0:00:02 > 0:00:04On The Review Show this month,
0:00:04 > 0:00:06sex, lies and greed on the big screen,
0:00:06 > 0:00:09the mother of all art exhibitions,
0:00:09 > 0:00:13gender politics on stage, and on television,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16a descent into madness in a debut novel,
0:00:16 > 0:00:20and chilled out music from Iceland's Asgeir.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26Hello and welcome to The Review Show where tonight
0:00:26 > 0:00:29we will discuss the first major retrospective
0:00:29 > 0:00:30of artist Martin Creed,
0:00:30 > 0:00:33feminist theatrical production Blurred Lines,
0:00:33 > 0:00:35and a new HBO drama about the lives
0:00:35 > 0:00:38of gay men in San Francisco - Looking.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41Joining me to roam free over all this are author Denise Mina,
0:00:41 > 0:00:43playwright Mark Ravenhill
0:00:43 > 0:00:47and our critical kingpin, writer Paul Morley.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51We start with two films battling it out for glory in the awards season,
0:00:51 > 0:00:53though not against other.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56Both feature a spectacular fall from grace,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58one from the dizzying heights of Wall Street,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00and the other from a bicycle.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Lance Armstrong was the man who had beaten advanced cancer
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and gone on to win the Tour de France
0:01:08 > 0:01:11a record-breaking seven consecutive times.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14Despite worldwide adoration, his career was beset with
0:01:14 > 0:01:18accusations of doping, a claim he denied with nothing short
0:01:18 > 0:01:22of ferocity and threats of legal action.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24Emphatically say I'm not on drugs.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26How many times I do I have to say it?
0:01:26 > 0:01:27Enter Alex Gibney,
0:01:27 > 0:01:31an Oscar-winning documentary film-maker known for his exploration
0:01:31 > 0:01:33of the dark side of powerful figures.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37This time he was about to make a feel-good comeback story
0:01:37 > 0:01:42about the power of sport, gaining unprecedented access to Armstrong
0:01:42 > 0:01:43and his entourage.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48The film was all but finished when in January last year, Armstrong
0:01:48 > 0:01:51finally came out from behind the biggest lie in sport.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56I certainly was very confident I would never be caught.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01Sitting on what was now an essentially unusable documentary,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04Gibney recut the film, putting himself in the story.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07When the truth came out, I told him he owed me an explanation.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10He agreed to sit down one more time.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14The film is an autopsy of a lie, hidden in plain sight.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18When everyone cheats, it becomes hugely distorted.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21It becomes a different contest, of who has the best doctor,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25who has the most money, who has the biggest risk tolerance,
0:02:25 > 0:02:30and the guy, who was that guy for this era? It was Lance.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32My name is Jordan Belfort.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37At the tender age of 22, I headed for the place that fitted my ambitions.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40The name of the game. Move the money from your client's pocket
0:02:40 > 0:02:43- into your pocket.- If you can make a client's money at the same time,
0:02:43 > 0:02:46- it's advantageous to everyone. Correct?- No.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49A lighter approach to the demise of the deceitful can be
0:02:49 > 0:02:51found in The Wolf Of Wall Street -
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Scorsese and DiCaprio's fifth collaboration.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59DiCaprio plays real life stock swindler Jordan Belfort, whose
0:02:59 > 0:03:01hedonistic memoirs inspired the actor
0:03:01 > 0:03:05to commit this scandalous story to celluloid.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09What was so refreshing about the way he wrote this novel
0:03:09 > 0:03:14was his absolute candid honesty about every,
0:03:14 > 0:03:19every tumultuous radical endeavour that he went through.
0:03:19 > 0:03:26- 30,000 dollars in one month, Jordy? - They're business expenses.
0:03:26 > 0:03:32- Look at this, 26,000 dollars for one dinner.- No, this can be explained.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34Dad, we had clients...
0:03:34 > 0:03:37- The porterhouse from Argentina. - Expensive champagne,
0:03:37 > 0:03:39we had to buy champagne.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44- Tell them about the sides. - 26,000 dollars' worth of sides?
0:03:44 > 0:03:47What are they? Do they cure cancer?
0:03:47 > 0:03:50The movie has been on the end of some harsh criticism,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53claims it glamorises what it is deemed to be
0:03:53 > 0:03:58a morally repugnant era - the worst excesses of western capitalism.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01Scorsese has defended the portrayal.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05Why bother telling a story of someone who is unremarkable?
0:04:05 > 0:04:08He thought he could bypass morality, with a combination of money
0:04:08 > 0:04:14and drugs, in actuality I feel it is us, you and me...
0:04:15 > 0:04:18..and maybe if we had been born under different circumstances,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22maybe we would...maybe we would have wound up making the same
0:04:22 > 0:04:26mistakes and choices, and doing exactly the same things.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29I am good with water for now. Thank you.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31It's his first day on Wall Street. Give him time.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37Paul, we have had Wall Street's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41We have had Lehman Brothers. Is this something different?
0:04:41 > 0:04:46It is not a great Martin Scorsese, it is Leonardo DiCaprio in a way
0:04:46 > 0:04:50on an ego trip to portray something he wants to portray.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52It is an actor's movie, look how great I am.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58It's repulsively entertaining, there is no doubt about it,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00but there's something about it, not just because Joanna Lumley
0:05:00 > 0:05:04turns up, that makes it seem like he is doing Absolutely Fabulous.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08It's a grotesque farce and in that sense, it's entertaining
0:05:08 > 0:05:12but you have to work out - is this a comment on the times? -
0:05:12 > 0:05:15as Scorsese is implying, although I think he is
0:05:15 > 0:05:19out of his depth, is it a comment on the times or part of the times?
0:05:19 > 0:05:23This indulgent way of, you know, entertaining people.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28- Three hours of it.- The only thing is the fact it is three hours long.
0:05:28 > 0:05:32Apart from that, you wouldn't know it was Scorsese as such,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35it is like a parody, it is Scorsese on Scorsese.
0:05:35 > 0:05:42What worried me the most is ultimately it is itself what
0:05:42 > 0:05:45is wrong with the times, the fact we are being entertained by this
0:05:45 > 0:05:49- kind of grotesque parody rather than it being a comment.- Denise?
0:05:49 > 0:05:52I have read autobiographies by guys who worked on Wall Street
0:05:52 > 0:05:55and went into rehab and found they didn't have any money.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57That's what the story is.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01I think it's like Goodfellas, there are pieces to camera
0:06:01 > 0:06:05and interacting with the audience and that kind of thing,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09I found it really convincing as a film.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12I kept thinking of it as a religious revival.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16At the beginning, he says I had this money greed,
0:06:16 > 0:06:18this frenzy for money right from the very beginning
0:06:18 > 0:06:20so whenever you saw the room...
0:06:20 > 0:06:23So it doesn't need a moral current?
0:06:23 > 0:06:25I think we've had the moral stories.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29These characters have watched Wall Street and read American Psycho
0:06:29 > 0:06:31and read Bonfire Of The Vanities, and they know it...
0:06:31 > 0:06:34And they even say "masters of the universe" in the film.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37- So we can sort of go on the same ride with them.- It's a caper?
0:06:37 > 0:06:41In many ways, it is and there are moments of physical comedy.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45The moment he takes too many drugs...
0:06:45 > 0:06:48there's almost a Buster Keaton element.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50That was what was Absolutely Fabulous for me, that bit.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54The Jennifer Saunders physical comedy. But it does have fantastic
0:06:54 > 0:06:58moments of rhetoric. Leonardo DiCaprio convinces you he could
0:06:58 > 0:07:02convince people to buy these worthless stocks. His speeches to
0:07:02 > 0:07:06his company are great Shakespearean moments of rhetoric, so I think
0:07:06 > 0:07:12as a part for an actor, from that physical comedy to high drama,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15it is a very alluring character.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17I was held for three hours by DiCaprio.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20It's his movie, not a Scorsese movie.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23DiCaprio and Brad Pitt went after it.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26DiCaprio wanted to play this part.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29It is like they are given a gift.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31Here is a gift for DiCaprio to be this character.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35Once upon a time, it would have been rock 'n' roll. Now it's this.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39That is one of the things that strikes you, these people
0:07:39 > 0:07:43are living the lifestyle in the '70s we would expect a rock star to have.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47Why do they have to be so explicit about expressing that
0:07:47 > 0:07:49in such a vulgar way?
0:07:49 > 0:07:52Isn't there a better way rather than positioning the women
0:07:52 > 0:07:56- in such a way...?- Isn't there a problem with you go along with it,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00this is a virtuoso performance from DiCaprio, then there is
0:08:00 > 0:08:05a horrific moment I shouted out at when he punches his wife in the
0:08:05 > 0:08:08stomach, suddenly the film, I am not sure...
0:08:08 > 0:08:13- There is a lot of orgy action. - A lot.- You never see a man's bits.
0:08:13 > 0:08:20- You do see one, when he is off his face.- I must have blinked.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24- You see the Ferraris. - The women are unclothed.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28- Always objectified. - That is what I don't understand.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30If Scorsese is making this movie he says he is,
0:08:30 > 0:08:31I can't believe there is not
0:08:31 > 0:08:35a better way or a more sophisticated way of representing that,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37than just giving us the soft porn.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41I think we know that it is not a good idea to take that many drugs,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45we know it is a terrible thing to rip those people off, we know...
0:08:45 > 0:08:47we know if you only think of women as pussy,
0:08:47 > 0:08:50as the men do in this film, it is going to end badly.
0:08:50 > 0:08:55There is a generation now that... This is the real thing.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58That is why I think Scorsese has been hoodwinked into giving it,
0:08:58 > 0:09:00because he could do it...
0:09:00 > 0:09:02I think he is getting off on it a bit.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06If you see screenings of this near Wall Street,
0:09:06 > 0:09:10people are shouting and screaming, and these masters of the universe
0:09:10 > 0:09:12are there, maybe a bit younger, fitter.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16I think the DiCaprio character makes one point,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20when he is caught on his boat. He says I am the little guy.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24I am the outsider, dealing with these terrible penny stocks,
0:09:24 > 0:09:27there are much bigger villains to go after.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31And that is a moment where you sort of have a moment to reflect
0:09:31 > 0:09:32and think, "He is terrible,
0:09:32 > 0:09:35"but maybe he is not as terrible as the really big guys."
0:09:35 > 0:09:38I still think these moments are overwhelmed by the explicit
0:09:38 > 0:09:41nature of the way it is sold as entertainment -
0:09:41 > 0:09:43to get our rocks off.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45We are into Oscar season,
0:09:45 > 0:09:48how many films are based on real life stories?
0:09:48 > 0:09:5112 Years A Slave, American Hustle.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54The Butler, Mandela, this, what do you think the chances are for this -
0:09:54 > 0:09:57Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor...?
0:09:57 > 0:10:00These prizes, they are political and Scorsese is now,
0:10:00 > 0:10:04you know, prize giveable, so, and in particular, I think
0:10:04 > 0:10:06DiCaprio's performance...
0:10:06 > 0:10:08It is about the hype.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12The idea this movie is what it is, when, in fact, it isn't.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16For some award ceremonies, it has gone under the comedy category
0:10:16 > 0:10:20because it does sort of sit between genres, it is more honest.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24It is not a great film, but it is enjoyable as a comedy.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27If it was on HBO, it would have been like Ab Fab.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31One film that is not played as a comedy is The Armstrong Lie.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34What do you think of the relationship between
0:10:34 > 0:10:36Alex Gibney and Lance Armstrong?
0:10:36 > 0:10:39I think Gibney is honest, that is what is fascinating about how
0:10:39 > 0:10:43conflicted his attitude to Lance Armstrong is. I think
0:10:43 > 0:10:48even when he discovers the lie, all the way into making the documentary,
0:10:48 > 0:10:53he himself realises that he has a very interesting story now to tell,
0:10:53 > 0:10:56so he resents Armstrong telling him the lie
0:10:56 > 0:10:59but as a film-maker he knows he has a great story to tell,
0:10:59 > 0:11:04at the same point Armstrong realises maybe this narrative, maybe this
0:11:04 > 0:11:08redemption narrative of going on to Oprah and confessing, which has
0:11:08 > 0:11:10saved politicians and celebrities before,
0:11:10 > 0:11:15Armstrong doesn't get what he wants, the Oprah thing doesn't go as great
0:11:15 > 0:11:19as he thought, and Gibney ends up with this film which has got
0:11:19 > 0:11:21a conflicted relationship to Armstrong
0:11:21 > 0:11:24- but I thought that made it a richer film.- Paul.
0:11:24 > 0:11:30I felt the DiCaprio and this, the heroes are reality TV.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32These are reality TV stories.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35I felt this about Armstrong, he was like...
0:11:35 > 0:11:39this in a way was a Big Brother story, a bachelor story, that was our
0:11:39 > 0:11:41fascination with him, it was like...
0:11:41 > 0:11:44it is a weird thing that has happened,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48that we're now fascinated by villains and anti-heroes
0:11:48 > 0:11:52as if they are living reality television, rather than reality.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Do you think that Gibney sold us a pup in a way because
0:11:55 > 0:11:59after the Oprah interview he said, "This was the Oprah interview,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01"now you will get the true story"?
0:12:01 > 0:12:03In a way, I felt there was a slight...
0:12:03 > 0:12:07still a kind of being slightly in thrall to him.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10- A bromance.- I think you are right.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14What Armstrong did all the way through was control the narrative.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17He gave a simplistic narrative, cancer survivor,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20went on to win and the tension between him and Gibney was
0:12:20 > 0:12:24about who controlled the narrative, and I felt that Armstrong won.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Because you get this version,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30and then he touches on the fact he ruined lives.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Yes, I think Gibney pulled his punches on that and was off mic.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Here was the director making the big interview
0:12:36 > 0:12:38and didn't mic himself properly.
0:12:38 > 0:12:42You never get the completed interview, post-Oprah
0:12:42 > 0:12:46and it is a funny thing, Armstrong controls the movie,
0:12:46 > 0:12:50but it is Gibney's movie. He is not doing it very well.
0:12:50 > 0:12:51He's so overwhelming.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54Armstrong is the one controlling reality.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57It was... it was just sort of dissatisfaction,
0:12:57 > 0:13:01it didn't have a neat ending that felt real to me.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05I thought one of the abiding feelings I took away was what a grim
0:13:05 > 0:13:08world all these characters lived in.
0:13:08 > 0:13:09Nobody said, "I love cycling,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11"it gives me a thrill to see the crowds,"
0:13:11 > 0:13:15nobody expressed joy, it was relentless training
0:13:15 > 0:13:17and this compromise.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21It never expanded into the world where what actually happens in sport,
0:13:21 > 0:13:25where 99% of those are taking drugs, it didn't really expand
0:13:25 > 0:13:27and become sophisticated.
0:13:27 > 0:13:32When they were swapping blood to get the more red blood cells,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35they stopped a van and changed the blood.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38I wanted to pick up on something you said which was
0:13:38 > 0:13:40he was controlling the narrative.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43But wasn't he always, what you saw from that film,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47controlling other people round him? The way he treated people,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51the way he treated Betsy and he won't admit what he did in the room.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56And his ex-team-mate he had fallen out with and betrayed,
0:13:56 > 0:14:01but when he was going to give interviews, he gave them to that
0:14:01 > 0:14:04team-mate who was a TV presenter,
0:14:04 > 0:14:06pulling him in, controlling the narrative.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09The strange thing about Armstrong is he has this incredible power,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12he is scary and yet he is a dull man,
0:14:12 > 0:14:14there is something banal about him.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17The banality of evil. I wouldn't say he is evil.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19But the banality of lying.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23The moral dimension is dissolving.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27It's kind of beginning not to matter as long as it is entertaining.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32I came away thinking, let every cyclist say, "This is my doctor,
0:14:32 > 0:14:37"these are the drugs I'm taking," and admit the whole sport is doped.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Well, The Wolf Of Wall Street is in cinemas now
0:14:40 > 0:14:43and The Armstrong Lie is released on Friday.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46"What is the point of it?" is something we ask
0:14:46 > 0:14:51but this time Martin Creed has beaten us to it
0:14:51 > 0:14:54because it is the title of the 2001 Turner Prize winner's
0:14:54 > 0:14:56first major retrospective.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00We were granted access to the Hayward Gallery in London
0:15:00 > 0:15:03as the show was being installed for the opening next week.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06It features sculpture, murals, film, painting and neons
0:15:06 > 0:15:10alongside the musical recordings and new work commissioned for this show.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13So, prepare for art. Piles of it.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25I feel really weird about the whole thing.
0:15:25 > 0:15:26And scared about it.
0:15:30 > 0:15:34And sick. I feel sick about it.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36I wake up feeling sick most days.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44I love this gallery.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48I feel a bit suspicious of art galleries
0:15:48 > 0:15:55because they are artificial spaces made to kind of protect things,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00and I feel uneasy
0:16:00 > 0:16:03about putting things in galleries,
0:16:03 > 0:16:06because I feel like it is a cosseted environment.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08I feel like if work is any good,
0:16:08 > 0:16:11it should be able to live on the street, you know.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20I've been trying to work on music.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25I feel like you can't separate what you see from what you hear.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28When you're looking at something, you can always hear something,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32and when you listen to something, you can always see something.
0:16:32 > 0:16:39I feel like if I didn't work on music I would be ignoring half of life.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45I got to thinking of trying to make a piece of music that goes with
0:16:45 > 0:16:47the movement of a lift.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54# I'm feeling orange
0:16:56 > 0:16:59# I'm feeling green
0:16:59 > 0:17:03# I'm feeling purple
0:17:03 > 0:17:07# I'm feeling cream. #
0:17:07 > 0:17:12I was trying to think how you could make words a certain size
0:17:12 > 0:17:15and a good reason for doing so.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19For some reason, I thought that mothers would look good big.
0:17:19 > 0:17:25Later, I thought it was because
0:17:25 > 0:17:28mothers have to be big.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32To be a mother, you have to be bigger than your baby,
0:17:32 > 0:17:35you cannot be smaller.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38So mothers have to be as big as...
0:17:38 > 0:17:42mothers have to be as big as possible.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51Once I thought I would make it as big as I could, I thought, "Well, I may
0:17:51 > 0:17:56"as well make it spin round as well," so it goes in all directions at once.
0:17:56 > 0:18:01And maybe to make it slightly dangerous as well.
0:18:04 > 0:18:05# What's the point of it?
0:18:05 > 0:18:08# What's the point of it? #
0:18:08 > 0:18:11I don't know what the point of it is,
0:18:11 > 0:18:12but I think it's good question.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16I often ask myself that question.
0:18:20 > 0:18:27You walk in there and this amazing neon is starting to turn.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32And swiping over a walkway as well which is taped off.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35- It is so threatening.- Threatening?
0:18:35 > 0:18:39I thought it was threatening - an element of danger.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44The whole exhibition is so joyous, that is what is lovely about it,
0:18:44 > 0:18:46pulsing with joy.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50I misunderstood everything because I read the catalogue afterwards.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54There is this crumpled bit of paper where he is trying to interfere
0:18:54 > 0:18:59as little as possible with his materials, and it is in a glass box.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03I thought it was a monument to discarded ideas and I was entranced.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06I just found it so stimulating
0:19:06 > 0:19:10and really sort of breaking down barriers.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14And the bafflement that he expresses in that interview really comes over.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17I think that is what most people feel.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20It is lovely to see a retrospective as well,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23to see ideas developing over time,
0:19:23 > 0:19:28- spilling into each other. - This idea of layers and gradations.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32You wrote a great essay,
0:19:32 > 0:19:36I won't ask you to distil it into 30 seconds,
0:19:36 > 0:19:40but you know this work intimately.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Is it different seeing it all together like that?
0:19:44 > 0:19:51Well, the bits of everything go with the Hayward Gallery as well.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55I love the signatures. He uses the building.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57What's interesting about Martin,
0:19:57 > 0:20:00joyous is absolutely a word I would use,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04but also, artists are starting to become
0:20:04 > 0:20:07something that there isn't a word for yet.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10He uses sound and sculpture, scale and comedy.
0:20:10 > 0:20:15But he's new and that is why this exhibition is so profound
0:20:15 > 0:20:17and interesting and original.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21It's the beginning of something else that we yet haven't got a name for.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25What you said in the essay was he remains true to himself, whereas
0:20:25 > 0:20:29a lot of artists across the world don't remain true to themselves.
0:20:29 > 0:20:35And that bafflement - when I first spoke to Martin, I was a bit cynical.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38Surely not? No, it's true!
0:20:38 > 0:20:42He is that. He is baffled. It is sweet.
0:20:42 > 0:20:48There is a sort of promiscuity to the amount of mediums that he uses.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52I felt like I was being taken into somebody's world.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56It wasn't dark, it wasn't a world of obsession, like Tracey Emin,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59but you're being taken into obsession.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02He doesn't seem to be an obsessive person.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06He seems to have patterns and he is fascinated by smiles
0:21:06 > 0:21:08and chairs and boxes.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12There are things that repeat but not in a kind of needy, obsessive way.
0:21:12 > 0:21:18There are beautifully painted walls in the gallery.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22I said, "This will be painted over," and he said, "I'd do it
0:21:22 > 0:21:24"again as house paint. It's fine."
0:21:24 > 0:21:28He's also said he had a real aversion to labelling
0:21:28 > 0:21:32and you can see that because it is hard to label Martin Creed.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36I think he was being a bit critical of other galleries
0:21:36 > 0:21:40labelling his work. It's better to just have numbers.
0:21:40 > 0:21:45Yes, like a composer. He's just given each piece a number.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47Work number 25 or whatever.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51He has also done an amazing new piece
0:21:51 > 0:21:54which was just in construction upstairs.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58It is diagonal steel window frames with etched glass inside
0:21:58 > 0:22:02and balloons behind them, and again, this idea of almost wonderment.
0:22:02 > 0:22:09I loved what you said about artists no longer being boxed into producing
0:22:09 > 0:22:11products for sale in one area,
0:22:11 > 0:22:14because that isn't people's lived experience.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18That's a perfect example of that. He is using the light.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22Balloons used up half the air in the room.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25You have to go in. They're up to about here on most people.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29But you have to sort of trundle about blindly and find your way.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32And also the way he's responded to the space.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35He's taken down some walls and he's built things
0:22:35 > 0:22:39and the wall that he built complements the architecture
0:22:39 > 0:22:45and he's used a window with curtains that open and close,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48so the outside world is allowed in as well.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Behind the balloons there's another window where light comes through.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54So he's really playing with the space,
0:22:54 > 0:22:58and the gallery has a conversation with the outside world.
0:22:58 > 0:23:04He's very, very... he loves movement, doesn't he?
0:23:04 > 0:23:08Static is not necessarily something that he likes.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11It is inevitable in a way that he would be a musician
0:23:11 > 0:23:14because he loves movement and scale.
0:23:14 > 0:23:20I love that when you look at some of the objects it is like music.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23There is a lot of music around at the moment that sounds like
0:23:23 > 0:23:27post-punk music from 1981. That's all it is.
0:23:27 > 0:23:3030 odd years later, I would have imagined being there in 1981
0:23:30 > 0:23:35looking at those people and what they would be including is all of
0:23:35 > 0:23:38this as well. That's what's fascinating. And if you look at him
0:23:38 > 0:23:42just as a musician making a certain sort of music, he's got all this
0:23:42 > 0:23:46other stuff as well that represents the music and represents his mind.
0:23:46 > 0:23:51That, to me, is why it's interesting that he's inherited so much
0:23:51 > 0:23:55that elsewhere we look at it as being nostalgic and ripping things off, here not.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Here he's moving forward. Very discretely moving forward.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03- With the broccoli wall... - A thousand images. He's never put it together before.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06It's sort of a reference to Warhol and his Campbell tins
0:24:06 > 0:24:09but it's not cynical like Warhol.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12It's not saying, "We've all been commodified," it's just saying,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15"I can reproduce a piece of broccoli a thousand times."
0:24:15 > 0:24:18And planting it in the world as it is now.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22I think that repetition is trying to make order out of a lived world.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26- You know, the constant repetition. - It's definitely control, isn't it?
0:24:26 > 0:24:29Yeah, it's trying to find some sense.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33Control and harmony and beauty. It's very poetic as well.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37- Sometimes it's farcical but it can be very poetic.- It's very calming.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40And then you're hit at the end of the exhibition...
0:24:40 > 0:24:43there's an explicit film of a penis being flaccid and then erect,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46then flaccid again, but at the end, there is this room
0:24:46 > 0:24:50where you see a film of basically defecation and sickness.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52I was going to take my kids but I think maybe not now
0:24:52 > 0:24:55because that's the only way to get out of the exhibition.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57I even had a positive reading of that.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00You feel calm, you feel liberated, you feel joyful
0:25:00 > 0:25:04and so I thought, "We're being purged," - it's a good thing.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08We've taken a really good effective enema purgative and we're just
0:25:08 > 0:25:11letting it all out so I actually felt rather positive.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14It's not that I felt negative, I just thought what it did
0:25:14 > 0:25:17was show the contrast. It shows he's capable of anything.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21It's also interesting in a modern world which is so self-conscious
0:25:21 > 0:25:26that there can be this pure optimism, somehow, which is also incredibly
0:25:26 > 0:25:30refreshing at a time when everyone is so inward and disconnected.
0:25:30 > 0:25:35- He's just so open.- He is so open. He won in 2001 The Turner Prize.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38This is his first big retrospective, though he's had exhibitions.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42- Is there a danger he will become a national treasure?- I hope not.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44I wish I hadn't said that now.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47What's The Point Of It opens at The Hayward on 29th January.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51We Used To Be Kings is the debut novel by Stewart Foster
0:25:51 > 0:25:54and is already being compared to success stories
0:25:54 > 0:25:56such as the Booker-nominated Room by Emma Donoghue
0:25:56 > 0:25:58and Stuart: A Life Backwards,
0:25:58 > 0:26:01which went on to be adapted for both stage and screen.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05Set against the space race of the 1970s, Foster's novel deals with
0:26:05 > 0:26:07the impact mental illness has,
0:26:07 > 0:26:10focusing on the unbreakable bond between two brothers,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13one of whom is dead, and their missing father.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18The story begins in a mental health institution with Tom
0:26:18 > 0:26:22who has been incarcerated because his dead ten-year-old brother Jack
0:26:22 > 0:26:25continues to live on in his head.
0:26:25 > 0:26:30Tom has just turned 18. However, this is not cause for celebration
0:26:30 > 0:26:34as he is about to be transferred to an adult facility.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37'We close our eyes. We smell damp mixed with soap,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40'hear the snap of a towel and a scream.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43'Our head is buried deep in the pillow but we can still hear
0:26:43 > 0:26:46'the gargle of water trickling through the drains.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49'We need to be quiet to give ourselves space to think,
0:26:49 > 0:26:51'because tomorrow will be different,
0:26:51 > 0:26:53'tomorrow there won't be a Mrs Hunter or a Mrs Foulks
0:26:53 > 0:26:57'or a Mrs Drummond. Tomorrow we won't be locked up with boys.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00'Tomorrow we will be locked up with men.'
0:27:00 > 0:27:03The way they interact is Tom is always the narrator.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06If you look where the dialogue actually starts,
0:27:06 > 0:27:10it's always Jack that jumps in and he starts the conversation first
0:27:10 > 0:27:14which is why he's so irritating but he's always constantly interrupted.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17When I look at it now, I realise that Jack is a massive anxiety
0:27:17 > 0:27:22all the way through it. He is the anxiety even though he's great fun.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Tom, with Jack's voice in his head urging him on,
0:27:25 > 0:27:28escapes from the institution in search of their father
0:27:28 > 0:27:31who they believe has gone to the moon.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33The way that space came into it was
0:27:33 > 0:27:37originally I had written a short story and...
0:27:37 > 0:27:41where a father had gone missing but actually hadn't gone anywhere.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Once I'd decided that the father said he was going to go to the moon,
0:27:44 > 0:27:47the only period it could be set was the '70s
0:27:47 > 0:27:50because it was the time where everybody was naive
0:27:50 > 0:27:53but also excited by travelling into space.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58'Dear Jack. Dear Tom.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01'I'm sorry I've not written. I am tired.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05'Jack, I love your rockets, even when they go the wrong way.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09'Tom, keep writing your book, lots of people will read it soon.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13'I have to go. The Russians are coming.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18'Tonight the sun will burn a hole through my head
0:28:18 > 0:28:23'and in the morning, when I wake up, everyone will be gone.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26'Love, Dad.'
0:28:26 > 0:28:29I got the interaction between the two of them,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32they were two separate individuals to start with.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34Then I was writing the dialogue
0:28:34 > 0:28:37and found they were bouncing off each other.
0:28:37 > 0:28:39And it also came quite early in the piece
0:28:39 > 0:28:41how much they loved each other.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45My main thoughts were if you love somebody so much
0:28:45 > 0:28:49that even if they died, you wouldn't mind them back in your head.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54The strength of the relationship is they love each other so much that they don't want to be separated.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56Unfortunately, it's destructive in the end,
0:28:56 > 0:29:00but they just chatted like mad and I couldn't stop them.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05There has been a whole slew of books about young boys' mental states.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09There was no research, by his own admission, done by Stewart Foster.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12Is it OK just to have a work of the imagination
0:29:12 > 0:29:14when you're dealing with this stuff?
0:29:14 > 0:29:17I know quite a lot about the secure units at that time
0:29:17 > 0:29:19and what would've happened
0:29:19 > 0:29:22and it's not been researched and I think it's wrong
0:29:22 > 0:29:25and it's fine because it's a story.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27I think the vast majority of people you get...
0:29:27 > 0:29:31you can't make TV shows because policemen might watch them and say,
0:29:31 > 0:29:33"You're not allowed to wear a belt like that."
0:29:33 > 0:29:36So I think it is absolutely fine. It doesn't really matter.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40The narrative, you know, really pulls you forward.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42I had a bit of a problem with the two voices
0:29:42 > 0:29:45which he said becomes a bit irritating.
0:29:45 > 0:29:47I couldn't... they're in different fonts
0:29:47 > 0:29:51and I loved all that inter-textual stuff - it was very playful,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54but I found the interaction and the characterisation
0:29:54 > 0:29:57between Jack and Tom, they were so similar...
0:29:57 > 0:30:00- I thought they were twins at first. - They're supposed to be twins.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02But I found after a while,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05the repetitiveness of it slightly lost me.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08Having said that, there is so much to love in this book
0:30:08 > 0:30:11and he's such a beautiful, crisp writer.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13For a first book it's really amazing.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17I loved the sort of flashback section,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20which is probably half of the book, which is 1971,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24Dad's going away and tells the kids he's going to be a cosmonaut,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27he's going to go up with the Russians into space
0:30:27 > 0:30:30and the kids believe him and you know Dad's going somewhere else.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33That drove me though that section - that fantasy of a kid making
0:30:33 > 0:30:36their father into a hero, as we all do as boys,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40and you know it's going to end terribly. That drove me through.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44Yet I did think the stuff that was set ten years later with the twins,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47it is interesting you say about the lack of research...
0:30:47 > 0:30:50and I'm not...I don't think all writers have to research,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54but there was something a bit nebulous about that world
0:30:54 > 0:30:58that didn't pull me in in the way the 1971 strand did.
0:30:58 > 0:31:02What did you think about the dialogue between the brothers?
0:31:02 > 0:31:04I agree, they had such similar voices.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08I thought...to be a dialogue you need two different energies.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11We now know Jack was the younger one. We start out thinking they were twins.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14Paul, that whole thing about the space race,
0:31:14 > 0:31:17- did he capture the excitement of that?- Not for me.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21In many ways the fault of the book for me was that it was an example
0:31:21 > 0:31:25of creative writing, and I think the things you are mentioning
0:31:25 > 0:31:28in a way was, for me, coming from that -
0:31:28 > 0:31:31that it's a technical book, it's very technical
0:31:31 > 0:31:35and it feels like it has had a lot of work at it to make it happen
0:31:35 > 0:31:40and even the idea of the descent into madness and the space race,
0:31:40 > 0:31:43they all seem like ideas that come out of studying the idea
0:31:43 > 0:31:45of, "What kind of book am I going to write?"
0:31:45 > 0:31:48I could never get away from that.
0:31:48 > 0:31:50At the end, I'm not going to give the end away,
0:31:50 > 0:31:54but there's four pages of blank space and then his acknowledgements
0:31:54 > 0:31:56and they were done in the style of the book.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00If I'd had doubts - did I believe it or not? - that would have given it away.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03- To me that was that was really annoying.- I loved that.
0:32:03 > 0:32:05No, I thought, "Pencil, pencil."
0:32:05 > 0:32:08- You loved it?- I did like that.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11It's an exercise and the book therefore became an exercise.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13It infuriated me.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16All those doubts we might have had about no research, it's a story,
0:32:16 > 0:32:20it's imagination, for me it became about creative writing.
0:32:20 > 0:32:21It was an exercise.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25I can write a first book and it will be taken as a first book
0:32:25 > 0:32:26and hailed as a first book
0:32:26 > 0:32:30and I could never get away from the fact, it is not that great.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32What about the role of the mother?
0:32:32 > 0:32:35She has a role where she tries to be protective,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38but she's a kind of shadow character.
0:32:38 > 0:32:42She's not really there that much. I found it hard to work out what ages the boys were
0:32:42 > 0:32:44when their father went missing. I wasn't too sure.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48She did go missing a lot and they were left with a neighbour.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51Actually, that is what people did with kids in the '70s.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54You forget we are so massively, clawingly overprotective.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57And people did just give kids keys
0:32:57 > 0:33:00and let them in and out when they were eight.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03And that's interesting because even though clearly there were
0:33:03 > 0:33:06difficulties with the children, she still let them roam free.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09- Everybody did in the '70s. - I remember my childhood.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13There is a moment where the mother becomes complicit in the lie
0:33:13 > 0:33:16which I thought was very strong. There's a moment where she can
0:33:16 > 0:33:19tell the boys, "No, he's not in space," because the cosmonauts
0:33:19 > 0:33:22are under threat so they think, "Daddy's dead, Daddy's dead",
0:33:22 > 0:33:26and she decides to let them carry on with the lie.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28I thought that was a strong moment.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32But essentially it is the father and the dream of the father is what drives the book
0:33:32 > 0:33:36and the mother and the female character they meet in the present
0:33:36 > 0:33:38seem much shadowier figures.
0:33:38 > 0:33:43- It's almost like a children's book at times.- A teenage book.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46It's one of those books you could market to teenagers and adults.
0:33:46 > 0:33:50Which was the case with The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time,
0:33:50 > 0:33:54- which is probably why a book like this...- It's almost become a genre.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58This autistic child, seeing the world through...it's very appealing
0:33:58 > 0:34:00to see something through naive eyes.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04We can both feel we are naive but also more knowing than them.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06- I don't think the book had the wonder.- No, it didn't.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09Well, see for yourself or read for yourself,
0:34:09 > 0:34:13We Used To Be Kings is published on 30th January.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16Music now from Icelandic artist Asgeir,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19whose album In The Silence was No.1 for nine weeks
0:34:19 > 0:34:21in his homeland.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24It has been translated into English and is released this month.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27This is King And Cross.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38# Glistening night-time dew
0:34:38 > 0:34:41# And she is walking with me
0:34:41 > 0:34:45# From the house of red
0:34:46 > 0:34:48# I hear a child crying
0:34:48 > 0:34:52# Foxes heading home
0:34:52 > 0:34:55# Their prey hangs from their jaws
0:34:55 > 0:35:00# And the forest knows
0:35:00 > 0:35:02# But it won't share the secret
0:35:02 > 0:35:07# When the king takes sides
0:35:07 > 0:35:10# Leaving moral minds
0:35:10 > 0:35:15# Soldiers take their share
0:35:15 > 0:35:17# Nighthawks seem to sense that
0:35:17 > 0:35:22# Now is the time
0:35:22 > 0:35:29# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life
0:35:29 > 0:35:31# He'll take back what he owns
0:35:38 > 0:35:43# Death cannot take hold
0:35:43 > 0:35:46# If I can keep momentum
0:35:46 > 0:35:50# Fortresses of stone
0:35:50 > 0:35:53# Turn into crystal tears
0:35:53 > 0:35:57# Soothed by southern winds
0:35:57 > 0:36:00# I've found my strength now
0:36:00 > 0:36:05# And nobody knows
0:36:05 > 0:36:07# And we must keep their secret
0:36:07 > 0:36:12# When the king takes sides
0:36:12 > 0:36:14# Leaving moral minds
0:36:14 > 0:36:19# Soldiers take their share
0:36:19 > 0:36:22# Nighthawks seem to sense that
0:36:22 > 0:36:27# Now is the time
0:36:27 > 0:36:34# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life
0:36:34 > 0:36:36# He'll take back what he owns
0:37:19 > 0:37:24# When the king takes sides
0:37:24 > 0:37:26# Leaving moral minds
0:37:26 > 0:37:31# Soldiers take their share
0:37:31 > 0:37:34# Nighthawks seem to sense that
0:37:34 > 0:37:39# Now is the time
0:37:39 > 0:37:46# Deep inside them burns the raging fire of life
0:37:46 > 0:37:48# He'll take back what he owns. #
0:37:57 > 0:38:00And there will be more music from Asgeir later in the show.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04After some extraordinary comments on women's worth from Nigel Farage,
0:38:04 > 0:38:07an embarrassment of sexual harassment sexual scandals
0:38:07 > 0:38:09and a salacious year in pop,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13gender politics is already firmly on the agenda in 2014.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17Now a brand-new national theatre production created by two rising
0:38:17 > 0:38:20stars of the British stage aims to shift the focus away from the
0:38:20 > 0:38:24power players to the plight of real women in a play that owes its name
0:38:24 > 0:38:28and its inspiration to a very controversial song.
0:38:31 > 0:38:33It was the smash hit of last summer,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37but the fallout from Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines is still unfolding.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41The lyrics and explicit video sparked outrage,
0:38:41 > 0:38:43with some describing it as rapey.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46When theatre director Carrie Cracknell
0:38:46 > 0:38:49and playwright Nick Payne were looking for a provocative title
0:38:49 > 0:38:52for their new gender-political theatre piece,
0:38:52 > 0:38:54they didn't have to look too far.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59Blurred Lines is based loosely on Kat Banyard's The Equality Illusion,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03a book full of shocking contemporary statistics
0:39:03 > 0:39:06asserting that the feminist revolution remains unfinished.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09Cracknell and Payne determined to demonstrate
0:39:09 > 0:39:12this masked modern-day misogyny on stage.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16Those are the ones who are being forced.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19Those other ones from Eastern Europe. I don't use those women.
0:39:19 > 0:39:21Not any more. Not after that.
0:39:21 > 0:39:23The women who work like that,
0:39:23 > 0:39:27on the street, they are obviously the ones who have been trafficked.
0:39:27 > 0:39:29I don't use those women.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31How much did it cost?
0:39:33 > 0:39:3645 quid.
0:39:36 > 0:39:37- Jesus.- That one night was a one-off.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40I wouldn't do it again and I haven't done it since.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42It was like... It was...
0:39:42 > 0:39:44Like a cup of cheap coffee?
0:39:44 > 0:39:46It was like a cup of cheap coffee.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49Meaning?
0:39:49 > 0:39:51Disposable.
0:39:51 > 0:39:52At just 70 minutes,
0:39:52 > 0:39:57and with one set, Blurred Lines is a dense performance.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00The eight-strong female cast are on stage at all times,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03and take turns performing vignettes demonstrating
0:40:03 > 0:40:06the regular encounters with inequality faced
0:40:06 > 0:40:08by the modern woman.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12The cast includes newcomer Michaela Coel.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14Do you need an African accent?
0:40:14 > 0:40:16Cos you can just say so,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19because I have descended from a lineage of blur and illusion.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23AFRICAN ACCENT: And I am so game for stoking in the whole validity of your confusion,
0:40:23 > 0:40:25to form a strange union of every African accent
0:40:25 > 0:40:27I heard on the bus I took to get here.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31Although the song Blurred Lines itself doesn't feature,
0:40:31 > 0:40:35the play is peppered with pop songs past and present,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37and the lyrics take on a new resonance
0:40:37 > 0:40:39when performed by this troupe.
0:40:39 > 0:40:46# Don't liberate me
0:40:46 > 0:40:48# Just love me. #
0:40:50 > 0:40:54Mark, calling it Blurred Lines, did it set up a certain expectation?
0:40:54 > 0:41:00Absolutely. I think you expect a response to that Robin Thicke song,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02and you sort of get one.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06I think it maybe suggests we'll get a more direct response
0:41:06 > 0:41:08to Blurred Lines than we do,
0:41:08 > 0:41:12and in a way maybe the piece is too generalised, too ambitious.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14But I think we are still at this point where women in theatre
0:41:14 > 0:41:16have looked around and said, "Hang on, most of us
0:41:16 > 0:41:20"have called ourselves feminists now for 40 years," and are taking stock
0:41:20 > 0:41:25and realising how little has changed in casting, directing, writing.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28So, in a way, something has to go right back to the basics
0:41:28 > 0:41:31and ask really quite naive questions about feminism
0:41:31 > 0:41:35in a way that even a few years ago would have been embarrassing.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37This is just so simplistic, this is so naive.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39But women in theatre and men in theatre have said,
0:41:39 > 0:41:44"OK, even if this is simplistic and naive, this is necessary.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47- "We need to do this at this moment in time."- Do you think we do?
0:41:47 > 0:41:48In this way?
0:41:48 > 0:41:52Well, as someone who has been a feminist for 40 years,
0:41:52 > 0:41:54I couldn't work out what was going on in the play.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57At the start, I thought it was going to be a play about being an actress,
0:41:57 > 0:42:00cos they were talking about who they'd been cast as
0:42:00 > 0:42:02and doing lines from the parts they'd had,
0:42:02 > 0:42:04which I thought would have been really interesting.
0:42:04 > 0:42:06And then it goes off. There's just too much.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09They're trying to do too much. To me it feels like,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12"I've just found out about feminism, and it's not fair to women."
0:42:12 > 0:42:13Because it covers everything.
0:42:13 > 0:42:15And I've been hearing those songs that were performed
0:42:15 > 0:42:19at feminist cabarets for 30 years, and I've heard them done better.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22So, I think it tried to cover too much ground.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26But a play about being an actress and what it is to represent
0:42:26 > 0:42:29gender would have been fabulous, and they kept touching on it.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32At the very end, there is a Q & A with the director.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35That would have been great, if there'd been more of that stuff.
0:42:35 > 0:42:36At the end, you sit down
0:42:36 > 0:42:38and the point about the Q & A with director...
0:42:38 > 0:42:40as one of the women plays a male director,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43a kind of archetypal, well-established,
0:42:43 > 0:42:45arrogant male director and that actually is very funny.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47It's completely different to the rest of it,
0:42:47 > 0:42:50which makes me think, had they done it all as a revue
0:42:50 > 0:42:52or some cabaret satire or something?
0:42:52 > 0:42:55It verged on that. It is sketches, really.
0:42:55 > 0:42:57It's like That Was The Week That Was, but going back to the '60s.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00You're right, there is a quaintness and a politeness
0:43:00 > 0:43:04about any form of protest or comment on this ridiculous piece of music
0:43:04 > 0:43:08that actually we should be thoroughly ashamed we've even played it, you know.
0:43:08 > 0:43:10We played that much of it,
0:43:10 > 0:43:13we only played it because we thought it was Marvin Gaye.
0:43:13 > 0:43:14This makes no sense whatsoever.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17But it is interesting, there's a kind of quaintness.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20And what really annoyed me the most about it, the politeness of it,
0:43:20 > 0:43:23is that when they say they didn't get permission to play the song.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26Play the bloody song. What's going to happen?
0:43:26 > 0:43:27Who's going to come and sort you out?
0:43:27 > 0:43:31That's part of the politeness and the quaintness of protest at the moment.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34It's almost like you talk about the power that Thicke
0:43:34 > 0:43:37and that ridiculous film we talked about at the beginning,
0:43:37 > 0:43:39The Wolf Of Wall Street, and everything.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44It's like somehow at the moment it seems wrong to say anything
0:43:44 > 0:43:47about this as if you are ruining people's fun.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50I thought for the National Theatre it was far too timid.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54- Unbelievably timid.- It does feel like a tentative first step.
0:43:54 > 0:43:55It was great to see such a fantastic cast,
0:43:55 > 0:44:00Ruth Sheen, Marion Bailey, both wonderful actresses
0:44:00 > 0:44:04and to start to explore this style where they don't have to pretend to be someone else,
0:44:04 > 0:44:08they can sort of talk... There was something happening there that was really exciting.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11It definitely felt like a work in progress.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14And I think there are companies out there who would have gone
0:44:14 > 0:44:16further with this work.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19There's a fantastic company in Germany called SheShePop
0:44:19 > 0:44:22who are a feminist collective who are, in a way, really asking
0:44:22 > 0:44:25the questions of the '60s and 70s, but I think they do it with
0:44:25 > 0:44:28the danger and the anger that maybe Paul is looking for.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31It's getting more and more difficult to actually do that,
0:44:31 > 0:44:35and it to hold and not just be absorbed and in a way be dissolved.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37It just dissolved somehow.
0:44:37 > 0:44:39If there is a new misogyny about, how do we tackle it, then?
0:44:39 > 0:44:42It's not a new misogyny, it's the same old misogyny.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45- There's money to be made, that's the issue. - They're allowed more space.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48The space they are allowed is extraordinary,
0:44:48 > 0:44:49that's what I can't understand -
0:44:49 > 0:44:54why everybody's putting up with it and it's just extraordinary.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56There are responses to it.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58Whether you think it is right or not to ban it,
0:44:58 > 0:45:01that's a different question,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04Blurred Lines isn't played in certain university campuses.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08What I mean is where is the serious riposte to it?
0:45:08 > 0:45:11- To Blurred Lines?- Who's doing it?
0:45:11 > 0:45:13Who's putting the money behind it to do it? Nobody.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16I think every time a song like Blurred Lines is a hit,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19maybe 400,000 young women think, "To hell with this,
0:45:19 > 0:45:21"I'm not putting up with this, this is nonsense.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23"You have no right to rape me."
0:45:23 > 0:45:25I think these things are intensely politicising.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28It's like an army going into Iraq and saying, "We're here to help you."
0:45:28 > 0:45:32That's how you create, you know, an armed response.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36And I think, actually, it's not... From my point of view, I think
0:45:36 > 0:45:40it highlights a misogyny that's already there,
0:45:40 > 0:45:42the problem isn't the song, the problem is
0:45:42 > 0:45:43you don't get paid the same money,
0:45:43 > 0:45:45and the police don't come if you're battered.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48And you are embarrassed to tell anybody if you're raped.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50Those are the problems, it's just a pop song.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53Yeah, but it's the fannyness of the world now, in a way.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Even talking about the films at the top, fans are reviewing things now.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58The critical perspective is being stripped away.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Therefore it's just about how enjoyable it is, how much value of money it is,
0:46:02 > 0:46:03rather than looking at...
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Except, I suppose, they're having a huge response...
0:46:07 > 0:46:08Again, they have been butted out.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11Amongst very young people getting politicised, listening to this
0:46:11 > 0:46:15and thinking, "We live in a profoundly pornographic world,
0:46:15 > 0:46:17"porn saturates the whole culture."
0:46:17 > 0:46:19That can pass across someone's desk
0:46:19 > 0:46:21and they say, "Yeah, all right, make that video."
0:46:21 > 0:46:23I think these things are very politi...
0:46:23 > 0:46:26And I think there are undercurrents that we're not dealing with.
0:46:26 > 0:46:28We're really dealing with the cream on top of the trifle.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32There's all sorts of stuff going on like the German theatre companies.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36Talking of fannyness, I think there is a danger that any...
0:46:36 > 0:46:39celebration of female sexuality, the female body becomes commodified
0:46:39 > 0:46:43and that is one of the things that a theatre can do is actually
0:46:43 > 0:46:46find women's sexuality and their bodies away from commodification.
0:46:46 > 0:46:49- In a more sophisticated time.... - And there is something quite puritan about this piece.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53Everything seems to be going backwards in terms of the emotional response.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Well, Blurred Lines is on at The Shed at the National Theatre
0:46:56 > 0:46:59in London until 22nd February.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02HBO, the major force behind TV successes such as Game Of Thrones
0:47:02 > 0:47:06and Girls has a new offering on Sky Atlantic this month.
0:47:06 > 0:47:08Described as a dramedy,
0:47:08 > 0:47:11Looking focuses on the lives of three gay friends
0:47:11 > 0:47:14living in sexually-liberal San Francisco.
0:47:18 > 0:47:19- I know what you're doing.- What?
0:47:19 > 0:47:23- I'm alone now, and I need to find a roommate.- Oh, really?- On...
0:47:23 > 0:47:25- OKCupid, huh?- I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27You know, get a boyfriend and a roommate.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30Looking focuses on the lives of three close friends -
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Patrick, Agustin and Dom, who are living,
0:47:34 > 0:47:39but not necessarily thriving, in the gay metropolis, San Francisco.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42Patrick, played by the actor Jonathan Groff,
0:47:42 > 0:47:44is a 29-year-old games designer,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47just getting back into the dating world in the aftermath
0:47:47 > 0:47:49of his ex's engagement.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51Why do you even care, you dumped him?
0:47:51 > 0:47:53I know, I know we broke up for a reason,
0:47:53 > 0:47:54but things are complicated and...
0:47:54 > 0:47:56Yeah, the reason was cos he was boring.
0:47:56 > 0:47:58Yeah, I know that he was boring.
0:47:58 > 0:48:00But now he met Gabe and four months later, they're getting married?
0:48:00 > 0:48:02How does that even happen?
0:48:03 > 0:48:05Hailed as Sex And The City for gay men,
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Looking is the work of British director Andrew Haigh
0:48:09 > 0:48:13who received critical acclaim for his 2011 movie Weekend
0:48:13 > 0:48:16about the fleeting relationship between two men.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20Looking takes the same naturalistic approach and at times
0:48:20 > 0:48:25gives a forthright insight into the daily struggles of dating.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28So, what was your longest relationship?
0:48:30 > 0:48:32Like six months, I think.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37- What about you?- About five years.
0:48:39 > 0:48:40Five years is a good chunk of time.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43I think I'm not making the best impression.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46- I think we should back it up. - I'm going to stop you, I'm sorry.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50- You seem like a really nice guy. - Thank you.
0:48:50 > 0:48:56But...you know, when it's working, you shouldn't have to try so hard,
0:48:56 > 0:49:00and this obviously isn't working, you know.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07Unlike its well-known predecessor Queer As Folk,
0:49:07 > 0:49:11the series doesn't aim to shock or to be controversial.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15Instead, we have a group of 30- and 40-somethings who merely
0:49:15 > 0:49:18want fulfilled lives.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Listen, do you think you could help me with this?
0:49:21 > 0:49:23Instagram filters have ruined everything and I can't tell
0:49:23 > 0:49:26if this guy is hot or not. What do you think?
0:49:27 > 0:49:31Ooh, Paddy...that is a lazy eye.
0:49:31 > 0:49:32- No, it's not.- The right one.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37Oh, my God, it is!
0:49:37 > 0:49:39All the kind of naturalism, everyday stuff,
0:49:39 > 0:49:42does it matter there's no dramatic tension in this, particularly?
0:49:42 > 0:49:45Well, it's kind of interesting that it is so boring, in a way,
0:49:45 > 0:49:47and so everyday.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49There's part of me that says,
0:49:49 > 0:49:51"Why didn't this happen 30, 35, 40 years ago?"
0:49:51 > 0:49:54And I can't get that out of my head at all when I am watching it.
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Why is this such a big deal now?
0:49:56 > 0:50:00I quite liked, if I liked anything about it, that it was so boring.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03But on the other hand, I'm thinking,
0:50:03 > 0:50:05"Well, if we have something now that is going to be
0:50:05 > 0:50:08"the thing that people are talking about that it is,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11"shouldn't it be more complicated and peculiar and strange?"
0:50:11 > 0:50:13Well, you know, it is partly reflecting reality.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17Gay men have become more boring.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Their lives and their culture are more boring than
0:50:20 > 0:50:23when things were all a bit more illegal and a bit more...
0:50:23 > 0:50:26Even when they started shooting this, gay marriage hadn't been legislated in California.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28When they got halfway through shooting, it had.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31I think that's one of the things that gay men are discovering,
0:50:31 > 0:50:33maybe to their horror,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37you get your human rights, you also get a whole heap of boredom with it.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41I loved Andrew Haigh's film Weekend and actually that was almost
0:50:41 > 0:50:44no story - two men meet and spend the weekend together.
0:50:44 > 0:50:48But there was a sort of bubbling anger, political anger,
0:50:48 > 0:50:50underneath it.
0:50:50 > 0:50:55And quite a sort of objective eye of the world that they were living in.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58I don't get the same sense of any kind of political anger bubbling away
0:50:58 > 0:51:00off-screen that I did...
0:51:00 > 0:51:02Somehow, the American actors can't help,
0:51:02 > 0:51:03although they are very naturalistic,
0:51:03 > 0:51:05be a little bit cute and for it to be
0:51:05 > 0:51:08a little bit aspirational, so it does sort of want to sell you...
0:51:08 > 0:51:11It's not glamorous, but it does sort of want to sell you
0:51:11 > 0:51:13the idea of living in this slightly grungy San Francisco.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16- It's kind of aspirational. - It's slightly grungy, but not.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18Some of them aren't so grungy,
0:51:18 > 0:51:20and it's very much 30- and 40-somethings, isn't it?
0:51:20 > 0:51:24This is not a very young gay scene. This is a kind of middle-aged gay scene.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27- Which is quite interesting. - Interesting, given what they went through.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29We have a lot of dramas about teenagers and young men.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32And there is something, which I think is deliberate,
0:51:32 > 0:51:34a little bit sad about these people -
0:51:34 > 0:51:3930, 40, still sort of doing a circuit of clubs and bars and parties and hoping for dates.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43A 40-year-old man talking about whether he will be successful on a date or not...
0:51:43 > 0:51:46Partly, I'm sort of, "This is very dull."
0:51:46 > 0:51:49- Part of me thinks, "This is tragic!" - Denise?
0:51:49 > 0:51:52Welcome to 40. That's being 40, you're a bit disappointed.
0:51:52 > 0:51:54I was watching and I was thinking, "What is this about?"
0:51:54 > 0:51:57Because... I found because...
0:51:57 > 0:52:00All the actors are so good looking.
0:52:00 > 0:52:02I found it quite hard to tell them apart,
0:52:02 > 0:52:04and I was grateful one of them had a beard.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06They all live in San Francisco, but San Francisco is...
0:52:06 > 0:52:08I find it quite chaotic.
0:52:08 > 0:52:10I find there are always a lot of homeless people
0:52:10 > 0:52:13- wandering about and they're really bolshie.- But in that area?
0:52:13 > 0:52:15Didn't see any of them.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17I don't think it's a realistic depiction of San Francisco.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Like you, when I went there, I was overwhelmed by the amount
0:52:20 > 0:52:22of homelessness and mental illness on the streets.
0:52:22 > 0:52:26This is an aspirational... It's a different type of aspirational.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29I think the thing that happens is because it is what it is,
0:52:29 > 0:52:32everyone assumes it's going to be radical and strange,
0:52:32 > 0:52:34- and it's like Thirtysomething.- It is!
0:52:34 > 0:52:37It's a nice, soapy, you know, very banal.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41I was glad as the episodes went on that the cast got a bit bigger,
0:52:41 > 0:52:44because the initial three weren't quite interesting enough.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48I did think, "Are we going to come back week after week to these same three flat, dull people?"
0:52:48 > 0:52:52But actually the cast does get a bit bigger and starts to open out.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55Maybe I was just getting used to its rhythm...
0:52:55 > 0:52:59I wish it wasn't half an hour. I wish it was longer.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01Maybe if it was longer, then there would be much more development
0:53:01 > 0:53:04- of storyline, as well.- And even more boring, which would suit it!
0:53:04 > 0:53:08I yelped with joy when Russell Tovey came on.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11Cos he's great in everything. He's so warm.
0:53:11 > 0:53:12That was one of the things...
0:53:12 > 0:53:15I couldn't work out why I couldn't get a handle on it.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17Russell Tovey is warm and he's melancholy.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19There was a lack of warmth.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22You kind of wonder what the point of it is other than
0:53:22 > 0:53:25everyone hailing it as an arrival of something.
0:53:25 > 0:53:26Maybe it will settle down once that...
0:53:26 > 0:53:31What did you make of that whole social media? It really was social media heavy, wasn't it?
0:53:31 > 0:53:33Everybody was looking at their Apple computers,
0:53:33 > 0:53:35everybody's looking at phones.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38Yeah, I mean that is the reality of our lives.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41We were sort of supposed to buy into the idea that they were sort of
0:53:41 > 0:53:44struggling to get by and they were sort of leading
0:53:44 > 0:53:46a slightly bohemian life.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48But nobody ever seemed that worried about money.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50Nobody ever seemed to be struggling to...
0:53:50 > 0:53:52You sort of felt they were always going to be safe.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55So they were sort of grungy, but without any real worries
0:53:55 > 0:53:57at the end of the month about paying the bills.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59It's about loneliness as well.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01It's about dating, which is the big American thing.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04Everything is about dating, whatever that is.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07- It's about loneliness in the modern world.- In that scene as well,
0:54:07 > 0:54:11there would be as well hopefully some credible female characters
0:54:11 > 0:54:14that have been part and parcel of it rather than just one ex-girlfriend.
0:54:14 > 0:54:18I think one of the things that was really interesting about it,
0:54:18 > 0:54:20when it did open up and got a bit more interesting,
0:54:20 > 0:54:22it became more about the culture of San Francisco
0:54:22 > 0:54:25and they go on a march and it's a leather match.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28That was really interesting. because I didn't know about that.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32And the scene in the baths, where suddenly we meet
0:54:32 > 0:54:36a much older gay man who has a memory of San Francisco pre-AIDS
0:54:36 > 0:54:40and then during AIDS, and those moments where you get
0:54:40 > 0:54:43a sense of historical, cultural, social perspective,
0:54:43 > 0:54:46actually I thought brought the show alive.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49That's true about everything we've been speaking to.
0:54:49 > 0:54:53Maybe why it's so dull is because we are in a different place here
0:54:53 > 0:54:56to where they are in America, where it's still...young people
0:54:56 > 0:54:59are killing themselves because they're gay and they live in Milwaukee.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03That might be... We are speaking to different audiences.
0:55:03 > 0:55:07Looking is on Sky Atlantic, Monday nights at 10.35.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10That's just about it, but if you'd like to see tonight's show
0:55:10 > 0:55:13all over again, you can watch us on iPlayer endlessly for the next week
0:55:13 > 0:55:17or catch our BBC2 repeat on 13th February at 24.20,
0:55:17 > 0:55:19that's just the start of Valentine's Day.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23We'll be back with our next show on BBC4 on Sunday, 23rd February,
0:55:23 > 0:55:24put it in your diary.
0:55:24 > 0:55:29Thanks to my guests, Denise Mina, Mark Ravenhill, and Paul Morley.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31We'll leave you with another song from Asgeir.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34This time, it is Torrent, good night.
0:56:06 > 0:56:13# Gods of iron clashing Wind in battle through the night
0:56:19 > 0:56:26# Tears will fall and strength is needed to overcome
0:56:32 > 0:56:39# This old house is full of leaks and mould on the walls
0:56:46 > 0:56:52# Dragons of the mind are lurking in the shadows
0:57:00 > 0:57:07# Torrents wash away everything
0:57:08 > 0:57:11# Raindrops flowing all around
0:57:24 > 0:57:26# Queen takes King
0:57:26 > 0:57:31# The pawns are falling onto the ground
0:57:37 > 0:57:41# Over you and me
0:57:41 > 0:57:44# There is rising the pink moon
0:57:51 > 0:57:58# Merciless, though the wind takes hold with freezing cold
0:58:04 > 0:58:08# Come, my friend, sit with me
0:58:08 > 0:58:12# Take counsel in the warmth
0:58:18 > 0:58:25# Torrents wash away everything
0:58:26 > 0:58:30# Raindrops flowing all around
0:58:38 > 0:58:45# Torrents wash away everything
0:58:45 > 0:58:49# Raindrops flowing all around. #