British TV reviews and so much more. I've really just about had it with all you scumbags. Aerial Telly forever - worthless Twitter groupie slime never.
"a depressing but brilliant read.... a superbly written manifesto for nothing." Daniel Hart
I love the way New Romantics are so proud of their legacy. Presiding over the most hateful, barren, poisonous period in our recent cultural history they rarely need much persuading to talk at length about how important they were/are and generally affect an air more closely associated with D-Day veterans. Never in the field of human cuntflict have so many owed so little to so few. I could give a tuppenny fuck about their desperate music, laughable fashion, nimrod posturing and care even less about who they were screwing. Not that nobody caring ever stopped them.
"I'd like every New Romantic to repeat after me: ''I'm a turd. Nothing I say or do means a thing. I ruined music for everyone. The cultural holocaust of the 80s was my fault. Kill me. It's all I deserve.'"
About halfway through Worried About the Boy, the Boy George story, George (Douglas Booth) asks John Moss (Mathew Horne) to repeat after him: "I'm a talentless dwarf Jew and I've made a pile of money riding on your coat tails." In similar vein I'd like every New Romantic to repeat after me: "I'm a turd. Nothing I say or do means a thing. I ruined music for everyone. The cultural holocaust of the 80s was my fault. Kill me. It's all I deserve."
Yeah, you Blitz Kids really changed everything didn't you? In your own minds at least.
There's some appropriate casting, as the role of Steve Strange, a musician no-one of consequence cares about, goes to Marc Warren, an actor no-one of consequence cares about. He still sounds exactly like Danny from Hustle or that schlub he played in Mutual Friends. He may look like Malcolm McDowell but, trust, whoever he plays he's always Marc Warren.
"Mark Gatiss plays that dead paedophile fuckpig Malcolm McLaren. Making airy fairy hand gestures and talking like a cunt passed for cultural credibility in those days."
The parade of early 80s shitbirds goes on: Marilyn (who, incidentally, these days looks like Shaun Ryder after losing an argument with a bottle of Domestos), no account "associate" of Gavin Rossdale was played by Freddie Fox and for one brief glorious moment I thought it was Freddie "Bumpy Knuckles" Foxxx. I'd sell tickets to that all day.
The attempt to recreate the 80s is not exactly painstaking. Some graffiti that says: THE SPECIALS is followed apologetically in smaller letters by THE BEAT. No Monsoon? Toto Coelo? It does look a little like they bashed it out in an afternoon.
They don't really get into how the New Romantics took the music of Bowie, Lou Reed and Kraftwerk and, with it, fashioned a sculpture of pure shite. There's an impressive cameo from Mark Gatiss playing that dead paedophile fuckpig Malcolm McLaren. Making airy fairy hand gestures and talking like a cunt passed for cultural credibility in those days.
"Bow Wow Wow, Spandau Ballet, Marilyn, Visage, Robert Elms and walking behind David Bowie on Southend beach, looking like a cunt, bulldozer in hot pursuit. That's your legacy. GTFO of here."
The Camden nightclub Blitz was quite difficult to get in to but so was Miley Cyrus's snatch and I don't see you making a fucking film about that. Steve “Smackhead" Strange recently said "The best move I made was turning Mick Jagger away at the door." Yeah, you wouldn't want anyone of cultural significance ruining your turd-fest would you?
Seriously - fuck the 80s but fuck the revivalism a lot harder. Bow Wow Wow, Spandau Ballet, Marilyn, Visage, Robert Elms and walking behind David Bowie on Southend beach, looking like a cunt, bulldozer in hot pursuit. That's your legacy. GTFO of here.
