Les Miserables

As a young man whenever I went to London I'd always see the same poster slathered across platforms: Les Miserables. It looked the most miserable thing imaginable. ‘Miserables by name miserable by nature,’ I thought hilariously to myself. I mean there appeared to be a boy on the front, wearing nothing but a look that said, ‘I’m miserable. Why don’t you come to this show and be miserable too?’ And what was it about? Something to do with the Battle of Waterloo. How did Waterloo even host a battle? The Thames didn't seem big enough to house speed boats, river cruises and naval fleets. Les Miserables did not seem like an evening’s entertainment; it seemed like a nineteen-year prison sentence. I wouldn't spend a crust on this twaddle.

This did not make me want to go.

 

At the turn of the decade my friends Fi and Ben got married. They had a reading from Les Miserables. AND SOMEONE READ IT WITH THEIR LIPS. No vocal chords were harmed in the process as no singing was involved. It was from a book by Victor Hugo. 'Intriguing,' I thought. A few years later, I met my girlfriend, a big musicals fan. She’d been to see Les Miserables many times. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I thought, ‘not if she likes it. I mean she likes me, so her taste can’t be called into question. I mean to question her love of Les Mis would be to question her love for me – it’s best then that I take it as read that I’ve misjudged the situation.’

Les Miserables is set in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo. The field of pandemonium is not London, Waterloo, but present-day Belgium, then a part of the United Kingdom of Netherlands. The warring factions are Napoleon’s France and an British led alliance. The boy in the poster is not a boy, it’s a girl, Cosette, whom will grow to be the story’s heroine. I know this now because I’ve been watching Andrew Davies adaptation on BBC.

Like the rest of Britain, I love a Davies adaptation. The Welsh screenwriter has been part of our culture for five decades. He’s adapted House of Cards, Pride and Prejudice, Little Dorrit and War and Peace for broadcast. Given he’s now eighty-two, his work-rate remains prodigious with a John Updike adaptation in the offing. The great thing about Davies is he makes classic books available to all. He takes something perceived as fusty and musty, giving it spit and polish, so viewers can appreciate these great stories without feeling intimidated by them. I know with ‘difficult’ books if I watch them first, then I have the confidence to read the real thing. I then feel I’m not ‘tackling’ the book, rather experiencing it. Like a child learning to ride, Davies is the stabiliser, ensuring we stay upright; once we've mastered the motion we can then move on to read independently.

 

Darwin should study him: he liked looking at adaptations.

 

Davies adaptation of Les Miserables is straight drama; there are no musical adornments here. He has taken the book and in his words ‘straightened out the chronology.’ Hugo’s work is more loose with time, dividing into volumes that centre on certain characters. Novels can meander in a way prime-time tv cannot; the adaptation therefore required a focus, a thrust, that propels the viewer on. Davies has made the decision to stage Les Miserables as a thriller. His decision is vindicated. In many ways it feels like the moody older brother to BBC’s 2018 hit Killing Eve. There a sapphic dance ensued between security agent and criminal, a game of cat and mouse, where both long to be captured, devoured.

In Les Miserables the principal dancers are Jean Valjean and Javert. In Killing Eve there was mutual respect between the two competitors; they admired the work of the other. In Les Miserables there’s nothing but hatred. Valjean is the prisoner, sentenced to nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread. In punitive times, a thief is a thief; it doesn’t matter what they took and why. The crime is the thing, the motivation of no consequence. Javert oversees the prisoners, scoffing at their squalor, harrumphing their humanity. It’s easy to dehumanise people in a system ill-designed for humans. Treated as beasts, the prisoners are worked like horses. Whipped and flogged, they must work harder, faster. Valjean resembles one too: with wild beard and broad shoulders, he is a man mountain, a vehicle whose strength offends the virility of Javert. When he is eventually freed, Javert is sure they will meet again. He does not believe in rehabilitation and reform; he believes people are marked from birth, destined for good or evil. If someone commits one crime they may as well be dispensed with. In Javert’s world second chances don’t exist.

West (left) and Oyelowo (right)

 

Played by Dominic West and David Oyelowo, Valjean and Javert, respectively, are imbued with real depth. Valjean may be monosyllabic, but West’s eyes are polemics, harbouring speeches and treatise on the nature of man. Javert isn’t a reductive villain either. From Oyelowo you get the sense that his dark interest in Valjean is as much about masculinity as it is law and order. Valjean is bigger, bolder and brawnier than his nemesis. When the two meet later, the physical jealousy is compounded by hierarchical envy. How can Valjean, a former criminal, climb to a higher station than him?

There are other storylines too. That girl in the poster is Cosette. Her mother was Fantine, a working-class girl, who fell for an upper-class man. Just when future security came tantalisingly close, he left her to fend for herself. Being a working single mum in the 21^st century is difficult, being one in the 19^th century impossible. She houses her child with the Monsieur and Madame Thenadier, performed brilliantly by Adeel Akhtar and Olivia Coleman. Both have a background in comedy: Akhtar Four Lions and Colman Peep Show. Every inch of these comic muscles are utilised to create characters that we laugh at, despite how despicable they are. Monsieur Thenadier alleges he was a war hero that carried an injured Colonel across the battleground. In fact he was a vulture, feeding on the dead to purloin watches and silver. He and his wife are a fabrication. Their life a theatrical performance, so when Fantine meets this ‘happy couple’ she entrusts them with her child. The ramifications are dark and disturbing.

Colman and the actor, Akhtar.

 

I completely misjudged Les Miserables. It isn’t a miserable ordeal at all. Peers in their lifetime, equals in art, Hugo’s work has something of the Dickens about it- and vice versa. Both question societal attitudes to crime. Both tackle the question of class. Both unpick the fallout from war. Les Miserables is political and personal, a triumph of storytelling, one that will have you rooting for the underdog. It is The Wire and Killing Eve: a study of privilege and poverty funneled through a thrilling chase. It is a must watch.

Les Miserables is available on iPlayer.

Keep

Out of the 192 blogs I’ve written, this is my 6^th one on Daniel Kitson. He is the one artist I’ve travelled to see. A few years ago, I went to Liverpool to see Mouse: The Persistence Of An Unlikely Thought, and routinely go to Edinburgh, with the primary motive of seeing him. I’ve watched him at midday in Polyphony and at midnight in Stories For The Starlit Sky. There isn’t a time, date and place I wouldn’t go to watch Daniel Kitson. (I should qualify this: I’m getting married at 1.30pm on 13^th April in Knebworth – if he has a gig that clashes with this, then I’m choosing the wife. Should he have a gig later that evening, then maybe I can slip out after the first dance and be back for a Take That ‘Never Forget’ sing-a-long. Yes, I’m aware Gary Barlow dodged his taxes and should therefore be persona non grata, but the tune is perfect for a dancefloor, and I can’t let celebrity behaviour inform the playlist, otherwise our disco will just consist of David Attenborough voice-over.

This was an outstanding show.

So I love Daniel Kitson. I love his way with language. I love how he can mix it up, being poetic one minute, profane the next. I love how he treats his fans with mock-disdain. I love how he looks after his fans, keeping prices down. I love how whenever I see him it's a new venue: Regents Park, New Players, The National, Old Vic, Camden Roundhouse, Battersea Arts Centre. I love his ambition. When he won the main Edinburgh award in 2002 he had a decision to make: become a blockbuster name or an independent auteur. He chose the latter because it gave him creative control. In the last few years he’s experimented with analogue and digital technology, lighting and staging, to do something innovative and interesting with comedy. It hasn’t always been a 100% successful. His show Analog.Ue involved him moving from reel-reel players to tell a story, everything was told through the technology, which meant we didn’t hear his live voice once – like watching Audible. Last year Something Other Than Everything used different lighting to signpost different narrative strands – it didn’t successfully enhance the story. But the reason why I love him is because he’s the greatest and- like Ali- the only thing left for him to do is shadow box against himself. He could just deliver the tried and tested; the formula that made him a 5 star concern - deconstruction, whimsy, callback- but instead he attempts to surpass himself by being brave and bold in his decisions.

His new show Keep is housed at Battersea Arts Centre, which has not long reopened after a fire in 2015. As part of their Phoenix Season, celebrating the venue’s rebirth, Kitson has a month- long residency. The show begins with a warning. We’re given the premise of the show. That the filing cabinet we see on stage contains a list of every item in his house. There are thousands of items – it could be a challenging evening; if we’re not up for it then we’re welcome to leave now – a full refund, no questions asked. Now, the man is a rascal: there’s every chance he’s lying. In three of his shows, Tree, Mouse and Polyphony he’s proved an unreliable narrator. However, he's also a man that chooses a mailing list as his sole medium of communication, one who has no physical merchandise and a person whom charges £12 for shows worth treble: in other words, he’s willfully perverse – if he’s going to read the phone book, then I guess I'll sit and enjoy it.

A phoenix rising from the ashes. (All pics. from here are courtesy of The Girl.)

Returning to stage, he notices a phone has been left on the table. He’s annoyed. There’s a Wes Anderson fastidiousness to his set design; he’s annoyed that his retro frame has been hijacked by millennial tech. Or is this the start of him messing with us? Soon, he explains the drawers: how they correspond to different rooms in the house- of course there’s more for some rooms than others. He begins at the bottom with the garden. Soon he's reading out 'plant pot,' prefaced by a multitude of materials and then its ‘brick,’ ‘brick,’ ‘brick,’ ‘brick.’ The repetition of the humdrum is hilarious coming out of his mouth. If we are to watch a show where he shares his inventory, then I'm at least sure that the arrangement of words will be done in such a way to elicit laughs.

Soon though the artifice comes to the fore. A card about someone crying on a train is contained in his garden archive. It shouldn’t be there. He reasons to us how it must have got in there by mistake. An old story idea perhaps. It shan’t happen again. (Yeah right, Dan. We see what you’re cooking here.) He continues and notices another card. He’s not happy. He wouldn't have made that mistake twice. Has someone been tampering with his props? Kitson is the horologist of comedy: his jokes run to clockwork, his rhythm runs to time, yet someone has broken in, messed with the mechanism, thrown him out of sync. If comedy is timing, then this act of vandalism threatens to derail the night. He picks up his phone and calls the venue manager: she’s not there; he leaves a message. The phone is Chekov’s gun: we know he’ll pick it up later.

Kitson soldiers on, going through the rooms of his house. He’s aware doing this show in London might seem vainglorious. Most Londoners live in the eternal purgatory of rent, landlords and shared living. He has multiple bedrooms and is the sole occupant. He explains how he forgets his privilege. Privilege he explains is like wearing a Christmas hat: ‘easy to forget it’s there, but embarrassingly obvious to those around you.’ This is Kitson’s genius. No one in comedy can write like him. When it comes to analogy, metaphor and repetition he can’t be rivalled. As we go through the drawers, he breaks from the listing, using the items as launchpads for routines. The jam jars that his mum brought round are all empty. Empty of content, but full of potential. "With those JJ’s he plans to make chutz." Lots of yum yum chutney. His idiolect is entirely idiosyncratic, a combination of romantic poetry, hip hop boasts and self-conscious baby talk. He borrows and pilfers from all cultures to create a language that's entirely his own.

The filing cabinet in question with the drawers pulled out.

The richness in his language runs throughout. When he goes on to the bathroom, he defines toilet readers as ‘dirty piglets.’ The people who own and don’t use typewriters aren’t quite ‘Captain Cunt,’ but they are ‘Deputy Dickhead.’ (Shamefully, I fall into both categories.) But it’s not just everyday behaviours he mocks, he challenges the bigger lies we tell ourselves. There’s a lovely routine on virtue-signaling, on how people make a gold star out of the naughty step: “The thing is with me…,” “My main problem is …” and “I might have been …, but I never ...” All of these sentence starters and volte-faces demonstrate how we’re not unable to take responsibility. Your main problem isn’t that you’re too nice, it’s that you haven’t got the courage to risk being disliked. Your main problem isn’t that you’re a perfectionist, it’s that you’re a narcissist. You may never have drunk at work, but you still got drunk around your children, making you an arsehole. Kitson notices the lies he tells himself, so too the lies in others.

As we go deeper into the drawers, Kitson puts the incorrect cards on the table. A number of cards begin to gather: some with words, others with punctuation- is something beginning to emerge here? For me, this ending doesn’t quite work. To move from one form of narrative to another jolted towards the end. I had become so accustomed to the rhythms of the main story that to have another introduced messed with my head, making it difficult to focus. With the first ‘mistaken’ card, Kitson commented: “It’s better for something to go wrong in the first five minutes than the last.” These words felt prophetic, as for me the ending was anti-climactic.



The 'misplaced' cards.

Critics, on the other hand, have criticized the show for being too long. I don’t think this is an issue. I thought it was Kitson’s best since Polyphony. If anything, the ending felt rushed. But when it comes down to it, I’m at an age where I’d rather see someone miss an overhead kick than score a tap in. Because when it comes to language, laughs and staging, Kitson is in a league of his own. His desire to try something new is so refreshing in a world where commercial pressures mean people have to play safe and get the job done. In the preamble he conceded the show was challenging, and in some respects he's right: two hours with no break, listening to one man stand-up-theatre isn't the search result you'd get if you typed 'Saturday Night' into Google. However, shouldn’t we be challenged? Shouldn’t we stretch our brains a little and not let arthritis set in.

So not every minute works. So what? The ones that do are a wonder. Better to open something meaningful than a shit present well wrapped. I guess what I’m saying is ‘I still love Daniel Kitson.’

Keep is being performed in Battersea Arts Centre until 31st January

(If you like, scroll through my old blogs to look at previous reviews of Kitson's work.)

Idles

Every now and then something comes along that seems to encapsulate what you think and feel about the world, communicating it in a way you never could. I’ve always felt it about Daniel Kitson, a comedian, that I’m off to see next week; and Smiths-era Morrissey, whose lyrics challenged homophobia and monarchy at a time when people only accepted one queen. Over Christmas I read the end of year culture lists, realising I hadn’t heard or seen many of the things, so set about investigating the ones that piqued my interest.

Idles’ ‘Joy as an act of Resistance’ seemed a compelling prospect. In a review I read the words ‘angry’ and ‘lyrical’ which was music to my ears. I’ve always been a lyrics man. In every Pulp record from the Freaks LP, Jarvis Cocker included the instructions, ‘Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recording’ – this is what I do. Of course, I love the music: the riffs, hooks, beats and drops, but what I adore more than anything is the words. I can forgive a lack of musicianship if the lyrics speak to me. I can appreciate a symphony, yet it’s the words that truly ensnare me.

 

Jarvis is right on most things, but not his lyric advice.

 

As for the angry part, I felt angry as a teenager – mainly towards myself for being inept with women. And if I’m totally honest, angry at them for rejecting me- despite me never asking them out. Morrissey syndrome I call it. In my late teens, early 20’s, I mainly listened The Clash, watched a lot of Bill Hicks and read plays by Angry Young Men. Older the anger has changed. I’m angry that education has become a part of the job market where subjects have salaries attached to them (‘What job will my child get from doing English?’ we hear parents ask.) I’m angry over online discourse that has become so hateful, so gladiatorial, taking contentious topics and bare knuckling them into Twitter fist fights. I’m angry over politicians that pit people against one another: there were even some members of the public who couldn’t side with junior doctors over the government because strike action inconvenienced them. The security of love has mellowed me somewhat, but I’ll always have an itch I’ll never quite scratch.

All of this brings me to Idles. Before buying the album, I heard the song ‘Samaritans’ and it blew my mind. The title comes from the charity that do outstanding work in preventing suicide – male suicide in particular. The fact so many men get to this point has to be down to corrosive masculinity. Undoubtedly women have it a lot harder than men. It’s indisputable that men have the unfair advantage. The only area where men are at a disadvantage is in communicating their problems. Lead singer Joe Talbot is acutely aware of this. During the recording of his first album, his mother died; during the making of his second one, his daughter died.

 

‘Samaritan’ is a savage takedown of masculinity. It begins with Talbot barking out the unhelpful instructions every young man has heard.

       Man up
Sit down
Chin up
Pipe down
Socks up
Don’t cry
Drink up
Just lie
Grow some balls, he said

            Grow some balls

In some households boys can’t express sadness. Emotion is a weakness that won’t be tolerated. The crackle of grief and disappointment can never burn out because feelings have to be hidden, consequently they’re quickly doused by gendered sentiments. If men are going against their instincts to cry out pain, they will only be worse for it later. So despite having masculine thrashing guitars, the lyrics are anything but. Towards the end, Talbot leaves the tragedy whilst guitarists Kiernan and Bowen write the catharsis. When Talbot returns to scream, ‘I kissed a boy and I liked it,’ the battle is won. We return to the refrain of ‘Sit down,’ ‘chin up,’ even more aware of how ridiculous they sound. For a man who has never bought into masculinity but still has the receipts, I loved hearing the topic addressed in such an impassioned way.

Having now listened to the whole album, I’m pleased to announce that there are other tunes which combine visceral thrills and cerebral smarts to great effect. ‘I’m Scum’ comes across a lock-in at a Labour Club with Talbot spitballing like a smart, smashed drunk,

‘I sing at Fascists ‘til my head comes off, I am Dennis Skinner’s Molotov, I’m lefty, I’m soft, I’m minimum wage.’   

 

Another tune ‘Danny Nedelko,’ is a celebration of immigration. The eponymous is a friend of the band and plays in Heavy Lungs, he and Talbot have such a close kinship that they both vowed to write about each other. The lyrics of ‘My blood brother is an immigrant, A beautiful immigrant, My blood brother’s Freddie Mercury, A Nigerian mother of three,’ is a reminder of the richness of diversity. Danny Nedelko is the title, but the song also references Malala, Freddie Mercury, Mo Farah as well as the Polish butcher and Nigerian mother. If you’re going to celebrate famous immigrants (as all Brits do), then you should be championing unheralded ones too. The climatic yelps of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ are a middle finger to politicians that divide us.

 

Later on the album ‘Great’ addresses Brexit. It is Idles’ farewell song to Britain. The referendum has reduced it to ruins, leaving the band to dance on its grave. More than Britain separating from the EU, it’s about Great Britain separating from its title, leaving us without the Great. Again, the lyrics are astounding, featuring the hilarious kiss-off, ‘Islam didn’t eat your hamster.’ In the middle I’m sure there’s the first few bars of ‘God Save The Queen,’ a wry comment on how nationalism brought us and May to our knees.

The centerpiece of the album is ‘June.’ The song addresses a topic rarely addressed in music: the death of a child. Here, the guitars are turned down, giving Talbot the space to express himself. Much of the album is a frenetic blast, blending Grinderman menace and Ramones turbo-charge, ‘June’ though is a contemplative ballad. It’s a cry for understanding. ‘A still born was still born, I am a father.’ The use of tense is powerful. Just because a child has died doesn’t mean a mother and father don’t continue to carry its weight. Later, Talbot intones, ‘Baby shoes never worn: For Sale.’ This was the six-word story Hemmingway wrote on the back of a beer mat for a bet. The fact his tale has endured is because it distils pain in its purest form.

Idles have produced a record that will make you laugh, think cry, shout and dance. They are a band of head, heart, lungs and spleen. They have inherited the mantle of Angry Young Men from Osborne and his ilk and done something thrilling and vibrant with it. I’m off now to listen to their first record.

Idles' 'Joy is an Act of Resistance' is out now.

Bros: After The Screaming Stops

 

Terry Wogan: What are you going to do when the screaming stops?
(Interview with Bros, 1988)

 In 1988 Bros were the biggest boy band in the Britain. Their debut album ‘Push’ topped the chart in seventeen countries, selling more than seven million copies. Supported by an army of followers, ‘the Brosettes,’ they were the youngest group to sell out Wembley Stadium. They were on cloud nine. Nineteen-year-old lads travelling the world, being heralded as pop's new messiahs wherever they went. Then with their guitarist quitting due to illness, Bros became a duo: a fraternal concern. When sales of their third record dwindled, Luke decided to call it a day, ending their partnership, disbanding the group. Twenty-eight years on, the boys are back in town for a reunion concert, their first time playing together since 1990.

The directors Joe Pearlman and David Soutar’s film begins with a prologue that hints at the carnage to come. The pair are booked onto This Morning to promote their upcoming show, however backstage all is not well. It appears that over the years one type of screaming (fan adulation) has given way to another (sibling acrimony), so much so that the green room has turned blue under a storm of expletive. Matt storms out, the door slam an arch segue into the upbeat title sequence. (When will I, will I be famous? I can't answer, I can't answer that.')

We then flashback to a time before reunion promo where we join the bros in their new life. Luke is now living in LA, starring in and writing movies. Notable IMDB credits include Blade 2 and Hellboy 2. (Recent films are suffixed with ‘Straight to DVD’). Matt too is in America, but he’s residing in Las Vegas. A friend of mine went to Vegas with his wife a few years ago and said how impressive Goss’ show was; this is supported in the documentary where we hear a Caesars Palace booker purr over his talent. The demand of performing show after show in one place has driven many performers mad, yet Goss seems to be thriving there.

Matt performs swing and jazz tunes.

All of this makes us wonder why Matt wants to reunite. I mean the man has it all. He has a plush apartment with money to burn. All his whims and fancies are catered for. If he wants a painting of his bulldog holding a pint, he’ll commission it. If he doesn’t want an argument, he won’t have it. (His home he explains is a no argument zone.) If people want to blow off a bit of steam: fine. Break something if you want. Just make sure you fix it afterwards. All of these pronouncements are cut and chopped together, so much so that the cumulative effect produces an avalanche of hilarity that we’re soon buried under. In observing Matt Goss you can’t help but see parallels with This Is Spinal Tap. Like Nigel Tufnel, Matt lacks a level of awareness that makes him at times stupid, whilst being completely endearing.

This is real.

In my favourite scene Matt and Luke are back in London reminiscing on their childhood. There wasn’t much money in the family home. Toys and gifts were hard to come by. They did have one though: a dart. They didn’t have a dartboard to go with it, but who needs a target when you’ve got an imagination. The game they played involved throwing a dart in the air and moving out of the way before they got hit. Unfortunately, one day one of them did get hit, causing them to run to their grandad to get the dart pulled out. With the thorn pulled from the paw, the young cubs were free to roam again, chucking the dart up into the skies, ignoring the past accident, giddy on the roulette risk of it all. At the denouement of the anecdote, Matt turns to camera and says,

“And now you can’t even play fucking conkers in England. Please can we start a petition as Bros for this ridiculous thing where you can’t even play conkers, you have to wear goggles. That is the biggest problem…You can’t play conkers in England.”

 

When I heard this I had to pinch myself and think 'is this real?' The backdrop of the estate, the unselfconscious talk, the impassioned delivery, all reminded me of This Country. Even better is Luke’s deadpan reaction, ‘I can live with that.’ Bros can’t even agree on conker regulation, how on earth are they going to play together?

Popstar shades on council estates.

 

The rehearsals for the reunion gig are fraught. Luke is nervous because he hasn’t played drums in years. Not only does he have to re-learn his instrument, he has to re-learn it for a gig at the 02. Also, he’s trepidatious because the last time he was in Bros he felt like a bit part player. His brother was the mouthpiece, spotlight and cover star – this time he wants it to be different. He wants an equal say in the direction of the gig. The problem for Matt is music is his business. He now knows more than his brother, which means treating him as his equal proves difficult. Here the documentary breaks away from being a satire on popstars and becomes a sincere examination of sibling rivalry.

The brothers are ridiculous – Matt, in particular – yet beyond their 2D buffoonery is something deeper and more profound. At the height of their fame they experienced personal tragedy, something, given the demands of touring and promotion, they never had time to process. Later, the boys breakdown in rehearsal when they sing a London ballad, ‘I dried your tears. I brushed your hair. I held your hand when you were scared. Remember the time when you cried because of thunder.’ Seeing the two cry together, rather than scream ‘cunt’ at one another, brings a lump to the throat.

In 1988 Terry Wogan asked the question, ‘What will you do when the screaming stops?’ The answer is here. They survived and thrived enough to produce a movie that has got the whole word laughing. Yet for all the Buzzfeed lists of ’20 Great WTF Moments From After The Screaming,’ they’ve somehow done it whilst remaining likeable. Having produced years of disposable music, this picture might just be the thing that endures.

Bros: After The Screaming Stops is on BBC iPlayer