A Man Called Ove and Sex Education

Comedy is a broad church. It accepts the surreal, the slapstick, the cerebral, the visceral, the crude, the wholesome, the nonsensical and the philosophical. People get very angry about comedy in the way they don’t about drama. A viewer can sit through an hour of disappointing drama and chalk it up to bad luck. The same viewer can sit through a shorter comedy show and become incensed when they don’t laugh immediately. They forget that comedy is a broad church; that the laughs come in different forms; that people’s experiences might make them more susceptible to some jokes than others. It’s the reason why some people walk out of award-winning Edinburgh shows declaring ‘that’s not funny;’ when what they really mean is, ‘it’s not my type of humour.’

In my mind the best thing to be is to be open to laughter from all directions. I know the type of humour I like best is the profound and philosophical, humour that gets to the bone of people and institutions. However, I also enjoy watching a grown man trying - and failing - to throw a pen behind the ear. (See Tim Vine). The reason I’m ruminating on comedy is because this week I’ve loved two very different ones: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, and the Netflix series Sex Education. The first features an elderly curmudgeon in the title role; the second a coterie of young people, all united under one banner: sex.

A Man Called Ove was a publishing sensation in Sweden where nine hundred thousand copies were sold (that’s one in ten households). Initially, success didn't translate. The book proved a slow burner in the US until word of mouth spread like wild fire; soon the Scandi novel had engulfed all competitors, becoming a New York Times bestseller. From there, a Swedish film was made and soon, with Tom Hanks on board, an American one will follow.  In terms of the book though, its origins lay in blog form. The author Fredrik Backman wrote regularly about life’s irritations. These pieces took the form of humorous rants, whereby he would pour scorn on people and institutions that had crossed him. This young person’s blog would go on to be funneled through a novel, arriving at A Man Called Ove.

It’s easy to see why Backman chose to use an old character as his mouthpiece: after all, it’s much more endearing to see an elderly person railing at the world than it is to a young person. We consider it just the elderly moan, since they're the generation who made do and mend, who saved and sacrificed. They were not born into a time of unlimited choice (of career, of holidays, of breakfast cereals) - they liked what they liked because that was all there was to like.

After the first chapter, the story begins in earnest with Ove surveying his principality. He’s checking to see no one has parked in a signed area, no dog has pissed on the paving and no one has fucked up the recycling – only an arsehole would put a metal lid in with glass jars. Ove then is a man who likes things just so. His first car was a Saab. And his last car will be too. He has routines to follow, standards to fulfil, expectations to adhere to. It’s important to do things well whatever it is, to rely on no one but yourself, and treat your home with respect. Anyone who doesn’t conform to these exacting ideals are sure to get the raised eye brow treatment.

Over the course of the book, Backman peels back the frown lines to reveal the younger man that once was. When we flashback in time to Ove’s early life, we witness a world of sorrow and pain that has made him the man he is. For all his modern-day grumpiness, goodness remains. When a trailer reverses into his letterbox Ove admittedly goes postal; soon, however, he’s helping the incompetent negotiate off his drive. Parvaneh, the Iranian immigrant who occupies the passenger seat, will go on to show Ove that not all good things come from Sweden, that some wonderful things can be manufactured abroad, that not everyone has to be a Saab.

I appreciate from my description that this all sounds whimsical and melancholic, but let me leave the first half of this comedy special with some lines from Backman’s novel.

On Ove: ‘He’s the kind of man who points at people he doesn’t like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman’s torch.’

On Ove denying an idiot a parking space: ‘He stepped out of the Saab triumphantly, like a gladiator who had just slain an opponent.’

On Ove being told his card isn’t working: ‘Ove looked as if the man behind the Plexiglas had just raised the possibility of Ove having erectile dysfunction.’

Look at the richness of those metaphors, similes and analogies. The comparisons are so vivid and hilarious that they elevate life’s minor victories and failures into huge triumphs and tragedies. There are more wonderful examples peppered throughout the book - huge praise must go to Henning Kock for translating them so well.

'Don't turn your back on the old' might be the message of the book.

And now for something completely different.

Sex Education isn’t a programme that Ove would watch. If he were to turn it on, ‘hell’ and ‘handcart’ might comprise his reaction. It isn’t wry or droll. It’s uproarious, rambunctious fun. Creator Laurie Nunn comes out the traps early, establishing the sex comedy through – well – sex. Two sixth-formers are racing towards the finish with the girl beckoning her boyfriend to get behind her as they head into the final furlong; unfortunately, with the end in sight the jockey dismounts before finishing. Both leave feeling unsatisfied. In another bedroom across town someone else seeks satisfaction- only alone in their room. This juxtaposition serves to establish the main character. As whilst Otis sits in Virgin, his classmates are out back, otherwise engaged, locked in toilet trysts.  Otis is the classical hero of all teen comedies: a male geek in want of sexual fulfilment. We’ve seen it all before, but here it feels different.

Otis (Asa Butterfield)

Sure Sex Education shares in its gross-out moments of American Pie and Superbad; yes, it has the cruel nicknames and mean boy banter of The Inbetweeners, yet it achieves something richer and kinder along the way. You see, Otis is the child of Jean, a sex therapist played by Gillian Anderson. Through his mother’s openness, he knows all there is to know about sex: the mechanics, the biology, the psychology – he just doesn’t know how to put practice into practise. He’s passed his theory in flying colours yet can’t bring himself to take the practical. He’s less Otis Redding, more Otis Reading.

His knowledge of the challenges of sex though will come in handy, as later in the episode he finds himself in a position where he can dispense advice to a patient. Adam who we met at the beginning of the episode has got himself into a predicament. A bully in school, he has no problem in playing the hard man. The trouble lies in the bedroom, where his penis doesn’t stand to attention, rather surrender to anxiety. To remedy this, he’s taken his dad’s Viagra. The trouble is he’s taken so much he can’t move. Otis questions why he’s felt the need to do this. Adam opens up about his performance fears. Maeve, a pink haired outlier in high school conformity, looks on impressed. In fact, she’s so impressed she begins to see pound signs. Soon her and Otis are in business. Their clients will be the students. Their product? Sex therapy. What a business plan! Is there any demographic more thrilled and scared of sex than teenagers? Any age group that puts so much stress on it? At least adults have experience, so when things go wrong they chalk it up to an off day. For teenagers, a minor issue can feel insurmountable, how will it ever improve? What if I’m cursed? Worse, what if people talk? This is what Laurie Nunn has really tapped into: the fact that teenagers are more likely to need sex therapy than anyone.

Maeve, Otis and Adam (left to right). Pic. courtesy Jon Hall/Netflix

It being sex, there are embarrassing moments. It being sex, these are often hilarious. People walk in when they shouldn’t. Something goes up when it shouldn't. Words are said out loud when they shouldn't. For all of the bedroom shenanigans though, the best moments are the most private of all: where you see teenage vulnerability. Without falling into the trap of Skins and becoming too issue-led, Sex Education manages to weave in narratives on slut-shaming, homophobia and abortion. The skill is that it doesn’t feel preachy or jarring against the mischief; it feels very real.

Two comedies then. Sex Education and A Man Called Ove. Completely different, focusing on very different lives, but both revelatory in a way. Both shine a light on the challenges of life, whether it be young or old. And that’s what good comedy can do: make you laugh with lives unlike your own, to see that everyone is scrabbling along, struggling to look like they’ve got their shit together, when in fact we’re all idiots making a right cock of things.        

A Man Called Ove is available from all good bookshops.

Sex Education is available on Netflix.

Stag! Stag! Stag!

Brothers, I will drink my fill with my brothers,
And if one of us is ill then my brothers will watch over me.

(Hot Chip, Brothers)

Manchester, Oh so much to answer for.

(The Smiths, Suffer Little Children)

___________________________________________________

Tradition dictates that a man in want of a wife must have a stag do. Now a stag do can go two ways: it can be just what the prospective groom wants, or just what he doesn’t want. Fortunately, my brother has forgiven me for being an irritating little bastard as a child and chose to organise the former.

He said, ‘Where do you want to go?’

I replied, ‘Manchester.’

He said, ‘What do you want to do?’

I said, ‘I don’t want to do anything physical.’

He said, ‘Crazy golf?’

I said, ‘Defo.’

He said, ‘Where do you want to end the night?’

I said, ‘Indie disco.’

He said, ‘Should I pack invisible gladioli?’

I said, ‘Yes. Bring a bunch. I’ll do the rest.’

Some boys play air guitar. I play air gladioli.

So we were off to Manchester, home to Factory, Fergie, parkas, rain and simian approaches to walking. I’d always wanted to go to there; it’s where The Smiths are from, my all-time favourite band. 80’s Morrissey remains my hero: melancholic, literate, hilarious – there will never be a better pop star. (A shame he hasn’t aged like a fine wine, today resembling a fine dickhead.) I knew the other boys would appreciate Manchester too: new fathers, they would jump at the opportunity to abscond for a short time, but I was aware as decent men they would want to get back too. Two hours on the train and we'd be there. 24 hours and we'd be home. This wasn’t going to be a stag weekend. It would be a stag day. All Killa No Filla to quote a Sum 41 album. We would be on it like an Austen bonnet, then back to residence for tea and aspirin.

The day started with me up bright and early; Liam and me meeting outside Aldi to board the bus. (Dunstable has a busway, which is the finest example of town planning since the pedestrianisation of Norwich City Centre; consequently we were at the station in ten minutes.) Getting the train, we head to Kings Cross, where we made the short walk to Euston. Greeting us at the station was my brother. Soon the other boys arrived, meaning we could make like Tolkien characters on an expected journey. We were only missing one. Scott. It had gone nine and the train was in quarter of an hour. I left a message. I left a missed call. Still no reply. ‘We’ll have to go without him.’ (Kieran said this a little quickly, if you ask me Scott.) And I said, ‘I guess we’ll have to.’ (Notice the word ‘guess’ there, Scott. It suggests a sad reluctance.) Then Scott rang and said he was on the motorway and was never intending getting the train. This is what happens when you try to organise a group of boys.

For the train my brother got some beers in. Usually I have a rule where I don’t drink before 12, unless I really want to, and then I just move my watch forward, making it perfectly acceptable; but this a stag so I broke with protocol and drank ante meridiem Budweisers – delicious. Jonnie and me spoke about work for ten minutes, realised what we were doing, corrected ourselves, then talked about music and comedy for two hours – this is the right ratio for life. It was 11.40. We had arrived.

Golf was booked for 12.30 so we needed to get moving. Kieran had checked us into the Ibis Budget Hotel, a 5 star spa retreat, priced at £40 a night. It surprised me, actually. The downstairs foyer was like an Apple Genius Bar: clinically white with free croissants. (I think they were free, otherwise Ant has to hope the long arm of the law doesn’t stretch south). We organised who was bunking with whom. Kieran said it was tradition for the best man and groom to share. I know the subtext of this was, ‘I miss the chats we used to have when we were little. You know when we had the bunk beds, and after mum had read us some Dahl, we would talk to the early hours of the morning about what football boots we would buy next; whether those Predator ones really could bend the ball like a banana, turning incompetent players like us into world stars. I miss that conversation before closed eyes. You were wise before your years; funny before you’d even watched classic comedies. Those were the best days of my life.’ So yeah, I know the real reason you wanted to share, brother.

We then got the tram to Deansgate and ran across the tracks to Junk Yard Golf. The golf was brilliant. More and more of these places are popping up in cities. The Girl and I like Swingers in London, which has a 1920’s, white-picket Gatsby feel; this one had a bit more grit and industry. We got a couple of cans of Red Stripe from the bar and made our way round the nine holes. There were some cracking holes: one involved hitting it through Del Boy’s Reliant Robin, another had a Mouse Trap feel with different coloured holes leading to colour shoots that would then take it towards the hole. It was great. A bit of friendly competition, a chat, a drink: what more can you want?

After, we had a break and went round the other course, which had more of a carnival theme with a hall of mirror, Ferris wheel and clown’s mouth. By this point, it was 2 o’clock and I’d already had five pints. Typically, I don't have five pints by this time. Sure, four pints, but never five. I find the fifth one makes teaching period 5 difficult. It means my transitions between activities are a little slower and I’m at risk of clattering into students, sending them sprawling to the ground; so I always refrain from the fifth one during lunch. Often, I’ll give it to a colleague who has a free period.

With the golf scores added up, the winners were declared. Jonnie, who was a former golfing star, did not place highly, proving one of two things: either there’s no skill in crazy golf, or he’s squandered his talent, the Gazza of the fairways, destined to wonder where it had all gone wrong. I came third on both occasions, suggesting unremarkable consistency, a quality I hope to take into my marriage.

Junk Yard Golf.

It was then off to City Road Inn for pie, mash and beer. I should go on record and say that the pie and mash in that place was brilliant. Normally, I’m happy to talk at length about things that do not really matter, and I apologise boys it was remiss of me to not deliver a monologue on the chef’s skill at balancing pastry and filling. I think the reason I didn’t soliloquise on the food was because I was too busy enjoying the chat. Chat here mainly centred on criminal records. I’m going to leave it at that – all I will say is that I was the one listening to the stories, as opposed to telling them. I’m no jailbird.

Up next was the micro-brewery in what appeared to be an industrial estate. By this point I’d lost all geography, I didn’t really know who I was or where I was going. I was actually beginning to regret the fact that I hadn’t asked my mum to sew in my name and give me a card with my home address, should I find myself lost. The brewery was the first time someone treated me like a groom, and by that I mean paying no respect for my physical well-being. Dec bought me a beer that was 11%. Typically, the beer I drink is around 4%. 2% was enough to decide whether Britain should leave the EU; 7% was enough for my head to leave its senses and exit all reason and logic.

I was then bundled into the back of a taxi and taken to the hotel. Fortunately, a hot shower seemed to revive me and made me remember my name and why I was in Manchester. It was time for fancy dress. Originally, I told my brother to forget costumes. Then, I thought, ‘Actually, we might be able to make it fun.’ All the boys, other than Ant are massive comedy fans, (the last TV Ant watched was the fall of the Berlin Wall) so I decided on ‘Comedy Characters’ as the theme. Being brown makes it difficult. There aren’t many brown characters. There’s Apu, but there’s controversy around a white actor voicing him currently, and I didn’t want to defend my costume choice whilst being completely leathered – I felt my argument could lack nuance. It was therefore decided I would be Ali G: Baron Cohen and me share a similar skin tone and comedic genius. I have to say my costume was pretty booyakasha. Other lads who did a great job were Dec as Partridge and JP as Duff Man, but the real winner was Andy as Father Ted. His wig fit him so well that it really did feel that we’d resurrected Dermot Morgan.

On the way to the restaurant I somehow saw it fit to lampoon the other boys’ costume. Apparently Jim had let himself down by not having a proton pack; Liam disappointed by forgetting a sheep skin; Kieran’s wig was ‘too Elton John’ and JP’s was ‘too good and not shit enough.’ I was like RuPaul, pouring catty scorn on all comers. I loved them for it though. There’s nothing better than seeing fancy dress done nearly right. Scott, for example, was Ron Burgundy but didn’t have the wig, as a result he looked like a hipster sailor that had put a red sock in with his whites. Manchester seemed to enjoy us anyway. I got "Ali G" shouted at me a lot. I raised my dollar rings in gangsta salute. The people smiled. I smiled. We all smiled. In a complex world, sometimes you just want to see a grown man looking ridiculous.

Nearly getting it right: Liam as Del Boy/Peaky Blinder and Kieran as Austin Powers/Elton John.

We were then in Turtle Bay. The only people in a fine eatery in fancy dress. For a fancy restaurant, you would expect other patrons to wear fancy dress too. As it was we were the only ones who made an effort. The Caribbean food was delicious. I mean, I was having a good day with my mates and that. And sure, they’ve been the ones who I’ve shared triumphs and disasters with. But what was most important about today was that I had had a Leon breakfast, a pie and mash lunch, and lovely Caribbean food. Normally, I eat out once a month. Today, I had eaten out three times in one day. And that’s the big memory I’ll take away.

I next found myself in a bar repeating the catchphrase, ‘I can’t drink anymore beer.’ I remember my tone sounding quite distressed at this point. I’d had about ten pints and I just couldn’t go on. Ant took sympathy on me and bought me a Jager Bomb. Which is a bit like giving a someone a ‘Ha! Ha!’ card at their mother’s funeral. In this life or next, Ant, I will find you and I will kill you. Fortunately, my brother noticed I was beginning to flag, gave me a pep talk, and got me out and into the nightclub.

42^nd Street is a club in Manchester that plays wall to wall indie anthems. When we arrived there was no one in there. I wondered if this club was so independent that it didn’t advertise and thought leaflets were for corporate whores. As it was, it was 9.30, too early to get going. Because get going it did. I waved my invisible gladioli to ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again,’ beat my chest to ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ and threw my limbs to ‘Babies.’ I got a bit over-zealous with my dancing at one point and sent my brother to the ground. I also remember asking my brother if he could sort it for me to stage dive across the dancefloor. I’ve said the same thing at a work’s Christmas Party before. I’m unsure why it appears to mean so much to me; but within my psyche there seems to be a primal need to do it. In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. I’d be worried about my wallet, phones and keys the whole time. Maybe, I could give these to a responsible adult before to ensure I didn’t lose them. Maybe all this talk about the administration of stage diving is why I shouldn’t do it and leave it instead to the reckless few that put fun before practical concerns.

Da Club.

Some of the boys went AWOL at this point. One who knew how to get home; one who didn’t. I was unaware of this and went looking for them. Yet with every turn I took I was set upon by bum fluff paps snapping me for their Insta. I felt like Kate Bush in an Ali G costume: desperate for privacy away from the world’s gaze. My brother grabbed me by the shell suit and took me and the other lads home. Luckily, the other two were there once we arrived.

In the morning we checked out and went for a breakfast in the themed Brexit pub called J.D Wetherspoons. I got up to make a toast but I didn’t have the strength or fluency to fashion a sentence. I sat back down. Andy clocked that I wanted to thank my brother and said, ‘Did you want to say anything?’ We raised our mugs and celebrated my brother for organising a great day. I didn’t have the words for a speech, so I’ll conclude this blog by writing what I wish I'd said:

Thank you for giving up your time, money and babies to be here. I’m lucky to know men whom I can talk to about comedy, about love. These, after all, are the two most important things in life. In particular, thank you to my brother who organised the whole thing. I’m very proud of you and the job you’re about to start. Even though you're flesh and bones and the one who's been there since the start; despite the fact the rest of you are johnny-come-lately’s, who only saw fit to befriend me once I could stand and talk; despite all of that, I consider each and every one you my brothers. A toast to 'brothers.'

Don McCullin: Looking for England

Trudging slowly over wet sand
Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
This is the coastal town
That they forgot to close down
Armageddon, come Armageddon!

(Morrissey, 'Everyday is Like Sunday')

 
I'm on fire
with desire-
I could handle half the tenors in a male voice choir.
Let's do it, let's do it tonight!

(Victoria Wood, 'Let's do it')

This town (town) is coming like a ghost town

All the clubs have been closed down

(The Specials, 'Ghost Town')

Now then Mardy Bum
I see your frown
And it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
And it goes off

(Arctic Monkeys, 'Mardy Bum')

England. Oh, England.

For some, England is a land of hope and glory, of special ones adorned along the balcony, crowds festooned below, flag in hand, celebrating their condescension. This version of England does not sing to me. The earlier lyrics do. England is a seaside in ruins, a bedroom farce directed by Victoria Wood, a ‘ghost town’ parliament chooses to ignore, a domestic skirmish of wits. Having a royal family belies our true character: we’re neither prim nor proper, we’re grim and dirty, bawdy raconteurs, scrabbling around in the muck, hoping to lift a drink, score a shag before the bell calls us home.

I’ve always been interested in Englishness. I studied it in my Literature degree, appraising Austen, Waugh, Tolkien, Fleming and Kureishi. You see, writers write our thinking. Whether it be novelists, playwrights or screenwriters, how we see ourselves owes much to them. The past notion of England was exceptionally white: country estate, bonnets and tails, tea and china, suppressed hearts, furtive glances. Over time it's become more colourful with Eastenders, Zadie Smith and Stormzy. There is more to the flag of St George than white skin and red cheeks, there's black and Asians too.

The Pride we have in this is fine, the Prejudice that comes with it is not.

Perhaps my fascination comes from the fact that I’m not seen as typically English. I have a Sri Lankan dad, brown skin and a surname that does not fit onto forms. I am not John Smith from Tunbridge Wells. However, despite feeling a kinship with Sri Lanka, I’m too ignorant to be allied with it. I don’t know the history, religion or language. I’ve only once felt the soil under my feet, two years ago for two weeks. My blood is Sri Lankan, but my heart is English. It’s composed of Smiths lyrics, punch-lines from classic comedies, the listing in the Radio Times. England for me is home.

Don McCullin is a photojournalist that is searching for England. He began his career sixty years ago, a few yards from his home in Islington. There, he took a picture that would change his life. Taking a break from menace, a local gang took recess in a gutted home. Like an inlay cover, McCullin positioned them and clicked them into posterity. The resulting photograph attracted the attention of The Observer and secured him a job travelling the length and breadth of the country, chronicling the land and its people. From there, he would go on to work in war zones from Vietnam to Lebanon, seeing atrocities that shocked him, but were all too common for locals. Today, his work is the subject of a retrospective in Tate Britain, and as part of the revival the BBC have asked him to re-trace the steps that led him to worldwide acclaim.

Guvnors in their Sunday Suits by Don McCullin

For McCullin to shoot the world, he first had to learn how to fire at cans. His back garden was the field of England: London’s East End, it’s gangs, homeless and racists; the industrial north with its slag heaps and billowing smoke; the seaside and its faded glamour. His black and white photographs were a stark reminder that the excitement and exuberance of the technicolour 60's had not reached everyone. With his apprenticeship served, McCullin went from kitchen-sink drama to horror cinematographer, projecting terrible images of foreign devastation onto our newspapers.

Although his reputation is as a war photographer, he feels his photos of home are as impressive as his abroad. The documentary Looking for England starts with him at Glyndebourne at an Opera Festival with a load of hooray henry’s. Coming from a working-class background, he feels a little out of place in this tuxedo world of loud opinions, but he reasons he must wear the uniform of the subject in order to blend in. The pictures he takes are rather wonderful and show that for all their rotten politics, toffs can be wonderfully eccentric. Serving as a juxtaposition, he then goes back to his childhood home, reminiscing on a hand to mouth existence made worse by his dad’s early death. McCullin said this terrible moment shaped his life and was the making of him. From there, he embeds himself in a countryside hunt, and later a city procession that has Muslim men beating their chests to commemorate Mohammed’s grandson. His odyssey ends in Scarborough where a man taps him on the shoulder announcing that he was McCullin’s subject fifty years earlier. He was the boy on the beach that kicked the ball that made the other child sprawl. It’s a beautiful moment and shows how empowering it can be for ordinary lives to be touched by art. Centuries ago only the landed rich would be framed into history, today any life can be made into an exhibition.

Pic. Don McCullin

The thing that gave me the biggest kick was seeing how much McCullin, aged eighty-three, loves his work. In a recent Guardian interview he described how ‘you’re totally captive to photography once it gets a grip of you,’ which is evident here. Despite his age, he’s up on walls, lampposts, crates trying to get the picture he craves. It’s apt that he takes a picture of a hunt because he’s like a hound. Once he gets a scent of something, he pursues it, dodging, darting between people, demanding his craving be sated; when he draws in he knows, they know, their life is in his hands - only in exceptional circumstances will he walk away - typically, he captures them, heart and soul. And this is what a photographer must do. You can’t be too nice, otherwise your editor won’t pay you. At the same time you have to know when the cost is too high, where no price paid will cover the guilt you’ll feel taking it.

Seeing McCullin reminded me of my dad. My dad has loved photography for years and now in his retirement is doing it more and more. Typically, my dad is mild-mannered, even-tempered, a picture of equanimity, but when he has a camera in hand he’ll charm anyone into giving him a photo. The vegetarian becomes a blood-hound, tracking human life, engorging them onto film. It’s given him a spring in his step and a summer to the soul – because importantly, you have to empathise and understand your subject to truly take them. I also love seeing the satisfaction a good photograph gives him. It’s that combination of technical smarts (framing, lighting, distance) and visceral pleasure- gut reaction- that make him feel really good about it. And when he e-mails the people of his photos, they feel their life has been validated, made worthy. For photography isn’t introspection, it’s going out into the world and showing a curiosity in a life that isn’t your own. It’s the understanding that you’re not the centre of the universe and making others, for a moment, the centre of it instead. Isn't that rather wonderful?

'Spitalfields Market,' by my dad.

Don McCullin’s Looking For England is on iPlayer. His exhibition is on at the Tate Britain until 6^th May.

My dad can be seen at Cassiobury Park taking pictures of birds on Thursdays.     

You

We are all stalkers. We’re all being stalked.

In 1948 George Orwell foretold a future where governments spy on citizens: the novel? 1984. They would be watched and monitored to ensure they didn’t do anything that opposed the regime. This surveillance state came with the euphemistic tagline, Big Brother is watching.  A cruel appropriation of a benign role. An older sibling is tasked with watching over the young, protecting them when challenges arise, responding to real problems, they don’t log every thought and action; for this is not protection, but invasion. In 2013 Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA, with it Orwell’s fiction was made real.

From 1984.

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window threw a dark light on cutesy ‘people watching.’ James Stewart plays Jeff, a photographer nursing a broken leg. His rear window faces onto a courtyard where he can see all the comings and goings of surrounding apartments. Soon he becomes obsessed with what he observes, transforming himself into a quasi-surveillance camera, training his binoculars into people’s living room, zooming in and out on their lives. Hitchcock it seemed was saying that spying wasn’t restricted to government agencies, everyone had the potential to snoop and pry on the lives of others. We all love hearing gossip about strangers; now, with tower block living we could watch it too.

Rear Window

In 1997 Channel 4 monetised Orwell’s nightmare and made a TV show out of it. A group of volunteers were put in a house where viewers could watch them every second, minute, hour and day. This was fine: they weren’t people; they were 'contestants.' This wasn’t life, but a 'game show.' Through the bars of my telebox, I watched the human zoo play out night after night. I was a voyeur peeping into the lives of strangers  - worryingly I felt no guilt doing it.

In the end people stopped watching.

Now we have social media, where everyone is invited into our lives. We’ve all made ourselves available for appraisal and censure. Yes, we might have privacy settings, padlocking our diaries from trespassers, but in all honesty how many of our ‘friends’ do we really know? And for those that don’t set their privacy, then potential employers, flatmates and dates can have evaluated you before you've even arrived. Today our first impression comes before we've even shaken hands - it happens online without us knowing. Orwell’s 1984 then has gone darker than even he imagined: the telescreens haven’t been forced into people’s homes, rather they’ve been welcomed in.

This brings me to You, a TV series developed by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble from the 2014 novel by Caroline Kepnes. The story follows Joe – or I should say – the story follows Beck, given that Joe is her stalker. Joe Goldberg is a bookshop manager who first spies Guinevere Beck when she comes into his store looking for a book. Like a criminal profiler, he measures her up, surmising correctly her occupation (student) and book taste (‘too sun-kissed for Stephen King’). They get talking when she asks for helping locating a Paula Fox novel. The badinage they exchange when reflecting on other customers is witty and low-key. Already there’s a frisson of attraction between the two: they’re both attractive, literate and snarky.

The source material.

In yesteryear people would research topics for a paper they had to hand in, now they put the hours into studying peers. At home Joe looks up Beck’s online profile and manages to ascertain where she’s from, what she’s studied and her relationship with friends and family. In the real world he only got her name and a whiff of character, whereas in the digital world he’s able to inhale her whole scent; in doing so he becomes intoxicated.

Soon he makes corporeal his virtual stalking. He inveigles his way into her home by watching from the street, and conducts field research by blending into crowds. If Joe were not so nice to his neighbour’s kid, we would find his behaviour entirely repellent. As it is, we shamefully root for him: an antihero, kicking against Beck’s high society friends, scoring a win for the everyman. The ingenious trick the creators play is for us to forget that Joe is a hypocrite. He mocks the vacuous world of hashtag and Insta yet spends most of his time online, seduced by the thing he hates. A moment from the show helps further my point. When asked about Don Quixote, Joe explains how it’s a tale of chivalry, a virtuous knight treating a woman right – it is not. It’s a book of madness where the protagonist has become so consumed by literature he's unable to separate artifice from reality. In Joe, we too misread a madman for a knight. Credit must go to the creators and actor Penn Badgley for executing this trick.

Joe and Beck.

As an English teacher I loved the references to literature in the show. Beck’s first name is Guinevere, a name that comes from the Arthurian legend. Even now people can’t decide whether the heroine of the medieval tale was virtuous or not – like you’ll find over the show with Beck. Beck’s friend has the surname Salinger, a famous recluse that people didn’t know much about- relevant? You'll see. There’s also allusions to L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series (if any of you have theories of how this connects, then I’ll be happy to hear them). I guess what I’m saying is for all the far-fetched plotting there’s real intelligence here, making for clever-dumb fun.

Halfway through You I’m excited to see how it all turns out. With 40 million viewers on Netflix, it seems many of you already have. 40 million people watching a man watch someone else: stalking has gone meta; Orwell turns in his grave; and I spend my Sunday afternoon celebrating it. Having worried about voyeurism, it seems the struggle is over. I have won the victory over myself. I love Big Brother.

Pink Floyd invoking Orwell.

You is available on Netflix.

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.