A weekly series of reviews looking at the film and TV output of the Comic Strip group of comedians…
Spoiler warning: plot points may be revealed.
Synopsis: August 1960 – a beat poet and his clique hold a party at the house of a young fan.
Written by: Peter Richardson and Pete Richens. Directed by: Bob Spiers. Broadcast: 17 January 1983, Channel 4. Series: 1. Episode: 3.
Notable cast (with a running total of Comic Strip appearances):
* Making his Comic Strip Presents debut is Keith Allen (1), an alternative comedian who broke through on the Soho comedy scene around the same time as the Comic Strip regulars. He cameos here as Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles, but plays the part nothing like the real man. In the opening scene Epstein pitches his acts to a producer played by Michael White (1), who was the real-life producer of the Comic Strip Presents series.
* Adrian Edmondson (4) plays Desmond, an enthusiastic young fella who has a house by the sea all to himself (because his parents have gone away). So, after signing a legal waiver, he plays host to a famous beat poet and his hangers-on for a weekend-long party. At times, Edmondson’s delivery drifts into the same kind of strained extremes he used as Vyvyan Basterd in sitcom The Young Ones (the first series of which was made at roughly the same time as this film), though Desmond is a much more benign and optimistic character.
* Nigel Planer (3) is Charles, the poet’s unflappable and patrician agent (and, it is hinted, occasional lover). The Beat Generation is one of Planer’s favourite Comic Strip films.
* For the third time in four Comic Strip projects, Dawn French (4) plays a character who’s meant to have – indeed, does have – overt sex appeal. Flirty fangirl Eleanor hangs off every word of poet Alan. She’s thrilled by the idea of a wild weekend with ‘so many crazy artists and poets’, though is saddened when Alan seems to dislike her legs.
* Peter Richardson (4) is Alan, the sunglasses-wearing poet at the centre of all the adoration. He affects a cool nonchalance, and modestly says that his success is like going to an orgy in clean underpants. One thing Alan doesn’t seem interested in, by the way, is poetry. He never recites any.
* Rik Mayall (3) plays Jeremy, who’s first seen driving Alan and Eleanor to the house party. He’s an angry, manic soul who then spends a long time on the phone to an ex who’s dumped him and moved to Australia. (As a cry for help he simulates suicide.) Jeremy is a frustrated soul generally. ‘People think it’s easy being a rebel!’ he snaps at one point, Mayall suddenly sounding very much like his Young Ones character, Rick. ‘Well, it’s bloody not.’
* Daniel Peacock (3) plays Kix, an anarchic but not very good poet who steals vending machines and crashes cars. He’s said to be the most promising illiterate of their generation. Halfway through the episode, he finds two underage girls – Judy and Tracy, played by Zoe Clarke (1) and Kim Pappas (1) – and invites them to the party. ‘Got any younger sisters?’ he asks.
* Robbie Coltrane (3) is Kurt, a potential publisher for Alan’s latest work.
* Jennifer Saunders (4) plays Anne, an American filmmaker hanging out at the party (we never learn if she was invited). She falls for Jeremy, saying she likes his style and his naked aggression, and even suggests they kiss while they walk along the beach. (Coincidentally, Saunders’ character in the first Comic Strip Presents film was also called Anne.)
Best bit: As the outsider, the only major character who’s not part of the ‘scene’, Adrian Edmondson’s Desmond is our point-of-view. He represents that feeling most of us will have experienced of wanting to make friends with people we consider to be cool. But when he tries to take advantage of the permissive culture and nervously tells Eleanor that he’d like to ‘do it to her’, she just laughs at him and cruelly tells the others what he’s said. She does eventually let him have a go… but seems bored with the process and reads a magazine as he thrusts away.
Review: After the specific pastiche of Five Go Mad in Dorset and the scattergun satire of War, now comes a mood piece. It’s the cusp of the 1960s, where artistic, hedonistic and sexual possibilities seem endless. Our lead character is a British version of Allen Ginsberg, who was one of the leaders of the American beat-poet movement that flourished in the 1950s. The Beats rejected the formality of traditional poetry, often abandoning rhyming schemes and logic and preferring a free-form sensibility akin to jazz music. (The word beat was a pun: it referred to the rhythmic metre of their work, but also suggested underdogs who had been beaten down by society’s conventions.) Ginsberg and his colleagues such as Jack Kerouac, Michael McClure and Diane Di Prima explored themes instinctively and organically: ‘First thought, best thought,’ as Ginsberg once said. They also dabbled with drugs and carefree sex.
This Comic Strip Presents film pokes fun at all this pretension by presenting us with a leading British poet, Alan. The more he talks, the more he exposes himself as a bore with nothing interesting to say. He just drones on with inconsequential anecdotes. Not that his acolytes notice. ‘It’s so damn crazy when you talk weird, Alan,’ purrs Eleanor, while Desmond adds, ‘Yeah, come on, everybody, let’s go crazy apeshit.’ For them, it’s not about the work or the artistic calling. All the peripheral stuff is much more exciting: partying, laughing, having sex, looking good and being seen as one of the in-crowd. When something genuinely emotional enters this world, such as Jeremy’s anguish over a failed relationship or the extremes to which Eleanor will go to be liked, no one else cares. The temptation of having a good time is just too strong to be concerned with reality. Or as one of Ginsberg’s most famous poems begins, ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.’
The film plays all this out with a French New Wave aesthetic, a hungover jazz score (with saxophonist Colin Jacas surrealistically appearing in shot) and self-conscious, black-and-white photography. A touch too aimless for its own good, The Beat Generation drifts from character to character, from joke to joke, without ever really hitting home.
Six communist homosexuals out of 10
Ian Farrington 