:00:30. > :00:34.On the review show tonight, John Carter, Disney's new 3-D sci-fi
:00:34. > :00:38.epic, transports an American civil war veteran to Mars. A successful
:00:38. > :00:44.launch, or crash landing? Here on earth, John Lanchester's
:00:44. > :00:51.new novel, Capital, tells the story of the financial crash, via the
:00:51. > :00:54.inhabitants of one London street. TV drama, White Heat, looks at
:00:54. > :01:03.seven generations through a group of students.
:01:03. > :01:10.We mark the 70th birthday of the legendary Lou Reed, his journey has
:01:10. > :01:13.taken him to Metallica. With us are my guests.
:01:13. > :01:19.And the playwright Liz Lochhead, who is also Scotland's national
:01:19. > :01:23.poet. As ever, we want to hear what you
:01:23. > :01:32.think too. Send us a tweet if the fancy takes you.
:01:32. > :01:40.We begin with a trip to Mars, hardly has a 3-D reissue of Star
:01:40. > :01:44.Wars: The Phantom Menace has gone and the next start of another
:01:44. > :01:49.Disney franchise. John Carter comes from a pop novel, but no expense
:01:49. > :01:56.has been spared in bringing it to the big screen.
:01:56. > :02:04.Set on the mysterious and barren planet of matter zoom, John Carter,
:02:04. > :02:08.a civil war veteran, inexplicably transported to an alien world,
:02:08. > :02:13.imprisoned and vofrld in a conflict that forces him to question his own
:02:13. > :02:19.priorities and loyalties. It is based on the novel A Princess of
:02:19. > :02:23.Mars, by the man best known for creating tarz zan. That was part of
:02:23. > :02:33.an 11-novel series. It marks the centinary of John Carter's first
:02:33. > :02:36.
:02:36. > :02:43.appearance in 1912. Tain John Carter, Virginia --
:02:43. > :02:46.Captain John Carter from Virginia. Virginia? My name is John Carter,
:02:46. > :02:55.I'm from Virginia. Virginia. Following in the footsteps of
:02:55. > :03:02.blockbuster hits, Avatar, the Prince of Persiania, the adventures
:03:02. > :03:06.are brought through IMAX, and 3-D and animation. The man best known
:03:06. > :03:12.for work on toy story, and including well known names, such as
:03:12. > :03:15.William Dafoe and Dominic West. The lead role is taken by a relative
:03:15. > :03:21.newcomer, Taylor Kitsch. You are ugly, but you are beautiful, you
:03:21. > :03:28.will fight for us. The film may hold the record for
:03:28. > :03:35.the longest development period of any movie at a whopping 69 years. -
:03:35. > :03:39.- 79 years. Prepro duction for a film version began in 1931, had
:03:39. > :03:47.that borne fruit t could have become the first animated feature
:03:48. > :03:57.for Disney, beating Snow White And The Seven dwafrs. Disney has spent
:03:57. > :04:03.�300 million on this latest IMAX experience, is it worth it.
:04:03. > :04:09.Andrew Stanton is a begin with Pixar, they let him loose with this,
:04:09. > :04:13.he loved the books, did it show? Well, it showed in that he had
:04:13. > :04:18.clearly lavished an enormous amount of care and attention. Not to
:04:18. > :04:22.mention you could have run a war on what this movie cost to make. Even
:04:22. > :04:26.reading the production notes and realising they got, and they
:04:26. > :04:31.studied medieval swordsmanship, and all kinds of stuff. The level of
:04:31. > :04:36.detail they put in it ought to be a masterpiece. Unfortunately it isn't.
:04:36. > :04:41.It is enjoyable in lots of ways. It is a find of magnificent and also
:04:41. > :04:47.rather ridiculous romp. It is visually spectacular, but, for me,
:04:47. > :04:50.well, first, it is way too long, but the 3-D ruins it. So that what
:04:50. > :04:55.should be incredibly spectacular, because it is all proper scale
:04:55. > :04:59.stuff, and they have got these amazing landscapes and amazing
:04:59. > :05:06.buildings and creatures, in 3-D it looks like plastic, they look like
:05:06. > :05:09.models being moved around. It isn't proper 3-D, that is proper to
:05:09. > :05:13.notice. Avatar was a terrible film, script and acting, it worked
:05:13. > :05:19.because you sat there in the seat like a 15-year-old doing your first
:05:19. > :05:22.trip, trying to touch these things. The John Carter was made post
:05:22. > :05:27.production, this was something where clearly the studio executives
:05:28. > :05:32.were getting worried it wasn't 3-D because it was the next big thing.
:05:32. > :05:36.Post-production they go in and alter depth of field. It is a
:05:36. > :05:42.different treatment. For me, absolutely, it doesn't save what is
:05:42. > :05:45.a forgettable film. I saw it in IMAX, it was really weird. It was
:05:45. > :05:50.simultaneously flat and clunky, that is not just the technology or
:05:50. > :05:54.look, that was the dialogue, the story, everything about it for me.
:05:54. > :06:04.What was the narrative and stone of it? I couldn't understand it --
:06:04. > :06:05.
:06:05. > :06:11.tone of it? I couldn't understand it. Sfs simultaneously -- it was
:06:11. > :06:15.simultaneously rubbish and ridiculous. I read the stories as a
:06:15. > :06:21.child, it should have been great, the writer is one of the great
:06:21. > :06:26.American novelist, and drawing on a number of films I love, Flash
:06:26. > :06:33.Gordon, Indiana Jones, every time you got an echo of a film you
:06:33. > :06:41.wanted to watch that instead. little bit of John Ford, a bit of
:06:41. > :06:51.Apocalypse Now, I wanted to put # This is the end
:06:51. > :06:52.
:06:52. > :06:57.# My only friend. I think he's wonderful actor some of them, what
:06:57. > :07:01.were they doing in it? The script he's given, he says something like
:07:02. > :07:07.what's the point in my having this thing if I don't get to use it. Who
:07:07. > :07:14.is that directed at. The thing about a lot of Andrew stantton's
:07:14. > :07:22.work, Finding Nemo is a fantastic music, tonally spot on, this is all
:07:22. > :07:26.over the place. You have this clumsy, playing for laughs. There
:07:26. > :07:30.is love stuff that isn't, the father daughter thing, the mirror
:07:30. > :07:35.images of the father daughter? couldn't make head nor tail of it.
:07:35. > :07:41.I was with a real audience, they gave us popcorn and water when we
:07:41. > :07:48.went in. I thought I was there for four hours. It feels incredibly
:07:48. > :07:57.wrong. When you go into a film and they say this is the film and this
:07:57. > :08:01.is this lot, and this is that lot? This is not just from the Princess,
:08:01. > :08:05.there are other series, there is so much they have reached into the
:08:05. > :08:13.future of the novels to put in there it felt like it was too much
:08:13. > :08:23.of a fan's Labour of love. When you talk about Ryder Hagg er it was a
:08:23. > :08:30.pre-runner to Raiders of the Lost Ark. What is Hollywood doing here,
:08:30. > :08:34.$250 million. When you look behind the film you can see so much of the
:08:34. > :08:38.mechanics of Hollywood going on. This is a film that has been
:08:38. > :08:44.inherited by the new head of Disney studios. He is already trying to
:08:44. > :08:48.wash his hands of it. He had already committed himself to it to
:08:48. > :08:51.the half time slot in the superbowl to advertise this film. They are
:08:51. > :08:56.now trying to reposition it as this underdog film, it will be
:08:56. > :08:59.championed by the real fans. That may work. It is not going to work
:08:59. > :09:04.$400 million, which they need to break even. I think just about 20
:09:04. > :09:07.minutes from the end, after the scene with the white apes, it
:09:07. > :09:13.kicked in, there was a pacing that was much better. Maybe I knew it
:09:13. > :09:17.was coming to the end? The white apes, that is a truly spectacular
:09:17. > :09:21.scene. It is a futuristic gladiator. Within you think what went into it,
:09:21. > :09:27.they did a lot of the stuoints themselves, Taylor Kitsch must be
:09:27. > :09:32.the fittest man on the planet. looked like the guitarist from
:09:32. > :09:37.Suede, he's not a superhero. Kitsch by name and nature. I thought about
:09:37. > :09:42.the whole thing. I did like the idea that he's not a superhero,
:09:42. > :09:46.kids go to film and they expect the superhero. He was a reluctant, he
:09:46. > :09:52.was an old fashioned goody. That thought that was really interesting,
:09:52. > :09:55.if you look back to the book, it is 1912 just before the explosion of
:09:55. > :10:01.modernism, this is Edgar Rice Burroughs saying here we have an
:10:01. > :10:07.old fashioned decent civil war hero, who can still cut it in the
:10:07. > :10:11.terrifying, interGAL labgtic future. John Carter is released next Friday.
:10:11. > :10:14.The novelist John Lanchester deserved a media for manage to go
:10:14. > :10:19.explain the latest global financial crisis in words anyone can
:10:19. > :10:21.understand, in his splendidly titled book, Whoops!: Why Everyone
:10:21. > :10:26.Owes Everyone and No-One Can Pay. That work was a spin-off for his
:10:26. > :10:32.research for his new novel, that used the events of 2008 through the
:10:32. > :10:37.eyes of a disspirit group of Londoners, including an artist and
:10:37. > :10:41.a Polish plumber. Capital sees London as the microcosim of modern
:10:42. > :10:46.Britain, money, property and the diverse populus who pursue it,
:10:46. > :10:49.collide in a door-stopping 600-page analysis. One of the things that is
:10:49. > :10:53.interesting about London is the way global themes press on it, things
:10:53. > :10:57.that happen in the world are brought to bear, and acted out in
:10:57. > :11:03.London. In terms of finance, terrorism, inequality, all those
:11:03. > :11:06.things. The fact that people want to come and live here in the UK,
:11:06. > :11:09.more generally in London in particular, it is an incredibly
:11:09. > :11:13.important thing for the texture of life in Britain. One of the most
:11:13. > :11:17.basic divisions of any society in the world, places people desperate
:11:17. > :11:22.to get away from, and places people are desperate to get to. We are the
:11:22. > :11:29.second kind of place, I wanted that reflected in the book. Lanchester
:11:29. > :11:37.uses characters extracted from ark types of the capital Anne's urban
:11:37. > :11:40.dwellers, from -- capital's urban dwellers, from artists to traffic
:11:40. > :11:44.wardens. The street was lived by people it was built for, the
:11:44. > :11:47.aspiring not too well off, the houses were the backdrops to their
:11:47. > :11:51.lives, they were an important part of life, but they were a set where
:11:51. > :11:55.events took place, rather than the principal characters. Now, however,
:11:55. > :11:58.the houses had become so valuable to people who already lived in them,
:11:58. > :12:06.and so expensive for people who had recently moved into them, that they
:12:06. > :12:12.had become central actors in their own right. The street isn't a real
:12:12. > :12:16.street, it is a composite, there are all sorts of characters running
:12:16. > :12:20.alongside, there are characters I would have struggled to write a
:12:20. > :12:24.novel with, if you are in the book you get your moment. But you are
:12:24. > :12:29.left thinking they exists before and their lives would carry on
:12:29. > :12:33.after. Although they share a common threat, Lanchester's cast barely
:12:33. > :12:39.connect, despite their proximity to one another's lives. There is
:12:39. > :12:44.definitely a theme that people's lives barely brush each other. We
:12:44. > :12:49.live in such close proximity, but barely know who each other is, even
:12:49. > :12:54.in small places. There is something troubling about the mixture of the
:12:54. > :12:58.physical proximity, verging on intimacy, and complete indifference
:12:58. > :13:01.and unknowingness. Has Lanchester captured something which reflect
:13:01. > :13:08.the state-of-the-nation and its inhabitants, and is London the best
:13:08. > :13:12.lens through which to do so. John Lanchester was saying there
:13:12. > :13:16.the whole idea is that people live in this close proximity and their
:13:16. > :13:20.lives collide in some ways and yet they are so distant. Did he juggle
:13:20. > :13:26.all these characters? I thought he did it magnificently well, I
:13:26. > :13:30.thought it was an enormously engaging novel. It is a big book.
:13:30. > :13:33.But you absolutely race through it. It is old fashioned and Victorian,
:13:33. > :13:37.and state-of-the-nation. I think it is very interesting, because
:13:37. > :13:42.actually what is really fascinating about the book is how London no
:13:42. > :13:46.longer works as a microcosm for this country. It is a world in and
:13:46. > :13:52.of itself. I think in terms of distilling something essential
:13:52. > :13:59.about London life, I think he absolutely gets it. Alex is a
:13:59. > :14:02.former trader, a City boy himself, and a central couple are Roger and
:14:02. > :14:10.Arabelle, his acute observations about the rich in London, digging
:14:10. > :14:17.out their basements and the lofts, the way they behave. I thought the
:14:17. > :14:23.wife was one of the least developed characters? I have not met any
:14:23. > :14:27.bankers' wives, I loved the book, I found it beautifully written and
:14:27. > :14:33.absorbing. There is not a word overwritten in it. The characters
:14:33. > :14:38.are beautifully portrayed, not all as good as each oh I loved it.
:14:38. > :14:41.Roger is strangely compelling, but Arabella is the ark type, she
:14:41. > :14:46.doesn't have a character. It is a blindspot, that one character for
:14:46. > :14:50.me doesn't work. Where as the husband is so compelling and so
:14:50. > :14:56.attractive. He does draw other characters in a very compelling way
:14:56. > :15:01.that are woman, so Petunia who is dying, one of the best, most moving
:15:01. > :15:06.passages is her death, and the daughter as well. I think that
:15:06. > :15:16.Arabella, her stuff was a disgrace. I felt that he should have been
:15:16. > :15:16.
:15:16. > :15:21.accused, accuse him of missoggy if he wasn't -- missojy if he wasn't
:15:21. > :15:26.so horrible to Roger. I thought the tone was all over the place. I did
:15:26. > :15:36.enjoy it, I didn't think it was magnificent. It was laugh-out-loud
:15:36. > :15:39.
:15:39. > :15:43.at the beginning, the Oakss. don't think it is as funny. I don't
:15:43. > :15:47.think it is as funny as the style. It is written as a comedy, but you
:15:47. > :15:52.don't have the mixture of sympathy. It does, I don't think it is
:15:52. > :15:59.written as a comedy, I think it is fatastically humane and
:15:59. > :16:03.compassionate. The way he talks about Quentina, the traffic warden.
:16:03. > :16:08.He's so good on children. Interesting what he does is he
:16:08. > :16:12.takes all the different immigrants, so you have got the sen lease, and
:16:12. > :16:18.his description of football -- seing lease, his description of
:16:18. > :16:22.football is amazing, the Zimbabwean, from Lahore, you have all these
:16:22. > :16:26.different groups coming in, and yet isolated within their own areas?
:16:26. > :16:31.That is London. That, unfortunately, is London. It is not just London,
:16:31. > :16:35.it is cities, it is life. But this idea of the melting pot, the fact
:16:35. > :16:37.is that on the whole, immigrant communities tend to stick, all
:16:37. > :16:41.communities tend to stick with their own. That is one of the
:16:42. > :16:47.points I think he makes in this novel. One thing I didn't quite buy,
:16:47. > :16:51.it is great to have this idea of the street as a microkofpl,
:16:51. > :16:56.allowing all these characters to -- microcosm, allowing the characters
:16:56. > :17:00.to rub along each other. The idea of the capital city and capital as
:17:00. > :17:04.money and property as capital, it is an interesting idea, I didn't
:17:04. > :17:08.quite buy the absolute obsession with property prices. What did you
:17:08. > :17:12.think about the overarching, as it were, the conceit about the fact
:17:12. > :17:16.that what you had was these anonymous postcards coming through
:17:16. > :17:22.the door, we want what you want, as being the thread through the book?
:17:22. > :17:29.That's right. It is a sort of whodunnit, it is written in the
:17:29. > :17:36.style of that, it would be a murder not either bit of vandalism or art.
:17:36. > :17:40.We are given all the clues, so we can work out who did it any way. It
:17:40. > :17:46.is kind of odd. I found the ending a bit more unsatisfying than the
:17:46. > :17:52.beginning. I did enjoy it. I just didn't buy it 100% the way the
:17:52. > :17:55.other sides. His prose is a little bit too work-a-day. You need
:17:55. > :18:00.something, it was always going to be difficult to come up with a
:18:00. > :18:07.conceit that unite all the characters in that way. It is a
:18:07. > :18:11.flimsy one and dond hold the novel together. Sebastian Faulks does it,
:18:11. > :18:18.with state-of-the-nation, it is strikingly similar to two novels,
:18:18. > :18:22.Sebastian Faulks A Week In December, and Hearts and Minds, it is
:18:22. > :18:24.overlooked but as good at these others. They bring together this
:18:24. > :18:28.extraordinary ensemble of characters and show you both the
:18:28. > :18:33.alienation, but in having these characters' lives interweave, they
:18:33. > :18:39.also give life a pattern, they give the chaotic London life a pattern.
:18:39. > :18:47.There is something charmingly hopeful about the novels. The other
:18:47. > :18:51.novel Ian McKeown Saturday as well. We will talk about it again, but
:18:51. > :18:57.trying to explain ourselves back to ourselves. I think you either, to a
:18:57. > :19:01.greater or lesser extent, are horrified about what you saw, he
:19:01. > :19:06.wasn't unsympathetic to it? banking stuff, it almost goes
:19:06. > :19:10.without saying with Lanchester, the banking stuff is so spot-on. I used
:19:10. > :19:16.to bridle against a quote of his when he said there is no drama in a
:19:16. > :19:20.Credit Default Swap, yet what you have here, you have an amazing
:19:20. > :19:24.novel about the credit crash. his best novel, do you think?
:19:24. > :19:30.not nearly as good as the one I have been reading all week. It
:19:30. > :19:35.engaged me enough and I wanted to know, I am reading Mr Philips. I do
:19:35. > :19:41.find having all the comic charm, sympathy in it, that it's humane.
:19:41. > :19:45.In a way that I didn't find this book perfect in its humanity,
:19:45. > :19:50.actually. Interesting Mr Philips. thought it was a bit keen on types
:19:50. > :19:53.rather than people. Not all the types fully, 100%, sprung to life,
:19:53. > :19:59.for me. There are so many types, I don't
:19:59. > :20:02.know if they could all spring to life. Capital is out now.
:20:02. > :20:07.Coincidently a new BBC drama series is telling a story about modern
:20:07. > :20:11.Britain about zooming in on a small scale. It is more ambitious than
:20:11. > :20:17.its scope, over six hours, White Heat traces the lives of seven
:20:17. > :20:20.flatmates through seven decades of love, loss and decaying, set
:20:20. > :20:24.against the political and social backdrop of the times. What we do
:20:24. > :20:31.is construct a model of living based on equality, based on the
:20:31. > :20:40.welfare of the group, rather than the selfish needs of the individual.
:20:40. > :20:44.Up to and including sex. When one of the former flatmates die, the
:20:44. > :20:48.other six assemble in their former home for the first time in many
:20:48. > :20:52.years. Told through flashbacks, it shows relationships forged
:20:52. > :20:57.originally as students in the swinging 60s, their lives reflect
:20:57. > :21:03.the issues of the times. Did you hear. It is said that Sir Winston
:21:03. > :21:07.died shortly after 8.00am. Parliament will meet tomorrow to
:21:07. > :21:12.authorise a state funeral, the first held for a commoner in this
:21:12. > :21:16.country. Some commoner with his title and his country pile.
:21:16. > :21:22.wanted to show how clear the delination appeared to be between
:21:22. > :21:28.the younger generation and their parents, the post-war generation,
:21:28. > :21:35.the clarity of that seemed to be so person sonfied in the death of
:21:35. > :21:41.Churchill, by anchored it in 1965. To add to a starry class, including
:21:41. > :21:46.Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Northam, seven bright young things were
:21:46. > :21:51.taken on to play the housemates, Claire Foy playing Charlotte, and
:21:51. > :21:59.claftclaftclaft as the handsome -- Sam Claflin as the handsome
:21:59. > :22:03.landlord. So Charlotte, do you like what you see? I like. The thing
:22:03. > :22:10.about casting young actors, you have to cast somebody with maturity
:22:10. > :22:13.in their hds to get to their early 40s. Paula Milne's writing credits
:22:13. > :22:17.span 40 years, she has written about women's lives and the issues
:22:17. > :22:21.that concern them, themes that resonate throughout the series,
:22:21. > :22:24.reiterating the 1960s battle cry that the personal is political.
:22:24. > :22:29.lot happened to women in the second half of the last century. With
:22:29. > :22:34.Chancellor lot, when she goes to get the pill, and she wears a
:22:34. > :22:39.wedding ring from Woolworths, I too did that, as far as I can remember,
:22:39. > :22:43.that is more or less what the doctor said to me. You wouldn't
:22:43. > :22:47.credit how many girls come in wearing a wedding ring from
:22:47. > :22:57.Woolworths hoping to get the contraceptive pill, they must think
:22:57. > :22:57.
:22:57. > :23:07.I'm a bloody half wit. This whole mid-life generation, telling us how
:23:07. > :23:14.we got to be where we are, and people looking in what we went
:23:14. > :23:22.through in the 1960s or 18970s? Absolutely brilliant, I thought if
:23:22. > :23:26.I was not the target audience for John Carter, this was where I
:23:26. > :23:30.supposed to be. You were in art school? I was in the first year of
:23:30. > :23:35.art school the same as the girl in London from the north. There was a
:23:35. > :23:42.scene with a tutor, you know she's painting student, there was a scene
:23:42. > :23:47.I thought, that happened to me and my friend Doreen. Was this painting
:23:47. > :23:53.themselves on the floor? The one where the lecturers is casual
:23:53. > :23:57.sexist to her, she -- is casually sexist to her, she's half flattered.
:23:57. > :24:03.Everything about it is brilliant, the art direction is brilliant, it
:24:03. > :24:08.looks very real. Jeremy Northam, an MP himself, when he's in his son's
:24:08. > :24:14.flat, he picks up a milk bottle and sniffs it before putting it into
:24:14. > :24:18.his tea. Charlotte, she's watching television, just behind you see
:24:18. > :24:23.Margaret Drabble and Joan Bakewell having the conversation about the
:24:23. > :24:28.pill. It was painful it was so good. The characterisation was
:24:28. > :24:33.extraordinary deft, wasn't it? the characterisation was deft.
:24:33. > :24:39.Visually it is absolutely wonderful, and felt to me completely authentic,
:24:39. > :24:43.I was small in the 1960s, but I thought it was visually fantastic.
:24:43. > :24:47.I did think that Charlotte, for example, I mean it is difficult
:24:47. > :24:51.with Claire Foy, because she has such a mesmerising face, you want
:24:51. > :24:56.to stare at it, and her face dominates almost everything she's
:24:56. > :25:03.in. I didn't get a huge sense of her as a character. I felt she was
:25:03. > :25:06.a young woman kind of coming from a stifling background, discovering
:25:06. > :25:09.feminism, and discovering the freedom they all wanted to find.
:25:09. > :25:12.They didn't have a sense of actually who she was as a character.
:25:13. > :25:17.But in a sense maybe what we have here, because we have six hours and
:25:17. > :25:20.we have only seen the two episodes, sadly. The whole point is, she has
:25:20. > :25:26.come from the stifling background and is finding her way, and
:25:26. > :25:30.presumably just like Our Friends In The North, the characters will then
:25:30. > :25:36.come forward. I think you will live the journey with these people. I
:25:36. > :25:42.thankful low wasn't in the 1960s, but -- thankfully wasn't in the
:25:42. > :25:47.1960s but this reminded me of This Life, the defining television
:25:47. > :25:50.moment in my life. Never was I so angry just to get two episodes, I
:25:50. > :25:53.could have watched it all the way through, it was gripping. The other
:25:54. > :26:02.thing is, you are going to start to get a sense, particularly with the
:26:02. > :26:05.archive, of what was going on then, Vietnam. Also the new rich boy
:26:05. > :26:10.turning away from his promised career at Cambridge, and how
:26:10. > :26:17.upsetting that is for the family? They do the parents very well.
:26:17. > :26:24.Normally if you did the 1960s drama, it was as if we the generation that
:26:24. > :26:29.came of age in 196 5, but Tamsin Greig, the mother, she's fantastic.
:26:29. > :26:32.But all the parents were great. It was a sense, of course you burst
:26:32. > :26:39.away from your parents, but you still loved your parents and still
:26:39. > :26:42.cared. I just thought the depth. The generational change is exactly
:26:42. > :26:45.what Paula Milne was saying there, the idea that was that post-war
:26:45. > :26:49.generation of parents, when they were still very, in a sense, old
:26:49. > :26:53.fashioned towards their children. One of the things I found
:26:53. > :26:57.fascinating was the way it handled so subjectedly the intersection of
:26:57. > :27:01.the personal and political. This is a social history, it is doing
:27:01. > :27:04.weighty things, feminism, abortion. But because it does it on such an
:27:04. > :27:09.intimate scale, and because it is so beautifully acted and written,
:27:09. > :27:13.you don't feel it as this clunking history lesson, you feel rather
:27:13. > :27:17.than intellectually engaging with it. I think that makes it work. It
:27:17. > :27:21.never feels forced. The only thing I felt, it is to do with the
:27:21. > :27:25.paidsing and what luxury to have six -- pacing, what luxury to have
:27:25. > :27:30.six hours, I felt tonally it was all similar in the first ep society,
:27:30. > :27:36.it starts off with a sad, miserable scene in the flat, and one of the
:27:36. > :27:44.flatmates has died, we don't know who yet. Then you have stifling
:27:44. > :27:49.suburbia, miserable, silent, then rather miserable house share.
:27:49. > :27:55.That is exactly what the shared flats were like. It was the
:27:55. > :27:59.excitement. It was like going away from home? Having the chance to
:27:59. > :28:03.throw off the backgrounds they had. But you can't. You can't that is
:28:03. > :28:06.the journey to go on over this thing. Each of these characters is
:28:06. > :28:11.typecast, she does it very nicely, she gets around that by the fact
:28:11. > :28:17.that Jack has put this flat together as a kind of social
:28:17. > :28:22.experiment. I with is a mess. Which is what you want from 18-year-olds.
:28:22. > :28:30.What we are going to do is see what extent are they able to transcend
:28:30. > :28:34.that typecast they have been given. Six hours, we only get six hours
:28:34. > :28:40.looking at Danish drama? It was great to see something really good
:28:40. > :28:45.and not read the subtitles. I think the BBC have learned from DR the
:28:45. > :28:48.thighs who made The Killing, it is writer-led, it is an incredible
:28:48. > :28:52.cast, original and amazing soundtrack. These are all things
:28:52. > :28:55.you get in the Danish dramas. I think the BBC is following that
:28:55. > :28:59.manifesto. I think they must have been fighting before that to get it.
:28:59. > :29:04.I think that whole thing about what drama can do so well, exactly what
:29:04. > :29:09.you are saying, it is not an intellectual exercise, you feel it.
:29:09. > :29:14.Drama done well is breath taking in that sense. Mad Men, is what it
:29:14. > :29:19.reminds me of. Without the gloss. Exactly, Mad Men glamorised a
:29:19. > :29:25.period. What was well done is in no way was it glamorised. That New
:29:25. > :29:29.Year's Eve party had the ring of trut about it, really. -- trut
:29:29. > :29:37.about it. Everyone should see this, I honestly believe it is the best
:29:37. > :29:41.thing on British TV for a long time. If you look at someone like Jack
:29:41. > :29:45.Straw, it immediately takes you back to the student past, and
:29:45. > :29:50.obviously, not the same experiences, but as you say, you remember people
:29:50. > :29:54.having those kind of experiences? Absolutely. It was spot on. Paula
:29:54. > :29:57.Milne herself saying about going to the pill and it being exactly like
:29:57. > :30:01.that. The doctor says to her at the beginning, does your husband want
:30:01. > :30:05.you to go on the pill. It will be interesting to people who are
:30:06. > :30:09.younger than us, they will go that didn't happen. I didn't know that
:30:09. > :30:16.happened, I found that astonishing. I didn't know you had to be married
:30:17. > :30:20.to get it. No you had to pretend to be. A very big difference there,
:30:20. > :30:27.White Heat starts on BBC next Thursday.
:30:27. > :30:34.Today is the 70th birth dae of rock'n'roll legend, Lewis Allen
:30:34. > :30:39.Reed, you will know him better as Lou Reed.
:30:39. > :30:46.The avant garde Velvet Underground burst on to the New York scene,
:30:47. > :30:50.managed by Andy Warhol, and fronted by a menacing Lou Reed, they were
:30:50. > :30:54.instantly iconic. While their influence was felt today, they were
:30:54. > :31:01.commercially unsuccessful. All that was to change for Reed, at least,
:31:01. > :31:05.after one flop solo album, he teamed up with David Bowie to
:31:05. > :31:15.produce Transformer, this created an embarrassment of riches, Perfect
:31:15. > :31:16.
:31:16. > :31:21.Day, Satellite of Love, and the the one he is best known, Walk On The
:31:21. > :31:31.Wild Side. # Hey babe # Take a walk on the wild side
:31:31. > :31:37.And the coloured girls go Mrb do #-do-do-do
:31:37. > :31:40.How do you follow that, a career wrecking album called Berlin, about
:31:41. > :31:45.loneliness, and the forced separation of a woman from her
:31:45. > :31:49.children. # They are taking her children away
:31:50. > :31:54.# Because they said she was not a good mother
:31:54. > :31:59.Described as the Poet Laureate of sleaze, Reed's ambition to create
:31:59. > :32:05.lyrics as literary in style as musical, has led him to cover some
:32:05. > :32:13.particularly dark subjects. # You can hit me all you want to
:32:13. > :32:16.# But I don't love any more In subsequent years Reed enjoyed
:32:16. > :32:23.critical success with the album New York, and has been sought out by
:32:23. > :32:29.musicians like The Killers to lend his critical and artistic cachet to
:32:29. > :32:35.their work. His most recent collaboration is last week's Lulu
:32:35. > :32:44.recorded with Metallica, and inspired by the expressionist plays.
:32:44. > :32:49.Lulu is a fem fatal who meets a sticky end at the lands of the
:32:49. > :32:55.Ripper. Reed is unrepentent claiming this is his favourite work
:32:55. > :33:05.to date. At 70, the man who designed the avant garde era of the
:33:05. > :33:09.
:33:09. > :33:16.1960s and pushed his fans and talent too far some say.
:33:16. > :33:23.When did you first come across Lou Reed? In the 1970s, Walk On The
:33:23. > :33:27.Wild Side, Perfect Day. I saw him later on, first it was the records.
:33:27. > :33:31.Transformer is a brilliant record, it still is, it is just magic. It
:33:31. > :33:37.is not always good, but everybody should be remembered for their best.
:33:37. > :33:44.You know things like Perfect Day and Walk On The Wild Side, some of
:33:44. > :33:49.those early things are just magical. The Velvet Underground, Loaded,
:33:49. > :33:55.these things in themselves, somebody reminded me that Brian Eno
:33:55. > :33:59.said it only sold 10,000 copies, but it had huge influence over
:33:59. > :34:04.everyone. Everyone who bought it formed a band. You forget now,
:34:04. > :34:09.there was this, coming on to the modern period, there was this great
:34:09. > :34:14.big gap in the middle where I completely lost touch with him. The
:34:15. > :34:19.Velvet Underground stuff? The first album is astonishingly beautiful.
:34:19. > :34:24.With Nico on it, it is an amazing thing to listen to. It was so
:34:24. > :34:28.lovely, I think I probably last listened to it when I was 15 or 16.
:34:28. > :34:36.You did a lot of things that period? I was a very busy boy back
:34:36. > :34:42.then. They reissued Perfect Day, which led me back into it. Just the
:34:42. > :34:46.glok speil of the beginning of Sunday Morning is a wonderful song.
:34:46. > :34:52.I'm aparade we will go on to the other stuff t has -- I'm afraid we
:34:52. > :34:58.will go on to the other stuff that ruined it to me. He had literary
:34:58. > :35:02.ambition as a poet? I beg you to degrade me, is there something I
:35:02. > :35:08.could eat, I am a secret lover, I am your little girl, please spit
:35:08. > :35:13.into my mouth, I'm forever in your swerel, it is awful. I wish I
:35:13. > :35:18.hadn't listened to it, Lulu, I won't listen to it again. The early
:35:18. > :35:25.stuff was given. I don't think -- Different. I don't think he was a
:35:25. > :35:31.poet, but a dramaist. He did study poetry, there was a deceptive
:35:31. > :35:37.simplicity to the lyrics, these were vignettes of Manhatten life,
:35:37. > :35:42.and they felt like real stories and characters. He lived in the meat
:35:42. > :35:46.packing district before it was fashionable. That was the scene in
:35:46. > :35:52.the 1960s. There is a definite sense of the beat poetry, the New
:35:52. > :36:02.York poets, the idea of sitting back and taking in life. I actually
:36:02. > :36:03.
:36:03. > :36:12.think he is a poet. You credit him with huge influences? The Strokes
:36:13. > :36:17.from REM, even earlier Patti Smith and The Ramones. The white Stripes
:36:17. > :36:20.and David Bowie who rescued his career with him. I feel more
:36:20. > :36:24.recently an influence of style rather than substance, many
:36:24. > :36:32.wouldn't say they want to make Berlin. You want people to move and
:36:32. > :36:40.change and people making music until they die, we saw Leonard
:36:40. > :36:50.Cohen and he's in fighting form. think there should be mandatory
:36:50. > :36:51.
:36:51. > :36:57.retirement age when listening to Metallica. This is Iced Honey
:36:57. > :37:07.Iced honey # Iced honey
:37:07. > :37:17.
:37:17. > :37:22.He absolutely, of course, like an adolescent child absolutely refused
:37:22. > :37:26.to see there was anything wrong with that, and maybe were wasn't?
:37:26. > :37:31.admire that about him. It is excruciating, although I have to
:37:31. > :37:37.say me talking about heavy metal is like asking a High Court judge to
:37:37. > :37:41.talk about emmem, it is not my cup of tea. Why should he carry on
:37:41. > :37:44.doing the stuff he did, he did more than most of us do in a lifetime.
:37:44. > :37:48.It is a great temptation for artists to do the same thing again
:37:48. > :37:52.and again, if you look at the Chapman Brothers, they do the same
:37:52. > :37:57.thing all the time. I think, good on him, that is the rock spirit to
:37:57. > :38:04.be trying to do something fresh all the time. Personally I think it is
:38:04. > :38:08.disastrous, I don't see there is anything wrong with the quest.
:38:08. > :38:12.a big Metallica fan, they are two totally different styles. You have
:38:12. > :38:19.this military, grinding guitar music, with his drawling voice over,
:38:19. > :38:26.and it doesn't work. There is also on the album an astonishing kind of,
:38:26. > :38:36.lament to late age erect tile dysfunction and there is something
:38:36. > :38:36.
:38:36. > :38:42.rather brave about it. Those kinds of collaborations, you do want that,
:38:42. > :38:48.there is a great Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
:38:48. > :38:51.together, fantastic. Some of the stuff that Elvis Costello did was a
:38:51. > :38:55.great collaboration. You do want different. The problem with this
:38:55. > :38:59.was some of it ofn't different enough and the voices were fighting
:38:59. > :39:03.each -- wasn't different enough, and the voices were fighting each
:39:03. > :39:08.other? You did feel, to me, I listened to this and then I went
:39:08. > :39:13.back and listened through his back catalogue, it made so much of his
:39:13. > :39:18.earlier stuff sound like average pub rock. You think? I really
:39:18. > :39:25.didn't know that middle period at all, and when I listened to it I
:39:25. > :39:34.really didn't like it, I'm afraid. Magic and Loss was beautiful, that
:39:34. > :39:41.was 1982. The Blue Mask wasn't bad. I'm afraid we forgot to post a
:39:41. > :39:45.birthday card, but we send him best wishes for Perfect Day. To coincide
:39:45. > :39:52.to a Picasso exhibition, they have been playing host to the English
:39:52. > :39:59.ballet, doing workshops and doing the daily class in the middle of
:39:59. > :40:07.the national gallery. We went to see what happens when paint meets
:40:07. > :40:12.plie. When we had an exhibition looking at Picasso's presence in
:40:12. > :40:20.Britain. Talks began with the English ballet, to celebrate the
:40:20. > :40:26.visit in 1919, when he came to study with the ballet. What a great
:40:26. > :40:29.opportunity Tate Britain to collaberate with the ballet who are
:40:29. > :40:38.preparing for their own season. working on a new piece that I have
:40:38. > :40:43.done, it is called face-to-face, it is based around one of Picasso's
:40:43. > :40:47.paintings. It is a painting of one of his sculptures, it had such
:40:47. > :40:50.fantastic shape and movement in the piece. There is four people in it,
:40:50. > :40:57.the two girls represent the painting, and the two men are
:40:57. > :41:02.almost the artists and sculptoring at the beginning, and half way
:41:02. > :41:05.through the music changes and the dancers come alive. I imagine as an
:41:05. > :41:09.artist you get lost in the piece, you try all different things and
:41:09. > :41:14.then suddenly it comes together, and then that is it, don't touch it
:41:14. > :41:18.any more. The main thing is the stage area and having enough space.
:41:18. > :41:25.Although the room is huge, as a dancer you don't realise how much
:41:25. > :41:35.space we use and consume. We dance on a sprung floor, we can't just
:41:35. > :41:35.
:41:35. > :41:39.dance on concrete. As we have collaberated before with
:41:39. > :41:43.Michael Clarke's dance company at Tate Modern several years ago, this
:41:43. > :41:48.is an important opportunity for Tate Britain to partner with dance
:41:48. > :41:52.organisations around Britain. It is a unique opportunity for us to
:41:52. > :41:56.celebrate Picasso's pinnacle moment and the work he created here in
:41:56. > :42:04.London. It is a challenge but fantastic place to dance, hopefully
:42:04. > :42:08.we will be here again soon. English National Ballet are in
:42:08. > :42:14.residence at Tate Britain for two more days, there is a couple of
:42:14. > :42:19.places in the adult participation class on Sunday, Alex wants to sign
:42:19. > :42:22.up. The Picasso exhibition continues until July. Visit the
:42:22. > :42:27.website for more details on the programme. My thanks to the panel,
:42:27. > :42:34.next week I will be joined by AL Kennedy, Marcel Theroux and John
:42:34. > :42:43.Mullan to watch Stephen Mangan as Diark Gently, and the talk about
:42:43. > :42:46.the new film version of Bel Ami. We end with some music from the BBC
:42:46. > :42:55.Introducing scheme, Gabrielle Aplin is playing on Monday in Glasgow and
:42:55. > :43:00.come up early to make her TV debut with her own composition, Home.
:43:00. > :43:05.# I'm a Phoenix in the water, and the mission that's learned to fly
:43:05. > :43:11.# And I have' always been a tortoise
:43:11. > :43:17.# With feathers for the sky # So I'm wishing
:43:17. > :43:21.# Wishing further # For the excitement to arrive
:43:21. > :43:24.M it's just I'd rather be causing the chaos
:43:24. > :43:29.# Than laying at the sharp end # Of this night
:43:29. > :43:36.# With every small disaster # I'll let the waters still
:43:36. > :43:40.# Take me away # To some place real
:43:40. > :43:44.# Because they say home is where your heart is set in
:43:44. > :43:49.# Stone is where you are going # When you are alone
:43:49. > :43:52.# Is where you go to rest your bones
:43:52. > :43:59.# And it's not just where you lay your head
:43:59. > :44:09.# It's not just where you make your # As long as we're together
:44:09. > :44:15.
:44:15. > :44:19.# It doesn't matter where we go # Oh oh
:44:19. > :44:24.# They say home is where your heart is set
:44:24. > :44:29.# In stone is where you go mlk when you're alone
:44:30. > :44:33.# Is where you go to rest your bones