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
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Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
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In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November
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