New this month: The V&A's extensive 'Postmodernism: Style & Subversion 1970-1990', The Avengers 50th Anniversary Show at The Barbican and the Andy Warhol retrospective at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. Still showing: Neil Innes' work is celebrated at the NFT with the great man himself in attendance and 'Gurney Slade' returns to confuse another generation of viewers. A rare screening of 'I Start Counting' a tense thriller with Jenny Agutter, Proud Gallery's stunning '20th Century Icons' exhibition, a site-specific showing of Kubrick's notorious film, 'A Clockwork Orange', the reappearance of 'Ritual' by David Pinner, the inspiration behind 'The Wicker Man', 1970's 'Deep End', 'The Day of the Peacock'; Style for Men 1963-1973, 'Or Glory: 21st Century Rockers, a stunning collection of photos by Horst A. Friedrichs, 'Brighton Rock', the new film adaptation, and Michael Winner's 'The Jokers' revisited. As part of my regular R.A.M. (Random Access Memory) feature, I revisit my own punk past in ‘Punk in Hartlepool’, which was printed in the Mail Hartlepool. You're welcome to take a peek... ...and don't forget to scroll down below to 'Scenester's Incomplete Record'

Scenester’s Incomplete Record

Celebrated Hallowe’en attending the National Film Theatre’s screening of two classic horror films from the golden age, Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Son of Dracula (1943). The former, a claustrophobic, sexually charged tale of a reluctant vampire’s family secret and her ensnarement of a man’s soul are acted out with great sensitivity in one of the more underrated horrors of the 1930’s. By contrast, the unusual casting of Lon Chaney Jnr. as a stocky Dracula nevertheless provided some chills, an on-screen transformation from man to bat, and a harsh punishment meted out to one female character who was an all too willing victim of the vampire.

An evening in the company of some former Blitz Kids viewing Graham Smith’s pictures rekindled a few memories from that distant age, when Britain, deep in economic recession, seemed to have produced a nation of young chancers opening their sort of clubs for their sort of people, and to hell with conformity and consensus good taste. Some of the subjects of Graham’s photos went on to considerable lasting fame, like Sade, Boy George and Spandau Ballet, but with nearly thirty year’s hindsight, this critic was left with the feeling that the era offered little more than a temporary distraction from the harsh reality of life in a country on a downward spiral, and which was over within a few years, when the stadium rock bands re-asserted their pre-eminence.

The art deco buildings photo exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects must surely be one of the finest in London right now. Although many of the beautiful structures shown here were demolished long ago, some, like Morecambe’s Midland Hotel have survived, restored to their early 20th Century modernist beauty. Sensitive restorations, like the Savoy Theatre, have such minute attention to detail; they could easily be taken for original. The true wonders here are the interiors of well-to-do houses, all chromed, dark-mirrored bathrooms and cloud nine bedrooms, long since ripped out and replaced with some ‘modern’ mediocrity.
 
‘Nothing In the World but Youth’ was our Saturday morning entertainment a couple of weeks ago, showing at the Turner Contemporary in Margate. A broad based exhibition in a vast, beached iceberg of a building, about youth culture throughout history, it took in images of young people from comics like the Topper and pop music magazines like ‘Oh Boy’, through Turner’s own paintings of gilded youth and the poignant image of the ‘Half-Timer’, a child worker of the Victorian age, obliged to attend school, but who also worked half-time in a factory to help support her family. Peter Blake’s ‘Self-portrait with badges’, itself a reminder of Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’ is a stand-out, as is the inclusion of part of Toby Mott’s collection of punk-era posters, fanzines and political magazines, featured earlier this year in his ‘Loud Flash’ exhibition, in London. Images of young people in conflict, sometimes caught up in tragic events, sometimes of their own making, provided a stark reminder that youth is not always a period filled with laughter and joy. The Smiths karaoke made me laugh a lot, and a 1970’s promotional film urging people to come to Margate for their annual holiday, provoked nostalgia for a time when most coastal resorts in the UK could count on a reasonably prosperous summer, spurred on my Michael Aspel’s apparent popularity with the local girls.

The opening night of ‘Punk and Beyond’ at Paul Street London EC2A’s Signal Gallery reminded me of a mass arrest in a basement, so full of punters and with barely enough room to get round. Nevertheless, managed to see the wild creatures of Robyn Hitchcock’s imagining, the fried, lysergic eminences of Savage Pencil and Billy Childish’s Soviet-like posters. A tribute wall to the late and much missed Poly Styrene, with Poly painted and photographed in various guises and periods of her life, was especially welcome, from her dungaree-clad pop incarnation as Mari Elliot, to a crisp, clear image of X-Ray Spex onstage, Lora Logic in a boiler suit playing that haunting sax and Poly in her ‘hot water bottle’ dress. Ian Dickson’s study of a nervous looking TV Smith and Gaye Advert, in their long hair and street clothes, was a stark reminder that punk was as much about feeling and mutual support as it was about wild haircuts and ripped ‘n’ torn clothing. Curator Gaye’s huge eyes stare out of a 1978 photo of her at home, the ‘eye’ theme being repeated to infinity in her hypnotic tile-works.

An otherwise dull post-Christmas Saturday afternoon in the King’s Road was considerably enlivened by a visit to Proud Chelsea’s ‘Screen Sirens & Rock Rebels’ exhibition. If the window shot of Twiggy, all 30s bob and downturned mouth doesn’t get you through the door, nothing will.
The classic Terry O’Neill archive seems totally at home in Proud’s King’s Road HQ, but he isn’t the only photographer represented here. Shots of Bardot looking tall and imperious contrast with Catherine Deneuve, Grecian haired, gazing at herself in a decorated hand mirror. Audrey Hepurn, demure and with downcast eyes in one shot, is frolicking naked in a pool in stunning colour in another. The basement gallery offers action shots of Jimmy Page in his velvet finery, taking a violin bow to his famous Gibson. The young Rolling Stones, looking moody and dangerous in their college-boy jackets and pinch collars, are a world away from the alien, Aladdin Sane-era David Bowie. Duffy’s contact sheet-like shots show many angles of the outrageously made-up face, with only one possible image for the LP cover-eyes closed, head down, like a votive idol. Would a visit to this exhibition be complete without adoring the Marianne Faithfull ‘pub’ shot? It runs to 22nd January, so hurry!