TV Review: SMILE! THE NATION'S FAMILY ALBUM + MEET THE LORDS

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 18 March 2017.

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

SMILE! THE NATION’S FAMILY ALBUM: Thursday, BBC Four

MEET THE LORDS: Monday, BBC Two

In People Take Pictures of Each Other, the closing track from The Kinks’ classic Village Green Preservation Society album, Ray Davies strikes a typically ambiguous pose on the subject of sentimental family snapshots.

“People take pictures of the summer/Just in case someone thought they had missed it/Just to prove that they really existed.”

The makers of SMILE! THE NATION’S FAMILY ALBUM missed a trick by neglecting to include Davies’ elegy on the soundtrack, as it neatly encapsulates the bittersweet theme of this warm, poignant documentary.

An engaging piece of social history viewed through the lens of ordinary British families, it examined our deep emotional need – our anxious desperation, some might argue – to freeze treasured memories in time. From cradle to grave, we document our lives as a way of creating narratives which, while not necessarily false as such, tend to favour happier moments.

Contributors included a couple who’ve amassed 20,000 images of their lives together over the last fifty years, plus a proud father who snapped a portrait of his son every day from the moment he was born until his 21^st birthday. Having attracted 6.5 million views on YouTube, they’ve vowed to continue their obsessive project by each taking a daily selfie for the rest of their lives.

Despite its celebratory surface, the programme couldn’t disguise the nagging undercurrent of sadness one sometimes gets from revisiting more innocent, carefree times. That Proustian rush of nostalgia is a double-edged sword.

There’s something uniquely evocative about the sunshine captured in faded Polaroid snapshots, especially when it beams upon loved ones who’ve since passed away. These images trigger powerful memories, which often help families to deal with personal loss.

My only issue with this otherwise charming programme was its unquestioningly positive assessment of our modern digital age, in which amateur photographers seemingly never stop sharing fragments of their lives online.

While the immediacy of smartphone technology has its benefits, it stops people from living in the moment – put down your phones and absorb your surroundings! - while encouraging tedious narcissists to wallow in the mistaken belief that every detail of their existence is profoundly interesting.

What’s the point of a life defined, not by experience and memory, but by the number of ‘likes’ it received on Instagram and FaceBook?

As Davies’ warbled presciently in 1968: “Don’t show me no more, please…”

The final episode of MEET THE LORDS, an observational documentary offering unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to our hallowed gravy train of unelected peers, reminded me that Black Rod has the sweetest gig in Westminster.

He’s only really called into service – and I use that term loosely – during the state opening of Parliament. So what does this liquorice-legged layabout do for the rest of the year?

If the aim of this series was to cement the dispiriting image of Britain as an absurd nation governed by privileged clowns in liveried robes – they look like desiccated Time Lords - then it was an unqualified success. 

The failure of the House to reform itself from within was laughably exposed when the outgoing Lord Speaker abandoned her investigation into outrageous expenses claims, as she felt her findings would cause an embarrassing scandal. This is a woman who, during her five years in office, spent £4,000 of taxpayers’ money on flowers for her office.

Strange, isn’t it, that these inveterate scroungers – Britain’s worst by far – are never held to account in the benefits-bashing pages of The Daily Mail?

Book review: GOD SAVE THE KINKS by Rob Jovanovic

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 8th June 2013.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/features/book-reviews-god-save-the-kinks-by-rob-jovanovic-1-2959554

God Save The Kinks

by Rob Jovanovic

Aurum, 336pp, £20

In the foreword to his thoroughly researched biography of one of Britain’s greatest bands, author Rob Jovanovic argues that, despite their lofty reputation, The Kinks remained curiously under-appreciated for much of their career.

Never as hip as their enduring peers The Rolling Stones and The Who, they were always a square peg, even during their first flush of chart-topping fame in the 1960s.

Led by enigmatic contrarian Ray Davies, they famously pilloried Swinging London in Dedicated Follower of Fashion, harked back to music hall following an opening streak of pioneering proto-punk/metal hits, and retreated into more parochial musical pastures just as their rivals were tuning in and freaking out. A decade later, when they were being embraced by the New Wave bands they influenced, they did the naffest thing imaginable and became unlikely stadium rock stars in the US.

But, as God Save The Kinks makes clear, it’s that very refusal to play the game, that single-minded, unfashionable vision played out over 40 years of fluctuating fortunes, that made the band so special. Years before Pulp prevailed with a similar shtick, The Kinks were the original misfit underdogs: fey eccentrics with a savage bite. Indeed, it wasn’t until the 1990s emergence of Britpop, just as The Kinks – with typical rotten timing – fell apart, that their importance was finally recognised.

The most overtly English of all the British Invasion bands, their acute character portraits of class strife and urban malaise were an obvious influence on the likes of Blur’s Damon Albarn. Suddenly, Ray was the godfather of Britpop.

In the years since, The Kinks have been canonised via the usual flurry of documentaries, lovingly rendered reissues, and music magazine features. As evinced by his touching appearance at the Olympics closing ceremony – a symbolic event which bookends Jovanovic’s account – Ray has attained National Treasure status, a position he’d doubtless profess to hate, but probably secretly enjoys.

However, their critical resurgence also means that several fine books have already been written about them. The problem Jovanovic faces is whether he can inject fresh insight into a narrative which will obviously be familiar to anyone interested in buying his book in the first place.

“Their little known tale can now be told,” he claims, somewhat disingenuously, “in the words of those who were there.” Unfortunately, the words of the leading players, notoriously inimical siblings Ray and Dave Davies, have been culled from pre-existing interviews and the pages of their respective memoirs (he quotes huge swathes from Dave’s in particular). Nevertheless, he’s obviously immersed himself in the archive, and pilfers from it wisely.

While their often violent love/hate relationship understandably takes centre stage, Jovanovic makes sure to give other key members their due. The often unfairly overlooked bassist and founder member Pete Quaife, who died in 2010, is given satisfying prominence via a revealing interview with his brother.

Elsewhere, in-depth interviews with various engineers, journalists, photographers and musical collaborators provide an often dispiriting illustration of what it was like to work with the band. Tales of Ray’s egocentric petulance make for exhausting reading.

Yet one also discovers renewed appreciation for his dazzling talent, and the enormous pressure he was under during the manic 1960s and self-indulgent 1970s. Here was a sensitive young man blessed with genius yet cursed with restless ambition, who endured terrible nervous breakdowns and at least one suicide attempt. Despite these darker depths, Jovanovic provides a shaded portrait: a complex character, Ray can switch from wicked prima donna to self-deprecating charmer in the space of a paragraph.

Dave also comes across as a sensitive soul, whose exasperation at Ray’s undermining behaviour is mirrored by an obvious desire for his approval. Truth be told, his constant whining palls after a while: then again if you were stuck in a band with a sibling who once threatened to cancel a tour because someone spilled his backgammon set on the floor, you’d be whining too. “Dave,” sniffs Ray at one point, “I’m a genius, a perfectionist.” Sighs Dave wearily, “No you’re not, you’re an arsehole.”

A tragicomic epic of triumph and dysfunction, this is a highly readable account of a unique career. Although a self-confessed worshipper, Jovanovic never fawns over his subject, writing instead with a clear eye for detail and context. Despite a few niggling factual errors, it’s a fine retelling of a very British legend.