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16 years of alcohol
16 years of alcohol interview
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Richard Jobson turns director.

Ex-Skids frontman, one-time model, sometime poet and writer, former film critic, now filmmaker - you can’t say Richard Jobson has played it safe. Discussing his “semi-autobiographical” directorial debut, 16 Years of Alcohol, adapted from his own 80s novel, he’s well aware of potential scepticism from other hacks.

“I was aware of people’s preconceptions about what I’d done in the past, but for me it all made perfect sense,” he reasons. “People were maybe thinking, ‘Well who does this guy think he is? Is this going to be some kind of Dave Stewart monstrosity, y’know?’ It’s fair game, though. I would have felt the same.”

What he’s produced is a poetic, highly personal and stylized study of an alcoholic, Frankie Mac (the excellent Kevin McKidd), at war with his working-class surroundings, his friends and mainly himself: far more Ratcatcher than Trainspotting, which didn’t help the funding process.



“We have a fabulous tradition of gritty kitchen-sink dramas,” he surmises. “But I saw the film as being heightened and dreamlike and odd. It was a real struggle to keep the narration in. Someone said to me, ‘A man from that socio-economic background would never be as poetic as that.’ Which was pretty insulting.”

Having garnered respectful reviews, Jobson has already finished his follow-up, a futuristic martial arts flick called The Purifiers (“A homage to the B-movies that I love”), and started prepping other projects. So has his film critic hat finally been mothballed? “I still watch everything,” he admits. “And I really watch how people review stuff much more now than I used to, ‘cos I see it from every which way. Most reviewers don’t consider how much work it is, two years work for no money and two paragraphs: ‘another piece of British crap’. But in essence I’ve never been happier.”


Leigh Singer 30 July 04
16 Years Of Alcohol, on selected release 30 July 04.
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