MY LONDON LIFE: LONELY LONDONERS, PERFECT DAYS & BUZZCOCKS
Theatre, music and film I encountered in different London locations.
That sinking feeling: The Beatles once played on this boat. It now rusts in South East London.
My London Life is going to be a recurring Yakety Yak post on different aspects of the city that I’ve called home for the past 33 years. I love London and never tire of exploring and experiencing it - here’s hoping readers might find of interest. I’m debuting MLL with (predictably) a London arts overview: theatre, music, film experienced across the Smoke in the past week.
THE LONELY LONDONERS, Jermyn Street Theatre
Sam Selvon’s 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners was a success when first published and has rightly been hailed as “groundbreaking” in terms of giving voice to West Indian migrants in Britain. If you’re unaware of The Lonely Londoners, well, you are in for a treat as its an engaging read and, at only 139 pages, never outstays its welcome. Written in gentle patois, The Lonely Londoners details Moses Aloetta’s milieu as he, a Trinidadian who has been living in London for several years, meets a newbie off the boat train and attempts to give him some guidance as to surviving in The Smoke. The book’s largely a series of tales concerning the Trinidadians and Jamaicans (+ one Nigerian) amongst Moses’ set and their experiences – all similar in some ways (low wages, freezing weather, casual racism, chasing girls etc) and their very different individual stories. I read The Lonely Londoners years ago, enjoyed it but didn’t recall the narrative clearly so have just reread it - and what a pleasure this was. What prompted my rereading was, having booked to see the stage adaption of Selvon’s novel, I wanted to familiarise myself again with the original text so to refamiliarise myself with The Lonely Londoners’ main characters.
Many things in the novel resonated with me – none more so than how challenging it is to arrive in London from another nation and try and find your way in this huge, overwhelming city. At least those of us from the West Indies and NZ/Oz have English as our first language – migrants who don’t have a good (or any) command must find things extremely challenging, at least early on. Obviously, I didn’t experience racism so my arrival here dodged the vicious barb black and brown migrants can face but Selvon’s novel is, while about struggling to survive, for the most part, optimistic: he celebrates the excitement and pleasures of London, especially the opportunity for relationships with individuals both from Britain and further afield – unknown pleasures being a magnet that has drawn youths here across the centuries.
Honest Jon’s, a celebrated Ladbroke Grove record shop/label, issued 8 albums of music made in London by migrants from the West Indies and Africa across the 1950s/early 60s. The first few volumes focus on Trinidadian calypsonians and are exceptional.
Selvon (1923-1994) writes with wit and insight, brevity and eloquence. I sense he was a fan of The Great Gatsby – and who isn’t? - as the closing paragraphs echo, in their own distinct way, that book’s lyrical if mournful finale: dreams and desire fading fast into the summer evening: “As if the boys laughing, but they only laughing because they fraid to cry, they only laughing because to think so much about everything would be a big calamity – like how he here now, the thoughts so heavy like he unable to move his body.”
Rereading, I wondered if Irvine Welsh had used The Lonely Londoners as a blueprint for Trainspotting – both novels deal with a group of working class, male friends struggling and hustling in a major UK metropolis with an affable everyman as their narrative host. Both also employ a vernacular slang that is very much not received English. Perhaps this format is a literary trope and I’m unaware of such? The Lonely Londoners is far gentler than Trainspotting – obviously, the then draconian censorship would never have allowed Trainspotting to be published in 1956 (Lady Chatterly’s Lover was banned!) – so Selvon employs satire and ironies to tilt at British society, the authorities and his characters’ dreams and absurdities.
I’m a fan (obviously) so hearing that The Lonely Londoners had been adapted for stage ensured I booked a ticket. Transferring much loved novels to stage or screen can leave fans of the text dismayed so I admit to feeling a certain reluctance about attending. Considering parts of The Lonely Londoners is told in a style akin to a stream of consciousness, I wondered how playwright Roy Williams would turn Moses and his pals into characters who own the stage.
Here’s Lord Kitchener, the Trinidadian calypsonian who arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948, singing a calypso reflecting the optimism many West Indians possessed (initially).
The answer is: if Irvine Welsh had been commissioned to adapt The Lonely Londoners for the stage he might have written something similar to Williams. The 105 minute play features seven actors – 4 men, 3 women – and if you are thinking there’s only two female characters of note in The Lonely Londoners then you aren’t mistaken. And if you recall that those two women – a wife (Agnes) and an elderly matriarch (Tanty) - are marginal characters, you are also correct. Williams attempts to flesh out these two – back in the 1950s patriarchal beliefs ensured Selvon could largely ignore women – which is understandable for the 21st Century. He also provides Moses with a dead girlfriend (from Trinidad, who he has flashbacks about) whose character sings a couple of songs. And one of the lads gets a gun and invites Moses to join him in an armed robbery of a post office, declaiming how much he hates racist England, while another takes a savage beating from white youths – none of this is in the novel. And…
I won’t continue listing all the discrepancies, only to note that Williams, essentially, uses the book’s outline/characters to write an Irvine Welsh-style study of desperate Black men in 1950s London. Which means its loud, violent, crude, energetic, full of despair and racial hatred and male mental health crisis, while completely devoid of the gentle calypso-style satire and optimism that permeates Selvon’s novel. Admittedly, the Notting Hill race riots occurred two years after The Lonely Londoners was published and British racism (and police brutality) would harden across the 1960s and 70s. So Williams could claim its this he is channelling on stage – he could even (possibly) insist that Selvon, being Asian, failed to portray the suffering Black-West Indians went through. No matter, his play is devoid of subtlety or insight. Its staged at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre and the staging is limited by the smallness of the stage – thus there’s lots of slow-mo action, which might be effective in Peckinpah-style films, hysterical rants, loud noises, flashing lights etc that only add to the overcooked nature of the production.
It may be that, having endured a long winter – one which appears to be set on continuing: I got soaked in Soho going to and from the theatre – and watched too much Top Boy, I’ve tired of such bleak entertainment. I say this as what Williams offers up is now something of a popular stereotype of British TV/film: violent/criminal/desperate black male youths – the kind of cartoon that gangsta rap and films like Menace To Society traded in. Some black youths are such – I don’t deny this - yet the majority aren’t. But those who live ordinary lives don’t make for such lucrative franchises as Top Boy and Kidulthood.
The Lonely Londoners is energetically performed by its cast but its sound and fury is exhausting: sound not just in the shouting but how Williams (and the play’s director) chose to excise the calypso music so regularly mentioned in the book. Instead, Bill Withers and Bob Marley songs are employed alongside ominous instrumental music that could be by Trent Reznor. “Take it easy,” often advises Moses in the novel. I wish Roy Williams had considered this before he set about mauling The Lonely Londoners.
THE BUZZCOCKS, KOKO
This is such a great song and one whose subject matter too many of us have experienced.
Last December I interviewed Steve Diggle, the guitarist/singer who is last original member of Manchester band The Buzzcocks. Steve’s a chatty chap and had lots to say – interview was for Vive Le Rock magazine, if anyone is really interested then say so and I’ll post its highlights at some point – about growing up in that football mad city and how he came to meet Pete Shelley at the Sex Pistols first Manchester performance (so became a Buzzcock). That Shelley wrote the Buzzcocks’ most memorable songs and died (of a heart attack) in 2018 might suggest going to see his band in 2024 would be a rather sad event. Actually, it was anything but.
Diggle has surrounded himself with a youthful trio of drums, bass, guitar so keeping the same lineup instrumentally and as he bashes away on guitar and sings it could almost be the original band. Diggle’s voice is a Manc bleat not unlike that of Shelley and his unrelenting energy and good humour helps carry things through.
The current tour is using the “45 years since Singles Going Steady was released” tag – meaning audiences are getting the A&B sides to that wonderful compilation of the band’s first 8 45s in chronological order. Singles Going Steady was the first Buzzcocks album I ever bought and, to some degree, I think its most fan’s favourite – while their first three studio albums all contain strong material, SGS is packed with smart, sharp gems: Orgasm Addict, What Do I Get, I Don’t Mind, Oh Shit, Noise Annoys and other witty, poignant songs that made the Camden audience (yes, very middle aged, very white) roar with joy. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) is the priceless gem in the Buzzcocks’ crown and was played just before a rather OTT Harmony In My Head finale but, for me, Why Can’t I Touch It was the most striking demonstration of the band’s fierce, imaginative, dual guitar blend.
The Cocks delivered such a powerful version of this at Koko I had to go and listen to the original. Live Diggle and the bloke now playing second guitar meshed their guitars so to create huge waves of sound over a potent rhythm – to my mind Touch outstrips what many other early 80s post-punk bands were attempting to achieve. I’ve still no idea what the song’s about!
Its not often I go to rock gigs these days but The Buzzcocks were well worth standing on Koko’s sticky floor for two hours – what did I get? Only some of British rock’s smartest, sharpest songs and a reminder that punk opened up lo-fi, no budget creativity on an unprecedented scale: the sleeve to the Orgasm Addict 45 is currently on display at Tate Britain’s Women In Revolt exhibition - collage artist Linder Sterling’s feminist iconography providing the basis for the sleeve design. It’s well worth a visit – as are The Buzzcocks, next time they play your town.
PERFECT DAYS, Peckhamplex Cinema
When Western directors head to Tokyo they tend to focus on stories about Yakuza crime syndicates or how exotic they find the city – Wim Wenders bucks this rule in Perfect Days, making a film about Hirayama, a middle aged man who cleans the city’s public toilets (in parks and other open spaces). Hirayama takes evident pride in his job, doing a very thorough job, and appears content with his quiet life of routine – driving his van to work while playing cassettes of his favourite classic rock music, reading his favourite novelists, eating at the same restaurants, having lunch in the same park (same sandwich and taking a photo on a non-digital camera of the same tree).
Hirayama, as played by Koji Yakusho, is very thorough in all he does, gentle of gesture, warm to those around him, happy – if a loner (seemingly by choice – no partner or close friends appear or are mentioned). His routine is twice disrupted by those younger than him - Takashi, his much younger fellow cleaner, is feckless and selfish, while Niko, his teenage niece, arrives on his doorstep unannounced, having run away from home. Beyond these intrusions, Hirayama continues his routine, every day seemingly perfect for him.
I imagine Perfect Days has regularly been described as a “zen” film - its celebration of the quotidian certainly engages attention while encouraging meditative thinking on both the cinematic experience and your own life (especially, if like Hirayama, you are a middle aged male who lives alone, likes his routines and listens intently to music).
Yakusho delivers a beautiful performance, saying little, his eyes and mouth conveying emotions, thoughts and the gentle decency of Hirayama. I did find Perfect Days somewhat underdeveloped as far as its back story – why is Hirayama so reluctant to converse with his co-worker when we later see he is capable of speaking in other social situations? He’s certainly no Travis Bickle-type alienated loner. And the bit where he is forced to sell a cassette to pay for petrol didn’t ring true: he may prefer the analogue world but owns a simple cell phone and engages with the digital world, so surely has a bank card? Also, his reluctance to engage with his sister – why the estrangement? Its almost as if Wenders and co-writer Takuma Takasaki decided to strip out elements of his life so to make the film more oblique. But this serves to limit our engagement. Still, its easily Wenders best film since Paris, Texas some forty years ago and thus a welcome return. There’s also a tasty Tokyo record shop scene.
Perfect Days was nominated for Best International Film at the recent AAs but, unsurprisingly, lost out to The Zone Of Interest. Even if its flawed, I preferred Wenders’ film to Glazer’s, but my tastes are rarely in accord with awards ceremonies.
Speaking of the Oscars, have you seen The Last Repair Shop?
This 40 minute doc’ won the 2024 Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film and its free to stream on Youtube (yes, ad’s do interrupt but they’re brief – much briefer than those that invade music videos). Its about a Los Angeles musical instrument repair shop that serves to fix the instruments of students at the city’s public schools. Four of the repair technicians get to tell their stories – one is a Mexican woman who was living as a solo mother with two children in poverty, another is an Armenian who was born in Baku and had to flee Azerbaijan in 1987 after anti-Armenian pogroms saw his father murdered – alongside interviews with the children whose instruments have been fixed. This is a beautifully shot film and moving in both its belief in the magic of music to enchant, to raise the spirit, and the human stories that are shared. Highly recommended.
Speaking of Oscar winners, my post And The Winner Is… saw several readers offering opinions on the nominated films, including a few who felt Poor Things was well worth seeing. A pal had access to a stream of said film so I watched – jeez, its even worse than I imagined! So mannered and pompous and silly and disingenuous in its supposedly pro-female emancipation, while Emma Stone’s Oscar for Best Actress should really be an Oscar for Gurning & Acting Like A Tetchy Art Student On Bad Acid. The other three AAs it got – Makeup, Costume, Art Direction – all reflect voters being bowled over by theatrical spectacle, rather than imaginative artistry. Kind of like giving Kiss the award for Best Dressed Band… Anyway, the Academy deservedly rewarded The Last Repair Shop – no complaints here.
Final note: congratulations to Andrew Scott for making history by winning both the British Theatre and Film Critics Best Actor awards – the former for Vanya (which I didn’t see), the latter for We Are All Strangers (which I praised here in a January post - his character’s dark, hurt eyes brilliantly conveyed isolation and lingering trauma). On collecting his awards Scott paid tribute to the arts: "A lot of people need it, I need it and we all do so the arts should be protected and they should be celebrated and they should be funded. So, I just want to say thank you to the artists."
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