Grayson Perry: Provincial Punk

This week I went to see Grayson Perry’s Provincial Punk at the Turner Contemporary.

I was never one for art in school. Try as I might I never had an aptitude for it. This always disappointed me. I was academic in other areas of school. Always felt fluent with a pen; able to mix words into landscapes of horror, mystery and wonder. With a paintbrush I felt different. Dyslexic. The brush never sat right; never fell easy in my hand; I couldn't draw what I saw.

Sunday nights were the worst. I had put my Art homework off and now had to do it. My attempts to summon my muse had yet again proved unsuccessful (I have since learnt that muses only come on walks, in dreams, through strong opiates – not via the game Championship Manager 1997/98), so I was forced to acknowledge that with inspiration taking a day off I would have to sort the work out myself. Reluctantly, I would go to my bag, get the sketch book from the bottom, roll up my sleeves, grit my teeth, put my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone  - and ask my dad to do the homework for me. Raj Theivamanoharan, my father, has got me out of many jams in his time but doing my art homework ranks alongside the best of them.

"I coulda had class. I coulda been somebody. I coulda been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what I am let's face it," if it weren't for this game.

Art is just something I’ve never been interested in. I mean I’ve been to galleries out of a sense of duty, made the right noises, affected the right stance, but I’ve never felt anything towards it. I appreciate the time and skill that has gone into it, but if ‘art’ is a conversation between strangers then too often I think it’s one-way one, a bus stop madman yelling 'apocalypse now' at you.

My feelings towards art have changed though, mainly because of Grayson Perry. Perry is an atypical artist in sound, appearance and work. He was born in a working class family in Chelmsford, Essex. With his mum and dad’s acrimonious split, his childhood was traumatic. Nor was he a typical boy: Perry preferred femininity to fighting; art to football. In a daring raid on conformity, the teenager came out as a transvestite. This brazen display of otherness was met by hostility, causing the young artist to leave for London, where he eventually sought sanctuary in the squats of punk culture. 

Claire (Grayson Perry's alter-ego) and Grayson Perry

Provinical Punk is the contradictory title for a contradictory man. It tracks Perry’s evolution from solipsistic experimentalist to inclusive social-commentator. The latter work on display is redolent of the great anthropologist, Charles Dickens. Dickens as stroller would walk twenty miles a day, breathing in the city before returning home to expel it on the page. Perry is the same, only his medium is different. On More 4 a few years ago, Perry did a programme on taste, each episode featured a different class: working, middle and upper. Over the course of the episode he would meet different characters (tattooist, boy racers, football fans) and then turn the class into a tapestry. At the end the subjects were invited to the gallery where their pride and astonishment was captured on camera. Seeing ordinary human behaviour captured in the glass jar of art was infinitely more interesting to me than any dull portrait in the Louvre.

The working class tapestry: 'The adoration of the cage fighter.'

Perry’s earlier work, however, is less Dickensian, more Salinger, with Catcher In the Rye identity and angst prevalent. One amusing work is a pot shaped in the style of the European Cup, decorated with a football shirt motif, on each a thing he hates about the beautiful game: ‘camaraderie,’ ‘lads,’ ‘Brylcream.’ As you move through the exhibit you note how the satire remains, but the scope has widened. A moving piece is a map with dominant feelings capitalised to symbolise the city (GREED) and dormant emotions lower-cased for the towns (irritation), on the fringes the seas wash in threatening to engulf the land (PARANOIA, JEALOUSY, DOUBT). These existentialist pieces demonstrate that beyond Perry’s colourful exterior a serious thinker rests at play.

"Map of an Englishman"

Most impressively for me is the final room. On the wall hangs a tapestry chronicling Perry’s view of Britain. Attributes, catchphrases, figureheads, brands, personalities and ideals typifying the nation are emblazoned across it. Being half-British but feeling completely British, I’ve always been fascinated by what it means to be English/ British. Looking at the piece, I feel Perry comes close to capturing the character of a nation. Indeed, the Conservative Party would be well advised to look at the piece to appreciate how multi-faceted the British character is and how pushing a prescribed set of ‘British values’ in the classroom may be a little reductive when compared to it.

"Comfort Blanket" - my favourite piece.

For me then, Perry is the intersection where art and literature meet. Every one of his pieces has an idea, a theme; it isn’t just art for art’s sake. As a book reader, I crave character and demand narrative; with Perry’s work you get both. He has made me, an avowed art atheist, go to a gallery through choice. If you too have ever doubted art’s worth in society, I assure you Perry will make you believe again.

Grayson Perry's Provincial Punk will be at the Turner Contemporary in Margate until the 13th September. 

Sightseers

This week I’ve been watching Sightseers

Catching Sightseers has been a long time coming. Since its release three years ago, my flatmate Dec and I have been planning to watch it, but due to work commitments we’ve only now found the time. (Life is busy. We both work part-time, pursuing solo projects: Dec as a classical guitarist; me as a comedian. Conceivably, this ‘gained time’ should be spent creating something that will one day get us listed in the Guardian Guide, instead it is spent in front of Netflix, drinking tea, questioning how that hack guitarist/comedian got a gig in that venue).

Sightseers is a film by Britain’s most daring filmmaker Ben Wheatley. Wheatley began his career on low-budget crime drama, Down Terrace. Shot in eight days on a measly budget, the film garnered praise for splicing splashy violence with side-splitting humour. For this, the term ‘Britain’s Tarintino’ was soon bandied about.

Ben Wheatley

His next film though put pay to the idea he was a Tarintino copyist, as Kill List owed more to Britain’s folk past than LA’s postmodernism. Its story of two retired contract killers returning for one last pay day has the creeping unease of a Hitchcock thriller and the pastoral unease of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. Simply the film couldn’t have been made by an American, neither could his next, Sightseers.

While Wheatley wrote his first two films, Sightseers is penned by comedians Steve Oram and Alice Lowe. Oram and Lowe met on the character comedy scene, a double act soon emerged, which eventually led to them supporting Steve Coogan on tour. Whilst working together they conceived the idea of Sightseers; originally they thought it might work as a sketch or sitcom, but in researching the project they found there was enough material to make a film. It is easy to see why the project appealed to Wheatley; for the story has the self-same gore and comic uproar that typifies his own work.

Steve Oram and Alice Lowe

The story begins with Tina at home with her mum. The camera pans around the living room, showcasing the pairs love of dogs: framed pictures of hounds abound and diploma certificates celebrating Tina’s dog skills are rife. On top of this, Tina’s mum is a big fan of snow globes, an apt metaphor for the closeted life her and her daughter live. Chris, Tina’s boyfriend, is a threat to the hermetically sealed humdrum and sets about shaking it up by inviting Tina on a caravan trip. Naturally, Tina’s mum is indignant and does not want her daughter to go. Tina though has fallen for Chris and intends, with her woolen crotchless negligee, to turn the National Trust sojourn into a sex-filled odyssey.

The darkness at the heart of Chris’ nature though is revealed on the driveway when Tina’s mum brands him: ‘Murderer.’ Initially we think this is the senile cry of the jilted, but when Tina retorts: “It was an accident, Mum,” we’re not so sure. The two depart for their caravan holiday to the sound of Soft Cell’s, ‘Tainted Love’- a portent for things to come.

The first stop on their romantic break is the Tramway Museum. Together the two sit on one of the oldest trams in circulation; a careless man drops his litter on the floor, and despite Chris’ reminders to pick it up, he obstinately refuses. Chris, a seething beard of rage, cannot countenance how someone could do such a thing. But with Tina determined to have a good holiday, he ensures her he’ll forget it.

Chris is not a man who forgets.  

He is a man who has been slighted in life and won’t be slighted again. On leaving the Tramway Museum, Chris reverses into the litterbug, disposing his brains all over the car park. Naturally trusting, Tina believes it was an accident, worrying only whether it will “spoil their holiday.” However as Chris’s ‘accidents’ grow, Tina’s manipulation does too. When a rambler accuses her of dog fouling, she calls on Chris to administer rough justice. Hypocritically turning a blind eye to his girlfriend’s littering, Chris is more than happy to turn the air blue and the ground red. Over the course of the movie the pair become a two-person crime wave meting out justice to anyone who crosses them.

Tina and Chris

The fact that we laugh at Chris and Tina’s actions is a testament to Oram, Lowe and Wheatley. Having grisly murders take place in such innocuous settings is an inherently funny juxtaposition. Also, when the impish naivety is undermined by the snobbery of other holidaymakers, we want the Primark waterproofs to come out on top. What is really impressive is how the film evolves into a kind of psycho-sexual drama with the two’s justification for killing becoming less about self-empowerment and more about receiving validation from the other. Bizarrely, what starts as Mike Leigh’s Nuts In May turns into a comic re-imagining of Macbeth.

If you wanted further proof that Wheatley is a filmmaker with a future, his next film High Rise, an adaptation of a J.G. Ballard novel, stars big-hitters Tom Hiddlestone and Sienna Miller. Let’s hope now that Wheatley is working with A-listers on bigger budgets he doesn’t lose the idiosyncrasies that make his work vital and brilliant.

Murder in Successville

This week I’ve been watching Murder in Successville

In 2013 Tony Hall, the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, was appointed Director-General of the BBC. With the Newsnight scandal and Conservative state squeeze, it was perhaps the worst time to take the biggest job in TV. Under orders to cut costs, Hall announced he would be evicting BBC Three and moving it to a smaller home online. Russell Kane and Matt Lucas, beneficiaries of the channel’s patronage, worried this cultural bedroom tax would prove detrimental to creatives, making it even more difficult to get commissioned. This reaction was wholly justified. Over the years the channel has been a funny farm to success stories Little Britain, Mighty Boosh and Gavin and Stacey, and yielded prize-winning produce in the form of Him and Her and Nighty Night.

So with the ‘Closing Down’ sign on the BBC Three shop door, is the channel running down its stock or is it putting new items in the shop to encourage customers to visit its new store?

Russell Kane, the face of BBC Three. The arse of it as well.

If Murder in Successville is anything to go by, then BBC Three intends to go out on a bang. It is without a doubt one of the most bonkers, most inspired bits of comedy I’ve ever seen. The show is billed as an immersive murder mystery that an unwitting celebrity guest has to help solve. It is performed and co-written by Tom Davis, a journeyman comic who has finally arrived. He plays DI Sleet, a hard-boiled detective tasked with the unenviable job of cleaning up the streets of Successville. Successville is a dead-beat town, a cesspool of vice, a breeding ground of corruption inhabited by broads and mobsters – broads and mobsters that are caricatures of famous faces. To name but a few, there are the Carr twins, Alan and Jimmy; The One Direction Gang; bar owner Reese Witherspoon and ‘Soggy Bottom’ strip joint owner Mary Berry.

Tom Davis' DI Sleet.

What makes the programme truly unique though is not the warped re-imagining of celebrities, but what they do with the celebrity guest. In the first episode, Jamie Laing from Made In Chelsea is enlisted to accompany DI Sleet with the investigation into the murder of Italian restauranteur Bruno Tonioli. He is walked into the office by Chief Superintendent Gordon Ramsay, hilariously portrayed by Liam Hourican as a jittering ball of bile, and is then introduced to Sleet. Over the course of the episode, Laing is the naïve stooge to the deadpan playfulness of Davis. Surprisingly, Laing is terrifically game in throwing himself in to this comic maelstrom. In one scene, he is asked to question Carr (played by the brilliant Colin Hoult) in connection with Tonioli’s murder, and seeing his befuddlement as Hoult rebuts every question with Carr’s maniacal laugh is a thing of joy. Later, Laing is sent undercover to infiltrate the One Direction gang with Sleet in his earpiece directing the operation. The set-up is redolent of Ant and Dec’s segment where they instruct a celebrity to say stupid things; only it is funnier here because the celeb has to play within the confines of character and narrative. Witnessing Laing take some of Davis’ direction whilst adding his own ad-libs is wonderful and means you get an insight into his humour too. Ironically then there are times when the celebrity gets the best lines with Davis the comedian feeding the set-ups. Controlling this anarchy isn't easy and Davis' stage management deserves acclaim; frankly he puppeteers the shit out of things, holding the strings firmly, though never tautly, giving the celeb a false feeling of freedom.

Laing goes undercover.

Another lovely part of the programme is how the far-fetched events collapse into corpsing. Laing in episode 1 and DJ Greg James in episode 2 are so thrown by their situation that they’re often rendered hysterical. What makes it funnier is seeing how the hired actors respond to the opposing wet cheeks. It’s worth stating that it’s not just the improvisation that had me: the scripted lines are brilliant too. Davis’ Sleet plays his character in the genre of film noir but undercuts it with anachronistic profanity: (“I eat crime. I drink justice and I shit myself.”) Fans of Matt Berry’s Toast and Will Ferrell’s Anchorman will find much to enjoy in this bathetic creation.

I guess you can tell I’m smitten by the show. I loved the whole giddy mess of it. At a time when a lot of comedy is anodyne, commissioners who take risks on shows such as this deserve credit. Let’s hope the BBC continues to take creative risks like this for years to come, whatever form the corporation takes under a new government.

Happy Valley

This week I've been watching Happy Valley.

A smackhead angry over his girlfriend’s adultery sits on a slide ready to set himself on fire. A female police officer strides over, fire extinguisher in hand, hoping to put out the situation. With the crisis negotiator miles away she is the only thing coming between this man and immolation. Her introduction to the trouble starter is also an introduction to us the viewer:

“I’m Catherine by the way. I’m 47. I’m divorced. I live with my sister who is a recovering heroin addict. I’ve got two grown up children. One dead. One I don’t speak to. And a grandson.”

Lancashire is brilliant as Catherine Cathwood

This ‘cold opening’ segues into the rattle and rasp of Jake Bugg’s title music, Troubled Town. Accompanied with images of foreboding tower blocks, battered caravans and polluted canals, the song sings of escaping small town poverty, foreshadowing the drama to follow.

Happy Valley aired on television last year and because it is up for BAFTA's this week is being repeated on BBC3. I’m now three episodes in to the drama and am loving it. Sally Wainwright, the writer of the show, has previous in writing crime drama, having written long-running detective show, Scott and Bailey. Although that show got regular viewers, Valley is the more critically acclaimed of the two, topping a plethora of end of year polls. It’s easy to see why.  In Catherine Cawood Wainwright has created a character that resonates with viewers.

Writer, producer and director Sally Wainwright

Catherine Cawood, played by the brilliant Sarah Lancashire, is the heartbeat of the unfolding drama. Despite suffering the inhumanity of losing her daughter to rape and subsequent suicide, she maintains her humanity, tending to and serving her dysfunctional community. You see, Happy Valley’s title is ironical: a more appropriate name would be Unhappy Malaise, given how the characters are imprisoned by debt, drugs and dreams. With the dust pan and brush of the law, it falls on Catherine's team to clean up the fallout of austerity Britain.

One such dreamer is Kevin Weatherill, an accountant at an industrial refrigerator company. He wants a pay rise to help fund his bright daughter’s private education. For years he has worked hard in the company and is therefore hopeful he’ll secure the money. His boss Nevison Gallagher doesn’t see it that way. Yes, Kev has worked hard but if he gives a pay rise to one then he has to give a pay rise to all. What then would come of my profit? says the broken capitalist record.

Kev going cap in hand.

Like a character from an Orwell novel, Kev walks away embittered, aware his prayers to the money-God will never be answered. Hope arrives in an unusual form though. Ashley Cowgill, who Kev knows as a caravan park owner, turns out to be a bit of a crook. Aware he’ll never obtain money fairly, Kev enters into a Faustian pact with Joe telling him about Nev’s wealth and how kidnapping his daughter would allow them to get to it. The little league criminals soon find out the big time crime of kidnap isn’t as easy as they thought, and with Catherine sniffing there’s a chance everyone’s fingers may get burnt.

The programme is up for two BAFTA’s on Sunday for Drama Series and Best Actress. Like I said, I’m only three episodes in, but from what I’ve seen I believe it deserves to win both. Wainwright’s writing is terse and fluid, always moving the plot forward; Lancashire’s acting is pitch-perfect, a long way from the cobbled streets of former home Coronation Street. More than that though, her character's show of compassion to the disadvantaged is inspiring. With this election result, we must use these types of characters as totems, as reminders, that society is important and worth fighting for.

 Happy Valley is on BBC 3, Saturday at 10pm. You can watch previous episodes by typing Happy Valley Episodes into Google,