Good rock movies?

'Eight Mile', 'Hearts of Fire', 'Rock Star', 'Velvet Goldmine' – you know the drill. It’s a movie about pop music and it’s almost certainly going to be a dismal disaster. Almost.

Because, while ‘Under The Cherry Moon and ‘Cool As Ice’ might induce an appointment with Dignitas, there are still several, thunderingly good music movies out there. Sting is in none of them.

Breaking Glass

Settle down, settle down. I’m more than happy to acknowledge the slightly clunky narrative arc and heavy cliché, but take the opportunity and you’ll watch this film to the end and thoroughly enjoy it. A reliable turn from Phil Daniels, Jonathan Pryce underplaying as an endearing junkie

saxophonist and Hazel O Connor as the fragile, unusual lead – it’s a strong cast delivering characters worth caring about and some quite touching moments.

In fact, ‘Breaking Glass’ makes a fair fist of appraising the new wave’s fading glory and the price of selling out. It’s as much as a swansong to punk as ‘The Great Rock n Roll Swindle’ and considerably more intelligent and cohesive. What’s more, you can even spot a very youthful Jonathan Ross in a crowd scene.

So instead of rushing to dismiss such an unfairly maligned film, give it another go. Then you can tell me I’m wrong.

In Bed With Madonna

There are few acts more narcissistic than commissioning a documentary about yourself. And no-one in the world was remotely surprised when Her Madgesty did just that. What was slightly

more refreshing was the fact she was able to check her ego and resist wielding an editing blade to make herself look perfect.

In fact, to her credit, we are exposed to her blonde ambitions and excesses in all their glory. Naturally, there’s still plenty of pretentious indulgence on display (praying with her dancers, demonstrating felatio on a wine bottle). And perhaps exposing your frailties alongside your talent is the ultimate in navel gazing, but it does give us several priceless moments to make the whole escapade worthwhile.

Post concert, Kevin Costner drops into Madonna’s dressing room to tell her the gig was ‘neat’ and behind his back, Madge (with incredible rudeness) sticks her fingers down her throat. Then, boyfriend of the moment, Warren Beatty smirks and tells her she doesn’t have a life off camera. It’s a biting, self referential moment and Madonna doesn’t exactly agree with him. But we do.

Control

When someone suggested Ian Curtis’ life and sudden, self inflicted death would be great material for a film, there may well have been a parade of furrowed brows. Not only did it present the pitfall of tasteless voyeurism but the whole Factory Records story had already been covered,

with some flair, in ‘24 Hour Party People’. However, anxiety was unnecessary.

‘Control’ takes its narrative from Debbie Curtis’ affecting book and its direction from the peerless Anton Corbijn, to present us with an uncomfortable intimacy and palpable truth throughout. With a cast selected for their skill, rather than any mirror-image likeness and no unwelcome attempt to make 80s, jobless Manchester in any way glamorous, this is a story less musical and more human. In monochrome with splashes of colour, the impeccable art direction never wavers as we accelerate towards an inevitable ending that still hits us square in the solar plexus.

Gimme Shelter

There are almost as many Rolling Stones documentaries as there are Elvis movies, but this is something different. Far from the hagiography of ’25 x 5’ this is really a film about aftermath and shock. Following the success of Woodstock (and its movie counterpart), it must have seemed a natural plan to shoot the Altamont Speedway festival and its bands, including the Stones and Jefferson Airplane, with a view to creating another record of great music played by beautiful people (and Bill Wyman).

The violence, death and fear that transpired couldn’t have been anticipated, but makes for a compelling movie shot through with paranoia, a band reeling from catastrophe and a document of an entire era crashing and burning in the most dramatic of ways.

Anvil, The Story of Anvil

From ‘The Simpsons’ to ‘The Office’, the legacy of the mocku/rockumentary ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ is both enduring and far reaching. A spoof story of a declining band losing its magic and friendship on a final U.S. tour, 'Tap' captures the stupidity and frustration of rock and roll

life like no other film. Except this one. And 'Anvil' one has the advantage of being real. Anvil are the also-rans of heavy rock.

For all the millionaires created by long hair and tales of buxom demons, Anvil were the fall guys who failed to clean up. Even endorsements from Lemmy make no difference, but they keep on recording, gigging and trying. In a movie as heartbreaking as it is hilarious, we quickly grow to love these balding dreamers and urge them to their longed for stardom. Whether it actually arrives, or is staged, is a matter of opinion. This is said by some, to be the most painfully honest telling of the rock band story – and as such, is a warning and an inspiration in equal measures.

Stop Making Sense

The most obvious way to make a film about a band, is to get them to play and point some cameras at them. Unfortunately, the traditional concert movie is often a tiresome collection of

crane shots soaring over wide-legged guitarists and rapid panning across a crowd, panting like knackered greyhounds. ‘Stop Making Sense’ shows us how it should be done and makes it look deceptively easy.

For starters, the Talking Heads' stage show is designed to photograph well (not rocket science, but rarely done), they also project their performance to the cameras, rather than just the crowd, so we feel included, if not actually on stage. Backstage interview cut-aways are judicious and relevant and it helps that the band and their set seem tailor made for a concert movie. Oh, and David Byrne wears the biggest suit in the history of the world. It’s really very big.

Yellow Submarine

Before you start yelling, ‘A Hard Day’s Night!’ I’ve picked this because it was made with the

approval and contribution of The Beatles, but not by The Beatles. It’s odd the psychedelic era didn’t give rise to more animated features.

There seems to be a natural marriage between the two movements – colour, surrealism, hallucination, imagination – but with the exception of the odd short, ‘Yellow Submarine’ is the only significant attempt to meld the two. Fortunately, it’s really good.

The music helps (some of it was specifically created for the film) and songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Nowhere Man’ have already painted fantastical pictures in our minds long before the animators get to work. Of course, there was a risk the whole endeavour would infantalise the Beatles more esoteric ideas, but the tall, stylised characters are too unusual to be childish and the Blue Meanies and their dangerous apples (heavy metaphor alert), actually quite scary.

Perhaps what’s best about ‘Yellow Submarine’ is its ability to perfectly captures a point in popular culture, where art, pop music, cinema, design and illustration were free to meet and experiment in the mainstream without the pressure or interference of executives and bean counters. It’s a feeling of creative freedom, a little innocence and tremendous fun.

Flame

Of all the mid 70s bands to make an extraordinarily riveting movie exposing rock’s rather stained underbelly, who would have expected Wolverhampton’s Slade? These fellas were a good time, Midlands bar band made good - smashing to play at Christmas, excellent funny hats, but depth and integrity as actors? Pull the other one it’s got little round mirrors on it. Nevertheless,

Flame is one of the very few fictionalised band stories that comes even close to ringing true.

Obviously, having paid their showbiz dues many times over, Slade had the inside track on the business – and this shows in every frame – but when the hugely successful band decided to make a movie, a straightforward, rags to hits screenplay must have been the easiest option. Instead, they went for this often overlooked, challenging script, and the result is quite superb.

A bit nasty, a bit grubby, quite alarming, almost devoid of any glamour or razzmatazz, it does an exemplary job, reflecting on the state of music industry and the nation and finding both wanting. Outstanding soundtrack too.

Ray / Walk The Line

Released around the same time as each other, there is an undeniable parallel between ‘Ray’ and ‘Walk The Line’. Both stories of American musicians from poor backgrounds, who rose to change

the way popular song was written and performed.

Johnny Cash and Ray Charles were both flawed men with an abiding love of themselves, a taste for drugs and too little regard for those who loved them (for a while at least). But their talents were such that filming either man’s life story must have been an intimidating task. Fortunately, both movies had heaven-sent casting breaks with Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and a spine-tingling Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx’s achievement is probably the greater, as his performance demands he sing in an almost inimitable style, play a real man convincingly and portray his disability without being insulting or patronising. Remarkably, he doesn’t fail for a single moment.

Both these films succeed where other pictures have so often failed. They tell an artist’s life story with authenticity and truth. They are never sycophantic and indeed, build some of their most powerful scenes around the times when their stars were at their worst. Admittedly, the source material is very strong and it’s much harder to tell the life of a fictitious pop star and still build the fascination and passion people have for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. Nevertheless, these two pictures bode well for the somewhat shaky tradition of putting bands and singers on the big screen.

Perhaps the best is still to come.

Magnus Shaw, August 2010

The Tull remember WW2

Of course we should remember the Second World War, and the outstanding role that our ally, Russia, played in defeating Nazism. My father fought the Fascists and went on to play a part in restoring a form of peace to the Middle East at the end of the war, so naturally I have great respect for all those that gave or risked their lives to overcome tyranny.

Raising funds for the Red Cross by staging a commemorative concert is commendable.

Yet, does that have to mean we can throw any form of entertainment at those wishing to remember, and hope ‘that’ll do’?

May I invite you to join me on my personal journey of torment, as I recall the full programme of events at the Royal Albert Hall, last Monday?

With a seven o’clock kick-off and a table at Prue Leith’s in-house restaurant booked for six o’clock, all seemed set for a relaxed and enjoyable evening. Except that my chair at the aforementioned table was located in a beautifully central location that placed me directly in the way of every single person who wished to enter or leave the restaurant. I had no room to ‘squeeze in’, or edge sideways, thus I was up and down from my seat more often than Bertie Wooster in the Drones Club, dodging bread rolls on Boat Race night.

“Can we sit somewhere else?”

“I’m sorry, sir, all our tables are reserved.”

“Yes, I am one of those who booked a table.”

“Yes sir, this is your table,” (said with pride).

With ten minutes ‘free’ before the start of the entertainment, the four of us popped outside and were chatting away, when a breathless usher came bristling along to inform us that we must have our tickets scanned, with the further instruction that leaving the hall caused problems as we may be asked to hand our tickets over for a further scan, and thus be ‘double-counted’.

Accompany us now, as we enter the renowned arena and we settle into our seats. The back of my seat will consistently be booted by a young chap sitting behind me, who, when I turn to glare, apologises most profusely and rather genuinely I suspect, but then kicks again with the velocity of a Didier Drogba free kick.

The lights went down and a single spot caught Jeremy Irons as he strode on to the stage and gave us a reading from something or other. I didn’t catch much of it as I was glaring at the bloke behind me.

Then, in an odd piece of casting, Nicholas Owen, BBC News presenter, made his first appearance as compère. Now Nicholas is a supporter of the Red Cross so jolly well done and all that, but if you are going to anchor a live event, it might be sensible to do a little research, check who is on the bill and when, perhaps, faced with Russian names you don’t know how to pronounce, and pop groups of whom you have never heard, obtain some advice before announcing these names in the style of someone whose mouth is full of gravel.

There then followed a succession of Russian artists who were very good (“Please welcome Russia’s very own Frank Sinatra”), but all were eclipsed by the beauty and the strength of the Red Army Choir. The poignant footage on the video screens, and the delicate form of many of their arrangements, contrasted sharply with their immaculate, military uniforms.

The Choir’s performance captivated the audience, and they received the longest and loudest applause of the evening.

Our reverie was short lived. You may recall a heavily publicised YouTube video from a few months ago, featuring the sand artistry of the winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent.

Ksenia Simonova’s outstanding mastery works very well on television with an overhead camera, but sadly less so in five thousand seat auditorium. When your ‘lightbox’ fails, as it did for poor Ms Simonova, then the capacity for the audience to enjoy the experience is diminished even further.

As she walked off the stage, and the technicians heaved her ailing lightbox off after her, there was time to fill, apparently, even though the interval was already long overdue. It was thus that we were first treated to Nicholas Owen stretching out a sentence of half a dozen words to about a minute and a half, as he tried, and failed to ‘fill in’. He erred, and he ummed for some time, before his sense of relief could be felt around the building as we once again welcomed ‘Russia’s very own Frank Sinatra’ to perform a couple more rather booming songs.

Surely now, it’s time for the interval?

Oh crikey, here’s Nicholas Owen again, and he’s telling us that we must all have been disappointed not to have witnessed the full value of the sand art, that the lightbox had been fixed, and that the redoubtable Ksenia Simonova was going to give it another bash.

That she did so, and for so very long, was a testament to her doggedness, but as the audience twitched in their seats and longed for the interval (I was continually twitching in my seat due to the accuracy of the kicks from the chap behind me), her resoluteness became just a tad wearing.

Ah, she’s written a ‘peace and love’ message in the sand to close her ‘set’. Time to leg it to the bar. There were four of us. One cup of tea, one diet coke, two tubs of ice cream. ‘Tubs’ only if one can call a teaspoon sized portion of Häagen-Dazs, a ‘tub’.

“That’s exactly eleven pounds, sir”

Well done to whoever owns that concession. They can probably afford to buy the Albert Hall.

After over three hours of being hoofed in the back, the interval was rather like that football match between the German and British troops in WW1; a welcome break from the relentlessness of it all. Although in this case it was in retreat of the Eastern European Frank Sinatra and a pretty young lady, about fifty yards in the distance, juggling with sand.

So it was quite a wrench when, after what felt like two minutes, a bell rang, and a rather fierce voice instructed us that the interval was very much over.

Back to my battered seat, and here strides, once more, the upright figure of Jeremy Irons to give us his reading of a WH Auden poem. ‘Sonorous’; a word that could have been devised purely to describe Jeremy’s delivery.

Wait a minute, here’s Nicholas Owen again; what’s that he’s saying? He knows that we would love to see more from Ksenia Simonova and her sand-based entertainment. No, Nicholas, no!

But it’s too late. The hulking great lightbox thing is wheeled out once more, and as the time approaches eleven o’clock, here’s the undoubtedly talented Ukrainian contest winner, throwing more of her sand hither and, as if that wasn’t enough, also thither.

I mused upon the words of the great Samuel Johnson "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Unable to do anything but imagine the wonder of whatever the sand lady was doing fifty yards away, I began to look around the Albert Hall, at those great big acoustic mushroom things dangling from the ceiling, the ornate...

Hang on, what’s happening here?

People are slowly but surely beginning to gather up their belongings, and their companions, and drifting towards the exits. Had the brisk ‘scanning usher’ decided to eject them? Had they been double-counted and were thus facing the wrath of the box office heavies?

A more sensible member of our party pointed out that it was a week night, babysitters would be getting twitchy, and last trains would be heading for the suburbs. Eventually, the sand swishing lady left us with another message of love, peace and harmony scratched into her beach based grains, and men were sweeping, with much vigour, the area of the stage where she had been so liberally spreading her granules of alluvium.

A couple of songs (the inevitable Nessun Dorma, and Jerusalem) from Russell Watson, who is, apparently, ‘The People’s Tenor’ (probably a bit like being the People’s Princess but without the bulimia), and then a cape wearing Rick Wakeman ambled on.

Now Rick can bash out a tune, it can safely be acknowledged. The question of whether an Albert Hall audience, who had enjoyed over four and a half hours of the ‘Russian Frank Sinatra’ and a sand scattering Ukrainian woman, were quite ready for Rick’s cheerily introduced ‘Eleanor Rigby played in the style of Prokofiev’ became clearly answered when dozens and dozens more of the attendees became something of a tidal wave heading for the doors. By the time Rick played his second and final twiddly piece, all you could see was row upon row of empty seats, and people scurrying along the aisles on their way out.

Approaching midnight, and Nicholas Owen felt it appropriate to soliloquise a lengthy summary of the evening “so far” and an equally lengthy set of ‘thank you’ messages. Finally, he bid us a fond farewell, and left the stage. The few hundred people left in the Hall thought they could escape, and I began to quote from the King James Bible “An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.”

Stop right there! Here come some late middle aged fellows to the stage. One of them is carrying a wind instrument, if I’m not mistaken. To cap it off, here’s Nicholas Owen, returning to the scene of his previous crimes, the on-stage microphone.

“This man here,” he said, gesticulating at Ian Anderson, “asked me if I was going to introduce him. So here he is, Jethro Tull!”

With that rather tersely delivered introduction, and clearly unaware that Jethro Tull is the name of the band, and not the bloke looking like he was about to thump him with a flute, Nicholas marched off, and left us for good this time.

Suddenly, I was reminded of the closing scenes of Woodstock. That event, too, had over-run and Jimi Hendrix finally made it to the stage at 8:00am on the Monday morning after the event had officially finished. But where Hendrix had played to a few mud soaked stragglers in New York State, Jethro Tull were playing to an ever diminishing audience of a dozen or so hardy souls in Kensington. It was rather a shame, as the Tull boys had clearly spent some considerable time rehearsing a ‘Live Aid’ style medley, consisting of, probably (I wouldn’t know their songs if they came and kicked me in the back of my seat), a couple of their more celebrated tunes, mixed in with some wartime nostalgia – the ‘Dambusters March’, and ‘We’ll Meet Again’. It’s possible that they may not wish to meet Nicholas Owen again, but to be fair to the Tullers, they left the stage, acknowledging the remaining few dawdlers with cheery waves and bright smiles. Maybe they, too, just wanted to get home.

So... I hope oodles of funds were raised for the Red Cross, and I hope we all paid due respect to those that sacrificed so much. But I urge the organisers of next year’s event: consider the welfare of your audience. No sand related entertainment of any sort; don’t book Emerson, Lake & Palmer under any circumstances; and if you would ban the seat kicking man for life, that would make me very happy indeed.

Terence Dackombe, May 2010

The great lost eighties album

For a couple of heady years in the mid 1980s, Frankie Goes To Hollywood ruled the world. Their Mike Read upsetting single 'Relax' sat atop the hit parade, preening itself and waiting for follow-up, 'Two Tribes', to take its place. Much of this success was the work of Trevor Horn and his ZTT label - but FGTH weren't the only act to soak up the label's literary vision and expansive production style.

In 1982, Düsseldorf-based experimental musician Ralf Dörper invited the classically trained composer Michael Mertens and singers Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag to form Propaganda. They weren't actually signed by Horn, but by the writer and ZTT publicist, Paul Morley, who brought them to London to release their debut single 'Dr. Mabuse'. Taking its title from the sinister and silent film by Fritz Lang, the track rapidly entered the top 30 in Germany and Britain.

To build on the momentum, Trevor Horn was set to produce a second single and album in 1984, but the spectacular impact of the Frankie project meant Propaganda's next recording, 'Duel' didn't actually emerge until Spring 1985.

Then, in July, ZTT released their album: 'A Secret Wish'.

Simultaneously rooted in 80's electronica and utterly timeless, the album is unmistakably European. Blending the icy cool of Kraftwerk with the hooks of the Human League, Propaganda's sound is theatrical, experimental, ethereal and industrial. Like 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'A Secret Wish' insists we listen to the entire piece in one go. No hardship, as it immediately takes us to a world of angular architecture and operatic heartbreak, where gothic melodrama (lines from Edgar Allan Poe open the album), whales and ghostly orchestras live side by side. You really don't get that from 'Scouting For Girls'.

Perhaps inevitably, Propaganda and their exceptional album were overshadowed by their scouse label mates and Horn's commitment to his new stars. But it's clear where Paul Morley's admiration lay as he married Claudia Brucken shortly after the launch of 'A Secret Wish'.

Interestingly, the band also had a taste of the controversy 'Relax' attracted, when a further single 'p:Machinery', carried sleeve notes from Paul Morley quoting J. G. Ballard's praise for German terrorists Red Army Faction. This even upset some of the band so, in Germany, the text was changed to another Ballard passage on the aesthetics of Germany's suburbs. Not quite the same as having your lyrics condemned on the Radio 1 breakfast show, but certainly a more intellectual scandal.

Other than an occasional radio play for 'Duel', Propaganda's music is seldom heard nowadays. But thanks to the glory of Spotify, here's an opportunity to discover a band and an album as unique as 'Dare' or 'Autobahn' and realise this is surely the great lost album of the 80s.

A - WITHIN

"Dream Within A Dream" – 8:04

"The Murder Of Love" – 5:12

"Jewel" – 3:10

"Duel" – 4:43

B - WITHOUT

"p:Machinery (album mix)" – 3:50

"Sorry For Laughing" – 3:25

"Dr. Mabuse (first life)" – 5:00

"The Chase" – 4:03

"The Last Word/Strength To Dream" – 3:01

Magnus Shaw, July 2010

A funny thing: Terence vs Cheggers

For the sake of harmony and peace in these troubled times, we must hope and, if we have the faith, pray, that Keith Chegwin and Lee Hurst do not cross paths in their clamber up the ladder of show business. Rarely have two stage jockeys of similar vintage exhibited viewpoints of such polar distances.

Ever since Twitter got its second wind and exploded into the wider consciousness (a euphemism for when I joined) in the early months of 2009, its capacity for highlighting good causes, and fanning the flames of derision for those less worthy, has been remarkable. Due, one supposes, to the restrictions of the 140 character format, there is a certainty that today’s big story will be replaced by a new jamboree tomorrow, yet the capacity to spread a topic worldwide in minutes remains a breathtaking but welcome addition to our lives and our understanding of each other.

Humans; there is something about our nature, our heritage, which leads us rather readily into pack instincts. We could tumble off down a bridleway of a diversion here and muse upon the rise of fascism in the 1930s, those experiments where ‘normal’ people push buttons to cause (faked) terrible pain on others, and the careers of Queen and Genesis, but we shall leave that to Paul Morley and Roger Scruton.

This inclination to form a mob has been one of the less appealing nuances of Twitter, as, on an almost daily basis, someone with influence, and with high profile followers, will place a link and fulminate (as much as one can in 140 characters) about some terrible injustice or other. At times this can be very worthy indeed and publicise some odd ‘goings on’ at the very apex of power, or alternatively it can fixate on a matter of narrow interest (usually to media types *looks at self*) and detonate a small issue out of all sensible proportion.

Keith ‘Cheggers’ Chegwin, the winner of this week’s Twitter ‘Under The Microscope’ award, falls somewhere between those two categories. On the surface, a tendency to tweet occasional cloying and sugary messages to people more famous, and (here’s the thing) post jokes that he hasn’t written, may seem a little twee (in the first example) and mildly disingenuous (the second), but as is often said in such situations, nobody died.

(As a side dish, Cheggers may yet regret this return to the public eye, because the clicking classes like little more than examining a showbizzy person’s CV for errors and aggrandisement. The biography section on Cheggers’ website gives plenty of fuel for such a pursuit.)

However, and it’s a might big ‘however’ (if I could get away with 36 point verdana on that ‘however’ I would have it leaping out of the page, with a horrid yellow, banana coloured highlight behind it, and surrounded by those ‘walking ant lines’ that Word offers in its font options)...

However, there is a bigger matter at stake here, beyond the 53 year old giggler and his remarkably long lasting career.

Firstly, there is, m’lud, the clarity of ownership. One of the first rules one should learn, if ever placed in the gaze of the public is – never claim a falsehood is truth, for ye shall rue the day.

Chegwin, in an initial tailspin, before he ‘gathered’, and his responses became more aggressive, tweeted the following (both of them on Monday, before the storm really took hold):

• I write my own gags here on Twitter if people wanna use them do so - I'm not precious

• Always been honest about my gags, I'LL SAY IT AGAIN. Most of the gags are my own & some I remember from old. If ya don't like it 'UNFOLLOW'

This is clearly not the case. Cheggers has 89 credits in his Internet Movie Database entry; not one of them is a writing credit. Are we suddenly to believe that in his fifty fourth year, he has struck such a goldmine of comedy form, and scripted so many short form gags, that he has become the Barry Cryer of 2010, and further, that the mine is so rich, he can afford to drop these one-liners into Twitter like golden confetti. A man so disposed to creating a new comic moment each hour that he can proffer them to his Twitter followers with nary a care, like the Queen dishing out Maundy Money to the pensioners of Derbyshire?

I suggest, members of the jury, that Mr. Chegwin is laying a false trail with such a claim. A swift Google of some of the gags reveals that many of the lines posted in the last week or so, were posted in a block on an internet forum in February of this year, and not by said Cheggers.

That, my learn’d friends, is a matter for you and is not the key issue that detains us here, for the lack of attribution is aggravating, the claim to be the author, or at least not to be able to remember the author, is silly and unwise in this information-loaded age. It is rather like me popping round to your house, playing you Pet Sounds and claiming I composed and recorded it last night.

The core of the matter I place before the court is that of the validity, or otherwise, of ‘sharing’. If we accept that these are not Cheggers’ jokes, then it is not for him to share them on such a platform. If there is a debate about whether movies and music should be shared by peer-to-peer software, then comedy writers deserve their place at that table.

In my mind bogglingly successful career (note – tongue firmly in cheek here) I have written for comedy shows on BBC radio, TV, and stage. I have been paid, and still receive residuals (royalties) of a staggering five or even ten pounds each year for my efforts. The principle, and indeed law, is that one continues ownership of work just as an author of a book, a songwriter, or screenplay writer would.

Unlike, for example, the level of interest and long life, of a popular piece of music, comedy writing does not usually extend to multiple plays. There is the initial laugh; if the gag is heard again, say a year later, there may be a guffaw of recognition, a smile of recollection. Run the same joke for a third time and the response will be, “We’ve heard that one” and an uncomfortable silence in the auditorium or living room. Thus it could be argued that a comedy writer’s lot is a hard one. One’s work has a short shelf life, and if a living depends upon it, each use of the material is a crucial contribution to that living.

This premise is destroyed if the moment that material is aired, others claim it as their own, and either toss it away on Twitter, or (the modern trial for writers and comedians) steal it and use it in their own shows with neither attribution nor payment.

A writer is a writer, and the humourist deserves protection from theft, just as much as Thomas Pynchon or Joan Didion.

So whilst I genuinely wish no ill feeling towards Cheggers and hope his career continues to bring succour and joy to his devotees, I do hope that he either finds a voice within that gives him the gift of writing his own material, or that, if he wishes to employ the works of others, he contacts the relevant agents and arranges a suitable process for the payment of royalties.

In which case, he need have no fear of bumping into Lee Hurst, or for that matter, any hitmen from the Writers Guild.

Terence Dackombe, July 2010