The Real Don Tonay, a Follow Up Post

A couple of weeks ago I received an email relating to a post I made in January about Manchester's Don Tonay. The email was from his daughter Donna and, after some back and forth, I got some answers to the questions, opinions and myths that were evident in that original post about one of Manchester's most intriguing businessmen and a key figure in the early days of Factory Records. With Donna's permission, here is the answers she provided me that shed some light on her late father.Included in this post are photographs she kindly shared with me of Don. I hope you enjoy...

I started by asking Donna just what her father's ethnic background was, given that it was the source of much confusion and conflicting opinions among the Factory set;

"My Dad always said he was from Dublin. But we are not really sure" she replied. "We know he changed his name but we don't know what it was before. My Mum has a lot of theories about that. It was either during the war to avoid going back or to get away from his family. Who knows. He would never tell you"

"He definitely was Irish. He knew Dublin like the back of his hand. I have had a DNA test and I have come back as 70% Irish so I think that was true. His friend, Phyllis, Phil Lynott's (Thin Lizzy) mum said they were neighbours when they were children in Dublin"

I asked her about Don's life prior to owning the Russell Club, home of the Factory nights;

"He opened the first blues in Moss Side called the Monton house. Engelbert Humperdinck used to try and get in every night, but he was too young so my Dad said he was throw him out most nights" 

"He owned property all over Moss Side and rented it out. If they didn't pay their rent he would smash the toilet so they had to move out. He said it was cheaper to buy a new toilet"

"When he met my mum they travelled around the country opening illegal gambling dens, as gambling was illegal in the '60s. In their place in Bristol, Cary Grant used to come in"

"It was my stepdad, who was one of the Quality Street Gang, that allegedly put the Krays back on the train (when they arrived in Manchester with an eye on taking over the city). The Thin Lizzy song, 'The Boys are Back in Town', is about them"

One thing that everyone seemed to agree upon, I said, was that Don Tonay was a handsome, tall and well-dressed gentleman. A cool man who was a world away from the blunt northern club owner stereotype played by Peter Kay in 24 Hour Party People. Donna agreed and confirmed this;

"My Dad was always well-dressed and well-spoken. He wore silk socks and handmade shoes. He was also 6ft 4". Saying that, he could always scruff it and get cracking with whatever needed doing in the clubs or many shops that he owned"

Returning to 24 Hour Party People, I asked if the family were consulted at all on the production;

"We were not consulted. A friend of mine was friend with one of the cameramen who got me onto the set where I had an argument with Tony Wilson, as my dad had only just died of a massive heart attack on the 19th September 2000 and this was November of that year when they were filming. He (Wilson) had the good grace to apologise. You see, there would be no Factory without my dad, he bankrolled it all."

Donna concluded with her belief that her mother should write a book. It's one I emphatically agree with. Hollywood film stars, music legends and gangsters, it would make for great reading!

The Real Don Tonay

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog how keen I am on the Madchester scene. When Michael Winterbottom's film 24 Hour Party People came out in 2002, I went to see it at the cinemas twice and it fast became one of my favourite films. I loved the way that the film recreated the whole scene and the immersive, bewildering world of Factory Records, populated by so many eccentric creatives and larger than life characters. However, there was one particular character who intrigued me and that was Don Tonay, the owner of the Russell Club in Moss Side.

The Real Don Tonay - photo taken from the Excavating the Reno site, 

a site dedicated to the Moss Side cellar club that Don owned in the 1970s.

In the film, Tonay is played by Peter Kay as your stereotypical northern club owner, not too dissimilar to the type of comic creations Kay is known for. But I quickly learned that this was not a truthful account of Don Tonay, a man with Irish, Italian and Jamaican heritage (a Jamaican father and Italian mother I believe, though I may be wrong) who was a much suaver and more imposing figure than the film depicts.

In Tony Wilson's suitably eccentric novelisation of the film (only Wilson would approach his own life story in such an irreverent fashion; as he says in the film "I agree with John Ford. When you have to choose between the truth and the legend - print the legend" and that's literally what he does in this book) he depicts the real Tonay thus; 

"The front door was open. They walked straight in. At the bar, cashing up, a tall, striking, late-middle-aged man in a fine cashmere overcoat. Imposing wasn't the word. Self-assured as only someone who took on the Krays and lived can be. Story was, he came from the tenements of Dublin's North Side, tough as those streets. After a slight altercation with London's premier family, he has come north"

This then, is corroboration for a bit of mythologising I had once heard in a Manchester boozer when raising the subject of Don Tonay. Rumour has it, a sage in his cups informed me, that Don Tonay had heard that the Kray twins were coming to take a look at Manchester in the late '60s. The train from London Euston arrived at Piccadilly and the brothers decamped to be met by Don and what can only be described as a posse of hard bastards. The Krays took the next train back. 

Is it true? I dunno, but I'd like it to be. Already, I'm falling into the Tony Wilson school of 'printing the legend'.

In his book, Factory: The Story of the Record Label, Mick Middles elaborates more on Tonay's 'gangster' qualities; 

"The Russell Club had numerous guises, mainly though as the PSV Club (Public Service Vehicle...no, I never understood that, either). It had made its name in later days as a suitably downbeat reggae-orientated venue handily placed, as it was, for nearby Moss Side. (Tony) Wilson had chanced upon the venue following a meeting with the owner, local 'businessman' Don Tonay. He was, in the eyes of Wilson, ' an incredible character...a civilised gangster' 

Tonay, undoubtedly, had style. He was a tall, commanding handsome man in his late forties. Each night, after prowling around the club, he would leave at precisely 1 a.m. A van would pull respectfully onto the car park. The rear door would open to reveal two beautiful prostitutes in reclining poses, between whom Tonay would stylishly flop. The door would be pulled shut and the van would cruise away into the night. Tonay's style was a throwback, of sorts, to the gangster tradition - he did have links, it was strongly rumoured, with the Kray fraternity - and most people who knew him, and knew him well enough not to cross him, regarded him as a lovely individual. One is tempted, of course, to break into Pythonesque tales of a Piranha Brothers nature; 'Oh yeah Don... he was a lovely bloke...' etc, and such cliches wouldn't be too far from the truth as Tonay ruled his patch with an iron hand, be it a loving hand or otherwise. This was, perhaps, typified by a conversation overheard at the Russell Club one night when Magazine were performing. The band's van had been cynically and pointlessly broken into in the car park. Two 'drug squad' officers, standing at the bar - drinking Red Stripe - were heard to mutter, 'Whoever broke into that van will be very sorry...very sorry indeed...pity for him that it wasn't our precinct. Don will sort them out, poor guys'

Tonay had a few other quirks. There were signs in the club that read 'NO TAMS ALLOWED'. It was difficult to know quite what this meant. However one clue could be the time Tonay wandered into the club and, spying three Jamaican guys in woolly hats, screamed 'Haaaattttts!', following which the offending articles were removed. On another occasion Tonay entered the club at 2 a.m, and two or three straggling tables remained - students mainly - only too slowly finishing their Guinnesses, smoking dope, chatting about the evening's gig.  'Don't you know how to clear a club out?' asked Tonay, his question directed at Alan Wise, his sidekick Nigel, and Wilson. Wilson answered pointedly, 'No...not really, Don'. Tonay proceeded to pick up a table, hurl it in the air and, before it crashed to the ground, screamed 'OOOOOUTTTTTTT!!!!'. The students, needless to say, filed out respectfully, silently, nervously."

Alan Wise himself had this to say in a conversation with New Order frontman Bernard Sumner, included in Sumner's memoir, Chapter and Verse;

"Don was actually quite an erudite gangster who's been involved in political activities all over Africa. He went off to be a paratrooper and had been involved with certain members of the African National Congress. He'd gone to Africa and dealt in iron pyrites. Fool's gold. Don was a fascinating character and I really took to him...he was a pirate...he was a fence. The police used to come round to his house and he'd say, 'how's things, guys?' and they'd say, 'we're broke, Don': they used to openly come round to take money, so he was still involved."

Whilst Lindsey Reade, Tony Wilson's first wife, recalls in her book, Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl, that Tonay was;

"A man of Irish gypsy descent with black wavy hair...(Don Tonay) looked like a big Mafiosi character. Tosh (Ryan) recalled accompanying Don's right-hand man to collect Don from the airport after a trip to Italy. The first thing Don said was, 'Anything happen?' '5 Mitten Street got torched,' came the reply. (This was a shebeen that Don owned.) To which Don responded, deadpan, 'Anything else?' 

So as you can see, the reality was far and away quite different from Peter Kay's interpretation in 24 Hour Party People - even though the film retained Tonay's flamboyant mode of transport home from the Russell Club each night.  

Emphatically NOT the real Don Tonay,

played by Peter Kay in 24 Hour Party People

On my special limited edition DVD of 24 Hour Party People (number 1756 of the DVD release which, of course, has a Fac number too: DVD424) there is a great extra entitled From the Factory Floor; an in-vision DVD commentary of Winterbottom's film, featuring the likes of Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order), Bruce Mitchell (The Durutti Column), Martin Moscrop (ACR) and Rowetta (Happy Mondays), and chaired by the delightful Miranda Sawyer. In it, Hooky talks about Tonay and how radically different the film chose to portray him, and unconsciously challenging the Middles anecdote that made it into the movie;

"Don Tonay wasn't like that though was he? He was much more aloof, much more of a gentleman, you wouldn't catch him in the back of a van with fuckin' hookers. It's probably a good thing that he's dead, the poor bugger, otherwise we'd all have our legs chopped off for that!"

Later on, as Peter Kay makes his first appearance in the film, Sawyer asks the group to recall the real Tonay. Hooky is somewhat confused as to what Tonay's ethnicity was; "Was he black or Italian?" he asks, and Moscrop replies "Italian" "He was very dark skinned though wasn't he?" Hooky continues. "He was from Manchester, but he was of Italian descent" Moscrop concludes - which differs from Wilson's claims that he was originally from Dublin. It's left to Bruce Mitchell to fill in more detail;

"He was a very serious level. He wore like £500 suits...and a £500 suit in those days was a serious suit. He run all the blue beats, he ran all the deliveries of the beer to the blue beats, and this guy was seriously cool..." 

Mitchell then goes on to say something that is presumably libellous as the sound drops out! When it returns, he concludes with "...But he was a very charming guy as well"

The performance by Peter Kay, and the way the character is written in the film, still rankles with Hooky;

"But that's such a strange portrayal. That portrayal of him, if you knew him, is the strangest"

Ultimately, it's Moscrop who sums it up in relation to the audience;

"Everyone knows who Peter Kay is, but they don't know who Don Tonay is" 

In short, the film required the depiction of a northern club owner, Peter Kay was, at the time, playing a northern club owner in his sitcom Phoenix Nights, therefore the film cast Peter Kay, a popular comic, to more or less play himself. A case of printing the legend rather than the truth again.

Did you know Don Tonay? Do you have any stories about him? I'd love to hear from you if you do. Just drop me a line in the comment section below. 

Out On Blue Six: Robert Miles, RIP

DJ and legendary trance producer Robert Miles has died at the age of 47. Reports say he had been suffering with cancer for several months.

Born Roberto Concina, Miles' biggest hit was the 1996 'dream house' club hit Children, a big favourite of mine.

Originally written in response to the images from Bosnia of child victims from the conflict in Yugoslavia, the hit took on a different life when Miles saw the 'Saturday night slaughter' on Italy's roads; numerous car smashes that took the lives of young clubbers returning home from parties. Determined to offer a more sedate, chilled beat to close the night and bring clubbers down enough to drive safely, Miles penned Children; with its natural thunderstorm start and melancholic piano riff, the track made the youth of clubland think and feel nostalgic and reflective, as opposed to still attempting to chase the buzz from earlier in the night.

It remains a beautiful track that hasn't dated a day in the twenty-one years since its release.

RIP

End Transmission

The Alcohol Years (2000)

It's hard to look the person you once were in the eye. Being reminded of how naive and reckless you were as a younger person, when you were still struggling to find and claim your own identity, can be an embarrassing and painful experience. Like finding old photographs of yourself or guilty, long abandoned items in your wardrobe, you're confronted with the cringe-inducing realisation that you were once someone very different. Someone that you might not like or be able to tolerate if you met them now.

"There was this story about Alan Wise...(how he) used to like you weeing on him"

In The Alcohol Years, Carol Morley dares to confront her 16-21 year old self; a complex and complicated figure who stalked the hinterland of a post-industrial Manchester that was awaiting something to happen to it; a new dawn which ultimately turned out to be the second summer of love at the end of the decade  - a summer of love that was effectively the cities first, the previous one having been robbed by the pall of the infamous Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hyndley. 

Morley was a legendary figure, her reputation proceeding her in a manner which belied her youth as she drank and caroused her way through clubs like the Hacienda and The Boardwalk and into the bedrooms of several men and women, and sometimes for a price. The film therefore makes it clear through its interviewed participants and its striking collage of imagery that to know Carol Morley meant that you had an opinion of Carol Morley, good or bad. A night out with Carol Morley was a promise of drama, and an experience that was anything but boring. It is that mythologised status that Morley chooses to explore here, along with the mythology of Manchester itself. Electing to stay behind the camera, she develops a character that is rather ethereal, like the spectre at the feast, whilst her friends and contemporaries reminiscence about her and deliver their prized anecdotes about her behaviour either fondly or in contemptible, withering terms - behaviour that she herself can no longer recall, thanks to the effects of alcohol. In relying on these talking heads, the film creates a composite character of who Carol Morley was, whilst understanding that any story that relies on memory is understandably one of an unreliable narration as each interviewee tells their own truth.

The Alcohol Years is a film about sexual identity and the inequality at the heart of how our society perceives gender. Morley was clearly a very sexually provocative and promiscuous young woman, but she argues in the accompanying commentary that she felt the need to fulfill a sexual fantasy at a time when women were objectified on sexual terms but were perversely expected to be passive in their own sexuality. Some of the contributors refer to her as a sexual predator, with a very masculine approach to sex, and the age-old issue of sexual promiscuity being rewarded in men yet condemned in women once again raises its ugly head. Psychologically, it's interesting to consider Morley's behaviour as a direct result of her father's suicide - were these series of one night stands a way of seeking love and affection from men like Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley and promoter Alan Wise who could be considered father figures? - and the recollection that Morley would often go to clubs dressed as a little girl playing with toys such as train sets (a potent sexual symbol in itself) or a toy duck on a wheel whilst at the same time offering the contradictory agenda - seemingly subconsciously -  of being sexually provocative, is also an intriguing one to analyse. 

Equally intriguing is the notion of lines of behaviour that should not be crossed; it's clear that Morley lost or offended several female friends as a direct result of her wild behaviour, her bisexuality, and her prostitution of herself to the likes of Alan Wise, (who paid both her and her fellow bandmate, Debby Turner, £50 to sleep with him, which they later bought a meal with - a much anticipated but unedifying introduction to Chinese cuisine) and to the strangers she picked up for paid sex in London whilst visiting New Order in the recording studio (and was Bizarre Love Triangle written about her and Debby?). These are all discussed as part of her legend, whilst some wonder if she was 'sexually ill' at this stage in her life, arguing such acts were of transgression rather than free will, an in built desire and need to be liked played out in the most unsuitable and dangerous of manners. 

But equally The Alcohol Years is a film that is as much about Manchester and the people who happily participated with the film as it is about Morley herself. Mancunian pop cultural icons such as the aforementioned Wise (now sadly no longer with us having died of a broken heart last year following his young daughter's suicide) who gleefully and cheekily produces his cock for the camera, Tony Wilson, Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell and Dave Haslam to name but a few all appear, with the latter commenting on how you could bump into like-minded people in the city one week and the next they'd be on Top of the Pops. The implication is that it is this very generation, through their talents and boisterous antics, helped bring about what Manchester was unconsciously waiting for. But that to do so would always ultimately conclude with the betrayal of leaving the north for a new life and a career in the south, leaving only the mythology behind. Morley's story ends with her own betrayal, departing for London the day after a tenth anniversary celebration of punk put on by Factory Records at the G-MEX in mysterious circumstances. Realising that the myth is key, Morley refuses to elaborate on the reasons for the self-imposed exile that brought about the death of her old self and the birth of the new, allowing the film to end in a very effective way as various summaries of her character ring in her ears and run her out of town in a dark and impressionistic sequence that suggest Morley was worryingly close to the edge. 

It can be argued that this is a somewhat egotistical venture, a filmmaker making a film about herself. But Morley wisely elects to remain behind the camera and to include the most scathing of criticisms about her past behaviour in the final cut. "Why don't you just have therapy?" one of the more persistently critical contributors argues at one point, but the fact remains that the ghost has been laid to rest and has in the process left behind a remarkable film from which there lies a clear line to Dreams of a Life.  

Empire State (1987)

Ron Peck and Mark Ayres took a total of five years to develop their project about the self serving aggression they had come to notice in the British character across the 1980s. That project was this film, Empire State - a neon lit nihilistic nightmare depiction of London, and a glitzy East End nightclub, across 24 hours. When it was broadcast by Channel 4 in October 1989 it was met with a barrage of complaints from viewers who felt that the end result was deeply offensive, singling out the  language and violence as being too excessive.

It's a deeply ambitious film from director Peck, and co-writer Ayres which seeks to address several then contemporary issues of London, including its Thatcherite excess, the desperation of the have-not's in society, the gay scene and the rent boy subculture, and the old East End gangland set. The intention seems to be to take the marker laid down by John MacKenzie in 1979's The Long Good Friday of the gangster genre in a sociopolitical context, and to develop it and see where it has now taken us some eight years into Thatcher's premiership. It's a stylised piece certainly, but despite the characters and stories being writ large, I feel that there's enough grain of truth within them to make it feel just as valid about the time it was made as the much praised Wall Street, which is now admittedly looking a bit rough around the edges.

The film boasts a fragmented plot structure, introducing us to several characters and their individual stories which ultimately converge only in the key final scenes set in the titular den of inequity that is the Empire State itself. Some of these stories are of course better and more involving than others, but perhaps the best statement on the changing tide which swept through the country at the time is the controversial Docklands development, which is shown to become the centrepiece of conflict between Frank (Ray McAnally) and Paul (Ian Sears). The former is a garrulous, ageing old-style East End gangster, whilst the latter is his former protege who has risen from his rent boy beginnings and has enough vision to attract important new money into the area from both the yuppies of West London and a rich investor from America. Veteran Hollywood star Martin Landau plays the American money, who we see enjoying it rough "but not too rough" with a quick talking cockney hustler  Johnny (Lee Drysdale) who dreams one day of making it in New York.  Meanwhile hanging on the fringes of the tale is Danny (Jamie Foreman) a hapless henpecked guy in over his head with Elizabeth Hickling's no good and greedy club hostess Cheryl. Unable to provide for their future together, he takes a very dangerous and bloody path indeed. 

Full of familiar faces who went on to bigger things (Foreman, Gary Webster, Ronan Vibert, Sadie Frost, Glen Murphy, Perry Fenwick and Lorcan Cranitch) and inexperienced actors who - perhaps rightly going on evidence here - did not (tragically Jason Hogenson who plays teenager Pete, down from Newcastle to search for his friend who worked at the club and is now presumed dead, is now in real life homeless after a string of custodial sentences and a diagnosis of schizophrenia) Empire State may be something of a flawed experiment but it's a great social document on Thatcherism and the 1980s and perhaps an overlooked example of LGBT British cinema from that period.

Loved Up (1995)

After pulling an all-nighter to watch the election results come in and finding myself totally depressed, I needed something to lift my spirits yesterday and that something was a much needed rewatch of the 1995 classic BBC2 film Loved Up.

Written by Ol Parker and directed by Peter Cattaneo, just two years before the surprising success of The Full Monty, Loved Up was a film in a BBC2 season called Love Bites produced in association with the BBC Drama department and Scene, the BBC's education arm, which meant that subsequently, Loved Up was screened several times in the abridged format of two 30 minute episodes for BBC Schools. In fact, you can still see this version on the BBC's Scene website.

Young raver Tom, played by Ian Hart, meets Sarah (Lena Headey) in the cafe in which she works. Sarah has just had a row with her alcoholic mother (Linda Bassett) and, attracted to both Tom and his seemingly easy, assured and optimistic outlook, she is quickly swept up in the clubbing, E popping lifestyle he enjoys, where she finds an escape from all her family pressures.

Loved Up is notable for producing a completely accurate and impartial depiction of the scene at the time. Basically, if you want to know what the 1990s were like, watched Loved Up. It doesn't wag its finger from the moral high ground and it doesn't just depict the club scene as perfect and wholly positive, it just offers a very real snapshot in a balanced, entertaining and informative way - no wonder the Schools programmes picked up on it.

A great cast who have all gone on to better things - Hart, Headey and Jason Isaacs as the dealer Dez 2, as well as smaller roles for Philip Glenister and hell, even the awful Danny Dyer - combined with a fantastic throbbing soundtrack that doesn't fail to lift my spirits from the likes of Leftfield, Orbital, Spooky and The Prodigy makes Loved Up required viewing for anyone with an interest in '90s culture.

Loved Up was released on BBC Video in the '90s but hasn't, to my knowledge, been released onto DVD. It is available to view, unabridged and in full, on YouTube.

To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic plays please sign the petition I started here

Northern Soul (2014)

Nicely evocative of the scene - to the extent that you can almost feel the sweat on your body and smell the stench of the beer in the dance hall - Northern Soul, Elaine Constantine's debut mutually released cinemas and the DVD market this week suffers from being a project that is a something of an authentic style over actual substance piece.

2010's Soul Boy previously attempted to cover this ground and though that was a somewhat cliched depiction/representation of the Northern Soul scene it remains more peppy and enjoyable than this film which seems to want to be more realistic warts and all but ultimately remains less interesting and engaging.

The cameos of Steve Coogan, Lisa Stansfield, Ricky Tomlinson, Ashley Taylor Dawson, Christian McKay, John Thomson and James Lance add weight to the largely novice cast but the script in the main lets them down thanks to flawed or ill considered/confusing narratives that lead to dead ends and fail to add the character they so sorely require. It is perhaps only Coogan, naturally, who holds our interest playing a boorish school teacher.

As someone who lives not far from Wigan and can honestly claim to know several of the true 'Faithful' from this era, it's also saddening and unrealistic to see another depiction of this scene that concentrates itself with drug use. Those that I know who were there say that whilst drugs were spoke of - which suggests they were around at the very least - they were not truly part of the scene for the masses. For those that I know at least the music alone was enough to have them buzzing so energetically on the dancefloor, and kudos to them for that. If Northern Soul as a film does one thing it is to remind us of just how fantastic the music gleaned for that moment in time truly was.

Powder Room (2013)

Based on Rachel Hirons' hit stageplay When Women Wee, Powder Room the debut of female director MJ Delaney, is an authentic and fresh film about female status anxiety explored over the course of one chaotic and calamitous night for two groups of twentysomething girls at a Croyden nightclub, with much of the action taking place in the titular ladies loos.

A fine ensemble of young female talent including Sheridan Smith, Jaime Winstone, Oona Chaplin and singer Kate Nash invest much into the realistic earthy dialogue and funny scenarios that will chime with any female nightclub goer, and indeed clubbers in general.  We'll all know a shitty club like this, the kind of club that is the only option in a modern day British urban town if you want to have fun after a certain time of night, and we'll all recall nights like this in some small way.

The heart of the film is Smith's character, a woman whose night out finds herself torn between two groups; Winstone's more loutish, girls-just-wanna-have-fun mob whom she works with, and old friends Chaplin and Nash who, having found some success in new media circles, are perhaps more obnoxious - albeit for different, distinctly snobbish reasons. The crux of the film ultimately concerns the lies Sheridan's character spouts to keep her circle of friends apart and why she feels she has to present herself differently in the first place - a situation I expect we've all found ourselves in in one form or another.

Flashy direction from Delaney helps to open out the film from the trappings of its stage origins, but its just decoration (though admittedly a visually pleasing one at that) and the real meat is to be had in the dialogue. Granted, if we're to compare it to what has gone before, well it's not Andrea Dunbar quality writing, but it's a far better representation of a generation of working class girls than something that ITV2, BBC3 or E4  churn out with alarming regularity, and it is at least one that is singularly being told by that gender, which should be applauded not derided like some reviews have been keen to do. Receiving its TV premiere on Sky Movies this week alongside Matt Whitecross' delightful ode to Stone Roses fandom, Spike Island, it's somewhat promising to see such aspects of British youth culture being depicted with a degree of unique parochial identity, charm and panache (other recent films like Svengali also fit such a category)  and whilst its clear they'll never trouble BAFTA I don't think that spoils the overall enjoyment to be had from this fare. Who knows , Powder Room and its contemporaries may become something of a sleeper cult in a few years time.

Out On Blue Six : Inner City

"Let me take you to a place I know you want to go it's a good life"

Well it's 1989 to be exact :D

End Transmission

Human Traffic : Remixed (2002)

I've seen Human Traffic before, shortly after its release (so, many moons ago) in fact, but this is actually my first watch of this 'remix'. This version is - I believe -  essentially producer Allan Niblo's cut of the film following a fall out during the film's making with his writer/director protege Justin Kerrigan.

Too long since the original watch to spot any differences I'm afraid.

But, man is this film ever a time capsule! I know people who lived like this. Shit, I kind of lived like this too and I have to tell you it's damn strange to see it now simply as an observer. 

The themes of alienation and having to deal with unemployment or just plain shit employment, living for the weekend when you're in your twenties are palpably real and well created with a suitably anarchic breaking the fourth wall style interposed between the kinetic bombast of images and tunes from the chemical and clubbing culture.

I love the scenes of the alternative national anthem, ranting over pints about shit boy bands, the piece to camera about pill paranoia, the scene where John Simm and Andrew Lincoln (This Life, Afterlife) say to one another what they really think, Nicola Reynolds (later to appear in Ideal) doorstep press conference about joining the two million unemployed and 'looking forward to getting into some hardcore Richard and Judy', Howard Marks' 'spliff politics' cameo, Danny Dyer and Coupling's Richard Coyle's 'Star Wars is a drug film' talk and the overall believability of the group on screen. It really is great casting.

Essentially this is how we used to live circa the end of the 20th Century/start of the 21st. Christ, when did we get so sodding old?!

PS Danny Dyer was an irritating soppy cunt even back then. But at least he was playing one here.

PPS beyond the 90s fashions, Lorraine Pilkington was gorgeous...and clearly talented too