Malcolm McLaren was a mix of Fagin, artful dodger, jolly swagman, entrepreneur, bohemian visionary and…look if you want to know the full story, or at least one interpretation go find “England’s Dreaming” by John Savage, it turns up in charity shops, Debs got me a copy from Oxfam!
Malcolm McLaren on Oxford Street
Film-wise McLaren is indelibly associated with The Great Rock and Roll Swindle which on the face of it seemed at the time to be a Sex Pistols “cash cow” but quite enjoyable 30 years on along with Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy. I digress…McLaren back in 1991 made a short film for Channel Four called “Ghosts of Oxford Street” shown at Christmas in which various historical characters tell their stories.
Ghosts of Oxford Street
Shown just once, never released commercially and removed fromYoutube under legal threat I can only assume that while the soundtrack is still available the various artists that appeared (Tom Jones, Happy Mondays, Kirsty MacColl et al) never cleared copyright so it’s essentially lost. Having that fascination for things hidden underground I remembered a sequence set in a sort of cellar with derelict shop fronts in which John Altman (Nick Cotton from Eastenders) and Sinead O’Connor in the roles of Thomas deQuincy and Ann of Oxford Street, both factual characters from the early 1800s perform their parts.
Ann of Oxford Street
Thomas deQuincey, born in Manchester. Actually its him that played Nic Cotton
deQuincy was an opium addict, he lived rough with 15 year old street girl Ann for a period, went to Oxford (the city) to secure money, came back and she was gone. He spent the rest of his life chasing her ghost which essentially is the story told in the film with O’Connor. Having perused the web this section of the film seems to have led to the urban myth of their being a surviving section of a Victorian street (see picture) complete with derelict shop fronts several layers beneath Selfridges. Several contributors refer to Alman going through a basement wall and into this wondrous artefact…but as its not available how the bloody hell can you check?
Well an email was sent to one of our good pals and by sorcery or something similar (look I’m, not that good at the internet and downloadology!) a copy of the film arrived a few days later!
Ghosts enjoy dancing!
Highly entertaining in fact a real hoot, various historical inaccuracies which can be forgiven after all its light entertainment not Peter Ackroyd but as for a buried street, well the sequence is there but no suggestion of it being below Oxford Street just careful editing and so in addition to two enjoyable hours (I’ve watched it twice) I’ve also quite enjoyed reading all the stuff about the lost street and oddly enough many other towns have supposedly hidden underground streets but memories do pixilate and distort!
Fashion Beast: McLaren and Moore
More McLaren…recently published is a compilation comic book version of a lost script that McLaren developed with Alan Moore entitled Fashion Beast. It’s been sitting about for 30 years and having been devised when Moore was writing his opus (one of) Watchmen it shows him at his best. A bit clunky in parts giving away its origin as McLarens script Moore who is a longstanding loather of film adaptations of his stories jumped at the chance to work with McLaren and several decades on broke another mould by writing an introduction to the compilation, an act of self-indulgence which he deplores) published last year which brought together the 10 issue limited comic book version from 2012!
I’m not going to review it, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it’s worth a peekaboo! If you do you can get a copy at Close Encounters on Midland Road where Bub and colleagues will greet you with a cheery smile! That’s assuming you live in Bedford and haven’t stumbled on this blog whilst trying to find out about a buried street!
bedford bypass 