:00:10. > :00:15.On the review show tonight, Tintin, as a very smooth operator, rough
:00:15. > :00:25.stuff in the drug-fuelled drama Top Boy, politics on stage and in 50
:00:25. > :00:27.
:00:27. > :00:32.Thundering typhoons it is Tintin in 3D, does Spielberg's version take
:00:32. > :00:38.flight or fall flat. What do you know of the Unicorn? Not a lot,
:00:38. > :00:43.that is why I'm asking you. Surely some mistake, Private Eye
:00:43. > :00:48.turns 50, as the scrappy scandal sheet, does it still have the power
:00:48. > :00:52.to shock. In our name we can all be better, in our name. Modern London
:00:52. > :00:58.tworbgs ways, in 13, Mike Bartlett's new play about
:00:58. > :01:05.politicians of protest, unmissable or just unlucky.
:01:05. > :01:11.In Top Boy, already compared to The Wierbgs the capital as a - the Wire,
:01:11. > :01:19.the capital as a drug market, dangerous or way out of line. Live
:01:19. > :01:24.in the studio, sitar music from Anouska Shankar.
:01:24. > :01:31.On the panel with me are the wider and actor, David Schneider,
:01:31. > :01:37.novelist and stand up comedian AL Kennedy, journalist and former
:01:38. > :01:41.editor, Rosie Boycott, and Natalie Haynes, comedian and classist.
:01:41. > :01:48.We are monitoring your tweets right now. Here is a challenge, who else
:01:48. > :01:53.should be on the list of famous Belgians apart from Magritte,
:01:53. > :01:57.Hercule Poirot and Tintin. Tintin has greater fame now that Steven
:01:57. > :02:02.Spielberg and Peter Jackson has joined forces to bring him to the
:02:02. > :02:08.screen in the motion capture an nation, Tintin: The Secret of the
:02:08. > :02:11.Unicorn. Tintin began his adventures in 1929 at the hands of
:02:11. > :02:19.Belgian artist, Georges Prosper Remi, better known as Herge. Tintin,
:02:19. > :02:22.a young travelling reporter was the reporter young Herge wanted to be.
:02:23. > :02:28.He reflected the author's hopes, fears and dreams of distant land.
:02:28. > :02:33.The world fell in love with the quiffed crusader, 350 million
:02:33. > :02:39.copies of the book in 80 languages, adapted for film, stage and radio.
:02:39. > :02:42.Now Tintin is born-again in the form of Jamie Bell, with motion
:02:42. > :02:52.capture veteran, Andy Serkis, supplying the moves and voice of
:02:52. > :02:52.
:02:52. > :02:59.his side kick, Captain Haddock. is a story I'm working on, a man of
:02:59. > :03:04.war, triple masted and 50 guns. What do you know of the Unicorn?
:03:04. > :03:08.Not a lot that is why I'm asking you. That ship is known to only my
:03:08. > :03:13.family. Herge was a film maker in his own right. Most of the time the
:03:13. > :03:18.books were like a storyboard for a movie. On this movie Stephen was
:03:18. > :03:22.very much stepping into the role of an illustrator rather than film
:03:22. > :03:25.maker, he said the technology made him more of a painter than before
:03:25. > :03:35.it's taking it for panel for panel as Herge was when coming up with
:03:35. > :03:38.the books. Turn the ship round, get me a flare.
:03:38. > :03:46.The screen writers had to choose which of the 23 completed books to
:03:46. > :03:52.adapt for the film. We combined two books, we combined the Golden Claws
:03:52. > :03:57.and The Secret of the Unicorn. Because the Crab with the Golden
:03:57. > :04:02.Claw is the first time Tintin meets Captain Haddock. It is when the
:04:02. > :04:08.Tintin universe and character and locations start to form in Herge's
:04:08. > :04:13.mind and our's. Herge is a great story-teller, the simplicity of it,
:04:13. > :04:18.or the deceptive simplicity of it is what endures for kids of all
:04:18. > :04:22.ages. Are the adventure of Tintin better told in the original comic
:04:22. > :04:31.books or is Herge's hero in 3-D about to find a new generation of
:04:31. > :04:36.fans. Rosie, is a film like this ever
:04:36. > :04:40.going to satisfy the aficionados? I'm not sure that it will. Tintin
:04:40. > :04:44.has really big fans. I wasn't one of them, I think they are
:04:44. > :04:49.incredibly male these stories. They are very lacking in emotion. Tintin
:04:49. > :04:53.is this strange character, he has no mother, father, nowhere that he
:04:53. > :04:57.lives, no apparent means of support. There is nothing emotional at all
:04:57. > :05:01.about him. I have never related to him as a kid. I spent today reading
:05:01. > :05:06.Tintin in America, I didn't relate to it again. I did go and see it
:05:06. > :05:12.yesterday, and I took my step grandchildren, who are 13 and 10.
:05:12. > :05:15.Boit had read some of the Tintin and the girl hadn't, they loved it
:05:15. > :05:19.and completely got into the animation. They didn't worry about
:05:19. > :05:23.the lack of the back story? They didn't. They loved the big set
:05:23. > :05:28.pieces. The bits say when the two boats are battling in the sea and
:05:28. > :05:31.the big chase at the end. For me it became a bit too much like a rather
:05:31. > :05:35.weird Indiana Jones, and you wondered which speil spol you were
:05:35. > :05:42.in. They liked it. - Spielberg you were in. They liked it. For people
:05:42. > :05:46.who are real fans they will find it a pretty strange experience. David?
:05:46. > :05:53.The vocabulary of watching films and superheros in films and Tintin
:05:53. > :05:58.is a sort of superher rofplt you want the back story, was Tintin
:05:58. > :06:02.bitten by a strange hair-do! It took me a while to accept I wasn't
:06:02. > :06:07.going to learn about his mother or father. The animation took over and
:06:07. > :06:14.the fantasy, the excitement of the adventure took over and I did go
:06:14. > :06:17.with it. It is abstract. There is so little information? That is the
:06:17. > :06:20.point, Tintin was bitten by an accountant, the point is he's the
:06:20. > :06:28.straight man and everyone else insane. He was the boring annoying
:06:28. > :06:33.one when I was a kid. I read them as a kid, I loved Captain Haddock
:06:33. > :06:38.and Snowy. He's more of a character? He's very vanilla. What
:06:38. > :06:44.upset me is the style with the motion cap tuerbgs and a lot of the
:06:44. > :06:47.vocal performances were unanimated, they looked like vocal corpes.
:06:47. > :06:53.want to stick with what you are saying about vanilla, all the
:06:53. > :06:58.nuances in the cartoons and the dilemmas and things, and the little
:06:58. > :07:02.tropes, are all missing? It is all ironed out. Particularly Haddock,
:07:02. > :07:06.he's a lot more out of control. I don't think that is disturbing for
:07:06. > :07:11.kids. When I was a kid and I met children, I don't have them but I
:07:11. > :07:17.do know some, it is wonderful for adults to be completely
:07:17. > :07:23.irresponsible, dysfuntional and fail, and be hysterically funny at
:07:23. > :07:29.one stage, Haddock delivered that, you don't wanted a dults to be
:07:29. > :07:34.sensible all the time. What about the other actors, motion captured
:07:34. > :07:38.does it do the actors justice or not? I hated the film on two counts.
:07:38. > :07:44.Both of them because they tried too hard to be close to the comic books.
:07:44. > :07:48.One, the story is rubbish, I love Joe Cornish, it breaks my heart to
:07:48. > :07:55.say it. Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright. I love them less,
:07:55. > :07:58.now I have made me say it. I love Joe Cornish. In the comic books it
:07:58. > :08:02.doesn't matter Tintin is passive, in a film it really matters. Every
:08:02. > :08:07.time anything happens it happens to Tintin, he's not pro-active. Snowy
:08:07. > :08:11.is more pro-active than him. That is where the motion capture is
:08:11. > :08:14.interesting. It is worse, it should look like the comic books, no it
:08:14. > :08:18.shouldn't, it is a film, you are Steven Spielberg, how could you not
:08:18. > :08:28.know this. I'm still cross, I will be cross at the end of the clip.
:08:28. > :08:57.
:08:57. > :09:02.That's cool. Wait for this let's Snowy's a hero. He is, they should
:09:02. > :09:06.have named the film after him, and he should have got it. It should
:09:06. > :09:10.have been Snowy and Haddock, because Tintin is boring. He's not
:09:10. > :09:16.motion capture. He's properly animated. A lot of the motion
:09:16. > :09:20.capture is amazingly laboured, and the delivery of lines is
:09:20. > :09:24.fatastically slow. He sort of shows how to do it, he slightly
:09:24. > :09:28.exaggerates his movements so you connect emotionally and physically.
:09:28. > :09:33.I felt some of the background, some of the drawing is absolutely
:09:33. > :09:39.beautiful. The rendering of the town is fantastic, and the ship.
:09:39. > :09:44.Speil spol did - Spielberg had the enormous joy of the animators
:09:44. > :09:48.putting it together. The long books they weren't something like a comic
:09:48. > :09:52.you read quickly. Actually you could read them at your own speed.
:09:52. > :09:56.I think you get flung through this at such, it doesn't let you up for
:09:56. > :10:01.a minute. There is something happening. Actually you can go
:10:01. > :10:05.slowly. No-one has any expressions. All Herge is doing is projecting
:10:05. > :10:09.the idea that this is this hero, the hero he could never be because
:10:09. > :10:15.he was never very heroic, Herge himself, he has Tintin, that is
:10:15. > :10:20.enough to get him through the book. The idea that Tintin is good and
:10:20. > :10:25.evil. He is an unhero, the thing with the film is the craziness of
:10:25. > :10:29.the other people has disappeared. In Spielberg's hands you expect him
:10:29. > :10:34.to do something extraordinary with it. You take actors who can act
:10:34. > :10:42.really well, with motion cap tuerbgs you cover them with
:10:42. > :10:49.something much - capture, you cover their face with it. When I think of
:10:49. > :10:53.Spielberg I think of ET and I still cry at it. It is not with heart
:10:53. > :10:57.this. What happens normally in a film is you build and build and
:10:57. > :11:02.build, this is where the jeopardy occurs, it is very linear. It is
:11:02. > :11:07.because they stayed with the comic book, it has to be Captain going
:11:07. > :11:13.after the hidden treasure, but Captain owns a ship, he's not
:11:13. > :11:22.starving, what is the jeopardy. They gave Captain a lot of sudden
:11:22. > :11:28.dough AA lines. And set up a sequel before the end of T we set up the
:11:28. > :11:38.idea at the beginning of the show you could give us other famous
:11:38. > :11:40.
:11:40. > :11:45.Belgians. Dries Van Notten. Jean- Claude Van Dame. It is not often
:11:45. > :11:49.the hallowed halls of the V & A have laughter. There was scattered
:11:49. > :11:53.hilarity to a new exhibition about Private Eye, the satirical manage
:11:53. > :11:58.zeen has been appearing every fortnight since October 1961,
:11:58. > :12:03.featuring some of the best cartoonist from Britain. Now the V
:12:03. > :12:08.& A is marking half a century of. During its 50 years in print,
:12:08. > :12:14.Private Eye has what can only be described as an eventful life.
:12:14. > :12:18.satirical manage zeen, Private Eye, has won its libel damages appeal.
:12:18. > :12:23.Ian Hislop didn't attempt to disguise his joy when he left court.
:12:23. > :12:32.The Court of Appeal has officially declared I'm not a banana. It was
:12:32. > :12:42.bought in 1962 by Peter Cook, after being a student manage zeen. Then
:12:42. > :12:44.
:12:44. > :12:48.investigative journal I was was introduced. It became the a
:12:48. > :12:53.different vehicle. It is a good reason to keep it going. Private
:12:53. > :12:57.Eye is the biggest selling news and investigative affairs magazine, and
:12:57. > :13:00.shifts more than 200,000 copies. The challenge for the museum's
:13:00. > :13:06.curators is how to bring to life a magazine that has changed so little
:13:06. > :13:12.since it began. The idea for the show began with plieft private, we
:13:12. > :13:16.got a call - with Private Eye, I got a call and a message. I went to
:13:16. > :13:22.Ian Hislop's office and was struck by the meem beelia and chaos and
:13:22. > :13:26.confusion, and I thought this was the show. Cartoons, yes, but create
:13:26. > :13:32.this creative mayhem, it is so far away from what you think a
:13:32. > :13:39.newspaper usually works in. In the exhibition are 50 iconic front
:13:39. > :13:45.covers, chosen by current editor, Ian Hislop, and some cartoons from
:13:45. > :13:50.the extensive archive. This is the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan,
:13:50. > :13:57.portrayed as if he's Christine Keeler. This got the magazine
:13:57. > :14:02.banned by WH Smith. Here is a great raffle Steadman in the spirit of HM
:14:02. > :14:07.Baitman, he did a series of cartoons called "the man who...".
:14:08. > :14:13.Here is a man asking at WH Smith if they have Private Eye, all the men
:14:13. > :14:17.with their girly magazines are recoiling in horror at the
:14:17. > :14:22.disgusting inquiry that anyone could ask for it. A new book,
:14:22. > :14:27.Private Eye The First 50 Years, written by a staffer is the life of
:14:27. > :14:33.Private Eye. Filled with tales of larger than life characters,
:14:33. > :14:41.lawsuits and internal rifts. With such a rich history and colourful
:14:41. > :14:50.cast, can a moderate two-roomed display at the V & A do it justice.
:14:50. > :14:54.You are the sat teirist here, David, was it a - satirist here, how was
:14:54. > :15:01.it for you? Private Eye is something in my life I have wanted
:15:01. > :15:05.to write for and avoided because I wanted to write satire. It is the
:15:05. > :15:10.front bench, they give you the weekly fix of funny. Everyone is
:15:10. > :15:14.talking about the institution, but it is so part of the fabric of our
:15:14. > :15:17.satirical life. I found it was great seeing this exhibition. And
:15:17. > :15:21.particularly the time line. What is excellent about Private Eye is it
:15:21. > :15:26.is not only funny, great sat tierbgs shouldn't just make you
:15:26. > :15:35.laugh, should - satire, shouldn't just make you laugh but your jaw
:15:35. > :15:38.drop. There was a piece about the SAS shooting in Gibraltar, and they
:15:38. > :15:43.were asked why did you only shoot 16 times and it was because they
:15:43. > :15:47.ran out of bullets. It was to embed points you might ignore if they
:15:47. > :15:52.didn't make you laugh, Private Eye is great at doing that. It lasts,
:15:52. > :15:58.when you think of all the things that happened, That was The Week
:15:58. > :16:01.That Was, Spitting Image, we still have Have I Got News For You, but
:16:01. > :16:07.why did it last? Because it is incredibly good journalism, and
:16:07. > :16:11.they kept that up. There are lots of things incredibly impressive
:16:11. > :16:15.about Private Eye, I'm always impressed by the amount of stories
:16:15. > :16:20.they have. In this current issue they have a page, you read it here
:16:20. > :16:24.first, it is the story of Aitken, tax evasion, this, that and the
:16:24. > :16:28.other, which then go on to huge scandals. Underneath the belly of
:16:29. > :16:32.the fun and the satire and the jokes and the schoolboy humour is
:16:32. > :16:37.this serious, serious getting at the establishment for being on the
:16:37. > :16:42.gravy train and other such corruptions. It is great. When
:16:42. > :16:47.Richard Ing rams game in he put in the investigative journalism. It is
:16:47. > :16:50.about the cart soons and in the V & A they are there, but not there is
:16:50. > :16:56.how many different stories they have drilled in to. It was a
:16:56. > :17:01.buesful exhibition and the V & A is about art and they will look at art,
:17:01. > :17:04.but it was undercurated in that, if you didn't know the famous
:17:04. > :17:08.Christine Keeler photograph, and some may have not known who Harold
:17:08. > :17:12.Macmillan was, you needed more background. It is such an important
:17:12. > :17:18.part of a lot of the humour. A lot of the cartoons. It is gorgeous
:17:18. > :17:22.drawings. They had this fantastic drawing of the judge in the Oz
:17:22. > :17:28.trial, if you didn't know about that trial, yes it was a wonderful
:17:28. > :17:32.piece of art but you don't know what you are looking at. It was
:17:32. > :17:37.undercurated, a lot of people like me were affectionate, you end up
:17:37. > :17:42.with warm wet ears, because people are laughing when they look at
:17:42. > :17:48.things. There were laugh out loud moments, I had never seen the
:17:48. > :17:52.cartoon that bade Barcelona 0 and sur-real Madrid 2. These were
:17:52. > :17:57.British cartoonists over the 50 years? Everybody funny was working
:17:57. > :18:00.for Private Eye in some way. agree that the exhibition was
:18:00. > :18:04.undercurated, because you end up missing out on exactly the
:18:04. > :18:09.journalism, the seriousness that underpins it, the cartoons, yes,
:18:09. > :18:13.there are ones that are incredibly resonate, there is a great one of a
:18:13. > :18:17.choir master going into church saying it is like everyone I ever
:18:17. > :18:21.slept with there. They could have done an exhibition just about
:18:21. > :18:27.cartoons? You got the impression that V & A are slightly embarrassed
:18:27. > :18:31.about having it. It is not listed as an exhibition, when you get to
:18:31. > :18:35.it and it is welcome to the display. They haven't put it in the
:18:35. > :18:39.janitor's ku cupboard, but not far away from that. I'm not sure why
:18:39. > :18:43.they bothered, if they weren't going to commit to it. It is a
:18:43. > :18:47.better magazine than exhibition. is a magazine that resonates with
:18:47. > :18:50.you, do you still read it and like it? I do read it because my
:18:50. > :18:56.boyfriend is a subscriber to it. But I don't read it with the same
:18:56. > :19:00.degree of commitment that he does. It has, like Rosie I very much like
:19:00. > :19:04.their kick-ass journalism, I don't particularly like cartoons,
:19:04. > :19:07.generally. Is it offensive enough now? Almost never, I don't think. I
:19:07. > :19:13.like it when they get the whole, at one time they included a coupon for
:19:13. > :19:17.you to write in and say, I withdraw my subscription. I wish they were
:19:17. > :19:25.edger, I'm glad they have stopped getting sued for libel every 20
:19:25. > :19:29.minutes. But I wish they were still so strong. When Ian Hislop went
:19:29. > :19:32.after the superinjunctions, it wasn't for the paper, but he
:19:32. > :19:35.believed it was wrong, it is a campaigning vehicle not just
:19:35. > :19:40.putting it on the page? That is what satire is about. You get that
:19:40. > :19:45.from the wall, that is the benefit of the wall of covers, is that it
:19:45. > :19:52.shows an element of the campaigning. I agree, in the cartoons, they are
:19:52. > :19:55.funny, but. The place that Private Eye occupies, the exhibition in the
:19:55. > :19:59.V & A is completely irrelevant, but it is this thing that people see it
:19:59. > :20:02.as a moral guardian, something that began as an underground paper in
:20:02. > :20:08.the 60s, that was the scourge, that didn't come from the left or the
:20:08. > :20:11.right. It didn't come out of a Marxist belief or any known
:20:11. > :20:14.political thing, it is somewhere that people want Private Eye to
:20:14. > :20:19.approve of them. And Private Eye's blessing is a great thing. People
:20:19. > :20:23.don't want it to be very nasty about them. It is like as though
:20:23. > :20:26.Ian and the cast of them have become in some sort of way the
:20:26. > :20:31.keeper of our moral flame. It is a strange thing to have achieved in
:20:32. > :20:36.50 years. It is a pure form of sature. Satire is the only literary
:20:36. > :20:40.form invented by the moments. went after the injunctions because
:20:40. > :20:45.he thought they were wrong. And he did it. It is pure juvenile,
:20:45. > :20:48.because it mocks everybody, he's the first great satirist, people
:20:48. > :20:52.who are dead because he doesn't want to get killed, but after
:20:52. > :20:55.everyone, it is a very pure satirical form. It is interesting
:20:55. > :20:59.to see how Private Eye is doing fine, eventhough there is the
:20:59. > :21:06.Internet, where there is lots of satire on the internet. It is still
:21:06. > :21:10.so hand knitted. The design has not changed. They have not gone glossy,
:21:10. > :21:14.they will carry on being funny, doing the journalism and being
:21:14. > :21:20.satirical. Eventhough the Internet is on them. It is the time when you
:21:20. > :21:25.were a comedian and you can't go on tele or go on a game show, it is
:21:25. > :21:29.when you thought comedy was the voice of truth and power. Another
:21:29. > :21:32.half century of Private Eye perhaps. Still to come the TV drama by Ronan
:21:32. > :21:38.Bennett, which has East London all fired up.
:21:38. > :21:43.Why have we to make it to hard for the customers, the Feds know people
:21:43. > :21:48.are selling and buying, as long as we don't make no noise, they don't
:21:48. > :21:53.really care. That is still to come. If Private
:21:53. > :21:58.Eye is being grappling with the fast failure in Uganda affairs in
:21:58. > :22:02.British politics over the past 50 years, on stage writers, such as
:22:02. > :22:09.David Hare and Howard Brenton are doing the same thing. Mike Bartlett,
:22:09. > :22:13.just 31, might just be an inheritor of that tradition. His new play, 13,
:22:13. > :22:17.which opened in the National Theatre in London, is an ambitious
:22:17. > :22:21.contemporary piece set in the City of Dreams, and visions of street
:22:21. > :22:25.protests and political uncertainty. The world of 13 is both familiar
:22:25. > :22:30.and strange, the economy has stalled, the population is restless,
:22:30. > :22:33.and across the capital, Londoners are haunted by the same terrifying
:22:33. > :22:37.nightmare. Meanwhile, a female Conservative Prime Minister
:22:37. > :22:43.deliberates over whether to join a hawkish US administration in
:22:43. > :22:50.invading Iran to put a stop to its nuclear ambitions. As the prospects
:22:50. > :22:58.of war draws closer, the emegmatic figure of John returns to the city
:22:58. > :23:04.to preach a message of renewal. He takes 12 members of society,
:23:04. > :23:09.cleaner, soldier and pensioner, he leads a peace movement. There can
:23:09. > :23:14.be no progress without belief. Belief in the capacity of mankind,
:23:14. > :23:18.belief that we can be better, that we can be more than animals, more
:23:18. > :23:22.than selfish, more than war like tribes, pushing each other out of
:23:22. > :23:25.the way in brutal competition. is the work of Mike Bartlett, the
:23:25. > :23:29.current writer in residence at the National Theatre studio, and a
:23:29. > :23:34.graduate of the Royal Court theatre's young writers programme.
:23:34. > :23:39.His first play for the national was last year's Earthquakes in London,
:23:39. > :23:43.staged to great acclaim. Now, given the vast space of the Olivier stage
:23:43. > :23:46.to fill, can Bartlett's take on the state-of-the-nation offer a
:23:46. > :23:50.convincing analysis of international diplomacy and people
:23:50. > :23:55.power. In our name, in this time, we can commune Kate to people in
:23:55. > :24:01.every home, in every place, instead, in our name, in this time, we can
:24:01. > :24:05.reach out and empower them, not batter and destroy them. In our
:24:05. > :24:10.name, we can demand freedom for Iran, we can encourage and support
:24:10. > :24:19.them to have a say over their future, in our name we can all be
:24:19. > :24:22.better. In our name! Natalie, Mike Bartlett takes all
:24:23. > :24:26.these different themes and strands, our emotions and anger and throws
:24:26. > :24:30.it back at us. Does it help make sense of our surroundings? Yes it
:24:30. > :24:33.kind of does. It is something he did incredibly well for the most
:24:33. > :24:37.part with Earthquakes in London last year or the year before. I
:24:37. > :24:41.liked it very much for the most part here. I think the problem is,
:24:41. > :24:49.that although they filled the stage with the most beautiful and
:24:49. > :24:53.brilliant set, Tom Scutt well done you, there is a huge cube, moving
:24:53. > :24:58.forwards and backwards, down and up, lit from one side and not the other,
:24:58. > :25:03.it is extraordinary. Although the performance fills the stage really
:25:03. > :25:08.well, and the story interlock in a twiterish way. You can have a small
:25:08. > :25:12.shot having a conversation, and another pair for another another
:25:12. > :25:16.story will walk in and cross against them, because it is well
:25:16. > :25:19.directed and rehearsed you are never confused. It sets up a really
:25:19. > :25:24.brilliant premise, which is the ultimate urban malaise, here is
:25:24. > :25:27.everyone in the city, panicky and worried and no-one can sleep,
:25:27. > :25:31.everyone having nightmares and no- one can sleep. This is the best
:25:31. > :25:40.idea you have heard for ages because you don't sleep, and the
:25:40. > :25:44.second act it ebbs away. The first thing you set up I wanted and it
:25:44. > :25:48.ebbs away. It didn't deliver did it in the second half all the things
:25:48. > :25:53.it seemed, it was as if it was going to come into some sort of are
:25:53. > :25:56.you by-election cube and come into focus at the end - rubix cube and
:25:56. > :26:00.come into focus at the end, you didn't know if you were harking
:26:01. > :26:06.back to Iran or Iraq, and whether we had any belief at all. Did it
:26:06. > :26:10.deliver? No after the interval, you heard the balls dropping off the
:26:10. > :26:13.thing that should have had balls. It seemed to be a continuation of
:26:13. > :26:16.the conversation that was Earthquakes in London, but the
:26:16. > :26:19.continuation of the bit that people thought was weak, which was the
:26:19. > :26:22.strange obsession that Bartlett seems to have at the moment, about
:26:22. > :26:26.if we could all tap into a collective unconscious, without
:26:26. > :26:29.having opinions and without there being facts, and without believing
:26:29. > :26:35.anything, then we would call mind meld and everything would be happy.
:26:35. > :26:38.But all of the things he opened, all of the relationships he opened,
:26:38. > :26:43.it didn't go anywhere. You have to have character that is you really
:26:43. > :26:49.believe in to do that, don't you? You definitely have to. I couldn't
:26:49. > :26:53.agree with more with what is being said, he sets up something
:26:53. > :26:58.fatastically exciting and then the rug is pulled out beneath you. John,
:26:58. > :27:02.the character people are meant to be emmobilising about is not strong
:27:02. > :27:09.enough. David Hare can do it, but you think this is somebody
:27:09. > :27:14.addressing what is going on across the river right now. It felt very
:27:14. > :27:19.current with the people protesting. You can't believe you are going to
:27:19. > :27:24.be here. He is writing it as he's going along? But the answer doesn't
:27:24. > :27:28.come and you feel let down. talk about David Hare, it was less
:27:28. > :27:33.obvious, he was not clear cut about which side he was on? It was play
:27:33. > :27:38.of two halves and slightly disappointing. Once you accepted
:27:38. > :27:43.the second half I felt it was interesting, and unDavid Hare-like,
:27:43. > :27:47.we weren't all celebrating mass of liberalism, he offered other
:27:47. > :27:49.alternatives. Like what? There was a parallel universe that sort of
:27:50. > :27:54.allowed him almost to defend Tony Blair's decision to go to war. You
:27:54. > :27:58.can only do it by creating a whole parallel universe, the big cube,
:27:58. > :28:01.but on the National stage there was a justification for going to war.
:28:01. > :28:07.There was, even if it were three lines, a justification of the
:28:07. > :28:10.market, which you don't normally hear in that. Only because you were
:28:11. > :28:17.taking the most boiled down versions of a dated left-wing
:28:17. > :28:21.approach, and the most boiled down dated right-wing approach.
:28:21. > :28:26.wasn't real people offering real views. It is like a digested
:28:26. > :28:30.Guardian from a while ago. We are in a state of turmoil, so we have a
:28:30. > :28:36.lot of plays which are contemporary, we have Enron, Jerusalem in a
:28:36. > :28:40.different way as well. There is room, isn't there, for sharp
:28:40. > :28:45.writing about our contemporary problems? Absolutely, that is why
:28:45. > :28:49.we are having so many revivals, like at the RSC, you have Saved
:28:49. > :28:52.coming back, all of the playwrights of the 60s are not bringing new
:28:52. > :28:56.work, it is the all work bringing forward. It comes from a different
:28:56. > :28:59.time. An underlying problem is because directors run the theatre
:28:59. > :29:05.and they want plays that don't really have much couldn't tent
:29:05. > :29:11.because they want to impose their concept of the play, - connent, and
:29:11. > :29:19.they want to impose - content and they wanted to impose their content
:29:19. > :29:22.on the plays. It was like he had Tourettes on it, he didn't give us
:29:22. > :29:27.an answer. Don't you think there should have been some message. None
:29:27. > :29:31.of the messages got realised, Twitter can do it, other can do it,
:29:31. > :29:35.it was little nibbles. It was a tabloid version of modern day.
:29:35. > :29:39.was like believing is better than not believing. But believing what.
:29:39. > :29:43.That was the question that was not answered strongly enough. We will
:29:43. > :29:46.have to leave that believing or not believing it worked. Coming on to
:29:46. > :29:54.something which is a question of belief in the human spirit or not,
:29:54. > :30:02.Ronan Bennett is on a bit of a role, no sooner has its - has his
:30:02. > :30:07.conspiracy theory drama Hidden has finished, he starts another four-
:30:07. > :30:11.night drama on Channel 4. Top Boy is set on the Summerhouse Estate in
:30:11. > :30:15.London's East End, a mixture of gangster thriller and social
:30:15. > :30:19.realisim, which aims to reflect the lives of young people in our inner
:30:19. > :30:23.cities. It was created by the writer, Ronan Bennett, whose
:30:23. > :30:30.previous work includes The Hamburg Cell, and the dock can you drama
:30:30. > :30:35.based on the September 11th attacks, and Hidden, a small town solicitor
:30:35. > :30:39.forced to delve into his murky past. Bennett was inspired by seeing a
:30:39. > :30:42.child selling drugs near his Hackney home. And over a long
:30:42. > :30:47.period interviewed locals, from dealers to senior police officers.
:30:47. > :30:56.Top Boy shows a world in which crime is an all-too easy option for
:30:56. > :31:04.young people in particular. Broadcast over four nights, the
:31:04. > :31:09.drama centres on 13-year-old Ramell, left to his own devices after his
:31:09. > :31:15.single mother is hospitalised. put her in a mental hospital.
:31:15. > :31:19.is she coming home? I don't know. We also fall deShane who will stop
:31:19. > :31:25.at nothing to win a turf war and become the main supplier, rather
:31:25. > :31:29.than continue as a mere foot soldier. Why make it so hard for
:31:29. > :31:33.the customer, the Feds know we are buying and selling in Hackney, as
:31:33. > :31:36.long as we don't make no noise, they don't care. Few of the
:31:36. > :31:41.characters are played by professional actors, instead
:31:41. > :31:46.castings were held in schools, youth clubs and boxing gyms. Little
:31:46. > :31:51.Michael, ten years old, making his money. What are you lot saying, you
:31:51. > :31:55.want to make some paper. I do. Top Boy a dramatic depiction of
:31:55. > :31:58.life in places where drugs and violence are all too common, or a
:31:58. > :32:07.sensational story, which two months on from the riots, and less than a
:32:07. > :32:11.year before the Olympics, just reinforces negative stereo types.
:32:11. > :32:17.We began with the clear-cut write and wrong and evil and good in
:32:17. > :32:22.Tintin, but this is a much more ambivalent, ambiguous drama. Lots
:32:22. > :32:26.of shades of grey, lots of depth of character. I remember being sad
:32:26. > :32:31.when I watched the one when people were being happy about it making a
:32:31. > :32:37.fuss. Thinking this is what British television did in the 1960s and
:32:37. > :32:42.1970s and forgot what to do, not having dramas based on things
:32:42. > :32:46.blowing up. Caring about characters and being interested in them and
:32:46. > :32:50.allowing actors act. It is a beautifully directed piece, he
:32:50. > :32:59.allows you to see actors acting their socks off. The kids,
:32:59. > :33:03.particularly, Malcolm Kamoletti, they are doing things, if you talk
:33:03. > :33:09.to grown-up actors, moving through a scene and carrying it with
:33:09. > :33:12.movement. It respects the variety. I love the very newspapers that
:33:13. > :33:17.like to demonise marginalised communities, rabble roused a
:33:17. > :33:22.response that the whole of Hackney was outraged. This is looking at
:33:22. > :33:26.partly why you might end up rioting or being in something that would be
:33:26. > :33:30.a criminal situation. But also why you might not. It takes the
:33:30. > :33:34.Darwinian community, but caring, a genuine community, it is all shown.
:33:34. > :33:37.It gives people dignity, it is a lovely world he makes. I couldn't
:33:37. > :33:42.agree more. I think it is an extraordinary portrayal of a slice
:33:42. > :33:47.of life that people are not aware of in London any more. London has
:33:47. > :33:50.become such a deeply schizophrenic city. The highest prices in central
:33:50. > :33:53.London are actually still rising as against everything else in the
:33:53. > :33:56.world falling apart. At the same time in the underbelly of the city
:33:56. > :34:01.we have situations like this. Where people don't have any option. I
:34:01. > :34:07.think it is brilliant, because it doesn't glamorise it, it doesn't
:34:07. > :34:11.try to garpbish it, it is very down - varpbish it, it is very dourpb to
:34:12. > :34:16.earth, we need to know it. It is great that Channel 4 have it on.
:34:16. > :34:22.I'm sad, it should be on the BBC, we should know about this. How are
:34:22. > :34:29.we going to change it, not have more riots. But it is not
:34:29. > :34:36.preaching? It is a brilliantly subtle posing of problems. There is
:34:36. > :34:40.one fantastic scene where one of the young lads, 12 or 14, the
:34:40. > :34:45.Gemcharacter, is finally taken under the wing. He's finally going
:34:45. > :34:48.to sell some drugs. He sits in the car and the director keeps the
:34:48. > :34:52.camera on his smiling, he feels he belongs, his dad is around but not
:34:52. > :34:57.very much. He's got a family, and you are challenged, because you can
:34:57. > :35:02.see how the drug dealers are a community for him. When I was
:35:02. > :35:06.watching it and also realising as you say, so many of these actors
:35:06. > :35:10.are amateurs. They are the real thing. It is almost, they are
:35:10. > :35:14.beautifully underplaying it. It is because they haven't been trained
:35:14. > :35:18.by theatre schools to be hopelessly overacting. So instead of getting
:35:18. > :35:23.that overacting which then looks wood on TV, you have exactly the
:35:23. > :35:28.same thing when it was Fishtank where the lead character was having
:35:28. > :35:33.a fight with her boyfriend on train station, and getting one of the
:35:33. > :35:39.most brilliant perm formances out of anyone. They get actual real-
:35:39. > :35:42.life children behaving like actual real-life children. That
:35:42. > :35:46.understated performance, when so often he's actually saying nothing,
:35:46. > :35:50.I think the bravery of the directing on television to do that,
:35:50. > :35:55.really takes the audience with it, doesn't it. It takes you between
:35:55. > :35:59.worlds. What this does incredibly well, which is actually not in The
:35:59. > :36:05.Wire, and it doesn't serve it well to compare it to that, it looks at
:36:05. > :36:11.the dual existence of people. Some of it is young black men selling
:36:11. > :36:15.drugs, boo to Hackney. But there is also a pregnant white woman with a
:36:15. > :36:20.marijuana farm, who wants to provide for the baby. Then you see
:36:20. > :36:24.her by day and she's selling tickets at a tube office and you
:36:24. > :36:28.see her world shift. The character of the young boy goes through both
:36:28. > :36:31.of the worlds on the right and I don't think sides of the tracks.
:36:31. > :36:35.Also when Ronan Bennett set up all the characters so clearly, there is
:36:35. > :36:40.not one character that is not in danger. I find that, I was almost
:36:40. > :36:47.thinking what will I see next? Remember how there was no jeopardy
:36:47. > :36:52.in Tintin, it is all in this. not silly, nobody will die, nobody
:36:52. > :36:55.blows up. Is this lovely frailty. His mother, Lisa, the way she is
:36:55. > :37:00.dealt with in it, and the way she is. Taking something like this,
:37:00. > :37:03.almost like event television, you are stringing it across four nights,
:37:03. > :37:07.you are actually building it up to be something rather important?
:37:07. > :37:10.are making a statement with it. You are actually really wanting to
:37:10. > :37:15.shove it in people's faces and say open your eyes here and look at
:37:15. > :37:19.this. Who is it for, for white middle-class people, who is it
:37:19. > :37:22.actually for? I think it is for people who say everything's all
:37:22. > :37:26.right, and actually, in this society we have lots of
:37:26. > :37:30.opportunities. This is showing that some of the people we don't have it.
:37:30. > :37:33.You made a good point about the groups, if you don't have father
:37:33. > :37:43.figures of course you will cleave to that. It is the reason why
:37:43. > :37:47.people end up in the BNP. Mid- Summers Murder, wonderful black
:37:47. > :37:53.actors, why don't we see more. Before we move on I should mention
:37:53. > :37:57.after last week's show our panelist, cazcazcaz wanted to apologise to
:37:57. > :38:07.anyone offended by her reference to autism in the discussion about We
:38:07. > :38:12.Need To Talk About Kevin. Earl, that is Karen Krizanovich.
:38:12. > :38:16.Miriam Margolyes is appearing in A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg, we
:38:16. > :38:20.asked her about her favourite roles on stage and on screen. It was a
:38:20. > :38:24.great delight to be in Harry Potter number two and eight, particularly
:38:24. > :38:29.number eight because I will earn a lot of money from that one, I think.
:38:29. > :38:36.And to be in something which has appealed to so many millions of
:38:36. > :38:42.people, that's a thrill. Plenty of pots to go around, grasp your
:38:42. > :38:48.mandrake and pull it up. I worked with Baz Lurhman on Romeo and
:38:48. > :38:52.Juliet. I owe him a great deal, the studio didn't want me, they wanted
:38:52. > :38:58.Cathy Baits, she's more famous and a brilliant act stress. For some
:38:58. > :39:04.reason he wanted me. He told me to play it Cuban. I had to blink
:39:04. > :39:10.slightly when I accepted it, he asked could I do it. I said, of
:39:10. > :39:16.course. I desire some conference with you. I also like to test to
:39:16. > :39:23.myself in serious stuff because people think of me as someone funny.
:39:23. > :39:28.So when I do serious and End Game with Mark Rylance, that was a
:39:28. > :39:34.career high for me. I was in a dustbin for 15 minutes, but it was
:39:34. > :39:42.a rich time, dramatically. I'm now appearing in A Day In The Death Of
:39:42. > :39:50.Joe Egg by Peter Nichols, one of the most extraordinary plays of
:39:50. > :39:54.modern times. It is a mixture of hysteria and normality, of banality,
:39:54. > :39:59.cliche and terror. It is quite a tall order to get it all in the, I
:39:59. > :40:06.don't know, 20 minutes of the last act, which is when I appear. It is
:40:06. > :40:12.a mixture of farce, and tragedy. It confronts very genuine issues of
:40:12. > :40:18.dealing with a child who is disabled, critically disabled. And
:40:18. > :40:23.how husbands and wifes manage. It was first done 47 years a it was
:40:23. > :40:28.incredibly shocking. And you know I think it still is. I want very much
:40:28. > :40:33.to continue being an actress, but I would like to be at the National
:40:33. > :40:38.Theatre. I have written to them and have had no reply. I'm now putting
:40:38. > :40:44.out a public request, on television, please give me a job at the
:40:44. > :40:50.national theatre and why has it taken you so long.
:40:50. > :40:55.Take that. And you can Kashmir yam in A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg in
:40:55. > :40:59.the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, after that possibly available for
:40:59. > :41:05.the national. Everything is on the website. Let us know what you think.
:41:05. > :41:08.I will be back next week with a book special featuring the latest
:41:08. > :41:15.from Umberto Eco, Stephen King, Joan Didion and Aleksandr
:41:15. > :41:22.Solzhenitsyn. My thanks to my guests. We hope you will stay tuned
:41:22. > :41:32.for Coldseal Group Ltd, Ryan Adams all joining Jools after.
:41:32. > :41:32.