Everything we know about The Beatles biopics so far
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Scotsman
7 hours ago
- Scotsman
British-Iraqi comic Hasan Al-Habib on growing up in the shadow of Saddam
British-Iraqi comedian Hasan Al-Habib – whose Fringe show title Death to the West (Midlands) is very much ironic – reflects on what it was like growing up near Birmingham while the UK invaded Iraq Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Hello, reader of The Scotsman. You're probably very intelligent, cultured, and well-informed. The pleasure is all mine. Now I'd wager that most Brits (let's be real here, the English) aren't as knowledgeable as your average Scotsman reader. They likely couldn't, for example, point to Iraq on a map, let alone explain its invasion. This is despite the 2003 Iraq war causing the deaths of 179 British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I'm a British-Iraqi that grew up near Birmingham. I love where I'm from; my Fringe stand-up comedy show title, Death to the West (Midlands), is very much ironic. Yet growing up, I was expected to know all about the conflict and hold intelligent and well-informed opinions around it. Comedian Hasan Al-Habib | Contributed My year 7 form tutor, a French woman, asked the class following his capture: 'What do you zink zey should do with Saddam?' A deafening silence followed from an unsurprisingly reticent group of 11-year-olds. All eyes turned to me, the Iraqi kid. I'd heard of Saddam's brutality from my parents, including his genocide against the Kurdish people. To me, the answer was clear. 'I… I think he should be… executed, Miss. For his crimes cos… yeah, he… he killed a lot of people.' 'Ah but 'Asan, don't you zink zis makes you as bad as 'im!' Growing up, this episode caused a continuing distrust of the French and the adoption of a philosophy that would take years to unlearn: 'Stop being Arab.' Nothing good ever came from my Arab identity. I was getting bullied relentlessly for it and hearing on the news about how British soldiers were being killed by people like me. I was a terrorist, a barbarian: backwards, foreign, and suspicious. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad One incident really emphasised the above to me. When asked by a classmate why 9/11 happened, my teacher said: 'I don't know, ask Hasan'. I wasn't even eight yet, and she wasn't even French. The shame I felt in that classroom was devastating. I resolved from that day onwards that, whilst I was Hasan Al-Habib by name, I would become 'Hamish Allan-Habberley' by character. After all, I have a light skin tone. Surely I could be white-passing? Comedian Hasan Al-Habib | Contributed I did everything I could to become white British: I played football, listened to the Beatles and even stopped smiling. I had to test this. So, on holiday, I told someone at the hotel that my name was Tom. I was thrilled when they addressed me as such. 'It's worked!' I thought. Yet my success was fleeting. That same year, someone at school cornered me in the playground: 'So like, where are you actually from then?' 'Uh…my family are Iraqi.' 'Iraqi? Mate, no offence, but why don't you just go back to Pakistan'. I'd never seen this boy before, just as he had never seen maps. What am I, a teenager, going to do in Pakistan, Ollie? Erasmus?! Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. The realisation that there was something about my appearance that people could tell meant I wasn't actually white left me shaken. I'd spent a chunk of my nascent life pretending to be someone I'm not, and what good had it brought me? That boy didn't know my name or my background, but he looked at me and thought: foreign. So why change how I speak and act when people will target me for how I look? What was the point? At least I don't have to listen to Paperback Writer any more. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad That same weekend in 2007, I watched a football match that changed my life. Iraq, barely out of the war, beat our arch-rivals Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the Asian Championships final, the equivalent of the Euros. I was bought my first Iraq shirt to celebrate. I remember putting it on, aged 13, and thinking: 'This is the first time in my life it's been good to be from Iraq.' I wasn't a foreigner, killer, or terrorist; I was a winner. Child or adult, it's horrible to be blamed for the actions of a Government you have nothing to do with. I have Jewish friends who are experiencing that now more than ever. But we can't stop being who we are for the sake of the prejudiced. We'll never make them happy, only ourselves miserable. Instead, we must embrace who we are, buy tickets to my Fringe show (who said that?) and live our true identities with pride. Nothing angers those who would seek to attack you for it more
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Daily Mirror
Bobby Whitlock dead: Co-founder of blues-rock band Derek and the Dominos dies aged 77
Rock singer Bobby Whitlock has died at the age of 77, his manager has confirmed. The music legend was a co-founder of Derek & the Dominos and had a chart career that stretch back to the early 1970s. The star's manager, Carole Kaye, shared the news on Sunday, revealing Bobby had passed away at 1:20am at his home in Texas, USA. His passing came after a battle against cancer. As well as being a music maker in his own right, Bobby worked as a sessions musician and played with some of the biggest names in modern music history. He played with Beatles legend George Harrison on his album All Things Must Pass. And Eric Clapton was his co-star in the band Derek and the Dominos. The duo became close after playing together after Bobby performed in Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Born in Memphis, the singer was signed to Stax Records and released his first album in 1972. His most recent solo album was Where There's a Will, There's a Way: The ABC-Dunhill Recordings in 2013. Bobby's wife, CoCo Carmel Whitlock, shared a heartbreaking tribute following his death on Sunday. TMZ reports her saying: "How do you express in but a few words the grandness of one man who came from abject poverty in the south to heights unimagined in such a short time? "My love Bobby looked at life as an adventure taking me by the hand leading me through a world of wonderment from music to poetry and painting.." She added: "I feel his hands that were so intensely expressive and warm on my face and the small of my back whenever I close my eyes, he is there." The couple had been married since 2005 - when they tied-the-knot in a ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee on Christmas Eve.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
How the era of the ‘angry young men' sowed the seeds for the Swinging Sixties
The 1960s, that much-loved decade, revived with gusto during the Britpop era, still surrounds us with its images and iconography, from Bond to Sgt Pepper – but where does this distinctly English narrative come from? When did it start? Look a bit deeper, and in the decade between the end of the Korean War and The Beatles releasing Please Please Me, something stirred in the provinces. Drama, fiction and cinema started to produce a body of work that was distinctly at odds with what had passed as appropriate entertainment in the 1940s. During a time when people knew their place – and were often trapped as a result – the era of the 'angry young men' took shape. Full of 'outsider' characters and regional settings, and dubbed 'kitchen sink' by critics in recognition of its determinedly down-to-earth style, this is what gave birth to today's cultural landscape. It's part of our national DNA, and language, giving us phrases such as 'I believe you, thousands wouldn't' as well as immediately identifiable characters such as Billy Liar and Archie Rice. While there had been writing of this type before – notably by Arnold Bennett, JB Priestley, and George Orwell – what came after the post-war austerity period was much greater in scope, drawing heavily on the class consciousness of the 1930s and the bitter, traumatic experience of the war. (Especially the latter: this was a time when everybody spoke about 'the war'.) Dominating voices Within a few years, disparate talents such as the Goons; Tony Hancock; writers William Cooper, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin; film producers the Boulting brothers and actors such as Stanley Baker, Diana Dors and Dirk Bogarde were presenting the public with new characters, novel situations and a questioning approach to status quo. Influenced partly by US noirs and European social realism, both of which were readily viewable on screen or available to read in paperback, 'kitchen sink' drama provided readers with everyday plots and strongly drawn working-class characters. Usually male, they rent a room somewhere. It's signalled that they may have been in the war, but none were officers, and they avoided heroism. Their appearance is important to them, and as this is a time of full employment, they drink and smoke continuously. Disaffected and denunciatory, they aspire to owning property and embrace materialism. Such plots are common in the work of John Osborne, John Braine and Alan Sillitoe. In terms of women writers, it was the idiosyncratic voices such as Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch who dominated; yet, at the end of the decade authors, such as Shelagh Delaney emerged, whose narratives were grounded in reality: they described mixed-race relationships and affairs with yet-to-be-divorced older men, and broke new ground by allowing pregnancy and abortion to haunt their narratives. Frustrated, one morning our hero (or heroine) may pack a suitcase and head down to the station. On a long, slow train of blood-red carriages hauled by a black steam locomotive, they depart for London, throwing aside the conventions and restrictions of regional life. Distinctly realistic depictions All of this takes place in a country markedly different to the one we live in now: a landscape clogged with coal smoke from countless factories, yards and depots set amidst geometric rows of tiny houses. In some ways, the shadow of the war persists. Rationing has either just ceased or is still in force, and National Service remains a rite of passage for young men. How far we are from this world is apparent when viewing the images of Salford and Wakefield captured for posterity by Walter Lassally and Denys Coop in A Taste of Honey and This Sporting Life respectively. Crisp and perfect, almost every frame could be an LP cover or book jacket. Given today's London-centric arts scene, it's interesting to note the importance of Liverpool in launching the kitchen sink as a phenomenon, with two juvenile delinquency dramas, Violent Playground and These Dangerous Years, both shot there. Reminding us that current concerns about toxic masculinity are nothing new, both were outliers for the musical explosion that erupted in the city just six years later, and showed audiences a world very different from the BBC-style, Received Pronunciation dramas that still proliferated. Nor was this solely a 'northern' thing. London – Soho in particular – came into its own with distinctly realistic depictions. Prior to the mid-50s, film-makers rarely strayed beyond Mayfair and W1, and, if they did, usually shot on sets. Now there was an abundance of bedsit dramas, lots of crime and, by the standards of the time, sex (the Lady Chatterley trial helped fell those boundaries). Sowing the seeds for kitchen sink cinema The medium for showing these dramas varied. Despite being limited to only two channels, each broadcasting about six hours a day, television sowed the seeds for much of what followed. The feature-film-length TV play was a key element in the evening inventory, with ITV leading the way. At its peak, over 200 original scripts per annum were being commissioned, providing young actors and directors with critical early career exposure. TV today – including subscription platforms – could only dream of this. As for the theatre, director Joan Littlewood broke down stylistic norms and tackled themes rarely seen on stage before. Brendan Behan, John Arden, Lionel Bart, Shelagh Delaney and Arnold Wesker all benefited from her support. Much influenced by Bertolt Brecht and happy to stage big political ensemble pieces, her output at the Theatre Workshop, Stratford (formed in 1953), was youth-orientated and anticipated the satire boom that followed. There were hits, Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, deprecating the replacement of community with consumerism, intriguing misses (Ned Kelly, with Harry H Corbett comes to mind) and one undeniable classic, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). Most people encountered the kitchen sink in the cinema, though. The Odeon, Gaumont, Granada and ABC chains remained uniquely accessible and popular; and yet, the conservatism of traditional producers – for a while – made getting Osborne, Sillitoe et al on the screen difficult. The Rank Organisation, anxious to maintain their role as custodians of family entertainment, declined to back Look Back in Anger. One explanation for this resistance came from the kitchen sink portraying 'difficult topics' previously considered to be of limited interest to paying audiences. One of these was politics. No Love for Johnnie, written by Wilfred Fienburgh MP, a predecessor of Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North, showed a world of cynical career advancement, no-confidence votes, late-night drinking and extra-marital affairs. The genre ended on a high. Back in Liverpool, A Hard Day's Night was written by Alun Owen, and directed by Richard Lester, an accomplice of The Goons. Filmed in black and white, with kitchen-sink actors Wilfrid Brambell and Norman Rossington in supporting roles (and Kenneth Haigh, uncredited), it repeated one of the main plot features – the cast goes down to London by train – while also beginning the swinging Sixties. Indeed, A Hard Day's Night feels like the archetypal 1960s film, marking the dawn of a new permissiveness – but in its breaking down of barriers, in its celebration of four working-class lads, the seeds of its success were sown in the previous decade. Top five kitchen-sink heroes The writers remain in print and many of the actors are still recognised names. But look deeper, and there are some no-longer-quite-so-well-regarded figures whose work repays study. 1. Mary Ure Glaswegian actress Mary Ure made a huge impression as Jimmy Porter's fragile, abused wife Alison in Look Back in Anger (1959), playing the part – definitively – on both stage and screen. A spell with the Royal Shakespeare Company followed, as did an Academy Award nomination for her role as Clara Dawes in Sons and Lovers (1960), but her career – like those of many women – remained defined by her marriages, in her case to John Osborne and Robert Shaw. Like Harvey she died in early middle-age, more than half a century ago. 2. Laurence Harvey A true outsider – Jewish, Lithuanian, brought up in South Africa – Laurence Harvey projected an undemonstrative, detached acting style whilst being simultaneously debonair and anti-heroic. It was an approach that fitted the times, and brought him Academy Award and Bafta nominations for his turn as proto-Thatcherite Joe Lampton in Room at the Top (1959). He also directed, including the black jazz musical Simply Heavenly (1958) and a film The Ceremony (1963), which, much influenced by Orson Welles, suggests a talent that might have been more widely used. 3. Tom Bell Leading man Tom Bell owed much to TV plays, appearing in 33 when that genre reigned supreme on the small screen. From Liverpool, Bell was famous for 'upsetting the establishment' something that lost him much work. With a background in provincial rep and a spell at the Theatre Workshop his best role during this period was in The L-Shaped Room (1962). 4. Kenneth Haigh Similarly, Kenneth Haigh, from Mexborough, never quite achieved star status despite creating the part of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, partnering Roberts in Maggie May and playing Joe Lampton in Man at the Top (1970-1972) on TV. During a long career, which saw him appear in 21 TV plays, he played Napoleon in Eagle in a Cage (replacing Albert Finney) and co-starred with Joan Collins in The Bitch. 5. Rachel Roberts Rachel Roberts lasted only a little longer, and like Ure was famous as much for her husband, Rex Harrison, as for her acting. This included Bafta-winning performances in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and This Sporting Life. Lionel Bart built the stage musical Maggie May (1964) around her, but despite a third Bafta for John Schlesinger's Yanks (1979), alcoholism took its toll a year later.
