Kiri

A few years ago I wrote about the comedy writer Stefan Golaszewski, the word processor behind the superlative Him and Her and, soon to be returning, Mum. I wanted to highlight his contribution to television because so often writers get a bum deal when it comes to acclaim. Too often it's actors who gain the plaudits, whilst the people behind their movies are forgotten. We all know Gary Oldman is favourite to win Best Actor at the Oscars, but do we know the frontrunner for Best Screenplay? I think we have a tendency to put actors on a pedestal, assuming them with mythic status, where they appear divine creators, solely responsible for their work. The truth is actors just learn a lot of things and regurgitate them. In that regards, actors are nothing more than Michael Gove's wet dream.

In all honesty, the writers wouldn’t have it any other way. By their very nature they are quiet sorts: happier at home than in front of cameras. Theirs is an ideal form of celebrity where people within the industry appreciate their talent, but people from outside wouldn't recognise them from Adam. Fortunately, this blog is a cult concern, so I don’t think they will mind me shining a spotlight on them.

The writer I want to talk about is Jack Thorne. I first heard about Thorne when he collaborated with Shane Meadows on the continuation of This Is England. Set post-Falklands, the 2006 film said so much about the experience of being white-working class in the 80's. Main character Shaun has lost his father to the conflict, leaving him isolated and directionless. It isn’t long before he's caught in two rival gangs emotional tug-of-war: on one side, banter and camaraderie; on the other, nationalism and rage. Enjoying box-office success, Meadows wrote a series of television follow-ups, employing Thorne to co-write.

This is England. Pic. courtesy of Kodiapps.

A few years ago I was up in Edinburgh for the Fringe: aware of Thorne’s TV credit, I booked us into see his play The Solid Life of Sugar Water. On the stage was a bed, positioned vertically for the performers to stand/lie in. Featuring disabled performers, the story was about a couple struggling to find intimacy following their child's death. Here, Thorne did not look to Zeus for inspiration, but Hades. Pulling to the surface those underworld emotions of pain and resentment, the play was pin-drop mesmerising, tackling a difficult subject with brain and bile.

From there, Thorne has continue to write his own plays, centring on issues of fertility (he and his wife went through years of IVF) and illness (he has been diagnosed with cholinergic urticaria, a heat intolerance that leaves the sufferer with itchy red hives). What he’s perhaps known for though are his adaptations: J.K. Rowling collaborated with him on West-End smash Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and he recently co-wrote the screenplay to cash-register juggernaut Wonder. The works I know him for though are his Channel 4 work on This is England, National Treasure and now, Kiri.

Jack Thorne. Pic. courtesy of Variety.

Kiri is the story of the titular, whose death creates a media storm. She is a young black girl put into the foster care of a middle-class white family. Her social worker Miriam recognises the importance of the child’s cultural heritage. A firm advocate of this, she brokers a visitation agreement between white parents and black grandparents. Kiri’s grandparents are upstanding people; the issue always has been with the father, a drug addict that puts her at risk. During the visit, the father turns up and takes Kiri out for a walk. The next time we see her she’s dead. It seems an open and shut case. The black man is the murderer. The social worker has messed up. We’ve read these two separate narratives in the press before; conflating the two just seems to confirm the stereotype. Thorne though is a knotty writer, skeptical of Daily Mail truth-bending, indebted instead to broadsheet fact-checking, observing the story from every angle.

 With the story taking unexpected turns, the viewer is being taught to consider prejudice: to understand that all people’s lives are messy, regardless of their income or home. Having mixed-race writer Rachel De-Lahay on board must have helped Thorne because the representation of black and white is nuanced with both sides displaying vice and virtue. Good drama should get beyond the headlines, be investigative, probe motive, question character – this does that. Typically race and social services are piñatas for the press, issues to beat, yielding readers – here, it’s a game of Taboo, denying quick answers in favour of measured thinking. The fact I was on tenterhooks for the final episode means it's thoroughly engrossing too.

Kiri is available on 4OD. 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Ladies and gentleman, Oscar season is among us. The time of year when superhero movies hang up their cape and don their slacks; where profit-bellied sequels vacation around the Med; where art house pictures shrug their shoulders and embrace ennui. For me, it’s the best of times.

I was never a film buff during my adolescence. I’d mainly go and watch comedies that involved a group of men attempting to lose their virginity, where hilarious consequences would then ensue. I don’t think I went to watch a drama in the cinema until I went to university. Whenever The Oscars came round I was always surprised as to why Stifler never featured in the Best Actor category and confused by Road Trip’s omission from Best Picture. The Oscar’s was a lot of actors I’d heard of in a lot of films I hadn’t.

I used to watch this kind of thing.

At university I was surrounded by people that actually went to the cinema to watch films - as opposed to hang out on a Friday night. I was now watching films that didn’t have hilarious consequences, instead cataclysmic ones of death, heartache and violence. Initially, I would turn to my mates and ask: “Why are these characters all aged over 21? Where is the guy who wants to lose his virginity?” In time though I came to realise that movies weren’t just about guys putting their penises in baked goods, they could be about falling in love or escaping from aliens – you know, everyday human problems.

Today, I go the cinema much more informed than my teenage self. I won’t settle for anything anymore. I want my brain watered, my heart fed – anything less is simply not good enough. But how do you know what course to plot? There’s so many film releases. Since listening to the Kermode and May Film Review Show, I rarely see a bad film. The man knows his stuff. If The Good Doctor prescribes something, then I don’t take a second opinion. I’m not like Michael Gove: I trust experts and am happy to do what they tell me. Yes, it may make me a cultural sheep, incapable of treading my own path; but it also means I get to watch films that defibrillate my heart, jump-start my soul, crane-lift my mind.

The best podcast going.

This week The Girl and I went to watch a Kermode and Mayo film of the week, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Ever since I read early reviews in October, I’d been excited about watching it. For one, it’s by the writer Martin McDonagh. McDonagh penned and directed my all-time favourite film In Bruges: a black comedy about two hitmen holed up in the titular, following a mistake at work. He also wrote Hangmen, a play that my brother and I went to see last year; again a black comedy, this time focusing on the rivalry between Harry Allen and Albert Pierrepoint, the last of the ‘great’ executioners. Hitmen and hangmen don’t sound like the stuff comedy is made of, but McDonagh imbues his dark material with high-risk levity. From near-the-knuckle humour to devastating pathos, all of his work turns on a dime. He is the showman auteur, a directorial Evel Knivel, taking you from look-through-hands anxiety to relief-of-heart laughter. Only his second film Seven Psychopaths missed the jump.

Three Billboards… and Lady Bird are the frontrunners for this year’s Oscars. Already, Billboards has cleared up at The Golden Globes, taking home four gongs in screenwriting, picture and acting categories. The fact it has achieved this by in no way resembling Oscar-bait is somewhat remarkable.

Lady Bird (left) and Three Billboards (right).

The film centres on Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a woman who has lost a daughter to a heinous crime. On driving down a mountain road, she notes three billboards out of commission; this gets her a-thinking. Soon these structures read: "HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?" "AND STILL NO ARRESTS?" and “RAPED WHILE DYING.” Hayes is a woman on a mission. She has waited months for answers from the police- none have been forthcoming. These billboard then are a middle fingered cry for help. Understandably, the police are pissed. Willoughby has worked tirelessly on the case, trying desperately to find a DNA match, all to no avail.

“You could pull blood from every man and boy in this town over eight,” Mildred suggests. 

Willoughby: “There’s civil rights laws that prevent that.”

How about country? How about a database of everyone’s blood from birth? Willoughby knows there’s definitely civil rights laws against that.

Mildred and Willoughby.

Mildred isn’t interested in laws anymore. The law didn’t protect her daughter. The law didn’t find her killer. The law is an ass. She determined to take it into her own hands. The outlaw against the authorities is a Western trope, and it’s evident here. It being the 21^st Century, however, the West is not what it used to be: guns are no longer kept in holsters, but at home; barroom brawls have been moved out of the saloon into the kitchen; the horse has become a Prius. Theirs is a closed-door kind of violence. Mildred, however, is determined to remind people it's here in the open.

She is the cowboy without the gun. The Man With No Name without the poncho. Literally and figuratively, she’s going to kick down those police doors until the killer is found, fried. Throughout the whole film McDormand wears a blue jumpsuit: McDonagh described this in an interview as ‘her uniform’ as ‘she’s going to war.’ It’s easy to see why McDormand is the out and out favourite for Best Actress, given how Mildred possesses her so completely. Oscars are typically given to actors for transformative roles where they affect disability or play fancy dress with historical figures, what’s special about McDormand’s portrayal is that it’s nuanced without show. She modifies her walk a little to resemble John Wayne; her eyes, in a blink, move from a thousand yard stare to close quarter intimacy; a shoulder shift shows recovery from breakdown. It’s a performance of devastating accuracy: a woman whose humanity has been carjacked by grief, installing itself in the driver’s seat, taking her to places that ain't pretty.

Frances McDormand is a tour-de-force.

If Mildred is the ‘hero’ of the piece, then her antagonists are Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). Even though Willoughby hasn’t caught the killer, he’s not a feckless cop. The fact he has pancreatic cancer too means we’re in a Western where we sympathise with the authorities – not a typical occurrence. Harrelson has never been better than this role, ensuring he characterises dignity against Mildred’s messy grief. The letters he later reads will stay with you as exercises in haunting beauty. Rockwell’s Nixon is a different entity altogether. He is a thick-as-shit racist cop that doesn't know arse from elbow. Living with his momma, he doesn’t think for himself – or anyone else for that matter. Criticism has been levelled at McDonagh for where he takes Dixon, but I would argue it’s testament to Rockwell’s acting that we believe in the character’s shift. This isn’t an old Western – goodies vs baddies – this is modern: blurred lines, grey areas and ambiguity: where a good woman can kick a teenage girl in the fanny, and a bad man can risk all for justice. If you have a problem with a racist man doing good things, then in my eyes you’re a strange kind of liberal. Redemption should be for everyone, even the worst society has to offer.

Rockwell (right) is tipped for Best Supporting Actor.

And what about McDonagh’s trademark black comedy? Boy, is it here. After coming out of the cinema, I wrote notes on my phone for this blog. Here’s what I wrote: ‘We won’t have cunts thrown around in this house.” Joke about dentists. Persons of colour torturing business. Priests. Midgets. Cancer joke.  The style of the jokes range from surreal to satirical; despite seeming non-PC, they’re always from a good place: a case of bad words doing noble things.

If Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri needs any advertising of its own, then I would add: “GO SEE THIS FILM NOW.”  “IT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH ONE MINUTE.” “AND CRY THE NEXT.” What more could you ask for?

Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri is out now.

Poetic off Licence

About a year ago I listened to a Radio 4 show presented by the sometimes stand-up and poet Kevin Eldon. In the documentary he was looking at the intersection between comedy and poetry, interviewing fans and exponents of the form.

I’d heard of most of the performers before.  John Cooper Clarke- a personal favourite- was one of them: he reminisced about his days supporting bands, providing audiences with couplets before punk acts brought the noise. Eldon himself featured in his guise as the character Paul Hamilton, a jumper-over-the-neck pretension machine, who plays all the right words- but not necessarily in the right order. Further, it featured Tim Key, a comic who delivers daft comedy as high drama.

An artist I’d never heard of though was Hovis Presley. The three-hour programme featured an archived documentary about him narrated by Radio 6 DJ Mark Radcliffe. Hovis Presley was born Richard McFarlane in 1960’s Bolton. Shy from a young age, he had to be cajoled by teachers to perform his sketches (he only did so when they acquiesced to his request for five Curly Wurlys). After travelling the world and doing itinerant jobs he plied his trade on the North-West comedy scene where he rubbed shoulders with Peter Kay, Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas and John Shuttleworth (of which, he would go on to later tour with). In 1997 he garnered five-star reviews for his Edinburgh show Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Hat, but instead of the success encouraging him, it deterred him and he cancelled his show mid-run. 

Experiencing his career zenith and nadir in the same year took his toll, so much so Presley never strayed far from home again. Instead he threw his energy into others, teaching a Drama course at Salford University, where he used his contacts to help his students find gigs. His was a parochial form of celebrity, one where his poems were read in Salford Registry Office; where his hardwork rejuvenated the local arts scene. On June 9^tth 2004 he suffered a heart attack, meaning his contemporaries mourned the passing of that rare thing: brilliance without ego.

So let me tell you about some of his poems. For ages since hearing the documentary I’ve kept my eye out for his only published collection Poetic off Licence; however, it has always been out of my price range. With not many copies available, they go for £60 - £100 on the Internet. Last week I thought I would try searching again; fortunately, I managed to find a small publisher ‘Flapjack Press’ that did it for less than the King’s ransom (£8). Going from just being able to read his romantic ode ‘I rely on you’ to enjoying his complete works was wonderful.

‘I rely on you’ is available on Presley’s website. If it didn’t have 70's period references it would be a reading at my wedding. Here’s some lines for you to enjoy:

I rely on you
like a handyman needs pliers
like an auctioneer needs buyers
like a laundromat needs driers
like The Good Life needed Richard Briers
I rely on you

It is from the John Cooper Clarke school: using everyday items to say something about love. The word ‘rely’ on first sight mightn’t appear romantic, but it's actually very apt. For love isn’t always kisses and valentines; sometimes it’s bad days and bosses. Having someone secure and strong to protect you from life’s buffeting winds is not just helpful, but vital. That juxtaposition of the extended Richard Briers line with the pithy ‘I rely on you’ is pretty special.

You might now be beginning to understand why Richard McFarlane’s stage name was Hovis Presley. Hovis is a brand synonymous with the homely north; Presley of worldwide superstardom. It’s these incongruities and juxtapositions where Presley’s finds his humour. Take two of his other poems, ‘I wondered as lonely as an insurance salesman’ and ‘The winter of my quiet content.’ The first title is a play on Wordsworth’s ‘I wondered as lonely as a cloud’; the second Shakespeare’s Richard III’s ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ Now have a look at some of the lines and see the laughs you get when you cross English heritage sites with comic gunpowder. We’ll look at the lines on the salesman first:

hope is hibernating

optimism’s flying south

I wouldn’t know a gift house

If it kissed me in the mouth.

These are just a few lines from the poem, however here you find a mercurial mind at work. Essentially, the poem is a comic rendering of Miller’s Death of a Salesman: a poor fellar surrendering his dignity to the money-god. The idiom ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’ is made all the more tragic by our speaker's inability to recognise it, even if it planted a smacker on him. The alliterative opening, metaphorical middle and Englishness ending reveal a master craftsman at play.

'The winter....’ is maybe my favourite. I’ll put the whole poem here for your enjoyment:

the bedroom’s cold

the blanket’s hot

the wind’s getting up

but I’m not

now is the winter of my quiet content.

Presley has subverted the high-stakes opening to Shakespeare’s play by ignoring its political machinations, setting it instead in the domestic home. Our speaker has bared his bottom to the sub-zero, won the battle with January’s frost, by finding a warm spot in his bed and forgetting the world outside. Again, look at the wind 'getting up’ – it’s this English phrase that allows him to literalise it in the forth line. At the end Presley plays vicar: his half-pun marrying high art and laughs in happy union.

If you smile at the title Poetic off Licence then you’ll love this book. So get down to ‘Flapjack Press,’ put some money behind the bar and have a jar of this northern male.

Poetic off Licence is available at http://www.flapjackpress.co.uk/page3.htm