do these youthful songs of love and lust still pack a | :33:07. | :33:11. | |
punch? Do you have any inkling this would be a record that would stand | :33:11. | :33:20. | |
the test of the time in the way it has? Yes. Yes. Why do you think | :33:20. | :33:24. | |
it's such a special album? Why do you think it still speaks to us | :33:24. | :33:29. | |
all? There's no song I do that I don't love and inhabit totally. If | :33:29. | :33:33. | |
people love this record so much, let's do the whole thing. There are | :33:34. | :33:39. | |
pieces I haven't done in 28 years, they're fun, they're hard and you | :33:39. | :33:49. | |
:33:49. | :33:54. | ||
do something that's hard it makes # I say this is no game of chicken | :33:54. | :33:57. | |
# You are aiming at your best friend | :33:57. | :34:05. | |
# You wear that like a chain around your neck | :34:05. | :34:15. | |
:34:15. | :34:16. | ||
# Like the one you got from your # One more way, you can't play this | :34:16. | :34:18. | |
scene twice. You mentioned that each album for | :34:18. | :34:21. | |
you is like a movie of your life at the time that you were making it. | :34:21. | :34:26. | |
Yes. How is it to revisit that former self? When I did the Pirates | :34:26. | :34:35. | |
tour it was a pretty wild tour. People who had been sober, just | :34:35. | :34:40. | |
fall off the sober wagon tour. It ended up in disarray. I don't any | :34:40. | :34:44. | |
more, but I always had a drink before I went on stage. I think the | :34:44. | :34:49. | |
stage fright became really intense for me and I started bringing a | :34:49. | :34:54. | |
glass on stage. Then one day I just brought the bottle on stage. They | :34:54. | :34:59. | |
took a picture and put it in the LA Times. Almost the whole page. | :34:59. | :35:06. | |
Suddenly I became associated with this thing that's been difficult to | :35:06. | :35:10. | |
shed, you know. Are you the same? Are you the same Rickie Lee Jones | :35:10. | :35:18. | |
now as you were then? When I first did Pirates a year ago at the Pier | :35:18. | :35:26. | |
in LA it was a really big crowd. I stepped on stage, in my leather | :35:27. | :35:32. | |
jacket, and she was waiting just as she had always been there, the | :35:32. | :35:37. | |
Rickie Lee of the Pirates time, I was ready to... I wasn't aggressive | :35:37. | :35:42. | |
but I felt her there, you know. you have to reinhabit her? I didn't | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
do it on purpose. You know, I didn't expect anything like - I | :35:46. | :35:52. | |
just said I am going to do Pirates but this other living persona is | :35:52. | :35:58. | |
part of that music. It's incredible, you know. When you were very young, | :35:58. | :36:01. | |
in your early 20s, you got famous very quickly. What was that like? | :36:01. | :36:06. | |
It's like being in a tidal wave, yeah, so, of course the tidal wave | :36:06. | :36:13. | |
is a shock, but it was also something I always hoped to have. | :36:13. | :36:18. | |
It was pretty wonderful, it was really difficult, but it's hard to | :36:18. | :36:28. | |
:36:28. | :36:32. | ||
say because life wasn't that easy # Chuck E's in love | :36:32. | :36:40. | |
#. Are there any big female artists working today who you really admire, | :36:40. | :36:46. | |
who you think are doing good work? No. Not a one? There are single | :36:46. | :36:52. | |
songs I like or single performances, but maybe that thing of being | :36:52. | :36:57. | |
captivated is an age thing, you know, because it's part - being a | :36:57. | :37:01. | |
part of your peers, and it doesn't happen so much when you get older. | :37:01. | :37:05. | |
You are captivated by your children or the thing, you know, the person | :37:05. | :37:09. | |
you love. Because you do spend so much time on tour and you are | :37:09. | :37:12. | |
performing all the time, do you still feel now that you still need | :37:12. | :37:16. | |
to be performing, that you need to be playing live to an audience? | :37:16. | :37:26. | |
:37:26. | :37:42. | ||
I like to write, but there's nothing like performing and I am | :37:42. | :37:46. | |
blessed. There's something that happens in the magic of performance | :37:46. | :37:54. | |
that can't happen anywhere else. People come ready to have that | :37:54. | :37:58. | |
experience. To me it's it's closest thing to a true Church. Are you a | :37:58. | :38:06. | |
pirate? Yeah, yeah, in that I liked having a crew and in a way because | :38:06. | :38:16. | |
:38:16. | :38:42. | ||
In its short history this Festival's developed a reputation | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
for commissioning some extraordinary live art and this | :38:44. | :38:49. | |
year's no exception. Alastair Sooke went to experience some of the | :38:49. | :38:59. | |
:38:59. | :39:08. | ||
encounters on offer in 11 Rooms at Behind the stiff neo classical | :39:08. | :39:12. | |
fasade something daring is under way. The doors are about to open on | :39:12. | :39:22. | |
:39:22. | :39:24. | ||
a show existing exclusively of So, this is the dress rehearsal. I | :39:24. | :39:28. | |
have myself a plan. The first artist I wanted to show you was | :39:28. | :39:36. | |
someone called Joan Jonas, a pioneering firm firm -- feminist | :39:36. | :39:42. | |
performance artist. In this piece - - in this room, you can see please | :39:42. | :39:48. | |
be aaware this room contains nudity. Don't worry, ever the intrepid | :39:48. | :39:56. | |
reporter, I will just take a look. I think we should move on. | :39:56. | :40:02. | |
But that does look like a very interesting voyeuristic strange | :40:02. | :40:06. | |
piece about desire. There's another piece I want to see. It's confusing | :40:06. | :40:10. | |
actually, I feel like I am in a school corridor or something. There | :40:10. | :40:20. | |
:40:20. | :40:26. | ||
are two artists, they have been a big hit in Venezuela. Their work | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
often contains an element of absurd humour, I vent to Venice and I saw | :40:30. | :40:34. | |
outside the pavilion they had overturned an enormous tank and | :40:34. | :40:38. | |
they had an athlete running on top of a treadmill making one of the | :40:38. | :40:42. | |
tracks go around. The tank was a British tank. I am not sure about | :40:42. | :40:45. | |
what that says about the special special relationship between | :40:45. | :40:51. | |
America and Britain. In here is a piece called Revolving Door. | :40:51. | :41:01. | |
:41:01. | :41:31. | ||
Oh, that's a bit sudden. I think I am going to see you on | :41:31. | :41:41. | |
:41:41. | :41:58. | ||
the other side of that. This is really quite unsettling and | :41:58. | :42:07. | |
class troe phobic -- claustrophobic. To begin with they're really slow | :42:07. | :42:10. | |
and there's a rapid increase like that, which makes you want to move | :42:10. | :42:14. | |
out of the way rapidly. I guess that's a piece all about | :42:14. | :42:17. | |
the relationship of the individual to the masses, to the crowd, | :42:17. | :42:21. | |
because suddenly you feel like you are an autonomous agent going in | :42:21. | :42:26. | |
there and you are not any more and you are forced to move in different | :42:26. | :42:32. | |
ways. It's kind of funny. The expressions the whole time are | :42:32. | :42:39. | |
deadpan, to be honest I felt unsettled. You can probably tell. I | :42:39. | :42:44. | |
went in thinking I was going to explain the piece and I was like, | :42:44. | :42:50. | |
oh my God, I better move this way. I am going to digest that. It's | :42:50. | :42:55. | |
kind of military, as well. In the meantime, let's look in here. This | :42:55. | :43:05. | |
:43:05. | :43:06. | ||
is a piece by Simon Fujiwara. He is not a part of the piece normally. | :43:06. | :43:11. | |
You see a clock. It's called Playing The Martyr. There is an | :43:11. | :43:18. | |
enormous bed. The price is there's someone in it. | :43:18. | :43:28. | |
:43:28. | :43:31. | ||
-- surprise is there's someone in I don't know if you can see, the | :43:31. | :43:36. | |
title of the book is The Lives of St Simon. A half naked bloke | :43:36. | :43:46. | |
:43:46. | :43:48. | ||
reading a book in a big enormous pha hog -- mahogany bed. Do you | :43:48. | :43:58. | |
:43:58. | :44:08. | ||
I quite want to know what's in the book. | :44:08. | :44:18. | |
:44:18. | :44:28. | ||
Maybe we have to come back later What I love about this place is you | :44:28. | :44:32. | |
go into these rooms, these different rooms, and as happened | :44:32. | :44:36. | |
there, you are suddenly phrupb pblged -- plunged into a totally | :44:36. | :44:40. | |
reality. A guy in asleep in an enormous bed, there is a -- there | :44:40. | :44:47. | |
is a clock and he has a book about St Simon, who is Simon? He seemed | :44:47. | :44:51. | |
to be asleep, there was a hushed silence. You feel like you don't | :44:51. | :44:54. | |
want to break the spell, you are suddenly taken into a very | :44:54. | :44:58. | |
different place. Not sure what I make of that one, | :44:58. | :45:07. | |
it's all baffling. Over here, though, this is a piece by a | :45:07. | :45:17. | |
:45:17. | :45:22. | ||
Spanish artist called Santiago Sierra. I guess if we take it at | :45:22. | :45:27. | |
face value, we are going to see a man who is presumably a veteran of | :45:27. | :45:30. | |
one of these wars, who almost as if he is being punished for something | :45:30. | :45:36. | |
is standing in the corner facing the corner, is he whispering, is he | :45:36. | :45:46. | |
No, he looks very somber, as if he's really done something quite | :45:46. | :45:51. | |
bad. I guess that's the point of the air that you are made to | :45:51. | :45:56. | |
reflect upon what he might have done, is he atoning for something | :45:56. | :46:00. | |
for some act he might have transgressed in Afghanistan, or | :46:00. | :46:05. | |
Iraq or Northern Ireland. That is an unsettling thought. It summon as | :46:05. | :46:11. | |
whole sense of enormity and violence in an otherwise quite | :46:11. | :46:16. | |
sterile usual gallery experience of just a white cube. It's quite | :46:16. | :46:25. | |
powerful thing. I have a theory, I think that performance art is | :46:25. | :46:30. | |
having a big moment now because it's the perfect art form for these | :46:30. | :46:35. | |
economic times. Usually, the art market trns art into a commodity a | :46:35. | :46:41. | |
product. The artists featured in 11 Rooms aren't interested in that. | :46:41. | :46:45. | |
You can hardly buy any of the work that I've seen today and easily | :46:45. | :46:52. | |
nail it to your wall. I really respect that. 11 Rooms continues | :46:52. | :46:58. | |
until Sunday. Now, for some music that stops traffic. On Saturday, | :46:58. | :47:01. | |
local band, Wu Lyf, that is short for World Unite! Lucifer Youth | :47:01. | :47:10. | |
Foundation, will be playing perform bsh performing to an AUDIENCE:Ience | :47:10. | :47:14. | |
of 2,000 people in the road tunnel on Great Bridgewater Street. They | :47:14. | :47:20. | |
told us about their disregard for Manchester's musical legacy as well | :47:20. | :47:26. | |
as their desire to break the mystique surrounding the band. | :47:26. | :47:31. | |
There is hype we could have monopolised done every gig. We | :47:31. | :47:35. | |
didn't want to do the hard sell. Treat it as a fresh new taste. Get | :47:35. | :47:41. | |
it while it's hot. We got a reputation as the mysterious Wu Lyf. | :47:41. | :47:47. | |
Which, I don't know, we all found a little, kind of, boring and a bit | :47:47. | :47:55. | |
cheesy. The internet has moved everything on to a completely | :47:55. | :48:02. | |
global scale. It's the easest free exhibition space. It's like a big | :48:02. | :48:08. | |
blank wall that people can graffiti all over. You can record music for | :48:08. | :48:12. | |
very cheap. You can make your own art work. You can build your | :48:12. | :48:22. | |
:48:22. | :48:37. | ||
website, which we just did # Spitting blood # | :48:37. | :48:41. | |
I don't think Manchester's past really holds much relevance to what | :48:41. | :48:45. | |
we are doing, maybe obl only in the fact that we dapbt to do things our | :48:45. | :48:51. | |
own way. That is just a Manchester thing. We take more inspiration | :48:51. | :48:58. | |
from SS it in America than we do factory records. I dapbt want to | :48:58. | :49:02. | |
make cheap little digs. Obviously, it means a lot to a lot of people, | :49:02. | :49:12. | |
:49:12. | :49:12. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 45 seconds | :49:12. | :49:57. | |
just for us personally, it's not Three records, done one, two more, | :49:57. | :50:04. | |
aged 25. Before we are 25. Then we retire age 25. It's a favour to the | :50:04. | :50:08. | |
public so they don't have to listen to washed out people playing music. | :50:08. | :50:18. | |
:50:18. | :50:18. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 45 seconds | :50:18. | :51:18. | |
# Now spitting blood # Spit on blood... # | :51:18. | :51:22. | |
Wu Lyf will be performing in the Great Bridgewater Street on | :51:22. | :51:26. | |
Saturday. There is much more of the fest fst that isn't taking place | :51:26. | :51:30. | |
behind closed door. Art is springing up all over the city. Out | :51:30. | :51:35. | |
door events needn't talk cost you a penny. Ben Lewis took to the | :51:35. | :51:42. | |
streets to see what he could discover. One of the big ideas at | :51:42. | :51:47. | |
this year's Manchester festival is to exhibit art works in out door | :51:47. | :51:52. | |
spaces across the city. I'm here to explore some of the new art and see | :51:52. | :51:56. | |
how it is intervening in the city and altering our experience of. It | :51:56. | :51:59. | |
something that gallery curators like to call, rupturing our | :51:59. | :52:04. | |
perceptions. I don't have to go very far. I have hopped off the | :52:04. | :52:08. | |
train from London. The first place is right here in Manchester's | :52:08. | :52:16. | |
Piccadilly Station. This is a sound work designed to play through head | :52:16. | :52:23. | |
phones while the listener wanders around the station. What are the | :52:23. | :52:27. | |
voices people will hear inside their heads? I wanted to do a sound | :52:27. | :52:31. | |
version, to make people aware of quite how much they are taking in | :52:31. | :52:36. | |
of what they overhear and people around them. I spent a lot of time | :52:36. | :52:41. | |
here at Manchester Piccadilly observing people. Was it only | :52:41. | :52:46. | |
observing or was there a fair amount of snooping? There was a | :52:46. | :52:50. | |
fair amount of snooping as well. Once you start you can't stop. All | :52:50. | :52:55. | |
these people are waiting. I tried to capture in the piece the kind of | :52:55. | :52:59. | |
things they are thinking about. Who knows what drama are going on in | :52:59. | :53:03. | |
their lives. Can I try it out? We will give you head phones and | :53:03. | :53:13. | |
:53:13. | :53:16. | ||
send you off. Choose a number. please. 13. Off you go. Listen. The | :53:16. | :53:26. | |
:53:26. | :53:27. | ||
heart of it. Socks, water rate, nail, scissor, birthday card, God, | :53:27. | :53:33. | |
the garden. I don't speak, it's not because I'm dumb or mad,. I'm not | :53:33. | :53:39. | |
stupid. I make an effort, you know. Lunch money... You shouldn't talk | :53:39. | :53:45. | |
about it. Sometimes I want to go back. I want you to know that | :53:45. | :53:55. | |
:53:55. | :53:56. | ||
someone has seen. Simple, cinematic, a little bit spooky. I like it. | :53:56. | :54:00. | |
Normally, when I go around in my every day life the only voice I | :54:00. | :54:05. | |
hear inside my shaed my own strange one. It's nice to get a load of | :54:05. | :54:10. | |
other peoples. I feel like I've been dropped into a fish bowl. I'm | :54:10. | :54:13. | |
looking out at this strange world of humanity around me. Any work of | :54:13. | :54:19. | |
art that makes me feel like a goldfish is OK. Time for me to move | :54:19. | :54:25. | |
on. Next up, is Lincoln Square in the city centre where a new project | :54:25. | :54:33. | |
is being installed. Irish artist John Gerard using 3D technology to | :54:33. | :54:40. | |
create his unique art works. His latest piece shows a soldier making | :54:41. | :54:45. | |
strange movements and springs an Iranian landscape to the heart of | :54:45. | :54:52. | |
Manchester. What is that man doing in your film? He is, in a sense, | :54:52. | :54:58. | |
dancing, in one sense. But, more specifically, he is mimicking the | :54:58. | :55:03. | |
actions of soldiers responding to mortar fire in military exercises. | :55:03. | :55:06. | |
They have this very particular precise and curious set of actions | :55:06. | :55:12. | |
that they do. How did you transform these photograph noose a | :55:12. | :55:20. | |
computerised Avatar? I showed them to a random dance in London. We | :55:20. | :55:26. | |
brought them to a motion capture studio in Prague. He looked at the | :55:26. | :55:31. | |
images and mimicking them. We used a motion capture system to capture | :55:31. | :55:36. | |
the actions. It uses the same technology as video game. In a | :55:36. | :55:46. | |
:55:46. | :55:47. | ||
sense, it's a temporal sculpture which you can emerse oneself in and | :55:47. | :55:52. | |
it will be evolving and changing. This is a strikingly original | :55:52. | :55:58. | |
iconic work of art about the way we wage warfare today. It's all done | :55:58. | :56:01. | |
by simply abstracting the mortar fire posture that is a soldier | :56:01. | :56:07. | |
might assume in training or in battle. What does that do, this | :56:07. | :56:12. | |
endless loop of... It creates a sense of futility. A sense of | :56:12. | :56:15. | |
something without end. A sense of ritual. All this is only possible | :56:15. | :56:19. | |
because he is using the technology of the age of information. At the | :56:19. | :56:23. | |
same time, this is also quite a tradishal work of art. If you look | :56:23. | :56:30. | |
at it one way, it's something ancient, it's a war dance. As the | :56:30. | :56:36. | |
sunsets in this simulated desert, elsewhere in Manchester, a few | :56:36. | :56:42. | |
hours later, a ghoulish installation is about to come to | :56:42. | :56:52. | |
life. Hello Mr Splitfoot. Little girl snap her little fingers. | :56:52. | :56:57. | |
park is being transformed by this projection work The Influence | :56:57. | :57:07. | |
:57:07. | :57:08. | ||
Machine. No, I have to recover from a nervous break down. Black is the | :57:08. | :57:18. | |
:57:18. | :57:19. | ||
colour of my eyes. Oi! Tony is the master of illusionistic projections. | :57:19. | :57:28. | |
He has a galley of ghostes who rant and rave about everything from | :57:28. | :57:36. | |
their futures to their mummy. This piece ruptured my senses. You can | :57:36. | :57:41. | |
experience all of these outside events until July 17th. The Culture | :57:41. | :57:44. | |
Show will be back in August with three programmes from the Edinburgh | :57:44. | :57:48. | |
Festival. We will take our leave tonight from Manchester with one of | :57:48. | :57:56. | |
this year's highlights, a series of stunning shows from Bjork, | :57:56. | :57:57. | |
encompassing musical lightning generators, harp-playing pendulums | :57:57. | :58:03. | |
and a 24-piece all-female Icelandic choir. Bjork calls her latest | :58:03. | :58:07. |