Two Big Egos in a Small Car
A passionately laid back overview of the arts and culture scene in York and Harrogate with observations on journalism. This podcast is hosted by Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers and regular guests.
Two Big Egos in a Small Car
Episode 247: Agadoo? Interview Special with Kim Hopkins and Dene Michael - Still Pushing Pineapples
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Charles and Graham interview Kim Hopkins, director and singer Dene Michael about their new documentary, Still Pushing Pineapples. Kim Hopkins’ moving and funny follow up to her modern classic, the award-winning A Bunch of Amateurs, is in UK cinemas from 28 November.
Still Pushing Pineapples features former pop star Dene Michael as he clings to the remnants of fame he once had as a member of 1980s novelty pop group Black Lace. The band’s universally known hit Agadoo – both beloved and hated by many, and the high or low point of any party – is what Dene’s best known for. Now, performing for a dwindling, ageing audience in some of the UK’s most deprived seaside towns and cities, he’s eager to press on with his music career and get out from under the legacy of the Black Lace songbook. The film follows Dene, his spirited 89-year-old mum Anne, and his sassy girlfriend Hayley across Britain and the Costa del Sol in this unmistakably British road movie. En route they navigate love, family duty, and the relentless pursuit of one last chart success.
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So this is two big egos in a small car. That's not you, Dean, and so welcome to join us this evening. We're speaking tonight to uh Kim Hopkins, film director, and Dean. Uh full name. Should we give the full name, Dean? Yes, you can do. Yes. Dean Michael Betteridge, full name. 38 years of Black Lace. And uh Kim, just the background of Kim is uh a filmmaker who has done films exploring working class communities and resilience. And I think that very strongly comes through in this new film called Still Pushing Pineapples. And it's going to be playing uh in York at Cityscreen. Um and I think it's doing a tour at the moment, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02So it starts on Friday, yeah. We're doing we're doing our pre-release at the moment. We started in Bradford last Friday, yeah, um, on the 14th, and it did a gala premiere there um in in Pitcherville. Um and on Tuesday we're in BAFTA. Um uh Wednesday in Dockhouse in London, yeah, Thursday and Friday Derby. Um is that correct? Yeah, that's correct, yeah. I think. Um, and then and then it goes on its kind of nationwide tour, yeah, including uh City Screen including City Screen, which is on the 7th of December. Splendid. On a Sunday, good evening, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and so will you uh Kim and Dean, will you attend the screenings? Is that how that will work?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, most of them I'll be there. Um Kim Kim and Margretta will be there, uh most uh every one of them, I think. Um I'm doing the the selected ones where I can get there with uh other work commitments and and things. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, welcome and good evening both. Uh Graham, I'll hand to you for initial questions, please, Graham.
SPEAKER_04Well uh I'm still recovering from watching the film. It's it's an amazing film. And yeah, one minute I'm sad, next minute I'm happy, uh one minute I'm laughing, next minute I'm getting a bit alarmed. It's one of the best uh documentaries I've seen that in no way is pretentious, which captures uh the strange nature of fame and success. And in the film, what's what's particularly good about it is that the success of Black Lace sort of flits in and out of the film like a ghost. It's got a very ghostly atmosphere to success and fame, like it's something intangible you can't actually tie down, and that's really skillfully done amid all the mass real life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that that was kind of one of the particularly right at the front, what we were trying to kind of convey there. I I was really not after I did my research and I saw that there'd been many, many iterations of Black Lace over the ages. Um I uh and and and and I also found that that you know Alan was already already uh died, um, and and Colin, the other band member, when they were in duo, yes, um, had some issues around him of which I found quite difficult maybe to make him uh one of the central characters of the film. Um and uh and so uh I I um I looked to what I looked to Dean to kind of tell this story, um, as Dean really is the kind of well, the only surviving member from the that 80s that 80s.
SPEAKER_04Also very likable, which helps.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00How did you approach Dean then, Kim? How did that come about?
SPEAKER_02I I I I basically, you know, I I just finished a bunch of amateurs that had done very well for us.
SPEAKER_04Um and then I got Sean Harrigate by Harriet Film Society, do it.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah. I remember that was a really lovely screening. Um, and that that did very well for us. It didn't got a couple of Grierson nominations, it got shortlisted on the BAFTAs, which was the only British doc that did that, and um, and uh and it and it did quite a lot of uh of cinema venues. And so I was looking for something to kind of follow up on that as kind of I'm kind of making this trilogy on these working class stories, and um and I and and I would and there was lots of these kind of what they call IP films around or um films that that that are intellectual property films, and what for the layperson that means that basically, I don't know, recent fairly recently the one about Beckham that is made by his own production company, and and as a documentary filmmaker, that you know that that that's a no-go area for me. You know, you need independence, you need editorial. Um, and that's just PR. The Beckham thing's just PR. We we used to call them EPKs back in the day, and now they're just very long, very expensive, very glamorous EPKs. Um and and that and I kind of wanted to do you kind of one in the eye on those that were that were happening, and I thought, you know, who which which which estate could I get to? And I'm pretty sure I couldn't get to Madonna's or Taylor Swift's or there you go, Dean. Or anything and then, whoa, who can I get to? What was that 80s band? I remember had that terrible song in the 80s, and I thought, you know, and I thought, ah, I used to burst that song on top of the pops.
SPEAKER_04Um, I was always going, please bring the Smith song, then it'd be Bloody Black Lace.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I had the I had the same feeling. Sorry, Dean.
SPEAKER_01We we know no problem.
SPEAKER_02Um I had the same feeling about it. You know, I was you know, at Suzy the Banshees, and then you know, and I kind of more into the punk thing, and and then as I got older, I went into Dylan and Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen and blah blah blah. So Black Lace really wasn't my cup of tea whatsoever. However, I did really, you know, I really, you know, Agadu was such a it was it was just everywhere. And it it it just kind of, you know, it was like that kind of thing that you can't flush down the toilet, you know.
SPEAKER_04It just more than a million copies. It was bigger than Taylor Swift at the time. Mind you, Taylor Swift was about two years old at the time, so that explains it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I mean, I Agadoo was kept off the number one slot by by by George Michael's careless whisper. Uh I would argue that Agadew, particularly in Britain, is is uh, you know, is it you know, it it's just stayed with us for longer.
SPEAKER_04I think Dean could have sung George Michael's songs, but George Michael could have sung Dean songs. That's Marigol.
SPEAKER_01What do you reckon, Dean? Well, I used to sing George Michael's songs, to be honest. And when Careless Whisper was out, I did a cover of it, and uh it was a very popular song, and and it's a good one really for to keep us off number one, I suppose. Yes, if any song could, that was that was one of the best ones that could ever be.
SPEAKER_02I know it's one of your mum's favourites, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, mum loves that one, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Kim, you would have you contacted Dean.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I so I so after after I kind of remembered what song this was, that was in in somewhere in my memory. Of course, I asked Alexa to play it, um, and it all came flooding back. Um, I then contacted Dean, I did a bit of research, contacted Dean. I invited him to the Bradford premiere of a bunch of amateurs, so he could see the type of work that I was doing. Yeah. Um, Dean Dean really loved the film and he liked the type of work. And uh we met up in a in a pub outside Leeds and we had a good chat about it, and I said, Look, the only way I'm going to do this is you have to let me completely into your life, and whatever happens. Um, and then that was it for the next two and a half years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because it wasn't too late. Yeah, yeah. So, Dean, and that's the so right, you said yes to it as a project. I mean, it you know, to use that description, warts and all, this is remarkably warts and all. Yeah, there is everything in this film, it has high production values though.
SPEAKER_04It's it doesn't look warts and all, it looks really good.
SPEAKER_00I I I I agree with that, Graham. But in terms of content and uh the honesty of content in this, you know, nothing's held, nothing's held back. I mean, we see Dean, I'm not sure what that um routine was involving um what was it, fat reduction or something? That one, for example.
SPEAKER_01It it was um um a name for it, I can't remember the name for it now, but fat freezing. Yeah, what the hell is that the word freezing? It just means it stops wobbling for a while. I was trying to lose weight, and um Steve had met Haley.
SPEAKER_02That's what you're doing, that's what you do in the flush of a new relationship.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, so that's why I went there.
SPEAKER_00Um but none of the things so nothing was kind of off you know, off the radar, nothing.
SPEAKER_01It was new No, even when Mum was poorly, Mum was really ill in the in some of the filming. And Kim asked Mum, didn't you, Kim, if uh could carry on filming if anything happened or anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that moment on the phone in uh that image of your mum suddenly from you know how different she looked in the hospital bed. It was moments like that. You just I mean that's interesting, Kim, again, as a director, you know, choosing such moments. And that's what as Graham said, there are moments that just keep shocking you in some ways, you know. We'll come on to the the big one about you know black black lace and and what happened suddenly to to the name of Black Lace, etc. But we we'll come on to that, yeah. So Dean, I mean I think at that point of view, did you just get used to it? Did you just get used to a camera then? Was that just you know, that was yeah, a funny story here.
SPEAKER_01When when we were filming, yes, the camera obviously the camera was there all the time, and and for like Kim said, two and a half years, nearly three years, and um we got used to it. Uh Haley and I got used to it. I I was quite used to a camera being there because I've done lots of reality TV. Of course, but um mum mum, there's a funny story. This mum um Kim and Margareta uh said to my mum, just pretend we're not here, just just ignore us, we're not here, and you you tell a story then, Kim, from this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so mum, mum would then, you know, after I you know, every time I filmed with mum and just say, just just ignore us, just pretend we're not here, and just let us film. And then after a while, she would go, do the two people who are not here would like a cup of tea? And she would always undercut undercut that process. But basically, what what what happens is is we are like doctors on call.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, and and so we are just we do we're there a lot. Um, and we film, you know, two, three days a week, every week, as I said, for two and a half years. That's what how you get that intimacy. You're there when stuff happens, or you hope to be there when stuff happens. Yeah, grim.
SPEAKER_04There's a lot of trust, there's a lot of trust there because the the film is in the editing, the story's in the editing. So the way you cut that film after two and a half years would directly affect how it made Dean look to the audience. So Dean must have trusted you, Kim, to do a great thing.
SPEAKER_02Like I like I said, I showed him a bunch of amateurs and he saw the type of work we do. Um, we do kind of have a motto here at Labour of Love Films is that we always try to be kind in things. Um, you know, when it comes to, I don't know, vanity and things like that, that doesn't get cut. You know, um, we always show our our contributors cuts of the film, let them have a look, let them let them have some kind of so there's some kind of process where they suggest things. Um, and so it's a kind of quite a fairly collaborative process. Um, but at the end of the day, that does but it all boils down to trust. And that and trust, like with friendship, it's built over a period of time. There is just no shortcut to it.
SPEAKER_01No. Exactly. And there was that trust there with with Kim and Margaret. Like Kim said there, the way that they can edit it sometimes uh doesn't show you in a good light, you know. But uh I had every confidence that Kim would do a great job, which which she has.
SPEAKER_04I think what made the film quite quite moving because uh because uh on the surface it's a film solely focused in this order on Dean and his mum and his partner in Black Lace. But the film's actually got quite a deep exploration of uh what fame and success is and what people do to be famous and successful, and then it's also uh an exploration of uh British working class culture, and then it's also in some ways a presentation of how uh Britain has changed and in some ways disappearing, and it achieves all that without ever having it's got a narrative but no narration, so it's a really skillfully thought-out uh piece.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much. That's in exactly the intention of the film, um particularly with the subtext of a kind of a fragmented Britain and a fading Britain, you know. We have um, you know, we we I think when you get out to some of the areas that Dean's fan base is and you know, into the areas like Blackpool and Skegnes, those areas, you really do see, and you you you know, even then I I was trying to be kind to those cities. Um but I I just I just couldn't, I just had to be honest as well about what was happening there. You know, you go one back street off their golden mile, and you have boarded up shops and boarded up, you know, and and and these these communities are being let down, they really are. And that's that that was the subtext I wanted to show in the film as well. And and you go there, yeah. The last thing, you know, that's that if you you know, if you've been in a kind of rubbish job all your life, or you and you're or you're retired, or you've you know got various ailments that comes with you know living a fairly impoverished life, and you want to go to somewhere like the Linden and Blackpool and spend your weekend just just you know dancing to Agado. That's what you know that's what that's what people want to do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but that's what it did in Billy Lyre. Billy Lyre in 63 in Bradford, they're all dancing to pop hits and they're all getting drunk and they're all doing usual things. Nothing's changed working class culture except Britain's got poorer. Absolutely. That's all that's really happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the context has changed. But yeah, I thought it was great because it wasn't some middle class person talking down to working class people. Yeah, it wasn't like there was no agenda from someone as an outsider who didn't understand what was going on and was portraying it in a way that they didn't quite get it. It seemed like you entirely understood that this is just reality and nothing else.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you know, I I went to a shitty comprehensive school in the 1970s, you know, in outside of Cel outside of Selby. You know, like I I you know, this is the people I know. Um and yes, I I was fortunate enough to to move away and get into the into making films and things, but you know, this is these aren't my people, this is what I understand. And I also feel, you know, with the kind of you know, the culture wars that are happening these days, that particularly middle-aged white blokes are getting a pretty rough deal sometimes. You know, not everybody is a fascist just because they're a middle-aged white bloke who do who don't who don't agree with the status quo, you know, who feel let down by the system. And later then they are being let down by the system, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Kim growing growing up around Selby because it was a a mining community at the time. A very strange.
SPEAKER_02Even before then, it was the mills, you know.
SPEAKER_00And before that it was the mills. When you drive into when you drive into Selby, now you pass still that massive empty mill.
SPEAKER_02That's that's that when when when we had our our person who used to come to say what job did you want when you left school, that's where you were sent. That mill was the one that scooped up all the people from that from that comprehensive school.
SPEAKER_00That's where you were. And then the mines, which was Europe's most advanced mine when it closed. So I mean, that working class culture, which again, you know, you you know, you experience and and you've seen. And it's interesting. I mean, you know, to call, I mean, there are obviously um clubs, uh, we mentioned Blackpool or whatever, but Agad Agadu and that whole the black lace world is is seen as working class music, working class clubs, etc. It's absolutely a sign of that, and it's interesting that I I think for all the fact that uh you know it's a song that that gets disparaged, on the other hand, uh, people still want to dance to that song. There was a moment where Dean's doing the new the new songs or doing cover version songs, yeah, not coming onto the dance floor, Dean. Exactly. They come onto the dance floor. How did you feel in that moment?
SPEAKER_01Well, I wanted to sort of have a go because I was originally brought up on soul music. Yes, that was my apprenticeship, if you like, and that's what I used to sing from starting off, you know, in soul bands and things. And I wanted to go back at one time and try and just get away from the agadoo thing and try something new. I did um a program called The Voice UK for the BBC, uh, that featured me on there, and I did a soul song on there, went back to my roots, yeah, and did a uh a song called Never Give Up on a Good Thing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um which was you know, and but it never sort of worked when I was doing live performances. People always wanted Agadu, the music man, do the conger, the Okie Kokey. But and then I realized when when Kim was filming me, and and we were doing that scene um in the church hall thing at Christmas, and it was it was like okay, okay, like yeah, as soon as I do I could do, everybody gets up, smiles on their faces, and uh and I'm from the stage when I'm looking at my audience, I can see they're all happy, they're all dancing away, and you know, it's it's I thought, well, yeah, that's it. I could do for the rest of my life, I think.
SPEAKER_02But there is a decoder right at the front of the film where we have the Mick Jagger quote. Yeah. He said, if I'm still singing satisfaction when I'm 45, I'd rather be dead.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, and and and and I thought, okay, you know, singing satisfaction uh 45 doesn't seem too, you know, yeah hard a word, but what's it like singing Nagadoo at 68? I think I think he meant I'd rather be dead rich.
SPEAKER_01That's what he meant, wasn't it? Maybe very good, Greg. Very good. Yeah, yeah. But the thing about the theme though, sorry. I I was just gonna say that's how I feel now. Uh everywhere I play now, they just want they want the party. It's it's like New Year's Eve every night when I play now. Yeah. So um, you know, and I've I've come to uh understand that now. So I still do the odd nice song here and there, you know, and different things, but I always keep the agadoo in and everything. Absolutely. Right.
SPEAKER_04There's a bit in the film where it seems that yourself, Dean, wants to like get away from Blacklace and sing different songs in some of your own songs, and your partner doesn't quite get that. But then there's another moment where uh your partner doesn't quite get the fact that that you'll do anything to remain successful. Almost like a it's like you know that fame is a Faustian pact where you have to be successes beck and call. You don't choose uh how to address fame and and how to come to success. You either take on its terms or you're not going to be successful. And you you seem to know that uh in the film.
SPEAKER_01I think it's experience through so the years of me doing this job. I mean, I've been doing it since I was 15. And you like like I said, you do your apprenticeship in the working men's clubs and the social clubs, that's what you did back in the 70s when I first started uh professionally singing. And um, you know, it it's it's I feel sorry for these youngsters now that are coming into the business. There's nowhere for them now because we we showed a decline in the the audiences in the in the clubs and and everything, and now the social clubs are all closing, yeah, and and pubs as well. You know, it's it's um it's sad really to see. I could I could do seven nights a week uh touring the clubs as as um with the band, and um you know, no problem at all, but now you're lucky if you get one night really on the Saturday night where they have entertainment. I I did a gig last night and they only have entertainment once a month when they used to have it seven nights a week, you know, it's just it's not it's not good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah when you sing This Is the Moment, which isn't a Black Lace song, no it's a great piece of singing, it reminds me that because we've both Charles himself have both at different times interviewed Tony Christie, the great Sheffield singer, and it makes me think that if you'd never joined Black Lace, you would have been Tony Christie.
SPEAKER_01I don't know about that, but I mean I know Tony's a he's a great guy, he's he's got a great voice, and he is that party man, isn't he, as well. He does a big party song. And uh Russ Abbott, he did the atmosphere song, that was a good one. Um you know, I probably sing songs like that, I would have thought, still, but you know, they but I was I was very fortunate really in in the eighties to be asked to join Black Lace and and um i I've just sort of gone with it, you know, with the it's it's all just gone as as good as I can really.
SPEAKER_02But but Dean, but Dean, it's not just fortune. You say yes to things. I do, yes, yeah. Um you know you you you you say yes to things and and you know some things work out some things don't work out. Yeah. And and uh you know you said yes to the filming. You know that that now means you have a a feature film about you. Yeah how many people get the opportunity to have that you know oh I think that is your superpower that saying yes and then taking the consequences if it doesn't work out.
SPEAKER_00Kim there are moments which you think I can't believe this has just happened. I knew for example the Bentley was going to turn out to be a car that was going to need loads of repair so did I just you no that's why I was asking that because I think there are certain things that must have happened within the film we thought this is a godsend to some extent and I don't mean that against Dean at all.
SPEAKER_02No no it's kind of partly there you know even even the tattoo on the arm that Haley has things that happen in this film you know yeah but that was the one I I've never had a tattoo and I've got one there on this is there it is with the with the Bentley you know I mean I you know by that time I got to know Dean and and and part of Dean's nature is Dean is Dean Dean's got a very trusting nature and and and and and that's also I think a superpower I mean I think it can get exploited and I'm sure it has has been yeah but you know when the when Dean and and again part of the kind of flush of a new love you know getting a big flashy new car is part of that as well as lithosuction and uh and and Haley's a bit of a petrol head as well um and and and when Dean showed me this car on I can't was it on eBay or did you just find it or something like that or I can't remember now. I think it was eBay I think you showed me a picture of it and I thought yes I know what this about where where this is going to go.
SPEAKER_01I love the moment where Dean you're saying oh yeah it might do eight to the gallon in the middle of of town I'm thinking what the hell possesses is anyone to buy a car like that I used I used to live in Spain uh at one point and yeah um I had a Rolls Royce when I was in Spain and yeah but I wasn't doing the mileage then again the rolls the Rolls Royce will only do 12 miles to the gallon at the most yeah similar engine you know yeah but uh you know I used it just to go around into Benny Dome and back out to my filler and in uh Albia and um and that was it because it didn't really matter then and petrol was so much cheaper and I forgot all that you see when we come back to the UK and it's quite funny when the scene where you see us pick the the the Bentley up yeah and then we pull in the petrol station and fill it up and I think Haley says I think that should get us there and then we have to pull in again we've got to have exactly yeah right I know Krim is like worked for all the main TV channels as well and you went to national film television school which is highly regarded all around the world but there's obviously there's very few programs and films that feature the working class culture strongly that are actually made by people from a working class background.
SPEAKER_04And I was quite shocked a while back when Asian Kapadia who made Senna then Amy which won an Oscar saw a really big documentary filmmaker. I mean documentary films have never been bigger than they are have been for the last 10 years.
SPEAKER_02Well when he's on Desert Island Discs which is a big deal for him he spends quite a lot of time slagging off the way the British film industry works saying it's completely dominated by Oxford and Cambridge and posh people and it's like to see a film that you've made Kim which isn't like that is just tremendous thank you that's that's that's that's basically our race on detra that's the stuff we try and do this it and it's a very very tough area to be in um because you know there's a big squeeze on documentaries particularly feature documentary and an even bigger squeeze on theatrical distribution now. So it's getting tougher and tougher um and uh and and it's very hard to get working class audiences to get away from Netflix and and go and sit in front of a big screen somewhere so you know it's it's it I think it's all the more important that these films do get made. I I I I have to actually you know say thank you to Doc Society and BFI for this because they're they're they're trusting us to do this stuff. Um and uh um and and you know I as I said I'm working on this trilogy the next one is is a film called The Local which is based in uh in Jacobswell pub in Bradford and I've done a year and a half filming the locals in that in that pub and uh and we get to find out what we think of Britain from the horse's mouth basically in there um that's what that film's all about and so that was due out I don't know maybe end of next year. Yeah absolutely yeah it's it's sorry sorry and again spaces that are disappearing you know um you know I mean you know I think two of these pubs are disappearing a week you know um as Dean alluded to working men's clubs are disappearing handover fist the the the first film a bunch of amateurs that whole kind of club scene it happened to be a film club in that case but that club scene or men in shed stuff that that stuff disappearing and anywhere where working class people gather and are able to communicate um and and uh they just seem to be disappearing you know if you're a conspiracy theorist you could say this is policy to get rid of them or it just is that they're not viable anymore these spaces and and people have changed their habits I don't know I think it's somewhere probably in between the two I mean there is an element of this when when when you watch this and you see Dean and the family on on on a fun fair or having fish and chips or whatever or even being in Benedome with you know the British community out of there.
SPEAKER_00And Graham used the term earlier but it's almost it is there's a ghost element to it. There is this is a culture that's going.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we're seeing we're seeing it through this film we're seeing it as happens.
SPEAKER_02That that was also something I was really interested in when I you know like as I said at the beginning of the film I I was really wanting to try to get into Dean's head and kind of part of memory and all of that that that kind of space um and also one of the challenges as a filmmaker and and that was actually getting into Dean to into Dean what he was really feeling about stuff. And it took me some time to realize I was really up against it with Dean because this guy has been singing Agadoo for nearly 40 years. He can turn on party face like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah um uh um whatever is going on in his life um and I had to find a way to get through through that um and part of that was kind of you know the whole kind of pineapple thing there and that whole kind of metaphor of that of of uh of of uh that kind of metamorphosis and that that dean couldn't escape this thing you know I wonder Kim whether um dean can answer this as well one of the things that I think is so strong um Kim and Dean is Dean's relationship with his mother it's I mean it's just it reminded me actually of David Hockney's relationship with his mother just in some way.
SPEAKER_01Northern working class lads and they love their mum I mean you do everything for your mum Dean I mean it's it's so moving watching this you know yeah I tried to do um mum mum and dad when dad was alive dad's been dead now what eight years now and I promised my father that I would look after mum when he died and um I have done up to now you know I've been I've been there for her um I do everything for her really she's unfortunately she's in hospital as we speak now she's there in St. James and she's not very well but um she's um she's still clodding on she's still she's 90 91 now and um you know she's doing doing well for her age but um yeah I I did I did one I did promise my father that I would look after her but I look at it this way mum and dad used to look after me I mean they started me off in the business you know I didn't they didn't have a lot of money but they bought me a PA system and a guitar and one thing another microphones and so I could do the job I love to do. So you never forget that and the way that they help me so you know and that love that I've had for my mum and dad all the way through my life really I've never I don't think I've ever had a wrong word with with them really you know um so that answers your question I think for me it was the way I was a bit brought up and um old fashioned I suppose in a way but yeah I I do try and try and look after mum.
SPEAKER_02Kim your thoughts on that because it seemed to me a really important I mean love on two levels is Dean you've you know finds love anew with a with a new partner and there's this constant love uh you know for towards um that's that's where when I started the film that's where I thought where I thought it was the film and that that that's what's so interesting about making this type of film and also what is kind of can throw some real curveballs at you when you're making this type of film is I thought Dean you know I I I just saw as I just alluded to earlier that Dean would you know head off to Skegnes or to Blackpool or to minehead or whatever do his do his party night and then come back to his modest apartment back in Blackpool at three in the morning and then look after his mum you know and that was that's where a pop star's life was at now uh you know um and that that I found kind of a really interesting kind of you know uh um kind of interesting kind of take on things and then Haley came along kind of six months into the shooting and I at first I thought oh damn this is this is taking the film off in a completely different direction but you know actually I it was probably the best thing that could have happened to the film because I I was when I was you know when I spoke earlier I tried we're trying to make kind films or films with hope in as well um and and sometimes when you're on a kind of downward trajectory which we all are when we're getting older um um I it's quite difficult to find that um and and uh and so when Haley came along and and some and love came into Dean's life in that way and and also young children as well came into Dean's life um you know I thought well that there there is a way of of kind of having some kind of you know hopeful outcome and and loving outcome it's really in some ways it is a love story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah it's a love story it's also a road movie of course and that again is a great um form of filmmaking um road movies both uh documentary versions and of course road movies that are within with with within a creative uh film world it's a great structure for a film it is yeah I had I had little miss sunshine in my head for the the I can see that yeah um from from from the Benetop you know they're a very unlightly trio in in that exactly in that camera van um and you just hope the audience would warm to that unlikely trio you know yeah yeah I love the scene where we're on the the scooters in Benedome on the seafront the three of you it's fantastic and the company plays I love that scene. Graham because we're we're coming towards the close now we never quite know when our time is up but um we uh there may be another three minutes if we get cut off I'm gonna say in advance thank you so much for talking to us both but Graham over to you for a question well apart from the fact I think Dean's a success story he's been doing this for like at least 35 40 years always in the limelight that's success that's not like failure that that's success.
SPEAKER_04The second thing is that I think it's actually although it's a funny film I mean any film that ends with the star inside a giant pineapple costume is a funny film. It's also a really important film. It's like a great Ken Loach except it's uh reality rather than fiction I think it's a really important film and I I think in years to come it'll be seen again and be seen to be an important film. It it captures so much that's that's so important as well as being an emotional story in a in a fun film.
SPEAKER_00I think it's it's fantastic a fantastic endorsement I have to say that pineapple was that your suggestion Kim for I mean it's an amazing moment to finish the film with he's that that song where you see what a good singer Dean is but also to be in a pineapple costume is kind of surreal at that point.
SPEAKER_02It kind of cutting against the the that beautiful ballad that he sings that is what he used to sing as a as a three year old which which was you know I thought I can't give Dean a big big audience I can't give him that crescendo at the end but what I can do for him is show his his his audience that he can sing. He does have and yeah and yet we we have to accept that he's trapped in the pineapple still yeah that's like that ghost you said earlier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah last last comment here dean uh you you may be aware or not that at lead united um ampedue plays for lead united and uh you may well be aware I now sing a song that I never thought I'd be singing in my life and I now singing the Ampedo songs Ampadu to the left to the right and they and unfortunately they lost today against Villa I've just found out the score so I'm doing remarkably well to be in a good mood tonight considering my team has lost yet again I know I know and Ampadu's about to get uh get one match suspension because he's on four buckings now so Ampadu kicks kick to kicks to the left and kicks to the right to the right that's the role yeah well thank you so much to Kim and thank you so much to Dean and uh look out for the film as I say coming to Cityscreen uh at York as well as plenty of other places on the tour as well I hope it goes really well I think it's a fantastic film this and so does Graham and we're so pleased to talk to you this evening both Dean and to Kim thank you for your time thank you so much for having us thank you Graham that was very good they were great they were I've been watching it today and and and it's an a fantastic piece it really is well yeah it it's really skillfully put together you've been listening to the podcast Two Big Egos in a small car your hosts were Graham Chalmers and Charles Atkinson. This was a Baltic sub production