Rick Astley: ‘I didn’t want fame. I wanted enough money to never live with my dad’

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Saturday, October 5, 2024

Hi everyone, I hope you've all had wonderful weeks. Better, perhaps, than Coldplay and Boris Johnson, who were both on the receiving end of one-star reviews from our critics. Louis listened to Moon Music, the latest album from the "Fix You" hitmakers, and found a "10-track ode to the Unifying Power of Love [that] feels like psychedelia as imagined by a man whose drug of choice is vanilla extract". To add insult to injury, one of the song titles is simply a rainbow emoji. Next, Sean O'Grady waded through the former PM's 772-page memoir Unleashed, and called it "shameless, sour, predictable, self-exculpatory stuff". It sounds like Leonardo DiCaprio probably won't be reading it.

Not a great week for Philip Schofield either, who seems to have found himself stranded on an island with only Channel 5 camera crews for company. Louis wrote about how his Cast Away telly return might be one of the weirdest comebacks ever. And will the publication of the BBC's probe into Strictly allow the whiff of scandal to fade? This week it was announced that "some, but not all" of actor Amanda Abbington's complaints against dance partner Giovanni Pernice had been upheld. In her piece about the report, Katie considered how the show can now attempt to move on.

Coldplay are back with new album 'Moon Music' (Anna Lee )

Elsewhere this week: Ellie spoke to Adeel Akhtar, who is so brilliant, she writes, that "his moniker in the biz is literally 'Ideal Actor', a play on his name that speaks to how highly regarded Akhtar is in the industry, renowned for bruising, humane and endlessly intriguing performances". Chris Harvey talked to Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh about everything from the US presidential candidates to JK Rowling. After the sad death of Dame Maggie Smith last week, Geoffrey Macnab celebrated the way Britain's older actresses have rewritten the rules of the box office. And for this week's State of the Arts, Louis explored how the new Joker film has tried to move superhero films into new territory – with mixed results.

Tomorrow, look out for a fascinating interview with John Lithgow, currently playing Roald Dahl in new play Giant at the Royal Court; the inside story of one of Francis Bacon's most intriguing portraits; and a must-read piece from Katie on why true crime queen Kate Summerscale found herself turning back to the dark, disturbing 1953 murders at 10 Rillington Place.

Have a great weekend,

Jessie
@jessiecath

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What to do this weekend

TV | Industry

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, or so the over-quoted adage of John Maynard Keynes goes. Fighting those fickle currents, then, is a Sisyphean task, where bankers and traders lurch from one crisis to another. So it is no surprise that these mercurial money markets make a suitable backdrop for drama: not least in the third season of the BBC's prestige thriller (yes, thriller) Industry, where calm rarely descends for more than a heartbeat.

Nick Hilton | Chief TV critic

Art | Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit

Since his death in an apparent suicide in 2012, the Detroit-raised, LA-based Mike Kelley has become one of art's hottest names to drop. Yet, until now, there has been no substantial exhibition this side of the pond, making it hard to judge quite what the fuss has been about. This major survey at Tate Modern is, then, our first chance to get a proper view of a fascinating artist whose work combines the cerebral and the visceral, the otherworldly and the trashy to often hilarious effect.

Mark Hudson | Chief art critic

Music | The Smile: Cutouts

Reports of Radiohead's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Earlier this month, bassist Colin Greenwood caused a minor stir when he confirmed that the Oxford-formed rock band had been rehearsing some old songs in the studio. Cue speculation over an "Oasis-style" reunion, overlooking the fact that unlike the warring Gallagher brothers, Radiohead never broke up. Instead, its five members have been keeping themselves busy with various side projects since the release of their last album, 2016's superb break-from-form A Moon Shaped Pool. One such venture is The Smile, formed by frontman Thom Yorke and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood, alongside Sons of Kemet co-founder/drummer Tom Skinner. Recorded during the same period as The Smile's second album, Cutouts is only marginally longer than its predecessor, but it manages to feel exponentially expansive at just 10 tracks.

Roisin O'Connor | Music editor

Film | Joker: Folie à Deux

In 2019, Todd Phillips's revisionist DC comic book movie Joker ignited a firestorm of controversy, broke the billion-dollar mark at the global box office, and ended up winning its star Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor Oscar. Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, an aspiring stand-up turned psychotic killer, was an everyman antihero for our times – a stumbling loner who murders a celebrity chat show host live on air, develops an army of twisted devotees and sparks mass riots. The film was accused of glorifying violence and potentially endangering the public – Phoenix notoriously stormed out of a British newspaper interview when asked whether Joker could inspire mass shootings. Those hysterical predictions didn't actually come to pass, though. Today Joker is best remembered as one of the most subversive and original films of the last decade, while its hugely anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux is just as bleak and formally daring as its predecessor.

Clarisse Loughrey | Chief film critic

The Saturday Interview – Rick Astley

Rick Astley: ' 'When people get a record deal, they should be given psychological help' (Alex Lake)

The man whose sonorous voice made "Never Gonna Give You Up" a global hit speaks to Louis Chilton about the absurdity of fame, his unprecedented comeback, and why now was the right time for his candid new memoir, Never.

Astley performs on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage in 2023 (Hogan/Hogan Media/Shutterstock)

Read an extract from our Saturday Interview below…

The year 2007 brought a lot of things: the resignation of Tony Blair; the collapse of Northern Rock; and, most importantly, the rise of "Rickrolling". In the most unlikely and arbitrary of ways, Astley was propelled back into the zeitgeist. "Rickrolling" refers to an internet meme in which people are lured into clicking a link, only to be redirected to the music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up". The song re-entered the charts; Astley's ironic appeal went through the roof. "It's really weird," Astley says of the song, the music video for which has now amassed a truly staggering 1.5 billion plays on YouTube. "It's like it's burnt into my DNA."

Read the full interview here

INDYBEST / BEST BUYS

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