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

The Hot Wing King: ‘Don’t Sit So Close to the TV… You Gotta Sit Back and Let a Picture Come into View’

From left, Jason Barnett, Kadiff Kirwan, Simon-Anthony Rhoden. Images - Helen Murray

‘The Hot Wing King’ by Katori Hall tells the story of four gay Black men preparing to compete in the annual Hot Wing Contest in Memphis, Tennessee. (Directed by Roy Alexander Weise, at the National Theatre, London until 14 September)

Cordell: I got that Lemon Pepper Wet. That Lemon Pepper Dry. Dem Suicides: Hot-Hot and HOT! Them Blueberry Birds and even…some Parmesans.

Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan) is the gifted, driven head chef, with a new recipe that he hopes will earn them this year’s hot chicken crown.  

Cordell: Spicy. Cajun. Alfredo. With Bourbon Infused. Crumbled. Bacon.

His crew, the New Wing Order, also includes his partner Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden), an overworked manager at a local hotel; laid back barber Big Charles (Jason Barnett); and camp fashion victim Isom (Olisa Odele).

Cordell: Isom, make sho you stir counter-clockwise and scrape the bottom after every five minutes. The key to the Crutchfield recipe is smoke. And lots of it.

Cordell needs to instil some discipline and determination in his friends, if they are to reach their goal.

Cordell: I just need y’all to be focused now. I for one am tired of losing. The New Wing Order been trying fuh five years and ain’t never won the top prize. But these folks gone learn tomorrow.
 
And so, they diligently soak hickory chips, flash fry bacon, chop and marinade wings. And they get acquainted with Cordell’s secret ingredient.

Big Charles: Wooooooo, bwoy, who woulda thunk a pepper straight harvested from the bush of western Uganda is the secret to the Crutchfield recipe… It might not taste like nothing at first. But the moment that heat hit, the seeds leak that peli-peli oil and burn all the way through the marinade… Well, I know where I need to go when the aliens come. This peli-peli fuck they ass up.

Gradually, we get to know the characters through their cooking and conversation. And we learn that there are underlying tensions at play. Cordell has recently left his wife and two sons in St Louis to move in with Dwayne. He is haunted by a sense of failure as a father, and, as yet unable to find work in Memphis, he is uneasy with his dependency on Dwayne. To make matters more complicated, Dwayne’s troubled nephew is also keen to take up residence.  

Cordell: I’m one part selfish, two parts stubborn and one part…scared.

The discussion around the kitchen counter drifts seamlessly between the frivolous and the profound. They chat about basketball, try on Hawaiian shirts decorated with chicken wings, and break into a joyous song and dance routine to Luther Vandross’s ‘Never Too Much’. They also consider family, fatherhood and masculinity; sexuality, grief and guilt.  

Cordell: Thass when I knew that there was someone on this earth strong enough to hold me. All of me. All the pieces. All the shards…
Big Charles: Must be nice for someone to know you like that.
Cordell: It ain’t. They know all your cracks. Where to press to make you cave in on yo’self.
Big Charles: And where to put the superglue, I reckon.

I was quite taken with a comment made by Isom, when the tensions between Cordell and Dwayne are threatening to boil over.

Isom: As my mama say – Don’t sit so close to the TV… Meaning, you gotta sit back and let a picture come into view.

This is sound advice. In life and work we can sometimes get too involved in a conundrum, too immersed in the detail. We look closer, dive deeper, think harder. But the solution eludes us.
 
Often it’s worth stepping back, taking a breath, accommodating some context. The best Strategists don’t just grapple with the particulars of a problem. They also take into account broader cultural and social change, adjacent circumstances and accompanying conditions. They let a picture come into view.

As Cordell observes towards the end of this splendid play, the best ideas can come when you least expect them.

Cordell: What is a mistake, but merely a new dream, a frontier untamed, a sweet discovery? In this case, a flavor yet to be tasted.

'I can't fool myself, I don't want nobody else to ever love me.
You are my shining star, my guiding light, my love fantasy.
There's not a minute, hour, day or night that I don't love you.
You're at the top of my list 'cause I'm always thinking of you.
I still remember in the days when I was scared to touch you,
How I spent my day dreaming, planning how to say I love you.
You must have known that I had feelings deep enough to swim in,
That's when you opened up your heart and you told me to come in.
Oh, my love,
A thousand kisses from you is never too much.
I just don't wanna stop.
Oh, my love,
A million days in your arms is never too much.
I just don't wanna stop.
Too much, never too much, never too much, never too much.’

Luther Vandross, 'Never Too Much’

No. 483

Biba: ‘The Only Thing You Have Is What’s in Your Head’

 I recently attended a fascinating exhibition about the legendary fashion brand Biba. (The Fashion and Textile Museum, London, until 8 September.)

‘The market was instant for that age group, they wanted it there and then. They didn’t want to wait, as they didn’t look to the future in any way.’
Barbara Hulanicki

Between 1964 and 1975 Biba sold fast, affordable fashion to young people in London, the UK and beyond. Fusing the creative flair of Barbara Hulanicki with the commercial nous of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon, Biba offered bold outlines, simple construction, vibrant colours and imaginative fabrics. It was a magical, immersive shopping experience, a lifestyle brand that endlessly reinvented itself.  

‘It isn’t just selling dresses, it’s a whole way of life.’

Hulanicki was born in Warsaw in 1936. After her diplomat father was assassinated in Palestine in 1948, the family moved to Brighton. She studied at the Brighton School of Art, and then worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler and Women's Wear Daily. She quickly realised that the elite couturiers were out of step with emerging youth culture and the changing tastes of modern women.

Pink Gingham Dress

In 1961 Hulanicki wedded Stephen Fitz-Simon, an ad man employed at the London Press Exchange. With Hulanicki working from home and Fitz-Simon doing long hours in the office, their married life got off to a challenging start.  

‘We could both see we were on a collision course, so I was desperate to try and find something we could do together.’

Fitz-Simon foresaw that illustration was being eclipsed by photography, and so encouraged Hulanicki to pursue her interest in design. In 1963 the couple set up a mail order fashion business, Biba's Postal Boutique ('Biba' was the nickname of Hulanicki's younger sister, Biruta). The following year they had their first significant success when they advertised a pink gingham dress and matching headscarf in the Daily Mirror. The outfit looked similar to one recently worn by Brigitte Bardot, and 17,000 units were sold.  

Hulanicki and Fitz-Simon were emboldened to open the first Biba boutique, in Abingdon Road, Kensington. The store had a nightclub feel, with dark interiors and loud music, muddled merchandise and clothes hanging from hat-stands. Breaking with the conventions of the time, it offered late-night shopping, young, approachable staff and communal changing rooms.

'It was like fishing: you would never know what you might come back with.’

As a fashion illustrator, Hulanicki was predisposed to simple lines and bold silhouettes, and she avoided fussy details. She designed mini-shift dresses and mini-skirts; jump suits, coats and hats, in ‘bruised’ purple, plum, olive, rust, mulberry, mauve and black - what she called ‘auntie colours.’

‘We started off with just really simple shapes, little smocks and shifts, as it kept the manufacturing headaches away.’

Fitz-Simon aimed to keep prices below the disposable weekly income of the average London secretary. And so the skirts, tops and accessories sold for a few pounds or less, dresses for under three pounds. And for the first few years, to keep costs down, the garments had no label, and were only available in sizes 8 to 12.

‘I wanted to make clothes for people in the street, and Fitz and I always tried to get prices down, down, down.’

Biba - Bridgeman Images

The Biba boutique became hugely popular, frequented by the glitterati of the day: Twiggy, Cher, Cilla Black and Cathy McGowan. In 1966 they set up in larger premises on Kensington Church Street. The new shop boasted a black and gold exterior, and striking red and gold wallpaper inside, along with antique mahogany shelving.  

‘From day one of the first Biba I was never quite certain which came first, the clothes or the interiors.’

In 1969 Hulanicki and Fitz-Simon launched an even bigger Biba store on Kensington High Street, featuring Victorian wooden fixtures and Art Deco inspired sets. Staffed almost entirely by women, the shop had one of the first workplace creches.

As Biba grew, it retained its cost consciousness. Shops opened in autumn and winter months, when sales of coats ensured higher profit margins. Evening dresses were labelled as dressing gowns so that they would be subject to lower tax. 

Typically, Hulanicki designed for a young woman with long thin arms, flat chest, low waist and straight hips.  

‘The silhouette was as long as possible… like a drawing. [The ideal Biba girl has] a skinny body with long asparagus legs and tiny feet.’

Hulanicki evolved her creations in step with changing tastes and appetites. There were slim trouser suits, with square shoulders and fitted sleeves. There were plunging necklines, wrap-over bodices and round-edged collars; culottes, coordinated separates and long diaphanous dresses. Whereas previously apparel retailers tended to offer longevity at a premium price, she made sure that there was a constant succession of fresh, affordable seasonal releases.  

'We are determined that customers shall be able to buy summer clothes in summer and autumn clothes in autumn.’

Hulanicki took inspiration from history - from Victoriana, the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau and Art Deco; from Mucha, Mackintosh and Klimt. Biba’s celtic knot brand device, created by Anthony Little, echoed the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley.

As well as working extensively in cotton, linen, chiffon, satin and velvet, Hulanicki experimented with heritage fabrics like marocain, flanesta, crepe and crepe de Chine.  

‘We were always desperate for something different. We’d always had hundreds of fabric reps coming into Biba and we produced thousands of in-house prints.’

Early problems with sourcing prompted her to limit lines to 500 pieces in any one fabric. So the shop was always freshly stocked, and there was a sense of urgency when customers found something they liked.

‘Take it or leave it, but if you wait it won’t be there when you come back.’

Consequently, Hulanicki and Fitz-Simon established long-term relationships with textile manufacturers and attended countless textile fairs in the quest for ideas.

‘We went to all the fabric fairs: Milan, Bologna, Spain, Paris. I was obsessed. I had to see everything.’

Barbara Hulanicki, 1964. © Barbara Hulanicki

The brand rapidly extended into menswear, unisex fashion and couture – and into children’s wear, which Hulanicki designed as scaled down versions of adult styles.  

‘They have minds of their own. At three they come into us and choose everything, even their hats. They know what they want.’

The Biba look could be completed with accessories: floppy hats and elegant headscarves; colourful boots, plastic jewellery and feather boas.  

‘First you’ve got the dress, then the tights, then the shoes, then the hat, and then you get to the face…and nothing.’

There was also a hugely successful range of cosmetics, sold through 300 Dorothy Perkins shops in the UK, and in more than 30 countries worldwide. Biba was the first company to produce a full range of cosmetics for both Black skin and for men.

Mail order took Biba garments and accessories nationwide in the UK. In the United States fabrics were sold with accompanying patterns through Macy’s, and a Biba department was set up in Bergdorf Goodman.

Biba at High Street Kensington became one of the most profitable stores in the world. It had over 100,000 visitors per week and an annual turnover of more than £200 per square foot (compared with £50 per square foot in an average department store).

Twiggy in the Rainbow Room, Biba © Justin De Villeneuve and Iconic Images

‘When people like something, they need mark I, mark II and mark III. A progression.’

And so, in 1973, the brand scaled up yet again, with the launch of Big Biba, also on High Street Kensington. Spread over seven stories and fifteen departments, the store had an Art Deco interior celebrating the Golden Age of Hollywood. It sold Biba washing powder, baked beans, babies’ nappies and satin sheets. There was Biba wallpaper, paint, cutlery and soft furnishings. At Big Biba you could see an exhibition, visit a beauty parlour and take tea on Europe’s largest roof garden. In its Rainbow Room restaurant, you could watch bands like the New York Dolls, Cockney Rebel, the Pointer Sisters and Liberace.

The store attracted up to a million customers every week, its aesthetic chiming with the emergent glam rock movement. Freddie Mercury’s girlfriend Mary Austin worked there.

‘When [Queen] fans come over here, that ought to be the first place they go.’
Freddie Mercury

However, the stresses of running such a multi-faceted, endlessly changing fashion and lifestyle phenomenon became too much. Hulanicki and Fitz-Simon had sold 70% of the business to retailer Dorothy Perkins in 1969. Three years later Dorothy Perkins was taken over by property developer British Land, an owner that was unsympathetic to Biba’s creative culture.

‘Every time I went into the shop, I was afraid it would be for the last time.’

As well as the financial and workload pressures of running such a mercurial business, there were also challenges that came out of left field. In an episode that foreshadowed today’s ethical concerns about fast fashion, in 1971 the urban terrorist organisation The Angry Brigade (who had disrupted the Miss World competition the previous year) bombed the store.

‘Women are slaves to fashion, Biba leads fashion, therefore blowing up Biba will liberate Biba.’
The Angry Brigade

In the end Big Biba lasted just two years. Its fixtures and fittings were auctioned off and it was occupied by squatters. In 1975 it made way for a Marks & Spencer and a British Home Store.  

‘I was okay for two days and then it hit me. I didn’t know who I was any more. Biba had been my life, my dream.’

Biba had been a revolutionary presence in the British fashion and retail world, ushering in the era of fast, affordable fashion and the lifestyle brand. It had shone brightly, fabulously, and then burnt itself out.

Twiggy in Biba © Justin De Villeneuve and Iconic Images

Biba teaches lessons about the dynamism of youth culture, the imperative of immediacy and affordability, the essential thrill of the retail experience and the relentless quest for inspiration. It also challenges us to manage brand extension with care; and to consider the social and environmental costs of fast fashion.

After the collapse of Biba, Hulanicki moved to Brazil, where she opened several stores and designed for labels such as Fiorucci and Cacharel. In 1987 she settled in Miami, where she ran an interior design business and worked as a consultant. She is still there today.

'Now, whenever I finish something, I take some photographs and say 'goodbye'. When you lose everything, you realise that the only thing you have is what's in your head.’

'I'm in with the in crowd, I go where the in crowd goes.
I'm in with the in crowd, and I know what the in crowd knows.
Anytime of the year, don't you hear? Dressing fine, making time.
We breeze up and down the street, we get respect from the people we meet.
They make way day or night, they know the in crowd is out of sight.
I'm in with the in crowd, I know every latest dance.
When you're in with the in crowd, it's so easy to find romance.'
Dobie Gray, 'The 'In’ Crowd’ (B Page)

No. 482

Which One’s Mike?: ‘Every No Takes Me Closer to a Yes’

Lill Tschudi | Jazz Orchestra (1935)

I’m also partial to a pub singalong.

I enjoy watching friends perform, revealing their talents, exposing their vulnerabilities. I like the link to the traditions of the past, the nostalgia for the songs of our youth, the giddy spirit of community.

And so, when I had a birthday celebration recently, I invited a number of my mates to sing one number each. Richly talented Mike volunteered to act as Music Director, agreeing song selections and arrangements, rehearsing the acts, playing keyboard backing.

On the evening itself, as the guests gathered in a Clerkenwell pub, Niece Rosie approached me. A smart, funny Young Person with bags of charisma, she was originally unable to attend the gig.
 
‘I’m so glad you’ve made it, Rosie. Brilliant.’
‘Yes, and I’m up for singing a song!’

She beamed a big, open smile at me. But I had to disappoint her.

‘I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. Mike agreed the tunes with the singers weeks ago. He’s rehearsed with them and established the right pitch for their voices. It’s all been impeccably pre-produced.’
‘I’m sure I could just give it a go.’
‘No, I’m sorry. It just won’t work.’
 
Niece Rosie regarded me with a benign grin.
 
‘Which one’s Mike?’ she said. And with that she was gone.

A little later I was informed that Niece Rosie would be performing Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man.’

There’s a lesson here for anyone who works in the persuasion business. When you hit a blockage, a bump in the road, don’t waste your time repeating yourself, bashing your head against a brick wall. Seek a roundabout route, a sympathetic ally. Search for the person who can influence the decision. Find the real decision maker.  And never take no for an answer.

Elizabeth (Bessie) Coleman

Bessie Coleman, born into a family of Texan sharecroppers in 1892, grew up picking cotton and washing laundry. Her early interest in aviation was snubbed, because flying schools at the time admitted neither women nor Black people. So she taught herself French at night, and saved the money to learn to fly in Paris. She became the first African American woman to hold a pilot’s license. On her return to the United States ‘Brave Bessie’ had a successful career as a stunt flier at air shows, celebrated for her ‘loop the loops’ and ‘figure 8s’. She explained her persistence thus:

‘I refused to take no for an answer. Every no takes me closer to a yes.’
 
Niece Rosie stood before the crowd, reading the lyrics from her phone, delivering her song with crystalline clarity, mellow tunefulness and soulful warmth. The audience swayed in time with the music, joined in with the chorus and roared approval as she took her ‘timeless flight.’   

‘It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight.
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touchdown brings me round again to find,
I'm not the man they think I am at home.
Oh, no, no, no,
I'm a rocket man,
Rocket man,
Burning out his fuse up here alone.’
Elton John, ‘Rocket Man’ (E John / B Taupin)

No. 481