... Margate anyone?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Chaos Collective pianist Elliot Galvin is there this week celebrating Dreamland wonder park of my childhood ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Nick Ramm's Clown Revisited provided a link back to the Wilde Flowers and early Soft Machine: the one with Daevid Allen, Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt. Maybe I'm being a bit unfair saying there's something a bit public schooly of today about them, because as long as they don't over-reach themselves, which sometimes seems their main point, this lot of gentle self-mockers and novelty sprucers comprising the Chaos Collective could just become the new Canterbury school.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Surprised there is no mention of THIS...

"Lindsay Anderson's O Dreamland was made in
1953, around the same time as Anderson was
making his Oscar-winning documentary
Thursday's Children , co-directed with Guy
Brenton. Anderson had just one assistant - John
Fletcher, who was to be a mainstay of the Free
Cinema films. Equipment was a single 16mm
camera and an audiotape recorder.

Once completed, the film was shelved, with little
prospect of ever being shown. As Anderson said,
"you don't do anything with a 10-minute, 16-
millimetre film. It's just there, that's all." It
wasn't until early 1956, when the idea for the first
Free Cinema programme was born, that it
occurred to Anderson to include O Dreamland.

This is one of the most personal of the Free
Cinema films. A 12-minute tour of the Margate
funfair Dreamland (which still stands - in disrepair
- today), the film features bleak and unattractive
photography and a spare and impressionistic
soundtrack. Despite the absence of a
commentary, the film clearly conveys Anderson's
critical view of Dreamland's 'attractions' - a
'Torture through the Ages' exhibit; bingo; penny
arcades; bangers, beans and chips and seemingly
endless mechanical puppets."

Its available on Utube and I find it " problematic" - OK, deeply patronising. The sneer at the lower orders at play is never far away. Public school "radicalism" indeed.

BN.

[Bryn]

... OK, deeply patronising. The sneer at the lower orders at play is never far away. Public school "radicalism" indeed.

BN.

Don't see it that way myself. Having been a young child holiday-maker at the very place that very summer, for me it captured the spirit of the place to a tee. Indeed, I found myself looking out for any chance shots of relatives from our lower order extended family. I detected no patronising aspect to the short, rather a very truthful representation of the Margate Dreamland's atmosphere.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Don't see it that way myself. Having been a young child holiday-maker at the very place that very summer, for me it captured the spirit of the place to a tee. Indeed, I found myself looking out for any chance shots of relatives from our lower order extended family. I detected no patronising aspect to the short, rather a very truthful representation of the Margate Dreamland's atmosphere.

Fine, you know Margate a lot better than me. My experience was just a few boozy trips in the 'mod" sixties. But I do find Anderson's film patronising. Then I find his work generally suspect if you scratch its surface liberalism. Even "If" and its "revolution".

This from the BFI in 2012....

"For all its observational flair, Anderson's O Dreamland, for instance, comes across today as
somewhat aloof. Few British film-makers
would have considered working-class
pleasure-seekers enjoying a day out at a
Margate funfair a worthy subject for a film;
Anderson does, but having got there he can't
resist heavy-handed editorialising, staging the
promenaders' diversions as a belaboured
metaphor for the noisy emptiness of consumer
society. In a delightfully acerbic piece in 1969
Ray Durgnat wrote of O Dreamland and
Momma Don't Allow: "Anderson's vehement
ambivalence towards the common people and
Reisz's cool calculated tact dampen one's
enthusiasm a little. We're too obviously in the
presence of outsiders to the society they claim
to be revealing to us."

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well here it is then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39XAINmKwAk

Margate on a summer bank holiday in 1953 would seem a very strange choice to depict a consumer Britain that had hardly even started to get off the ground.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yep we went on family outings for the day ... the sea and the funfair were an enormous relief from the smoky bomb site that was London then ... my ma always had to break pa's arm to make him take us he was always so skint .... but a few bob went a long way then!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

yep we went on family outings for the day ... the sea and the funfair were an enormous relief from the smoky bomb site that was London then ... my ma always had to break pa's arm to make him take us he was always so skint .... but a few bob went a long way then!

There's a jazz festival every year at Margate. (just missed it). This year headed up by Evan Parker. I think the guy that promotes it has links or owns the Vortex.

BN.

[Bryn]

Evan's got a residency for his 70th at Cafe OTO this October, starting with http://cafeoto.co.uk/evan-parker-70-the-necks.shtm

Don't think I can get to the whole residency, but will make every effort to attend http://cafeoto.co.uk/evan-parker-70-amm.shtm at least.

He's also featured early next month, http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/evan-parker...j-trzaska.shtm

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I wouldn't mind catching the October sets. I haven't seen Evan Parker play for years and I could use a week in London. Over the border! Thanks for the tip.

BN.