29/06/2012 The Review Show

On the review show tonight, Killer Joe, Friedkin freesd provocative

new film. He says it is black comedy, but did our panel come out

laughing. It smells heavenly, who would like to say grace? The Age Of

Miracles, the debut novel had a sold for over �1 million, can it

live up to that price tag. For Harry, England and St George, the

BBC plays Shakespeare's history big. Edvard Munch at Tate Modern,

revealing the man behind The Scream. We mark the 80th birthday of Sir

Blake, we will have live music from jazz vocalist, Ian Shaw.

Joining me are the journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer, the

performer and writer, Mark Thomas, and the actor Kerry Shale. As ever,

you are welcome to join in the conversation on Twitter. William

Friedkin is kill best known for his 70s hit The French Connection and

the classic horror, The Exorcist. His latest film, Killer Joe has

just opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He has

lost none of his skill to shock and sur prize. He came with leading

lady. Have you ever heard of Killer Joe, he's a cop, he has a little

business on the side. Ja What does he do? He kills people. A debt

dealing drug dealer decides to kill his alcoholic mother for life

insurance. This will get done, one way or

another. Our conversation is finished, I never met you. You

never met me. But Chris and his father get more

than they bargained for, when Killer Joe, played by Matthew

McConaughey, sets his sights on Chris's virginal, some what brain-

damaged young sister, Dottie. course we never discussed the

posbgt of a retainer. It is -- Possibility of a retainer. It is a

take on the Cinderella story, there is a young woman in it, in a

desperate situation. Her father and brother are pimping her out to a

hired killer, but the hired killer becomes her Prince Charming.

smells heavenly, who would like to say grace? What I'm saying with the

film is there is good and evil in everyone, everyone. Everyone in

this audience, everyone outside, and it is a constant struggle for

our better angels, to thrive over our demons. I told you from the

start. Shut up. The combination of violence and absurdity in this

dysfuntional family, has proved challenging for some critics.

Particularly the scene in which Killer Joe brutally humiliates

Chris's stepmother, Sharla, with a piece of fried chicken. If she was

an innocent, and she hadn't done nothing wrong and that scene

occurred, it would be really horrible. To say she gets what is

coming to her, it is very extreme. Look at Chris he gets beaten up

just as badly, and nobody is saying it is violence against men. No like

to do films that provide easy answers for people. You know, there

are no easy answers in life. It is not a neat package.

Mark, Killer Joe is certainly not a neat package. No it is not. Was it

a film where there were lots of dilemmas in, do you think, about

good and evil? I don't think the film dwelt a huge amount upon any

die -- dilemmas, he was saying it was about good and evil, there was

not a lot of good many times. That was mispackaging on his film. A

really interesting film and the writer, Tracy Letts, is an

incredible writer and great background, really concentrates on

those family dramas, and things falling apart. The writing is

incredible in the film. It is really good. Very funny as well. I

thought it was very funny. It doesn't quite translate for me from

the stage on to the film. It doesn't quite make the jump.

not? I think there are some key scenes where you would see

something in the theatre, like the he isduction or sexual awakening of

Dottie, which -- sexual awakening of Dottie, which you see in the

theatre and you couldn't quite go along with it here. You read the

play, have you any disconnect between the play and the page and

the film? Mark made a really good point and I agree with it. I read

the play because I wanted to see what the difference was. I was

disappointed in the film, I thought is it me, or is it the film, or is

it the original play. The original play, more or less, the dialogue is

the same. When you are in the theatre, and somebody gets the crap

beaten out of them, you know they are going to do it eight times a

week, you know they are just acting. When you see a film, you think, oh

my God, this is really happening, films are so much more visceral.

That is what you want? That is why ultimately I disliked the film. The

end of the film, I won't discuss, but McConaughey said when he first

read the script e felt like scouring himself with a steel brush,

he said today in an interview in the Guardian. I felt like that, I

thought I don't want to be sitting through this. I thought it was

pretty disgusting, I wouldn't advise my friends or servants to

see it. I think it is interesting, the most

successful scenes are actually the two most disturbing ones, which

involve the women. They are successful, I think, because they

are very theatrical. In a theatre, if you want to do something, you

can say, let's beat the crap out of somebody, we know it is not really

happening. You have to be more inventive with your humiliation, or

your questioning of what is going on. I think the two central scenes

with the women do that successfully, the violence doesn't work for me,

we have seen it all before in film, it is just violence, I'm used to

violence. Those two scenes had me thinking, they were incredibly

different. I also think it is interesting, Killer Joe, the play,

came out at the end of the 1990, it has taken a long time to come to

film. I spoke to somebody who had seen the play, they said one of the

things that was really interesting about the play, is it showed this

Hick family, very unusual to see it at the end, now we see it all over

the place. Part of the problem I had with the film was the

familiarity with hick things and violence. Where it was odd, that is

where it worked for me. We will talk about Matthew McConaughey's

performance in a moment. I wanted to show you a scene where Dottie

tells McConaughey what happened to her at the hands of her mother who

tried to kill her. My momma tried to kill me when I was real little,

she put a pillow over my face, because she cared more about

herself than her little baby, she didn't care about me as a little

baby. She was happy when she done it, I couldn't grow into something

more than she had been, or ever had been. She hadn't done t she hadn't

sent me back to him. One of the things that is so extraordinary

about this film s that performance, that character is the central

character in the whole film? should really have been called

Dottie, it is really about her. It is not about Killer Joe. She is the

only good person? It is remarkable, it is about how she escapes. If you

looked at the play, and if we take the family as a state-of-the-nation

broadcast, which America is very good at doing. You look at this

family, the American dream, completely dead, you are not stuck,

you are going down. And that's where it is. You don't know whether

she escapes or not, that is the whole thing? I would say about the

violence. One of the interesting things about the violence, was

actual lie there are bits when he pulls back -- actually there are

bits where he pulls back, the film is shot like it's on stage. You are

very aware it is make believe. That allows that violence to continue.

It was shot in three weeks on a budget of �5 million, because

Friedkin doesn't do roing. It wasn't a big -- it wasn't a big

studio. The bit I felt toyed with and you

knew it was happening, was when the kid, the guys come to get him for

the loan, you know he's going to get beaten really badly, and he

goes through the soft soap scene with the guy. The person who comes

out of this well is McConaughey as an actor. He's not somebody you

really rate as an actor? He's very good at playing sleaze balls, I was

watching EastBound and Down, he play as sleaze ball, he is coming

into his own playing these sleaze balls. In the interview in the

Guardian when he said he didn't want do T I'm sure his agent said,

math thue, baby, the romcom thing is dead, go for the sleaze ball

thing, it will work for it. He's brilliant. I hadn't seen the

romcoms, and he as brilliant. film he's really great. The Thomas

Haden Church character, plays the stupid guy, he's a brilliant actor.

It turns around he's not so stupid. There are lovely moments and gets a

laugh. If you want to take it as ark types, there are two women in

here, that are the virgin and the er who, they are not as you imagine.

The virginity in Dottie is Kurdled, there is something going on,

simultaneously religious and slightly off key. She seems to have

a premonition all the time about things. It is not quite what you

think. That is what I found interesting, when I first left the

them, I thought, I feel dirty, I'm not sure. I kept thinking about the

two central scenes with the women in it, they are disturbing, but not

straight forwardly disturbing in that tedious way you get in films.

I do think some of it meant to disturb, The Exorcist is a much

better film, they reminded me of the projectile vomiting in The

Exorcist. There was a jokey bit with Thomas Haden Church does

vomiting which was a throwback? Hasn't he grown up. There is lots

to talk about, Killer Joe is in cinemas now. With book shops

closing and e-books cutting into hard back profits, you would be

forgiven for thinking the book industry is in a crisis. Awe the

more surprising for a first-time novelist to be given a �1 million

advance, that is what happened to Karen Thompson Walker with The Age

Of Miracles. It is a family who wake up to the news that the

rotation of the earth is slowing down. It is about Julia growing up

during this time of extreme change and uncertainty. "We didn't notice

right away, we couldn't feel it. We did not sense the first time the

smooth kin like a bloomer under the surface of the skin." A lot of it

was accidental, reading the newspaper every day. If I read a

story about weird weather or mysterious extinction of species,

or some stories about climate change, I would try to learn about

the situations in the real world and use those details in the book.

Then, when I had a complete draft, I worked up the nerve to show it to

an astro physicist, which was It just felt true, that once, that

the Government would have to put people on a 24-hour clock, because

there would be too much chaos without T but at the same time it

seemed just -- without it. But at the same time it seemed realistic

that there would be a group would wouldn't want to live that way, and

instead of living on an artificial clock, with the rising and the

setting of the sun. There wasn't a specific parallel in the real world,

but it feels like a familiar and common divide that I see in all

kinds of situations. I don't know if it is especially American or not,

that is the country I know the best, so it felt realistic to me.

Miranda, Age of Miracles, a personal story of a global disaster,

what about the voice? It is quite interesting, essentially massive

thing is happening, it is an incredibly domestic book. So it is

a story of what is supposedly an 11-year-old girl. You could say

she's slightly wise for an 11-year- old, as often happens in novels. I

personally gave her the benefit of the doubt, because she's more 13,

but Californians are advanced. The book is perfectly written, it is a

polished gem, not a sentence out of place. It is about a massive world

disaster, that nobody can do anything about. What everybody does,

and the protagonists included, carry on as normal, and make

everything incredibly domestic and small. That is what happens

generally in disasters, these things don't tend to happen in the

western world. But if you go to place where is there are massive

ecological changes, people just hold on to the very, very small

things in their life. That rang true to me in that book. Kerry?

didn't think it was a good book. I have heard that they have sold the

movie rights, I have seen it might make a good disaster movie. It has

to be shot in 1-D, not 3-dplt. I thought the characters were not

deep. The mother was shallow, and the dead was hard working, the

little girl is shy, the boy is sensitive because his mother is

dying of cancer. She's not good on character, she's terrible on

character. I would agree. The positive thing about the book is,

actually, you do want to get to the end of it. You want to whizz

through it, it is quite a page- Turner. On terms of character, you

don't really care about what happens to them. You don't really

know them that well. It is so different from the Road by koerm

Mackintosh Cartney, where it is one man travelling with his child, and

you get to the heart of that character and want him to live?

keep thinking, where is Twitter, she kept saying I wonder what is

happening in other parts the world. It is set in modern day. It is

ahead of modern day? They the internet. They it Facebook? It is

so American centric, I expected it, I knew it would happen, she made

excuses for not knowing the big picture, I thought that was, it

didn't work. Do you think that was why she was 11 as opposed to 15.

She is writing at a 20-year-old. One of the things she was talking

about, which was the Government putting everybody on clock time,

then there are the refuseniks going on normal time. She is talking

about society dividing into different stpeers, which is true?

thought it was interesting that the people on the natural time don't do

anything, they smoke a lot of pot, form a commune and die. What I

would like to say about the book, I think I liked it more than you two.

It is a massive event happening, I know people react in a small way,

but people do go nuts, there were few example, I wanted her to lose

her mind a bit more. This is the problem I had with the book. I felt

she had written it like she had been to a writing course. There was

huge polished moments, build to suspense, keep the chapters short,

if you are writing as a child, keep the sentences short. If you are

decribing things do it quickly and have them done with. You felt it

was writing by numbers. What I thought was interesting, is when

the big events happen and things change, things fall apart and

things stay together. It is annual thing. The differences between us

count in these films -- it is an unusual thing, the difference

between us counts in these films. Any thoughts? Jive had some good

ideas, she had good ideas, but didn't follow it through. If you

can imagine Margaret Atwood with these ideas. Do you think it is too

vanilla. That is the problem, it is a little too vanilla for a great

idea for a book. It is a brilliant idea. Some of it certainly was not

vanilla was the acclaimed writer, Nora Ephron, known as the creative

force behind some big screen classics like When Harry Met Sally

and Silkwood, she died on Thursday. She started a career in journalism

and went on to write and direct movies, infused with elements of

her own life. Her divorce from Watergate investigative reporter,

Bernstein, was fictionalised in a - - the movies such as Heartburn.

know about you and Thelma Rice, it is all here, you didn't even hide

the evidence, you just threw it in a drawer, hotels, moat tells.

shit. You couldn't even pay cash, like a normal fill lander, you

charged everything. Look at this, look all the flowers you bought her,

and you occasionally brought me home a bunch of wilted flowers, how

can you do this f I'm such a bitch, tell me. Meryl giving it all for

Norah. I loved the book Heartburn, we still use so. Recipes, there is

a recipe for vein receipt -- vinaigrette, it is classic. I know

she said her husband, Bernstein, was the only man who would have sex

with a Venetian blind! She had way with words. She could pour the pain

and heartbreak into acid sharp observations? I'm fan of her essays

swhreerbgts an amazing speech to her old college that she wrote an

amazing speech to her old college that I found. She's great at saying,

this is your life, this is what happens in life, to women, this is

what it's like, and we can make it fun. It might be awful, but you can

turn it into an amazing anecdote and have an amazing story at the

end of it. It helps if you are a great writer? She's an amazing

writer. One thing that was great in the romantic comedies, she would

leave you with a sense of yearning, you knee it wasn't real, but the

writing was good enough to make you wish it could be, that was a great

thing. Nora Ephron, who died this week. Back in the 1970, the BBC

embarked on an ambition plan to put all of shiex peer's televisions

recorded for television, it took eight years. It sapped their

enthusiasm for recording the Bard for a decade. Things have packed up

with hamlet and hack Beth, receiving imaginative stage-to-

screen productions. The Hollow Crown, consists of adaptations of

Henry IV, parts one and two, and Henry V, the unifying theme is

monarchy, the personal cost of gaining the crown, which can often

prove a hollow victory. For this herculean task, directing duties

have been divided between Rupert Gould, and Thea Sharak, who took on

Henry V. Now are we well resolved? And by God's help, and your's, the

noble sinews of our power, France being our's, will bend it to our

oar, or break it all to pieces. more I read it and shout about it,

the more this play, for me, is a play about war, and it is a play

about, centrally, it is about one man's journey through learning to

be a king. Not knowing how to do it. Not knowing what the next thing

he's going to have to deal with will be. Particularly given the

history, you know. The Hal that he is in Henry's I and II, he's a

particular kind of man in those plays, by the time he gets to Henry

V he is already king and has all these choices ahead of him.

tempt plate for the traditional rendition of Henry on film was

delivered first by Lawrence Olivier and then Kenneth Branagh. He

resisted the temptation to update this kingly tale. It is very much a

period piece, but I wanted it to have with thes could suems and

design to have a modern feel with it. I want Henry looking good. I

want him in delicious tight-fitting leather jackets, that is what I

want. I want people to look at it and want to keep watching, I don't

need him in tights, we can still make the point. He has nice leather

trousers. With a contemporary audience in find, certain scenes

took on a significance for Sharrock. There is the scene I left out which

is the killing of the soldiers, in any day and edge it is a terrible

thing to do. We will cut the throats of those we have, and not a

man we shall have will taste our mercy. What I tried to do, because

that scene is so important to me was to try to contextualise that.

Just before he does that, he's told that his hero, essentially, has

died. And he goes abs light ballistic. Has this d Absolutely

ballistic. Has this version brought a new take on the Bard, or is it

once too often on to the breach. Very unfortunately the BBC did

Shakespeare with the studio and none of those restraints, can you

bring Shakespeare successfully to television? Absolutely, as with

Killer Joe, these are stage plays, all shot on location, that is the

key. There was the wobbly sets and actors not the right age for the

previous Shakespeares. I thought they were stunning, terrifically

directed, I would have thought that Richard II took bigger risks, Ben

Whishaw, who was Henry, was channelling Michael Jackson down to

the monkey he had, was one of the most outrageous and stunning

performances of Shakespeare that I have seen. They will not make a

film of Richard II, it won't be a crowd pleaser, this is the best you

will see on television. The best film of Richard II on television,

you will see. To stick with the Richard II point, the Ben Whishaw

performance of mad and dangerous, it was just brilliant? You know,

you realise he's actually very bright, but he plays the fool, the

Christian martyr, he plays the camp, at one point he plays Lawrence of

Arabia, there is a scene on the beach, it is Lawrence of Arabia.

The good point is they looked great, they made the dullest plays seem

great. The acting is amazing, Patrick Stewart there, who delivers

that speech about this precious stone and the silver sea, it puts

the hair ones the back of your neck up, it is great. But there was this

real sort of sub-Peter greenaway feel to the whole thing that really

annoyed me. The whole idea that Richard II was this loving

homomartyr was nuts. You have to have a taken to it. Why You have to

have a take on it. Why not the one in the play. One of the things was

so great, you basically have major stage actors, playing, and you also

have essentially, stage director, obviously ear ear ear has done

everything. It was so sure-footed the way they were doing this thing.

There was a filmic style to them. I'm on Kerry's side with the Ben

Whishaw's performance, I really don't like the play, I was dreading

it. He was like quick silver, he made me dislike him and sympathise

with him. The way they handed the crown over, that was astonishing.

The performance is great, but the direction is crass. There are

moments when you see Richard's wife, and she's represented by an egg

yolk, this broken egg yolk of a barren woman. You see this all

thing of St Sebastian, why is he a martyr about his sexuality, you

make the battlelines about sexuality, rather than his vanity

and stupidity, this idea of the divine right to rule, versus this

more real politic approach you don't really get a sense of him

bringing about his own downfall through his stupid mistakes. Oh you

do. I think that throw it is away. This is clearer to me than any

stage production I have seen. It was crystal clear. Physically the

clarity, often you are in the theatre and you are quite getting

everybody. It was naturalistic compared to what you were getting

in the theatre, those words were crystal clear. There is a brilliant

scene between Balingbrook and Montague, you have Pure foy and

Rory Kinnear together, you got it straight away and it was so simple.

With TV you can think that is the person you are concentrating on and

zoom in, on stage it is all mullets. You do it on theatre with everyone

making a speech and everyone has to stand around and look. What I

thought was interesting is why choose these plays now, why go for

the play about the monarchy in the year of the Jubilee, and with the

Cultural Olympiad, and Shakespeare being our brand leader for culture.

Actually, these were good, these were good, but would it have been

more interesting if they had said, instead of going ra-ra-ra to the

Jubilee, why not look at the State of the Union falling apart and do

King Lear. I did see it as a great advert for the monarchy. Tom

Hiddleston as Henry V? This is a very interesting thing,

particularly, this sounds crass, but having England just crash out

of the euros, Henry V for me, there is elements of it that just drive

me mad. There is that idea we have to be noble, we can always win

because we are English, and follow me. That, you know, has been the

downfall of England from time immemorial. When you see that and

the way that his charm and charisma is used in that way to gather

everyone up, to, essentially, pretty futile endeavours, although

they do win. That is absolutely all the way through, all our sporting

endeavours, ever since, through England, it drives me mad. Where

there is great modernity in the treatment of it, Henry V with

Katherine, in the scene where he's wooing her. Brilliant modernty. A

sexuality you wouldn't have got, it wouldn't have come across

particularly on stage. I thought the playing of that was very

different? And very clear. The whole thing is so clear and clean,

I have never understood it. It is an easy play to hate, there was a

time I thought I would never see Henry V again, because I had it,

and I was done with it. This one brought scenes out, and things in

scenes you never thought you would see. The Hollow Crown begins with

Richard II tomorrow. In May, one of four versions of Edvard Munch's,

the scheme scheme, went under the hammer for just $120 million,

becoming the most expensive artwork sold at auction. The notoriety of

that image, and for once the word "iconic" is deserved, outshadows

other artists. The exbuegs at the Tate Modern aims to set him in a

different context. When we think of Munch, we think of The Scream, and

other paintings he painted in the late 19th century. He died in 1944,

so we wanted to look at the 20th century works, and how he works in

film and photography, and how that influences paper. There is no

screen on view in Tate Modern, but interptations of that work have led

Munch to be viewed as a lonely and traumaed big. The traumas he

suffered did influence his work? was very sparing in displaying his

traumas, his sister died young, there was ill-health, tumultuous

love affairs. He was brutal about depicting those events in his life.

He's not writing a diary entry, but using his own life to point to

universal truths. Munch was fascinated by the advent of

photography, and used the camera to turn the gaze on himself.

striking how he photographs himself with the camera held at arm's

length, it is a gesture we are film with iPhones and social media sites.

Munch was doing this 100 years ago. Throughout his career, Munch

reworked certain images time and time again. What was behind this

obsessive repetition. This competing theories, one that

perhaps he was a canny businessman, and he knew which motifs sold, if

it sold he would make a replacement. When he had an exhibition the

famous works could be included. The other idea is he's working through

some psychological trauma. Munch said one painting wasn't enough, he

had to go back and excavate the truth behind the painting. Few art'

life is revealed in so many artworks. Does this reveal Munch to

be a significant modern master. Mark, if the only image you knew of

Munch is The Scream, would this confirm or confound your view of

the artist? I think it would confirm the fact that he should be

up there. It would confound your view of the narrow perspective that

you might have of him. I thought this was a great, really

interesting exhibition. It is the body of work that is exciting.

Given that you have taken out The Scream o the as director, we have

called it Norway's Mona Lisa, and it wasn't there. This is a stadia

tour, this exhibition has been in Frankfurt, Paris, this is stadia

art. A lot of the big blockbusters go around? You think what do you do

when you haven't got the greatest hit, you haven't got The Scream

there, what they have done is something really interesting. Which,

instead of doing a chronological story, they have prevented,

presented a series of ideas. Each room you go into, you have to

engage with the idea they are presenting, and show Munch as

someone who lived. Born at the time and went through to 1944. He covers

all that era. This idea of repetition, first it was memory art,

and then a commercial proposition. Lots of artists, Monet, Cezanne,

repeated things as well, for him it is almost repeating the anguish in

some of the images? It is very particular images, it is not a

lovely water Lily scene, it is the opposite of that. It is a modern

thing n my head when I was watching t I was thinking an old fashioned

idea, you want one I will do you one, and you. If you look at the

contemporary artists a lot of them worry away on the same ideas. He

does that. They are bleak images that he just keeps working.

Spinning, spots? That is what it made me think of. It is the

simultaneously commercial and artistic decision. He needed to

live as deeply as possible. I read that he said deVinci dissected

corpses, he dissected souls. He was always going back, he was one of

those artists who needs on himself. I also read that there was a

painting called On The Operating Table, which is him on the

operating table, having lost a finger because one of his lovers

shot it off. What I didn't know, until I heard the commentary, is he

refused anaesthetic, so he could experience is more fully. That is

the sort of stuff he's painting. Real, deep, physical and mental

pain. There is a series of paintings where his eye goes wonky,

he investigates that. There is part of the investigation where I went e

oh no, I I have seen a few exhibitions where they say

photography completely undermined his approach, there is an argument

for that. One of the strongest rooms there is a big almost

foreshadowed and a massive perspective going back. It did come

out of photographs. You go into a room where there is a film, they

are really glad there is a film he made. It is like the two-year-old

got an iPhone. He was an amateur photographer and professional

painter. A lot of the photographs I didn't find interesting, the stuff

about his eye and what he painted when he was ill, wasn't that

interesting. What is good is the drama in the paint, it is exciting

to see. We have to talk about the final painting. Let's talk about

the whole idea of the self- portraits there this idea of

excavating yourself, is not really internal horror and pain, it is

external. He actually charts his life, doesn't he. He goes from the

first. He has a gap. The very first time you see him, he was very good

looking. And always looked haughty and arrogant. That is one of the

later more tortured towards the end. We are getting more towards the end,

and we finally get to the end, he has no eyes, between the clock and

the bed. That is the most amazing picture, I think, in the entire

exhibition. All of us thought that final painting was stunning. There

you have the journey there as you go through it. It is interesting,

because it is not very Munch-like. It hoosn't got that massive

perspective going back. The figure sin credibly compelling, but he's

surrounded by things within a room, rather than it be amazing

perspective going back. Finally at the end, I don't know if that was

his last painting? It was. It looked it too. It was almost like

I'm done now? It is amazingly contemporary. You could imagine

someone like Hockney doing something with with the colour and

compositions. You go through the exhibition and you have one of the

girls, delightful, their back is to you, there is always the unknowing,

never a clarity? There is a great sense of humour in some of the

paintings as well, the fight and the uninvited guest, people

appearing at the window and he's putting up the gun in the hunter

period. The faces at the people turning up at the winder have a

crazed clown look to them. He's cartoony, I like good cartoon, you

can do a lot with splodges of paint. The exhibition continues at Tate

Modern until the 14th of October. He created one of the most

memorable album covers of all time, the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper Lonely

Hearts Club, Peter Blake had a birthday this weekend, 70, and we

celebrate. Peter Blake's audacious use of Popstars and glamorous

actors as subject matter, made him a major force in the Pop Art

movement in the 1960s. This is a Kim Novak wall, I have done other

walls, the Everly Brothers, Superman, Levone, Baker, they are

usually entertainers. Blake studied at the Royal College

of Art, a marked contrast with his working-class home life, where, he

was as interested in football and wrestling, as he was in the

classics. However, it was this contrast that shaped his creativity,

and liberated him to consider figures from pop culture as

appropriate subjects for fine art. This is the love wall. It is like a

love shop, really. All the postcards are in the windows. When

I did this picture, people said, why do you stick the things on, why

don't you paint them? When I do paint them, they say why did you

bother to paint them, why didn't you just stick them on. You just

can't win. Throughout his career, Blake has

been closely associated with pop music, from "that" Beatles album

cover, to Paul Weller's Stanly Road. This exhibition is a timely

reminder of his skills as painter and accolade of Godfather of Pop

Art. Blake and pop music is in Chichester until the 13th of

October. That takes us almost to the end of the night's show. Thank

you to my guests and all of you for watching and tweeting if you did.

Check out the website for more details and everything we have

discussed, next week Tim Marlow will be here to look at the Amazing

Spiderman, and a new album from Michael Palin, we leave you with

who Time Out called, the finest jazz singer we have, Ian Shaw is

# It's the space between the houses # Where the sky is showing blue

It's a look across a room # You didn't think was really you

# A glance from a man # That you never really know

# It's a shadow in July # It's a whisper

# It's a show # On a day like any other

# In a half remembered friend # It's the table in the corner

# It's the song without an end # It's a quarrel over something

# That you really didn't say # It's a moment

# Within a moment # It's a play within a play

# Some things can you hold # Tight in your hand

# Some things some things are planned

# Sometimes beyond # Sometimes above

# Always for you # Somewhere to what's love

# For the heart that's growing darker

# With the passing of the years # But there are blessings to be

counted at the end of all the tears # It's the one who wouldn't leave

# It's the one that got away # It's the child you couldn't

father # The things you couldn't say

# Some things you can hold # Tight in your hand

# Some things unfold # Some things are planned

# Some times beyond # Some times above

# Always for you # Somewhere towards love

# Some things you can hold # Tight in your hand

# Some things unfold # Some things are planned