0:00:01 > 0:00:03On this month's Review Show...
0:00:03 > 0:00:05Drugs and depravity on the big screen,
0:00:05 > 0:00:07gangland violence on TV,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10greed and deceit on the stage
0:00:10 > 0:00:12and espionage on the page.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16Plus the art of Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and Bob Dylan,
0:00:16 > 0:00:20and music from James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30Tonight, razor blades in cloth caps in the new TV drama Peaky Blinders,
0:00:30 > 0:00:32an exhibition links two titans
0:00:32 > 0:00:34of 20th-century art,
0:00:34 > 0:00:38comedy in the Cold War from bestselling novelist Jonathan Coe
0:00:38 > 0:00:43and a modern morality play from the writer of Matilda The Musical.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46Joining me with their verdicts on all of that,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49the novelist AL Kennedy, author and columnist James Delingpole
0:00:49 > 0:00:53and the writer and critic Paul Morley.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55But first, it's been 20 years
0:00:55 > 0:00:58since Irvine Welsh shot to literary stardom with Trainspotting,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00his shocking and witty depiction of drug culture
0:01:00 > 0:01:03in Edinburgh's underbelly.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Danny Boyle's screen adaptation
0:01:05 > 0:01:08was one of the most successful British films of the 1990s.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11Now imagine, if you dare,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14a world which is even more dark and depraved,
0:01:14 > 0:01:16in an adaptation of Welsh's third novel, Filth,
0:01:16 > 0:01:20about a corrupt copper's descent into chaos.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26James McAvoy plays Welsh's anti-hero,
0:01:26 > 0:01:30the racist, sexist and homophobic Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34Desperate to win a promotion
0:01:34 > 0:01:37which he hopes will reunite him with his estranged wife and daughter,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40Robertson's increasingly erratic behaviour
0:01:40 > 0:01:43wreaks havoc on those around him.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45What does that make me, then? You're a policeman.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49The film, directed by Jon S Baird,
0:01:49 > 0:01:52features a Who's Who of British acting talent,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55with John Sessions as Robertson's Chief Inspector,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59Jamie Bell and Imogen Poots as his colleagues in the force
0:01:59 > 0:02:02and Eddie Marsan as his unlikely best friend.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04What made you join the force?
0:02:04 > 0:02:07Police oppression, brother. You wanted to stamp it out from the inside?
0:02:07 > 0:02:09No, I wanted to be a part of it.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15In Welsh's book, Robertson develops a tapeworm
0:02:15 > 0:02:17which eats away at his intestines,
0:02:17 > 0:02:22the device Welsh used to explain his unscrupulous policeman's back story.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26In Baird's film, he suffers hallucinations,
0:02:26 > 0:02:29in which he's tormented by his psychiatrist,
0:02:29 > 0:02:31a role Jim Broadbent clearly relished.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34How have you been since our last consultation, Bruce?
0:02:34 > 0:02:36No problems, I presume, eh?
0:02:37 > 0:02:39No!
0:02:41 > 0:02:44No more cocaine and chip suppers for Bruce, eh?
0:02:44 > 0:02:46McAvoy is the latest in a long line
0:02:46 > 0:02:49of corrupt coppers on the big screen,
0:02:49 > 0:02:51from Dirty Harry to The Departed.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54But has there ever been one quite as minging as this?
0:02:54 > 0:02:58What we would do is all the men would go to the photocopying room.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01One by one, of course. No offence if that's your thing.
0:03:01 > 0:03:02And what we'd do
0:03:02 > 0:03:06is we would photocopy an image of our wedding tackle.
0:03:06 > 0:03:07BAWDY LAUGHTER
0:03:10 > 0:03:13MUSIC: "Mr Vain" by Culture Beat
0:03:26 > 0:03:28Quite a Christmas party there!
0:03:28 > 0:03:31Now, listen, the shadow of Trainspotting
0:03:31 > 0:03:33obviously looms large over this,
0:03:33 > 0:03:35Danny Boyle's huge hit.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37How would you make the comparison?
0:03:37 > 0:03:40I think it compares very well. Although it's quite an old book,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43obviously it's about corruption at all levels.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45It's got a kind of Jacobean feel
0:03:45 > 0:03:48and I think we live in that kind of world of ultimate cynicism
0:03:48 > 0:03:51and we have this kind of Machiavellian character
0:03:51 > 0:03:55just being completely and successfully - up to a point -
0:03:55 > 0:03:56immoral.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00But with a sense that it is immorality, it's not amorality.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02That he is going wrong.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04And I think that works very well,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07perhaps even better now. And it's very confident,
0:04:07 > 0:04:11it's very slick. The editing is kind of Edgar Wright style -
0:04:11 > 0:04:13bouncy, pacy editing.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15And you've got this beautiful central performance,
0:04:15 > 0:04:17as there was from Ewan McGregor.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19Again, I think that James McAvoy,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22this will be... I mean, he's very...
0:04:22 > 0:04:23renowned now,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26but I think it could be the making of him,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29because he holds it together. He's in every scene and he paces it,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31and because it's coloured by his psychology,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33he really is making the film work,
0:04:33 > 0:04:36and in real harmony with the director.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38And interestingly, in the scene I saw,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40he introduced it, James McAvoy, and he said,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42"This is the riskiest thing I've ever done."
0:04:42 > 0:04:45Yeah, I liked it as a kind of grand grotesque antidote
0:04:45 > 0:04:47to Britain's Got Baking
0:04:47 > 0:04:48and that kind of nonsense.
0:04:48 > 0:04:49Strictly Come Cavorting.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Just as another side of Britain.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53And I also liked it because of the...
0:04:53 > 0:04:54apart from anything else,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57just the revelation and revealing of great actors, acting.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00And it struck me as a kind of a 21st-century version
0:05:00 > 0:05:02of a Carry On series or a Confessions Of series.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04You know, Jim Broadbent turning up
0:05:04 > 0:05:07and Eddie Marsan, Jamie Bell.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09It just constantly kept coming, these surprises.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13So, on any level, it was just a wonderfully bawdy entertainment.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15It was fantastically bawdy.
0:05:15 > 0:05:16Yeah. Choose life, choose Filth.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20It had that same in-your-face quality that Trainspotting had
0:05:20 > 0:05:23and it also has the most brilliantly chosen soundtrack.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28I love it when they go to Hamburg and you get 99 Luftballons,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31and the one where...Silver Lady
0:05:31 > 0:05:33is played, and...
0:05:33 > 0:05:35a cameo appearance by...
0:05:35 > 0:05:37Can I tell the viewers? Am I spoiling it?
0:05:37 > 0:05:40I think you might have given a very big hint there!
0:05:40 > 0:05:41Well, David Soul...
0:05:41 > 0:05:43This is rather sort of, um...
0:05:43 > 0:05:46because most people won't even be aware of when it's David Soul,
0:05:46 > 0:05:48because he's looking a bit puffy nowadays,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51but everything is perfect in its place.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Right from the beginning, where there's a kid with the balloon,
0:05:54 > 0:05:58and the kid gives Bruce the middle finger.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01It's wonderful.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05I love the idea of...you know those Scottish Tourist Board adverts, where it says "Surprise yourself"?
0:06:05 > 0:06:08This is a great advert for Scotland. Seriously.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11In a sincere way. This is a great advert for Scotland.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Because it's confident. It's people making fun of themselves.
0:06:15 > 0:06:20And you don't want a film where the cast is having fun, but you can't really join in.
0:06:20 > 0:06:22Because people are having so much fun.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25Eddie Marsan is picking up his partner, shaking him with his teeth.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29And Eddie Marsan vomiting in his hands is fabulous.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31But the thing is, like you've just given away...
0:06:31 > 0:06:34Sorry! You worry on every level about giving it away,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37because one of the things that's wonderful is people keep popping up,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39whether it's Jim Broadbent or the one you've given away!
0:06:39 > 0:06:41That is the great surprise.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44Because in many ways, it's an old-fashioned film, oddly.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46Because of the British ensemble cast...
0:06:46 > 0:06:49Yes, it could be the '60s, '70s, in many ways.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52What brings it up to date is the vomiting and the swearing and the sexing.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54That gives it a hint of the 21st century.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59I was interested in what you had to say, the idea of it not being immoral but amoral.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02Well, I know that Irvine likes the script very much
0:07:02 > 0:07:05and I think it has the quality that he has.
0:07:05 > 0:07:07Although he's showing you terrible things,
0:07:07 > 0:07:09there's not an awareness that they're not terrible,
0:07:09 > 0:07:12and up to a point, without giving the game away,
0:07:12 > 0:07:14it's got a very redemptive and extremely moral ending.
0:07:14 > 0:07:19And it's making decisions that are a way to combat evil, in a way.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22While being very gleeful. And that redemptive ending...
0:07:22 > 0:07:26It does mean that some of the shocking things,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29and upsetting... It is a very graphic film.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33But you get a completely different view by the time you get to the end. And it's a knife edge.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36It could go either way, without giving it away, James!
0:07:36 > 0:07:38And the whole film would be thrown into doubt.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41So without giving anything away, JAMES...!
0:07:41 > 0:07:42Without giving anything away,
0:07:42 > 0:07:47can I just say that I thought that the ending was exactly the ending that needed to be
0:07:47 > 0:07:50and was most satisfying and true to the film.
0:07:50 > 0:07:51That's all I will say.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54It's that moment when David Soul catches a fish.
0:07:54 > 0:07:55It's OK!
0:07:55 > 0:07:56It's amazing.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Rewinding a bit to the middle of the film...
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Interestingly, you said this shows a very confident view of Scotland.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05That is different from Trainspotting.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08One of the most famous speeches in Trainspotting was about the cultural cringe,
0:08:08 > 0:08:10about Scotland kowtowing to England.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14So it's a very different mood. Yes, there's a great line...I'm going to paraphrase it.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18John Sessions is saying, "This isn't anywhere. This is Scotland, for Christ's sake!"
0:08:18 > 0:08:21There is a real sense that this is coming from a culture that exists
0:08:21 > 0:08:25and if you don't quite understand the words, there's context, and you'll get it.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28And it's just coming from a place.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30In the way that it's enjoyable to be with those people,
0:08:30 > 0:08:32it's enjoyable to be with a place,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35and although it's very dark, it's just full of kind of life and energy.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40I know that Baird was influenced by things like Clockwork Orange.
0:08:40 > 0:08:45A kind of different, very imaginative, energetic sort of British cinema
0:08:45 > 0:08:49that's been blanded as we've tried to go for Hollywood.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52Absolutely. That's why it would be wonderful to see as the beginning of a series.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55It IS the equivalent of a Carry On.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59The same kind of... Shirley Henderson, we haven't mentioned her. It's an amazing ensemble cast.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04But it's giving... You're talking about Carry On. Yes, there are funny moments.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06But it's very dark as well.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Carry On was quite dark. Bruce Robertson, he's disintegrating
0:09:10 > 0:09:12before our eyes, isn't he?
0:09:12 > 0:09:16The sex scenes... I'm not going to mention because I don't want to give away any of the plot!
0:09:16 > 0:09:19But the...the sex phone calls involving Frank Sidebottom
0:09:19 > 0:09:21with Shirley Henderson...
0:09:21 > 0:09:24That scene is both grotesque
0:09:24 > 0:09:26and funny
0:09:26 > 0:09:28and weirdly erotic.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31And it's the same, as you said, about his treatment of drugs.
0:09:31 > 0:09:32It's amoral.
0:09:32 > 0:09:34He shows the good side of drugs, the fun side,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36and the bad side.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38So it's all mashed up.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42And it's not prurient. They've worked out - not to give anything away - lots of ways to do things
0:09:42 > 0:09:47that it would conceivably be quite upsetting to do from other angles.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51They've worked out a curiously polite way to do a lot of really terrible things.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53And it's rooted in a great piece of writing.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56And even though there's certain things they cannot do
0:09:56 > 0:10:00because it could only be done in writing, they've managed to find a cinematic way of doing it.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05Like the hallucinations, which could have been, you know, he starts, and we see it very early on in the film,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08he envisages the characters as different animals.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11It could have been comical, but actually it's rather frightening, I think.
0:10:11 > 0:10:12Very.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17You're wondering for quite a lot of the film why it is that this handsome man who's always...
0:10:17 > 0:10:19I mean, he is quite handsome underneath the revoltingness,
0:10:19 > 0:10:22and he's supposed to be quite sexually attractive to women.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24..why he can never quite get it up.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27Then when the hallucinations start kicking in,
0:10:27 > 0:10:30you realise exactly why, because it's rather horrible.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34It's incredibly hard to get hallucinations or heightened reality right as a director
0:10:34 > 0:10:36or as an actor.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39Again, I would emphasise just how good that performance is.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43That's why it's a revelation for McAvoy. I think it is his breakthrough role.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46When you can see everything he can do. I think we're agreed.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49From now on, even his next five roles, as weak as they could be, he's OK now.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51It was a risk worth taking.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56I think it'll be a Yuletide classic, to rank with It's A Wonderful Life and The Muppet Christmas Movie.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58I doubt that very much,
0:10:58 > 0:11:03but this Yuletide classic, Filth, opens in cinemas in Scotland on the 27th of this month
0:11:03 > 0:11:07and it's being released right round the country on the 4th of October.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10There's plenty more violence and moral collapse
0:11:10 > 0:11:12in a new BBC2 series, Peaky Blinders,
0:11:12 > 0:11:17referring to gangsters' cloth caps laced with razor blades.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19This time, though, the mean streets are in Birmingham
0:11:19 > 0:11:23and the setting is the aftermath of the First World War.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30The Peaky Blinders were a notorious gang in Birmingham's slums.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33Dealing in bookmaking and protection rackets,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35their distinctive brand of violence
0:11:35 > 0:11:37made them widely feared.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40Cillian Murphy plays Thomas Shelby.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42Fresh from the front lines of the Great War,
0:11:42 > 0:11:45he's the ruthless head of the clan.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47Sir, this is her.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49The girl who tells fortunes.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07WHISPERED INCANTATIONS
0:12:22 > 0:12:27It's important to do the research and know the historical context.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30These men were just sent back from the trenches, sent back from France
0:12:30 > 0:12:32and just spat out into society.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37I read a lot of books about the First World War and the trenches,
0:12:37 > 0:12:39and he's come back and he's been decorated,
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and he's seen something, but he's a changed man.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Are you Lee boys laughing at my brother?
0:12:47 > 0:12:48Are you?
0:12:48 > 0:12:49Eh?
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Tommy! Tommy! Tommy! I asked you a question.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54Tommy, come on, it's just the craic!
0:12:54 > 0:12:59Get your family out of here and go to the fair before you start a war.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02These were stories that were told to me in snapshots -
0:13:02 > 0:13:04really, really limited amounts,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07but just little glimpses of a world
0:13:07 > 0:13:10where my dad used to take messages to his uncles
0:13:10 > 0:13:12who were all immaculately dressed gangsters,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14sitting round a table covered in money.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Birmingham was pounding out stuff made of metal
0:13:18 > 0:13:2324 hours a day, and so add to that this great influx
0:13:23 > 0:13:25of damaged war veterans with their guns,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28add to that the political situation with communists
0:13:28 > 0:13:30who wanted to change the world,
0:13:30 > 0:13:31add to that the new policemen...
0:13:31 > 0:13:33You know, all of these layers come in
0:13:33 > 0:13:37and all I'm doing is looking at what really was there.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39They're approaching Protestant Irishmen
0:13:39 > 0:13:41to come over here as specials.
0:13:41 > 0:13:42To do what?
0:13:42 > 0:13:44To clean up the city, Ada.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46He's the chief inspector.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50The last four years, he's been clearing the IRA out of Belfast.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52How do you know so bloody much?
0:13:52 > 0:13:55Cos I asked the coppers on our payroll.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57Why didn't you tell me?
0:13:59 > 0:14:00I'm telling you.
0:14:06 > 0:14:11James, Filth, which we were discussing - set in Edinburgh, got a very strong sense of this.
0:14:11 > 0:14:17Peaky Blinders in Birmingham - does it have the same sense of place, do you think?
0:14:17 > 0:14:19It's got a very strong sense of place,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22but not anything to do with Birmingham, I don't think,
0:14:22 > 0:14:23starting with the accents.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25The accents seem to belong to
0:14:25 > 0:14:29a sort of melange of generic northern,
0:14:29 > 0:14:32Liverpudlian and Irish.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Birmingham barely gets a look-in.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38And as a Brummie myself - as you can probably tell by my accent(!)
0:14:38 > 0:14:41Talking of dodgy accents(!) BRUMMIE: I feel slightly cheated, I do.
0:14:41 > 0:14:47You would. I do, because Birmingham doesn't normally get a look-in, our kid.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49Normally it's places like Manchester or London.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53Because unfortunately, Birmingham hasn't had its own screenwriter -
0:14:53 > 0:14:58the north had Alan Bleasdale and Paul Abbott, and London's had loads of people.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02So Birmingham gets its first shot of being on TV...
0:15:02 > 0:15:06It ain't there. And...it ain't there! No.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08Our kid, it's rubbish!
0:15:08 > 0:15:12I'm not going to attempt the accent, but did you think it was rubbish as well?
0:15:12 > 0:15:15My parents were from there and, yes, I don't know where these people are from!
0:15:15 > 0:15:19It's really quite painful, and it's difficult to act if you're not actually placed.
0:15:19 > 0:15:24And I know that Stephen Knight, his parents are from there and he was born in Birmingham,
0:15:24 > 0:15:29but it doesn't have either the accent of the kind of music of place.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32If you think of James Mitchell writing When The Boat Comes In...
0:15:32 > 0:15:34In a way, quite similar period.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38Really rooted, and there was this upswelling of interest in the Northeast.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Or you think of Dennis Potter not always writing about the Forest of Dean,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44but definitely being from there, having that music.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48And, yeah, Birmingham never gets a look-in, not since Second City First,
0:15:48 > 0:15:51which was, what, the '60s, '70s? And it's such an interesting place.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Does that lack of authenticity matter, Paul? Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57I was thinking Jim Baines, late 1970s, Crossroads,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00for the Birmingham accent, maybe early Ozzy Osbourne.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Didn't bother me in the slightest. It's a fabled place, and as such,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05in many ways, that was what I loved about it.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09It was the closest I've seen British TV get to the HBO, cable TV classics
0:16:09 > 0:16:12that we're all in thrall to at the moment.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And I loved the music too - the use of the Dirty Three
0:16:15 > 0:16:18or the White Stripes or the Black Keys or Nick Cave.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23Because it wasn't important to me that necessarily it was geographically saying Birmingham.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27It was giving me an idea of a historical moment,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30and in that sense, it was terrifically, absolutely brilliant.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35The accents... You've been giving me a worse accent than a Birmingham accent I've ever heard!
0:16:35 > 0:16:39You're from Manchester, so you don't care about Birmingham.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45One of the things I loved about this was that it was giving me an idea of a history and a place.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48I don't care about the accents in Game Of Thrones.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50I don't really give a shit about the accents in this.
0:16:50 > 0:16:51It's not important.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55Did you not feel...? There was an awful lot of exposition, and you did get a lot of facts,
0:16:55 > 0:16:59because people were kind of explaining things to each other a hell of a lot.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04There was one line where she said, "So-and-so, he's your best friend from school".
0:17:04 > 0:17:09And we also learn that during the First World War,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12women have taken on a more important role back at home.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Who would have thought that, eh(?) Can you imagine?!
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Well, this, I suppose, was the social history that you enjoyed.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20It didn't bother me.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22And I thought it was the best use of Churchill I've seen as well.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24I LOVE the use of Churchill!
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Fantastic. And the accretion of subtlety that I think is important
0:17:28 > 0:17:30and Cillian Murphy, the way he's developing.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32And Helen McCrory.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36And some of the things we adore at the moment have been going six, seven, eight series.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38And if you go back to the first or the second,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41then maybe we would have already jumped upon them.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44I could see this going through the whole of the 20th century,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47and I would be quite enjoying the fifth and sixth series.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50Did you use the word "subtlety" in the context of this programme?
0:17:50 > 0:17:54You bet, James! When Cillian Murphy walks into a bar,
0:17:54 > 0:17:56they seem to superimpose a halo on his head
0:17:56 > 0:18:00and he seems to have been bathing his cheeks in asses' milk beforehand...
0:18:00 > 0:18:03I think that's what he looks like. He is very attractive.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05He is very pretty, but... Jealousy!
0:18:05 > 0:18:07OK, he's slightly better-looking than me,
0:18:07 > 0:18:12but it is so stylised. The other thing I really object to - I'm sorry - as a Brummie...
0:18:14 > 0:18:16Birmingham people are the funniest people in the world.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19Not me, but Brummies in general.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23And there was no sense of that humour, that banter that you get in the Midlands.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26There was none of it. It was very, very serious. Very up itself, I thought.
0:18:26 > 0:18:31You'd got the right name for the chemist, but you hadn't got that sort of city...
0:18:31 > 0:18:33I wanted to love it. I wanted to see...
0:18:33 > 0:18:35It is great to see Sam Neill up against Cillian Murphy
0:18:35 > 0:18:39and see them acting at each other - OK, in bizarre voices.
0:18:39 > 0:18:40I want to love it.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42And I hope it does turn into Boardwalk Empire.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45I'm very suspicious about the attempts British television has made
0:18:45 > 0:18:48to try and join in with this wonderful television
0:18:48 > 0:18:51that's coming from different Golden Ages from other worlds.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54This was the closest... There's a kind of intelligence about it that I really adored.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57Not least in the way they used the music,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01and the way they were using that combination of cinema and novel-writing,
0:19:01 > 0:19:04but creating a third thing, which is a new kind of television.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06This for me was the moment when I saw it growing.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08And the production values are very high.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10Yes, and it's very cinematic,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13maybe in a way that isn't all that suitable necessarily to television.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16But there are these kind of staid moments.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18There's an Irish mole
0:19:18 > 0:19:21who has to sing, who isn't a terribly good singer.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24I don't know if that's kind of a joke or what goes on with that.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Then you've got the pub singing, but it's all very...
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Maybe that soap element that is the heart of this
0:19:29 > 0:19:33is because, you know, you didn't watch Crossroads, did you?
0:19:33 > 0:19:36You didn't watch Prisoner: Cell Block H. I watched it at my grandmother's knee.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40I like the combination. There's a soap element, but there's this other resonant, glorious element
0:19:40 > 0:19:43that I'm really liking as television.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47It's got so much money in it, though, and I just wanted it to REALLY work,
0:19:47 > 0:19:49because some of the shots, and the horse coming in...
0:19:49 > 0:19:52They go to the gypsy fair. Yes.
0:19:52 > 0:19:54The cart. With the golden light, it looks beautiful. Great.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57But it is proof that you can polish a turd. That's the problem.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Well, I don't know if it's quite...cloacal.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02It's not The Sopranos, is it?
0:20:02 > 0:20:06What about the view of gangsters which we've seen certainly in Sopranos and so many other dramas?
0:20:06 > 0:20:09I mean, the glamorisation of the gangster world?
0:20:09 > 0:20:12There's somebody in a an office somewhere, thinking,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15"Oh, God, let there not be hat-related crime
0:20:15 > 0:20:18"after we've shown the episodes of this".
0:20:18 > 0:20:20I mean, yeah... Hat rage!
0:20:20 > 0:20:24I think, you know, it is tapping into...
0:20:24 > 0:20:27You mention your disappointment that it doesn't give you Birmingham
0:20:27 > 0:20:29and it doesn't give you The Sopranos either.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31I'm surprised by that,
0:20:31 > 0:20:38because in a way, the insight and the beginning of many sophisticated responses to a moment in history...
0:20:38 > 0:20:44I mean, you're being cynical about the idea of the women being in control during the war...
0:20:44 > 0:20:47No, I'm cynical about the way it's presented.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49It's a historical fact.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53Personally, I think it's a really good insight into something that we lack.
0:20:53 > 0:20:58It's the beginning of... There's much to plunder in British culture
0:20:58 > 0:20:59that hasn't been plundered.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02That's the frustrating thing. It's all there. Birmingham is fascinating.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05The history's there, the women are there... Opium, sex...
0:21:05 > 0:21:07Italians, Chinese...
0:21:07 > 0:21:11But it should all work, and maybe it's just got slightly too much.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Well, you can make your own minds up
0:21:13 > 0:21:16and decide if you like hat-related crime in Peaky Blinders,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19which continues on BBC2 on Thursday night.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21Now, it's quite a move, isn't it,
0:21:21 > 0:21:23from the family entertainment of Matilda The Musical
0:21:23 > 0:21:25to a Faustian pact,
0:21:25 > 0:21:29but the playwright Dennis Kelly has always been eclectic,
0:21:29 > 0:21:31enjoying recent success on Channel 4 with Utopia.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35His modern morality play at the Royal Court Theatre in London,
0:21:35 > 0:21:38The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas,
0:21:38 > 0:21:41traces one man's journey from childhood innocence
0:21:41 > 0:21:45to a downfall caused by naked ambition and greed.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53Gorge Mastromas was conceived on the 15th of July 1973.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56It was a warm and balmy night, not too hot,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58with a gentle breeze coming in through open summer windows.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00It had rained earlier that day,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02but the air was now clear,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06and the night had a softness to it that felt like...
0:22:07 > 0:22:08..a pause.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10The lovemaking was not particularly enjoyable.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13But neither was it particularly unpleasant.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15George's father had not been in the mood.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17George's mother had not been in the mood.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20In keeping with his unremarkable start in life,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22Gorge, played by Tom Brooke,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26grows up to be an ordinary guy who always tries to do the right thing.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30However, one day at work, Gorge is faced with a moral dilemma
0:22:30 > 0:22:34which forces him to choose between his own code of honour
0:22:34 > 0:22:37and self-advancement, which could propel him into a life
0:22:37 > 0:22:39that's anything but ordinary.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44Now, I'm going to make this quite quick, because I've only got two minutes and 23 seconds left.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Existence is not what you have, up until this moment, thought it is.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51It is not fair.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53It is not kind. It is not just.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56The majority of the universe is, in fact,
0:22:56 > 0:22:59so cold it would freeze the water in your eyes in an instant.
0:22:59 > 0:23:05The rest - great big balls of fire surrounded by clumps of matter.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07Matter
0:23:07 > 0:23:08doesn't care.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11Most of the world are ignorant of this.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14The believe in God or Marx
0:23:14 > 0:23:16or the unseen hand of the market
0:23:16 > 0:23:19or honesty...or goodness.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25It's a bold start for Vicky Featherstone's directorial debut
0:23:25 > 0:23:28since taking the helm of the Royal Court earlier this year.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32The play reflects contemporary themes like financial collapse
0:23:32 > 0:23:34and child abuse,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37with Kelly taking the implosion of the property boom
0:23:37 > 0:23:40as the starting point for his take on late-20th-century capitalism
0:23:40 > 0:23:43and what he sees as a climate of greed.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50Gorge was remade in those few tiny, eternal seconds.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53His rules were born, his mantra,
0:23:53 > 0:23:57his new way of life, his three golden rules.
0:23:57 > 0:23:591 - Whenever you want something,
0:23:59 > 0:24:00take it.
0:24:00 > 0:24:032 - All that is required to take everything you want
0:24:03 > 0:24:07is absolute will and an ability to lie to the depths of your heart.
0:24:07 > 0:24:083 - The effectiveness of a lie
0:24:08 > 0:24:12is compromised only by your attachment to the outcome of the lie.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Therefore, never think of the outcome.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19Always assume discovery. Embrace each second as if it were your last.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21Never, ever regret.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Three simple rules. Three golden rules for life.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27And when Gorge looked at that old man,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31he looked at him with fresh and energetic new eyes.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33New and beautiful eyes,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36and he opened his mouth and he said...
0:24:36 > 0:24:37Yes.
0:24:37 > 0:24:39You must sell.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Paul, we got a very strong sense in that short extract
0:24:46 > 0:24:48of the chorus, the way the chorus is used.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53And the first 30 minutes just has the actors in chairs on the stage,
0:24:53 > 0:24:56giving what I thought was... It was about Gorge's early life.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00But a really interesting insight into the politics of the playground.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03Well, yes, but then the whole play
0:25:03 > 0:25:07becomes five or six versions of something.
0:25:07 > 0:25:09It doesn't stay there - it goes somewhere else.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11It was strange for me,
0:25:11 > 0:25:13because it was very, very weird.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16I don't know if it was deliberately weird or unintentionally weird.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18I couldn't quite work it out at all.
0:25:18 > 0:25:23It had a kind of strange quality, where I loved everything about it except the play.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27I love the setting, I love the acting, I love the timing, the comic timing,
0:25:27 > 0:25:28I love the lighting, I love the music,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31but the words themselves struck me as being
0:25:31 > 0:25:34a writer who's desperately looking for something to say
0:25:34 > 0:25:36and had absolutely nothing to say in the end.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39And so, absolutely, that first part is wonderful
0:25:39 > 0:25:42because of the comic timing that elevates some of the language
0:25:42 > 0:25:45to be somewhat wittier than it might otherwise be.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49Then we have another thing. We have five or six pieces that don't fit together,
0:25:49 > 0:25:52where ultimately the cast seem trapped by something that doesn't lead anywhere.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55I found it utterly underwhelming.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58James, did the content strike you in the same way?
0:25:58 > 0:26:01Yeah, I thought it was... I agree with Paul, actually.
0:26:01 > 0:26:02Happily!
0:26:02 > 0:26:05Less than the sum of its parts, I thought.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Whereas with the Irvine Welsh movie,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12the more I thought about it afterwards, the better it got in my imagination.
0:26:12 > 0:26:14I think it's a really good piece of work.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17This one, the more I analysed it afterwards,
0:26:17 > 0:26:19the less impressive it became.
0:26:19 > 0:26:21I enjoyed it at the time.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23I thought the cast were really enthusiastic.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27That scene where they're sitting there, they really draw you in.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30And then it just goes a bit floppy.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32But what about the quality of the writing?
0:26:32 > 0:26:35Here and there, I would maybe have snipped it a bit.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40And unless they were forgetting things... It may be they had snipped it a bit.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43I liked it much more than these guys. I like everything!
0:26:43 > 0:26:45I'm just in a good mood.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50You're the right generation for this then! I think it's quite a delicate thing.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Filth is on a knife edge and it's the right side of the knife edge
0:26:54 > 0:26:57and either they'll find a way of performing a text
0:26:57 > 0:27:01that's quite light and it's funny, but you have to handle the humour
0:27:01 > 0:27:04or...particularly at the end...
0:27:04 > 0:27:09I don't think the end is quite firing. There seems to be a time gap.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12But you have to say, Tom Brooke playing Gorge - he's remarkable.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16I sometimes felt it had the logic of a dream, and I was trying to give it the benefit of the doubt.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18Is this meant to be this strange and weird?
0:27:18 > 0:27:22And I decided in the end, thinking about it more, that it was just clumsy.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25I just think it's a very, very bad piece of writing.
0:27:25 > 0:27:30At the centre of this production, there's a guy who's got very little to say, doesn't know how to say it,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33and he's very good on technique, on craft - he can do a lot of different things -
0:27:33 > 0:27:37but what comes home in the end is he didn't really have any idea what he wanted to write about.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40Well, I suppose what he's writing about...
0:27:40 > 0:27:43It's a modern morality play.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45It's an attack on capitalism, isn't it?
0:27:45 > 0:27:48Well, it decides that at the end.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50If you're going to do an updated Marlowe...
0:27:50 > 0:27:51At the end of Dr Faustus,
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Dr Faustus gets dragged down to hell by the demons.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57This one, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying
0:27:57 > 0:28:00that the actors just stumble off apologetically,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03rather embarrassed about the conclusion that's been written for it.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05It feels like a workshop production
0:28:05 > 0:28:10that could really do with a bit of shape. Five or six, because of the sections.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13There's different ways of approaching something,
0:28:13 > 0:28:17looking for something, so you do get the seven characters looking for something.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19You get six or seven scenes looking for something.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23And it's all done, and we're all hyped up for this thing to happen.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26But nothing seems to be happening, because at the centre of it, it's about nothing.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30One of the sections touches on another contemporary theme -
0:28:30 > 0:28:36child abuse and misery memoirs, which I thought was very effective.
0:28:36 > 0:28:41It is. It's not really about that - it's about somebody doing something incredibly despicable,
0:28:41 > 0:28:44which was to appropriate all the architecture to advance themselves,
0:28:44 > 0:28:47so it's not really looking at abuse per se.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Not at all. No, no. It's not the play being cheap and nasty, it's Gorge being cheap and nasty.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55But on behalf of writers, it's very difficult to write about what he's writing about,
0:28:55 > 0:28:58particularly at the end, because what are you going to do?
0:28:58 > 0:29:01There's a world revolution that hasn't happened yet and wouldn't?
0:29:01 > 0:29:03Is there a literal slaughter?
0:29:03 > 0:29:06Is there, what you've been getting an awful lot lately,
0:29:06 > 0:29:10everybody has a love-in and we all dream together and somehow it works out?
0:29:10 > 0:29:12It's like you seem to be ticking off things...
0:29:12 > 0:29:14Because at the centre of this,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17he has to write something for these people to speak and for there to be a stage setting,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21but suddenly it becomes the memoirs, the misery memoirs.
0:29:21 > 0:29:26Suddenly it becomes this. Suddenly it becomes the Howard Hughes recluse who's made too much money.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29It just seemed to be ticking off things, rather than tackling them.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33Hasn't it got a unified idea of one man's moral decline,
0:29:33 > 0:29:35in the way we were talking about, in the other items earlier?
0:29:35 > 0:29:38The initial premise is really, really interesting.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42This idea that, in the first part of his life,
0:29:42 > 0:29:49he has done the right thing. He's done the right thing by his friends, by his girlfriends and stuff.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52He's taken the path of goodness.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54But is it really goodness, or is it cowardice?
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Is it just because he's not seizing life by the horns, as it were?
0:29:58 > 0:30:01Is he not embracing the world and taking the bold move?
0:30:01 > 0:30:03I think a lot of us have thought about this.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05We've sleepwalked through our lives,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08sort of done what seems to be right,
0:30:08 > 0:30:10but maybe we should take the bolder, aggressive course.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13But then he gives...
0:30:13 > 0:30:14We didn't meet Mrs Faust, did we?
0:30:14 > 0:30:17He doesn't show us an alternative.
0:30:17 > 0:30:19If we did lead a good life, what would happen?
0:30:19 > 0:30:22We only learn that, if you become very rich,
0:30:22 > 0:30:26you become rather selfish and...well, that's it.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29There's also this thing with this generation of the moment...
0:30:29 > 0:30:31Because this is very much born in the early '70s,
0:30:31 > 0:30:34so the generation becomes, "I'm going to talk about what it was like at school,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36"then about the moment I started raving,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40"then about that moment that I'm not sure what happened, because everybody started to become..."
0:30:40 > 0:30:44It seemed to hit really banal beats, without really amplifying
0:30:44 > 0:30:47some of those moments of the latter part of the 20th century.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51It just seemed to be ticking off subjects, rather than actually getting stuck in.
0:30:51 > 0:30:53OK. Well, The Ritual Slaughter Of Gorge Mastromas
0:30:53 > 0:30:57is running at the Royal Court in London until the 19th of October.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59Still to come tonight,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02the art of Bob Dylan at the National Portrait Gallery
0:31:02 > 0:31:04and the new comic novel from Jonathan Coe.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08Now, though, the first of two tracks from the Manic Street Preachers,
0:31:08 > 0:31:10whose new album is out tomorrow.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13Here's James Dean Bradfield and Gavin Fitzjohn
0:31:13 > 0:31:15with Show Me The Wonder.
0:31:22 > 0:31:24# This is no threat
0:31:25 > 0:31:27# Just an invitation
0:31:28 > 0:31:31# A sense of belonging
0:31:32 > 0:31:35# A sense of inspiration
0:31:36 > 0:31:38# Is heaven a place
0:31:40 > 0:31:42# Where nothing ever happens
0:31:42 > 0:31:46# Is it too much to ask
0:31:47 > 0:31:49# To disbelieve in everything
0:31:52 > 0:31:54# Show me the wonder
0:31:54 > 0:31:59# I have seen the birthplace of the universe
0:31:59 > 0:32:01# Show me the wonder
0:32:01 > 0:32:06# I have seen miracles move in reverse
0:32:11 > 0:32:13# If you're exiled
0:32:13 > 0:32:17# By all the cruel tongues
0:32:17 > 0:32:20# Then show me the wonder
0:32:22 > 0:32:24# The wonder of your love
0:32:26 > 0:32:28# A tapping pain of madness
0:32:29 > 0:32:32# Running through the veins
0:32:32 > 0:32:35# We may write in English
0:32:36 > 0:32:39# But our truth remains in Wales
0:32:42 > 0:32:44# Show me the wonder
0:32:44 > 0:32:48# I have seen the birthplace of the universe
0:32:50 > 0:32:51# Show me the wonder
0:32:51 > 0:32:56# I have seen miracles move in reverse
0:33:09 > 0:33:11# Praying for the silence
0:33:11 > 0:33:14# When we look into the mirror
0:33:15 > 0:33:18# Staying so patient
0:33:19 > 0:33:22# We measure the nostalgia
0:33:24 > 0:33:25# Is heaven a place
0:33:27 > 0:33:29# Where nothing ever happens
0:33:30 > 0:33:33# Is it too much to ask
0:33:34 > 0:33:37# To disbelieve in everything
0:33:40 > 0:33:41# Show me the wonder
0:33:41 > 0:33:46# I have seen the birthplace of the universe
0:33:47 > 0:33:48# Show me the wonder
0:33:48 > 0:33:54# I have seen miracles move in reverse
0:34:01 > 0:34:03# Show me the wonder
0:34:03 > 0:34:08# I have seen miracles move in reverse. #
0:34:29 > 0:34:33James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers with Show Me The Wonder.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36And there'll be another track from James at the end of tonight's how.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Now, did you know that Francis Bacon once asked Henry Moore
0:34:39 > 0:34:41for sculpture lessons?
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Just one of the revelations at a new exhibition in Oxford
0:34:44 > 0:34:47which highlights the shared influences and passions
0:34:47 > 0:34:50of two of the 20th century's best-known artists,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53who are traditionally seen as being poles apart.
0:34:53 > 0:34:58At first glance, these two giants of 20th-century art
0:34:58 > 0:35:00may seem to have little in common.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06One worked in paint, the other, in stone and bronze.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13While Moore gained renown for serene sculptures of the human form,
0:35:13 > 0:35:16Bacon's figures are often distorted and tormented.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21But a new exhibition finds fresh comparisons
0:35:21 > 0:35:24between the two great men, bringing their work together
0:35:24 > 0:35:26for the first time in 50 years.
0:35:28 > 0:35:30Both men's work was shaped
0:35:30 > 0:35:31by living through two world wars.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35Moore celebrated human stoicism
0:35:35 > 0:35:36through sketches in the mines...
0:35:38 > 0:35:40..while Bacon's art is twisted in torment.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45But by placing their work shoulder to shoulder,
0:35:45 > 0:35:47the exhibition shows a more monumental,
0:35:47 > 0:35:49sculptural side to his paintings
0:35:49 > 0:35:53and all the influences shared by the two men,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56from the classical world to Picasso.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02At the National Portrait Gallery,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05the work of another 20th-century colossus is on show
0:36:05 > 0:36:08in a major British museum for the first time.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11Bob Dylan has always pursued an interest in art
0:36:11 > 0:36:13alongside his music.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15Face Value is a set of 12 portraits
0:36:15 > 0:36:17of semi-fictional people.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31They have invented names
0:36:31 > 0:36:33and deliberately elusive titles.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37Abstract, sketchy portraits of people
0:36:37 > 0:36:39have long been at the heart of Dylan's songs,
0:36:39 > 0:36:42but he wouldn't thank you for comparing his music to his art,
0:36:42 > 0:36:44which he sees as entirely separate.
0:36:44 > 0:36:47Nevertheless, these works developed the idea
0:36:47 > 0:36:49that behind the many faces he encounters
0:36:49 > 0:36:51on his long musical journey,
0:36:51 > 0:36:53there lies a story.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01Well, let's begin with the Henry Moore and Francis Bacon exhibition.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05There's a great quote I found in the catalogue from Myfanwy Piper.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08She says, "Henry Moore never forgets the solidity of flesh upon the bone,
0:37:08 > 0:37:12"the strength of the bare bones beneath the flesh.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15"Bacon never forgets that flesh is meat."
0:37:15 > 0:37:19So there you have a summary of the differences between the men.
0:37:19 > 0:37:21But this exhibition was about their similarities. Yeah.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24And I was unconvinced other than they were chronologically...
0:37:24 > 0:37:26Obviously Moore's a little bit older. ..similar.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30But looking at Moore's drawings and the sense of motion
0:37:30 > 0:37:33and the three-dimensionality in Bacon
0:37:33 > 0:37:38and looking at Moore's drawings of the people sleeping in the shelter
0:37:38 > 0:37:40and the miners and bodies being acted upon,
0:37:40 > 0:37:44you are beginning to see great similarities.
0:37:44 > 0:37:49And they both have this difficulty with presenting the human face,
0:37:49 > 0:37:52because it became difficult in an age of war
0:37:52 > 0:37:56to bring that human-ness
0:37:56 > 0:37:59fully and protectedly there.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02And I think...there's this idea that Moore is terribly calming,
0:38:02 > 0:38:05and you sit next to the King and Queen, and it's all very nice.
0:38:05 > 0:38:07He's very disturbing too.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11The helmet with the figure inside, which was described as being maternal...
0:38:11 > 0:38:14A very scary mum if you think that.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17There's darkness in him too.
0:38:17 > 0:38:19It's coming from a place where,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22apart from anything else, literally coming back from World War I.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24Suddenly you could survive a traumatic facial injury.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29There were thousands of men wandering around who literally didn't have faces
0:38:29 > 0:38:31or didn't have the faces that they had.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34Moore was in the trenches,
0:38:34 > 0:38:37Bacon was an ARP during World War II.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41They were surrounded by these different pressures and forces
0:38:41 > 0:38:43working on the physicality of bodies.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46And they're both kind of expressing this...
0:38:46 > 0:38:47torment.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51And also, there's this kind of... There's an eroticism and a beauty.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53It's very complex, lovely, lovely stuff.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56It made me look at these two artists who we think we know
0:38:56 > 0:38:58in a very fresh way,
0:38:58 > 0:39:02particularly the sculptural nature of a lot of Francis Bacon's paintings.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05Absolutely. It is interesting, that idea that he supposedly asked
0:39:05 > 0:39:09Henry Moore, indirectly.
0:39:09 > 0:39:10But then what's funny,
0:39:10 > 0:39:13when you think of a 3D version of Francis Bacon,
0:39:13 > 0:39:15you do get basically the monsters from Alien,
0:39:15 > 0:39:19so it's possibly better that he didn't go there, that he stayed where he was.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24I like the exhibition as a sort of element of the politics of artistic reputation as well.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27In the end, let's face it, they've put one against the other.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31Going in, you'd think, "Is it the Beatles versus the Velvet Underground?"
0:39:31 > 0:39:34Henry Moore, the familiar, friendly face of Modernism,
0:39:34 > 0:39:39versus Bacon, which has got this more distorted sort of cerebral, aggressive...
0:39:39 > 0:39:42He's got the intellectual mystique that Moore doesn't have,
0:39:42 > 0:39:45and so it was interesting for me to see the parallels that come.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48And for me, Moore starts to elevate slightly.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52You suddenly start to see a weird rigidity about Francis Bacon that surprises you.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54After a while, it becomes more...
0:39:54 > 0:39:57You think, "Oh, my God, it's a little bit of gimmickry",
0:39:57 > 0:39:58and suddenly you're becoming...for me,
0:39:58 > 0:40:01there's some things about Henry Moore you've not noticed before,
0:40:01 > 0:40:05because you've dismissed him slightly as being a bit more Elton John to...
0:40:05 > 0:40:08I've changed it now. Elton John to Bacon's Ornette Coleman.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10But I like that side of it as well.
0:40:10 > 0:40:15It's always a controversial thing to do, to pit one against the other.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17But for me it was something I really enjoyed exploring.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21And the shared influences, from the classical world
0:40:21 > 0:40:26in Bacon's Eumenides that we saw in the little film there,
0:40:26 > 0:40:30Christianity, even though both men were atheists,
0:40:30 > 0:40:32Michelangelo, and so on.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35Yes, well, one learned that Francis Bacon
0:40:35 > 0:40:38spent most of his life living within walking distance
0:40:38 > 0:40:39of the British Museum
0:40:39 > 0:40:41and would regularly go and admire the sculptures.
0:40:41 > 0:40:46What's fascinating is that he was familiar with all these beautiful works of art
0:40:46 > 0:40:51and his response to them all was really to mash them up and deconstruct them
0:40:51 > 0:40:53and make them all ugly.
0:40:53 > 0:40:54You think of the work he's most famous for -
0:40:54 > 0:40:57the screaming Popes.
0:40:57 > 0:40:58So Velazquez was a pretty good artist.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02And what is Bacon's contribution to art?
0:41:02 > 0:41:04He sort of makes it a bit ugly and messy.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07Like Paul, I came away from the show
0:41:07 > 0:41:11feeling much warmer towards Henry Moore than I had hitherto
0:41:11 > 0:41:15and really kind of unimpressed with Francis Bacon.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20It was interesting to see that even at his peak in the '60s,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23Brian Robertson, who was a great critic,
0:41:23 > 0:41:26was pointing out that actually he's pretty...
0:41:26 > 0:41:29It's as much about his life as his art.
0:41:29 > 0:41:33It's as much about Bacon pissing his life away in the Colony Rooms
0:41:33 > 0:41:35and being this kind of angry man
0:41:35 > 0:41:36as he is a painter.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39And I'm not sure he amounts to much more than that.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42I think he's more of a sort of a rock star figure than a really great artist. Alison?
0:41:42 > 0:41:45Well, that's a bit harsh! I think he was quite good, in his way.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49Better than me. And that triptych, those enormous...
0:41:49 > 0:41:53That amazing, blazing, kind of boiling dark, complicated triptych
0:41:53 > 0:41:56of the three figures at the base of the cross.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58That is extraordinary.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01I love his paintings. I don't think they're just ugly.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03They have all kinds of emotions going through them.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05I know people were... Not joy.
0:42:05 > 0:42:07Not necessarily joy. Not beauty either.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10But they had the beauty of some kind of passion.
0:42:10 > 0:42:15I would not, as some people did, volunteer to have my portrait painted by him necessarily,
0:42:15 > 0:42:20but I think they both came across as very thoughtful, skilled...
0:42:20 > 0:42:24I think it's also interesting seeing the source material.
0:42:24 > 0:42:29They begin... It's Picasso, it's Surrealism, it's non-Western tribal art,
0:42:29 > 0:42:31and what they both did with it.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34And I also enjoyed that element of putting the two together -
0:42:34 > 0:42:37how two different frames of thinking
0:42:37 > 0:42:38came up with a different approach.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40You've got the country squire, Henry Moore,
0:42:40 > 0:42:44and you've got the slightly sleazy, sordid myth of Francis Bacon.
0:42:44 > 0:42:50And putting the two together and seeing how they arrived at different ways of expressing that,
0:42:50 > 0:42:52their influences and also their environment.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55And you've actually got the Rodins there, so you can see...
0:42:55 > 0:42:56And the Michelangelos.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59And the Moore crucifixion...
0:42:59 > 0:43:02That amazing drawing with this kind of strange figure
0:43:02 > 0:43:04drooping and sloping.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07What I love sometimes is if you look through a Henry Moore hole,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10as often one is going to do... Steady!
0:43:10 > 0:43:13..and you suddenly see a Francis Bacon William Blake death mask,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16then, oddly, out of these differences,
0:43:16 > 0:43:18you saw the similarity.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23Well, we've obviously been talking about two men who have an incredible international reputation
0:43:23 > 0:43:28for their art. We'll move on now to a man whose reputation across the world is for his music,
0:43:28 > 0:43:33but has just started to have an exhibition in London for his art,
0:43:33 > 0:43:34and that's Bob Dylan.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37Lots of musicians have an art school background, don't they?
0:43:37 > 0:43:41David Bowie, Bryan Ferry. You could probably name a lot more.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44What do you think about Dylan's work?
0:43:44 > 0:43:48Some of those musicians, certainly in Britain in the '60s and '70s,
0:43:48 > 0:43:52basically instead of using paint and bronze and clay,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54used music to represent their art.
0:43:54 > 0:43:55And they were artists.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58And sometimes used the fact they can paint
0:43:58 > 0:44:02to suggest they had more artistic quality than maybe they might otherwise have.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04But Dylan just is an artist.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07What I love about this particular exhibition - it's very modest,
0:44:07 > 0:44:10it's very small, it's just 12 paintings on three walls,
0:44:10 > 0:44:14is that it gives you a little insight into the way his mind works.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17And therefore gives you a little insight into how his songs work,
0:44:17 > 0:44:20and what an extraordinary artist he is.
0:44:20 > 0:44:25An artist whether he uses what he's using here
0:44:25 > 0:44:26or music.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29What I love about this as well is that it's 12.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31So it's like an album - there's 12 pieces.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35And it's also very interesting to look at the cover of the self-portrait...
0:44:35 > 0:44:41Another self-portrait that's just been released - the tenth in the series of his bootleg records.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44And there's a picture on that that's supposedly of him,
0:44:44 > 0:44:48that also suggests that all of these are actually him.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52I was going round trying to work out who was who
0:44:52 > 0:44:53in their disguised identities.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56Yeah, you sort of look at the angry woman and you think,
0:44:56 > 0:44:59I wonder whether he came on to her and she turned him down?
0:44:59 > 0:45:02And is that person a gangster, perhaps?
0:45:02 > 0:45:04But that's as far as it goes.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08I think Paul was characteristically generous towards the show.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11When I went to see it, people were sort of
0:45:11 > 0:45:13half-heartedly wandering around,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15going, "Oh, Bob Dylan? Yeah, right, off we go."
0:45:15 > 0:45:18It's...don't give up the day job time, I think.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21Alison, do you think he should be at the National Portrait Gallery?
0:45:21 > 0:45:23Er...it gets people through the door.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26The woman on the desk... I said, "Where's the Bob Dylan...?"
0:45:26 > 0:45:30and she gave me that look of, "Right, you've just come for the Bob Dylan,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33"but you might see some other things you might like."
0:45:33 > 0:45:34"Down there and round the corner."
0:45:34 > 0:45:37And I kind of get it from the gallery's point of view.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40He's got so many dense layers of skill and characterisation
0:45:40 > 0:45:44which he can express in music, and he can't do the same in art.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47Also, you must remember it's not necessarily Bob Dylan
0:45:47 > 0:45:50that's demanded on his bended knees that the National Portrait Gallery put this on.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54It's been put on for various reasons to do with the National Portrait Gallery.
0:45:54 > 0:45:55Having arrived, rather weirdly,
0:45:55 > 0:45:59past the picture of Anna Wintour in the foyer, which I thought was strange...
0:45:59 > 0:46:01and past a picture of the Queen,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05and you get to these... I think they are fabulous...
0:46:05 > 0:46:09We're not going to wander round all the corridors! I could do that for you if you want!
0:46:09 > 0:46:11Another night.
0:46:11 > 0:46:13Both of the exhibitions we've been talking about -
0:46:13 > 0:46:17Flesh and Bone and Face Value - are running until January.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20Jonathan Coe has won critical acclaim
0:46:20 > 0:46:24and bestseller success for his satires on British life in the recent past.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27Think of The Rotters' Club and What A Carve Up!
0:46:27 > 0:46:32For his latest book, Coe's gone back to the buttoned-up Britain of the late 1950s
0:46:32 > 0:46:36for a tale of espionage and intrigue at the heart of Europe.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42A wife, a baby, a house in Tooting and a steady job
0:46:42 > 0:46:44at the Central Office of Information.
0:46:44 > 0:46:45It's 1958,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48and Thomas Foley is plodding through a humdrum middle-class life.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52But out of the blue, an unexpected assignment
0:46:52 > 0:46:54thrusts him into a brave new world.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Hosted by Belgium, Expo '58
0:46:59 > 0:47:03was the first international world fair after the Second World War
0:47:03 > 0:47:07and was an extravagant exercise in shiny, futuristic design
0:47:07 > 0:47:10and international one-upmanship.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12Thomas is sent there to look after British interests.
0:47:12 > 0:47:17"Here, for the next six months, would be thrown together all the nations
0:47:17 > 0:47:20"whose complex relationships, whose conflicts and alliances,
0:47:20 > 0:47:27"whose fraught, tangled histories had shaped, and would continue to shape, the destiny of mankind."
0:47:29 > 0:47:33Thomas is a quiet, diligent civil servant.
0:47:33 > 0:47:36There are two things which attract the attention of his superiors -
0:47:36 > 0:47:40his mother is Belgian and his father used to run a pub.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44As soon as they realise that they have to organise a fake British pub in Belgium,
0:47:44 > 0:47:46they call upon him.
0:47:46 > 0:47:51So he gets catapulted into a completely unreal and unfamiliar,
0:47:51 > 0:47:54multinational, multilingual world.
0:47:55 > 0:48:01If you really want to observe the British acting as they truly do,
0:48:01 > 0:48:05then you take them out of their element. You plop them in a foreign locale
0:48:05 > 0:48:08and suddenly, all their Britishness is kind of magnified tenfold.
0:48:16 > 0:48:18Defining Britishness
0:48:18 > 0:48:22is a perennially challenging, if not impossible, task.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26I thought it might be, among other things,
0:48:26 > 0:48:29a kind of interesting contribution to that debate to rewind 50 years.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34"What did it mean to be British in 1958?
0:48:34 > 0:48:36"Nobody seemed to know.
0:48:37 > 0:48:39"Britain was steeped in tradition.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41"Everybody agreed upon that.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44"Its traditions, its pageantry, its ceremony
0:48:44 > 0:48:46"were admired and envied all over the world.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50"At the same time, it was mired in the past,
0:48:50 > 0:48:51"scared of innovation,
0:48:51 > 0:48:54"riddled with archaic class distinctions,
0:48:54 > 0:48:58"in thrall to a secretive and untouchable establishment.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01"Which way were you supposed to look when defining Britishness -
0:49:01 > 0:49:04"forwards or backwards?"
0:49:07 > 0:49:12Well, Jonathan Coe, a Birmingham writer, so let's turn to our resident Brummie first here!
0:49:12 > 0:49:18Now this idea of Expo '58, it is an extraordinary microcosm of the geo-political tensions
0:49:18 > 0:49:21at that time in the aftermath of the Second World War.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23Does he make the most of this?
0:49:23 > 0:49:25Well, it's a good setting, I agree.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28You get an excuse to wheel on Russian spies
0:49:28 > 0:49:31and American spies and all sorts of...
0:49:31 > 0:49:33Yeah.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37You get the chance to see a Brit abroad in a weird context,
0:49:37 > 0:49:41but I found it a disappointingly slight book in the end.
0:49:41 > 0:49:42My problem with Jonathan Coe...
0:49:42 > 0:49:45and I had the same problem with What A Carve Up!
0:49:45 > 0:49:47I know a lot of people really rate it.
0:49:47 > 0:49:50It's the uncertainty of tone.
0:49:50 > 0:49:54One's never sure whether he's caricaturing his subject
0:49:54 > 0:49:58or whether he's giving you a sort of lovingly realised portrait
0:49:58 > 0:50:00of a particular era.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03There's an excruciating scene quite early on
0:50:03 > 0:50:06where the husband and wife...
0:50:06 > 0:50:09The husband is about to go off to Belgium.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12And the next-door neighbour comes into the kitchen
0:50:12 > 0:50:16and starts making the most leering innuendo to the wife.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19Now, it might just about work in a Carry On movie,
0:50:19 > 0:50:22but it doesn't work in a portrait of that period.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24People were quite subtle in the 1950s.
0:50:24 > 0:50:26They weren't these vulgar caricatures.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28Is this a form of pastiche?
0:50:28 > 0:50:32One of the blubs talked about the book being "Hitchcock meets Ealing comedy".
0:50:32 > 0:50:36I gave it huge benefit... No, I gave it the benefit of the doubt,
0:50:36 > 0:50:42as a kind of found object, the kind of book you might find in the late 1950s - a minor novel.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44A slight novel.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47So therefore, everything about it, I truly enjoyed.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49There were certain things you couldn't do,
0:50:49 > 0:50:53because you couldn't apply now-knowingness to that period,
0:50:53 > 0:50:55because it would have burst that bubble.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59So in the end, I kind of enjoyed the idea that what he'd done,
0:50:59 > 0:51:06the great craft, was really to write a...modest late-1950s novel
0:51:06 > 0:51:08about the late-1950s,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12with a sense that it's written now, but it's not actually, so he doesn't burst any bubbles.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16And it gives us a sense of something that's on the precipice of happening.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18And I enjoyed all that - that rock n roll is about to happen,
0:51:18 > 0:51:22that pop culture's about to happen, that a different thing is about to happen.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26So I ended up enjoying it, because I viewed it as a rather wonderful found object.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29The last ebbing of a kind of innocence, I suppose.
0:51:29 > 0:51:30Yeah, um...
0:51:30 > 0:51:34No, I just... He's a lovely guy.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36He's a nice person. I wanted to like it!
0:51:36 > 0:51:38It's a great setting,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41lots of good ideas. It is a very interesting time.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44The trouble is, if you're setting it in that period,
0:51:44 > 0:51:47you're always going to be up against Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis
0:51:47 > 0:51:49and Graham Greene, in some of the territory.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52And it's not any of those things.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55It's not Hitchcockian. That's what's on the back of the book.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57It's not Carry On.
0:51:57 > 0:51:59The funny...
0:51:59 > 0:52:00You know, doesn't really work for me.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04You seem quite engaged by the espionage idea and the two spies.
0:52:04 > 0:52:09The spies are versions of Thomson and Thompson from Tintin.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14There's one extraordinary scene where he's about to get off with this rather attractive Belgian bird
0:52:14 > 0:52:16and it's raining,
0:52:16 > 0:52:20and they need an umbrella. Suddenly, from behind...from nowhere,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24appears this umbrella, which is being held by the Thomson and Thompson detectives.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27It's... I'm not saying it was a horrible read, because it wasn't.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29I'm with Paul on that one.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31It was enjoyable, but...
0:52:31 > 0:52:34it does unsettle you, this changing of tone.
0:52:34 > 0:52:35Where are you?
0:52:35 > 0:52:38The fact that Delingpole can use the word "bird"
0:52:38 > 0:52:42suggests that actually Jonathan has achieved everything he needed to do!
0:52:42 > 0:52:44Because he's created a weird period piece.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47Without somehow it being infected by...
0:52:47 > 0:52:51the knowingness he obviously has.
0:52:51 > 0:52:53I'm giving him the huge benefit of the doubt.
0:52:53 > 0:52:57I think he knows enough to know everything within it that people are criticising
0:52:57 > 0:53:02for being a laziness or a weakness is in fact part of the point of the book.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06You described it as a slight book, but his ambition, as we heard, for the novel,
0:53:06 > 0:53:11is much more than that, because it's about British identity, isn't it?
0:53:11 > 0:53:13Through the ludicrous...
0:53:13 > 0:53:16Nothing's changed, really.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20And he does make that point, and then that's the only point that he makes.
0:53:20 > 0:53:23And lots of people were much better at Brits being abroad
0:53:23 > 0:53:27and Britishness really being about a particular area of England,
0:53:27 > 0:53:29and a particular set of values.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32Yeah, that's there, but he's not really running with it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35I began to wonder - he's got a lot of support from Belgium -
0:53:35 > 0:53:37if he's actually, like many of us,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40mainly our income now is coming from Europe,
0:53:40 > 0:53:44if he's almost speaking to Europe, because that is sort of a European idea of us.
0:53:44 > 0:53:49I like that idea that in many ways - for what he is setting up is about to happen,
0:53:49 > 0:53:50like the Beatles, like rock n roll -
0:53:50 > 0:53:53that idea of what it is to be English or British,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57not a lot has changed since the late 1950s.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59With everything that has happened and happened since,
0:53:59 > 0:54:05many things that were about the way we represented ourselves in the late 1950s in Belgium
0:54:05 > 0:54:06would pretty much be the same now.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09Which would be great if he talked....
0:54:09 > 0:54:12We're examining our own national identity when the Russians
0:54:12 > 0:54:15are apparently calling us a small island that nobody cares about!
0:54:15 > 0:54:17They must have read this book!
0:54:17 > 0:54:20There's one line where one of the characters says,
0:54:20 > 0:54:22"We like our imperial past, we Brits."
0:54:22 > 0:54:24That's not very good...that's a bit obvious, isn't it?
0:54:24 > 0:54:27And a lot of the dramatic reveal is at the end,
0:54:27 > 0:54:30when it doesn't matter and everybody's dead and you won't...
0:54:30 > 0:54:33You know what? I really like the last four pages as well,
0:54:33 > 0:54:35when he sped through. I thought that was really great.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38I liked that a lot, when he brought everything up to date. Fantastic!
0:54:38 > 0:54:40They should all do that, shouldn't they?
0:54:40 > 0:54:43The Russians can talk about us being a small nation.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47You had a lovely thread about melancholy and the past and the future and how you relate to it,
0:54:47 > 0:54:49but again, it wasn't quite...
0:54:49 > 0:54:52It's a better book than you think. I just wanted it all to hang together and fire,
0:54:52 > 0:54:55and it seemed to be about four different books.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57What I did applaud - and this is SO superficial -
0:54:57 > 0:55:02but that it was attempting to be funny, in a world where the novel...
0:55:02 > 0:55:07I know it's a chilling phrase "the comic novel",
0:55:07 > 0:55:10but he is ploughing kind of a lonely furrow here.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12It's things like the gay Belgium joke.
0:55:12 > 0:55:17You can have the gay Belgium joke, It's a bit of a weird push of a translation of "Belgique joyeuse",
0:55:17 > 0:55:20but OK, it's not happy Belgium, it's not joyous Belgium or merry Belgium -
0:55:20 > 0:55:22we'll make it gay.
0:55:22 > 0:55:23You don't do that joke three times.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26There's one place where it works and then you move on.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29I think he's a good writer, but he tries too hard. OK.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33Well, gay Belgium and the Thompson twins from Tintin
0:55:33 > 0:55:35are both in Expo '58, which is out now.
0:55:35 > 0:55:37That's almost it for this month's show.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39There's more on all the items
0:55:39 > 0:55:40we've been discussing on our website.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42Thanks very much to my guests, AL Kennedy,
0:55:42 > 0:55:45James Delingpole and Paul Morley.
0:55:45 > 0:55:47Kirsty will be back next month
0:55:47 > 0:55:50with a special show looking at the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize,
0:55:50 > 0:55:52which was announced earlier this week.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54I have to say, all brilliant choices,
0:55:54 > 0:55:56but then I was one of the judges.
0:55:56 > 0:55:57To play us out tonight,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00another track from the brand-new Manic Street Preachers album.
0:56:00 > 0:56:05This is James Dean Bradfield and guest vocalist Cate Le Bon with Four Lonely Roads.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07Good night.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11# Four lonely roads
0:56:11 > 0:56:13# The terror it had flown
0:56:13 > 0:56:16# Never led you home
0:56:19 > 0:56:21# Four lonely roads
0:56:21 > 0:56:24# Got sunk into my heart
0:56:24 > 0:56:27# Then it fell apart
0:56:29 > 0:56:34# Staring with an idle eye
0:56:34 > 0:56:40# Measuring the pain inside
0:56:40 > 0:56:45# Darker hell stood up on high
0:56:47 > 0:56:51# Then disappeared without reply
0:56:58 > 0:57:02# Four lonely roads
0:57:02 > 0:57:04# I'm trapped inside this skin
0:57:04 > 0:57:06# Can't let love back in
0:57:09 > 0:57:12# Four lonely roads
0:57:12 > 0:57:14# The cities drunk and mute
0:57:14 > 0:57:17# Lost in your pursuit
0:57:19 > 0:57:25# Staring with an idle eye
0:57:25 > 0:57:30# Measuring the pain inside
0:57:31 > 0:57:35# Darker hell stood up on high
0:57:37 > 0:57:41# Then disappeared without reply
0:57:41 > 0:57:44# I don't know why
0:58:09 > 0:58:14# And if we can, then we must
0:58:14 > 0:58:19# Hold our heads up, learn to trust
0:58:19 > 0:58:25# It's up to you, it's up to us
0:58:25 > 0:58:30# Some dignity, a little love
0:58:30 > 0:58:34# A little love. #
0:58:34 > 0:58:37Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd