So shoot me

Out of the blue Manchester TV asked if I would do an interview about the criminally under shown world-class Bolton Municipal Art collection (their words). They didn’t know what was in the collection but thought it offered a vehicle to talk about public funding and a public ‘right to art’. Being a helpful sort of person I said ‘sure’ come by the office’ , despite being somewhat bemused as to why they should want to interview me. I suspected it had to do with a recent interaction I had had with a misguided programme called the Big Art Project or BAP - a misguided title to start with. I had spent a day with a director (who’s last job had been ‘Shipwrecked’ the reality show) chasing around Sheffield being asked ridiculous questions and being put in impossible situations – I think their idea was put an absurd toff in a thoroughly working class environment and see what happens.

Any way back to yesterday – so the camera/interviewer turns up and it fairly quickly becomes apparent that the Bolton collection thing is a mistake - wrong notes - but she cant quite bring herself to say this, so we kind of do this interview which was supposed (I think) to be about the new Oyster cards that ACE have just commissioned (Grizedale did one). So the whole thing is a bit Bridget Jones, the bit in the 1st film where she is doing regional TV. I had assumed it was an interview for regional TV, the questions where from that culture and I answered in regional TV mode, it was only as she left after a single take - 3 minute interview that she said oh it’ll go out at 12, I replied midnight and she said no, on the politics programme – yikes, I will look like an idiot, in fact I cannot imagine how the material can be edited to make any kind of sense.

It is interesting how this stuff happens and the disadvantage you are at in the provinces. TV is dependent on the local network and the local network is operating on a certain level, it therefore depicts everything at that level. The annoying aspect being that if the person interviewing me had been remotely interested in the subject (known what it was even) she could have got a good body of opinion from me that an editor could have done something with, as it was - as usual - it was just how to get away with the minimum.

It all adds to the reasons that Grizedale with the A Foundation is going into making and broadcasting TV. TV about art made by artists, the first incarnation will be at Rochelle in Shoreditch – where we will set up a TV studio for a week and record a whole bundle of stuff, a kinda day time TV show centred on audiences, arts and reality.

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 17/03/07 at 10:43 : 0 Comments