#105 - Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode has spent more than thirty years telling Britain which films are worth seeing. Here he tells Twiggy how he got the job in the first place: by bluffing, busking and refusing to go away. The two of them last met on stage at the BFI IMAX, where Twiggy was the final guest on Mark's monthly live show. He asked her to pick an iconic movie scene. She asked if she could pick a director instead, and chose Ken Russell, the man who cast her in The Boy Friend and the man Mark came to know as a friend. In this episode: A cinema-mad childhood: Mark grew up in Barnet, at the very end of the Northern line, and decided he wanted to live in the cinema after his mum took him to Krakatoa, East of Java (a film now famous for the fact that Krakatoa is west of Java). Too young to get into Planet of the Apes on his own, he would wait outside for a grown-up to take him in. Twiggy trumps him with her mum, who walked into every film halfway through, watched the B picture, and then stayed to see how the story began. School, rejection and Manchester: a council-funded place at Haberdashers', five university rejections, and a place at Manchester through clearing. He stayed on for a PhD he says he finished through persistence rather than brains, and lived in the Hulme Crescents, where burglars stole the safety door the council had fitted after the last burglary. Twiggy, meanwhile, loved school and was only sorry to leave it when 1966 happened. Bluffing in: how Mark talked his way into an interview at Time Out with an appointment that did not exist, and a first radio review so shaky that his mum's only comment was that the signal was very clear. Radio and Simon Mayo: from Radio 5 and Danny Baker to Radio 1, where Simon Mayo needed a film critic. Mark has been working with Simon since the early nineties, almost as long as he has been with his wife, Linda. The bands: busking skiffle in Manchester with the Railtown Bottlers, his band the Dodge Brothers, and the day Nanci Griffith joined in on backing vocals at a soundcheck without having met anyone. Twiggy tops it with the night Carly Simon, who her daughter Carly is named after, came to a New Jersey studio to sing backing vocals on a song of Twiggy's that has never been released. Ken Russell: how Mark met him, the promise he made to track down the missing scenes from The Devils, and how he kept it. Twiggy on the mentor who fought for a year to cast her in The Boy Friend, and the evenings at his house learning about Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and classical music. The people who believed in them, Sadie Frost's documentary about Twiggy's life, and the director who walked up to Mark at the BFI and demanded he repeat his review to his face. LINKS Twiggy's official website: https://theofficialtwiggy.com Every episode of Tea With Twiggy: https://theofficialtwiggy.com/podcast The music for the podcast is Twiggy's version of Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and can be found on Apple Music here: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/romantically-yours/693460953 If you have enjoyed listening to Tea With Twiggy, please take a moment to give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people find the show. And if you have not already, please subscribe so the next episode arrives automatically. A Stripped Media production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices