02/03/2012 The Review Show


02/03/2012

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On the review show tonight, John Carter, Disney's new 3-D sci-fi

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epic, transports an American civil war veteran to Mars. A successful

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launch, or crash landing? Here on earth, John Lanchester's

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new novel, Capital, tells the story of the financial crash, via the

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inhabitants of one London street. TV drama, White Heat, looks at

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seven generations through a group of students.

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We mark the 70th birthday of the legendary Lou Reed, his journey has

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taken him to Metallica. With us are my guests.

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And the playwright Liz Lochhead, who is also Scotland's national

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poet. As ever, we want to hear what you

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think too. Send us a tweet if the fancy takes you.

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We begin with a trip to Mars, hardly has a 3-D reissue of Star

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Wars: The Phantom Menace has gone and the next start of another

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Disney franchise. John Carter comes from a pop novel, but no expense

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has been spared in bringing it to the big screen.

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Set on the mysterious and barren planet of matter zoom, John Carter,

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a civil war veteran, inexplicably transported to an alien world,

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imprisoned and vofrld in a conflict that forces him to question his own

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priorities and loyalties. It is based on the novel A Princess of

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Mars, by the man best known for creating tarz zan. That was part of

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an 11-novel series. It marks the centinary of John Carter's first

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appearance in 1912. Tain John Carter, Virginia --

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Captain John Carter from Virginia. Virginia? My name is John Carter,

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I'm from Virginia. Virginia. Following in the footsteps of

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blockbuster hits, Avatar, the Prince of Persiania, the adventures

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are brought through IMAX, and 3-D and animation. The man best known

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for work on toy story, and including well known names, such as

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William Dafoe and Dominic West. The lead role is taken by a relative

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newcomer, Taylor Kitsch. You are ugly, but you are beautiful, you

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will fight for us. The film may hold the record for

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the longest development period of any movie at a whopping 69 years. -

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- 79 years. Prepro duction for a film version began in 1931, had

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that borne fruit t could have become the first animated feature

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for Disney, beating Snow White And The Seven dwafrs. Disney has spent

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�300 million on this latest IMAX experience, is it worth it.

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Andrew Stanton is a begin with Pixar, they let him loose with this,

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he loved the books, did it show? Well, it showed in that he had

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clearly lavished an enormous amount of care and attention. Not to

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mention you could have run a war on what this movie cost to make. Even

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reading the production notes and realising they got, and they

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studied medieval swordsmanship, and all kinds of stuff. The level of

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detail they put in it ought to be a masterpiece. Unfortunately it isn't.

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It is enjoyable in lots of ways. It is a find of magnificent and also

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rather ridiculous romp. It is visually spectacular, but, for me,

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well, first, it is way too long, but the 3-D ruins it. So that what

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should be incredibly spectacular, because it is all proper scale

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stuff, and they have got these amazing landscapes and amazing

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buildings and creatures, in 3-D it looks like plastic, they look like

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models being moved around. It isn't proper 3-D, that is proper to

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notice. Avatar was a terrible film, script and acting, it worked

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because you sat there in the seat like a 15-year-old doing your first

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trip, trying to touch these things. The John Carter was made post

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production, this was something where clearly the studio executives

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were getting worried it wasn't 3-D because it was the next big thing.

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Post-production they go in and alter depth of field. It is a

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different treatment. For me, absolutely, it doesn't save what is

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a forgettable film. I saw it in IMAX, it was really weird. It was

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simultaneously flat and clunky, that is not just the technology or

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look, that was the dialogue, the story, everything about it for me.

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What was the narrative and stone of it? I couldn't understand it --

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tone of it? I couldn't understand it. Sfs simultaneously -- it was

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simultaneously rubbish and ridiculous. I read the stories as a

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child, it should have been great, the writer is one of the great

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American novelist, and drawing on a number of films I love, Flash

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Gordon, Indiana Jones, every time you got an echo of a film you

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wanted to watch that instead. little bit of John Ford, a bit of

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Apocalypse Now, I wanted to put # This is the end

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# My only friend. I think he's wonderful actor some of them, what

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were they doing in it? The script he's given, he says something like

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what's the point in my having this thing if I don't get to use it. Who

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is that directed at. The thing about a lot of Andrew stantton's

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work, Finding Nemo is a fantastic music, tonally spot on, this is all

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over the place. You have this clumsy, playing for laughs. There

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is love stuff that isn't, the father daughter thing, the mirror

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images of the father daughter? couldn't make head nor tail of it.

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I was with a real audience, they gave us popcorn and water when we

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went in. I thought I was there for four hours. It feels incredibly

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wrong. When you go into a film and they say this is the film and this

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is this lot, and this is that lot? This is not just from the Princess,

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there are other series, there is so much they have reached into the

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future of the novels to put in there it felt like it was too much

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of a fan's Labour of love. When you talk about Ryder Hagg er it was a

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pre-runner to Raiders of the Lost Ark. What is Hollywood doing here,

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$250 million. When you look behind the film you can see so much of the

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mechanics of Hollywood going on. This is a film that has been

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inherited by the new head of Disney studios. He is already trying to

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wash his hands of it. He had already committed himself to it to

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the half time slot in the superbowl to advertise this film. They are

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now trying to reposition it as this underdog film, it will be

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championed by the real fans. That may work. It is not going to work

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$400 million, which they need to break even. I think just about 20

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minutes from the end, after the scene with the white apes, it

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kicked in, there was a pacing that was much better. Maybe I knew it

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was coming to the end? The white apes, that is a truly spectacular

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scene. It is a futuristic gladiator. Within you think what went into it,

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they did a lot of the stuoints themselves, Taylor Kitsch must be

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the fittest man on the planet. looked like the guitarist from

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Suede, he's not a superhero. Kitsch by name and nature. I thought about

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the whole thing. I did like the idea that he's not a superhero,

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kids go to film and they expect the superhero. He was a reluctant, he

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was an old fashioned goody. That thought that was really interesting,

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if you look back to the book, it is 1912 just before the explosion of

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modernism, this is Edgar Rice Burroughs saying here we have an

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old fashioned decent civil war hero, who can still cut it in the

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terrifying, interGAL labgtic future. John Carter is released next Friday.

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The novelist John Lanchester deserved a media for manage to go

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explain the latest global financial crisis in words anyone can

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understand, in his splendidly titled book, Whoops!: Why Everyone

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Owes Everyone and No-One Can Pay. That work was a spin-off for his

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research for his new novel, that used the events of 2008 through the

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eyes of a disspirit group of Londoners, including an artist and

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a Polish plumber. Capital sees London as the microcosim of modern

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Britain, money, property and the diverse populus who pursue it,

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collide in a door-stopping 600-page analysis. One of the things that is

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interesting about London is the way global themes press on it, things

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that happen in the world are brought to bear, and acted out in

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London. In terms of finance, terrorism, inequality, all those

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things. The fact that people want to come and live here in the UK,

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more generally in London in particular, it is an incredibly

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important thing for the texture of life in Britain. One of the most

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basic divisions of any society in the world, places people desperate

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to get away from, and places people are desperate to get to. We are the

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second kind of place, I wanted that reflected in the book. Lanchester

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uses characters extracted from ark types of the capital Anne's urban

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dwellers, from -- capital's urban dwellers, from artists to traffic

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wardens. The street was lived by people it was built for, the

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aspiring not too well off, the houses were the backdrops to their

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lives, they were an important part of life, but they were a set where

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events took place, rather than the principal characters. Now, however,

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the houses had become so valuable to people who already lived in them,

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and so expensive for people who had recently moved into them, that they

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had become central actors in their own right. The street isn't a real

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street, it is a composite, there are all sorts of characters running

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alongside, there are characters I would have struggled to write a

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novel with, if you are in the book you get your moment. But you are

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left thinking they exists before and their lives would carry on

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after. Although they share a common threat, Lanchester's cast barely

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connect, despite their proximity to one another's lives. There is

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definitely a theme that people's lives barely brush each other. We

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live in such close proximity, but barely know who each other is, even

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in small places. There is something troubling about the mixture of the

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physical proximity, verging on intimacy, and complete indifference

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and unknowingness. Has Lanchester captured something which reflect

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the state-of-the-nation and its inhabitants, and is London the best

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lens through which to do so. John Lanchester was saying there

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the whole idea is that people live in this close proximity and their

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lives collide in some ways and yet they are so distant. Did he juggle

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all these characters? I thought he did it magnificently well, I

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thought it was an enormously engaging novel. It is a big book.

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But you absolutely race through it. It is old fashioned and Victorian,

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and state-of-the-nation. I think it is very interesting, because

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actually what is really fascinating about the book is how London no

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longer works as a microcosm for this country. It is a world in and

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of itself. I think in terms of distilling something essential

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about London life, I think he absolutely gets it. Alex is a

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former trader, a City boy himself, and a central couple are Roger and

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Arabelle, his acute observations about the rich in London, digging

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out their basements and the lofts, the way they behave. I thought the

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wife was one of the least developed characters? I have not met any

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bankers' wives, I loved the book, I found it beautifully written and

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absorbing. There is not a word overwritten in it. The characters

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are beautifully portrayed, not all as good as each oh I loved it.

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Roger is strangely compelling, but Arabella is the ark type, she

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doesn't have a character. It is a blindspot, that one character for

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me doesn't work. Where as the husband is so compelling and so

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attractive. He does draw other characters in a very compelling way

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that are woman, so Petunia who is dying, one of the best, most moving

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passages is her death, and the daughter as well. I think that

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Arabella, her stuff was a disgrace. I felt that he should have been

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accused, accuse him of missoggy if he wasn't -- missojy if he wasn't

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so horrible to Roger. I thought the tone was all over the place. I did

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enjoy it, I didn't think it was magnificent. It was laugh-out-loud

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at the beginning, the Oakss. don't think it is as funny. I don't

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think it is as funny as the style. It is written as a comedy, but you

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don't have the mixture of sympathy. It does, I don't think it is

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written as a comedy, I think it is fatastically humane and

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compassionate. The way he talks about Quentina, the traffic warden.

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He's so good on children. Interesting what he does is he

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takes all the different immigrants, so you have got the sen lease, and

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his description of football -- seing lease, his description of

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football is amazing, the Zimbabwean, from Lahore, you have all these

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different groups coming in, and yet isolated within their own areas?

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That is London. That, unfortunately, is London. It is not just London,

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it is cities, it is life. But this idea of the melting pot, the fact

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is that on the whole, immigrant communities tend to stick, all

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communities tend to stick with their own. That is one of the

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points I think he makes in this novel. One thing I didn't quite buy,

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it is great to have this idea of the street as a microkofpl,

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allowing all these characters to -- microcosm, allowing the characters

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to rub along each other. The idea of the capital city and capital as

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money and property as capital, it is an interesting idea, I didn't

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quite buy the absolute obsession with property prices. What did you

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think about the overarching, as it were, the conceit about the fact

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that what you had was these anonymous postcards coming through

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the door, we want what you want, as being the thread through the book?

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That's right. It is a sort of whodunnit, it is written in the

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style of that, it would be a murder not either bit of vandalism or art.

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We are given all the clues, so we can work out who did it any way. It

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is kind of odd. I found the ending a bit more unsatisfying than the

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beginning. I did enjoy it. I just didn't buy it 100% the way the

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other sides. His prose is a little bit too work-a-day. You need

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something, it was always going to be difficult to come up with a

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conceit that unite all the characters in that way. It is a

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flimsy one and dond hold the novel together. Sebastian Faulks does it,

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with state-of-the-nation, it is strikingly similar to two novels,

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Sebastian Faulks A Week In December, and Hearts and Minds, it is

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overlooked but as good at these others. They bring together this

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extraordinary ensemble of characters and show you both the

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alienation, but in having these characters' lives interweave, they

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also give life a pattern, they give the chaotic London life a pattern.

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There is something charmingly hopeful about the novels. The other

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novel Ian McKeown Saturday as well. We will talk about it again, but

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trying to explain ourselves back to ourselves. I think you either, to a

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greater or lesser extent, are horrified about what you saw, he

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wasn't unsympathetic to it? banking stuff, it almost goes

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without saying with Lanchester, the banking stuff is so spot-on. I used

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to bridle against a quote of his when he said there is no drama in a

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Credit Default Swap, yet what you have here, you have an amazing

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novel about the credit crash. his best novel, do you think?

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not nearly as good as the one I have been reading all week. It

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engaged me enough and I wanted to know, I am reading Mr Philips. I do

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find having all the comic charm, sympathy in it, that it's humane.

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In a way that I didn't find this book perfect in its humanity,

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actually. Interesting Mr Philips. thought it was a bit keen on types

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rather than people. Not all the types fully, 100%, sprung to life,

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for me. There are so many types, I don't

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know if they could all spring to life. Capital is out now.

:19:59.:20:02.

Coincidently a new BBC drama series is telling a story about modern

:20:02.:20:07.

Britain about zooming in on a small scale. It is more ambitious than

:20:07.:20:11.

its scope, over six hours, White Heat traces the lives of seven

:20:11.:20:17.

flatmates through seven decades of love, loss and decaying, set

:20:17.:20:20.

against the political and social backdrop of the times. What we do

:20:20.:20:24.

is construct a model of living based on equality, based on the

:20:24.:20:31.

welfare of the group, rather than the selfish needs of the individual.

:20:31.:20:40.

Up to and including sex. When one of the former flatmates die, the

:20:40.:20:44.

other six assemble in their former home for the first time in many

:20:44.:20:48.

years. Told through flashbacks, it shows relationships forged

:20:48.:20:52.

originally as students in the swinging 60s, their lives reflect

:20:52.:20:57.

the issues of the times. Did you hear. It is said that Sir Winston

:20:57.:21:03.

died shortly after 8.00am. Parliament will meet tomorrow to

:21:03.:21:07.

authorise a state funeral, the first held for a commoner in this

:21:07.:21:12.

country. Some commoner with his title and his country pile.

:21:12.:21:16.

wanted to show how clear the delination appeared to be between

:21:16.:21:22.

the younger generation and their parents, the post-war generation,

:21:22.:21:28.

the clarity of that seemed to be so person sonfied in the death of

:21:28.:21:35.

Churchill, by anchored it in 1965. To add to a starry class, including

:21:35.:21:41.

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Northam, seven bright young things were

:21:41.:21:46.

taken on to play the housemates, Claire Foy playing Charlotte, and

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claftclaftclaft as the handsome -- Sam Claflin as the handsome

:21:51.:21:59.

landlord. So Charlotte, do you like what you see? I like. The thing

:21:59.:22:03.

about casting young actors, you have to cast somebody with maturity

:22:03.:22:10.

in their hds to get to their early 40s. Paula Milne's writing credits

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span 40 years, she has written about women's lives and the issues

:22:13.:22:17.

that concern them, themes that resonate throughout the series,

:22:17.:22:21.

reiterating the 1960s battle cry that the personal is political.

:22:21.:22:24.

lot happened to women in the second half of the last century. With

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Chancellor lot, when she goes to get the pill, and she wears a

:22:29.:22:34.

wedding ring from Woolworths, I too did that, as far as I can remember,

:22:34.:22:39.

that is more or less what the doctor said to me. You wouldn't

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credit how many girls come in wearing a wedding ring from

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Woolworths hoping to get the contraceptive pill, they must think

:22:47.:22:57.
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I'm a bloody half wit. This whole mid-life generation, telling us how

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we got to be where we are, and people looking in what we went

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through in the 1960s or 18970s? Absolutely brilliant, I thought if

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I was not the target audience for John Carter, this was where I

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supposed to be. You were in art school? I was in the first year of

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art school the same as the girl in London from the north. There was a

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scene with a tutor, you know she's painting student, there was a scene

:23:35.:23:42.

I thought, that happened to me and my friend Doreen. Was this painting

:23:42.:23:47.

themselves on the floor? The one where the lecturers is casual

:23:47.:23:53.

sexist to her, she -- is casually sexist to her, she's half flattered.

:23:53.:23:57.

Everything about it is brilliant, the art direction is brilliant, it

:23:57.:24:03.

looks very real. Jeremy Northam, an MP himself, when he's in his son's

:24:03.:24:08.

flat, he picks up a milk bottle and sniffs it before putting it into

:24:08.:24:14.

his tea. Charlotte, she's watching television, just behind you see

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Margaret Drabble and Joan Bakewell having the conversation about the

:24:18.:24:23.

pill. It was painful it was so good. The characterisation was

:24:23.:24:28.

extraordinary deft, wasn't it? the characterisation was deft.

:24:28.:24:33.

Visually it is absolutely wonderful, and felt to me completely authentic,

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I was small in the 1960s, but I thought it was visually fantastic.

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I did think that Charlotte, for example, I mean it is difficult

:24:43.:24:47.

with Claire Foy, because she has such a mesmerising face, you want

:24:47.:24:51.

to stare at it, and her face dominates almost everything she's

:24:51.:24:56.

in. I didn't get a huge sense of her as a character. I felt she was

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a young woman kind of coming from a stifling background, discovering

:25:03.:25:06.

feminism, and discovering the freedom they all wanted to find.

:25:06.:25:09.

They didn't have a sense of actually who she was as a character.

:25:09.:25:12.

But in a sense maybe what we have here, because we have six hours and

:25:13.:25:17.

we have only seen the two episodes, sadly. The whole point is, she has

:25:17.:25:20.

come from the stifling background and is finding her way, and

:25:20.:25:26.

presumably just like Our Friends In The North, the characters will then

:25:26.:25:30.

come forward. I think you will live the journey with these people. I

:25:30.:25:36.

thankful low wasn't in the 1960s, but -- thankfully wasn't in the

:25:36.:25:42.

1960s but this reminded me of This Life, the defining television

:25:42.:25:47.

moment in my life. Never was I so angry just to get two episodes, I

:25:47.:25:50.

could have watched it all the way through, it was gripping. The other

:25:50.:25:53.

thing is, you are going to start to get a sense, particularly with the

:25:54.:26:02.

archive, of what was going on then, Vietnam. Also the new rich boy

:26:02.:26:05.

turning away from his promised career at Cambridge, and how

:26:05.:26:10.

upsetting that is for the family? They do the parents very well.

:26:10.:26:17.

Normally if you did the 1960s drama, it was as if we the generation that

:26:17.:26:24.

came of age in 196 5, but Tamsin Greig, the mother, she's fantastic.

:26:24.:26:29.

But all the parents were great. It was a sense, of course you burst

:26:29.:26:32.

away from your parents, but you still loved your parents and still

:26:32.:26:39.

cared. I just thought the depth. The generational change is exactly

:26:39.:26:42.

what Paula Milne was saying there, the idea that was that post-war

:26:42.:26:45.

generation of parents, when they were still very, in a sense, old

:26:45.:26:49.

fashioned towards their children. One of the things I found

:26:49.:26:53.

fascinating was the way it handled so subjectedly the intersection of

:26:53.:26:57.

the personal and political. This is a social history, it is doing

:26:57.:27:01.

weighty things, feminism, abortion. But because it does it on such an

:27:01.:27:04.

intimate scale, and because it is so beautifully acted and written,

:27:04.:27:09.

you don't feel it as this clunking history lesson, you feel rather

:27:09.:27:13.

than intellectually engaging with it. I think that makes it work. It

:27:13.:27:17.

never feels forced. The only thing I felt, it is to do with the

:27:17.:27:21.

paidsing and what luxury to have six -- pacing, what luxury to have

:27:21.:27:25.

six hours, I felt tonally it was all similar in the first ep society,

:27:25.:27:30.

it starts off with a sad, miserable scene in the flat, and one of the

:27:30.:27:36.

flatmates has died, we don't know who yet. Then you have stifling

:27:36.:27:44.

suburbia, miserable, silent, then rather miserable house share.

:27:44.:27:49.

That is exactly what the shared flats were like. It was the

:27:49.:27:55.

excitement. It was like going away from home? Having the chance to

:27:55.:27:59.

throw off the backgrounds they had. But you can't. You can't that is

:27:59.:28:03.

the journey to go on over this thing. Each of these characters is

:28:03.:28:06.

typecast, she does it very nicely, she gets around that by the fact

:28:06.:28:11.

that Jack has put this flat together as a kind of social

:28:11.:28:17.

experiment. I with is a mess. Which is what you want from 18-year-olds.

:28:17.:28:22.

What we are going to do is see what extent are they able to transcend

:28:22.:28:30.

that typecast they have been given. Six hours, we only get six hours

:28:30.:28:34.

looking at Danish drama? It was great to see something really good

:28:34.:28:40.

and not read the subtitles. I think the BBC have learned from DR the

:28:40.:28:45.

thighs who made The Killing, it is writer-led, it is an incredible

:28:45.:28:48.

cast, original and amazing soundtrack. These are all things

:28:48.:28:52.

you get in the Danish dramas. I think the BBC is following that

:28:52.:28:55.

manifesto. I think they must have been fighting before that to get it.

:28:55.:28:59.

I think that whole thing about what drama can do so well, exactly what

:28:59.:29:04.

you are saying, it is not an intellectual exercise, you feel it.

:29:04.:29:09.

Drama done well is breath taking in that sense. Mad Men, is what it

:29:09.:29:14.

reminds me of. Without the gloss. Exactly, Mad Men glamorised a

:29:14.:29:19.

period. What was well done is in no way was it glamorised. That New

:29:19.:29:25.

Year's Eve party had the ring of trut about it, really. -- trut

:29:25.:29:29.

about it. Everyone should see this, I honestly believe it is the best

:29:29.:29:37.

thing on British TV for a long time. If you look at someone like Jack

:29:37.:29:41.

Straw, it immediately takes you back to the student past, and

:29:41.:29:45.

obviously, not the same experiences, but as you say, you remember people

:29:45.:29:50.

having those kind of experiences? Absolutely. It was spot on. Paula

:29:50.:29:54.

Milne herself saying about going to the pill and it being exactly like

:29:54.:29:57.

that. The doctor says to her at the beginning, does your husband want

:29:57.:30:01.

you to go on the pill. It will be interesting to people who are

:30:01.:30:05.

younger than us, they will go that didn't happen. I didn't know that

:30:06.:30:09.

happened, I found that astonishing. I didn't know you had to be married

:30:09.:30:16.

to get it. No you had to pretend to be. A very big difference there,

:30:17.:30:20.

White Heat starts on BBC next Thursday.

:30:20.:30:27.

Today is the 70th birth dae of rock'n'roll legend, Lewis Allen

:30:27.:30:34.

Reed, you will know him better as Lou Reed.

:30:34.:30:39.

The avant garde Velvet Underground burst on to the New York scene,

:30:39.:30:46.

managed by Andy Warhol, and fronted by a menacing Lou Reed, they were

:30:47.:30:50.

instantly iconic. While their influence was felt today, they were

:30:50.:30:54.

commercially unsuccessful. All that was to change for Reed, at least,

:30:54.:31:01.

after one flop solo album, he teamed up with David Bowie to

:31:01.:31:05.

produce Transformer, this created an embarrassment of riches, Perfect

:31:05.:31:15.
:31:15.:31:16.

Day, Satellite of Love, and the the one he is best known, Walk On The

:31:16.:31:21.

Wild Side. # Hey babe # Take a walk on the wild side

:31:21.:31:31.

And the coloured girls go Mrb do #-do-do-do

:31:31.:31:37.

How do you follow that, a career wrecking album called Berlin, about

:31:37.:31:40.

loneliness, and the forced separation of a woman from her

:31:41.:31:45.

children. # They are taking her children away

:31:45.:31:49.

# Because they said she was not a good mother

:31:50.:31:54.

Described as the Poet Laureate of sleaze, Reed's ambition to create

:31:54.:31:59.

lyrics as literary in style as musical, has led him to cover some

:31:59.:32:05.

particularly dark subjects. # You can hit me all you want to

:32:05.:32:13.

# But I don't love any more In subsequent years Reed enjoyed

:32:13.:32:16.

critical success with the album New York, and has been sought out by

:32:16.:32:23.

musicians like The Killers to lend his critical and artistic cachet to

:32:23.:32:29.

their work. His most recent collaboration is last week's Lulu

:32:29.:32:35.

recorded with Metallica, and inspired by the expressionist plays.

:32:35.:32:44.

Lulu is a fem fatal who meets a sticky end at the lands of the

:32:44.:32:49.

Ripper. Reed is unrepentent claiming this is his favourite work

:32:49.:32:55.

to date. At 70, the man who designed the avant garde era of the

:32:55.:33:05.
:33:05.:33:09.

1960s and pushed his fans and talent too far some say.

:33:09.:33:16.

When did you first come across Lou Reed? In the 1970s, Walk On The

:33:16.:33:23.

Wild Side, Perfect Day. I saw him later on, first it was the records.

:33:23.:33:27.

Transformer is a brilliant record, it still is, it is just magic. It

:33:27.:33:31.

is not always good, but everybody should be remembered for their best.

:33:31.:33:37.

You know things like Perfect Day and Walk On The Wild Side, some of

:33:37.:33:44.

those early things are just magical. The Velvet Underground, Loaded,

:33:44.:33:49.

these things in themselves, somebody reminded me that Brian Eno

:33:49.:33:55.

said it only sold 10,000 copies, but it had huge influence over

:33:55.:33:59.

everyone. Everyone who bought it formed a band. You forget now,

:33:59.:34:04.

there was this, coming on to the modern period, there was this great

:34:04.:34:09.

big gap in the middle where I completely lost touch with him. The

:34:09.:34:14.

Velvet Underground stuff? The first album is astonishingly beautiful.

:34:15.:34:19.

With Nico on it, it is an amazing thing to listen to. It was so

:34:19.:34:24.

lovely, I think I probably last listened to it when I was 15 or 16.

:34:24.:34:28.

You did a lot of things that period? I was a very busy boy back

:34:28.:34:36.

then. They reissued Perfect Day, which led me back into it. Just the

:34:36.:34:42.

glok speil of the beginning of Sunday Morning is a wonderful song.

:34:42.:34:46.

I'm aparade we will go on to the other stuff t has -- I'm afraid we

:34:46.:34:52.

will go on to the other stuff that ruined it to me. He had literary

:34:52.:34:58.

ambition as a poet? I beg you to degrade me, is there something I

:34:58.:35:02.

could eat, I am a secret lover, I am your little girl, please spit

:35:02.:35:08.

into my mouth, I'm forever in your swerel, it is awful. I wish I

:35:08.:35:13.

hadn't listened to it, Lulu, I won't listen to it again. The early

:35:13.:35:18.

stuff was given. I don't think -- Different. I don't think he was a

:35:18.:35:25.

poet, but a dramaist. He did study poetry, there was a deceptive

:35:25.:35:31.

simplicity to the lyrics, these were vignettes of Manhatten life,

:35:31.:35:37.

and they felt like real stories and characters. He lived in the meat

:35:37.:35:42.

packing district before it was fashionable. That was the scene in

:35:42.:35:46.

the 1960s. There is a definite sense of the beat poetry, the New

:35:46.:35:52.

York poets, the idea of sitting back and taking in life. I actually

:35:52.:36:02.
:36:02.:36:03.

think he is a poet. You credit him with huge influences? The Strokes

:36:03.:36:12.

from REM, even earlier Patti Smith and The Ramones. The white Stripes

:36:13.:36:17.

and David Bowie who rescued his career with him. I feel more

:36:17.:36:20.

recently an influence of style rather than substance, many

:36:20.:36:24.

wouldn't say they want to make Berlin. You want people to move and

:36:24.:36:32.

change and people making music until they die, we saw Leonard

:36:32.:36:40.

Cohen and he's in fighting form. think there should be mandatory

:36:40.:36:50.
:36:50.:36:51.

retirement age when listening to Metallica. This is Iced Honey

:36:51.:36:57.

Iced honey # Iced honey

:36:57.:37:07.
:37:07.:37:17.

He absolutely, of course, like an adolescent child absolutely refused

:37:17.:37:22.

to see there was anything wrong with that, and maybe were wasn't?

:37:22.:37:26.

admire that about him. It is excruciating, although I have to

:37:26.:37:31.

say me talking about heavy metal is like asking a High Court judge to

:37:31.:37:37.

talk about emmem, it is not my cup of tea. Why should he carry on

:37:37.:37:41.

doing the stuff he did, he did more than most of us do in a lifetime.

:37:41.:37:44.

It is a great temptation for artists to do the same thing again

:37:44.:37:48.

and again, if you look at the Chapman Brothers, they do the same

:37:48.:37:52.

thing all the time. I think, good on him, that is the rock spirit to

:37:52.:37:57.

be trying to do something fresh all the time. Personally I think it is

:37:57.:38:04.

disastrous, I don't see there is anything wrong with the quest.

:38:04.:38:08.

a big Metallica fan, they are two totally different styles. You have

:38:08.:38:12.

this military, grinding guitar music, with his drawling voice over,

:38:12.:38:19.

and it doesn't work. There is also on the album an astonishing kind of,

:38:19.:38:26.

lament to late age erect tile dysfunction and there is something

:38:26.:38:36.
:38:36.:38:36.

rather brave about it. Those kinds of collaborations, you do want that,

:38:36.:38:42.

there is a great Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant

:38:42.:38:48.

together, fantastic. Some of the stuff that Elvis Costello did was a

:38:48.:38:51.

great collaboration. You do want different. The problem with this

:38:51.:38:55.

was some of it ofn't different enough and the voices were fighting

:38:55.:38:59.

each -- wasn't different enough, and the voices were fighting each

:38:59.:39:03.

other? You did feel, to me, I listened to this and then I went

:39:03.:39:08.

back and listened through his back catalogue, it made so much of his

:39:08.:39:13.

earlier stuff sound like average pub rock. You think? I really

:39:13.:39:18.

didn't know that middle period at all, and when I listened to it I

:39:18.:39:25.

really didn't like it, I'm afraid. Magic and Loss was beautiful, that

:39:25.:39:34.

was 1982. The Blue Mask wasn't bad. I'm afraid we forgot to post a

:39:34.:39:41.

birthday card, but we send him best wishes for Perfect Day. To coincide

:39:41.:39:45.

to a Picasso exhibition, they have been playing host to the English

:39:45.:39:52.

ballet, doing workshops and doing the daily class in the middle of

:39:52.:39:59.

the national gallery. We went to see what happens when paint meets

:39:59.:40:07.

plie. When we had an exhibition looking at Picasso's presence in

:40:07.:40:12.

Britain. Talks began with the English ballet, to celebrate the

:40:12.:40:20.

visit in 1919, when he came to study with the ballet. What a great

:40:20.:40:26.

opportunity Tate Britain to collaberate with the ballet who are

:40:26.:40:29.

preparing for their own season. working on a new piece that I have

:40:29.:40:38.

done, it is called face-to-face, it is based around one of Picasso's

:40:38.:40:43.

paintings. It is a painting of one of his sculptures, it had such

:40:43.:40:47.

fantastic shape and movement in the piece. There is four people in it,

:40:47.:40:50.

the two girls represent the painting, and the two men are

:40:50.:40:57.

almost the artists and sculptoring at the beginning, and half way

:40:57.:41:02.

through the music changes and the dancers come alive. I imagine as an

:41:02.:41:05.

artist you get lost in the piece, you try all different things and

:41:05.:41:09.

then suddenly it comes together, and then that is it, don't touch it

:41:09.:41:14.

any more. The main thing is the stage area and having enough space.

:41:14.:41:18.

Although the room is huge, as a dancer you don't realise how much

:41:18.:41:25.

space we use and consume. We dance on a sprung floor, we can't just

:41:25.:41:35.
:41:35.:41:35.

dance on concrete. As we have collaberated before with

:41:35.:41:39.

Michael Clarke's dance company at Tate Modern several years ago, this

:41:39.:41:43.

is an important opportunity for Tate Britain to partner with dance

:41:43.:41:48.

organisations around Britain. It is a unique opportunity for us to

:41:48.:41:52.

celebrate Picasso's pinnacle moment and the work he created here in

:41:52.:41:56.

London. It is a challenge but fantastic place to dance, hopefully

:41:56.:42:04.

we will be here again soon. English National Ballet are in

:42:04.:42:08.

residence at Tate Britain for two more days, there is a couple of

:42:08.:42:14.

places in the adult participation class on Sunday, Alex wants to sign

:42:14.:42:19.

up. The Picasso exhibition continues until July. Visit the

:42:19.:42:22.

website for more details on the programme. My thanks to the panel,

:42:22.:42:27.

next week I will be joined by AL Kennedy, Marcel Theroux and John

:42:27.:42:34.

Mullan to watch Stephen Mangan as Diark Gently, and the talk about

:42:34.:42:43.

the new film version of Bel Ami. We end with some music from the BBC

:42:43.:42:46.

Introducing scheme, Gabrielle Aplin is playing on Monday in Glasgow and

:42:46.:42:55.

come up early to make her TV debut with her own composition, Home.

:42:55.:43:00.

# I'm a Phoenix in the water, and the mission that's learned to fly

:43:00.:43:05.

# And I have' always been a tortoise

:43:05.:43:11.

# With feathers for the sky # So I'm wishing

:43:11.:43:17.

# Wishing further # For the excitement to arrive

:43:17.:43:21.

M it's just I'd rather be causing the chaos

:43:21.:43:24.

# Than laying at the sharp end # Of this night

:43:24.:43:29.

# With every small disaster # I'll let the waters still

:43:29.:43:36.

# Take me away # To some place real

:43:36.:43:40.

# Because they say home is where your heart is set in

:43:40.:43:44.

# Stone is where you are going # When you are alone

:43:44.:43:49.

# Is where you go to rest your bones

:43:49.:43:52.

# And it's not just where you lay your head

:43:52.:43:59.

# It's not just where you make your # As long as we're together

:43:59.:44:09.
:44:09.:44:15.

# It doesn't matter where we go # Oh oh

:44:15.:44:19.

# They say home is where your heart is set

:44:19.:44:24.

# In stone is where you go mlk when you're alone

:44:24.:44:29.

# Is where you go to rest your bones

:44:30.:44:33.

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