Following the conclusion of this year’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, Alex Fitch interviews director Malcolm Ingram about his documentary Small Town Gay Bar and then talks to Inigo Andersson (a film night and club promoter) and Michael Hall (a video shop manager) who are helping to encourage access to gay film-making the rest of the year when the festival isn’t on…

Originally broadcast 12th April 2007 (mp3 format, 28.7mb)

Links: The London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
IMDb page on Small Town Gay Bar
Film Wotever‘s Myspace page
Michael’s band Nebraska‘s Myspace page
MSNBC article on how TV is ‘less gay’ this year
Read reviews of films showing at the LLGFF at backprojection.com
Listen to an episode of Midnight Sex Talk about gay bars
If you’re one of our Californian listeners, you can catch Small Town Gay Bar at Outfest on Wednesday
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

Richard Thomas presents a show on the work of experimental film-makers Chris Welsby & Margaret Tait who explore(d) nuances of the landscape when captured on film…

Originally broadcast 5th April 2007 (mp3 format, 28.1mb)

Links: Chris Welsby’s website
Lux Online biography on Margaret Tait
Article on the London Film-makers’ co-op
Lux Online article on landscape film-makers
Fundació Antoni Tàpies website about the exhibition that gave this show its name
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

To coincide with this year’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival and the return of Doctor Who on Saturday, Alex Fitch interviews BFI librarian Emma Smart about whether there have been any significant developments in gay film-making and TV programme making since last year’s LLGFF. Also included in the show is an interview Alex recorded last year with sci-fi writer and critic Kim Newman about the gay following that genre shows like Doctor Who and The Avengers generate…

Originally broadcast 29th March 2007 (mp3 format, 28.5mb)

Links: The London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Listen to last year’s show on the LLGFF
Listen to the rest of my interview with Kim about Doctor Who
The official BBC Doctor Who website
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

As a belated follow up to his article on the subject, Alex Fitch talks to Times journalist John Clarke about the history of Black musicians on film from 1929’s Hallelujah to this year’s Dreamgirls. The show also features clips from Stormy Weather (1943), Shaft (1971) and The Blues Brothers (1980)…

Originally broadcast 15th March 2007 (mp3 format, 28.3mb)

Links: BBC article on the Dreamgirls controversy
TimesOnline articles by John on The Gospel according to Al Green and the rebirth of soul label Stax
Indiana University’s Black Film Archive
UCLA article on Soundies
Optronica at the BFI
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

On the 11th February, a large group of people gathered outside a video shop in South East London to protest about its closure and replacement by a proposed betting shop.

Alex Fitch was there to interview locals and their representatives about why the demise aroused such passion.

In contrast, this is followed by an interview with both the owner and the manager of a relatively new rental place in East London that looks potentially successful in this digital age and is intended to be more than just a video shop…

Originally broadcast 8th March 2007 (mp3 format, 28.3mb)

Links: Sue Luxton’s blog about the closure of Homeview
Brockley entries at ‘Transpontine’ blog
List of archived versions of ‘homeviewvideo.co.uk’
Close-up Film Library, Brick Lane
The economic theory of The Long Tail
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

 

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the venerable British periodical 2000AD, Duncan Nott and Alex Fitch present the second of two programmes about the popular comic book anthology. Tonight’s guest is Matt Smith, the current editor who talks about the present and future of the comic… (mp3 format, 27.2mb)

Links: 2000AD Online
Wikipedia pages on 2000AD and Matt Smith
Stream audio adventures of Strontium Dog and Judge Dredd from bbc.co.uk
For more info, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.com

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the venerable British comic book 2000AD, Alex Fitch and Duncan Nott present the first of two programmes about the popular anthology. This week’s guest is Pat Mills, the founder and original editor of the comic who has written such great strips as Judge Dredd, Sláine, Nemesis the Warlock and A.B.C. Warriors.

Links: 2000AD Online
Wikipedia pages on 2000AD and Pat Mills

N.B./ Downloads are now housed at www.archive.com, so click on the link for more info on this show.

Continuing our spurious anniversary month, tonight’s show coincidently coincided with the 8oth anniversary of the release of Hitchcock’s film ‘The Lodger’, so, to celebrate: having teased you with excerpts of our interview with Matthew Sweet – the writer and presenter of Silent Britain and Shepperton Babylon – for the past two weeks, “I’m ready for my close-up” is proud to podcast Alex Fitch’s full interview with him on the subject of silent movies.
If you’re wondering whether the title of tonight’s show is a contradiction in terms… Well, you’ll just have to tune in to find out!

Links: BFI page on ‘Silent Britain’
Matthew’s episode of Back Row on Radio 4
Article by Matthew on the late Ernest Dudley
Transcript of BBC Four interview with Matthew
Wikipedia page on Hitchcock’s ‘The Lodger’

N.B./ I’m ready… podcasts are now housed at archive.org, so click on the link for more info on this show.

It’s the one year anniversary of “I’m ready for my close-up“, so to celebrate the occasion we have a couple of shows about the birth of cinema and how it is still relevant and appreciated today.
In the first show, Alex Fitch is talking to Alex Hogg from the band Minima who are touring the country with a print of the 1928 film ‘The Seashell and the Clergyman’ written by Antonin Artaud. The film was infamously banned on first release in this country with the BBFC quoted as saying: “This film is so obscure as to have no apparent meaning. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable“.
Minima provide a terrific new soundtrack to the film and there will be extracts in tonight’s show which concludes with the start of an interview with Matthew Sweet, author of Silent Britain and Shepperton Babylon, and this will be continued in the next installment.

Links: Info about tonight’s performance at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol
Watch excerpts of The Seashell… with music performed by Minima
Watch the 30 min silent version of The Seashell… on youtube
Minima’s myspace page which has info on forthcoming performances
IMDb page on ‘The Seashell & the Clergyman’
Wikipedia page on Artaud
Director Germaine Dulac’s battle for authorship

Originally broadcast 1st February 2007 (mp3 format, 27mb)