Talk about stuff on Sky Arts
Jack Charlton visits the Blitz Club in 1980 -
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=307513813966342
In between a seemingly endless catalogue of Pink Floyd gigs, Arts has some great stuff.
However, maybe it's because I probably check their schedule more than anyome else's and they're all the same but, it's very repetitive.
The Stewart Lee documentary about Robert Lloyd and The Nightingales was pretty good. Hindered very slightly by Robert Lloyd and The Nightingales being crap.
Quite enjoying The Blitz doco. Oh my - there were many frowny, disgruntled faces when Bowie arrived and picked only a handful of scenesters to be in the Ashes To Ashes video. Many, many jilted clothes horses were not picked and are still bitter about it today!
At least Jack got in, Mick Jagger has just been turned away.
I would have thought the hair would be a problem.
Spandau Ballet kind of had the goods. They had a few okay songs, they certainly had a leg-up from being part of the scene but there were countless New Romantic types who released a single or two and sank like a stone.
Who could forget Tik and Tok?
Oh.
Everybody.
I quite like sky Arts, but I tend to agree that once you have watched it for three months or so, you have seen their entire programme inventory.
The documentary series called The Art of Drumming is very good indeed, far superior to the Copeland-fronted BBC effort from around the same time. Not least because the Sky programme-makers knew how to mic a drum kit properly.
Quite a good doc about the 80's Scottish indie scene a couple of Saturdays ago.
Sky Arts clearly have a very limited budget and a heck of a lot of time to fill hence the endless screenings of those short documentaries about dead film stars in which not only are the film stars dead but half the critics blabbing on about them are dead too.
The arbitrary "editing" of old programmes can be annoying.
Yesterday we watched a superb documentary on Barbara Hepworth that even with commercial breaks seemed to cover everything from girlhood, early career, influences, friendships, family, relationship with St Ives, London locations, wartime, sculptural themes, examples of art and her significance, and did it with intelligent editing of visuals, narrative and acute assessments by people who knew her and her work. It looked and sounded just right.
There's a new thing on Friday; Classic Literature and Cinema, 9PM.
There does seem to be a lot of good stuff (padded out by Tales of the Unexpected) but one tends to come across it by accident.
Master of Photography is worth a look (8pm Tuesdays).
It does seem worth a look. I'm relying on Sky Arts policy of repeats to catch from the start the series on film directors. I like Sky Arts.
Aye, I noticed there was one on David Lean.
They seem a bit desperate sometimes, Sky Arts. There was an ad during the ad break for the documentary I was watching midway through the documentary. Calm down, Sky Arts - I'm already watching!
Every time the fragrant blind woman comes on, I change channels and often forget to change back.