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
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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