Stewart Lee- Taking a Stand

 At The Stand Comedy Club the walls are perspiring and the heat is fanned by laughter. Stoking the flames is Stewart Lee, Britain's one-time 41st Funniest Man and satirical thorn in the backside of mediaocrity. 

 I've been called in to try and resolve his identity crisis. Stewart is often confused with "Terry Christian, Todd Carty, Morrissey, Edwyn Collins, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Liotta, Roland Gift, Ali Campbell, Mark Lamarr and a 1930's drawing of Tarzan."  It was a tall order but after a couple of sessions I could now offer him a selection of Stewart Lee impressions. From the shoot there wasn't a single image he'd censor. Stewart was a great subject and impeccably unkempt company.

 

Edinburgh Festival 2009
 
  I was urban somnambulating, on my way to the college art shop, Hypocanthus at the controls. My co-pilot was hijacked by a cacophony of power tools and generators coming from the college grounds. Perfect timing: city is under excavation and it appears the college isn’t exempt.
A look behind the tarpaulin and my simmering rage was taken off the heat. Inside a sculptor was mercilessly attacking a slab of rock. This was to be a stage for a month long performance.
Eleven shelters, each housing a sculptor and a block of stone, was the setting of Milestone- brainchild of Scottish sculptor Jake Harvey. He had the inspired vision to display 10 international sculptors (and a graduate) at work in the grounds of Edinburgh College of Art. Artists from Japan, the USA, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the UK were assembled, each demonstrating their mastery and differing styles. Over the next month they would create a finished sculpture from scratch. Through gritted goggles they assaulted, smashed, gouged and beat their hapless victim into submission. The creative fallout covered everything in a blanket of white.
In sculpture evidence of the trauma and struggle between creator and creation is usually polished away before put on display. Here was a visceral demonstration of destruction in the quest for beauty - for art. Quarrying sculptors remorselessly destroyed in order to create: they are not art nihilists. Superficially their acts appear as wanton destruction, yet are demonstrations of a fevered desire to consummate their relationship. The rock never submits without a fight. The two find their way together with psychometry and ardor. The course is set in stone, dictated by the flow of the petrified veins and mille-feuilles. Milestone was an insight and a revelation. It helped me to better understand my processes and draw some analogies. My subject, like the sculptors stone, is defined by the light of it's surroundings. It too is impassive and acquiescent to its environmental conditions until I start to reveal with my light. With light I can obscure, hew and expose with surgical precision.
 Once a week, for the span of the event, I made my pilgrimage and kept a record of the consequent acts on this stage.

 
Priest paying homage to Jake Harvey Scott's creation.

Hayashi Takeshi Japan

Joel Fisher USA

Sibylle Pasche Switzerland

Gerard Mas Spain

Susanne Specht Germany

Peter Randall-Page and David Brompton-Greene

Jessica Harrison Scotland

Atsuo Okamoto Japan

Daniel Silver Israel/UK

Carlos Lizariturry Moro Spain

 The Edinburgh Festival is about to kick off and Mark (Borkowski) is already here casing the joint. I first met Mark 23 years ago when he was promoting chain-saw juggling clowns from French circus troupe Archaos.

  For many years we were creatively conjoined and intent on creatively twisting the public's melon. We share a kindred Carney spirit and appetite for subversion. Mark is now a legend in his field and a published authority on the art of the publicist.
  One of his many clients, James "Tappy" Wright is in Edinburgh promoting his new book 'Rock Roadie'. Tappy, a former roadie, claims in his book that Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager. My uncle Terry, a porter in the London morgue at the time of Hendrix's death, joked he had trouble screwing the casket shut due to the size of his legendary member. Terry was the final nail in the coffin.

The Cactus Gardener

The usual story- I met Kamikaze in a disused abattoir in the l'aisselle de Marseilles where the fetid stench of rendered carcasses clung to the walls. The site was trailer trashed; strewn with crippled and cannibalised caravans. The Kamikaze Plaza was an oasis of land-mine cacti in the slaughter-house's Esquina Latina. Tin baths, oil cans, pre-mulched toilets and piss-pots provided shelter from the bonemeal mistral.

 I had flown a thousand miles to discover that when he wasn't travelling he stayed just 2 miles from my door. Kamikaze reigns from the Principality of Pilton. His pathological impulse to bring laughter courses through his galvanised veins. Kamikaze's motto is 'C'est la Fuckin Vie' and his métier is cracking smiles in granite. We are each others star-gate.

 That was 7 years ago and now he's come knocking. Kamikaze's got a present for me hidden up his sleeve. He's been waiting to surprise me since returning from Peru and now he's inching-up his shirt cuff. There amongst the hallowed tapestry of tattoos stood the syringe-spined silhouette of the Cactus Gardener. My work is now indelibly mortalised.

Next week he's off to India for three months of laughter making and tea tasting- La Dolce Vita!

Century Club

 Tonight I'm in London accompanied by nervous excitement. I've been invited to the unveiling of 2 new rooms in Century Club. Century is a refuge of tranquility conveniently located in the heart of London's Theatreland. This oasis of calm is crowned with a roof-garden, a surviving bastion of tobacco camaraderie.

  I'm apprehensive because the rooms have been designed around my photographs and tonight is the first time I'll see them. Sophie (manager) commissioned two sets of prints- Cabaret for the new games-room and Fuerzabruta for the restaurant. The Cabaret photographs set a seductive and heady tone. All the details have been precisely worked out by interior designer Louise Begley, right down to the red felt cover of the pool-table.

The adjourning restaurant is in contrast light and airy. The suspended Fuerza dancers look down on the diners like sirens from a basilica fresco. To celebrate the occasion Sophie has laid on food and drinks. I've invited some friends on the condition that they're on their best behaviour.

Javier is already here, lounging resplendent under one of the Cabaret prints, cocktail in hand. He's talking to Josephine (Darvill Mills), cast member of Cabaret and subject of one of the photographs. Everyone is gobsmacked by the floor-to-ceiling print of Clemmie Sveaas and James Dreyfus that greets them.

Ralph (Brown), the only friend I know to be immortalised on celluloid and in cellulose, has turned up with that glint in his eye. We met when I was shooting the NT Auditions and hit it off like on-coming mail trains.

Ralph's a gifted pianist and saxophonist, you can find his recordings on CD and vinyl. He's about to perform at the Brighton Fringe Festival in the tribute band The Brighton Beach Boys and revels in the story of when I met Brian Wilson. As a side-line he's also an author, director, screenwriter, producer and prize-winning playwright. He is a polymath who just won't let go of his infatuation with acting.

Gerry (Cottle Jnr) arrived brandishing his Aussie amour, Sue. He's going through his Mungo-Gerry-fro-phase - the dude's a walking Van De Graaff de-generator. Hair apparent to the throne of the Cottle Dynasty, Gerry was born in a side-show, weened on midget's milk and has an incurable case of congenital showmanship. Gerry's the Philippe Petit of these occasions. When a party slackens and sides split Gerry gets out his metaphorical unicycle and stitches the void with a tightrope act of death-defying wit.

Rebecca (Daly) came up to me and took my arm for support. She'd been star struck and was still reeling. This involuntary reaction had never happened before. Bex, Avid Master and doyenne of the edit suite regularly rubs shoulders with the glitterati. Being confronted by her hero from adolescence 'Danny' (Withnail and I) was a disorienting experience. He'd obviously made a deeper impression on her than she'd realised. Ralph has that effect on people, beware!

As Abigail would agree "a party's not a party without vol-au-vents". Patrica (Lima) was that missing patisserie. She took the party up a gear and homed in on Iffat, the two of them committed social reformers.

 By day Iffat fights social injustice with a rolled copy of British Vogue under her arm. Tonight she was keeping a watchful, little-sisterly eye over me, making sure I was distributing myself equally. 
 

 Brother-in-arms Ed Webster (photographic producer at 4Creative) was casting a critical eye over the images. Ed's commitment to getting me representation is now taking it's toll. My photographs meet with his approval and he promises that the quest will not end until an agent sees sense.
 

Michael (Hulls) is a luminary in the world of theatre lighting design. The last time I spoke to him was to tell him his epitaph had just been read out on the radio. A panel of Saturday Review critics had savaged a performance he'd just worked on - 'in-i' by Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan. The critics agreed that the only saving grace was the lighting genius of Michael Hulls who eclipsed the show by turning 'Kapor into Rothko.' Michael was modestly horrified by this news; Anish Kapoor had designed the set!

When the final daiquiri was demolished we retreated to the roof-top garden and whiled away the night under the stars and smoke.

  Today our presence is graced by Karen (Lamond). Back in 1990 she winged it with me on an assignment to Romania. She had me under false pretenses, she said she was going to be my assistant. Karen brought her unique qualities to the role. Duties that jeopardised feminine poise, such as pushing and lifting, were the privilege of the photographer. I'd been commission by LIFT to travel to Romania by invitation of their Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs. The assignment was to photograph 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by the ironically titled 'Comedy Theatre of Bucharest'. The artists were now free of censorship and the prescriptive humour they were forced to perform under the dictatorship.
 By the time we got there the population had been served Nicolae and Elena Caecescu for Christmas. Whilst their son Nicu was banged away we had the run of his pad and the sheets were still warm. This was the caotically assembled headquarters of the newly formed Ministry of Culture and we were their first guests. Nicu had led the playboy life-style and his vulgar pretensions spewed over everything. The bedroom was circular, the bed was round too. When the door was shut it disappeared in a vacuum into the gold flock wallpaper. Above the bed a chandelier of crystal stalactites threatened to impale it's occupants at the flick of a switch. On arrival we were met by the night-porter, a gnarled curmudgeon coming to terms with the seismic upheaval to his life. With a chalk finger he drew our attention to the lampshade. He could swear it quivered. 'Bucharest has a terrible history of earthquakes'.
  Before we could give our hosts the gifts we bore from Scotland, it dawned on us that these perishables were to become our stable rations. At the International Hotel, the only place to eat, the vegetation had been wrestled from a mollusk- gastropod gastronomy. Karen was going through her pescetarian phase. The dishes on offer were a smorgasbord of grey, meat-based gelatinous knackerbrod. Anything would be better than this. So, Karen attempted to barter a tin of caviar from a waiter- Klass. These were the unique qualities she brought to the role of assistant. At night the city lights were extinguished to conserve power. The demonised gypsy population flooded the streets, besieging Bucharest until day-break. Curfew in Bucharest with Karen was a diet of smoked salmon, Drambuie and laughter. The things we brought fi hame.

  The shoot was grueling but an invaluable education in the healing properties of laughter. On our last night I had a kilogram of banknotes and no possible way of spending it. I offered the cash to the theatre but they refused it, preferring to democratically blow the lot on a party- fair do's. Two of the staff were elected to get the drinks: one to carry, the other to make sure he didn't take off with the money. They returned peering over stacks of crates. The party took place in the committee room at the rear of the theatre. A beige cell lit by a bank of migraine inducing fluorescent tubes segregated by a monolithic table. At one end of the room an exhausted upright piano slumped against the wall. Karen asked for a change of lighting- good call. Moments later the lights were killed and a chicane of gold candelabras lined the length of the table. Her next request- some music. They happily obliged with a pair of guitars and the full Beatles back catalogue. An official with an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler frisked the piano and played "Boowgee Woowgie". "Does madam require anything more?" they gleefully pressed. "Two Pink Elephants" she replied, hurling the gauntlet squarely back at their feet. They came pirouetting back from the props department, trussed in pink hobby (horse) elephants. What a party!
In the intervening years she has become a successful and sought after beauty director and photographer. Karen learnt an important lesson; she'd need to change out of her Manolo's if she was going to travel down my path.

 1st of April, perfect timing for a session with comedian, yoof TV and 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks' presenter Simon Amstell. Thankfully he leaves the razor sharp wit he employs to ruthlessly dissect his interviewees, outside the studio door. The twenty-something Essex boy is a squeaky clean, totally tee-total, drug and caffeine-free Vegetarian. His body is a synagogue to satire and repository for emasculated young men, too feeble to escape his raffish grip.

 Throughout the day we explore every angle to find images for his PR and tour campaign. Portraits of a wide-eyed, aloof Amstell in his grunge counter-couture were chosen.

 In short, they showed his stage personality.
Of course Simon’s not one dimensional. The other images were perhaps too intimate or too revealing for this campaign. Perhaps in some I had portrayed him as his conquest, the hapless lover he wanted to entrap?
Maybe one day he'll let me show them to you. We'll have to wait to see.

Death and the King's Horseman

 January - another day of monotone. The sodden nap of winter's fire-blanket had long extinguished Autumn's pyrotechnic displays. Feeling seasonally maladjusted and in need of spiritual re-orientation I dial Javier. Whatever mood he's in, his irrepressible effervescence always lifts mine. Things start off well; his Latin temperament is cursing him for subjecting it to the Great British weather. Then he slips a Mickey Finn into my tonic, apologising that he'll be boarding a plane to Nigeria to research Yoruba dance and culture. To rub salt into my anemic wounds he tells me he'd be travelling with friends Rufus (Norris director) and Katrina (Lindsay costume designer). They were working together on the play 'Death and the King's Horseman' by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. And as if that wasn't enough, whilst there they'd venture out of Lagos to meet him. The leaden sky was now pouring acid. When I eventually caught breath from the blow to my solar plexus, I realised that this presented the perfect opportunity:

I was first introduced to Wole Soyinka’s work in 1992 when shooting a campaign for Talawa Theatre Company’s production of his play ‘The Road’. Shortly after, when making ‘dis’, I had the youthful temerity to ask Wole if he'd write me a poem. I had created a photograph that I believed only his insight and vision could seal the marriage between image and word. Despite his perilous circumstances he humbled my adolescent arrogance with a poem of terrifying beauty, profound resonance and perfect symbiosis. I never met or spoke with Wole, back then in 1993 the only way to communicate was by fax. At the time of correspondence he had sought sanctuary at the Sheraton Lagos, before fleeing Nigeria for the USA. More than a decade later I have this chance to safely repatriate Wole’s poem with a print of the finished artwork.

 Skip to now. It's mid-March and the intransigent sky is still resolutely grey. Rehearsals are scheduled to start for Death and the King's Horseman when I get a call from Jenny(Jules). Over the years I have come to see Jenny as a wonderfully errant sister. She's an extraordinary talent, a gifted actor and stuff, but when we get together our senses of humour strain to be let off the leash and go bounding off in to the woods. She purrs she's got a lead part in a play at the NT. Enough, basta, comprendo, capiche! I get the message and catch the next train.

Rufus is the Zidane of the stage. He paces the action with the stealth of a predator, preying on the smallest indiscretion that strays from the script.

The role of King is filled by the imperious presence of Nonso Alozie. Standing in at a 6'6" he can quake the stage with the force of Ogun, or defy his mass and float with the light touch and agility of a bird.

Rufus's all black cast is a reassuringly welcome sight, peppered with familiar faces from past projects. Above them a newspaper advertisement hollered down. The Evening Standard is already stirring things in the direction of the box office with the headline 'Black Actors White Up at the National' -a provocatively cynical reference to Olivier's performance as Othello.

 My fee is redeemed before the shutter is depressed. No price could be put on sitting in on rehearsals, watching an apprehensive cast find their way under Rufus and Javier's masterful stewardship. No money is exchanged, the equation is simple: I get access to remarkable subject matter plus a unique insight into inspirational artists at work -

I was royally paid.

 

The opportunity to shoot the cast in full costume came during dress rehearsals. The only available space was off-stage in rehearsal room 6; a windowless casket of coffee stained cream walls and plastic stacking chairs. It could be have been a waiting room or reception you'd find anywhere - Lagos or London. I resisted the temptation to neutralise it and opted to work with its... banality. The contrast of the actors, extraordinary in Katrina's exquisite finery, set against the ubiquitous sterility of their surroundings could be made to work to my advantage.

 In Yoruban culture everything, including inanimate objects, has as spirit. The lampshade girl represents this 'Jinn' and she reappears throughout the sequence as a reminder of this belief. For the following six hours the session is a frenetic production line of masquerading black peacocks, priests, servants, musicians and African Royalty - real and fictional. Full dress rehearsals are a time of palpable panic, eyes in headlights stuff. I had between 90 seconds and 15 minutes to shoot each actor before they were spirited away, back on stage.

(footnote) The poem made it safely home to its maker. The present was received with joyful surprise- one more of Wole's lost poems had returned to the fold.


End of The Road. End of story.

 The re-scheduled shoot with Nick Cave was 3 hours away. My challenge was to get from my adopted home in West London, weighed down with kit, to Brighton by public transport. I'd worked it all out when Lee suggested that the family tag along. He'd drive us to Brighton and while I worked they'd eat fish 'n' chips and potter on the beach with son Ravi. Grandmother, son, grandson, childminder, buckets, cameras and me, packed into a groaning people carrier. On the M25 grandma Chander punctuated the jollities with howls of incredulity. She was keeping up with events from the motherland, scouring her newspaper for any reports from India. She delighted in systematically deriding the political, judicial and caste systems with unquestionable authority. Once in Brighton the satnav guided us to Nick's basement lair with air-traffic control precision. Nick greeted me tentatively and made the first move with the offer of a cuppa. I set up studio in a spare room at the back of the flat, penned in on all sides by racks of suits, keyboards, guitars, more guitars and a bed. The Nick I encountered two decades before was a brooding stupor of mistrust with eyes of dark-matter black. The revised Nick had crystalline pupils and could walk without the aid of a wall. I asked if he remembered the session? No. The location? No. Could he recall me asking him to stand in the corner of the room and how he then proceeded to flap his arms like a snared crow? No. Did he recognise me? No, no, no! Did he agree that the photograph was irrefutable proof of our encounter? Yes! He pleaded mitigating circumstances- the drugs.

90 minutes later and outside the family was still braving the February squall. Timing was perfect, any longer and we'd both be suffering from photo-fatigue. Back at in London I asked Chander if I could take her photograph. She took my hand and placed it on firmly on her head saying "bless me."

 Nick chose 11 shots from the session, heaping unbridled praise on one image and blessing me with a quote worthy of my epitaph- 'LOVE this photo. One of my favourite Nick Cave (over 50) photo's. Hey, I'd fuck me!'