A Picture of Britain press pack
Â鶹ԼÅÄ THREE
and English Regions
Featuring renowned voices such as film director Ken Russell,
musician Suggs from Madness, Viz co-creator Chris
Donald
poets Simon Armitage and Benjamin Zephaniah,
plus musician and DJ Roni Size, Â鶹ԼÅÄ English Regions
and Â鶹ԼÅÄ THREE have commissioned a series of regional films featuring
the work of contemporary artists - as part of A Picture of Britain.
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Each film finds the artist telling their own story and looking at how
they are influenced by landscape, cityscape, place and characters. Six
of the twelve films will be broadcast on the relevant regional network.
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Â鶹ԼÅÄ THREE and Â鶹ԼÅÄ English Regions
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A Picture of London by Suggs
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Suggs (aka Graham McPherson) is one
of London's more famous sons. Together with his band Madness, he has
left an indelible mark on the music scene.
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A Picture of Britain takes Suggs back through the streets
of the city on a red London Routemaster, visiting places and people
that have help shape his life into a Wurlitzer mix of music and fun.
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Although born in Hastings, London is ingrained in Suggs'
veins. This loveable rascal is probably best known for the Jamaican
ska beat that is the signature of much of his song-writing. For A Picture
of Britain, Suggs explores the streets of London whilst composing a
brand new song for the occasion.
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A Picture of Bristol by Roni Size
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In the West, musician and DJ Roni Size
explains how the city he's grown up in has shaped a career which has
taken him from school expulsion to the Mercury Music prize.
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Bristol is a city with one of the most diverse populations
and cultural mixes in Britain and Roni Size sees himself, and his music,
very much as a product of this landscape.
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A Picture of Birmingham by Benjamin Zephaniah
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Born and raised in Handsworth, Birmingham, Benjamin
Zephaniah is one of the most high profile authors in the world.
Revisiting his roots, Benjamin takes viewers on a journey to discover
the inspiration behind his work.
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Benjamin returns to his boyhood football club, Aston
Villa, to watch a match for the first time in more than 30 years. He
goes back to the approved school that he thought he'd left behind forever,
and he revisits the Malvern Hills where his love of the countryside
was first inspired as a child.
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A Picture of Tyneside by Chris Donald
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Chris Donald is one of Newcastle's
best known sons, famous as one of the main creators and founders of
Viz comics. A Picture of Britain takes Chris back to his roots to look
at the new face of Tyneside.
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Chris is the man that made comic books more rebellious
than rock 'n' roll, and jointly created iconic characters such as Sid
the Sexist and the Fat Slags. He left Viz five years ago, but now he's
back - a man with a mission, looking for new inspiration in his native
Tyneside, its pubs, its clubs, its street life and its people.
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He visits the Baltic, the Sage Gateshead, the Biscuit
Factory, the new pubs and clubs in Newcastle and the Quayside to look
at how the characters he depicted in his cartoons of the Eighties have
been replaced with some intriguing new models.
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We look at what has he learned from his tour of the
new Newcastle and Gateshead as he captures some new Tyneside stereotypes
for his new cartoon creations.
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A Picture of Hull by John Godber
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Playwright John Godber can justly
claim to be the real mouth of the Humber. His plays deal with the lives
of ordinary people rooted in and around the city of Hull.
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We follow one of the UK's most-performed playwrights
as he directs one of his existing plays and grapples with a new piece
set in the world of wrestling.
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Godber takes viewers on a journey through the idiosyncratic
city that has inspired his work, from Up and Under - rugby league -
to Perfect Pitch, set in the gentler world of East Yorkshire's caravanners.
These are not plays about fish and ships - but his dialogue is marbled
with the mindset of a city where men fought Arctic seas for a living
and strong women ruled the roost at home.
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A Picture of the South West by Kurt Jackson
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Kurt Jackson is one of the South West's
leading landscape painters. The film follows Kurt as he gets to grips
with all the South West has to offer: painting underwater in the Isles
of Scilly; with Greenpeace as they track trawlers suspected of catching
dolphins in their nets; and on stage at the Glastonbury Festival, painting
headline acts.
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Â鶹ԼÅÄ English Regions
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A Picture of Yorkshire by Simon Armitage
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From the Pennine crags to the back streets of Huddersfield, the landscape
of Yorkshire is part of the bedrock of poet Simon Armitage's
work. We follow him as he works on a new commission, destined to be
carved into the fabric of one of the county's greatest churches.
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Illustrated with his own amateur cinefilm, Armitage also takes viewers
on a journey through the broad acres that have been his inspiration.
He tells of his debt to fellow Yorkshire poet Ted Hughes
- and less obvious influences, like John Peel.
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A Picture of Manchester by Liam Spencer
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Leading North West artist Liam Spencer was born in
Burnley in the Sixties. He is best known for his vivid portrayals of
the urban landscape, particularly of the North West of England.
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Liam enjoys exploring Manchester's currently changing landscape, and
invites us to view those changes from an unusual perspective, colouring
his canvas with the gleaming reflections caused by car headlights, and
the glistening roads and buildings constantly dampened by the Northern
climate.
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For the first time, viewers will be able to see for themselves the
whole process of Liam painting a picture - from inspiration to final
brushstroke. They will also get the chance to revisit the locations
of some of his most famous works - such as Burnley Football Club and
the Mancunian Way.
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A Picture of Nottinghamshire by William Ivory
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Screenwriter William Ivory goes back to where his
career began… the bin round. Working as a dustman brought him an early
success with Â鶹ԼÅÄ drama Common as Muck starring Edward Woodward, who
believes Ivory is one of the country's top writers.
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Ivory's father, a member of a bomber crew during the Second World War,
inspired another drama, Night Flight. The pair get to see a working
Lancaster bomber. On top of this, William Ivory gets to hear the opinions
of Nottinghamshire miners on his latest controversial drama, Faith,
which was set during the 1984 pit strike.
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A Picture of the South by Ken Russell
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Eminent film director Ken Russell offers his own inimitable
picture of southern England. With a small crew and a big imagination,
the enfant terrible of the British film industry shows us the places
where he's found inspiration in the South with the music to match.
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He ventures from the Southampton suburbs to the enchanting and magical
Larmer Tree gardens in Dorset, and on to the garish delights of an Isle
of Wight theme park.
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A Picture of Kent by Billy Childish
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Billy Childish, from Chatham, Kent, is surely one
of the most prolific painters, poets, and songwriters of his generation.
In a 20 year period he has produced over 1,000 paintings, published
30 collections of his poetry, recorded over 70 full-length independent
LPs and written several novels.
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Yet he is largely shunned by the art establishment because of his vocal
criticism of modern conceptual art. Despite this, he has an underground
following around the globe and has many fans in the pop and rock world
including REM, Kylie Minogue, Graham Coxon (ex-Blur) and the White
Stripes.
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This is all the more remarkable bearing in mind that he is dyslexic
and was expelled from St Martin's School of Art in 1981 for "outspokenness
and unorthodox working methods".
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A Picture of Kent will tell Billy's life story and will include some
short Super-8 films made by him for this programme.
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A Picture of Norfolk by Colin Self
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Artist and installation sculptor Colin Self travels
across the Norfolk landscape searching for the heart of his creative
inspiration. Self was an enfant terrible of British art in the Sixties;
a pioneer of Pop Art and a contemporary of David Hockney, he revolutionised
painting and creative expression, the repercussions of which are still
felt today.
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His art is steeped in the hidden intrigues of the Norfolk landscape.
His work resonates with history and a sense of place. Colin Self's Picture
of Norfolk takes us on a flight across Norwich, comparing the landscape
today with the earliest aerial photographs ever taken of the city.
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These icons of a lost age provide a catalyst for Self to explore what
it means to be a Norfolk artist. His concerns about urban sprawl and
ecological decay are all grist to his mill and the programme culminates
in Self painting a landscape in oils on a huge board with all these
influences brought to bear. The painting becomes a lament for loss and
change as well as a siren for the future.
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