The Filth & the Fury

I’ve been catching up with a number of Sky Arts things I had taped before Christmas, and last night I caught the 2018 documentary Anarchy on Thames, which I wrongly assumed was a film about the Sex Pistols’ boat trip down the Thames to promote the God Save the Queen single. So I was a little disappointed to discover that the film was actually about the infamous 1976 Bill Grundy interview, 90 seconds worth of television that has been scrutinized to death over the years. Happily though this brisk 30min retrospective was surprisingly enjoyable, and it was good to hear from a few personnel who were in the Thames control room on that faithful day, cheerfully confirming that Grundy was most definitely not drunk, despite him brazenly saying so on air, but rather was a little juiced up and ready to knock his young interviewees down to size. Good to see Alan Jones interviewed as well, recalling his days hanging around the SEX shop, and there's the irrepressible Don Letts, who's momentarily stunned by Bromley boy Simon Barker wearing a swastika armband - and if that seems astonishing now, it’s worth recalling that the BBC’s cringe-worthy Black and White Minstrel Show was one of the most popular shows of the day. Nice too to see Glen Matlock, looking fabulous for a man of 61, recounting a tale he’s probably told a million times by now and having a chuckle at Steve Jones’ priceless (and seemingly unnoticed) comment about the hefty EMI advance “We fuckin’ spend it didn’t we”.

Following the Grundy documentary was the 30min The Sex Pistols Vs Bill Grundy, the final episode of Sky Arts' enjoyable comedy series Urban Myths which dramatizes famous tall tales and half-truths from popular culture. The centerpiece of the episode was the re-staging of the Today Show and while I could nitpick that director Simon Delaney didn't re-create shot-for-shot the original interview, or that the swastika on Simon Barker's armband is cautiously turned out of view, it's the book-ending sequences - the build-up to the interview and the fallout, that were the most enjoyable parts of the episode. An ominous title card warns "3:00pm - 3 hours to transmission", as Steve Pemberton's Grundy begins that faithful day with a few pints down the local, before sweeping into Thames Television studio and shrugging off, in his customary unflappable style, the challenge of the last minute scheduling of the hitherto unknown punk rock group the Sex Pistols. Following the shambles of the interview, the band are camped out in the green room addressing complaints from an angry unsuspecting public, in their own customary style (“wrap it in a pineapple and shove it up your shitter”), while a brooding Grundy comes to the realization that he has unwittingly been caught on the wrong side of history.

Writer Simon Nye sketches the personnel involved in the broadest of strokes - Pemberton's Grundy is the quintessential old fashioned and lecherous TV presenter (I wonder did his family take offence ?), while Kieran Hodgson plays Malcolm McLaren with a snotty Rimbaudesque swagger. Charlie Wernham and Matt Whitchurch are both fine as the vicious hoodlum Steve Jones, and the sensitive soon to be ex-Pistol Glen Matlock, while William Kettle's Paul Cook seems more like an afterthought. Frankie Fox is a real find though, his Johnny Rotten is played with laser-guided precision, and perfectly captures the frontman's dead-eyed, sneering cynicism. Rounding out The Sex Pistols Vs Bill Grundy is a very funny vox-pop sequence of actors playing disgruntled Today Show viewers airing their grievances, including the famous lorry driver who put his foot through his TV in a rage, which most likely is the biggest myth of the Grundy fiasco.