Abigail’s Party: Celebrating Suburbia

Omar Malik, Ashna Rabheru, Tamzin Outhwaite and Pandora Colin in Abigail’s Party, © Mark Senior

‘Abigail’s Party’ is a 1977 tragicomedy about suburbia, written by Mike Leigh. (An excellent production has recently been staged at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.)

Beverly: Don't you find shopping boring, though, Ang? Oh, I do - I hate it. He takes me down in the car, and I get me wheely, Tone, and I whizz in, and I grab anything I can see, and I bung it in me wheely, he writes me a cheque, we bung it in the car, bring it home, and it's done for the week, d’you know what I mean?

The drama opens with former beautician Beverly relaxing in her comfortable home at 13 Richmond Road (off Ravensway). She has been preparing to entertain her new neighbours: Angela, a nurse, and Tony, a former Crystal Palace footballer who now works in computers. On the onyx coffee-table she has arranged a tray of crisps and salted nuts, and a couple of cheese and pineapple hedgehogs. She pops her Cosmopolitan magazine in the rack, pours herself a gin-and-tonic, lights a cigarette and cues up Donna Summer’s ‘Love to Love You Baby.’ 

Angela: Were we meant to wear long?
Beverly: No, no, it’s just informal, you know, so…

When Angela and Tony arrive in their smart outfits, Beverly prompts her husband, overworked estate agent Laurence, to fix the drinks.

 Beverly: Tony would like Bacardi-and-Coke with ice and lemon, Angela would like a gin-and-tonic with ice and lemon, and I’d like a fill-up, okay?
Laurence: Surely.

 The group is completed by another neighbour, Sue, a long-term resident of the street, whose fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail is holding a party at home. 

The assembled guests admire the kitchen equipment, the fridge freezer and rotisserie; the living room furniture, fibre-optic lights and sheepskin rug. 

Beverly: What, the candelabra? Yes, it’s brilliant, isn’t it?
Angela: Yes. Is it real silver?
Beverly: Yeah. Silver plate, yeah.

They move on to discuss cars, foreign holidays and supermarkets. Tony and Angela shop at Sainsbury’s, but Laurence prefers the Co-op because ‘they have a much wider range of goods there.’ 

The class distinctions are subtle, but clear. Divorcee Sue speaks with a Home Counties accent, and her former husband was an architect. She arrives in a blouse and skirt, offering a bottle of Beaujolais and expecting dinner. But the other guests have already had their ‘tea,’ and have correctly anticipated an extended evening of drinks. Angela and Tony are working-class. (Beverly points out that their house is a little smaller than hers.) But they are keen to move up the ladder.

Angela: We’ve just bought a new three-piece suite, but ours isn’t real leather like this – it’s ‘leather look.’

Beverly’s working-class background is revealed by her occasionally coarse language and manners. But through money, property and hard work, she has acquired a certain social status. As Leigh observes of her: 

‘She is totally preoccupied with appearances and received notions of behaviour and taste. A bundle of contradictions, she espouses the idea of people freely enjoying themselves, yet endlessly bullies everybody into what she wrongly thinks they’ll enjoy, or what is good for them.’
Mike Leigh
 
There’s an ambivalence to social change here. On the one hand, the group embraces new freedoms. On the other hand, it seems inherently conservative.

Angela: I think more and more people are getting divorced these days, though.
Beverly: Yeah, definitely, Ang. Mind you, I blame a lot of it on Women’s Lib. I do. And on permissiveness, and all this wife-swapping business. Don’t you, Tone?
 
Through the course of the play, we realise that Beverly and Laurence are unhappily married. They are constantly bickering about mundane household matters; about Laurence placing his executive briefcase on the furniture; about stocking up on lagers and light ales, the appropriate music volume and the desirability of olives. They don’t seem to have much in common. Laurence is proud of his Van Gogh and Lowry prints, and his bound and embossed sets of Shakespeare and Dickens. He proposes they listen to some ‘light classical – just as background.’ James Galway perhaps. Beverly however has more popular tastes.

Beverly: Lawrence, Angela likes Demis Roussos, Tony likes Demis Roussos, I like Demis Roussos and Sue would like to hear Demis Roussos. So please, do you think we could have Demis Roussos on?

As the drink flows, Beverly begins to flirt with Tony. 

The play brilliantly captures the character of suburban life. The aspiration, materialism and conformity; the subtly calibrated hierarchies; the fear of boredom and the determination to have a good time. There is an underlying suspicion that the real fun is happening off-stage, at maverick teenager Abigail’s party.  
 
‘All my plays and films have, at one level or another, dealt with the tension between conforming or being your true self, between following the rules or breaking them, and with the problem of having to behave the way you think you’re expected to.’
Mike Leigh

‘Abigail’s Party’ also illustrates the central part that brands and consumer goods play in contemporary life; their critical role in marking achievement, belonging and identity. 

The first production of the work, starring Alison Steadman at the Hampstead Theatre, was a huge box office success, and a BBC ‘Play for Today’ version was immediately commissioned. (You can still find it online.) It certainly captured the zeitgeist. Leigh has observed that it distilled the post-war obsession with ‘the done thing’, which, combined with a new ‘aggressive consumerism’, ushered in the era of Margaret Thatcher. 

Still from the original 1977 BBC drama. Pictured L to R: Janine Duvitski, Alison Steadman, Tim Stern, Harriet Reynolds and John Salthouse

Some have criticised Leigh for his ‘disdain for the lower middle classes.’ But his characters are often vulnerable; always sympathetic.
 
‘The play is both a lamentation and a celebration of how we are, but it is not a sneer.’
Mike Leigh

I grew up in suburban Romford. A semi-detached world of mown front lawns, neat flower borders and pebble dashed houses; of shag-pile carpets, rattan furniture and swirly wallpaper; of hi-fidelity separates, LPs and easy listening; of Ford Escorts, Capris and Cortinas; of white socks and cut-down shoes, gold chains and pastel sweaters. I loved Essex, but I was never quite sure it loved me…

Angela: The trouble with old houses is they haven’t got any central heating.

I have often wondered whether suburbia is under-represented in modern media and advertising. Over half of the UK population lives in these outskirts and edgelands. And yet, with the exception of a few sit-coms, our national narrative seems generally to be played out in city apartments and tower blocks; in urban centres and on village greens. 
 
If we ignore the suburbs, we are failing to monitor the frontiers of social change; neglecting the true melting pot of modern mores and cultural values. We are missing out on a critical part of our collective identity.

Beverly: Laurence, we're not here to hold conversations, we are here to enjoy ourselves. And for your information, that racket happens to be the King of Rock’n’Roll.

'Ever and ever, forever and ever, you'll be the one,
That shines on me like the morning sun.
Ever and ever, forever and ever, you'll be my spring,
My rainbow's end and the song I sing.
Take me far beyond imagination,
You're my dream come true, my consolation.
Ever and ever, forever and ever, you'll be my dream
My symphony, my own lover's theme
Ever and ever, forever and ever, my destiny
Will follow you eternally.'

Demis Roussos, ‘Forever and Ever’ (S Vlavianos / R Costandinos)

Van Gogh, Painting the Infinite: ‘I’m Attempting Something More Heartbroken and Therefore More Heartbreaking’

Vincent Van Gogh, The Sower (1888)

I recently visited an exhibition of some 60 paintings and drawings created by Vincent Van Gogh in two years towards the end of his life (1888-90). (‘Poets and Lovers’ is at the National Gallery, London until 19 January 2025.)

‘It’s my plan to go to the south for a while, as soon as I can, where there’s even more colour and even more sun.’
Vincent Van Gogh, October 1887

In February 1888, aged 34, Van Gogh left Paris to live and work in the south of France. Settling in Arles, he rented the four-roomed Yellow House at 2 place Lamartine for 15 francs a month. Inspired by the beautiful local scenery and the ravishing light, he embarked on a period of industrious creativity, whilst also nurturing thoughts of establishing an ‘artists' home’, a communal ‘studio of the south.’

‘The painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn’t been before.’

The Yellow House (The Street) by Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
(c) Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Here’s the Yellow House with its bright green shutters and door, a steam train passing over a bridge in the distance. We step inside and see the painter’s pipe and tobacco sitting on a rustic chair; and his terracotta tiled bedroom with its limewashed walls. In the nearby park, two young lovers walk hand-in-hand under the shade of a spreading fir tree.

Now we regard Arles from across the River Rhone on a starry night. A team of stevedores unload barges laden with coal. In the surrounding countryside a sower is silhouetted against an enormous golden sun. A lone ploughman tills the fields and grape pickers labour in the vineyard.  

‘One can speak poetry just by arranging colours well, just as one can say comforting things in music.’

Van Gogh took real views as a starting point, but chose not to reproduce them faithfully. He freely added imagined figures and buildings; changed angles and viewpoints; intensified colours. He sought to convey meaning rather than actuality.

‘To express the thought of a forehead through the radiance of a light tone on a dark background. To express hope through some star. The ardour of a living being through the rays of a setting sun.’

Vincent van Gogh ‘Starry Night Over the Rhône’
Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Patrice Schmidt

In December 1888 Van Gogh had a breakdown and cut off his left ear. He was admitted to the local hospital a number of times over the following months, and in May he checked himself into the asylum at Saint-Rémy, a former monastery nearly 20 miles from Arles. Allocated two cells with barred windows, he used one of them as a studio. Although experiencing further episodes that summer and winter, he continued to work.  

‘I have a terrible clarity of mind at times, when nature is so lovely these days, and then I’m no longer aware of myself and painting comes to me as if in a dream.’

Van Gogh painted the arcaded courtyard; the overgrown hospital garden with its rows of pines and reddish soil; sinuous tree trunks, covered in dense undergrowth, bathed in dappled light. He painted flowering orchards and fields of bright red poppies; vivid blue irises, pink roses and chrome yellow sunflowers; blooming oleanders in a majolica jug.
 
‘I’m attempting something more heartbroken and therefore more heartbreaking.’

One gets the impression that, despite or perhaps because of his poor mental health, he was experiencing life more intensely; seeing more clearly; feeling more profoundly. His skies were the deepest blue. His sunsets were yellow, ultramarine and mauve. His suns were blazing orange and glowing gold. The wheatfields swayed under the mistral, the mountains and ravines quivered in the searing Provencal heat. The cypresses were aflame, the olive groves swooned, and the clouds rolled in over the hills like breaking waves.  

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background’

He achieved these dynamic effects with bold dashes, dots and swirls; with rippling strokes and hatching. It was a kind of magic.

‘I want a far-off thing like a vague memory softened by time.’

Perhaps this is a reminder to us all that we should look for the beauty that surrounds us; that we should regard the world more intensely; that even at our lowest ebb, in our darkest hour, nature provides respite, creativity offers relief.

‘Instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room, I paint the infinite.’

Sadly for Van Gogh, the respite was short-lived. In May 1890 he left the asylum and returned north to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. In July he shot himself in the chest, dying two days later.

'Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do.
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called yellow.
So then I took my turn.
Oh, what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful.
And you know, you know I love you so.
You know I love you so.’
Coldplay, ‘Yellow’ (C Martin / G Berryman / W Champion / J Buckland)

No. 492

Suffragette for a Day: The Limitations of Immersive Experiences

Surveillance photographs of suffragettes who had been imprisoned in Holloway.
Crown Copyright, courtesy of The National Archives.

2018 marked 100 years since the UK Government passed the Representation of the People Act, giving the right to vote to 8.4 million women who were over the age of 30 and met minimum property qualifications. It was the first step towards equalizing the franchise. 

I thought it would be interesting to watch a play on the subject, but I could find nothing in the mainstream West End venues. And so I settled instead for a couple of tickets to an immersive theatre event.

Early one bright summer’s evening, my wife and I tentatively made our way down into the basement of the Trocadero shopping centre on Piccadilly. We were met by a group of severe women in long heavy Edwardian skirts and white cotton blouses, and informed that we had travelled back in time to 1912. Taken to an office, the two of us were then formally enlisted to the suffragette cause and warned of the risk of incarceration and the loss of our reputations.  

Next we were sent back out onto the street to perform our first act of protest. Handed a piece of chalk each, we had to write appropriate slogans on the paving stones around the Trocadero.  

This seemed simple enough.  With shoppers and tourists traipsing past on either side, I got down on my knees and scrawled in large capital letters:

'Votes for Women.’

I admired my work for a moment, and then added:  

‘Deeds, not words!’

No one seemed to be paying too much attention. Which was fine, as I was a little concerned that I’d bump into one of my former colleagues, whose offices were close at hand.

After a little while, having written the same lines a few more times (my creativity eluded me), we decided that we’d made our point, and it might be time to return to our basement HQ.

In the tea-room, which was decorated in green, white and purple, some of our fellow conspirators were painting banners, making rosettes and learning a protest song.  

We were briefed on another mission. We were to have a secret rendezvous with a man in a bowler hat by the statue of Eros on Piccadilly Circus.  

Before we set off, our instructor assumed a grave expression.  

’I need to check with you one more time. Are you prepared to break the law for the cause?’

‘Yes, absolutely.’ I nervously replied.  ‘Not a problem.’

Above ground once more, we didn’t have long to wait before we spotted a tall gentleman smartly attired in a sombre suit and a black bowler hat. As we approached, we realised he was holding a couple of large stones.

‘I want you both to take these rocks and throw them through the windows of Lillywhites sporting goods store. It’s just over there.’
‘Of course. Got it. All good.’
 
Not a natural seditionary, I nonetheless steadied myself and took aim at a display of cricket equipment. I had just coiled my arm behind my back, when we were seized by a couple of burly uniformed police officers. We were then separated, taken to some grim underground cells and interrogated.  

My inquisitor was sarcastic, aggressive, belittling, and I was given a hard time for my ‘Fenian name.’ To be fair, he didn’t beat me up. Which I suspect would have been on the cards back in 1912.
 
All in all, my immersive experience was rather unsettling. But what did I learn from my day as a suffragette?

The event was certainly carefully crafted and intelligently scripted. And it did bring home the harsh realities of breaking the law for a cause.
 
But at the same time, I concluded that immersive theatre is not really for me. I’m too awkward and self-conscious. I find it hard to let go. And I’m not sure that a piece of personally involving drama could ever do justice to the horrors of oppression.
 
We’re all aware of the view that experience is the route to proper comprehension.
 
'I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.’
Xunzi
 
But perhaps we need to be mindful that immersion is not appropriate to everything and everyone. Sometimes it’s fine just to show and tell.
 
When my wife and I were reunited, on bail, in the tea-room of the suffragette HQ, we exchanged glances.  

‘Maybe we’ve done enough agitation for one day?’
‘Yes, I think so. Let’s go to dinner.’
 

'Comrades, ye who have dared,
First in the battle to strive and sorrow,
Scorned, spurned, nought have ye cared.
Raising your eyes to a wider morrow.
Ways that are weary, days that are dreary,
Toil and pain by faith ye have borne;
Hail, hail, victors ye stand,
Wearing the wreath that the brave have worn!
Life, strife, these two are one,
Nought can ye win but by faith and daring:
On, on that ye have done,
But for the work of today preparing.
Firm in reliance, laugh a defiance,
(Laugh in hope, for sure is the end)
March, march, many as one.
Shoulder to Shoulder and friend to friend.’
‘The March of the Women’, Ethel Smyth, Cicely Hamilton

No. 491

Big Night: You Don’t Need Words to Express Feelings

Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as Secondo and Primo. Big Night

Pascal: I am a businessman. I am anything I need to be at any time. Tell me, what exactly are you?

‘Big Night’, a 1996 comedy-drama, tells the story of two Italian immigrant brothers struggling to make a success of their restaurant on the Jersey Shore in the late 1950s.

Customer (when her partner is presented with a dish garnished with basil): That looks good. You’ve got leaves with yours.

Co-directed by Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci, the movie stars Tony Shalhoub as older brother Primo, a brilliant, uncompromising chef, and Tucci as younger brother Secondo, the charming restaurant manager trying to balance the books.

Primo: To eat good food is to be close to God.

Paradise is a smart, traditional family restaurant, with tiled floors, white tablecloths and pressed napkins. There is a curved wooden bar, an antique espresso machine and the walls are hung with paintings.

Hitherto the locals have not found the cuisine to their taste.  

Customer: Monsieur, is this what I ordered?
Secondo: Yes, that is a risotto. Is a special recipe that my brother and I bring from Italy. It’s delicious, I promise.
Customer: It took so long, I thought you went all the way back to Italy to get it.

The good citizens of Jersey prefer their Italian food fast and simple, with meatballs and extra cheese on top.

Customer: There are no meatballs with the spaghetti?
Secondo: Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone.

Chef Primo is particularly upset when one diner requests a side-order of pasta with her risotto. Secondo pleads for pragmatism.

Secondo: Oh, please, Primo, what are you going to do? Tell the customer what she can eat? Huh? That is what she want. This is what the customer ask for. Make it! Make the pasta, make it, make it, make the pasta! Come on! Let's go!

Secondo has bought into the American Dream and is desperate to make the business a success. Primo, however, pines for a return to Italy. They are endlessly arguing over whether they should make concessions to accommodate local tastes and preferences.  

Primo: If you give people time, they learn.
Secondo: Well, I don’t have time for them to learn. This is a restaurant, not a f**king school.

Situated just across the street from Paradise, Pascal’s is a far more glitzy dining establishment, where the focus is on entertainment and experience rather than cuisine.

Primo: The man should be in a prison for the food he serves.

Pascal’s is a hugely successful business, not least because its slick proprietor has determined to give people what they want.

Pascal: A guy goes out to eat in the evening after a long day in the office or whatever. He don't want on his plate something that he has to look and think, ‘What the f**k is this?’ No, right. What he wants is a steak. ‘This is a steak. I like steak. Mmm. I’m happy!’

Desperate to keep his business afloat, Secondo asks Pascal for a loan, but he is refused. Instead, Pascal repeats a past offer to the brothers to work for him, and he gives Secondo a pep talk.

Secondo: You know everything has just become... too much.
Pascal: Hey, hey, f***ing guy! What this is: ‘too much’? Hey! It is never ‘too much’; it is only ‘not enough’! Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you!

At length Pascal promises to persuade his friend, the popular singer Louis Prima, to dine at Paradise, thereby attracting some much-needed buzz and publicity.  

On learning of the plan, Primo is sceptical.

Primo: People should come just for the food.
Secondo: I know that, I know. But they don’t.

And so, the brothers set about preparing a lavish dinner for the pop star, inviting some 17 guests to the restaurant, including their respective love interests, Pascal and his wife, a reporter, a car salesman and a Priest.

Secondo: Primo, this dinner tonight is happening. Do you know why?
Primo: No.
Secondo: Because it has to happen. We need it to happen.

The ‘big night’ at Paradise is a truly memorable occasion. There’s decadent drinking, joyous dancing, unrestrained smoking and eccentric party games. And, of course, there’s Primo’s magnificent cooking - including parmesan brodo, tricolore risotto, roasted  fish and suckling pig. The centrepiece of the feast is a timpano, a huge pasta dish with tomato sauce, roasted vegetables and sausage meat, hard-boiled eggs and cheese - all shaped into a dome, covered with dough and then baked.

Pascal: God damn it, I should kill you! This is so f**king good I should kill you!

‘Big Night’ is a fantastic film, filled with great characters, dialogue and drama. It also boasts a splendid supporting cast, including Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini and Allison Janney.  

Big Night

The movie prompts anyone working in commerce to reflect on a common dilemma. Should we stay true to our original vision, or adapt to public tastes? Should we retain our distinctiveness, or adhere to successful conventions? Should we hold our course or bend with the wind? Should we stick or twist?

Primo: You want me to make a sacrifice. If I sacrifice my work, it dies.

Inevitably there’s a spectrum of responses to these questions, and the extremes are the most difficult to sustain. We often end up seeking a middle path.
 
Pascal: Give to people what they want, then later you can give them what you want.

Sadly, the euphoric, indulgent, chaotic ‘big night’ ends in disappointment, tears, truth telling and disputes.

Primo: This place is eating us alive! 

Dawn breaks and the revellers return home. A despondent Secondo enters the kitchen to find young waiter Cristiano asleep on the work surface. Secondo picks up a bowl of eggs.

Secondo: Are you hungry?…
Cristiano rouses himself to help, but is put at ease by Secondo.
Secondo: I’ll do it.

While Cristiano stretches himself awake, Secondo breaks the eggs, then whips and heats them on the stove. Cristiano settles on a counter, chewing a piece of bread, watching.
Secondo takes two plates and forks from the shelves and divides the omelette into thirds. Serving one portion each to Cristiano and himself, he leaves the remainder in the pan. They settle down to eat in silence.

Next Primo enters, hesitantly. Secondo fetches another plate and fork, and gives him the last share of the omelette. As the brothers tuck in, Cristiano leaves. They put their arms on one another's shoulders.
 
This quiet concluding scene, lasting 5 minutes, seems perfectly to sum up brotherly love, comradeship at work, the reluctant resolution that we must ‘get up and do it again.’ 

It leaves us with one final lesson: you don’t need words to express feelings.

'Buona sera, signorina, buona sera,
It is time to say goodnight to Napoli.
Though it's hard for us to whisper, buona sera.
With that old moon above the Mediterranean sea.
In the morning, signorina, we'll go walking,
Where the mountains help the sun come into sight,
And by the little jewellery shop we'll stop and linger,
While I buy a wedding ring for your finger.
In the meantime let me tell you that I love you.
Buona sera, signorina, kiss me goodnight.
Buona sera, signorina, kiss me goodnight.’
Louis Prima,’Buona Sera’ (C Sigman, P de Rose)

No 490

Rickie Lee Jones: ‘If You’re Happy, You See Happy. If You're Sad, You See Sad’

Rickie Lee Jones Photo Kirk West/Getty Images

I recently saw the legendary singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones perform at the Union Chapel, Islington. She’s 69, still full of vim, and it was a treat to catch her at such an intimate venue.

'You can't break the rules until you know how to play the game.'
Rickie Lee Jones

Playing acoustic guitar and piano, accompanied by a percussionist and keyboardist, Jones sings soulfully of love and loss; of drifters and dreamers; of ‘sad-eyed Sinatras,’ and Johnny the King who ‘walks these streets without her in the rain.’ And she relates how Chuck E ‘don’t come and PLP with me’. Her vocals are languid and jazz-inflected. Her stream-of-consciousness narratives are fragmented and impressionistic; conversational and colloquial.  

'I like words. Words are places, rooms, distant airs, thin and tropical. They make us feel and imagine we are more than our bodies.’

Wearing an embroidered silk jacket, Jones is a luminous presence, a latter-day troubadour, all smiles and charm - spotting a rainbow in the church lights, breaking into spontaneous song, telling stories of feckless boyfriends, New Orleans’ street culture and uncommon courtesy. 

Interviewer: Do you think we’re born musical?
Jones: I don’t know about we. I only know about me.

Jones teaches us to embrace life and all it has to offer, good and bad; to translate our experiences and encounters into our work; to be positively predisposed.

'A long stretch of headlights bend into I9.
They tiptoe into truck stops,
And sleepy diesel eyes.
Volcanoes rumble in the taxi, glow in the dark.
Camels in the driver's seat,
A slow, easy mark.
But you ran out of gas,
Down the road, a piece.
And then the battery went dead,
And now the cable won't reach.
It's your last chance
To check under the hood.
Your last chance,
She ain't soundin' too good.
Your last chance
To trust the man with the star
'Cause you've found the last chance Texaco
The last chance!’
'The Last Chance Texaco’

Jones performs on Saturday Night Live in April 1979. Credit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Jones was born into a musical family in Chicago in 1954. Her paternal grandfather, Frank ‘Peg Leg’ Jones, was a vaudevillian who sang and danced, played the ukulele and told jokes. Her grandmother was a dancer on the chorus line. Both her parents had been raised in orphanages, and her childhood was marked by upheaval, as her musician father took the family from state to state, trying to make a name for himself.

‘What were they running from? From cities, houses, and eventually, themselves, but they never got away from their difficult childhoods or their love for each other.’

The family settled for a time in Phoenix, Arizona, where Jones roamed the desert, rode horses and had adventures with imaginary friends. As she played games on the street, she sang songs from the hit show West Side Story.  

‘I drew a crowd! Music had built an accidental bridge between me and the world.’

Jones’ teenage years were characterised by recklessness and risk-taking. Ejected from high school, she ran away from home, lived in a cave, hitch-hiked, got arrested, and more besides.

'I spent most of my life in cars, vans and buses… For a long time, my solution to any problem, big or small, was to jump in the car and drive away from it.’

Eventually at 19 she landed up in Venice Beach, California, working menial jobs and singing in local bars and coffee shops to pay the rent. Hanging out with other creative mavericks, like Tom Waits, Lowell George and Dr John, she began to write her own songs.

In 1979 she released her stunning self-titled debut album to critical and commercial acclaim. With her long blond hair, toothy grin and beatnik beret, she was dubbed by Time magazine The Duchess of Coolsville.  

'How come he don't come and PLP with me
Down at the meter no more?
And how come he turn off the TV
And hang that sign on the door?
Well, we call, and we call,
"How come?", we say.
Hey, what could make a boy behave this way?
Well, he learned all of the lines now and every time
He don't, uh, stutter when he talks.
And it's true, it's true,
He sure has acquired this kind of cool and inspired sort of jazz when he walks.
Where's his jacket and his old blue jeans?
If this ain't healthy, it is some kinda clean.
But that means that Chuck E's in love,
Chuck E.'s in love.'
'Chuck E's in Love’

A string of other fine albums followed: ‘Pirates’ (1981), ‘The Magazine’(1984) and ‘Flying Cowboys’ (1989). Her work was at once deeply personal and yet also rooted in observed lives. Critically, she seemed to be addressing the audience directly.

‘I always thought about somebody else. I always wanted to talk to you…I want you to feel what I’m saying.’

Sadly Jones faced issues with addiction in the early part of her career. She also resented being boxed in and categorised by record labels, the press and the public. She needed to evolve in her own way.

‘For me in the first ten years I wanted to define myself and to change – both those things. It was a terrible burden for me.’
 
Having withdrawn from view to raise her daughter, Jones subsequently recorded several albums of sublime covers. She also explored electronica and jazz, and made an angry protest album.

'Some of us are born to live lives on an exaggerated scale.’

From her unstable childhood to her unreliable partners; from her uncomfortable relationship with the music industry to her quest for an independent private life, Jones faced a good many challenges. But she consistently demonstrated a compelling resilience, good humour and optimism.
 
'I’m an optimistic person. In spite of my recklessness and throwing myself on the fire, my nature is to make something good out of what happens.’
 
I was quite taken with this comment, which perhaps sums up her resolutely positive outlook:  

‘You see things out of your eyes. If you are happy, you see happy. If you're sad, you see sad.’

'She was pregnant in May,
Now they're on their way.
Dashing through the snow
To St. John's, here we go.
Well, it could be a boy,
But it's okay if he's girl.
Oh, these things that grow out of
The things that we give.
We should move to the west side
They still believe in things
That give a kid half a chance.’
‘Skeletons'

At the gig I attended, Jones recounted how she was recently introduced to Elton John at an industry event. Somewhat surprised when he kissed her, on the lips, twice, she burst into tears. At first she was confused by her own response - where did that come from? - and then she understood that, in that particular moment, she had been taken back to the inordinate joy that John’s songs had given her as a teenager.  

As Jones told this story, a lump formed in my throat. I realised that I feel the same way about her.

'I say this was no game of chicken.
You were aiming your best friend.
That you wear like a switchblade on a chain around your neck.
I think you picked this up in Mexico from your dad.
Now it's daddy on the booze,
And Brando on the ice.
Now it's Dean in the doorway,
With one more way he can't play this scene twice.
So you drug her down every drag of this forbidden fit of love.
And you told her to stand tall when you kissed her.
But that's not where you were thinking...
How could a Natalie Wood not get sucked
Into a scene so custom tucked?
But now look who shows up
In the same place
In this case
I think it's better
To face it.
We belong together.
We belong together.’
‘We Belong Together’

No. 489

Beware Strategic Myopia: An Incident in Romford Town Centre

Paul Cezanne - Sorrow. 1867

One Saturday afternoon I found myself in Romford Town Centre in floods of tears.  

It was somewhere between Downtown Records and the municipal fountain. I was rubbing my eyes, dabbing my nose, sobbing and snivelling.

Standing nearby, Andy declared in a loud voice: 

‘I’ve told you: it’s over. Why can’t you deal with it?‘

 I could sense that we two teenagers were attracting attention from passers-by. I was hot and bothered and embarrassed.

I continued to weep.

‘Just pull yourself together, Jim. We can’t go on like this. It’s over!’

This story is not as it seems.  

I had recently acquired my first set of gas-permeable contact lenses, and was struggling to get used to them. The slightest speck of dust caused intense irritation.

 It was Andy’s idea of a joke. And to be fair it was quite funny.

It’s no surprise perhaps that research by ophthalmologists shows that our constant screen time is radically changing our eyes. (Adam Popescu, The Guardian, 14 Nov 2021)
 
The human eye is supposed to stop growing after our teens, just like the rest of our bodies. But our endless messaging, speaking on conference calls, reading and writing emails - what experts call ‘near work’ - strains our optic organs. We blink less and our lenses shift, and in time this leads to the elongation of our eyeballs. We then suffer myopia and the gradual loss of the eyes’ ability to focus.

‘The shape of the eye is round like a basketball. When an eye becomes near-sighted, myopic, the eye is longer, like a grape or olive.’
Dr Eric Chow, Miami optometrist

Near-sightedness affects half of young adults in the US, twice as many as 50 years ago, and over 40% of the population.

To address this depressing phenomenon, we are encouraged to take breaks, blink and lubricate; to spend more time outdoors; to embrace the 20-20-20 model.

‘Every 20 minutes, look at a distance 20 feet away, for 20 seconds.’
Dr Luxme Hariharan, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Miami

Some experts have observed that our ancestors spent more time staring at the horizon, scanning the distant panorama for potential risks and rewards. This induced a state of calm when there was nothing going on; and a state of intense focus when there was a threat or opportunity. They suggest that expanding our peripheral vision – ‘horizon gazing’ - may equip us to better concentrate and cope with stress.   

You could argue that excessive screen time does not just cause physical short-sightedness and mental stress. For Planners it also produces Strategic Myopia: reliance on the same widely published data; concentration on the same narrow particulars of the problem; convergence on the same conventional solutions.

'Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.'
Eleanor Roosevelt (after Henry Thomas Buckle)

We should get out more. We need to breathe fresh strategic air; to take in new cultural stimulus; to observe contextual social change. We need to think more broadly; to plan more deeply; to raise our eyes to the horizon. Because the story is not always as it seems.

As the artist Vee Talbott suggests in Tennessee Williams' ‘Orpheus Descending’:

'Appearances are misleading, nothing is what it looks like to the eyes. You got to have vision to see!’


'It's over.
It's over.
It's over.
Summer came and passed away,
Hardly seemed to last a day.
But it's over, and what can I do?
Music playing in the air,
Silence on a darkened stair
'Cause it's over, and what can I do?’
ELO, ‘It’s Over’ (J Lynne)

No. 488

Excellence and Inclusion: Every Business Needs a Youth Strategy

Max Oppenheimer, The Orchestra 

'It takes a very long time to become young.'
Pablo Picasso

Every year the Agency sent a few of its high-fliers to the South by Southwest (SXSW) media festival in Austin, Texas. On their return, I would invite them to give a short debrief of their observations and insights to the Board.  

On one such occasion, a very impressive Young Person gave an excellent presentation, full of vision, wisdom and wit. Acknowledging the warm round of applause that was her due, she promptly headed for the exit with a beaming smile. This had been a job well done.  

Sitting, as was my wont at Board Meetings, on a cabinet by the door, I was keen that she should stay around for a brief Q&A session. And so I raised my hand to stop her as she passed by.  

The Young Person simply gave me a high five and walked briskly out.

Occasionally I am asked what I miss most about working in an Agency. I tell them that it is not the cut and thrust of commerce; nor the intellectual challenge of solving a marketing conundrum; nor even the thrill of witnessing a magnificent creative breakthrough. What I miss most is the youth.  

'Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.'
Franz Kafka

I was recently invited to a BBC Prom concert by the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) at the Royal Albert Hall (Prom 30, 10 August). This splendid ensemble of musicians aged 19 or younger, gave sparkling renditions of works by Wagner, Mahler and Missy Mazzoli. Their playing was full of vim and vigour, technically precise and emotionally compelling.

I was struck by a new piece: the world premiere of Dani Howard’s 'Three, Four AND… ‘ The title was inspired by the anticipation of what’s to come after a conductor’s count-off, and the music was developed by Howard in schools, on social media and on tour, as part of the NYO Inspire scheme.
 
‘NYO Inspire is a musical adventure for teenagers who want to make music a bigger part of their lives, but face barriers and a lack of opportunity to progress.’

At the BBC Prom performance, nearly 100 players from NYO Inspire joined 160 members of the main orchestra - from the choir seats and the upper tiers; from the gallery and the aisles. And periodically the conductor Tess Jackson turned to the auditorium to keep everyone in time.

The piece was beautiful, bursting with rhythm, fizzing with ideas. It was all rather moving.

‘I would not be the musician, nor person, I am today without the opportunities NYO Inspire and the Orchestra have given me, and for this I am incredibly grateful.’
Tara Spencer, Co-Leader, NYO 

I was particularly impressed by the way this NYO initiative integrated inclusion and outreach, with excellence and ambition.

Every business needs a youth strategy: a plan by which it can engage with new generations of talent; a vehicle for listening and learning from a cohort that is full of energy and inspiration; as well as a structure for training and coaching to the highest standards.  

Young people should not be regarded as a cheap resource, but rather as a precious commodity, a window into tomorrow, a means to sustaining future success.

'We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.'
Franklin D. Roosevelt

'I used to think that the day would never come,
I'd see delight in the shade of the morning sun.
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear.
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun.’
New Order, ’True Faith’ (B Sumner / G Gilbert / P Hook / S Hague / S Morris)

No. 487

Still Life: Finding Beauty in Plainness

William Nicholson’s The Silver Casket and Red Leather Box, 1920. Photograph: Private collection

I recently attended an excellent exhibition examining the story of still life in Britain. (‘The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain’ is at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester until 20 October.)

‘Those two words [still life] imply an undercurrent of meaning at once poignant and vital, suggesting objects curiously related to each other, silent, composed, in tranquil, even ominous, association.’
Michael Ayrton

Historically considered to be a lesser form of painting, still life first became popular in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries, following the import of Dutch work in the genre. (The English term still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven.)  

Early still life paintings sought to convey the transience of human existence through arrangements of meaningful objects, such as clocks and skulls. They were known as ‘vanitas’ (a reminder of the futility of pursuing material wealth) and ‘memento mori’ (a reminder of our mortality). 

Edwaert Collier’s vanitas of 1694 presents books, a globe and an engraved portrait of Caesar Augustus, alongside a recorder, lute and oboe. The message is that earthly knowledge and power are fleeting. Once an instrument is put down, the music stops.

Symbolism abounds in these works. Playing cards connote pleasure, chance and fate. Grapes, peaches and plums represent fertility and romance. Roses suggest love and the Virgin Mary, and carnations imply resurrection and eternal life.  If you look closely, you’ll notice that some of the rose petals are wilting; the plant's leaves are brown at the edges; and a grape has fallen from the bunch. Beauty, like life itself, does not endure.

In modern times still life has offered artists the opportunity to explore colour, form and materials. Breaking free from a more naturalistic approach, everyday objects could be reduced to abstract blocks of pure pigment. Ben Nicholson painted the striped and spotted jugs, mugs and glassware that he had in his studio, interpreting their forms and patterns in varying degrees of representation and abstraction. 

‘Furniture such as couches, chairs, bookcases and tables… involve planes, horizontal, vertical and inclined, angles, right, acute and obtuse, directions, divisions, dimensions and recessions; contrasts of masses, light and shade, in fact, the basic material for creating the structural harmony.’
Paul Nash

Meredith Frampton, Trial and Error

In the 1920s and ‘30s surrealist artists revealed the strangeness in the ordinary, making arresting arrangements of familiar objects to expose the subconscious. Meredith Frampton precisely painted an artist’s model of a head and placed it on an open sketchbook. There is a pear sitting on a funeral urn; a white carnation in a tea pot; a queen of spades playing card.

Subsequently pop artists blurred the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, drawing our attention to the proliferation of marketing imagery. In Eduardo Paolozzi’s brightly coloured collages, American salespeople jostle with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, White Star Tuna, Coca-Cola and Kool-Aid.  

Over the years still life has evolved into many different forms of expression. But perhaps its enduring appeal resides in its invitation to close observation and contemplation.  

‘There is a place in our lives for small pictures… Looked at in stillness, hidden forms take shape; and forms, like words, have their references, haunted by experience, extending into a half-conscious dream world.’
Valentine Dobrée

Dod Procter (1892–1972)-Black and White. Southampton City Art Gallery

William Nicholson asks us to consider an elegant silver casket sitting on top of a red leather box, the light shimmering on the metal, reflecting the unseen room. Dod Procter paints her shawl, gloves and ermine wrap, perhaps deposited on the hall table after a night on the town. Eric Ravilious depicts a forlorn jug of bracken fronds and cow parsley, casting a melancholy shadow on the tabletop.  

More recently Rachel Whiteread has explored the negative spaces between objects. A white plaster imprint of three bookshelves suggests a lifetime of thought and ideas; of private moments and quiet introspection.  

‘I find beauty in plainness.’ 
William Scott

The themes at the heart of this exhibition may resonate with those of us that work in the world of marketing and communications. Many of us sell ordinary objects, performing modest roles in everyday lives. Too often we exaggerate the value and significance of our brands. We are prone to hyperbole.  

Untitled (For Frank) (1999), Rachel Whiteread. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. © the artist

Perhaps we would do well to seek instead the beauty in their plainness.

Still life asks us to pause, look and reflect, in the unbroken silence; to find meaning in the mundane. Life may be fragile and fleeting, but it is also beautiful.

'I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray,
Lying cold the way you left them,
But at least your lips caressed them while you packed.
And a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee
That you poured and didn't drink.
But at least you thought you wanted it.
That's so much more than I can say for me.
It's been a good year for the roses,
Many blooms still linger there.
The lawn could stand another mowing,
Funny, I don't even care.
When you turned and walked away,
And as the door behind you closes,
The only thing I know to say,
It's been a good year for the roses.’
George Jones, 'A Good Year for the Roses’ (J Chesnut)

No. 486

The Sticky Wicket: When Leadership Impairs Personal Performance

A Country Cricket Match. 1878, John Robertson Reid

My father was rather a good cricketer. As a young man he was offered a playing position by the Sussex county team (one he couldn’t afford to take up), and he continued to keep wicket for the Noak Hill village side well into middle age.

I too loved cricket as a child - playing with Martin in the back garden on long hot summer days; watching games on the TV with the sound down and Test Match Special on the radio; accounting for every ball in my scorebook; making trips to Chelmsford with Neil Renshaw to see Essex. (It was the golden era of John Lever, Ray East and David Ackfield, and I packed home-made oat biscuits for lunch.)

It was a sadness therefore that I wasn’t actually a good cricketer. Having poor hand-to-eye coordination, most spells at the crease ended early, with bruised shins and pride. I did develop a rather eccentric, high-kicking leg-spin action. But it was too variable and comical to be relied on.

'You have to try to reply to criticism with your intellect, not your ego.'
Mike Brearley

I read recently about a study into the differing cricketing performances of batsman and bowler captains. (Kaya Burgess, The Times, 17 July 2024)

Researchers from the Central European University in Vienna and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research analysed 4,400 men’s one-day international (ODI) matches and 2,800 players who competed between 1971 and this year.

The findings suggest that there is a ‘differential impact of captaincy on distinct player types.’ When batsmen were named captain, they scored an average of 16% more runs. However, when bowlers were promoted to skipper, they took 18% fewer wickets.

Batsmen, the study speculates, may see captaincy as an opportunity to ‘lead through exemplary performance.’ Bowlers, however, ‘may experience captaincy as a burden.’ It is also possible that captain-bowlers have a tendency to put themselves in ‘to bowl at the wrong time to relieve the team pressure.’

’Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill. But don’t try it without that 10%.’
Richie Benaud

This research prompted me to reflect on the communications industry, and Strategists who take on Agency leadership roles. Is there a ‘differential impact of captaincy on distinct player types?’ Do Planners perhaps ‘experience captaincy as a burden?’

Of course, we can all think of some amazing industry leaders who began their careers as Strategists (the Imran Khans and Kapil Devs of advertising). But when I consider Planners as a type, I’m not sure we generally have the mental toughness, the commercial and relationship skills, to lead on our own. We tend to be more cautious, more introverted, more pensive souls.

In the second half of my Agency career, I was part of a three-person leadership team. Within this structure, as Chairman, I could help set the overall direction of the business, and still contribute to its strategic output.

I may have lacked the technical skills, confidence and ambition to be a CEO. But I did know when to leave the pitch. The aforementioned cricket research study established that, after losing the captaincy, both batsmen and bowlers saw a marked decrease in their performance standards, below their pre-captaincy levels. 

‘Cricket, lovely cricket,
At Lord's where I saw it.
Cricket, lovely cricket,
At Lord's where I saw it.
Yardley tried his best,
But Goddard won the test.
They gave the crowd plenty fun,
Second Test and West Indies won.’
Lord Beginner, ‘Cricket, Lovely Cricket’
(Marking the West Indies’ first victory over England in England, at Lord's in 1950)

No. 485

Roger Mayne: ‘Please Take My Photo, Mister’

Hitting hard … Goalie by Roger Mayne. Photograph: © Roger Mayne Archive / Mary Evans Picture Library

The photographer Roger Mayne is best known for his images of children and young people on the streets of post-war London. (‘Roger Mayne: Youth’ is at The Courtauld Gallery, London until 1 September.)

Born in Cambridge in 1929, Mayne studied Chemistry at Oxford University, and it was there that he became interested in photographic processing. After National Service, he moved to London and found work as a freelance photographer for London magazines and book-jacket designers.

Between 1956 and 1961 Mayne took around 1400 images of the life on Southam Street on the northern edge of Notting Hill.

‘My reason for photographing the poor streets is that I love them, and the life on them.’

 © Roger Mayne Archive. Mary Evans Picture Library 2021

With dirty hands and tousled hair, kids climb through ruined buildings and run around graffitied bombsites. ‘MS is Mad,’ ‘QPR’, ‘God Save the Queen.’ In knitted cardigans and tank tops, in short trousers and gingham skirts, they congregate on doorsteps and at street corners, playing games, planning adventures. Mingling with the other kids, there are a few children from the recently arrived West Indian community. A boy in a blazer dives desperately to save a goal. Two girls perform handstands against a corrugated iron fence. Another runs down the street in tears, clutching her arm.  

The pictures are at once disturbing and uplifting. We witness the poverty, poor hygiene and everyday jeopardy of war-ravaged London. But we also see the timeless grace of children at play, their joyful energy and enthusiasm, their resilience and their lust for life.

The kids regard us with glee, curiosity, suspicion. Sometimes they are absorbed in their own world. Sometimes they perform for the camera. 

'You used to get this cry, ‘Please take my photo, Mister’.'

Jive dancing on Southam Street, 1957 © ROGER MAYNE ARCHIVE

Mayne’s empathy with young people led to him being commissioned to provide images for the covers of child psychology and sociology books. Their titles still resonate today: ‘Children Under Stress’, ‘Black British, White British’, ‘Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen.’

‘Photography involves two main distortions – the simplification into black and white, and the seizing of an instant in time. It is this particular mixture of reality and unreality, and the photographer’s power to select, that makes it possible for photography to be an art.’

Mayne went on to capture the emergence of the teenager on London streets. The subjects’ gaze becomes more assertive, occasionally sullen, challenging. There are frowning Teddy Boys in dapper Edwardian suits; self-assured Mods in sharp Italian tailoring; bohemian Beatniks twisting the day away at the Richmond Jazz Festival. A lass in a pleated skirt, sitting on her friend’s lap, silently sips her lemonade. Teenage girls in trousers conspire at the Battersea Funfair. Two young women shake hands on a Soho street, one glancing sideways with a furtive look. A girl jives on Southam Street. 

In 1958 the Notting Hill area that had seemed so harmonious in Mayne’s earlier photos became the scene for race riots. The following year Mayne provided a shot for the cover of ‘Absolute Beginners’, Colin MacInnes’ celebrated novel about youth culture and simmering racial tension. We see a Mod couple on a deserted west London street. The man looks away from us towards his cream raincoated girlfriend. She crosses the road, hands in pockets, her head turned disconsolately towards the pavement.

Absolute Beginners (original book cover)

In reflecting on his craft, Mayne quoted the abstract artist Sir Terry Frost:

‘If you know before you look, you can't see for knowing.’

This sums up the open-mindedness with which Mayne approached all his work. And explains the truthful, haunting quality of his pictures.

In any creative or strategic endeavour, we must first set aside biases and assumptions, if we are properly to see what is really going on.

Although Mayne’s pictures have a timeless quality, capturing the essence of childhood innocence and youthful independence, they are also profoundly nostalgic. We are reminded of an era when city streets offered kids security, fresh air and friendship. Alas no more in this age of anxiety. Most of Southam Street was demolished in 1969 to make way for the Brutalist high rise apartment building, the Trellick Tower.

'I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular.
You shut your mouth.
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does.’
The Smiths, ‘How Soon Is Now?’ (J Marr / S P Morrissey)

No. 484