Category Archives: Film

➤ Double whammy for cabaret comeback Eve

Posted on 9 Jan 2014 | 1 comment

Eve Ferret ,David Stewart, Stray, London Short Film Festival , ICA

Eve Ferret in David Stewart’s film, Stray, which is in the London Short Film Festival January 10-19, at the ICA. The LSFF is an annual event that showcases some of the best short-film making talent in the UK

❚ TODAY’S HOT NEWS from cabaret artiste, Eve Ferret:

“ I hate crowing but I want to share with you that we have got into the London Short Film Festival with a film called Stray which was my concept and art direction alongside Mark Summerfield… Blah Blah and I appear alongside Dudley Sutton, Jenny Runacre. The director is the wonderful David Stewart. It is being shown on January 12 under Left Field And Luscious at the ICA of all places. You can see a trailer for it here.

“ Plus I just got Best Comeback The Stage (as you know, I hadn’t performed for over 15 years) which I think is blinkin hilarious as it makes me sound like return of the 50ft woman and my Fabaret is back on again on Sundays January 12 and 19 at the fabulous Crazy Coqs in London – tickets via Brasserie Zedel or 0207 734 4888. “Oh the ferret is a crowing.” I’m gonna be whacked with a wet fish for doing so but there you go. Love Eve xx ”

Former Blitz Kid Eve Ferret in her recent Fabaret in London

➢ More about Eve at the Blitz club

litz club cabaret , Biddie & Eve, James Biddlecombe ,Eve Ferret, Blitz Club

Blitz club cabaret duo James (Biddie) Biddlecombe and Eve Ferret snapped in 1977 by artist Richard Walker

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Posted in Culture, Film, London

Tagged Biddie & Eve, Blitz Kids, cabaret, David Stewart, Eve Ferret, ICA, London Short Film Festival, Richard Walker, Stray, Video

1959 ➤ When beans defined bohos and cappuccino tasted of coffee

Posted on 5 Jul 2013 | Leave a comment

The Look at Life tour starts at the 2I’s in Old Compton Street: click to run video in a new window

➢ Tour the bohemian coffee bars of London on film

❚ FROM SMALL COFFEE BEANS a mighty fad exploded. The documentary film clip, above, immaculately preserved in rich Eastmancolor, takes us on a tour of Soho in 1959. The distinctly arch voice-over tells us: “ The coffee bar boom in Britain began in 1952 when the first espresso machine arrived from Italy and set up in London’s Soho. They reckoned that a cup costing tuppence to make could be sold for ninepence to 1s 6d [about £3 in today’s money], according to the trimmings. But for every three coffee bars that opened up, two closed down… ” / Continued at YouTube

CLICK ANY PIC TO LAUNCH CAROUSEL:

Frith Street, Soho, in 1959

Intellectuals are drawn to Le Macabre coffee bar in Soho

Bohemians frequent the French coffee bar

Home of rock’n’roll: Jive cats at the 2I’s in Old Compton Street

With the arrival of ITV in the mid-50s, the UK’s two television channels competed to bring the day’s news into living rooms. In Britain’s cinemas the Rank Organisation responded in 1959 with the weekly magazine Look at Life, a series of light-hearted short films to precede the main feature on their Odeon and Gaumont circuit. This episode, titled Coffee Bar, takes us inside a few of Soho’s many haunts that took care to attract their own social segment: at the 2I’s in the basement of 59 Old Compton Street, live rock groups ensured a young clientele of jive cats, for example, while artists hung out at The French, intellectuals at the Macabre, politicos at Le Partisan, while writers and actors favoured Legrain.

Fifty years on, you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish one Soho bar’s customers from another’s – rather like the vile burnt cinders they all sell in the name of “coffee”. One sad consequence is to see the genuinely delicious stuff being edged off our supermarket shelves, presumably driven out by tastebuds destroyed in the high-street branded coffee shops.

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Posted in Film, London, Social trends

Tagged 1950s, 1960s, 2I’s, bohemia, Coffee Bar, espresso, Look at Life, Soho, Video

➤ Book now for the Bowie finale – if you can

Posted on 24 Jun 2013 | Leave a comment

❚ DAVID BOWIE IS A LIVE NATIONWIDE cinema event   at 7pm on August 13 as the finale to the V&A’s successful exhibition, when special guests offer insights into the stories behind the artefacts from the Bowie Archive.

It is to be screened in 19 UK cinemas named today by Picturehouse Entertainment.  Members’ priority booking started from today Monday June 24, and the public get what’s left on Friday June 28. So if we are to judge from the V&A’s track record of Bowie-related talks and special events at the Museum itself, this will mean none at all.

V&A Director Martin Roth is deluded if he thinks – as his quote suggests in today’s announcement – that he is reaching “the widest possible audience” when tickets to these 19 tiny cinemas are on sale for four priority days to V&A Members and Picturehouse Members, before being offered to Joe Public.

The biggest cinema at Greenwich Picturehouse, for example, seats only 174 people! “Wide” that is not.

❏ Update June 24 – the Victoria and Albert Museum replies: “We will be announcing further cinemas on Friday when all tickets go on sale. It will be screened at over 200 cinemas nationwide – the first 4 days of booking are Picturehouse Cinemas only. Do check back on the website for new cinemas as we confirm them.”

❏ Shapersofthe80s comments: At a generous estimate, then, going by the Greenwich auditorium, this event might eventually be seen at 200 cinemas by up to 4,000 people. The V&A claims that the Bowie exhibition itself has received nearly 200,000 visits – so it’s an absurd imaginative leap to suggest that a further 4,000 people represent “the widest possible audience”. His marketing department should choose museum Director Martin Roth’s sound-bites for him with more care.

Tickets for Joe Public are apparently only available direct from participating cinemas – not online – from Friday 28th priced £10–£14 and do not yet appear on the museum’s map. Fans lucky enough to be in fulltime employment on Friday will thus have to wait till Saturday morning to hightail it to the selected cinema in their nearest big town. Do any of these museum people lead real lives?

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Posted in Culture, Film, London, Media, Pop music

Tagged Blitz Kids, cinema, David Bowie, David Bowie Is, events, Joe Public, Martin Roth, Picturehouse Entertainment, V&A

➤ Revealed! The crucial Bowie diary date: May 25

Posted on 19 May 2013 | Leave a comment

❚ FRANCIS WHATELY’S DOCUMENTARY FILM David Bowie, Five Years: The Making Of An Icon has a transmission date – next Saturday on BBC2 at 9.20pm and next week’s Radio Times is publishing a cover feature. Beautifully edited, in both sound and vision, the 90-minute film explores five pivotal years in the singer’s career – 1971, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983 – and features interviews with Bowie’s collaborators. Here’s the trailer:
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➢ Update May 26: Catch up on iPlayer with David Bowie, Five Years – A consummate TV documentary with unseen footage in pristine quality adds lustre to the current golden age for music docs … Watch Bowie’s musical collaborators on camera showing how they created their classic riffs… Wakeman on piano! Carlos on everything! Nile saying “I was as nervous as hell” Deeply satisfying.

➢ Update: Bowie from the horse’s mouth – director Francis Whately tells Ariel how his film is unique

➢ David Bowie, Five Years – previews at Uncut’s blog

➢ Early footage of Bowie showed how his then-wife Angie helped to build his reputation – at the Daily Telegraph

➢ Five remarkable encounters with Ziggy Stardust are revealed for the first time in a new TV film – at the Daily Mail

➢ David Bowie photographs by Masayoshi Sukita on show again June 28–July 27 at Snap, London SW1Y 6NH

1973 BOWIE TV REPORT EXHUMED

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➢ Nationwide part two: filmed in 1973 for BBC TV, it includes backstage reports from the May 25 show at Bournemouth Winter Gardens, UK

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Posted in Film, London, Media, Pop music, TV

Tagged Ariel, Carlos Alomar, David Bowie, documentary, Five Years, Francis Whately, Nationwide, trailer, Vintage

➤ Rusty and Steve raise a storm on the Croisette

Posted on 17 May 2013 | Leave a comment

Canvas-Club on the beach opposite Carlton Cannes hotel

❚ IN CANNES FOR THE FILM FESTIVAL TONIGHT? So are former 80s Blitz Kids, club deejay Rusty Egan and Spandau Ballet’s sax-percussionist Steve Norman, and you can catch their storming double act at the pop-up Canvas-Club on the beach opposite Carlton Cannes hotel, on the Croisette May 17–19… Then the pair move off to Ibiza where they perform fortnightly at the Nassau Beach Club on Playa D’en Bossa from May to Sept.

STEVE NORMAN RINGS IN TO REPORT:

“ Our first night was pretty relaxed. Cannes during the film festival feels fantastic. There are full-on business meetings day and night in the Canvas-Club where we’re jamming. The last time I was here was 2009 when Spandau announced we were going to make a film (and that is due out next year). But there was a completely different vibe at the Midem music festival where people do deals all day then let themselves go at night. For the film business it’s all deals. They’re not a club crowd, so we adapt accordingly.

“ Rusty is brilliant at gauging the audience’s mood, making a seamless transition from dinner table to dancefloor. He warmed up the dinner session lifting the pace gradually, then I rocked up about 10pm vibing on top of his music to kick things off into a Latin fury. We play a soulful mix of house music, quite funky but definitely not retro. Next we’re off to Ibiza – my second home, where I left a little piece of me – and we’re appearing fortnightly on Mondays at Nassau Beach Club from May 27 through till September. These places are springing up all over. It used to be a beach bar and has mushroomed into a nightclub on the sand. People will be chilling by day, then going for it by night. ”

Rusty Egan, Steve Norman, DJ, Cannes, Ibiza

Rusty and Steve: discs, drums, percussion and sax!

➢ The Canvas-Club in Cannes requires membership – Restaurant service during the day, bar service with star deejays in the evenings.

➢ While he’s away catch Rusty’s Electricity Club radio show broadcast every Friday from midnight till 2am on Mi-Soul.com

➢ Catch up with Rusty’s Electricity Club shows on demand

➢ Catch up with Steve Norman at Facebook

Rusty adds: “I have been very busy writing and recording new music under the title Welcome to the Dancefloor and will be ready to release some stuff very soon. Visit Soundcloud to sample some.”