The Streets’ Mike Skinner on his film debut The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light: ‘It’s been a nightmare – an obsession’
You’re listening to The Streets, Mike Skinner told us back in 2001. Back then he was launching Original Pirate Material, the era-defining debut album that would become a cult classic and a best-seller, despite his lyrical assertion otherwise.
Now, we will soon be watching on the big screen, too, as Skinner releases his debut film The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light, billed as a “tripped out neo-noir” murder mystery. The story follows the “seemingly mundane life” of a down-on-his-luck DJ and has been entirely crafted by the musician, who wrote, directed, filmed, edited and created the score for the project, and is also its star.
From a lyricist whose nuanced lines about life’s mundanities turned the banal into the exhilarating – from video shops and texting girls to scrambled eggs and fried tomato (plenty of) – it sounds promising. Of course, there is an album, too – the first full-length record from The Streets in more than 10 years (None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive, released in 2020, was a mix-tape of collaborations).
Pic: Dave Hogan/Hogan Media/Shutterstock
‘I’m a DJ in the film and that part of the film is true’
“It’s a musical but the songs are the voiceover,” Skinner told Sky News at the premiere for the film, held in London. But don’t expect “jazz hands or dancing around on lampposts – that’s the next film”, he jokes. “It’s a very simple story that started out almost like a film noir type thing, but then got carried away.”
Scenes were shot in London venues such as Visions and Hoxton Hall, as well as Manchester’s Warehouse Project and Club Liv. “All of the places in the film are nightclubs where I have been DJing, so I’m a DJ in the film and that part of the film is true. But I wasn’t trying to be overly clever. I was just trying to make a film that would be easy and cheap.”
Skinner called time on The Streets in 2011 before announcing a reunion tour in 2017. His other projects, such as The D.O.T, have been low-profile in comparison, and he has been DJing for years. “I think music is about the other people you’re around, which is what makes it so intense when you’re a teenager, right, because the music represents these emotional times that you’re having. In a weird way, I actually think DJing is a bit like that, really. Because, you’re forced to be in rooms with people listening to music very loud.”
So the premise for the film sounds like it could be based in truth, apart from, presumably, the murder-mystery part. “It’s not autobiographical at all, apart from the people and the places, if that makes sense,” he says. “There’s elements of it that are really happening – when I’m DJing, that’s just someone filming me when I’m DJing. But it’s… I’ve just crafted a very silly story on to the top of what is very banal, and nocturnal.”
Concept similar to A Grand Don’t Come For Free
Skinner pictured at a gig in Brixton in 2003
The film was planned “as being a bit like my second album”, Skinner says. A Grand Don’t Come For Free, the album that saw his fame skyrocket, was a concept album telling the story of a guy who loses £1,000, featuring hits including Fit But You Know It, Dry Your Eyes, and Blinded By The Lights.
“This is the same, really,” he says. “It’s kind of what I’ve been doing lately, but turned into a musical.”
The music has been ready for years – “this project’s seven years old, or 10 years, depending on how you define it… I’ve been sitting on the music”.
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Bringing back The Streets, starting with a reunion tour, has been “great”, Skinner says. In fact, that’s been the easy bit. The film was harder to get off the ground. He was determined, financing the project himself when he struggled to get backing.
“Knowing that I’m working on this film and then working on this film has been a nightmare. It’s been an obsession… I kind of did everything myself so it just didn’t stop, really. The tunnel was very long, very dark, and there was no light – apart from a train, maybe.”
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‘I didn’t sleep for a week’
Skinner is a perfectionist. “You have to be. But it was more… we did try to get funding. No one wanted to give us any money. That was 2019. I mean, established directors can’t make films, you know, so I’ve not got a chance in hell, really. I kind of knew that. End of 2019 I just thought, I’ve just got to do this myself or it’s not going to get done. And it’s really hard.”
Now, with the film about to launch, he admits he feels “completely overwhelmed”, having struggled the most with the finishing touches in the days leading up to the premiere. “I’ve kind of gone from literally sitting in my pants, just tearing my hair out, to like three days later, having make-up put on me and talking to you.”
He adds: “It was completely bonkers. I didn’t sleep literally for a week. I could have gone on, to be honest, I could have gone on for another six weeks. But, you know, you don’t finish a work of art. You just abandon it.”
Skinner is touring The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light with Q&A sessions at Everyman cinemas, starting in Plymouth on 19 September and ending in London on 6 October
Entertainment
‘People want you to stay in your lane’: Reese Witherspoon on her ‘deeply personal’ decision to write a novel
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
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When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
Kim Kardashian has revealed that she has been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
- Footage from the latest season of The Kardashians shows the reality TV star going for an imaging scan.
The 45-year-old appears to suggest her small aneurysm may have stemmed from stress.
Brain aneurysms are relatively common, with data suggesting they affect about one in every 50 people.
In many cases, patients may be unaware that they have one – as they tend to cause few symptoms when unruptured.
Brain aneurysms are common but often go undiagnosed. iStock file pic
Should an unruptured aneurysm grow to a larger size, it can cause headaches, balance problems and speech issues.
Those that burst are extremely dangerous and can prove fatal in some circumstances.
While aneurysms can emerge throughout the body, they are most typically found in the aorta, which carries blood out of the heart.
Research suggests brain aneurysms are most common in adults between the ages of 30 and 60 – with women disproportionately affected.
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.
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