“Ziggy played…banjo”
We told you about the release of Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BBC, earlier in the year.
Contained within the set is the BBC adaptation of Baal starring David Bowie, which was first broadcast in 1982.
Damien Love has posted his ten out of ten review of BAAL over on UNCUT and here follows an excerpt from it.
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“When Clarke first conceived of filming the play, in collaboration with Brecht scholar John Willet, he considered Steven Berkoff for the role. It was Willett who suggested Bowie, who, when the programme was recorded in summer 1981, had not long completed his run as The Elephant Man on the American stage. He brings lessons learned there, as well with Lindsay Kemp and, of course, stalking stages as Ziggy and The Duke (plus, it should be said, the beautiful annunciation he brought to his Peter And The Wolf narration).
Clarke mounts the piece with a degree of stylisation that terrifies current British TV. Intercut with abstract split-screen monologues and songs, the cast perform as though in a live performance against huge, detailed sets erected as frieze-like tableaux, the camera usually at a distance – as if, indeed, you were in the stalls viewing a theatre stage. A filthy, snaggletoothed scum-seer, Bowie himself suggests an expressionist woodcut come to life, yet exudes a fitting naturalism the cast around him avoids.
He clearly responded to the project. To mark its broadcast, Bowie decided to cut a 7-inch EP of the five Brecht songs he performs in the drama, acting as his own Greek chorus. In the TV version, he accompanies himself with bare plucks at the banjo he perpetually clutches. For the Baal EP, however, Bowie returned to Germany’s Hansa studio with Tony Visconti and 15 Berlin players, the last time he would record beside the Wall. The record has become a semi-obscure curio, but two songs, “The Drowned Girl” and “Remembering Marie A”, rank among Bowie’s most affecting 1980s recordings.”
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You can read the full review here.
The EP Damien references was re-released as a digital download in 2007 and if you‘re not familiar with the recordings start with the delightful Remembering Marie A now and check out the rest of the EP while you‘re about it. A true hidden gem if ever there was one.
Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BBC is available on both Blu-ray and DVD now.
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