Tories Attempt to Rewrite History, Or Hancock's Half Truth

Today, the (Tories are bad for your) Health Secretary, Matt Hancock (the cunt), took to twitter to celebrate an important anniversary. "100 years ago today," he wrote, "the first female MP, Nancy Astor, was elected to parliament. The female Conservative candidates standing in this election are exceptional and I look forward to working with them in parliament to achieve further progress on gender equality across our society"

Except that's not strictly true. The first female MP elected to parliament was in fact, Constance Markievicz.

Astor was a Conservative MP and religious bigot. Yes, she was the first female MP to take her seat, but Constance Markievicz was the first to be elected. As an Irish Republican and member of Sinn Féin, she refused to take the seat she had so emphatically won. As well as a veteran of the Easter Rising, Markievicz was also a socialist and suffrage campaigner. In short everything the Tories have always been against. Given her politics, it's obvious why they would want to write her out of their history books.

Hancock knows that he is wrong, but he is blatantly selling a falsehood in order to paint his party out to be the leading proponent of gender equality because they had a female MP take her seat 100 years ago. He claims she was the first, but he is wrong, and in perpetuating this falsehood, the reason for it has been laid bare for all to see.

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!

A Good Woman is Hard to Find (2019)

Out at cinemas today, Abner Pastoll's part kitchen sink drama/part revenge thriller A Good Woman is Hard to Find is well worth seeking out.

"...A Good Woman is Hard to Find gets bloody, but it retains an authentic air that is largely achieved through Sarah Bolger's remarkable and grounded performance in the lead role. Screenwriter Ronan Blaney places the character of Sarah on an incredible journey which Bolger's deeply real performance sells at every wildly varying stage. Without wanting to give too much of the plot away, her arc takes her from ground down and victimised, panicky and demeaned, to grimly determined and empowered, but it also takes in some comedy too, as evinced by a genuinely funny moment near the start of the film involving a dildo - which goes on to prove integral when Sarah digs deep into her reserves of courage. It's a great calling card of a role, and marks Bolger out as one to watch..."

Read my full review at The Geek Show

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)

"...Having signed a three-picture deal with Handmade, Bob Hoskins chose Clayton’s film as his next project after Mona Lisa, and found himself starring opposite Maggie Smith in a title role that proved to be her third and final film for Handmade. Our two lonely leads meet over the breakfast table at the Dublin boarding house run by Madden’s sister Mrs Rice (Marie Kean) that Smith’s down-in-society Hearne finds herself a resident of now that her aunt and guardian (Wendy Hiller) has passed away. Captivated by this Americanized Irishman’s tales of New York, Hearne decides to set her cap at him – but is Madden’s seeming interest in her more financially minded? Heartbreak is destined to follow and the secrets of Judith Hearne’s unfulfilled life come spilling out..."

Read my full review at The Geek Show

The Crying Game (1992)

I mean, I suppose you could argue that The Crying Game is in some ways a close spiritual sister to Neil Jordan's previous film, Mona Lisa, but there's no denying that The Crying Game is one of a kind thanks to that twist.

Like the earlier Jordan film, I can't really put into words how much of an impact this film still makes on me with every watch. The reveal of the twist is no longer a surprise to anyone of course, but this is a film that is far from a one trick pony. The screenplay is so bloody good, that often events are foreshadowed or counterbalanced in the most deliciously ironic and satisfying of ways. Dil's belief that 'Jimmy' aka Fergus is Scottish in some way mirrors his own mistaken allusions regarding Dil, whilst the spectral image that continues to haunt Fergus of Jody in his cricket whites comes forth, complete with Forest Whitaker's incredible smile, to reveal that he had bowled him a very distinctive googly all along. 

The googly in question is of course Jaye Davidson; an incredible role and a brilliant performance. Davidson pitches it all at such a wonderfully underplayed level that it retains its utter mystique and, even now, you find yourself almost convinced. Indeed no performance is out of place here; Stephen Rea is at his most sympathetic and tragically, sweetly heroic, whilst Miranda Richardson and Adrian Dunbar prove an effectively dangerous and darkly alluring pair of screen villains. Meanwhile Ralph Brown plays a character that I once told him arguably sets the template for the tracksuited scorned lover type you would find in any edition of Jeremy Kyle that you could care to mention, which amused him. 

Like a lot of Jordan films, the foundations of The Crying Game are quite fondly nostalgic, yearning for a Noirish 1940s or '50s, and this is never more clear than in Jim Broadbent's sympathetic intermediary of a barman, Col, who comes from a long line of such characters stretching all the way back to Dooley Wilson's Sam in Casablanca. But the beautiful thing about Jordan during this period was that he so effectively infused old fashioned tropes with some distinctively modern storytelling. I still think that my favourite era and genre of filmmaking is Film Four in the 1980s and '90s.

Out On Blue Six: Stiff Little Fingers

End Transmission

Wordless Wednesday: Face in the Crowd

Resurrection Man (1998)

....Or Clockwork Orangeman as it could almost be called.

Resurrection Man is a 1998 film from director Marc Evans that is based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Eoin McNamee. Like that book, McNamee's screenplay takes inspiration from what is arguably the most notorious sequence of killings to occur in Northern Irish history during the Troubles. Between 1975 and 1977, several Catholic men were picked at random during the hours of darkness by an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang known as The Shankill Butchers. The gang earned their name because of the ferocious and brutal way they tortured, mutilated and dispatched victims who were chosen solely for their religion; cleavers, axes and butcher's knives were the tools of their trade (though they weren't above shootings and bombings in their long-running bloody sectarian campaign either) and their ringleader, described by one detective as 'a ruthless, dedicated terrorist with a sadistic streak, regarded by those who knew him well as a psychopath' was one Lenny Murphy. In 1979 eleven of the gang were given 42 life sentences totaling almost 2,000 years for 100 charges including 19 counts of murder. Murphy himself was already in prison on a lesser charge at this point and, as a result, was never convicted of murder. His violent life and sadistic reign of terror came to an end four years later in 1982 however when, pulling up at his girlfriend's home, he was shot twenty-two times by two IRA gunmen.

Centre-stage in this tale is Stuart Townsend as Victor Kelly, our thinly disguised fictional version of Murphy. A naturally good looking man, Townsend brings a degree of dark glamour and kinky, twisted romanticism to the role despite the abhorrent nature of his character, traits which are a world away from the real Murphy who went by the nickname 'Planet of the Apes' on account of his neanderthal looks. What is carried over from fact to fiction however is the theory that Murphy's murderous zeal stemmed from the fact that this great loyalist terrorist had some Catholic blood himself. This appears to stem from the fact that Murphy is a fairly uncommon name amongst Protestants but it is worth saying that is not an unusual one by any means. Whilst Murphy's commitment may well have been driven by suggestions that he himself was the thing he despised the most, a 'Fenian', the film goes one further by depicting his father as an ineffectual and weak-willed man whom many claim to be Catholic. This slur clearly weighs heavily on both Townsend's Kelly and his overbearing mother (played superbly by Brenda Fricker) who each treat the 'man of the house', their father and husband respectively (George Shane), with utter contempt and disdain. Whilst this is clearly a work of fiction and psychological conjecture (Murphy senior was actually a serving member in the UVF) it helps to bolster that other trademark of gangster movies, namely the oedipal nature of the relationship between kingpin son and his beloved mother which stretches all the way back to Cagney's White Heat, a film that the young Kelly is seen to watch in complete awe at one point. Certainly the behaviour of Fricker when Kelly's blonde haired, doe-eyed and pneumatic moll, Heather (Geraldine O'Rawle) comes round is more in keeping with a bitter love rival than a mother simply wanting the best for her child. Freud is further wheeled out in a suggestion of repressed homosexuality too; Kelly mimics oral sex with his pistol as a way to attract the attention of UVF big-hitters, McClure (Sean McGinley) and Darkie (John Hannah), and is shown to lavish much, pseudo-erotic attention on his victims during torture (he's often naked from the waist up too, presumably to spare this peacock's beloved wardrobe any bloodshed); the final deathstroke often coming to resemble a near-ejaculate like bloodletting and a significant release that leaves Kelly near-catotonically spent. It is also revealed that McClure has shown him photographs of 'English boys in bed together'. This revelation comes during a particularly outrageous, drink and drug-fuelled scene that features the pair embracing and almost kissing whilst Jerusalem plays in the Union Jack bedecked backroom of the bar, with McClure wearing an SS cap!  

It's these little moments of loyalist patriotism that actually gives the film it's sense of place. Indeed, what's interesting about Resurrection Man is how, despite its true-life inspiration, it removes itself from much of the Troubles to simply depict instead the story of a serial killer/gangster. Just take a look at the press release blurb that was subsequently used on the DVD release;

'Victor Kelly is a gangster and ruthless murderer - a 'Scarface' for his generation. He is the leader of a gang of killers known as "Resurrection Men" who target victims in a city where boundaries are marked by blood. Victor's cruelty makes him a ghastly local legend, both feared and venerated. On his trail is Ryan, a journalist, fuelled by an obsessive need to discover the truth about the "Resurrection Man" he is unaware of the risk to his own life. "Resurrection Man" is a chilling and controversial film not for the faint-hearted'

I do wonder if this seeming refusal to acknowledge the political situation inherent in the film, both in this blurb and in the film itself (only slurs of 'Taig' and 'Fenian' indicate just what is going on), has something to do with the climate the film was released in; in 1998 a tentative peace process was being delivered in Northern Ireland which eventually came to a greater fruition at the turn of the 21st century. Whatever the reasons, it works to make Resurrection Man a universal film, riffing on notions as wide-ranging as classic gangster or serial killer films, Bonnie and Clyde romance, violence-for-kicks affairs like the aforementioned A Clockwork Orange, and an almost vampiric thirst for blood. Indeed, the scenes of a malevolent, black-clad Townsend stalking the moonlit streets for victims was enough to ensure that he was subsequently cast as Anne Rice's vampire hero Lestat (previously portrayed in cinema by Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire) in the 2002 film, Queen of the Damned.  

I first saw Resurrection Man not long after its release, buying it on VHS. I was interested to watch it for a number of reasons; not least my interest in the Troubles, but also my appreciation of actors such as James Nesbitt, who stars here as Ryan, the journalist on Kelly's trail, and who was at the time riding high with his success in ITV's Cold Feet  - this film affording him the opportunity to move away from comedy and light drama play the kind of heavy dramatic role he has subsequently proved just as adept at - and Derek Thompson who, since 1986, is best known for playing Charlie Fairhead in Casualty, but whose career prior to this (at present) thirty-three-year role included several Troubles-related films. Thompson took a break from Casualty, then in it's eleventh year, to play the role of Herbie Ferguson, the detective investigating the brutal murders - the last original role he has played in his career as the past twenty odd years has seen him continue in the role of nurse Fairhead. There's a reunion, of sorts, between him and his old friend Brenda Fricker, who played Megan Roach in the first five years of Casualty, though they share no actual scenes on film together. Amongst the other familiar Irish faces, there's also a fine supporting turn from the great James Ellis as a veteran seen-it-all reporter and mentor to Nesbitt, though sadly he disappears from the film once the action ramps up.

I remember watching Resurrection Man at the time and thinking 'my God, but Belfast is a bleak place', so imagine my surprise when the credits rolled around to reveal that the film had actually been shot on my own doorstep, in Warrington, Liverpool and Manchester! Indeed, plenty of scenes are shot on streets I actually know, including Legh Street in Warrington, which once housed the now demolished grand Victorian bath house that proves central to the film in its latter stages, whilst its exterior is also featured specifically in a scene in which Nesbitt questions some workers from a Chinese takeaway. The location work, aided by some good cinematography (that late 90s look, before digital colour grading took hold) all help to create a grim, desolate sense of place, with the former (so resolutely not being Belfast) helping to give that sense of near-dystopic hinterland that compliments the film's refusal to be too tied down to the reality of the setting.

As you can tell, I like Resurrection Man enough to still keep returning to it twenty-one-years after its release, though it's not a masterpiece by any means. Structurally it's somewhat unsound; what may have worked well on the page struggles to make much of an impact on the screen, specifically the implication that Kelly represents the dark side of Ryan's nature he struggles to keep in check, as evinced by his drunken beating of his wife, the local casualty doctor (Zara Turner) and his overall fascination with Kelly's violence which suggests he does what Ryan can only dream of. Both men even fall for the same woman; O'Rawle's Heather. The issue here being of course that neither man is truly likeable, which can be a stumbling block for some audiences, though Ryan does at least relinquish the grip his demons has on him thanks to his experience of the unrepentant, unreconstructed Kelly and returns to his wife, in reconciliatory mood. Director Marc Evans aims for a sort of Scorsese style in his eclectic use of '70s rock music to score scenes of revelry and violence (infamously, Mud's 'Tiger Feet' is used over the savage kicking of a Catholic in Kelly's local, whilst more satisfyingly, The Walker Brothers' 'No Regrets' plays as Herbie comes to arrest Kelly, with Heather offering her lover her best Bonnie Parker smile) but the freeze frames he often employs during such music-laden sequences are distinctly Guy Ritchie, himself no stranger to the positives of a good magpie-like soundtrack. Viewed at the time, these tricks may seem like stealing but, watched now with some distance between it, it serves as an interesting museum piece of the stylings from the turn of the century British cinema.   

Produced by Andrew Eaton and executive produced by Michael Winterbottom, Resurrection Man is a dark and unprepossessingly dour and dank psychological thriller that some audiences may find hard to stomach. Whilst it's nowhere near as gratuitously violent as any number of grimy American torture-porn horrors you can name that subsequently rose to the surface in the years after its release, it often reviles simply by what is implied or what is *just about* seen or suggested, though the real root of revulsion of course stems from the fact that what you witness is based on actual events.

Out On Blue Six: Sinéad O'Connor

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Maeve (1981)

"Men's relationship to women is just like England's relationship to Ireland. You're in possession of us. You occupy us like an army"

It's the generally accepted view that the British film industry was in the doldrums in the 1980s but I think that verdict needs to be tempered by the fact that this period saw a time of great artistic creativity from young independent and political filmmakers (Richard Woolley immediately springs to mind), which makes the fact that the work which they contributed in this period is now so scarce and overlooked all the more frustrating. When you stumble upon such work however, it makes it all the more rewarding to the viewer. Maeve, directed by Pat Murphy and funded by a grant from the BFI, is one such film.

Simply put, the film tells the story of Maeve Sweeney (Mary Jackson) a young Irishwoman who, having spent some time in the relative peace of London, now returns home to the Troubles-stricken Belfast. Returning to her family home and her old haunts, stimulates in Maeve memories of her childhood and adolescence and forces her to question herself, her politics and her identity. However, it's this latter analysis that makes Maeve such an intriguing prospect, as Murphy approaches ideologies such as feminism and republicanism in an experimental and reflective film style, that is perhaps best evinced by the narrative's many unheralded temporal shifts and Murphy's decision to allow a character like Maeve's despondent father (Mark Mulholland) to deliver anecdotes almost directly to camera, as if the audience itself were a complicit character within the film.

What is especially remarkable about Maeve is that it is a film that addresses the political situation in the north of Ireland from a woman's point of view. Granted, there are many other films that explore the Troubles and choose to place a woman at their centre, but they are invariably tales about a woman without man, grieving for their significant loved ones lost to the cause, incarceration or death, or tales of women simply possessing enough practical common sense (of the stereotypically feminine or matriarchal no-nonsense variety) to take a stand against the man-made violence they see around them, whereas Maeve speaks to a much more interesting feminist perspective hinted at in the quote I placed at the top of this review; namely that once the war is over, no matter what side has 'won', nothing will have changed for women if their menfolk still expect them to be wives and mothers only. Incarceration does feature in Maeve - her father was falsely imprisoned which goes some way to explain his detached nature - but both Maeve and her resilient mother's (played by Trudy Kelly) reaction to it is anger at the general consensus that womenfolk should simply accept this situation (along with the acceptance that informing on the real perpetrators is against the code) and that Maeve's leaving of such a committed nationalist community and way of life for bohemian London (and, in general England, the enemy) is considered as some kind of treasonable act or of having ideas above your station and class (even by her republican boyfriend, played by John Keegan). Where Murphy's film is bold and still incredibly refreshing is in its defiant challenging of Irish gender stereotypes and imagery. 

Visually, the film is very arresting too. Murphy delivers a series of authentic images of Troubles-era Belfast, but shot through them is a very artistic, somewhat surreal eye. This is especially pleasing as, the thought of tanks and armed soldiers strolling through such recognisably everyday streets will always feel surreal for British viewers. Thus, when Maeve and her younger sister Roisin (the ever-superb Bríd Brennan, refreshingly carefree here after her role in the Billy plays) are forced to hop on the spot for two rifle-toting soldiers whilst children play on the swings just yards away, or when the younger Maeve watches as her father painstakingly unloads his van of several television sets in the pouring rain, only to be instructed to place them all back in by a soldier the moment the last one touches the tarmac, your appreciation of the reality of this situation is accompanied by the invitation to embrace just how stupid it all is/was. A later sequence, almost dreamlike in its imagery, sees Maeve and Roisin heading for a night on the town. After passing through the checkpoint where their bags are inspected by the RUC, they immediately take in the sight of a bare-arsed squaddie giving a bored-looking local girl a knee-trembler in a shop doorway. It's scenes like this that I know will linger long in my memory.

Much of Maeve's theoretical debates stem from scenes shared between her and her boyfriend/ex boyfriend, Liam. Here, through her leading lady, Murphy attempts to challenge the notion of a paternal nationalism and demand a place for feminism. Tellingly, the film pinpoints the distance between the characters; Maeve looks to the future, whilst Liam only ever to the past. When he argues that the past is important enough to oblige us with a way of understanding the present, Maeve is quick to remove him of his - and republicanism and the patriarchy's - ignorance; "You're talking about a false memory... the way you want to remember excludes me. I get remembered out of existence." Taking this quote in the context of Murphy's subsequent career as a filmmaker - which includes films like Anne Devlin, which approaches the 1803 Irish revolt from the experience of a female republican played by Brennan, and Nora, the James Joyce biopic told from the POV of his wife and muse, Nora Barnacle - I'd say that Murphy was doing her best to place women back into the picture.

Bloody Sunday - Justice

Delighted to hear that the paratrooper known as 'Soldier F' will face prosecution for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney, and the attempted murders of Patrick O'Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and Michael Quinn, in Derry on 30th January, 1972 - Bloody Sunday. 

This great news was tempered by the fact that the PPS ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute a further 16 other soldiers and two official IRA men. The families of all thirteen casualties that day deserve justice, just as the families of the Hillsborough victims deserve justice, or the families and victims at Orgreave, whose fight is still ongoing, to name just two clear examples of injustice in our recent past.

Of course, this Tory government cannot even bring themselves to acknowledge or apologise for the deaths that occurred that day 47 years ago. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, whilst confirming that the MOD will cover all legal costs for 'Soldier F', said; "The government will urgently reform the system for dealing with legacy issues. Our serving and former personnel cannot live in constant fear of prosecution" In other words, we're going to hurriedly change the rules so the crimes we committed in the past can go unpunished and grieving families can never get justice. The Tory party, ladies and gents, in a fucking nutshell.

We Need to Talk About Karen

Following her disgusting comments in the House yesterday, Karen Bradley's position as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is no longer tenable.

To be fair, her position should never have been considered tenable the moment she uttered this startling omission;

"I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn't understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that are in Northern Ireland. I didn't understand things like when elections are fought for example in Northern Ireland, people who are nationalists don't vote for unionist parties and vice-versa. So, the parties fight for the election within their own community...That's a very different world from the world I came from"

She showed her ignorance even further yesterday when - just a week before the PPS intend to announce whether prosecutions can be brought against the soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday killings - she said;

"Over 90% of the killings during the Troubles were at the hands of terrorists. The under 10% that were at the hands of the military and police were not crimes...(but were) people acting under orders or instructions, fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way"

This inflammatory comment shows she has no understanding of the events in question or the shoot-to-kill policy and collusion between our security services and paramilitaries like the UVF, nor did she have a grasp on basic law.

Today she has issued an apology, another example of an MP who has somehow 'misspoke' (see the Independent Group's Angela Smith and her 'funny tinge' comment), but it's not enough. To my mind, Karen Bradley's comments - indeed her role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - shows the profoundly cavalier attitude that the Tory establishment have for Ireland, an attitude that has recently been at the fore of the Brexit backstop issue, with Jacob Rees-Mogg's belief that Troubles-era border checks should become commonplace again being exactly the kind of comment one expects from a privileged, self-entitled man who wouldn't have to experience them himself, whilst Boris Johnson dismisses these concerns as "small"

If you agree that Karen Bradley is not fit to serve Northern Ireland then please sign this petition demanding her resignation.

Tonight's Tele Tip: Derry Girls

I was remiss not to mention that last week's tele tip was This Time with Alan Partridge (which continued last night with an even better second episode and, for what it's worth, the show that precedes it, Warren, starring Martin Clunes is worth a watch too) and I was  further remiss not to tip readers off to the new series of Fleabag which also started last night, but I'm not going to make the same mistake now - as Derry Girls returns for a second series on Channel 4 tonight at 9:15.

The show recently received the highest Derry accolade of all; a mural painted on the side of Badger's Bar, Orchard Street, Derry.

Watch it!

Kissing Candice (2017)

Guys, it's getting embarrassing now. I mean both I, and every other like minded fan of the TV3 drama Red Rock, have been waiting patiently for the last three or four years for the rest of you to catch up with us and realise how brilliant Ann Skelly is, and yet you're all still dragging your heels. You'll all be kicking yourselves if she reaches Saoirse Ronan levels of stardom. 

Kissing Candice, the debut feature length film from Northern Irish writer/director Aoife McArdle (who had previously directed the short film/U2 music video Every Breaking Wave) is the perfect showcase for Skelly's talents. It's a film that is part bleak and gritty urban drama and part dark and surreal fantasy. The former element concerns the delinquent gangs living in the long past shadow of the Troubles left with little option but to terrorise the local neighbourhood and who may be behind the disappearance of a boy, whilst the latter sees Skelly's eponymous teenager the victim of disorientating and disturbing visions, seemingly as a result of her epilepsy. When one such recurring vision comes to life in the shape of Ryan Lincoln's Jacob, the lines between reality and hallucination become even more blurred for Candice and the plotlines merge together as Jacob just happens to be a somewhat reluctant member of the gang.

As an award winning music video director, its unsurprising that McArdle possesses such a strong visual style, with each astonishing, eye-catching image hard for audiences to pin down as real or imaginary. One such scene evokes a kind of Lynchian/Tim Burtonesque summery idyll as a one-piece-wearing Candice settles back into a sun-lounger to the strains of a retro song. When, just a couple of scenes later (which must only be a day or two narrative wise) the action moves to the kind of edgy Halloween party that Nicolas Winding Refn would be proud of, we're left to question just what it was that we had seen earlier, as surely the weather can't have been right for sunbathing? As a result, Kissing Candice is the kind of film that lingers long in the mind's eye.

Granted this arresting visual style may somewhat outweigh the substance of the narrative overall, but I firmly believe that, if this were an American production, it would be feted as an impressive, groundbreaking indie. That it is an Irish film means that it will ultimately be loved by those inquisitive enough to have sought it out and who consider themselves fortunate for doing so.

Believe me, both Skelly and McArdle are ones to watch. 

Out On Blue Six: Paul Brady

Anyone remember the BBC Northern Ireland sitcom Safe and Sound that this was the theme tune too? It starred Des McAleer and Sean McGinley as a Catholic and a Protestant running a Belfast garage, and co-starred Michelle Fairley as McAleer's sister and the objects of McGinley's affections. It lasted just one series in the summer of 1996 and has made me love Brady ever since. 

End Transmission

Out On Blue Six: The Corrs

Sharing this stirring, instrumental gem of a track from The Corrs today because I've finally got my hands on the BBC drama it was written for (and which it shares a name with), Rebel Heart; a drama about the 1916 Easter Rising that was met with such controversy when it was screened back in 2001 that it hasn't been repeated or commercially released.

End Transmission

RIP John Stalker

Sad to hear of the death of former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester John Stalker this week at the age of 79.

Stalker gave over 30 years of dedicated service to the police force and was one of the investigating officers on the Moors Murders. But perhaps most famously of all, he was brought in to investigate the RUC's shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s, where his integrity suffered at the hands of an RUC and Security Services smear campaign. The simple fact of the matter was that the truth he sought was not one the establishment wanted to be known. Over thirty years on and the families of the six unarmed men shot by the RUC still have no inquests or justice. 

Stalker's memoir remains compulsive reading and his inquiry into the RUC formed the basis of two dramatised films; Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (which is the Stalker affair in all but name) and Yorkshire Television's Shoot to Kill which starred Jack Shepherd as Stalker. The author GF Newman also wrote his novel The Testing Ground which had direct parallels to the Shoot to Kill inquiry and was later loosely adapted by the BBC as the then near-futuristic Nineteen96 starring Keith Barron. David Peace was also inspired by Stalker when he came to write his Red Riding series of novels which were subsequently adapted by Channel 4 with Paddy Considine as a Stalker-like honest detective heading up an inquiry into a corrupt and failing hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

RIP

Silent Sunday: Watch What You Say

Michael Collins (1996)

Anyone expecting from Neil Jordan's 1996 film the definitive account of the life of Michael Collins and  the fight for a free Ireland will be sorely disappointed. Jordan was perfectly placed to deliver a modern epic, but instead his film harks back to the kind of thing John Ford did back in the 1930s and '40s. 

When I first saw this as a young man I was quite impressed by it, but I didn't know my Irish history as well as I would come to do and I think that's why, upon this rewatch, I wasn't as keen - because the problem here is historical accuracy and Jordan's decision to fictionalise much of the story. 

It's one thing to alter the circumstances of Harry Boland's death (he was not shot escaping through the sewers a'la Orson Welles in The Third Man - he was in fact shot during an aborted arrest by soldiers of the  Irish Free State Army at Skerries Grand Hotel, and died some days later in hospital) and to outright kill the double agent Ned Broy at the torturous hands of the British, when in fact Broy went on to live into old age. But it's something else to fictionalise the events of the first 'Bloody Sunday' - the massacre of fourteen innocent civilians at Croke Park football ground in 1920. In reality, the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans entered the stadium to conduct a search for the accomplices of Collins responsible for the deaths of soldiers, policeman, informers and intelligence operatives known as the 'the Cairo Gang'.  Whilst undertaking this duty, the British began firing their rifles and revolvers in what their commanding officer Major Mills would later describe as an 'excited and out of hand' manner. In Jordan's film however, we see armoured vehicles roll onto the pitch itself before firing indiscriminately and without warning upon the crowds assembled there. 

The DVD I watched is a 20th anniversary edition that comes with a commentary from Jordan himself and I could not resist rewatching this controversial scene to hear his account first hand. It's telling that he first says that he felt he had to 'falsify history', before realising the negative connotations of just such a phrase and correcting himself with 'dramatise history' instead. Unfortunately, I feel he was right the first time. The events of Bloody Sunday in 1920 and the consequences of British imperialism in Ireland (and indeed , the world over) were truly horrific and shameful - it did not need exaggeration for dramatic effect. Given that tentative ceasefires were occurring between Ireland and the British at the time of the film's production and release, it's easy to see why Jordan's choices came in for much criticism as being rather inflammatory. 

Jordan subsequently lands himself in further hot water when depicting the events of Collins' assassination in 1922. His film strongly implies that Éamon de Valera had a hand in the ambush at Béal na Bláth by forging a link between the political leader and a fictional assassin played by a young Jonathan Rhys Meyers (in reality the man who fired the fatal bullet was a former British army sniper and his motivations and the circumstances surrounding Collins' death remain unclear). Jordan claims that it was never his intention to imply that de Valera had anything to do with Collins' murder, but his claims do not hold water because of this or his previous decision to depict de Valera as knowingly sacrificing Collins in Westminster to deliver a free state proposal that led to the Irish Civil War. His decision to close the film on de Valera's comment that "History will record the greatness of Michael Collins, and it will be at my expense" makes it sound less like political ruefulness and more like an admission of guilt too. 

Away from the issues with accuracy, the film boasts many strengths. The cast is uniformly strong, led by Liam Neeson in a role he was born to play (albeit a few years earlier - Neeson at 44 is too long in the tooth to convince as a republican leader who was just 31 when he died). Admittedly there are some hokey accents on display here; American Aidan Quinn stars as Boland and Alan Rickman is a great de Valera, but you're perpetually aware that he's doing an accent and you're willing him to nail every inflection the minute he opens his mouth, which rather detracts somewhat. Nevertheless, he is significantly better than Julia Roberts as Collins' sweetheart Kitty Kiernan, a role that earned her many brickbats at the time. To be fair to Roberts (she continued to struggle with the Irish accent in the much lambasted Mary Reilly)  she's not solely culpable here because Jordan has written a very poor part; each time she arrives in a scene, heralded by Elliot Goldenthal 'Romantic' score (that's with a capital R - so soft you'd have to thumb it in), your heart sinks because you know you're in store for some boring moments before we can get back to the fighting, of the political or very real variety. It's fair to say she's miscast yes, but you have to admire her desire to want to be taken more seriously internationally at this stage in her career. It doesn't help either that she has very little chemistry with Neeson, or indeed Quinn as a rival for her affections. Rounding out the cast are Ian Hart, Stephen Rea and a succession of familiar Irish faces, including a pre-fame Brendan Gleeson (looking very much like his son, Brian). There's also a small but pivotal and classy cameo from Charles Dance.

The film looks beautiful too and it's easy to see why it was one of the most expensive films produced in Ireland, going on to reap the benefits by taking £4million on its release and making it the highest grossing film ever released in Ireland at that time (Titanic would later relegate it to second place). Goldenthal's score is strong too, and the decision to incorporate Sinéad O'Connor at one key point was inspired.

The Violent Enemy (1967)

The Violent Enemy is a passable late '60s British thriller that is actually based on an early Jack Higgins novel (back when he was writing as Hugh Marlowe) entitled A Candle for the Dead. Anyone familiar with Higgins will spot his trademarks here; the former committed IRA man who now finds himself with a conscience forced to do one last job is a premise that the author would go on to explore in a number of novels (and their film adaptations) including The Eagle Has Landed, A Prayer for the Dying and those dismal '90s made-for-TV cheapo thrillers starring the likes of Rob Lowe and Kyle McLachlan. Here, it's the turn of Tom Bell as Sean Rogan, an explosives expert who is persuaded to break out of an English gaol to sabotage a Dublin electrics base that helps makes arms for the UK military.  

Bell was a fine actor who didn't get much opportunity to become the leading man he could so easily have been, so it ought to come as no surprise that he dominates what is effectively a small B movie. I haven't read the novel on which it is based (Higgins novels are something of a rites of passage for blokes, along with those of Sven Hassel or Alistair Maclean, and I stopped reading Higgins novels as a very young man when I realised how interchangeable and unoriginal they all were) but I'm guessing on the printed page Rogan was an older man than the one that Bell depicts. There's a lot of talk about the old days and the cause he shares with mastermind Colm O'Moore (played here by Ed Begley, and sporting a surprisingly not too shabby Irish accent it has to be said) that seem a little silly coming from such a young man and it doesn't convince that both he and the much older O'Moore were once brothers-in-arms. It's a stretch of credulity I don't mind though if it means we have Bell.

As for the rest of the cast well, Susan Hampshire is sadly miscast as Rogan's love interest, Hannah, an idealistic young Irish woman who has fallen for the romance of the old tales of rebellion and is initially immune to the realities of the here and now. Hampshire struggles with the Irish accent, as does Bell too on occasion, and seems altogether too 'nice' to convince as the character. The distinguished Irish actor Noel Purcell lends a touch of much needed authenticity as a former revolutionary now lame and running a sympathetic pub and acting as the fixer, though there's some unintentional merriment for viewers in one scene where he instructs his guests to the sitting room, as his brogue and whistling teeth makes it sound more like 'the shitting room'! 

Another trope of Higgins' work rears its head in the appearance of two London gangsters who are employed to help with O'Moore's plot, get up Rogan's nose, and who the audience would have to be incredibly dense not to suspect of having an ulterior motive that means they are the real villains of the piece. These characters are played by Jon Laurimore and that archetypal '60s face, Michael Standing. I always liked Standing and lament the fact that his career was all but over by the mid '70s. He is of course best remembered for being the man who didn't realise he was 'only supposed to blow the bloody doors off' for Michael Caine in The Italian Job. Paired up against Bell, the pair get the most from the fractious protagonist/antagonist relationship within the screenplay. 

I'd love to be able to say that The Violent Enemy is one of those unsung gems of British '60s cinema but it's actually just one to file alongside the likes of When Eight Bells Toll and, like that film, feels and looks not unlike a slightly bigger budget episode of the action orientated TV dramas of the era - many of which Sharp directed. It's also one of those sentimental films that depict IRA men as misty eyed romantics clad in long grey overcoats walking to and from the pub to the sound of fiddly tin whistle march on the soundtrack. Watchable, but nothing more.