On Being Frank...

It's been four months since I did anything on here. Suffice to say, my life has been dismantled this year, and I'm still putting it back together again. While there's been beer, there's been no desire or time to blog about it, though I do need to talk about Meantime (again) and some other bits and pieces that caught my attention.

What's bringing me back today is an update on the documentary being made by Steve Sullivan about Chris Sievey and his more famous alter-ego, Frank Sidebottom.

There's been a deal of activity since the early summer, when Frank fans raised a whopping £48K via Kickstarter to get the movie project started. Since then, Sullivan has been wandering all over the country with his small team, capturing memories and moments in the Sidebottom/Sievey mythology. Yours truly was invited to Chelsea Space to recount the infamous window-painting of August 2007, and also to talk generally about Chris and Frank, duality and art. I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor, but it was an honour to be asked to share my memories.

Then, in October, it was the unveiling of the bronze statue of Frank in Timperley Village. Despite being in the middle of a move, I didn't think twice about making the trip, a pilgrimage if you like, and I made this patchy film of the morning when the local police had to close the roads to allow people to witness the event...

Locals were surprised by the distance people travelled to be there. I stayed in Altrincham, and another Frank fan from Herts was also there. On the day, I spotted Mike Joyce (former Smiths drummer) and saw Damon 'Badly Drawn Boy' Gough get out of a cab just after the unveiling. I didn't get any film of him, but was standing behind Frank's statue when he gave an emotional speech about what Chris and Frank meant ('a genius' he said, which just goes to show that great minds do often think alike), after giving a guitar and his Mercury Prize to members of Sievey's family. A great day with lots of love and other emotions, remembering a great man and his greatest creation.

But the film is still getting made. Steve Sullivan continues to rove, Merlin-like, around these Islands documenting this story. So there's still some fundraising to do. So I'm writing this post. Here's the Being Frank Xmas Message, where Steve Sullivan, Martin Sievey and David Arnold make their fantastic pitch...

Being Frank Xmas Message

You can pre-order a copy of the finished film for yourself, or make a present of it. Recipients will get a special download on Xmas Day, and their names will be included in the credits of the finished film. Or, if you're really keen, join the 'I Should Be So Lucky' Club, where your hundred notes will get you a download a month for the next year. All rare stuff, none of which can be fitted into the film in its entirety. Or finally, just get the word out by sharing this, or your own message on social media. Frank's fans have been brilliant since the great man passed, funding his send-off, this film and the statue. Please support the film now and ensure somebody has a cool Yule. And have one yourselves.

Thank you.

Being Frank: The 7th Inning Stretch

Today is the 25th May. On 31st, the book closes on the crowdfunding effort to support the production of a definitive film about the genius we know as Frank Sidebottom.

In three weeks, almost £30,000 has been raised towards Steve Sullivan's project, spanning the period when a teenage Chris Sievey camped in the lobby of Apple, then to the legendary Freshies, and on to his best-known and most productive persona, Frank Sidebottom. The support this project has attracted is amazing, but again demonstrates the affection and love Chris retains - a statue (left) is due to be unveiled in fantastic Timperley in the next couple of months, paid for by subscription and fundraising. When the great man passed, his fans paid to give him the send-off he deserved. And now, three years after his desperately sad loss, two major projects are close to being realised.

Steve Sullivan's 'Being Frank' is, to me, the most important. This is no flight of fancy, no Hollywood A-lister with a big head on. This project captures the work of an artist to whom punk gave a voice, but for whom, technology offered an outlet. I've noted before, the records, books, art, the animation, the TV programmes, the music. A renaissance man, despite knowing his mum would go up the wall and across the ceiling if she stumbled upon his secret showbiz career.

If this comes off, you'll see Chris Sievey discuss his computer game programmes on the Old Grey Whistle Test. You'll see Frank hold his own with Alf Garnett in Talking Turkey, a 'spirit of Xmas' thing Channel 4 did when they were edgy and relevant. You'll see The Freshies reunited, Frank's greatest fans talking about him and his work; this project is the once-and-for-all chronicle of a life in art. Some footage is already in the can, and a new trailer is available here...

Frank fans who want this film made have come across with an eye-popping offer as part of the stretch-funding appeal on Kickstarter. Prints of some iconic Frank street art, uber-rare posters from his contribution to a Chelsea Art Space installation in 2010; tee-shirts, music, stuff. All these people want his work documented. All of them are giving way stuff to entice you into supporting this project. Every extra pound helps towards licencing a bit of Frank TV history to share.

And I'm still offering stuff here. Until the appeal shuts down, be first to donate £75 (down from £100 at the beginning of May) and I'll give you a signed CD, and some other rare Frank stuff. Just message Steve Sullivan via Kickstarter and tell him you supported the film after reading my blog, and he'll pass me your details. First person to tell him gets the schwag. Likewise, if you already gave and can double your donation, don't change your funding tier, but message Steve, tell him you're doing it because of this blog, and I'll send you rare Frank stuff. This is all on top of the amazing freebies you'll get anyway for backing the project.

Almost a thousand people have chipped in around £30K to see this film get made. If everybody who already donated can up their support by 25%, chances are that £40K target can be met by Thursday. I'm going for it, and I hope you can too.

You know you can, you really can.

Thank you.

Oh, Blimey! Being Frank...

Long-time readers of this blog will know I'm a big fan of Frank Sidebottom. The Bard of Timperley (or, correctly, his alter ego Chris Sievey) passed in 2010, but his fans haven't forgotten him. There have been exhibitions, music fests and fundraisers. Plans seem well-advanced for raising money to pay for a statue in Timperley, and former Oh! Blimey Big Band member Jon Ronson is one of the creative forces behind a new film called 'Frank', which will star Michael Fassbender, shown below as the eponymous lead.

The big news today, though, is the launch of a crowdfunding drive for a much more relevant project, Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story.

Visioned by filmmaker Steve Sullivan, it's a feature-length documentary covering the varied and fascinating career of one of Britain's most creative and overlooked artists. As well as unknown and lost footage of Frank Sidebottom, Sullivan has been able to reunite post-punk band The Freshies (remember 'I'm In Love With The Girl On the Virgin Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk'?) to talk about their work; there's interviews with his family, long-term sidekick Dave Arnold (whom I once watched as he struggled in vain to flush poster paint out of the sandstone facade of the Chelsea Art Space), and features on Sievey's work as an animator. He's been shooting footage since last autumn, interviewing fans and generally joining up a highly unusual arrangement of dots to bring a full appreciation of this body of work to a wider audience.

Having gone as far as possible, Steve is now reaching out to fans, asking them to back the project through Kickstarter. He's aiming to raise at least £20,000 by the end of May, and there are some excellent incentives to back the film, even if you aren't a fan of Sievey's work. Amazingly, the project is already halfway to the target in the first day, but the word needs to be spread which is why I'm writing this. I don't think 'genius' is too strong a word to use to describe Chris Sievey. An excellent musician, illustrator and animator, to me he wasn't just technically gifted, he expressed a peculiarly non-linear worldview through his art, as evidenced in the fully-realised Frank's World he formed around his best-known creation.

As mentioned, Steve Sullivan is offering some nice rewards to backers of Being Frank, and I'm going to sweeten the pot. That's right. The first of my readers to pledge £100 (and you'll need to prove it - email from Steve perhaps) will get some Sidey stuff from my own collection, some of it signed, all of it hard-to-find. I'm thinking a CD, postcard from the Frank's World DVD or similar. The Kickstarter page is here, and you can visit the film's website to download this poster which you can share online or print out and display.

This Is From The 'Frank' Film...

 It won't be bobbins, little frank. It'll be ace, fantastic and top. I think about the films they made about Manchester contemporaries of Sievey. It took over 20 years to get Joy Division on the silver screen. The idea of getting Chris Sievey's work out a few years after his passing doesn't make up for the loss, but the belated appreciation of a genius deserves to succeed. So help it to succeed already!

Thank you.

Boggle Goes East

"Nuffink"

Thus spake Boggle in response to an enquiry about what I was doing on March 31st, from Dark Star's Matt Wickham. Then come and brew at Brodie's, he says. I'd wanted to head out to the King William IV pub in Leyton for a while, as part of an infrequent effort to get around the members of the London Brewers Alliance, and to get a look at the brewery. And a chance to get my hands dirty? You're on! So it was that I made arrangements for a rare day out, and headed east...

We (being Matt & Karen Wickham, London Amateur Brewer 'Stig', and your correspondent) are the guests of James Brodie, who is brewing one of the beers for his upcoming Bunny Basher festival, an 8.8% Grand Cru. The recipe calls for around 35% wheat, with two hops in the boil and another two for dry-hopping. Say no more.

The mashing-in is a collaborative effort, with all of us taking turns - cue forehead-slapping from Don Burgess, Demon Brewer. With the porridge steeping, we get on with some other brewery jobs, removing keystones and shives and rinsing and sterilising casks. At lunchtime we're ready to transfer the wort to the copper. I'm always fascinated with the ways small-scale brewers do this. Brodie's uses a push-pump while a sparging ring is connected to the mash tun. I take charge while the others go for lunch, and am rewarded with a nice pint of James' 7-Hop IPA, fermented to 7.7%. I keep an eye on the wort transfer and sparging, and in between sterilise, rinse and hammer keystones into a few more casks.

As the transfer finishes, the others return from lunch. By then, we've had a few beers, including the amazing Brainwave, a 2.9% golden ale single-hopped with Simcoe. I never thought of Simcoe as a particularly subtle hop, but this beer is full of lovely red and tropical fruits and more flavourful than you might imagine for something around 3%. Matt Wickham notes that two of the best beers he's tried this year are 3.0%, this one and Redemption's Trinity. Delightful stuff. At the other end of the scale, as I'm prepare to head off, I sample a bottle of Brodie's 10% Superior London Porter. It's one of those that doesn't drink like 10%. Beautiful mouthfeel, complex and slightly warming. Between these and the bottles we've chipped in to lubricate the day, I've got a real buzz on as I head back onto Leyton High Road. I've also got a bottle of lager, conditioned for 10 weeks at 5 degrees, says James. I'm popping it open when I finish this.

I've gone on in the past about the 'new' London brewing scene, and some others have been pleasantly surprised by the emergence of new and creative brewing and bars who want to sell their beers. Brodie's have an advantage by being a fer-real brewpub, but they have built a market outside the bricks and mortar for their 'no limits' approach to making beer. I didn't get a chance to spend much time in the pub, but I mean to go back for Bunny Basher and drink some of that Grand Cru.

Meanwhile, this week, London's Antic Pub Group announced they intend to brew, having purchased Meantime's old kit and employed the services of an ex-Firkin brewer. I hope they take a moment to look around the scene in London before they finalise their range, though. According to their MD, the first brews will be an ordinary bitter and a best bitter, I assume to be dispensed in the casks so beloved of Roger Protz and his ilk. Being merely a noisome blogger, I don't know if that's an attempt to stretch their 'ironic' pub branding into wet sales, but it's said that brewers need to be more innovative and find fresh ways to bring younger drinkers to ale, and Antic will be starting with a clean slate and perhaps 30 pubs to showcase that approach. London - Brodie's, Kernel, Saints & Sinners, Redemption - is setting the bar high with their beers. The usual won't do anymore.

And to finish a cracking day, when I got home Postman Pat had delivered my set of new Frank Sidebottom badges. Ace, fantastic and top!
Pics (from top): Doodle the brewery dog: "neither a brewer nor a dog" says James Brodie, worried about the Trades Description people; Matt & Karen Wickham, branded as you'd expect; sparging with a Batman stylee; fantastic Frank badges - buy a set and contribute to the statue fund!

The World Is Just Like One Great Big Gigantic Xmas Tree

Oddsmakers predict that, at the moment, Evil Emperor Simon Cowell will likely be pushed for Xmas Number One by either Surfin' Bird by The Trashmen (thanks to repeated exposure on Family Guy over the past couple of years) or the celeb-performed 'Cage Against The Machine' gimmick release of John Cage's 4' 33".

While I quite like the idea of X-Fucktor being beaten by four-and-a-half minutes of silence, it isn't really Christmassy, is it? So I'm reminding you all that you need to get on Frank Sidebottom for Number One. Right now, Paddy Power will give you 40/1, so you could slip a crafty fiver on, then get all your mates on board. If I had any friends, that's what I'd be doing.

To get a taste of the true Spirit Of Christmas, here's a video made by Frank associates Paul McCaul and Mark Alston, with a little help from the residents of Timperley...

Bet you feel all warm inside now...

Let's Get Fantastic Frank To Number One! Sunday 12th December, download from Amazon or iTunes!

Thank you.

Ho Ho Ho, Hee Hee Hee...

In a week or so, we'll have some sub-pub singer at the top of the pop charts, courtesy of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas No. 1, pop impresario and freak-wrangler Simon Cowell.

But it doesn't have to be like that. Next Sunday, 12th December, Cherry Red Records are releasing Frank Sidebottom's "Christmas Is Really Fantastic" on download via iTunes and Amazon, in the hope that his fans will end the year we said goodbye to Frank, by giving him the chart hit he never had during his life, and a cheeky bid to keep Cowell and his circus off the top of the pile. The final chart of 2010 will be released on 19th, and they (and his fans) hope he'll be on it.

This song was my first-ever Frank vinyl acquisition. The 12" EP version was picked up for me by a Manchester mate on a trip home, the title song being two-and-a-bit minutes of cracking Christmas happiness that reminds you of the days when we had proper Christmas songs, when you'd watch Top Of The Pops after dinner on Christmas Day and there'd be Slade or Paul McCartney or Mud rounding off the show with the Christmas Number 1. The whole EP gives off a slightly off-balance Christmas Party feel, with Frank's trademark riffs surfacing in both his own songs and his excellent cover versions of Mull Of Kintyre, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and his Christmas Medley, and banter between him and his nemesis/conscience/bobbins puppet little frank. I still have it.

Cherry Red will be donating some of the proceeds to charity in memory of Chris Sievey, Frank's creator and doppelganger, and if you're still looking for that special gift, the box set of all Frank's In Tape releases, his albums, some previously-banned tracks (the Beastie Puppets songs which the Beastie Boys' record company injuncted) and a DVD featuring his video version of Panic, is out on Monday 13th, just in time for the big day.

It has been said that, if you want a proper Christmas song doing, then Frank is your man. If you hark back to the Yule of Yore (and Mine), if you resent the Cowell machine using the top slot to feed his empire, then buy this song next Sunday. Let's take Number 1 back and make sure Christmas really is fantastic! Thank you.

Number 1? I'd Like To Thank...

Erin Thompson. Who she? She's the Head of Window Display & Merchandising at Selfridges, and it's her 2010 Christmas windows in Oxford Street and their misappropriation of Frank Sidebottom's image, that provoked the shitstorm which led to this blog receiving as much traffic in one weekend than its had since I started it. The story helped to compel an apology and "donation" to Chris Sievey's estate. For being part of that, I'll probably die happy.

Thanks also for the good wishes. I didn't set out with an agenda beyond occasionally poking the odd part of the beer-loving community with a stick, so what happened this month has never been part of my thinking about where the blog could go. December will likely see normal service resumed with Pete Brown or Mark Dredge at the top. Now that Cookie has abandoned Zak Avery to join "Team Boggle", that's a given. He's a Jonah. Given I don't tweet (and Twitter was the engine for what happened at the weekend), I imagine I'm destined to be the Bolton Wanderers of the beer blogosphere - fighting relegation successfully each season, with the odd foray into nosebleed territory and a place in Europe. Good enough.

I noticed that Wikio has started to publish rankings for the US beer bloggers, which has prompted the same type of navel-gazing we have here. Stan Hieronymous noted the current rankings here, with a nod to our own listings. US beer writer Andy Crouch (with whom I'm slightly acquainted) posted some thoughts on beer blogging on his website, Beerscribe.com. He has some interesting views. Then there's Ron Pattinson's post on why he does it.

I suppose there's something to what Andy is saying. I don't generally agree about the state of 'amateur' blogging but admit I'm not well-acquainted with the US blogging scene. If it's anything like BeerAdvocate or HateBeer fora, it'll be mind-numbing fare such as 'what's in your fridge?' If professional beer writers want to blog, they step into that pool knowing what it's like. Hopefully though, the best writing is aspirational. I feel that's the case over here. Some of the debate about leveraging blogs into PR vehicles has been had in the UK, led by Melissa Cole. I can say I've never been offered anything, and don't expect that to change. Cookie has that market pretty well stitched up, I feel. As for motive? Meh. It's the interwebs.

Still, the rankings got a kick up the backside for a month with Rabid Barfly making a prodigious leap, and the other big mover being the Adnams blog. Now to find another Frank story...

Selfridges Are Bobbins: A Social Networking Adventure

As I reported on Saturday, the swell of disquiet over Selfridges' apparently unauthorised use of Chris Sievey's Frank Sidebottom likeness built into a perfect storm that breached the media dam by Monday morning.

The story has all the right ingredients: a big company riding roughshod over the little man; an online community of offended and willing fans ready to mobilise; a celebrity (Jon Ronson was on the phone to Selfridges to complain); a viral transmission of the story via Twitter and other networks - the lot. This blog alone had over 5,000 hits in just over 36 hours as my previous post was shared across the interwebs.

In turn, larger websites like digitalspy.com picked up the vibe, and their feed found its way out. Local news sites started to get interested and finally, the BBC picked it up, interviewing the principals on the Sidey side for both local radio and their regional TV news programme. In the meantime, the store's Wikimedia page had the story added and the Independent's online edition was swamped with comments.

While the webz were humming, Chris' partner Gemma Woods had been contacted by Selfridges' Head of Window Display and Merchandising chaperoned by a representative from Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne, and a day of talks appears to have concluded with the store offering a sincere apology, a promise to credit Chris on the windows and in-store, and an offer of a £10,000 donation to his estate in lieu of use of the images. That sounds like Fairness For Frank, and a job well done for his family, friends and fans. And to think that a story that only came to light on Thursday when Selfridges launched their Xmas 2010 window could be turned around in a long weekend is a testament to the positive power of social networks.

The Shop That Died Of Shame

Each year, "Top Peoples' Shop" Selfridges (sorry, I don't know what a "Top Person" is) gets a lot of media play over their Christmas window displays. This year, with a theme of play, they invite customers and passers-by to reconnect with their inner child, lighting up their storefront all along Oxford Street with a riot of colour and cleverness based on Christmas Day in a dolls' house.

So far, so good. Then, this pic got picked up by several papers...


Could that be a female Frank Sidebottom? What a coincidence! The pic got picked up by some of the Frank Sidebottom fan groups on Facebook, with questions being asked about whether or not Selfridges had permission to use the likeness. Seems not - they hadn't approached anybody connected with the Sievey/Sidebottom estate. Well, after all, it could be Betty Boop. Right?

I went along this morning to see if there were any more faux Sidies. Oh yes. Several, in fact.









If that's Betty Boop, then I'm Walt Disney.

Selfridges ought to be ashamed of themselves for stealing a dead man's clothes, and I hope they do the right thing by either removing these heads from their display, or make a sizeable donation to the fund being set up to get a statue of the Great Man erected in Timperley.

Let's Get Fantastic Frank To Number One!

It's happening! iTunes are selling downloads of the 'new' Frank single Guess Who's Been On MOTD/The Robins Aren't Bobbins.

This is a live version (recorded at the Reading Festival, likely in 1989) of the song he wrote to mark his appearance on an FA Cup edition of MOTD in the late 80's, while The Robins Aren't Bobbins was written when he was Altrincham FCs official mascot at around the same time.

Both are classic Frank songs and his fans are eager to try and get him in this Sunday's chart, so please get along to iTunes and plonk your £1.58 in cyber-Samoleans down!

Sidie & Me: Remembering Frank And Chris

Chris Sievey, creator of Frank Sidebottom, was laid to rest last Friday. Fans had raised over £20,000 to give him a decent send-off when it was revealed he'd died virtually penniless. And those same fans are committed to getting him to Number 1 in the charts and having some kind of memorial to him in the town he made famous, Timperley, a small satellite of Altrincham just off the A56.

Chris Sievey drained his pint of Kronenbourg. His partner Gemma headed into the pub to get another round as we shot the shit and reminisced about London Frank Sidebottom psychogeography, and other things.

It was July 2007, and I was heading into The Morpeth Arms on Millbank for a lunchtime pint. Vicious mid-morning downpours had cleared away all the London summer fug, and the day was fresh and clean. I'd been to see Frank Sidebottom at his Chelsea Space Is Ace installation near Tate Britain and laughed myself stupid.

To mark the event, I was wearing a vintage "Shed Show" tee shirt I'd bought on a pilgrimage to Timperley in 1992, and I took my pint and sat outside. I was aware of a small group sitting to my right. They'd been there when I went in. I got on with sipping my pint of Youngs Ordinary when I was interrupted. The girl sitting with the group came over and asked if I'd like to join her and her friends. I looked over, but the penny didn't drop. I looked at her again, and vaguely recognised her as the girl with Frank at the show earlier. Then I realised that I was finally going to meet Chris, the man underneath the "pumpkin head".

_______

I first heard Frank on Mike Read's Radio 1 Breakfast Show. He was much taken with Frank's "Oh Blimey It's Christmas" record and played it repeatedly in the run-up to the 1985 festive season. At first, I thought it was a joke. Another Northern club-circuit comedian emulating Fred Wedlock and his "Oldest Swinger In Town". But I was curious. The song had a pleasing hook, and I loved the "oh! blimey!" I consulted a recent arrival from the NW who was a fellow City fan and member of Hacienda. He'd know. "Remember 'The Freshies'?" he asked. Yes, I did. I remembered their powerpop classic "I'm In Love With The Girl From The Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk". Well, Frank was Chris Sievey out of The Freshies.

Acquisitions and learning followed. The Timperley EP, "Space Is Ace", "Christmas Is Really Fantastic". Through his interpretations of other peoples' songs, he'd set out this entire parallel universe where he ran a showbiz empire out of his garden shed, had to hide his fame and stardom from his mum, and his list of chores would compete with his "showbusiness". His Jiminy Cricket in the form of little frank, was always rescuing Frank from scrapes, despite the fact that he was supposed to be Frank's ventriloquist puppet. It all seemed so normal, so easy to get into. I was totally hooked.

My first chance to see him came as a result of a phone conversation with Jon Ronson, who was then in Frank's Oh Blimey! Big Band. He was doing a Christmas gig at North London Poly and Ronson was selling the tickets. I rang to try and get hold of four. No dice. I asked if he was playing anywhere else, and learned he'd be playing in a pub called The Cricketers at Kennington Oval. Perfect! Just round the corner and tickets on the door.

The place was heaving. We got in and managed to force our way to the front. He did two sets, one an Xmas-themed medley, the other running through his greatest hits. At the interval, while he went to change, two of us drunkenly stormed all the toilets looking for him. We wanted pictures. Having failed miserably, at the end of the gig we tried to go behind the bar. "Sorry lads" we were politely but firmly rebuffed, "'e's taken 'is head off." And that was that.

His popularity grew, and as well as TV show appearances, he did the Reading Festival, produced a regular full-page comic strip in Oink! Comic (a sort of kiddie Viz), lecture tours and more records appeared through the early Nineties. By this time I was working in Germany. I used to try and get the BFBS DJs to play him. They'd go "eh?"

After two years I came home, and on my first weekend back, he was on at The Cricketers. No band this time. He came on stage with a dustbin and there was just the single keyboard that would become his main stage prop, along with little frank.

And that would be the last time I saw him live until 2006.

_______

Outside the Morpeth Arms that July afternoon, myself and another fan had a chance to recount our favourite Frank moments with Chris. He didn't realise the Chelsea Space was only 10 minutes from the former Cricketers pub he appeared at so many times. I recalled a Channel 4 documentary called "The Spirit Of Christmas", where numerous 'celebs' were invited to a full dinner and asked to ponder the meaning of it all. Frank had been booked, and chipped in that the Meaning Of Christmas was going out on Christmas Eve with your favourite auntie to buy Pink Paraffin. Warren Mitchell was there and took a serious dislike to him. Chris couldn't explain why, but he quite liked to idea of rubbing Alf Garnett up the wrong way.

He'd stopped 'being' Frank for over a decade, with only a greatest hits CD called 'A B C & D' being released in around 1998. When he came back, he explained away his absence from 'Showbiz' by saying his mum found out about his career and had made him get a proper job. That job was as an animator, a talent he put to excellent use by making a pilot episode of 'Frank's World', 11 minutes of subversive, clever and literate animation.

In 2006, word came out that Frank had been booked to appear at one of Chelsea's shows called Researching/Samuel Beckett. He turned up and did a bizarre double-act with a 'Darlek' fabricated by a couple of Chelsea College of Arts students. He 'narrated' all of the Beckett exhibit on the basis that Sam had nicked all of his ideas from Frank and the proof was in the correspondence. Then he did a duet of 'Anarchy In The UK' with the Darlek as it discharged Co2 all over the place.

That same summer, Late At Tate did an Evening With Frank Sidebottom, where his Mark Kennedy-created mosaic was unveiled. Frank sits at the centre, surrounded by Mark Radcliffe, Jon Ronson, Caroline Aherne as Mrs Merton, and Chris Evans. The event also premiered his 'Frank's World' animation pilot. His association with the Art Space and Tate Britain continued into 2007 when he 'hosted' his Chelsea Space Is Ace installation and performed at the August 2007 Late At Tate evening.

In the meantime, Channel M based at Urbis in Manchester had given him a TV show. Part performance, part chat show, part showing 'Frank's World'; part vox-pop. He memorably ambushed Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to ask what colour pens they wrote their scripts with.

After our afternoon with Chris, I was able to spend a little more time with both he and Gemma. I watched with a mixture of amusement and horror as he closed the Chelsea Space Is Ace event by repainting the entire front of the Art Space. He never said a word, he was Francois Sidè-Bottem. Mime-like, he took bottles of poster paint and, having painted the glass screens, included the porous sandstone front and the uplighters set into the ground.

When it was all over and he re-appeared as Chris, we all sat on the ground and watched as the Art Space volunteers tried to clean the paint off with liberal applications of water, only succeeding in diluting the paint into the stone facade. Later, over a pint, when I recounted all this to Director of Exhibitions Donald Smith, he looked at me sternly. "I had to come back and get him to apologise to one of the volunteers", he said. Then his face cracked into a rueful smile. "I just wish I could have seen it", he said.

I last saw Chris in Brighton at The Albert at the end of 2007. I had a quick chat before he got his head on and did a cracking show for the 80-odd squeezed into the performance space upstairs at the pub.

His creation has given me 25 years of joy. Amidst the feelings of loss and sadness, there are the little regrets. I wish I could have seen him in New York. His account of his day trip to New York is classic. I wish I could have been on one of his 'Sunday With Sidie' open-top bus tours and events. And I really wish he'd taken on board my idea of a game show called 'Stars In Your Big Blue Eyes'. A rip-off of the Matthew Kelly-hosted impersonations show, in this version, Frank would compere while celebs had to perform as him.

But, he also left a substantial body of work, which I hope won't be allowed to disappear from view. That would just be bobbins.

Bard Of Timperley, R.I.P.

Dreadful news reaches me that Frank Sidebottom, "pop star, musician and author, and all-rounder on TV", passed away in the early hours of this morning, after collapsing at home.

Frank (in real life, alter ego Chris Sievey) had recently been diagnosed with cancer and had had operations to remove a tumour and insert a breathing tube. He'd said he intended to continue working, but his agent is quoted on the BBC News website as saying he may have been more ill than he let on, wanting to spare his loved ones additional worry.


He was a true genius. As well as his musical career, Chris was a gifted artist and animator, working on Pingu and developing his own "Frank's World" animated series. Truly an all-rounder. If you grew up with kids' telly in the late 80's you'd have seen him on ITV's "No. 73", he worked with Tony Wilson, recorded an epic series of EPs and covered the country performing shows and lectures.

As recently as 2007, an exhibition at Chelsea Art Space on London's Millbank entitled "Chelsea Space Is Ace" was acclaimed by Art Forum magazine as the third best exhibit globally that year.

His loss is a tragedy, and I'll miss him.

"pop star, musician and author, and all-rounder on TV" is a line from his classic "Love Poem For Kylie"