The Culture Show Blog

Where has the Culture Show gone?

2009-04-05T20:19:16Z

We're off air until our special in the middle of June from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. If you've submitted an artwork for the show, or would like to let us know what you think when the exhibition opens on 8 June, then please post on the blog.

The series returns in earnest with a series of shows from the Manchester International Festival in July. We've already been drawing up our commissioning plan but if there's anything in particular you think we should cover then do let us know. Are there any Manchester-based artists, authors or bands that we should consider filming with, even if they aren't in the festival?

This will be my last blog post until the beginning of June as I'm off to work on the website for the Chelsea Flower Show, but if you miss me you can always follow me on Twitter - I'll be tweeting about culture rather than horticulture.

Because we're not currently updating the Culture Show blog it isn't possible to comment at present. If the blog returns in future the commenting facility will be reopened.

Let the Right One In - modern classic or over-hyped horror?

2009-04-03T20:05:04Z

Vampires on film are always fashionable; it may seem that there is a glut of them at the moment, but that's just because they are high-profile hits like Twilight or well-publicised turkeys like Lesbian Vampire Killers. Next weekend sees the UK cinema release of an unusual addition to the horror cannon - a Swedish vampire film.

Let the Right One In (Lat den ratte komma in) has proved a phenomenon on the internet, recruiting an army of fans who championed it when it was released in the US last year and are now enraged by the sub-standard subtitles on DVD release. Icons of Fright's frame-by-frame comparison of some of the changes is a great example of how powerful the internet can be in exposing mistakes, although I would strongly advise you not to peek until you've seen the film.

My question was whether Let the Right One In would stand up to being watched by someone who isn't a huge genre fan and is rather wary of hype. I saw the film having avoided reading any reviews and I think the less you know about it the better, so I'll be vague in terms of plot, but I will say that I think it's remarkable. Focussing on lonely 12-year-old Oskar, and the mysterious Eli who moves into the flat next door, the film starts as an atmospheric story of pre-teen dislocation. What follows is both an exploration of the children's relationship and an investigation of some of the conventions of the vampire film. Let the Right One In is refreshingly free from the usual horror requirement to make the audience jump and instead unnerves us with subtly deployed CGI effects and wit. It's surprisingly funny, but for all the right reasons, and it's no surprise that the director Tomas Alfredson has made a number of other films - all comedies. A delicious (and bloody) treat then, both melancholy and touching - see it before the inevitable Hollywood remake.

The Damned United from the perspective of someone who hates sport

2009-03-27T15:38:50Z

This blog post is about the film The Damned United. It is not a comparison with the book and it certainly won't explore the accuracy of the film's depiction of Brian Clough's life and career. I am afraid that before people started talking about the film I had never heard of Brian Clough, having avoided even David Peace's book because I knew it was about football. Plus, I was two years old in 1974, and it wasn't as if I remember the events from the first time around.

Michael Sheen as Brian Clough. Photograph by Laurie Sparham

So it was with some trepidation that I went to see a biopic of a football manager, half expecting to be bored or baffled - instead I was thoroughly entertained. Most of the sports films I've seen follow the arc of a pair of star-crossed lovers, beginning in adversity but ending up happily ever after. The Damned United instead jumps back and forth between Brian Clough's remarkable success at Derby County and his difficult tenure at Leeds United. Clough's rise unfolds in parallel with his fall, both caused (it is suggested in the film), by the extent of his ambition. The calendar flips back and forth in a device that could have been irritating or confusing but fortunately works well.

With little actual football shown on screen, the story becomes about Brian Clough's rivalry with Don Revie, and his relationship with right-hand-man Peter Taylor. The performances are all excellent and the film is moving in its portrayal of these mens' preoccupation and dependency on each other. How pleasing to see a film set in the 1970s that doesn't wallow in period detail or musical nostalgia. It also doesn't matter whether or not you are familiar with the characters involved, the film assumes no prior knowledge and if it was full of in-jokes my enjoyment wasn't at all damaged by not getting them. You can watch an interview with Tom Hooper - the young British director of The Damned United, Longford and John Adams - which we uploaded on the website last month to accompany our item on HBO. With a production of Steinbeck's East of Eden going into production this year, we are likely to hear more about Tom Hooper very soon.

Creative Spaces

2009-03-26T13:44:54Z

Ian Hislop - Sir John Soane's Museum from Creative Spaces on Vimeo.

Nine museums and galleries around the UK are collaborating on a website called Creative Spaces, with the aim of allowing people to group items from collections together and comment on them. Users become curators of their own exhibitions, gathering together objects that have inspired them from the nine participating institutions. You might want to group items related to elephants: collecting together elephant armour from 17th-century India held by the Royal Armouries, a painting entitled Vishnu Saves the Elephant King from the V&A and a photograph of an elephant pulling an aircraft from the Imperial War Museum

All of the items I've listed are remarkable, and the system makes it quite straightforward to group things together in this way (although adding links can be a challenge), but I'll be interested to see who will take the time to participate in this project. It's early days, but at the moment it feels like most of the people taking part are from museums and galleries themselves.

What seems to be slightly lacking from the site at the moment is passion. Although some of the groups have members in double figures there seems to be little discussion going on. The Jane Austen group for example, lists 11 items but makes no comment on why the items were chosen. When a group has added some comments - as in the Self-Portraits group they don't appear automatically, they sit behind the item and you have to follow a link to see them. It feels counter-intuitive and doesn't give an immediate sense of why somebody has added something.

You have to go to the video area for real enthusiasm, where contributors including Ian Hislop (see above), Timorous Beasties and Gerald Scarfe talk warmly about different museum collections and items that they have found particularly inspiring. The videos are engaging and provide a warmth and narrative that is - as yet - absent from the rest of the site. Here's hoping that it will become more evident as more people join, but I think that there needs to be as much emphasis on the why as the what.

Uriel Jones, Motown drummer, dies at 74

2009-03-26T11:29:52Z

Sad news of the death of one of the original members of the Funk Brothers, drummer Uriel Jones. We filmed part of our Culture Show Motown special at the end of last year with surviving members of the band and interviewed Jones together with Eddie Willis and Bob Babbit. They also played some songs for our presenter Martin Freeman, including My Girl, which you can watch above. More details of Jones's life on the website for Detroit Free Press, BBC News Online and the Idolator blog.

Does Alastair Campbell make you angry?

2009-03-23T16:54:05Z

This week's New Statesman is guest-edited by Alastair Campbell, an event that has garnered the magazine more coverage than it has enjoyed in a long time. Responses in the press have been mixed, but largely positive, with praise from the Spectator and Iain Dale's Diary. Even Robert Colvile in the Telegraph, who calls the magazine issue "a triumph of spin over substance" describes Campbell's editorial as "lively and well-written" and his interview with Sir ~~Alec~~ Alex Ferguson as "top-notch".

Campbell's stint as editor has, however, provoked a protest by Suzanne Moore, and if you look at the comments posted under her Daily Mail article it is clear that Campbell is still a controversial figure for many.

On tomorrow night's Culture Show, Mark Kermode and Alastair Campbell watch Armando Iannucci's new feature film In the Loop and give their verdicts. Featuring many characters from The Thick of It caught up in a war in the Middle East, we thought that Campbell's view of the political satire would be very interesting.

Let us know what you think of Alastair Campbell's appearance on the show and his abilities as a reviewer.

Adam Curtis meets Punchdrunk in Manchester

2009-03-23T11:02:06Z

When the details of this year's Manchester International Festival were published lots of things caught my eye: Elbow with the Halle Orchestra, Laurie Anderson performing with Lou Reed, but one event in particular leapt out - It Felt Like a Kiss.

Poster for It Felt Like a Kiss

A collaboration between installation theatre group Punchdrunk and the documentary maker Adam Curtis, the piece is about "America's rise to power in the golden age of pop, and the unforeseen consequences it had on the world and in our minds". This summary might seem a little dry, but previous experience suggests that this could be a really exciting event. Punchdrunk are masters of immersive theatrical event - I first saw their production of Faust back in 2006 and was so impressed by the imagination and energy of their version - performed in a dilapidated warehouse with the audience wearing masks - that I went twice. Adam Curtis has made some of the most visually inventive and intellectually stimulating documentaries of the past couple of decades. The Century of the Self charted the development of psychoanalytic theory in the 20th century and its role in the rise of mass consumerism, while The Power of Nightmares drew parallels between Islamic fundamentalism and American neo-conservatism.

Damon Albarn and the Kronos Quartet are also involved in the project, but I'm really intrigued to see what Curtis and Punchdrunk are going to come up with. The show is apparently "not suitable for people of a nervous disposition", which augers well.

Watchmen parody Watchmensch out this week

2009-03-18T15:27:07Z

I know, the world can probably live without another Watchmen blog post, but I've been intrigued by the news that a graphic novel parody, entitled Watchmensch, is out this week. My initial impressions weren't positive - the Comedian has been replaced by Krusty the Clown and Nite Owl has turned into Nite Nurse - and although the artwork looks pretty good I haven't been drawn in by the specimen panels. What did make me prick up my ears was Valerie D'Orazio's comment on Occasional Superheroine that "Watchmensch is actually an allegory about the rift between Watchmen creator Alan Moore and DC Comics -- and, by extension, a meditation on the issue of creator's rights". This is a really interesting story, touched on again in an interview with Moore in Monday's Guardian in which he refers to DC as being like "a rich stalker-girlfriend".

Cover of Watchmensch by Rich Johnston and Simon Rohrmuller

Even if Watchmensch's parody is a touch broad - all I've seen are the first few pages - there's plenty of mileage in the relationship between authors, artist and the large commercial organisations who attempt to adapt and exploit their work.

Bloomsday or St Patrick's Day?

2009-03-17T16:12:35Z

I've never really seen the point of St Patrick's Day, despite having grown up in Belfast. The annual parade started in America and green Guinness was something you were more likely to find in New York's large collection of Irish pubs than actually in Ireland itself (thankfully). A sacred day for the religious then, or a big, boozy celebration for ex-pats; not anything really to do with Irish culture.

You can imagine my dismay, then, at opening the latest issue of The New Yorker to be confronted with an obvious St Patrick's Day marketing tie-in, a twee map of Ireland flagging up 'Bunratty Medieval Banquet' (never heard of it), Blarney Castle and no mention of the second largest city in Ireland, Belfast.

Detail from map produced by Tourism Ireland

Emerald green countryside is filled with fairies, horses and carts and a random giant teapot in an unrelenting vision of whimsy that conjures up Sean Hillen's work Irelantis. Having done a little digging I've discovered that this map is just one of three produced by Tourism Ireland and that Belfast has not actually gone the way of Atlantis and slipped into the sea, but the vision of Oirishness seems very much a piece with the cheesy commercialism of St Patrick's Day. Here's to Bloomsday on 16 June instead - a random celebration perhaps, but at least one that has literature and booze at its heart, rather than just booze.

Visit the Picasso exhibition with Andrew and Lauren

2009-03-17T11:22:19Z

Tonight's show is a special about one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso. In our 30-minute show tonight we travel to Paris with Andrew Graham-Dixon to explore Picasso's obsessive relationship with his artistic predecessors.

In our Uncut edition on Friday you can take a tour of the National Gallery London's Picasso: Challenging the Past exhibition with Andrew and Lauren, but we've made it available to watch online now. What did you think of the show and tour, particularly Andrew's comment that Picasso was capable of painting "shockingly awful pictures"?

Alastair Campbell reviews In the Loop

2009-03-11T11:53:51Z

Yesterday we asked Alastair Campbell to join Mark Kermode at a special viewing of Armando Iannucci's feature film debut In the Loop, which reprises some of the characters from his political satire The Thick of It. You can watch the item on the 24 March edition of The Culture Show, but you can see a few photos from the shoot on our Flickr group. Including some rather ambiguous shots of what the two got up to - I've been sworn to secrecy about whether they did or didn't come to blows.

Check out Alastair's blog in which he reveals why he is colluding with the Culture Show - in a very old media way - and keeping his views on the film to himself until the item goes out on the programme.

John Cooper Clarke, Rodchenko and Fleet Foxes

2009-03-10T19:00:34Z

Let us know what you think of tonight's show - as ever it's an eclectic mix of items. Here's an extra from our John Cooper Clarke piece. There's more Fleet Foxes to watch on the site as well.

Fleet Foxes - musical genius or just too sappy?

2009-03-10T13:44:42Z

One of the items in tonight's show is about darlings of Best Album of the Year lists, Fleet Foxes. Their eponymous debut album received rapturous reviews, as have their live gigs, and the prospect of featuring the band on the Culture Show has long been discussed.

Pet Sounds: Fleet Foxes pay tribute to the Beach Boys

The review in the Times is typical, "Miraculously for a 21-year-old, Pecknold appears to have perfected the art of writing songs that appear not so much written as retrieved from your own subconscious." I think that my subconscious must be an altogether noisier and less harmonic place, because there is something about Fleet Foxes that makes me feel slightly ill.

I went out and bought the album when everyone (on the Culture Show team and beyond) was raving about it and set to listening. On about the sixth attempt my husband asked me why I was pulling 'that face' and I had to admit that something about the fragile beauty of the voices and the harmonies that I really wasn't enjoying. I could see that they were excellent musicians but my reaction was from the gut - it was time to give up trying to like Fleet Foxes.

Perhaps tonight's item will change my mind, but I really don't think so. Am I alone in disliking their music or is there a band of embarrassed fellow travellers out there? Our piece was recorded shortly before their gig at Camden's Roundhouse.

Did the Olivier Awards get it right?

2009-03-09T13:47:57Z

Last night saw the announcement of the Laurence Olivier Awards for London theatre, and I think it's a pretty good list. Main winners that caught my eye included Margaret Tyzack as Best Actress for The Chalk Garden, Derek Jacobi as Best Actor for Twelfth Night and four awards for Black Watch including Best Director and Best New Play. Interesting that the two main opera awards went to the ENO.

As ever with such awards, the Olivier conjures up regrets about the productions I didn't make it to. Winner of the award for Most Annoyed With Myself For Missing is Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal's Cafe Muller/ The Rite of Spring, chosen as the Olivier Best New Dance Production. One show that is still on is La Clique, which won Best Entertainment. We made an item about them at last year's Edinburgh Festival if you'd like a taster. Any thoughts on the winners and losers?

Watching the Watchmen

2009-03-06T19:12:30Z

The film version of Watchmen looks spectacular; it's full of images from the original book, realised at great expense and with great attention to detail. But - and this may well be the first time that I've criticised a film for sticking too closely to the book - the respect for the original work has a deadening effect on the story. I watched it as a curiosity and a spectacle, but I wasn't in the least wrapped up in the film, while I've read and re-read the comic avidly.

I interviewed Dave Gibbons last night, the original artist who worked on the book with Alan Moore, and he was full of praise for the film and Zack Snyder. Much as I respect Dave, as an artist and thoroughly nice man, I don't share his opinion of Snyder's work. I thought 300 was ridiculous, and Watchmen suffered from the same taint of slo-mo pomposity overlaid with an insufferably obvious soundtrack. It was clear that Snyder had taken a lot of trouble with the film and this will please fans who feared that Hollywood would make a 12A version of a story that is the ultimate graphic novel for adults. What has happened is that instead of dwelling on moral quandary and how violence (even for noble aims) can corrupt, this film revels in injury as spectacle. As moral compromise and brutalisation are issues dead at the centre of the Watchmen story it seems odd to choose a director who apparently doesn't care.

Some of the characters have translated quite well, the actors playing Rorschach, The Comedian and Dr Manhattan turn in good performances but it's not enough to make the film exciting or poignant. I won't talk about the ending, but to me it reinforced the impression I had, of a basic misunderstanding of what Watchmen is about. This ends up a cautionary tale of how faithfulness to the form of a work can betray its spirit. Read the novel instead.