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Welcome to the Roundhouse. | 0:00:03 | 0:00:04 | |
This is our foyer. Box office over there. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:08 | |
Cloakrooms, cafe. Follow me up to the Main Space. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
So here we are at the entrance to the Main Space. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
Just on my left-hand side here's a history of the Roundhouse, | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
from all the great performances | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
to the days going back to an engine maintenance shed. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:25 | |
Over the other end, we have bars, | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
generally a place where the audience can mingle | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
and wait until they go and see the show. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
-NEWSREEL: -'Providing the music, a group which features | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
'a range of unusual sound effects, the Pink Floyd.' | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
It was a place that you went when you needed a place to go to. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:28 | |
Mad happenings of different natures and type | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
of one thing or another would take place. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
A place for mavericks, it was for outsiders. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:47 | |
It was for, really, pioneers of theatre, it was for revolutionaries. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:52 | |
One of those places where any attempt to impose a logic and order | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
and reason on it is doomed to failure. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
# One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small | 0:02:04 | 0:02:11 | |
# And the ones that mother gives you | 0:02:11 | 0:02:16 | |
# Don't do anything at all | 0:02:16 | 0:02:21 | |
# Go ask Alice | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
# When she's ten feet tall | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
# And if you go chasing rabbits | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
# And you know you're going to fall... # | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
Perhaps this is the nearest view that you'll get | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
of the outside of the Roundhouse. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:42 | |
Most of the other views are obscured by high-rise flats | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
and filthy hoardings and ruined cars. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
But it gives you some idea of the shape of the building. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
It reminds me of a slowly subsiding Albert Hall, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
or a bullring, or a grubby pantheon. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
What I've sort of learned is the Roundhouse has a resistance | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
to being managed and to being changed. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
When I got to the Roundhouse, it was in danger, yet again, | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
as it was kind of, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, of closing. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
I can never drive past the Roundhouse without feeling | 0:03:32 | 0:03:37 | |
a little proprietorial about it. I mean, yeah, we did that. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:41 | |
London's Roundhouse also began life as an experimental project, | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
when playwright Arnold Wesker turned a Victorian engine shed | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
into a '60s theatre space. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:52 | |
Since audience is our great concern, | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
we'll have a special department of at least three strong, | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
but we'll make sure people in the area, and even outside London, | 0:04:00 | 0:04:05 | |
know of all the facilities that can be used. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:09 | |
And if they use these facilities, then we hope, | 0:04:09 | 0:04:14 | |
we're pretty certain, in fact, this will create an atmosphere, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
the kind of atmosphere that will make the whole of the Roundhouse | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
hum from morning till night. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:21 | |
Who knows whether a project as radical and as ambitious | 0:04:21 | 0:04:26 | |
as this will ever get off the ground? | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
One does it on the basis of personal enthusiasm and belief. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
# Gonna have a funky good time | 0:05:05 | 0:05:07 | |
# A-ha | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
# We're gonna have a funky good time... # | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
I can't hear ya. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:13 | |
# We're gonna have a funky good time | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
# We're gonna have a funky good time... # | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
Take a bow. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
# We're gonna take you higher... # | 0:05:20 | 0:05:25 | |
Say it again, say it again, say it again. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
-# Gonna take you higher -High | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
# Higher | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
-# Gonna have a funky good time -Yeah | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
# Gonna have a funky good time A-huh | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
# Gonna have a funky good time All right | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
# Gonna have a funky good time | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
# Gonna take you higher | 0:05:49 | 0:05:55 | |
-# Gonna take you higher -Higher. # | 0:05:57 | 0:06:03 | |
I feel good. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
Everybody feel good! | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
CHEERING | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
# Don't have any more, Mrs Moore | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
# Mrs Moore, please don't have any more | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
# The more you have, the more you want, they say | 0:07:09 | 0:07:14 | |
# And enough is as good as a feast any day | 0:07:14 | 0:07:19 | |
# If you have any more, Mrs Moore | 0:07:19 | 0:07:24 | |
# You'll have to take the house next door | 0:07:24 | 0:07:29 | |
# They're all right when they're here | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
# But take my advice | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
# Don't have any more, Mrs Moore... # | 0:07:34 | 0:07:39 | |
Gilbey's decided to sell their estates in Camden. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
They were bought by a garment and property tycoon, Louis Mintz. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
The Roundhouse came as part of the estates. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
Mintz had no immediate plans for the giant shed, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
and it came to Wesker's attention that it was empty. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
Mintz was a self-made man | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
from the same poor East End background as Wesker. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
He was a socialist, and was sympathetic to Wesker's plans. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
Wesker approach Mintz, who offered him a lease | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
on the building to be the home of Centre 42, | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
the name Wesker had given to his project. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
Mintz remained on the board of a newly-formed trust. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
Without that act of generosity, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
the story of the Roundhouse may never have happened. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
So Wesker had a building, now he had to find the funds. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
We went to look at it and my immediate response was, | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
no, this is not what we had in mind. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
I suppose we had in mind some sort of vast, rectangular building. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:48 | |
And this round... | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
And it was quite... | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
And we went away. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
I think 24 hours later, it hit me. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
And I thought, that's crazy to have turned down, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
this is a wonderful place. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
How are you going to turn it into a theatre and an arts centre? | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
Well, roughly it will be divided into two areas. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
This is a model, an early-stage model - | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
remember we didn't have enough money to go into detailed plans. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
But roughly there will be two areas. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:16 | |
One in the centre of these pillars, | 0:09:16 | 0:09:18 | |
which will be the theatre concert hall area, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
and there'll be a wall around the pillars, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
which will give you another area on the outside. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
-NEWSREEL: -What price Jerusalem? | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
For Arnold Wesker, the founder of Centre 42, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
the price is already high. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
He's devoted six years of his life - | 0:09:56 | 0:09:58 | |
time, his critics argue, which should have been spent | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
exclusively on improving his craft as a playwright - | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
on creating an organisation to break down the old stubborn barriers | 0:10:03 | 0:10:08 | |
between the artist and the community. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
The organisation takes its title from Resolution 42, which Wesker | 0:10:10 | 0:10:16 | |
and his friends forced through the 1960 Trades Union Congress. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:20 | |
This called on Congress to ensure a greater participation | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
by the trade union movement in all cultural activities. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
It was passed against the recommendation of the General Council. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:30 | |
Perhaps this explains the disappointing response by the movement. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
The attitude of George Woodcock, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
the TUC's general secretary, towards Centre 42 is crucial. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
It's a good idea, I think it will eventually succeed, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
but it's having a certain amount of teething problems. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
Perhaps those who are running it - | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
and this may be the fault of a separate organisation - | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
don't always understand the trade unions, | 0:10:51 | 0:10:53 | |
which are very conservative bodies. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
And there is a tendency for them to be ambitious, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
too expensive, at any rate. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
The unions are very careful of their money and they look with | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
a bit of suspicion on Centre 42 because of its extravagance. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
And then there is, naturally coming from trade unionists, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:12 | |
a suspicion that they are a bit highfalutin, precious, that... | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
This is a natural reaction of unions, though they... | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
even those interested in art, | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
they don't really become very modern about it. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
Their idea of what constitutes the kind of art that working people want | 0:11:25 | 0:11:29 | |
is perhaps earlier this century than - what's the word I want? | 0:11:29 | 0:11:33 | |
Avant-garde. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
Now, five years have passed since we started campaigning for 42. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:39 | |
It was three years ago that we were first shown this extraordinary building | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
and 18 months ago since we launched the campaign to raise funds. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
From here, in front of Harold Wilson, Lord Harewood, Jennie Lee, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:52 | |
James Callaghan and the whole paraphernalia of the state. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
It seems to be considered in this country | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
an admirable thing to make the artist sweat and lose all joy | 0:11:58 | 0:12:03 | |
before he's given what he wants, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
as though the job of being an artist were not sweat enough. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
And when he says, only my work is important, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
and he does nothing else and stays at homecoming he is attacked | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
for being haughty. But when he steps outside | 0:12:15 | 0:12:18 | |
and tries to do something more, he's attacked for being presumptuous. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
The price he has to pay for any Jerusalem is high. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:27 | |
The state, the community, on the other hand, pays little. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
It stands back and does nothing. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
And cynicism is inevitable. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
Now, when a state | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
makes its artists cynics, | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
I think that's unforgivable. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
Providing the music, a group which features a range of unusual | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
sound effects, The Pink Floyd. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
BAND PLAYS FREEFORM INSTRUMENTAL | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
Well, it was purely accidental at first. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
-Fantastic, the best thing. -We were launching an underground newspaper, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
International Times, in October '66 | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
and we literally just wanted a place for a launch party. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:56 | |
And the company that published the underground paper | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
was called Love Books Ltd. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:02 | |
And the accountant for that company, Michael Henshaw, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
was also the accountant for Centre 42, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
and also personally Arnold Wesker's accountant. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
So Michael actually had the keys. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
So he said, "It's OK, I know a place. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
"No-one's using it. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
So he probably did call Arnold, and as far as I understand, | 0:14:20 | 0:14:22 | |
Arnold thought it was just like a little cocktail party | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
to launch a book or magazine, or such a thing, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
but in fact, 3,000 people came here. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
And Arnold didn't. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
I mean, it was purely accidental. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
I'd never even been in the place before. I mean, I'd seen it | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
from the road and it hadn't been used for years. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
PINK FLOYD INSTRUMENTAL CONTINUES | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
We had a fancy-dress competition. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
Marianne Faithfull won that, cos she wore the... | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
It was for the shortest and barest, and she came as a nun. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:19 | |
Paul was dressed as an arrow, Paul McCartney | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
and Tony O'Neill was there with Monica Vitti. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
He was filming... Blow Up, could it have been? | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
I mean, it was a very '60s, very '60s... | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
Of course, Pink Floyd giving their first major concert. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
When you actually came to the Roundhouse for that first event, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
the launch of the International Times, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
what was the Roundhouse actually like? I've heard rumours | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
that it was rat infested, dirty and the power supply was | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
-batteries from cars and things like that? -Yeah, well, in terms of power, | 0:15:45 | 0:15:50 | |
it was a problem for the bands | 0:15:50 | 0:15:51 | |
because it was just wired as a warehouse. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
This is '66 and we were talking about little underground bands - | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
they didn't have generators or anything - | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
so we literally used whatever was here. The place was filthy. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:04 | |
I mean, the dirt on the floor must have been a foot thick | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
and there were bits of twisted metal sticking up - | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
not the actual railway part, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
but the rails had been taken out, but the housing I guess for buffers | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
or things like that, what other construction they had in here. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
I mean, it was really quite dangerous. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
There were two toilets, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
neither of which had a seat | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
and they very quickly - | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
with 3,000 people, they very quickly overflowed | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
and a huge lake came outside. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
We had to take the doors off and use them as duck boards and we had a | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
couple of roadies standing in front so no-one would look at the ladies. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
You know, so... I mean, it was very, very primitive. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
The whole place was... Well, it had been used as Gilbey's Gin | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
as a bonded warehouse, so it had an enormous balcony | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
running all the way round. Which was apparently unsafe, | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
so we did try and stop people getting up there, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
but of course some people did. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
And we had one doctor, who was also a publisher - Stuart Montgomery. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:08 | |
But at least we had, just in case somebody had a bad trip or something. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:13 | |
People were still trying to get in at 2.00, 2.30 in the morning. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
-No! -At the top, at least in the beginning, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
we were handing out sugar cubes. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
But there was actually no acid in them, | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
but some people took it, they used it as an excuse to really trip out. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
MUSIC: Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
# The light between the blue you once knew | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
# Floating down the sound resounds around the icy waters underground | 0:18:27 | 0:18:34 | |
# Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania | 0:18:38 | 0:18:44 | |
# Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten | 0:18:46 | 0:18:51 | |
# Wooooooo... # | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
What we do now is all about working with young people and putting on | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
shows that are kind of... | 0:19:02 | 0:19:03 | |
I was going to ask you that - how much of the old, as it were, | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
tradition, have you kept up? | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
It's absolutely the heart and core of who we are, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
it's about enabling young people to, through their creativity, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
to find a way forward in life. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
So it's about questioning, it's about looking at things, | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
it's about how you write something, how you think about something. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:22 | |
So the things that are really popular with young people here | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
are spoken-word poetry - links back. That really kind of came out of | 0:19:25 | 0:19:30 | |
those amazing Attila the Stockbrokers and all those kinds of things. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
-Right, right, yeah. -Music, of course. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
Music is the international kind of communication and | 0:19:35 | 0:19:41 | |
Circus, which is an art form where you don't have to have a language, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
-except physical language. -Right, right, yeah. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:47 | |
And we do a lot of radio and broadcasting, | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
so it's engaging people in the kind of new digital platforms as well. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
This is a Congress On The Dialectics Of Liberation which Ginsberg's at. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
Everyone sitting here, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
just telling everyone how the ship is going down, it's sinking. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
There's nothing we can do. There is no autonomy today. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
He has this autonomy, he has his own way of | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
acting out what has to be acted out | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
and it's quite different from everyone else. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:18 | |
Now, his bit is he's gone to India mainly | 0:20:18 | 0:20:23 | |
and what he talks about is psycho politics, that's the main thing. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
He's not so much a poet any more, he's a psycho politician. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
I mean, not everything was great, but in other cases, you know, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
that was something like the Dialectics Of Liberation Conference | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
which was held here, which also really helped to establish | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
this place as a centre for countercultural ideas. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
Their civilisation, as they call it, | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
stems from the fact that they oppressed other peoples | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
and the oppression of other people allowed them a certain luxury | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
at the expense of those other people. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
The Black Power movement has been the catalyst | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
for the bringing together of these young bloods. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
The real revolutionary proletariat, ready to fight | 0:21:00 | 0:21:02 | |
by any means necessary for the liberation of our people. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:07 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
Carmichael, you see, tried to pour shit all over the hippies | 0:21:12 | 0:21:16 | |
the other day. He said, "Yeah, yeah, they're OK. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
"If they want to go out and stand and throw flowers in front | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
"of the police whilst they're gunning us down, that's fine by me." | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
And Ginsberg said, "Precisely, OK, we'll go and do that." | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
..studies. He doesn't rap, he studies and keeps his mouth shut. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
Study, children, study. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
Study, study. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
Study. The gorilla must study. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
Stokely Carmichael, who came in the latter part of the '60s | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
when he came to the Roundhouse | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
to take part in an international conference, he was responsible | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
also for bringing about the Black Power concert | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
and the Black Power movement, which came into being. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:55 | |
And their influences at that time, | 0:21:55 | 0:21:57 | |
with all the American brothers who were coming over, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
helped to solidify what we were trying to do in the '60s. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
You have killed more people in two world wars | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
than people have died from natural diseases. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
Are you civilised? | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
You bunch of warmongering barbarians. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
I am somebody. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
I am somebody. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:25 | |
We want Black Power. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:27 | |
We want Black Power. We want Black Power. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:31 | |
-We want Black Power. -I am somebody. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
-# Say it loud! -I'm black and I'm proud | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
# Say it loud... # | 0:22:39 | 0:22:40 | |
I think the idea of Black Power is very much a transcendence | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
of the situation of violence. It's a production of | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
a counter-violent situation, by which the white person would be | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
helped to escape from the situation whereby he unknowingly, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
or unrecognisingly, inflicts violence on the black people. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
So it's a way of transcending the situation of violence | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
through a dialectic counter-violence. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
Right, I'd like to introduce tonight's speakers to you. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:04 | |
On my left, Ronald Laing, well-known psychoanalyst and writer. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:10 | |
On my right, Stokely Carmichael, leader of Black Power, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
ex-chairman of SNCC. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
-CHEERING -Hell, yeah! | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
Next to Stokely is Allen Ginsberg, poet, who will open the meeting. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
On the extreme right is Emmett Grogan | 0:23:24 | 0:23:27 | |
from a free autonomous group in San Francisco called the Diggers. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:32 | |
I'll leave you to their mercy. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
'Allen Ginsberg at that time seemed like | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
'a kind of old Testament prophet, like a kind of rock and roll figure.' | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
He was bearded, charismatic. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
He wore this red shirt that had been | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
hand-painted by Paul McCartney, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
and he was a poet in the sort of Blakeian sense, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
in the grand sense that poetry would change the world. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
And he was also an immaculate politician. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
He was superb at making contacts and mediating deals. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:07 | |
So I think in the Roundhouse, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
the great moment arrives when he's sitting on this stage | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
with Stokely Carmichael, who is doing a real Black Power rant. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:16 | |
He's denouncing them as middle-class meddlers, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
sort of masturbating with the culture, all these people. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
They're all saying, "Yes, yes, yes, we are." | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
And there is Emmett Grogan there, who's a Digger from San Francisco, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:29 | |
and also a film-maker, anarchist-dyed, | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
and he's very knotted into himself and snarling. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
And between these two is Ginsberg, | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
who's trying to say there has to be another way. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
We have very small community groups | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
in San Francisco and in New York beginning to leave the money wheel | 0:24:45 | 0:24:50 | |
and also beginning to leave the hallucination wheel of the media. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:54 | |
Beginning to form small co-operatives, | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
tribal units, societies of their own. | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
Beginning to share money or do without money | 0:24:59 | 0:25:02 | |
and then beginning to move in on authority | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
with those weapons which have been called flower power. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
Mr Ginsberg, I don't know much about the hippie movement, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
but I would like to beg to differ with you. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
I think the reason most of the hippies do that is because | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
they're confused little kids who have run away from home | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
and will return to their culture within a year or two. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
CHEERING | 0:25:23 | 0:25:25 | |
There's no culture to return to. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:26 | |
Before I can find my individual self, I must find by group culture. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
-Obviously. -But we don't have a viable group culture, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:34 | |
so we're in the same boat in that sense. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
# Please | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
# Open your eyes... # | 0:25:44 | 0:25:49 | |
"Please, open your eyes, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
"Please, try to realise, | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
"I found out today we're going wrong." | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
# Try | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
# To realise | 0:26:07 | 0:26:12 | |
# I found out today | 0:26:21 | 0:26:28 | |
# We're going wrong | 0:26:29 | 0:26:34 | |
# We're going wrong | 0:26:41 | 0:26:47 | |
# Please | 0:26:55 | 0:27:00 | |
# Open your mind... # | 0:27:04 | 0:27:09 | |
There was one occasion I remember a young couple | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
living in Notting Hill were busted by the police for dope. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
And the police said, you know, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
we're going to close down the Roundhouse | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
and everything that it stands for. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
They were going to do these drug busts. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
To the police it was a centre of dope smoking and everything. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
-Crime and inequity. -Debauchery, yes. -Yes. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
They really did feel threatened by it somehow. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
So the post-war generation, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
it was a sense of something completely different | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
-to what their parents had? -Yes, yes. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
I felt, you know, part of a community while I was in here. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:59 | |
The sort of bands that I liked were playing here and just... | 0:27:59 | 0:28:04 | |
There wasn't anywhere else to go, really. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
I couldn't tell you very much about the majority of the concerts, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
whatever they were that I came to hear, | 0:28:09 | 0:28:11 | |
it was just the sense of being here that was important. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
I probably heard some terrific bands, | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
or could probably hear when terrific bands were playing | 0:28:16 | 0:28:18 | |
but I can't remember very much about it. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
It was just nice, you'd bump into people that you knew | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
and you could smoke a little dope and lie on the floor, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:26 | |
and, in a most ideologically unsound way, | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
pursue luckless young women until their patience gave out and so on. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
That's what you came here for, essentially. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
It was pretty much that. I imagined it, or something along the lines, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
without having ever having in my life been in | 0:28:38 | 0:28:40 | |
anything that could be described as a Persian market. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
But I used to imagine that was roughly the sort of spirit of it. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:46 | |
There are only a small number of people who use cannabis | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
who are likely to be harmed by it. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
And this happens because there is occasionally found | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
an idiosyncrasy to cannabis, which leads on to a short-lived madness, | 0:28:55 | 0:29:00 | |
a spell of madness, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:01 | |
which luckily clears up very quickly with the proper treatment. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
# When logic and proportion | 0:29:05 | 0:29:10 | |
# Have fallen sloppy dead | 0:29:10 | 0:29:14 | |
# And the White Knight is talking backwards | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
# And the Red Queen's off with her head | 0:29:17 | 0:29:22 | |
# Remember what the dormouse said | 0:29:22 | 0:29:28 | |
# Feed your head | 0:29:30 | 0:29:35 | |
# Feed your head. # | 0:29:35 | 0:29:41 | |
CHEERING | 0:29:41 | 0:29:43 | |
From the mid-'60s onwards, you have what would have to be called | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
an LSD consciousness, permeates the whole of | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
the counter-culture side of British society. | 0:29:56 | 0:30:00 | |
And you get it in the songs of the Pink Floyd, of Jimi Hendrix, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:05 | |
of Marc Bolan - all these bands incorporate LSD-inspired imagery. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:13 | |
The messages are multiplying. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
Even if LSD disappeared, and all the beards and all the hair disappeared, | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
I think the awareness would spread | 0:30:36 | 0:30:39 | |
because the actual heavy-metal conditions are at a dead-end. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
PERCUSSION MUSIC | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
When Arnold Wesker opened it in 1963, as Centre 42, | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
an appeal was launched for £500,000. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:12 | |
This failed, though, | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
and the Roundhouse soon became the home of pop concerts. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
Since then, though, the variety of activities and spectacles - | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
ranging from children's paintings to the first performance | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
of Oh Calcutta - is greatly increased | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
under the management of Wesker's original partner, George Hoskins. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
What was your ideal programme for a year? | 0:32:31 | 0:32:34 | |
The ideal programme... We, in fact, drew up ideal programmes - | 0:32:34 | 0:32:37 | |
that is when Wesker was still interested, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
before he got discouraged by the length of time it was all taking. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
The ideal programme then was that you would have a vast range | 0:32:43 | 0:32:46 | |
of activities. You'd have theatre right in the centre, | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
but all round it, you would have anything you could imagine. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:53 | |
For example, children's activities, you'd have social centre, | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
you'd have exhibitions, you'd make sure that people had to | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
walk through the exhibition to get to the theatre and so on. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
And you'd have workshops, | 0:33:02 | 0:33:04 | |
much on the lines they have down at the lock down there, | 0:33:04 | 0:33:08 | |
where artists, potters, painters, designers would have a place. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:13 | |
The whole thing would become a thriving community centre of | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
every kind of artistic activity that you can imagine there. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
I wanted to forget everything which was written for human voice, | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
whether it's singing or whether it's speaking | 0:33:24 | 0:33:27 | |
or other noises and sounds, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
and to see what possibilities are here. | 0:33:30 | 0:33:33 | |
Also, involving... | 0:33:33 | 0:33:35 | |
-Bredding or breathing is called? -Breathing. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
..also involving the breathing possibilities. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
Really take the human body as a sound source. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
What he's able to do, | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
and always to push it until the edge of the possibilities. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:52 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
I think we've all felt this urge for a long time now | 0:35:32 | 0:35:35 | |
to get out of the regular theatre buildings because they're | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
old-fashioned in a bad way, they don't serve their purpose today. | 0:35:37 | 0:35:41 | |
Peter, it was in 1968 that you first brought | 0:35:41 | 0:35:43 | |
your experimental work on the Tempest here. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
How did you find the building in the first place when you first came | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
to do the Tempest here? What was it that you found attractive? | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
Oh, it was Arnold Wesker who found the building. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:53 | |
He was the one who had this strong feeling | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
that it could be used marvellously as a theatre. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
When I first came into it, | 0:35:59 | 0:36:01 | |
I remember being really thrilled by the fact that here was a space, | 0:36:01 | 0:36:06 | |
just an undefined space. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:08 | |
Undefined space means, of course, anything can happen, | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
the space takes on its own definition depending on | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
what you do inside it, but it wasn't a cold space. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:16 | |
It wasn't a clinical space, | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
it was a space with its own beauty, its own feeling of life. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
And that seemed to me to be perfect conditions for making theatre in. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
When I got to the Roundhouse, it was in danger, yet again, | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
as it was kind of, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, of closing. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
There was a considerable debt | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
that had to be got rid of in some way, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
and it wasn't functioning properly. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:49 | |
And the first thing I did was arrange with John Curd, | 0:36:49 | 0:36:54 | |
who was the rock promoter at the Roundhouse, | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
to do 40 rock concerts on the trot. | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
We paid off all our debt. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:02 | |
# He's in love with rock'n'roll Whoa | 0:37:02 | 0:37:04 | |
# He's in love with gettin' stoned Whoa | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
# He's in love with Janie Jones Whoa | 0:37:06 | 0:37:08 | |
# He don't like his boring job, no... # | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
# In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
# But whenever I approach you You make me look a fool... # | 0:37:21 | 0:37:24 | |
# Bind me, tie me Chain me to the wall | 0:37:24 | 0:37:28 | |
# I want to be a slave to you all | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
# Oh, bondage, up yours! | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
# Oh, bondage... # | 0:37:33 | 0:37:35 | |
I was just talking about all forms of bondage, you know, repression, | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
everything else. Sexual bondage stems from that, so it's all part | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
of the same thing, really. It all depends which way you interpret it. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
So as much to do with social bondage as sexual bondage? | 0:37:45 | 0:37:47 | |
Yeah, it's to do with all bondage. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
And it's bondage because it hasn't been played - | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
that proves it as well. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
The event creates the venue, I think. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:57 | |
I think that's certainly my ultimate recollection of the Roundhouse. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
It was transformed by what was happening there. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
I seem to remember it was very difficult to get into. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
I seem to remember the toilets were completely inadequate | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
and overflowing and you had to have planks, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
so it was like a rock festival indoors, | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
which is fabulous, and I suppose it's very right for the times. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
It was a place that you went | 0:38:20 | 0:38:22 | |
when you needed a place to go to. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
And that in itself was actually something rather wonderful | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
because at various points, particularly in early 1977, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:34 | |
there were very few places that you could go to | 0:38:34 | 0:38:37 | |
in order to see the groups that you wanted to see. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:40 | |
What's the latest problem? | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
Well, I want to bring in the Glasgow Citizens before the end of the year. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:51 | |
It's a difficult time to bring them, | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
the last two months or the last two weeks of the financial year. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
And we have a problem. We've talked about it a great deal, | 0:38:57 | 0:39:01 | |
we've come to a very good contractual agreement for all of us, | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
we have one sticking point, | 0:39:05 | 0:39:07 | |
and that is the price of the seats. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
As you know, the Citizens would like to have a policy, | 0:39:09 | 0:39:13 | |
and already have in Glasgow, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
that the theatre is accessible to everybody. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
-They charge very little for their seats... -Yeah. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
..and we started talking turkey at 50p a seat. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:25 | |
HE GASPS | 0:39:25 | 0:39:27 | |
We have 580 seats. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
And if we charged 50p for all of them, we would leave ourselves... | 0:39:30 | 0:39:35 | |
-That's ridiculous. -Well, if we sell out, we'll need about £18,000. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:40 | |
But not at 50p a head. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
I mean, that's fine for Glasgow, | 0:39:42 | 0:39:44 | |
but we're putting the My Fair Lady seats up to £10 on a Saturday night | 0:39:44 | 0:39:49 | |
because the public now just will pay that. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
You know, Covent Garden's top is £21. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
I'm asking you for 10% of the Covent Garden top, £2. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
-You are asking me to charge £2? -I think it ought to be. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:02 | |
In the past two years the policy which we pursue, | 0:40:02 | 0:40:06 | |
and which had the approval of subsidising bodies, | 0:40:06 | 0:40:09 | |
has become increasingly difficult because of the needs | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
of the theatres we bring in. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:14 | |
We have a cash-flow problem far greater than we've had previously, | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
or certainly in the time that I've been here. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:25 | |
We're up to the top of our overdraft limit. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:28 | |
By the end of next week, paying salaries will be a problem. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
If it closes, then it's not for me to say whether London needs it, | 0:40:31 | 0:40:35 | |
but I don't think anyone else can provide what we provide. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:38 | |
Our auditorium is very special | 0:40:38 | 0:40:39 | |
and there are certain shows that can ONLY come in here. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:42 | |
The kind of art working people want is perhaps earlier this century | 0:41:26 | 0:41:30 | |
than... What's the word I want? Avant-garde. | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
I think being in debt is one of the most oppressive aspects of 42. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:50 | |
One person in particular, who has guaranteed | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
the bulk of our overdraft, whom I have nightmares about. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:58 | |
And the GLC also leaves the legacy of the Roundhouse. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
When it opens, it will be the best-equipped and most prestigious | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
arts centre in Europe. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:13 | |
Finally, I suppose, | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
the sneers and derision and hostility, | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
the idea of 42 has excited, have sunk home. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:29 | |
Perhaps some of the joy is taken out of the whole project. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:35 | |
Who do you blame the financial difficulties on, whose fault is it? | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
I don't blame the difficulties on anybody. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
So the whole thing will become a thriving community centre | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
of every kind of artistic activity that you can imagine there. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
# You and the girls on your street | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
# Love to play with Polly Cos she's so sweet | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
-# Polly Pocket -Polly Pocket | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
-# Polly Pocket -Polly Pocket. # | 0:43:27 | 0:43:28 | |
Polly Pocket play cases, each sold separately. New from Mattel. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:33 | |
I was a toymaker, | 0:43:33 | 0:43:35 | |
and a guy that we worked with | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
came in one day who was an inventor and such. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
He came in and, as a sort of afterthought, | 0:43:42 | 0:43:46 | |
he produced a little wooden box | 0:43:46 | 0:43:48 | |
and he said, "I don't know whether this is of any interest at all." | 0:43:48 | 0:43:52 | |
He said, "I made it for my daughter six years ago and, you know, | 0:43:52 | 0:43:57 | |
"but I've always rather liked it." | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
And when I saw it, I didn't know what to say. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
It was a tiny little doll about 1.5cm tall, | 0:44:02 | 0:44:06 | |
painted, perfectly decorated. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
# Polly Pocket's so small, you can take her anywhere. # | 0:44:09 | 0:44:14 | |
They were a beautifully engineered little doll, | 0:44:14 | 0:44:18 | |
which bent at the waist and whose arms could move and various things. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:23 | |
And one of the people in the room said, | 0:44:23 | 0:44:28 | |
"That's Polly Pocket," so we adopted the name. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
And it was one of the most - | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
it was THE most successful toy I've ever been involved with. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:39 | |
We were the second largest, | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
well below, of course, Barbie, the girls' toy. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:45 | |
They sold several hundred million dollars of it. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
You could really say Polly Pocket is the reason we could do all this. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:53 | |
Hello, you are listening to Roundhouse Radio | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
and my name is Noa Logan. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
We have an extra special show for you today. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
We're celebrating both of our birthdays, our 50th and our tenth. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:58 | |
So, stick with me and we'll be bringing you the best creative | 0:45:58 | 0:46:03 | |
experimentation that we have going on | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
in this incredibly special building. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
Earlier this year, we sent a team of young artists abroad to learn, | 0:46:16 | 0:46:20 | |
grow and collaborate with other international artists, | 0:46:20 | 0:46:24 | |
as the start of our En Masse Project. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
We are going to bring all of those artists back, | 0:46:27 | 0:46:29 | |
alongside the Roundhouse Choir, Wax Lyrical, | 0:46:29 | 0:46:31 | |
The Poetry Collective and the William Ellis Big Band, | 0:46:31 | 0:46:34 | |
alongside the fantastic Jamie Cullum. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
So, here at the Roundhouse we shouldn't have favourites, | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
but if I did, it would be the Last Word Festival. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
Just over two weeks of the best in spoken word and poetry. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
If you think you hate spoken word, trust me, you don't, | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
you just haven't found something that you like quite yet. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
A letter to you. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
Perpetually blagging your way through life. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
You, who feel like a fraud. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:08 | |
A misconceived mishmash of half-baked beliefs, | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
cut-and-paste archetypes, breathe easy. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
You must all play this game of identity Jenga. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
To the young black girl stood in the furthest corner of the dance floor, | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
whose heart marches to the urgent bark | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
of Joe Strummer and David Bowie, who doesn't know how to Dutty Wine, | 0:47:23 | 0:47:27 | |
whose behind is as flat as an extended palm | 0:47:27 | 0:47:29 | |
who feels more at home in the screaming mouth of a mosh pit | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
than a dance-hall rave. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:34 | |
To the boy who's been known to kiss boys | 0:47:34 | 0:47:36 | |
and the girl who's been known to kiss girls, | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
may your public caress of your lover's shoulder be | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
an everyday gesture of affection, not a wilful act of defiance. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:46 | |
To the boy in the pink tutu and the girl in the Superman costume | 0:47:46 | 0:47:50 | |
and the he-she, almost not quite delicious, anarchist in-betweeners | 0:47:50 | 0:47:54 | |
who refuse our pronouns and prerequisites | 0:47:54 | 0:47:57 | |
so we know what it is to choke on the trapped air of ignorance. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:01 | |
To the 16-stone man who has no time for the condescending thumbs-up | 0:48:01 | 0:48:05 | |
swung his way as he bites into an apple or runs round his local park. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:10 | |
To the hipster | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
too afraid to tell her friends how much she loves One Direction. | 0:48:12 | 0:48:15 | |
No, not ironically, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
with a profoundly intense, and unending passion. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
To the feminist who's read the beauty myth three times | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
yet still lusts after xylophone ribs and guillotine cheekbones, | 0:48:24 | 0:48:28 | |
who loves hip-hop with a full heart and gritted teeth. | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
To the people who have at least 16 different responses to the question, | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
where are you from? | 0:48:36 | 0:48:38 | |
Whose guts double Dutch as their eyes hover over the ethnicity box | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
on a medical form, the stomachs that bloat with | 0:48:41 | 0:48:44 | |
the oceans their parents crissed and crossed, | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
the accents that lilt and swell like an orgy of castanets | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
nibbling at sitars and African drums. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
Here's to the people that belong everywhere and nowhere. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
The tongues parched and gasping as a land of exile. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:01 | |
Here's to the 40-, 50-, 60-year-old people still working it out, | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
who rip off the hands of the ticking clock and eat them like breadsticks. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
Here's to taking your own sweet time. | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
Here's to the ways of being and seeing and living and loving | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
that our feeble language has yet to find a battle-cry for. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:19 | |
Here's for the civil war raging inside all of us. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
The gristle of contradictions we pluck from our teeth | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
and the small truths we nestle safely under our tongues. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
Here's to falling and failing and flying all at once. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:33 | |
Here's to identity Jenga. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
Even the tallest and most formidable of towers | 0:49:36 | 0:49:41 | |
was once just a pile of bricks. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
So, are you an amazing film-maker? | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
Or do you have a brilliant idea for a film somewhere in your brain? | 0:49:48 | 0:49:52 | |
If so, we have some money for you to make it happen. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
Not me personally, but the Roundhouse online film fund. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:59 | |
So, if you want to get the best out of your idea | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
and you want the correct support to make it happen, | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
why don't you apply online? | 0:50:05 | 0:50:07 | |
"So, what do you go for in a girl?" | 0:50:18 | 0:50:24 | |
he crows, lifting the lager to his lips. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
He gestures where his mate sits, then downs his glass. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
"He prefers tits. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
"I prefer arse. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
"What do you go for in a girl?" | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
Well, I feel quite uncomfortable, | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
the air left the room a long time ago. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
All eyes are on me... | 0:50:44 | 0:50:46 | |
If you must know, I'd like a girl who | 0:50:46 | 0:50:50 | |
reads. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
Yes, reads. I'm not trying to call you a chauvinist | 0:50:53 | 0:50:56 | |
because I know that you're not alone in this, | 0:50:56 | 0:50:58 | |
but I'd like a girl who reads, | 0:50:58 | 0:50:59 | |
who needs the written word and who uses the added vocabulary | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
she gleans from novels and poetry to hold lively conversation | 0:51:02 | 0:51:05 | |
in a range of social situations. I want a girl who reads, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
whose heart bleeds at the works of Graham Greene or even Heat magazine, | 0:51:09 | 0:51:14 | |
who ties back her hair while she's reading Jane Eyre, | 0:51:14 | 0:51:17 | |
and who goes cover to cover | 0:51:17 | 0:51:18 | |
with each Waterstones three-for-two offer, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:21 | |
but I want a girl who doesn't stop there. I want a girl who reads. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
A girl who feeds her addiction for fiction | 0:51:24 | 0:51:26 | |
with unusual poems and plays. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
That she hunts out in crooked book shops for days and days and days. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
She'll sit addicted at breakfast, | 0:51:31 | 0:51:33 | |
soaking up the back of the cornflakes box | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
and the info she gets from what she reads makes her a total fox. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:39 | |
Because she's interesting and she's unique. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
And her theories make me go weak at the knees. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
This idea was originally the idea that young people, | 0:51:52 | 0:51:56 | |
particularly in London, | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
we know have a lot of energy | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
and a sense of commitment and at the moment | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
particularly they're feeling disenfranchised. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
They were bewildered, I think, by what's happening in politics | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
in the sense they can vote for something but it doesn't matter, | 0:52:10 | 0:52:13 | |
or it doesn't count. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:15 | |
And somehow if you turn that into a positive, | 0:52:15 | 0:52:17 | |
and that we get them all together, but not in a whingeing way, | 0:52:17 | 0:52:21 | |
but to say "OK, here's your floor, come up with some ideas." | 0:52:21 | 0:52:25 | |
Our idea was to come up with this manifesto at the end | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
of what we can do just to make things better, | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
to make their world better. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
So it's addressing their concerns, isn't it? It tends to be housing, | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
it tends to be... I think you came up with your three Ps? | 0:52:36 | 0:52:39 | |
Yes, we had a meeting, | 0:52:39 | 0:52:40 | |
a couple of us had a meeting with a group of three young people | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
from the Roundhouse last night. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:45 | |
They've come up with politics, power, pay and performance, | 0:52:45 | 0:52:50 | |
-the four Ps. -Very good. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:51 | |
So we ought to look at those as the stimulating themes | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
for the day, for the event in January. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
So it should be fun, we don't want it to be like a conference. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:03 | |
The performance element is going to be a key part of that. | 0:53:03 | 0:53:06 | |
We're creating a crowdsourced history of the Roundhouse | 0:53:06 | 0:53:09 | |
that will form a digital timeline | 0:53:09 | 0:53:12 | |
of the events over the past 50 years. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:14 | |
We're collecting stories from everyone - | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
so from members of the public, | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
from artists that we've worked with, members of the local community. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:22 | |
And that story will form a digital history of the Roundhouse. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:28 | |
There has been someone that has sort of... | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
been kind of living in the area, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:34 | |
cos community is an important part of this, as well, since 1995 | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
and has been able to see the Roundhouse from his kitchen window | 0:53:38 | 0:53:42 | |
and he charts his... the way he's grown-up | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
as the way the sort of Roundhouse has grown, as well. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
Someone's dad actually played here about 40 years ago. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:53 | |
So just lots of different kind of connections. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
All the people that have sent memories through sort of feel | 0:53:55 | 0:53:59 | |
this very personal connection to the Roundhouse, | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
which is really great to see. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:02 | |
Strangely, the Roundhouse, | 0:54:02 | 0:54:04 | |
it's the roundness that actually makes it a very intimate space, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
so the artists are never very far away from the audience | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
and the audience are never very far away from the artists. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
I think nine times out of ten, if there's a gig going on, | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
the artist, the musician at some point will stop and look at it | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
and go, "This is the most amazing place I've ever performed in." | 0:54:21 | 0:54:24 | |
HE RAPS: Kids on the road start young these days | 0:54:24 | 0:54:26 | |
Walk street with a knife these days No fun these days | 0:54:26 | 0:54:28 | |
Do dirt, end up on the run these days | 0:54:28 | 0:54:30 | |
Whole lot of pain, suffering, and badness, whole lot of madness | 0:54:30 | 0:54:32 | |
Too many grieving mothers and sadness | 0:54:32 | 0:54:34 | |
It ain't safe in the manor no more | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
Take one fool step and you could get bored | 0:54:36 | 0:54:38 | |
Kids caught up in the hype and the nonsense | 0:54:38 | 0:54:39 | |
Do what they hear in the songs and the TV | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
Picking up dust, makin' up fuss for the sake of money | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
Cos it look so easy | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
They don't understand, they can't comprehend | 0:54:45 | 0:54:46 | |
Cos they're too caught up trying to rep their ends | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
For the reputation, and pass it on to the next generation. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
Can't tek no more of it No, no, no, no, no | 0:54:51 | 0:54:54 | |
-Can't tek no more of it. -Hey! | 0:54:54 | 0:54:56 | |
# I've been through it all | 0:55:00 | 0:55:02 | |
# So I understand, I'll understand if you go | 0:55:06 | 0:55:10 | |
# O-o-o-o-oh | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
# So make your mark | 0:55:14 | 0:55:18 | |
# For your friends to see | 0:55:18 | 0:55:21 | |
# But when... When you need company | 0:55:22 | 0:55:27 | |
# Don't go to strangers | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
# My darling, come to me. # | 0:55:33 | 0:55:40 | |
It's a really special reason | 0:55:51 | 0:55:53 | |
why the Roundhouse is here and why people come here - | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
it's that we're on the railway side on one side | 0:55:56 | 0:55:58 | |
and the road side on the other | 0:55:58 | 0:55:59 | |
and there's wealthy, there's poor, there's business, there's industry | 0:55:59 | 0:56:03 | |
and we're at this kind of little island right in the middle. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:06 | |
People talk about places being on ley lines, um... | 0:56:06 | 0:56:10 | |
I don't know if that's true at all, | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
but there's certainly a feeling about this little island | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
and it does its own thing in its own place. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:17 | |
Well, I think it was Thelma Holt who said to me once - | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
she said, "I love what you're going to do with it, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:25 | |
"but I'm not in the least worried because the Roundhouse has a habit | 0:56:25 | 0:56:30 | |
"of spitting out the things it doesn't like." | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
Well, you know, the only thing I can say is that 50 years on, | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
or whatever it is, | 0:56:38 | 0:56:39 | |
the Roundhouse is starting to make its wishes understood. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
# When you were young and your heart was an open book | 0:56:45 | 0:56:50 | |
# You used to say live and let live | 0:56:52 | 0:56:56 | |
# You know you did, you know you did, you know you did | 0:56:56 | 0:56:59 | |
# But this ever-changin' world in which we live in | 0:56:59 | 0:57:04 | |
# Makes you give in and cry | 0:57:04 | 0:57:08 | |
# Say live and let die | 0:57:10 | 0:57:13 | |
# Live and let die | 0:57:15 | 0:57:18 | |
# Live and let die | 0:57:18 | 0:57:22 | |
# Live and let die... # | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
..It's suddenly serious... | 0:57:48 | 0:57:49 | |
-No. -Is this stale? | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
PEOPLE CHATTER | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
PEOPLE LAUGH | 0:57:55 | 0:57:56 | |
Whoa! | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:57:58 | 0:58:00 | |
Whoa! | 0:58:00 | 0:58:02 | |
APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 |