Archives for June 2009

There aren't many entertainers whose deaths could prompt wall-to-wall coverage on media outlets all over the world.

But then Michael Jackson was unique.

In musical terms, the hyperbole is legitimate - he was quite simply an international legend.

For all those who think the coverage is excessive, there are millions of others who have danced to or listened to his music, seen him perform and loved him. And for these people, this is an epochal moment.

There will inevitably be a continuing, prurient interest in his tragic flaws as a human being; but it is as a profoundly groundbreaking talent that he should be remembered.

His voice as a child was extraordinary - he had an unusually adult feel for soul music.

Music journalists such as the late John Peel, Paul Gambaccini and Richard Williams who were present at the Talk of the Town promotional tour in the early 1970s, were dazzled by the showmanship and natural talent the youngster displayed.

After his voice broke, he continued to impress with his vibrato and phrasing.

It is rare to move from childhood fame to success as an adult. But to do it in the way Michael Jackson did underlined his genius.

Much is always made of his 1982 album Thriller and yes, it was brilliant, but to my mind his first big solo album - 1979's Off the Wall - is one of the greatest albums of all time.

It is an album which heralded Michael Jackson's arrival as a major star, but it did much more in terms of musical legacy. It was a watershed moment.

With Quincy Jones as producer, the album married R&B with pop in a way that had never been done before and it was a portent of the dominance of R&B in the charts in the 1980s and 1990s.

It was the slickness and catchiness of the tunes that marked Jackson's style and produced four US top 10 singles including number ones Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough and Rock With You.

Thriller built on that but did something utterly inspirational and smart - he fused black R&B with white rock to produce the best-selling album of all time.

It made Jackson the first truly cross-cultural international superstar.

Of course, I haven't even touched on his awe-inducing dancing, which was both fluid and instinctive. And it made him seem otherwordly.

His musical influence has been long lasting; Michael Jackson's talent has become part of the DNA of popular music and while there is much sadness in his passing, his presence and groundbreaking legacy will linger.

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The purists could be up in arms, but perhaps there won't be too many of them. Taking its cue from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the National Theatre in London will on Thursday embark on an ambitious experiment. It will launch its pilot season of NT Live, broadcasting live performances of plays onto cinema screens in the UK and around the world.

Nearly 300 cinemas around the world (73 in the UK) will see a live performance of Jean Racine's Phedre (in a translation by Ted Hughes), with Helen Mirren in the title role. This performance will be beamed live via satellite from the National theatre, using five cameras.

Phedre is the story of a woman consumed by an uncontrollable passion for her young stepson - and thinking her absent husband, Theseus, to be dead, confesses her darkest desires.

When I asked the director Nick Hytner why he chose this play, he said two words: "Helen Mirren".

If this could work with anyone, it would work with her selling it - and she does, in trailers in cinemas up and down the country, mainstream, selective Odeons and Vue cinemas, as well as more art house venues. And why this play? It is, according to Hytner, a purely theatrical experience, but will not and should not be viewed as a film for those sitting in cinemas.

It is more like the equivalent of watching a live sporting event. Phedre is certainly an intense evening at the theatre, and there isn't much in the way of action; it is emotional and requires a serious attentiveness.

There has always been an issue with filming theatrical productions; directors tend to hate it because it makes the productions look flat. But Hytner is a convert in this instance, for two reasons: he thinks that the National can - and should - reach as wide an audience as possible; and the technology, he believes, gives a clarity and resolution which makes it feel "live" for the cinema-going audience.

Subsequent productions coming to a cinema screen near you will be Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well; Nation, based on a Terry Prachett novel and adapted by Mark Ravenhill, and Alan Bennett's new play, The Habit of Art, with Michael Gambon, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour.

The Met's experiment is hugely successful. Opera is beamed live into 800-plus cinemas around the world. But it costs money. Each production the National does this with will cost £120,000 and, although it is sponsored, the National hopes tickets sales will be able to sustain it in the longer term.

The reach of the National Theatre's productions will certainly increase; ticket sales for the first Phedre cinema performance are currently 71%. But will there be a cost in terms of quality of experience? And is that just a precious perspective? Of course, making artistic work as widely accessible as possible, especially when funded by the taxpayer, is a good thing. But is it being done at the expense of the actual experience of the art form? And would it be complacent to accept that theatre will always be for a niche audience?

In some respects this is a good example of how innovative the creative industries can be; using technology to stay relevant and create new audiences, and the proof, as ever will be with the number of bums on seats.

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Is there is a difference between the ownership of culture and the ownership of particular artefacts? I have been mulling this over while thinking about the significance of the opening of the new Acropolis museum in Athens on Saturday.

The structure is Greece's answer to the British argument that there is nowhere in their country to house the Elgin marbles, the sculptures taken from the Parthenon's frieze and brought to the UK, two hundred years ago.

Architect Bernard Tschumi's glass and concrete building will house the stones Greece still has as its centrepiece, in a glass gallery which is angled to complement the angle of the Parthenon temple three hundred metres above it. And plaster replicas of the stones in the British museum will sit next to those Greece has in its possession.

The British Museum is willing to lend their bit of the Elgin marbles in theory, but the Greeks have to refused to acknowledge that the British museum is the legal owner of the artefacts. It is a controversy which matters because it forces us to debate the issue of culture and globalism - even though, in the case of the Elgin marbles, it sometimes feels as though it is more akin to a school playground spat.

Where do you stand on this issue? Should the Elgin marbles go back to Greece, or stay in the British Museum? Is that even the right question?

Shouldn't the question be how do we deal with culture in a globalised world; how do we deal with monuments that have global significance?

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From last night's News at Ten: Some of the biggest names in stage, screen and design are calling for greater recognition of the key role played by Britain's creative industries.

The National Campaign for the Arts met in London today and called for greater investment in one of Britain's big business success stories.

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Could the creative industries provide innovative models which will make this sector not just resilient in the current economic climate, but allow it to flourish?

There are economists who think this is happening already. Recent research from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) suggests that the cultural sector will grow by 4% between 2009 and 2013 - double the estimate for the rest of the economy.

There are parts of this sector which are clearly feeling the effects of the recession, such as architecture and advertising. But others, like the video games industry, are burgeoning. There is a skills shortage, however, which means companies such as RealTime Worlds, in Dundee, run by Dave Jones (he created the original Grand Theft Auto), are having to look abroad for employees. Yet the currently available University courses on video games technology are over-subscribed. Surely, this is an area where the government should be looking to invest?

I've been talking to Lord Puttnam about this and he is a passionate advocate of investing in the creative industries. He thinks they are where young people want to work and argues that the government dismisses their potential at its peril. This goes to the heart of an argument that historically presents the arts community as whingeing luvvies. In fact, the reality is that the creative industries will by 2013 employ 1.3 million people and the wealth generated by these industries could reach £85 billion. It is the economic case for the arts that those in the creative industries need to make.

The National Campaign For The Arts has launched its arts manifesto today which includes a section on the economy: "To maximise the sector's potential, governments should commit to investment over a longer funding cycle of five years, more in line with established business planning". That's one thing, but the creative industries also need to make a case for funding connected with private investment. If the state funding diminishes, so will private sponsorship, so it's in the interests of the state to maintain investment.

The UK is uniquely good at creativity and innovation. Even in difficult times, institutions such as the National Theatre are innovating. Their NT Live project, which will project Racine's Phedre with Helen Mirren, live into 70 cinema screens around the UK, creates a new model to increase audiences.

For many bold enough to say so, the creative industries can be part of the solution to get the economy out of recession.

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You can watch my report from "the Olympic games of the art world" below.

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Art from 77 countries can be an intimidating prospect; every couple of years, the Venice Biennale tries to outdo itself as the most important gathering of the art world.

This year's British Pavilion - which has hosted the finest of artists from Henry Moore, Lucien Freud and David Hockney - champions a man who although garlanded with awards, is far from a household name.

Steve McQueen has won the Turner Prize (for his homage to Buster Keaton) and the Camera D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his first feature film, Hunger (about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands). At the Biennale, he is showing a short film (though he was quick to correct me when I asked him about it: "It's not a film, it's a work of art", he said.) It's about the Giardini, Venice's public gardens which house the international pavilions where much of the art is shown every other year.

Not much happens in the film, but it is a slow contemplative film full of love and longing, lingering as it does on rain failing on stones; a snail; greyhound dogs circling each other and an old woman with a trolley wandering around looking for cats to feed. It also seems to be a comment on the ordinariness of the public gardens which every two years are opened to the air kissing art world and its hangers-on, transforming the space into a carnival of art.

While the film has had the art world and critics in raptures, I did wonder about its appeal beyond that, let's face it, small, privileged group of people. Once they have disappeared, the Biennale will open to the public until November. Would love to hear what they make of it.

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Most reality television is in some respects exploitative. And it is naive for the producers of Britain's Got Talent to pretend that the contestants choose what happens to them because they are chasing a mythical dream.

Susan Boyle is a real person. Her "realness" is what intrigued and drew millions of people to her performance on video sharing sites like Youtube. She is as unexpected a star as they come - not airbrushed and not manufactured. But the show that has made her and now possibly broken her, is as manufactured as you can be in the reality television genre.

The programme is, of course, about unearthing talent and creating an entertaining television show. But it is the back stories of the contestants that make the show what it is. And while Susan Boyle's back story has been manna from heaven for the producers of the show, they have failed to seriously consider the impact of the extreme arc of fame she has experienced. They have benefitted from her story and must have known how she might cope with becoming an instant celebrity, being praised and then quite quickly pilloried.

She is a singer, that's all. A woman with a big, lyrical voice. And while she has wanted to realise her dream of becoming a singer, the price she is paying now is surely too high. And this has become an international phenomenon, not just because it had all the ingredients of a Cinderella story, but because we now live in a Twittering, Facebooking and YouTubing world, where we talk about anything and everything simply because we can.

And when we do, we are as responsible for fuelling the international conversation which, in this case, has made a rather damaging impact on an individual, who just a few weeks ago was unknown outside her own circle.

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