The Guardian The New Review 02.09.2012

THE NEW REVIEW

Features | Reportage | Arts | Reviews | Plus Julie Burchill and 7-day TV listings

SUNDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2012

Th e Observer’s chief political Th e Observer’s chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley commentator Andrew Rawnsley

quizzes Armando Iannucciquizzes Armando Iannuccias Th e Th ick of It returnsas Th e Th ick of It returns

WHEN RAWNSLEY MET

IANNUCCI

INSIDE 8-PAGE MUSIC SPECIAL

Pages 23-30Pages 23-30

Armando Iannucci and Andrew Rawnsley, photographed for the New Review by Suki Dhanda.

2 THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

THE NEW REVIEW

AGENDA 3-7 FEATURES 8-16 DISCOVER 17-20

CRITICS 21-22; 32-38 BOOKS 39-45 PLUS CHARTS + PUZZLES 46-47

MULTIMEDIAONLINE THIS WEEK

TV LISTINGS 48-54

Tom Dixon urges us to see the light Ten best US presidential campaigns Julie Burchill on sapphism Lauren Greenfi eld on the American Dream

Ex-residents of RD Laing’s Kingsley Hall tell their stories Armando Iannucci talks to Andrew Rawnsley Rowan Moore at the Venice biennale

Kate Mossman on Lady Gaga in Helsinki Philip French loves Berberian Sound Studio Xan Brooks reports from Venice Rachel Cooke on Artangel’s latest Mariinsky Ballet’s Cinderella Edinburgh festival theatre Euan Ferguson on the new Doctor Who

Highlights from the architecture extravaganza in Venice www.guardian.co.uk/architecture

Portraits of ex-residents of Kingsley Hall from Dominic Moore’s book observer.co.uk/new-review

On the 40th anniversary of their fi rst album, Roxy Music in pictures observer.co.uk/new-review

Robert Provine investigates why we laugh How simulating dementia can help map our minds Facebook and the US presidential election

Th e full seven days’ listings

Contents

FEEDBACK African progressBeing a fellow Afropolitan , I have experienced Africans refusing to acknowledge I am African because of my “Britishness” and Europeans who think I could never be truly British because of my African origins (“Our parents left Africa – now we are coming home”, Afua Hirsch, last week). Regardless, I am proud of my heritage and the continent. Africa, like all continents, still has many challenges to address. One is the tendency to frame Africa’s problems as largely of its own making due to greed, corruption and lack of intelligent strategy. But we also need to tackle some of the causes of slow progress that originate from outside of the continent , such as unfair global trade rules , damaging subsidies in the west and a global tax system which leaves Africa deprived of billions of dollars in taxes owed by corporations, which could be spent on improving infrastructure, for example.TwoShillings

Afua Hirsch’s article brought back many memories of my fi rst trip to the Caribbean. I’m half Jamaican and found it so enriching to see black people in positions of power and beauty seen from a black perspective. It’s only once you see it that you realise it’s lacking in the UK. It’s good that descendants are returning to their countries of origin. Perhaps fi nally, the popular image of Africa as an impoverished land of the hungry will disappear.melissa_fi x

Lost play spaceOne of the very fi rst people to become involved on bombsites in London was the late Janet Dalglish MBE who right up until her death remained determined to provide training and experience for those who work with children in communities (“How bombsites are being turned into playgrounds”, Observer archive, last week). She was president of Fair Play for Children after the death of Trevor Huddleston and was simply a phenomenon. She would agree

with me, I suspect, that it is the “little society” that counts , especially when authority didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t recognise a need. We need to create environments that are child- and play-friendly. In the past 40 years or more, probably 750,000 acres of street play-space has been lost to the parked car. Doesn’t that fi t with the health crisis our kids are facing? There is one acre of playground for every 700 kids under 15, whereas there is one acre of golf course for every 18 golfers. Quite a bit to do, or is it undo?Jan Cosgrove National Secretary, Fair Play for Children

Hopeful signs Thanks for a really interesting article (“Africa Innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent”, last week). I note that quite a few of the ideas harness information and communications technologies (ICT) for natural resource and agricultural development. These link Africa’s rapidly growing ICT capacity (although from a very low base) with its greatest challenge, the sustainable use of natural resources for rural development that prioritises the poor. I’m encouraged!Nansikom

The finest writing every Sunday for arts, science, politics, culture and foreign reportageMUSIC 23-30

Julie Myerson on Ian McEwan’s spy novel Th e web pioneer who lost it all A joyful study of female desire Leonardo’s Last Supper

Write to us at [email protected] or post your comments online at observer.co.uk/new-review. You can follow us on Twitter: @ObsNewReview or facebook.com/observernewreview

Tom Lamont hangs out with the xx on tour in Los Angeles Plus: Roxy Music revisited, the best new rock biographies, and the soundtrack to DJ Shadow’s life

“

He changed when he got famous - but Free Hugs should be about love,not two guys bickeringElizabeth Day on why the free cuddle movement ended in tears

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The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW 3

Culture | People | Politics | Ideas

ON MY RADAR Sarah Solemani’s cultural highlights

Sarah Solemani, 30, is an actress and writer from north London who plays Becky in Him & Her, a BBC3 series about a lazy young couple. A former member of the National Youth Theatre, she studied social and political sciences at Cambridge , where she was a member of Footlights. She has roles in Mrs Henderson Presents, The Borgias and Silent Witness under her belt, and appeared in The House of Bernarda Alba at the Almeida theatre . She is currently appearing as Miss Gulliver in Bad Education, on BBC3 on Tuesdays at 10pm. Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy

justbanking.org.ukTh e website of a conference about alternative systems of banking that explains how the fi nancial sector works. You can click on expert speakers discussing the cost of the bank bailout and why the UK system doesn’t leave any room for smaller banks to fl ourish.

A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792 I’ve moved to Newington Green , where Mary Wollstonecraft lived and set up a school, so I reread this. She argues the importance of educating women to become proper citizens of the world. Th e parallels with the modern day are amazing.

Bridget Christie She is my absolute favourite standup, a natural on stage. I remember one gig where she did a werewolf impression with kohl eyeliner. Elements of her

shows stay in my mind like childhood

memories.

Olympic Team Welcome Ceremonies, National Youth Th eatre Just phenomenal. Th ey had to sing the national anthem and follow certain protocols but the way they did it – in punk gear, on stilts, with a chariot – broke the mould. Artistic director Paul Roseby should be knighted .

BooksComedy Internet Th eatre Television

Under-Estimate the Girl by Kate Nash Th is brilliant, catchy punk song has caused controversy because Nash is changing her sound. It’s about breaking rules and not playing safe, which is exactly what she’s doing. I don’t think it has been offi cially released, it’s just on YouTube.

Music

Stacey Dooley Investigates I love this girl. She’s made programmes in some terrifying places, exploring the Congo civil war and sex traffi cking in Cambodia. She’s got this very natural air with her subjects, never patronising or judging them.

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This year at the London Design festival (LDF) Tom Dixon wants everyone to see the light. Each year he hosts an event for LDF at the Dock, his west London HQ , which is housed in a converted Victorian wharf building on the Grand Union canal, and this year’s theme is luminosity. “It’s a call to arms, a message to remember that lights aren’t sculptures – they illuminate, and we need to illuminate people’s perceptions,” he says. “We talk about the light fi ttings, how they’re made, what the infl uences are, but we’ve forgotten to talk about the light itself. It’s a mysterious fi eld full of technical appellations such as lumen and wattage… there’s a lot of learning involved. I felt people might be interested.”

The self-taught furniture designer served as Habitat’s head of design and then creative director from 1998 to 2008 . He is responsible for Italian brand Cappellini’s famous S chair and his Jack lamp and Plump sofa have become icons of British design. If Dixon is interested in light, chances are the rest of us will be very soon. He’s even excited by the legislation on lightbulbs: “Rules, scientifi c discoveries, they all change things… open it up for designers.”

He’s looking forward to LDF as a chance to open up the Dock to more visitors. The building houses his workshop, a restaurant, a tea shop (Tart, run by his eldest daughter, Florence) and a shop full of beautiful, extend-the-overdraft furnishings.

“I’m super-privileged to have a space like this in London so that I can invite a few pals from the Eurozone to show here during LDF,” he says. “It’s dozy and relaxed here most of the time, so it’s good to get everybody tensed up and ready to perform.”

LDF celebrates its 10th anniversary

this year , and Dixon feels that the past decade has been good for British design (though he could have done without the revival of baroque ornamentation and the re-emergence of Formica and patterned surfaces). But as the man who has spent his life creating objects of desire for others,

is there anything he wished he owned himself? “I don’t covet,” he says. “I’m collecting heads at the moment – busts, many of them life-size, I have an attachment to them. I’d prefer a lovely building to a lovely object. I’ve got a water tower across the road . It’s a folly, it had no purpose [it was

decommissioned], which I liked. Also, I’m a typical boy: I’d really like a bridge.” Alice Fisher

Tom Dixon hosts Luminosity at the Dock at the London Design festival, 17–23 September . For more information visit londondesignfestival.com

‘I’m a typical boy… I’d really like to own a bridge’Tom Dixon’s event at London Design festival 2012 is something of a lightbulb moment…

‘Light is a mysterious field’: Tom Dixon, who is hosting part of London Design festival 2012 at his dockside headquarters. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

s

DESIGN

THE 10 BEST US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNSPAGE 6


AGENDA THE DEBATE

Alex Brooker I genuinely believe the Paralympics will change perceptions of disability in this country, one of the main reasons being that they will take disability to an audience bigger than perhaps ever before. Channel 4 is broadcasting more than 500 hours of live coverage over the next nine day s , and millions of people will be watching the Paralympics on TV for the fi rst time. Couple this with the fact that more tickets have been sold for these Games than any in history – close to 2.5m .

The Paralympics will grip audiences and the public will get used to seeing disabled people. They will see that they are just the same as everyone else and that even if you are disabled you can achieve incredible things. Sport is a great tool to unite people and as the public get behind Paralympics GB over the next nine days, more and more misconceptions about disability will change.

In the aftermath of these Games, I am certain there will be people who won’t look at a disabled person the same way again.

Jody McIntyre I think the Paralympic Games are a hugely positive event. It is a chance for disabled people from across the globe to showcase their sporting talents.

However, this is not a one-off . The Paralympics, like the Olympic Games, take place every four years and are broadcast to millions of people. Furthermore, you do not have to turn on your television screen in order to “get used” to seeing disabled people. You can simply step outside your house; people in wheelchairs are travelling around, people with guide dogs, people with missing arms or legs.

It is not sporting achievement that will determine the nation’s view of disabled people as a whole, and nor should it be. Not every disabled person will be a Paralympic champion, but that does not detract from the fact that they are a unique human being, with skills that should be valued, and weaknesses too.

The old barber’s-shop joke has now come true. Male clients who come in with shoulder-length hair in one of the several pop group or beatnik styles are being asked to accept a cost estimate by some hairdressers (who themselves got a pay rise last week) before they will tackle it.

China’s Lu Dong on her way to winning her heat in the women’s 100m backstroke S6 category last week. Emilio Morenatti/AP

Will the Paralympics change attitudes to disability?

L’Alexandre hairdresser, 1966.Photograph by Rex Features

Th ere’s a price to pay for looking like a caveman The growth in shoulder-length locks has led Britain’s barbers to cut up rough with their hirsute customers

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION

“Well, it stands to reason,” said one hair stylist in London yesterday. “You can’t charge a bloke the same for mowing a hay fi eld as you do for just tidying up his front lawn. We’ve got craftsmanship to think of, too. I’m a stylist, not a hedge-trimmer.”

All men’s hairdressers seem to be strongly in favour of shorter styles. There is the hard, economic fact that shoulder-lengthers leave a painful gap in trade. And while an up-to-date stylist has a great variety of shorter cuts at his fi ngertips there is not much you can do with 2 ft-long male hair and keep it this side of sanity. For both reasons, they are inclined to be on the side of the headmaster who banished a long-haired one from the boys’ department.

The hairdressers are not entirely sure where some of the bigger style trends have originated. The

immediate post war crew cut was obviously a gesture to the American GI Then came, partly in reaction, the fl ashy man-about-town cuts like the District Attorney and Boston, very full at the back, perhaps learn ed from

conformist parents or headmasters with.

After the beatniks had done with it, the Merseyside pop groups took it up, largely as a crib of the all-conquering Beatles. It has not looked back since, though short (and potentially rebellious) hairstyles are still in the great majority.

Looking at trends, some senior stylists think the male shoulder-length is with us for another four or fi ve years. They are racking their brains to think of ways of bringing these clients into the saloon more often than once a quarter.

But the more fashionable cuts, said one stylist, will stay at a maximum of three inches on top. New styles will ring the changes on the parting – a short one at the front, or at the back, or even diagonal.

Alex Brooker, reporter for Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics

Jody McIntyre, journalist and author of the Life on Wheels blog

HEAD TO HEAD

Unfortunately, we are living in a society in which disabled people are heavily demonised. That is why, when the government makes calls to cut benefi ts for disabled people by 20% , despite the fact that only 0. 5% of claims are fraudulent , many sections of the public think it is acceptable.

AB I agree that the Paralympics are not technically a one-off , but the huge increase in the number of spectators and viewers at home means that, in a sense, the y are . Putting it simply, the Paralympics will reach a greater audience in this country than ever before. That is a massive thing, because I disagree with your point saying you can see people missing arms or legs every day. A lot of people will have never seen that many disabled people before and certainly not with the wide range of disabilities to be seen at the Paralympics.

I’m not saying that sporting achievement will determine what our nation’s perception of disability is. It doesn’t matter whether someone comes fi rst or last. But if someone is watching that hasn’t seen an amputee before and they see them as they are, as any other person, then they will be educated.

I’m disabled and I’m not competing, but someone could see me on screen and understand more about my disabilities.

I don’t believe disabled people are demonised. Unfortunately the system has been abused and it needs rectifying. If that means me fi lling out some forms, then so be it.

JM As I previously said, the system is being abused, by approximately 0. 5% of applicants. That does not call for cuts of 20%. The fi gures simply do not add up. Is that really a process of “rectifying”?

Many people will see the Paralympics, and that is a great thing, but let’s look beyond the glamour of the event, to the actual situation disabled people living in Britain face today. The Games are being held in London, one of the most diverse cities

in the world. So, when considering the transport system that people use to get around the capital, you would think that disabled people are as free to use it as anybody else . In reality, this is not the case. If a wheelchair-user wants to go to Paralympic events, how are they going to get on the tube? Most tube and train stations in the capital are completely inaccessible!

I do fi nd your fi nal comment somewhat disturbing. I would hope that we can look beyond our own circumstances to appreciate that others face diffi culties that we may not. I drive a car, but that doesn’t mean that I discount those who use public transport to get from A to B. As the government attacks the services of those who need them most, it will certainly not be a situation of “fi lling in some forms”; indeed, for many disabled people, it will mean losing vital support that they were once entitled to.

AB I agree that the proposed cuts will adversely aff ect more people that they should. In reference to my last comment, which you fi nd “disturbing”, I am saying that I am personally happy to have to justify my own claim. I cannot speak for

every disabled person and not every disabled person speaks for me.

This debate is whether the Paralympics will change attitudes towards disability. I think that it will. There is a diff erence between seeing disabled people and feeling confi dent enough to engage with them. My feeling is that it will encourage the latter. Whether or not it can change plans that a government has put in place, then that is something diff erent altogether. The acid test will be how people vote at the next election. If the Paralympics brings attention to the plight of disabled people that claim benefi ts and that motivates people to vote diff erently, then your concerns will be addressed.

My concern is that you believe that these athletes, who have trained hard for four years, will not have changed attitudes unless it results in a government reform. That’s not why they fi rst picked up a basketball, put on a running blade or got in a pool. I just hope that this debate doesn’t detract from their great sporting achievements. And with the public not only seeing disabled people, but understanding them through the coverage, attitudes will change.

JM Attitudes towards disabled people have changed, are changing, and will continue to change in the future. However, this is not a process that takes place over 11 days of sporting events.

You didn’t respond to my point about public transport. This is part of the problem; amid the hype surrounding the Games, real issues that aff ect disabled people on a day-to-day basis are often ignored.

I am going to enjoy watching the Paralympics, as I did with the Olympics. Nonetheless, as long as we live in a society where the interests of an elite minority are placed above those of the majority, there will be discrimination against disabled people, just as there is discrimination against single mothers, teenagers, black people and Muslims.

You suggest that the results of the next election will address my concerns. But as is becoming clearer by the day, there is very little diff erence between the major political parties in this country. They all support making cuts, which adversely aff ect the Paralympians of tomorrow. They all support going to war, which disables men and women in other countries.

I want to see a future where disabled people have the opportunity to access sport for many years. Not just between now and 9 September .

Amid all the hype, real, everyday issues aff ecting disabled people are often ignored

FROM THE ARCHIVE 6 September 1964

Italian fi lms. The completely uncut look –

Caveman or Long Back and Sides, as it might be called – was the natural choice of the rebel against society, suitable for challenging

Paralympics

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PEOPLE AGENDA

When I asked him how he did it, he said he wasn’t going to say because it might not have been legal. I don’t know exactly what he did for him but he believed he brought in more than 1,000 votes in Florida, and Bush won by 537 , so I believe that.

You mention their openness. Early in the fi lm, the fi nancial crisis hits and things start to go badly wrong for the Siegels. Did they attempt to pull the plug on the movie? No, that was the thing about David and Jackie: they opened their doors when things were good but they kept them open equally wide when things got diffi cult and didn’t go their way. I think that’s what makes people relate to them: everybody is familiar with the way fi nancial problems can cause a lot of tension in the household, so they’re kind of like everyone else in that sense.

Th ey are strangely sympathetic – it’s hard to believe you can care about people who are building a house with a separate wing for the kids…Jackie and David are such outsized characters, almost Shakespearean, yet there’s something we can all recognise that we’ve seen in the crisis or what we’ve experienced. There are very few people who didn’t experience cheap fi nancing and how

that changed our behaviour, whether that was spending more on your credit cards or taking money out for your home-equity loan. AO Scott wrote in the New York Times, “If this fi lm is a portrait, it is also a mirror,” and I hope audiences fi nd that.

It’s a very American story – how do you expect people in Britain to respond?My photography is often a sociological look at American culture and it’s been very well published in the UK. My fi rst book, Fast Forward , was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are aff ected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I’ve often felt the reason my work has an audience in the UK is because it’s everythingthe British love to hate about the Americans. But we showed

Q&A

PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILM-MAKER, 46

The US artist on the lovable billionaires in her new fi lm, and the state of the American Dream

Lauren Greenfi eldLauren Greenfi eld

Lauren Greenfi eld: ‘I look for people who reveal our cultural values’. Larry Busacca/Getty

It has netted numerous awards and nearly 3 million viewers tuned in to the fi rst episode of series fi ve when it aired in the US in July , but until yesterday, box sets or piracy were your only options if you live in the UK and wanted to keep up with this underviewed gem of a show. Series four is now available on streaming service Netfl ix , bypassing traditional broadcasting entirely. This may be no bad thing. The fi rst series was aired on FX , where it managed consolidated ratings of a mere 120,000 viewers, and was dropped. Series two was aired in a dead-of-night time-slot

Your new documentary fi lm, Th e Queen of Versailles , follows a billionaire family from Florida, the Siegels , as they build the largest house in America: a 90,000 sq ft palace inspired by the French chateau (and the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas). What was your personal reaction to their plan?In a way, my journey was not dissimilar to what I tried to show in the fi lm. In the beginning I was amazed, fascinated, overwhelmed and horrifi ed by this house, but they were so proud of it. In my work I’m usually looking for the people, the situations, the characters that reveal our culture and our cultural values. I’ve been interested for a while in the connection between home ownership and the American Dream: how the houses got bigger and bigger during the boom, and not just as a place to live but a place to express yourself and your identity, your success.

You met your Queen, Jackie Siegel , in 2007 while photographing Donatella Versace (Jackie was one of her best customers). What made you think she would be a good subject for a fi lm?Jackie told me about the house and I was interested in that, but the other thing that appealed to me was this contradiction within her character. On the one hand, she was living this fantasy life with castles and jets and closets full of fur coats; it was just so big and excessive and exotic. On the other hand, she had this openness I haven’t seen much from very wealthy people . Often there’s a protective veil that comes with great wealth but she had a real accessibility and down-to-earth quality that came from her humble origins and also maybe just her character.

Her husband, David , runs the largest privately owned timeshare company in the world . In the fi lm he claims that he personally got George W Bush elected in 2000 – what did you make of that ?

Queen of Versailles at the Sundance London festival and I was surprised by the reaction. People really liked Jackie. One of the things that appealed to them was that she was a billionaire without pretensions.

Has your work had an impact on the way that you live your life and raise your kids?We were just on a family vacation and we were around all this wealth on this trip. We went over to Martha’s Vineyard and we were having dinner one night in front of all these yachts, and my eldest son, who is 12, was like, “I’d love to have a boat like that. What kind of job do you have to do?” So my husband said, “Well that’s probably a $20m boat and you’d have to invent this or whatever.” Then my little son, who’s six, said, “Noah, being rich is not important, you just have to have enough money to survive. It’s your family and friends who are important and loving the work that you do.” So I feel like we’re having that dialogue all the time.

Does the American Dream create more happiness or misery in society as a whole?Part of the idea of the American Dream is an aspiration to luxury. David Siegel speaks to that so eloquently when he’s talking about why people want to buy timeshares: they want to be rich, then the next best thing is to look rich and if you don’t want to look rich then you might as well be dead. That is a part of American culture; even in the ghetto there are people buying fancy clothes and fancy cars. I often think of Fran Lebowitz , who said, “Americans don’t hate the rich because they always imagine they will be rich some day – they are impending rich.”

You speak with fondness of David Siegel, yet he’s currently suing you. What’s happening with that?The lawsuit is still active and it is a strange situation because Jackie is very supportive of the fi lm and has come to several festivals with me. I think David’s objection is not really to the fi lm, because when he watched it he seemed to enjoy a lot of it, but to where it ends. It ends on a really painful moment for him and he’d have liked me to continue and to have fi lmed a triumphant ending. As he says at one point, “If I have to live to be 150 to make this work, I will.” Interview by Tim Lewis The Queen of Versailles is out on 7 September

TELEVISION Is Breaking Bad the best show you’ve never seen?

I was surprised by the reaction in the UK. People liked Jackie: a billionaire without pretensions

on 5USA over Christmas in 2009, and with no warning – they could not have buried it in a deeper hole. Series three and four have never been shown by a UK broadcaster .

Here’s why this is wrong.

ORIGINALITYOK, a show in which the hero learns in the fi rst episode that he has terminal lung

cancer and becomes a crystal meth “cook ”

in an eff ort to leave a nest egg for his family, and which features energetic attempts to dissolve a body in a bath of acid in episode two, should probably be fi led

irrepressible low-rent lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk , left ) , who drives a white Cadillac with a licence plate that reads “LWYR UP ” or the “Odd Couple” dynamic

between Walt and his former student Jesse.

CINEMATOGRAPHYShot on 35mm fi lm, each scene is artfully framed and beautifully

lit. Stunning scenes of the vast deserts of New Mexico

are set alongside drab fast-food restaurants, building a disquieting mood of suspense reminiscent of a Coen brothers thriller. It simply doesn’t look like anything else on TV. Kathy Sweeney

somehow becomes the conscience of the show is a revelation.

EXECUTION The show is so perfectly conceived that you never see things coming, but they make perfect sense. Nobody acts out of character, despite ending up so far from where they started, and no show – not even The Shield – mastered the art of the cliff -hanger quite so well, which makes it perfect for binge-viewing on Netfl ix.

HUMOUR Breaking Bad is the perfect vehicle for pitch-black humour, whether it’s

under “not for all the family”. But at a time when antiheroes are 10 a penny, it certainly ups the ante. You have to marvel that it was ever made.

PERFORMANCESBryan Cranston plays Walt (far

left) , the defeated chemistry teacher who fi nds a new life

in his death sentence, and he does it with extraordinary subtlety. Walt’s desperation keeps us rooting for him long after we’ve ceased to see him as a sympathetic character. Aaron Paul (left) is terrifi c as luckless addict Jesse Pinkman , a dropout with few morals and even

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AGENDA XXXXX XXXXXXXAGENDA THE LIST

Th e 10 bestTh e 10 bestUS presidential campaigns

Abraham Lincoln 1864

Obama shares with Lincoln a re-election campaign in the midst of intractable domestic problems. In 1864, the lack of success in the civil war dogged his election prospects. His supporters feared he would lose. Sharing this anxiety, Lincoln made a pledge to defeat the confederacy before leaving the White House. “Th is morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected,” he wrote. Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope that, in the event, was unnecessary. Within a year, he was dead.

FDR 1932

Th e Democratic nomination was hotly contested in the light of incumbent Herbert Hoover’s vulnerability. Franklin D Roosevelt built his national coalition with personal allies such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Kennedy Sr. He went on to win the fi rst of an unprecedented four terms. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt declared: “I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... a call to arms.” His inaugural address, given in the midst of the great depression, off ered the rallying cry: “ Th e only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Truman vs Dewey 1948

A cliff hanger campaign immortalised in a newspaper headline. Truman had become president on the death of FDR in 1945, but no one gave him a chance. Th e New York Times declared: “Th omas E Dewey’s Election as President is a Foregone Conclusion.” Dewey, however, was a dreadful candidate – stuff y, prone to gaff es and out of touch. In his fi nal campaign speech, Truman said: “Th e smart boys say we can’t win… but we called their bluff ; we told the people the truth. And the people are with us. Th e tide is rolling. Th e people are going to win this election.” He was right.

JFK v Nixon 1960 Th is election was a thriller in which Kennedy, the matinee idol Democrat, was nearly defeated by the brooding fi gure of Eisenhower’s former vice president, Richard Nixon. It was the fi rst campaign in which the candidates debated on live television. Th e popular perception among those who had listened over the radio was that Nixon had got the better of JFK. But the TV told a diff erent story. Kennedy appeared confi dent, sun-tanned and relaxed. Nixon looked shifty and, sweating badly under the lights, cut a sorry fi gure and came across as a loser. Kennedy won and Camelot was born.

Humphrey v Nixon 1968

Another thriller, with the outcome uncertain long into the morning after the poll. Th e election was conducted against a backdrop of turmoil that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, nationwide race riots, Vietnam war protests and violent clashes between police and anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago . Hubert Humphrey, the Democrats’ candidate, was the underdog, only closing in the fi nal days of the race. Nixon campaigned successfully on law and order and ending the war.

Eagleton breaks down 1972

Nixon appeared unbeatable. When Geo rge McGovern won the Democratic nomination, high-profi le Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey, turned down off ers to run as VP. In desperation, McGovern chose Th omas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri . Eagleton had made no mention of his electroshock treatment for depression and frequent hospitalisations . When the press confronted Eagleton with the story, he broke down and was replaced by Sargent Shriver. On election day, McGovern took only one state, Massachu setts. Nixon resigned over Watergate in August 1974.

Reagan v Carter 1980

Jimmy Carter was always a poor bet for a second term, but his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, was widely distrusted as a veteran cold warrior and no one had ever been elected at the age of 70 before. Coming into the fi nal weeks of the campaign, the outcome seemed fi nely balanced. Th e televised debates were essentially a score draw, but Reagan managed to land a punch – and show a fl ash of humour – when he twitted Carter’s penchant for manipulating statistics with the humorous line: “Th ere you go again.” It was Reagan’s folksy charm that delivered a landslide to the Republican party.

Clinton v Dole 1996

Bill Clinton’s second term now looks like a foregone conclusion. Th e cold war was over and America was prosperous and at peace, with a new generation looking forward to the new century. Bob Dole, a lacklustre candidate, with the now-forgotten Jack Kemp as VP, was a grizzled war veteran whose vulnerability was underlined when he slipped and fell head fi rst from a podium . Compared with the 50-year-old Clinton, 73-year-old Dole appeared old and frail and the Clinton-Gore ticket won a landslide. But within a year, the president was fi ghting for his political life over the scandal of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

GW Bush v Al Gore 2000

After the euphoria of the Clinton years, this was the election defeat Al Gore and the Democrats snatched from the jaws of victory. Th ough Gore came in second in the electoral vote, he received 543,895 more popular votes than Bush. With no outright winner, and the votes of Florida in dispute – due to problems with the paper-based punchcards ballots (creating “hanging chads”), the unresolved outcome of the popular vote was passed to the Supreme Court. After a month of high political drama, the court ruled (by a margin of 7-2) that George W Bush had won, a low point in the history of Supreme Court judicial verdicts.

Sarah Palin 2008

With no incumbent defending the White House, the McCain-Obama presidential clash was dominated by the spectacle of the Republican challenge imploding – and the emergence of Sarah Palin. Her defi ning moment came with her fi rst solo appearance. Hardcore Republicans went wild as she teased them with: “You know the diff erence between a pit bull and an average hockey mum? [pause] Lipstick!” For a few weeks, Palin-fever swept middle America. But by polling day, her star was waning and in the end her candidacy probably did more harm than good. Today, Palin has a new political life as a TV commentator and Tea Party darling.

AS CHOSEN BY ROBERT McCRUM

As the 2012 race heats up, we look back at some memorable deciders

Nominate your favourites at: guardian.co.uk/culture/

series/the-10-best

VOLUNTEERING Th e arts follow the Olympics’ lead

It wasn’t just London 2012 that embraced the cult of the volunteer this summer. Unpaid enthusiasts are becoming a regular feature of cultural events as more and more artists start quite literally crowd sourcing their projects.

You Me Bum Bum Train A cast and crew of more than 3,000 ha ve created this sell-out production in Stratford (to 27 Sept), and none of them are paid a penny. It’s a situation that drew the ire of stage union Equity when … Bum Bum Train returned for its fourth incarnation this summer, although that seemed to be missing the point: this theatrical “ride” simply wouldn’t exist as an all-professional entity.

Th ese Associations Tino Sehgal ’s Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern, London, which opened in July, is entirely made up of recruits from the public, a 70-strong crowd who mingle with the visitors and engage them with their personal stories. Participants applied in April and developed their narratives with Sehgal in unpaid workshops. Over the next two months they will work in four-hour shifts, transforming the hall into a space for surprising and intimate encounters with Tate Modern visitors. They’re not volunteers in the strictest sense: for the mingling they’re actually paid £9 an hour – not a bad gig.Emma John

On any given night, the audience to cast ratio is around 1:250. The Truman Show concept – each audience member is individually propelled through scenes in which they play the star role – means the event is as unpredictable for those involved as for the so-called “passenger”. All cynicism aside, it’s an emotive experience watching someone arrive at your scene surprised and confused, only to gain an increasing sense of empowerment as you navigate new territory together.You Me Bum Bum Train are still looking for volunteers for this month’s production: visit bumbumtrain.co m

Art of Change: New Directions from ChinaPossibly this summer’s oddest requests for unpaid help have gone

out from the Hayward gallery, hoping to fi ll various roles for their forthcoming exhibition by contemporary Chinese artists. One piece, by Xu Zhen , is seeking volunteer performers to lie still for half an hour at a time “in an impossible pose”, noting on the application form that “it is quite a physically demanding work”. If that’s not yourskillset, you could always off er your services to artist Liang Shaoji , who makes works with live silkworms – and needs recruits to feed them up to six times a day. china.southbankcentre.co.uk

Secret CinemaEver wanted to play a bit part in your favourite fi lm? That’s one of the options when you’re on the crew for Secret Cinema, the underground fi lm club whose site-specifi c screenings

have evolved into major productions in their own right. At their most recent gig, a month-long run of Prometheus

in a London warehouse-turned-spaceship,

volunteers helped create the set and build props and were much in evidence as boiler-suited

employees of Weyland Industries . volunteer@

futurecinema.co.uk A Ghostbusters fan at Secret Cinema.


AGENDA THE COLUMN

Julie BurchillJulie BurchillLet’s get this straight, guys. We’re not exploring sapphism for your benefi t

hen I remember the summer of 2012, I’ll think of rain, the Olympics – and an epidemic of stage- managed sapphism like no other in living memory. When Gillian Anderson called recently for “a more nuanced conversation about sexuality and its fl uidity”, I had to snigger as I recalled how Oscar Wilde’s boyf once famously described the desire for one’s own gender as The Love That Dare Not Speak It s Name. Well, times have changed, and homosexuality – at least for showbiz starlets – is these days the love that can’t stop nudging, winking, smirking, insinuating and straight-up showing off about itself.

An actress might dress it up in fancy language, but our singing sisters are predictably far more basic about bisexuality. The pop starlet of the moment, Rita Ora , and yesterday’s indie pin-up, Avril Lavigne , were both pictured posing saucily with female friends on holiday this summer. Last year , Cheryl Cole revealed that she had a “ girl crush ” on Rihanna before she presented the bodacious Bajan with the B rit award for best international female . To be fair to Chez, you can’t say that Rihanna wasn’t asking for it; previously Ri Ri had opined : “She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How do you have a face like that, with hair like that and dimples, and a body like that, that’s proportioned like that?” A quick grapple as the prize changed hands and Rihanna obligingly tweeted: “Can Cheryl Cole NOT be so yummy??? Just ONCE!!! ”

Then this summer in Esquire magazine, Rihanna upped the ante – or something – when she expressed a desire to see the Geordie sex pot getting down and dirty in the course of cleaning up: “I would just like to watch her work. Preferably cleaning things on the fl oor. Picking up stuff on the fl oor. Bending over... she’s hot! She’s so beautiful. ” Would Cheryl be suitably attired or, indeed, wearing clothing of any kind? “Oh, as if!” And then to show that she was a keen appreciator of female beauty, Rihanna threw in, when Adele’s

name came up: “I want her. Adele, come on! ”

Perhaps piqued at this curvaceous competition, Cheryl was all over Rihanna’s BFF Katy Perry – the woman whose song I Kissed a Girl sparked a thousand drunken thespian-lesbian displays – on The Graham Norton Show a few days later. But just so we are sure of who her heart really belongs to, KP said in a recent radio interview that she didn’t know whether she and Ri would ever collaborate musically – “ but we’re going to have sex ”.

Girls, girls – get a room. But would it be a bedroom or a boardroom? That’s the question. How much of this yearning is physical – and how much is fi scal? Ever since the queen of the beat music bi-tries, Madonna, snogged Britney and Christina on the same stage , no pop tart ever went broke by underestimating the liking of your average fan boy for a bit of girl-on-girl body surfi ng.

How times have changed! When I left my husband for a girl 17 years ago, the rotter divorced me for “unreasonable behaviour”. As I pointed out at the time to my lawyer – the girl in question being a ravishing 25-year-old heiress – “Look at her! It would have been unreasonable not to do it.” Once, calling a woman a lesbo was the most embarrassing, shameful thing you could say to her. But these days, you can easily imagine a man divorcing his wife for the unreasonable behaviour of not making out with another woman and

letting him watch. And pop starlets are suss enough to know this. There’s the rub, so to speak. If Chez, Ri and KP are doing this to titillate their male fans, there’s something somewhat sad and shabby about it.

Rihanna is believable as a bisexual; she’s just so seriously hedonistic, and surveys have shown repeatedly that the more women like sex, the more likely they are to enjoy it with both genders. Her alleged aff air with the model Natasha Burton was written about in the temptingly titled book Low Down Dirty Shame : “Sex came up immediately – she was a freak... I was on my spiritual journey and sex wasn’t a part of my plans. However that didn’t stop her...” Rihanna’s erstwhile lover and attacker, Chris Brown, with typical discretion and perception, reacted thus: “She is not a lesbian. I should know. And if she was a lesbian, th en I would have had a threesome, but I didn’t have a threesome, so she can’t be a lesbian. And I’m not gay, either! ” There are some men so vile and/or violent that they can easily turn a woman queer, albeit temporarily, and Mr Brown easily qualifi es as one of them.

Rihanna’s relationship with

her “personal assistant” Melissa Forde has added more fuel to the freaky fi re. As in the cases of both

the late Whitney Houston and the undeniably straight Oprah

Winfrey , a personal assistant is often assumed to be a star’s girlfriend, travelling and staying with her in the closest of

situations. But it probably helps the tongues – of the gossips – wag faster if, as Rihanna did, the star in question tweets: “ I’m on my fi rst date in almost two years ” along

with a photo of Melissa Forde and herself entitled “My lover for the night ”. Followed closely by “ beautiful is great, submissive is even better . Bawse bitch who’s submissive yet the captain of the ship n HONEST …” – hashtag #MarryMe . It’s so crass, it’s class.

You can’t imagine Cheryl or Katy getting their hands – or images – dirty to anything like the same degree, and thus their sapphic antics can seem somewhat dead-eyed and desperate. But what if the bluff is a double bluff ? There can be no doubt that men get a great deal more out of hetero sex than women do; to put it bluntly, that’s why they resort to porn and prostitution in a way that women don’t need to.

Repeated studies have show that – to quote one of them – “most men fi nd most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not fi nd most men sexually attractive at all”. That’s a lot of sexual shortfall, and who’s to say that hidden homosexuality on the part of the female population couldn’t be at least part of the reason? What if all those girls “pretending” to kiss girls to turn on boys are actually double bluffi ng – and are really doing it in order to turn themselves on? What if all those girls who go to strip clubs with their boyfriends are actually getting more out of it than the men do? And what if all those girls who have threesomes aren’t doing it to keep their man – but to keep their sanity? In this case, the current crop of apparently thespian lesbians are refl ecting , rather than exploiting , the current mood.

ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID FOLDVARI

Marcel Duchamp once claimed that “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists ”. From 8 September to 3 October , the Saatchi Gallery will house 16 extraordinary chess sets designed by renowned contemporary artists for The Art of Chess , an exhibition that has toured the world and more than tripled in size since fi rst commissioned by RS&A in 2003 . With medicine bottles from Damien Hirst, miniature furniture from Rachel Whiteread , small-scale replicas of Tom Friedman ’s artworks and new taxidermy-inspired bronze pieces from Tim Noble and Sue Webster , it seems artists master the chessboard in their own signature styles. Corinne Jones

DAMIEN HIRST Mental Escapology 2003© Damien Hirst

YAYOI KUSAMA Pumpkin Chess (detail) 2003© Yayoi Kusama, 2003

TOM FRIEDMAN Untitled 2005© Tom Friedman, 2005

TIM NOBLE AND SUE WEBSTERDeadalive (detail) 2011Photography by Norbert Schoerner

ART Game for a masterpiece?

W

Th ere can be no doubt that men get a great deal more out of hetero sex than women do; that’s why they resort to porn and prostitutes


COVER STORY

As The Thick of It returns for what may be the last time, Andrew Rawnsley asks its creator, Armando Iannucci, whether the show’s corrosive – if hilarious – treatment of Westminster goes beyond a joke and risks damaging our faith in politics


rare feat of being a hit with viewers, channel controllers, critics, juries of TV awards and the targets of its superbly realised satire. It has not only infl uenced how viewing voters think about government, it is also a reference point for how the practitioners of politics perceive themselves. I tell him that, in the 48 hours before we meet, I have heard a Downing Street offi cial describe a meeting at Number 10 as “like a scene from The Thick of It”, and a senior aide to Ed Miliband has told me of a conversation in the Labour leader’s offi ce “so surreal it could have been scripted by Armando Iannucci”.

He has always taken meticulous care to make the show feel real , so he is bound to be tickled by approving notices from his victims. He recalls meeting James Purnell, who was culture secretary at the time, at a

Armando Iannucci has a confession to make. “The thing is, I don’t despise them,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated by politics. Read up on

political history. Love all the election shows. I am a political geek.”

At the age of 14 or 15, he would take himself off to a public library in Glasgow to read Hansard. I remark that William Hague is the only other person who has ever been heard admitting to the nerdish compulsion to read the parliamentary record as a teenager. “Yeah,” he nods, wincing slightly. “I know.”

We have met for lunch in a break between fi nal edits of the new series of The Thick of It , which will begin on BBC2 this week . The hugely acclaimed comedy has achieved the

Royal Television Society dinner. They talked about the very fi rst episode when the cast are in the back of a car feverishly trying to concoct a policy on the hoof. Purnell said: “I’ve been in the back of that car.”

When The Thick of It was last on screen three years ago, Labour was still in power and therefore the primary target. The latest – and, he reveals to me, probably the last –

series begins by training its sights on the coalition. Peter Mannion , the world-weary, technologically inept old-school Tory played by Roger Allam, channelling a substantial helping of Ken Clarke, is now in charge at Dosac, the Department of Social Aff airs and Citizenship. He is in uncomfortable tandem with a minister from “the Inbetweeners”, as the Lib Dems are called. There is a natural comic dynamic from the two of them “trying to look like a public united front but secretly trying to get the credit for whichever policy”. Dosac’s former Labour boss, the hapless Nicola Murray , played by Rebecca Front , has become leader of the opposition by a quirk of the block vote mechanism that no one understands. The cast may have shuffl ed positions, but

the animating spirit of the satire remains the same: the cunning plans of the political class come farcically unstuck in ways that reveal them to be clueless, hopeless and powerless.

Iannucci makes viewers wait for the return of his mesmerising monster. It is not until episode 2 that we are reintroduced to Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker , the confabulation of all that is most foul about spin doctors. I wonder if his creator ever worries that his most loathsome character is also his most popular. “Yes, I do worry. I fi nd it very worrying.” He fi nds it especially anxiety-inducing when he meets real-life spin doctors because “they always talk about how much they like Malcolm and

‘We all look forward to the Malcolm Tucker moments in the same way welook forward toDarth Vader’ Continued overleaf

Armando Ianucci, left, and Andrew Rawnsley, photographed for the Observer New Review in London by Suki Dhanda.


COVER STORY

Continued from previous page

how they try and emulate Malcolm. And I think, have we got this wrong?” When the production went to fi lm in Downing Street, some of the inhabitants of Number 10 came out, wanting to have their pictures taken with Capaldi/Tucker. “Obviously, we all look forward to the Malcolm moments in the same way we look forward to the Darth Vader moments in Star Wars and Satan’s speeches in Paradise Lost. But isn’t he meant to be a horrible cunt? Isn’t that who Malcolm is? So why are all these people saying, ‘Do you know the one I want to be? I want to be the horrible cunt.’ Doesn’t that say something about politics?”

Perhaps it does. Perhaps it also says something important and not very healthy about the impact of what he puts on our screens. I love The Thick of It, but I tell him that I am also gnawed by a worm of anxiety that there are viewers who will take it not as a satire of some of the worst dimensions of politics but a representation of the totality of politics. When the denizens of his version of Westminster can’t

asking, do you think America is going to be ready for this? I thought I was going to get, what brings you here, a Brit, telling us about our politics?”

As it turns out, the show is another hit. If there was any hate mail from outraged Americans “it hasn’t got to me – probably goes to HBO ”. It’s up for an Emmy and HBO has commissioned a second season. Three researchers were employed in Washington to help with the “accuracy”, and he worked “very closely with the cast” to avoid scripting references or gags that wouldn’t work for an American audience. After a while the actors stopped saying: “We think that’s a bit English.” Instead, they made “a set of noises”, an idea started by Julia Louis-Dreyfus , who plays the title role. “She would say, ‘We think that’s a bit haw-haw-haw.”’

The position of vice-president, described by one of its real-life occupants as “not worth a bucket of warm piss”, has all the trappings of high offi ce and no real power, making it the perfect subject for Iannucci. A running joke has the Veep asking her assistant: “Did the president call?” and always receiving a negative answer.

How did the lad who got his teenage kicks from Hansard turn into our most gifted TV satirist, with

shows bathed in praise on both sides of the Atlantic? I wonder if it’s something in his Italian DNA. Italians have more reasons than most to feel betrayed by government. After mulling on it, Iannucci says he can see how his take on politics might have been shaped by his father. Before he emigrated to Britain, Dad was a journalist in Mussolini’s Italy, wrote for an anti-fascist newspaper “and then had to take to the hills and join the partisans, and as soon as the war was over he got out”. He found a new home in Glasgow but he wasn’t a British citizen so he couldn’t vote. “I remember saying to him, ‘Are you not frustrated you can’t vote in the election?’ He said, ‘Well, the last election I remember, Mussolini got in.’ So, you know: what good is your vote? Maybe it was that side.”

Mum was a fi rst-generation immigrant. She was born in Glasgow but to an entirely Italian family. “So it’s all Italian blood.” Yet his parents “never brought us up speaking Italian because they thought it’s better to feel integrated”. As a result, “you feel Scottish, but not quite. But neither do you feel completely Italian. You’re always slightly standing back from it and kind of observing”.

Not sure whether you are inside or out?

“Yeah,” he responds. “Just, well, feeling half in and half out.”

Now, though, he is most defi nitely in with the British establishment. He has been begonged with the Order of the British Empire , an irony I want to spend some time teasing him about. You could easily imagine an episode of The Thick of It crafted around the comedy of pinning this Whitehall bauble on a man who makes his living

from ridiculing government. Why accept an OBE? “I thought it would be funny. That’s why,” he says, a touch defensively. Funny – how? “I just think it’s hilarious.” He quickly adds: “I mean, I’m not intending to use it or anything.”

So the credits of the new series don’t say “Armando Iannucci OBE”?

“No,” he recoils. “I just think it’s like… I mean either you accept awards or you don’t. You know, either you put yourself forward for Baftas and whatever or you don’t.”

Mmm. You win a Bafta because your peer group wants to salute outstanding work. You get an OBE because an offi cial in the Cabinet Offi ce has put you on a list.

“Someone must have nominated me,” he protests. Or maybe

some civil servants thought they would have the last laugh on the great satirist by dangling a morsel from the establishment’s table in front of him to see whether he would gratefully bite. Didn’t that occur to him?

“To be honest, I don’t care if they think that. I don’t care. I just thought it’d be funny and I was looking forward to ringing my mum and telling her.”

She was proud? “Very pleased, yeah.”This prompts me to the speculation

that he accepted the OBE in part because of the ambivalent feelings about identity we had explored earlier. The honour was a badge of acceptance. He doesn’t quarrel with this idea; indeed he eagerly embraces it as a much better explanation than the earlier ones he has off ered. “Yeah,” he says vigorously. “My grandfather [on his mother’s side] was rounded up during the second world war and put in a camp because he was Italian. So there’s that element: have we quite fi tted in? Do people see us as British? So I can now say, right, OK, there you are, here’s a document that proves it, so don’t worry. Other than that, I see it as very nice, happy to get the recognition and then put it to one side and don’t mention it again.”

Where would he stop? Is he hoping for a knighthood next?

“I think that would be taking the joke too far.”

A question I am keen to get my teeth into is whether the treatment given to politics on British television has gone beyond a joke. He may say he does not despise politicians, he may insist that his agenda is no more than comedic, but I want to investigate whether he feels any responsibility for the fact that so many of the British do hold politics in a deep contempt, a contempt that is often richly deserved but which can also be indiscriminate, lazy and ultimately poisonous for democracy. Iannucci describes himself as “a sort of vague, woolly liberal with a small l. Left of centre-ish.” Yet the moral we are invited to draw from his work is not at all “left of centre-ish”. The Thick of It tells us that politics is a profession populated only by fools and knaves. The laughs nudge the viewer to the profoundly serious conclusion that all government is crap. Does he ever worry that, whether he means to or not, his message is basically the same as that of the Tea Party and Fox TV?

“Wow,” he says, taken aback. “I’m not sure it says government is crap. I think it says the people in government are crap.”

Does that make any diff erence?

organise a photo opportunity without collapsing into calamity, never mind execute a policy that might improve someone’s life, what is he trying to say about government to voters? He responds that the show “never set out to have an agenda. It wasn’t a manifesto. It was entertainment.”

The principal driver has always been comedic. “We see these grand looking buildings down Whitehall . So you assume the people within them kind of know what they’re doing with power. And part of the comedy is going through those doors and discovering that they don’t really. Although it’s a big job, it’s actually little people.”

The contrast between the outward pomp and the inner reality also drives the comedy of Veep , his American show screened in Britain on Sky Atlantic . Taking his satire across the Atlantic entailed some risk, I suggest, because Americans tend to idealise their democracy much more than the British. “I think you’re right. The interesting thing in America is how much they respect the offi ce even though they’re contemptuous of the offi ce-holder. A lot of people were

Iannucci with his wife, Rachael Jones, at the premiere of Veep earlier this year.

Why did he accept an OBE? ‘I thought it would be really funny, that’s why,’ he replies a touch defensively

Now, though, hin with the Britishas been begongethe British Empispend some timeYou could easily of The Thick of Itcomedy of pinninbauble on a man

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earlier this year.

Spun and spinner: Chris Langham as the hapless minister Hugh Abbot in series one and Peter Capaldi as the monstrous, foul-mouthed political fixer Malcolm Tucker. BBC, Mike Hogan, Ed Miller


Either way, isn’t he guiding the audience to the reactionary or nihilistic view that government is pointless? He approaches the question sideways by explaining how his thinking has developed. The fi rst series of The Thick of It “was very much coming in on the back of Blair and Iraq, and how did that happen?” It was driven by an idea of Blair as “someone with a domineering, centralised control over government” with “a group of bully boys, the enforcers, who would visit departments and just tell the minister this is what you say, this is your newest line to take, this is your view”. In the second series, “I started feeling a little bit of sympathy for politicians. We the people put this pressure on them to be absolutely perfect, to not stumble, to have a fully thought-out, fully budgeted opinion on every topic we throw at them. Not to buy anything, not to have a salary, not to go on holiday, none of that. I actually started feeling sorry for them.”

Making this latest series has led him to a more fundamental conclusion. “This time around I’ve kind of come at it with a feeling that the whole system just doesn’t work. And it’s primarily because we have a generation of politicians who have done nothing apart from politics. They do the politics degree, become a researcher, become an adviser, become an MP; they’re in the cabinet by the time they’re 39.”

True enough. Books have been written about the rise to dominance of a professional political class. Whatever their ideological diff erences, David Cameron, George Osborne, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Nick Clegg have this in common: they have spent all, or nearly all, of their adult lives in politics. Despite their lack of experience of anything else, says Iannucci, warming to this theme, “the generation we have now running politics has felt all the more the need to interfere in minute detail in the working of every department. So it’s not just about the big plans – like how many hospitals can we aff ord. It’s what kind of books you should be reading, how to do homework. What we have are people with no experience, but trying to micro-manage.”

That is a speech, I remark, which would be welcomed with loud applause by many Tories. Absolutely right,

they would cry: let’s have much less government, sack most of the civil service, roll back the meddlesome state. He again protests that this is not his agenda. “There’s an alternative view. The machinery of government can work, but what you [the politician] need is not to feel that you are infallible. It’s all right to take your time and actually listen to people with more specialist knowledge. Because the other thing that’s weird is that someone could be running, say, the health service for 18 months and then overnight is in charge

of the military or police or prisons – do you know what I mean?”

I do. Mind you, I have my doubts that government by “experts”, also known as vested interests, would always prove to be a great experience for the voters. Is he saying that the army should answer only to generals, education policy should be made only by teachers and how we run jails should be the sole prerogative of prison offi cers?

“No, no, no, no, no,” he responds. “But I think what’s happened, as you pointed out, is as they got less and less direct power, we’ve built up this idea of politicians being these super beings from whom all fi nal decisions fl ow, and I just feel that something’s kind of not right. I don’t have the solution to it. It’s just an observation that I feel it doesn’t work.”

In portraying those who govern us as blundering idiots or amoral schemers, he splices the two strongest traditions of political satire on British television. Yes Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister depicted

Maurice Gran created the Thatcherite grotesque, Alan B’Stard for Rik Mayall .

While consistently excelling at satirising Westminster, British television has failed – in fact, rarely even attempted– to dramatise politics as it really is. The Americans had a go with The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin ’s show was too romantic to be entirely realistic – “a liberal wet dream” of an American presidency, as Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described it. Its considerable merit was that it attempted to show politicians and their advisers wrestling with sophisticated policy dilemmas and hard moral choices, sometimes getting it wrong and sometimes right.

The Danish political drama, Borgen , recently shown on BBC4, is a classy, gripping and highly textured series that gives an authentic sense of the pressures of running a modern government and how the stress can destroy relationships, even between fundamentally decent people.

I ask Iannucci why he thinks British television has not been capable of producing something comparable? Part of the problem, he says, is persuading TV executives to commission anything about politics. “I remember when I was getting The Thick of It under way. It was a time when if you said ‘politics’ to them, they’d say, ‘No, people aren’t interested. Boring. Wouldn’t get viewers.’”

He was fortunate: “I think I was quite lucky because BBC4 was just starting and that was seen as being a bit

experimental – so we could try it. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. At least we tried it. And it also meant we didn’t have much money, so that aff ected the style of it, the very fast shooting style.”

He thinks it may also have something to do with Americans having developed a diff erent attitude towards television. “They just take it more seriously. It used to be fi lm was the art form. I think they realise, as TV screens have got bigger, TV is like a movie experience in the home. So now you can actually do more with television, up the game and do more challenging work. We’re just beginning in the UK to think we’ve been caught napping.”

The next challenge for him is whether there is much more satirical juice to be squeezed out of our political lemons. Fiction now struggles to compete with reality when Boris Johnson makes an arse of himself by getting stuck on a zip wire, Jeremy Hunt almost clouts a bystander with an Olympic bell, the budget unravels over taxes on pasties, David Cameron texts “lol” to a tabloid executive without knowing it stands for “laugh out loud” and Francis Maude recommends that people prepare for a petrol shortage by fi lling up their jerry cans. I put it to Iannucci that it is time to swivel his

‘Th is will probably be the last series. It’s time to take stock and move on. I’m thinking about the power of the internet’

POWER PLAYS Six of the best screen politicians

MALCOLM TUCKER (Peter Capaldi) Th e Th ick of It A hyper-aggressive and poetically profane spin doctor conceived as the distillation of all that was most terrifying and loathsome about New Labour control freaks. Th e latest series fi nds him in opposition, and being driven mad by lack of power. Th e Tucker word “omnishambles” was recently plagiarised by Labour to describe the coalition.

BIRGITTE NYBORG CHRISTENSEN (played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, above )Borgen Charismatic, attractive leader of “the Moderates” who unexpectedly becomes the fi rst female prime minister of Denmark . As the pressure of power begins to tell, we see her ideals compromised for the sake of survival – the betrayal of her oldest friend in politics and the destruction of her marriage are grippingly dramatised .

JOSIAH BARTLET (Martin Sheen)Th e West Wing A Nobel laureate economist from New England becomes president and brings to the White House a sense of decency, much moral agonising in a liberal kind of way, and a lot of walking-and-talking on the part of his idealistic staff . Popular (it ran for seven years and won a hatful of Emmys ) and often compelling drama, but too romantic to be entirely believable.

FRANCIS URQUHART (played by Ian Richardson, pictured below) House of Cards

Elegant evil personifi ed, the Tory chief whip schemes his way to

N o 10 and is prepared to use blackmail and even murder

- he throws a reporter off the roof of parliament. Signature catch-phrase “You might very well think that; I couldn’t

possibly comment ” became very fashionable in

real-life politics and the media for a time.

ALAN B’STARD (Rik Mayall)Th e New StatesmanGreedy, lecherous, dishonest, devious, ultra-right-wing grotesque of the Tory backbenches. Th e crudity of the character (he is the parliamentary adviser to the Young Ladies’ Recreational Association ) and increasingly wild plots

made it a show which was often slapstick funny but never

an eff ective satire on Th atcherism.

JIM HACKER (Paul Eddington)Yes Minister

Aff able, decent, centrist secretary of state for

the fi ctitious Ministry of Administrative Aff airs , who

later becomes prime minister, Hacker is manipulated and stymied by his smooth, guileful mandarin, Sir Humphrey Appleby . Margaret Th atcher said it was her favourite programme , but it bore absolutely no relation to the way she ruled. AR

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guns on to a fresh target, to go after people who really wield great, global, unaccountable power: bankers, say, or the magnates of social media.

This suggestion is greeted with a smile: “I’m thinking that very thought.”

He goes on to explain: “Probably this will be the last series of The Thick of It. The door is left open at the end to come back and do specials. But I feel I have explored every crevice now and it’s time to take stock and move on. I’m thinking about the power of the internet.”

This sounds like an excellent idea. Who, after all, has the more power: a British cabinet minister or the emperors of Google?

“Exactly,” he nods. “Microsoft, Google, Facebook: you have these twentysomethings who have a way into billions of households. It’s what we were talking about earlier: where’s the power gone? The power is gravitating towards these companies.”

He reveals that he has already done a script for HBO for a show set in Silicon Valley.

“I’m also interested in that personal thing of what it does to you when you’re 25 and you’re a multibillionaire and everyone in the world knows who you are.”

I’m glad to hear this. It is long past time that the over-revered, under-scrutinised, vastly rich and powerful spiders of the web felt the business end of a sharp satirical stick. I can’t think of anyone better to wield it than the brilliant geek from Glasgow.

Series 4 of The Thick of It begins on Saturday at 9.45pm on BBC2

politicians as the gulled puppets of wily civil servants. Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn had a great success with that in the 1980s, despite their show being utterly untrue to reality. Margaret Thatcher, the least Jim Hackerish of politicians, was bending the civil service – and a whole lot else – to her will.

The politician as machinating villain inspired the antihero of Michael Dobbs’s House of Cards, in which a satanic Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart murdered his way to the premiership. Laurence Marks and

Big guns: James Gandolfini in the 2009 Thick of It spin-off film In the Loop, Olivia Poulet as Emma in the new series of The Thick of It and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the title role of Veep. Kobal, BBC/Des Willie


ARCHITECTURE

Building a brighter future

The Venice Architecture Biennale is the world’s grandest celebration and showcase of the design of buildings. Which, as architecture is both an art and a business, means it hovers between being a cultural

festival and a trade fair. And as architects can have a very high opinion of the importance of their work, their exhibits can collectively resemble a set of competing pitches in the trading of rival forms of genius.

Successive directors of the biennale – a new one is appointed each time – are conscious of this. Part of their job is to set a theme for the whole event, which is essentially an enormous set of exhibitions and debates, and they like to invent ones which stress that architects are not always egomaniacs but have a responsibility to wider society. “ Less Aesthetics, More Ethics ” was the offi cial title some years ago. In 2010 it was “People Meet in Architecture”.

This year the British architect Sir David Chipperfi eld is in charge. It’s a sign of his international status, which for years outran recognition at home, and which won him

commissions such as the recreation of the Neues Museum in Berlin, home of the bust of Nefertiti, out of the bombed ruins of its old building. For years he seemed too intellectual, too serious for Britain. His native country, however, has caught up recently , with a knighthood, a royal gold medal for architecture and regular appearances on the Stirling prize shortlist, including this year with his Hepworth Gallery in Wakefi eld .

Under Chipperfi eld’s direction there is a strong British presence among the exhibitors, though not to the point where he could be accused of chauvinism. They are there on merit, running from galactic names such as Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster to the young practice Aberrant and the critic Justin McGuirk . Collectively they form a varied and surprising bunch with a taste for playful-but-serious provocation: the spirit of Danny Boyle passes through, one is tempted to say.

Chipperfi eld’s theme is “Common Ground”, by which he means that architects are not lone visionaries but work in collaboration – with each other, with builders and clients, with future users and the general public. “Common Ground” sounds like “People Meet in Architecture”, in

that it stresses the non-egomaniac side of the profession. It could be mushy, one of those titles that means anything to anyone, but there is cohesion to this year’s biennale. The event makes sense. It’s serious but also engaging.

It is, as always, vast. Part occupies the 16th-c entury corderie of the arsenal of the Venetian republic – handsome rope-making workshops hundreds of metres long. Here, architects invited by Chipperfi eld and his team present a series of installations. Part occupies the biennale gardens which, created in 1895 for the Biennale of Art , are almost exactly as old as the modern Olympics and embody the same ideals of international exchange. (The architecture biennale, fi rst held in 1980, is relatively recent.) The gardens form an unusually leafy part of Venice and house individual pavilions of diff erent countries, a somewhat Eurocentric selection which refl ects the leading nations of the world a century or so ago.

Each country mounts its own display, following the overall theme more or less closely. There is also the padiglione centrale (central pavilion) where, as in the arsenal, the director selects the exhibits. Other shows in various off -site locations, including by countries not blessed with pavilions in the gardens, complete the picture. It is by nature a baggy, sprawling thing, exhausting if attempted in one go, which always invites comparison with the really quite nice city in which it is located. As Venice is a permanent exhibition of architecture, the biennale has to fi nd a way to compete.

Highlights include the recreation of a Caracas

café by Urban-Think Tank and Justin McGuirk which serves actual Venezuelan food. This is a way of bringing people into an exhibit about the Torre de David , an unfi nished banking skyscraper now made into an informal vertical community by squatters, in order to demonstrate how an unplanned piece of city can work as well as one made by architects. The simple device of the cafe means you can experience something of the place, rather than just look at pictures. It also deservedly won the Golden Lion prize for best project.

A diff erent form of common ground is off ered by Folk in a Box , a small structure about the size of a confessional, inside which you fi nd yourself – as an audience of one and in total darkness – knee to knee with a musician. The woman ahead of me in the queue came out weeping, and while my heart was a little harder it was still an intense experience. Another version again is the display by the Chilean practice Elemental , which describe its attempts to improve the copper-mining town of Calama , a place of exceptional climatic and social brutality. Yet another is the construction site, with its collaboration of many people in a shared purpose, here represented by the reconstruction of a rough-hewn house in India.

Common ground is not always a peaceful place, as the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron demonstrate with their exhibit about their plan to build a concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie , on top of an old warehouse in Hamburg. It is currently stalled in mid-construction. Eschewing usual public relations bromides, Herzog and de Meuron bravely paper the walls with newspaper articles

Th is year’s architecture extravaganza, curated by Britain’s David Chipperfi eld, shows how architects are not lone visionaries but do their best work in collaboration with others. Rowan Moore reports

A visitor to the Nordic pavilion examines Content Box by the Stockholm-based co-operative Combine. Photographs by David Levene

→ Al Aire (Between Air), a living hydroponic installation by SelgasCano in the Spanish pavilion.

← Spain Mon Amour, the work of fi ve established Spanish practices presented by architecture students.

→


at the Venice biennalethat chronicle the early hopes for the project and the escalating rows and budget overruns. Models of the hoped-for building hang in the space and you are left to draw your own conclusions.

Commonness extends to the past. Nicholas Hawksmoor , nearly three centuries dead, features in beautiful photographs by Hélène Binet . The Britons Caruso St John pay tribute to inspirations including Sir John Soane . There is an exhibit about Mario Piana, who, by restoring some of Venice’s crumbling buildings, played a vital but invisible role in the history of architecture. The Swiss Valerio Olgiati has invited other architects to contribute images that inspired them, which are laid out on a table.

The collaborative group Fat (Fashion Architecture Taste) shows a large white model of a fragment of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, as part of its “Museum of Copying”. Copying, Fat argues, was always an essential part of architecture, and the myth of the utterly original genius is therefore suspect. The Villa Rotonda is possibly the most copied building in the world. If Fat’s model, which is shown together with its mould, has a touch of the Rachel Whitereads, that’s probably fi ne too.

All of which – the relative humility, the willingness to acknowledge others – makes an obvious comparison with the recent past. Not long ago, the singular and spectacular were celebrated and masterpieces were commissioned from international stars, fi nanced with the ample spare cash sloshing around the world. Often these works would be used to distract us from more substantial issues, such as exactly where this

Th e Torre David/Gran Horizonte cafe installation by Urban-Th ink Tank and Justin McGuirk, winner of the 2012 Golden Lion prize for best project.

→ A stuff ed rabbit from Oslo-based Haugen/Zohar’s Adaptation exhibition in the Nordic pavilion. Photographs by David Levene

OnlineTo see a group photograph of all the key players in British architecture gathered in Venice, go to observer.co.uk/new-review

money was coming from and where it was going.Now, as we all know, some of this money

didn’t really exist at all, and in few places are the architectural consequences more conspicuous than in Spain. There, a succession of monuments, retrospectively preposterous, has been beached by lost funding. There were also some very fi ne buildings in the boom years, but their architects are now mostly unemployed. An exhibit at the biennale commemorates this, with a series of black, tomb-like objects containing nice white models of what was once possible in Spain.

Now Norman Foster chooses not to stress the sci-fi trophies he designs for Russian oligarchs, but has entered the common-ground spirit by inviting thousands of images from architects, critics and others and displaying them in a dizzying, multi-screen environment that fl ashes Egypt’s Tahrir crowds and developing -world shanty towns past your eyes, along with more peaceful public places and notable works by

Foster and other architects. The link is not always obvious – how exactly does this glass atrium connect with that Indian street? It’s also like HSBC’s advertisements – we’re international and corporate and caring and global – but it shows an altered mood.

It has become a truism, this transition in the world of architecture from selfi sh icons to something more caring, and one that is not entirely true. There is still plenty of appetite in many places for fl ashy spectacle, and I doubt if architects have collectively become radically nicer or were all unrelievedly selfi sh before. A complicating exhibit in this respect is one by Renzo Piano : he shows the Shard from many viewpoints. It’s clearly a work of the icon era but Piano shows it as part of the common ground of London, almost as a piece of folk art, and it’s not obvious that he’s wrong.

But there is an atmosphere of generosity in Chipperfi eld’s biennale that should be appreciated. There’s also patience and care, exemplifi ed by the returning popularity of crafted and handmade objects, such as a very large city plan hand drawn by the South African Jo Noero , or a long scroll in the British pavilion with a detailed image of an imagined Sino-English townscape. The mood is calmer, slower and more spacious than in previous years, and the architects involved seem to be quite happy not to be engaged in frenetic rivalry for totems of status.

The national pavilions are more of a mixed bag. Some of the better moments are provided by the legacy of the Soviet Union, with an intriguing exhibit in the Russian pavilion of the closed,

secret cities dedicated to military, space and nuclear technology. An Estonian space in the arsenal reveals a 3,000-seat concert hall, built when Tallinn hosted the regatta of the 1980 Olympics , which is now abandoned. The British pavilion, the result of a complex interaction between Britain and other countries, is too elaborate for its own good, but it has several gems. These include de Rijke Marsh Morgan’s proposal for fl oating houses, based on Dutch examples.

It remains to be seen how substantial will be the mood of common ground outside the biennale. A cautionary exhibit by Rem Koolhaas ’s practice OMA shows “Architecture by Civil Servants”, from the 1960s and 70s, when it was still common for cities to have large in-house architectural departments. Their works were not always fl awless but they display a public spirit that is now threatened. Prominent among OMA’s examples are the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall, currently due to be submerged by shops. One can at least hope. Chipperfi eld shows an attractive, thoughtful attitude to doing things that certainly should be more widespread. It also happens to make a more enjoyable and accessible biennale than many. They can be opaque aff airs, not to be recommended to non-specialists, but this one is worth the detour.

Th e mood is calmer than in previous years, and the architects involved seem happy not to be engaged in frenetic rivalry

→


PHOTOGRAPHY

The maverick psychiatrist RD Laing once described insanity as “a perfectly radical response to an insane world”. In 1965 , having

served as a doctor in the British army and then trained in psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London, Laing formed the Philadelphia Association with a group of like-minded colleagues. Their aim was to bring about a revolution in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

“We aim to change the way the ‘facts’ of ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ are seen,” a later report-come-manifesto explained. “This is more than a new hypothesis inserted into an existing fi eld of research and therapy; it is a proposal to change the model.”

From 1965 until 1970, as radical ideas and hippie ideals blossomed then died in cities across the globe, a former community centre in Powis Road in the East End of London became the unlikely setting for Laing’s most radical experiment in what came to be known as anti-psychiatry. “We have got Kingsley Hall and I have moved into it,” Laing wrote to his colleague, Joe Berke , when he was granted an initial two-year lease. “Others will be moving in in the next two or three weeks... I take it you will pass the word around to relevant people. THIS IS IT.”

The “relevant people” in question were other psychiatrists who shared Laing’s radical vision and their patients, though even the terms “psychiatrist” and “patient” would be upturned in

PAMELA LEEResident, 1967-68 Pamela Lee lived in another community house after leaving Kingsley Hall. She now lives in lives in north London and likes to make ceramic cats in a day class at the Mary Ward Centre

“Pamela was outstanding in a way, [ because she was] totally normal,” remembers fellow resident Dorothee von Grieff . “She had this bourgeois furniture – it was so ordinary that it was such a contrast .” According to Francis Gillet, “she used to live on a bowl of brown rice and miso per day”.

I was just 10 when my father died and 17

when my mother died. My sister had left for London. I didn’t really have any family at all.

I had such a chaotic time in that period in London: so many addresses – there were 30 places in one year. It wasn’t my choice: I just used to get turned out of places. I went to a psychiatric hospital because I had a relationship with this guy I met, a medical student.

He invited me back to his parents’ and I think I was very, very nervous at the time – and shy . His parents thought I wasn’t very healthy.

I remember walking down the street when I was with him, and I felt on top of the world. I was imagining that all the people must be looking at me, thinking how wonderful and happy I was.

But then it ended, and it was like the

end of my life, it was so awful . I went to the doctor’s and I said, “Can you send me to a convalescent home, I just can’t feed myself”, and they sent me to a mental hospital. It was very dictated to you what you could do: I was so disappointed.

I had picked up this book years before – [Laing’s] Th e Divided Self – and I realised that somebody really understood; it was amazing . So I phoned up and got an

Drugs, wild parties, therapy and mystics: ex-residents recall a radical experiment in anti-psychiatry

KINGSLEY HALL REMEMBERED Former residents revisit their experiences

In 1965, the psychiatrist RD Laing opened Kingsley Hall, a residential centre that aimed to revolutionise the treatment of mental illness. Five decades on, those who lived and spent time there look back on an era of drama and discovery

‘I was given some LSD. I used to smoke cannabis, butI was a bit nervous about the acid’

Continued on page 16

the next few years at Kingsley Hall. At Laing’s insistence, the sprawling house became an asylum in the original Greek sense of the word: a refuge, a safe haven for the psychotic and the schizophrenic , where there were no locks on the doors and no anti-psychotic drugs were administered. People were free to come and go as they pleased and there was a room, painted in eastern symbols, set aside for meditation. There were all-night therapy and role-reversal sessions, marathon Friday night dinners hosted by Laing and visits from mystics, academics and celebrities, including, famously, Sean Connery, a friend and admirer of Laing’s. Play was encouraged as was regression through therapy to childhood. (Laing believed that all so-called madness began in the confi nes of the traditional family structure.)

The fi rst, and subsequently most famous, resident inmate, Mary Barnes , regressed to infancy for a time, smearing the walls with her faeces, squealing for attention and being fed with a bottle. She later became an renowned artist, poet and, in 1979 , the subject of a play by David Edgar . More controversially, several patients and workers were given high-grade LSD, which was still legal when Kingsley Hall opened, supposedly to release their inner demons or buried childhood traumas. At least two people jumped off the roof of the building. It’s reputation, too, attracted drifters and dropouts and, at least once, the house was raided by the drug squad.

“It was a place that was very much

BY SEAN O’HAGANPORTRAITS BY DOMINIC HARRIS


FRANCIS GILLETResident 1966-70 Francis Gillet lived in Kingsley Hall as an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic. Afterwards he lived in various other community houses. He now lives in sheltered accommodation in Oxford

I was a compulsive overdoser. If you showed me a bottle of pills, I’d swallow them all. Part of the problem was – and I’ve been refl ecting on it lately – I was too young. I had too much life to live, and it was going to be so diffi cult to live it. I saw the road ahead as very long and very diffi cult, and it was . I mean, now I’m nearly 65, I don’t think that way because there isn’t so long to go and a lot of the hard work’s been done.

At the time I was at Kingsley Hall, the view really was that, if you had

schizophrenia, it was no good talking to you because you would never get any sense out of a schizophrenic – it’s all nonsense that comes out of their mouths. And I pretty much subscribed to that view. Ronnie [Laing] said, “Go mad, young man”, and I did. I took him at his word, and I went as mad as I possibly could, and at no time did he try and stop me.

Th ere were some very crazy people at Kingsley. Th ere was one man who set up the dining table in the upstairs garden area, arranged it all for a dinner party and dressed up in white robes . I woke up one

JUTTA LAINGResident, 1966-67

Jutta Laing was RD Laing’s girlfriend at Kingsley Hall and became his second wife in 1974. Th ey had two sons and a daughter, but divorced in 1988. She now lives in north London where she teaches yoga

I came here because I wanted to get out of Germany . I had fi ve names of people I might contact and I picked out RD Laing at random and called him. He invited me for lunch, and that’s how we met. He had left his wife and his children, and, although some people like to believe I took him away from his family, that’s not true at all because he had already had a liaison with someone else before me.

I worked freelance – with Gallery Five cards and doing illustrations for Harper’s Bazaar – and I did very well, but my life in Kingsley Hall and my life with Ronnie became predominant. It was a run-down place to live in, partly because there were quite a few very psychotic people living there who never washed or cleaned their rooms. Some people used it as a commune. A few hippies gravitated towards the place because it was

very cheap to live there. Living there we had very little [free] time; we were always a group of people, maybe three, four, fi ve people, looking after someone who had completely lost it, so they wouldn’t harm themselves.

For everyone who lived there, Kingsley Hall was an intense period, and my life with Ronnie was intense in the sense that a lot of people wanted to meet him . Th ere were always visitors from all over the world . Ronnie was one of those people who you either loved or misunderstood. Some people thought he was crazy himself. Hid did drink a lot but he wasn’t a drunk . He was exceptionally alive and very charismatic. [Th e anthropologist] Francis Huxley labelled him a shaman.

It wasn’t comfort, Kingsley Hall, that’s for sure. But it was an extraordinary group of people. I live a quiet life now and have for quite a long time. I can’t say I have found the peace I am looking for.

‘It wasn’t comfort, Kingsley Hall, that’s for sure. But it was an extraordinary group of people’

interview – I think it was in Harley Street – with Ronnie Laing, and he told me about this place [Kingsley Hall].

And that’s how I got there. It was like someone actually understood. Yes, I was really very impressed with Ronnie.

I remember that the people around us [local residents] didn’t actually like us very much. Th ere was a very negative feeling towards us – not a very good community spirit. We were so isolated from the people around us, because if, they saw us, they would just ignore us. Th ey really didn’t like us at all .

I was given some LSD when I was there. I used to smoke cannabis, but the acid I was a bit nervous about. I don’t think I actually took it.

I remember we used to eat together. Th e food wasn’t that good, actually.

the real McCoy, and he wasn’t shy about sharing it around. He believed it was a kind of spiritual laxative, which I think is probably quite an accurate description of it. And I do remember him handing it to me: I thought , ‘Th is is the apple from the tree of knowledge, and if I take this it’s going to be a long road back from where I’m going’, but I did take it. Ronnie did believe you would be able to fl ush demons away with it. I wouldn’t disagree, I think it’s an interesting thing.

[Th en there was] the DMT – Dimethyltryptamine or ’triptamine. It’s refi ned from a plant in the Amazon jungle and we had it shipped in from California in a briefcase. I took it once, and it changed my life for ever. Just once really blew my mind, and I never really thought the same about anything again.

A group of us at the Hall were interested in taking it. As soon as they injected it, we collapsed on to a bed; we couldn’t stand up. We were in a small room. I had a vision of myself as a dead Jew being bulldozed into a mass burial pit at Auschwitz. It was an intensely strong experience. It was the end of life, the end of existence. I felt very dead at that point.

[Another time], I remember meeting Sean Connery. He was at the height of his James Bond fame then. He came to a party with Ronnie, and the two of them started Indian wrestling while we stood around anddrank. Th ey went on and on wrestling each other in the games room. Th ey decided to see which one was tougher – James Bond or Ronald Laing .

So that was all a wild party, but the next day he turned up at teatime and sat down, had a cup of tea and made it quite clear to us that he had been young once and he hadn’t had much himself and he could see himself in us and that kind of thing. He actually came back to thank us for having the party the night before. H e was very humble and very nice .

leapt into a junkyard, which was full of old washing machines and Hoovers and things people had thrown over the wall. I got a crash fracture in my spine that still causes me problems today.

Ronnie used to keep acid in his fridge. It was pure stuff , Sandoz laboratory grade,

‘Ronnie said, “Go mad, young man”. I took him at his word and went as mad as I possibly could’

morning and there was the dinner table all laid in the garden and a man in a white robe gabbling to himself.

But I don’t think any of them were spotted by neighbours walking on the roof, as I was once. Yeah, [once] I leapt off the roof . I didn’t go the full drop. I


PHOTOGRAPHY

‘Memories of the place can be contradictory yet vivid and moving’

of its time”, says the photographer Dominic Harris , who has tracked down several former colleagues of Laing’s and their patients, all of whom shared the turbulent, exciting and sometimes tragic experiment in communal therapy. “And it attracted maverick doctors, hippies, people running away from the draft, people trying to fi nd themselves, as well as the seriously mentally ill. It was a time when everything was being challenged and people were allowed to be free in all kinds of ways. Kingsley Hall is seen as a very dangerous idea now by the medical establishment, but, back then, it was part of a greater social upheaval where defi nitions of authority, family, sexuality and illness were all being questioned.”

Harris fi rst became aware of Kingsley Hall, which is just around the corner from his studio in Bow, when he read Jon Ronson ’s book, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry , in which Laing, who died in 1989 , makes a fl eeting appearance. Intrigued, Harris contacted Joe Berke, who put him in touch with a patient. Step by step, he tracked down other Kingsley Hall residents, visited them, photographed them and interviewed

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DOROTHEE (DODO)Resident, 1966-67 Dorothee von Grieff came to London after fi nishing art school in Germany to “fi nd herself”. She visited and lived in Kingsley Hall for the “experience”. An accomplished photographer, she took many pictures while she was there which largely remain unseen (see a selection above). She went on to study Tibetan Buddhism and now lives in north London

I was always looking for something in Germany, in my environment; I couldn’t fi nd it. Germany was very controlling always and I rebelled and I didn’t want to rebel. I just wanted to live and to be myself.

Th is incredible freedom in England and then in Kingsley Hall was just mind-boggling. Germany was so backwards: psychology didn’t exist or therapy, I mean that was something for loonies.

[At Kingsley Hall] it was open doors and no medication. Th at was totally revolutionary, that was the whole idea and it was incredible . Th at was in the Sixties, the big revolution, and for me Ronnie Laing’s skill was to hold up the mirror. He was a shaman, he had an incredible gift just to listen, to be in the present, to tune into the other person’s world and experience, and I had never met that before.

One memory: Mary Barnes had her room and one bathroom upstairs . When she was in the bath, it sounded like a

whale, she had so much fun and made these incredible sounds and the bathwater came schlepping down the steps to her room. It was always quite a special day when she had her baths.

I was a helper: I cooked, I [helped] Jutta. But after a year I started to hear voices . It was hitting me. And then black magic came into the house, this dark energy . It just happened, and it wasn’t discussed. It was like a hippopotamus trampling through the house. It was so spooky I can’t tell you.

Before Ronnie and Jutta broke up, which was a very, very dramatic time for the whole community, and Ronnie had his breakdown when everything fell apart, Kingsley Hall had already sort of subsided.

JAMES GREENE Visitor 1966-68Resident 1968-69 James Greene, nephew of the author Graham Greene, was initially a patient of RD Laing . He then started training as a psychoanalyst. Greene informally oversaw the running of Kingsley Hall. He went on to become a translator of Russian poetry and a playwright. He lives in north London

Ronnie helped me to become a therapist. It was totally unorthodox but he didn’t believe in formal training for therapists – if he thought you were a suitable person to be a therapist, f*** the training. He didn’t believe in the labels, patient versus helper; there was no demarcation. Th e best thing that one could say about him is that he was a kind of shaman. If he’d stuck to being a shaman, OK, but he was also working offi cially as a psychoanalyst. You can’t really combine these two roles and he was full of contradictions. Th e people involved with him suff ered as a result…

One patient had been in a mental hospital: John Woods, I think. His label in orthodox psychiatry was paranoid schizophrenic. He had some fantasy about some young woman and he couldn’t write letters to her himself so he dictated them to me . When it turned out this woman wasn’t interested, he assumed wrongly that I was preventing her from coming to visit him . He thought I was a black magician and was controlling her. Th en living in there became quite scary . Th ere was a chapel in the building, with a huge crucifi x, and he burst into my room early one morning holding it. I thought he was going to attack me with it but he wanted to exorcise me . Eventually, I did something that was against the whole ideology of the place: I tried to have him sectioned .

them. The result is a self-published photography book, The Residents, which includes Harris’s intimate portraits, pictures of the surviving but now disused house, as well as personal testimonies of those who were there.

“A lot of people , particularly Laing’s former colleagues, were initially a little bit suspicious of my motives,” says Harris, “but the patients were all very forthcoming. They haven’t really

had a chance to tell their stories before as most of what has been written about the place concentrates on the incredibly charismatic fi gure of RD Laing. Nobody else has really had a voice. That is what the book is about in a way, letting the overlooked have their say. Laing is the underlying fi gure in the project, but it’s not about him. He’s the dead presence, the long shadow.”

Over two years, Harris managed

to track down and meet 13 of the reputed 130 people who passed though Kingsley House in the fi ve-year period. Their memories of the place are often impressionistic and contradictory, yet vivid and moving. They are all, to varying degrees, survivors of a radical, some would say irresponsible, moment when everything – even the defi nition of insanity and, by extension, sanity – seemed up for redefi nition.

The Residents is available as a signed limited edition of 100, or as a £5 digital version for iPhone and iPad, from dominicharris.co.uk. The book and portraits from The Residents are part of the group show Voice of the Grain at Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1,from Wed to next Sun

Book testimonies have been edited for this article.

‘Ronnie was a magician, a shaman. Such a place can’t exist without such a key fi gure’

But there was usually a continuity of meetings, music, getting together , rebirthing and so on.

[At one point] I came back from a trip to Germany and there was a meeting going on at the house among various members and it seemed to me like everything

had broken loose. I mean, Ronnie was furious and roaring like a lion in pain. When Ronnie left that was when the disaster hit, because Ronnie [was] a magician, a shaman and an incredible being. It was a total downer. Ronnie was holding the place together. Such a place can’t exist

without such a key fi gure, it can’t.I was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism

and [went on to] travel with my Tibetan teacher to Tibet and India. I mean, I couldn’t have gone on living in Kingsley Hall. It was 24 hours – it was non-stop and as I told you I was getting loopy.

‘A radical moment’: Kingsley Hall residents, 1965; Helen, a patient playing guitar on the roof; the ‘incredibly charismatic’ RD Laing. Photographs by former resident Dorothee von Greiff


Science | Technology | Nature

Discover

OK, here’s the statutory health warning: for a long, long time, people have been saying that the next US presidential election will be “the internet election”. And

thus far, all those predictions have turned out to be wrong, at least if one interprets them as claims that the outcome of the election is eff ectively determined by online activity.

The inspiration for all this speculation about the political impact of the net is an older communications technology – television. In the 1950s, people speculated endlessly about that medium’s impact on politics, but it was only in 1960, with the famous televised debates between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon, that speculation hardened into certainty: TV was the key factor in presidential politics.

And that was the conventional wisdom for the next three decades, until the web turned the internet into something that “ordinary” people began to use.

For at least a decade since , people have been seeking an analogous tipping point for online media. Some argued that Barack Obama’s mastery of social networking in 2008 was critical in ensuring his election. Sceptics countered with the view that the impact of online media paled into insignifi cance compared with the damage the Republicans infl icted on themselves by nominating Sarah Palin

as John McCain’s running mate and aspiring vice-president.

So will the 2012 election provide the tipping point, the moment when the internet plays a decisive role in infl uencing how people vote? Given the penetration of the network into daily life, it’s obviously implausible to maintain that it isn’t having some impact on politics. The yawning gap that existed in the 1990s between cyberspace (where people do “social networking”) and “meatspace” (where they go to polling stations and vote) has clearly shrunk. But by how much?

Judging by current online activity, if the internet decided the outcome

Obama would win by a mile. His Facebook page , for example, has more than 28m “likes” and had more than 1.7m people “talking” about it when I last checked. Romney’s page has a mere 5.5m “likes” (but more than 2m people were “talking” about it). On Twitter, Obama is way ahead by all the signifi cant metrics : followers (19m to Romney’s 954,000 ); number of followers added in past 24 hours (46,000 v 13,000 ); mentions (59,000

MAKING A HASH OF IT? A Mitt Romney supporter in Tampa fl ashes a poster containing the Republican presidential candidate’s Twitter hashtag. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty

v 29,000 ); retweets (25,000 v 6,600 ); retweeters (22,000 v 5,000 ). I could go on, but you get the picture.

Last week also saw a revealing contrast between the two camps. Romney’s crowd put everything into an intensively scripted, 1980s-style rebranding of their candidate, using all the tired old tricks of Mad Men and old media. Obama, in contrast, just turned up on Reddit.com and did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session , which

Is Facebook ‘the real presidential swing state’?

brought the site to its knees. If you don’t know about Reddit then I suggest you take a look; then ask yourself how many contemporary British politicians you can think of who would dare to do an AMA session on it. (My answer: one – John Prescott.)

The big question is whether Obama’s online dominance will make much diff erence. My hunch is that it won’t. This is not because the net isn’t important, but because of the peculiar

John Naughton THE NETWORKERNETWORKER

THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY WE LAUGH, PAGES 18-19

nature of this election. According to a recent poll , most voters have already made up their minds and only about 6% remain undecided as to how they will vote in November . One analyst, Paul Begala , a former adviser to Bill Clinton , thinks that the election will be decided by just 4% of the voters, in six states – Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado. That’s 916,643 people, or “fewer than half the number of people who paid to get into a Houston Astros home game last year” .

Most of these “undecideds” are not interested in politics. But they are almost certainly among the 164m Americans currently on Facebook , which is why one commentator, David Talbot , has dubbed it “the real presidential swing state”. The thing about Facebook is that many users reveal fi ne-grained information about themselves – home town, age, education, preferences, friends. People who are uninterested in politics are unlikely to be swayed by overtly “political” messages, but they might be amenable to messages from their Facebook contacts. So, voters in swing states such as Ohio or Florida who have“liked” a Facebook page describing Romney as a “vulture capitalist” might suddenly fi nd themselves getting messages from “friends” reminding them that they buy stationery from Staples, a successful company that Romney invested in.

Even in a networked world, all politics will ultimately turn out to be local politics.

Data: with every call, tweet and purchase we create it, websites and governments harvest vast amounts of it and, in the spirit of “open”, much of it we can download ourselves, but can we comprehend it?

What we need are visualisations, ways to help us make sense of this information that throw up new patterns, linkages that help us better understand such phenomena as drone strikes in Pakistan , life expectancy by tube stations and who won the most Olympic medals sorted by GDP .

All these are examples from the trailblazing data site of our sister paper, the Guardian, and now the Observer is teaming up with tech curators 3beards to put on an event for all budding data artists. It is billed as an “art meets tech” hackathon and we are aiming to bring together data-savvy artists, musicians and creatives to work with coders and developers to create imaginative

and visionary ways of rendering data. The event is inspired by the work of Scottish cellist Peter Gregson , who has long been integrating technology into his work. His latest project, The Listening Machine, is an algorithm that scans the Twitter feeds of 500 people, analyses their sentiment and meaning and creates a continuous piece of music in response. Such ideas are the kind of hybrid, cross-pollinating concepts we are hoping for.

As 3beard’s Bryce Keane says: “There are absolutely no limits for this and we’re encouraging artists and hackers to get as creative as they want. They might want to use crowdsourcing to gather 700 interpretations of love and visualise it into a collage, take data from bus delays and output them into varying decibels, or even survey the

attendees on the night and make a word cloud of their fears.”

The event takes place at Mozilla’s London space , from 7pm on Friday 14 September running non-stop to 8pm on Sunday 16 September. There will

be lots of help over the weekend to turn your crazy concepts

into pixels, music, lights, sculpture or whatever you fancy . You just need a laptop and some ambitiously hare-brained ideas. The results will not

only go live on the web, they will also be exhibited at

the Whitechapel Gallery on the night of the 26 September at one of

3beards’ Digital Sizzle nights. Artists, creatives, coders and hackers

who want to be involved should go to http://sizzle6hackathon.eventbrite.co.uk/ or email [email protected]. Ian Tucker

Help us turn data into beautiful works of art

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Judging by current online activity, if the internet decided the outcome, Obama would win by a mile


DISCOVER PSYCHOLOGY

Consider the bizarre events of the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanganyika (now Tanzania ). What began as an isolated fit of laughter in a group of 12-to 18-year-old

schoolgirls rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter propagated from one individual to the next, eventually infecting adjacent communities. Like an influenza outbreak, the laughter epidemic was so severe that it required the closing of at least 14 schools and afflicted about 1,000 people. Fluctuating in intensity, it lasted for around two and a half years . A psychogenic , hysterical origin of the epidemic was established after excluding alternatives such as toxic reaction and encephalitis .

Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Contagious laughter in some Pentecostal and related charismatic Christian churches is a kind of speaking in tongues (glossolalia ), a sign that worshippers have been filled with the Holy Spirit . Before looking askance at this practice, consider that it was present at the historic Cane Ridge revival of 1801 , in Kentucky , and part of an exuberant religious tradition in which the Shakers actually shook and the Quakers quaked. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church , did some of his own quaking and shaking. Those experiencing the blessing of holy laughter spread it back to their home congregations, creating a national and international wave of contagious laughter. Contrast, now,

the similarity between the propagation of such religious anointings and what was called the “ laughing malady puzzle in Africa ” . They are strikingly similar, tap the same social trait, and are an extreme form of the commonplace, not pathology.

Laughter yoga, an innovation of Madan Kataria of Mumbai , taps contagious laughter for his secular Laughing Clubs International. The laugh clubbers gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises, seeking better fitness and a good time. Kataria’s revelation was that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter – no jokes are necessary. Meetings start with unison laughter exercises, moving on to more unusual variants. This self-described “laughing for no reason” produces real, contagious laughter and is fun for the self-selected participants, but its claimed medicinal benefits remain a matter of conjecture.

Rather than dismissing contagious laughter as a behavioural curiosity, we should recognise it (and other laugh-related phenomena) as clues to broader and deeper issues. When we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group, creating a crescendo of jocularity or ridicule.

The use of laughter to evoke laughter is familiar to viewers of television sitcoms. Laugh tracks (dubbed-in sounds of laughter) have accompanied

many sitcoms since 9 September 1950 . On that evening, The Hank McCune Show – a comedy about “a likable blunderer, a devilish fellow who tries to cut corners only to find himself the sucker” – first used a laugh track to compensate for the absence of a live studio audience. Although the show was short-lived, the television industry discovered the power of canned laughter to evoke audience laughter.

The music recording industry recognised the seductive power of laughter with the distribution of The Okeh Laughing Record , which consisted of trumpet playing intermittently interrupted by highly infectious laughter. Released shortly after the fi rst world war, it remains one of the most successful novelty records of all time. Acknowledging the commercial potential of this novelty market, jazz greats Louis Armstrong , Sidney Bechet and Woody Herman , as well as virtuoso of funny music Spike Jones , all attempted to cash in with laugh records of their own. Classicists may add that performers in the Athenian Theatre of Dionysus scooped everyone by more than 2,000 years, when they hired people to cheer or jeer to influence the audience and judges of their tragedy and comedy contests.

The innovation of laugh tracks in early television shows kindled the fears of some cold war-era politicians that the pinko media was trying to surreptitiously control the masses.

Psychology researchers jumped on the new phenomenon of “canned” laughter, confirming that laugh tracks do indeed increase audience laughter and the audience’s rating of the humorousness of the comedy material, attributing the eff ect to sometimes baroque mechanisms (deindividuation; release restraint mediated by imitation; social facilitation; emergence of social norms, etc). Decades later, we learned that the naked sound of laughter itself can evoke laughter – that you don’t need a joke.

Recorded laughter produced by a “laugh box”, a small, battery-operated record player from a novelty store, was sufficient to trigger real laughter among my undergraduate students in a classroom setting. On their first exposure to the laughter, nearly half of the students reported that they responded with laughter themselves. (More than 90% reported smiling on first exposure.) However, the eff ectiveness of the stimulus declined with repetition. By the 10th exposure, about 75% of the students rated the laugh stimulus as “obnoxious”, a reminder of the sometimes derisive nature of laughter, especially when repetitive and invariable.

It is unpleasant to be the recipient of a scornful “ha”. Court fools, presidential aides and corporate administrative assistants learn early in their careers that it is safer to laugh with the boss than at him or her. Plato and Aristotle correctly feared the power of laughter to undermine authority and lead to the overthrow of the state. Then, as now, politicians’ days are numbered when they become regular fare in comedy.

In our politically correct, feel-good, be-happy time we are shielded from – and underestimate – the dark side of laughter that was better known to the ancients. If you think laughter is benign, be aware that laughter is present during the worst atrocities, from murder, rape and pillage in antiquity to the present. Laughter has been present at the

Plato saw it as a tool to topple the mighty. It often accompanies gruesome acts of cruelty. Most of us will use it to win friendship and love. So what lies behind the ‘spontaneity’ of laughter? Robert Provine, in an extract from his book, Curious Behaviour, explores the psychology of a GSOH

Funny peculiar: the truth

Laughter is more about relationships than humour: it’s about an in-group feeling, not comedy

HA!Women laugh more than

men in conversations

HA!Speakers laugh more than

their audience

We are 30 times more likely to laugh in a social situation than

when we are alone

HA!

Laughter is an involuntary response and just the sound

of laughter is enough to prompt it spreading

HA!


about why we laughreally feel about each other – and you. Laughter is a particularly informative measure of relationships because it is largely unplanned, uncensored and hard to fake. Men and women mindlessly and predictably act out our species’ biological script. A man surrounded by attentive, laughing females is obviously doing something right, and he will comply by continuing to feed his admirers whatever triggers their laughter. Such good-humoured fellows don’t need a big supply of jokes – their charisma carries the day. Laughter is not, however, a win-win signal for males and females; if it is used carelessly, you can laugh your way out of a relationship or a job.

The asymmetrical power of laughter and comedy for men and women is noted by comedian Susan Prekel , who

bemoans that men in her audience will “find me repulsive, at least as a sexual being”. In contrast, “male comics do very well with women”.

Laughter and humour are highly valued in the sexual marketplace. In 3,745 personal ads published by heterosexual males and females in eight US national newspapers on 28 April 1996, men off ered “sense of humour” (or “humorous”) and women requested it. Women couldn’t care less whether their ideal male partner laughs or not – they want a male who makes them laugh. Women sought humour more than twice as often as they off ered it. The behavioural economics of such bids and off ers is consistent with the finding that men are attracted to women who laugh in their presence. Without such a balance between bids and off ers, there would be no market for laughter and humour, and the currency of these behaviours would decline.

Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not consciously knowing what we are doing. Consider the placement of laughter in the speech stream. Laughter does not occur randomly. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker may say “You are wearing that? Ha-ha,” but rarely “You are wearing… ha-ha… that?” The occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and questions suggests that a lawful and probably neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter in speech. Speech is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure.

The relationship between laughter and speech is akin to punctuation in written communication. I call it the punctuation eff ect. The orderliness of the punctuation eff ect is striking because it’s involuntary (we cannot laugh on command). If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely, consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, test the proposition of punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the placement of ha-ha laughs.

It’s a good thing that time sharing by these airway manoeuvres is neurologically orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and laugh.

This is an edited extract from Curious Behaviour: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping and Beyond, by Robert Provine (Harvard University Press, £18.95). To buy a copy for £18.95 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

1,200 pre-laugh comments – were not necessarily howlers: “You don’t have to drink, just buy us drinks”, “She’s got a sex disorder – she doesn’t like sex”, and “Do you date within your species?” Your life is filled with a laugh track to what must be the world’s worst situation comedy. Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone – not comedy – mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter. Laughter is more about relationships than humour.

Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario of stand-up comedy in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a laughing audience. Comedy performance proves an inadequate model for everyday conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach) are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.

Gender determines the proportion of speaker and audience laughter. Whether they are speaker or audience (in mixed-sex groups), women laugh more often than men. In our sample of 1,200 cases, female speakers laughed 127% more than their male audience. Neither males nor females laugh as much with female speakers as they do with male speakers, helping to explain the paucity of female comedians.

On average, men are the best laugh getters. These diff erences are already present by the time joking first appears, around six years of age. Based on this evidence, it is no surprise that your school clown was probably a male, a worldwide pattern. Laughter is sexy. Women laughing at men are responding to more than their prowess in comedy. Women are attracted to men who make them laugh (ie, “have a good sense of humour”), and men like women who laugh in their presence.

The next time you are at a party, use laughter as a guide to what people

Men are the best laugh getters – and this is apparent when joking fi rst appears, at six years of age

entertainments of public executions and torture. On street corners around the world, laughing at the wrong person or at the wrong time can get you killed. The publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper triggered calls for the death of the cartoonists and a worldwide murderous rampage that left many dead and injured . Although radical Islam is most in the news, all monotheistic religions ruthlessly suppress humorous challenges to their spiritual franchise. The killers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado , were laughing as they strolled through classrooms murdering their classmates . Laughter accompanies ethnic violence and insult, from Kosovo to Abu Ghraib prison .

Laughing with brings the pleasure of acceptance, in-group feeling, and bonding. But laughing at is jeering and ridicule, targeting outsiders who look or

act diff erently, pounding down the nail that sticks up, shaping them up, or

driving them away. Being laughed at can be a very serious, even dangerous business.

Laughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you

know where to look. Learning to “read” laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary and hard to fake, providing an uncensored, honest account about what people really think about each other, and you.

Laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logs) during a one-week period. Smiling and talking were also recorded to provide contrasts with laughter and with each other. The presence of media (television, radio, reading material, etc) was noted because it serves as vicarious social stimulation. The sociality of laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around others than when they were alone – laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects not exposed to media stimulation.

People are much more likely to smile or talk to themselves than they are to laugh when they are alone. Although we probably laugh or smile more when we are happy than sad, these acts are performed primarily in response to face-to-face encounters. You are least likely to laugh, smile or talk immediately before bedtime and after waking, circumstances with reduced opportunities for social interaction. These data provide solid grounds for a behavioural prescription: if you want more laughter in your life, spend more time with other people. If no friends are physically present, you can dial them up on your phone. Even solitary television viewing may not be as socially impoverished as suggested by its detractors, and has something to off er the recluse: the people in the box.

Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter by anonymous people in public places. My colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred.

Contrary to expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed banal remarks such as “Look, it’s Andre”, “Are you sure?” and “It was nice meeting you too”. Even our “greatest hits” – the funniest of the

Robert R Provine is a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland . A leading expert on behaviour, he has written more than 50 articles on

developmental neuroscience and neural mechanisms from studies on more than 30 species. He is perhaps best known, though, for his work on humans; he has spent two decades writing extensively about laughter, culminating in his fi rst book, Laughter: A Scientifi c Investigation, published in 2000.

Having come to the realisation that capturing laughter in a laboratory condition was futile, Provine instead gathered real-life data from public places, observing more than 1,200 exchanges and making a note of when the unsuspecting participants laughed.

Provine’s latest work, Curious Behaviour: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping and Beyond, investigates a wider range of human behaviour. Th is has led to even more bizarre experiments, including the acoustic analysis of fl atulence, counting the hiccups of embryos and even tickling chimpanzees.

HA!Laughter usually follows comments

in conversation rather than intentional jokes

Laughter is an instinctive behaviour, produced and recognised by people of

all cultures

HA!

HA!An outbreak of contagious

laughter in Tanzania in 1962 resulted in 14 schools

being closed

HA!Any health benefi ts of

laughter are a popular myth; it is nothing more than a

vocalisation

ROBERT PROVINE Man of mirth


DISCOVER NEUROLOGY

The fi rst person electrically stimulate the brain of a living human during surgery was the 19th-century British neurosurgeon Sir Victor Horsley . The operation

was to treat a deformation called an encephalocele , where the bones of the skull do not close properly in the womb, causing the brain to protrude from the head. Horsely applied a weak electrical current to the surgically exposed brain tissue, making the patient’s eyes swivel to the side, which told the surgeon that the out-of-place area was the top of the midbrain – normally a deeply embedded neural structure essential for directing vision.

The technique was later picked up to treat epilepsy as it became clear that removing the part of the brain that triggered seizures could be an eff ective treatment, even if identifying it could be tricky. Small, clearly identifi ed points of damage or localised tumours could often trigger seizures but sometimes the errant waves of epileptic activity would start far away from the original point of visible injury. Horsley used the electrical stimulation technique while patients were awake to fi nd the sensitive area and remove it. Not bad for 1886 .

Although initially invented for medical reasons, this surgical technique began to throw up some curious scientifi c data. In the 1930s

the Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfi eld asked patients undergoing epilepsy surgery if he could perform brief experiments while they were being operated on. He found that stimulating parts of the brain could cause a range of reactions from tingling to weeping to a “desire to move” – providing crucial evidence that activity in specifi c brain areas could trigger surprisingly complex behaviours.

People with epilepsy have remained an important part of our quest to understand ourselves as they have regularly volunteered to take part in neuroscience experiments while undergoing open-brain operations. Even though these experiments are a relatively brief pause in the procedure, they still require people to off er some of their time while their skull has been opened and their brain exposed, and we know much more about the brain thanks to their generosity.

As surgical techniques have moved on, so has the science. The starting points of some seizures are not easily located in the relatively short period available during surgery. To compensate for this, neurosurgeons have taken to implanting electrodes in the brains of people with epilepsy before the skull is replaced and the skin sewn up, which allows the medical team to record brain activity as the patients go about their daily life. One form of this “in brain” recording, known as electrocorticography ,

involves surgically inserting a grid of electrodes over the surface of the brain.

This has allowed neuroscientists to measure the brain at work in the real world via cables that go from the brain into a small digital recorder. A study published last year in the Journal of Neurosurgery mapped the main language areas of the cortex, the brain’s outer layer, using an implanted electrode grid and a simple word task that took an average of just 47 seconds . More than 100 other studies have used this technique with similarly impressive results.

One innovation is particularly mind-boggling. After years of using implanted electrode grids to read from the brain, neuroscientists have begun to use the electrodes to write to it – in other words, to alter the function of the brain through the same electrodes that record its activity. “By having a grid of electrodes in place,” says Matthew Lambon Ralph , professor of cognitive neuroscience at Manchester University , “it is possible to probe many diff erent regions rather than just one.”

The precision is such that the Lambon Ralph team and a team at

key mental functions is removed during the operation. Using it as a way of briefl y simulating more complex cognitive diffi culties is an exciting development. “Stimulation is injected in one part of a grid and the evoked response across other grids is measured. It’s a direct measure of functional connectivity,” explains Lambon Ralph, highlighting how these sorts of studies can allow the brain’s function, in terms of thinking skills, to be closely linked to its physical connections.

The research was presented at the British Neuropsychological Society spring conference by UK-based team member Taiji Ueno. The main fi ndings are still being prepared for peer review but the use of implant grids in neuroscience research is sure to become more common as the surgical procedure becomes more widely used.

These procedures are only done for medical reasons, and researchers get no say about how and on whom they are performed. But, as ever, patients have been generous with their time. From 1886 until now, these exciting discoveries have been made possible by people on the operating table.

Th e three living species of the order Proboscidea , the savanna and forest African and Asian elephants, surely rank among the most bizarre and extraordinarily derived placental mammals. Th ey are, however, relics of a long and once species-rich lineage. Th anks to a recently discovered fossil, we now know that this evolutionary march to the elephants began in Africa at least 60m years ago.

Dr Emmanuel Gheerbrant of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris has reported the discovery of an extinct species in Morocco, Eritherium azzouzorum, that pushes the oldest record of a proboscidean back by fi ve million years. Th e previous record was held by an extinct member of another genus found in the same region, Phosphatherium , that is believed to have been a dog-sized, amphibious, plant-eating creature that looked much like a hippopotamus.

Th e discovery of E azzouzorum, known from partial fossils of 15 individuals and consisting primarily of parts of skulls, jaws and upper and lower teeth, was made possible by a Franco-Moroccan agreement that included, in addition to the MNHN, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Rabat), Chérifi en

Vaughan Bell

Electrodes inside the skull can temporarily mimic brain disease – and so allow us to fi nd out more about the way we work

ON SCIENCEON SCIENCE

SECOND THOUGHTS An implanted grid of electrodes can not only record the brain’s activity – it can alter it, too. University of Utah Department of Neurosurgery

How simulating dementia can help map our minds

Phosphate Offi ce (Casablanca), Cadi Ayyad University (Marrakech ), and Chouaib Doukkali University (El Jadida ). Th e fossils were unearthed in the north-east Ouled Abdoun basin.

Dental and cranial morphology, including details of shapes, sizes, proportions and symmetry, reveal important derived similarities shared only with other early genera of Proboscidea and reversed in later descendants. Other characters of E azzouzorum are reminiscent of groups that existed prior to the origin of the proboscidean line. Although it lacked a trunk and didn’t look much like its later descendants, it did have an enlarged fi rst incisor, the precursor to a tusk.

Th is new species is signifi cant for several reasons. First, it suggests that the elephant order originated earlier than previously thought and helps to date an important step in the placental tree. Second, it represents a major evolutionary leap at the beginning of the Eocene including a “large” body size and lophodonty, that is, the appearance of ridges on teeth perpendicular to the jaw. An estimated 5kg body weight makes it the size of the largest living hyrax, a creature 18in to 20in long.

Finally, it fi lls a gap in the fossil record, providing evidence of a transitional stage between modern African ungulates and condylarth -like mammals, that is, earlier placental mammals that were common to the Paleocene . Quentin Wheeler

NEW TO NATURENo 82 Eritheriumazzouzorum

Kyoto University Medical School , led by Riki Matsumoto , have used an implanted grid to temporarily simulate characteristics of a brain disease called semantic dementia . Like Alzheimer’s , semantic dementia is a degenerative disorder, but one in which brain cells that specifi cally support our understanding of meaning rapidly decline. Studies of patients with semantic dementia have taught us a great deal about how memory is organised in the brain but the disorder is swift and unpredictable, and a method that can mimic the eff ects while recording directly from the cortex is a powerful tool.

The technique is safe and reversible, as we know from a simple version that is often done pre-neurosurgery to ensure that no tissue that supports

One innovation is mind-boggling: neuroscientists can now ‘write’ to implants in the brain

‘Pushing back the fossil record’: parts of the skull, jaw and teeth of Eritherium azzouzorum.

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SashaWaltz& Guests

Continu

A stunning ensemble dance workdriven by one of Edgar Varèse’s

musical masterpieces

UK PREMIERE

Fri 28 – Sun 30 September

CriticsFilm | Music | Art | Th eatre | Dance | Radio

It’s remarkably seldom that a pocket cartoon can change any aspect of your life. But many years ago a man called Peter Birkett drew, for Punch, a simple cartoon featuring two Daleks confronted with a staircase. The caption was simple. “Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the universe.”

From that moment I was not only unafraid of Daleks but found them actively absurd. As all good gags do, this one took a while to fi lter into the wider world, but within a couple of years it was the wisecrack of choice in those sophisticated circles wherein Daleks were deemed worthy of mention; and even after the chaps behind Doctor Who grew chary of the giggles and gifted Daleks with the ability to levitate, they remained, to my now adult eyes, resolutely silly. So it was something of a coup for the team behind the present Doctor, mainly writer Steven Moff at , to have recaptured for me, through simple dramatic fl air, a frisson of remembered fear: hairs on the back of the neck reacting to the sight of anodi sed parking cones in a way they hadn’t for a good 30 years.

It’s the hive mind that terrifi es, of course, the same premise used to equally daunting eff ect with the Borg of Star Trek; that and the urgent rising electronic anger of the voices. As the Doctor, with his whizzily fl oppy hair and stoic mania, stood before the Dalek parliament – summoned there to help save his fi rst-sworn enemies from, essentially, another planet they’d built and fi lled with other Daleks deemed even by Daleks to be far too mad, angry, hate-fi lled and unnecessarily violent for, y’know, normal Dalek life (come on, keep up, Stephen Hawking’s already on the last paragraph ) – the rasps and parps and whirrs rose and growled and coalesced in their evil thousands, fl ashing layers and tiers in the vast stadium around his bemused blinks, like an Olympics opening ceremony gone spectacularly wrong. Not only did I forget to look at Amy Pond’s mini skirt, I forgot to look for the stairs. It was that exciting, that … frissoning . Yet more well-deserved chops to Moff at and co, and to stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan for helping suspend our disbelief through another hour of wonderfully silly, gripping and, on occasion, genuinely tremulous family entertainment, those last two words meant well rather than cynically. And there was much sly wit, not least from newcomer Clara Oswin, a terrifi c

Jenna-Louise Coleman , who – oh it’s all too complicatedly cosmic, man, but basically she’s a pretty young girl who doesn’t know she’s a Dalek. And she worries, once, that Gillan’s Amy may have been sundered by the Dalek hive and in the process of metamorphosing, because she sounds “always so … angry”. Amy hears, and snaps caustically out of her stupor. “Well. Somebody’s never been to Scotland.”

There were more laughs, more wit, more nuanced and believable human humour in any three minutes of this everyday tale of time-travellers besting rusting aliens with a sonic screwdriver and a miniskirt than in the full half-hour of Citizen Khan. Sadly. The BBC’s fi rst Pakistani-Muslim comedy came much hyped, and with many hopes, and was insultingly bad. Insulting to some who make a fi ne amateur hobby out of being insulted and who have complained about stereotyping, but that’s what bad comedy does, good people. But more insulting to those,

including the above, who believed its billing under the slot “comedy”.

It was comedy from the early 70s, taking the rip out of Birmingham Pakistanis – Dad’s self-aggrandisement, meanness and dodgy taste in brown ties, Mum’s houseproud status-paranoia, the overarching family hypocrisies – but written and performed by Muslims of Pakistani origin, chiefl y the otherwise talented Adil Ray (Why? Why, Adil?) and thus OK. Except it wasn’t, because it a) did rather fall back on stereotypes, in roughly the way anything scraped

from the nether regions of a barrel, held aloft and then dropped, falls back into the bottom of the barrel, and b) was stone-faced unfunny. By the time of the gear stick “joke” my features had assumed those of a gargoyle. All around the country, and particularly around Birmingham’s Sparkhill , you could hear people waiting to laugh, with the frustration of a sneeze which won’t come.

If they made a similar programme today about, say, Bermondsey whities, utterly ignoring all the suss, wit, learned subtleties, cross-pollination, angst and kindness in favour of non-jokes about tripe, Mother Brown’s skirts and the robbing of prize marrows from dodgy allotments there would be, frankly, bemusement. Unless it was actually funny, which redeems much. Which this wasn’t.

How can the same corporation produce both above programmes? One can only imagine the execs raising glasses of fi no in a tapas bar after a lengthy week at White City. “Dr Who? Yeah, again, it’s great, lovely stuff , onward and upward. You?” “Citizen Khan. It’s great, it’s the fi rst-ever … actually, it’s a crock. But it ticks the boxes.” Cheers, BBC.

As far from box-ticking country as you could get was the fi nest thriller of the week, Murder: Joint Enterprise, the fi rst venture into this country from The Killing’s director Birger Larsen . He and writer Robert Jones didn’t give us a cohesive time line or narrative, or a fl awed alcoholic antihero, or bells or churches or stilettos. Instead they gave us, through a series of retrospective monologues from the protagonists – the lairy ex-squaddie, the confused asthmatic detective, the dodgy tramp of a sister – a mesmerising hour which still lingers. It will also have averted as many eyes from Nottingham – goodness, how the local council must have hated this programme, but then it shouldn’t have ruined its own city by

Matt Smith in Doctor Who: ‘another hour-long plot of wonderfully silly and, on occasion, tremulous family entertainment’.

TELEVISION

Still angry after all these years

Doctor Who BBC1

Citizen Khan BBC1

Murder: Joint Enterprise BBC2

Bad Sugar C4

Euan Ferguson

Much will have been written elsewhere about the Paralympics 2012 Opening Ceremony (C4) , so I won’t go on. Just two things – when was your wow moment? And when can we get a sense

of perspective? For me, the lump in the throat came

watching that band of wheelchaired

athletes carrying the Paralympic

fl ag . Wheeling their chairs with one hand, the other doing the fl ag-holding, and, at the slopes and turns, you

could see some twitches of struggle, imbalance, some echoes of pain.

I was shot back to a day in 1999. About to enter Kosovo, from Albania, naively unheeding of the danger thanks to the laughing companionship of a woman named Marie Colvin , I came across the remnants of a refugee march over the mountains, fl eeing Kosovo. One mother walked uphill beside her teenage son, shot in both kneecaps, on two dodgy crutches. Th e plastic of his handles was blisteringly hot. She had used, she said, two full bottles of water to keep the handles slick, cool, and save her son’s palms.

Humankind was not made to propel itself manually. Every day for the next 12 we should remember this, and wonder, and stop bitching about the bloody ad breaks.

SCENE OF THE WEEK

It was a somethingof a coup to recapturea frisson of fear at the sight of anodised parking cones

building that unnavigably foetid mess of a car park/shopping mall smack in the middle of its history and thu s making its inhabitants want to kill each other all the time – as it diverted other, nastier, eyes towards the hitherto unregarded yet undeniably rugged contours of an Amaretto bottle. Filthy, harsh, beautifully unpredictable, scarily well acted by Karla Crom e and Joe Dempsie , it left a bad taste about humanity and justice, and a sweet raving taste for more of this stuff from Mr Larsen or anyone else who wants to twist, bash and pleat the dough of crime staples into darker and more dangerously cinnamoned delights.

It was absurdly hard not to love any minute of Bad Sugar. As hard as it would surely be not to love Olivia Col man, Julia Davis or Sharon Horgan if you met them in real life, and as hard as it would surely be not to rabbit-punch the next man who ever says that women can’t “do” comedy. Spritzy, bitchy, gloriously knowing, this Downton/Dynasty/Brideshead/Triangle spoof would, in an ideal world, warm the cockles all the coming autumn. Every minute, all performances, encapsulated not just the dirtier sensibilities of our times but the pitch-perfect timings and pouts and moues of the very very best of, say, Not the Nine O’Clock News. It’s such a shame that, in comparison, Citizen Khan has chosen to echo the very very worst of On the Buses.

about the Paralympics 2012 OpCeremony (C4), so I won’t go ontwo things – when was your womoment? And when can we get

of perspective? For mein the throat

watching thof wheelch

athletes cthe Paral

fl ag . Whtheir chone haotherfl ag-and, aslopeturns

LADY GAGA LIVE, PAGE 34


FilmFilm

Total Recall (118 mins, 15 ) Directed by Len Wiseman; starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel, Bill Nighy

Paul Verhoeven ’s 1990 Total Recall , based on Philip K Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale , was a lively dystopian sci-fi thriller set on Earth and Mars run by an authoritarian government that exaggerated the infl uences of a rebel force in order to remain in power. Directed by Len Wiseman (best known as a special eff ects expert and as director of the dismal Underworld vampire fi lms), this remake is a dull movie. It largely sticks to the original’s plot but is set entirely on our planet, now run as the United Federation of Britain , with two chief centres – a version of London and, on the other side of the globe, the Colony , which is little diff erent from the polluted Los Angeles of Blade Runner . The two parts are connected by a lift that goes through the Earth’s core. Colin Farrell is an unsatisfactory replacement for Arnold Schwarzenegger as the married proletarian who discovers he’s really a former government agent who became a subversive freedom fi ghter and was given a new memory. The chief clue to his former identity is that he reads a tattered James Bond paperback on the bus to work.

The 1990 version was witty and quirky, much of its charm coming from Arnie. It had a formidable villain in Michael Ironside and two really sexy women in the shape of Sharon Stone

and Rachel Ticotin . Wiseman’s fi lm is (after 20 minutes of scene-setting) one long, repetitive chase with occasional pit stops. The special eff ects are unremarkable too, and lack the impact of the Verhoeven fi lm.

Th e Myth of the American Sleepover (96 mins, 15 ) Directed by David Robert Mitchell; starring Claire Sloma, Marlon Morton, Amanda Bauer, Brett Jacobsen

This mosaic movie is a slow-moving, mumblecore version of George Lucas’s dynamic American Graffi ti and tells a similar, very American story of how some middle-class teenagers spend the last night of summer before moving on to a new school or going to university.The setting is a suburb of Detroit,

Michigan , where the kids drift around, full of unresolved purpose, dropping in on parties, talking, dossing down in school gymnasiums, sleeping over at friends’ houses. Their paths cross as they drink, share spliff s, exchange painful confi dences, have little misunderstandings and experience minor epiphanies. It’s a ritual, a rite of passage. The most interesting of the girls is an attractive blonde with a lovely smile and studs all over her face who is going to start the new school year dancing in a street parade. The most engaging story involves a shy, ungainly Chicago University senior, about to drop out after being jilted and taking up with identical twins. One of them has a crush on him, though he can’t fi nd out which one. It’s an unsentimental debut of some promise and it has the ring of truth.

[Rec]³ Génesis (80 mins, 18) Directed by Paco Plaza; starring Leticia Dolera, Diego Martín, Ismael Martínez

In Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC] , an intrepid reporter went out on a nocturnal assignment with the local fi re brigade and ended up with her cameraman covering her encounter with an apartment occupied by zombies. It came at you with the ferocity of a Spanish inquisitor brandishing a torture instrument. [REC] 2 took up where the fi rst ended and proved commonplace. This third instalment, a solo eff ort by Paco Plaza , starts with the world being observed

through a wedding photographer’s lens, but it eventually gives up the pretence after zombies take over the grand hotel where the event is being held. It’s a tiresome gore fest, much of it played for easy laughs. The makers think they’re being sophisticatedly ruthless. They’re merely childishly heartless.

Cockneys vs Zombies (88 mins, 15 ) Directed by Matthias Hoene; starring Michelle Ryan, Georgia King, Alan Ford, Honor Blackman, Richard Briers

The better of the week’s two zombie movies begins in Nigel Kneale fashion. A pair of hard-hats accidentally open a vault under an east London church that was sealed during the Great Plague in 1666 and release a force that rapidly spreads to create an implacable horde of fl esh-eating monsters. Their appearance coincides with a threat to close a local old people’s centre, the Bow Bells Care Home, run by the grandfather of three East End

tearaways, who come to the aid of the grandfather – fi rst by robbing a bank, then by battling against the zombies. It’s a ragged fi lm, indiff erently acted, but not dislikable and occasionally quite amusing, as when West Ham zombies confront zombies from Millwall. The big attraction, however, comes from seeing the senior citizens recover the Churchillian spirit of the Blitz. They’re led by Richard Briers clutching his walking frame, Dudley Sutton in a wheelchair and Honor Blackman supported by hip replacements, all gleefully wielding automatic weapons.

A Few Best Men (96 mins, 15 ) Directed by Stephan Elliott; starring Xavier Samuel, Laura Brent, Kris Marshall, Olivia Newton-John

The most dislikable collection of friends in literature are Bassanio and his coarse, sponging chums in The Merchant of Venice . I was reminded of them last week when recalling that the worst of the lot – the witless, anti-semitic Gratiano – was played in the Al Pacino fi lm version by Kris Marshall . A specialist in such roles, Marshall virtually reprises his

Gratiano as one of three loathsome Londoners who create havoc

when they accompany their best friend to Australia to be best men at his wedding. He’s to marry the daughter of a

FILM OF THE WEEK

AND THE REST… By Philip French

Nothing to see here: Jessica Biel and Colin Farrell in Total Recall. Rex Features

In search of the perfect scream

PhilipFrench

Berberian Sound Studio(92 mins, 15) Directed by Peter Strickland ; starring Toby Jones , Cosimo Fusco , Antonio Mancino , Fatma Mohamed

One of the most remarkable British movies of the past couple of years, Berberian Sound Studio is a psychological thriller set entirely in the Kafkaesque offi ces of a sleazy Italian fi lm company in the 1970s. It brings together a gifted trio of independent British fi lm-makers: producer Keith Griffi ths , who has been behind a dozen or more daring, off beat pictures, including most recently the Cannes Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives ; the cinematographer Nic Knowland , whose numerous credits since the late 1970s include Tony Palmer ’s Shostakovich biography Testimony and the Quay brothers’ Institute Benjamenta ; and writer-director Peter Strickland , a truly European director

who made his feature debut in Hungary three years ago with Katalin Varga .

The low-budget Katalin Varga, shot in Romania in Hungarian, tells the story of a peasant woman embarking on a Virgin Spring -style revenge trip around the Carpathians after being banished from her native village. The most notable feature is its complex soundtrack combining electronic music, an indecipherable chorus of human voices, and slightly heightened natural sounds of wind, water, thunder and the rustling of grass and leaves. This is important because in Strickland’s second fi lm, Berberian Sound Studio, the protagonist is a shy, nondescript British sound expert , and he has two cinematic predecessors. In Francis Coppola ’s The Conversation (1974 ), Gene Hackman played a San Francisco surveillance expert hired to make secret recordings of conspiratorial lovers, who gets out of his depth and descends into paranoia. In Brian De Palma ’s Blow Out (1981 ) John Travolta had one of his best roles as an ace sound-eff ects man working on a low-budget horror fl ick in Philadelphia who stumbles across a political conspiracy. He ends up recording the screams of a dying woman and uses them to dub a slasher fi lm.

Coppola and De Palma were of course infl uenced by Antonioni ’s Blow-Up (1966), and Strickland refers specifi cally to Ingmar Bergman and

David Lynch in Berberian Sound Studio. The short, balding Toby Jones, one of the cinema’s fi nest character actors at work today, plays the middle-aged Gilderoy , a home counties dork from Dorking brought to Italy to construct a soundtrack. His speciality, according to a persuasive clip we’re shown, is providing the natural sounds of winds, birdcalls and rippling brooks for British natural history fi lms. They’re narrated by plummy-voiced actors with snatches of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending in the background. The Berberian Studio specialises in something diff erent: the stylish, sadistic, sexually explicit horror movies of the 1970s known as “giallo” because of the garish yellow-covered paperbacks from which they were adapted; these were especially associated with such directors as Mario Bava , Luciano Ercoli, Lucio F ulci and Dario Argent o. Gilderoy’s encounter with a sullen, aggressive, dark-haired beauty at the reception establishes the unwelcoming, mysteriously foreign nature of the place, as well as his identity as an innocent, unworldly mother’s boy. He starts off making the fi rst of many unsuccessful requests for his airfare, a decreasingly unfunny joke as the movie goes on.

The prissy Gilderoy is at fi rst surprised and intrigued by this giallo world. We see the graphic red and black credit titles of “The Equestrian

Vortex” depicting satanic scenes preceding the outrageous movie that the menacingly fl amboyant, fl ashily dressed and extravagantly coiff ed producer Francesco Coraggio and the director Giancarlo Santini have made. But only through Gilderoy’s eyes do we experience the outrageous horrors (rape, mutilation, torture and terror) for which he must provide

Peter Strickland’s thriller about a home counties sound engineer hired by a 70s Italian horror studio is a triumph

Only through his eyes do we experience the outrageous horrors for which he must provide sound eff ects

sound eff ects as well as recording the dialogue and screams of the attractive young starlets in their cramped sound booth. He keeps in touch with Dorking through his mother’s letters of village activities, and is fl attered by the signifi cance attached to his contribution by his new employers and the attentions of the attractive actresses. His absorption in special eff ects ( sizzling fat to accompany a red-hot poker penetrating a nun’s vagina; a crushed marrow to capture the fi nal sound of a plummeting body) keeps their true nature at bay. But gradually the deference of producer and director turns into contempt, especially when they take personally Gilderoy’s criticisms of the studio’s penny-pinching equipment, and when he dares to impugn the

Laura Brent, Olivia Newton-John and Rebel Wilson in the ‘excruciating’ A Few Best Men.

Plaza’s nt out on

he local h heruntery herent. t ce.

the grandfather of three East End that the woanti-semitin the Al PaKris Marshroles, Mars

GratiaLon

wbbt


IN SEARCH OF THE XX FACTOR

Since their stunning 2009 debut, the xx have kept their lives out of the spotlight. But for how much longer? With a hotly tipped

new album imminent, Tom Lamont joins them on tour in LA

R omy Madley Croft doesn’t leave proper fi ngerprints, and what whorls and ridges the 23-year-old has on the tips

of her fi ngers are so fi ne they can’t be detected by the special machines at US border control. It means that having landed at Los Angeles airport with Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith – this trio of Londoners forming a remarkable British band, the xx – Croft is pulled aside for a long and joyless conference with immigration offi cials. The three musicians, all 23, are groggy after a fl ight in from Sydney, but only Sim and Smith get to drive away to their hotel.

Faint fi ngerprints. It’s a weirdly appropriate impediment for Croft, guitarist and singer in a band such as this. The xx make electronic-edged

music that’s ghostly, low key, as spare and enigmatic as their curious name. The trio are notoriously reticent, hoping in their promotional commitments to make minimal personal impression; and in the three years between releasing a fi ne fi rst album and putting out, this month, a second, they’ve done so impeccably. Tracks from their self-titled debut, winner of the 2010 Mercury Prize , are used all over, and their new album, Coexist, deserves to become another cultural fi xture. You will defi nitely be aware of the xx’s stuff . You might not be totally sure who they are, though, these cat burglars of British pop – here, there and everywhere without leaving identifying marks.

In the courtyard of their hotel in Hollywood, the band go unnoticed.

They are left alone to blink and wince their way into West Coast time. Beers and coff ees are ordered; notes are compared on a wicked, composite jet lag that has built up over close-packed tour dates in Europe, Japan, Australia and now America.

Oliver Sim, the band’s bass player and co-vocalist, 6ft 2in with a backward whip of hair, is coming to terms with it being the mid-afternoon. At 10am on a Sunday the band’s plane left Sydney, spent 13 hours in fl ight and landed in LA at 7am... still a Sunday. Sim wonders if the experience counts as time travel. Should he have written himself a note? Don’t watch the in-fl ight Jennifer Aniston movie.

Jamie Smith, multitasking percussionist and producer, is not so

bothered by his extreme tiredness. Being not so bothered is Smith’s default position on a great many things. His woolly brown hair shaped into a drooping quiff , h e’s been sitting poolside all morning, snatching sucks on cigarettes before the waiters can tell him no, and thinking about reworking some incidental music for the band’s gig tomorrow. It will be at the Fonda theatre in Hollywood , the xx’s fi rst US show in over a year, and a sell-out.

Croft, pale-skinned with a distinctive forward swoop of black hair, has by now been freed from the airport to join her bandmates. She had to wait for an hour to get her passport back, she tells me, listening all the

Continued overleaf

Music

Th e xx in Los Angeles, California (l to r): Jamie Smith, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim. Photograph for the New Review by Jamie-James Medina

Our monthly section featuring the biggest names in pop and more


They don’t like to let people close, or to be kept, showily, at a distance

MUSIC INTERVIEW

“Romy knows everything there is to know about me,” says Sim , but at 14 it took time for them to admit to each other they’d been fi ddling with instruments; writing snatches of music; even (behind closed bedroom doors, Sim living with his mum in a Fulham council fl at and Croft fi ve minutes’ drive away) singing. They decided they’d form a boy-girl duo, and their voices paired brilliantly, hers high and airy against his rich lower register. “We learned to talk together,” says Croft. “I don’t know why our voices fi t so well, but maybe that’s it.”

They performed their fi rst gigs, aged about 16, to a CD drumtrack. Their school had for a while been an incubator of young British bands – electropop outfi t Hot Chip formed there in 2000 – and pupils tended to be musical. A friend that Croft and Sim had made in the playground, Jamie Smith, started coming to their shows. He was tiny (Croft towered over him) but Smith had from a young age been DJing at local clubs, a great fan of the

electronica-tinged hip-hop of RJD2. Sim and Croft asked Smith to improve their drumtrack, and later he joined the band. Inspired by RJD2, Smith decided he’d try to perform the electronic component of the music live, tapping away on a touch-panel MPC sequencer with clawed fi ngers, playing it like a compact, percussive piano.

By 2006, Baria Qureshi, another schoolfriend, had joined as keyboard player and the band had a name, bashed out among a fl urry of ideas on a home computer. Were those lower-case letters to represent kisses, chromosomes? Whatever: under the blinking cursor of a Microsoft Word document they liked the way “the xx” looked written down. When the quartet left school they were taken on by Caius Pawson, a young music impresario who’d founded a small label, Young Turks. He signed them up and became their manager.

Pawson, today, winces at me. We are in a nightclub in north Hollywood

while to another passenger being bullied by guards because he wasn’t carrying the right form. “I felt quite upset by it,” she says. “I guess … I guess unnecessar iness gets to me.”

That is it, the xx’s ethos, if it had to be formalised. Unnecessar iness gets to them. They don’t seem comfortable taking praise, or giving interviews. (“We’re very private,” Croft tells me. “We like our personal space.”) They socialise sensibly: karaoke, ideally, and nothing much stronger than Newcastle Brown Ale. They’re in their early 20s though are mistakable in manner for people much older, as long as you allow the odd generational giveaway, like Sim’s reference to Pokémon trading cards, or Croft’s habit of making statements with the rising lilt of a question, or the fact that millennial popstar Daniel Bedingfi eld was a young hero of Smith’s. The trio dress in black, always have, and it seems to me symbolic of their aversions. They don’t like swank.

It should all make their next 48 hours in Los Angeles interesting, because in this most unnecessary of cities, swank is close to a religion. Before the xx depart, Smith will fi nd himself high on a stage in an open-air nightclub, being showered with confetti and enclosed by writhing go-go dancers. A local promoter will give them, of all things, a box of pornography. Croft and Sim will sing while standing on a giant chessboard.

LA, acknowledges Sim, is the place that pulls the trio furthest from their comfort zone. Certainly it’s a long way from where everything began. Putney.

Their fi rst album might have sounded so spacious, so uncomplicated, because when the

band fi rst started writing it they hardly knew their instruments.

Sim got a bass on his 14th birthday, by which time Croft was teaching herself the guitar. They’d been friends since before they could talk, near-identical looking toddlers fi rst plonked down to play together in a sandpit. They grew close in that way early-introduced kids do, unquestioningly and by increment, day after day in each other’s company. They went to the same primary school then the same secondary, Elliott school in Putney, south-west London.

misfi re (and, boy, do they misfi re under this kid’s inscrutable stare), Smith stays silent, just letting it pass. In a moment of unusual personal candour, he tells me how he met his Italian girlfriend over drinks in a bar, and adds with a strange sort of pride that he didn’t ask her for her phone number. Smith’s instinct is for passivity, and perhaps this is what makes him such a fi ne producer. “I work with talented people,” he shrugs. “I’m just their tool.”

Outside, the rooftop show under way, the xx play through a couple of numbers from their new album and a couple from the old. Afterwards there is an attempt at an onstage radio interview, and Sim hugs himself, embarassed, taking a hit for the team by answering questions on behalf of the others. At one point the interviewer pings a rogue inquiry at Smith, who’s hiding among the big chess pieces at the back. Sim has to step in and translate his friend’s silent answer, a vague upper-body twitch. “That means yes,” says Sim.

Afterwards, backstage, the band seem relieved it’s over and in a good mood. Tonight’s gig at the Fonda theatre will be more demanding but the afternoon set with its small audience has

reminded them happily of early gigging days, when they played in pubs and clubs to crowds of a couple of dozen. This was around 2008, when they were working up songs for a possible album and Pawson had installed them in a small rehearsal room in Putney. Womb-like, Sim once called it.

They were still living at home at the time, Croft tells me, “and when I think about it from a parent’s perspective we could have been doing anything. You know: we’re off to rehearse now, bye! Luckily we were doing something.” They were perfecting their debut, xx, released in summer 2009 to kick-starting critical acclaim. The band began a tour, which gradually extended as their fanbase grew and eventually lasted about 18 months, on and off . A lot of jet lag and Jennifer Aniston fi lms, plus some emotional times along the way.

Diffi culties had developed with the band’s fourth member, Qureshi. “She has a place here,” Sim told the NME at the Mercury announcement ceremony in 2010. “She’s part of the album.” But Qureshi was no longer part of the band, ejected in October 2009 after a particularly trying few days at a New York music festival. “There were problems that came to light because we were at such close quarters,” Sim tells me. Croft, at the time, likened the rift to a divorce.

They had to grow up in a lot of ways during that fi rst tour. Most of us go through the buff eting half-romances of early adulthood with a bedroom to

Continued from page 27 where Smith is shortly to do an hour-long DJ set. It’s a side project away from the band, billed under his stage name, Jamie xx. “All the cool little gigs Jamie does for £30,” Pawson says, pained, “and I bring the journalist to this one.” It’s an extraordinary occasion. The dancefl oor has its own swimming pool. Tins of Stella, here repackaged as a luxury import, are selling for £8. Smith will get his own dancers, and a bouncer. “Just let me know who I should protect,” the bouncer keeps saying, and he stars in an ideal moment of farce when Smith moves up to the DJ booth to perform.

The set is about halfway through, a confetti bomb going off to mark a high point and the go-go dancers now sharing their podiums with punters brought to a frenzy by Smith’s manipulation of Kanye West and Adele. Pawson goes to the bar to get his artist a drink. Don’t let anybody into the booth, he instructs the bouncer, who nods. And when Pawson returns the bouncer won’t let him in.

The next day Smith gives a rare roar of laughter when I tell him this. We are now in a residential tower block, a few streets north, where the xx have been booked to play an afternoon warm-up gig: four quick tracks on a rooftop, their audience made up of competition winners. The block has hosted popstars before, and one of its apartments is today serving as a dressing room. It’s here that a war-chest of pornographic DVDs has been left, also condoms, with a note inviting the band to dig in. There are dumbbell weights in the room, should they want to use them.

“Does somebody actually live here?” asks Sim, staring at a wall-sized mural that says ROCK-A-HOLIC in the style of the Hollywood sign. The LA strangeness is mounting. This morning when the band went on a local radio show there was concern, expressed by the show’s production staff , that it would be somehow insensitive to mention the date of their new album’s US release, 11 September. (“Early September” was the eventual compromise.) Outside, on the tower block’s roof, the band have just done a soundcheck and discovered they’ll be performing in a part of the building normally reserved for residents’ games. Pieces pushed to one side, the xx will gig on a giant chessboard for the fi rst time in their careers.

Croft is actually more concerned about a red velvet rope that has been strung between the audience and the performance space. Doesn’t it look a bit starry? She and Sim have a muttered discussion, too, about whether they should wear sunglasses for the show. On the one hand, they don’t want to look distant. On the other hand – it’s pretty sunny.

It makes me think of something Smith told me, another bouncer-related anecdote from the night before. The over-zealous minder had kept smacking off people’s hands as they reached out to Smith in his booth. “I didn’t really want to shake their hands,” conceded Smith. “But I didn’t want them to be knocked away either.” It’s the kind of contradiction the xx are faced with often, as they worry out the kinks and complications of growing renown. Th ey don’t like to let people close, but nor do they like being kept, showily, at a distance.

Smith off ers up another odd moment from last night. In the VIP area after his set he was approached by a fi gure he recognised. Daniel Bedingfi eld. “He gave me a new track he’d made,” says Smith. Any good, I ask? Smith grimaces, and shakes his head. Oh well: it’s a measure of how esteemed he is, anyway, that old heroes seek him out as someone to impress. In the band’s time off between records – most of 2011 – Smith remixed an Adele single and Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here album, both successes, and he’s been courted to produce for others since. He mentions a collaboration with a US star which ought to be fascinating if released. The once-admired RJD2 even sent Smith a crate of new music not long ago, possibly looking to work together.

Any good, I ask? Smith grimaces, and shakes his head. This is his way, gruff and honest. Should one of my questions

Daniel Bedingfi eld gave him a new track he’d made. Any good? I ask. Smith grimaces and shakes his head

“Sam’s a young spirit. We comple-ment each other, for sure, both in our work and on an everyday levelAaron Taylor-Johnson, 22,on life with his wife, the artist Sam Taylor-Wood


Hello California: above, the xx perform a warm-up set for 98.7 FM radio on the roof of the Hollywood Tower; above left: taking a break in their hotel bedroom; above right, onstage at the Fonda theatre. Top photograph by Jonathan Leibson/ Film Magic, others by Jamie-James Medina


MUSIC

guitar and a catalogue of tortured love songs to growl through. Off stage this persona vanishes and he is bouncier, camper, “more smiley than people would think ”. His speech is peppered with assertive, accented “ yeah”s , almost used as punctuating stops. It’s something I’ve noticed rappers do, a statement of sureness and muscularity. Sim, chatting to me after the rooftop set, does it with a fl ower tucked behind his ear.

Does he thrive on the ambiguity that surrounds him? “It’s kind of a double thing,” he says. “I enjoy not knowing everything about a musician I like. At a time when you can fi nd out a popstar’s favourite animal, I think it’s more exciting not to know.” Part two, he says, is simpler: “I just don’t want to tell everyone everything. If you took anyone off the street and asked them to share as much as we get asked to share, they’d say no. I don’t think that’s abnormal.” He fi nds it abnormal, actually, that other bands agree to share so much.

Croft has come to be more open. She is in a long-term relationship with fashion designer Hannah Marshall, and this week has arranged for her girlfriend to join the band in LA. When I meet her, Marshall is a bright, quick-smiling 30-year-old with unusual sheared hair. While the band prepare to leave the

tower block for the Fonda theatre, she makes herself useful, steaming the creases out of a top for Croft to wear, keeping everyone’s spirits up with chat.

Having somebody special along for a show, Croft tells me privately, “makes it new”. Like the cheesy bit in a rock movie, I suggest, when the singer sees someone signifi cant in the crowd and does it just for them. “Yeah, always,” she says, smiling . “ If someone’s there that means something to me, it’s all I can think about on stage – that person.”

We are talking, alone, on a balcony jutting off the tower. In front of us are the Hollywood hills, the iconic sign looking haggard and sad. Behind us is the freeway, the 101, enduring LA’s frightening evening rush hour. Croft’s voice is almost lost to the noise of traffi c as she talks about her father, who died in early 2010 during the band’s fi rst tour. The xx were in Paris when they heard, and rushed back to London. After that, says Croft, “everything kind of went on pause ”. Gigs were cancelled. Everyone waited on Croft. “And then there was a point where I was asked: ‘What do you want to do?’”

What she tells me next surprises me, because I’ve skimmed through thousands of words on the xx by now, and I’ve read their back-stories many times. The band volunteer so little about themselves, though, there are inevitable gaps, and signifi cant ones. Croft tells me she had lost a parent before. “My mum died when I was 11,” she says. “And I felt quite sad about myself feeling this way, but [when my dad died] it wasn’t a new feeling. It was something that I was familiar with.”

So Croft returned to work quicker than even she can believe, looking back. Within days of the bereavement the band were playing a planned show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. “My dad was always there, carrying my amps, driving me around, and I knew that he would have wanted us to carry on.” After Shepherd’s Bush, the xx recommenced their tour.

Has she written about this stuff ? “A couple of songs,” says Croft, “but just for myself. My dad was such a fan of music, I’d love to write something in tribute to him.” Thinking about it, she adds: “Though maybe it’s somewhere that would be quite diffi cult to go, every night on stage.”

Separately, both Croft and Sim speak about the depersonalising eff ect of having a calendar that maps out, day by day, show by show, a great chunk of the near future. It’s another unsettling form of time travel, and “an awful thing”, says Sim, “to see on a screen in front of you”. It might be why they’ve tried to scatter this new tour with plans, targets. They’ll soon play an arena in Antwerp, to test their intimate sound on a bigger stage. On his own, Sim has written a song, not right for the band, that he

hopes Beyoncé might consider if he can work up the courage to ask. Smith has plans to build a new instrument, like his beloved MPC sequencer but iPad-like and see-through, colourful graphics conjured with the same fi nger taps that make his music.

Croft, I sense, simply aims for a less lurching tour than the last. “Right now I can see what I’m doing until next year,” she says (and from LA the band will fl y to Seattle then through Canada and on to New York, eventually to the UK and Mexico and back to the US), “and during that time there’s no room for disasters, or life, or anything else like that to happen ”.

Awful, in a way. And in a way, I’m sure, a relief.

At the Fonda theatre, later, the band perform, and I try to look out for Croft looking out for

her girlfriend. I want to glimpse the singer as she pares down a capacity crowd to one. But I’m a distance away, and there’s a lot of stage smoke, and anyway the show’s too absorbing to maintain professional scrutiny for long. Soon I’m listing and hollering with

everyone else. Nodding, too – people do a lot of nodding at the xx gigs. Group confi rmation: oh this is good.

But a n LA crowd will demand its swank, and bands playing the Fonda tend to put a little extra zing into their shows. When rapper Azealia Banks performed here , she did so dressed as a pink mermaid, fi nally lost to view under an industrial dump of balloons from the eaves. Before that, Kasabian in town, their frontman did muscle poses before strolling into the crowd.

The xx don’t do this, nor shower the Fonda with balloons. Yet the production of tonight’s show is unprecedentedly ambitious. The trio perform in front of magnifi cent new laser lights, tinged pink and gold, that shoot out from the rear of the stage. They play most of the show backlit, and it’s almost a shame the band can’t see themselves as the audience do, framed by these powerful lights. I’m certain they’d approve, because Croft and Sim and Smith are left shadowy, indistinct, really only silhouettes.

Coexist is out on 10 September. The xx play Bestival on Saturday

retreat to, a duvet to crawl under, but the xx went through it all in minivans and departure lounges – with an entourage. Smith tells me about a DJ set he was doing, somewhere on the tour, when a girl in the crowd approached him with a folded-up note. He was young, and had no clue what to do with it, so he put it in his pocket. Only after much jokey persuasion from those around him did he fi nally open it, in the cab on the way back to the band’s hotel. It might not be too late to follow it up... The note said: “Why don’t you play some decent music?”

For Croft and Sim there was a more brutal lesson. “The fi rst piece Dazed [& Confused magazine] did on us,” Croft once explained, “they outed us in the fi rst line.” Ever since, the pair have not spoken with ease, if at all, about their sexuality. Softening, in 2010, Croft gave a short, intimate interview to the online magazine Tourist in which she and her girlfriend at the time, an art student based in London, talked about love. What does it feel like, they were asked, to be in a long-distance relationship? “Like when you’re eight,” the rather beautiful answer, “and you want it to be your birthday.”

Sim has kept consistently zipped. “Is there anything you want to say to your gay fans?” he was once asked by New Gay TV, and seeming to think about it, Sim replied: “Hot Chip are amazing.” The xx sing almost exclusively about matters of the heart (Missing, a track on Coexist, might be the most aching lament on romantic separation I’ve heard) but their love-lives away from the mic have never been very clearly outlined. I get the sense, speaking to Sim, that he quite enjoys the mystery he inspires. On stage he sways and leers, all eyes and attitude. Exactly as a good frontman should, he makes you – bloke in the crowd, neck craned – feel many degrees less masculine because you haven’t got a

2000 Childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim start at Elliott school in Putney, south London. Here, they meet fellow pupils Jamie Smith and Baria Qureshi. 2004 Croft and Sim begin writing songs and eventually gigging as a duo: Croft on lead guitar, Sim on bass, both singing. 2005 Qureshi (keyboards) and Smith (percussion) start performing with the band, by now called the xx. April 2009 Formally signed to Caius Pawson’s Young Turks label , the xx release a debut single, Crystalised .August 2009 Th eir debut album, xx, is released. Th e Observer calls it “utterly electrifying” . It goes on to sell more than a million copies worldwide.

October 2009 Qureshi is asked to leave, owing to personal tensions that developed within the band when they were touring.May 2010 Th e fi rst song from xx, Intro, is used by the BBC for its election coverage .

September 2010 xx wins the Mercury prize, beating nominees including Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal, Corinne Bailey Rae, Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling. “Th e album has the most amazing sense of mood and atmosphere,” says the Mercury’s chief of judges, Simon Frith.December 2010 Th e band’s lengthy tour ends and they take some time off . 2011 Under his stage name Jamie xx, Smith releases We’re New Here , a remix of Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here. May 2012 Th e band perform new tracks at small London gigs. Th ey begin another tour that takes in Spain, Japan, Australia, the US and the UK. July 2012 Angels , the fi rst single from new album Coexist released . TL

EXXTRAORDINARY How the band came of age

Th e xx in 2009, including Qureshi, just before the release of their fi rst album.

Th e xx sing mainly about matters of the heart but their love-lives away from the mic are not clear

“Th e crescent of butter-scotch-coloured sand loops at the southern tip of 11kms of lagoonAnna Stothard fi nds a Moroccan oasis



aged that well. It’s hard to believe that wearing a white dinner jacket was ever a big deal. Even the celebrated covers of the fi rst fi ve albums, with their lingerie-clad models, look cheesy and chauvinist these days ( apart from the still-edgy sleeve of For Your Pleasure , a perversely styli sed shot of Amanda Lear walking a panther). The music, though, remains timeless in its weirdness and wildness.

What gets swept under the carpet by the “fi rst true band of the 70s” argument is that the Roxy Music of the fi rst three albums is a post-psychedelic outfi t: as much progressive rock as glam rock. Manzanera recalls listening recently for the fi rst time in ages to The Bob (Medley) , the six-part song-suite on 1972 ’s Roxy Music, a sort of “mini-movie” concept piece about the second world war. “This guy is remixing our debut LP in 5.1 surround sound, so I was listening to The Bob and I was laughing. It’s pure prog. The whole of that fi rst album sounds so weird. It’s such a mish-mash of stuff . Roxy just wouldn’t get signed today.”

Those who view Roxy as pioneers of surface-deep postmodern pop regard the band as radically opposed to the earthy earnestness of what was then known as the underground: long-haired, beardy bands like Soft Machine

and Family who played the college gig circuit, recorded sessions for John Peel, appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test and got written up in Melody Maker. But Roxy’s earliest champions were, in fact, John Peel, who invited them to record a session for his show , Melody Maker’s Richard Williams , who got the hype ball rolling, and management company E G , whose other clients included King Crimson and ELP, and who hitched Roxy up with Island Records , the leading progressive label of the era. At one point Ferry actually auditioned to be King Crimson’s singer . And before Manzanera got the gig, the group’s guitarist was David O’List , formerly of the Nice , the original prog band.

Early on, Ferry went along with the progressive scene’s disdain for chart pop, declaring: “We’re not a singles band, really. I certainly don’t want to fi nd myself sliding down the Slade/T

“The Perfect Guitarist” for Avant Rock GroupOriginal, creative, adaptable,melodic, fast, slow, elegant, wittyscary, stable, tricky…“Roxy” 223 0296 Musician wanted advert,Melody Maker, 1971

There’s a certain sort of glam-rock fan who never ceases to be blown away by the fact that Bowie played a character, the imaginary rock star Ziggy Stardust. That same certain

sort of glam fan never stops being thrilled by the nerve and verve of Roxy Music giving a credit on their debut LP to the person who did their clothes, hair and makeup. Supposedly this was a dissident blow against rock’s anti-fashion stance. Cutting through the stale dope-smoke fug of the hippie hangover, Roxy were “the fi rst true band of the 70s”. But they also prophesied the 80s, their celebration of posing and artifi ce anticipating postmodernism, the new romantics, the Face, pop video and self-reinventing superstars like Madonna.

Which isn’t untrue, but isn’t the whole truth either. It’s hardly the case that Roxy or Bowie invented the idea of image or were the fi rst rockers to have close relationships with designers and stylists. Most 1960s British bands took an interest in clothes and hair. Nor were Bowie or Roxy’s Brian Eno the fi rst fl amboyantly androgynous fi gures in rock. On the record sleeve and in the promo fi lm for Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby? , the Stones wore women’s clothing four years before Bowie put on a frock for the cover of 1970’ s The Man Who Sold the World.

Still, it is true that around 1970-71, rock got awfully drab looking, with countless denim-clad blues-bore and boogie bands, dressed-down singer-songwriters and country-rock outfi ts, and virtuoso players too wrapped up in their endless soloing to bother with stagecraft. “Everything went fl at,” recalls Phil Manzanera , the guitarist who responded to Ferry’s “avant rock” ad and eventually got the job. “A lot of musicians were getting strung out on heavy drugs,” he tells me. “They were out of it, so they weren’t even bothering to wear kaftans or other hippie stuff , which had been stylish in their own way.” Then, with the emergence of Roxy Music and Bowie in 1972, “suddenly there was colour and exoticism and the spirit of rock’n’roll again. We supported Bowie at the Greyhound in Croydon in June 1972: Bowie in his full Ziggy Stardust gear and us in all our regalia, performing to just 150 people in this little upstairs room. It was a tiny stage but it had theatrical lighting, so you had to wear make-up because that’s what theatre people do, otherwise you look washed-out.”

John Lennon once quipped that glam was just rock’n’roll with lipstick. Glam historians tend to emphasi se the lipstick at the expense of the rock’n’roll; they focus overly on the gender-bending rather than the genre-bending. In Roxy’s case, the attention paid to the group’s fashion world connections, pop art allegiances and other extra-musical credentials threatens to overshadow their achievements as a rock band. In truth, Eno’s feather boas, Bryan Ferry’s gaucho look of 1974… they haven’t

Beyond the glam: the band that broke the sound barrier

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Th ompson, Brian Eno and David O’Lick . Phil Manzanera, the band’s roadie , soon

replaces O’Lick.1972 Th e band sign to Island Records and release their self-

titled debut album. Simpson leaves the band, whose lineup remains unstable throughout their career. Th e debut single, Virginia Plain, charts at No 4 before they have played a single gig.

1973 Second album, For Your Pleasure

features Ferry’s girlfriend on the cover: this time the then unknown Texas model

Jerry Hal l .1976 Roxy Music split . Ferry releases two solo albums while Manzanera reunites with Eno, as 801, on the acclaimed 801 Live.1978 Roxy reunite with diff erent members and a more polished sound for Manifesto, which has a mixed reception.

1980 Flesh + Blood goes to No 1 in the UK

Rex corridor of horror.” Even in hindsight, he recalled that Roxy “didn’t think we were as commercial as what other people were doing… When we started, I think we thought we’d be a kind of art-student band, and that’s as far as it would go… King Crimson were one polar extreme, Bowie was the other and we were in the middle. I was astounded when we had a hit record.”

More than half the band – Manzanera, Eno, Andy Mackay , Paul Thompson – came from experimental music, trippy-proggy or heavy rock backgrounds. “We had some weird things that other bands didn’t have, like someone playing oboe,” Manzanera says of Mackay, who was classically trained and whose interest in the avant garde later resulted in the fi ne book Electronic Music . Manzanera’s previous band were Quiet Sun , an outfi t infl uenced by Zappa, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, while drummer Thompson worshipped Led Zep’s John Bonham . A fan of minimalist composers like Steve Reich , Eno was a non-musician who supplied Roxy with irruptions of abstract synth and tape eff ects: things that were “part of experimental electronic music”, recalls Manzanera, “but we used them in the context of songs”.

The songs themselves weren’t exactly conventional either. Some, like The Bob or If There Is Something were more like several songs joined together. Others, like the fi rst two singles, Virginia Plain and Pyjamarama , would be judged unfi nished by the standards of hit factories like the Brill building or Motown. Neither has a chorus, just a single verse melody repeated.

This minimalist aspect to Roxy Music came from one of the motley crew’s few shared passions: the Velvet Underground. But there were also upsurges of maximalism, acid rock fl ashbacks like the second half of In Every Dream Home a Heartache , with its phased drumming and gaseously billowing guitar. “That was my chance to vent my inner psychedelia,” Manzanera laughs. Even more far out is the title track/fi nale to For Your Pleasure, especially

its hallucinatory extended coda of pointillistic piano trills, like the Milky Way going down the cosmic plughole. The product of the strong bond Manzanera formed with Eno, For Your Pleasure is comparable with Hendrix circa Electric Ladyland or Tim Buckley’s Starsailor in its use of the studio and recording tape as a canvas for sound

painting.In late 1973, looking back at the

fi rst two Roxy albums not long after he was pushed out of the band, Eno enthused about the

music’s “insanity… the element of clumsiness and grotesqueness”,

the “terrifi c tension”, caused by the group “juxtaposing things that didn’t naturally sit together”. Even after Eno’s departure, Manzanera continued to pursue the absurdism and studio-boffi n experimentation on the third album , Stranded. Amazona , for

instance, is split apart by an indescribably strange guitar solo midway between a fi re storm and a gigantic bubble machine. It sounds like the work of several guitarists but

(left), is released, with Ferry’s girlfriend, model Amanda Lear , on the cover. Brian Eno leaves the band owing to musical diff erences with Ferry, who also reportedly felt upstaged by Eno’s fl amboyant stage costumes. Stranded is released, with Ferry’s girlfriend, Playboy playmate of the year Marilyn Cole , on the cover.1974 Th e band release their fourth album, Country Life, cracking the US charts.1975 Th e fi fth album, Siren (left), once again

1970 Bryan Ferry loses his job teaching ceramics to west London schoolgirls due to off -curriculum record appreciation sessions. 1971 Ferry places ads seeking musicians – including a “perfect guitarist” and “wonder drummer” - for a new band, and Roxy Music (named after the cinema and dance hall chains) are formed with Graham Simpson, Andy Mackay, Paul

‘Reptilian vibrato’:Bryan Ferry in 1976.Jorgen Angel/Redferns

On the 40th anniversary of Roxy Music’s debut album,Simon Reynolds reassesses their journey, marked out in a new box set, from aural insanity to elegant perfectionism

it’s just Manzanera playing through a complex relay of distortion, repeat echoes and vari-pitch, using a specially built contraption that worked just once. That fi rst and only take is what you hear on the album.

Amazona was the fi rst song on a Roxy album for which Manzanera received a credit. Because music publishing operates according to an antiquated, pre-rock conception of composition that rewards those who write the top-line melody and lyrics, most Roxy tunes are credited solely to Ferry. “It goes back to Tin Pan Alley and the 1930s,” says Manzanera. “Eno’s synth part on Ladytron, Andy’s oboe parts – that came from them. Each member was contributing to the music and to all the arrangements. I like to think that we produced the musical context for Bryan to put his vision into. But that’s not refl ected in the publishing.”

It’s all the more unfair because, according to Manzanera, from about halfway through For Your Pleasure and onwards , the band would write “the music fi rst – all the music, including the solos. Then Bryan would listen to it and try to write a top-line tune and words. When it worked, it was absolutely brilliant. Because none of us knew what the song was going to be about until he recorded the vocal.

‘Musical collision’: Roxy Music, backstage at Crystal Palace, 1972: (l-r) Andy Mackay, Graham Simpson,

‘Th e fi rst album sounds so weird. Roxy just wouldn’t get signed today’Phil Manzanera, Roxy guitarist

FOR OUR PLEASURE From avant garde to Avalon

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NEW TALENT MUSIC

chart, with the band now pared down to Ferry, Mackay and Manzanera.1981 Th e band cover Jealous Guy in memory of recently murdered John Lennon. It becomes their only No 1 single .1982 Eighth and fi nal album Avalon (right) restores the band’s critical acclaim and continues their commercial success, hitting No 1 and remaining on the album charts for over a year, with Ferry’s

girlfriend (and soon to be wife ) Lucy Helmore on the cover.

1983 Ferry breaks up the band, whose members pursue solo careers.2006 Amid much speculation of a reunion, Brian Eno collaborates with the band on a few tracks. Th ese however are eventually released on a Ferry solo album, Olympia .

2011 Ferry is awarded a CBE .Rhik Samadder

Imagine, you’ve been working on Love Is the Drug for absolutely ages, with no idea that it’s even going to be called Love Is the Drug. Then Bryan turns up, and he sings it, and we’re like, ‘bloody hell, we’ve got a single’.”

Rather than the players “backing” their singer/leader, then, it would be more accurate to say that Ferry fronted them: many

of Roxy’s greatest songs would never have been written in the absence of what had been generated fi rst by the musicians. Which is not to downplay the importance of Ferry’s “completion” role. Stranded’s high point, Mother of Pearl , would be a fabulous instrumental but it would not have a fraction of its emotional power without Ferry’s words or his incredible vocal performance, where every line, every word even, is delivered with a deranged archness of emphasis, suff using the entire song with bitter, poisoned campness. In purely musical terms, Ferry’s greatest invention is his voice on the fi rst two albums, the reptilian vibrato that paved the way for neurotic new wave mandroids like Gary Numan and Devo. As much as the jarring and jolting music, Ferry’s grotesquely styli sed singing contributed the aspect of “insanity”

that Eno valued in early Roxy. There’s no doubt that Roxy was

Ferry’s “baby”. He formed the group and formulated its overall vision and framing. But, curiously, what becomes apparent as you follow the band’s arc through the eight albums (plus one double CD of B-sides and outtakes) corralled in the new box set, The Complete Studio Recordings , is that as Ferry gradually asserts total control over the band, the music becomes less characterful. The individuality of the players, that strange “mish-mash”/mismatch Manzanera speaks of, starts to fade, and so too does the collective character of Roxy as an entity set apart

‘Flamboyant’: Eno. Michael Putland/Retna

from the landscape of pop.This smoothing-out begins to set

in circa 1974-75 with Country Life and Siren . It’s in full swing with the reformed Roxy of Manifesto and Flesh + Blood, where Roxy are playing the game of pop according to the radio and dance-fl oor rules of the disco/new wave late 70s and early 80s. And playing it well: there’s no denying the grace of Oh Yeah and Over You , and the shimmer and shiver of Same Old Scene .

The same syndrome aff ects the lyrics: the verbosity and over-ripeness of the early albums goes, but so too does the imagistic vividness, the unclassifi ably mixed emotions. “Songs like Mother of Pearl had masses of words,” recalls Manzanera. “In Roxy’s fi rst fi ve years there’s a lot more witty metaphors and wordplay. But it got more serious gradually, and by the end you had a bunch of haikus, virtually.”

By Avalon and its big single More Than This, the sound is all patina, glistening with professionalism and perfectionism. The words sketch the barest suggestion of mood; the voice, once so blood-curdling and startling, has become a debonair croon, evok ing just a faded and jaded gentility. Ferry has not just annulled the personalities of Manzanera and Mackay, who might as well be session players like the other hirelings credited, he’s erased himself too. Immaculate background music, Avalon could be seen as Ferry’s own version of ambient music: an “I can do that too” riposte to Eno’s reputation as doyen of the cutting edge. A triumph, in its way, but also a tragic inversion of everything that made Roxy so arresting.

Roxy Music: the Complete Studio Recordings, 1972-1982 is out now on Virgin Catalogue

Phil Manzanera, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry and Paul Th ompson. Michael Putland/Getty Images

OnlineSee more images of Roxy Music at observer.co.uk/new-review

Last month, it was a track called New York that, to employ the technical parlance, blew up the internet. The artist responsible is 21-year-old Angel Haze , who

raps so deftly, ferociously and with such menace that “fl ow” seems too mellow a word for her delivery. It means no one’s arguing with its boast, a refrain of “I run New York”.

“I will say to anyone’s face I am the best out there right now,” she declares. “I put everyone in my school on to Nicki Minaj before she blew up. I was obsessed with her and I was like, ‘If she’s the best female rapper then I’ve got to be better than her.’ There’s no one out there right now who can beat me.”

After the braggadocious calling card that was New York, Haze released an EP online: the acclaimed Reservation is titled with her Native American heritage in mind, but also serves as a statement of arrival: “That was my way of introducing myself – I’ve made a reservation here already.”

She’s been proved right. Three weeks after Reservation’s release she had her pick of the major labels. Ever pragmatic, Haze signed with Universal , based on “their statistics, their success rate and the fact that I got a pretty damn good deal outta them”.

Haze has said she wants to be thought of as a rock star rather than a rapper, because “rock stars get to do whatever they want. They don’t have all this stigma attached to them – that you have to be a thug, you have to have been shot, you have to be so hard that no one ever suspects you’re gay. As a female rapper, you have to sell your body, you have to be attractive, you have to be promiscuous. You never see any female rock stars being told, ‘Take off your clothes, be sexy’. I want to have that type of freedom but still be able to say whatever I want as a rapper.”

Inevitably, she’s attracting comparison with both her idol, Minaj, and contemporaries such as Azealia Banks . “Guys pit female rappers against each other because female rappers are a lot more interesting than guys. That’s why they have this all-male clique thing going on. I specifi cally told my manager, ‘Don’t get me any meetings with any boy groups… I want to stand on my own, hold my own. ”

Born in Michigan , Haze was raised in the Greater Apostolic Faith , a church she describes as “ a cult”. The family left when she was 10 and her mother was convinced that she and her older brother were going to be killed by God as punishment. “My mum was like, ‘Secular music is a way you can guarantee your space in hell’, but when I got to 16 she let us do whatever we wanted.”

She promptly gorged herself on pop culture (“my iPod had the most songs in it, ever”), but has now gone from consuming everything to listening to virtually nothing.

“I don’t need to have my system infi ltrated by anyone,” she explains. “My sound is mine and as I advance it I don’t want anyone else to come in there and mix themselves up with me.” She shows me her phone as proof: the only other music on it is newly crowned R&B superstar Frank Ocean . Like Ocean,

One to watch Angel Haze

Haze has been frank about her sexuality,describing herself as “pansexual”.

“Love is boundary-less,” she asserts. “If you can make me feel, if you can make me laugh – and that’s hard – then I can be with you. I don’t care if you have a vagina or if you’re a hermaphrodite or whatever.” She concedes that her progressive thinking is “not really an accepted position” in the industry she’s chosen. “But you have to be fearless. People are going to hate you and they’re going to love you with a passion you cannot imagine. I’m feeling the love right now and I’m feeling the hate too, it comes hand in hand. But,” she says with a smile, “I’m happy – more love than hate.” Hermione Hoby

Angel Haze: ‘No one can beat me right now.’ Portrait by Katherine Rose for New Review

‘If Nicky Minaj is the best female rapper then I’ve got to be better than her’


MUSIC LIVES

The season’s 10 best music books Some of rock’s biggest names are about to bare their souls in print. Kitty Empire introduces them and, with Michael Hann and Jude Rogers, previews the must-reads, from Prince to Peter Hook, and Mick Jagger to Morrissey

Blame Bob and Keith – and Patti too. If it weren’t for the runaway success of Dylan’s Chronicles (published 2004 ), Richard s’s Life

(2010 ) and Just Kids by Patti Smith (also 2010 ), the shelves this autumn would not be heaving under the weight of recollections by rock’s big beasts. Between now and Christmas, autobiographies are expected from Neil Young and Pete Townshend , Rod Stewart and Peter Hook, not to mention the biggest beast of them all, perhaps – Ste ven Patrick Morrissey. In between, we have high-profi le biographies of Leonard Cohen and Led Zeppelin, an appreciation of Prince and an account by Mick Jagger’s accountant. Rarely

have the half-remembered recollections of artists, many au fait with recreational chemistry, been more in demand.

The celebrated memoirs of Dylan, Richard and Smith ramped up expectations for the rock autobiography. Pre-Keef’n’Bob, rock memoirs were specialist titles, sold in comfortable numbers to fans, music journalists and sensation-seekers . Then, perhaps, they radiated out to the wider circle of autobiography junkies. There were small publishing sensations in the biographies of excess, like those of Mötley Crüe , which harked back to the original Viking rock myth anthology, Hammer of the Gods , in which Led Zeppelin allegedly did rude things with fi sh.

But these three very literary books broke out of their reservation with elan, escaping into the wider-reading wild . It helped, of course, that Dylan was an enigma who remained an enigma even when setting the record straight; it helped, too, that when Richards was commenting on the size of Jagger’s member, his own memories of discovering the blues in bomb-scarred post war south London were so beautifully drawn. With Smith, you got the bang of a poet and a famous artist for your buck.

Mystery currently surrounds Morrissey’s autobiography, one of the most highly awaited works in any genre this year. The singer has been alternately stoking appetites

for his book and doing himself down, certainly in an interview with Radio 4’s Front Row last year . “I am not that interesting,” he reckoned.

Elsewhere, more questions are about to be answered. Pete Townshend was researching childhood sex abuse for this memoir when he was arrested on child pornography charges in 2003 ; let’s hope Who I Am will explain. Leonard Cohen, the poet laureate of the blackened heart, was nearing retirement age when he found that his former manager had been helping herself to his money ; Sylvie Simmons’s book goes into considerable detail. We’ve chosen a cross-section of the most intriguing titles ; expect to receive more than one of these for Christmas.

WAGING HEAVY PEACE: A HIPPIE DREAM by Neil Young (Viking/Penguin , Oct )

Th e publishers say: “Th is is a great rock memoir that takes its place alongside those of Bob Dylan ( Chronicles ) and Keith Richards ( Life ).”What to expect: Eschewing a ghost writer,

Americana’s most eminent Canadian opens a rare window into his closely guarded personal life as well as his cars, train sets and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Many have commented on how his tone is up close and personal . He says: “Writing a book is not that diff erent from writing songs. It just doesn’t have a melody.” KE

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TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT: THE POWER AND EXCESS OF LED ZEPPELIN by Barney Hoskyns (Faber, Sept)

Th e publishers say: “A unique look at the history, adventures, myths and realities of this most legendary of bands .”What to expect: An oral history of the band that

requires a passing familiarity with their story before you embark on it, since you can’t rely on someone who was a teenage groupie at the time to give all the relevant context. Th e overwhelming theme is that Jimmy Page was an unspeakable tosser and drummer John Bonham was a violent alcoholic . In a nutshell: youth, success, drugs, death, fall, redemption. Sample quote: “If, as the driver of the thing, you are a complete shitbrain, it’s likely everyone else is going to be a complete shitbrain. And when you lose the plot, there’s an awful lot of people who want to lose the plot with you. Because it’s fun and glamo rous and all that.” MH

IN THE PLEASURE GROOVE: LOVE, DEATH & DURAN DURAN by John Ta ylor (Sphere, Sept)

Th e publishers say: “A fascinating, irresistible portrait of a man who danced into the fi re and came through the other side.”What to expect: Pseudy, booze-soaked/drug-

caked memoir of 80s excess by the bass-playing pop heart-throb, now a sober father of three . Th ere’s juicy stuff about the Everests of cocaine available when Duran Duran recorded down the corridor from Bob Dylan and Bryan Ferry, plus eyebrow-raising details from their fi rst US tour – legal ages of consent in each state were added to the top of daily itineraries. Taylor has already said that Nick Rhodes won’t be reading it, but Simon Le Bon says he’ll do the audiobook.Sample quote: “Behind the party face, I was caught up in a vortex of fear, arrogance, loneliness and extraordinary popularity.” JR

UNKNOWN PLEASURES: INSIDE JOY DIVISION by Peter Hook (Simon & Schuster, Sept)

Th e publishers say: “Joy Division changed the face of music. Th e meaning of music .”What to expect: Above all, guilt about the suicide of singer Ian Curtis and wonder at how he

managed to be so many diff erent things to so many diff erent people. Th e current feud between Hook and Bernard Sumner simmers throughout, with frequent airings of what Hook views as the guitarist’s meanness . As is to be expected from a northern man of a certain age, the past is viewed as another country – they did things better there, pet.Sample quote: “ A lot of people say Atmosphere is their favourite Joy Division song, but it’s not mine; it reminds me too much of Ian, like it’s his death march .” MH

MICK JAGGER by Philip Norman (HarperCollins, Oct)

Th e publishers say: “Th is revelatory tour de force is ample tribute to a fl awed genius, a Casanova, an antichrist and a god.”What to expect: A well-researched, boot-licking romp through the life of the never-to-retire rock star by someone who has already written three (well-received) Rolling Stones biographies. Th is frontman-specifi c study burrows into Jagger’s high-profi le love aff airs and controversial behaviour – but suggests he was more interested in social advancement in the 60s than being outrageous. Norman also knocks his subject for not pursuing fi lm roles or politics, while presuming he has

talent for the latter.Sample quote:

“Looking at that craggy countenance, one tries but fails to imagine the vast carnal banquet

on which he has gorged, yet still not

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WHO I AM by Pete Townshend ( HarperCollins , Oct)

Th e publishers say: “Incredibly, as a man who has achieved so much, this truly unique story of ambition, relentless perfectionism and rock ’n’roll excess will be regarded as one of his greatest

achievements.” What to expect: One of British rock’s most refl ective stars, Townshend has literary chops as well, having worked as an editor at Faber in the 80s . Expect a “pretty brutal” analysis of the Who’s music, and some account of his arrest on child pornography charges in 2003 , which he claimed was research on his own childhood abuse for the purposes of this book. He says: “Writing is my principal daily occupation. Rock’n’roll is a tough career, however cynically or comically it is portrayed by its detractors. I am lucky to be alive and to have such a crazy story to tell, full of wild adventures and creative machinations.” KE

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I’M YOUR MAN: THE LIFE OF LEONARD COHEN by Sylvie Simmons (Jonathan Cape, Nov)

Th e publishers say: “Sylvie Simmons draws on Cohen’s private archives and a wealth of interviews with many of his closest associates… as well as professors, Buddhist monks and rabbis, to share stories never before revealed...”What to expect: Semi-authorised examination of the life and loves of the septuagenarian Montreal poet and reluctant troubadour. Juicy bits include the huge loss of assets to his former manager.Sample quote: “To have been redeemed from depression in his old age only to have to spend it in an eternity of legal and fi nancial paperwork was a cosmic joke so black as to test even Leonard’s famous gallows humour.” KE

PRINCE: A CELEBRATION by Matt Thorne (Faber, Oct)

COAL TO DIAMONDS by Beth Ditto (Simon & Schuster, Oct)

Th e publishers say: “ Beth Ditto’s unapologetic, startlingly direct and poetic memoir is a hypnotic and inspiring account of a woman coming into her own.” What to expect: Squirrel-eating. But more than that, how a southern girl broke free from expectation and discovered the transformative powers of punk rock, the grammar school of misfi ts, and got the hell out of Arkansas.She says: “My life was supposed to be simple and non-negotiable: birth, church, work, marriage, kids, death. But along the way something happened. My memoir talks directly to disenfranchised, misunderstood kids everywhere.” KE

Th e publishers say: “Will stand for years to come as the go-to book on the Great Man.”What to expect: An exhaustive tome on the enigmatic star by a novelist with a lifelong Prince obsession. Th is is Th orne’s fi rst foray into long-form pop writing: he is better known for co-founding the New Puritans literary movement and 2004’s Booker-longlisted novel, Cherry . Sadly, Prince doesn’t grant Th orne an interview and his absence is felt throughout . But Th orne scours the archives regardless, interviews collaborators forensically and philosophises earnestly .Sample quote: “My interest is in… the giant super-narrative that [Prince] diligently adds to… a work of art that remains narrowly focused on the same subjects and emotions that have driven him since day one – love, sex, rebirth, anger.” JR

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MORRISSEY: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY(Penguin, Dec)

Th e publishers say: Nothing. But Morrissey was quoted last year saying he hoped his autobiography would be “an instant Penguin classic”.What to expect: One of the most celebrated wordsmiths currently working in the English language waxes eloquent. Two hundred thousand droll, mordant mots. Six hundred and sixty pages of record-setting; alternately self-deprecating and spiteful. An extract was published in a Tate St Ives exhibition book in 2009 in which the young Morrissey and friends are spooked on a moor.He says: “I see it as the sentimental climax to the last 30 years. It will not be published until December 2012, which gives me just enough time to pack all I own in a box and disappear to central Brazil. Th e innocent are named and the guilty are protected.” KE


MUSIC

Josh Davis , alias DJ Shadow , used to spend hours hunting down unusual sounds in the basement of Rare Records in his native Sacramento , California . Th e shop was immortalised on the cover of his debut album, 1996’s Endtroducing… , an instrumental hip-hop record made entirely from samples. Sounding like nothing before, it showed there were few limits to the music that could be made by one man and his record collection. Since then, Davis has continued to innovate, most recently releasing tracks from his archive in partnership with fi le sharing service BitTorrent . It’s his attempt to negotiate the world of digital music and get paid. (A more conventional 16-track overview of his career, Reconstructed , is released tomorrow .)“Some say if you’re a true artist you shouldn’t worry about money,” he says.“But food isn’t getting cheaper. ”

Soundtrack of my life Soundtrack of my life DJ Shadow

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Mother Popcorn, James Brown (1969)

Everything I love about music stems from James Brown . If you grow up on rock’n’roll you might idolise

Chuck Berry , but for me it’s James Brown because he laid the foundations not only for funk but for hip-hop as well.

I fi rst heard this in the late 80s. There was a used record store in my home town and I can remember my fi rst trip there, a “digging” trip , meaning I was now spending my paper-route money not on new hip-hop records but old soul records and rock records. I would buy James Brown records sight unseen.

By around 1987, I was starting to fi nd old records around the same time that

hip-hop artists I liked were using them for samples. I remember fi nding the 45 of I Know You Got Soul by Bobby Byrd concurrent to it being sampled by Eric B & Rakim . I started to think : if I’m fi nding Isaac Hayes’s Hot Buttered Soul in my dad’s collection, and Public Enemy are using it on Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos , I’m kind of on the same wavelength. So maybe I should start making my own beats.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME OF LISTENING TO THE RADIO AS A KID Al-Naafi ysh (Th e Soul), Hashim (1983)

I fi rst heard this on the radio in the mid-80s. Trying to fi nd rap on the radio at that time was frustrating,

especially outside of New York or LA.

But there were a couple of clued-in DJs on a Bay Area soul station called KSOL and I learned their schedule – they were on during lunch hour and Friday and Saturday nights until midnight.

I was 12 or 13 at the time and in junior high school. I was a typical Californian kid who grew up collecting comics, but by 1985 I was hawking them so I had money to buy hip-hop records. That was the turning point. I became a collector and I wanted everything.

There are no embarrassing old photos of me trying to be a B- boy because I couldn’t aff ord the clothes. I also needed to survive at school – I didn’t want to get beaten up. The other kids were mostly into rock or metal, so there were lots of Metallica fans in jean jackets, as they were a big local band. But I did have my two or three friends who liked hip-hop and we stayed in touch for years.

THE RECORD THAT CONVINCED ME MY PARENTS’ MUSIC WASN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL Triad, Jeff erson Airplane (1968)

This was written by David Crosby and fi rst recorded by the Byrds but the Jeff erson Airplane version is sublime.

Being a young hip-hop fan growing up in California, I initially rejected 60s rock as my parents’ music. My mother was at the airport greeting the Beatles in 1964 [on their fi rst US tour] . Like any kid, I couldn’t stand the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or any of their ilk because they were what had come before, so they were to be rejected.

My parents divorced when I was young and my dad ended up with the more adventurous parts of their record collection, everything from Lou Reed to Isaac Hayes to old jazz artists and a lot of blues. I really wanted nothing to do with any of that until about 1987 when I started hearing pieces of old music in hip-hop records at the time and began to decipher where it all came from. Now, subsequently, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of it in its own right, because it’s great.

THE RECORD THAT MAKES ME PROUD TO BE FROM CALIFORNIA Let Me Ride, Dr Dre featuring Jewell and Snoop Doggy Dogg (199 3)

This sounds like home to me, in a way that hip-hop from New York never did. The Dr Dre and Snoop

records from this period are the sound of LA in the early 90s, when there was an earthquake and a riot every other week. It was a really strange time for California and their music was the soundtrack of that upheaval. Any time a piece of music is so pervasive and so emblematic of a region, it sinks in and becomes part of your DNA.

I was reminded of this when I saw them play at Coachella earlier this year . It was great hearing them play those songs in California, hit after hit, with all the security guards dancing – they were my age and I know what those records meant to them.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT Work, Live & Sleep in Collapsing Space, Kuedo (2012)

It’s important to pay attention to what’s happening now. I remember reading an interview with

John Peel in about 1987 when he said : “I don’t understand why everybody’s still listening to Led Zeppelin when we have good music coming out now. New groups won’t make it i f everyone is talking about the past.” That stuck with me and I told him that when I met him.

I probably spend $50-100 a week downloading new music. There’s a constant turnover of diff erent names to keep up with and before long you have a full hard disk. I discovered Kuedo online and I’ve listened to this track constantly for the past month – it’s a bit electro, a bit dubstep, a bit a lot of things, but I can relate to anything with an 808 drum machine on it.

As a DJ, I’ve struggled with the idea of being a vinyl purist when there’s now great music out there that’s never existed on vinyl. Some older DJs can be a bit “Music used to be so much better back then”. But the one constant for me is the pursuit of new music, fi nding things to inspire me, to get me excited. Interview by Gareth Grundy


away on a motorway overpass. Staggering away from the screening, I knew exactly how she felt.

There’s not much warmth in Th e Iceman either, which casts Michael Shannon as real-life mafi a hitman Richard Kuklinski , trundling through 70s New Jersey with murder on his mind. Ariel Vroman ’s fi lm is dogged, effi cient and overfamiliar – a retro arrangement of sideburns, glitterballs and roller-rinks. But Shannon’s menacing, monolithic presence is mesmerising.

By the end of day one, the festival has found its rhythm, and the screenings start blooming all over the site. They’re playing in the hangar-like expanse of the Sala Darsena and in the theatres inside the brutalist marble casino next door. To queue for one is to miss the others and to miss the others means potentially missing the best .

Taking a gamble, I skip Ulrich Seidl ’s Paradise: Faith in favour of Ramin Bahrani ’s At Any Price – but alarm bells are ringing barely 10 minutes in. The fi lm is a cut-price East of Eden, as fl at and featureless as the Iowa plains.

Film

Toby Jones as Gilderoy, the innocent abroad in Berberian Sound Studio. Artifi cial Eye

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Pepping up the old Palazzo

Revolution: Th e Director’s Cut(Hugh Hudson, 1985, BFI, 12)

After the critical and popular success of Chariots of Fire and Greystoke , Hugh Hudson’s career suff ered a major setback with the failure of Revolution , his big-

budget epic about the American war of independence as experienced by a fur trapper (Al Pacino) forced into military service to protect his son, a middle-class rebel throwing herself into the revolutionary cause (Nastassja Kinski ) and a sadistic English sergeant major (Donald Sutherland). While expressing my admiration for its ambition, its designers and some individual scenes, my initial review was generally unfavourable. But when the fi lm appeared on TV in the early 1990s I suggested that “the time is ripe for reappraisal”. Seeing Hudson’s director’s cut, which involved some re-editing, a changed fi nal sequence and, most importantly, the addition of a commentary spoken by the Pacino character, I wrote a reassessment that was published in the programme of the 2008 Dinard British fi lm festival , which featured a Hudson retrospective. I described Revolution as “profound, poetic and original… among the great movies about the experience of individual citizens living in times of dramatic social change”. Th is review is included in the booklet accompanying the handsome dual format DVD/Blu-ray version of the fi lm.

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integrity of their artistic vision. Jones, Strickland and the

cinematographer Knowland brilliantly capture the hermetic atmosphere of a place where it’s impossible to tell day from night. A pervasive mood of exploitation and corruption seeps from the fi lms being made into the relationships between everyone involved in their making. First gradually, then suddenly, Gilderoy becomes a part of this nightmare factory and its product. He’s unable to distinguish between the vicious fantasies he himself has helped create and so-called reality, and we come to realise that his carefully protected home counties existence is itself an idyllic fantasy.

Strickland is clearly making a moral judgment on fi lm-making and popular

culture, but it’s more than a little ambivalent, and he’s also fascinated by the process of creation, representation and self-deception. There are wonderfully funny scenes and rather beautiful moments like the one in which Gilderoy proudly exhibits his skills by creating the sound of a UFO with a wire brush during a candle-lit power failure, a sequence that resembles a painting of an 18th-century scientifi c experiment by that master of light, Joseph Wright of Derby . If you sit through the fi nal credits you’ll read that Suzy Kendall , one-time wife of Dudley Moore , is listed as “special guest screamer ”. Kendall appeared in several 1970s horror fl icks, most famously Dario Argento’s seminal giallo classic, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) .

Liberal senator at a grand villa in the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney . The setting is as beautiful as the goings-on are clumsy and grotesque. When embarrassment fails to be funny, it ends up as truly excruciating, and such is the case here. The saddest casualty is Olivia Newton-John as the bride’s depressed mother who gets high on coke provided by the British best men.

Samsara(102 mins, 12A) Directed by Ron Fricke

Shot in 70mm over a period of fi ve years in 25 countries by Ron Fricke, the man who photographed Koyaanisqatsi and directed Chronos and Baraka , this is a compilation, or collage, of beautiful and striking images put together for suggestive and meditative eff ect. There is no commentary but there is music, some specially commissioned, and a “concept” devised by Fricke and producer/co-editor/co-writer Mark Magidson , turning on a variety of opposites – growth/decay, wonder/disgust, tradition/rootlessness, purpose/futility, faith/disbelief . Much of the stop-motion or undercranked camerawork is designed to make crowds into seething anthills and to emphasise the absurdity of repetitive work, and it’s rather trying. Still, there are so many remarkable images that there is something every few seconds to provoke or please . I was reminded, however, of a line by the New Yorker writer Peter De Vries : “On the surface he may seem deep. But deep down inside, he’s shallow.”

As befi ts the most venerable event on the movie calendar, the Venice fi lm festival requires constant maintenance to keep it afl oat. The walk to the Palazzo del Cinema leads along a tranquil green canal and past faded mansions before depositing us in the midst of a building site, ringing to the din of drills and hammers and the incessant beep of reversing lorries. Inside the screening rooms it is hushed and reverent. Outside it’s bedlam; an ongoing work in progress.

Alberto Barbera , Venice’s new artistic director , likens the festival to “an old lady in need of freshening up” and is promising a major makeover: less glitz, more substance and a greater emphasis on emerging talent. And yet even Barbera is not quite the new broom he fi rst appears. He directed this event for three years in the late 90s before being ousted when Silvio Berlusconi came to power, and now he bounces back like some avenging angel. In Venice – that lush, dripping museum in the guise of a city – the past is forever on hand to gatecrash the present.

The 69th edition kicked off on Wednesday night with the world premiere of Th e Reluctant Fundamentalist , directed by Mira Nair from the Mohsin Hamid bestseller. The fi lm itself is a 21st-century riff on the Horatio Alger story, and stars the British actor Riz Ahmed as Changez , a Pakistani immigrant who strikes gold on Wall Street. Changez loves America but he hates it too – startling himself by smirking at the TV screen when the planes hit the World Trade Centre. He’s not so much reluctant as befuddled and confl icted, torn between Lahore and New York City.

If Barbera intended to open the festival with a bang, I’m not sure The Reluctant Fundamentalist quite delivered. What should have been a portrait of violent cultural ambivalence becomes, instead, a study in nervous equivocation. Nair’s fi lm fl irts with danger but shies away. It handles the plot’s unstable nitroglycerin with lengthy tongs and peppers its turbulent, globalised terrain with

so many helpful narrative signposts that we are never able to veer into the rough, let alone meet the beasts that live there. The whole thing is too damn well-mannered for its own good.

Betrayal , if anything, runs too far in the other direction. Kirill Serebrennikov ’s tale of middle-class adultery and the carnage that follows is purely (and often brilliantly) brutal. The script thrums with incoming violence, painting inner-city Moscow as a hell of howling traffi c and jangling shopping carts. In the meantime the heroine (Franziska Petri ) is coming apart at the seams. She eats mouthfuls of dirt. She licks at the beard trimmings she fi nds in the sink. At one stage she breaks into peals of hysterical laughter, checks herself, and then faints dead

Not even the sight of Zac Efron toiling to shrug off his High School Musical image by shooting out shop windows and having sex with Heather Graham inside a grain silo can provide a distraction. The script feels synthetic, genetically modifi ed, and the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.

As the weekend blows in, the delegates gather for the morning screening of Bad 25 , Spike Lee’s boisterous if uncritical tour of Michael Jackson’s 1987 album. They come out humming Smooth Criminal and The Way You Make Me Feel , and an elderly Italian gent aff ects an apologetic moonwalk on the walkway outside the Palazzo. All at once their spirits have lifted. While the jury is still out on the success of Barbera’s leaner, tauter festival, a mood of optimism dominates the site. The coming days bring Paul Thomas Anderson ’s The Master , Harmony Korine ’s Spring Breakers and Terrence Malick ’s To the Wonder . One has the distinct sense that the future of Venice 69 will be a few shades brighter than its past.

At the age of 69 the Venice fi lm festival needed a facelift. A new artistic director, a faster pace and a mood of optimism are providing it, writes Xan Brooks

‘Bad 25’ is screened, and an elderly Italian gent aff ects an apologetic moonwalk outside the Palazzo

Mira Nair, director of Th e Reluctant Fundamendalist, fl anked by the fi lm’s stars, Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed, in Venice last week. Photograph by Max Rossi/Reuters


Mark KermodeMark Kermode

The mark of a decent pop biopic is that it should make its subject intriguing even if the viewer has little or no knowledge of (or, indeed, interest in) the music. Something of an icon in France, cheesy, smooth chanteur Claude François is viewed as little more than a pop footnote in the UK, the answer to that always taxing pub quiz question: “Who had a European hit with the French-language song

Florent-Emilio Siri attempts to portray the man behind the mask, albeit with the broadest of strokes, despite an earnestly over-extended running time (nearly two-and-a-half hours ) that may stretch the patience of even diehard fans.

Skipping nimbly through all the traditional biopic milestones (confl icted childhood, unappreciative father, early faltering showbiz steps leading to sudden success and equally sudden disillusionment), Cloclo owes a debt to Kevin Spacey ’s underrated love song to Bobby Darin , Beyond the Sea , in both tone and delivery. At the heart of its appeal is a wonderfully mercurial performance by Jérémie Renier , unrecognisable from previous roles in fi lms such as the Dardenne brothers ’ gems The Child and The Kid With a Bike . Capturing both the charm and the creepiness of François, Renier makes the part his own – strutting like a peacock, popping like a cork and huffi ng in the manner of one for whom fame has become comme d’habitude .

Billed as a lov able romantic comedy set against a charmingly off beat angling backdrop, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (201 1, Lionsgate , 12 ) does a pretty good job of fi lleting the satirical sociopolitical guts from Paul Torday ’s source novel. While the book was essentially a satire on media spin with nods toward the philosophical aspirations of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Lasse Hallström ’s more lightweight and upbeat fi lm (from a script by The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy ) resets its sights on a pair of star-crossed lovers attempting to dream the impossible dream.

Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt are very lik able as the mismatched fi sheries expert and millionaire’s aide who become emotionally entangled whil e attempting to make salmon run in an environment not known for its enviable fi shing conditions. Despite

Kristin Scott Thomas ’s bristling presence, those in search of coarse sport may be disappointed, but as the cinematic equivalent of tasty tinned tuna it’s palatably bone-free.

It would be nice to report that Glenn Close ’s awards-courting turn as a woman passing for a man in Albert Nobbs (2011 , Entertainment One , 15 ) was enough to carry this tale of a 19th-century Dublin butler with a lifelong secret. Having fi rst parlayed the role on stage in the 80s , Close is comfortable in her character’s clothes, as is her similarly cross-dressing support, Janet McTeer . The problem is the fi lm itself, which is inert and, frankly, somewhat fusty. No matter how potentially fascinating the lives of its central characters may be, this never exudes much in the way of cinematic brio. The end result is altogether more admirable than enjoyable, a shame because there’s an eye-opening fi lm lurking in the background, unable to break through the dour period fug.

In cinemas, Piranha 3DD reminded us that screen stereoscopy was, is and always will be a crass gimmick beloved of carnival hucksters and schlocksploitation hacks. On DVD, the two-dimensional Piranha DD (2012, EIV , 18 ) loses the one reason for its miserable existence – a rubbish titular pun – leaving foolhardy punters with nothing more than some lame gore, soft core T&A and stunningly unfunny celebrity cameos from the likes of David Hasselhoff , Christopher Lloyd and Gary Busey to see them through. Blu-ray viewers are treated to the reinstated “3 double- dee” gag, although anyone who wants to sit squinting at a TV just to see body parts coming out of the screen deserves a headache, frankly. For the record, all the best gags are ripped off from Shivers , Teeth and The Stewardesses .

ON DVDON DVDss

Jérémie Renier makes the part his own, strutting like a peacock, popping like a cork

The chanteur who did it his wayA biopic of the French star Claude François, who wrote one of pop’s standards, captures his pomposity and charm

that later formed the basis of the English-language standard My Way?” His death at the age of 39 in a Spinal Tap-style freak bathroom accident in 1978 provoked outpourings of public grief and adulation in François’s home country reminiscent of those that attended Elvis’s premature death in America the previous year .

Now, with the brashly colourful Cloclo (2012 , StudioCanal, 12 ), director

‘Wonderfully mercurial’: Jérémie Renier as Claude François in Cloclo. Picselect


All at sea on Kilburn High RoadTh e transformation of a quirky chapel into the setting for a disorienting fi lm about a sailor has magical results

Last Thursday I had a small adventure, the kind of thrill a big city can often throw up, if only you put in a little forward planning. It wasn’t a promising morning: a soft rain was falling, and the sky was old-knicker grey. Nor was my destination exotic: Kilburn High Road, a relentless drag of kebab shops and charity shops. When I arrived at the precise spot, a dilapidated construction known as the Tin Tabernacle, I could fi nd no way inside. But then… salvation! Someone showed me a bell, high above my head, and soon after ringing it, I walked into one of the most marvellous spaces I’ve seen in a long time. For me, this was love at fi rst sight.

The Tin Tabernacle was built in 1863 by a developer called James Bailey. I say “built”, but this is pushing it, really. Unlike Bailey’s other projects – he specialised in the terraced houses

you can still see in this part of north-west London today – this one came straight from the pages of a catalogue. Made of corrugated iron, it was a fl at-pack church of the same ilk as the sweaty “God boxes” that were delivered to distant outposts of the Empire. It cost less than £1,000 and was intended only to be temporary. In the fullness of time, or so Bailey believed, the local Congregationalists would raise enough money to build a chapel all of their own.

In the end, though, this never happened, and the tabernacle lived on. In 1947 it was taken over by the Willesden & St Marylebone Sea Cadets , the charity that remains its custodian; the building is now grade II listed. This applies only to the exterior, which is a pity, for it’s the interior that makes the eyes pop. In the 1950s the inside of the tabernacle was transformed by a group of local men so as to resemble the inside of a Royal Navy ship. There are portholes and rigging, a boatswain’s store and a wardroom, and a proper bridge, complete with wheel and a full set of engine order telegraphs. Also, smack in the middle of the main deck, is a 1943 anti-aircraft gun.

Not that I knew any of this at fi rst. For the next few weeks the Tin Tabernacle is home to an installation by the artist Lindsay Seers (a commission by Artangel , the remarkable charity which seeks to take art out of the gallery and into the world), and it’s part of her design that visitors fi nd out the peculiar nature of the building little by little. In the beginning I saw only the wardroom, with its tiny bar and a sign that urges offi cers to check they are correctly dressed. This is where you wait before the show begins, and it’s adorable.

Seers works in fi lm, constructing complex narratives that are mostly fi ction but which have their roots in autobiography. When she started talking to the people at Artangel they took her to the tabernacle on a kind of blind date, and I’m guessing that, like me, she fell hard in love. For her, though, the building has an extra resonance. Seers’s great great uncle, George Edwards, who was

born in 1866, was a sea cadet who joined the merchant navy and sailed to Zanzibar, where he was involved in British eff orts to dismantle the local slave trade. Look at the walls of the tabernacle’s wardroom and it’s possible you will fi nd a photograph of George. You can’t miss him. He has a distinctive appearance. His eyes were diff erent colours.

Seers’s fi lm, Nowhere Less Now, is shown on two screens, one fl at and round, the other spherical. In the fl ickering gloom you think, of course, of lenses, of George’s eyes. But these screens also put you in mind of human eggs (his condition, hetero chromia, was genetic), and of portholes. The narrative is multilayered, and stable as quicksand. It looks back to George’s life onboard HMS Dragon, but also forward to a future in which

photographs have been banned (those lucky enough to be in possession of a photograph must gaze on it in secret, gathering with others in a temporary structure not unlike the tabernacle). Seers also travels to Zanzibar, where George eventually drowned, and to Dar es Salaam, where she fi nds another church of corrugated iron. Unanswered questions hang heavy in the air. What compelled George’s wife, Georgina, to wear a dress of such strange, Masonic design? (Seers fi lms herself in something similar, with macabre results.) What happened to Seers’s stepsister, who went missing as a child? And was it her uncle who carved his name on a huge baoba b tree on Cemetery Island, or some other sailor called George?

After 20 minutes the fi lm ends. Too soon. As the lights come up, you’re still puzzling things out (a feeling that will last for days, and probably for ever).

Lindsay Seers: Nowhere Less NowTin Tabernacle, London NW6; from Saturday until 21 Oct

RachelCooke

As the lights come up, you’re still puzzling things out (a feeling that will last for days, and probably for ever)

Art

Also opening this week Whitstable Biennale Whitstable, Kent; until 16 Sept Renowned platform for emerging artists on the Kent coast.

Don’t missMark Wallinger: Site Baltic, Gateshead; until 14 Oct Numbers loom large in a powerful, beautifully ordered show.

Last chance to see Yoko Ono: To the Light Serpentine, London W2 ; until 9 Sept One of the summer’s talking points draws to a close.

THREE MORE TO SEE

It takes a moment, then, to notice what the dark previously concealed: that Seers has made her own additions to the folk-art interior of the tabernacle, and that you’re sitting in what appears to be the up turned hull of a ship. Knock its sides with a knuckle and you will hear the stark clank of metal. The disorientation doesn’t end here. Afterwards, free to explore, I wandered into a tiny side chapel. It has a medieval altar and a lectern whose base is – wait for it – a

cloven hoof. The eff ect was uncanny. Outside, the traffi c rumbled; Kilburn could not be more landlocked if it tried. But in the strange quiet of the Tin Tabernacle I was lost at sea, overwhelmed by a briny wave of doubtand confusion.

Laura Cumming is away

Lindsay Seers, Nowhere Less Now, 8 Sept to 21 Oct; £7/£5. Tickets must be booked in advance at artangel.org.uk

Ship shape: Lindsay Seers’s fi lm fi lls porthole shapes in the upturned hull of the Tin Tabernacle. Elsewhere (right) Seers makes uncanny additions to the grade II listed building. Photographs by Karen Robinson for the Observer

“

A stumbling batsman, a misguided colleague and a player taking a diveYou are the Umpire

Sportpage 20


It’s show-and-tell time with the Finnish division of Gaga’s “Little Monsters”. Anyone who throws a particularly original gift on stage – last night at the same venue there was a giant used tampon – gets to meet her after the gig. She bends down to receive a Barbie doll, bites its head off and tears a pink plastic thigh from a hip socket: “Come on, you little slut!” Twenty fans are selected each evening from within Gaga’s latest innovation, a walled enclosure at the front of the stage known as the “monster pit”. It’s reserved for the kids who spent the night outside in sleeping bags; the ones who fail to get in hover beyond the fortifi cations like lepers outside a medieval castle. There’s one of those too – 50ft high with fl ashing neon lights, a sort of Disney-meets-Rick Wakeman aff air. It takes seven hours to construct every day.

The Born This Way Ball , which started its European leg in mid-August after trawling Asia and Australia, is a kind of allegorical, mock-medieval mystery play that turns into a story about an alien (Gaga) persecuted by a giant hologram (also Gaga) whose name is Mother G.O.A.T . The plot is playfully designed to fold in on itself if you analyse it: straight after Bad Romance Gaga declares that when she’s extracted enough art, music and love from us all, she’ll come back and invade planet Earth “as… your pop singer!”

The most amazing thing this woman could do right now would be to play her piano in jeans and a T-shirt. Until she does, her baroque fantasies continue to roll out with wit and an incredible lightness of touch. Costume changes (there are 18, from a repeat of the “meat dress” to the alien carapace she wears for Government Hooker ) are much quicker than on the Monster Ball tour. A giant vagina appears for Born This Way and is quickly dragged, defl ating, back into the castle. Even the show’s sexy heavy-metal aesthetic is mainly a chance for her to turn herself into a motorbike, arms for forks, and glide around the stage face-fi rst with a female dancer on her back.

You really appreciate how stupid this ongoing “Gaga versus Madonna debate” is too. She performs

Americano , a steaming, Latino melody, wearing a machine-gun bra and being caressed by half a dozen near-naked dancers. Gaga is not “copying” Madonna – she has virtually eaten the woman and is throwing up a wonderful, projectile, multicoloured arc of the stuff night after night, for all to see.

Much of the two-hour show whirls by with the same pure physical energy Oklahoma! or South Pacifi c must have had 60 years ago. There are very few close-ups of her face for the fi rst half – which will annoy millions of people – but you see something bigger in the sharp elbows and thrusting determination of the tiny fi gure on

stage. Dissolving herself into the chorus of dancers for Telephone and Bad Kids , Gaga is upholding her promise of hard work in exchange for adoration. She’s always talked like some weird public servant – “I promise to sing and dance my ass off for you all night long” – and at times is frankly exhausted tonight, breathing raggedly into her mic.

Not that you worry for her, really. Can popstars even have breakdowns in a post-Gaga age? Britney was shocking to watch because her face said everything was fi ne when you knew that it wasn’t; Amy was shocking because her face showed that everything was wrong. But Gaga is a robust, cartoon embodiment of all human emotion, good and bad. She’s at her warmest tonight singing a new song about suicide; Princess Die runs through various fantasies – “I’ll do it in the swimming pool so everybody sees” – before concluding that no death’s as stylish as that of “another dead blonde” whose rich boyfriend proposed “with the paparazzi all swarming around”. You wonder how it’ll go down at Twickenham on Saturday . And whether a depressed teen at her feet would fully grasp the song’s intended irony.

A Little Monster drifts across the car park – she’s about 18 and she’s lost her friends and her ride home. Did she enjoy the show? “The meat dress was diffi cult for me,” she says thoughtfully, “because I could actually smell it. Look, the point with Lady Gaga is she can be everything you love most in the world, and the next minute she can be everything you hate. At that moment I hated her.” She sounds almost irritated. Then again, she’s been awake since 6 o’clock on Monday morning, and it’s now 2am on Wednesday.

The Born This Way Ball is at Twickenham Stadium, London next Saturday and Sunday; Manchester Arena, Tuesday 11 Sept; and the Aviva Stadium, Dublin on Saturday 15 Sept

As the diva’s latest extravaganza reaches the UK this week, expect alien holograms, medieval castles and machine-gun bras. Though sometimes you just long for jeans and a T-shirt…

THE LIVE REVIEW

Lady Gaga’s Born Th is Way Ball: ‘I promise to sing and dance my ass off for you all night long.’ Yoshika Horita

How many Animals does it take to form a Collective? Two, offi cially. This minimum quorum has ensured maximum

wriggle room for such an expanding, contracting band of psychedelic brothers, originally from Baltimore . They go by aliases – Avey Tare, Panda Bear , Deakin , Geologist – and don’t always all turn up; all of which just adds to the Collective’s burgeoning myth.

They’re prolifi c too . There have been non-AnCo solo releases from both Bear and Tare in the months between

the band’s breakthrough 2009 album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the imminent release of Centipede Hz ; not to mention a visual live album, ODDSAC , one EP, two cassette-only giveaways and a non-album single – and a live installation at the Guggenheim . Merriweather was the record that made great swath s of casual listeners sit up and notice the busy, woozy music wafting up out of the US underground .

It might not have been the new weird America’s Nevermind (the Nirvana album that sent grunge into the mainstream) but it broke the Billboard top 20, topped many an album-of-the-year list and made Animal Collective the most name-dropped beatniks nouveaux in many a straight record collection – a totem band, like a Radiohead bigger on hallucinogenics, chanting and camping

CD REVIEWS

out. “I’m going hiking,” states Amanita , the closing track on Centipede Hz. “Are you coming hiking?”

One of the autumn’s key releases, Centipede Hz probably brings AnCo another molecule’s width closer to the mainstream; retaining all the dislocation that their fans treasure but remapping it on to more recognisable instruments. It sees all four Animals back on board for the fi rst time since 2007 ’s Strawberry Jam , allowing this determinedly over-saturated band to cram yet more sound

Eight legs good for Baltimore’s beastly beatniks nouveaux

CD OF THE WEEKAnimal CollectiveCentipede Hz (DOMINO)

Animal Collective: ‘like a Radiohead bigger on hallucinogenics, chanting and camping out’. Getty Images

and rhythm on to each track here. Someone’s even smuggled a kids’ choir into Father Time , then disguised them. The fundamental idea that runs through Centipede Hz is one of radio signals lost in space, the crackle and blooping that has enamoured the audiophiles of the perverse since radio began.

Guitarist Deakin sat out Merriweather . His return is most explicitly felt when he sings Wide Eyed , a burbling song that co mes pretty near to pop music, albeit pop with some Dr Who

Gaga takes fansto heaven and hell

Pop

Lady GagaHartwall Areena, Helsinki

Th e Gaga v Madonna debate is stupid. She’s not copying Madonna – she has virtually eaten the woman

Kate Mossmanman

sound eff ects from the 1980s. More holistically, much of Centipede Hz was demoed with all four men in the same room, playing quaint indigenous instruments (“drumkits” and “guitars”). On recent records this far-fl ung band had fi le-shared digitally processed snatches of sound with each other, pinging them between Portugal (Panda Bear), LA (Avey Tare) and DC (Geologist).

Animal Collective have usually been at their most collective when vocalising, chanting together in formations that recalled the Beach Boys underwater. Here, though, the impression of all animals melting into one is less marked, with Avey Tare yelling a lot of lead vocals. Where Merriweather was amniotic , Centipede rocks a little harder. AnCo’s febrile music hinges on a galumphing sense of abandon, but the textures of Centipede amp up the raucousness. Amid pell-mell songs such as standout Today’s Supernatural there is rarely a pause to draw breath on this fi ne follow-up; one in a hurry, as befi ts its many pairs of legs. Kitty Empire


A lot of people recoil from overtly political songs. Ry Cooder (slide guitarist, Buena Vista Social

Club major-domo and custodian of Woody Guthrie before he was fashionable ) doesn’t care. Th e fi rst world is in dire straits and it’s all the fault of Republicans – architects of Guantánamo and unfeeling people who tie their dogs to the roofs of their cars then drive off ( Mutt Romney’s Blues ). Going to Tampa is a sniggering country tune that imagines a National Rifl e Association woman talking dirty to a Tea Party man ; Cold Cold Feeling encapsulates the loneliness of President Obama as an embattled blues. KE

ROCKRy CooderElection Special(NONESUCH)

An unusual blend of anticipation and anxiety precedes any new Cat Power album or

performance. Fragility and self -laceration have informed her most powerful music (and agonising gigs), but it will be a relief to most that Sun glows with hard-won contentment. Musically it’s closer to the bluesy alt-rock of 2003’s You Are Free than the Memphis grooves of 2006 ’s Th e Greatest , but aided by woozy, expansive production many of these songs shimmer with warmth and light. Th ere’s a brittleness here too though; Power ends, not with the blissed-out Nothin But Time but the abrasive, street-smart Peace and Love . Ally Carnwath

ROCKCat PowerSun(MATADOR)

Danny Boyle ’s decision to hand one of the songs at the Olympics opening ceremony ( Caliban’s

Dream ) to Two Door Cinema Club’s frontman Alex Trimble suggests that the Northern Irish trio ’s time has come. In truth, while their second album is polished, thanks no doubt to U2 producer Jacknife Lee , there is nothing to distinguish Two Door Cinema Club from several other excitable indie -disco bands. Th eir debut, Tourist History , was endearingly odd but, Sun aside, Beacon is prosaic and frenetic, its tireless synths and fi dgety guitars unable to camoufl age the group’s dearth of ideas. Paul Mardles

INDIETwo Door Cinema ClubBeacon(KITSUNE)

Th e second album from London four-piece the Vaccines starts off promisingly

enough, No Hope recalling the Libertines jangle of If You Wanna from last year’s debut , with the twist that frontman Justin Young appears to have incorporated a Bob Dylan twang into his delivery. But from then on there is little to set them apart from the retro-indie pack. Aftershave Ocean nods to Ash; I Always Knew is a breezily unmemorable study in surf-pop. Solace arrives with Teenage Icon ’s chorus (“I’m no teenage icon/ I’m no Frankie Avalon”), but last year’s talk of them “kickstarting a new era” is as baffl ing as ever. Phil Mongredien

INDIETh e VaccinesTh e Vaccines Come of Age (COLUMBIA )

Kinshasa’s troupe of disabled musicians have indeed “moved the world” with their trajectory from

street scuffl ers to international stars, a feat celebrated here on Apandjokwetu . Recorded in a studio rather than in the zoo gardens, this second outing presents a richer, more percussive sound, albeit one still shot through with zinging tin-can guitar. Its lilting, layered vocals and loping grooves are anchored in the conventions of Congo’s 1980s soukous, though there’s an expedition into swamp blues on Djambula . Th e edginess of their debut still lurks below the polished vocal harmonies. Neil Spencer

WORLDStaff Benda Bilili Bouger le Monde (CRAMMED)

Th e empathy between these two sounds so deep that they could have been playing

together for years. But Webster , veteran tenor saxophone star of the Ellington orchestra, and idiosyncratic British pianist Tracey had only just met when this was recorded at Ronnie Scott’s in 1964. It’s a musical dialogue – sometimes in accord, sometimes argumentative, but never dull or routine. Webster must have played Chelsea Bridge thousands of times before, but rarely more sensitively accompanied. Th is is Vol 2, but it was actually recorded three years earlier than Vol 1. Th ey’re both classics. Dave Gelly

JAZZBen Webster/Stan TraceySoho Nights Vol 2(RESTEAMED)

Pop

Happy Days: International Beckett festivalEnniskillen

both physical and metaphysical: a dawn voyage on Lough Erne to the monastic ruins of Inishmacsaint (“Island of the Sorrel Plain ”). Here, feet planted in wind-stroked grasses, lichen-stained stones behind them and a cloud-scudded sky above their heads, Dunbar and Nygh read. The clarity and simplicity of their voices made these last writings as real as the chill of the morning breeze. The contrast with Wilson’s work could not have been greater. Yet both performances were identical in their integrity of intention and execution; both utterly true to Beckett. Such scrupulous sincerity is the keynote to Doran’s programming.

More perfect partnerships, this time musical ones. Listeners were transported along Schubert’s Winterreise (“Winter Journey ” – Beckett’s favourite work). Julius Drake ’s piano was more duettist than accompaniment to tenor Ian Bostridge ’s dramatic rendering. Doran wittily scheduled the performance for 18.27, the year the song cycle was composed. Similarly, Gavin Bryars ’s Sinking of the Titanic went up, so to speak, at 19.12 and was followed by the world premiere of his setting of four Beckett poems for two voices and strings, an instantly classic match.

Delivering an impromptu closing speech, prizewinning author, local resident and festival participant Carlo Gébler said this festival was “embedded in the fabric of the town… the entire built environment was made to sing”. In the ruins of Portora Castle, where Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh spoke of the confl ict in his homeland to the Northern Irish artist Rita Duff y , the harmonies between the place and the experiences of the participants resonated movingly.

Beckett’s “basic ethical message” was identifi ed in a talk by John Calder , his publisher and friend: “One thing we can do is help somebody else.” Here, encounters with Beckett’s work brought people into deeper contact with themselves and with one another. Each had something new to off er, whether experts (such as his friend and biographer James Knowlson ) or fi rst-time discoverers ( such as the tiny tots vocally engaging with Theatre Clastic ’s riveting puppet version of Act Without Words I, who gave the surrounding adults a vivid lesson in how to respond to this silent piece). Such sharings made this festival a true celebration of the man it honours. May it be the fi rst of many.

FESTIVAL

Back to school with Beckett

The fi rst multi-arts Samuel Beckett festival ended with neither a bang nor a whimper but on a soaring high note from the throat of mezzo-soprano Ruby Philogene . Her French and German song recital (“perfect lieder phrasing”, in the view of one specialist critic) concluded with a set of spirituals speckled with piquant jazz infl ections. Beyond the walls of Castle Coole the sound of the standing ovation joined the swelling echoes of applause that reverberated for fi ve days round the hills of Fermanagh and began with the renowned Irish author Edna O’Brien ’s remembrances of Beckett as both friend and writer.

Five years in the brewing, the festival was set up by Seán Doran, previously artistic director of festivals in Perth, Australia , Wales and Belfast. He rejected Dublin and Paris, the cities most obviously associated with Beckett , in favour of the island town where the playwright/poet/novelist spent his late teens as a pupil at Portora Royal School . (Oscar Wilde was a boarder there before him.)

Here, Beckett’s tastes in music, art and literature developed. Also his sporting talent: he is the only Nobel laureate featured in Wisden, the cricketing bible. A waterlogged pitch prohibited the planned match, but at the rugby club an old-boys team mustered. During what may loosely be described as the warm-up, Beckett’s school-team successes were narrated. One spectator wondered, after the manner of some early viewers of Beckett’s plays: “Are they just going to talk or are they going to do something?” A glass of port later they did.

Looking back over a richly diverse programme, two events encapsulate its range and quality. One is Robert Wilson ’s staging of Beckett’s 1958 play, Krapp’s Last Tape . The other is a reading of his three last prose pieces, Stirrings Still (1986-89 ), by Adrian Dunbar and Anna Nygh .

Just as Beckett hews words from silence, so American director/performer Wilson sculpts movement against light. Both strip away excrescences, uncover core elements and build of them a pattern striated with repetitions. What is left is so

absolute it can seem abstract yet can become, if you allow yourself to feel it and not just think it, the concrete expression of our shared experience of the mystery of consciousness faced with death.

Paradoxically, Wilson’s technologised production and technically strict performance style – jagged, non-naturalistic movement and vocal eff ects – free Beckett’s work from the preconceptions that so often defi ne it. (Speaking of defi nitions, artist Joseph Kosuth’s installation on the defi nition of nothing was vertiginous in its sly examination and undermining of the possibilities of meaning.) Purists found Wilson’s extended, non-verbal opening with thunder and rain eff ects hard to take. Others, though, seeing the work for the fi rst time, found it deeply moving, as did I. (Interesting to compare this with the fi lm of John Hurt ’s intensely naturalistic Krapp; shown as part of Atom Egoyan ’s Steenbeckett (2002 ) installation.)

Stirrings Still involved a journey

Beckett’s sporting talent developed here too: he is the only Nobel laureate in Wisden

‘Sculpting movement against light’: Robert Wilson in Krapp’s Last Tape. Brian Morrison

Th e Irish writer spent his formative years in Enniskillen, an inspired choice of venue for a celebration of his work, says Clare Brennan


and becomes not only absorbing but revealing and provoking. Melodrama becomes heartfelt; silence becomes eloquent. When characters debate the principles of their utopia, they do so exactly, fi ercely, resoundingly. It seems that the more transparent you make things, the greater the transformations you can work.

At times the action rolls across the vast stage as easily as if the actors were made of water; at times it freezes into detailed tableaux – who would think that, on so wide a stage, faces peeping out of portholes would register so vividly? The groupings, set against huge cloudscapes, are never simply picturesque: they wire you into the action. The cast spring together round the prow of a ship as if they really were going to cleave the waves with the strength of their idealism; when news breaks of the assassination of Jean Jaurès, the socialist hope, everyone is pushed back to the edges of the stage as if humanity were about to be driven asunder. As indeed it was.

Camille O’Sullivan ’s rendering of Th e Rape of Lucrece is an astonishing leap

unfold. It’s 1914 and the owners of a small restaurant have rented their attic to a group of leftwing fi lm-makers. Restaurateur and his staff observe and are caught up in the making of their silent socialist tale, whose every eff ect is openly manufactured: the weather is created by sprinkling snow on a cap, or tugging at a scarf to show a character whipped by wind. Members of the cast play two, often three parts, frequently switching gender. Their own love lives interrupt those of their characters. Théâtre du Soleil’s own composer plays the onstage music man: his towering soundscape, shifting from La traviata to cabaret to Carmina B urana, is the yeast of the action. Meta-theatre, you may think. Well yes, but it’s better than that.

Here is the paradox. The heart of the show is its most obviously artifi cial part: the silent movie, with its declamatory language (seen in surtitles), its worldwide leaps of action, its wobbly gestures, its simplicity. But here is the Mnouchkine genius. This improbable artifi cial thing, a thing made up in front of your eyes, takes on its own life

‘Absorbing, revealing, provoking’: Th éâtre du Soleil’s latest creation, Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir. Photograph by Murdo Macleod

Edinburgh theatre & dance

“We have waited 48 years to come to the Edinburgh international festival,” said Ariane Mnouchkine . Audiences have waited too, and it has been worth doing so. Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir , the latest enormous creation of Mnouchkine’s inspiring Théâtre du Soleil – the company founded in the early 60s and based in a former munitions factory beyond the Bois de Vincennes east of Paris – is a tale of utopian visions and wrecked dreams. “Half written” by Hélène Cixous , and devised by the company, it springs from a posthumously published story by Jules Verne and features fi lm-makers, archdukes, voyages to Patagonia, voracious lovers, idealists, assassinations, bounty-hunters who make necklaces out of human ears, deaths in snowy wastes and theatre-making. It is magnifi cently plural.

Mnouchkine’s own theatre-making is like no other. In Edinburgh, as always, the audience is involved in the show before it begins. En route to the auditorium you pass through a plywood proscenium arch and see behind a lace curtain the cast getting ready: chatting, combing swatches of false hair, reading (Dickens’s Les grandes espérances ), having a back massage, applying eye liner, grinning at the gawpers behind the lace. This is no mere amuse-bouche: watching artifi ce build, observing the mechanisms, is fundamental to a show that the audience sees through several pairs of eyes.

A young woman, perched high on a ladder between stage and audience, watches a piece of family history

SusannahClapp

Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir Lowland Hall, Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh

Th e Rape of LucreceRoyal Lyceum, Edinburgh

Mies JulieAssembly Hall, Edinburgh

A few waves can speak volumes…A French drama about silent film-makers is memorably eloquent. And Lucrece dazzles as cabaret

Cinderella herself is heartstopping, but tutti-frutti styling does her no favours, says Luke Jennings

Alexei Ratmansky ’s Cinderella , created for the Mariinsky Ballet, was fi rst performed in St Petersburg in 2002 . At the time, Ratmansky was a little-known fi gure: a Bolshoi-trained dancer who had worked for several western companies and was launching his career as a choreographer. A decade later he is the world’s most infl uential ballet-maker, credited with revitalising classical dance through a series of highly individual productions.

His particular gift has been for breathing vivid new life into near-defunct works. The Bright Stream and The Flames of Paris were half-

remembered Soviet pieces until reimagined for the Bolshoi by Ratmansky, and his Nutcracker for American Ballet Theatre shook the dust off a work many considered irrecoverably stale. What he brings to such productions is a classically trained eye, a musically sophisticated ear and an antic, postmodern sensibility which delights in the clash of idioms.

All of this is evident in Cinderella. It’s an uneven work which shows evidence of the choreographer’s struggle to reconcile highly diverse elements. In Cinderella herself, danced on last Thursday’s fi rst night by Diana Vishneva , we have a traditional, lyrical ballerina heroine. The drop-cloth and steel-framed set suggests that she lives in a tenement – distant echoes of West Side Story – but her two sisters and stepmother (a wonderfully

demented Ekaterina Kondaurova ) are fi gures from modernist pantomime. The Prince (Igor Kolb ), meanwhile, is a white-suited loner who occupies a kind of neo-masque realm which vanishes, like an architectural caprice, to perspective infi nity.

Over the course of the past decade Ratmansky has made a virtue of this tutti-frutti styling, but in this early, evolutionary piece you can see the joins. One experiment which quickly fi zzes out is his use of men to dance the roles of the Four Seasons . Dressed in fl uorescent costumes with fright haircuts, they are presumably intended to represent time and change, but merely look odd. The court dances are formally accoutred but the choreography, all dips, hip rolls and camp, penguin-like eccentricity, is similarly gratuitous in its strangeness.

It’s as if Ratmansky is trying to compensate for the sugared romanticism of the story, and of the sweetness and virtue of his heroine. If so, you sense the same struggle in Prokoviev ’s score for the work, in which sombre notes of warning are detectable behind the yearning lyricism of the foreground. Conducting, Valery Gergiev teases out every tonal and chromatic subtlety; the result is

DANCE

Cinderella/Mariinsky BalletFestival theatre, Edinburgh

The slipper doesn’t fi t

by the RSC . Against large and beautiful tarnished panels, to the intermittent accompaniment of Feargal Murray ’s insistent thrumming piano, O’Sullivan creates a dark and dazzling cabaret: she scorches a path through the congested passages of some of Shakespeare’s most stately verse and tells the story as if it were her own and now.

George Galloway would, I think, agree that what happened to Lucrece was not unrequested insertion but rape, even though she had entertained her attacker earlier in the evening. The consequences were momentous. Having denounced her assailant to her husband, she committed suicide and precipitated

the downfall of a Roman dynasty.O’Sullivan strides on in a black

greatcoat, her hair scraped back; she peels down to a white shift and lets her hair tumble loose while describing the rape. She commands the lighting, which dims with the undulations of her wrist. She moves almost undetectably from song to verse to tranced recollection. She comes close to the audience as if she were going to share a secret. She suggests the enchantment of Lucrece’s beauty for her attacker, stroking the air as if caressing a body. She makes unforgettably plain the violence that has been wrought on her: “her blue blood chang’d to black”.

This is the second time in this year’s festival that an Irish actor in big black boots has taken a non-dramatic text and staged a mesmerising monologue. First Barry McGovern’s Watt , now O’Sullivan’s Lucrece. That is almost a theme. O’Sullivan should take her recitations of sexcapades further: imagine what her velvety voice might make of Keats’s The Eve of St Agnes .

August Strindberg always had at least one foot in the “she was asking for it” camp: his 1888 Miss Julie can make hard (and unconvincing) watching. Yet Yael Farber ’s radically remade, sell-out version of the play, Mies Julie , makes it teem with new and terrifying life.

Transposed to modern-day South Africa , the action is set in the kitchen of a farm on the 18th anniversary of the fi rst post-apartheid election. The farm workers are celebrating; the febrile white daughter of the house is mad with unhappiness; in the corner, a young black man sits polishing his master’s boots. His mother (a clever remodelling of the thankless part of a fi ancee) has had her fi ngerprints erased by years of domestic service and so cannot prove her identity to vote.

There is drought. A fan casts shadows; the guttural music of a Xhosa musician stalks the action; and Miss Julie’s fragile birdcage swings in the air. Every generation has neglected its children. Years of damage have rotted relationships and a country. The violence and desire between mistress and servant has never been more furious, steaming or convincing. Though part of the fringe, this production could belong to the international festival; in March it will be staged at London’s Riverside Studios.

If she’s in love, it’s with the music and her dreams. Th e prince looks like a bit of an afterthought

‘She gazes at the stars rather than his face’: Diana Vishneva as Cinderella and Igor Kolb as Th e Prince. Robbie Jack

complex and bittersweet, with a lovely sad shimmer to the strings.

On stage, the evening is Vishneva’s. She is not, here, a naturalistic performer. You wouldn’t hire her for her housework – vague, distasteful dabs at the furniture – and her chiff on skirt and unravelling cardigan represent gamine chic at its most refi ned. This is a grand Mariinsky ballerina giving us “poverty” and “loneliness”, but at the same time she and her dancing are quite heart-stoppingly beautiful. Whimsical knots of petits sauts unravel into high, silky extensions. Her arms are in perpetual motion, articulating with soft, undersea fl ow as her legs trace Ratmansky’s oblique, off -classical geometry. He likes to play with changes of direction, and Vishneva’s steps are stated with steely precision before melting, exquisitely, into reverse versions of themselves.

But if her Cinderella is in love, it’s with the music and her dreams. Kolb’s prince, ardent though he is, and victorious in his struggle against sexual tempters of both genders, looks like a bit of an afterthought. When they dance together in Ratmansky’s fi nal, beautifully conceived duet, she gazes up at the stars rather than his face. But then, under Gergiev’s baton, Prokoviev’s music doesn’t promise happy ever after.

At times the action rolls across the vast stage as easily as if the actors were made of water


My apologies if it sounds prurient, but it pays to come clean: when Jane Garvey and Tim Samuels cleared their throats to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, I was hoping for something a bit juicier than a) an inability to use chopsticks and b) a penchant for laser hair removal. Admittedly, the latter is more intriguing than the former; I leave

you to guess who’s guilty of what. It was fortunate, though, that when Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and 5 Live’s Men’s Hour came together for a bank holiday special that was broadcast simultaneously on both stations, the guests were rather more forthcoming than the hosts. They included Carol, who asked an aunt whether anything interesting had ever happened in the family only to be told, “then, of course, there’s the murder”; Joan, whose account of discovering that she was adopted only when her mother was on the point of death was profoundly moving; and Cath, who married and had four children before deciding that she was ready to come out. In a slightly bizarre move, Samuels also took to “a mobile confessional” – a black cab, in fact – to tease out a little “male candour”. Suffi ce it to say that the responses he elicited did not touch on quite such weighty topics, though I suspect this says as much about the contrivances of programme making as it does about the intensity of men’s emotions.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all came when the magician Paul Daniels

– the last of a series of celebrity guests that included footballer and one-time gambling addict Dominic Matteo and novelist Jill Dawson – revealed himself to be a devotee of Woman’s Hour. You could almost hear Garvey falling off her chair.

There was a brief mention of the dangers of over-sharing in the age of

Spill the beansFamily secrets come out, internet trolls are unmasked and a vintage bluesman rolls on

David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, the subject of a compelling Radio 2 documentary. Redferns

Radio

Imagine what would happen if a ‘veracity virus’ were to spread to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

social media, a theme expanded in Jonathan Myerson ’s amusing play Do You Know Who Wrote Th is? Imagine, if you will, what might happen if the mothers on a discussion forum – Chatmums , in this instance – were suddenly stripped of their anonymity; and what further mayhem might ensue if the “veracity virus” were to spread to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even – shock! – newspapers themselves. You imagined right. It’s not pretty.

Over on the Isle of Sheppey, the Seager family were celebrating at mum Jean’s 80th birthday party; among the children, grandchildren and other relatives present were sons Glenn and Ray. The Seager family are “swampies ”, natives of the small island separated

Woman’s Hour and Men’s Hour: Secrets Special R4/5 Live

Do You Know Who Wrote Th is? R4

Th e Island R4

Hoboing with Honeyboy R2

AlexClark

from the north Kent coastline by a mere 300 yards, and in Th e Island Sara Parker recorded their stories. Jean’s husband Ron is not an islander, though few, surely, would begrudge him swampy status: his unmarried mother was sent away to give birth and he was meant to have been adopted until his grandfather heard that he was a boy and called for him to be brought back. Ray worked in the steel industry until a friend of his was crushed to death; Glenn until the mill he worked in was closed down. Now Glenn is a security guard; when he patrols the silent steelworks, he says, it’s heartbreaking. But as he also says, from the midst of his tightly knit family, on an island that he’s never once wished to leave, “it’s not all doom and gloom”.

Glenn would probably not have enjoyed the transient life of David “Honeyboy” Edwards , the Mississippi blues guitarist who was the subject of Gianluca Tramontana ’s compelling documentary Hoboing with Honeyboy. Edwards died last year , at the age of 96 , by which time he’d settled down in Chicago; much of his life, though, was spent riding the boxcars, an eye out for groups of just-paid workers in need of entertainment. Among the many treats in this look at the world of Robert Johnson and Son House is Honeyboy explaining how to elude the ticket collectors by hiding away in the mail carriages. Wonderful.

Miranda Sawyer is away

Go online for this week’s games reviews


Alasdair (James McOran-Campbell ) whom he recognises – as well you might, given his striking near nakedness – as his former commanding offi cer. Sam falls for Alasdair’s girlfriend Vicki (Jane Harrington) . The past catches up, fatefully. Her folk-like threnody about a girl mourning the loss of her menfolk shot dead by soldiers had powerful expression. The cast here, too, was strong.

Both works were conducted skilfully by Michael Raff erty . Directors

Michael McCarthy (In the Locked Room) and Matthew Richardson (Ghost Patrol), and designers Samal Blak and Ace McCarron created nimble productions using modest resources. Players from the orchestra of Scottish Opera rose to the challenge of becoming fi ne solo instrumentalists in the small ensemble. Catch this thought-provoking double bill on tour to Glasgow, London and elsewhere from now until mid-November.

British composers have had a blazing week, all told. Two premieres

ClassicalClassical

Harsent’s text, his second for Watkins, is spare and lucid. Having worked with composers over many years, notably Harrison Birtwistle (The Minotaur, Gawain ), Harsent has honed a gift for brevity . He constructs dialogue of rhythmic immediacy, mostly using words with one syllable. “He comes and goes but the room is his” is characteristic. Watkins responds with ligh tly woven, clear textures, each instrumental colour audible, from the ominously pecking cello and solo woodwind at the start to the more sustained, inky colours when the locked room is fi rst mentioned. The music gathers momentum but remains transparent to the delicate ending. Ruby Hughes, Håkan Vramsmo, Paul Curievici and Louise Winter were an excellent and credible cast.

In Ghost Patrol MacRae uses the same palette and an equally sparse and punchy libretto, but opts for close-knit musical argument and a constantly simmering orchestral style, using electronics, pre-recorded chorus and inventive aural eff ects: violins in eerie, double-stopped harmonics, the double bass creating percussive menace by bouncing the wood of his bow. You can hear Birtwistle’s infl uence in the high woodwind laments, but more as homage than imitation.

The plot explores loyalty and betrayal via two ex-soldiers with a shared secret. A thief in the night, Sam (Nicholas Sharratt) , breaks into a gastropub, only to be confronted by

Three into two does goA new double bill of operatic love triangles united Scotland, Wales and Th omas Hardy in a great week for British composers

“Death is constant but love is a traitor.” This truth acts as a dark motif for the double bill of opera premieres at the Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, part of a fl urry of new works which close the 2012 festival and launch Scottish Opera’s 50th-anniversary season in bracing style. Bravo to them. Elsewhere, understandably if drearily, you can barely move for revivals. (ENO’s The Magic Flute, back this month for its last outing, has made more comebacks

than Marlene Dietrich’s legs.)The words quoted above come from

Ghost Patrol by Stuart MacRae (b 1976) and novelist Louise Welsh , but could equally apply to In the Locked Room by Huw Watkins (b 1976) and poet David Harsent . If at fi rst glance these two co-commissions with Music Theatre Wales appear similar, each using small forces, each with a contemporary setting and circling around a love triangle which ends in death, the comparison should not be laboured.

Welsh-born Watkins and Scottish-born MacRae, who between them have studied with almost every top British composer, thus covering all stylistic eventualities, have refreshingly diff erent musical personalities. In the Locked Room, an updating of a Thomas Hardy short story ( An Imaginative Woman ) , takes place in a rented holiday cottage by the sea. Lonely Ella reads poetry while her high-fi nance husband Stephen talks into his smartphone. The houseowner, Susan , refers to a locked room, used by the poet whose work Ella is reading. A grand obsession leads to grave consequences.

Th e Arcanto Quartett, founded in 2002 and consisting of four fi ne soloists – Antje Weithaas and Daniel Sepec (violins), Tabea

Zimmermann (viola) and Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) – brings dazzling invention to music of all kinds. For Schubert’s Quintet they’re joined by cellist Olivier Marron, an ideal partner. Can the market bear another recording of a work so popular as to be almost hackneyed? Yes, when the playing has the detail, the muscularity, the daring and sparkle displayed here . Tempi are brisk but not rushed; vibrato is kept under tight rein and the slow movement sings tenderly rather than sobs, making it all the more expressive. Th e outer movements shine in perfect but vigorous ensemble. Fiona Maddocks

Th e trio sonatas for wind by the Dresden composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) were one of the great discoveries

of our generation in baroque music, sumptuously recorded by Heinz Holliger and friends , dense in their argument and detail. Now here they are again, but with the perky sounds of original oboes and a burblingly virtuosic bassoon. The lively Ensemble Marsyas are joined by violinist Monica Huggett in the third of the set, full of literally breathless counterpoint, while at the end is a beguiling single slow movement that leaves us up in the air, as if I had finished this review with a question mark. Nicholas Kenyon

If you were to listen to this disc “blind” I don’t think you would identify the composer as Italian . Th e young Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) , a

contemporary of Puccini , looked north over the Alps for his musical infl uences, writing fi rmly in the Austro-German tradition and with an astonishingly assured Brahmsian sweep. At 19 he was already an accomplished violinist, giving the instrument long, singing lines in his Sonata in D, which Tanja Becker-Bender exploits to the full here. Th e 1917 B Minor Sonata is an altogether more intense aff air, with a complex harmonic structure beautifully delineated by Péter Nagy . Stephen Pritchard

SchubertString Quintet, Op.163 Arcanto Quartett, Olivier Marron (cello)(HARMONIA MUNDI)

Zelenka Sonatas Ensemble Marsyas/Huggett(LINN)

Respighi Violin Sonatas/Five Pieces for Violin and Piano Tanja Becker-Bender (violin), Péter Nagy (piano) (HYPERION)

Th e festival is still a fairly well kept secret. ‘What concert?’ asked the harassed waiter in the pub next door

To buy any reviewed CD go to observer.co.uk/music/reviews or call 0330 333 6841

FionaMaddockscks

In the Locked Room and Ghost PatrolTraverse theatre, Edinburgh

Suff olk Villages festivalStoke by Nayland, Suff olk

Ruby Hughes as Ella in Huw Watkins’s In the Locked Room at the Traverse, Edinburgh. Clive Barda

CLASSICAL RELEASES

by Errolyn Wallen , Principia and Spirit in Motion , caught the mood at the Paralympics opening ceremony, with help from Holst, Ian Dury, Beverley Knight and Handel. The Proms celebrated Alexander Goehr at 80 and Oliver Knussen at 60 . Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi was given an overdue Proms premiere – well, I say overdue; I would have held it back another century but many were in rapture. Britten’s Peter Grimes , conducted by Edward Gardner and with Stuart Skelton in the title role, is being spoken of as a highlight of the season.

As I heard it to an accompaniment of satnav directives and traffi c reports I am not, call me purist, best placed to review it, only to report its signifi cance. With chance synchronicity I was driving towards Britten’s own county – Suff olk – to hear music by the composer he revered. Bach’s St John Passion was a focal point of this year’s Suff olk Villages festival, now marking its 25th anniversary with a “Bach Day”, but despite its longevity still a fairly well kept secret. “What concert?” asked the harassed waiter in the pub next door as the clock ticked towards the mighty “O Mensch! ” lift-off .

Founded by Peter Holman , a pioneering early music man best known for his Parley of Instruments , the self-funded festival takes place every August bank holiday and specialises in baroque repertoire, nurturing student performers (among them the trumpeter Alison Balsom) and engaging top players. Holman, directing from the harpsichord, inspired a lithe and enjoyable performance of the St John Passion in German, using the 1725 version and its additional arias. If the soloists, led by tenor Daniel Auchincloss as the Evangelist, proved more streamlined than the chorus (women extremely good, men enthusiastic), this merely added a sense of authenticity which Bach might have recognised.

Earlier the same day, harpsichordist Steven Devine gave an intimate, honest account of the Goldberg Variations which grew in boldness as he progressed. After the harmonic fantasy of No 25 (adagio), he leapt up several gears for the last fi ve variations, driven by motoric urgency, manic trills and virtuosic arpeggio fi gures. As Bach said, in words always worth repeating, all you need do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. As the fi nal aria sounded, quiet and unadorned, you could see that Bach, as ever, had embodied mystical formula in practical advice.

“

Th e fl ight attendant arrived and George Wright took out his gun, hidden in the hollowed-out BibleMichael Finkel on the hijacker who went on the run for 41 years

ObserverMagazine pages 28-35


Totally Wired Th e spectacular fall of a web pioneer, page 41

It’s more than 20 years since Ian McEwan published The Innocent , a tale of a gauche young Englishman failing miserably (and dangerously) as a cold-war spy in Berlin. But I am still haunted by its grim geography – the dark corridors and lifts, the memorably claustrophobic apartment, the protagonist’s awkward sexual awakening and, of course, that terrifying evocation of exactly how it might feel to dismember the freshly dead.

McEwan’s latest novel may be set in 1972 , with the cold war shuffl ing through its fi nal lacklustre phase, but it could not be more diff erent in tone or intent from The Innocent. Where that novel felt stark and dirty and real, Sweet Tooth is playful, comic, preposterous even. But it’s impossible to ignore that its protagonist is a young and fairly gauche English person – female this time – failing miserably (though perhaps not so dangerously) in her job as a spy.

Serena Frome – blond , “rather gorgeous” and “rhymes with plume” – graduates with a third in maths. A speed-reader of novels, she toys at fi rst with an English degree but is persuaded by her mother that it’s her “duty as a woman” to grapple instead with numbers. At Cambridge she falls, in an equally dutiful, quasi-somnambulant way, into an aff air with a much older, much married history professor and fi nds herself being groomed for an interview with MI5 . When the professor dumps her – literally in a layby off the A45 – she is devastated. She starts working for MI5 anyway but is disappointed to fi nd herself doing mere grunt work as junior assistant offi cer in a “grubby little offi ce” in Curzon Street.

Continuing in her spare time to work her way through the cream of contemporary fi ction (in paperback : she can’t aff ord hardbacks) she’s startled to fi nd herself summoned upstairs to face a roomful of men: “‘We understand… you’re rather well up on modern writing – literature, novels, that sort of thing – bang up to date on, what’s the word… contemporary literature... yes, awfully well read and quite in with the scene.’”

Happy to let them think she’s “in with the scene”, Serena accepts an exciting mission. She is to immerse herself in the work of a young novelist called TH Haley , then meet him and assess whether or not he should be off ered the chance of a stipend – “enough to keep a chap from having to do a day job for a year or two, even three”. A struggling novelist’s dream, in other words.

Codenamed Sweet Tooth, this is MI5’s way of covertly recruiting writers and journalists to bang the drum for its own causes. But the recipient must never know where the money is coming from. And, meanwhile, the men upstairs take care to stress that what they’re looking for is “the sort who might

Trust McEwan to keep you sweet

spare a moment for his hard-pressed fellows in the Eastern bloc... isn’t afraid to talk publicly about writers in prison in Castro’s Cuba” but that they’re emphatically “not interested in the decline of the West, or down with progress or any other modish pessimism”.

It’s at about this point – admittedly a full third of the way through the novel – that McEwan really starts to have fun, and, as long as you can see through the somewhat dreary, understated, Tinker Tailor-ishness of the spying game, so do

you. Serena reads Haley’s short stories – which, with their insistent themes of sexual jealousy, obsession and betrayal, resemble McEwan’s own early oeuvre – and is entranced.

She then meets the man and, making the age-old reader’s mistake of feeling she already knows “one corner of his mind”, falls for him . As a fl irtatious aff air turns into something that feels a lot like love, she becomes less and less comfortable with the enormous lie she’s being forced to live.

Meanwhile, Haley, freed from the

grind of a day job and able fi nally to concentrate on his art, manages to produce the most modishly pessimistic novel imaginable, a story of “a journey a man makes with his nine-year-old daughter across a ruined landscape of burned-out villages and small towns where rats, cholera and bubonic plague are constant dangers… and neighbours fi ght to the death for an ancient can of juice”. Serena reads it and groans. This is hardly what MI5 had in mind (despite the fact that it pre-empts Cormac

McCarthy by some decades). Even worse, an up-and-coming publisher in Bedford Square by the name of Tom Maschler is mad about it and wants to publish straightaway.

And that’s just the beginning. This is a great big beautiful Russian doll of a novel, and its construction – deft, tight, exhilaratingly immaculate – is a huge part of its pleasure. There are stories within stories, ideas within ideas, even images within images: a taxi that Serena and Haley take late one night has “on the screen that divided us from the cabbie… an advertisement for a taxi like this one”.

I admit that, as I continued to read, I was nagged by cavils. Was Serena’s rather bluff narration convincingly feminine? Was it amusing or irksome to have Amis père , Amis fi ls (sharing the stage with Haley while he reads from The Rachel Papers ) and Maschler stalking its pages? And did the story really amount to anything more than a clever boy’s jeu d’esprit, an in-joke for the already “in” enough literary world?

Well, McEwan answers all these questions (and more) so convincingly, so surprisingly, and with such a sense of joy and relish, that by the end I’d completely changed my mind. In fact, the novel’s last few pages, with its delicious (and, you realise, blissfully

earned) twist, moved me almost to tears. But you have to hang in there. You have to concede – in the words of a critic who praises Haley’s dystopian masterpiece – that you are “in his hands, you know he knows what he is doing and you can trust him”.

Because this isn’t really a novel about MI5 or the cold war or even – despite the rather obviously ladled-on research about Heath and Wilson and miners’ strikes and the IRA – the 70s. This is a novel about writers and writing, about love and trust. But more than that – and perhaps most incisively of all – it’s a novel about reading and readers. It’s about our own peculiar responses to fi ction, to the strange, slippery magic of narrative. It’s about how all any of us ever really want from fi ction is “my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form”.

Sweet Tooth is a comic novel and a novel of ideas, but, unlike so many of those, it also exerts a keen emotional pull. Its fi nal moment amounts to a question aimed at Serena. And it says a great deal about how vivid and alive she had become and how much I now cared about her that, although I could guess what her answer might be, I really wished I could hear her say it.

To buy Sweet Tooth for £12.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Stick with this playful Russian doll of a novel and the rewards are immense, writes Julie Myerson

Spooky: McEwan’s gauche young spy is female this time. Zave Smith/Getty

By the end I had completely changed my mind. Th e lastfew pages movedme almost to tears

BooksSweet ToothIan McEwanJonathan Cape £18.99, pp336


Books

her breasts admired, of being tied to a bed with a belt by an unnamed lover.

It’s hard to overestimate the riskiness of these passages, their courage and their exquisite sensuality. Angel deploys a range of voices, from the poetic (“a deep juddering pleasure, a ferry’s heavy murmur”) to the frank (“Fuck me. Yes, fuck me!”). There’s a voyeuristic thrill to the exposure, a swell of reciprocal pleasure, but the real joy lies in the artfulness with which she uses these intimate episodes as a way of unwrapping the larger issue of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire.

Angel is an academic at Warwick University , a researcher in the history

of female sexual problems. As such, her investigations, while

almost painfully intimate (one chapter is given over to the experience and aftermath of an abortion), occur within what is emphatically a larger conversation. She

uses pared-down, poetic fragments from a multitude of

fellow explorers – among them Woolf, Sontag, Susie Orbach , Havelock Ellis and Michel Foucault – as a way of building up a working map of sexual desire.

It quickly becomes apparent that to be true to one’s sexuality means crashing up against pretty much all the forces invested in telling us what a woman should and shouldn’t do. Does revelling in the pleasures of penetration automatically mean inhabiting the traditional female role of reassuring men, infl ating them with a sense of their own potency? “Is this

a compulsion to be what the other person wants?”, Angel asks herself of her own desires. “I lock him into his masculinity. I am anxious to protect it, for it pains me, it pains my femininity, to see it fragmented.” And, at the same time: “I am so fucking hungry!”

In her quest for sexual freedom, Angel more than once experiences feminism as an oppressive as well as a liberating force. In one amusing, troubling scene, she attends a lecture by the venerable sex researcher Shere Hite in which Hite and an audience member agree that lesbian porn using dildos should be boycotted. Later, she falls foul of another speaker at a feminist conference for raising the question of whether erotic images of

female submission are automatically pathological evidence of patriarchal oppression.

On the other hand, she also challenges a male academic she nicknames Mr Pornography (“he has probably watched more pornography than anyone, anywhere”) on his pro-porn stance, pointing out that despite

his celebration of its democracy and inclusiveness, it still radically fails “to represent the nature, range and realities of pleasure in women”.

Despite this latter comment, Angel’s assumptions about sexuality tend toward the heteronormative and can on occasion feel a touch coercive. A statement like: “I was weaned on this – the hypostati sed, brutal man; the yielding, deferring woman. So, by the way, were you” might be true in terms of the dominant culture but elides entirely the subtle shadings of sexual diff erence. This is particularly odd when so few of the writers she draws upon (Sontag, Woolf, Orbach, Foucault) can be categorised as entirely heterosexual .

Nonetheless, Angel makes a persuasive case for the idiosyncrasy of desire, its obstinate individuality. Caught between oppressive forces, her escape is by way of the sensual body itself. As such, Unmastered is a giddily joyful book, thicketed with exclamation marks. Days after reading, its images linger in the mind: an erotics that encompasses eating macaroons after an afternoon of bondage, or seeing a dead fox “on the southern underbelly of Peckham Rye, a restful body of red, a serene splash of white”.

In its richness and its exultant tone, Unmastered frequently recalls another statement from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: “Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body? ” Woolf was talking about the fantastical fi gure of Shakespeare’s sister but she might have found a more cheering answer here, in this elegant and uplifting journey through the labyrinth of female lust.

Olivia Laing is the author of To the River (Canongate £8.99) . To buy Unmastered for £11.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Through the labyrinth of lust

WOMEN

“It is fatal,” Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One’s Own, “to be a man or woman pure and simple .” This phrase, repeated several times, might be thought of as the guiding sentiment of Unmastered, Katherine Angel ’s provocative and profoundly personal investigation into female desire. Angel’s mission is to fi nd a way of both inhabiting and writing about sexuality that off ers a release from the corseting hand-me-down strictures of how a woman should behave. Desire, after all, is a form of hunger, and as such incompatible with the notions of abstemiousness and passivity that continue to burden the female mind.

Unmastered is constructed as a series of numbered aphorisms. Sometimes no more than three words occupy the page (“Am I pornography?”). It’s a model that’s found favour with a range of writers on sexuality, especially the transgressive kind, from Susan Sontag’s seminal essay Notes on “Camp” to the cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum ’s Humiliation . This laying bare of language is matched by Angel’s radical unveiling of her own sexual life: the antics of what she beautifully calls “the lubricious body”. She describes in graphic terms the act of sex, of touching and being touched, of having

Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Diffi cult to TellKatherine AngelAllen Lane £15.99, pp3 68

Katherine Angel puts her own sex life on the page in this fragmentary, giddily joyful study of female desire, writes Olivia Laing

Days after reading,its images linger in the mind: eating macaroons after an afternoon of bondage

Katherine Angel (inset, below left) unwraps the question of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire. Getty Images

Born in 1958 , Deon Meyer is one of South Africa’s top thriller authors. A former brand strategist for BMW motorcycles , he started writing full -time in 2008. His novels, which he writes in Afrikaans, are translated into 25 languages and have won him awards from around the world. His latest, 7 Days, stars his recurring character Detective Benny Griessel.

What gave you the idea to have Griessel racing against time to solve an old case, after the police are told they will be picked off one at a time by a sniper, every day until the murderer is arrested?I mostly follow the dictum “confl ict is the mother of suspense”, so I’ll be looking at as many sources of confl ict for the protagonists as possible within the parameters of verisimilitude. The cold case was the basis of the book ; the sniper developed as a way to ratchet up the tension, and the pressure on Griessel. And as a novelist I am fascinated with the deadline, with the role of time as a mechanism to increase the tension.

Some might say that Griessel, your troubled but brilliant alcoholic detective , is a bit of a clich e . Was that a worry?When I fi rst wrote him, in Dead Before Dying , he was never supposed to become a major character. He was supposed to be the comic relief in a fairly dark book, but he had the knack of walking on to the page and making things happen. At the end of the book I realised I had to bring him back, if

I could fi nd a story that suited him. By then I had already created him as a bit of a clich e, so I had to work with that – I had to put a new and exciting spin on the typical clich e of a drunk cop. I thought: let’s put him through the wringer. So his wife in Devil’s Peak says he has a choice – if he wants to get his family back he has to stay sober .

Did you always want to write thriller s?I always wanted to write, but I never thought in terms of genre. I always thought in terms of story, and still do. For me, the most important thing is to try to tell an entertaining story – let other people worry about what genre it is.

Why write in Afrikaans, when your English is so good?Afrikaans is my mother tongue. I fi nd writing diffi cult enough in my own language. English is a second language, so to fi nd the exact right word is just that bit more diffi cult. I work through the English translation very thoroughly, though, to make sure it’s a perfect refl ection.

Your books are huge in South Africa and you are now becoming a bestseller in Europe as well. Is South Africa taking over from Scandinavia as the new home of crime fi ction?That would be glorious but I don’t think it’s going to happen. South Africa is just

not as sexy a place as Scandinavia. People’s perception of it is often contaminated by the bad news they see on television and in newspapers – it’s never a fair refl ection of the real South Africa.

You write that “Colour, everything revolved around colour, all the time, every which way you looked, it was there .” Are your books a true refl ection of South African society?No – it’s fi ction. You amplify, you magnify, to serve the story. Crime fi ction can never be a panoramic window on society, it can only be a small window with a restricted view.

As an Afrikaans writer, do you feel pressure to represent all sectors of South Africa?I don’t feel obliged to do it. Everything is in service of the story and there are certain realities – in the police force, they have people of all ethnicities working together, so just to have black or white cops would not be credible.

It’s all about verisimilitude. You have to create a world that’s believable, that’s close enough to the truth to be believed. Interview by Alison Flood

7 Days is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£16.99) on 13

September . To buy a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

MEET THE AUTHOR Deon Meyer


Books ‘Chris Lang’s tearjerking two-part drama A Mother’s Son is all too believable’Television, page 48

world’s ending if they can’t get dinner reservations at the right restaurant.”

Smith traces the start of the internet generation, providing fascinating passages about some of the forgotten individuals (such as the 1960s military programmer JCR Licklider – “Lick to his friends”), and the startups that quickly went fl at. “The fi rst people to recognise the social power of the online idyll were the former fl ower children,” he writes . The book is peppered with enjoyable anecdotes. “The fi rst online business transaction,”

he notes, “is said to have involved a quantity of dope shipped between students at MIT and Stanford circa 1971.”

By the mid-1990s, irrational exuberance had taken over, from the party-goer, to the nerd, to the investor, to bankers such as Alan Greenspan. The fi rst initial public off ering of shares was Netscape. And it went completely wild. From that point there was no going back. In 1997 Wired, the b ible of the emerging online community, declared: “We’re facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environment for the whole world.” Nasdaq , the US technology stock index known aff ectionally as “Nazz”, couldn’t stop rising. Some fi rms were valued in multiples far greater than their worth. As they partied and saw their fortunes soar, one chief executive warned his colleagues: “This won’t last for ever, enjoy it and remember it!”

Then came 2000 and the dotcom crash . Some retrenched, survived and went on to thrive. Others, like Harris, did not. He insisted his corporation, pseudo.com, was actually fake. He could not, would not, allow his mind to enter the “grown-up” business world. He preferred to host endless parties, interviewing characters about foot fetishism for his online show, and persuading the French champagne industry to sponsor a happening entitled “The End Is Near”.

Smith describes him as a modern-day Gatsby. Harris likens himself to a Warhol of the web. His friend and fellow indulger, Jason Calacanis , said of him: “He’s one of the 10 most important people in the history of the internet and nobody knows who he is.” Unlike Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk, with the world at his feet, Harris threw it all away, and seemed happy to.

I wasn’t sure in the end if I admired him for his refusal to be boring or

if I scoff ed at his self-indulgence. I suppose the answer is a bit of both. This was an age of excess and innocence unleashed by the breaking of fi nancial and communications barriers. Even the Clinton administration, which bought into the optimism of the moment, was worried by the loss of state control. It was the fi rst government to try to establish surveillance over all electronic traffi c, via a so-called “ clipper chip ”, which was seen off technically by the cyber geeks.

Now, more than a decade on, the authoritarians are far more successful in watching, listening and following us online. The internet is much more sober now.

John Kampfner is author of Blair’s Wars and Freedom For Sale . To buy Totally Wired for £15.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

The fall of geekdom’s Gatsby TECHNOLOGY

In the late 1990s, easy cash and irresponsibility became an art form. It was the time of the dotcom boom when a small number of clever, usually irreverent and often dysfunctional people invented great things and became billionaires overnight. Some became mainstream corporate bosses; others would disappear off the map. One of those who made silly amounts of money and then blew it all was Josh Harris .

Harris was one of the early pioneers (bathos intended) of Big Brother-style reality television. His career culminated and collapsed in 2000 with the fi lming of his life, and that of his girlfriend, in a real-life internet show called We Live in Public. Everything they did, from sex to cooking dinner, was fi lmed and made available for anyone to see. He wanted to conceive a child online. “Think about it, wouldn’t you enjoy sex more if you knew you were being televised?” Eventually his girlfriend, Tanya Corrin, became fed up with him, walked out and tried to get the rights to the hours of digital “performance art”. This was the merging of counterculture and cyber-culture. This was New York’s Silicon Alley at its peak of bling and hedonism.

Harris’s parties were chronicled in magazines around the world. An earlier project involved inviting around 100 people to his warehouse apartment, so big you could line up several double decker buses in it, for a collective social experiment in wired living. It was busted on millennium night by anti-terrorist cops fearing it might be a suicide cult.

You might wonder why Harris’s life story requires a book. But when I fi nished reading Totally Wired, I understood why the cultural journalist Andrew Smith had written it. This was a slice of life never to be repeated. Smith followed Harris for years, eventually catching up with him in Awas a, an Ethiopian town where he had gone to hide from the cacophony he had engendered in New York . “The thing about life in deep Africa is that every day is a life-and-death experience and your senses get sharp,” Harris tells Smith. “New Yorkers think the

Totally Wired: On the Trail of the Great Dotcom SwindleAndrew SmithSimon & Schuster £19.99, pp416

John Kampfner is entertained by a cautionary account of a self-destructive internet pioneer and exhibitionist

The heroine of Ian McEwan ’s new novel, Sweet Tooth , is Serena Frome . Rhymes with “home”? No: McEwan intends you to pronounce her surname as you do the Somerset town – rhymes with “room”.

Nomenclature in Great Britain off ers many such traps. Beaulieu, Cholmondeley, Knollys (pronounced like “Knowles”), and the particularly teasing Featherstonehaugh (pronounced like “Fanshaw”): they appear to be designed to mock the ill-bred, ignorant or foreign. Pity the tourist in Oxford who pronounces the “g” when asking for directions to

Magdalen College! However, these eccentricities, while symptomatic of the way our spelling has developed, are comparatively trivial examples of the idiosyncratic nature of the entire spelling system – if system may be used of such a haphazard phenomenon – of the English language.

David Crystal, author of this sprightly survey, would challenge the word “haphazard”. A prolifi c author and editor of language books, he can write with authority on trends in the spelling of “rhubarb” (“rubarb” is gaining ground, he reports), and indeed on the history of the spelling of any tricky word you care to mention. For him, the patterns are clear. The rest of us may often remain puzzled.

Crystal begins his story with the arrival in Britain of Christian missionaries, who rapidly discovered

that they had at their disposal only about half the number of letters required to denote the sounds – phonemes – of the Germanic tongue of the natives. “That, in a nutshell, is the problem of English spelling,” he writes. For example, what were the monks to do about the sound “th”? The eventual answer lies of course in the letters I have written, but the scribes’ solution

was to create two new symbols, since discontinued. How was one to distinguish between short and long vowels? The scribes of Norman Britain came up with the silent “e”, to turn “hop” into “hope” for example, and with letter doubling, to turn “hoping” to “hopping”, or “met” into “meet”. Later, writers settled on spellings that indicated the etymology of words, so that “debt” – spelled “det”, “dett”, “dette”, and “deytt” in the 13th century – acquired a “b” in acknowledg ment of its origin in the Latin “debitum”. Sometimes, spellings came about more whimsically: Caxton ’s Flemish assistants introduced the “h” in “ghost” from their own language, though they failed to get “ghoos” (goose), “ghoot” (goat), or “gherl” (girl) to stick. Objecting to what he saw as the many illogicalities in British English, Noah Webster set about creating a more pleasing, American orthography – color, center, defense, and so on.

All Crystal’s explanations make sense, and are highly entertaining to read, but as they accumulate they are likely to leave readers feeling that they are no closer to the key to improving their own spelling. There are so many

exceptional cases. Is a long vowel never followed by a double consonant? No: “droll”, “all”, “small”, and, if you’re from the south, “class” and “grass”. Can a short vowel be followed by a single consonant? Yes: “criminal”, “typical”. Does spelling always respect etymological origins? No: the spelling of “island” is based on a mistake. And the rules can be hard to grasp: if a Latin prefi x ends in “s”, and the root word begins with “s” followed by a consonant, there is no doubling: so, “ascribe” rather than “asscribe”. Got that?

Nevertheless, Crystal must be right in saying that children will learn spelling more easily if they understand contexts and etymologies. He dislikes lists, and is hard on Dr Seuss too: names such as Wumbus, Wump, and Zlock serve to baffl e, he argues. But he is tolerant of – indeed, enthusiastic about – textspeak.

One supposes that the proofreaders tried to be particularly vigilant when working on this book. I spotted only one error: a missing question mark on page 259. Nicholas Clee

To buy Spell It Out for £10.39 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

You’d better mind your Ps and Qs – and the rest tooSpell It Out: Th e Singular Story of English Spelling David Crystal Profi le £12.99 , pp 224

LANGUAGE

Harris preferred to host endless parties, interviewing people about foot fetishism for his online show

Always on: Josh Harris and his girlfriend Tanya Corrin during the We Live in Public project. Photograph: David Rentas/Rex/New York Post

English orthography: for David Crystal, ‘the patterns are clear’. Roger Bamber/ Alamy

> >

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Books

“agitation and puzzled astonishment” that convulses the company in the Gospels, which is why he took as his models for the apostles the old men he saw gossiping and grousing on benches in the streets of Milan.

Their uproar, however, is soundless. Leonardo called painting “dumb poetry”, by which he meant that it was a form of sign language like that used by those who cannot speak or hear. In his most intriguing works, facial expressions and gestures tease us with riddles. Why is the Mona Lisa smiling? At whom or what is the archangel pointing in The Virgin of the Rocks ? What meanings are semaphored by the hands of the apostles, upraised in shock in The Last Supper, or by Christ’s hands, laid fl at on the table as if ready for the stigmatising nails? And what thoughts are concealed behind those faces?

King asks all the customary iconographic questions, and helps us to imagine what the mural must have looked like, with its “modulations of colour or transitions

of light and shade”, before it began to moulder and before the philistine friars carved a hole in it to make room for a doorway. He pays deserved tribute to the spatial logic of the composition, organised to illustrate the laws of divine perspective.

The vanishing point is the face of Christ, who is unperturbed by his imminent sacrifi ce; Leonardo hammered a nail into the plaster to mark the centre where all sightlines would converge, so that the saviour’s forehead is pricked by a hole that eerily anticipates the crown of thorns.

But all is not orderly serenity. King also detects a delight in visual paradox that he calls “hocus-focus”, a reminder of Leonardo’s skill as a magician, a trickster who amazed courtiers by turning white wine into red and designed fl ying machines that defi ed gravity. The perspective is hieratic as well as linear, whimsically altering scale: Christ is “a giant compared to John, who sits next to him, and as tall as Barthol omew and Philip, even though

he is seated and they are standing”. What King doesn’t explain is the rugged waste behind Christ’s head, as alien as the rocks among which the Mona Lisa so mysteriously sits. Though King’s Leonardo is pious and orthodox, I can’t help suspecting that this landscape – like the fl oods and storms and elemental upheavals Leonardo sketched – glimpses a

nature as godless as Darwin’s.The myriad-minded Leonardo

couldn’t stick to a single project for long; ideas interested him more than their execution, which may be why he didn’t bother about ensuring that his paint adhered to the damp plaster on the refectory wall. During the three years he spent on The Last Supper, he maddened his employer, the warlord Lodovico Sforza , by making fanciful detours. King follows him down many of these speculative trails, and too much of his narrative potters around on the periphery. He gets back on course when fi lling in the mural’s sorry afterlife, or rather its long decomposition. With bitter humour, King describes recent attempts at restoration as gruesome cosmetic surgery, followed by a rush to the emergency ward. First comes “a spa-style treatment of wax injectionsand invigorating rubdowns”, after which the painting is put on “a life-support system of heat and moisture monitors, along with batteries of diagnostic tests”. We are left with a cadaver, brightly rouged and smeared with lipstick to simulate life.

King wants to believe that great art lasts for ever, so he argues that The Last Supper has enjoyed, like Christ, “a kind of resurrection” in Warhol’s silk screens or the cloned version that Peter Greenaway manufactured with an inkjet printer. But I wonder if Leonardo didn’t intend it to decay. He knew that creativity fi ghts a losing battle with destruction and that art cannot outwit nature: what better way to illustrate those morbid truths than to produce a miraculously beautiful painting that almost immediately begins to revert, like the bodies and minds of all who look at it, to unformed chaos?

To buy Leonardo and the Last Supper for £16 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Leonardo and the art of seating arrangement ART

The friars in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan ate their frugal meals in penitential silence: small talk was forbidden, and at best they were permitted to listen to a stern reading from scripture. But, on the painted wall behind their communal table, a less inhibited group drank wine, feasted on a fatty dish of eel with orange juice drizzled over it, and noisily argued and expostulated as they did so. Bernard Berenson , scrutinising the mural, forgot the sanctimonious setting and described the 13 painted fi gures as rowdy Italians carousing in a cheap restaurant that didn’t bother to give its customers cutlery . “What a pack of vehement, gesticulating, noisy foreigners they are,” he sniff ed.

He was referring, of course, to the company in Leonardo ’s Last Supper , in which the 12 disciples protest a little too vociferously when Christ announces that one of them will soon betray him. Despite the snobbery it reveals, Berenson’s fastidious remark pays Leonardo’s conversation piece a fi ne compliment: it reanimates a work that had faded – before its restoration in 1999 – to a ghostly smear on the convent wall, and restores its polyphonic soundtrack.

Other paintings of the last supper, for instance those by Castagno or Ghirlandaio , make it a “solemn and meditative” occasion, as Ross King says – a moment of communion before the arrest of Christ and a preparation for the symbolic restaging of that meal which occurs whenever mass is celebrated. Leonardo stays close to the

Leonardo and the Last Supper Ross King Bloomsbury £20 , pp352

A fi ne analysis of the Last Supper invites us to look afresh at a faded masterpiece, writes Peter Conrad

“Do they have skyscrapers?” a London acquaintance innocently asks Tom Feiling , recently returned from Colombia. Short Walks from Bogotá sets out to unravel Colombia’s complexities for those who have little conception of the country beyond cocaine, violence and the execution of footballer Andrés Escobar by drug barons following his own goal in the 1994 World Cup . In 2010, Feiling – a documentary maker who has worked for a human rights organisation in Colombia and written a well-received book, The Candy Machine , on its cocaine trade – returned to Bogotá, drawn by a Newsweek portrait of a country on the rise after years of civil war. “This country has moved from terrorism to tourism,” the strong-arm then president Álvaro Uribe had announced, and Feiling reasoned the expected fl ood of visitors would need a primer.

Starting in the potholed capital Bogotá , he sets off on a series of excursions to areas beginning to open up after years of confl ict. Along the way, he takes in the incredible variety of Colombia’s geography, from lush tropical valleys to mountain ranges, coastal swamps and deep jungle. He also charts the sharp divisions among its 46 million people – the white-skinned

10% who control 80% of the country’s wealth , the mixed-race 40% “who spend their lives working as hard as they can”, and the darkest-skinned half of the population, who live in poverty in isolated rural regions or the slums that ring large cities. “We have fi rst, second and third worlds living side by side,” a Colombian friend tells Feiling.

As would-be builders of the Colombian state found in the 19th century, making sense of this diversity is no easy task. Looking back to the birth of the nation, Feiling highlights Britain’s key role in the then Spanish

colony’s battle for independence in the early 1800s. The South American rebels appealing for military support in London were at fi rst so impoverished they had to clothe volunteers in uniforms cast off by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic war – but as Simón Bolívar ’s struggle became a cause celebre, their new troops were soon dressed in “strikingly luxurious uniforms based on those of the Royal Artillery”.

Short Walks from Bogotá is inevitably dominated by more recent history: the almost 50-year-old confl ict between the

Farc and the Colombian state, infl amed by both rightwing paramilitary groups that sprang up in the 1990s, and the billions of dollars of US aid secured by the government to “fi ght narco-terrorism”. Excellent chapters trace the murky dealings between the confl ict’s main players and follow ex-Farc guerrillas to a town in the hot, swampy Magdalena delta , resulting in a grim humour (in 2010 counter-insurgency troops decorated a 50-metre tree with Christmas lights to encourage guerrillas to hand in their weapons over the festive season ).

Some of the best sections of the book illuminate the lives of ordinary people desperate for stability. Feiling is instinctively sceptical of privilege – the Facebook-using, cocktail-drinking young people of Bogotá’s rich suburbs and western backpackers get short shrift. But he paints sympathetic portraits of Colombianos such as Pedro of the indigenous Nukak people, chased from his nomadic jungle lifestyle by guerrillas .

Short Walks from Bogotá doesn’t off er light beach reading for Colombia novices, but those who persist will fi nd important insights into what Feiling calls “the most obsessive and introspective of all countries”. Rachel Aspden

To buy Short Walks from Bogotá for £ 16 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Col ombia from cocaine to cocktailsShort Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia Tom Feiling Allen Lane £20 , pp266

TRAVEL

Leonardo knew that creativity fi ghts a losing battle with destruction . Art cannot outwit nature

Leonardo’s Last Supper: ‘Th e perspective is hieratic as well as linear, whimsically altering scale.’ Th e Gallery Collection/Corbis

> > ‘Stetsons, scheming and sibling rivalry – Dallas is back after a 21-year hiatus’Television, page 50

Flying the fl ag: Colombia is beginning to open up after years of confl ict.

> >


Literature & Spoken Word

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Books

CLASSICS CORNER

Few private eye novels would open, as The Drowning Pool does, with a poison-pen letter quoting from Shakespeare’s sonnet 94 (“Lilies that fester smell

far worse than weeds”), but in Ross Macdonald ’s Lew Archer series urbane literary allusion is par for the course. Macdonald, whose real name was Kenneth Millar , published his fi rst Archer novel in 1949 , after complet ing a PhD on Coleridge at the University of Michigan . The Drowning Pool, set in California and fi rst published in 1950 , is Archer’s second outing and the most formally assured of the series.

After investigating an anonymous note accusing the wealthy Maude Slocum of adultery, Archer dives deep into a case that turns murderous when Maude’s domineering mother-in-law, Olivia (“ She had enough ego to equip a dictator and leave enough over for a couple of gauleiters”), is found dead in her swimming pool. Is oil magnate Walter Kilbourne , desirous to drill for black gold on the Slocum estate, responsible or is the killing merely a domestic spat gone wrong?

Macdonald unfurls his plot with the unforced majesty of an incoming Pacifi c tide, though it is in his laconic descriptive prose that he equals Chandler or Hammett. His evocation

of Kilbourne’s shadowy fi efdom – “ The place was as noisy as a funeral parlour at midnight, and I liked it just as well” – in the LA hills testifi es to a prescient post war cynicism about American corporatism, while his description of a club’s faded grandeur echoes with chiastic irony: “ The photographs that lined the panelled walls were signed by all the big names and the names that had once been big .”

A noirish, centrifugal amorality pervades Archer’s world and The Drowning Pool does not conclude nicely or neatly. Yet this narrative ambiguity affi rms the complexity of Macdonald’s fi ction, for as Archer observes bitterly at the denouement: “ The happy endings and the biggest oranges were the ones that California saved for export .” Lucian Robinson

To buy The Drowning Pool for £7.19 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Th e Drowning Pool Ross Macdonald PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS £8.99

Why genre fi ction is an e-reader’s best friend

THE NEW READINGGRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH

In 1997, crime writer David Hewson published a novel called Epiphany . A literary thriller with a time-shifting narrative, it got good reviews and sold well. A few years later he wrote Native Rites , a more conventional horror story with a straightforward plot. This sold far fewer copies and was remaindered within a year.

But Hewson had a soft spot for Native Rites and eventually decided to self-publish it as an ebook. He did the same with Epiphany. To his surprise, Native Rites has been the bigger hit, outselling Epiphany by three to one. Musing on why , Hewson posits a theory : is e-reading better suited to simple, linear narratives than it is to complex, more literary fi ction?

Hewson knows his research is far from scientifi c – there could be plenty of reasons for the disparity in sales – but I think he’s on to something. Partly this is about how we use e-readers. The Kindle’s portability makes it an

ideal travelling companion. Perhaps stressed-out commuters are more likely to opt for an easy read than someone at home in an armchair.

But Hewson suspects it is also the devices themselves. As he puts it, e-readers turn novels into a “continuous scroll”. They favour fast-paced narratives with a clear beginning, middle and end.

Anyone who’s used an e-reader will relate to this. There’s something about having fewer words to a page, the instant page-turning, the percentage bar (37% complete… 84% complete) that encourages you to hurtle through an ebook. I fi nd I’m less likely to linger over a sentence, or turn back to something in a previous chapter.

As genre fi ction continues to dominate the ebook charts, it seems that with e-reading, the medium is shaping the message. Anna Baddeley

Ebooks, Kindles and the web

Crime writer David Hewson thinks simple narratives are better suited to e-reading.

At last, it’s here: the second volume in the trilogy that began with X ’ed Out . And things are really getting weird now. Remember Doug , the aspiring young performance artist who, in X ’ed Out, appeared to be recovering from some kind of head injury? At the end of that book, we left him in a strange netherworld (he entered it through a hole in his bedroom wall). It was inhabited by one-eyed green worms who live in a giant hive, and spend their time transporting around a precious cargo of giant white and red eggs. Was this a dream, or a hallucination?

Naturally, Burns – still best known for his teenage horror story, Black Hole – was not telling. We would just have to wait.

Two years on – X ’ed Out was published in 2010 – and things are no less clear. Doug (or Nitnit , as he

is known in this netherworld) is still trapped in the hive. He works in its library and spends his days delivering comic books to the women who are known as the “breeders”.

As he does this lowly work, he tries to ignore the terrible smell that permeates some of the hive’s corridors, and the fact that the breeders can be heard crying in the dead of night. Strangely docile, he is the polar opposite of Tintin, the energetic hero whose name is his own in reverse. Meanwhile, back in the real world, he continues to tell a still unidentifi ed (and increasingly disgusted) young woman about his absent girlfriend, Sarah , and her menacing ex-boyfriend – the people, we assume, who are responsible

Drudgery, drugs and dread – it’s a Doug’s life Th e Hive Charles Burns Jonathan Cape £ 12.99, pp80

for whatever it is that fi nally shattered his life. Sarah, he reveals, made him dress in his dead father’s clothes, fed him opiates and, as he slept off the drugs, photographed him. When Doug is not talking, he mostly sleeps. But he has terrible nightmares: a girl rips open her own belly and a piglet emerges from the wound.

The Hive is even more disorient ing than the book preced ing it – and that was dizzying enough. I truly have no idea, yet, what is going on. But the feeling of dread Burns evokes is

quite something, especially when you consider that it is Hergé whose drawings these strips fi rst call to mind. The repetitions in the book, and its powerful imagery (the signifi cance of some of which is not yet clear), combine to create a feeling that Doug is on the edge of revealing something truly terrible. What will it be? Has it to do with those monstrous eggs? And how on earth will Burns tie up all these carefully planned loose ends, given that he has promised us just one further volume? (The third book will be called

Sugar Skull , for the macabre sweets Doug/Nitnit is forced to buy in The Hive’s very last frame.)

I’ve honestly no idea. All I can tell you is that I fear it will be another two years, at least, before we fi nd out. Charles Burns might be the master of all that is creepy in comics, but he isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, fast. Rachel Cooke

To buy The Hive for £10.39 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

PAPERBACK OF THE WEEK

Our parents thought debt was new and shameful. Our great-grandfathers would rather have been seen in a bawdy house than in a bank. Times change, but not so

very much. Philip Coggan’s text is a traditional one: in the midst of life, we are in debt. Owing money isn’t a sign of extravagance and turpitude but a basic fact of modern living and one we need to understand before it changes for ever. Coggan briskly punctures what a predecessor called the “myth of lost economic virtue”, the idea that in a golden past books were always balanced and nobody – individuals, families or nations – spent a penny more than they legitimately earned. He shows how money has turned from something mined and solid to metaphysical magic and numbers on a screen. He fl ips some current shibboleths: we have lost confi dence in bankers, but … bankers have also lost confi dence in us. If cash is a paper promise, most loans are contracted with fi ngers fi rmly crossed. Our present mess has a long and complex history. Crucifying a few bankers won’t solve it.

This is the perfect book for anyone young enough to think that Bretton Woods is a conservation project by

tree-huggers or that the gold standard has to do with Olympic qualifying times. Coggan’s wise and clever account starts in antiquity and works up to the present . It tells the Oz-like story of how the mighty dollar became (literally) as good as gold, deposing Keynes ’s “barbarous relic” . Its central understanding is that all economic thought is relative not just in terms of competition between nation states and ideological blocs, but within them, too. Accepting JK Galbraith ’s point that it is a prerogative of the rich to fi nd social virtue in whatever suits their immediate needs, Coggan acknowledges that a consumer doesn’t see the world in the same way as a fi nancier, and that how one interprets the economic realities of the moment depends absolutely on where one stands in the economic nexus. Man crucifi ed on a cross of gold, the pound in your pocket, the eurodollar market, the unlamented ERM, Ireland, Iceland, Greece … it’s all here. Brian Morton

Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World OrderPhilip CogganPENGUIN £10.99

> > ‘Just the right side of gung-ho and very engaging: Th e Bletchley Circle’Television, page 51

Doug has terrible nightmares: a girl rips open her own belly and a piglet emerges from the wound

Last splash: California is the setting for Ross Macdonald’s noirish murder-mystery.


Charts + puzzles Charts + puzzles

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Address

Post codeHow many times a month do you buyTh e Observer?

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Tick here if you do not wish to receive any further information from The Observer or other companies carefully selected by us

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AZED CROSSWORD For a diff erent challenge see opposite

EVERYMAN CROSSWORD NO 3439

ACROSS

1 Song from doctor about a city, Latvia’s capital (8)

5 Stabbed, king by fi end abroad (6)

9 Reasonable grounds, mostly (8)

10 Figure outside broadcast’s lengthy (6)

12 One showing endurance during adversity, coming from Barbados to Iceland (5)

13 Old Hebrew king back in one place where something important happened (9)

14 Fanatical propagandist, powerful energetic type possessing charm (3,9)

18 Rude lesbians in resort, they’re not wanted (12)

21 Collar man, criminal from Palma, perhaps (9)

23 Cap removed from toy gun (5)24 Cultivating endless fruit (6)25 Has treated unseasoned

leather (8)26 Want the Parisian to show

pointer on dial (6)27 Note making one irritable?

Not quite (8)

DOWN

1 Gloomy, seaman on board

again (6) 2 New red-top,

unwelcome (2,4) 3 Golf club’s bridge award (4,5) 4 Fantastic poise delivering

song (7,5) 6 Magnifi cent old British

coin (5) 7 Following many in a bad way,

a number of small ships (8) 8 Foolish constable found in

dreadful bog in NI district (8)11 Independent MP may

be more angry about judges (12)

15 Look at promising plant (9)16 Fool on ladder in

rehearsal (5,3)

17 Queen led over, following a deputy (8)

19 Far out, she fl oundered again (6)

20 Note about substance used for curdling (6)

22 Rebuilt Loire college (5)

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MY SUNDAY IN A PICTURE

READERS’ CLUB

Extra is a membership scheme for readers of the Observer and the

Guardian that aims to bring people closer to our journalism through live debates, visits and via special off ers on cultural events. Here’s an update on current activities.

■ The Observer is the national media partner for this year’s R iba Stirling prize , the UK’s most prestigious architecture award. On 25 September, the nominees on the shortlist will take part in the Observer/R iba Stirling prize debate at R iba in Portland Place, London . The event, chaired by the Observer’s Rowan Moore, costs £8 for Extra members (normal price £12).

The winner will be announced at a special event in Manchester on Saturday 13 October .

■ Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde , which opens at Tate Britain on

12 September , is a rare opportunity to see more than 1 50 works in a spectacular show that includes work by pioneers such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti , William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais .

Extra members can enjoy an after-hours private view of the exhibition on 5 November and join one of the guided tours in the evening.

The evening will start with a shor t talk by the Guardian’s art critic, Jonathan Jones. Tickets cost £10.

■ After their successful appearance at the Jubilee Pageant earlier this year, the Academy of Ancient Music conclude a major European tour with a performance of Handel’s most jubilant music at London’s Barbican on 26 September .

The programme includes The

Music for the Royal Fireworks, the Coronation Anthems and the Water Music. There will also be a performance of two of the most famous choruses from Messiah.

Extra members get a 30% discount on any pair of tickets.

■ Caryl Churchill, one of the UK’s most infl uential playwrights, returns to the Royal Court theatre with her fi rst new full-length production in six years. Directed by James Macdonald , Love and

Information is a fast-moving kaleidoscope of more than 100

characters trying to make sense of what they know.

Extra members can save £5 on the top two ticket prices (normally £28 and £20).

Book tickets and fi nd out more about Extra off ers at guardian.co.uk/extra

Top 10 DVD & Blu-ray rentals at lovefi lm.com 1 Safe House (pictured)

Director Daniel Espinosa2 21 Jump Street

Christopher Miller, Phil Lord3 The Descendants

Alexander Payne4 The Woman in Black

James Watkins5 Man on a Ledge

Asger Leth6 Lockout

James Mather, Stephen St Leger7 The Vow

Michael Sucsy8 Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie9 Headhunters

Morten Tyldum10 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

John Madden

Bestselling graphic novels at play.com1 The Walking Dead: Vol 16 (pictured) Robert Kirkman2 The Boys: Vol 11 Garth Ennis3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 Joss Whedon, Andrew Chambliss4 League of Extraordinary Gentleman

Alan Moore5 Green Lantern: Brightest Day

Geoff Johns6 Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Bryan Lee O’Malley7 Avengers: X-Sanction

Jeph Loeb8 Barry Sonnenfeld’s Dinosaurs vs Aliens

Grant Morrison9 Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection

Gail Simone10 Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Archives

Arnold Drake, Paul S Newman, Len Wein

Top 10 world music albums 1 Somewhere Over the

Rainbow (pictured)Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

2 Area 52Rodrigo y Gabriela & Cuba

3 He is Number 1Malawi Mouse Boys

4 FolilaAmadou & Mariam

5 FatouFatoumata Diawara

6 TassiliTinariwen

7 The Ravi Shankar CollectionRavi Shankar

8 Live in Detroit 1986Fela Kuti

9 DustPeatbog Faeries

10 A RetrospectivePink Martini

Esth

Guardian that aimsn

FILMS

BOOKS

MUSIC

Connect: 1 A species of rose with Flush and an American rodent.2 The Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean with Al Martino and Sinclair Lewis.3 A Lancashire landmark with Hard Times and Canary Wharf.4 A Derbyshire landmark with Sir Walter Scott and a rook.5 An American whiskey distiller with a pantomime and James Bond.ANSWERS ON PAGE 47

JOINED-UP THINKING

Pat Seymour, Ponteland, Northumberland‘Enjoying the lake’.

If you’d like to contribute a photo of your Sunday, email a hi-res image to: [email protected]

a

£15 book tokens for the fi rst fi ve correct solutions opened. Solutions postmarked not later than Saturday night to: Th e Observer PO Box 6604, Birmingham, B26 3RW or fax 0121 742 1313. Th e fi rst three correct solutions opened will receive a set of stylish Penguin Dictionaries, worth £24


Istanbul is currently the capital of the chess world as the biennial Olympiad revisits the city that hosted it 12 years ago. Battle began on Tuesday and we’ll catch up with it next week. But today we look ahead to Fide’s next big event, which will be in the centre of London at Simpson’s in the Strand: the establishment which, 161 years ago was graced by the “Immortal Game” between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky .

The inaugural tournament of a grand prix cycle which will take in London, Tashkent, Lisbon, Madrid, Berlin and Paris – after which the (quite separate) knockout world cup will be played in Tromsø – it is the brainchild of Andrew Paulson, the American-born entrepreneur and polymath whose recently formed company Agon has gained the rights from Fide to organise the world championship cycle for the next few years. I met Paulson recently at his offi ce just a stone’s throw from the very centre of British government and in a fairly informal interview began by asking what it was like to negotiate with Fide . Paulson, who has a massive media presence in Russia, has surely dealt with some tough people in his time and he said that he had developed “real personal aff ection” for the Fide offi cials with whom he had worked for months: though he did compare himself to Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, ground in the jaws of overpowering machinery. He has also met many players and enjoyed a level of passion which took him back to his teenage years.

The basic question for anybody who takes on world chess is how they intend to make it work. After a number of major sponsors who have gone to the wayside over the years, Paulson talks of sustainable sponsorship and of “curating a group of six companies, all class leaders”. To do this you obviously have to give value for money and he wants to make chess a spectator sport. This would involve online viewing both live and in highlights packages on a number of diff erent platforms and could involve parallel commentaries for diff erent levels of players and/or language groups and an interactive element.

It’s a bold vision and London will be the pioneer. The auditorium at Simpson’s has been designed by the media company Pentagram and from 20 September to 3 October it will host Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov, Wang Hao, Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko, Ruslan Ponomariov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Lenier Domínguez, Anish Giri and Rustam Kasimdzhanov .

This is a mouth-watering prospect, especially given that the group is so bellicose. Organisers often fret about draws and Paulson mentioned them too. It’s true that tournaments years ago like Reggio Emilia were suff used with too much “goodwill” for their own good . But that

era is long gone. The grand prix cycle will feature “Sofi a rules”, precluding all draws until the death except by repetition: but, I’m pleased to say, not the controversial football scoring system (3, 1, 0).

Today’s players fi ght, especially the 12 in London. And there is plenty to look forward to in the capital in coming months too, with Malcolm Pein’s fourth London Classic in December with Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Michael Adams and Judit Polgár confi rmed; and next March the Fide candidates tournament.

Simpson’s has seen wonderful chess over the years and we start, briefl y, with the Immortal Game itself, a friendly played on 21 June 1851 during a break in the fi rst international tournament. It’s of its time and I’m just going to give the superb denouement.

Lionel Kieseritzky (Black)

Adolf Anderssen (White to play)

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572813649146297358839564712413958267795642183628731495957126834264389571381475926

SUDOKU SOLUTIONS

SUDOKU CLASSIC KILLER BRIDGE BY OMAR SHARIF

CHESS BY JONATHAN SPEELMAN

Charts + puzzles

JOINED UP THINKING

Fill in the blank cells using the numbers 1 to 9. Each number must appear just once in every row, column and 3x3 box.

2 3 5 89 5 4

1 3 5 2 66

8 15 1 46 3 7 18 9 2 6

Normal Sudoku rules apply, except the numbers in the cells contained within grey lines add up to the fi gures in the corner. No number can be repeated within each shape formed by the grey lines.

18

14

13

20

21

6

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1 Dog: pet dog of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; prairie dog.

2 Spanish Main: hit single Spanish Eyes; novel Main Street.

3 Blackpool tower: character Stephen Blackpool; in borough of Tower Hamlets.

4 Peveril castle: novel Peveril of the Peak; alternative name for a castle in chess.

5 Jack Daniel: Jack and the Beanstalk; latest incarnation Daniel Craig.

David Howell (Black)

Daniel King (White to play)

Black has just played 20 ... Nb8-a6 but may well have resigned when White announced the mate, which is:21 Nxg7+ Kd8 22 Qf6+! Nxf6 23 Be7 checkmate.

This is from a tournament in Simpson’s in 2003. King opened fi re with:21 Nf5! gxf5 22 Re3 Nd4?! 22 ...f4 23 Rh3 Qe7! 24 Nxe7+ Rxe7 25 Rxa4 was best when at least Black can keep on fi ghting.23 Rg3+ Kf7 24 Rg7+ Ke6 25 Qxf6+! and Black resigned in view of 25 ...Qxf6 26 Nxc7 mate.

Everyman No. 3437 winners

SOLUTION NO. 3438 S T E N C H A M U L E TT L R A A RR E A D Y S U B S T A N C EE B P E R A C AS P O T T E R O D D M E N TS R I V U O I

M A R C H I N G O R D E R SS T C H N ET H E E N T E R T A I N E RE E F D N R SP A R A S O L O C T A G O NO O T A W E E AN U M B E R T E N G E T U PI E G E I PT R O U G H T R I C K Y

Richard Ellis, Millbrook, CornwallIan Small, NorwichVanda Rosen, London SW19Hugh Campbell, BelfastMonica Ford, Dorchester

PICTURE THIS

What topical event links the three pictures above? Answer below

Picture puzzle

Plymouth couple Colin and Vanessa Steer found a medieval well hidden beneath their

sofa after investigating a mysterious dip in the fl oor.

ACROSS *1 Timely precaution (13, 4 words) 11 Strong home-brew, not bad in a saki mixed before noon (8) 13 Jock’s hanging border given the thumbs-down, we hear (4) 14 Wind in sequence overturned perennial (8) 15 Sepia container, trendy – then drum rolls? (6) 16 Scottish isle ay denied short stops (6) 18 Whist excursion, for crying out loud (8) 19 Divine sun outside in Cannes, but with half of us inside (5) 22 Take that (last one going to head)! It could render you senseless (5) 24 Very sorry journey ends prematurely in story (8) 28 Lecturer on ancient Greek capital – such should not be hurried (6) 30 Take a turn off for commuters’ short cut? (6, 2 words) 31 White crystalline mineral: see iron mixed with it (early English

cladding) (8) 32 Group with common purpose housed in pueblo compound (4) 33 Jeweller’s mineral, quartz-like, I tackle as of old in washing

trough (8, 2 words) 34 Bamboos requiring little depth with calm sea round rippling (13)

DOWN 2 Reggae dance: special skill’s being given upward jerk, not

constant (5) 3 As regards clue coming up – this one’s a belter! (6) 4 Might such frontal markings represent Sakti? (5) 5 Memorable colt ridden by Kate (6) 6 Opponent of dualism in chair uneasily creating consonance? (11) 7 Riparian? Steersman goes into one, both losing heads (6) 8 Hardened clay, fired, seen in e.g. azulejo (7) 9 Batting twice bags duck – it does stick out somewhat at the

top! (5) 10 Scotch has to fill a chap with a hint of uplift (4) 11 Asthmatic’s stand-by: nutty pralines, hard inside (9) 12 Self-confidence shown by e.g. American leaping over bar (9) 17 Mouldy game I found in store (7) 20 Addict run aground and abandoned, one taken in (6) 21 Liqueur: take sample from costliest regardless (6) 23 Left in place sacred to Muslims, wherein blacks predominate (6) 25 Male for head left off helmet? He’s belted! (5) 26 Stand? Eton turns to pop superstar with this (5) 27 Mandarin (of a kind) one in this country has reared ( 5) 29 Make down payment on what goes into strong ale (not by

round) (4)

Rules and requestsSend correct solution (one only) and clue to replace definition asterisked (on separate sheet also bearing name and address, securely attached) to Azed No. 2,100, PO Box 518, Oxford, OX2 6WX. Entries should be postmarked no later than Saturday. Please add a brief expla-nation of your clue (one entry only). £35, £30, £25 prizes and Azed bookplates for the three clues judged best. The Azed Slip, containing details of successful competition entries and Azed’s com-ments, is available on subscription at (£13 a year(£16 for overseas subscrib-ers). Cheques payable to the Azed Slip, should be sent to The Azed Slip, Coombe Farm, Awbridge, Romsey SO51 0HN. To receive a sample slip, please send an sae to this address. For much more information on the Azed Slip, visit www.andlit.org.uk.

AZED No. 2,097prizewinnersAlan & Brenda Currie, Neath, WalesPatrick Darlington, Airdrie, N LanarkshirePat Groome, Hook Norton, Oxon

AZED 2,097 Solution

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The Chambers Dictionary (2011) is recommended.

AZED No. 2,100 Plain COMPETITION PUZZLE

When journalists take on one another there is always a little more at stake. The following hand from a pairs event at the Memphis Nationals saw just such an encounter.

Dealer East Both vulnerable

♠ A J 10 4 3 2 ♥ K 2 ♦ Q 9 7 3 ♣ K♠ --- ♠ Q 9 7 6♥ A J 9 7 3 ♥ 10 8 4♦ A K J 4 ♦ 6♣ J 5 4 3 ♣ 10 9 8 7 6 ♠ K 8 5 ♥ Q 6 5 ♦ 10 8 5 2 ♣ A Q 2

West North East South

Pass Pass1H 1S Pass 2HPass 3S Pass 3NTAll pass

With Four Spades down two on diamond ruff s, North-South had done well to reach Three No-trumps. Journalist number one led a top diamond, then shifted to a club. Journalist number two ran the spade jack to make his contract.

Note that even if East covers the fi rst spade, taking declarer’s easy entry from his hand, declarer can win and next run the diamond eight, and West cannot keep South out of his hand. If necessary, South can unblock dummy’s heart king under the ace.

Was there a defence? Yes. West must shift to a low heart at trick two. Now declarer unblocks the club king, but when the spade ten is led from dummy East must cover at once. (If not, declarer cashes three spades ending in hand and squeezes West). Declarer does better to play the ace then jack of spades, covered, on which West pitches the nine then jack of hearts!

♠ 10 4 3 2 ♥ 2 ♦ Q 9 7 ♣ ---♠ --- ♠ 9 7♥ A 7 ♥ 10 8♦ K J 4 ♦ ---♣ J 5 4 ♣ 10 9 8 7 ♠ 8 ♥ Q 6 ♦ 10 8 5 ♣ A Q

Declarer now advances the diamond eight, which West must duck as East discards a club. If declarer does not cash his clubs next, before playing a second diamond, West locks declarer in dummy with a diamond. If declarer cashes both clubs fi rst, West has an entry to his partner. Incidentally, East must keep both his high hearts, or in the above ending declarer plays repeatedly on diamonds. When West locks declarer in dummy with the diamond queen, South cashes the spade ten and exits with a heart. He covers East’s card and collects two club tricks from West.


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Monday 3 SeptemberMonday 3 September

DRAMA

New TricksBBC1, 9pmOld School Ties. A Jack-less team reinves-tigate the disappearance of PE teacher Jason Bowe after the remains of a body are discovered near the public school where he taught. Someone who preferred to keep to himself in the staff room, Kiwi Bowe formed close relationships with several of his pupils. But could his behaviour really have rattled someone enough to kill him?

ART HISTORY

Th e Treasures of Ancient Rome BBC4, 9pmIn the fi rst of this interesting new series, Alastair Sooke scrutinises the “warts ’n’ all realism” of Roman artists and explains how Rome’s fi rst emperor, Augustus, used art as a tool to forge his dominion.

COMEDY DRAMA

Hunderby Sky Atlantic, 10pmAs Julia Davis’s spoof gothic melodrama continues, Helene tries to adjust to life as the wife of wet pastor Edmund, but fi nds herself blamed for Mother Mathilde’s declining health, a rumour doggedly fanned by evil housekeeper Dorothy. MB

FILM

Arachnophobia BBC1, 12.15am(Frank Marshall, 1990)

Produced by Steven Spielberg, this eco-horror fl ick reworks Jaws inland as a family man GP (Jeff Daniels), an insect exterminator (John Goodman)and an obsessive scientist (Julian Sands) unite to take on a horde of deadly Latin American spiders that threaten a California township. Goodman and Sands are over the top, but Daniels is delightful as the doctor with the eponymous fear of spiders. Th e opening sequence in the Venezuelan jungle is eerily beautiful, and the picture was clearly playing on American fears of immigration and Aids. Philip French

RADIO

Craven: Looking for Mr King Radio 4, 2.15pmMaxine Peake plays savvy DCI Craven, investigating the murder of a businessman who, the police discover, was having an aff air with his partner’s wife. Months go by with no leads until the victim’s wife, fi nds a business card in her dead husband’s trouser pocket bearing the name of Lionel King. Written by Amelia Bullmore, this is an intriguing drama that explores personal weaknesses and unfulfi lled dreams. Stephanie Billen

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am Day fi ve sees the swimmers launch a thrilling day of competition. ParalympicsGB’s six-time gold medallist Sascha Kindred competes in the men’s 200m individual medley SM6, while Ellie Simmonds and Natalie Jones contest the women’s 200m individual medley. Elsewhere, the seven-a-side football team play Ukraine and the women’s 1500m T20 and the men’s 100m T12 heats begin. Will Carpenter

6.00 Breakfast 99838222 9.15 Rip Off

Britain. New series. The consumer aff airs

show returns. 5016241 10.00 Homes under

the Hammer 13357 11.00 Escape to the

Country 3053390 11.45 Cash in the Attic

(R) 116222 12.15 Bargain Hunt 6176222

1.00 News; Weather 67339 1.30 Regional

News 30344319 1.40 Doctors. Mrs Tembe

and Rob compete in the cookery fi nal.

71105222 2.10 Only Fools and Horses

(R) 2579883 3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum

and Dad (R) 7480574 3.35 Splatalot (R)

4064390 4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5535932

4.10 Wingin’ It (R) 3408086 4.30 Sam &

Mark’s Big Wind Up (R) 12 5.00 Newsround

2892241 5.15 Pointless 2113970

6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for

children 9.20 Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (R)

4781067 9.30 Large Family (R) 9807086 9.40

Koala Brothers (R) 1424222 9.50 Dirtgirl-

world (R) 1420406 10.00 Octonauts (R)

7979154 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2109512

10.30 Driver Dan’s Story Train (R) 9258970

10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2035241 11.00 In the

Night Garden (R) 3222 11.30 News 4951

12.00 Daily Politics 47241 1.00 My Life in

Books (R) 95951 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy

(R) 9554390 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2591222

3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7870116

3.45 Hairy Bikers’ Best of British (R)

4853864 4.30 Flog It! 2546951 5.15 Put Your

Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2111512

6.00 Daybreak 469970 8.30 Lorraine

3510970 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show

3222816 10.30 This Morning. Hermione

Norris chats about A Mother’s Son,

which starts tonight at 9pm. 83222

12.30 Loose Women. New series. Chris

Moyles guests. 40593 1.30 News and

Weather 71111883 1.55 Regional News

78595222 2.00 Dickinson’s Real Deal (R)

A modern oil painting makes a good price

in Peterborough. 85086 3.00 The Alan

Titchmarsh Show. New series of the chat

show. 2593 4.00 My Tasty Travels with

Lynda Bellingham. New series. The host

embarks on a culinary adventure across

the UK. 1628 5.00 The Chase. Quiz. 4609

■ 6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012

TONIGHT (R) 3915593 7.00 PARALYMPIC

GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25436116 9.15

PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the men’s

SM6 200m individual medley and the men’s

S7 100m freestyle. 88902715 12.00 News

2580609 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 GB v

Ukraine in the men’s seven-a-side football.

2625086 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012

Wheelchair basketball: Britain’s men face

Japan; the women take on Canada. Sitting

volleyball features GB’s men v Germany at

2.00. 3922067 4.20 Come Dine with Me

5474116 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9174883

5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 The women’s

SM6 200m individual medley. 1548241

6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children

7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7284845

8.00 Fifi and the Flowertots (R) 3389574

8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 8208244 & 5394203

8.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6946357 8.45

Bananas in Pyjamas 6934512 9.00 Abby’s

Flying Fairy School (R) 9118680 9.15 The

Wright Stuff 71617319 11.10 Robson’s

Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 5085574

12.05 The Family Recipe (R) 11255135

12.10 News 11247116 12.15 Celebrity

Big Brother (R) 4435425 1.15 Home and

Away 6942777 1.45 Neighbours 6941048

2.15 NCIS (R) 4415661 3.15 � Back to

You and Me (2005) 58090512 5.00 News

1026628 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1485883

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Romeo drowns his sorrows. 1482796

6.30 News (T) 14730487.00 World’s Scariest Near Misses

(T) (R) Real-life stories of people who have stared death in the face. Th ey include a pilot who lost a wing when his aircraft collided with another and a ski-base jumper who broke every bone from her hips down in a stunt. 5278796

8.00 Frontline Police (T) Rav Wilding accompanies Essex police on a drugs raid, but the operation turns into a chase when the suspect escapes. Paramedics rush to help an unconscious man, an emergency unit struggle to get a woman to the police station and a traffi c stop catches a motorist three times over the limit. 5254116

9.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) Th e fi nal week. 5267680

10.00 Celebrity Wedding Planner (T) Neighbours star Ryan Moloney teams up with former castmate Mark Little to plan a wedding for a British-born Chinese couple. Th e bride-to-be is hoping for a whimsical occasion, but gets a shock at her hen party. 5277067

11.00 Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (T) Th e companion show. 8932845

12.00 Th e Hotel Inspector (T) (R) 4020013 12.55 SuperCasino 57641520 4.05 Sons of Anarchy 94095549 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85714297 & 32570617

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Th e Savages pick up the pieces after Dodger’s shock announcement. 67

7.00 News (T) 6680

7.30 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) Th e swimming includes the fi nal of the women’s freestyle relay, while the women’s T54 400m race on the track is expected to be a clash between Britain’s Jade Jones and Chantal Petitclerc of Canada. Mickey Bushell is among the favourites in the men’s T53 100m at 8.03. Plus the concluding wheelchair basketball group matches, Lee Pearson’s bid for equestrian gold and table tennis. 798154

10.30 Th e Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the Paralympics action. 719999

11.15 Th e Girl Who Became Th ree Boys (T) (R) Over the course of several months, Gemma Barker, 21, currently serving 30 months in prison for fraud and sexual assault, invented and impersonated three diff erent boys. Under these guises, she seduced two girls. 514796

12.20 Th e Good Wife (T) 4609181 & 5349013 1.50 Revenge 9442520 2.30 Happy Endings 9755988 2.50 St Elsewhere (R) 2562723 3.40 Eating for Two (R) 79305384 3.45 School Disco (R) 79395907 3.55 Deal or No Deal (R) 6874926 4.50 Make Do & Mend (R) 96041384 5.15 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 6671384 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1394162

6.00 Regional News (T) 456.30 News (T) 257.00 Emmerdale (T) Amy’s fragile

relationship with her mother takes a blow when Kerry’s ex-boyfriend shows up. 5338

7.30 Coronation Street (T) Tommy pushes for extra shifts with the security fi rm, despite being exhausted, so that he can clear his debt as soon as possible. Another episode at 8.30pm. 39

8.00 Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs (T) New series. Th e comedian follows the work of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in London. In his fi rst week, Paul helps with the arrival of a litter of puppies and meets a bull terrier found in a park. 4086

8.30 Coronation Street (T) Tommy’s exhaustion places him in peril. Tracy shocks Steve and Michelle by revealing she has a new job at Dev’s kebab shop. Karl begs Stella to take him back. Paul admits that he always hated the vase. 3593

9.00 A Mother’s Son (T) See choice, above. 6390

10.00 News (T) 1133810.30 Regional News (T) 62184510.35 � Land of the Dead (George

A Romero, 2005) (T) Horror starring Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Simon Baker. 87446135

12.15 Jackpot247 10180988 2.20 Champions League 8155365 2.45 Nightscreen 452742 4.35 Th e Jeremy Kyle Show (R) 7993839 5.30 News 99013

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 196.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T)

Danny Mills, Zöe Salmon, Cheryl Baker and Richard McCourt compete. 99

7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) New series. Richard Wilson takes on Annette Crosbie. Catherine Southon and James Lewis advise the pair. 3680

8.00 University Challenge (T) Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge v Magdalen College, Oxford. 7932

8.30 Lorraine’s Fast, Fresh and Easy Food (T) Lorraine Pascale makes strawberry cakes, a slow-baked leg of lamb and a crusty loaf. 6067

9.00 Horizon: How Small Is the Universe? (T) Scientists discuss their attempts to fi nd the universe’s smallest object and explain why their studies may lead to the discovery of miniature black holes. 9864

10.00 James May’s Th ings You Need to Know (T) Th e host unearths facts about the science of speed, including why the moon doesn’t fall from the sky. 17512

10.30 Newsnight (T) 89884511.20 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse

(T) (R) Maria Connolly, a nurse from Preston, vists Mexico. Last in series. 952777

12.20 Richard Hammond’s Crash Course (R) 4614013 1.05 News 3.20 Rugby League 5060100

4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools: Spark 58297 5.00 Schools: Children of World War Two 31162 5.30 Schools: History Hunt 75487

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 Th e Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 Radio 1’s Stories Night Time with the xx 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Rock Show with Daniel P Carter 2.00 Charlie Sloth 4.00 Dev

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Paul Jones 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Big Band Special 10.00 Out of the Shadows 11.00 Jools Holland 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams 12.00 News 1.00 BBC Proms Chamber Music 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 51 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (1/) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 70. Celebrating 70 years of Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. 10.00 Th e Lebrecht Interview: John Adams 10.45 Th e Essay (R) (1/4) 11.00 Jazz on 3 12.30 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today (5/6) 9.30 Head to Head (4/5) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal. By Paul Auster. Th e author assesses his life, jumping backward and forward in time as various themes intersect. (1/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Journey of a Lifetime 11.30 Everyone Quite Likes Justin (1/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 Th e New Elizabethans (56/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 Th e World at One 1.45 Coming Out (R) (1/5) 2.00 Th e Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: Craven: Looking for Mr King. By Amelia Bullmore. DCI Craven takes on a new case when a body is found in a local beauty spot. See picks, above. 3.00 Round Britain Quiz. New series. (1/12) 3.30 Th e Food Programme 4.00 Mr Jupitus in the Age of Steampunk 4.30 Beyond Belief (6/9) 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 Just a Minute (5/8) 7.00 Th e Archers. Mike feels torn and Lily speaks her mind. 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution. Crime drama set in the 16th century during the dissolution of the monasteries. (1/10) 8.00 Th e Speaker 8.30 Crossing Continents (R) (8/9) 9.00 Material World (R) 9.30 Amanda Vickery (R) (5/6) 9.59 Weather 10.00 Th e World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (1/10) 11.00 Word of Mouth (R) (7/8) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (1/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Phil Williams 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport: Th e Monday Night Club 9.00 5 Live Sport 9.30 5 Live Sport: Th e Tuff ers and Vaughan Cricket Show 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

6.00 News (T) 776.30 Regional News (T) 577.00 Th e One Show (T) Matt Baker

and Alex Jones host. 39707.30 Fake Britain (T) Police offi cers

pursue an identity fraudster. Dominic Littlewood looks into fake baby-carriers. 41

8.00 EastEnders (T) While Alfi e is left to sort out a problem, Kat has some time alone during which she struggles to resist her lover’s charms. 9390

8.30 Panorama: Dial 999 — and Wait? (T) Claims that cuts in public spending in the police, fi re and ambulance services are aff ecting response times. Declan Lawn reports. 8425

9.00 New Tricks (T) See picks of the day, above. 1222

10.00 News (T) 14559310.25 Regional News (T) 496999

10.35 Citizen Khan (T) Mr Khan’s chance to meet the bigwigs of Sparkhill Business Association is jeopardised. 787609

11.05 Gavin & Stacey (T) (R) Dave is unhappy about Nessa’s plans to let Smithy see the baby. 738609

11.35 Th e Lock Up (T) (R) Sgt Dave Porteus helps a woman who has tried to kill herself. 664262

12.15 � Arachnophobia (Frank Marshall, 1990) (T) See picks, above. 301162 2.05 Sign Zone: Engineering Giants: Ferry Strip-Down (R) 5053520 3.05 Th e Riots: In Th eir Own Words (R) 8344891 4.05 Britain’s Heritage Heroes (R) 38471075 4.35 News

his two teenagers. When Rosie notices stains on trainers hidden under her son’s bed she suspects it could be blood. With both the eldest boys acting suspiciously, could someone in the family really be involved in the murder? Th e fi rst of a moving, all too believable two-part drama by Chris Lang. With Paul McGann, Norris’s fellow Spook Nicola Walker and Alexander Arnold. Well worth watching, it concludes powerfully tomorrow. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

A Mother’s Son ITV1, 9pmTh e inhabitants of a quiet East Anglian coastal town are stunned when a local teenage schoolgirl is murdered, including the newly merged family of Rosie (Hermione Norris), her two children, her new husband Ben (Martin Clunes) and

PICKS OF THE DAY

� BBC1 � BBC2 � ITV1 � CHANNEL 4 � CHANNEL 5

TERRESTRIAL TODAY’S RADIO

REGIONAL VARIATIONS DIGITAL

> FULL TV AND RADIO LISTINGS FOR TODAY’S TV SEE BACK PAGE

ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA,

WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, MERIDIAN,

TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1

ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 1.55pm-2.00 ITV Wales

News and Weather 6.00-6.30 Wales Tonight 8.00-8.30

Time of Your Life 10.30-10.35 Wales Tonight

S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 12noon

Bla Bla Blewog (R) 12.15 Ben a Mali a’u Byd Bach O

Hud (R) 12.25 Cwm Teg (R) 12.30 Bach a Mawr (R)

12.40 Wibli Sochyn y Mochyn (R) 1.00 Penawdau

Newyddion 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 Y Sipsiwn Romani

Heddiw (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 3.00 Cyw (R) 3.30 Nodi (R)

3.40 Tomos a’i Ffrindiau (R) 3.55 Rhacsyn a’r Goeden

Hud (R) 4.15 Octonots (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30

Stwnsh: Ben 10 5.55 Bernard 6.00 Ffeil 6.10 Rownd a

Rownd 6.35 Pobol y Cwm 6.35 Newyddion 7.00 Heno

7.30 Newyddion 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25

Ffermio 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion 9.00 Cofi o Gyda

Dai Jones (R) 10.00 Sgorio 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion

11.05 Ralio+ (R) 11.35 Hwb (R) 12.40-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm New Wales

11.05 Citizen Khan 11.35 Gavin & Stacey (R) 12.05

The Lock Up (R) 12.45 � Arachnophobia (1990)

2.30 Weatherview 2.35 News

BBC2 WALES As BBC2

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 1.30pm-1.40

Reporting Scotland; Weather 6.30-7.00 Reporting

Scotland 10.25-10.35 Reporting Scotland; Weather

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 10.00-10.30

Burnistoun 11.00 Newsnight Scotland 11.20 The Great

Scottish Run 12.10 James May’s Things You Need to

Know 12.40 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse (R) 1.35

Richard Hammond’s Crash Course (R) 2.25-2.30 News

BBC37.00pm Don’t Tell the Bride 8.00 Small Teen Turns Eighteen 9.00 Our War 10.00 Th e Revolution Will Be Televised 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Our War 1.25 See 10pm 1.55 Don’t Tell the Bride 2.55 See 8pm

BBC47.00pm News 7.30 Metal: How It Works 8.30 Only Connect 9.00 Th e Treasures of Ancient Rome. See picks, above. 10.00 If Walls Could Talk: Th e History of the Home 11.00 Th e Shock of the New 12midnight Metal: How It Works 1.00 Only Connect 1.30 Bomb Squad Men: Th e Long Walk 2.30 Th e Treasures of Ancient Rome

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 10.55am � Never So Few (1959) 1.20 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Grand Designs Australia 10.05 Stalked 10.40 Embarrassing Bodies 11.45 One Born Every Minute 12.50-1.55 Grand Designs Australia

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 11.00am Best of Oops TV 12noon Stargate SG-1 2.00 Raising Hope 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Th e Middle 5.00 A League of Th eir

Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Th e Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 Th e Simpsons 8.00 A League of Th eir Own 9.00 Ross Kemp: Extreme World 10.00 Road Wars 11.00 Cop Squad 12midnight An Idiot Abroad 1.00 Caprica 1.55-4.35 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05 Sell Me the Answer

FILM411.00am � Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 1.05 � 7th Cavalry (1956) 2.40 � Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958) 4.30 � Th ose Magnifi cent Men in Th eir Flying Machines (1965) 7.05 � Picture Perfect (1997) 9.00 � Transporter 3 (2008) 11.00 � Pretty Bird (2008) 12.50 � Th e Warlords (2007)


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Tuesday 4

INTERVIEW

Voices of a GenerationSky Arts 1, 8pmActor Michael Gambon refl ects on his humble youth in Dublin, during which he trained as a toolmaker before he discovered a passion for acting when he was 18 and joined an amateur drama group. With almost no experience, he got a lucky break courtesy of Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Th eatre for its fi rst season and thus began a glittering career.

GENRE

Th e Great British Bake Off BBC2, 8pmTh e nine remaining bakers prepare desserts. Th ey begin by creating tortes (look out for Brendan’s clementine and chestnut creation) before attempting creme caramel and the perfect layered meringue. Five million viewers can’t be wrong.

DRAMA

Th e Newsroom Sky Atlantic, 10pmTh e Blackout Part II: Mock Debate. Will and the staff stage a mock debate for a pair of Republican Party offi cials; Lisa goes off -script and Neal embarks on an undercover assignment as an internet troll. MB

FILM

Total Recall ITV2, 10pm(Paul Verhoeven, 1990)

To coincide with the release this week of the remake starring Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale, here’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of Philip K Dick’s classic sci-fi story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale set in a dystopian future. Arnie is suitably bemused as a brainwashed labourer on Earth who rediscovers his past as an anti-authoritarian rebel on Mars and goes on a vengeful rampage with Rachel Ticotin at his side. Fast moving, darkly comic, extremely violent, with special eff ects that stunned audience in the 1990s. Philip French

RADIO

Th e Life Scientifi c – Richard Dawkins Radio 4, 9amJim Al-Khalili talks to the professor of evolutionary biology about his outspoken hostility towards religion. Dawkins reasserts the ideas that formed the basis of his 1976 book Th e Selfi sh Gene, while defending his most recent “polemic” Th e God Delusion, in which he warns of the dangers of religious indoctrination undermining scientifi c truth. A fascinating subject but you want Al-Khalili to tread less carefully with his famously antagonistic interviewee. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15amYoung Sports Personality of the Year 2008 Ellie Simmonds takes centre stage today. Th e 17-year-old is back in action in the women’s 50m freestyle S6 heats. Meanwhile on the track, David Weir continues the defence of his 1500m T54 crown, as the competition reaches the semi-fi nal stages. Will Carpenter


Britain. A high-street store that is letting

customers down. 5910013 10.00 Homes

under the Hammer (R) 39346 11.00 Escape

to the Country 3957162 11.45 Cash in the

Attic (R) 576452 12.15 Bargain Hunt (R)

6070094 1.00 News; Weather 53926

1.30 Regional News 30231891 1.40 Doctors.

Jas is drawn into a love triangle. 71009094

2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2473655

3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R)

7384346 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4968162

4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5439704

4.10 Wingin’ It (R) 3475758 4.30 Trade Your

Way to the USA (R) 346 5.00 Newsround

2796013 5.15 Pointless 2017742

6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for chil-

dren 9.20 Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (R)

4685839 9.30 The Large Family (R) 9874758

9.40 The Koala Brothers (R) 1328094 9.50

Dirtgirlworld (R) 1324278 10.00 Octonauts:

Creature Reports (R) 7873926 10.05 Kerwhizz

(R) 2003384 10.30 Driver Dan’s Story Train

(R) 9152742 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2939013

11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 1920 11.30

News 8549 12.00 Daily Politics 78384 1.00

My Life in Books (R) 51568 1.30 To Buy or

Not to Buy (R) 9458162 2.15 Weakest Link

(R) 2495094 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R)

7774988 3.45 Hairy Bikers’ Best of British (R)

4757636 4.30 Flog It! 2440723 5.15 Put Your




2571128 10.30 This Morning. With Home

and Away star Emily Symons. 23013

12.30 Loose Women. Carol Vorderman talks

about learning to fl y. 73094 1.30 News and

Weather 71015655 1.55 Regional News

78499094 2.00 Dickinson’s Real Deal (R)

An unusual vinaigrette is popular in Slough.

28742 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show.

Todd Carty and Marcus Brigstocke guest.

9891 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda

Bellingham. The presenter travels

through Hampshire, where she visits

the Watercress Line steam railway. 8926

5.00 The Chase. Bradley Walsh hosts. 8704



GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25330988

9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the

women’s S6 50m freestyle and the men’s

S9 400m freestyle. 88979487 12.00 News

2477181 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012

Athletics: the men’s T12 400m and T11

200m and the women’s T35/T38 4x100m

relay. 2692758 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012

Basketball: women’s quarter-fi nals. 3826839

4.20 Come Dine with Me 5378988 4.55 The

Simpsons (R) 9078655 5.25 PARALYMPICS

2012 Swimming: the women’s S60 50m

freestyle and S8 100m backstroke plus

the men’s S9 400m freestyle. 1442013


7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7188617 8.00

Fifi and the Flowertots (R) 3283346 8.15

Peppa Pig (R) 7557556 & 5298075 8.30 Roary

the Racing Car (R) 6913029 8.45 Bananas in

Pyjamas 6838384 9.00 Abby’s Flying Fairy

School (R) 9012452 9.15 The Wright Stuff

71504891 11.10 Robson’s Extreme Fishing

Challenge (R) 5989346 12.05 The Family

Recipe (R) 11159907 12.10 News 11141988

12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4339297 1.15

Home and Away 6846549 1.45 Neighbours

6838520 2.15 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

(R) 4319433 3.15 � Love Will Keep Us

Together (2010) 58994384 5.00 News

1913100 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1389655

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 Th e Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 Th e Review Show with Edith Bowman 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Mike Davies 2.00 Nihal 4.00 Dev

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Jamie Cullum 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Nigel Ogden: Th e Organist Entertains 10.00 David Frost: Hollywood Greats (1/5) 11.00 Mark Radcliff e’s Music Club 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (2/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2011: Verbier Festival and Academy (1/4) 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 54 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (2/5) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 71. Live from London’s Royal Albert Hall, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra makes its Proms debut under music director David Robertson in a performance of works by Brahms, Schoenberg and Gershwin. 10.00 A Movement Beyond Dance (R) 10.45 Th e Essay (R) (2/4) 11.00 Late Junction 12.30 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 9.00 Th e Life Scientifi c (5/11) See picks, above. 9.30 One to One (5/11) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (2/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Saving Species. New series. Brett Westwood refl ects on this year’s summer, one of the wettest on record, and discovers which species it has aff ected. (1/24) 11.30 Soul Music (2/5) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 Call You and Yours 12.45 Th e New Elizabethans (57/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 Th e World at One 1.45 Coming Out (R) (2/5) 2.00 Th e Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: Brief Lives (4/6) 3.00 Th e Kitchen Cabinet 3.30 Costing the Earth (4/9) 4.00 Word of Mouth (8/8) 4.30 Great Lives 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 6.00 News 6.30 Th om Tuck (R) 7.00 Th e Archers 7.45 Dissolution. Matthew Shardlake arrives at Scarnsea monastery with orders to investigate the killing of Robin Singleton. (2/10) 8.00 And Now an Urgent SOS Message 8.40 In Touch 9.00 Inside Health (10/17) 9.30 Th e Life Scientifi c (R) (5/11) 9.59 Weather 10.00 Th e World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (2/10) 11.00 Jack’s Return Home (2/4) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (2/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Phil Williams 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 8.30 5 Live Sport 9.30 5 Live Golf 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

stands silent in the dock, awaiting a verdict. Cut to some months earlier and we see her show new inmate Stephen Cartwright (Robert Sheehan, continuing his role from last week) to his cell at the young off enders’ institution where she works. She can tell that something isn’t right. Now she is on trial for taking the law into her own hands. Good support from Ewen Bremner and John Bishop (above). A very high standard. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Accused: Tina’s Story BBC1, 9pmIn a week brimming with good drama the last Accused stands out as the highlight. Prison offi cer Tina Dakin (a bravura performance by Anna Maxwell Martin, above – watch out for her again on Th ursday in ITV1’s Th e Bletchley Circle)

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6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Brax is left for dead. 1386568

6.30 News (T) 13605207.00 Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest

Roads (T) (R) Lisa Kelly and GW Boles negotiate a perilous route of narrow tunnels and crumbling cliff s in the Peruvian Andes, while Hugh Rowland transports concrete aggregate to a site that is located 14,000ft above sea level. 5172568

8.00 World’s Craziest Police Pursuits 3 (T) High-octane special showing what happens when bad motorists turn into fugitives from the law, with real-life car chases. 5158988

9.00 Person of Interest (T) Th e machine directs Reese toward Megan Tillman, a doctor seemingly devoted to her job. However, despite working 80 hours a week, she also appears to be dabbling in New York’s nightlife and may have attracted a dangerous admirer. Jim Caviezel stars, with guest Linda Cardellini (above). 5161452

10.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) Th e latest action. 5171839

11.00 Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (T) Th e CBB companion show. 8836617

12.00 Banged Up Abroad (T) (R) 3718495 1.00 SuperCasino 22767698 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75569018 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19848501 4.45 Michaela’s Wild Challenge (R) 73141230 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85781969 & 32547389

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Esther’s eagerness to avoid punishment has dire consequences. 29

7.00 News (T) 7075

7.30 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) Th e athletics fi nals include the men’s T36 400m. Th e schedule on the track ends with the men’s T54 1500m at 9.36, as David Weir hopes to win another gold medal. At the Aquatics Centre, in the men’s S7 50m freestyle, veteran swimmer Matt Walker is looking to get his hands on a fi rst individual gold medal at his fourth Paralympics. Plus the women’s quarter-fi nals in the wheelchair basketball. 208487

10.30 Th e Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the day’s sporting action. 155549

11.15 Rude Tube: Rude Tunes (T) (R) Celebrating those who fi nd stardom by posting their musical videos on the worldwide web. Including rappers, a U2 cover and a psychedelic video. 274636

12.20 Seven Dwarves: Th e Wedding (T) (R) 4923691 1.15 Boxing 59292 1.45 Sailing 58563 2.15 Volleyball 5021921 3.10 Th e Grid 62521501 3.35 Ironman 2012 89750872 4.00 Kick Boxing (R) 39379766 4.10 FIA GT1 Championship 6154899 5.05 British Formula Ford (R) 6642872 5.30 Brief Encounters of the Sporting Mind: Sheepdog (R) 2475679 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1361834

6.00 Regional News (T) 9076.30 News (T) 877.00 Emmerdale (T) Amy realises

that the only way she can get away from Kerry is by leaving the village. So she swiftly arranges to stay in London with Hannah for a while. 9433

7.30 You’ve Been Framed! (T) (R) Clips include the world’s heaviest ice-cream sandwich, dogs dancing on ice and a tug of war involving tractors. 471

8.00 Unforgettable: Th e Sweeney (T) Get yer strides on for a look back at the 1970s police drama that starred John Th aw and Dennis Waterman. Featuring contributions by Waterman himself, as well as Th aw’s widow Sheila Hancock and Ray Winstone. 6297

9.00 A Mother’s Son (T) Concluding the two-part drama starring Hermione Norris, Martin Clunes, Paul McGann and Alexander Arnold. After the murder and the discovery of the trainers, Rosie’s distress starts to aff ect her family life. 6433

10.00 News (T) 3518110.30 Regional News (T) 67563610.35 � You, Me and Dupree

(Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2006) (T) Comedy starring Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, Seth Rogen and Michael Douglas. 24862433

12.35 Jackpot247 79387766 3.00 Golden Balls (R) 6914501 3.50 Nightscreen 512501 5.30 News 93056

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 1816.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) Zöe

Salmon, Cheryl Baker, Danny Mills and Richard McCourt are split into pairs and tasked to create a menu from ingredients including chicken, minced lamb, pasta and couscous. 433

7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) Fiona Phillips and Richard Madeley compete as the series heads to Cornwall. Th ey receive expert advice from Charles Hanson and James Braxton before an auction in Bude. 3723

8.00 Th e Great British Bake Off (T) See picks of the day, above. 2471

9.00 Th e Midwives (T) Midwives based in Manchester who care for women in the days after they have given birth. Diane Davies tries to contact a woman who has gone missing after being discharged. Farhana Faruque looks after a single parent who has only recently found a place to live. Last in the series. 9907

10.00 Th e Rob Brydon Show (T) Ronan Keating talks to Rob. Neil Morrissey and Jason Manford show off some of their lesser-known talents. 48655

10.30 Newsnight (T) 25043311.20 Iceland Erupts: A Volcano

Live Special (T) (R) Learning how the country’s scientists monitor volcanoes. 314365

12.20 News 4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools:

Empire 38650 5.00 Schools: True Stories 30872


and Alex Jones host. 43657.30 EastEnders (T) Shirley is

convinced that Phil’s concern for her is fake. She pushes everyone else away, leaving nobody to help when she is in a dangerous situation. 425

8.00 Holby City (T) Mo (Chizzy Akudolu) and Jac are divided over a medical dilemma involving a Jehovah’s Witness who insists on having a bloodless operation. Hanssen has closed the non-referral scheme after the death of Michael’s patient and wants answers from all involved. 4029

9.00 Accused (T) Last in the series. See choice, above. 1365

10.00 News (T) 11648710.25 Regional News (T) 16098810.35 Th e Lock Up (T) Sgt Grunner

deals with a detainee known to have a heroin problem. Th is time, he loses consciousness in his cell. His life is in the hands of the custody nurse. 243758

11.15 Citizen Khan (T) (R) Mrs Khan’s mum jeopardises a big chance for Mr Khan. 463015

11.45 � Forces of Nature (Bronwen Hughes, 1999) (T) Romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Affl eck and Maura Tierney. 704100

1.30 Sign Zone Toughest Place to Be a Miner (T) (R) 14582 2.30 Countryfi le (R) 15785 3.30 Horizon (R) 10230 4.30 News


WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, MERIDIAN, TYNE

TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1

ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 7.30pm-8.00 Wales This

Week 10.30-10.35 Wales Tonight

S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 12noon

Pentre Bach (R) 12.15 Octonots (R) 12.25 Wmff (R)

12.35 Peppa (R) 12.40 Sam Tan (R) 1.00 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 Ffermio

(R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r

Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Cwm

Rhyd y Rhosyn (R) 3.35 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.50 Ben a

Mali a’u Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.05 Ribidires (R) 4.20

Wmff (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: I’r Eithaf

(R) 6.00 Sgorio 6.10 P’Nawn da Bawb 6.20 Ffeil

6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.30 Penawdau Newyddion

7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion a’r Tywydd 7.55 Calon

8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Sion a Sian (R) 8.55 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 9.00 Doctor Doctor 9.30 Tair

Chwaer (R) 10.30 Straeon Tafarn Y Llew Coch, Dinas

Mawddwy (R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd

11.05 Sgorio (R) 12.10-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Rhod

Gilbert’s Work Experience 11.05-11.45 The Lock Up

BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm Weatherman

Walking (R) 7.30-8.00 Meet the Watkins

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 8.00pm-9.00 River

City 10.35 Holby City 11.35 The Lock Up 12.15 Citizen

Khan (R) 12.45 � Forces of Nature (1999)

2.25-2.30 Weatherview

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 10.00-10.30

Comedy at the Fringe 11.00 Newsnight Scotland

11.20 The Rob Brydon Show 11.50 Iceland Erupts:

A Volcano Live Special (R) 12.50-1.00 News

BBC37.00pm Total Wipeout 8.00 Snog, Marry, Avoid? 9.00 Don’t Tell the Bride 10.00 Bad Education 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Bad Education 1.00 Don’t Tell the Bride 2.00 Snog, Marry, Avoid? 3.00 Our War

BBC47.00pm News 7.30 Great British Railway Journeys 8.00 Th e Last Explorers 9.00 Th e Man Who Discovered Egypt 10.00 Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies 11.00 Madness on Wheels: Rallying’s Craziest Years 12midnight Inspector Montalbano 1.40 As 7pm 2.10 Th e Last Explorers

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.10am � Only the Valiant (1951) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Secret Eaters 10.05 Coppers 11.05-12.15 Big Fat Gypsy Weddings

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 10.00am Lie to Me 11.00 Lie to Me 12noon Oops TV 1.00 Stargate SG-1 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Th e Middle 5.00 A League of Th eir Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Th e

Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 Th e Simpsons 8.00 A League of Th eir Own 9.00 Strike Back: Vengeance 10.00 � Airplane II: Th e Sequel (Ken Finkleman, 1982) 11.40 Th e Top Ten Show 11.50 Brit Cops: Zero Tolerance 12.50 Road Wars 1.50 Sun, Sea and A&E 2.45 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05-6.00 Sell Me the Answer

FILM411.00am � Written on the Wind (1956) 1.00 � Cry Havoc (1943) 2.55 � First Men in the Moon (1964) 4.55 � Cocoon (1985) 7.10 � Bedazzled (2000) 9.00 � Dear John (2010) 11.10 � Chain Reaction (1996) 1.15 � Monsoon Wedding (2001)


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FAMILY HISTORY

Who Do You Th ink You Are?BBC1, 9pmSinger Annie Lennox, whose grandmother was only three when her father died, researches this side of her family on visits to Aberdeen and Banff . A tale of tangled relationships, illegitimacy and poverty.

DRAMA

Mrs Biggs ITV1, 9pmWhen Charmian Powell (Sheridan Smith) meets a young Ronnie Biggs (Daniel Mays) on a London commuter train, her head is turned by the tousled conman, an event which leads her to embark on a rollercoaster ride which will culminate in his conviction for taking part in Th e Great Train Robbery. Th e 1960s may be fashionable, but not everything has to be accompanied by jokey music. Worth a look, though.

COMEDY

Th e Revolution Will Be Televised BBC3, 10pmTh e Chipping Norton witch hunt begins; Dale Maily spends the day at the Boat Race in a bid to understand what it means to be British; and James and Barnaby have a date with George Osborne. Very funny. MB

FILM

Enemy of the State BBC1, 11.15pm(Tony Scott, 1998)

As a tribute to Scott, the British director who died late last month, the BBC is showing this entertaining hi-tech thriller giving prescient warning against oppressive surveillance and the abuse of state powers. John Voight plays a National Security Agency director who’ll stop at nothing to further legislation giving his spooks unprecedented licence. Jason Robards, Will Smith and Gene Hackman get in his way, and the result is fl ashy, fast-moving fun in the Tony Scott-Jerry Bruckheimer style that began in 1986 with their fi rst collaboration Top Gun. Philip French

RADIO

Hy-Brasil Radio 4, 11amWritten and narrated by Paul Evans, this is a tale of one man’s journey to the tiny, mist-shrouded, mythological island of Hy-Brasil, which sits – rumour has it – off the south-west coast of Ireland. Only visible for one day every seven years, its existence was fi rst recorded on a map in 1385 only for it to disappear again in 1872. Evans takes us on a voyage of discovery in a beautiful, haunting piece of escapism. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am Wheelchair racer and double-gold medallist David Weir embarks on the defence of his 800m T54 title today. Th e accomplished 33-year-old, who won four medals at Beijing in 2009, will be hoping to add another gold to his impressive collection. Elsewhere, another Beijing gold medallist, Liz Johnson, competes in the heats of the women’s 100m breaststroke SB6. Will Carpenter


Britain. A way to cut the cost of car insur-

ance is put to the test. 5987785 10.00

Homes under the Hammer 33501 11.00

Escape to the Country 3924834 11.45 Cash

in the Attic (R) 101358 12.15 Bargain Hunt

6047766 1.00 News; Weather 24853 1.30

Regional News 30208563 1.40 Doctors. Jas

starts her new job as a waitress. 71076766



7351018 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4935834

4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5406476

4.10 Wingin’ It (R) 3362230 4.30 Jedward’s

Big Adventure (R) 308 5.00 Newsround

2763785 5.15 Pointless 2084414

6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for chil-

dren 9.10 Uki (R) 9193414 9.20 Raa Raa the

Noisy Lion (R) 4645211 9.30 The Large Family

(R) 9761230 9.40 The Koala Brothers (R)

1395766 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1384650 10.00

Octonauts: Creature Reports (R) 7840698

10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2070056 10.30 Driver Dan’s

Story Train (R) 9129414 10.40 Waybuloo

(R) 2906785 11.00 In the Night Garden (R)

1105 11.30 Daily Politics 11259 1.00 See

Hear 22495 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R)

9425834 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2462766



4724308 4.30 Flog It! 2417495 5.15 Put Your




1812540 10.30 This Morning 29414 12.30

Loose Women. Stacey Solomon and Joe

McElderry meet the panel. 86785 1.30

News and Weather 71082327 1.55 Regional

News 78466766 2.00 Dickinson’s Real

Deal (R) The deal of the day in Lancaster

is a selection of gold sovereigns. 88330

3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show. Robert

Bathurst and Gerard McCarthy join

the host. 3196 4.00 My Tasty Travels

with Lynda Bellingham. The host

visits the Mortimer Country food fair in

Herefordshire. 2211 5.00 The Chase. Quiz

show presented by Bradley Walsh. 7785




9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the

men’s SM8 200m individual medley, S10

400m freestyle, the women’s SB6 100m

breaststroke and the women’s S9 50m

freestyle. Plus athletics. 88873259 12.00

News 2444853 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012

Table tennis. 2589230 1.00 PARALYMPICS

2012 The men’s wheelchair basketball, plus

wheelchair rugby. 3886211 4.20 Come Dine

with Me 5338360 4.55 The Simpsons (R)

9045327 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Men’s

SM8 200m individual medley, S10 400m

freestyle, SB5 100m breaststroke. 1419785


7.35 Thomas & Friends (R) 7168853 7.45

Make Way for Noddy (R) 7155389 8.00 Fifi

and the Flowertots (R) 3250018 8.15 Peppa

Pig (R) 1852768 & 5265747 8.30 Roary the

Racing Car (R) 6800501 8.45 Bananas in

Pyjamas 6805056 9.00 Abby’s Flying Fairy

School (R) 9089124 9.15 The Wright Stuff

71571563 11.10 Robson’s Extreme Fishing

Challenge (R) 5956018 12.05 The Family

Recipe (R) 11126679 12.10 News 11101360

12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4306969 1.15

Home and Away 6806921 1.45 Neighbours

6805292 2.15 Numb3rs (R) 4386105 3.15

� Mind over Murder (2006) 58961056 5.00

News 1980872 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1356327

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 Th e Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Th e Offi cial Chart Update with Greg James 4.30 Greg James 7.00 Huw Stephens 9.00 Matt Edmondson 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Huw Stephens 2.00 Benji B 4.00 Dev

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Mike Harding 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Listen to the Band 10.00 David Frost: Hollywood Greats (2/5) 11.00 Trevor Nelson’s Soul Show 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (3/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 53 (R) 3.30 Choral Evensong: From Neresheim Abbey 4.30 In Tune 6.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (3/5) 7.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 72. Live from London’s Royal Albert Hall, John Adams conducts his opera Nixon in China with a star-studded cast, the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra. 10.45 Th e Essay (R) (3/4) 11.00 Late Junction 12.30 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Midweek 9.45 (LW) Daily Service (3/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Hy-Brasil See picks, above. 11.30 Brian Gulliver’s Travels (4/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 Th e New Elizabethans (58/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 Th e World at One LW: 1.45 Live International One-Day Cricket: England v South Africa: Th e fi fth ODI at Trent Bridge. Includes Shipping Forecast at 5.54pm. FM: 1.45 Coming Out (R) (3/5) 2.00 Th e Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: Th e Meaning of Love. Romantic comedy by Anna Symon (R) 3.00 Money Box Live 3.30 Inside Health (R) (10/17) 4.00 Th inking Allowed 4.30 Th e Media Show 5.00 PM 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 When the Dog Dies (R) (5/6) 7.00 Th e Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Mark delve deeper into the mysteries of Scarnsea monastery. (3/10) 8.00 Th e Education Debates (3/3) 8.45 Four Th ought 9.00 Costing the Earth (R) (4/9) 9.30 Midweek 9.59 Weather 10.00 Th e World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth. By Ian McEwan. Serena is reeling from the news of Tony’s death. (3/10) 11.00 Political Animals (4/4) 11.15 Before Th ey Were Famous (4/4) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

Hagman) stares mutely out of his rest home window, while his son, new-look nemesis John Ross (Josh Henderson, above), charges about Southfork taunting Bobby’s son Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe). Bobby (Patrick Duff y, above), meanwhile, has a new wife Ann (Brenda Strong) and a sad secret. Plus Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) is running for state governor. Stetsons, scheming and stormy sibling rivalry – irresistible. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Dallas Channel 5, 9pmFollowing a 21-year break, the Texan soap opera relaunches with Changing of the Guard. Th e old guard are still in evidence, just, and tonight we meet a shiny younger generation who have inherited all their parents’ character traits. JR (Larry

PICKS OF THE DAY




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6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Brax is rushed to hospital. 1346940

6.30 News (T) 1337292

7.00 Secret Interview (T) Hairstylists Marcus Martinez and Kayla McFarlane face bizarre challenges: trying to stay calm with incompetent trainees, dealing with highly demanding clients and attempting to create a hairdo for a bride-to-be while her wedding party causes chaos. Celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke is secretly watching their every move and will off er one of them a job. 5132940

8.00 Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (T) Which of the nominated celebrities has proved least popular with the voting public? 5118360

9.00 Dallas (T) New series. See choice, above. 52794747

10.15 Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (T) Th e number of remaining housemates is whittled down. 7464871

10.45 Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis and her panel are joined by tonight’s evictees. 9011211

11.45 Cricket (T) Highlights from Trent Bridge of England v South Africa in the fi nal match of the fi ve-game series. 9017495

12.45 SuperCasino 57694612 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75529490 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19815273 4.45 Michaela’s Wild Challenge (R) 73118902 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85741341 & 32507761

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Th e upbeat mood of Darren (Ashley Taylor Dawson) and Nancy (Jessica Fox) is cut short by some devastating news. 563

7.00 News (T) 60567.30 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) Th e

swimming involves the fi nals of the men’s S2 50m backstroke and the women’s S9 50m freestyle. In the athletics, there is the women’s T11 100m fi nal and the women’s T37 200m fi nal. Shelly Woods is fancied to challenge in the fi nal of the women’s T54 800m. Plus news from the day’s events, with wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball and Paul Efayena in the powerlifting. 637747

10.30 Th e Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the day’s action. 680037

11.15 Married to the Moonies (T) (R) An insight into the Unifi cation Church, a religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. 401872

12.20 Th e Shooting Gallery: Real Lives (T) 8228803 1.15 Wheels 4696186 1.20 Green Day: 360 Sessions 1006148 1.50 Spotlight: Ones to Watch 1233902 2.05 � Behind Enemy Lines: Axis of Evil (2006) 761506 3.40 Th e Silent City (R) 79323780 3.50 Body Building (R) 24808235 3.55 St Elsewhere (R) 4820186 4.40 Deal or No Deal (R) 5314612 5.35 Quick Bakes with Eric Lanlard (R) 2443070 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1338506

6.00 Regional News (T) 9696.30 News (T) 9217.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie decides

to put an end to her problems with Robbie and plots a way to get him out of her life. 8414

7.30 Coronation Street (T) Stella’s mother Gloria (Sue Johnston, above) arrives in Weatherfi eld from Spain. She is upset to learn of Karl’s aff air and engineers an encounter between him and her daughter. 105

8.00 All Star Mr & Mrs New series. Patsy Palmer, John Prescott and Nicky Byrne are joined by their partners Richard, Pauline and Georgina to fi nd out how much they really know about each other. Th e couple who give the most correct answers to a series of questions win £30,000 for a chosen charity. Phillip Schofi eld hosts. 7722

9.00 Mrs Biggs (T) New series. See picks of the day, above. 9124

10.30 News (T) 4023011.00 Regional News (T) 14685311.10 � Memphis Belle (Michael

Caton-Jones, 1990) (T) War drama with Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, John Lithgow, Harry Connick Jr, Tate Donovan and Billy Zane. Th e fi nal fl ight for the crew of an American B-17 bomber threatens to be the most hazardous they have ever undertaken. 931259

1.00 Jackpot247 93322 3.00 � Th e Jacket (John Maybury, 2005) 716341 4.40 Nightscreen 5392490 5.30 News 82167


Cheryl Baker, Richard McCourt, Danny Mills and Zöe Salmon have to cook marinated poussin in under an hour. 495

7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) Anton Du Beke and Arlene Phillips search for profi table antiques, from West Yorkshire to Blackpool Tower, before fi nishing in Liverpool. 4308

8.00 Restoration Home One Year On (T) Caroline Quentin discovers how two properties fared since she last visited: the St Th omas a Becket church in Somerset and Stanwick Hall, a mansion in Northamptonshire. 3056

9.00 Vexed (T) Th e detectives probe a jewellery robbery. Jack is distracted by an unexpected invitation. Phil Davis, Frances Barber and Patrick Baladi guest. Last in series. 3292

10.00 Th e Boss Is Back (T) Gerry Cottle refl ects on the lessons he learned in a 2001 episode of Trouble at the Top, about his bid to launch the Chinese State Circus in Britain. 44056

10.30 Newsnight (T) 79221111.20 Th e Midwives (T) (R) Midwives

who care for women in the days after they have given birth. Last in series. 856143

12.20 News 4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools —

Making Media 60167 4.30 Schools — Writing for Walford 85815 5.00 Schools — Compose Yourself 31506 5.30 Schools — How to Write 88341


and Alex Jones host. 6766

8.00 Th e Flowerpot Gang (T) Anneka Rice, Phil Tufnell and Joe Swift (above) help create a life-changing space at an east London housing estate. In the past children there have been unable to play outside because of anti-social behaviour. Now the team are re-opening and transforming one of the spaces in the hope that it will bring the community back together. Last in series. 5414

9.00 Who Do You Th ink You Are? (T) See picks of the day, above. 5650

10.00 News (T) 56178510.25 Regional News (T) 69301810.35 Th e National Lottery Draws (T)

OJ Borg hosts. 24629210.45 Not Going Out (T) (R) Lucy

falls for the lead guitarist when Tim becomes part of a band. Jealousy Lee decides to follow his friend’s example. 520650

11.15 � Enemy of the State (Tony Scott, 1998) (T) Th riller starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight. A chance encounter with an old friend plunges a lawyer into a deadly game with agents of the government. See picks, above. 49086476

1.25 Sign Zone Th e Tube (T) (R) 4889612 2.25 When I Get Older (R) 5092419 3.25 Doorstep Crime 999 (R) 62584070 3.55 News


WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES,

MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1

S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 10.45

Popi’r Gath (R) 11.00 Byd Carlo Bach (R) 11.10 Holi

Hana (R) 11.20 Heini (R) 11.35 Sam Tan (R) 11.45

Abadas (R) 12noon Octonots (R) 12.15 Y Diwrnod

Mawr (R) 12.30 Nodi (R) 12.40 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R)

1.00 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd 1.05 Heno

(R) 1.30 3 Lle Gwyneth Lewis (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da

2.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi,

Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Octonots (R) 3.45 Nodi (R)

3.55 Tomos a’i Ffrindiau (R) 4.10 Y Clwb (R) 4.30 Awr

Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Angelo am Byth (R) 5.40

Stwnsh y Gemau (R) 6.00 Ffeil 6.10 Rownd a Rownd

6.35 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.35 Penawdau Newyddion

7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion a’r Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00

Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Byw yn yr Ardd 8.55 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 9.00 O’r Galon: Bugail y

Stryd 9.30 999: Ambiwlans Awyr Cymru (R) 10.00

Gwefreiddiol 10.30 Yn Fyw O Acapela Calan ac Aron

Elias (R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd

11.05 Doctor Doctor (R) 11.35 Dos i Gwcio (R) 12.10-

7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.45-11.15 Swansea:

Living on the Streets (R)

BBC2 WALES As BBC2

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 1.30pm-1.40

Reporting Scotland; Weather 6.30-7.00 Reporting

Scotland 10.25-10.35 Reporting Scotland; Weather

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 2.15pm Wild

Walks (R) 2.30 Politics Scotland 3.30 Hairy Bikers’

Best of British (R) 4.15-5.15 Flog It! Torquay 1 (R)

11.00-11.20 Newsnight Scotland

BBC37.00pm Top Gear 8.00 � Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989) 10.00 Th e Revolution Will Be Televised 10.30 Family Guy 10.50 Family Guy 11.15 American Dad! 11.35 American Dad! 12midnight Th e Revolution Will Be Televised. See picks of the day, above. 12.30 Bad Education 1.00 Our War 1.55 Th e Comedy Marathon Spectacular 2.55 Don’t Tell the Bride

BBC47.00pm News 7.30 Th e Sky at Night 8.00 20th Century Battlefi elds 9.00 Storyville: Th e $750 Million Th ief 10.20 Africa’s Magnifi cent Beasts

11.20 I Love Special Olympics 12.20 Th e Sky at Night 12.50 See 8pm 1.50 As 9pm

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.30am � Th e Belles of St Trinian’s (1954) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 24 Hours in A&E 10.05 One Born Every Minute 11.10 Embarrassing Bodies 12.15-1.15 24 Hours in A&E

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 1.00pm Stargate SG-1

3.00 Modern Family 3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Th e Middle 5.00 A League of Th eir Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Th e Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 Th e Simpsons 8.00 Emergency 9.00 A League of Th eir Own 10.00 An Idiot Abroad 11.00 Cop Squad 12midnight Road Wars 1.00-2.00 An Idiot Abroad

FILM411.00am � Danger Within (1958) 1.00 � Kim (1950) 3.15 � Blithe Spirit (1945) 5.10 � Th e Outrage (1964) 7.10 � Clueless (1995) 9.00 � Role Models (2008) 10.55 � Midnight Express (1978) 1.25 � Th e Ice Storm (1997)


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Th ursday 6 Th ursday 6

CINEMA

ScreenwritersSky Arts 1, 8pmGladiator, Hugo and Any Given Sunday writer John Logan dedicates large parts of his life to each script, so it is crucial that he is fascinated by its main character: “You work on these things for years, so if you aren’t interested in your protagonist, you’re f**ked.” No punches pulled.

HISTORY

Th e British Sky Atlantic, 9pmTh e fi rst of seven programmes charting “how a small group of islands becomes a superpower”, this fi lm substitutes experts with “national treasures”. Th us, as well as factual content we get the likes of Helen Mirren, Russell Brand and Meera Syal opining about what it means to be British – an interesting new approach.

COMEDY

2 Broke Girls E4, 9pmTonight Caroline discovers how ludicrously disorganised Max is about everything. Meanwhile, satyrical chef Oleg has fallen in love with Sophie. Has the potential (and the scriptwriters) to make a great movie. MB

FILM

Gone Baby Gone BBC1, 11.20pm(Ben Affl eck, 2007)

Th is excellent thriller set in a largely Irish-American suburb of Boston begins with a blue-collar couple, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, operating a small-time private investigation agency, hired to assist the police in their search for a missing child. Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (author of a series featuring Kenzie and Gennaro), who was raised in this area, as was director Affl eck, whose brother Casey plays Kenzie. Th e supporting cast (Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan) could not be improved on. Its release was delayed because of the Madeleine McCann abduction. Philip French

RADIO

Two Episodes of Mash Radio 4, 11pmDiane Morgan, Joe Wilkinson and David O’Doherty transfer their surreal comedy show from Radio 2 to the more “posh” environs of Radio 4. Using the elevation in their fortunes as their focus – returning again and again to the “traditions” of Radio 4 – the comedy trio also draw inspiration from some unlikely sources including Th e Bible, the insect world, trousers that can be ripped off and jilted brides. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15amIn another jam-packed day of British swimming action, James Crisp opens proceedings in the Men’s 200m individual medley SM9 heats, followed shortly afterwards by fellow Beijing medallists Claire Cashmore, Stephanie Millward and Louise Watkin in the women’s parallel event. Athletics coverage includes Kyron Duke in the men’s shot put F40 and Bev Jones in the women’s discus F37. Will Carpenter

6.00 Breakfast 99776438 9.15 Rip Off Britain

5954457 10.00 Homes under the Hammer

(R) 22612 11.00 Escape to the Country

3991506 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 543728

12.13 News 2419167 12.15 Bargain Hunt (R)

6014438 1.00 News; Weather 13964

1.30 Regional News and Weather 30275235

1.40 Doctors. Conclusion. Mrs Tembe discov-

ers a dead body at the Mill. 71043438


.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R)

7311490 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4902506

4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5473148 4.10

Wingin’ It (R) 3339902 4.30 Roy (R) 970 5.00

Newsround 2730457 5.15 Pointless. Quiz

show with Alexander Armstrong. 2051186

6.00 CBeebies Programmes for children

9.30 The Large Family (R) 9738902



Creature Reports (R) 7800070 10.05

Kerwhizz (R) 2047728 10.30 Driver Dan’s


(R) 2973457 11.00 In the Night Garden

(R) 5506 11.30 World News 1815 12.00

Daily Politics 70186 1.00 My Life in Books

(R) 11506 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R)

9492506 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2439438



4784780 4.30 Flog It! 2484167 5.15 Put Your


6.00 Daybreak 801506 8.30 Lorraine 3458186

9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 4676952 10.30

This Morning 95896 12.30 Loose Women.

Hollywood actress Emma Thompson

joins Andrea McLean, Lisa Maxwell, Carol

McGiffi n and Sherrie Hewson for more

topical debate. 61815 1.30 News and

Weather 71059099 1.55 Regional News;

Weather 78433438 2.00 Dickinson’s Real

Deal (R) 21001 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh

Show 9457 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda

Bellingham. The presenter travels through

West Sussex, visiting a vintage vehicle fair,

getting hands-on experience at a farm,

and attending a Mediterranean festival at

West Dean. 8964 5.00 The Chase 1070

6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT

(R) Highlights. 3853709 7.00 PARALYMPIC


9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Day eight of the

Games, including swimming, athletics,

table tennis and sitting volleyball. From

12.05 athletics, wheelchair basketball

and 5-a-side football and from 1.00

further coverage of athletics, wheelchair

basketball, 5-a-side football and wheelchair

tennis. Paralympics coverage continues on

More4 88833631 4.20 Come Dine with Me

5305032 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9012099

5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Coverage of the

fi rst of this evening’s swimming fi nals at

the Aquatics Centre. 1486457

6.00 Milkshake! (R) Programmes for

children 26762964 7.45 Make Way for

Noddy (R) 7115761 8.00 Fifi and the

Flowertots (R) 3210490 8.15 Peppa Pig (R)

9652380 & 5232419 8.30 Roary the Racing

Car (R) 6877273 8.45 Bananas in Pyjamas

6872728 9.00 Abby’s Flying Fairy School (R)

9056896 9.15 The Wright Stuff 71548235

11.10 Robson’s Extreme Fishing Challenge

(R) 9273815 12.10 News 11178032 12.15

Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (R)

4366341 1.15 Home and Away 6873693

1.45 Neighbours 6872964 2.15 Numb3rs

(R) 4353877 3.15 � Expecting a Miracle

(2009) 58938728 5.00 News 1957544

5.30 Neighbours (R) 1323099

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 Th e Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 In New DJs We Trust 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Th e Residency: Chuckie 2.00 Toddla T 4.00 Dev

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Bob Harris Country 8.00 Radio 2 In Concert: Best of Hyde Park 2011 9.30 Benny Goodman: King of Swing (3/6) 10.00 Brian Johnson’s Rockers and Rollers (2/6) 11.00 Steve Lamacq’s Rock College 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (4/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2.00 Afternoon on 3 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (4/5) 7.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 73. Live from London’s Royal Albert Hall, Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. 9.30 Hungary’s Soul: Liszt and Gypsy Music (R) 10.15 BBC Proms 2012 11.45 Late Junction 12.30 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Fry’s English Delight (4/4) 9.30 Twin Nation (R) (4/5) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (4/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Crossing Continents: Linda Pressly examines the issue of military service in Israel and the drafting of ultra-orthadox Jews who have previously been exempt. (9/9) 11.30 Dancing with Mountains 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 Th e New Elizabethans (59/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 Th e World at One 1.45 Coming Out Rosie (R) (4/5) 2.00 Th e Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: A9. By Helen Cooper. (R) 3.00 Open Country (10/11) 3.27 Radio 4 Appeal (R) 3.30 Book Club (R) 4.00 Th e Film Programme 4.30 Material World 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 Just a Minute’s Indian Adventure (R) 7.00 Th e Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution (4/10) 8.00 Th e Report 8.30 In Business (8/9) 9.00 Saving Species (R) (1/24) 9.30 Fry’s English Delight (R) (4/4) 9.59 Weather 10.00 Th e World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth. By Ian McEwan. Serena receives her fi rst serious assignment. (4/10) 11.00 Two Episodes of Mash. New series. Surreal comedy sketches, performed by Diane Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. (1/4) See picks, above. 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (4/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

1952 and it follows four fi ctional women whose work at Bletchley helped break vital secret codes used by the Germans. Susan, Millie (Rachael Stirling), Jean (Julie Graham) and Lucy (Sophie Rundle) have all returned to their normal lives, but when Susan identifi es a hidden pattern in a series of murders, she enlists the help of her colleagues to track down the murderer. Just the right side of gung-ho and very entertaining. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Th e Bletchley Circle ITV1, 9pmSomething very good is happening in the ITV drama department and this tale about former Bletchley Park code-breaker Susan Gray (Anna Maxwell Martin, above, on excellent form) is further evidence of its continued success. Th e story is set in

PICKS OF THE DAY




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6.30 News; Weather (T) 13049647.00 Frontline Police (T) (R) Rav

Wilding goes on a drugs raid with Essex offi cers. 5109612

8.00 Th e King’s War on Witches: Revealed (T) Exploring King James I’s attempts to stamp out witchcraft and satanism in England and Scotland, which led to hundreds of women being tortured and executed in the 17th century. 5185032

9.00 Th e Hotel Inspector (T) Alex Polizzi returns to the African Queen, an eight-bedroom fl oating hotel on the River Th ames, three years after she fi rst tried to help owners Andy and Bonny Cowley revive its fortunes. Th e couple had previously run a successful hotel on the Isle of Wight, but their new venture was struggling to attract guests. Last in the series. 5105896

10.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) Highlights of the housemates’ past 24 hours. 5108983

11.00 Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis looks forward to tomorrow night’s grand fi nal. 8863761

12.00 SuperCasino 3174649 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75423262 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19882945 4.45 Michaela’s Wild Challenge (R) 73185674 5.10 Nick’s Quest (R) 85645113 & 32401533

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Maddie pushes Esther to breaking point. Not on C4 HD. 525

7.00 News (T) Not on C4 HD. 2411

7.30 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) A busy evening at the Olympic Stadium includes: the fi nal of the women’s T34 200m, men’s F44 discus fi nal, women’s T44 200m fi nal, women’s T12 200m fi nal, men’s T36 200m and T36 800m. At 9.46 attention turns to David Weir, as he seeks to retain the T54 800m title he won in Beijing, followed by the showpiece of the evening — the men’s T44 100m fi nal — which is likely to be a battle between South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius and American Jerome Singleton. Elsewhere, there’s men’s semi-fi nal wheelchair basketball action, and Great Britain take on France in the wheelchair rugby qualifi ers. 179525

10.30 Th e Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) Th e comedian presents an alternative review of the day’s Paralympics action. 122815

11.15 Rude Tube: Ultimate Champions (T) (R) Alex Zane showcases the bizarre champions of the online universe. 927612

12.20 David Blaine: Drowned Alive (T) (R) 7577115 1.15 Googlewhack Adventure (R) 766216 3.10 Stalked 62565945 3.35 Th is Is Me (R) 79319587 3.40 Time Team (R) 6880587 4.35 Deal or No Deal (R) 7822397 5.30 Quick Bakes (R) 2339823 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1232378

6.00 Regional News (T) 6316.30 News and Weather (T) 983

7.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie lures Robbie to the stables. 9099

7.30 Tonight: Whatever Happened to Summer? (T) Jonathan Maitland meets individuals and business owners who have been left counting the cost of being one of the wettest summers on record. 167

8.00 Emmerdale (T) Declan is furious after watching the footage. 5419

8.30 Th e Corrie Years (T) New series. Focuses on controversies, from Leanne Barlow’s days as an escort to John Stape’s aff air with teenager Rosie Webster. 7254

9.00 Th e Bletchley Circle (T) New series. Drama about four fi ctional ex-Bletchley Park operatives who team up to solve murders.See choice, above. 1709

10.00 News; Weather (T) 3798310.30 Regional News (T) 86043910.35 Th e Jonathan Ross Show (T)

(R) Chat show, with guests Mo Farah, Plan B, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Gareth Malone. 950525

11.35 Poms in Paradise (T) (R) A paramedic, shop owners and a professional diver talk about their lives. 550419

12.05 Jackpot247 27828533 3.00 Tonight (R) 62470823 3.25 Nightscreen 3315939 4.35 Th e Jeremy Kyle Show (R) 7824755 5.30 ITV Morning News 82610

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 8776.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) Th e

three remaining contestants are sent to Canary Wharf in east London to work with Allan Pickett, head chef at French restaurant Plateau. 457

7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) TV presenter Michael Aspel takes on Sherlock actress Una Stubbs in a search for antiques in Norfolk. 8099

8.00 Wartime Farm (T) New series. Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn try to re-create the experience of British rural life during the second world war, including having to endure the restrictions placed on farmers by Winston Churchill’s government. 4419

9.00 Hilary Devey’s Women at the Top (T) Th e formidable former Dragons’ Den entrepreneur explores why so few women are appointed to the highest positions in the business world. 7983

10.00 Mock the Week (T) Satirical panel show. 40457

10.30 Newsnight (T) 20176111.20 Th e Rob Brydon Show (T) (R)

With guests Ronan Keating, Jason Manford and Neil Morrissey. 130419

11.50 James May’s Th ings You Need to Know (T) (R) Th e Top Gear presenter explores Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. 552877

12.20 News (T) 2959007

6.00 News (T) 2356.30 Regional News (T) 8157.00 Th e One Show (T) Daily

magazine show. 76317.30 EastEnders (T) Phil worries

about Shirley’s increasingly volatile behaviour. 159

8.00 Waterloo Road (T) Tariq behaves strangely as the day of his kayaking time trial arrives, but it isn’t until he gets in the water that his true intentions become clear. 6877

9.00 Good Cop (T) Sav is stalked and threatened by Callum Rose, who seems to know a lot about him. Crime drama starring Warren Brown and Michael Angelis. 9341

10.00 News; Weather (T) 20347510.25 Regional News (T) 12850610.35 Neighbourhood Watched (T)

Housing offi cer Cat Towl is shocked to discover a dead tenant in one of her fl ats. 105148

11.20 � Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affl eck, 2007) (T) A private eye searches the Boston neighbourhood where he grew up to fi nd a missing four-year-old girl. Drama starring Casey Affl eck, Morgan Freeman and Michelle Monaghan. See picks, above. 446983

1.10 Holiday Weatherview (T) 4575649 1.15 Sign Zone: Panorama (R) 95484 1.45 Countryfi le (R) 382755 2.45 Land of the Lost Wolves (R) 373007 3.45 Doorstep Crime 999 (R) 74991 4.15 News 23012945




ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 10.35pm Face to Face

Gerry Keighley 11.05-11.35 Paul O’Grady: For the

Love of Dogs

S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children (R)

11.25 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R) 11.35 123 (R) 11.50 Peppa

(R) 12noon Marcaroni (R) 12.15 Octonots (R) 12.25

Bla Bla Blewog (R) 12.40 Nodi (R) 1.00 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 3 Lle

Donna Edwards (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop

(R) 3.30 Nodi (R) 3.40 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.55 Cwm

Rhyd y Rhosyn (R) 4.00 Dwdlam (R) 4.15 Ben a Mali

a’u Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30

Stwnsh: Bywyd Cudd Sabrina (R) 5.55 Tim Talent

(R) 6.20 Ffeil 6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.30 Penawdau

Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion a’r Tywydd 7.55

Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Cefn Gwlad Ymryson

Aredig Cymru (R) 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r

Tywydd 9.00 Bois y Caca 9.30 Ralio+ 10.00 Y Lle 10.55

Penawdau Newyddion 11.05 Dim Byd/Mwy: Sheriff

Nefyn (R) 11.35 Dos i Gwcio (R) 12.10-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Baker Boys

(R) 11.35 Neighbourhood Watched 12.20 � Gone

Baby Gone (2007) 2.15-2.45 Sign Zone: Panorama (R)

BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm Sport Wales

7.30-8.00 Scrum V Classics (R)

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except

12noon Politics Scotland 12.30-1.00 Daily Politics 7.00

Coast (R) 7.30-8.00 The Beechgrove Garden 11.00-

11.20 Newsnight Scotland

BBC37.00pm Th e World’s Strictest Parents 8.00 Don’t Tell the Bride 9.00 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 10.00 Wilfred 10.20 Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 1.30 Wilfred 1.50 Don’t Tell the Bride 2.50 Th e Comedy Marathon Spectacular

BBC47.00pm News 7.30 BBC Proms 2012 9.25 Th e Toilet — An Unspoken History 10.25 Th e Treasures of Ancient Rome 11.25 Only Connect 11.55 Th e Evolution of the Origin of Species 12.55 � Creation (2009) 2.35 As 9.25am

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.30am � Th e Black Swan (Henry King, 1942) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Th elma’s Gypsy Girls 10.05 Th e Closer 11.00 Father Ted 12.05 Th elma’s Gypsy Girls 1.10-2.05 Th e Closer

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 1.00pm Stargate SG-1 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Th e Middle 5.00 A League of Th eir Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Th e

Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 Th e Simpsons 8.00 Sinbad 9.00 An Idiot Abroad 10.00 Trollied 10.30 Trollied 11.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 12midnight Road Wars 1.00-2.55 Sun, Sea and A&E 2.55 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05-6.00 Sell Me the Answer

FILM411.00am � Aleksandra (2007) 12.50 � Very Important Person (1961) 2.45 � Ivanhoe (1952) 4.55 � Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 7.00 � Failure to Launch (2006) 8.50 Tony Scott Interview 9.00 � Top Gun (1986) 11.10 � Domino (2005) 1.35 � Loving Memory (1971)


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Friday 7 Friday 7

MUSIC

Prom 75BBC4, 8pm (Radio 3, 7.30pm)Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall opening with Joseph Haydn’s 104th Symphony, which was written while the composer was staying in London, followed by Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony.

REALITY

Full Metal Jousting History, 9pmSixteen American men in high-tech armour face off in a jousting competition just like the chivalric sport indulged in by knights of old but this time instead of a lady’s favour they’re after a prize of £25,000. Injuries and hospitalisation are common as competitors level their lances and hurtle towards their rivals in a bid to unseat them and become the last man standing.

COMEDY

For the Win BBC3, 10pmTh is irreverent new sketch show follows the lives of four friends who hang out at the For the Win cafe. Sam faces the consequences of trying to bring back the bumbag, and Lizzie has relationship problems. MB

FILM

Family Business Channel 4, 12.30am(Sidney Lumet, 1989)

On paper it must have looked great – a caper movie featuring Sean Connery, Dustin Hoff man and Matthew Broderick as father, son and grandson. But the result is a sentimental mess touching every ethnic base as Irish-Scottish crook Connery (married to a Sicilian) joins his reformed son Hoff man (married to an orthodox Jew) in a heist at a New Jersey laboratory planned by Hoff man’s son Broderick, an MIT graduate student determined not to be the white sheep of the family. A sententious, overly serious piece, it ends with everyone singing Danny Boy at a wake. Philip French

RADIO

More Music Breakfast Classic FM, 6amClassic FM’s 20th birthday celebrations begin with this programme presented by Tim Lihoreau and guest Nick Bailey, the fi rst presenter to be heard live on the channel, and continue with the Classic FM Hall of Fame at 9am and birthday requests at 1pm. At 8pm the partying culminates in Th e Full Works concert, which celebrates music made famous by the station. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am Th ere are 15 gold medals on off er on the penultimate day of swimming, with ParalympicsGB’s Jim Anderson and Sascha Kindred in the 50m freestyle (S2) and 50m butterfl y (S6) respectively. Plus Louise Watkin, Lauren Steadman and Claire Cashmore will battle it out in the women’s 100m freestyle (S9). On the track, Richard Whitehead and Micky Bushell go in the opening rounds of the men’s 100m T42 and 200m T53 respectively. Will Carpenter


Britain 5921129 10.00 Homes under the

Hammer 53755 11.00 Escape to the Country

3895378 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 860303

12.13 News; Weather 2313939 12.15

Bargain Hunt 6901910 1.00 News; Weather

44007 1.30 Regional News and Weather

30179007 1.40 Doctors. Mandy is exposed

to a family’s secret when she helps an

old friend clear out her house. 71930910



7215262 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4806378

4.00 Who Let the Dogs Out? (R) 620

4.30 Blue Peter (R) 804 5.00 Newsround

2707129 5.15 Pointless 2028858


9.30 The Large Family (R) 9705674



Creature Reports (R) 7704842 10.05

Kerwhizz (R) 2934200 10.30 Driver Dan’s


(R) 2940129 11.00 In the Night Garden

(R) 7991 11.30 World News 8620 12.00

Daily Politics 43769 1.00 My Life in Books

(R) 42649 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R)

9396378 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2326910

3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7605804 3.45

Hairy Bikers’ Best of British (R) 4688552

4.30 Flog It! 2388939 5.15 Put Your Money

Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2946200



3925264 10.30 This Morning 32378 12.30

Loose Women. With last year’s X Factor

winners Little Mix. 99649 1.30 News and

Weather 71946571 1.55 Regional News;

Weather 78320910 2.00 Dickinson’s Real

Deal (R) 18194 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh

Show 6262 4.00 My Tasty Travels with

Lynda Bellingham. The actress explores the

Cotswolds, making a sherry trifl e for

70 people at the home of the Pudding

Club in Chipping Campden, and acting as a

judge at the Badsey Flower Festival 5397

5.00 The Chase. Quiz show hosted

by Bradley Walsh. 9484



GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25261804 9.15

PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring swimming,

athletics, table tennis and 7-a-side football.

88800303 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012

Featuring wheelchair basketball at the

North Greenwich Arena and wheelchair

rugby at the Basketball Arena 2523674

1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring

seven-a-side football, wheelchair rugby,

wheelchair basketball and table tennis.

3757755 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5209804

4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9909571 5.25

PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring swimming

and seven-a-side football. 1453129


7.35 Thomas & Friends (R) 7020649 7.50

Make Way for Noddy (R) 1733620 8.00 Fifi

and the Flowertots (R) 3114262 8.15 Peppa

Pig (R) 8901692 & 4206084 8.35 Roary

the Racing Car (R) 6843216 8.50 Bananas

in Pyjamas 8656533 9.00 Abby’s Flying

Fairy School (R) 9950668 9.15 The Wright

Stuff 71442007 11.10 Robson’s Extreme

Fishing Challenge (R) 9240587 12.10 News

Lunchtime 11072804 12.15 Celebrity Big

Brother (R) 4260113 1.15 Home and Away

6777465 1.45 Neighbours 6776736 2.15

Numb3rs (R) 4257649 3.15 � Elevator

Girl (2010) 58825200 5.00 News 1924216

5.30 Neighbours (R) 1210571

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 Th e Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 6.00 Radio 1’s Dance Anthems with Greg James 7.00 Annie Mac 9.00 Pete Tong 11.00 Skream and Benga 1.00 Radio 1’s Essential Mix 3.00 Annie Nightingale 5.00 Rob da Bank

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Desmond Carrington: Th e Music Goes Round 8.00 Friday Night Is Music Night 10.00 Th e Radio 2 Arts Show 12.00 Huey Morgan 3.00 Richard Allinson

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (5/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert: 2011 Verbier Festival and Academy 2.00 Afternoon on 3. Prom 57 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (5/5) 7.30 Proms 2012: Prom 75. Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. See picks of the day, above. 9.45 St Vitus Dance (R) 10.30 Proms Plus 10.45 Th e Essay (R) (4/4) 11.00 World on 3 1.00 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Th e Reunion Poll Tax (R) (3/5) 9.45 (LW) Act of Worship 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (5/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Hearing Ragas (4/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours (60/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 Th e World at One 1.45 Coming Out: Bankruptcy (R) (5/5) 2.00 Th e Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: A Cold Supper Behind Harrods. By David Morley. Fifty years after the end of the second world war, three veterans meet to record interviews for a documentary. 3.00 Gardeners’ Question Time 3.45 Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Europe On the Road (2/3) 4.00 Last Word (3/13) 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 Th e News Quiz (1/9) 7.00 Th e Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution (5/10) 8.00 Any Questions? 8.50 A Point of View 9.00 Friday Drama: An American Rose. Charlotte Jones’ drama tells the true story of the tragedy that befell Rosemary Kennedy, sister of former US president JFK. (R) 9.59 Weather 10.00 Th e World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (5/10) 11.00 Great Lives (R) (6/9) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal. In the fi nal edition, the writer examines his 64-year-old self and looks forward to the life he still has left to live. (R) (5/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 7.45 5 Live Sport: International Football 2012-13 10.00 6-0-6 11.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

lead to tragedy at Groby, his family estate. His truculent and allegedly pro-German wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) fi nds a new admirer who proves a distraction as the war continues and Christopher is shell-shocked at the front in France, however it is rapidly becoming clear that she harbours a genuine aff ection for “the last decent man in England”. What will happen when Valentine (Adelaide Clemens) moves to London? Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Parade’s End BBC2, 9.30pmFalse rumours begin to circulate about Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch) – lurid tales of debauchery and his having shared a mistress with his former colleague MacMaster (Stephen Graham) – which

PICKS OF THE DAY




TV

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6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Alf helps Lottie decide whether to stay in Summer Bay. 1217484

6.30 News (T) 12087367.00 Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest

Roads (T) Lisa Kelly and GW Boles transport a pair of fragile dinosaur statues. Meanwhile, Hugh Rowland is also hauling a delicate cargo, but refuses to compromise his aggressive driving style. 5003484

8.00 Dallas (T) (R) New-look version of the soap, following the glamorous lives and vicious feuds of Texas oil dynasty the Ewings in the 21st century. Th e series begins with Bobby’s son Christopher preparing to marry his fi ancée Rebecca. 5089804

9.00 Celebrity Big Brother: Final (T) Brian Dowling returns to the podium for the fi nal night of the competition, as the remaining housemates gather to discover who has been voted the winner. Last in the series. 5082991

11.00 Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis is joined by a panel of guests to look back at the latest series of the all-star reality contest, and talks to the new champion. Last in the series. 8767533

12.00 SuperCasino 3134021 3.55 Motorsport Mundial 75490934 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19786717 4.45 Michaela’s Wild Challenge (R) 73089446 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85612885 & 32478205

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Mercedes clashes with Nancy after returning from her trip to Dubai with Riley. Not on C4 HD. 587

7.00 News (T) Not on C4 HD. 8755

7.30 Paralympic Games 2012 Tonight Day Nine (T) Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan introduce the concluding coverage on day nine of the Games, featuring athletics at the Olympic Stadium, swimming at the Aquatics Centre and wheelchair basketball at the North Greenwich Arena. 611303


11.15 Derren Brown: Hero at 30,000 Feet (T) (R) Th e showman takes a member of the public on a journey to achieve his aspirations and face his fears, culminating in a life-changing trip on board a plane. 571674

12.30 � Family Business (Sidney Lumet, 1989) Crime comedy starring Sean Connery and Dustin Hoff man. (T) See picks, above. 794601 2.25 My Name Is Earl (R) 7670663 & 7765069 3.10 Happy Endings 26042330 3.30 Th e Confession (R) 79214088 3.35 Trip to Yatkumchatka (R) 79213359 3.40 St Elsewhere (R) 2595345 4.30 Deal or No Deal 7890798 5.25 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 2996156 5.50 Th e Treacle (R) 2326359

6.00 Regional News (T) 4656.30 ßNews and Weather (T) 9457.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie is furious

that Robbie has been allowed to stay at Home Farm, realising her eff orts to set him up have been in vain, but there’s an unexpected outcome when Declan asks her to marry him. 7723

7.30 Live International Football (T) Moldova v England (Kick-off 7.45pm). Adrian Chiles presents the opening World Cup Group H qualifi er for both sides, staged at the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau. With commentary by Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend, and analysis by Lee Dixon and Gareth Southgate. 759397

10.00 News; Weather (T) 6228110.30 News; Weather (T) 59258710.35 International Football

Highlights (T) Moldova v England. Action from this evening’s World Cup Group H qualifi er at the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau. 492303

11.35 � Captivity (Roland Joff e, 2007) (T) A successful model is captured by a sadistic madman and subjected to a series of twisted torments in his underground lair. Horror starring Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies. 736674

1.00 Jackpot247 21907088 3.05 � Columbo: Troubled Waters (1975) 686750 4.45 Nightscreen 2862822 5.30 Morning News 19601


Th e contestants face their fi nal task — cooking a two-course meal to be judged by former fi nalists Andi Peters, Christine Hamilton and Dick Strawbridge. 991

7.00 Live Athletics 2012 Diamond League: Brussels (T) Gabby Logan presents coverage of the 14th and fi nal event of the Diamond League series in a programme featuring a host of Olympians including Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. 56842

9.00 Gardeners’ World (T) Monty Don off ers advice on vegetables to sow at the start of September which can then be cropped in winter, while Carol Klein explores how daisies bring colour to autumnal gardens. 7755

9.30 Parade’s End (T) Christopher becomes the subject of rumours, but as the gossip spreads, a tragedy occurs. See choice, above. 68620

10.30 Newsnight (T) 57303

11.05 � Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta, 2009) (T) Premiere. An awkward 16-year-old meets the girl of his dreams and embarks on a series of elaborate misadventures to be with her. Comedy starring Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday. 214262

12.30 � It’s All Gone Pete Tong (Michael Dowse, 2004) (T) 34717 2.00 News 82779

6.00 News; Weather (T) 3976.30 Regional News (T) 6497.00 Th e One Show (T) Chris Evans

and Alex Jones present the magazine show. 8945

7.30 Cash Britain (T) Soaring gold prices create a lot of work for the pawnbrokers, and a woman selling jewellery to help her daughter with heating bills gets a surprise. 533

8.00 EastEnders (T) Shirley (Linda Henry) battles with her demons. 1465

8.30 Miranda (T) (R) In a bid to make the most of being young, free and single, Miranda books herself into a hotel. 3200

9.00 In with the Flynns (T) Liam starts boozing every night with brother Kevin in a bid to escape his humdrum lifestyle. 9113

9.30 Mrs Brown’s Boys (T) (R) Agnes goes on a diet. 93246

10.00 News; Weather (T) 44911310.25 Regional News (T) 59748410.35 Would I Lie to You? (T) (R) Team

captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are joined by Bill Oddie, Frank Skinner, Jon Richardson and Sarah Millican on the comedy panel show. 240910

11.05 Come Fly with Me (T) (R) Taaj Manzoor bumps into actor Rupert Grint. 589533

11.35 Th e National Lottery Friday Night Draws (T) 441194

11.45 EastEnders (T) 2056201.45 Sign Zone: Th e Hairy Bikers’

Bakeation (T) (R) 841156 2.45 Land of the Lost Wolves (R) 832408 3.45 News 56809953




S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 9.40

Popi’r Gath (R) 9.55 Oli Dan y Don (R) 10.10 Cwm Teg

(R) 10.15 Y Teulu Mawr 10.30 Yn yr Ardd (R) 10.45

Ffi -Ffi a’i Ffrindiau (R) 11.00 Twm Tisian (R) 11.05

Holi Hana (R) 11.20 Sam Tan (R) 11.30 Ty Cyw (R)

11.45 Abadas (R) 12noon Cei Bach (R) 12.15 Nodi

(R) 12.30 Octonots (R) 12.40 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R) 1.00

Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30

Byw yn yr Ardd (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau

Newyddion a’r Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop

(R) 3.30 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.40 Cwm Rhyd y Rhosyn

(R) 3.50 Nodi (R) 4.00 Heini (R) 4.15 Ben a Mali a’u

Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh:

Newid Byd (R) 6.00 Dan Glo 6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R)

6.30 Penawdau Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion

a’r Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Gyrwyr

Gwaetha’r Byd 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd

9.00 Sam ar y Sgrin 9.30 Straeon Tafarn Dyff ryn

Arms, Cwm Gwaun (R) 10.00 Cyngerdd Elin Ffl ur

(R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion a’r Tywydd 11.05

Gwefreiddiol (R) 11.35 Y Lle (R) 12.40-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Match of

the Day Wales: Wales v Belgium 11.15 Would I Lie

to You? (R) 11.45 The National Lottery Friday Night

Draws 11.55 Come Fly with Me (R) 12.25 EastEnders

2.20 Weatherview 2.25 News

BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm-9.00 Scrum V

Live: Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except

8.30-9.00 Grand Tours of Scotland

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2

BBC37.00pm Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes 7.10 Doctor Who 8.00 Great Movie Mistakes 9.00 Russell Howard’s Good News 10.00 For the Win See picks, above. 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Bad Education 11.30 Chris Ramsey’s Comedy at the Fringe 12midnight Family Guy 12.45 Th e Revolution Will Be Televised 1.15 For the Win 1.45 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 2.45 Bad Education 3.15 As 12.45

BBC47.00pm News 7.30 Meeting Bryn Terfel 8.00 BBC Proms 2012. See picks, above. 9.45 Here Comes the Summer — Th e

Undertones Story 10.45 Punk Britannia at the BBC 11.45 So Hard to Beat 1.00 See 9.45pm 2.00 As 10.45 3.00 Meeting Bryn Terfel

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.15am � Ladies in Lavender (2004) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 � Orphan (2009) 11.25 Embarrassing Bodies 12.30-1.35 Come Dine with Me

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 3.00pm Modern Family

3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Best Of: Th e Middle 5.00 A League of Th eir Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Th e Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 Th e Simpsons 7.30 Raising Hope 8.00 Th e Simpsons 8.30 Spy 9.00 Trollied 9.30 Stella 10.30 An Idiot Abroad 11.30 Dog the Bounty Hunter 12.30 Road Wars 1.00-2.00 An Idiot Abroad

FILM411.00am � 7th Cavalry (1956) 12.35 � Carry On Constable (1960) 2.20 � Blowing Wild (1953) 4.05 � Reach for the Sky (1956) 6.45 � Planet of the Apes (1968) 9.00 � District 9 (2009) 11.05 � Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) 1.20 � Young Frankenstein (1974)


TV

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TV

CH

OIC

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TV

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OIC

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TV

CH

OIC

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Saturday 8 Saturday 8

MUSIC

Last Night of the PromsBBC2, 7.30pm/BBC1, 9.15pmViolinist Nicola Benedetti and tenor Joseph Calleja join the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, under Jiri Belohlavek, to perform operatic arias by Verdi, Massenet and Puccini, the Bruch Violin Concerto and a choral work by Delius. At 9.15pm the concert switches to BBC1 for a rousing fi nale which will include music by Richard Rodgers, Shostakovich, John Williams and Dvorak, as well as the traditional Last Night anthems.

DRAMA

Doctor Who BBC1, 7.35pmDinosaurs on a Spaceship. When the Time Lord comes across an unmanned spaceship hurtling towards destruction, it seems that only he can save the doomed vessel and its unexpected cargo of dinosaurs.

CHATSHOW

Th e Jonathan Ross Show ITV1, 9.55pmRoss fl irts with singer Cheryl Cole and chats to Jesus Christ Superstar composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. MB

FILM

Th ings to Do in Denver When You’re Dead BBC1, 12.20am(Gary Fleder)Th is stylish, very dark thriller centres on handsome, Armani-dressed Andy Garcia, an ex-convict trying to go straight. But business is going badly and he’s blackmailed into carrying out that inevitable last big job for Denver’s crime supremo, the paraplegic “Man with the Plan”. To execute the bizarrely motivated scheme he hires a colourful collection of former cellmates. Very much school of Tarantino (Christopher Walken plays the crime boss, Steve Buscemi is Mr Shhh the hitman), with strong ensemble acting, an uncommon setting and memorable dialogue. Th e title comes from a 1991 Warren Zevon song. Philip French

RADIO

Blasphemy and the Governor of Punjab Radio 4, 2.30pmOn 4 January 2011, Salman Taseer, a self-made millionaire and governor of Pakistan’s Punjab, was assassinated by one of his own security guards. In this dramatised documentary, Owen Bennett-Jones presents testimonies by those who knew the man renowned for having demanded the pardon and release of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15amA thrilling exhibition of sporting action comes to a close as British medal hopefuls Dave Weir and Shelly Woods compete in the men’s and women’s marathons. In the seven-a-side football, the classifi cation matches are followed bythe medal matches and the Paralympic Games reach an exciting fi nish with the gold medal match in the wheelchair rugby. Will Carpenter

6.00 Breakfast 6937934 10.00 Saturday

Kitchen Live 30311 11.30 Lorraine’s Fast,

Fresh and Easy Food (R) 3381 12.00 News;

Regional News and Weather 7059330 12.15

Football Focus. A review of last night’s

World Cup qualifi ers. 6978682 1.00 World

Class 66446 1.30 Homes Under the Hammer

52971 2.30 Bargain Hunt (R) 14773 3.30

Cash in the Attic (R) 2393205 4.15 Escape

to the Country (R) 2053682 5.00 News;

Regional News and Weather 2685953 5.20

Formula 1: Italian Grand Prix Qualifying

Highlights. Jake Humphrey introduces

action from the session at the Autodromo

Nazionale Monza, where the 13th round of

the season is set to take place. 5467798


7.30 Project Parent (R) 44224 8.00 The

Scooby-Doo Show (R) 8026779 8.20

Dennis and Gnasher (R) 1759446 8.30

The Slammer (R) 65156 9.00 12 Again (R)

56408 9.30 Incredible Edibles (R) 84779

10.00 Cop School (R) 26330 10.30 Richard

Hammond’s Blast Lab: The Experiments (R)

9973330 10.35 Splatalot (R) 4995408 11.00

Prank Patrol (R) 7224 11.30 Diddy Movies

(R) 7267392 11.45 MOTD Kickabout (R)

7295175 12.00 The Sky at Night (R) 7048224

12.20 Coast (R) 2391717 12.30 � The Big

Circus (1959) 35944175 2.15 � A Man for

All Seasons (1966) 914021 4.15 Flog It! (R)

2051224 5.00 Wartime Farm (R) 1682

6.00 CITV: Mini CITV 5081156 7.25 CITV

99472514 9.25 News 4588972 9.30 The

Jeremy Kyle Show USA 6419779 & 3493069

11.20 The Real Housewives of New York

City 3740330 & 573243 1.15 News and

Weather 67748175 1.20 � Columbo:

Double Exposure (1973) A fi lm-maker uses

subliminal messages to lure a rival to his

death. Crime drama starring Peter Falk and

Robert Culp. 87212934 3.20 � The Living

Daylights (1987) James Bond helps a KGB

agent with knowledge of a secret arms

deal to defect to the West and protects

him from an assassin. Action adventure

with Timothy Dalton and Maryam d’Abo.

95826040 5.55 Regional News 737330

6.00 Channel 4 Presents — Nathan

Stephens ‘Warrior’ (R) 5089224

■ 6.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 (R) 3717953

7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST

SHOW Featuring javelin thrower Nathan

Stevens. 25238576 9.15 PARALYMPICS

2012 Jonathan Edwards and Daraine

Mulvihill introduce this morning’s coverage

on the penultimate day of competition,

featuring swimming and athletics.

10900885 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012

Georgie Bingham and Arthur Williams

present further live coverage, including

5-a-side football, wheelchair rugby,

swimming, sitting volleyball and

wheelchair tennis. 8236822


8.05 The Adventures of Bottle Top Bill (R)

9849311 8.25 Angelina Ballerina 3184021

8.45 Rupert Bear (R) 6736972 9.00 Bananas

in Pyjamas (R) 6566175 9.10 The Mr Men

Show (R) 6546311 9.25 Roary the Racing

Car (R) 6541866 9.40 Jelly Jamm (R)

5040446 10.00 Power Rangers Samurai

6625663 10.35 Batman: The Brave and the

Bold 7667885 11.10 Animal Rescue Squad

(R) 26202750 11.25 Celebrity Big Brother:

Final (R) 54882243 1.25 � Coroner

Creek (1948) 28539972 3.10 � Back

to the Secret Garden (2000) 60021069

5.10 � Jesse Stone: Benefi t of the

Doubt (2012) 99607935

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 7.00 Gemma Cairney 10.00 Vernon Kay 1.00 Huw Stephens 4.00 Radio 1’s Dance Anthems with Danny Howard 7.00 Trevor Nelson 9.00 Westwood 11.00 MistaJam 1.00 Diplo and Friends 3.00 Friction 5.00 Seani B

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.00 Anneka Rice 8.00 Sounds of the 60s 10.00 Th e Jon Holmes Situation (6/6) 1.00 Pick of the Pops 1967 and 1977 3.00 Shaun Keaveny 6.00 Liza Tarbuck 7.30 Proms in the Park 10.30 Dave Pearce: Dance Years 12.00 Bob Harris Sunday 3.00 Richard Allinson

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 7.00 Breakfast 9.00 News; Summer CD Review 12.15 Inspired by Birds (R) 12.15 News 1.00 Th e Early Music Show 2.00 BBC Proms Chamber Music PCM8: Pierre-Laurent Aimard. (R) 3.00 Saturday Classics 5.00 Jazz Record Requests 6.00 Words and Music (R) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012. In his fi nal concert as chief conductor, Jiri Belohlavek leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the traditional Last Night of the Proms festivities. 10.30 Hear and Now 12.00 Geoff rey Smith’s Jazz 1.00 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 News and Papers 6.07 Open Country (R) (10/11) 6.30 Farming Today 6.57 Weather 7.00 Today 8.51 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Saturday Live 10.30 Punt PI: A Very Strange Stash. New series. Steve Punt turns private investigator once again to solve another selection of unusual cases. (1/3) 11.00 Th e Week in Westminster 11.30 From Our Own Correspondent 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 Money Box 12.30 Th e News Quiz (R) (1/9) 12.57 Weather 1.00 News 1.10 Any Questions? (R) 2.00 Any Answers? LW: 2.15 Live International Twenty20 Cricket England v South Africa: England v South Africa. From the Emirates Durham ICG. FM: 2.30 Saturday Drama: Blasphemy and the Governor of Punjab. See picks, above. 3.30 Soul Music (R) (2/5) 4.00 Weekend Woman’s Hour 5.00 Saturday PM 5.30 iPM LW: 5.40 iPM 5.54 Shipping Forecast FM & LW: 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.15 Loose Ends 7.00 Profi le 7.15 Saturday Review 8.00 Archive on 4: A Brief History of Blame 9.00 Classic Serial: Th e Grapes of Wrath (R) John Steinbeck’s novel dramatised by Donna Franceschild.(1/3) 10.00 News and Weather 10.15 Th e Education Debates (R) (3/3) 11.00 Round Britain Quiz (R) (1/12) 11.30 Poetry Please (R) (2/8) 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 If I Loved You, I Would Tell You Th is (R) (3/3) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 Weekend Breakfast 9.00 Th e Danny Baker Show 11.00 Fighting Talk 12.00 5 Live Sport 1.00 5 Live Formula 1 2.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 3.00 5 Live Sport: International Football 2012-13: Scotland v Serbia 5.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 6.00 6-0-6 7.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 10.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

policy “Silicon Playgrounds”, dreamt up by junior minister Fergus Williams (Geoff rey Streatfeild), an event somewhat stymied by the last-minute announcement that the PM wants technophobic “digitard” Mannion to launch it, rather than Williams. Chaos ensues. Next week we reacquaint ourselves with Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) and Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), as they languish in Her Majesty’s Opposition. Achingly funny. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Th e Th ick of It BBC2, 9.45pmIn the fi rst of a sparkling new run of Armando Iannucci’s witty Westminster-based political satire, MP Peter Mannion (Roger Allam, above) has taken over at DoSAC as part of a coalition government. Today sees the launch of digital youth

PICKS OF THE DAY




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7.00 Cricket on 5 England v South Africa. Mark Nicholas presents action from the opening Twenty20 match of the three-game series at the Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground. 43101224

8.05 News (T) 52480698.10 NCIS (T) (R) A lieutenant

apparently commits suicide by jumping from an aircraft carrier, and Ziva and McGee are dispatched to inform the widow, only to discover that she has been murdered. 8815156

9.10 CSI: Miami (T) A woman is found dead on the beach, raising fears that serial killer the Miami Taunter is responsible. Stars David Caruso (above). 2701309

10.05 NCIS Judgment Day – Part One (T) (R) In the fi rst of a two-part story, the entire team is put in danger while hunting for the killer of a former NCIS agent. Part two follows. 850942711.05 NCIS Judgment Day – Part Two (T) (R) Gibbs and Franks take matters into their own hands to catch the killers. 8475137

12.05 SuperCasino 38325557 4.00 HouseBusters (R) 19733625 4.25 Divine Designs (R) 19745460 4.50 County Secrets (R) 50563712 5.00 Hana’s Helpline (R) 17760286 5.10 Th e Milkshake! Show (R) 85689557 5.35 Th omas & Friends (R) 32210267 5.45 Roary the Racing Car (R) 35855151

6.30 News; Weather (T) 7917.00 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012

Day 10 (T) Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan introduce live coverage of the fi nal evening of action in the London Games, including athletics, wheelchair basketball, swimming and table tennis. Th e athletics begins with Nathan Stephens in the fi nal of the men’s F57/58 javelin, along with the possibility of Hazel Robson in the women’s T36 100m fi nal. Th e evening’s schedule on the track builds to a climax with the fi nal of the men’s T53/T54 4x400m relay, before the likelihood of a battle between Oscar Pistorius and Jerome Singleton in the men’s T44 400m fi nal. 6204088


11.15 � Th e Butterfl y Eff ect (Eric Bress, J Mackye Gruber, 2004) (T) A college student discovers he can travel back in time to his troubled childhood and change future events. Supernatural thriller starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. 30138576

1.25 David Blaine’s Street Magic (T) (R) 9987267 2.10 Happy Endings 7642880 2.30 Th is Is J03 (R) 1694880 2.35 Hollyoaks (R) 43581606 4.45 Deal or No Deal (R) 5251199 5.40 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 2362151 5.50 Th e Treacle People (R) 2386731

6.10 News and Weather (T) 7765956.25 New You’ve Been Framed!

(T) A fresh selection of comical clips. 317866

6.55 Fool Britannia (T) Hidden-camera show. 941972

7.25 Red or Black? (T) Cricketers Mark Ramprakash and Kevin Pietersen, daredevil motorcyclists and acrobats take part in challenges as eight contestants compete for places in the fi nal four. Continues after Th e X Factor. 273330

8.10 Th e X Factor (T) Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger, Tulisa and Louis Walsh continue their search for a pop star in the fi rst of two editions this week as more solo singers and groups, from the talented to the tuneless, set out to impress at the auditions. 288392

9.10 Red or Black? (T) Th e four remaining contestants face further challenges. 312779

9.55 Th e Jonathan Ross Show (T) See picks, above. 576040

10.55 News and Weather (T) 655392

11.10 � Th e World Is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999) (T) James Bond is assigned to protect an oil heiress from an infamous terrorist planning to destroy a pipeline. Spy adventure with Pierce Brosnan, Robert Carlyle and Sophie Marceau (above). 45230156

1.30 Th e Store 49002 3.00 In Plain Sight (R) 5919422 3.40 Nightscreen 893147 5.30 Morning News 68052

6.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) (R) Famous faces embark on the heirloom-hunting challenge. 96514

7.00 Dad’s Army (T) (R) Th e platoon launch a daring bid to rescue Walker and Godfrey from a stricken pumping station. 2311

7.30 Last Night of the Proms (T) Katie Derham introduces the fi nale to the 118th season of Henry Wood Promenade concerts, live from the Royal Albert Hall, featuring, among others, violinist Nicola Benedetti (above) and tenor Joseph Calleja. Continues on BBC1 at 9.15pm. 44682

9.00 QI XL Imbroglio (T) (R) Stephen Fry hosts an extended edition of the quiz with guests John Bishop, Frank Skinner, Sean Lock and regular panellist Alan Davies. 327601

9.45 Th e Th ick of It (T) New series. Armando Iannucci’s riotous political comedy returns. See choice, above. 957156

10.15 � A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009) (T) Th e fi nale to the Proms season, live from the Royal Albert Hall, in which violinist Nicola Benedetti and tenor Joseph Calleja join the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Jiri Belohlavek. Continues on BBC1. 958392

11.50 � Harper (Jack Smight, 1966) (T) Detective thriller starring Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall and Robert Wagner. 759243

6.35 All New Total Wipeout (T) Another 20 foolhardy Brits fl y to Argentina to have a go at the obstacle-packed qualifi er in a bid to make it through to the next two heats and hopefully into the fi nal. 205779

7.35 Doctor Who Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (T) Th e Doctor is asked to intercept a pilotless spaceship heading towards Earth. Matt Smith stars, with Riann Steele (above), Sunetra Sarker, Rupert Graves, and Mark Williams and David Bradley (both from the Harry Potter fi lms). See picks of the day, above. 839494

8.20 Th e National Lottery: Secret Fortune (T) Quiz show hosted by Nick Knowles. 583359

9.15 Last Night of the Proms (T) Jiri Belohlavek takes to the podium to conduct the concluding section of this year’s Proms fi nale, with audiences around the UK joining the live celebrations. See picks of the day, above. 324359

10.45 News; Weather (T) 33957611.05 Live at the Apollo (T) (R) Rich

Hall guest-hosts the stand-up show recorded at London’s Hammersmith Apollo and featuring Mark Watson and Andrew Maxwell. 412224

11.50 Th e Football League Show (T) Highlights. 458601

12.20 � Th ings to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (Gary Fleder, 1995) See picks, above. (T) 702847 2.15 News 5825199



MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES, YORKSHIRE As ITV1

S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Clwb Cyw 9.00 Stwnsh 11.00

Y Ty Cymreig Sir Drefaldwyn (R) 11.30 Sioe Dinbych

a Ffl int/12: Digwyddiadau (R) 12.30 Tir Cymru Ol

Gwaith (R) 1.30 3 Lle Donna Edwards (R) 2.00 Un o

Bob Tri (R) 3.00 Sgorio Y Seintiau Newydd v Llanelli

6.00 Y Clwb Rygbi Gweilch v Ulster 8.45 Newyddion

a Chwaraeon 9.00 Noson Lawen Uwchaled (R) 10.00

Gwyl Gobaith 2012 (R) 11.00 Y Clwb Rygbi Gweilch v

Ulster (R) 1.45-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1

BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 4.15pm Celebrity

Antiques Road Trip 5.15-6.00 Escape to the Country

Herefordshire Cutdown

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 11.05pm Sport-

scene: Scotland v Serbia 12.05 Burnistoun (R) Two

brothers run into trouble while clearing out their

family’s loft, and an instructional DVD demonstrates

how to punch people. Sketch show with Robert

Florence and Iain Connell. 12.35 The Football

League Show 1.05 � Things to Do in Denver

When You’re Dead (Gary Fleder, 1995) Thriller.

2.55-3.00 Weatherview

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 12.20pm Wanted

Down Under 1.05 � The Big Circus (Joseph M

Newman, 1959) Drama starring Victor Mature. 2.50

� A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)

Oscar-winning historical drama. 4.45 Flog It! (R) 5.30

Celebrity Antiques Road Trip 6.30 Celebrity Antiques

7.30-9.00 BBC Proms Last Night Celebrations in

Scotland. A concert from the City Halls in Glasgow,

with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

BBC37.00pm Great TV Mistakes 8.00 Top Gear 9.00 Our War: three episodes. 12midnight Family Guy 12.45 American Dad! 1.30 Th e Revolution Will Be Televised 2.00 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 2.55 Great TV Mistakes

BBC47.00pm Africa’s Magnifi cent Beasts 8.00 She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens 9.00 Inspector Montalbano 10.45 Storyville: Th e $750 Million Th ief 12.05 20th Century Battlefi elds 1.05 Th e Sky at Night 1.35 She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens 2.35 Africa’s Magnifi cent Beasts

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 8.55am Th e Morning Line 10.00 River Cottage Bites 10.10 Time Team 1.25 A Place in the Sun 2.00 Channel 4 Racing 4.30 River Cottage Bites 4.40 A Place in the Sun 5.15 Location, Location, Location 7.25 9/11: State of Emergency 9.00 9/11: Th e Lost Tapes 10.00 9/11: Th e Firemen’s Story 11.05 Bin Laden: Shoot to Kill 12.45 Th e 9/11 Hotel 1.50 9/11: State of Emergency

SKY 1Broadcasts 24 hours 10.00am Soccer AM 12noon-2.00 Dog the Bounty Hunter 2.00-5.00 Road Wars 5.00 Best Of: Th e Middle

5.30 Futurama 6.00 Terra Nova 7.00 Modern Family 7.30 Futurama 8.00 Th e Simpsons 8.30 A League of Th eir Own. Th ree episodes of the sports quiz. 11.00 � Gattaca (1997) 1.05 Stella 2.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 2.50-4.20 Airline 4.20 Gadget Geeks 5.10 Crash Test Dummies

FILM411.00am � Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958) 1.00 � Guess Who (2005) 3.05 � Breakfast at Tiff any’s (1961) 5.20 � Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) 7.05 � St Trinian’s (2007) 9.00 � Transporter 3 (2008) 11.00 � Oldboy (2003) 1.25 � Willard (2003)


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Today’s television

MOTORING

Crash CourseBBC2, 7.15pmRichard Hammond presents a new series in which he travels across America, stopping to drive some of the country’s largest vehicles, beginning at Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, where he takes the controls of an M1A2 Abrams tank.

DOCUMENTARY

Countryfi le BBC1, 7.30pmMatt Baker and Helen Skelton head to Oxfordshire, where Matt discovers what is being done to halt the decline of the local hedgehog population, and she visits Chastleton House, where the rules of croquet were fi rst established. Plus, the winners of this year’s photographic competition are decided – invariably a diffi cult choice between cute and clever.

DRAMA

Strike Back: Vengeance Sky 1, 9pmAs the shooting, shouting action drama returns, the permanently bristling Scott is sent to Mogadishu to retrieve a kidnapped British diplomat and a junior attaché. MB

FILM

Th e Wizard of Oz Channel 5, 4.50pm(Victor Fleming, 1939)

L Frank Baum’s classic children’s story has been fi lmed several times since its publication in 1900, but it is the 1939 fi lm of Dorothy Gale being swept away by a tornado from the impoverished monochrome Kansas to the magical Technicolor world of Oz that has become beloved and legendary. Made in chaotic circumstances (fi ve directors and a dozen writers worked on it), it ended up close to perfection with Judy Garland heartbreakingly courageous as Dorothy. Th e Harold Arlen/EY Harburg score is one of Hollywood’s greatest though amazingly “Over the Rainbow” came close to being dropped. Philip French

RADIO

Th e First Time: With Tori Amos BBC Radio 6 Music, 12 noonTwenty years have passed since the American singer-songwriter released her fi rst solo LP Little Earthquakes. Since then she has gone on to create 17 more hit albums and is currently working as a classical composer. Amos talks to Matt Everitt about her life and career and how her Methodist upbringing in Maryland impacted on her music. An insightful and intelligent interview with an unconventional talent. Kim Salmons

SPORT

■ PARALYMPICS 2012Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am Today has golden potential for Para-lympicsGB as they look to defend their team sprint cycling title at the Velodrome. At the Olympic Stadium, Stefanie Reid, Aled Davies and Shelly Woods are all gunning for gold in their respective fi nals and in the pool ParalympicsGB start the defence of their 4x100 freestyle title. Will Carpenter

6.00 Breakfast 89124869 7.40 Match of the

Day (R) Including highlights of West Ham

United v Fulham. 8857289 9.00 The Andrew

Marr Show. Michael Wilshaw and Nicola

Benedetti guest. 61840 10.00 Sunday

Morning Live. Samira Ahmed hosts.

93376 11.00 Country Tracks (R) 24640

12.00 News 6104531 12.10 Live Formula 1:

Belgian Grand Prix. Coverage from

Spa-Francorchamps of the 12th race of the

season. 58244482 3.15 A Question of Sport:

Gold Medal Winners Special (R) 966937

3.45 Ocean Giants (R) 754314 4.45 Songs

of Praise. Aled Jones visits Greenwich,

London’s newest royal borough. 5738686

5.20 The Indian Doctor (R) 1784555

6.00 CBeebies Guess with Jess (R) 8691579

6.10 Louie (R) 8675531 6.20 Wibbly Pig

(R) 8604043 6.30 Dipdap (R) 2742821 6.35

Chuggington (R) 8819444 6.45 Rastamouse

(R) 8839208 7.00 CBBC: Roar (R) 16227

7.30 Copycats (R) 95734 8.00 Deadly

Art (R) 4894005 8.15 Paradise Cafe (R)

8269482 8.40 Wingin’ It (R) 9506208 9.00

Who Let the Dogs Out? (R) 23956 9.30

Junior Bake Off (R) 59869 10.00 Saturday

Kitchen Best Bites 48550 11.30 The Great

British Bake Off (R) 21192 12.30 �

A Tale of Two Cities (1958) 47362043

2.25 Coast (R) 59165802 2.30 Escape to the

Country (R) 2313647 3.15 Burghley Horse

Trials 2012 187173 5.15 Oceans (R) 634111

6.00 CITV Mini CITV 4116289 7.20 CITV

4877173 8.25 Dinner Date 9144043 9.25

News 4719840 9.30 House Gift (R) 6640647

10.25 There’s No Taste Like Home (R)

6218734 11.25 The Hungry Sailors (R)

6285208 12.25 News and Weather 2594802

12.30 The X Factor (R) 5412840 1.35 Britain

Then and Now (R) Londoners throw a

street party. 4227772 2.30 Columbo. A

radio host kills one of his employees and

thinks that he has the perfect alibi. Peter

Falk stars, with guest William Shatner.

78545227 4.25 Doc Martin (R) Martin’s

parents come to stay. 2799444 5.30 The

Talent Show Story (R) The changing role

of the talent-show host. 642753

6.00 C4 Presents — London Dreaming (R)

5210192 6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012

TONIGHT (R) Highlights. 3948821 7.00

PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW

A look ahead. 25469444 9.15 PARALYMPICS

2012 Swimming heats, including the men’s

SM7 200m individual medley, the men’s

4x100m freestyle relay and the men’s S14

200m freestyle. Athletics: the women’s

F42/44 long jump, the men’s F42 discus and

the semi-fi nals of the men’s T11 1500m.

10131753 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 The

cycling reaches a conclusion. Plus men’s

fi ve-a-side football, with Great Britain v

Argentina, table tennis and action from

the equestrian events. 9998550


7.55 Little Princess (R) 7231753 8.10 The

Adventures of Bottle Top Bill (R) 3336482

8.25 Angelina Ballerina 3331937 8.40

Rupert Bear (R) 6975869 8.55 Bananas in

Pyjamas (R) 6954376 9.15 Mr Men Show

(R) 6776550 9.30 Roary the Racing Car (R)

1698208 9.45 Jelly Jamm (R) 1686463 10.00

Power Rangers Samurai 6856531 10.35

Batman: The Brave and the Bold 7898753

11.10 Looney Tunes (R) 85921579 11.20

Celebrity Big Brother (R) 5032482 12.15

� The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

19029937 3.00 � Belle’s Magical World

(1998) 95452482 4.50 � The Wizard of

Oz (1939) See picks, above. 41874555

6.55 News (T) 48028027.00 Cricket (T) Action from Lord’s

of England v South Africa in the penultimate match of the fi ve-game series. With Michael Vaughan, Geoff rey Boycott and Simon Hughes. Mark Nicholas hosts. 5361314

7.55 John Barrowman’s Dallas Dreaming of Bobby (T) (R) Part one of two. Th e host takes a look at the new version of the 1980s drama, which starts on Wednesday at 9pm. He begins by touring the Ewing home and chats to Patrick Duff y. 8040840

8.30 Shooting JR (T) (R) John Barrowman discovers if the oil baron’s son John Ross Ewing (played by Josh Henderson) lives up to his dad’s reputation. He also meets Linda Gray and Larry Hagman. 1034647

9.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) Th e latest events. 5207208

10.00 9/11: Escape from the Impact Zone (T) Th e stories of people who survived the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre. Five of them recall how they managed to escape the tower. 3735840

10.45 � Reign over Me (Mike Binder, 2007) (T) Drama with Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith and Donald Sutherland. 16461918

1.15 SuperCasino 54911319 4.00 HouseBusters (R) 19964593 4.25 House Doctor (R) 19983628 4.50 County Secrets (R) 50794680

6.30 News (T) 557.00 ■ PARALYMPICS 2012 (T)

Th e athletics fi nals include the men’s T44 200m at 9.30, which is expected to feature a battle between South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius and Jerome Singleton of the USA, while Britain’s David Weir is one of the favourites in the men’s T54 5,000m. Plus the women’s T12 100m, the men’s T36 100m, the men’s T53 400m and the women’s T37 100m. Th ere are also fi nals in the pool: the women’s S12 100m butterfl y, the women’s S8 50m freestyle and the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay. Plus GB v Poland in the men’s basketball. 6435956


11.15 � Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010) (T) Premiere. Comedy drama with Craig Roberts, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine and Noah Taylor. A 15-year-old boy determined to lose his virginity before he turns 16 becomes infatuated with a classmate. 594376

1.05 � Water Lilies (2007) 9941203 2.30 Veronique (R) 1832048 2.35 Hollyoaks (R) 26217715 4.40 Ultimate Frisbee (R) 66393048 4.45 St Elsewhere (R) 6866224 5.30 Quick Bakes with Eric Lanlard (R) 2504135 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1490390

6.25 Regional News (T) 6731926.45 News (T) 3592607.00 Coronation Street (T)

Hour-long episode. Ryan takes the keys to the factory with the intention of stealing money for a drugs fi x. 3111

8.00 Th e Cube (T) (R) Double Olympic champion Mo Farah takes part in the game show. 9531

9.00 Th e Last Weekend (T) As the gap between Ian’s perception and reality grows, so does his manipulation of Ollie. Rupert Penry-Jones, Shaun Evans, Genevieve O’Reilly and Claire Keelan star. Last in series. 9395

10.00 News (T) 39782110.15 Harry’s Mountain Heroes (T)

(R) Five soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan take on a climb to the summit of Mount Everest — with the support of Prince Harry. 591227

11.45 Premiership Rugby Union (T) Coverage of London Wasps v Harlequins, Saracens v London Irish and London Welsh v Leicester Tigers. 330314

12.40 Th e Store 55358241 2.45 British Superbikes 3005951 3.35 Motorsport 3547280 4.25 Nightscreen 6511390 5.30 News 40574

6.15 Swimming with Crocodiles (T) (R) Part one of two. Ben Fogle travels to Botswana to join a pilot research study of Nile crocodiles, which are responsible for many human deaths every year. 625463

7.15 Richard Hammond’s Crash Course (T) See picks of the day, above. 442260

8.00 Top Gear (T) (R) James May and Jeremy Clarkson travel to Beijing to learn about China’s car industry. Richard Hammond immerses himself in the world of Nascar at a race in Texas, while the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster is tested. Matt LeBlanc is the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. 2005

9.00 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse (T) Maria Connolly, a nurse from Preston, spends two weeks at a hospital in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city at the centre of a drug war that has claimed over 50,000 lives. Working with local nurse Pablo Vasquez, Maria has to treat patients with gunshot and stab wounds. Last in series. 2869

10.00 Th e Best of Men (T) (R) Fact-based drama about the birth of the Paralympics in 1948. Eddie Marsan, Rob Brydon and Niamh Cusack star. 70598

11.30 � Th e Edge of Love (John Maybury, 2008) (T) Fact-based period drama starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy. 818753

1.15 News

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 7.00 Gemma Cairney 10.00 Sara Cox 1.00 Huw Stephens 4.00 Th e Offi cial Chart 7.00 BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards 10.00 Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw 12.00 BBC Introducing 2.00 Friction 4.00 Dev

RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.00 Good Morning Sunday 9.00 Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs 11.00 Weekend Wogan 1.00 Elaine Paige on Sunday 3.00 Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the 70s 5.00 Paul O’Grady 7.00 Tim Rice’s American Pie Texas (R) (18/52) 8.00 Gene Krupa (R) (1/4) 8.30 Sunday Half Hour 9.00 Russell Davies 10.00 Clare Teal 11.00 Th e David Jacobs Collection 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz

RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 7.00 Breakfast 7.00 News 9.00 Sunday Morning with Rob Cowan 12.00 Private Passions (R) 12.00 News 1.00 Th e Early Music Show 2.00 Sunday Concert Prom 50: Collins/BBCSO/Vanska (R) 4.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 68. Organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter in the second of two concerts exploring the music of Bach. 5.15 New Generation Artists 5.45 Proms Plus 6.30 Choral Evensong (R) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 69. Riccardo Chailly conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of Messiaen’s 1964 memorial to the dead of two world wars: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. 10.15 World Routes 11.15 Jazz Line-Up 12.30 Th rough the Night

RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 News 6.05 Something Understood 6.35 On Your Farm (2/9) 7.00 News 7.07 Sunday Papers 7.10 Sunday 7.55 Radio 4 Appeal 8.00 News 8.07 Sunday Papers 8.10 Sunday Worship 8.50 A Point of View (R) 9.00 Broadcasting House LW: 10.00 Live International One-Day Cricket: England v South Africa: From Lord’s. Including Shipping Forecast at 12.01 and 5.54. FM: 10.00 Th e Archers 11.15 Th e Reunion (3/5) 12.00 News 12.04 Just a Minute (R) (4/8) 12.30 Th e Food Programme 1.00 Th e World Th is Weekend 1.30 No Triumph, No Tragedy (2/3) 2.00 Gardeners’ Question Time (R) 2.45 Witness 3.00 Classic Serial: Th e Grapes of Wrath (1/3) 4.00 Book Club 4.30 Poetry Please (2/8) 5.00 Th e Lifecycle of a Bullet (R) 5.40 Profi le (R) FM & LW: 6.00 News 6.15 Pick of the Week 7.00 Th e Archers 7.15 Alex Horne Presents 7.45 Comic Fringes (3/3) 8.00 Feedback (R) 8.30 Last Word (R) 9.00 Money Box (R) 9.26 Radio 4 Appeal (R) 9.30 In Business (R) (7/9) 10.00 Th e Westminster Hour 11.00 Th e Film Programme (R) 11.30 Something Understood (R) 12.00 News and Weather 12.15 Th inking Allowed (R) 12.45 Bells on Sunday (R) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service

RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 Weekend Breakfast 8.30 SportsWeek 9.30 Double Take 11.00 5 Live Sport 1.00 5 Live Formula 1 2012 Belgian Grand Prix 2.30 5 Live Sport 4.00 5 Live Premier League Football 6.03 6-0-6 7.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 10.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

6.00 News (T) 43

6.30 Britain’s Hidden Heritage (T) Paul Martin explores the extensive archives of Berkeley castle in Gloucestershire, where in 2004 seven lost Vivaldi arias were discovered among the old documents. One of the works is performed here for the fi rst time. Clare Balding discovers how Country Life magazine’s 115-year-old photo collection has helped restore the most unlikely of country house interiors. Charlie Luxton praises the BT Tower in London (above). Last in series. 43685

7.30 Countryfi le (T) See picks of the day, above. 98937

8.30 Inspector George Gently (T) See choice, above. 44802

10.00 News (T) 12553110.25 Match of the Day 2 (T) Premier

League action: Liverpool v Arsenal, Southampton v Manchester United and Newcastle United v Aston Villa. Colin Murray hosts. 4478260

11.35 In with the Flynns (T) (R) Liam tries to earn extra money with personal training lessons, but the scheme backfi res when a client wants more from him than just a better body. Will Mellor stars. 612005

12.05 Th e Sky at Night (T) 4982574 12.30 Sign Zone: Th e Dark: Nature’s Nighttime World (R) 56721 1.30 Holby City (R) 78390 2.30 Good Cop (R) 62203 3.30 Th e Riots: In Th eir Own Words (R) 74048 4.30 News

must kowtow to their “social betters” when a young girl is found dead in an upturned Austin A40 registered to local nobs the Earl and Countess Blackstone (a disastrously badly cast Roger Lloyd-Pack and Geraldine Somerville). At fi rst it appears that the incident may have involved the chinless heir-apparent, but his mama simply will not hear of it. Accents all over the place as usual, but gripping nonetheless. Mike Bradley

★ CHOICE

Inspector George Gently BBC1, 8.30pmGently With Class. Th e year is 1968 and the social landscape is being shaken to its core, with tremors rippling out even as far as Northumberland, where this week Gently (Martin Shaw) and his bolshie sidekick John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby)

PICKS OF THE DAY




> FULL TV AND RADIO LISTINGS

THE WEEK’S LISTINGS START

ON PAGE 48




S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Clwb Cyw 9.30 Y Clwb Rygbi (R)

12.15 Ralio+ (R) 12.45 100 Lle (R) 1.10 Perthyn Ceri

Griffi ths (R) 1.35 Cefn Gwlad Canada — Part One (R)

2.35 Ffermio Dyddiadur Fferm Trefere Fawr (R) 3.05

Prynhawn Da 4.05 Rownd a Rownd (R) 4.30 Rownd

a Rownd (R) 5.00 Hwb. Nia Parry, Matt Johnson

and Ed Holden present the show for people learning

Welsh. 6.00 Newyddion a’r Tywydd 6.05 Pobol y Cwm

8.00 Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol Dathlu 50 (R)

A special edition from Zion Chapel in Aberystwyth

marking the 50th anniversary of the programme,

with singing conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes —

whose father Arwel conducted in the fi rst

episode. Plus, recollections from previous

presenters, and the announcement of the hymn

competition winner. 9.00 Gwyl Gobaith 2012 (R)

10.05 Newyddion a’r Tywydd 10.20 Un o Bob Tri (R)

11.20 Y Fenai (R) 12.20-7.00 Diwedd

BBC1 WALES As BBC1

BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 6.15pm Scrum V 7.00-

7.15 Coast (R) 11.30 Scrum V (R) 12.15-2.00 � The

Edge of Love (John Maybury, 2008) Fact-based period

drama starring Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller.

BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 3.15pm-3.45 The

Beechgrove Garden (R) 10.25 Sportscene 11.10 Match

of the Day 2 12.20 In with the Flynns (R) 12.50 The

Sky at Night 1.10 Weatherview

BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 12.30pm River City

(R) Iona fi nds Big Bob collapsed on the fl oor. 1.30

Escape to the Country (R) Two keen walkers want to

downsize to the Yorkshire Dales. 2.15-3.15 Flog It! (R)

BBC37.00pm Formula 1 Highlights 8.00 Great TV Mistakes 8.10 � Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 10.00 Family Guy 10.45 Bad Education 11.15 American Dad! 12midnight Our War 1.00 Th e Comedy Marathon Spectacular 2.00 Th e Revolution Will Be Televised 2.30 Bad Education 3.00 As 1am

BBC47.00pm Himalaya with Michael Palin 8.00 Th e Th irties in Colour 9.00 � Creation (2009) 10.40 Darwin’s Struggle: Th e Evolution of the Origin of Species 11.40 Paul Simon: Live in New York 12.40 Imagine 2.10 As 7pm

MORE4Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.20-4.45am Four in a Bed 2.00pm-4.45 Come Dine with Me 4.45 Deal or No Deal 5.45 Wars of the Roses: A Time Team Special 6.50 Th e Tallest Tower: Building the Shard 7.55 River Cottage Every Day 9.00 One Born Every Minute 10.00 Father Ted 11.10 Embarrassing Bodies 12.15 One Born Every Minute 1.15 Father Ted 2.25 Embarrassing Bodies

SKY 12.00 Futurama 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 Th e Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Th e Middle 5.00-6.30 Th e Simpsons 6.30 Raising Hope

7.00 Sinbad 8.00 Terra Nova 9.00 Strike Back: Vengeance. See picks, above. 10.00 An Idiot Abroad 11.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 12midnight Emergency with Angela Griffi n 1.00 Raising Hope 1.30 99 Most Bizarre 2.30-3.00 Dog Squad

FILM411.00am � Baby’s Day Out (1994) 1.00 � Charlotte’s Web (2006) 2.50 � Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) 5.00 � Bandslam (2009) 7.10 � Failure to Launch (2006) 9.00 � Th is Is England (2006) 11.05 � Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) 1.00 � Candy (2006)

Documents

The Guardian The New Review 02.09.2012