Saturday 1 October 2011
30 years from Brixton
How should we feel on the 30th anniversary of the Brixton riots?
Cyrus Shahrad doesn’t know the answer. A long-time resident of the area, Cyrus – aka DJ Hiatus – is a journalist and musician whose preoccupation for the last weeks and months has been disseminating Brixton’s riots with eyes on its uncertain future.
The chiselled 32 year old Iranian joins me in central London, heavy eyes a window to lonesome 12 hour days in a studio and typing up the latest addition to his Brixton portfolio: a piece on the riots for The Guardian.
“As a journalist I was aiming to draw attention to how good things are; how much things had improved in Brixton. It surprised me to find out people aren’t all that happy and people aren’t that optimistic.”
London Riots – We’re missing the point
Normally we can cite race, gender, politics, money or sex. But this riot is explicable only in its confusion.
Published: Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The problem with being a small editorial team is clear on a day like today. All too regularly – acknowledging we haven’t the equipment to keep up with the news outlets – by the time one fullstops a piece of social vommitary, it has ceased to be newsworthy and, written off as a poor use of resource, it is thrown it into the unprofitable/ unjustified pile.
Starting in Tottenham/ Seven Sisters for fathomable reasons owing to the death-by-police of Mark Duggan, phase two was so sporadic, and unflinchingly relentless, it bore little to suggest an organised march of the underclass, the cries of the alienated, or attempts by the disenfranchised to challenge the socio-political status quo.
Published: Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The problem with being a small editorial team is clear on a day like today. All too regularly – acknowledging we haven’t the equipment to keep up with the news outlets – by the time one fullstops a piece of social vommitary, it has ceased to be newsworthy and, written off as a poor use of resource, it is thrown it into the unprofitable/ unjustified pile.
Starting in Tottenham/ Seven Sisters for fathomable reasons owing to the death-by-police of Mark Duggan, phase two was so sporadic, and unflinchingly relentless, it bore little to suggest an organised march of the underclass, the cries of the alienated, or attempts by the disenfranchised to challenge the socio-political status quo.
For Amy: Addiction is a disease, and it is terminal
Brand’s eulogy in The Guardian is being hailed as a beautiful tribute to his comrade, and indeed is a learned contribution to a much-needed addiction debate which Guardian columnist Tanya Gold - along with a spectrum of vacant to insightful opinion columns - introduced yesterday.
In this meta world we live in, Russell Brand’s article has spawned written e-kudos, such as this which you are reading I guess, where writers of varying levels of informedness laud his note-perfect response to what we’re told is a sudden, but not unsurprising end.
But the rhetoric used by secondary commentators, and what I’m starting to find increasingly frustrating, is starting to read like the great discourse of the ill-informed.
Friday 30 September 2011
A Night with A Badge of Friendship
A former Biffy Clyro photographer and a once comedy production assistant discuss music in a quaint London pub a world away from our shared homeland of Glasgow.
Paul McCallum and Claire Lim live and breathe the stuff – and each other – and are the quietly confident couple behind the bustling hub of online music PR, management, and events that is their company: A Badge of Friendship.
The book of death dates
Would you look to see when your time is up?
Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2009
I’d like you to take a minute to think about your mortality. Thanks.
Every so often I am required by my own head, the mailed reminder and my mum to get the medical stamp of approval. I am being checked to see that I haven’t inherited the disease which has seen my old man disabled for most of his working life.
The human body was only ever meant to go through so much, so you can imagine the emotional roller coaster that was last Wednesday when even six cold implements protruding from my various orifices wasn’t as awful as having my testicles in the hands of a very attractive locum and not being able to celebrate this in the usual way. Ah Dr Cook take me in your latex hands once more. Cough.
Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2009
I’d like you to take a minute to think about your mortality. Thanks.
Every so often I am required by my own head, the mailed reminder and my mum to get the medical stamp of approval. I am being checked to see that I haven’t inherited the disease which has seen my old man disabled for most of his working life.
The human body was only ever meant to go through so much, so you can imagine the emotional roller coaster that was last Wednesday when even six cold implements protruding from my various orifices wasn’t as awful as having my testicles in the hands of a very attractive locum and not being able to celebrate this in the usual way. Ah Dr Cook take me in your latex hands once more. Cough.
The day I turned gay, and became a serial killer
“He always loved cushions…I should have known". I like cushions
Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Its seems to be indicative of the human condition when we relate symptoms to what conditions we may have as humans. Fact. When we observe the health sections in topical favourites like Glamour or Vogue - those high-brow numbers – we digest whatever symptoms they allude to in describing the designer disease of the moment.
Just last week I was reading a copy of a woman’s magazine and I’m pretty sure I don’t have the abola virus. To my knowledge my organs haven’t liquified and come hurtling out my arse at a rate of knots. In fact it was fallout from the latest night out.
We all do it, we read about some in-vogue disease and develop the symptoms mid-article. I’ve diagnosed Tourette’s from motherf*cking, dickphantic, nostil shagging mags.
Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Its seems to be indicative of the human condition when we relate symptoms to what conditions we may have as humans. Fact. When we observe the health sections in topical favourites like Glamour or Vogue - those high-brow numbers – we digest whatever symptoms they allude to in describing the designer disease of the moment.
Just last week I was reading a copy of a woman’s magazine and I’m pretty sure I don’t have the abola virus. To my knowledge my organs haven’t liquified and come hurtling out my arse at a rate of knots. In fact it was fallout from the latest night out.
We all do it, we read about some in-vogue disease and develop the symptoms mid-article. I’ve diagnosed Tourette’s from motherf*cking, dickphantic, nostil shagging mags.
Cowboys and Aliens – Jon Favreau
It gets two stars for its balls, the rest of it was balls
Published: Friday, August 12, 2011
It’s difficult to see this film failing financially. Critically is another matter.
Merging the increasingly unfashionable western genre with the alien sci-fi staple may dissuade die-hards from partaking, but will entice a stupendous plain of open-minded cinema goers.
Add James Bond, Han Solo and Indiana Jones to the brew and the $100m budget looks like it will be safely restored.
But it is a risky project from director Jon Favreau. Joss Whedon’s FireFly – and subsequently Serenity – did something similar but blatant crossover films, not just those including foreign elements or nodding at other-genre influences, are a rare breed.
A spate of graphic-novel-to-big screen efforts have come through in the last ten years merging love stories with fantasy, coming of age and kids’ films with sci-fi, crime and revenge (Kick-Ass, Sin City, Scott Pilgrim) – this formula has since been indoctrinated onto the pages of the cinematic How To.
Sure, action films often mix romantic comedy elements, sci-fi gorefests may include sexy or dramatic plotlines. Shaun of the Dead mixed romance and zombies. Tarantino’s Kill Bill mixed a bunch of influences splicing revenge, fantasy, slasher, drama, love, and spans continents as well as genres.
But the idea of mixing such – excuse the pun – alien concepts requires balls the size of buffalo. Always helps to get Blade Runner involved though.
Published: Friday, August 12, 2011
It’s difficult to see this film failing financially. Critically is another matter.
Merging the increasingly unfashionable western genre with the alien sci-fi staple may dissuade die-hards from partaking, but will entice a stupendous plain of open-minded cinema goers.
Add James Bond, Han Solo and Indiana Jones to the brew and the $100m budget looks like it will be safely restored.
But it is a risky project from director Jon Favreau. Joss Whedon’s FireFly – and subsequently Serenity – did something similar but blatant crossover films, not just those including foreign elements or nodding at other-genre influences, are a rare breed.
A spate of graphic-novel-to-big screen efforts have come through in the last ten years merging love stories with fantasy, coming of age and kids’ films with sci-fi, crime and revenge (Kick-Ass, Sin City, Scott Pilgrim) – this formula has since been indoctrinated onto the pages of the cinematic How To.
Sure, action films often mix romantic comedy elements, sci-fi gorefests may include sexy or dramatic plotlines. Shaun of the Dead mixed romance and zombies. Tarantino’s Kill Bill mixed a bunch of influences splicing revenge, fantasy, slasher, drama, love, and spans continents as well as genres.
But the idea of mixing such – excuse the pun – alien concepts requires balls the size of buffalo. Always helps to get Blade Runner involved though.
Marina Celeste – The Angel Pop
Sickly-sweet vocals relentlessly tiptoe towards death by chocolate. But...
Published: Tuesday, July 12, 2011
French pop starlet Marina Celeste is onto her third studio album following on limited success with Acidulé and Cinéma Enchanté. So here’s presenting The Angel Pop.
The breathy chanteuse has recorded tracks with new wave French collective Nouvelle Vague, including her team effort on the GoGo’s Our Lips Are Sealed with Terry Hall of The Specials; a relationship that is prevalent on the new album with Hall backing her up on three tracks.
Onto the album, and sacré bleu it’s fucking long.
Published: Tuesday, July 12, 2011
French pop starlet Marina Celeste is onto her third studio album following on limited success with Acidulé and Cinéma Enchanté. So here’s presenting The Angel Pop.
The breathy chanteuse has recorded tracks with new wave French collective Nouvelle Vague, including her team effort on the GoGo’s Our Lips Are Sealed with Terry Hall of The Specials; a relationship that is prevalent on the new album with Hall backing her up on three tracks.
Onto the album, and sacré bleu it’s fucking long.
What Would Jesus Drive – Black and Blue
Fantastically intellectual debut that masquerades as a dunce
Published: Friday, January 14, 2011
The brattishness, the scenesterism, the markedly trite lyrics – it’s all a masterful branding exercise but WWJD isn’t selling what they promote, they’re castigating it.
The realisation comes: I’ve been played with, not in a good way, and I feel a trifle dirty.
Published: Friday, January 14, 2011
The brattishness, the scenesterism, the markedly trite lyrics – it’s all a masterful branding exercise but WWJD isn’t selling what they promote, they’re castigating it.
The realisation comes: I’ve been played with, not in a good way, and I feel a trifle dirty.
What made Suede so good?
Rather than the hoodies, bowl cuts, and football tops which donned the Britpack, Suede were made-up, stylised, and robustly avant garde
Published: Thursday, April 14, 2010
When I was growing up I thought Suede were the dog’s bollocks.
That early Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler partnership produced some of the most attractive licks and hooks of a period before Britpop and after grunge, when shoegazing’s introspectiveness was a parallel too tiresome.
But to call Suede post-grunge or reckon it alongside Britpop says more about timeliness and a commercial-versus-artistic faux pas in their moribund circa-naughties phase; it misfires from their raison d’etre.
Suede’s importance is difficult to disseminate for the new generation, so their reunion – inevitably without guitar-playing virtuoso Bernard Butler – will let them crack that themselves.
Back at their roots, greying now obviously, Suede is alma mater to Elastica, were colleagues of Blur, and the launchpad of the aforementioned Butler – producer of commercially gargantuan albums such as Duffy’s 2008 Rockferry and seminal acts like The Libertines.
They were the unsigned outfit touring chic spots in North London with a drum machine before Mike Joyce from The Smiths joined them. One member got sacked and that was Justine Frischmann. Former manager Ricky Gervais did quite well too.
Published: Thursday, April 14, 2010
When I was growing up I thought Suede were the dog’s bollocks.
That early Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler partnership produced some of the most attractive licks and hooks of a period before Britpop and after grunge, when shoegazing’s introspectiveness was a parallel too tiresome.
But to call Suede post-grunge or reckon it alongside Britpop says more about timeliness and a commercial-versus-artistic faux pas in their moribund circa-naughties phase; it misfires from their raison d’etre.
Suede’s importance is difficult to disseminate for the new generation, so their reunion – inevitably without guitar-playing virtuoso Bernard Butler – will let them crack that themselves.
Back at their roots, greying now obviously, Suede is alma mater to Elastica, were colleagues of Blur, and the launchpad of the aforementioned Butler – producer of commercially gargantuan albums such as Duffy’s 2008 Rockferry and seminal acts like The Libertines.
They were the unsigned outfit touring chic spots in North London with a drum machine before Mike Joyce from The Smiths joined them. One member got sacked and that was Justine Frischmann. Former manager Ricky Gervais did quite well too.
Presenting Kettle Egg
Soft-boiled perfection, no pan required
Published: Monday, September 13, 2010
A perfect, zero-maintenance soft boiled egg with beautiful runny yolk that doesn't touch a saucepan?
No need for egg timers or waiting for that pan of water to boil, I advise a method that is so fullproof* your egg and coffee can be ready at the exact same time. Intrigued?
Published: Monday, September 13, 2010
A perfect, zero-maintenance soft boiled egg with beautiful runny yolk that doesn't touch a saucepan?
No need for egg timers or waiting for that pan of water to boil, I advise a method that is so fullproof* your egg and coffee can be ready at the exact same time. Intrigued?
When video games flop
The Getaway (2002, PS2)
Unbelievably hyped up and billed as a suitably violent antidote to compete with the Grant Theft Auto series, The Getaway should have been huge.A massive budget and marketing campaign led this to be one of the most anticipated games to be built in this country, especially considering a successful series of British/ London Gangsta films such as Lock Stock and Snatch had recently achieved worldwide success.
The Freegan Heist - I tag along
It’s late on a Sunday night, I’m informed the best swag is on a Monday but a Sunday seems good rustling too.
I have arranged to meet a group of Glasgow University students (two honours students, two undergrads and myself a Masters graduate) who assembled first on an internet forum, second in a café on nearby hotspot Byres Road, and tonight it’s a pub in the west end of Glasgow where they’re reluctantly paying for a pint or two to settle nerves before the pillaging can start.
Time: 2300 hours. Destination: Marks and Spencer. Mission: to snaffle as much free quality food from the bins as possible before the lights come on and the security dogs rip your hand off; or so I’ve been informed by the disapproving.
The Weirdest Assassination Attempts
Exploding cigars, MI5, Hell's Angels & Jodie Foster
We have just celebrated bonfire night where loads of bright flashing fireworks and loud bangs aim to simulate the way the night sky would have looked had Guy Fawkes and his cohort been successful in assassinating the British hierarchy, monarch and overlords.
We thought we’d pay light homage to the failed assassination attempt with a few choice examples of the weirdest, most mysterious, elaborate and creative means used to dispatch enemies over the years.
We thought we’d pay light homage to the failed assassination attempt with a few choice examples of the weirdest, most mysterious, elaborate and creative means used to dispatch enemies over the years.
News of the World – Help finish them off
We’re looking at this now as fact more than what it still is: an accusation. A very damning accusation which, owing to the nefarious tactics of journalists associated with News International’s earthier title, is believable. Found readily guilty by history and association is a bad state for your publication.
Every Daily Newspaper – including The Times – is squeezing the dank sponge of inhumanity dry on this story, a Guardian scoop from yesterday afternoon. All are covering the news with at least a degree of fair comment inches and personal opinion to damn the News of the World’s alleged tapping of Milly Dowler’s phone and manipulating the investigation into her then disappearance.
Brookes of course is part of the under-reported Chipping Norton Set, an Oxford-based journalistic and legal Illuminati of powerful minds (Google it) including David Cameron
The Evolution of Space Ships in Film
It’s fascinating to see how the imaginations of designers are complimented by the ever-evolving intricacies of special effects on film and the evolution of the spaceship in film and the role it plays in the message and tone of the film.
The old paradigm of constructing a sci fi movie pre CGI and all other sorts of cinematographic wonder involved a concentrated effort on the plot. The focus was to explain why astronauts were embarking on a space mission and who they encountered when they got there.
Apple’s Stan Ng
Following a big iTunes announcement, Apple's Head of Product gives his polished overview.
After Apple’s more-muted-than-we-expected announcements, I had the chance to talk to Apple Product Manager Stan Ng about the announcements, Steve Jobs’ appearance, and Apple in the future.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so spoken to in such an upbeat manner at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning yet the tone of comments from tech-journalists the world over was that this was a damp squib announcement; ‘wearing a fur coat and nae knickers’ if you will.
On the Steve Jobs front Ng said:
‘We’re really excited for him to be back we had a great introduction yesterday and he was a great part of that.’
But that was that. What he really wanted to talk about were iPod’s, iPhones, iPods and iTunes. In fact iCouldn’t seem to draw him to talk about anything else, I suppose in their annual expose of their new lines, he doesn’t want to get caught up.
Asking about the Apple Tablet which so many journalists were expecting yesterday, Ng wouldn’t wasn’t to be drawn, it was Pods and Tunes all the way:
‘Nothing to talk about today, we’re just really excited for this holiday season with iPod and iTunes and we’re excited for people to go and check them out in the stores.’
Apple know they’re onto a winner with the Nano, the sales figures speak for themselves but are there really that many more units left to shift simply by adding a camera and some new software? Ng seems to think so: passionate, confident and without pausing for breath he enthused:
‘The video camera adds a great new dimension to the iPod Nano. It’s a great music player for us and people love to carry it around with them wherever they go with their music collection. And now being able to capture that video or kind of… spontaneous moment when you see something on the street or with your friends and family.
“We’ve got this great line-up starting £115 and we think people will make it a great holiday gift.”
Never flustered on the prowess of the models he had a hand in developing, Ng knows the social and cultural impact the latest few models such as the iPod Touch, iPhone and Nano have had. On reflection, it’s understandable when, even on a Friday, life is so good you can taste it on the spit of your morning breath. And he has a host of other interviews to do today where I bet confidence and tone won’t waver.
I mention iTunes, knowing its a slightly more divorcing subject. The latest edition of the software, iTunes 9, has pseudo smart-technology where the computer elects more seamless playlists of songs, not unlike Last.Fm.
It also offers old favourites we got with our records and CDs before he and his company made them all obsolete: access to liner notes, photos and other digital content; but isn’t the software update pitching at the wrong generation?
“I think it’s introducing it to a lot of new people that have never had an experience with LP’s and now having that great content as a digital format on your computer really adds a new dimension to the music experience and really opens it up for artists to actually talk to their listener in a whole fashion.”
And on the new features themselves, Ng was characteristically beaming:
“iTunes 9 has great new features for music lovers. It’s got a new feature called Genius Mixes which creates a continuous mix of songs that go great together.
“It looks back at what people used to love with LPs: having the great liner notes, song lyrics and now photos and video interview that can be added to the digital content so adding all those capabilities really makes the music experience richer.”
I have always had my doubts about iTunes. The interface and synchronisation options, they started from a position of being moderately complicated. The addition of sleavenotes and more digital features on top of photos, movies, rental and the rest could start to overcomplicate the service, especially if they hope to re-introduce it to the LP generation.
‘No the great simplicity in iTunes 9 is it’s just a great music jukebox for people to be able to manage their music collection and yet it adds a lot of features that really allows people to discover their music and new things as they go.
“iTunes 9 with its great simple interface has now been redesigned and new improved synching for your iPod or iPhone really just makes the experience even more easy.”
The iPhone didn’t get a great deal of mention today, but its brother, the iPod Touch was audibly an object close to Ng who believes the siblings will become even more revolutionary.
On the best of yesterday’s announcements Ng simply reiterated a perfectly synched PR printout which he may or may not have been reading from:
‘A lower price iPod Touch! It’s an incredible platform now.
‘With an iPod, a pocket computer, great portable games player, WiFi access and being able to access the app store’s 20,000 games and entertainment Apps. People to get all that at just £149.’
He also mentioned the lowly shuffle, the cheapest end of the iFamily which has had its price reduced even further for the run up to the festive season, it also has more colours, but what I really wanted to ask about was the good ol’ Classic.
News reports had us convinced the original iPod of the range was bound for retirement. Not so according to Ng:
‘The iPod classic has been fantastic. It’s the iPod that started it all, and it’s been updated to 160GB for people who have huge music collections or music lovers who want to take their music with them in the car or hook it up to a home stereo an iPod classic is perfect for that.’
‘No plans to discontinue that model’?
‘Not at this time.’
There we have it. The Classic remains for the time being. But the nature of Apple’s striving for progress and pioneering these beasts of social and cultural change, surely we have some new products to announce; if not the Tablet what else does Apple have to offer us in the next 18 months?
Not a hint nor a hoot. Did I mention this was a Pods, Phones and Bones article?
‘There’s so much we can look forward to. I think we’ve made some great innovations in a pocket phase with iPod and iPhone and I think especially the iPod Touch and iPhone really show the future of where pocket computing can be:
‘With great access to the internet; it’s really accessible access to the App store and all the things it can do with the different Apps there.’
Nothing much there then, I did ask.
One thing I have been keen to probe an Apple chief on was their pricing models as the developing world struggle to catch up with technology Western countries take for granted. We’ve seen the increase of things like netbooks to try and provide computer and internet literacy in the developing world.
I asked if Apple have got a role to play in trying to incorporate the third world or developing world into modern technology? More generous pricing models perhaps?
Ng breezily sidestepped like a PR officer of 90 years
‘Well nothing to announce on the Mac side. Today my focus is on iPod and iTunes but we’ll definitely look to some great innovations in the Mac space looking forward.’
It appears that beyond a few system updates, the addition of a few features to an ever-expanding iTunes and plastering a camera on the Nano there really wasn’t much more to get excited about after yesterday’s announcement and this follow up interview.
No mention of Tablets, Ng was unprepared to be drawn on future innovations or wider responsibility as Apple plans further world domination.
Instead Stan Ng, a pleasant and enthusiastic chap, acted out his PR remit comfortably, concisely and never wavered from his MO: Plug the Pods.
Tiffany Stevenson – I showed China who’s boss
The actor on comedian on free speech, Twitter, and gaming addiction
From an early appearance in The Office came a lasting relationship with Messrs Gervais and Merchant – who have both appeared at her comedy showcase The Old Rope – and a solid grounding amongst the comedic hierarchy. Names like Izzard and Noble, Khorsandi, Tennant and Wendt are inconspicuously sprinkled into the 40 minutes I’m allotted before the smell of next door’s Wagamamas calls a halt.
She arrives slightly late citing London traffic, staff issues and a successful last night at the Old Rope where Tim Minchin and Lenny Henry graced the stage she runs with business partner Phil Nichol – an if.commedie award winner.
The agenda reveals itself to be Twitter, female comedians, gaming addiction and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Before the dictaphone is in optimum position, Tiffany reveals she’s incandescent that Joss Whedon won’t be involved in the forthcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer film – there’s some immediate common ground.
“It’s just not going to work now. They’ve just jumped on the bandwagon …I feel sorry for teenagers now with Twilight-type films which are terrible. We had the good stuff – it was funny and knowing.”
It turns out Tiff’s mum is a fan of occult teenage dramas too, but she’s more Angel than Buffy.
“My mum liked it as it was that bit darker and older – Buffy was a bit teenage for her, she didn’t get the knowingness of it. Angel had brooding men in it – not that Buffy didn’t have brooding men.”
Does Tiffany see many brooding men at her Old Rope comedy nights?
“Not really – I get broody women..! No we don’t. It’s quite a geeky comedy night actually, lots of self proclaimed comedy nerds.
“Because of the fact we get people like Paul Foot, we attract quite a nerdy crowd.”
I ask about Paul Foot citing his appearance on Nevermind the Buzzcocks a few weeks back. It’s not often that the show is owned by the guest sitting furthest camera right. But Foot – a long time friend and colleague of Tiffany’s – was on sparkling form that night.
“They gave him free reign I think which was delicious to watch. If you have Paul Foot on you have to let him be himself.”
Paul Foot is accelerating well on the scene, finding a niche with his beautifully erratic act which is aiding his emergence into the mainstream without sacrificing that which makes him so entertaining. A very visual comedian, if Reginald D. Hunter could read the phone book and get a laugh, Foot could act it and get a bigger one.
“He talks about being gay in his act – he makes a joke of it ‘I don’t know if anyone can tell I’m a homosexual’. He’ll do bits about it and he has some brilliant stuff but it’s not totally who he is or his act. Not in that same way like people like Alan Carr or Graham Norton. He’s actually one of my dad’s favourite comics. You can just throw a topic at Paul and he’ll just go – and he’s gone. It’s funny the minute he steps on the stage.”
Foot is part of a simmering undercurrent of zany, leftfield and left-leaning comedy undulating under the mainstream and people like Tiffany are facilitating its welcome arrival. Her namedropping is not a grand self- importance but rather a nod towards what she sees as her position – someone who is trying to ensure this cabal makes its mark. She has an inherent gratitude for the levels of free speech we have and an intense respect for letting comedy breathe without barriers.
“I think it’s really dangerous to start putting boundaries round things. There’s a brilliant Joan Rivers bit about someone who’d lost a limb and someone in the audience got offended saying, ‘my son’s got one leg’.
“She harks back, ‘Grow up … fucking grow up my husband has lost a leg and went blind so fucking grow up – if we can’t joke about these things what the fuck can we joke about?’
“Nothing in life is black and white, there’s such a massive area of grey and the grey is where we all live and the grey is what’s interesting to explore.
“People are getting up in arms about what Frankie Boyle says – is Frankie the enemy..? I don’t think Frankie is the enemy … I think the enemy is the Tory government pushing up tuition fees. The enemy is real criminals out there.”
Frankie Boyle, predictably has shocked and angered focus groups, the rightist press and beyond with his visceral material and pieces on Madeleine McCann, terminal disease and the like – it’s not like we couldn’t have predicted that – but for fellow comic Tiff, his material is so present:
“There’s no such thing as giving offence, only taking offence.” she says.
“I did an article about it when I came back from China – it was really bizarre being in a country where people are so, so oppressed. We were doing a theatre show out there and weren’t allowed signs outside in case they were anti-government propaganda. They’re not allowed Twitter because in Chinese characters you can say a lot in 140 characters – you can slam the government.
“There’s the great firewall but you can get round it – I found a loophole – so I managed to get on my Facebook and Twitter. I fought the system, I showed China who’s boss. And I bought some tacky merchandise.”
For someone so versed in the rights of mankind, freedom of action, speech and traversing around state law in the Peoples’ Republic, the irony isn’t lost as she discloses what she’d like to do to the thief who stole her brand new iPhone 4 a few weeks back.
“I’d probably have laid him out (laughs) I’ll be honest. I’d have enough of my peeps around. I’m trying to be philosophical about it – whoever took it needed it more than me blah blah blah.”
“I just love the games on it, I don’t have games consoles – I’m not allowed them cause I’d be on them all day.”
Growing up, Tiffany was a SEGA not a Nintendo type of girl, preferring Sonic and PGA Golf to Mario and Super Tennis. But by her own admission she doesn’t have a console for fear that she’d be on it all day and it would start to engulf her waking hours.
“My boyfriend is constantly on at me to get a Playstation and I keep saying no because nothing ever gets done. I could lose five hours in the day just playing a game.”
This doubtlessly heart-breaking decision is offset by the effort and honing which went into her performance of self-penned show Dictators at the Edinburgh festival.
“Good crowds came to see it, they seemed to enjoy the theme of the show and I’m speaking to people about the possibility of doing a radio show based on it.”
The show is about the level of dictation and the main agents who enforce it in our lives. Strangely that the same Angel-loving mother appears on a spurious list of Tiff’s own dictators along with Hitler, Mugabe, Kaddafi and OK magazine.
Working on building a solid fanbase, Tiffany has more Edinburgh shows coming in 2011 and 2012 but is performing local comedy on the London scene.
“There’s an ongoing thing I’m doing called Celebrity Autobiography. With the right performer it can really work. He (an on-stage partner, played in Edinburgh by Norm from Cheers, George Wendt) would read bits of David Hasslehoff and I would read Destiny’s Child or Jordan. At the end they mash up autobiography of Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Fisher the story is told from different sides. It’s like a little mini play – a really good format.
“We did one with David Tennant, he did Richard Burton and David Cassidy – he was brilliant.”
I inform her I’m not speaking to David Tennant because he refused my request for an interview even though our parents had dinner 25 years ago – she tells me that’s a tenuous link and I should let go. Maybe one day.
Tiffany is just one of a number of comedians who try out their new wares on Twitter – an arena which continues to impress her from a comedy and community point of view.
“I thought it (Twitter) was going to be constant self promotion for people but actually it’s a community and a really intelligent community where people actually support each other which is nice. It’s one of the true places where you can actually test jokes and it’s a great forum for seeing … that’s got 25 RTs or whatever. Everything is judged on its merit.”
Before Twitter, comedians would test drive jokes on stage, risking death and ritual humiliation – but that’s what Old Rope is, a testing ground before comics take their polished material to the bigger stages in venues, arenas and festivals. But before these enlightened technocentric days, comedians – and especially women comedians – had no such safety nets.
“As a woman you’ve got less time when you go onstage – it’s one of those things these keep perpetuating: that women aren’t funny. I think before they’d always just go “Ah she’s bollocks” but that kind of goes away.
“At Old Rope last night there were four women on the bill out of nine and the week before five out of eight. Women like Sappi Korsandhi and Diane Morgan and me and men like Milton Jones Lenny Henry, Tim Minchin – it’s not as if the women were in poor company and they shone because they were really funny.
“A woman gets less time on stage to prove she’s funny so a guy can probably get minutes and they trust him, women get a smaller window and the heckling will start if its not funny in the first two minutes.”
Tiffany, for all notions of equality-is-best is acutely aware that comedy has – for awhile – always been a man’s game. But she’s staunch in her belief women are as capable comedy performers and views her Old Rope night and its profile as a knowing and progressive launching pad.
I ask if there’s an inherent sexism or mysogeny in what has always been a very male dominated artform. Back to Python, Ronnies, and the Oxbridge set of the 1970s and 80s – it’s a sad fact that men in comedy have always vastly outperformed women on the bigger stages.
“In comedy clubs now 50, 60 percent are women – so that’s changed. And women want to hear what other women have to say. I get people coming up to me afterwards and saying ‘that was brilliant I normally hate female comedians and you were amazing’ – which is sort of a backhanded compliment. But you take the compliment and say ‘actually have you seen any other women..?’ It is just tedious but it is changing and needs to change.
“Someone came up to me after a gig and said: ‘are women getting funnier or is it me’ and I said ‘it’s you, they’ve always been funny it’s just there’ more of us on the bill.’”
The Taxidermist’s Lair - a day with London taxidermist Sean Douglas
Ally: want to slice and stuff a dead animal to celebrate the launch of Dinner for Schmucks?
Ehh ok… Why?
I missed Dinner for Schmucks, so using taxidermy as a PR hook to pull journalists’ artstrings seemed a disconcertingly odd move as a premise for a DVD launch.
Nonetheless, a spiffing public relations lasso to promote the film – where taxidermy is a hobby of anoraked goon Steve Carell in attendance at said dinner – saw a small dray assembled in the South London studio of taxidermist Sean Douglas; spitting distance from Wimbledon.
An elephant’s foot waste receptacle; a fox umbrella stand; bats hanging from the rooftiles; reptiles in glass cases and large hunting game – free-standing or wall-mounted – make this studio in London’s Southfields quite a spectacle.
Sean, 48, has been stuffing dead animals – hunting trophies, vermin obliteration or roadkill how they generally meet their end – for 25 years and married just as long. His wife doesn’t mind the carcasses anonymously draped over her house by local donators wishing their kills and finds to go under Sean’s knife.
This morning’s poor specimen is a squirrel – we called him Cyril, or was it Steve – who met his end under a wheel and delivered to Sean, as so many are, for no remuneration but to be made of in death.
The carcass is frozen before the process begins: some animals lie in the freezer for months and even years before their thawing and sewing for commercial purposes.
The numbers make for interesting reading: Maybe £85 a squirrel to a regal £160,000 for a rhino head, but that’s like comparing an Ikea print with a Van Gough – the six-figure end of the market is not Sean’s concern and such sales are rare.
The biggest animal Sean – a former airfield marshal – has worked on has been a Kodiak bear which he resisted the urge to painstakingly stuff and instead rolled into a headed rug which stretched to dimensions “bigger than my lounge” said a journalist from the Mirror. I’m glad national journalists live in similarly pokey accomodation as I.
The taxidermist can use all manner of materials to stuff his subjects, but Sean’s bulk of choice is woodwool which has been used in the game since the 1800s.
“It’s a rough science, not an art” he says masterfully twisting, moulding, and manipulating the woodwool which was used generally as a crude packing material until very recently.
Taxidermy is something I’ve always viewed from a position of wilful ignorance – I don’t want or need to know how and why rich people furnish their manor houses with dead-eyed and once-proud animals; yet the business behind this rough science is intriguing unto itself.
Online businesses are dedicated to selling the hollowed out furs of exotic and rare animals, especially in hunting-happy regions of Canada and the northern United States. One can – if they so wish – buy brown bear furs from the Northern Territories which a craftsman like Sean needs but three measurements from the living beast to justify the fur in its free-standing glory. A Polar bear can fetch upwards of £25,000.
A bear body can be made of his favoured woodwool; and indeed Sean has dedicated whole weeks to constructing their frame out of the stuff. But for time and ease, read-made fibreglass bodies can be purchased over the internet; ready to don their bear-suit.
Sean squares the makeshift body of Cyril as the real one, now hollowed and looking like a butchers’ display, is cast to the bin and destined for the incinerator. Sean admits he can be lax in disposing of his raw meat in a timely fashion, leaving it to breathe in the bag for a week at a time.
The fur sits in a bowl of methylated spirit which sterilises those pesky sinews, and extracts traces of flesh that prevents the mounted object from smelling. This was another of my preconceptions about the finished article – why would they not smell?
Aside from the butcher-shop smell of animal meat – and you can eat squirrel, Gordon Ramsay says so – there isn’t a discernable taxidermist aroma. Sean doesn’t wear gloves when working unless he’s dealing with a badger or other potentially diseased or otherwise stinky creature. He also wouldn’t eat the meat of any animals he works, his only indulgence taking home the insides of a soon-to-be-stuffed salmon. “It would be a waste” he says.
The rodent is wrung out like a paper towel, the fur and skin are unlikely to rip and we are told squirrels are hardy wee things – except when it comes to car tyres – compared to hares and rabbits which require meticulous care.
The head is crudely sculpted using a polyurethane block – like in flower arranging – and a scalpel. Sean barely has to look as he sizes the squirrel’s cranial dimensions and effortlessly slices away shards to create a skull fit for Cyril.
The feet and tail are crafted from wire last before Cyril is blowdried with a household hairdryer. His fake eyes – not dead-eyed as my preconceptions held – are attached and Cyril is brought to life. In a manner of speaking.
He is then mounted onto a log, manipulated into a gentrified and desirable pose and walla.
One stuffed squirrel, retail value: £85
Boke-value: less than I thought.
PR value: Priceless.
Thursday 29 September 2011
Street Magician Dynamo :
The last man to cause me to open my mouth as wide as it was on Tuesday is still the subject of a legal injunction; but this was an altogether cleaner affair.
I saw remarkable street magician Dynamo perform at the launch of the Panasonic TA1 handheld camcorder and it was a revelation; a welcome relief after withstanding so many formulaic press shows where some shockjock works a crowd; there but for the free booze.
A wizard with a deck of cards, you may have seen Dynamo perform on his recent webseries DynamoTV or on Soccer AM where his tricks are the show’s most watched videos on their YouTube channel.
The Bradford magician has been completing his run of DynamoTV – a web series (sponsored by Panasonic hence his appearance at the launch of their TA1) - where he takes his brand of gonzo trickery to his celebrity admirers and continues to challenge perceptions. His 720 degree spinning hand trick was enough to put me off my canapé at least.
The swarming media ranks ensured I didn’t get a word with him – real name Steven Frayne – until the following day before he takes a hiatus over his birthday and Christmas.
“I’m getting old now but because I’m magical I’m saying I’m 1001 years old.. I’m like Robert Pattinson I don’t age… and I’m very handsome.” He says.
Dynamo has been doing magic professionally now for over ten years, since his college days as an art and design student.
“I used magic to pay for the tuition, but it ended up taking over the college work and I was offered the chance to tour America to do magic all over the States.
“I went over there and I probably wasn’t ready but the whole American trip – I spent a year out there – was enough to help me hone my skills, I was performing every night all over the place.
“During that time I created a plan of action for coming back to the UK – how to take what I’d learned out there and bring it back home.”
Since landing back in the UK he has made Little Britain star Matt Lucas levitate in front of a crowd at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and performed a levitation trick for BBC1 Sport Relief.
His appearance on Soccer AM was a breakwater – the videos on the show’s YouTube channel are close to 100,000 views.
He has gathered a host of A-List contacts including 50 Cent, Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg as his show and skills have increased in consistency and profile. This so-called Underground Magic has routines spliced with, and steeped in, ultra cool and chic gorilla art, music, street dancing, base-running as post-modern pursuits and as such has earned him a reputation as a sharp and cutting edge icon; fronting commercials for Adidas and Nokia.
Growing up on Bradford’s Delph Hill Estate – one of the more deprived schemes in the area, and we realise Dynamo’s entry to magic was born from necessity – not desire.
“It was my grandpa who originally got me into it. It wasn’t like older family members showing you little magic tricks; it was different. I had some trouble with a couple of guys who I grew up with – I had no choice they lived on my street – and every day after school they’d wait for me, put me in a wheelie bin and throw me down the hill.
“My mum didn’t realise these guys were bullying me and she’d send me to school with them every day because they were a bit older than me – I eventually told my grandpa about it and he taught me how to take away their strength so they couldn’t put me in that wheelie bin and roll me down the hill. I got into it as a defence mechanism and to take the attention away from me.
“From that I learned other techniques and over the years I gradually took these techniques and created performance art from it.”
Hard to believe that someone can disarm the advances of two bullies by some simple defence techniques but in a recent episode of DynamoTV, he demonstrated his skill with DJ Whoo Kid, rendering the G-Unit rapper’s considerable biceps redundant as he tried to lift the very lightweight magician.
The Dynamo TV series comes to an end this month and has proved reliable currency for career and kudos for the Yorkshireman. His contacts book, personality and demand has increased no end across an edgy corner of culture.
“The last two episodes have been put on 50 Cent’s blog on thisis50.com, that’s one of the biggest hip hop sites in America so it’s getting well received and I think as well with all the different people we’ve had on the series it’s quite a good mix.
“You’ve got different sides of the spectrum like Keith Lemon – for that one it was very hard to keep a straight face; to keep the magic serious.
“Then you’ve got Dan Gold a very well respected tattoo artist. We try to make the magic fit the personality or the type of venue we’re in. For Dan Gold we did it in a tattoo parlour.
To be honest my favourite piece of magic I’ve done to date – even though it’s a small thing – was the Tinie Tempah album cover. Tinie never really shows his eyes but on film I got him to get his album out and got him to show to the camera what his eyes looked like, then I on the album itself I took two fingers and put them over his eyes and removed his glasses without opening the case or anything. It’s one of my favourite moments from the DynamoTV shoot so far.
"His reaction was crazy, I think he’s still got the album cover framed."
To my perhaps ignorant mind, some of these tricks are reminiscent of early David Blaine when he was first aired, taking street level magic to a mainstream audience. The illusions can emulate Blaine: his levitation trick; his undeniable skill with cards; and wrapping the package in an ultra-cool art, music and imagery chic way of gathering more disciples in every town.
Lazy comparison perhaps but is there some Blainery in his Dynamism?
“We both came up performing on the streets. Without his shows getting aired on television it wouldn’t have been easy to get my stuff out there. Having David out there showed that it works; the format works. It’s hard to break down barriers and open doors but he opened them for me.
“He (Blaine) follows me on Twitter, I’ve met him a few times – he’s a genius. You have to be a little bit odd and they say most geniuses are a bid mad. Some of the things he’s put his body through; he must have gone a little nuts in the process. Your body can’t endure that much. In a block of ice; on a pole for three days; being in London in a box with the local London hooligans around you – that’s enough to send you a bit crazy right?
“I don’t look at him as an inspiration more with an admiration. I try do my own thing. He brought magic into the 20 century I’m trying to take it into the 21st century.”
He’s being tight lipped as we enter the next chapter of the 21st century, with promises of more YouTube magic shows and ‘secret projects’ he cheekily plugs his Twitter and blog address so we can stay abreast.
“If I can make it possible – and that’s my job to make the impossible possible – some of the things I’ve got in my head that I want to do maybe next years or 2012 will be the defining moment (of his career) but some of the things I’ve done like the Tinie Tempah album cover and a thing called The Matrix which is levitation based on Keanu Reeves’ bullet dodge in the Matrix film.”
The trick is available on Dynamo’s YouTube channel, mysteriously monikered Krakatowa9 which has had well in excess of 1m hits and in his opening showreel, quotes testimonials from Will Smith and Gwyneth Paltrow before he freaks Pharrell out beautifully with his chain-through-neck trick.
Dynamo decided he wanted to become a professional magician as he lay on a hospital bed having nearly died from an organ-abcess following his breakthrough tour of America.
“In the States you get a lot of Hip Hop DVD mix tapes so I came back and wanted to make the first magic mix tape DVD because my clips on YouTube clips were getting a lot of interest. I got my start up loan and bought a laptop with a DVD recorder, bought a camcorder and bought loads of tickets to events and went on this mad mission.
But half way through I ended up in hospital so I was out of action for six months. Before hospital it was still on the verge of being a hobby. I was still doing part time stuff – I was working in a video shop but hospital gave me a lot of time to think. I thought ‘if I died’ – which I actually nearly did – ‘what would people remember me for; what would be my legacy?’
“Magic was my passion and the one thing that gives me the opportunity to leave that legacy.”
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Zoe Lyons: “Self harmers send angry emails”
“I thought: I’m nearly 30 and I’m a failed actress who’s waitressing”.
Zoe Lyons’ rise up the comedy food chain appears rapid: annual awards since her comedy career began would testify to that – but it’s only in the last year that life has become comfortable for the bemuscled Brighton resident.
Turning 40 this year, Zoe Lyons is staring at her tin anniversary in stand-up. Behind her are the lights of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, a Mock of the Week double and the 2008 Dave TV award for the best joke of the Edinburgh festival which brought national recognition; and rubbed Germaine Greer up the wrong way.
In front is her 2011 tour Clownbusting – a gruelling six months on domestic roads before time out in Australia for the Melbourne Comedy Festival – showcasing her lauded observational wit and insightful dissemination of life’s what ifs.
Lyons admits that nerves are jangling ahead of this, her second tour, but it’s some distance from those lengthy formative years on the road.
Daughter of a northern mum, Irish dad and an upbringing in Ireland and my own native Glasgow offers a handy shield to deflect crowd apathy and garner support in whatever corner of the isles she lands; notably with a home Dublin crowd – and 4.5m viewers – on the BBC’s Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow and appearances on pseudo-improv show Mock the Week.
“It (Mock the Week) is nearly three hours of record. I’ve watched that show and watched people who’ve genuinely lost the will to live half way through; you can see them on the panel. I watched it before I did it and thought I must at least remember to still look interested in what’s going on. My face hurt at the end of one of the recordings I gurned so much.
“It’s a very difficult show to do – it’s absolutely quite gladiatorial in its approach but it doesn’t really apologise for it: it is what it is. As a guest on that show you’re given very little opportunity. I’m overly polite at times and not the most competitive of people and it’s highly competitive.”
Despite the pre-tour nerves, its obvious that Lyons is strangely more at home on the road. The mix of crowds and venues and the opportunity to verbalise and reconnect her multi-faceted identities reflect those early nomadic years. This formula resonates more than that of panel shows.
That confidence to build instant rapport and respond to the audiences’ endorphins on a solo stand-up show in a hidden British corner was – despite early drama school training – a crucial weapon missing from the arsenal of Zoe Lyons: the waitress and stand-up.
A psychology graduate from York University, Lyons’ mixed identity was further cultivated during a year working in Australia’s banana plantations. She returned home, vigour poised, vowing for a career on stage and attended The Poor School, a drama academy in North London, and was the year ahead of EastEnders’ Jesse Wallace.
“I harboured this idea of being an actress for years but I never got an agent; I never did anything spectacular – I did a few alright fringe shows but nothing spectacular.
“There weren’t many who made it from my drama school but a couple did. It was probably four years of waitressing and trying to get acting parts.”
“I was 30 before I did my first gig. I thought ‘I’m nearly 30, I’m a failed actress who’s waitressing’ – and this was not how I envisioned my life would pan out. So I started the comedy and it went alright so I just ploughed everything into it. I was quite glad actually to be a bit of a loser that had nothing to fall back on – if I’d had a well paid job I wouldn’t have the impetus to keep going.
Her first gig was at the long-running comedy newcomers’ night at The Kings Head in Crouch End where as many as 15 frightened newbies splurge their carefully crafted lines. Lyons’ own very hastily assembled gags enthused a disproportionate audience of her pals; culminating in a confidence which facilitated gigs #2 – 11.
“It was probably 12 gigs in before I died on my arse horrifically.” She admits.
The name Zoe Lyons first hit my own desk when I was working in Edinburgh and reviewing a lot of Fringe shows. Her one-liner about Amy Winehouse self-harming (chances are you’ve heard it) landed her an obscene amount of coverage.
“I’d paid for PR that Edinburgh as well – I paid a lot of money and nothing could have bought me the amount of PR that joke did.”
“I did have quite a few self harmers typing away on their typewriters at me. I got quite a few angry emails and you’re obviously doing something right if you get a few angry emails.”
Her joke evoked wrath in feminist Germaine Greer who chastised Lyons ‘astonishingly vicious’ attack on a woman.
“She described me in the same sentence as Joan Rivers so I’m taking it as a massive compliment.”
“She (Winehouse) was in the press a lot, she really annoyed me; it was a joke about a popular culture figure – that’s all it was.
“It’s a bit sad that as a feminist you see women as so weak they can’t take a joke.”
As a gay woman whose most noted joke is an attack on a female pop icon – and now at least in these quarters, a fantastically witty retort to a Germaine Greer rebuke – Lyons admits that stereotype would see her more onside as some sort of angry man-hater; but she’s just so hard to place.
Tattoos, muscles and a rasping voice wrap a schizophrenic sense of identity which has been constructed all over the show. The package should, in all honesty, lend itself to derision and divisiveness – not belie someone who brings the audience together on her terms.
The former would be too easy and Zoe Lyons has travelled this road the hard way.
The InBetweeners’ Martin Trenaman: “don’t shag near a window”
With The InBetweeners movie out this week, it’s fair to say fans – which by now means a good portion of the country – are tucking semis into belts.
When we say fans there’s an inclination to tap the stereotype demographic: toilet humour teens, emerging twenty-somethings and nostalgic thirties – mostly male – relating to the madness of adolescent sex-pursuit or cringing fondly at the memories.
But it never hurts to gain a real live adult’s perspective on The InBetweeners and what makes the show tick, especially one as opinionated and insightful as the coital Buddha that is Simon’s dad, Mr Cooper, who’s never shy of offering sage words to the four boys who embody the nation’s awkward youth.
Martin Trenaman is an acclaimed writer and comedian who has worked with the biggest names in UK comedy. Writing for Lee Evans and Sean Locke, scribing shows such as Nevermind the Buzzcocks, and acting in hit series such as Phone Shop, Trenaman the stand up beat Mighty Boosh deity Julian Barratt to the 1994 So You Think You Are Funny award.
“Julian … where’s he now? I’m living the dream”. He says.
The Essex-born comedy practitioner is enjoying a relentless schedule, garnering publicity for the InBetweeners film whilst also drumming up interest for November’s new series of Phone Shop on E4. Although he intimates he misses the immediate buzz of stand-up comedy, he’s an in-demand comedy actor.
“I had to film a pilot for Sky at the same time as I was filming The InBetweeners and we slotted in one day when I thought I had the day off The InBetweeners. It hadn’t occurred to my agent or me that The InBetweeners might be a night-shoot.
“So I finished shooting the InBetweeners at about four in the morning, was home at about ten past five and was picked up at five past six to go filming.”
Trenaman’s interview was of surprisingly good insight into the film and behind the scenes. As a more mature cast member who has worked his way up the comedy food chain, he’s in possession of more perspective than would show in an interview with the younglings of the cast for whom success has come early.
The schoolboys we’ve come to know and love – Jay, Simon, Will, and Neil – have left their A-Levels behind for a what Trenaman refers to as a “shagging holiday” in Spain where their trans-national, amateur sexual predatory is manifest.
“The film is standalone, you don’t have to have seen the series to understand who the characters are, they are quite cleverly reintroduced to an audience who might never have seen the series.”
“I think it’s probably for the same demographic – seventy to eighty percent 16 to 30 year olds – but I’ve had people in their fifties come up to me in the street saying it’s hilarious and they love it.”
“It is pretty timeless: those teenage years. It doesn’t matter what era you came from, it’s pretty similar really.”
His conversational, laid back manner lulls me into a false sense of security, perhaps I do a disservice to other cast members who I can imagine being a little more stealthy and dismissive when it comes to plot secrets.
These publicity interviews can often be a lesson in futility where the cast pat each other on the back, stick to the lines, and get hyper-protective over their project and its content.
But Trenaman – a regular down-the-pub type geezer – apologises for not being able to divulge too much about the film: “I feel like I’m in the Commons select committee saying ‘No. Yes’. But I can’t give too much away. I’m like the Murdochs.
“Iain (Morris, writer) will have my fucking bollocks off if I give it away.”
This is in response to my question: does Jay (the liar) get his comeuppance? And does it all end well.
The only thing I’m able to ascertain as something of a slight spoiler/ insight is into the appearance of Carly – long-time interest of hapless lovefool Simon.
“I think Carly is in the film” he says.
His position as the mature and seasoned journeyman of the project is apparent in one anecdote from filming – the movie as well as the series – where his professionalism jarred with the leads’.
“They (the boys) tend not to have that many lines. What drove me slightly nuts – over the three series and the film – there was always quite a lot of car action, dropping them off in different places.
“They know The Office script verbatim and they would go through that. It’d be the twentieth time I’d heard it and they’d still be pissing themselves laughing while I was trying to remember my lines.”
The film he describes as “a journey into teenage angst and vulgarity” is about the four boys but – as with the series – Mr Cooper plays the closest ‘normal’ father figure. Jay’s dad is a vile sociopathic menace, Neil’s a clueless closet homosexual and Will’s notable by absence. Although Mr Cooper is the more pedestrian representation of a man in the film, his shtick is his verbose, inappropriate advice on all things sex.
“He is astonishingly inappropriate.”
“He’s a cringingly embarrassing dad, but he has a good soul really; he doesn’t mean any harm. Any embarrassing dad worth his salt doesn’t know he’s being that embarrassing unless he’s doing it as a game, and he’s not.
“He’s trying to be one of the boys, but he’s trying to say: ‘I’ve been there, now you listen to this: don’t shag near a window, certainly not an open one.’”
Sage words, strong advice, and a tip for life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)