So here it is… 12 from ‘15

Miss November 1918

That was the year that was: 40+ live silent films, many dozens of gigs, plays, ballet and even talkies… how do I fit in my day job? Slowing down now... looking back and in no particular order relying on the ancient pre-internet art of memory, here are twelve silent experiences that made the World a little better over the year they still call twenty fifteen.

1.      Elvey and Eille – Sherlock at the Barbican

Early in the year, the Barbican programmed a selection of Eille Norwood Sherlock Holmes mostly directed by Maurice Elvey. Messrs Brand, Horne and Sweeney were on hand to accompany the series which proved to be an enjoyably mixed bag with two features The Hound of the Baskervilles (1921) and The Sign of Four (1923) with three shorts sandwiched in the middle. Those films proved to be anything but filler though and Norwood’s creation really came to life in A Scandal in Bohemia, The Man with the Twisted Lip and The Final Solution which, of course, proved to be anything but.

Anny Ondra

2.       Blackmail (1929) with Timothy Brock, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Saffron Hall

You don’t expect to find silent films in deepest Essex but this most-misunderstood of counties has a purpose-built concert hall in the cute market town of Saffron Walden that allowed Timothy Brock and the BBC Symphony to do full justice to Neil Brand’s stunning composition.

Perched above a wall of sound we were able to experience Blackmail with orchestral highlights that enhanced the emotional flavour of Hitchcock’s last silent film – conclusive proof, if it were ever needed, that this film works far better without dialogue.

Henry Victor in The Guns of Loos

3.       The Guns of Loos (1928), British Silent Film Festival, Leicester

My first experience of the BSFF (I know) and a number of stand-outs including Swedish polar-bear baiting Den Starkaste (1929) and the full three-hours of Michael Strogoff with John Sweeney’s accompaniment proving a triumph of style and substance over endurance. But the restored Guns of Loos took the biscuit with a super new score from Stephen Horne.

Commissioned for the battle’s centenary, the film paid moving tribute to the many Scottish lives lost in this battle about which I’d previously known little: film as history reporting history and still educating after 85 years.

4.       Buster Keaton and Carl Davis, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall

The RFH hosts the heavy metal-end of the live silent experience with Carl Davis’ Big Band blasting out power chords over two of Buster’s best. One Week (1920) and The General (1926). As usual the concert crowd mixed uneasily with the cineasts but we were all united in the shared pursuit of getting Keaton’s gags! We all laughed and clapped as one.

Betty Compson and Raymond Griffith - Paths to Paradise (1925)

5.       Silent Laughter Saturday, Kennington Bioscope

Having missed the Bioscope’s weekender due to mountain-climbing charity commitments (we raised £18,500 for Parkinson’s UK on Snowdon) I was delighted to be able to make the comedy Saturday. With contributions from David Robinson, Kevin Brownlow, Tony Slide and others who have actually met the performers on screen, there’s a real connection with the likes of Stan and Ollie, Buster Keaton and the British Walter Forde.

It’s been a vintage year in Kennington with too many highly rewarding trips to mention – we should treasure every moment and the unique opportunity to watch silent film amongst people who know and understand!

Annette Benson, naughty white dove and Brian Aherne

 
6.       Shooting Stars (1928), Leicester Square Odeon, London Film Festival Archive Gala

This year’s Archive Gala at the LFF is a tie for festival highlight with Stephen’s Horne’s superbly-scored Variety . Shooting Stars edges it simply because I hadn’t seen it before and it’s another example of a classy late-period British silent film. Some lovely moments of pure cinema from Anthony Asquith and super turns from ‘andsome Brian Aherne and bubbly Annette Benson

The much-travelled John Altman scored and played along with the Live Film Orchestra matching the film’s knowing take on the business of movies and the People of Show.

Shooting Stars is out on BFI DVD and Blu-Ray on 21st March - pre-order now!

 
7.       Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1921), with Donald MacKenzie, Troxy Cinema

Not for the film so much as for the whole experience of art deco, Wurlitzer-fuelled, pie and mash-propelled cinema watching! This is how our grandparents watched films and whilst the organ occasionally grinds it does so authentically.

 
8.       We Have an Anchor (2015), Barbican

Having watched Godspeed You Black Emperor twice this year, it was interesting to see two of its members performing live accompaniment to Jem Cohen’s modern – mostly-silent – film about the beautiful isolation of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton. The film was spell-binding and the post-rockers did it full justice – with the clear lines of Jessica Moss and Sophie Trudeu’s violins especially impressive over so much amplified clang and strum.

9.       Written in Dust (2014), Rio Cinema, Dalston

I got to see the last of Gareth Rees’ absorbing modern silent made in Beijing without necessarily the full range of permissions from the authorities. The result is a simple tale of love and ambition told very well by an exceptional young cast. Freed from dialogue, the narrative pulls you in to this desperately-optimistic world, aided by a live score from Ling Peng and Andrew Middleton which mixes old and new, as with the film, to create something that does justice to both.

Hopefully we’ll see more of this performance cinema in 2016.

Janet Gaynor & Charles Farrell - Seventh Heaven (1928)

10.   7th Heaven (1927), with KT Tunstall, Mara Carlyle and, BFI

Apparently KT Tunstall has been studying film composition out in California and it showed as she worked splendidly with a team including composer Max de Wardener and singer/saw-player Mara Carlyle in playing a hugely supportive live score for Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven.

Heart-warming fun all round and my daughter was delighted to see that whilst pop form is temporary, musical class is permanent. Lovely all round as I think I said several times to anyone who would listen.

Regents Street Birthplace

11.   The Regent Street Cinema

Sometimes the venue itself makes the experience… and the re-birth of the birthplace of British cinema was to be celebrated in its own right. A great venue with comfy seats, a cosy bar and easy access to the Victoria Line and next to a plaque celebrating the fact that various Pink Floyds attended the former Regent Street Poly in the days before the Azimuth Coordinator and the mother with the atom heart (ask your Granddad!).

Laura Rossi and Orchestra Celeste - Jane Shore (1915)

12.   The past restored and re-scored…

This is a total cop-out because I just can’t decide! Laura Rossi wrote a most excellent score for Brit proto-epic Jane Shore (1915) and performed it superbly at the BFI with Orchestra Celeste.

Then the Shona Mooney Trio re-patriated the cod-celtic Annie Laurie (1927) at the Barbican with considerable verve – they should have let us dance!

Shona Mooney + Lillian Gish - Annie Laurie (1927)

Lillian Henley helped the suffragettes make more noise with her score for the BFI’s Make More Noise: Suffragettes in Silent Film compilation celebrating the movement that changed our society for better and for ever. Now available on DVD from the BFI, all good retailers and Amazon…

Just buy it!

All this and I still didn’t make Pordenone… next year! Thank you so much to everyone who puts these events on, all those who play along and to everyone who reads! May your days be merry and bright…and may all your Christmases be black and white.

Evelyn in Europe… Laughter and Tears (1921)

After breaking through in Hollywood in the teens, Evelyn Brent subsequently found herself on the stage in London where her genuine American accent helped make her a bit of a star. She performed in a number of West End productions before getting involved in the murky world of British cinema.

In 1921 she headed to Europe to make an Anglo-Dutch drama Laughter and Tears (Een lach en een traan in dutch but most certainly not Circus Jim as both IMDB and Wikipedia wrongly assert) which, thrillingly, features location shooting in both Paris and Venice.

Adelqui Migliar and Evelyn Brent

A British silent from 1921 you say? Can’t be much cop can it? Well, it’s not a classic but it is very enjoyable not least for those glamorous backdrops but also for the hints of Bright Young Thing hard-partying. Then there’s Miss Brent, her face slightly fuller than in her von Sternberg films but with that famous profile, the infamous sulk, those piercing eyes all much in evidence.

She is the standout performer in the film as director B. E. Doxat-Pratt gives her plenty of close-up as well as walking shots as she drifts, wrapped in darkened shawl along the Champs-Élysées or down canal-sides. She also laughs and not in a world-weary or loaded way… but then she is meant to a bohemian sprite, an unaffected creature of pure and simple emotion.

Out come the feathers!

But that’s not to say that we don’t get the sharper end of Brent’s acting personas… that comes in force as events progress. Maybe this is one of those secret origin stories…I mean, we even get a glimpse of feathers as broken-hearted Brent turns nasty.

“Masks and their grimaces are oft-times the mirror to the soul beneath…” the title cards are a tad full of themselves but this is a cautionary tale about the perils of absent-minded Bohemia although, to be fair, it’s the guy who sells out to The Man – or in this case The Wo-Man – who harshes the bohos’ mellow.

The gang disturb the artist not at work

After some establishing shots of Venice, we’re taken to the apartment of the impoverished artist Mario Mari (Adelqui Migliar) who is starved of both food and inspiration…. An acute overhead shot then shows the arrival of a boat-load of colourfully- costumed characters. A Roman general turns out to be Adolpho (E. Story Gofton) one of the scene’s leading lights – a lover of fine wine/women and so forth.

Also in tow is the Squirrel Painter Georgio Lario (Reginald Garton) dressed as a Pierrot, the Futurist composer Ferrado (Bert Darley) who borrows as much from his rich uncle as from Beethoven, and then the zestful Zizi (Maudie Dunham).

Don't stop the Carnival

Mario doesn’t want to be disturbed, he just wants to paint but… sooner or later he will succumb to the 24 Hour Party People and so it is that we see him join in with the annual Carnival. But, the party isn’t really for him until and nor should it be according to Georgio for whom the Squirrel is more important than the undeniable distractions of the fairer sex.

Pierette comes between the painter of squirrels and his pal's dedication

Mario may be in total agreement but the second he sees the electrifying free spirit in a clown’s costume who is Pierrette (Evelyn Brent) all that will change. She talks of love without consequence with loyal friendship over-riding all. She is a pure soul seemingly living these words and Mario can’t fail to be attracted to someone who embodies the potential for freedom that Bohemia promises but rarely delivers.

He follows Pierrette out into the night and their course is set. They begin living together – one of the reasons the Roman Catholic Church advised people not to see the film* – gold dust in PR terms even then!

Pierrette works as a milliner whilst Mario gets his mojo back, but not in a George Osborne way: he starts to do good work! His new painting Laughter and Tears (see!) will be his masterpiece and it is born out of his relationship with Pierrette.

But, when the Laughter and Tears wins a prestigious competition the painting is very quickly on the wall… as Mario is lauded by the arts establishment and finds his excitable lover an embarrassment in comparison with the cool sophistication of Countess Maltakoff (Dorothy Fane).

Laughter and Tears, the painting

The Countess insists that he comes to Paris to paint her portrait and there are juxtaposed images of her wandering her elegant gardens fixating on her new conquest as Mario and Pierrette share an awkward evening with their band of bohos.

Mario tries to sneak away to Paris and to leave some money to ease the pain of splitting… he’s a darned cad and he knows it and it’s just his bad luck that Pierrette arrives home early so that he has to explain to her face. She doesn’t want his money, she only, for some reason… wants him. But off he goes with a series of diffident shrugs to fame, fortune and the vampiric grip of the Countess Maltakoff.

The lady is a vamp...

The others try to cheer Pierrette up but she cannot live without her painter and sets out north to win him back. Meanwhile Mario is finding live under the Countess less pleasurable than he’d hoped as she pushes him to complete a rather uninspired portrait – interesting how poorly it compares with his award-winner; good detail from the director.

Pierrette bumps into an old friend in Paris

In spite of this, Mario can still not accept Pierrette back into his life and sends her away yet again… but this is Miss Evelyn Brent you’re dealing with pal and naturally she is now given to revenge. The feathers come out and an “old friend” Captain Lombardie (played by the director himself) turns up as her new love.

Consumed with jealousy, the title cards are triumphant: “Hell hath no fury like a man who has got what he deserved” and Mario descends in the madness of bitter regret… we all know what’s coming next or do we… you’ll have to find out for yourself as I couldn’t reveal a secret gifted in such confidence.

Consumed with jealousy, Mario can only see Pierrette in the eyes of her new lover

As you can tell from the screen-shots, I watched the EYE copy on their YouTube channel which is in decent quality but it would be splendid to see all this projected on screen and an accompanist could have some real fun with the BYT’s bacchanal!

*Fact courtesy of Lynn Kear’s fab biography of Evelyn Brent… copies still for sale from Amazon and elsewhere.

11th Heaven… We have a Liebster Award!

I’ve been awarded a Liebster Award which will sit nicely alongside my work-self’s two UK Professional Publishers Association commendations this year – in pride of place!

The Liebster Award is a way for bloggers to recognize other bloggers and welcome each other into the community. So thank you very much Silents, Please! (who shares a birthday with Theda Bara, Clara Bow, and William Powell and writes one of the best film blogs on the planet!) for extending the digital hand of friendship and giving me a task that is actually harder than it looks namely:

i. Answer 11 questions from the person who nominated you;

ii. Tell your readers 11 random facts about yourself; and

iii. Nominate up to 11 other bloggers to receive the Liebster, and give them 11 questions to answer in turn.

OK, those 11 questions*scratches head*…

John Clarke (left) and Sam Neill in Death in Brunswick (1991)

1. Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Probably Sam Neill as I’m told we look alike although once we were in Paul Smith’s Covent Garden shop and no one got confused at all about which one was which… “here’s your suit Mr Neill, there’s your tie Mr Joyce…” that.

2. What is the last book you read that really impressed you?

The best fiction book of the last few years has been Wuthering Heights – such passionate, intense writing and of course, Charlotte Bronte was the genuine one.  Of those writers still with the living habit Christopher Priest, Jake Arnott and Paul Auster are every-book must-reads!

One of the best recent novels featuring silent film

3. You’re making a screwball comedy, and you can cast anyone from cinema history, with the caveat that the two leads must not have appeared opposite each other before. Who are your leads?

Now this is tricky but the easiest way to cheat is to pick Louise Brooks and James McAvoy: two people from completely different eras who have energy, wit and unpredictability. James is not as young as he looks and after seeing him in the stage version of The Ruling Classes, he might just about be able to keep pace with Brooksie… That or Paul McGann and Evelyn Brent both playing outside of their usual but two actors with unique energies: she vexed, he perplexed.

Evelyn and Paul

4. Five years from now, do you see yourself living in the same place as you do currently?

Probably not as one should never stop moving as my mother-in-law has proved after relocating 5 times in 20 years… I might be beside the sea-side or down the road but certainly within striking distance of live silent cinema.

5. Is there any film that you regret watching, and why?

I walked out on Death Becomes Her at a screening in Milton Keynes: the first time a film defeated me with the sheer fatuousness of its existence. Every line was a nuisance and a total waste of the actors’ talents. That’s 37 minutes I won’t get back and I still regret it.

Dearth... becomes them

6. Which hypothetical Tim Burton-directed biopic film would you rather watch: a film called Helena Bonham-Carter, in which Helena Bonham-Carter is played by Johnny Depp, or a film called Johnny Depp, in which Johnny Depp is played by Helena Bonham-Carter?

That’s easy: Johnny Depp starring HB-C – she is the mistress of all she plays and is far more capable of being Depp than Johnny being she: after all, he just works with Mr Burton but, reader, she married him!

Johnny or Helena?!

7. Pick a Kate Bush single: Wuthering Heights, Running Up That Hill, Sat in Your Lap.

Again another straightforward choice; it has to be Running Up That Hill from Kate’s masterwork, The Hounds of Love. She was still finding her feet with Wuthering Heights and the experimental The Dreaming but she progressed so well as an artist and reached a peak with Hounds - an incredibly-cohesive album with real depth of feeling.

8. Let’s say that you were given a six-month paid sabbatical from your day job. What would you do with that time?

I would, climb more mountains in Wales and Scotland whilst writing my memoirs of a silent film addict and researching the lives of Victor Sjostrom and Jenny Hasselqvist which would entail trips to Sweden where I could do some proper mountains and then maybe nip over to Finland to re-connect with the spirit of Tove Janson and Comet in Moominland.

Jenny Hasselqvist

9. Desert island scenario. If you could only listen one musician/band/singer for the rest of your life, who would it be?

The hardest question… It would be so tempting to pick a long-term favourite but I already know all about The Beatles, Miles Davis and Gustav Mahler so best to pick someone I’m less familiar with so I stay a little fresher in my time on the island. So, someone eclectic and productive and who talks to himself as he plays: let’s have Keith Jarrett! Or maybe just Mozart – so much to understand and he’s already time-locked so he won’t date any further.

Otherwise, I can hum Rain, See Emily Play and Venus as a Boy anytime I like from memory.

Bjork

10. Do you collect any kind of item?

Apart from the obvious, I used to collect American comics and have Green Lantern and X-Men numbers from 1960 to 1980-ish… this still causes my wife some distress. I also have a small shelf full of Gerry Anderson vehicles from UFO and Thunderbirds… a reminder of the future that used to be!

11. Name a film that you love that you wish was better known.

What? And spoil the secret?! But yes I do wish more people had heard of Anthony Asquith’s The First Born from 1928 an excellent British silent feature that shows just how could the much-maligned domestic industry was. It’s got wonderful malevolence from Miles Mander and a silky smooth performance from radiant Madelaine Carroll.

They should release it on DVD along with Stephen Horne’s fantastic score used at the London Film Festival Archive Gala a few years back. But The Man with Copyright won’t play ball because… who knows?!

Miles and Maddie

11 fascinating facts about me? Spoiler: I’m focusing on random here:

1. I made my ten-year old daughter watch the restored version of Greed. Social services have been informed…

2. I share my birthday with Ringo Starr and Gustav Mahler (not the same year in any case). Silently it’s the same date as Bérénice Bejo and Virginia Rappe…

3. I once wrote part of a textbook about the marketing of leisure services… it was well-reviewed in the trade press and went to multiple editions.

4. In 1978 schoolboy me stood next to legendary punk poet John Cooper Clarke in the gents at Liverpool’s famous punk club Eric’s.

Johnny Clarke

 5. I do most of my best work on trains.

6. I have two Volvos and not a single Aston Martin.

7. I once got Douglas Fairbank’s age wrong – sloppy version control – and still feel bad about it. There are plenty of bloggers but no sub-editors willing to work on their words for the rates we don’t pay…

8. My Dad’s cousin played for and was assistant manager of Liverpool Football Club. His aunty Lillian and my great aunty, is coming up for 103 having been born in the year of Quo Vadis?, The Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Water Nymph (the first Keystone comedy)…

Doug Livermore in his playing days

9. I keep my books in alpha order by author and then by year of publication. Long Players and CDs are by artist and year although there is a thematic element with CDs of shame (progressive rock) largely out of view.

10. I said hello to Thurston Moore in Soho the other week – I have seen Sonic Youth at least twelve times. He is very tall and gracious.

11. My first job was working as a bar and cellar man in Butlin’s Grand Hotel in Llandudno, North Wales… as seen briefly in Maurice Elvey’s superb Hindle Wakes.

The Grand a few years before Maurice Elvey brought his camera

My nominations go to: the tireless Films Muets Blog and to Motion Picture Gems both dedicated to the ceaseless search for the new in the old!

Here are my 11 questions:

1. What talkie should be re-made as a silent film?

2. What was your favourite live silent film viewing experience and why?

3. Which is your cinematic guilty pleasure – a pop film you just enjoy for the heck of it?

4. Your favourite film with a dream sequence… without revealing major plot spoilers!

5. Name a book you have read at least twice and why?

6. If you’re not watching films (or writing about them) … what do you do? What is your second favourite hobby?

7. Vinyl, CD or digital?

8. What the World needs now is…?

9. Name a major drama film which the casting alone could have turned into a comedy or vice versa? For example, Woody Allen in Ben Hur or Charlton Heston in Annie Hall.

10. An actor or actress you simply have to watch in every role?

11. What was your favourite album aged 15 and your favourite now? Can art endure through our maturation or was Albert Camus right about those first things that really move us…?

Thanks again Silents, Please.

Paul

7th Heaven (1927), with KT Tunstall, Mara Carlyle and Max de Wardener, BFI

Oh this was a sheer delight and one for the whole family.

Plaid’s Not For Threes is amongst my favourite electronica and is a genre-stretching triumph featuring a giddy diversity of sound humanised by the smooth yearning tones of Mara Carlyle. Ms C has gone on to a solo career of impeccable uneasy listening that includes virtuoso saw playing. Tonight she lined up with composer Max de Wardener known for breaking ground on film scores and, more surprisingly, for some at least, KT Tunstall.

KT has long been admired in our house and my daughter made the 300 mile round trip from Bristol just to hear her play this most curious of challenges. When Beth first saw Ms Tunstall she had to sit on the bar of the Junction in Cambridge to see her over the grown-ups’ heads, now she was in Row C with a glass of wine and a clear view above the other adults.

Oscar hattrick heroine Janet Gaynor

For all her pop pedigree, Tunstall is first and foremost a performer and she has the soul as well as the technical ability to keep pace with Max, Mara and, of course, Frank. This was uplifting music combined with a film that still proves irresistibly moving… the audience didn’t stand a chance: all cool was removed by an irresistible combination of Janet’s eyes, Charles’ smile and an exuberant score that whilst centre stage always remained a friend to their performance.

7th Heaven is a companion piece to Murnau’s perfect Sunrise, a mere third of star Janet Gaynor’s Best Actress Oscar (awarded for both films plus Street Angel (1928)), and is tonally similar – Frank and Friedrich they knew. As with Mara’s first solo album, it is The Lovely…

Heaven on the 7th floor

Plundering my daughter’s post-match thoughts… the film is seemingly religious with a continued theme of Heaven and Hell. The “remarkable” man Chico (the ludicrously dashing Charles Farrell) works down in the depths, in the city’s hellish sewers but he always “looks up” and indeed lives at the very top of a tall tenement from which he can stroll out across the roofs of Paris, never looking downwards.

Across the street, Diane (Janet Gaynor, her hair liberated from Sunrise’s dodgy wig…) is beaten down by her alcoholic sister Nana (Gladys Brockwell) and forced to forage in order to supply her with absinthe (we’ve all been there). Redemption is possible from their well-off Aunt Valentine (Jessie Haslett) and Uncle George (Brandon Hurst) but Diane has just enough strength to resist her sister’s attempts to make her lie about their virtuosity.

Sisters, sisters...

She is violently cast down for this and is in the process of being throttled in the gutter when Chico’s hand reaches out of the drains to lift Nana high above a manhole – there’s a superb overhead shot of her struggling against his might.

Chico has to lift Diane up – there is almost no fight left in her. When her sister is arrested and tries to drag Diane with her, he intervenes again telling the police that Diane is his wife.

This lie needs to be substantiated and so Chico takes Diane up the stairway to his heaven (sorry) – the arrangement is meant to be temporary, only until the Police are satisfied that their relationship is real. There’s a lovely light touch in this film and Diane’s panic at seeing the single bed in Chico’s room is played out with comedic concern until she sees her gallant room-mate set out to sleep on the floor.

I'm not sure that Mrs Joyce could cope with watching Charles Farrell in The River...

But things don’t end there and Diane grows on Chico in spite of her wayward hairdressing skills. Farrell towers over Gaynor but there’s a real gentility and respect in their physical relationship. What was a marriage for convenience soon becomes something more – Chico and Diane are Heaven together.

There’s faith in the film but it isn’t necessarily derived from organised religion. Diane and Chico’s love is based on their faith in each other and they remain true to themselves. Even their marriage is a home-made affair: no need for a priest when they are sure of love.

War is declared… and the real tests are to come as Chico heads off to the front. He gives Diane one of two rosaries handed to him by a priest but, again, these religious symbols will prove to be more about their own devotion. They promise to hold the necklaces every day at 11 and to “be” with the other – to connect no matter what the distance and to find their personal heaven.

But the war will be long and with so many tragedies around them how can Diane and Chico’s state of grace possibly be maintained…

The score was unusual for a silent film and occasionally I found myself watching the band as well as the film how can you not when there’s so much going on? Mara played ukulele, piano and, of course a saw whilst Max alternated between piano, bass and electronics, sitting on the floor twiddling with unseen buttons and dials. Liam Byrne extracted the unexpected from a viola da gamba and also the Lirone (something like a Celtic cello possessing a mournful vitality) whilst drummer Alex Thomas gave a dynamic lesson in percussive versatility.

Now, songs are controversial in the Silent Village but here they were deployed with intelligence and restraint – lyrics wound carefully around the emotional narrative, enhancing and not shouting down the visual expression; always at pains to reflect and not foreshadow. The combination of voices was also pitch perfect in every sense with both singers working generously together throughout.

Real craft went into this music and it was very much the slave to Borzage’s rhythms… from the quite understated opening instrumental sections to the martial beat of the battle and the overwhelming swells of the closing sequence.

Now, where have we seen this sort of thing recently...?

The score was a specially-commissioned as part of the BFI’s Love season which continues through December and beyond – further details are on their website.

Hopefully this joyous combination will find its way onto digital media at some point – my daughter’s not going to be the only one buying it! Thanks KT, MC, MdW and FB.

And a personal PS, my daughter’s musical heroine turned out to be every bit as genuine and gracious as she has always seemed.

Further reading on the band:

Mara Carlyle

KT Tunstall

Max de Wardener

Liam Byrne

Alex Thomas