East End Review

Tag: Hackney

Will Volley, Hackney graphic novelist and creator of The Opportunity – interview

A panel from The Opportunity, Will Volley’s graphic novel.

Multi-level marketing, sometimes known as pyramid selling, may not strike most people as a gripping subject for a debut comic noir. But then Will Volley is not most people. After publishing graphic novel versions of Romeo and Juliet and An Inspector Calls, the 35 year-old took a year off work, moved back home and wrote his own comic.

The Opportunity is about Colin, a successful door-to-door salesman on the verge of getting his own sales office. One day everything changes and Colin’s sales team is given a new all-or-nothing target, and only five days to achieve it in.

Volley explains why door-to-door sales made such a good subject, the Stoke Newington schoolteacher who inspired him and the fallen footballer he’s covering in his next novel.

How much of this story was drawn from your own experience?

My experience in a multi-level marketing company was limited to about two or three weeks. I enjoyed it – being a navel-gazing art student and coming into that climate was great because it was different, and the people there were enthusiastic. But there were things about this company that didn’t make sense: all the staff lived together in the same flat and it felt a bit like a cult. Through research I found support groups online for people who’d worked in this company, and then I devised a plot from interviewing ex-managers.

Did you ever worry about how you were going to make a gripping thriller about multi-level marketing?

No! When I was working there I thought: this is the perfect premise for a story. But it took me a while to come up with a plot I was satisfied with.

How’s the political landscape and the job market changed since you worked for this company?

It’s the same. A funny thing happened when I had literally just finished the book. I got a knock on the door, got up from my desk and went downstairs, and there was this young salesman. His pitch was word for word the same one I used ten years ago. Talk about weird.

So I sort of cut him short and said, look, you need to be careful. He looked startled. I felt bad about it because he looked disappointed. Young people want to be optimistic and they offer incredible loyalty. That’s what this company provides: it gives you a thick blanket of security and the managers big you up. It’s hard to say how common these types of companies are now, but at the book launch someone came up to me and said they had spent a day with these guys in Tottenham.

You mentioned in another interview that one of your teachers brought Daredevil comics into school.

That was a real turning point. I went to William Patten Primary School and I had a teacher who was an ex-punk. He introduced me to weird things you wouldn’t expect kids to read and seeing that artwork by that specific artist changed everything for me. I fell in love with it and my own drawing just kind of grew from there.

What are you working on next?

A story about an ex-footballer who turns to a life of crime. I read a statistic that 40 per cent of ex-footballers go bankrupt within five years of their career ending. Football’s all they know and if they’re trying to maintain their lifestyle lots of them end up gambling, getting into debt and some even go to prison. It’s going to be much more personal: another falling from grace story, but this time a redemption tale.

The Opportunity is published by Myriad Press. ISBN: 9781908434791.
RRP: £12.99. Volley will be signing copies at the East London Comic Arts Festival (ELCAF) on 11 June.

May 18, 2016
Boceto review, Hackney Central: Spanish class

Traditional and contemporary tapas at Boceto

Boceto, a café and brunch place by day and cocktail and tapas bar by night, has opened on Mare Street at the former site of quirky French bistro Bouchon Fourchette.

A little too far south of Hackney Central and too far east of London Fields to be located in a high density trendy eatery zone, Boceto nevertheless stands in good company next to infamous and hallowed institution The Dolphin (which might explain why the bottomless Prosecco brunch is not loudly advertised at street level).

A sister venue to two other restaurants in the revamped Brixton market, Boceto, like its siblings, focuses on signature cocktails and small plates.

The interior invites customers to linger: with the front shutter up, one can sit al fresco at a g-plan coffee table and observe the delights of Well Street junction.

Further inside the long and narrow space, the decor is simple and intimate, dusky and candlelit after dark: a fitting ambience for perusing a drinks menu.

Smashed avocado with fresh chillies and sunflower seeds on pan de coca

Whilst its south-of-the-river counterpart Three Eight Four has an eccentric, almost humorous menu, Boceto sticks to the classics.

The offerings don’t stray from traditional tapas fare, so chorizo, patatas bravas, gambas, croquetas, padron peppers and calamari are all there.

But the servings were generous and all the dishes were good. The chuletas (grilled lamb chops) stood out, served pink with pungent herbs and pockets of succulent fat, as did the shiitake and chestnut mushroom croquetas.

True to the version served in Spanish churrerías, churros were served with a hot chocolate pudding rather than molten chocolate sauce. The service throughout was warm, knowledgeable and helpful.

What the food menu lacked in range was more than made up for by the kooky cocktail list, where institutional confidence shone through. Helpless to resist any cocktail that has chilli in it, I chose the Abuela, which contained mezcal, chilli, raspberries, chocolate bitters and ginger ale.

My dining companion wistfully opted for the Bouchon Fourchette, in tribute to the closed restaurant and the steak tartare it took with it.

This was a fluffy pink concoction made of gin, creme de rose, egg white, lemon cream and lavender, and served with a macaroon.

With other enticing combinations like the ale-smoked Old Fashioned and the Gunpowder Negroni, I would recommend taking advantage of the £5 special introductory price for cocktails during May and June.

Boceto
171 Mare St, E8 3RH
bocetohackney.com

May 17, 2016
How two authors attempted to exhaust a place in London

Collage by Laura Phillimore for An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in London

“Seagulls circle over the Town Hall… A man carries an umbrella, folded… A small child with a yellow balloon.” For some, these everyday observations are not worth dwelling on, but for two local authors such details are what truly makes up the life of a place.

For their new book An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in London, Sarah Lester and Nathan Penlington set themselves the task of sitting in the cafés surrounding Hackney Town Hall and creating a written record of “that which is not noticed, that which has no importance: what happens when nothing happens”.

It would call on most people’s reserves of patience and stamina to withstand 20 minutes of scribbling, but the authors kept at it for a weekend, becoming uniquely attuned to the urban environment in the process.

“Just trying to pay more attention to stuff is a hard thing,” says Penlington, a poet and performer from North Wales who has lived on and off in Hackney for 20 years. “I think the rewards are greater though. I think if you just slow down and try and pay attention, particularly if it’s an environment that you live in, you can get a real essence of what the place and people are like.”

For the duration of three days, the authors alternated between tables at Stage 3 café, Artisserie, Hackney Picturehouse and Baxter’s Court on Mare Street. They worked alone, creating separate accounts of the square and what was happening around them.

“I like how unexceptional the space is,” says Lester, an anthropologist, writer and Hackney resident. “A lot of people laughed when we told them where we were doing it, but it’s more interesting than doing it in say Leicester Square, which is a bit more homogenous in terms of the people there.”

Sarah Lester and Nathan Penlington read from the book at its launch at Stage 3 café

It was a grey weekend in October 2014 when the pair set about their experiment, a date that marked 40 years since the French writer Georges Perec embarked on a project to describe everything he saw in Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

“I’m really interested in experimental literature and read a lot of Perec when I was younger and liked his approach.” Penlington explains.

“Perec started in the 1970s to be interested in place and memory and set off on a number of little projects. One was to try and remember places that he’d lived in at various points and revisit them and describe them.

“But with his book An Attempt to Exhaust a Place in Paris he set out in three days to try and catalogue everything that happened pretty much in the same way we did it.

“The result is very much a document of that time and place and I thought on the 40th anniversary it’d be quite good if we could try and genuinely capture a different time and a different place and to see if that would work.”

When I heard about the project my first reaction went something along the lines of what a great idea but will it work as a book?

But it does. The observations draw on human experience, are self-aware, witty, plaintive and tender. You identify with the teenage boy in a tracksuit trying to kick a pigeon, or the girls singing out loud using McDonalds cups as microphones, because it may have been you – or perhaps it was you.

And as an object, the book includes some capital (in both senses of the word) illustrations: one collage by visual artist Laura Phillimore shows a map of constellations around old buildings and municipal squares, while the cover image, by artist Keira Rathbone, is an image of Fenchurch Street in the City, made entirely using the keys of a typewriter.

“It’s such a simple act and I did feel so much more connected to Hackney afterwards. I think that was one of the nicest outcomes of our time doing it,” Lester says.

Typewriter art: view of the City by Keira Rathbone

In another 40 years the book could serve as documentary evidence of a time and place completely lost to the march of progress and change. The authors recently went to Paris, and whilst there they couldn’t resist visiting Place Saint-Sulpice to see how it measured up with the version Perec wrote about.

“From reading Perec’s version it’s pretty much an average square and now it’s really flashy,” explains Lester. “I only say that from the experience of reading Perec’s account, but it did seem quite ordinary and it’s very opulent now. I imagine it will be very interesting in 40 years time to see if Hackney will be like that as well.”

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in London is published by Burning Eye Books. RRP: £9.99 ISBN: 9781909136595

Hackney Council’s caped crusader. Image by Nicola Gaudenzi

December 9, 2015
Hinterland: ode to a lost generation

Road movie: Hinterland by Harry Macqueen

There’s a theory that your first work of art will always be an intensely personal expression. But does that mean it must be autobiographical?

For filmmaker Harry Macqueen, there’s clear water between the two. His recent feature debut, Hinterland, was acclaimed by indie cinema aficionados and critics alike, and on the surface is a film hand-woven with real-life experience. Or maybe not.

“The film is very personal, but not autobiographical at all really,” Macqueen reflects. “The literal journey the characters take is one I’ve done all my life but that’s kind of where the parallels stop.”

Nonetheless, Hinterland is a film that will speak directly to many a misfit lost in the late-twenties wasteland. Charting a road trip taken by level-headed, would-be novelist Harvey (Macqueen) and starry-eyed musician Lola (Lori Campbell), it’s a bittersweet love letter to friendship, childhood and unspoken truths.

“Although the film has a kind of timeless quality to it in the way it’s shot, for me it’s definitely about being in your twenties in contemporary Britain – London to be more specific.”

You could also be forgiven for viewing Hinterland as an auteur-piece, a film meticulously managed and perfected by its creator. After all, Macqueen not only wrote and directed, but also produced and joint-starred. Once again, however, there’s a distinction to be made; this jack-of-all-trades approach was born of shoestring necessity rather than perfectionism (or megalomania).

“It all comes down to budget really,” he explains. “Initially I’d written myself a little cameo in the film and was happy just to see if I could write and direct, but in the end, realising there was no money left (nor space for one more person in the car), I had no choice but to take a lead role.

“Similarly we couldn’t afford a producer, and since I’d written it and knew the locations pretty well it seemed like something I could also do.”

It’s a scenario that will be familiar to most first-time directors with big ideas and scant resources. Making Hinterland was clearly a labour of love for everyone in the six-person team behind it. Indeed, this was the main thrust of Macqueen’s introduction to a recent screening at Hackney Picturehouse, one of 12 Picturehouse cinemas that championed the film around the UK.

“One of the key things that helped us finish the film was that we all fell in love with it,” he told the audience. “We fell in love with the characters and the story.”

Macqueen’s bread and butter comes from acting, with appearances in the likes of Eastenders and feelgood Hollywood romp Me And Orson Welles. As such, the evolution towards producing and directing a feature film wasn’t painless:

“The entire process was a huge challenge for all involved, not just me. Considering pretty well none of us had made a feature before it’s a massive achievement.”

Shot on location along a raggedly beautiful stretch of Cornish coast, the production was very much a DIY, communal effort.

“We had fun and laughed a lot and it was exhilarating to make a film in that way – everyone living under one roof looking after each another.

“The actual shoot was pretty intense, simply because we didn’t have that much time to get it all done.”

Hinterland is also a memorial, as testified by the hand-drawn dedication at the movie’s close. Inheritance money left by a close family member financed the production to the tune of £10,000 – a budget that was soon on the verge of exhaustion.

Happily, these restrictions may well have been an unlikely blessing. The handcrafted style of the film is complemented by its part-improvised dialogue, all of which hangs together with delicate, understated charm. It’s a movie that refuses to spoonfeed its audience, as expressed by the intrigue surrounding Harvey and Lola’s own friendship.

“The ‘truth’ in almost every situation doesn’t exist in the words we speak but in the spaces in between them, what we don’t say,” says Macqueen.

“I think it follows that if that’s what you are striving to focus on, to capture a situation or a performance ‘honestly’, it’s paramount to try and explore that.

“I wanted to find my own voice, and the most important thing at all times was to be truthful to the characters in whatever way seemed appropriate.”

With a Raindance nomination, inclusion in several major film festivals and backing from Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas, Hinterland certainly isn’t a bad start for a filmmaker clearing his throat.

For Harry Macqueen, it’s been a rollercoaster introduction to the world of filmmaking – but one that was clear-eyed from the very start.

July 23, 2015
Hackney Autobiography project launched to remember Centerprise

From the archives: Centerprise on Kingsland Road. Photograph: Maggie Hewitt

An oral history project has been launched to remember a much loved Hackney institution and symbol of the borough’s radical past.

A Hackney Autobiography: Remembering Centerprise will record the history of Centerprise, a bookshop and cultural centre that from 1971 until 2012 facilitated ground-breaking work in oral history, literacy, history, story writing and more.

Oral history organisation On the Record has received a Heritage Lottery grant for the project, and is looking for volunteers as well as people who remember Centerprise, which was located on Kingsland Road.

By July 2016 organisers hope to have published a book on the history of Centerprise and have launched a map-based app so people can discover the stories published by Centerprise on their phones whilst they walk around Hackney.

Rosa Vilbr, co-director of On the Record, says: “Centerprise was one of the first community publishers in the country and it was an idea that took off and spread all around the country after that.

“It was a vibrant place that involved people in the community and gave people access not only to experience culture but also a means to produce it.”

A Hackney Autobiography will focus on the community publishing, writing and literacy works carried out by Centerprise during the 1970s and 1980s, led by author Ken Worpole, then a teacher at Hackney Downs School.

Work published by Centerprise included creative writing by local children, poetry and books about Hackney’s past. The project will bring back into prominence some of these works, such as a book on Dr Jelley, an eccentric medical practitioner from Homerton who dispensed medicine and advice cheaply to the poor and boasted of being able to treat 100 patients in an hour.

Worpole believes the speed at which Hackney is changing makes the project an urgent one, saying that we live in a culture “which is often blind to the struggles and achievements of earlier generations in shaping their own lives”.

Vilbr adds: “There’s a lot of culture – new culture – in Hackney, and it often feels like it’s coming from the outside rather than being generated from within. What the history of Centerprise shows is that there’s always been artists and writers and poets amongst the general constituency of people that live in Hackney.”

On the Record is hosting a free gathering at the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH on Saturday 24 January for people who remember Centerprise. To RSVP and for further information email info@on-the-record.org.uk

January 20, 2015
Little Revolution review – revisiting the Hackney riots

Them and us: Rufus Wright and Bayo Gbadamosi in Little Revolution

While most of the country watched in disbelief at the riots on their television screens, Alecky Blythe headed out into Clapton armed with a Dictaphone, where she seized every chance to talk to those caught up in the events of August 2011.

The result of her recordings is Little Revolution, a completely verbatim play in which actors repeat dialogue transmitted to them through discreet earpieces. Blythe plays herself, one of a dozen professional actors, and is joined by a band of local volunteers who are the rioters, the ‘disaffected youth’ and awe-struck bystanders.

The audience surrounds the stage (there’s no neat division of ‘them and us’) and in riot scenes hoodied hordes scuttle in and out with stolen goods in blue carrier bags. Blythe intersperses rioting and vox-popped observations from the sidelines with her main narrative focus: the looting of a shop on Clarence Road which puts its owner, Siva, out of business.

Clapton Square couple Sarah and Tony hatch a plan to put Siva back in business, and enlist the help of Father Rob Wickham and Councillor Ian Rathbone. But the attempt to heal an open wound using the sticking plaster of a community tea party (sponsored by M&S) only highlights division between “the two sides of the road”.

Imogen Stubbs is liberal Sarah, one of a clutch of biggish names in the cast including Ronni Ancona as market trader Jane and Game of Thrones’ Lucian Msamati as Colin, the enigmatic barber who speaks of a “little revolution…[that] hasn’t stopped here yet.”

While the Clapton Square group hogs the headlines (to the delight of Councillor Rathbone, played with a merciless sense of buffoonery by Barry McCarthy), another campaign Stop Criminalising Hackney Youth, started by residents of Pembury Estate, makes little to no headway. “Their babies are already going to turn out to be criminals,” dismisses one passerby.

Blythe, all the while, hears and records all, the glue between disparate scenes, though she’s more our bumbling guide than intrepid explorer, prone to nervous laughter and tomfoolery.

The Tricycle in Kilburn long ago offered its own verbatim take on the riots, but Little Revolution tries a different tack, focusing more on this fractured notion of ‘community’, a word tarnished by inequality. From a playwright who herself braved the riots, Little Revolution is a brave and important play.

Little Revolution is at the Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, N1 1TA until 4 October.

September 24, 2014