Documentary about Marianne Faithfull followed by a live performance of her songs by Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Anna Calvi and Rufus Wainwright.
Broken English comes to Harbour Lights Picturehouse on Monday 27 July, and it's a double bill: the film followed by a live performance. The movie is a documentary portrait of singer, songwriter and icon Marianne Faithfull, made with her full involvement and directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the BAFTA-nominated directors of the Sundance award-winning 20,000 Days on Earth. They describe it as an intimate and unflinching exploration of a life shaped by fame, creativity and relentless public scrutiny, and it unfolds inside 'The Ministry of Not Forgetting', an imagined cinematic institution where memory and mythology collide.
The screen version runs 99 minutes and carries a 15 certificate, but the full evening extends to 150 minutes as the house band and guest artists work their way through Faithfull's songbook. The live part is a proper line-up: Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Anna Calvi and Rufus Wainwright all take turns on her songs, backed by the film's house band led by MD Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey) and featuring Ed Harcourt, Adrian Utley (Portishead), Colin Greenwood (Radiohead) and Anna Phoebe. Actor Samantha Morton also joins in, reading a poem from Faithfull's album She Walks In Beauty.
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So you get the documentary first, then the live set that stretches the whole thing to two and a half hours. The performance may contain haze and strobe, and the film is rated 15, so keep that in mind if you're bringing anyone younger. It's at Harbour Lights Picturehouse in Southampton on Monday 27 July.
