:00:15. > :00:22.On the review show tonight. In Flight, Denel Washington plays a
:00:22. > :00:26.pilot with troubles at home and in the air. This is SouthJet 227, we
:00:26. > :00:31.are in an uncontrolled dive, we have a jammed stabliser or
:00:31. > :00:35.something. Tricks of the light fantastic in a dazzling show at the
:00:35. > :00:42.Hayward Gallery. Three friends remember old times in a starry
:00:43. > :00:48.Pinter revival. You talk of me as if I were dead. No. And London
:00:48. > :00:50.swings, in Stephen Poliakoff's most ambitious drama to date, Dancing On
:00:50. > :00:58.The Edge. # The dead of night
:00:59. > :01:03.# Express Dancing around with me tonight are
:01:03. > :01:09.the journalist, Miranda Sawyer, the novelist Dreda Say Mitchell, and
:01:09. > :01:14.the art critic of the Independent, pilgpilgpilg. Whether it is Marty
:01:14. > :01:17.McFly driving around in a Dell lorian, Robert Zemeckis's
:01:17. > :01:20.characters are in extraordinary situation, his new movie Flight,
:01:20. > :01:29.starring Denel Washington is no exception.
:01:29. > :01:38.What's your son's name Trevor. "I love you Trevor" Blackbox.
:01:38. > :01:48.love you Trevor, mommy loves you. OK, I have got control. Speedbrakes.
:01:48. > :01:53.
:01:53. > :01:57.Ahhhhhh. Margaret, power. Gear up. Denel Washington has won a Best
:01:57. > :02:07.Actor Oscar in each of the past two decades, for Training Day, and
:02:07. > :02:08.
:02:09. > :02:13.Glory. Now, he's up for a third, as Captain Whip Whitaker in Flight.
:02:13. > :02:17.Good morning. Good morning. souls on board. Get them tucked in,
:02:17. > :02:24.we are ready to push. Whitaker is an experienced airline
:02:24. > :02:27.pilot, who courageously deals with a disastrous mechanical failure at
:02:27. > :02:32.30,000-feet. Despite his heroics, he faces a thorough investigation
:02:32. > :02:37.into what happened, which threatens to expose him as an alcoholic and
:02:37. > :02:41.drug user. I have known you 11 years Whip. Right. You going to
:02:41. > :02:44.tell me you and Trina went to dinner and had two glasses of wine,
:02:44. > :02:48.sounds like a nice restaurant, which one was that. You have to say
:02:48. > :02:54.it was an ordinary day, it was an ordinary day, Margaret, you know me,
:02:54. > :02:58.I was in shape to fly. You have a problem saying that? Washington is
:02:58. > :03:02.joined on Korean by British actress, Kelly Reilly, who plays the love
:03:02. > :03:07.interest, and by John Goodman, who plays the closest thing Whitaker
:03:07. > :03:12.has to a friend, drug dealer, Harling. You are a hero man, you
:03:12. > :03:16.will never pay for a drink as long as you live. Zemeckis's films have
:03:16. > :03:20.generated estimated �4 billion over his career, his most recent movies
:03:20. > :03:24.have majored on motion capture technology.
:03:24. > :03:32.But can the more serious adult drama of Flight deliver the
:03:32. > :03:36.critical success Zemeckis seems to be hoping for.
:03:36. > :03:40.Apparently Denel Washington spend spent days, if not weeks in a
:03:40. > :03:44.flight simulator, did you really feel he could fly that plane?
:03:44. > :03:48.yes, it is interesting, that sequence when the plane flips
:03:48. > :03:52.upsidedown is absolutely great. But at the same time, I must admit, I
:03:52. > :03:57.couldn't get rid of scenes from Aeroplane in my mind at the same
:03:57. > :04:00.time. It is a really interesting film. And it is an uneven film,
:04:00. > :04:04.what they need to decide, it is a character study, but which road are
:04:04. > :04:09.they going down, is it about him being an alcoholic, or are they
:04:09. > :04:13.actually trying toe look at the character flaws that make him an --
:04:13. > :04:19.trying to look at the character flaws that make him an alcoholic.
:04:19. > :04:23.There were laugh-out-loud moments, when you put the oxygen mask on his
:04:23. > :04:27.face, did you like you didn't know what it was going to be? I thought
:04:27. > :04:31.the effort to be ambivalent was so powerful, Denel Washington is
:04:31. > :04:34.played as this kind of hero and anti-hero at the same time, he gets
:04:34. > :04:36.on the plane at the beginning and he's high on coke and all the rest
:04:36. > :04:41.of it. But what I thought would have been much more interesting is
:04:41. > :04:47.if they had suggested that maybe he wouldn't have saved so many people
:04:47. > :04:51.on the plane if he hadn't actually been high and drunk. Because if he
:04:51. > :04:55.had been in withdrawal as an addict, that might have made him
:04:55. > :04:57.malfunction and kill everybody. There was an interesting idea,
:04:57. > :05:02.there is another point in the film where drugs are not necessarily
:05:02. > :05:06.seen to be bad, the idea was he was able to get his way through that?
:05:06. > :05:12.thought that, as a flowback to that in the film were he's about to
:05:12. > :05:16.prepare himself for the investigation, the final jury, he
:05:16. > :05:20.gets trashed, and the only way he can straighten himself out is
:05:20. > :05:24.invite his drug dealer mailt around to take coke in the situation. That
:05:24. > :05:28.is quite interesting. Given the film, essentially, is an
:05:28. > :05:31.alcoholic's road to redemption, to flip that, and say it is
:05:31. > :05:35.interesting, he will go through this out of his mind but in control.
:05:35. > :05:39.It doesn't quite happen, I have to say. There was a film by -- it was
:05:39. > :05:47.a film by AA? It was very AA. was a film about AA. For me, that
:05:47. > :05:53.was the problem. I won't say the ending, but we ended up with a film
:05:53. > :05:56.that could sit nicely on a True Movie channel, if you stop being an
:05:56. > :06:00.alcoholic this can be what happened to your life. Rather than, is it
:06:00. > :06:04.the alcohol we are talking about, or the character flaws in him that
:06:04. > :06:08.make him take the alcohol, that is a different picture. I wanted the
:06:08. > :06:13.darker picture with the more unambiguous, unpredictable ending,
:06:13. > :06:16.rather than the ending I got. whole thing about LA is the
:06:16. > :06:26.obsession with addiction any way, came through clearly. One of the
:06:26. > :06:30.funny points about the film, what a beautiful addict is Kelly Reilly!
:06:30. > :06:33.thought her character was really odd, actually, she's great in it,
:06:33. > :06:37.absolutely brilliant. I have to say the start of this film is terrific,
:06:37. > :06:43.because not only do you get this amazing kind of crash scene, you
:06:43. > :06:46.also get her story, which is in -- incredibly dramatic as well. It is
:06:46. > :06:50.really exciting and then goes another way. But you could have had
:06:50. > :06:54.the whole film without her in it. To be honest, she was not that
:06:54. > :06:59.important. She was very pretty, but her story went nowhere. And her
:06:59. > :07:03.story went nowhere actually because she got clean. That was what I
:07:03. > :07:08.thought was quite interesting. When you watch films, you don't really
:07:08. > :07:10.want a story of somebody getting clean. I think AA does absolutely
:07:10. > :07:15.fantastic work, it is a fantastic thing, but that is not actually
:07:15. > :07:19.what we want to watch. Actually what we want to watch is addicts
:07:19. > :07:24.going slightly nuts, and what happens. And the drug dealers, good
:07:24. > :07:30.God God, we will see him later on, he -- John Goodman, we will see him
:07:30. > :07:36.later on, he does a great job, accompanied the Stones music every
:07:36. > :07:43.time? Every time he comes on he is accompanied by Sympathy For the
:07:43. > :07:49.Devil, here he comes, offering you all these things, I thought he was
:07:49. > :07:52.overplayed. There is a tremenduously controlled scene, and
:07:52. > :07:55.Don Cheadle plays the barrister trying to get him out of trouble.
:07:55. > :08:01.When I first met you I couldn't believe what a drunk, arrogant
:08:01. > :08:05.scumbag you were. Oh really, thank you. But I did the research Captain
:08:05. > :08:10.Whitaker, and the expert analysis, and I'm in awe of what you did. The
:08:10. > :08:14.FAA and the NTSB, took ten pilots, placed them in simulator, recreated
:08:14. > :08:18.the events that led to this plane falling out of the sky. Do you know
:08:18. > :08:21.how many of them were able to safely land the plane? Not one.
:08:21. > :08:25.Every pilot crashed the aircraft, killed everyone on board, you were
:08:25. > :08:31.the only one who could do it. of the best performances I thought
:08:31. > :08:35.was from him? Don Cheadle is a superb actor. He's one of those
:08:35. > :08:39.actors who doesn't take the lead, but keeps films going. One of the
:08:39. > :08:46.other things. One of the other things I found really great about
:08:46. > :08:52.this, is picking up on what Miranda said about Sympathy for the Devil,
:08:52. > :08:59.is the soundtrack. I hated it. thought it was great, the Bill
:08:59. > :09:04.Withers song, Ain't No Sunshine When She Comes, and the "I know, I
:09:04. > :09:07.know" and you have him clearing things out to that refrain. What is
:09:07. > :09:15.this film for? It is a good question, going back to what you
:09:15. > :09:19.said about the devil, it was interesting about how the language
:09:19. > :09:23.of addiction, denial and redemption overlaps with the language of
:09:23. > :09:29.Christianity, there is a fall in the beginning, you see lots of
:09:29. > :09:36.people in the field praying. language of "act of God", that is
:09:37. > :09:41.an insurance phrase. All the way through there is this qaisy
:09:41. > :09:45.philosophical theme of free will versus...That Is an AA approach,
:09:45. > :09:51.given there is a very pivitol point where the co-pilot says to Denel
:09:51. > :09:56.Washington, after the crash, that maybe this was all actually to save
:09:56. > :09:59.him, to save this great, like you say, this Jesus kind of character,
:09:59. > :10:04.to turn his life around. That actually, in order for him to turn
:10:04. > :10:08.his life around he has to crash a plane, everything has to go down.
:10:08. > :10:12.Six people have to die? Just to turn his life around. Denel
:10:13. > :10:18.Washington, this is not a film that has been Garlanded with lots of
:10:18. > :10:28.Oscar nominations, but Denel Washington has one. What chance has
:10:28. > :10:33.
:10:33. > :10:36.he got? -- Pretty good, with Training Day and Glory who could
:10:36. > :10:40.forget that performance, this film was great, but I could easily
:10:40. > :10:46.forget his performance. See for yourself, Flight lands in a cinema
:10:46. > :10:51.near you today. The last time the review show visited lon does's
:10:51. > :10:56.Hayward Gallery was to see a collection of invisible art. We
:10:56. > :10:59.return for a more tangible collection, but only just. This
:10:59. > :11:06.contains flashing imagery. And loits.
:11:06. > :11:12.The first appraisal in the UK of light art opened in the Haywards
:11:12. > :11:14.galley. There are free standing structures, projections and free
:11:14. > :11:18.standing environments. Recreating some installations that haven't
:11:18. > :11:23.been seen for decades, the exhibition showcases some of the
:11:23. > :11:28.pee nearing works of this art -- pioneering works of this art form,
:11:28. > :11:32.including Dan Flavin's early works and Nancy Holt's elegant holes of
:11:32. > :11:37.light. As you enter the exhibition, you
:11:38. > :11:40.are greeted by a Leo Villareal's Cylindar II, constructed from
:11:40. > :11:50.almost 20,000 individual lights, performing sequences, that change
:11:50. > :11:51.
:11:51. > :11:56.from pulsating clouds, to swarms of fire flies. The know presents works
:11:56. > :12:00.on all scales, some crafted from the simplest of material, some
:12:00. > :12:04.harnessing technology to create sophisticated illusions.
:12:04. > :12:14.In the more immerseive pieces, viewers become part of the art
:12:14. > :12:15.
:12:15. > :12:23.themselves. The Chilean artist, Ivan Navarro's piece, Reality Show,
:12:23. > :12:27.even puts the spectator in a class case of their own. Other pieces
:12:27. > :12:37.take advantage of the nature of perception to manipulate our ways
:12:37. > :12:43.of seeing. There is a combination of flowing water and strobe
:12:43. > :12:48.lighting to create an ice-like landscape in a model for a timeless
:12:48. > :12:52.garden. So is this an exhibition which you
:12:52. > :12:59.can quickly switch off, or will visitors experience ghost images
:12:59. > :13:04.long after they leave. Zoe, it was interesting, at the
:13:04. > :13:08.beginning of the exhibition it said, that vision is the most unreliable
:13:08. > :13:11.of our senses. Did you doubt your eyes, did you think you were seeing
:13:11. > :13:16.things not knowing you were seeing what you thought was in front of
:13:16. > :13:20.you? Yeah, I think the curator of this exhibition calls light as a
:13:20. > :13:24.medium which the artists work in, and immaterial, material, there is
:13:24. > :13:29.that sense of the intanningability of light, but at the same time, the
:13:29. > :13:33.experiences you are having, in the different installations is so
:13:33. > :13:40.powerful and all consuming, you saw the last piece in the exhibition
:13:40. > :13:43.there, Model for a Timeless Garden, and there is the strobe light. The
:13:43. > :13:48.warnings for the strobe light aren't very visible, it is a real
:13:48. > :13:53.shock to the system, I found. You see the waterfalls, there are 27
:13:53. > :14:02.waterfalls unthe strobe. They look like strange frozen spiders, almost
:14:02. > :14:05.coming towards you. I could only spend 30 seconds in there and I had
:14:05. > :14:08.to leave. That is fantastic about the exhibition. There is one you go
:14:08. > :14:12.in, you have to take your hand along the right-hand side of the
:14:12. > :14:17.wall, move around and sit on a bench, and you look at something,
:14:17. > :14:20.which can only be described as being in the middle of a Rothko
:14:20. > :14:23.painting, the red absorbs you? There is aspects to the show that
:14:23. > :14:26.is really fantastic. It is interesting to be in a show where
:14:27. > :14:30.you are actually invited to look at something beautiful. That is a
:14:30. > :14:34.fantastic example. You are invited to be in a environment that is
:14:34. > :14:39.entirely beautiful. But having said that, I think a lot of the problem
:14:39. > :14:43.I had with this show, I have seen a lot of this before, and in fancy
:14:43. > :14:47.light showrooms, you go in and see a big chandelier and it is a bit
:14:47. > :14:51.like that. I have seen it at concerts. Idea that you are part of
:14:51. > :14:57.the show walking through a laser, and, really. There is one where
:14:57. > :15:01.there is a bit of dry ice. So, the problem I had with it, on occasion,
:15:02. > :15:04.was when it is really beautiful and it really struck me as in the piece
:15:04. > :15:10.you mentioned, that is fine. When it is just pretty I wanted
:15:10. > :15:13.something more. That is why I enjoyed the Jenny Hollser which has
:15:13. > :15:18.other meanings, I found that more interesting. The Navarro, the idea
:15:18. > :15:24.of going into that room and looking down was about Chile, wasn't it, it
:15:24. > :15:27.was about repression? It was, it is interesting, I will pick up on what
:15:27. > :15:32.Miranda said about the pretty. For me with this light show, there was
:15:32. > :15:36.some light, and I thought it is the one with the flurres sant light,
:15:36. > :15:40.the Dan Flavin work, I accident like it t I asked myself why I
:15:40. > :15:43.didn't. I -- I didn't like it, I asked meself why, because it
:15:43. > :15:47.reminded me of the 1970s where times were bad. I think that is
:15:47. > :15:52.what he wants. Where as The Village People, the cubicle two, with all
:15:52. > :15:56.the glitter, I think glitter is underrated in art, it is seen as a
:15:56. > :16:00.trivial material, that brought back great memories of the 70s, and the
:16:00. > :16:05.older women in my family stepping out, blinged up to the eye liner
:16:06. > :16:09.and looking really great. It was interesting. For me, I kind of
:16:09. > :16:15.immersed myself, it was an imminent response. There was one we couldn't
:16:15. > :16:20.actually show, the Turrell, and also Katie Patterson's, one of the
:16:20. > :16:24.best ones, the little room. It was exactly as moonlight would be. I
:16:24. > :16:28.thought that had an enormous poetry to it? I love Katie Patterson's
:16:28. > :16:33.work. She's worked with engineers on that piece to create this
:16:33. > :16:36.lightbulb, as you say, that simulates moonlight, from a
:16:36. > :16:41.combination of earth light, starlight and moonlight. What is
:16:41. > :16:45.generally really interesting about her work, is while earlier artists,
:16:45. > :16:49.maybe like Dan Flavin, were really excited by the possibilities of
:16:49. > :16:54.working with electric light, younger artists like Katie, who is
:16:54. > :16:58.about 30, 31, are more interested in, and kind of looking back to a
:16:58. > :17:03.time when light pollution hadn't blotted out these natural,
:17:03. > :17:09.beautiful phenomena, like the moon. But then she is using technology to
:17:09. > :17:14.get that natural original effect. Sometimes I think that's why it is
:17:14. > :17:21.hard to summerise this exhibition, essentially -- summerise this
:17:21. > :17:25.exhibition, you have it all being about different things in terms of
:17:25. > :17:28.artists. Things will hit people and other times missing with people.
:17:28. > :17:31.Just because they all use art, doesn't mean they are trying to
:17:31. > :17:35.produce the same thing. It is interesting to gather them together
:17:35. > :17:38.n the concrete environment of the Hayward. It does show you a kind of
:17:38. > :17:42.aesthetic that you have actually really universally, in today's
:17:42. > :17:46.society, can you go to bars and they look like that, and they wink
:17:46. > :17:50.at you in the same way. I think that is quite interesting to gather
:17:50. > :17:54.it there and think, actually, even if you don't to relate to the art,
:17:54. > :17:58.it has given awe general contemporary aesthetic that was
:17:58. > :18:01.completely dominant. If you were to go to the Olympic Opening Ceremony,
:18:01. > :18:05.the light shows that lighting engineers put on are art? They are,
:18:05. > :18:09.and that was the bit where it failed for me. Just because of that.
:18:09. > :18:13.Because I'm so familiar with some of the techniques that are used. If
:18:13. > :18:17.you spend a whole morning in there, as I did, and you are prone to
:18:17. > :18:22.migraine, it gets really tiring. It is quite hard work on the eyes in
:18:22. > :18:27.the end. I quite liked, there were some that I had to come out had, I
:18:27. > :18:31.certainly had to come out of the one you did. But the Doug Wheeler,
:18:31. > :18:35.no sharp edges in the room, but the idea of it was untitled and
:18:35. > :18:39.saturated, you looked and you thought your vision was changing
:18:39. > :18:43.and the middle of getting darker. I loved the fact our eyes were
:18:43. > :18:46.changing every second we watched that? That is an incredible piece
:18:46. > :18:51.that. I walked up to it and couldn't work it out at all. That
:18:51. > :18:54.is what is interesting, partly, about vision itself. That you are
:18:54. > :18:57.filling, your eyes don't see properly, they are filling in
:18:57. > :19:03.things all the time, they are lying to you all the time. For you to go
:19:03. > :19:06.in and out of those pieces, the more enveloping pieces was an
:19:06. > :19:12.interesting experience. You would say you need a break occasionally.
:19:12. > :19:18.Get your light sabres out, it is there until the end of April.
:19:18. > :19:24.Two years ago the London comedy theatre was renamed the Harold
:19:24. > :19:29.Pinter Theatre, in honour of a man whose plays often appeared there.
:19:29. > :19:33.In this new production of Old Times, directed by Ian Rickson, Kirsten
:19:33. > :19:39.Scott Thomas and Lia Williams alternate the female roles of Kate
:19:39. > :19:42.and her friend Anna. Rufus Sewell plays the possessive husband,
:19:42. > :19:48.Deeley. Pinter explores the way we make and sometimes subconsciously
:19:48. > :19:51.remake our memories in the context of our triangular relationship
:19:51. > :19:55.between a married couple and the wife's best friend. Some time later
:19:55. > :20:01.in the night I woke and looked across the room and saw two shapes.
:20:01. > :20:05.Did he come back? He was lying across her lap, on her bed. A man,
:20:05. > :20:12.in the dark, lying across, my wife's lap. But then in the early
:20:12. > :20:16.morning, he had gone. Thank Christ for that. It was as if he had never
:20:16. > :20:21.been. Of course he had been, he went to us and came once. Scott
:20:21. > :20:26.Thomas's last stage role was in Pinter's Betrayal, also directed by
:20:26. > :20:29.Ian Rickson, and Lia Williams is a seasoned Pinter performer too. But
:20:30. > :20:33.this is the first time that actresses have alternated roles of
:20:33. > :20:37.Anna and Kate in the West End. is interesting about playing both
:20:37. > :20:41.parts is you have extra layers of knowledge about who these
:20:41. > :20:45.characters are. Because there are things that I have seen in Kate
:20:45. > :20:51.when Lia is playing Kate, that I hadn't, I thought I hadn't thought
:20:51. > :20:57.about that, I integrated it into my performance. You talk of me as if I
:20:57. > :21:01.were dead. No, no you weren't dead. You were so lively, you were so
:21:01. > :21:05.animated, you used to laugh. course you did, I made you smile
:21:06. > :21:10.myself, walking down the street together, holding hands, you smiled
:21:10. > :21:18.fit to burst. She could be so animated. Animated is not the word
:21:18. > :21:23.for it, when she smiled, I can't describe it. Her eyes lit up.
:21:23. > :21:27.Couldn't have put it better myself. Miranda it is pretty darned
:21:27. > :21:32.enterprising to change them around so everybody has to see the play
:21:32. > :21:35.twice. But as has it enriched your understanding of the play and
:21:36. > :21:39.enjoyment of it? It did. I went to see not the way round we have seen
:21:39. > :21:43.there, the first time round, I really enjoyed t it was quite a
:21:43. > :21:50.strange experience, I preferred it with the way we have just seen now,
:21:50. > :21:54.with Kirsten Scott Thomas as Anna, as the interloper. The difference
:21:54. > :21:58.is quite interesting, it is a lot stronger the second time round,
:21:58. > :22:03.there is a lot more anger, it is very brittle. The performance, I
:22:03. > :22:06.have to say, are pretty terrific, throughout, whatever way you get it
:22:07. > :22:10.they are pretty terrific. The only thing I would say, the direction is
:22:10. > :22:14.great, I thought the play didn't come out that well, I have to say.
:22:14. > :22:18.The only way that I could really enjoy it the second time round, was
:22:18. > :22:23.when I thought of it in a different way. So I thought actually, what
:22:23. > :22:27.Anna was, was what Kate could have become. She didn't exist, she had
:22:27. > :22:31.come in, and she was showcasing everything he could have been. You
:22:31. > :22:35.could have been this fantastic person but you went off with this
:22:35. > :22:38.man who squashed you down. From the audience's point of view, you might
:22:38. > :22:41.have had a different response if you had seen it the other way round
:22:42. > :22:46.first? You really might have done. The other thing that does is
:22:46. > :22:51.emphasise the interchangability of the women, for the man. So when
:22:51. > :22:55.they first meet, you have no idea which one he is fall anything love
:22:55. > :22:59.with. Do you think, though, that the character Rufus Sewell's
:22:59. > :23:04.character changes, do you see a change in him in the two
:23:04. > :23:08.performances? I didn't particularly, I think his manic energy really,
:23:08. > :23:11.really works, maybe that was upped slightly in the second, when
:23:11. > :23:15.Kirsten Scott Thomas was playing Anna. I think they had a much
:23:15. > :23:21.greater sexual chemistry, so the scenes where they are talking about
:23:21. > :23:25.the bath, and washing the wife, and she's the invisible catalyst for
:23:25. > :23:30.their foreplay. I think there was much more of a genuine tension
:23:30. > :23:35.between him and Kirsten Scott Thomas. Throughout these themes,
:23:35. > :23:40.how Harold Pinter came back to many times, which is memory, rembering,
:23:41. > :23:46.false memory, among memories on purpose. You never knew. I thought
:23:46. > :23:50.that was one of the best things about it, you never knew whom who
:23:50. > :23:53.was playing games with whom? This is an interesting play, if you
:23:53. > :23:57.think about Harold Pinter's life back in 1971, it is incredibly
:23:57. > :24:03.turbulent. I think the main character in this is the husband,
:24:03. > :24:08.Deeley. It is interesting in the programme, there is an extract from
:24:08. > :24:11.Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter's wife, it says he said to her, it is
:24:11. > :24:15.a play where Deeley is a man defeated by women. What I did
:24:15. > :24:20.notice for me, there was a real difference in the performance. When
:24:20. > :24:25.Kirsten Scott Thomas sexed it up, as Anna, there is such a kind of
:24:25. > :24:29.chemistry between her and Deeley. So I think he stops being giggley
:24:29. > :24:32.and stumbling as I saw him in the first performance. In the second
:24:32. > :24:41.one he's a desperate man, that is what you need to see is that
:24:41. > :24:44.desperation, a man defeated by women. That triangle was visited in
:24:44. > :24:48.Betrayal, but it is powerful. It is also vicious, it was one of the
:24:48. > :24:51.reviews I read talked about the fact that you take away the other
:24:51. > :24:55.stuff away and you are left with bullying? And anger, so much anger
:24:56. > :24:59.in the second one. That weird element that, I think, we haven't
:24:59. > :25:04.mentioned Lia Williams, she has a very strange energy, which I
:25:04. > :25:10.actually think is really interesting. When she plays Kate,
:25:10. > :25:13.show's like a child being argued over by divorced parents. It is a
:25:13. > :25:19.very interesting element. What is so interesting is the shift in that,
:25:19. > :25:22.is the language is the same in both, the language is very Pinteresque.
:25:22. > :25:26.They move slightly different, they are slightly doing the same thing,
:25:26. > :25:29.in one performance somebody ends up on the floor, in the other
:25:29. > :25:38.performance they don't. They do move very differently. I think the
:25:38. > :25:41.sceney is very good. That is hilder Gard Bretler. Just the way the
:25:41. > :25:46.furniture is positioned, it gives distance between the character.
:25:46. > :25:56.saturated colours of it, they were depressing n a way. It has that
:25:56. > :25:58.
:25:58. > :26:02.weird, you know that play where Hell is other People, the Satre.
:26:02. > :26:07.You only exist as other people see you or remember you, who are you
:26:07. > :26:11.within this kind of triangle. And that, I found, very interesting. I
:26:11. > :26:16.think if you imagine, if you imagine Anna as all the dreams that
:26:17. > :26:21.got away t becomes more interesting. Sticking with the language point,
:26:21. > :26:27.when Pinter says himself, ordeal deal says himself, that you used
:26:27. > :26:30.the word "lest" I haven't heard that word used for years. It is in
:26:30. > :26:34.another line. It is playing with language. Pinter is all about the
:26:34. > :26:38.text and language. This is the problem, if the performances don't
:26:38. > :26:42.work out, they are not going to work out. I think Pinter can be
:26:42. > :26:45.very unforgiving for actor. So for me, the second time round, within
:26:45. > :26:48.I'm listening to it, I heard so much more of the performance,
:26:48. > :26:52.didn't you just? Than the timing, it worked for me. It is three
:26:52. > :26:55.people in a room talking for 80 minutes, it doesn't feel like it,
:26:55. > :26:59.but that is what it is. It is extraordinary, when Kirsten Scott
:26:59. > :27:05.Thomas undergoes the transformation with the wig, and how she becomes
:27:05. > :27:11.funny. I have never seen her in that kind of comic role, she's very
:27:11. > :27:14.good at the enuit of the board, the housewife, she was really funny,
:27:14. > :27:19.picking out the way they talk about, when she gives the speech and she's
:27:19. > :27:24.enjoying the fact in the past that her and her girlfriend had their
:27:24. > :27:28.own sandwiches. It is just utterly bizarre. Her body language is
:27:28. > :27:34.betraying what she's actually saying, which is quite mundane, but
:27:34. > :27:37.she's talking about, rembering a one-night stand. It is highly
:27:38. > :27:42.sexualised. There is a really interesting part, when there is a
:27:42. > :27:47.line, "you are nearly 40", the first performance it sound like an
:27:47. > :27:50.insult and all the audience laughed. The second performance, it is
:27:50. > :27:54.stunning, it is electricity, just that one line. Old Times runs at
:27:55. > :28:01.the Harold Pinter Theatre until the 6th of April. Go once or twice.
:28:01. > :28:04.For many, the 1930s Britain image conjures up country houses, the
:28:04. > :28:07.country struggling through tough economic times, we see little of
:28:07. > :28:11.this in Stephen Poliakoff's new BBC Two series, Dancing On The Edge.
:28:11. > :28:15.Set in London this five-part drama, draws on the relatively unknown
:28:15. > :28:20.stories of the black, mostly American jazz musicians, who
:28:20. > :28:23.company turd the attention of the high society crowd, with their --
:28:23. > :28:30.captured the attention of the high society crowd with their
:28:30. > :28:36.intoxicating new sounds. The story focuses upon the rise to
:28:36. > :28:43.fame of the Louis Lester Band. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the quietly
:28:43. > :28:48.confident Londoner, Louis, and there is the journalist Stanley,
:28:48. > :28:53.who promotes the band in his magazine Music Express. The band
:28:53. > :28:57.shook the room with their intensity, and showed the music could appeal
:28:58. > :29:02.to a larger audience than it presently enjoys. You are home-
:29:02. > :29:06.grown I was born here. He has lost his birth certificate. It has gone
:29:06. > :29:12.missing, I need to find it. Dancing On The Edge is an ensemble piece.
:29:12. > :29:20.Along said the suave Antony Head, John Goodman plays the enigmatic Mr
:29:20. > :29:23.Masterson, and Mer Smith the hotel owner, Mr Schlesinger. I met Albert
:29:23. > :29:27.yesterday, he could absolutely not believe that I had coloured
:29:27. > :29:31.musicians staying in this hotel. Just down the road at the Savoy
:29:31. > :29:35.Theatre, people are walking out of Othello even as we speak, because
:29:35. > :29:39.of the coloured actor, Robeson, is kissing his Desdemona.
:29:39. > :29:43.Poliakoff wrote and directed the whole series, which runs to six
:29:43. > :29:48.hours. A commission that's relatively unheard of in British
:29:48. > :29:51.television. Set in an age when racist attitudes would have been
:29:51. > :29:56.the norm, the series explores the unlikely relationships formed
:29:56. > :29:59.between black jazz musicians and the aristocracy in 1930s Britain,
:29:59. > :30:05.revealing a progressive attitude that was perhaps ahead of its time.
:30:05. > :30:08.# Wind blows round the steeple # Mm empty world and sleepy people
:30:08. > :30:12.# I lie awake. Dancing On The Edge is a period
:30:12. > :30:16.drama that tackles an extraordinary time of change in British history,
:30:16. > :30:21.do its themes of economic depression, immigration and an
:30:21. > :30:24.obsessive celebrity culture, still resonate today.
:30:24. > :30:34.# The dead of night # Express
:30:34. > :30:37.It has all things that Poliakoff loves, it is 1930s, country houses,
:30:37. > :30:42.aristocrats, trains. Does he lose them in the right way? The last
:30:42. > :30:46.thing I saw of Poliakoff was a play that Tracey Ullman was in, I
:30:46. > :30:50.thought it was a drama school student had written it. This is
:30:50. > :30:54.great, it is really seductive. All the way that you want this
:30:54. > :30:58.television to be. So everybody's really good looking, the clothes
:30:58. > :31:01.are absolutely gorgeous, the music is really great. It takes you on a
:31:01. > :31:05.slow journey, but quite an interesting one. It is an
:31:05. > :31:09.interesting time in English his treatment one of the things I
:31:09. > :31:14.thought was really lovely at the beginning, is you associate jazz
:31:14. > :31:20.with America, of course, especially black jazz. To have it taken over
:31:20. > :31:24.and put in aristocrats house, it is perfect television. I completely
:31:24. > :31:29.disagree, I absolutely hated this. I would have turned it off after 30
:31:29. > :31:38.seconds if I hadn't been reviewing it. I just found, I don't know, I
:31:38. > :31:43.find the sort of fetishisation of this old image of the aristocracy
:31:43. > :31:46.that they are privilegesed and maybe lazy but they are glamorous,
:31:46. > :31:53.who cares. I find that difficult to stomach. What is interesting about
:31:53. > :31:58.it, is that there's an element where that is undermined. So there
:31:58. > :32:01.is couple of scenes, where what you get is these posh aristocrats
:32:01. > :32:04.saying they are really liberal, I don't know if you have noticed we
:32:04. > :32:08.are really liberal because we love you, out there, there are lots of
:32:08. > :32:12.people out there that aren't like us. I think that is resonant, very
:32:12. > :32:15.true in society today, that you have that. It is interesting, I
:32:15. > :32:20.think I'm a bit in the middle here. I was really interested in
:32:20. > :32:23.Poliakoff doing this, because I think it is such an interesting
:32:23. > :32:28.period. It is interesting because it is this notion of jazz coming
:32:29. > :32:33.from America. If I'm not wrong here, I think they will have based the
:32:33. > :32:37.life on The Edge Of Love character on Leslie Hutchinson, Hutch, from
:32:37. > :32:41.Grenada in the Caribbean. I think one of the things that's missing
:32:41. > :32:44.for me, I'm like Miranda, I love it, but I'm wondering about the
:32:44. > :32:48.musicians, they file like they are just musicians at the moment, and
:32:48. > :32:58.reacting to other people. Are they going to become fuller people. Will
:32:58. > :32:58.
:32:58. > :33:02.we find more about their back story, really? Obviously the women Angel
:33:02. > :33:07.and Wuummi, are featured, but the rest of the band, they are there.
:33:07. > :33:12.They are like instruments. And you can fairly say that none of the
:33:12. > :33:16.white characters are unexplored, at all? Not really. So I'm interested
:33:16. > :33:20.about that. I'm interested in the whole thing about in drama, in
:33:21. > :33:24.British drama and tele, why have we so many black actors fleeing this
:33:24. > :33:28.and going over to the states, because, I think, they get real
:33:28. > :33:34.parts. This is great this drama, but once again it is about using
:33:34. > :33:38.black actors to explore ethnicity and "race". It is interesting if
:33:38. > :33:42.you compare it with Flight were it is unmentioned. You didn't notice
:33:42. > :33:46.who was black and who was white. This is the nature of the story
:33:46. > :33:50.isn't it. The central performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor is
:33:50. > :33:55.extraordinary, and Poliakoff knows how stunning his performance is,
:33:55. > :33:59.and he holds these images of him beautifully? I have to say, even if
:33:59. > :34:03.you're not interested in this story, to be honest, if you are a straight
:34:04. > :34:07.woman you are fine, you have two really hot leads, being hot. And
:34:07. > :34:15.speaking as a journalist, and particularly a music journal is,
:34:15. > :34:19.you have a music journalist being really cool. This never happens!
:34:19. > :34:22.Racism is threaded throughout the performance. Here is Chiwetel
:34:22. > :34:26.Ejiofor talking about what actually happened. You can imagine this
:34:26. > :34:29.absolutely did happen. You must have had to deal with a lot of
:34:29. > :34:33.prejudiced people. Of course, yes, and you never know where it is
:34:33. > :34:37.going to come from either. Sometimes it is the people you
:34:37. > :34:43.don't expect. I remember bumping into a table when I was coming off
:34:43. > :34:49.the stage and the couple nearest to me, the lady was covered in jewels,
:34:49. > :34:53.but she was very young, charming looking, and both of them, this
:34:53. > :35:00.couple started wiping their cuttlery, with their nip kins, even
:35:00. > :35:04.though I wasn't anywhere -- napkins, even though I wasn't anywhere near
:35:04. > :35:09.them, and they changed them just to be sure. That is very revealing.
:35:09. > :35:12.Very simply done, very low-key. was a soapbox moment for me.
:35:12. > :35:16.Soapbox, all of a sudden I thought what's happening to this drama, and
:35:16. > :35:21.then after that you get Antony Head talking, and goes into this big
:35:21. > :35:27.long speech about racism. And I thought, stop, stop. It is just not
:35:27. > :35:30.there. The problem with it is the musicians are too deferential, they
:35:30. > :35:34.are too grateful for this royal and aristocratic patronage, I know
:35:34. > :35:39.maybe this will change as the series progresses, we have only
:35:39. > :35:45.watched the first two episodes. But I would have loved there to be some
:35:45. > :35:49.tension in their acceptance. There was, but. What is interesting with
:35:50. > :35:53.that, there is still an ambiguity about whether the guy who wants to
:35:54. > :35:58.be the patron did try to find his birth certificate. He wanted him
:35:58. > :36:02.away. He had no trouble in actually dismissing him. The scene we have
:36:02. > :36:07.seen I agree is soapboxy, the reason is works actually the acting.
:36:07. > :36:09.There is a kind of layer that is given by these great actors, that
:36:09. > :36:14.are basically saying this is soapboxy, but actually you can tell
:36:14. > :36:17.this man is going to let them down, lock at him, he will let them down,
:36:17. > :36:22.he's being really liberal and you are great being my lovely friend.
:36:22. > :36:31.You know later on he will walk off and do something else. In terms of
:36:31. > :36:35.performances, singing, phenomenal. I thought so. Angel Coulby.
:36:35. > :36:40.disagree, I love that kind of music and music of that period. In order
:36:40. > :36:45.to believe in the hype around this band, the music had to be
:36:45. > :36:49.completely outstanding. And I just don't think, I thought it changed
:36:49. > :36:56.into muzak. I think there were really good performances in it.
:36:57. > :37:03.thought she was great, Angel. of the young women. And Wummi as
:37:03. > :37:08.well. Wasn't it great to see a whom who looked like a woman on screen.
:37:08. > :37:10.Let's have more women like that. What Poliakoff manages to do so
:37:10. > :37:15.brilliantly is location, lovely country houses, and the look of the
:37:15. > :37:18.thing. It looked like something you wanted to watch but not Downton
:37:19. > :37:24.Abbey? It is interesting to compare it with Downton Abbey, the
:37:24. > :37:26.relationships between the servants and masters were really
:37:26. > :37:29.contemporary, everybody was really nice to each other. They really
:37:29. > :37:34.were liberals in a way, they possibly wouldn't have been, they
:37:34. > :37:38.definitely wouldn't have been at the time. I think maybe I'm just
:37:38. > :37:43.incredibly excited because I'm seeing a Poliakoff that I enjoy. I
:37:43. > :37:47.hope that what will happen is these relationships, that seem so liberal,
:37:47. > :37:51.and so great, are going to be shattered, particularly by the fact
:37:51. > :37:55.that the war is coming, and they think fascism is on the rise, that
:37:55. > :37:59.something will happen to shatter this, and it won't be what we think.
:37:59. > :38:04.I sincerely hope so, Dancing On The Edge starts on BBC Two Monday night.
:38:04. > :38:07.Try to catch it. The desire to settle in Britain is clearly one of
:38:07. > :38:10.its theme, those days around 150,000 people take citizenship
:38:10. > :38:14.tests in the UK ever year. Candidates had expect to have a
:38:14. > :38:17.good knowledge of British history, culture and tradition. This week,
:38:17. > :38:21.the Government published a new edition of Life In The Untited
:38:21. > :38:25.Kingdom. A book which claims to contain everything you need to know
:38:25. > :38:28.to pass the test. Does the guide paint a picture of Britain that we
:38:28. > :38:32.would recognise? The new book is described by the
:38:32. > :38:38.hoves as "essential reading" for migrants, who have a good command
:38:38. > :38:44.of English, and who hope to make a permanently in the UK. -- life
:38:44. > :38:47.environmently in the UK. A previous edition of the guide contained what
:38:47. > :38:53.the hoves called mundane information, on timetables for
:38:53. > :38:57.trains and water metres. This has been striped away. Now it
:38:57. > :39:02.concentrates on culture traditions and the people who have put the
:39:02. > :39:07."great" into Britain. The role call runs from Shakespeare to Morecambe
:39:07. > :39:11.and Wise, Coronation Street, The Beatlesles, and Monty Python making
:39:11. > :39:14.appearances. Included too are examples of British engineering,
:39:14. > :39:20.scientific discovery, and our history, from the Stone Age to the
:39:20. > :39:24.present day. The book aims to show how Britain has evolved, and to
:39:24. > :39:31.encourage participation in British life, but do its references provide
:39:31. > :39:38.a rounded and accurate picture of the UK in 2013.
:39:38. > :39:47.Zoe, it was a ripping read? No. It is surreally bland. It is like the
:39:47. > :39:50.British Government is doing a ethnografy on itself. But you would
:39:50. > :39:55.-- ethnography on itself. You would think Britain is the most boring
:39:55. > :39:58.place on earth. You can go camping and get something called an
:39:58. > :40:02.allotment. We have people coming over only to eat Yorkshire pudding,
:40:02. > :40:09.nothing else. It is by zafrplt I was very interested, it was
:40:09. > :40:13.teaching me a lot of things about the Stone Age I had no idea about.
:40:13. > :40:18.It is a cross between a Ladybird book and a driving test book. I
:40:18. > :40:21.wanted to keep it for my seven- year-old, if he ever needed to look
:40:21. > :40:26.stuff up. We were just talked about Harold Pinter, the theatre section?
:40:26. > :40:31.It is a disgrace. It is terrible. It literally says all we have is
:40:31. > :40:35.musical theatre and pantomimes. Andrew Lloyd Webber. And for music,
:40:35. > :40:41.all we have in modern music is the Rolling stones and the Beatles.
:40:41. > :40:45.What is interesting with the music is, two pages are about classical
:40:45. > :40:49.music, the rest is truncated into lists in a page. I think it is
:40:49. > :40:52.interesting when you look at this book, we can use words like "bland"
:40:52. > :40:57.and dismiss it. You have to really look at the messages here. For
:40:57. > :41:01.example, the language. There is one section about the 1970s, and the
:41:01. > :41:05.politics in the 1970s, and the Labour Government, it talks about
:41:05. > :41:08.strikes created, prob blems between the -- problems between the
:41:08. > :41:12.Government and trade unions, and the opposing page, Margaret
:41:12. > :41:16.Thatcher. It talks about Margaret Thatcher's social reform, she does
:41:16. > :41:19.reform, Labour Governments creates problems, that is the problem with
:41:19. > :41:27.bland books, you can dismiss them, but look at the hard language that
:41:27. > :41:34.is used and where. Does it say anything about it and us? It hangs
:41:34. > :41:39.on about the war. Domestic violence? It is, there are elements
:41:39. > :41:43.that are interesting. They essentially say to people you know,
:41:43. > :41:46.female genital mutilation is not on. Although there has never been a
:41:46. > :41:52.prosecution, they don't add. What I think is more interesting about
:41:52. > :41:56.this, is why are people coming here? The last ten years the amount
:41:56. > :42:01.of foreigners coming to live here has gone up by 66%, there are three
:42:01. > :42:05.million more people, why? If you read this it doesn't contain why,
:42:05. > :42:08.it is about the education, the tolerance is mentioned, education
:42:08. > :42:15.and the vibrancy of our culture which is not mentioned at all.
:42:15. > :42:20.mentioned. Life life, but not as you know it, is available in all
:42:20. > :42:24.good book shops, they sell more entertaining versions I'm sure.
:42:24. > :42:28.Thank you to my guest. Next year there is a selection with Anthony
:42:28. > :42:35.Hopkins as Hitchcock, and a new exhibition of Glam, at Tate
:42:35. > :42:41.Liverpool. The BBC Folk Awards took place in Glasgow on Wednesday night.
:42:41. > :42:51.This is the finale, featuring Dougie Mc Clean, and an all-star
:42:51. > :42:53.
:42:54. > :43:00.line up singing his song Caladonia. # I don't know if you can see
:43:00. > :43:07.# The changes that have come over # In these last few days
:43:07. > :43:10.# I've been afraid # That the mind drifted away
:43:10. > :43:14.# So I have been telling old stories
:43:14. > :43:17.# Singing songs # That make me think about where I
:43:17. > :43:21.came from # That's the reasons
:43:21. > :43:28.# Why I seem # So far away
:43:28. > :43:35.# Today # Let me tell you that I love you
:43:35. > :43:42.# That I think about you all the time