Essex Education

London Fields # 97
First published Inpress (Issue # 1196), Melbourne on 19 October 2011, and in Drum Media (Issue # 1082), Sydney on 18 October 2011
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

It was hard to not notice her, but it proved somewhat harder to remember how or why we all recognised her. We were in a park-side local after work taking advantage of one of the recent strangely warm autumnal evenings when we noticed someone doing the whole ‘don’t look at me, I’m here incognito’ thingy; the one that just makes you tend to take more notice while affecting not to at all. Finally it twigged – she had been one of the housemates in the very first series of the UK version of Big Brother over a decade earlier. When it began here back in 2000 it was an interesting social experiment; by the third year it had degraded into a platform for nobodies who were only involved as they wished to become somebodies (or just had a personality disorder). It could be argued that the decline of the television documentary began with two offerings from the BBC – Airport in 1996 and Driving School in 1997. From these a new phenomenon was born – the reality star; an ordinary person living their normal life who now attained some kind of celebrity status merely by doing what they did (followed by a film crew). This was like some sort of dystopian imaginings from science fiction, and the phenomenon became full entrenched once Big Brother arrived.

The staged reality soap can be seen as the latest incarnation in the blurring of the lines from documentary via reality television to pure soap. What began with MTV’s The Real World de-evolved into Jersey Shore and The Hills, which in turn led to UK equivalents which were something else entirely. Last year ITV2 had a surprise hit (and winner of the BAFTA audience vote) when The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) arrived and brought vajazzle into the lexicon. This year it was followed by Channel 4’s entry into the genre, the godawful Made In Chelsea, and last week Vice recently reported that auditions are underway for a Shoreditch-based one (which if they had any sense of humour they’d name Hoxton Twats but not tell the participants until it aired). All these bear possibly even less resemblance to real life than EastEnders does to living in East London or Neighbours does to suburban Melbourne. What these staged-reality shows do have in common with the latest version of Big Brother (now on Channel 5) is how the names of the “characters” are embossed on screen each time they appear. Is this just to help first-time viewers, or is it a sad indication of what the makers consider to be the average viewers’ attention span, or merely an honest admission that the people portrayed are so forgettable that you need to be reminded who they are every time they appear?

But a documentary series currently screening on Channel 4 showing real people in their ordinary lives moves away from many of these recent conventions and simply allows the actions to tell the story. That show is Educating Essex and was filmed with real Year 11 and 12 students and their teachers at Passmores School in Harlow, Essex. Placing 65 cameras all over the school meant they were able to film without the intrusion of a film crew (although one was used for interviews after) which meant that people acted more normally. Yes of course the students were aware of the cameras and so subject to the Hawthorne effect, and of course the filmmakers selected the footage and highlighted stories for effect and narrative drive. Yet despite all this, what emerges is a cabal of caring, dedicated individuals with seemingly incredible patience spending a great deal of time on a small percentage of pupils with behavioural problems or personal crises. While series like TOWIE seek to reinforce the opinions, prejudices and stereotypes that we might expect for the subjects that they portray, Educating Essex instead challenges them and does all it can to rewire them. Media coverage of modern schooling in the UK is almost uniformly negative and the continual improvement in examination results is linked to a supposed dumbing down of the tests themselves, while the press if full of stories about the “youth” are out of control, and the cause of so many of ‘Broken’ Britain’s woes. What Educating Essex shares in common with its comic predecessor Summer Heights High, is that the stories of these people are initially funny and finally deeply moving, just as Chris Lilley’s series was.

© James McGalliard 2011

Inpress: Published on page 61
Drum: Published on page 62

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

London Fields # 89
First published Inpress (Issue # 1160), Melbourne on 9 February 2011, and in Drum Media (Issue # 1046), Sydney on 8 February 2011
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

“We are live; please do not swear”. The axing of Big Brother may have seen this catchphrase pass into the annals of TV history, but it also seems as if taboos are shifting also. On three occasions recently BBC presenters have inadvertently dropped the c-bomb whilst taking about the current government. Meanwhile Channel 4 advertised their scrapping of the 10” broadcast delay for the 21^st British Comedy Awards, ensuing all the naughty words would be unable to be expurgated. The ceremony this year was fairly tame; Miranda Hart was the night’s big winner; and the most significant comedy story began when members of Top Gear made comments about the sexism row concerning Sky Sports presenters backstage.

In the following weeks Top Gear ended up in the news again after some questionable racial stereotype jibes aimed at Mexicans and their ambassador to the UK featured in a recent edition. Now Ambassador Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza didn’t take too kindly to this; far from being indolent, he had put his life in peril leading a major campaign against drug gangs prior to his London posting. Last Saturday Jeremy Clarkson used his column in The Sun to apologise, claiming that offence is necessary in humour; the column ended with another ethnic joke about Mexico. So what are the taboos in comedy nowadays - terrorism, racism, political incorrectness, disability? Over the weekend, Steve Coogan, clearly incensed by the situation, wrote in The Guardian that “…you can get away with saying unsayable things if it's done with some sense of culpability”, believing that that comedy should have a “moral standpoint“ targeting “hypocrisy, human frailty, narrow-mindedness“.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the audience for the filming of four episodes of the second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. By far the most edgy section was an appreciation of the IRA - “gentlemen bombers” with achievable aims, whose street art was a natural precursor to Banksy. Lee’s skilled in irony, but sailing so close to the wind makes misinterpretation ever more likely. His 2009 Edinburgh show If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One had a lengthy section on Top Gear, wishing all sorts of terrible calamities to befall their presenters, and their families. His get-out phrase there was the same one they use on Top Gear, that it’s “just a joke“. It may seem like a long time ago, but the repercussions of the phone messages Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross left on Andrew Sach’s answering machine are still being felt. Sachsgate was the 5th most complained about incident that broadcasting watchdog Ofcom have received in the last decade (with Lee‘s own Jerry Springer The Opera at #3), and the BBC has only just aired an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks filmed two years earlier as Brand had been a panellist in it. What you can do on stage, or on DVD ,is very different to what you can do as a state broadcaster, so it’ll be interesting to see if the BBC, still smarting from Sachsgate, allow all of Lee’s material to go to air.

Over on Channel 4, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights also made headlines. After the initial fuss about a joke involving disability and incest had subsided, his use of the racist P-bomb and n-bomb in the fourth episode raised shackles again. In context the joke was a variation of “the ethnicities of the fatalities were, in order of importance…”, but here using evocative terminology for those at the bottom. Boyle displays a mean intelligence. Mean is a particularly apposite description; his comedy is a cross between the vitriolic rantings of a misanthrope and a carefully planned assault pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable. While sometimes very funny, it’s also spiteful and vindictive with a nastiness that can leave a distinctly unpleasant taste.

Speaking in Germany last Saturday, British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed the words spoken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel last October when he said that multiculturalism was an experiment that had failed. On the same day in Luton, the EDL mounted a massive demonstration against Islam. Meanwhile last Thursday, the BBC decided not to film a certain section of an upcoming Stephen Fry programme in Japan after the backlash over a section on QI where jokes were made about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only official survivor of both nuclear blasts in Japan in 1945. Taboos can be challenged, as Chris Morris did last year with Four Lions. But maybe it’s time for some to stop hiding behind the safety curtain of ‘political correctness gone mad’. and be seen for what they are - the classroom stirrer deliberately making provocative statements just to get attention.

© James McGalliard 2011

Inpress: Published on page 58
Drum: Published on page 54

Man In The Mirror

London Fields # 35
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 24 January 2007
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

There’s nothing the British love more than a good old natter. And recent events on the fifth series of Celebrity Big Brother have provided fodder for countless conversations and debates, as well as thousands of column inches, both here in the UK and around the world. It has also thrown up a large mirror on some aspects of British society, and the picture isn’t pretty.

CBB5 has been all about humiliation as entertainment, and I’m not just referring to the behaviour of the housemates. On the third day Jade Goody, her boyfriend, and her harridan of a mother arrived in the house, and the "celebrities" were told to act as servants to them. Now Jade was ‘made’ by appearing in the third series of the UK version Big Brother back in 2002. Although she didn’t win, she was probably the most memorable housemate, becoming famous for her sheer ignorance and stupidity.

Which was why it was easy to understand why Towers Of London’s frontman Donny Tourette jumped the fence rather than kow-tow to the three newcomers. Next film director Ken Russell walked after a row with Jade (though perhaps it was also because no one in the house knew who he was anyway) and it was starting to look a bit desperate. Finally Leo Sayer went loco and smashed his way out of the house (because thought he didn’t have any clean underwear) and the future of the show was looking bleak.

Now Jade had been put there for her distinct lack of tact, and on her first day she asked Jermaine Jackson if his brother Michael’s pale skin was because he was mixed race like her. While her lack of propriety and complete misunderstanding of other cultures was guaranteed to cause conflicts, I don’t think anyone saw how far it would go. Jade was certainly the ringleader of the bullying, but in her case I think it was more to do with class than race. Class as in place in society, and in the way one purports oneself.

Was it racist though? There’s little you can say to defend Danielle Lloyd comment of Shilpa "She should fuck off home!". In an attempt at damage limitation, Lloyd’s family issued a statement which contains the following: 'F* off home' is a term frequently used sometimes as an insult and sometimes in a jovial fashion between young people today...’. Yeah, so that’s why Lloyd’s agent included this in her list of DON’Ts for her time in the house: "Don't be racist - show you're bigger than that. If you have a strong opinion about something give your reasons for it."

But the production company has to accept blame as well. Jade’s mum Jackiey was like a real-life Margery Dawes – the character in Little Britain who claims not be able to understand a world said by the Indian woman in her Fat Fighters group. Jackiey claimed that Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s name was too difficult, and just referred to her as "The Indian". But when she wasn’t challenged over this behaviour in her post-eviction interview.

The producers could also be accused of demeaning acts and bullying. Such as pumping out Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror as a wake-up song, coincidentally while Jermaine was styling his barnet. Or asking Jermaine to form a Jackson 5 tribute band, replete with afro wigs, and H to form a rival tribute act from his former life in Steps. It was like an experiment to see how much they could get their celebs to piss on their life’s achievements. This near envy was mirrored by Jade when she met someone who made her feel inadequate merely by her easy manner and grace.

So with Jade gone, did the bullying cease? No it just changed targets. The following day saw Kenny Everett sidekick Cleo Rocos relentlessly flirt with Dirk Benedict in a nasty way, for pay him back for a ribald conversation he had earlier in the day about pornography. And she wouldn’t stop, even when he told her on very clear terms that it wasn’t fun. No, her mission was to see if she could get him to ‘crack’.

Yes, there was some racism in the house, and maybe it indicates that under the guise of a more enlightened politically correct society, deeper divides are still in place. But it was more a battle of class, and Shilpa being one of the few to emerge with any. Yet this show is a sad reflection of modern Britain in another way - no one stood up and said, "Stop!". Not the housemates, not "Big Brother", not the producers. Not, that is, until complaints watchdog Ofcom received a record number of complaints. This is the Bystander Britain; you observe but don’t intervene for fear of being dragged in yourself. I suppose the only positive to come out of it all is that it has got people talking, and hopefully thinking about issues of race and bullying.

All except the TV stations it seems. How else could you explain the new series of Shipwrecked which commenced on Sunday, also on Channel 4? One of the castaways is a posh outspoken brat who believes in the British Empire and is all for the return of slavery… Your fifteen minutes awaits!

© James McGalliard 2007

Setting The Scene

London Fields # 25
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 19 April 2006
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

How do you get to hear new music? Is it by listening to the radio, or reading online articles, forums and blogs? Perhaps through a friend’s recommendation, or else by following up an article elsewhere in this paper? Or maybe you just stumble across them by accident?

If I see one more time that a new British act is only successful because of NME hype, I think I’ll scream. Now I’ve made my feelings on the current incarnation of NME clear in the past, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here, but such labelling is disingenuous to say the least, as well as short-sighted, inaccurate and usually wrong.

One of the mainstays of British television [or cheap ways to fill a schedule] is the ‘list’ programme. Masquerading as a talking-head style documentary, these shows reminisce in a misty-eyed fashion over a past aspect of popular culture. This may be a period (e.g. I Love 1973), or an artificial construct (e.g. The 50 Greatest One Hit Wonders – this one actually is in production now – you can vote at Channel4.com). Anyway, one of these featured some music journos from the early 90’s boasting how they would create "scenes". The particular example cited was the Camden Lurch, a few bands thrown together and sold as a scene, even though none existed. So, they used to write about these in Melody Maker or NME, and make bets over whether they could get away with it. Funnily enough, one of the leading lights of this non-existent scene, Th’ Faith Healers, have recently got back together, and are playing London later this week, having warmed up with a mini US tour and SxSW appearance.

But NME is no longer cutting edge, or a style-maker; gone are they days where entire movements could be willed into being in their offices, and then sold worldwide. In the UK today, there is a raft of more powerful sources shaping the future music scene than the inkies of old. But the real reason for all this conjecture is this – what do you do if you come across a new band who are genuinely impressive? How can you heap praise upon them without being accused of creating hype? Or be guilty of building a bandwagon for others to jump upon?

The other week I went along to see what Mark Gardener (ex-singer of Ride) was up to nowadays. It looked like a good bill - the support act for the evening was Televise, a group formed by ex-Slowdive member Simon Scott. What I didn’t expect was for the first band of the evening to capture me so completely. Now there’s something a little special about the crowd that goes to Club AC30 events. They’re not snobbish, elitist or overly judgmental; they just wanna hear good music. Yet even so, the way they warmed to the opening act Model Morning was astounding.

Put simply, Model Morning is one of the most accomplished and exciting new acts I’ve seen in a long while. While watching them, I recalled the famous story of U2’s first London gig – playing to a mere 17 people at Islington’s Anchor and Hope. Now I’m not going to compare the two, but Model Morning play big, emotional music, and I think that they won’t be playing small gigs like this for too long.

So, how to describe them? Well, there’s a lot of ‘80’s sound in there, mixed in with early ‘90’s shoegaze. There are the echo-y guitar effects of A Flock Of Seagulls, the strong backbone of bass lines in the style of Simon Gallup of The Cure, and a little of the vocal style of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis in the stylings of singer Peter Morley. Yet they are like none of these. I suppose they sound a little like how The Departure may have if that band had got it right.

Yet the band’s presence and assurance calls to mind The Strokes. Their arrangements seem surprisingly simple, but complexity and thought lie beneath the surface. The five members work so well together musically, complimenting each other and opening spaces for the songs to soar, or explode. The only thing holding them back at the moment is some awkward stagecraft. Afterwards I found out that this was only their second gig - it seems that they locked themselves away for a year rehearsing and honing the songs before playing live, so this will surely change.

So maybe it was just me who felt this way about them? Well, when the band came on stage, the dancefloor in front of the stage was virtually empty. People on it were standing as far back as they could, creating a great gulf between band and audience. As the set continued, people moved in closer, the applause after each song was more and more generous. By the end there were whoops and cheers, and undivided attention. Truly extraordinary.

If you search online, you won’t find much more about them than their MySpace site. But later this week they’ll be headlining Alan McGee’s Death Disco night, and Club AC30 will be releasing a six-track mini-album in the summer. They won’t be unknown for long. Remember you read about them here first.


© James McGalliard 2006

Who Will Buy?

London Fields # 23
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 22 February 2006
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here


February in the UK is a time of short days, grey skies and bitter cold. When there’s little incentive to go outside, what better time to reflect on what’s been worthwhile on television recently.

Whilst I’m enjoying US imports Bones, Monk and Battlestar Galactica, by far the best thing on at the moment is the BBC’s Life On Mars. Taking its title from the David Bowie song, it’s the tale of Manchester DI Sam Tyler (John Simm), who is knocked down by a car in 2006, and wakes up in 1973. With echoes of Vanilla Sky, it plays on a dilemma - did Sam travel back in time, or is everything happening some coma-induced fantasy? Made by Kudos [Spooks], the series looks great, has a killer soundtrack, and features witty, erudite scripts, and well-judged performances from a strong ensemble cast. Basically, it’s a hell of a lot of fun! The concept plays with the whole Euston Films [The Sweeney] genre, but with a sense of post-modern humour and irony, pitting Sam’s modern police methods against the hard-drinking back-to-basics approach of 70’s DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister). A second season has just been announced; let’s hope they don’t blow it. Maybe it’s no surprise that one of the three writer/creators has penned a story for the new season of Doctor Who. On the basis of Life On Mars, it’s looking good for the new Tennant in the Tardis.

Amongst all the reality bile, there have been not one but two separate documentaries recently chronicling the death of the British sitcom. One featured writer Carla Lane [The Liver Birds, Bread, Butterflies] bemoaning the end of her era, citing "unfunny" things such as The Young Ones as the cause of her demise. I certainly laughed more when media satirist Chris Morris had this same writer making a desperate appeal for the elephant who had its trunk stuck up its arse in the groundbreaking brassEye, than I ever did at her affected slices of life.

Last year, Morris returned to television with Nathan Barley, a collaboration with columnist Charlie Brooker (TVGoHome), which attempted to capture the scenster culture of the Hoxton Twat, but maybe a few years too late. Starring Julian [Boosh] Barratt as Dan Ashcroft, the features writer of Shoreditch zeitgeist mag Sugarape, it also featured Nicholas Burns as the trendsetter/follower of the title, Richard Ayoade [Garth Marenghi] and Nina Sosanya [Teachers]. While Morris co-wrote and directed the series, he never appeared in front of the camera.

But he does in The IT Crowd, the new sitcom from Graham Linehan [Father Ted, Black Books] in which he appears as the head of a large corporation, seemingly part homage to C J from The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. The humour here is quite broad, depicting the basement dwelling IT HelpDesk, and it is truly a traditional sitcom, shot on video, on brightly-lit sets and taped in front of a studio audience.

Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, who wrote the third series of Black Books, have come up with a sci-fi comedy Hyperdrive, which depicts the crew of the HMS Camden Lock, as they try to sell Britain to the Universe in 2151. Once again a great ensemble cast - Nick Frost (Spaced), Miranda Hart, stand-up Dan Antopolski and Paterson Joseph, while Kevin Eldon (Nighty Night, Big Train) shines as the unhinged security officer - creates a good feel even if the show itself doesn’t reach great comic heights.

Taking interior dialogue to its ultimate expression, Peep Show follows the lives of flatmates Mark and Jeremy, played by Robert Webb and David Mitchell. Not only do we hear everything they think, the show is also shot from their point of view. In 2004, this original, inventive and cripplingly funny show won the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux for best sitcom. Usually shows begin to falter after a while, but writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain have kept up the high standards throughout three series; sadly poor ratings may spell the end of production. There’s some comfort as David Mitchell and Robert Webb have just shot a TV pilot for a new sketch show for BBC Two, adapted from their Radio 4 series That Mitchell and Webb Sound.

Jesse Armstrong also co-created The Thick Of It with Armando Iannucci [brassEye, Alan Partridge], and the show beat both Extras and Help to win Best New TV Comedy of 2005 at the British Comedy Awards. Whereas Yes, Minister painted a cosy world of the same bureaucrats running the country, regardless of which party was in power, the spin of new Labour has begotten a comedy with teeth which paints a much bleaker vision. Often seeming more like a documentary, it shows policies made ‘on the hoof’ and spin doctors who create news and sack ministers as they feel appropriate. Chris Langham may have beaten Ricky Gervais and the Little Britain team to win BCA’s Best Television Comedy Actor for his performance as minister Hugh Abbot, but the shining jewel is a bravura performance by Peter Capaldi as Scottish enforcer Malcolm Tucker. Maggie Thatcher claimed Yes, Minister was her favourite programme; I bet The Thick Of It scares the pants of her!

© James McGalliard 2006