Richard Brooks
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Shane Meadows’s This Is England deservedly won the Best British Film award at the Baftas. His next project, Somers Town, which has just received its premiere at the Berlin film festival, takes its name from the rather run-down area of London beside St Pancras station.
The £500,000 budget for this 75-minute film about local kids comes from an unlikely source – Eurostar, whose trains run into St Pancras. The rail company says it funded the movie not for propaganda purposes, but to support something cultural.
So where will Somers Town get shown? In cinemas? On television? Or will it go straight to DVD? It would be nice to get a screen put up at the terminus for a showing. It would certainly give a new twist to the meaning of multi-platform distribution.
Banksy must by now have assumed the crown from Damien Hirst as the most PR-savvy artist in the universe. Of course, it is the mystery of not knowing who he is that drives his reputation and, significantly, ups his prices.
Earlier this month, Bonhams flogged some of his works, and more are up for grabs at an exhibition at the Andipa Gallery in London, from this week.
I, however, am beginning to wonder if one person could really have churned out so much in such a short space of time. Maybe Banksy is not one person, but a collective of clever urban dabblers. Anyway, one piece on sale at Andipa is the cover of a record sleeve he designed in 2000 for the Bristol band Onecut. On the back is a scribbled note to the producer: “Phil, here’s a sloppy bit of work for you.” At least Banksy recognised his limitations.
Two of Harold Pinter’s short plays, The Lover and The Collection, opened to very good reviews at the Comedy Theatre in London less than a month ago. Starring Gina McKee, Timothy West and Richard Coyle, they were originally written for television.
They are due to run until early May, but I would be surprised if they do. The theatre, though not large, is often less than half full. The trouble is that there have been so many Pinter revivals recently, including The Homecoming, now at the Almeida. At least the latter is a subsidised theatre, which can rely on its north London regulars and the sponsorship from Coutts. Maybe in theatreland, however, it is high time for a Pinteresque pause.
What’s the point of Jeremy Vine topping and tailing Panorama? His “I’m Jeremy Vine” intro seems increasingly like an unfunny take-off of Paul Whitehouse’s My Name Is Michael Caine sketch.
Each week, Vine stands outside Television Centre in his bright scarf and briefly tells us what is in the programme, before introducing another journalist’s report. At the end, Vine “tails” the show with a few words about next week’s Panorama. And how much is Vine paid for this?
Dear old Sister Wendy, the Carmelite nun turned art historian, has not graced our screens for years. But her life story is to be staged in a musical at the Hackney Empire. Wendy Beckett, as she is now known, has also just written a book on “preiconoclastic icons”, if that makes sense. Religious ones, I presume, not icons of the sleb sort.
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