Feature documentary from Louis Moir exploring the relationship between comedy and art, and the inner conflicts that lie within. Featuring the director's father Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, Spencer Jones, Simon Munnery, Miriam Elia and Bec Hill as they each prepare work for an exhibition.
Rising to fame amid the 1980s alternative comedy boom, Ian Cognito was one of the UK's most popular comedians. His performances left audiences in hysterics - but behind the laughter was a troubled and often controversial figure. This is the story of the comedy scene that nurtured a comedic genius, and the real life of a man famed for his outlandish sense of humour.
How does a working class autodidact, with no visible means of support, maintain his role as the leader of a cult British underground band into its fifth decade? Comedian and writer Stewart Lee, director Michael Cumming and James Nicholls investigate the mysterious existence of Robert Lloyd, Britain’s ultimate post-punk survivor. Robert Lloyd’s Prefects played with The Clash on the White Riot tour in 1977, and their ongoing incarnation, as Birmingham’s Captain Beefheart suffused post-punk poets The Nightingales, recorded more John Peel sessions than any other band. Ever. But what were the social, cultural and economic circumstances that enabled and sustained such outsider artists in the punk and post-punk eras, and how has the world changed to the point where such figures are unlikely to flourish in the same way today? Lloyd’s own odyssey echoes how abstract notions of social mobility, of the value of culture and music, have changed in the last five decades.
Stewart Lee is an acclaimed, award winning English stand-up comedian, a writer, columnist, music critic, opera writer and director. In the 1990s he was one half of the comedy duo Lee and Herring, alongside Richard Herring, starring in Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy on BBC2.
