BOOK REVIEW: Bowie Odyssey 75 by Simon Goodard

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in May 2025.

Bowie Odyssey 75, Simon Goddard, out now, Omnibus Press, £17.99

In the year of our Dame 1975, David Bowie was a sleepwalking cadaver in the blizzard-grip of cocaine addiction. Lost between New York and LA, and nowhere near reality, his psychotic, paranoid delusions were fuelled by a growing obsession with the Third Reich and all things occult.

A coven of witches haunted his every move. Satan lived in his swimming pool. The fridge was stocked with bottles of his own urine, lest the forces of evil steal it (for reasons only known to himself).

This is the David Bowie we meet in Bowie Odyssey 75, the sixth volume of Simon Goddard’s monumental year-by-year account of our hero’s eventful golden decade.

For those unfamiliar with the series, do not expect a conventional biography. Prepare yourselves instead for an utterly riveting and beautifully written piece of expressionistic docu-fiction all told in the propulsive present tense. Goddard places us inside Bowie’s addled mind while exploring – in meticulously researched and sometimes harrowing detail – thematic parallels with certain key events of 1975.

Nestling amid this swirling rotten funk of fame, fascism, murder, drugs, madness, mass unemployment and rampant Rollermania are the book’s other main characters: Bowie’s long-suffering and LOUD wife Angie; his agonisingly lonely and worried mother Peggy; nascent punk Svengali and shameless opportunist Malcolm McLaren; Tory leader Margaret Thatcher marching towards her everlasting reign of terror; Hitler-obsessed serial killer Patrick Mackay; and the leather mask-wearing ‘Cambridge Rapist’ Peter Samuel Cook.

Goddard ties these strands together to conjure up a vivid hellscape in which Bowie created his latest blurred lines persona, the fascistic, foppish Thin White Duke, while not really having to act at all in the role of a burned-out alabaster alien in Nicolas Roeg’s cult classic The Man Who Fell to Earth.

If that all sounds rather dark, well yes, it is, but it’s often very funny in an unflinching tragicomic way. A deadly serious, dirt-encrusted pop culture farce. Goddard is an irreverent yet fundamentally empathetic socio-political historian and storyteller. He’s a Bowie fan who isn’t blind to his subject’s faults, but who can also wax rapturously, and perceptively, about his art (Bowie somehow made one of his greatest albums, Station to Station, in 1975). Hyperbole be damned, Goddard’s unfolding odyssey is an idiosyncratic masterpiece.

DERRY GIRLS + HOUSE OF MAXWELL + WORLDS COLLIDE: THE MANCHESTER BOMBING

This article was originally published in The Courier on 9th April 2022.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Derry Girls – Tuesday, Channel 4, 9:15pm

The third and final series of Lisa McGee’s semiautobiographical sitcom begins with the gang nervously awaiting their potentially life-changing GCSE results. Such is their anxiety, they impetuously decide upon an unwise course of action. Inadvertent criminality ensues. 

Derry Girls is Channel 4’s most popular comedy since Father Ted, and you can easily see why. It’s warm, funny, charming and truthful, a perfectly cast sitcom set against a tumultuous backdrop which, thanks to McGee’s deft writing, never once strayed into sentimental or earnest territory. 

This particular episode returns to the underlying theme of sectarianism, but typically in a way no one could ever find offensive. Well, apart from the 1990s Derry police force perhaps. Also, two words: surprise cameo.

House of Maxwell – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

And the awful plot just thickens. Episode two of this disturbing series begins with the discovery of Robert Maxwell’s drowned body. His distraught daughter Ghislaine, who has hitherto maintained a low public profile, speaks to the world’s assembled press. 

Meanwhile, panicked executives within Maxwell’s empire are finally free to investigate suspicious holes in their company finances. An intrepid young journalist is also on the case. Maxwell is eventually exposed as a monstrous fraudster. 

The programme also traces Ghislaine Maxwell’s emergence as a schmoozing socialite with friends in high places. One of her new cohorts is the mysterious multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein. 

A miasmic saga populated by truly despicable people, House of Maxwell triggers strong feelings of anger and despair.

Worlds Collide: The Manchester Bombing – Monday and Thursday, STV, 9pm

On 22^nd May 2017, a British-born terrorist detonated a suicide bomb at the Manchester Arena. He killed 22 people and injured more than 1,000 others. 

This two-part documentary pays moving tribute to the victims and survivors. It’s also a damning critique of Greater Manchester Police, who were allegedly responsible for a chaotic breakdown in communication which impeded the emergency services. More lives could’ve been saved. 

These programmes also investigate the background of the bomber, a young man from Manchester, and attempts to explain how he came to be radicalised. MI5 had flagged him up as a potential threat to national security, and yet he somehow went on to commit this atrocity. 

The message is clear: it could’ve been prevented.

Hullraisers – Tuesday, Channel 4, 9:45pm

Channel 4’s Tuesday night comedy power hour continues after Derry Girls with this new sitcom co-created by Lucy Beaumont (Meet the Richardsons). 

Set in her hometown of Hull, it revolves around Toni, a happily married yet frustrated thirtysomething mum who misses the wildness of her untethered youth. Toni’s best friends are a libidinous policewoman and a perfectly contented matriarch. 

The opening episode of every sitcom faces a tough climb. Over the space of 30 minutes it has to establish the premise, the characters and the various things that drive them. Hullraisers does a pretty decent job. It’s good-natured and amusing. The characters are sympathetic. A laugh riot? No. But mirthsome skirmishes are hard to come by.

Grand Designs: The Streets – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

In this spin-off from Kevin McCloud’s stalwart lifestyle show, he visits an ever-expanding community of self-builders. Seven years ago, an Oxfordshire district council sold ten plots of land to members of the public. An ambitious architectural project ensued. 

Episode one focuses on Carlos and Maite. The latter has always wanted to build a grand house inspired by her rural Spanish homeland, but she has no formal design training. Nevertheless, McCloud is impressed by her elegant if somewhat risky vision. 

Fans of Grand Designs always look forward to those moments when the host regards his subjects with wry scepticism, bordering on contempt, but Maite is nobody’s fool. McCloud is even moved to describe her as a nonconformist pioneer.

Brickies – Thursday, BBC Three, 9pm

The building site fun continues in this sunny new factual series about a group of young British bricklayers. The main protagonist in episode one is Jeorgia. Laying bricks is in her blood, she learned everything she knows from her successful brickie father. 

Jeorgia lives with her boyfriend in a large static caravan situated on her parent’s land. She’s saving up to buy an expensive car. If Brickies teaches us anything, it’s that this is a potentially lucrative business. Just as long as you put the hours in. 

Jeorgia and her bantering colleagues are a nice bunch of kids. They all appear to be loving life, and no wonder. Working on the site from morning ‘til night, that’s living alright.

Taskmaster – Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

Series thirteen of this genial harlequinade introduces another group of professional funsters intent on conquering daft tasks set by Greg Davies and his co-host Alex Horne. 

Your competitors this time around are Bridget Christie, Sophie Duker, Judi Love, Ardal O’Hanlon and Chris Ramsey. Highlights include their efforts to paint a portrait of Davies using only their lips – some of the finished products are actually quite impressive – and a task in which they get to lay down the ridiculous rules of a duel with Horne. 

In spite of its post-watershed slot, Taskmaster is wholesome fun for all the family. Channel 4 are aware of this, hence why they bleep out the swearing. It’s a big hit for good reason.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Thatcher & Reagan: A Very Special Relationship – Sunday 3rd April, BBC Two

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were in power together throughout the 1980s. They were closely aligned in terms of political philosophy. And they apparently liked each other on a personal level. This series examines their union. 

It’s presented by Charles Moore, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph and Thatcher’s authorised biographer, so obviously it has a right-wing bias. Moore admires these people. But even a milksop hippie clown such as myself can appreciate the heft of this fascinating saga. It covers a tense and dramatic period in late 20^th century history. 

Moore’s interviewees include some of Thatcher and Reagan’s closest professional associates. Their candour is quite refreshing. I guess they have nothing to lose at this stage.

Pilgrimage: The Road to the Scottish Isles – Friday 8th April, BBC Two

This series has a straightforward remit: seven celebs with differing religious beliefs embark upon a 15-day hike of spiritual self-discovery. Among the seekers this year are Laurence Lewellyn Bowen (a Pagan), Nick Hewer (an agnostic), Shazia Mirza (a Muslim) and Scarlett Moffatt (a Christian). 

They’re following in the sandaled footsteps of St. Columba, an Irish monk revered for his pivotal role in the early development of British Christianity. The journey began in Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. Their final destination is St. Columba’s abbey on the Inner Hebridean island of Iona. 

It’s an entirely sincere and benign endeavour, a modest celebration of theological diversity. With a slightly One Show-esque celebrity angle, because, y’know, television. 

 

 

TV Review: THE '80s WITH DOMINIC SANDBROOK + VERSUS: THE FILMS OF KEN LOACH

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 6 August 2016.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

The ‘80s with Dominic Sandbrook: Thursday, BBC Two

Versus: The Films of Ken Loach: Saturday, BBC Two

  

Unless you happen to be a wealthy capitalist such as pop star Tony Blair or war criminal Gary Barlow, most rational people agree that Margaret Thatcher was the worst thing that ever happened to this country.

She destroyed British industry. She trampled over the poor. She encouraged a blind philosophy of selfishness and greed which led directly to the chaos of our miserably divided modern age.

That’s not subjective opinion, it’s a matter of historical fact. Or so I thought until my perceptions were altered to mind-blowing effect by The ‘80s with Dominic Sandbrook.

According to the maverick historian, despite what you may have thought in your blissful, woolly ignorance, Thatcher didn’t forge the consumerist boom of the ‘80s. She was merely reacting to it. If anyone is to blame for what happened during that destructive decade, it’s you, the avaricious consumer, not poor, benighted Mrs T.

Sandbrook, in typically rebellious style, didn’t actually support this leftfield theory with any persuasive evidence. He didn’t need to. The man has some sort of degree, he obviously knows what he’s talking about.

Sure, his programmes may look like glib, superficial overviews of a complex subject in which he presents dubious right-wing conjecture as objective fact. But that’s only because we’ve become brainwashed by “experts” who favour qualified rigour over self-consciously challenging revisionism. Michael Gove, as always, was right.

With his glasses, tank-top and reassuringly bald bonce, Sandbrook has the mien of an affable college lecturer. He seems harmless. But don’t be fooled by his disarming act. He’s Columbo, if Columbo had forgone a career apprehending wealthy criminals in methodical detail to pursue the far more important task of skewering received wisdom with the haphazard precision of an attention-seeking assassin.   

Cynics might argue that Sandbrook’s central theory that Delia Smith, not Margaret Thatcher, was the most powerfully influential woman in ‘80s Britain, is an example of contrary posturing at its most egregiously self-satisfied. To those people I’d say this: when was the last time you manufactured an ill-informed opinion for money on BBC Two? You’re just jealous.

History, as they say, is written by its Blue Peter competition winners. Sandbrook has more than earned his badge.

One can only imagine Ken Loach’s reaction to Sandbrook’s tract. I hope he didn’t electrocute himself by smashing a sensibly-shoed foot through his television.

The transmission of Versus: The Films of Ken Loach just two days after Sandbrook’s apologist guff felt like an accidental effort by the BBC to honour their commitment to balance.

This elegant, insightful, touching profile of one of Britain’s greatest film/television directors and “left-wing firebrands” highlighted the difficulties he’s faced over a remarkable, and inspiring, 50-year career.

Equal parts social justice campaigner and cinema artisan, Loach has always been driven by determined moral outrage and compassion. But his best work never feels didactic. Truth and humanity are always paramount.

Sometimes, that’s a questionable approach. Did he really need to film the wee, tear-stained boys from Kes being caned for real during an admittedly powerful scene? He can be ruthless in his pursuit of authenticity.

During Sandbrook’s beloved Thatcher years, Loach was reduced to directing McDonald’s adverts for money. “That sits really badly on my conscience,” winced the self-effacing Marxist nation-hater.

Nevertheless, like Sherlock and Moriarty, Loach and Sandbrook have much in common. Both disguise their true motives behind an unassuming, genteel veneer.

The key difference is that Loach actually lives in the real world.