It's A Wonderful Life when you can get to hear the real Zuzu!!!!

  

On Tuesday morning, driving into work, I got very excited when I heard someone being interviewed on the radio.

While many other people were probably tuning into other stations and getting exercised about the death of the Korean leader or the euro crisis, I was instead immersed in an interview with a woman whose name I didn’t even know but who has just happened to play a small but highly significant role in a cultural phenomenon which has always had a big impact on me.

For yes, I was listening to the voice of Zuzu.

You know –- Zuzu.

Zuzu of “Zuzu’s petals” fame?

Come on you must know!

If you are still wondering what on earth I am prattling on about (and fear not, I get that a lot) Zuzu was the name of one of the children in the ultimate Christmas film. It is mine and many other people’s favourite movie of all time – it is, of course, the truly magnificent It’s A Wonderful Life.

I got to hear the voice of the legend that is Zuzu – real name Karolyn Grimes – when she was talking to Nicky Campbell on Radio Five Live.

The ever-entertaining Mr Campbell is a man who has effortlessly interviewed world leaders, royals and stars of stage and screen and yet for once he seemed genuinely star struck and somewhat humbled. For he knew as I did that this was Zuzu – the one who said “every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings”.

And I shared his sense of awe.

It isn’t hard to see why this film means so much to so many and why it will have millions weeping into their Christmas puds as it is shown again over the festive period (it is also at the Little Theatre in Bath on Christmas Eve). It is just one of those remarkable films where once it gets you, you stay ‘got’.

I remember seeing it for the first time on a cold, wet Saturday afternoon when I was just keen to watch anything and it appeared unheralded on the BBC2 schedules. As I sat open-mouthed in admiration it became, from that day forth, (and it is about 30 years now) my number one film.

I watch it at least once a year and if I ever want to remind myself what a softie I am I will just watch the last 15 minutes again and blub like a Gazza. Frankly, if you don’t cry watching It’s A Wonderful Life it is not because there is anything wrong with the movie – it is because there is something wrong with you.

As Zuzu and Nicky Campbell pointed out this beautiful fantasy piece has a timeless quality. It features a man in financial problems (2011 – check) being screwed over by an evil banker (2011– check) who is only bought back from the brink by a loveable angel (2011 – err, not quite).

The thing that ‘saves’ him is to see what life would have been like if he had never been born and I can guarantee there isn’t a single person who will have watched this film who won’t have asked themselves that same question afterwards.

It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.

So I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas but if you do need a lift then just say hello to Zuzu and her petals again. Atta boy Clarence.

Mark Kermode - is there a Good Doctor in the house?

One of Britain’s most outspoken, entertaining and best-loved film critics will make a welcome return to Bath on Monday night to talk about his passion for everything to do with the cinema.





Mark Kermode – known to his legions of fans as ‘The Good Doctor’ – has become, for many people, the first port of call about whether a film should or shouldn’t be seen as a result particularly of his highly-popular Friday afternoon Radio 5 Live show with Simon Mayo. The show recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and such is its popularity that the station devoted a whole series of programmes to mark the occasion.





On Monday night, however, Kermode will abandon the studio and take centre stage at the Little Theatre in Bath to talk about his latest book – The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex. And, although he’s famous for his never-ending stream of comments and conversation, it is a night where the audience are very much going to be part of the proceedings…



“What I do is talk for 45 minutes about stuff in the book in a free form way and then I do 45 minutes of questions which is always different every night.



“For me that’s the best part of the evening, the bit I enjoy most. People always raise stuff that’s interesting and that is an extension of the radio show which is very much dialogue between us and the listeners. I would say something, they would reply, email and tweet – it’s all a very interactive thing which I like. So in a way, when we’re doing the radio show it’s kind of like doing it in front of an audience anyway.





“Doing it on stage people just ask you questions directly, people are very up front, people ask very interesting questions, they’re happy to take to task and say you’re wrong about this, you’re right about that and that’s what I enjoy most. The first 45 minutes is meant to be entertaining, it’s not just me standing up and moaning, but I like the second half even better.”



Kermode’s Bath show is part of an 18 date tour around the country talking about his book. He did a similar set of dates to promote his previous book – It’s Only A Movie – which also saw him appear at the Little Theatre and he said that even though he thought he thought he knew what sort of questions people would ask him he was nearly always surprised.



“The funny thing is you think you can anticipate it more than you can – but the truth is you don’t know what’s coming,” he said.



“At first I found that quite worrying, quite a scary thing but then it became very exciting.



“One person might say ‘I saw a Swedish movie in 1975 and the only thing I remember is that it had a bloke who had a bat – what was the movie?’ I would have no idea of course so I might ask ‘does anyone else have an idea’ and a bloke in the audience might pop up and say ‘I know, I seen that – it’s called A Bloke With A Bat’. That’s what happens. I really like it now; you genuinely don’t know where the questions come from. People argue with you and question you – and I like that”.



Kermode’s forthright views on the cinema are well known and loved by his followers and he’s particularly famous for his occasional on-air rants. If you ever want to see examples, just try and look up his rant about the Pirates Of The Caribbean or Sex In The City 2 to see him in full critical flow.



However, he is not just interested in what actually appears on the silver screen – he is passionate about every aspect of the industry he loves. For instance, he is touring mainly at small independent cinemas – he says he really liked The Little last time he visited – and that is why bigger, multiplex cinemas are something he may not instinctively feel as comfortable with.



So, is he against them?



“The idea that I’m against multiplexes in general is like saying I’m against supermarkets,” he said.





“There’s nothing wrong with them in principle, it’s what happens in them and around them.



“Here’s an analogy. If you live in a small village, which I do, and you have a small grocers selling organic veg and along comes a supermarket, well you think great if I want to get my processed food there it’s open until 11pm at night and I can get Air Miles but I can also get my veg at the same time. All very well but anyone who lives in the village knows that if starts competing with the village shops it will put it out of business.



“On the one hand with the multiplexes they’re for many people they are the only thing. Multiplexes over the last ten years particularly due to the 3D revolution have started to treat cinema performances like they’re not real performances. You don’t need a projectionist – you just press go.



“The cinema auditorium has gone from being a place that was close to the theatre in terms of the way in which people would treat the films, properly projected, properly manned auditoriums, watched by an audience who were respectful of the movie into basically a big front room with a video screen and that’s not cinema.



“I keep saying that multiplexes keep firing their projectionists because they don’t need them anymore but it is so sorry to see a big building which doesn’t have a projectionist but does have a confectionery counter. That’s not a cinema – it’s a sweet shop.”



Considering ‘The Good Doctor’ is such an authority on film and has to see so many for his weekly show with Simon Mayo, he admits to having been on a summer detox where he was determined to try and free his mind. He thinks this will be a good thing in the long term.



“The only two things I saw when I was off was Mr Popper’s Penguins which I saw at a nice cinema in Truro and then Super 8 and I’m going to see Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes on Thursday. I literally had four weeks out of the loop so I could detox, I had finished writing the book and the book had gone to the printers. We’d gone through all the tenth anniversary celebrations with Radio 5 and I just needed a break so I just literally spent the four weeks watching nothing other than those two films I mentioned.”



So, if you want to try and catch Kermode out on Monday night then you have a golden opportunity by asking about films that came out in the summer. But be careful – this is a man who famously gives as good as he gets. And you can bet he now knows all about that 1975 Swedish film of the bloke with a bat…



One thing, however, is certain. If you can get a ticket for the Little on Monday or pick up The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex, then you are in for a roller coaster ride of entertainment that will probably be far better than the vast majority of films you will actually see this year. And oh yes it will certainly be better than the awful Sex In The City 2.

Prince will party like it's...1981!

I am sure we all occasionally experience that rather drowsy ‘half and half’ early morning feeling when you think you are awake but you are not actually 100 per cent sure that your wakefulness is not just part of a strange dream.

I had this experience on Tuesday morning when part of my brain was telling me I was awake but the other half was saying “OK, if you are awake then how come the news is being read by Angela Rippon and the sports bulletin by Dickie Davies from World Of Sport?”.

The moment, however, I heard that the legendary Mr Davies was talking about Arsene Wenger rather than Big Daddy I realised that it was the radio which was going mad – and not me.

For yes, Radio 5 Live was having a 1981 day complete with 1981 presenters as part of its pre- royal wedding celebrations.

This rather odd idea was evidence to me that after a somewhat muted early public reaction, the excitement levels for tomorrow’s royal wedding have really started to rise over the past week or so.As the big day has got ever closer so the level of interest in the event has grown and it all now points to being a spectacular day which will be enjoyed by millions – possibly even billions – across the globe.

In some ways I think the rather under whelmed early reaction to the day was all quite understandable. A couple of the so-called ‘fairy tale’ royal weddings in the 1980s didn’t exactly, ahem, have a happy ending and the fact that we live in challenging economic times has also made some people a little wary of celebrating such an expensive public event.

However, I hope that at 11am tomorrow, all of those doubts will be put aside and the nation will come together as one to enjoy watching the sort of spectacle which Britain does do better than anyone else.

Of course despite the radio’s best efforts, 2011 feels like a very different time to when Charles and Diana stepped out onto the balcony. There doesn’t seem to be as much bunting around and if my mind serves me well, I’m pretty certain the shops had far more royal pre-wedding memorabilia in those dim distant days than it does now. As I recall there wasn’t a house in Britain that didn’t have a tea towel or a mug bearing the faces of the happy couple but such items seem far less prevalent today.

That doesn’t mean, however, that tomorrow won’t capture the imagination. Even a few people of my acquaintance who have feigned total disinterest admit they are quite interested to see what ‘Kate’ may be wearing or which celebrity appears at Westminster Abbey. As such, I think watching the royal wedding will be a bit like watching Big Brother or reading The Sun –- far more people will do it than will ever admit to it.

So, whether you’re having a street party, attending Bath’s Picnic In The Park, having friends around or just having a lazy morning in front of the TV, I hope you have a right royal day on Friday.

And of course best wishes go to the young couple – I truly hope that the rain will stay away from the man who will one day reign...

My sad collection of looky-likies!!

The rise and rise of TV presenter Adrian Chiles is very good news for him – but not, I fear, for me.

For, over the last couple of years as the Black Country sports fanatic has risen to be one of the nation’s favourite sofa dwellers, more and more people have said that I either look/sound/act like him.

Somebody I know from going to concerts (hello Baz) actually now calls me Adrian and even my dear old auntie says that every time she sees him on the screen, it reminds her of me.

Now, I shouldn’t have a problem with this – I have liked Adrian Chiles ever since his Radio 5 Live work – but I’m sure when most of us men are told we look/act like someone, we are secretly hoping their surname is Cruise, Beckham or Pitt rather than, err, Chiles.

But I’m afraid in the world of looky-likes I am not exactly blessed with heart-throb comparisons.

It has been said more than once that I remind people of Keith ‘Cheggers’ Chegwin. This isn’t quite so bad as he comes over as quite a cheeky chappie but I could have done without the comparisons when he did that odd nude programme for Channel 5 a while back. . .

If being compared to these two TV darlings isn’t bad enough, I also get a fair amount of “you look a bit like Boris Johnson” these days.

Whether we are compared because of the blond and relatively uncontrollable hair or the fact that we both tend to like getting on political soap boxes or putting our foot in it I’m not sure, but that Boris connection appears to be sticking.

The reason I’ve been thinking on these matters is not just that my Mr Chiles has now secured the breakfast TV spot which makes him more in (or of?) my face but also because on Saturday I, (a man who apparently looks like an amalgamation of a Brummie ex One Show presenter, a man who leapt around on Noel Edmonds’ Saturday morning show and an unkempt blundering politician) is going to help judge the Face of Bath competition to find someone whose looks represent the city.

I already helped to judge the semi-final and I am rather looking forward to Saturday night’s SouthGate event where one woman and one man will earn the title of the Face of Bath and grab a modelling contract to boot.

I’m sure it will be a fun event but I can’t help wondering what the candidates will be thinking as they wander down the catwalk and think: “Just what is that odd looking Mayor of London fella doing judging me on my looks?”

Sad day for us proud old punk rockers....

So farewell then Mr McClaren.

As many of the people reading this will know, I am very much a child of the punk revolution. I was a babe-in-arms (well 13ish) when punk really took off in 1977 and it is fair to say it truly changed my life. The music excited and inspired me (it still does incidentally) and it put me on a musical journey that has never ended to this day. I may not look as 'punky' as I used to but in my heart that is what I still am.

Therefore I was sad to hear yesterday of the death of Malcolm McClaren, the svengali manager of the pioneering punks The Sex Pistols.

He may have been a bit of a wide boy and a player (although to be fair he never pretended to be anything else) but this guy had a massive influence on all the lives of those of us who believe punk truly changed our lives forever.

My own favourite band, The Stranglers, may have pre-dated them (and American heroes The Ramones certainly did) but it was The Sex Pistols that propelled punk to the surface and as a result many of the bands we all know and love got deals, made records and the rest as they say is history. Glorious, unpredictable history.

This sad death has also prompted some great punk nostalgia. Nicky Campbell on Radio Five this morning was talking about his punk days (he called himself Nic-O-Tine in 1977) and he talked about his first 'pogo'. I can still remember mine – I was on holiday with a friend, Nigel, in Prestatyn in 1978 and I bounced up and down on the spot to Five Minutes by The Stranglers and Ca Plane Pour Moi by Belgian pop-punkster Plastic Betrand. Bouncing up and down on the spot..yep, we called that dancing. Happy days.

To be honest I would never list The Sex Pistols in my 'best ever' bands list (when I saw them again a couple of years ago on their comeback tour I realised they had made four killer singles and a couple of cracking album tracks but there was a lot of 'filler' too) but, like every pop fan who acknowledges The Beatles I know the debt I owe to those boys. And they simply wouldn't have broken through without Malcolm's guiding (manipulating?) hand.

So farwell Mr C. A genuine original. A genuine character. A genuine loss.

Did they 'lie me to the moon' all those years ago?

What is your earliest childhood memory?

Some people can answer this question instantly and often seem to recall in great detail staring up out of a pram or, in one case that I read, being in their mother’s womb.

I call these people fantasists.

For me, sadly, my earliest memories are only around the age of 5 or 6.

The first was being chosen to be one of the three kings at my school’s Nativity and wondering, in my own infantile way, why the baby Jesus wanted this thing I gave him called ‘Frankincense’ (pictured here) when I was sure he would have preferred toys.

I can also recall saying to my fellow two kings (Nigel Postings and Lawrence Green) that we would one day live in a house together – as you do at that age. I barely ever spoke to ‘King One’ Lawrence again but Nigel went on to be best man at my wedding, so our early Royal connections clearly worked.

Anyway . . . my second earliest memory is being got up out of bed by my parents to watch the first moon landing – the 40th anniversary of which we are celebrating this week.

For somebody with a vivid imagination, this was a source of great wonderment to me. I remember for years afterwards thinking how on earth could a man walk on that little ball in the sky when to me a trip into town on the bus was an epic journey.

Of course, as childhood wide-eyed innocence gives way to latter-day cynicism, I then went through my “it was all a giant hoax phase”. Now I’m not a great believer in conspiracy theories, be they about Princess Diana, JFK or even Michael Jackson (although I did say even at the time that it wasn’t MJ at that O2 press conference pictured left) but the more I tentatively investigated the moon landings the more I started to have my doubts.

Fuelled no doubt by that highly watchable 1978 movie Capricorn One about a faked trip to Mars, I started to wonder whether the whole thing was just a political stunt to get one over on the Russians during the height of the Cold War.

I quoted the evidence about the flag not moving, the mystery of the shadows and the fact that the ‘moon rock’ was apparently identical to material found in Antarctica, to query the whole mission. And it seems I’m not alone – this is a ‘biggie’ in the hoax/conspiracy movement.

Well, I’m pleased to say, that my doubting Thomas phase is now over. Although science and scientific discovery is not usually high on my agenda of interest, I’ve watched a number of TV programmes about the moon landings of late and experienced much of the wide-eyed naivety I felt as that five year old.

Yes, I could still argue with some conviction that $30 billion would have been far, far better spent on ending world poverty but the truth is, I think we as a planet should have oodles of pride in this amazing achievement. Will it ever be repeated? Will man ever walk again on the surface of the moon? Maybe not – but at least we can say “been there, done that” about it.

One final point about the whole expedition was raised by the splendid Nicky Campbell who I wake up to every morning on my beloved Radio Five Live. He said he remembered as a child watching the moon landing pictures and being disappointed by the ‘photo quality’. He thought Star Trek did interplanetary exploration films much better than the real thing!

This actually got me thinking the opposite. After I’d heard him talk I pondered on just how incredible it is that we managed to get pictures from the moon at all. After all shouldn’t we impressed (or depressed?) that we managed to get live moon pics and yet half of Bath can’t even pick up Channel Five or Freeview?