0:00:02 > 0:00:03This programme contains some strong language
0:00:03 > 0:00:06The Culture Show is at the Pleasure Gardens in Olympic East London,
0:00:06 > 0:00:09where they're racing to turn this industrial wasteland
0:00:09 > 0:00:11into a brand-new arts destination
0:00:11 > 0:00:15complete with sculpture, performance and installation.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17They've certainly got their work cut out.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21In the meanwhile, we've got a host of other pleasures in store for you.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Actor Willem Dafoe,
0:00:26 > 0:00:27author Nicola Barker,
0:00:27 > 0:00:29starchitect Renzo Piano,
0:00:29 > 0:00:33and street dance from Tomorrow's Men.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38But to kick off tonight's show,
0:00:38 > 0:00:43I'm in East Ham to meet a man who's been capturing this corner of our capital for over 50 years -
0:00:43 > 0:00:46the legendary photographer David Bailey.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51A true East End boy,
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Bailey's photographs of post-war London defined an era.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57Edgy, hip and brutal.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00He was raised just a stone's throw away from here,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02so this truly is Bailey's manor.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06In fact his new exhibition is called David Bailey's East End,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09so I thought I'd best let him decide where we should meet.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14Tell me first of all why here. Why did you want to meet here?
0:01:14 > 0:01:16We've got to meet somewhere
0:01:16 > 0:01:19and Chan's is such a part of my early life.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23This was the first place I came to, the first restaurant I ever went to.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25- It's been in the same family all these years.- Yes.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28I love it. It's charming. They should make a chain.
0:01:28 > 0:01:33Even at 74, Bailey's constantly working. A true photoholic.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Many of the pictures in his new show have never been seen before,
0:01:36 > 0:01:39rediscovered in his hoard of old contact sheets.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44- Why do you think you've kept coming back to the East End? - Everybody does.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48You're a bit like a migrating bird, really, aren't you? You sort of wander back.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50Did you take your first pictures here?
0:01:50 > 0:01:53Yeah, in my mum's garden.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58I love that picture, look. I call that Cartoon Door.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01Can I just finish my coffee? Hang on.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04Hang on a minute. That's my sister.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06They used it in a paper the other day like it was a work of art.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10It was just a snap I did of my sister. Did you get it?
0:02:10 > 0:02:11THEY CHUCKLE
0:02:11 > 0:02:13There's my mates.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15That's my Jewish mate Charlie.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18That's my Irish mate Donny O'Connor.
0:02:18 > 0:02:19That's my best mate. That's me.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24I knew what I was doing when I was 16 by instinct.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I knew how to take pictures.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29I knew about shapes and the way people fill spaces.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33It was all instinctive. It was just luck. I was a lucky guy.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37When you look at these pictures, does it bring back smells and sounds?
0:02:37 > 0:02:39No, it brings back broken glass.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43From the age of three and a half, all I remember is walking on glass.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46The sound of broken glass underfoot was the sound I knew most.
0:02:46 > 0:02:52It was my blackbird singing in the background! That's all.
0:02:52 > 0:02:53HE LAUGHS
0:02:53 > 0:02:57- Any chance... Oi! Any chance of a coffee, mate?- Yes, sir.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00That's good. That's good.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04- Out of focus at the moment. - That's the only way I'll look good.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06For the new show you found a lot...
0:03:06 > 0:03:09Well, not the pictures that you were taking in your mum's garden.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12They weren't lost. They just hadn't been printed.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16- You know, the contacts were so bad. Shall I show you one?- Yeah.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19Look, this gives you a good example.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Look there. Over your shoulder.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25- These are the contact sheets... - They might not be the ones...
0:03:25 > 0:03:29- But it's this kind of contact sheet? - The kind of thing. They're too dark.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31I remember this. Until we blew it up...
0:03:31 > 0:03:34This is wonderful. Totally surreal. I blew it up and I thought,
0:03:34 > 0:03:38"Shit. I put the neg in the wrong way. The lettering's all the wrong way round."
0:03:38 > 0:03:41But it's a reflection of... Double reflection, you see.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43Then when we blew it up I found me in there as well.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47- So it was a double bonus. - What do you like about that picture?
0:03:47 > 0:03:51- The layers?- Yeah, I like the reality of the unreality, really.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55You mock art photography and you're talking like an art photographer.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58- I don't knock art photography. I knock the name!- Yeah.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02You don't say art sculpture or art painting, do you?
0:04:02 > 0:04:04I'm an art painter! THEY CHUCKLE
0:04:04 > 0:04:08The word art photography has always sounded so silly to me.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12'You don't interview Bailey, you witness his stream of consciousness.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14'But while he's a bit chaotic,
0:04:14 > 0:04:18'his new show is tightly focused on just three decades.'
0:04:18 > 0:04:22Why did you pick the '60s, the '80s and the thousands?
0:04:22 > 0:04:26They picked me, really. It was a time that I knew I'd been intense, do you understand?
0:04:26 > 0:04:30They were three decades when you felt particularly intensely interested?
0:04:30 > 0:04:32Yeah. Not for any reason other than...
0:04:32 > 0:04:34The '80s, I can only tell you,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38is because they were pulling down Camden Town and Silvertown
0:04:38 > 0:04:42and I thought it was a good idea to record it before they pulled it down.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44I only got there in time to save that gate!
0:04:44 > 0:04:47HE LAUGHS
0:04:47 > 0:04:51Look at the difference, you see. This is all super-expensive lenses.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54This is just a soft, non-coated lens.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58So that's you in the '60s taking a picture and that's you in the '80s?
0:04:58 > 0:05:00Yeah. Which is much colder and calculated,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03whereas this was much more instinctive, in a way.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09'You would, I suppose, use the Hasselblad'
0:05:09 > 0:05:12in preference to the Instamatic for most of your work?
0:05:12 > 0:05:15- Mm. It's more useful. - I should think it is.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18'Cameras have attitudes and you can use'
0:05:18 > 0:05:19the attitude of a camera.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22The ten-eight gives the attitude you're in a cathedral
0:05:22 > 0:05:26whereas the 35mm and a Polaroid gives the attitude you're in a nightclub.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30'Bailey spent a lot of time in nightclubs during the 1960s,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35'rubbing shoulders with high society and the criminal underworld.'
0:05:35 > 0:05:40This is '60s. This is one of the Krays' gambling casinos.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44I think it's funny them having... Who are they? Who's his nibs called?
0:05:44 > 0:05:47- The son of the Queen.- Oh, Charles. - Charles, yes.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50- Charlie. Is it Charlie?- Yeah. - Hey, Charlie!
0:05:50 > 0:05:53Charlie and Anne, on the wall of a Kray gambling casino!
0:05:53 > 0:05:57Yeah, which was firebombed ten minutes after I left.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00People say how can you photograph Ron Kray?
0:06:00 > 0:06:03I'd photograph Hitler, I'd photograph Stalin. I can't...
0:06:03 > 0:06:06I have to take pictures. I'm not interested in...
0:06:06 > 0:06:11I might think they're awful, but I can't make any judgement. If you're a photographer...
0:06:11 > 0:06:16Sometimes editors say, "He's really arrogant, can you make him look arrogant?
0:06:16 > 0:06:20"She's really stuck up, can..." I say no. I take the pictures of them as they are.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23- I won't do a journalistic picture of somebody.- What about now?
0:06:23 > 0:06:25What about now? Now's hard.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29Now's hard because I didn't want to go back and do...
0:06:29 > 0:06:33I wanted to do kind of more street stuff.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36That's Stepney Green now. Can you believe that?
0:06:36 > 0:06:38That's where they built the Olympics.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42That's in a kind of sweet little church in Upton Park.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46I love the spirit of the balloon, the white balloon.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50- "God bless you. Thanks for coming. please come again."- Yep.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52Nobody's ever said that to you?!
0:06:52 > 0:06:54THEY LAUGH
0:06:55 > 0:07:00All right? Is it boring? You can see the rerun on television!
0:07:00 > 0:07:03All this trouble and it will probably be two minutes!
0:07:03 > 0:07:05THE CAFE STAFF LAUGH
0:07:05 > 0:07:09- That's a great picture. Don't know what it means.- That's amazing.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12- It's like an angel. - I like... I like normality.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15I like when it's normal and you just go that way a little bit,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18when it's slightly off normal.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21Are these pictures THE East End or are they YOUR East End?
0:07:21 > 0:07:25No, they're my East End. But I couldn't have taken them if the East End wasn't there.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29You can't copy these. They're like my portraits. You can't copy my portraits
0:07:29 > 0:07:33because I'm photographing my personality half the time with your personality.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36With these you're taking something that's disappeared.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40It's just a moment in time. This is real reality, not movies,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43because movies are telling you about the past.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45This is the actual moment that happened, isn't it?
0:07:45 > 0:07:48This is everything, the moment that happens.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52Nothing before, nothing afterwards. It's just that moment and then it's gone.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54In a way, I've saved a little bit of moment for me
0:07:54 > 0:07:57and maybe for you to get some pleasure out of it.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00'He looks fantastic, doesn't he?'
0:08:00 > 0:08:04You wouldn't want to bump into him on a dark night, would you?
0:08:04 > 0:08:07- No! I'm harmless, harmless. - You're harmless, are you?
0:08:07 > 0:08:08Me too.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10CAMERA CLICKS
0:08:10 > 0:08:15And David Bailey's East End, part of CREATE London's summer programme,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18opens at the Compressor House in Newham on Friday.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Now, from photos of London's city life to Tasmanian wildlife on film.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25Mark Kermode caught up with Willem Dafoe,
0:08:25 > 0:08:30an actor with more than 70 films on his idiosyncratic CV.
0:08:32 > 0:08:37Willem Dafoe's career spans such diverse roles as Blockbuster villains,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41arthouse weirdos, and intense leading men.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43But look closely at some of his best work,
0:08:43 > 0:08:48like Scorsese's controversial Last Temptation Of Christ,
0:08:48 > 0:08:51or his collaborations with Paul Schrader,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55and a recurring theme starts to emerge.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58His strength is playing the wandering outsider,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01a character at the margins of society,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04who looks deep into the void.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07The classic figure of the isolated existential antihero
0:09:07 > 0:09:10through which filmmakers can discuss big issues
0:09:10 > 0:09:12like life, death and the human condition,
0:09:12 > 0:09:15is a role which all serious actors long to play,
0:09:15 > 0:09:19but the fact is very few of them can pull it off.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21Willem Dafoe is an exception.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26In his latest film, The Hunter, Dafoe explores alienation
0:09:26 > 0:09:29in one of the world's most insular environments,
0:09:29 > 0:09:31the Tasmanian wilderness.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33Sent by an anonymous biotech company,
0:09:33 > 0:09:37he plays Martin David, a ruthless mercenary whose mission
0:09:37 > 0:09:42is to track down what's rumoured to be the last Tasmanian tiger.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47The character that you play in The Hunter,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51at the beginning of it, he's a classic, isolated, hitman-like character
0:09:51 > 0:09:56- who goes into the wilderness but during the course of the movie, that changes.- Right.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00It's something that happens to him, not something that he wishes for,
0:10:00 > 0:10:02but I think because he's at the end of his career,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06he's in a reflective place. He sees the end coming
0:10:06 > 0:10:12just by how in his dealings with the people in Tasmania he starts to be touched.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Something's reawakened in him. His humanity is reawakened.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19Out!
0:10:21 > 0:10:23You can't come with me.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32You know these are extinct? They're gone.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37I don't know what your father told you, but he couldn't have seen one.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Come on.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43This movie very much deals with the possibility of redemption
0:10:43 > 0:10:48and that's also echoed somewhat in the whole thing about the tiger,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52because the tiger is a piece of history that's been lost.
0:10:52 > 0:10:58You know, the deep sadness of losing this beautiful thing.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03Is there a possibility to go back or make it right?
0:11:03 > 0:11:06That's why there's sightings of the Tasmanian tiger all the time.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11People want badly for it to be...rediscovered.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14When I look back across your back catalogue,
0:11:14 > 0:11:18for personal reasons the films that stand out for me are the Schraders,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21The Last Temptation Of Christ, the Lars von Trier.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25This seems very much to sit in that particular thread.
0:11:25 > 0:11:30I think the one through line has to do with directors.
0:11:30 > 0:11:36I'm attracted to visionaries, mavericks, you know, auteurs.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40People that aren't studio-hired guns, for example.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44So that's a through line, I think pretty consistently.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48But you have become a muse for filmmakers. You say auteurs and I understand that,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51but filmmakers dealing with big questions.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55- The meaning of life, God...- OK! - You must be aware of that.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58- I think I got a good answer for you. - Great!
0:11:58 > 0:12:02I think my interest in movies, besides kind of the adventure
0:12:02 > 0:12:05and the kind of plying my craft or whatever that is,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09or just making things for pleasure, is I like movies that inspire.
0:12:09 > 0:12:14On some level, on some level I'm just show trash,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18but on another level I'm an artist and I get the opportunity to make things.
0:12:18 > 0:12:23It's an invitation to rethink what your life could be like,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28or who you could be, and I think that always stays with you.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31News just in. A woman has fallen to her death.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35Police are withholding identification pending notification of next of kin.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37'You work with Schrader.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41'There is a similarity there in Schrader's recurrent character of God's lonely man.'
0:12:41 > 0:12:44- Man alone, yes.- I thought of that when I was watching The Hunter.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Does that ring a bell for you?
0:12:47 > 0:12:51I think I'm interested in that character, that idea of
0:12:51 > 0:12:56the world would be a better place if man could learn how to be alone in their room.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59I think we are alone.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05I think it's an interesting character that feels that loneliness
0:13:05 > 0:13:09and reflects on what his relationship is to other people.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13- What do you mean when you say I think we are alone? - I think that's true.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18I have some deep feeling for you're born alone, you die alone, you know?
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Are you fraught, like, on a personal level?
0:13:30 > 0:13:33You play characters that have this extraordinary inner tension
0:13:33 > 0:13:39but actually meeting you now, you seem very calm.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42Do you go home and worry about things?
0:13:42 > 0:13:46I don't worry so much as, you know...
0:13:46 > 0:13:50When I'm performing I do believe it is important to have
0:13:50 > 0:13:53a certain kind of tension and a certain kind...
0:13:53 > 0:13:57I don't like slack, natural, relaxed performances.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02- Right.- In life... I've got a good life. I can't complain.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05My wife always, "Says don't spit on your luck."
0:14:05 > 0:14:08I must complain sometimes otherwise she wouldn't say that!
0:14:08 > 0:14:15But you're kind of asking whether I'm an angst, troubled person, right?
0:14:15 > 0:14:19I'm asking whether any of those things that I see again and again
0:14:19 > 0:14:23in the key characters that you play are part of you.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27Yeah, I think so. For some reason... And who knows why?
0:14:27 > 0:14:31Maybe I got dropped on my head when I was a kid or something!
0:14:32 > 0:14:37But I'm able to contact a certain kind of profound anger
0:14:37 > 0:14:41and a profound, um, disappointment.
0:14:41 > 0:14:46If you hadn't been an actor, what would have happened to those things?
0:14:46 > 0:14:51They'd probably be repressed and I might be happier!
0:14:51 > 0:14:55This way I get to exorcise them.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01There's a scene in The Hunter where there is a sense of a man going out
0:15:01 > 0:15:07and looking into the void and seeing himself look back out of it.
0:15:07 > 0:15:11If I was to describe the film, that's what I'd say it was about
0:15:11 > 0:15:14but then no one would go and see it. How would you describe it?
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Tell them it's a fun action-adventure!
0:15:17 > 0:15:22Just get 'em there and once they get there, I think they'll enjoy it.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25- Thank you very much.- Sure. Sure.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31And The Hunter is out next Friday.
0:15:31 > 0:15:33It's actually more comfortable than it looks.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Now to a new sporting novel by acclaimed comic writer Nicola Barker.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Sarfraz Manzoor travelled back to Luton, the setting for her new book,
0:15:41 > 0:15:43to delve into the mischievous mind of the author.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49When you think of Luton,
0:15:49 > 0:15:53a gritty, multicultural town once voted the crappiest in Britain,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55and the place where I happened to grow up,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00you don't usually associate it with the bourgeois status-obsessed world of golf.
0:16:01 > 0:16:03But together they form the backdrop
0:16:03 > 0:16:07for Nicola Barker's latest eccentric adventure, The Yips.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13And you don't need to come from the town or love the sport
0:16:13 > 0:16:16to be lured into the world of grotesque northern golf pro Stuart Ransom
0:16:16 > 0:16:19who heads a cast list of outsiders and oddballs
0:16:19 > 0:16:22whose lives intertwine in a Luton drinking hole.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28I fucking idolised Seve as a kid.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30I wanted to be his double.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32Seve were my hero, my role model.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36I wanted to be an artist exactly like Seve was,
0:16:36 > 0:16:38because Seve was the real deal.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42He was the big cheese. He were the golfing Gorgonzola
0:16:42 > 0:16:44and I wanted to play exactly like he did.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49You know, all that amazing spunk and fire and recklessness.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54I dreamed about painting on the greens with me putter, the way Seve could.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02Ransom's boorish behaviour continues Barker's fascination
0:17:02 > 0:17:05with the marginalised and misunderstood of little England.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07By setting The Yips in 2006,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10when Luton's reputation was being tainted by extremism,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14she's chosen a provocative location for her parochial protagonists.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20- Hi, Nicola. Good to meet you.- Hello. - Tell me, what are the yips?
0:17:20 > 0:17:26The yips is a nervous condition that golfers and sportsmen suffer from,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30golfers especially, on their short game or when they're putting.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33Their hands start to shake uncontrollably.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37It normally signals the end of a professional career when it happens. It's catastrophic.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41- Do novelists get the yips? - I think everybody gets them, but in different ways.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44The book is about mental strength and mental weakness,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47and I suppose the yips is a condition that is sort of universal.
0:17:47 > 0:17:53Why did you choose this particular town to be the setting for the book?
0:17:53 > 0:17:57It's culturally interesting and it's surrounded by golf courses.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01The book's set a year after the 7/7 bombers left from here.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03In the public imagination,
0:18:03 > 0:18:07the town is either a bit of a joke or considered to be a bit dangerous.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09- Yeah?- You don't go down either of those roads.
0:18:09 > 0:18:11That's not really my approach at all.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16I suppose it's just a base for this sort of story to take place.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19When I initially came here there definitely wasn't the atmosphere of the place.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23I'm excited by how it's changed and how it's developed.
0:18:23 > 0:18:24It's fascinating for me.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27I tend to write a book, focus on the place,
0:18:27 > 0:18:33really engage with it intensely, and then kind of cut off and recreate it.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37You're probably accidentally slightly challenging people's impressions of Luton as well.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40Um, I don't know. That's quite a grand thing to try and do.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43I don't think there's anything wrong with Luton.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45I think Luton should be proud of itself.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49I just mean in the sense that this was a town I grew up in,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52but you show a side of it that I didn't even know existed.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Maybe now this fascination with golf is going to develop.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57- Or maybe not! - SHE LAUGHS
0:18:59 > 0:19:02It's personal with me.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Always has been. A pride thing.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10I need to be the big dog, the biggest dog, win or lose.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14And if I'm going to lose, I'll piss all over the fairways.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16I'll leave divots a foot fucking deep.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19I'll give the groundsmen a fucking coronary.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23I'll be filthy. I'll lose like a fucking pig.
0:19:23 > 0:19:28I'll lose worse than anyone's ever lost before. I'll make an art of it.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31I'll hit balls through the clubhouse window.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35I'll play five shots from the car park, because I'm a wildcard.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37A headcase.
0:19:37 > 0:19:42Better to burn out than fade away. That's always been my motto.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44'One of the interesting things about book
0:19:44 > 0:19:47'is that although the characters are not necessarily pleasant,'
0:19:47 > 0:19:51- you don't really patronise them. - I suppose what I exist to do as a writer
0:19:51 > 0:19:55is to make the unlovable lovable. That's my mission.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00So I want people who are quite conventional to encounter these characters,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03to be a little bit alarmed by them,
0:20:03 > 0:20:06and then to develop a great affection for them.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10That's kind of improving the social good. That's a positive thing to do.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14Stuart Ransom seems like the kind of person who might at a stretch
0:20:14 > 0:20:16end up in Celebrity Big Brother or something like that,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19very much on the downward trajectory of his fame.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21That sort of world of the celebrity netherland,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24- does it appeal to you and why? - Totally, yes.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28It's just there's something kind of sad but dignified about that.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31- People have to continue... - Sure there's any dignity in it?- Yes.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35People have to continue existing after their moment in the sun.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37It makes me think, say, of Tiger Woods.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42Such a hero and then all of this notoriety about his private life.
0:20:42 > 0:20:43I love him even more now
0:20:43 > 0:20:47because there's something heroic about the way he's come back.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51- I love that. I don't see that... - You like the comeback story?
0:20:51 > 0:20:54Well, I do, but I think it takes a huge amount of strength,
0:20:54 > 0:20:56great inner reserves.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58I like that, that sort of nobility.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02I'm a sportsman. I'm an artist.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Not some grinny little monkey who'll just dance around to order.
0:21:05 > 0:21:10When you hire Stuart Ransom, you hire a master spirit, yeah?
0:21:10 > 0:21:15A social lion, a legend, a tiny piece of folklore.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18You can't housetrain Stuart Ransom.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20He's not tamed and neutered,
0:21:20 > 0:21:23jumping around to order like some cuddly little spaniel.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26He's a savage frigging beast, yeah?
0:21:26 > 0:21:31A big, fat, black grizzly tearing through your trash.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33HE CACKLES
0:21:33 > 0:21:36Tell me a little bit about the different accents that are employed.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39There's a Jamaican and there's Yorkshire and there's French.
0:21:39 > 0:21:44In terms of where you get that from and your sensitivity to it, where does that come from?
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I suppose I'm just interested in difference,
0:21:47 > 0:21:50interested in language and the rhythm of language.
0:21:50 > 0:21:55I'm partially deaf so I sort of listen to things very intently
0:21:55 > 0:21:57and I have to try that little bit harder
0:21:57 > 0:22:00and so language and how people speak
0:22:00 > 0:22:03and their little peculiarities fascinate me.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06- Well, good luck with the book and very nice to have met you. - Thank you.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10The Yips is published by Fourth Estate tomorrow.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15Next we turn our attention skywards to the cloud-tipped peak of The Shard,
0:22:15 > 0:22:20as Alan Yentob surveys the skyline, skyscrapers and spires of London town
0:22:20 > 0:22:23with Genovese architect Renzo Piano.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29# I'm singing in the rain... #
0:22:29 > 0:22:33As a Londoner, I've grown accustomed to the skyline along the Thames,
0:22:33 > 0:22:35especially in the rain.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38And, like most Londoners, I have a special place in my heart
0:22:38 > 0:22:41for the view of St Paul's Cathedral,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44immortalised by the Italian painter Canaletto.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49It still remains the most striking and visible landmark in the City.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53But that could all be about to change.
0:23:00 > 0:23:05Almost 350 years since St Paul's revolutionised our skyline,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08the bad boy of architecture, Renzo Piano,
0:23:08 > 0:23:13has arrived to challenge a much-loved view of our city.
0:23:13 > 0:23:14There it is, Renzo.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18For the last few weeks I've been seeing the building everywhere,
0:23:18 > 0:23:22- you know, from every perspective. - You can't miss.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24'With his latest building, The Shard,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27'a gleaming 300 metre high vertical city in the heart of central London,
0:23:27 > 0:23:32'has Renzo broken off more than he can chew?'
0:23:32 > 0:23:33Here.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35HE CHUCKLES
0:23:35 > 0:23:38This is not a shard of glass, it is a shard of wood,
0:23:38 > 0:23:42but this idea that you do something like that, it's not that stupid.
0:23:42 > 0:23:49As an architect, you have to be a builder for the first half an hour in the day
0:23:49 > 0:23:51and then you become a poet.
0:23:51 > 0:23:56Can I just see this, a second? Why should we is the question.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59Because architects need trust.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02When you try to do something like this, you need really trust.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06What do you think about St Paul's and that view?
0:24:06 > 0:24:07You know, I'm Italian.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Very little I can do about that. I'm in love with history.
0:24:10 > 0:24:17I have a very deep respect and gratitude for the past.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20By the way, everybody knows that St Paul's was contemporary at that time,
0:24:20 > 0:24:22it became classic only later.
0:24:22 > 0:24:28But, you know, you must be mad to think about something new to compete with St Paul's.
0:24:28 > 0:24:32And, frankly, I mean, this building doesn't compete with St Paul's.
0:24:32 > 0:24:37Much more modest. Nobody can think about that.
0:24:37 > 0:24:39It's disappeared, The Shard.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41It keeps changing, it keeps changing.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45The Shard is a mirror of London and London is never the same.
0:24:45 > 0:24:46It keeps changing.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50The rain, clouds and then suddenly,
0:24:50 > 0:24:54you know, sharp and brilliant and sun.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58In some ways the Shard, because it's tilted, the glass is tilted,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01and it's broken in pieces like that, it always reflects.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06Otherwise the building becomes very arrogant, very aggressive,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08very massive.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Long before he was let loose on the streets of London,
0:25:18 > 0:25:22Renzo and former partner in crime Richard Rogers were responsible for
0:25:22 > 0:25:27one of the most radical designs in Europe - Paris's Centre Pompidou.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Since then, Renzo has brought to life dozens of buildings,
0:25:34 > 0:25:36from museums to churches to airports,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39throughout a career that resists categorisation.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42In fact, the one constant appears to be
0:25:42 > 0:25:45a rather vocal hatred of tall buildings.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48Why have you resisted towers all these years?
0:25:48 > 0:25:50Sometimes they don't tell a very interesting story.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55It's just about money, power, a symbol, arrogance.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59Architecture is one of the arts to tell a story, you know.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Then it depends. Is it a good story or a bad story?
0:26:02 > 0:26:05I think this tower tells a good story.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Buildings are only loved if they are accessible,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11but if they are mysterious and multi-present,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14like sometimes towers are...
0:26:14 > 0:26:18That's one of the reasons why towers don't have a good reputation,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21because at 6pm they shut down
0:26:21 > 0:26:25and life goes away and they have no dialogue with the city.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28But this building will be full of people 24 hours a day.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30Look, I've got here...
0:26:32 > 0:26:36- There it is. That's St Paul's.- Yes.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38This view is a fantastic view.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40Look at that.
0:26:40 > 0:26:41If Canaletto was here now,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45he probably would be pleased to draw something there.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49This is the position where the Shard may be.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58- Thank you so much.- Thank you.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03Love it or loathe it, The Shard is inaugurated tomorrow
0:27:03 > 0:27:06and it opens to the public in 2013.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08That's just about it for tonight.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12If you want more culture, visit The Space online at:
0:27:12 > 0:27:16Next week, Miranda Sawyer turns to Plan B on the eve of his new album,
0:27:16 > 0:27:18Eddie Izzard talks to Mark Kermode,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21and Stonehenge is transformed into a fire garden.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26But, to play us out, 100 young men from across East London performing at Canary Wharf,
0:27:26 > 0:27:31one of the highlights of Big Dance, part of the London 2012 Festival. Good night.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC PLAYS
0:27:57 > 0:28:00MELODIC MUSIC PLAYS
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:29:10 > 0:29:12POWERFUL DRUMS BEAT