arts by Tim Lezard


Film > Hold onto your hard hats! After decades of being lost, the original tapes of a groundbreaking film about rank and file trade union organising have been found by researchers. Builders Crack: the Movie tells the


story of the London jJoint sites committee, a grassroots network of bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and painters who stood up for workers’ rights against gangster bosses in the 1990s building industry tinyurl.com/y32gtocq


Recreated by YouTuber Ricky Other releases are harder to


anticipate due to the coronavirus and the decision of some cinemas to close but here are three UK-based films currently scheduled for the autumn: gritty northern crime thriller Imperative, starring former rugby league star Keith Mason; London stalker story Cordelia, starring Antonia Campbell Hughes, Johnny Flynn and Michael Gambon; and London true crime caper The Duke, starring Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent as a taxi


, Spotlight > A struggle to survive on stage


THEATRES and other performing arts venues largely remain closed because it’s uneconomic for them to play to socially distanced audiences and to fund extra safety measures to be covid compliant.


18 | theJournalist Andrew Lloyd Webber,


David Tennant and other leading figures have issued dire warnings about the survival prospects for the industry if moves are not made to ensure that shows can be profitable again.


The first socially distanced


gig, when Frank Turner performed in front of 200 people at the 1,250-capacity Clapham Grand in south London in July, was deemed a financial failure. Turner wrote: “The


promoter had to double the number of staff working to meet all the guidelines. There was no talent spend (I didn’t get paid), and no


advertising spend (the show sold out pretty much straight away), and yet it still lost money.” You can help by donating


to the Music Venue Trust (https://saveourvenues. co.uk), Save Live Comedy (https://savelivecomedy. co.uk) and the Theatre Artists’ Fund (https:// tinyurl.com/yykfq5mn).


Downes III, it has Kermit in the lead role, Miss Piggy as Eliza Schuyler, the Great Gonzo is Aaron Burr and Fozzie Bear plays the marquis de LaFozette. Even Statler and Waldorf get in on the action, giving their valuable feedback. See if you can last the whole two and a half hours. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzDP- vQXao Long-term NUJ member and former


stand-up comedian Simon Hardeman gets in touch to plug his new audio comedy, Hancock’s Lockdown, in which he imagines what would happen if Tony Hancock and Sid James self-isolated together.


“It was recorded and produced


entirely under lockdown,” Simon says, “so it’s something of a technical triumph as well as being entertaining.” tinyurl.com/y/7bfmttf


driver who stole a Goya portrait from the National Gallery.


Comedy > If you missed Hamilton on the Disney Channel over the summer, here’s the next best thing: Hamilton but it’s Muppets. And, yes, it’s as surreal as it sounds.


TV >


Gaining inspiration from, well, I’ll let you decide who, why not catch up with Sky Atlantic’s satirical drama Succession as media magnate Logan (Brian Cox) steps back from the family business?


Books > With all the uncertainty about live performances, I’m on safer ground plugging books that will definitely be published in the autumn. A decade on from How To Be A


Woman, Times columnist Caitlin Moran returns with More Than a Woman, a manifesto for change and celebration of all those middle-aged women who keep the world turning. Moran made her name writing for Melody Maker as a teenager, when she may have crossed paths with rockers Skunk Anansie, led by singer Skin. Skin has written a memoir – It Takes Blood and Guts – which tells how a black, working-class girl with a vision fought poverty and prejudice to become one of the most influential women in British rock. NUJ member Owen Jones and


best-selling author of Chavs and The Establishment returns with This Land, a reflection on Corbynism


and last year’s general election, answering the question: where does the Left – and Britain – go next? George Orwell was also an NUJ member and Penguin is this autumn bringing out four new volumes of his writing, cannily mixing his feature- length books with shorter essays addressing the same subjects – Spain, poverty in England and the dispossessed – with powerful political essays and journalism. Alternative histories are in fashion


(see Sky Atlantic’s Plot Against America) so here’s novelist Curtis Sittenfeld imagining what if Hillary hadn’t met Bill. In what’s been described as ‘the sliding doors of American politics’, Rodham sees Sittenfeld doing for Hillary Clinton what she did for Laura Bush in American Wife.


Finally, even


if you never got into Wolf Hall trilogy – and why not? – surely this book’s title alone is worthy of a place on your mantelpiece. A collection of essays and memoirs from the twice Booker prizewinner Hilary Mantel - Mantel Pieces - addresses issues as diverse as Jane Boleyn, Christopher Marlowe and Britain’s last recorded witch.


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