Different can, same Brand

Russell Brand’s probable comeuppance is long overdue and, if successful, would represent another high profile scalp for the #metoo movement.

The accused will doubtless claim, with some justification, that by throwing him to the wolves in what amounts to trial by television, the media is biting a hand that has fed it for many years. 

Brand has never claimed to be a saint. On the contrary, in his popular stage shows he has flaunted his insatiable sexual appetites, taunting audiences to denounce him as a sinner. Until now, few have been prepared to cast the first stone and this begs the question as to why it has taken so long.

Channel 4’s ‘Despatches’ documentary suggests the reason why is that there is relatively flimsy evidence against him. The programme purports to expose of many misdeeds of a sexual predator hiding in plain sight but it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know or have long suspected.

The biggest smoking gun comes with a ‘prank’ phone call with Jimmy Saville who was posthumously exposed as a paedophile. Like a cheap pimp,  Brand jokingly offers to provide the services of naked woman to Saville.

None of the unnamed women in the documentary deny that they willingly entered into sexual relations with the openly promiscuous Brand. The fact that accusations of rape, coercion and abuse derive from subsequent encounters make the case against him harder to prove and it can hardly be claimed that he acted out of character.

Brand has never hidden his sexual appetites and has admitted his cynical seduction techniques. Far from being repulsed by his bragging stage act containing such salacious details, he has been widely admired and applauded for ‘saying the unsayable’.

He has survived numerous controversies in the past and indeed has positively thrived on his public misdemeanours through a succession of lucrative radio, television and film contracts. His current podcast has a huge following and provides a vehicle for him to voice increasingly unhinged conspiracy theories. 

If nothing else, this latest ‘exposé’  is further proof that the excesses of brazen narcissists know no bounds. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have proven that this also works effectively in the political arena. Their mantra is ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it’  and they feel above the legal restrictions and moral standards that ‘ordinary’ citizens live by.  

Haunted by visions of Britain’s past

THE MAGIC BOX by Rob Young (Faber & Faber, 2021)

Rob Young was brilliant at uncovering Britain’s visionary music in ‘Electric Eden’, a definitive study of folk music in the UK that took the reader/listener far away from the mainstream.  He is less successful in attempting to apply similar insights into the nation’s visual memory bank.

A more academic approach to television history would have reflected upon  innovative works of writers and directors such as Allan Clarke, Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, David Leland, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. Rob Young charts a less linear and more idiosyncratic course . The original works of Nigel Kneale are rightly feted but that doesn’t mean these more  established names should have been excluded. 

Surprisingly, there is also no mention of many of the many cult TV series I remember from the 1960s and 1970s  like The Prisoner  , The Champions , Adam Adamant Lives!, Doomwatch ,  Gangsters and  Jason King . Nor does Young mention any of the long running soap operas and largely ignores comedy shows.

I understand that any study of the period must be subjective but it seems to me that Young’s viewpoint on British culture implies that ghost stories and folk horror were the dominant genres. The political background is for the most part peripheral as the emphasis is on his own memories and the idiosyncrasies of the British character.

TV output from the 1950s to the present provides such a rich source of material that it’s a pity Young chose also to spread his net even wider to include cult movies. In my view, he should have stuck to the small screen.  A cinematic history of Britain belongs to a separate study.   

At his best, Young shows that the weirdness that influenced the alternative music scene was matched by eccentric TV programming of the era . This transported unsuspecting viewers into strange and, often,  scary territories.  Many of the shows referred to were one-offs that have only recently resurfaced in all their ghostly glory on You Tube and other online sites.

This book is valuable for shedding light on these obscure dramas and documentaries but too many of these half-forgotten titles are merely listed and described rather than contextualised. The best section is entitled Divided Kingdom because he covers race, class and gender. These issues are essential to any deeper understanding of British multi-faceted cultural history.    

Olive Kitteridge, again and again

‘Olive Kitteridge’ (2008) and ‘Olive, Again’ (2019) by Elizabeth Strout

‘Olive Kitteridge’ directed by Lisa Cholodenko (HBO mini-series ,2014)

How many books really stick in the mind? Frequently, I struggle to recollect plots and characters of novels I know I have read, even those I have enjoyed. 

I first read ‘Olive Kitteridge’ soon after it earned Elizabeth Strout the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and casually decided to re-read it after watching the excellent HBO TV series based on the novel.

I immediately continued to the follow up, ‘Olive, Again’ and feel now slightly bereft that this is the end of her story (unless Strout decides to write about the first 60 years of her life!)

I was struck by just how much I had forgotten or completely overlooked in the original novel. In revisiting it, the theme of ageing now resonated more fully with my own life.  There’s quite a difference between reading this book in middle-age and now I am at an age (approaching 65) regarded by institutions and individuals as officially old. You can soften this with terms like ‘silver surfers’ or speak in terms of the ‘third age’ but the hard truth is that I am (if I’m lucky) entering the last couple of decades of my life.

As I get older, mortality is no longer an abstract concept  but a harsh reality. This is the first full year without my mother who died on Christmas Day 2021 aged 93 (my father passed away in 1986 aged 60).

Music highs of 2019

For me 2019 was not a particularly memorable year for music. I found pleasure in some old favorites but made no significant new discoveries.
Mostly, female artists struck the strongest chords with me. Billie Eilish’s debut ‘When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go’ and Lana Del Ray’s ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ were rightly rated highly in many ‘best of’ lists.
I wrote around 10 reviews a month for Whisperin’ & Hollerin’ , about half of my output from the previous year.

Among the living. Existence, what does it matter?

AFTERLIFE written, directed by and starring Ricky Gervais

(A Netflix Original, 2019)

Yesterday, I blogged about Gus Van Sant’s flawed attempt to deal with complicated issues of guilt and grief in ‘The Sea of Trees’.

In that movie, the death of the lead character’s wife drives the leading male into a narcissistic flirtation with suicide until he finds some vague spiritual redemption. This kind of cop-out is all too often the way these stories go.

God’s reputation for moving in mysterious ways allows scriptwriters to sidestep the less palatable, but all too probable, conclusion that when this mortal coil is cut there is no heaven or hell, no all-knowing deity. …. nothing.

These too infrequently voiced non-beliefs are squarely addressed in the unlikely form of a new comedy vehicle for Ricky Gervais. Since Gervais has been outspoken advocate of atheism, it is with a knowing sense of irony that he should choose to call his six part series on Netflix ‘Afterlife’.