0:00:02 > 0:00:04This programme contains strong language.
0:00:04 > 0:00:08In this series, I've been taking a walk round the mythical,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12mind-expanding and morally ambiguous land of Bohemia.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
0:00:18 > 0:00:20it was an exclusive destination,
0:00:20 > 0:00:25home to cliques of artists, agents provocateurs and sexual adventurers
0:00:25 > 0:00:30who threw caution, convention and often their underwear to the winds.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37But that's the past. It's vintage, it's shabby chic.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40This time, I'm hurtling into the modern age
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and quizzing contemporary contenders for the title "Bohemian".
0:00:44 > 0:00:47Aaaargh! Aaaaargh! No!
0:00:47 > 0:00:51A Bohemian is not mediocre. You're not average.
0:00:51 > 0:00:52You're not medium.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55I do have a propensity for taking my clothes off.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57That was erotic, and we both starting laughing...
0:00:57 > 0:00:59And we both came at the same time.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01It was one of the best screws I've ever had.
0:01:02 > 0:01:08To be honest, I've never met anybody as normal as me.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12In the last 60 years, the idea of Bohemia has been
0:01:12 > 0:01:14increasingly popularised...
0:01:16 > 0:01:17..with some weird results.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24"Top five world's best Bohemian cities."
0:01:24 > 0:01:25Guess what's number one?
0:01:25 > 0:01:28No, you're wrong. It's Kathmandu in Nepal.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31So what does it mean,
0:01:31 > 0:01:34if anything, to be a Bohemian in post-war Britain?
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Are these men and women still an elite, or has Bohemia spread
0:01:38 > 0:01:41so far and wide it's now everywhere?
0:01:41 > 0:01:43Are Bohemians still the torch bearers
0:01:43 > 0:01:45for an alternative lifestyle?
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Or have money and marketing polluted
0:01:48 > 0:01:51any purity Bohemianism might ever have had?
0:01:51 > 0:01:53# I gave you the warning
0:01:55 > 0:01:57# But you never heeded it... #
0:01:58 > 0:02:00THUNDER AND RAIN
0:02:00 > 0:02:01SLINKY JAZZ MUSIC
0:02:07 > 0:02:11The story of Bohemia since the Second World War is reflected in
0:02:11 > 0:02:15the changing fortunes of one small area of London's West End.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19Soho.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25In the 1950s, at clubs like the Colony Room
0:02:25 > 0:02:29and the Caves de France, a hive of radicals, libertines,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33all-day drinkers and artists clustered together.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41Since the 19th century, the most prominent citizens of Bohemia
0:02:41 > 0:02:43had almost always been artists.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47Now, a painter emerged here
0:02:47 > 0:02:50whose work appeared to push Bohemia's boundaries
0:02:50 > 0:02:53even further than his predecessors.
0:02:53 > 0:02:54Francis Bacon.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04Bacon's Bohemia was part dark and dangerous,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08part top-end and glamorous. He was equally happy at home with gangsters
0:03:08 > 0:03:12and aristocrats, living, as he said, "between the gutter and the Ritz".
0:03:12 > 0:03:15His late-night drinking bouts in Soho spilled over
0:03:15 > 0:03:17into obsessive casino gambling,
0:03:17 > 0:03:18but that's true of us all.
0:03:18 > 0:03:22What did he get up to apart from that respectable pastime?
0:03:22 > 0:03:25Well, he was a sexual masochist who enjoyed being beaten up,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28and he favoured boyfriends with shady pasts,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31in one case having a seven-year relationship with a man he met
0:03:31 > 0:03:34when the fellow broke into his studio to burgle it.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39A bit like speed dating, only slightly less socially awkward.
0:03:44 > 0:03:49Bohemian artists had flouted moral conventions well before the 1950s.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52But Bacon's dark and controversial art
0:03:52 > 0:03:57stripped the Bohemian lifestyles he portrayed of any romance.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03Homosexual sex was illegal...
0:04:05 > 0:04:08..yet one canvas appeared to spy on two men in the act.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Another showed a sprawling figure with a syringe.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24Bacon's lifestyle would certainly be definable as textbook Bohemian.
0:04:26 > 0:04:32And I think the way in which he expresses that in his art is...
0:04:32 > 0:04:35I mean, it's very clear, it seems very direct.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39It comes absolutely to a head with the famous dark Triptychs,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42painted when his lover George Dyer died
0:04:42 > 0:04:49on the eve of his great exhibition in the Grand Palais in Paris in '71.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52George Dyer was found dead in the bathroom of the hotel.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57Bacon represents a very important point in art,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01at which art seems deliberately to have become uncomfortable,
0:05:01 > 0:05:02that if art was too likeable,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05then the artist wasn't really doing it right.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Bacon's brazen exposure of the dark corners of his own life
0:05:12 > 0:05:17reinforced the idea of the unconstrained Bohemian artist
0:05:17 > 0:05:18for a new generation.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22I said, "I'm not one of the Realists",
0:05:22 > 0:05:23I said, "I'm an Impressionist!"
0:05:23 > 0:05:26Pop culture even picked up the cliche to play it for laughs.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29LAUGHTER
0:05:29 > 0:05:32Well, metaphysically, I thought it was really quite solipsistic.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36In the film The Rebel from 1961,
0:05:36 > 0:05:41Tony Hancock relished the role of the wannabe artist,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44studiously striking the pose of the pretentious creative,
0:05:44 > 0:05:47and adopting the most outre abstract style.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49JAZZ MUSIC
0:05:52 > 0:05:53MUSIC ENDS
0:05:53 > 0:05:56Finished. Marvellous.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59That's worth 2,000 quid of anybody's money, that is!
0:05:59 > 0:06:01JAZZ MUSIC
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Sent up or straight,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09this Bohemian stereotype is one many artists
0:06:09 > 0:06:13still find it hard either to reject or fully embrace.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Maggi Hambling is one of Britain's most celebrated
0:06:20 > 0:06:21and outspoken artists.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25As a student, she knew Francis Bacon
0:06:25 > 0:06:28and drank in Soho haunts like the Colony Room.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33Now a revered painter and sculptor, one of her best-known works
0:06:33 > 0:06:36is the public statue of Bohemian pin-up, Oscar Wilde.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43I came up from Suffolk to art school in London in the '60s.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47They encouraged one to be oneself.
0:06:47 > 0:06:54And so I dressed up in a full length, black leather coat,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56I dyed my hair crimson,
0:06:56 > 0:06:58and wore my mother's fox fur around my neck,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01and I looked like the keeper of a brothel,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04and the other girls in the first year came to me for advice
0:07:04 > 0:07:06on contraception,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10but I hadn't a clue what I told them because I hadn't a clue myself!
0:07:12 > 0:07:14A lot of people would say that you're a Bohemian,
0:07:14 > 0:07:16and you tick an awful lot of the boxes.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18Some of your work's been controversial,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20you're a freedom fighter in your personal life
0:07:20 > 0:07:23and your feeling about what people should be allowed to do.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25You're wearing an Yves Saint Laurent shirt covered in paint.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28What do you think the word Bohemian means?
0:07:28 > 0:07:29What is a Bohemian?
0:07:31 > 0:07:34Well, someone who lives outside the rules, I think.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36Someone who makes their own rules.
0:07:36 > 0:07:42Somebody who has no truck with other people's idea of how to live.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46You know, artists starving in garrets,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50Bacon getting drunk in the Colony, Quentin Crisp...
0:07:50 > 0:07:53People with their own way of living.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Is smoking Bohemian?
0:07:56 > 0:08:00I don't know, either one smokes or one doesn't.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05You see, this political correctness, of which there was none in Soho,
0:08:05 > 0:08:10and personally, I wouldn't go along with it.
0:08:10 > 0:08:15You know, in Soho at the Colony or something,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18people were what nowadays would probably be called
0:08:18 > 0:08:21extremely rude to each other.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23I mean, they said what they thought, said what they felt.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31In her art, Hambling has observed noted Bohemians up-close,
0:08:31 > 0:08:33amongst them her lover Henrietta Moraes,
0:08:33 > 0:08:38muse and model to Bacon and dubbed by some the Queen of Bohemia.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Yet, like her 19th and 20th-century predecessors,
0:08:43 > 0:08:48Hambling's own immersion in this world has come at a cost.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54Do you feel the pressure of people being interested in how you live,
0:08:54 > 0:08:59and looking to you for a sort of life example of freedom?
0:08:59 > 0:09:01Would you rather that they just looked at the work
0:09:01 > 0:09:04- and had no interest in who made it? - Absolutely.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08And you don't think the artist has a sort of responsibility in a way
0:09:08 > 0:09:14to show us how to live truthfully or freely?
0:09:14 > 0:09:16Well, one is... You know, as an artist,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20one is a seeker after the truth in one's work, OK?
0:09:20 > 0:09:26And as you also happen to be a human being, I suppose, you know,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29the seeker of the truth, living truthfully,
0:09:29 > 0:09:36living openly as you choose to live, I suppose that goes alongside,
0:09:36 > 0:09:39but, I mean, there is a lot of mythology goes on.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43I mean, for Bacon, if he were here today, I'm sure
0:09:43 > 0:09:48he would be saying that his work was the thing,
0:09:48 > 0:09:50and the rest was the rest, and I think it's the same
0:09:50 > 0:09:54for any artist who's committed to this madness
0:09:54 > 0:09:56of trying to make things.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07Maggi Hambling is clear where she stands.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11But historically, many Bohemians deliberately courted comment.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15APPLAUSE
0:10:16 > 0:10:20How do other contemporary artists feel about the expectations
0:10:20 > 0:10:21of the art crowd?
0:10:23 > 0:10:27Well, it's about time a transvestite potter won the Turner Prize.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29LAUGHTER
0:10:29 > 0:10:30Erm... Mainly my lover...
0:10:31 > 0:10:35One that's widely known for his distinctive autobiographical work
0:10:35 > 0:10:39and arresting alter ego is Grayson Perry.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46Do you think the idea that the artist should look like an artist
0:10:46 > 0:10:48has become so engrained that
0:10:48 > 0:10:52if you turn up in ordinary men's clothes people are disappointed?
0:10:52 > 0:10:54I do feel that sometimes.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59But I was a transvestite before I was an artist,
0:10:59 > 0:11:04and I think the problem is, with a lot of around the artist's role
0:11:04 > 0:11:07and the idea of Bohemian-ness, is how self-conscious it is.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11I've actually heard an artist say, "Oh, yeah, we'd better get drunk now
0:11:11 > 0:11:13"because that's what they're expecting of us."
0:11:13 > 0:11:16You know, especially if there's a lot of money in the room.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21Access to artists is often the thing that rich collectors
0:11:21 > 0:11:25or people want, it's because they somehow feel that there'll be
0:11:25 > 0:11:29some kind of creative energy that will rub off on them or something.
0:11:29 > 0:11:30When people come to my studio,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33I still feel obliged somehow that my studio should somehow
0:11:33 > 0:11:37look like a studio and be all kind of messy and ongoing,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40when in fact, you know, it's much better if it's more organised.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42THEY LAUGH
0:11:48 > 0:11:52Do younger artists feel the same weight of expectation?
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Are they keen to play the Bohemian part?
0:11:55 > 0:11:59It kind of looks halfway between a vagina and a cock.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01And I quite like that.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07This is Camberwell College of Arts, where Maggi Hambling once studied.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12Now, it's nurturing a new generation of British painters and sculptors.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17Lewis Henderson, Beth Lloyd
0:12:17 > 0:12:21and Phoebe Mulrooney are in the final year of a BA in Painting.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Ever since the first Bohemians, and probably before,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31people have looked to artists to live in a different way,
0:12:31 > 0:12:33to dress in a different way, to have different hair,
0:12:33 > 0:12:38to have freer ideas and stronger opinions.
0:12:38 > 0:12:39Do you think that's still true?
0:12:39 > 0:12:42Do you think the artist is still an outsider figure?
0:12:42 > 0:12:45I think artists are the antennae of the race.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49They're connected, they're fully, like...
0:12:49 > 0:12:51They're the most important thing.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54Being an artist, like, from the clothes you wear,
0:12:54 > 0:12:57from the way you walk, you make it up, you do it yourself,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59you invent your own language.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02The first Bohemians, though, the original Paris Bohemians
0:13:02 > 0:13:07of the 19th century, they were literally starving for their art.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09If I offered you the Bohemian deal,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11if I said you can be an artist your whole life,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14but you'll never sell a painting, you'll never be rich, would you say,
0:13:14 > 0:13:16"Then I won't bother being an artist, I'll go and get a job?"
0:13:16 > 0:13:19No, because it's something that you're passionate about.
0:13:19 > 0:13:20That's the thing with art.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24If you're not excited or interested in the topic that you're...
0:13:24 > 0:13:26making paintings, sculptures or installations from,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29then it will show and it won't work as a piece
0:13:29 > 0:13:33of art, it won't be art, it will be, erm...
0:13:33 > 0:13:35I don't know, a boring job.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38How much do you care if people like your stuff? How much are you
0:13:38 > 0:13:41thinking, "Oh, I should probably make that a bit more accessible?"
0:13:41 > 0:13:46I don't care. I have no... I don't care what anyone thinks.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49When I paint, I am turning my life into something.
0:13:49 > 0:13:51You know, I don't care about making money
0:13:51 > 0:13:53and I don't care if someone hates it,
0:13:53 > 0:13:56because this is what I do, I'm a painter.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01It seems that, like their 19th-century predecessors,
0:14:01 > 0:14:05these young creatives still believe in "art for its own sake."
0:14:06 > 0:14:10But do they also share the attraction to the hedonistic life?
0:14:12 > 0:14:14One image of the Bohemian of the past,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17particularly in the modern era of painting,
0:14:17 > 0:14:20is of the hard-drinking, hard-partying person.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23Is there a pressure to have a bit of that in your lives?
0:14:23 > 0:14:26I think people just love the myth of the artist
0:14:26 > 0:14:31and they like to project it upon my work to give it some added value,
0:14:31 > 0:14:35but, you know, it's rubbish. It's rubbish, you know?
0:14:35 > 0:14:38Are you the artist of a perpetual hangover?
0:14:38 > 0:14:40No, you're not. It doesn't matter.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43But then again, a lot of things are accepted nowadays.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48So, a lot with, like, sexuality or religion or...
0:14:48 > 0:14:50- Well.- So... - That is the big question.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Some people would say Bohemia has won. Everything's fine now.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57You can have whatever sex you want with whoever you like,
0:14:57 > 0:14:59you can say whatever you want, you can live however you want.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Do you think that's true? Do you think...?
0:15:02 > 0:15:04- We can live however we want to live? - Yeah.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07Well, no. Because of the amount of money it costs to live,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11the majority of people can't afford rent,
0:15:11 > 0:15:17and I think actually becoming an artist as a career is very unlikely.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Yeah, but I think maybe that's what being a Bohemian is,
0:15:20 > 0:15:25because, like, it's not conforming to the idea that you have to have,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28like, a career and make money from what you do.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31A lot of people just choose to conform,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34and from a conformed situation, it's very, very difficult
0:15:34 > 0:15:38to make things, make creative things,
0:15:38 > 0:15:42and, like, it's when someone breaks that mould which is really exciting.
0:15:51 > 0:15:53So, here are some young people
0:15:53 > 0:15:56still willing to flip materialism the finger.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01And yet, far from being "for its own sake",
0:16:01 > 0:16:03most art today has been co-opted
0:16:03 > 0:16:05into the much vaunted creative economy.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09It's thought about in terms of money, jobs, culture, exports,
0:16:09 > 0:16:13the cornerstones of Britain PLC.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15Francis Bacon is now much more likely to be discussed
0:16:15 > 0:16:20as a sort of commodity that raises stratospheric prices at auction
0:16:20 > 0:16:23than a painter who committed unpalatable truths to canvass.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29SONG: "Please Don't Touch by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
0:16:29 > 0:16:31# Well, don't you touch me, baby I'm shaking so much
0:16:31 > 0:16:35# Well, there ain't no other woman that makes feel this way... #
0:16:37 > 0:16:41Back in the '50s and '60s, along with Bacon's naked grappling men
0:16:41 > 0:16:45and syringes, a whole new type of outsider art was emerging,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48that would also turn into a massive money-spinner,
0:16:48 > 0:16:53but was initially a shocking assault on mainstream culture and values.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55# Shake so much... #
0:16:57 > 0:16:58SCREAMING
0:17:00 > 0:17:03Rock and roll was a primal scream
0:17:03 > 0:17:06from rebellious, testosterone-fuelled young men.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10They were the new Bohemians.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12One of the things that made them so new,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15apart from their audacious sounds, is that they came from
0:17:15 > 0:17:19and were talking to a predominantly working class culture.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22Few people would have ever invest in oil paintings.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Everyone could afford a bit of vinyl.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27# Please don't touch
0:17:27 > 0:17:30# I shake so much... #
0:17:30 > 0:17:33Stylish, sexy and now within reach,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36this new way of life had a massive appeal to the nation's youth.
0:17:36 > 0:17:37# I shake so much... #
0:17:39 > 0:17:41And just like the artists before them,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45this latest counter culture was drawn to Soho.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50This is an article from the Daily Mirror in 1957,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54The Teenagers Of Soho, and it's describing a new breed of person
0:17:54 > 0:17:57flooding into this rather seedy Bohemian area.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02"These new after-dark citizens of Soho are typists, nurses,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06"factory workers. They are students, dreamers, bank clerks."
0:18:06 > 0:18:09Why are they here? Why have they come to Soho?
0:18:09 > 0:18:12They've come to listen to rock and roll music,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16to hang out in bars. They're not necessarily Bohemians themselves.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20"Josephine Osmond, 17, a hairdresser from Southend, told us:
0:18:20 > 0:18:23'I like to drop in from work with a girlfriend.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26'It's a cheap night out and I leave to be home by 11 o'clock.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28'I don't come here for boyfriends'."
0:18:28 > 0:18:32That's a respectable person with a job, that's not a Bohemian,
0:18:32 > 0:18:33but they're consumers of Bohemia.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36They're following in the footsteps of these new stars,
0:18:36 > 0:18:40pop stars, they're hanging out in bars, they're listening to music,
0:18:40 > 0:18:41and this is the point
0:18:41 > 0:18:43where Bohemianism starts to be democratised.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47It's reaching a new and much bigger audience.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49GIRLS SCREAM
0:18:49 > 0:18:52SONG: Good Times Bad Times by Led Zeppelin
0:18:54 > 0:18:57# In the days of my youth
0:18:57 > 0:19:01# I was told what it means to be a man...#
0:19:05 > 0:19:10In the '60s, it seems like people stopped looking to visual artists
0:19:10 > 0:19:15to be the proponents of the avant garde, the leaders of youth.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19The baby boom massively expands Bohemia.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22All of the kind of Bohemian lifestyles of those '60s
0:19:22 > 0:19:23rock gods and pop stars,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27they were kind of emulated by their fans and there was a slackening
0:19:27 > 0:19:30of cultural convention around clothing and hair styles
0:19:30 > 0:19:32and how you decorated your house.
0:19:32 > 0:19:37You know, my parents were too old. They were post-First War generation.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40But I remember them registering the impact of the social
0:19:40 > 0:19:43and cultural revolutions of the '60s. I think we all did.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47So there's a moment when Bohemia becomes kind of mainstream.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49ELECTRIC GUITAR RIFF
0:19:51 > 0:19:56A long way from Soho, in the Salford of the '60s, a young teenager
0:19:56 > 0:20:00was growing up hungry for the new Bohemian fashions and ideas.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07What sort of messages were you getting from the culture
0:20:07 > 0:20:10that, for example, your father wouldn't have had?
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Well, my dad didn't have any casual clothes.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17You know, he spent his life in a suit, really.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20He didn't have any casual clothes at all.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25There was no leisurewear before 1959.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28You couldn't get any shirt other than white.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32And, other than the style, what message were you,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35as a '60s teenager, getting from musicians
0:20:35 > 0:20:37about how you should be living?
0:20:37 > 0:20:39If you look at Keith Richards, you know,
0:20:39 > 0:20:43he's never lived an ordinary person's life.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46He's lived the life of a king.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48He did what he wanted.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51Every guy wants to live like that.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56You know, like the Stones, you know, going around in a gang,
0:20:56 > 0:20:57you know what I mean?
0:20:57 > 0:21:00Like when they were living in Edith Grove
0:21:00 > 0:21:04in a kind of beatnik, communal mode.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08You know, where nobody tidied up
0:21:08 > 0:21:10and, you know, it's much nicer
0:21:10 > 0:21:13than being conscripted into the armed forces.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18MUSIC: The Look of Love by Dusty Springfield
0:21:24 > 0:21:28Bohemianism's move beyond an arty clique to the youthful masses
0:21:28 > 0:21:30owed much to rock and roll,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34but surely even more to the much cited '60s sexual revolution.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41Fancy-free Bohemians had always acted on their appetites,
0:21:41 > 0:21:43but now, at least seemingly,
0:21:43 > 0:21:44everyone was at it.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54I think, now that people aren't sort of bound by things like marriage,
0:21:54 > 0:21:56you get much more sort of real relationships with people.
0:21:56 > 0:22:01People don't have this incredible possession thing about each other.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05A woman can approach a man on a completely level sexual basis,
0:22:05 > 0:22:06because she's not going to get pregnant.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08There's so many people to love.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10I mean, you can't just love exclusively one person.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12You can't just pick one and love them.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Marriage and moral affairs
0:22:15 > 0:22:19are just reverting back to the Stone Age more or less, isn't it?
0:22:19 > 0:22:22Have any woman you want, when you want.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28One woman who embraced these new opportunities was Molly Parkin.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33When she first arrived in London in 1949,
0:22:33 > 0:22:38she was a wide-eyed Welsh chapel girl,
0:22:38 > 0:22:42but, by the '60s, now a painter and fashion editor,
0:22:42 > 0:22:45she was divorced and embarking on a sexual odyssey
0:22:45 > 0:22:48with, as she puts it, countless lovers.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55You see, as the artist, you can do whatever you like,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00because that's me and I was 73 and he was 23,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03and that's my final intercourse, really, with this chap.
0:23:03 > 0:23:09I was with friends and this absolutely, utterly gorgeous surfer
0:23:09 > 0:23:12from Melbourne came up and he started talking to me.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16He said, "You're gorgeous." He said, "Any chance?"
0:23:16 > 0:23:18And I said, "Any chance of what?"
0:23:18 > 0:23:21And, so he said, "Well, any chance of a fuck?"
0:23:21 > 0:23:26I said, "Excuse me," and I went to say, "This has got to..."
0:23:26 > 0:23:28And he pushed his tongue right in.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31We ended up doing it in the gents' lavvy,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35and then the Mexican cleaner came
0:23:35 > 0:23:37and pushed his mop underneath the door.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Was that erotic?
0:23:39 > 0:23:41And that was erotic and we both died laughing.
0:23:41 > 0:23:42We both came at the same time.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44It was one of the best screws I've ever had.
0:23:51 > 0:23:56In the 1960s, when it was quite a revolutionary time
0:23:56 > 0:24:00in terms of everyone felt liberated to have their hair differently,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03to dress differently, to have more sex than they'd had before,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06did you still feel the forces of convention?
0:24:06 > 0:24:10No, because I moved in a racy, fast
0:24:10 > 0:24:15and gloriously free environment
0:24:15 > 0:24:19and there was freedom. It was sexual freedom, especially for women,
0:24:19 > 0:24:22because the pill was there
0:24:22 > 0:24:27and women and girls were now having sex lives like men had always had,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31and that was a glorious atmosphere to be in.
0:24:31 > 0:24:32I read in the paper recently
0:24:32 > 0:24:36- that you had had sex with a whole Welsh rugby team.- Yes.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39- And my question there is really one of...- Two of them, actually.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42- Just two of them?- Two teams. - Oh, two teams.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44- Emotionally speaking...- Yes.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46..I'm terribly bourgeois.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48My awful disease is - if I go to bed with somebody,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51I rather fall in love with them. Not always in that order.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53But were you free from that?
0:24:53 > 0:24:57No. There's a lot of love in that bed.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01Every single one, with their shiny brown eyes and their black hair
0:25:01 > 0:25:04and the sweetness of their smiles,
0:25:04 > 0:25:07and the... Just it was just so affectionate.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11It's only another bit of the body going in a different part, isn't it?
0:25:11 > 0:25:16It's like holding your arms out and putting them round a person.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18That's how I see it.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It's no big deal one way or the other,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26and, in the Bohemian world, you know, the act of sex, sexual act,
0:25:26 > 0:25:30is just a friendly gesture like shaking hands.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34What about when you're in a relationship? When you're married?
0:25:34 > 0:25:37The Bohemians that we've looked at of the past,
0:25:37 > 0:25:39William Morris, some of the Bloomsbury Groups,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42- they wanted open relationships... - I don't believe in that.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46I think that, if you're married, you should just be with the person.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50- Oh, that's interesting, so...- But, at the same time, having said that,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53with the second husband, when we went to New York
0:25:53 > 0:25:57and lived in the Chelsea Hotel,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01it was me who organised the orgies there,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04but we did hold hands all the way through...
0:26:04 > 0:26:05- Oh, you and your husband? - ..and loved.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08It was OK to take part in an orgy if you were holding hands together
0:26:08 > 0:26:10- as a sign of closeness?- Yes.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12We did it together, as it were.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15Did you not feel jealousy, though?
0:26:15 > 0:26:18No, I'm not a big one for jealousy, darling.
0:26:18 > 0:26:24Why would I be jealous when I've got so much going for me?
0:26:24 > 0:26:26What's to be jealous of?
0:26:26 > 0:26:29Well, I think that would be my worry.
0:26:29 > 0:26:30I'm certainly delighted
0:26:30 > 0:26:32for everybody to have sex with everybody,
0:26:32 > 0:26:37but when I see stories about the open marriages and the lovers,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40I think, "That doesn't seem very gypsy
0:26:40 > 0:26:44"to not mind, to not get angry and passionate and jealous."
0:26:44 > 0:26:48- It seems a bit...- Yeah, but you might have your own amazing lover.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51Having said that, of course, I did kick my first husband out
0:26:51 > 0:26:53when I discovered his infidelity.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56So was it the deceit? Was that the problem?
0:26:56 > 0:26:59So you wouldn't mind your husband taking part in an orgy
0:26:59 > 0:27:01if you were there and you were doing that together?
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Yeah, if we were doing everything together.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06But, I mean, I can't think of a single person
0:27:06 > 0:27:10who wouldn't have loved all of those sexual experiences that I'd had.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14I didn't have a shred of guilt and why would I?
0:27:14 > 0:27:17I was spreading affection and love, wasn't I?
0:27:17 > 0:27:21And receiving it back, as well, in bucket loads.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26MUSIC: The Look of Love by Dusty Springfield
0:27:26 > 0:27:31Molly's experiences may have been wholly positive,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35but it soon became clear that the new Bohemian sexual freedoms
0:27:35 > 0:27:40could also give carte blanche to old-fashioned sexual exploitation.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44It was a situation ripe for satire.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51SITAR MUSIC PLAYS
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Malcolm Bradbury's comic novel The History Man, and its BBC adaptation,
0:27:55 > 0:27:57introduced a wide audience
0:27:57 > 0:28:01to the free-loving, pot-smoking academic Howard Kirk,
0:28:01 > 0:28:06outwardly a model progressive Bohemian.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08- How are you doing?- Oh, fine.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11But, as played by the swaggering Antony Sher,
0:28:11 > 0:28:13Kirk is revealed as a sexual predator
0:28:13 > 0:28:17trying it on with students and colleagues alike.
0:28:17 > 0:28:18You're very attractive.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23I think you deserve serious attention.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Yes, I gathered you'd been researching in the sexual field.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28No, that's all finished and published.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32No, this would be purely for pleasure.
0:28:32 > 0:28:33Whose?
0:28:42 > 0:28:48The History Man depicted a dark side to the sexual revolution.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53But that wasn't the only way it satirised Bohemia's 1970s expansion.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56"There are Bohemians on every street corner,"
0:28:56 > 0:28:58its author Malcolm Bradbury noted.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02These were the people who shopped at Habitat and boiled brown rice.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08Bohemia was threatening to become
0:29:08 > 0:29:12a tame, aspirational, middle-class lifestyle choice.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18Yet, traditionally, Bohemians had shocked the bourgeoisie.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22Aubrey Beardsley's risque illustrations
0:29:22 > 0:29:25provoked Victorian polite society.
0:29:25 > 0:29:31Eric Gill made a disturbing fusion of sex with sacred subjects,
0:29:31 > 0:29:35and a new crop of Bohemians were about to horrify middle England
0:29:35 > 0:29:36in a whole new way.
0:29:38 > 0:29:40MUSIC: Incendiary Device by Johnny Moped
0:29:49 > 0:29:53Punk was a kind of very brutal, sparse kind of Bohemianism.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56It wasn't, like, all tasselled silk and opium.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00It was more kind of, you know, sniffing glue and old school shirt.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09The punks were nihilist Bohemians.
0:30:09 > 0:30:11They didn't propose anything.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13They were kind of honest Bohemians in a way.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17Their art was anti-art, their clothing was anti-clothing.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Even their kind of drug taking was kind of crap drugs
0:30:20 > 0:30:24and kind of anti-intoxication intoxication.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26MUSIC: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
0:30:28 > 0:30:30I was there at the beginning.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33I was there at the Sex Pistols' first ever gig,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36where they emptied the room in St Martin's.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41TV and restaurant critic AA Gill remembers punk
0:30:41 > 0:30:43from his art school days.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51The one thing you know about Bohemians
0:30:51 > 0:30:55is that they're aggressive, they're difficult, they're angry,
0:30:55 > 0:30:59they're existentialist,
0:30:59 > 0:31:07and that existential, Camus-like personal fury at the world,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10the sense that... what I want is the most important,
0:31:10 > 0:31:16the only truth is to be absolutely honest and selfish to yourself.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18I mean, that was punk,
0:31:18 > 0:31:22except it was more about safety pins and ripped trousers.
0:31:22 > 0:31:23It was very violent, as well.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25I do... I remember there was an awful lot of people...
0:31:25 > 0:31:28I spent a lot of time in accident and emergency
0:31:28 > 0:31:30holding friends together.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35This paper is boring, mindless and mean.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38It's full of pornography. The kind that's clean.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Punk was an unexpected offshoot of Bohemia.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44Not so poetry.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47The two combined in the form of John Cooper Clarke,
0:31:47 > 0:31:49whose own creative quest led him, in the 1970s,
0:31:49 > 0:31:53to the career of performance poet.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56Soon, he was opening for the Sex Pistols.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Are you embarrassed about being a poet?
0:32:00 > 0:32:01Not really, but, I mean,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04people can get entirely the wrong impression, can't they?
0:32:04 > 0:32:05Poet - it's a fella that skips around
0:32:05 > 0:32:07with a butterfly net, isn't it?
0:32:07 > 0:32:09Like a death at a birthday party,
0:32:09 > 0:32:11you ruin all the fun.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Like a sucked and spat out Smartie,
0:32:14 > 0:32:16you're no use to anyone.
0:32:18 > 0:32:21You're a young man, you're leaving school, you're thinking what to do,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23I mean, how could you possibly think that poetry
0:32:23 > 0:32:25was a viable career option?
0:32:25 > 0:32:27Yeah, whoever thought, "I need money, quick.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29"I know, I'll write poetry."
0:32:31 > 0:32:33The worst news I ever got at school was -
0:32:33 > 0:32:35"These are the best days of your life."
0:32:35 > 0:32:39I thought, "Crikey, I'll open a vein now."
0:32:39 > 0:32:42I hated every second of it at school, you know,
0:32:42 > 0:32:46so to hear that, it's a real downer.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49So I think I sort of, ever since then, I must have, at some point,
0:32:49 > 0:32:51said, "I ain't going to wind up like that.
0:32:51 > 0:32:55"I'm going to plough my own furrow even if it's a lonely business."
0:32:57 > 0:33:01The pest pulled up, propped his push-bike at a pillar box,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04pulled his 'peen, paused at a post and pissed.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06In the 1980s, Cooper Clarke took a further step
0:33:06 > 0:33:08away from the mainstream.
0:33:08 > 0:33:09This particular part of the planet...
0:33:09 > 0:33:11Earlier Bohemians had dosed themselves
0:33:11 > 0:33:15with laudanum, absinthe or cocaine.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18He took heroin and eventually developed a full-blown addiction.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21..pull up and peruse the problem while pickpockets picked pockets...
0:33:21 > 0:33:24Substance abuse has been a big theme in Bohemia,
0:33:24 > 0:33:26if abuse is the right word, which it might not be.
0:33:26 > 0:33:31Do you think that that sort of experiment aids creativity?
0:33:31 > 0:33:35- Stifles it?- No, I just think, for some reason that I don't know,
0:33:35 > 0:33:37it comes with the territory.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40There's not many artists that didn't have a drink.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45When you're kind of relying on the intuitive part of yourself
0:33:45 > 0:33:47to kind of work,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50there's got to be a kind of clocking-off point.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54You know, around tea time.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57Was it like that for you, though? I mean, when you were a junkie,
0:33:57 > 0:34:00was it, "Right, clock off," or did they go together?
0:34:00 > 0:34:03Oh, no, that's a... All bets are off with that shit.
0:34:06 > 0:34:12I'm afraid the old poetry lark got put on the back burner
0:34:12 > 0:34:14for a decade or so.
0:34:14 > 0:34:19What about getting older? Do you still feel like a Bohemian today?
0:34:19 > 0:34:22To me, I'm the last normal guy alive,
0:34:22 > 0:34:29so, in that, yeah, I do feel conversely a bit, yeah, Bohemian.
0:34:29 > 0:34:31Out of step.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33Out of step because I come from...
0:34:33 > 0:34:36To me a Bohemian world is where you can...
0:34:36 > 0:34:40If you think it, you can say it, and you can think what you like.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43MUSIC: Don't Leave Me This Way by The Communards
0:34:45 > 0:34:49Elsewhere in the Bohemian world, saying and doing what they liked
0:34:49 > 0:34:51were joyous, confrontational,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54out-and-proud pop band The Communards.
0:34:54 > 0:34:59# Don't leave me this way
0:34:59 > 0:35:01# I can't survive
0:35:01 > 0:35:03# I can't stay alive... #
0:35:03 > 0:35:06The keyboardist was Richard Coles.
0:35:08 > 0:35:13His recent autobiography details a past life of drugs and casual sex.
0:35:17 > 0:35:21But in 2005, he was ordained as a priest into the Church of England
0:35:21 > 0:35:25and is now vicar at St Mary the Virgin in Finedon near Peterborough.
0:35:29 > 0:35:35If homosexuality had been, in your teenage years, more "normal",
0:35:35 > 0:35:38more generally out, if marriage had been a thing, all of that,
0:35:38 > 0:35:40do you think you would have gone to London and become a pop star?
0:35:40 > 0:35:43No. I think by nature I'm a timid person
0:35:43 > 0:35:45and I think I probably would have been Mr Chips,
0:35:45 > 0:35:47if homosexuality hadn't intervened...
0:35:47 > 0:35:50Though that's perhaps assuming things about Mr Chips
0:35:50 > 0:35:52which it's not safe to do, but nevertheless!
0:35:52 > 0:35:56I think I am by nature, if I can say that, quite a conventional person,
0:35:56 > 0:36:01but homosexuality kind of rescued me from that.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03When I arrived in London in 1980
0:36:03 > 0:36:06and met Jimmy Somerville and various other people,
0:36:06 > 0:36:08we absolutely celebrated throwing off
0:36:08 > 0:36:10the constraints of heterosexism
0:36:10 > 0:36:12and the patriarchy, all that kind of stuff.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15And so to arrive in a place where all of a sudden
0:36:15 > 0:36:18you can make up your own life is this extraordinary liberation.
0:36:18 > 0:36:20I think some are born Bohemian,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23and some have Bohemianism thrust upon them,
0:36:23 > 0:36:25and I think I had Bohemianism thrust upon me
0:36:25 > 0:36:27and even at my most Bohemian,
0:36:27 > 0:36:31there was always a vicar struggling to get out, I think.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36See, now, I think you're absolutely at your core a Bohemian
0:36:36 > 0:36:38because obviously in the '80s
0:36:38 > 0:36:40you were living in the traditional Bohemian way,
0:36:40 > 0:36:41you're taking lots of drugs,
0:36:41 > 0:36:44you're having lots of sex and so on, as people understand it,
0:36:44 > 0:36:48but you then entered the church and that's not just finding God,
0:36:48 > 0:36:53that's really embracing discipline after chaos, being a minister.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56But you've just exploded that by writing a book
0:36:56 > 0:36:58in which you tell everyone that you went dogging,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01did a load of Charlie, and pretended to have AIDS.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04- Yeah.- I mean, if that doesn't epater la bourgeoisie, what does?
0:37:04 > 0:37:07Oh, well, it would be a mistake to think the church is a bourgeois...
0:37:07 > 0:37:10a sort of crucible of bourgeois convention, quite the opposite.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13The church is fundamentally and always has been,
0:37:13 > 0:37:15in spite of appearances,
0:37:15 > 0:37:20a profoundly radical countercultural world-challenging organisation.
0:37:20 > 0:37:22I think the reason why I'm in the church now
0:37:22 > 0:37:26is because I never could, perhaps it's true, never could abandon
0:37:26 > 0:37:30that captivation to Bohemianism and indeed to radicalism.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34Well, I think, I mean, even in a much bigger way, it strikes me
0:37:34 > 0:37:36that particularly in the performing, artistic world,
0:37:36 > 0:37:38but also more generally,
0:37:38 > 0:37:41atheism has become such a boring kneejerk orthodoxy
0:37:41 > 0:37:46that being a believer is already a sign of free thinking.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48I always feel a bit sorry for match-ready atheists,
0:37:48 > 0:37:51if I can put it that way, because it's great to grow up
0:37:51 > 0:37:53thinking that you represent the counterculture.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56Then you find out that you've become mainstream and
0:37:56 > 0:37:59it's more people like me who perhaps represent the counterculture.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01# Ahhhh... Baby!
0:38:01 > 0:38:05# My heart is full of love and desire for you... #
0:38:05 > 0:38:09Richard and his colleagues used shock to confront prejudice.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17Have attitudes changed in 25 years?
0:38:17 > 0:38:19Are the same tactics necessary now?
0:38:22 > 0:38:24You often hear people say that in this day and age
0:38:24 > 0:38:28with everything online in our permissive, liberal society,
0:38:28 > 0:38:31no-one's shocked by anything any more - we're unshockable.
0:38:31 > 0:38:33But if that's true, why is the online world
0:38:33 > 0:38:35in a constant state of outrage?
0:38:35 > 0:38:38It's like the internet is a third porn, a third corpses
0:38:38 > 0:38:41and a third blue-haired matrons going, "Ooh, you can't say that.
0:38:41 > 0:38:42"He should be fired!"
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Why are the tabloids constantly campaigning for politicians
0:38:45 > 0:38:48to apologise, and usually succeeding?
0:38:48 > 0:38:50If we're actually more shockable than ever,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54is it the role of the dutiful Bohemian to press those buttons?
0:38:57 > 0:39:01For some, the answer's a resounding yes.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07These days, Soho rental prices have shunted the most risque clubs
0:39:07 > 0:39:11and cabaret acts out to more distant parts of town.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16So I've come to East London to watch some rather extraordinary drag acts.
0:39:21 > 0:39:23First up is a performer billed as
0:39:23 > 0:39:27The Virgin Mary, aka Virgin Xtravaganzah.
0:39:27 > 0:39:36# Se-e-e-e-eriously-y-y-y! #
0:39:37 > 0:39:39CHEERING
0:39:44 > 0:39:46Have you ever felt disapproved of?
0:39:46 > 0:39:49My husband's family is Mormon,
0:39:49 > 0:39:52so this is probably...
0:39:52 > 0:39:57not what they really wanted their son... But nothing's ever been said.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59Homophobia's different though.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02Walking down the street in a face full of make-up,
0:40:02 > 0:40:05I feel a lot of disapproval, on a regular basis.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07If you're walking down the street in make-up
0:40:07 > 0:40:09- and you sense people's disapproval...- Yeah.
0:40:09 > 0:40:10..does any part of you think,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13"Oh, I wish I was wearing a boring shirt and trousers,"
0:40:13 > 0:40:16or do you think, "Screw you, I'm putting on more?"
0:40:16 > 0:40:18Um...the latter.
0:40:18 > 0:40:24Absolutely, because I feel that it's good for people to see things
0:40:24 > 0:40:28that is not something they see every single day.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33I feel it's kind of part of being a drag queen to not take cabs
0:40:33 > 0:40:35all the time.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37But to actually ride public transport
0:40:37 > 0:40:40because this stuff happens, and it's good that it happens.
0:40:41 > 0:40:43Wahhhhhh!
0:40:43 > 0:40:45Do you like my look?
0:40:45 > 0:40:48- Do you like my look?! CROWD:- You look like a girl!
0:40:48 > 0:40:52Another drag artist who has doled out shock in various guises
0:40:52 > 0:40:53is Jonny Woo.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56Whoo! Whoo!
0:40:56 > 0:40:57HE SCREAMS
0:40:57 > 0:41:01# Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah... # Come on, sway!
0:41:01 > 0:41:04Jonny is known as the ringmaster of Shoreditch and tonight,
0:41:04 > 0:41:08donning one of his more conservative outfits, he's the headline act.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13Give us a kiss, darling.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21CHEERING
0:41:21 > 0:41:23'It's all about shocking.'
0:41:23 > 0:41:25Even when I... even when I go on stage,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28I don't know, maybe this is why I'm not more successful!
0:41:28 > 0:41:30I kind of go on stage with this view
0:41:30 > 0:41:33that I really don't want the people in the audience
0:41:33 > 0:41:35to like what I'm going to do, a lot of the time.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37I kind of think, "Fuck them," you know.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39"I'm not here to entertain you, dear."
0:41:47 > 0:41:49What is the benefit of shock?
0:41:49 > 0:41:53Why is that good for us as a species, to be shaken up?
0:41:53 > 0:41:56It makes you kind of rethink, kind of, like, your status quo.
0:41:56 > 0:42:00Regardless of the fact that we have probably some of the most
0:42:00 > 0:42:04liberal laws in the world regarding sexuality,
0:42:04 > 0:42:09in this area kids still get beaten up, they still get attacked.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13You know, the law might come in and say it's fine for me to get married,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16and it might not be acceptable for you to say something homophobic now
0:42:16 > 0:42:18but it doesn't mean that you're not thinking it.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21Well, equal marriage is a fascinating topic, really,
0:42:21 > 0:42:23for the question we're asking,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26because if men and men are now marrying each other
0:42:26 > 0:42:28and women are marrying women,
0:42:28 > 0:42:31have the gay people who were Bohemian in a way
0:42:31 > 0:42:33just by nature of their sexuality
0:42:33 > 0:42:36been sort of sucked into bourgeois values?
0:42:36 > 0:42:39Well, first of all, I don't think sexuality...
0:42:39 > 0:42:40being gay makes you Bohemian.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42But it once did.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44I think it once did, but that was quite a while ago.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46Well, this is the thing about me running around
0:42:46 > 0:42:48in a pair of high heels and a pair of knickers.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51I wasn't showing off against straight society,
0:42:51 > 0:42:53I was showing off against my own kind.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56Because in the '90s, the gays had already lost out.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59They'd given up Bohemia by this point. They'd kind of...
0:42:59 > 0:43:02It was all about lifestyle. It was all about money.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05It was all about conforming within themselves.
0:43:05 > 0:43:06You know, kind of...
0:43:06 > 0:43:10I think Bohemia had left the queer building by about that point.
0:43:10 > 0:43:16Yeah, look at you sucking back your craft beer. That's it, isn't it?
0:43:16 > 0:43:19That's Bohemia for you, isn't it, darling?
0:43:19 > 0:43:22Make a girl like me thirsty just looking at you.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25I know there have been points in this series when I've been
0:43:25 > 0:43:27a bit wry about Bohemia and a bit suspicious
0:43:27 > 0:43:30and I've been stuck in my bourgeois, conventional place
0:43:30 > 0:43:32going, "I don't know about this," but...
0:43:32 > 0:43:34This is the sort of Bohemia that rings my bell.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36I think Jonny Woo is amazing.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39He's so challenging, even to his own audience,
0:43:39 > 0:43:41even to people that have come to see him.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44# Ha-ha-happy! Shoreditch
0:43:44 > 0:43:46# Show me the way to be free... #
0:43:46 > 0:43:50For me, this kind of Bohemia is an incredible contrast
0:43:50 > 0:43:52with the staidness of Bloomsbury,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54with their twee little country houses.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57This is the two fingers up to convention,
0:43:57 > 0:44:01this is a person getting out on stage, being totally challenging,
0:44:01 > 0:44:04wearing whatever they want, with wit and humour
0:44:04 > 0:44:07and self-consciousness and a tiny bit of anger.
0:44:07 > 0:44:09He's slightly frightening.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13But beautiful, and this, I think, is what Bohemia is for.
0:44:13 > 0:44:19This total energy that says "I'm human, I can do anything I want
0:44:19 > 0:44:20"and I won't be ordinary."
0:44:20 > 0:44:23And this kind of Bohemia, I want to be part of.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30But although Jonny Woo is a proper, challenging,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32grit-in-the-oyster Bohemian,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35I'm not sure he's what most people today would think of
0:44:35 > 0:44:37when they hear the word.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40MUSIC: Rebel Rebel by Rickie Lee Jones
0:44:46 > 0:44:49I'm going to put "Bohemian" into Google,
0:44:49 > 0:44:51just to see what other people seem to think it means.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59There's an article about Samantha Cameron here.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01"She is known for her Bohemian streak -
0:45:01 > 0:45:03"she has a dolphin tattoo on her ankle -
0:45:03 > 0:45:06"and for mixing designer brands with high street fashion."
0:45:08 > 0:45:12Cressida Bonas, Prince Harry's occasional girlfriend.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15"Is she too Bohemian to marry Harry?"
0:45:15 > 0:45:17asks the Daily Mail nervously.
0:45:17 > 0:45:21"She's a dreamy, arty Bohemian sort who loves to spend her weekends
0:45:21 > 0:45:23"dancing at raves."
0:45:24 > 0:45:28This person's a girl on her blog. "I'm a modern day Bohemian -
0:45:28 > 0:45:31"short on money, super-creative, peace-loving, romantic,
0:45:31 > 0:45:34"poetic and emotional. I live each day in wonder."
0:45:36 > 0:45:41"Natural and Bohemian stone circle vegan yurt wedding."
0:45:42 > 0:45:43That's like fridge poetry.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47Lots of fashion stuff.
0:45:47 > 0:45:49Bohemian soap.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53This is great, this sentence goes to an unexpected place for me.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56"Inspired by the free-thinking style of the great British
0:45:56 > 0:46:00"Bohemian tradition, our patchouli fragrance is an intricate scent
0:46:00 > 0:46:04"that harks back to long nights at the Cafe de Paris in the 1890s."
0:46:04 > 0:46:08Do you want to smell like a 19th-century Paris backstreet?
0:46:08 > 0:46:09Buy this perfume.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15The existence of all these products being described as Bohemian,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19it goes to the heart of what's especially slippery about the term.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21Free expression and creativity
0:46:21 > 0:46:24and big money get sort of tangled up together,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27so there's something remunerative for companies
0:46:27 > 0:46:29in identifying what's alternative.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32So then, what is alternative? If everyone's alternative
0:46:32 > 0:46:36and that's being sold, what's the genuinely alternative thing to do?
0:46:43 > 0:46:46From 19th-century Paris onwards, every generation
0:46:46 > 0:46:50has wrestled with the dilemma of genuine and commodified versions
0:46:50 > 0:46:52of alternative living.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03But in the 21st century, the phoney version has threatened
0:47:03 > 0:47:07to eclipse the bona fide one almost entirely.
0:47:11 > 0:47:12All right, fucksticks?
0:47:14 > 0:47:17In 2005, a new sitcom, Nathan Barley,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20exposed viewers for the first time to a tribe
0:47:20 > 0:47:24just emerging on the streets of newly trendy East London
0:47:24 > 0:47:27who all seemed to work in new media.
0:47:27 > 0:47:28Check it out, yeah?
0:47:28 > 0:47:33Trashbat.co.ck. My website. Never too late, yeah?
0:47:33 > 0:47:36Right from the start, Barley is revealed as a vapid poser,
0:47:36 > 0:47:39obsessed with his own cool credentials.
0:47:46 > 0:47:49Nathan Barley was amazing when I first saw it.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51I think it's a work of genius.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53It's still as fresh as paint.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56In other words, all the kind of critique of kind of ludicrous,
0:47:56 > 0:47:57Victorian-bearded hipsterdom,
0:47:57 > 0:47:59the sort of thing we see around here,
0:47:59 > 0:48:03sort of track lighting and distressed plaster
0:48:03 > 0:48:06with a bit of brickwork showing on the wall
0:48:06 > 0:48:12and people showing their arse cracks and drinking exotic cappuccinos
0:48:12 > 0:48:15is still exactly the same, except more so.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18You know, riding around on stupid little bicycles
0:48:18 > 0:48:21and being obsessed with their mobile phones.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23It's all exactly the same, it's as fresh as paint.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Because what Nathan Barley was about was the death of Bohemia.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36Nathan Barley was a premonition of a new type of fraudulent hitchhiker
0:48:36 > 0:48:40through authentic country of Bohemia - the hipster.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47So what exactly is a hipster?
0:48:50 > 0:48:53Um...a Bohemian?
0:48:53 > 0:48:55Just walk down Peckham Rye...
0:48:55 > 0:48:57No, isn't a hipster, like,
0:48:57 > 0:49:01an uncreative trying to look like he's creative.
0:49:01 > 0:49:02Trying to be creative,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04someone trying to be a little bit out there when they're not
0:49:04 > 0:49:07because everyone walking down Peckham Rye looks like that.
0:49:07 > 0:49:11- So do we, to be fair. - Yeah, I hate to say it!
0:49:11 > 0:49:14I mean, fuck knows. What is a hipster?
0:49:14 > 0:49:17I mean, I suppose hipsters are self-proclaimed Bohemians.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21But, I mean, I've never been convinced
0:49:21 > 0:49:24that facial hair is an alternative to thought.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29The whole problem for Bohemia
0:49:29 > 0:49:34is that capitalism has become so effective at commoditising lifestyle
0:49:34 > 0:49:39that the minute you kind of wear your scarf in a different way
0:49:39 > 0:49:42or put an earring in your forehead, everybody else is doing it
0:49:42 > 0:49:45and it costs, somebody is making money out of it.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52I think convention now is really the sort of capitulation to consumerism.
0:49:52 > 0:49:56The way we're absolutely enthralled to getting stuff
0:49:56 > 0:49:59and doing the things we need to do to earn the money to get the stuff
0:49:59 > 0:50:02without really having any powerful critique of that,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05um...outside that system.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07Although, of course there is, and I think the real Bohemians now
0:50:07 > 0:50:11are people probably trying to live beyond consumer culture,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14and that, I think, is quite fascinating,
0:50:14 > 0:50:17and I'd love to see where that goes.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Living beyond consumer culture isn't easy today.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25SHOUTING
0:50:25 > 0:50:28This is what you're doing to fucking London!
0:50:28 > 0:50:30This is our cultural heritage!
0:50:30 > 0:50:32On February 5th 2015,
0:50:32 > 0:50:36the Metropolitan Police ended an occupation by squatters
0:50:36 > 0:50:39of the 12 Bar in Soho's Denmark Street.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41Police, stay where you are.
0:50:41 > 0:50:43Huh! I'm staying here!
0:50:49 > 0:50:51Known as Tin Pan Alley,
0:50:51 > 0:50:55from the 1950s this was the epicentre of London's music scene.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58Home to guitar shops, venues and recording studios
0:50:58 > 0:51:02buzzing with bands from the Rolling Stones to the Sex Pistols.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09Some of its lots are now scheduled for corporate redevelopment.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15The occupiers call themselves Bohemians 4 Soho
0:51:15 > 0:51:17and certainly not hipsters.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27Nine days before the raid,
0:51:27 > 0:51:29I visited the site and talked with Craig Temple,
0:51:29 > 0:51:32a musician who has worked and played here for years.
0:51:34 > 0:51:38We're standing up for Denmark Street and what that represents.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40It's where Black Sabbath recorded their first album,
0:51:40 > 0:51:42where the Kinks recorded their early stuff,
0:51:42 > 0:51:45Rolling Stones recorded their early stuff, the Yardbirds,
0:51:45 > 0:51:49everyone from that kind of era of the swinging '60s in London
0:51:49 > 0:51:50recorded in that studio.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53On a much bigger scale, it represents
0:51:53 > 0:51:57freedom of music in the UK, freedom of expression.
0:51:57 > 0:52:00You live in a kind of itinerant hand-to-mouth way
0:52:00 > 0:52:02because you're putting your commitment to music first,
0:52:02 > 0:52:04and it's art for art's sake.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06Does that make you a Bohemian,
0:52:06 > 0:52:09and if so, is that a position you take pride in?
0:52:09 > 0:52:14I'm just a guy who plays a guitar and sings and writes songs,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16that's just what I do.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20But the level of sacrifice I've had to do in order to be
0:52:20 > 0:52:24a touring musician for the past nine years has been ridiculous.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27Relationships, out the window, money, out the window,
0:52:27 > 0:52:29security, out the window.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31It comes with the territory.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35A lot of people say Bohemia is dead, there are no Bohemians
0:52:35 > 0:52:38any more, and yet, this place closes down, and almost overnight
0:52:38 > 0:52:41it's full of people calling themselves Bohemians
0:52:41 > 0:52:42having a protest.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45What does that mean? Is Bohemia alive and well?
0:52:45 > 0:52:46Of course it's alive and well.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49I mean, the majority of people only pay attention to what they're shown.
0:52:49 > 0:52:53If people really want to see true counterculture
0:52:53 > 0:52:57and true Bohemianism, you need to scratch beneath the surface.
0:52:57 > 0:53:02We're sick and tired of how there's one haircut and a beard
0:53:02 > 0:53:04and that's the height of fashion,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07I don't want people like that to be representing my generation.
0:53:07 > 0:53:12I don't want someone pouting in front of a fucking camera on a phone
0:53:12 > 0:53:14to represent my generation.
0:53:14 > 0:53:16That's it. I feel like people have been lamenting
0:53:16 > 0:53:19the death of Bohemia almost since the day it was invented.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21And they try and sound wistful, and they try and say
0:53:21 > 0:53:23"It's such a shame Bohemia's all over."
0:53:23 > 0:53:24But actually they're relieved
0:53:24 > 0:53:26because it's neutralised, it's safe if it's over.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28It never is. It's just happening somewhere else.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30Yeah, people are always trying to say
0:53:30 > 0:53:32that this is dead and that's dead,
0:53:32 > 0:53:37but it's not, the nature of rock and roll is giving the finger
0:53:37 > 0:53:40to the man on a regular basis. It's true rebellion. It's true freedom.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51Well, that's definitely one of the nicer squats I've visited.
0:53:51 > 0:53:54Bit chilly, they need a bit more loo paper,
0:53:54 > 0:53:58but seems like a very friendly, gentle vibe, quite '70s,
0:53:58 > 0:54:02how I imagine the '70s hippie scene would have been.
0:54:02 > 0:54:04But they are Bohemians. They call themselves Bohemians.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07They're definitely in it for the sake of art.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10They're making music and painting pictures
0:54:10 > 0:54:12in the face of oppression as they see it.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14Not very scary, they're not very shocking to me,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18because - at the risk of sounding like I'm 100 -
0:54:18 > 0:54:21they're polite, nice, lovely young people.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23I was impressed by them.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25I wish there were more of them on the Tube,
0:54:25 > 0:54:27not the ones that shove you out the way
0:54:27 > 0:54:28listening to their mobile phones.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32And Bohemians aren't supposed to care what people think,
0:54:32 > 0:54:36but if they care what I think, I think they're charming.
0:54:36 > 0:54:38MUSIC: Last Living Souls by Gorillaz
0:54:45 > 0:54:4970 years after Francis Bacon lit up its clubs and bars,
0:54:49 > 0:54:53the erosion of Soho's eccentric and independent character -
0:54:53 > 0:54:55and some say that of Bohemia too -
0:54:55 > 0:55:01continues unabated, replaced by something bland and generic.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13Pretty much all of the behaviours and symbols of Bohemian-ness
0:55:13 > 0:55:15are now pretty universal.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18You know, tattoos and drugs,
0:55:18 > 0:55:22and different sorts of sex and "outrageous behaviour",
0:55:22 > 0:55:26if you cycle through Camden Market
0:55:26 > 0:55:29there's a supermarket for all of that all the way through, you know.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32It's like, it's just, it's orthodox now.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34You know, we are all Bohemians now.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45By this stage you could certainly say that Bohemianism
0:55:45 > 0:55:48has played its final cards.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51And yet, I think Bohemians have been saying
0:55:51 > 0:55:55for as long as anybody can remember, "We are the last Bohemians."
0:55:56 > 0:55:59They were saying that in Paris in the 1850s.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02They were saying it in London in the 1890s.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04The generation of the '20s in London
0:56:04 > 0:56:07certainly thought they were the last Bohemians
0:56:07 > 0:56:12only to have themselves supplanted by the Soho gang of the '50s.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15So, it goes on. I suspect it always will.
0:56:17 > 0:56:19MUSIC: Bohemian by Joel Sarakula
0:56:23 > 0:56:26# Because I am
0:56:27 > 0:56:30# A Bohemian
0:56:31 > 0:56:33# A modern Stone Age man
0:56:35 > 0:56:38# A Bohemian... #
0:56:38 > 0:56:41So here we are at the end of the journey.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43And what can we conclude?
0:56:43 > 0:56:44Well, nothing, obviously.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48I mean, you know the options. I've really warmed to the Bohemians.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51I've really gone off them. I've become one!
0:56:51 > 0:56:53But it would be awfully bourgeois of me
0:56:53 > 0:56:56to offer that kind of neat conclusion, or of you to want it.
0:57:03 > 0:57:06People have been feeling themselves to be
0:57:06 > 0:57:08outsiders, questioners and rebels
0:57:08 > 0:57:11since millennia before the term Bohemians was coined
0:57:11 > 0:57:12in 19th-century Paris.
0:57:12 > 0:57:14Do we like these people? Do we approve of them?
0:57:14 > 0:57:17Do we accept them? These are irrelevant questions.
0:57:17 > 0:57:18They don't care.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21Whatever we, as the mainstream, assert,
0:57:21 > 0:57:24they, as Bohemians, will be external to.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27Of course, we could look at ourselves in relation to them.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30One important way of defining our own moral codes
0:57:30 > 0:57:33and social conventions is by examining
0:57:33 > 0:57:35who is challenging them, and why.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38We could do that. Or...you know.
0:57:38 > 0:57:40We could just get our kit off, cover ourselves in paint,
0:57:40 > 0:57:42and dance in the road.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51When you look back, do you think that's the right way to live?
0:57:51 > 0:57:55I mean, now, crikey, yeah. Oh, I'm the luckiest guy alive.
0:57:55 > 0:57:58I only ever did what I wanted.
0:57:58 > 0:58:00Most of the time.
0:58:06 > 0:58:10We do need Bohemia. We do need Bohemia. I believe in Bohemia.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14I wouldn't be wearing a spotty scarf if I didn't believe in Bohemia.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21I wouldn't like to say that I'd put everything
0:58:21 > 0:58:24in the hands of the Bohemians.
0:58:24 > 0:58:28But it would be wonderful if everybody was like me, wouldn't it?
0:58:28 > 0:58:29SHE LAUGHS