Filmmaker Jes Benstock On His Andrew Logan Documentary, The British Guide To Showing Off

Filmmaker Jes Benstock talks about the artist Andrew Logan, the Alternative Miss World show, and his rambunctious documentary, The British Guide to Showing Off

What was your impression of Andrew Logan when you met him for the first time in 2004?

“It's funny because I expected him to be totally over the top, and yet he was so domestic and domesticated, and vicar-like, really. He was like an English vicar more than anything else . . . You'd never think of him as being shy, but he has a kind of shyness about him. Not all the time, but he likes quietness as well. Anyway, it seemed totally at odds with the extravagance of the [Alternative Miss World] event, so I was delighted.”

Do you think the show creates a space that gives people permission to be the outrageous people they want to be?

“Absolutely. Christine Binnie, who was one of the Neo Naturists, said that being around Andrew, he gives you licence. He gives you licence to be a diva, or whatever is you want to be for the night. You never feel a sense of being censured for what you're doing. He is an endless encourager.”

Did you see any examples of that during your time with him?

“You know, he comes across as a bit of a straight edge. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, although he did, as we know from the film, take acid. I sort of realised how cheeky he was when one time we were filming, he was showing me this hand mirror that he had made, and on the back of the hand mirror was this face, and he said, 'Oh yes, look at the nose.' You could take the nose off and it was a coke holder. Even though he didn't do [coke] himself, he knew so many people who did, so he thought, 'Well, that's what they want. It's a nice mirror, with a nose that comes off.'”

He knows his clientele.

“But he also enjoys the cheekiness of it. He is not at all afraid of stepping over any boundaries. I don't think he acknowledges them, actually.”

Is the cheekiness and mischievousness part of what makes the AMW quintessentially British?

“Yeah, I think it's definitely a very important part of it. Cheekiness doesn't respect money at all. And you get the feeling that if this show was in America, or pretty much anywhere else in the world, they'd be so concerned about the money side that they might get a bit upset if people suggested things that were a bit naughty, or did something that was a bit naughty. People might then tell them off afterwards or something. Which doesn't happen at all with the Alternative Miss World. So yes, I think that's one element of the Britishness.”

Has the show become more radical, or more alternative, the more homogeneous a lot of pop culture has become?

“I think it just appears so. I think it was always very radical. If you think about when it was first started, it was only a few years after the repealing of the laws against gay men being together, full stop. Also, the first show was only a few months after the first gay rights march in London. Although the show itself is not politicised, it fits comfortably within a world which is politicised, or is satirical.”

Something I liked about the AMW show watching your film is the way that it's about people being themselves, and not being moulded like on, say, the X Factor.

“Yeah, I agree. The whole point about what Andrew does, and they talk about it a lot in the run up to the show, is about encouraging people to break out of their own confines. So yeah, I think the X Factor is very of our time in the sense that people don't really care how they become famous or why they become famous. It is just that they must somehow become famous.”

And Andrew doesn't seem to care how professional or amateur people are, so long as they're being true to themselves.

“He doesn't care, everyone can have a go. That's very much a part of his philosophy: everyone should have a go and shouldn't be judged on having a go. And I guess that's where he departs from the X Factor stuff in the sense that in the X Factor if you have a go and you're not very good, then it's quite right that you should be chucked out. Whereas for him, if you have a go and you're not very good, you're still included.”
 

It almost seems like he was Punk before Punk.

“Yeah, Peter York is very interesting on this. He wrote an article called for Harpers & Queen in the mid '70s which was about Logan and his scene, and in that he does this amazing description of them and the way that they dress. But what was interesting was that at the end of that article, he says something like, 'The Punk scene has more to owe to them than they would like to admit.' Because the whole Punk scene was populated by people from Andrew Logan's world. In '75, a lot of people went from Glam and then came out as Punk, started dressing punky. People like Zandra Rhodes, of course, who was pioneering with her Punk clothing. Vivienne [Westwood] and Malcolm [Maclaren] were also part of that scene, before they publicly turned against it. Although privately they were still involved.”

So when the Sex Pistols played at Andrew's Valentine's Ball, at his Butler's Wharf studio, in 1976, it wasn't a collision of cultures but one emerging from the other?

“Totally. Up to that point, Vivienne and Malcolm had been coming to Andrew's dos and shows. And they had been to the Alternative Miss World the year before. That's why they chose the venue, because they saw the debauchery and licentiousness that went on at the 1975 show and thought, 'Well, we'll have some of that.'”

Andrew's siblings feature prominently in the film. When did their importance in the story become clear to you?

“After a couple of years of spending time with him. In 2004, his sister Janet and his brother Quentin were brilliant and hilarious, so I knew they were really important. His mum had just died, so I never got to meet his mum. I knew he dedicated the 2004 show to her but I don't think I really took it in. But they did, Andrew and Michael [Davis, his life partner], because I had just finished a film about family and the importance of family ties to coping with suicide and mental illness, Orders of Love, and they'd seen that and they loved that, and they said, 'You're the only person who's talked about the threads throughout the years.' They didn't mention family, they didn't talk about it at all, because it's so taken for granted. So it was just spending time and realising, 'Oh, Janet keeps turning up. Quentin keeps turning up. I keep hearing about Peter and I keep being given discs of music that Peter got together for Andrew,' and slowly I got to meet them all.”

What was the picture that emerged?

“I realised that, of course, Andrew isn't at the centre of the family, the parents were. And they're all their own people. They're all very strong and they're all very interesting. But Andrew could not do what he has done over the years without their support. He couldn't have done the first eight Alternative Miss Worlds without Peter and Richard. They wouldn't have been the same at all.”

Their parents encouraged them to play and to express themselves. Is Andrew giving to other people what his parents gave to him and his siblings?

“Maybe, yes. I think he is definitely passing on. He doesn't have kids, he is a very uncle-y figure, and, you know, in order to feel part of the world, you have to pass stuff on. And I think he does it tremendously through his life, really, not just through his work. Everything he does is about trying to make people feel better about themselves and about the world, in quite a striking way.”

So did you find this an inspirational world to go into?

“Massively, yeah. It was a huge inspiration. Andrew himself, of course, is very inspirational, but so are many of the people around him, or the people I met as a result. I'm thinking in particular of Duggie Fields, Molly Parkin and Bruce Lacey. Molly's going to be 80 next year, Bruce had just turned 80 when I met him, and Duggie's a contemporary of Andrew's, so he's in his 60s: they're all such great artists and they keep the faith with their work, and they keep at it. And it doesn't matter to them the level of recognition that they get, it's much more about doing the work.”

Have you taken something away from that yourself?

“Yes, in the film world it's quite hard to just keep doing but it really inspired me to encourage myself to get together not just scripts, not just development ideas, but actually shoot things. Actually make things. Go out and shoot a documentary. Go out and shoot something. And then see if there's a market for it. But don't be afraid of doing it in the first place because the more that you delay, the less you make. And the less you make, the less happy you are.”

The British Guide to Showing Off is out now

© Stephen Applebaum, 2011

Andrew Logan: Artist And Alternative Miss World Founder

Flamboyant London artist Andrew Logan, 66, discusses Jes Benstock's affectionate documentary The British Guide to Showing Off

There have been films made about the Alternative Miss World before. How was this presented to you and how was it different, conceptually, to the other films?

“Ever since I began, every single event has been filmed and documented.The first one was [Jack Hazan's film about David Hockney] A Bigger Splash, wasn't it? It really started with that one. I just felt that, living in a world where things are easy to be archived, it was an important thing to do. They're such wonderful events, I quite wanted people to be able to have a little glimpse of them."

So how did Jes Benstock's film about the staging of the 2009 event come about?

“We had three people up for the 2004 Alternative Miss World event,  which was held at the Hippodrome in Leicester Square, and we met three of the filmmakers. Two of them were very businesslike, and the third was Jes Benstock. I think he had an award-winning film and we just got on, really. So he documented the 2004 and went away edited it. And then he came back and said he would very much like to, in fact, cover all the events and my life. He felt it was an important part he wanted to give to humanity."

How long did he follow you for?

“For about two years. And then he spent two years editing. So it was truly quite a remarkably long time [laughs].”

Were you comfortable being followed around like that? You do seem – in fact everybody seems – comfortable on camera in the film.

“[Raucous laughter] I think, Stephen, you just have to get used to it. And he's such a nice man and all the people that work for him were very nice. So I think if you've got nice people around you, it doesn't really matter. He's part of the family now." 

Were you brought up around film?

"My parents never had movie cameras and things like that. Derek [Jarman, his friend] had quite an archive that his father shot, but I never had that. But I've always enjoyed being in front of the lens, I think. Showing off, really.”

Your art is very flamboyant so do you see it all as performance, in a way?

“Oh yes. When people say, 'What do you want to be called?' I say 'sculptor', because to me that embraces everything I do, from the small pieces like the little scuptured jewellary to the big one: the Alternative Miss World. It is still, to me, a sculpture. It's just working with a lot of people and they all have this amazing input.”

The Alternative Miss World is an ephemeral, one-night only event. So is that why it's also been important to document it?

“Well yes and no. I mean I do quite like ephemeral as well, because like all of us, we're only here for a split second really. We think we're here forever, but we're not. So it's really, I suppose, a reflection of our lives. But then I just think it's such an inspiration for future generations, hopefully.”

Were you surprised by the way the event took off and the way that it captured people's imaginations? Did you think, when you first did it in 1972, that it was going to be a one off?

“Every time I come out on stage or appear, there is an atmosphere that I've never felt anywhere else. And so far I have the same feeling every time I come out. It's just warmth, really. Just a warmth and expectation. It's just this feeling. I would like to carry on until I drop, really. And also because I think it's fascinating going over different generations. There are people who are now entering that are children of people who entered originally. So it goes from generation to generation. And it's such a simple idea. I suppose I do give it my little angle.”

Does each event, then, feel like the first time in a way?

“Almost, yes. Although organisation-wise it tends to get more difficult. I think when we first started we simply woke up in the morning and said, 'We'll do it,' and just did it. Now, of course, there's so many restrictions put on events and things.”

I got from the film that while you love the party, the organisational bit is not your favourite part.

“[Laughs] And that's part of it, I suppose. I've lived through it and come out the other end. Which is what's so wonderful. You do come out at the end and the event was exactly the same as before.”

Do you ever do these events to coincide with or as a reaction to events on the social and political landscape? In the film, Michael Cashman says he saw the event he co-hosted as a response to Clause 28, for instance.

“No, no, it comes entirely from me, I think [laughs]. I do it when I feel the time is right. Or I could be prompted. I remember Piers Atkinson, who is an up and coming Milliner now, and he was at the time working for me, some years ago, and he was sitting in the back of the car and said, 'Oh, why don't you another Alternative Miss World?' and I said 'Good idea.' And I did it. So sometimes it can be literally a response to somebody. It happens in mysterious ways, I never know what will happen. As an artist, I kind of open myself up to the world, which is important. So you open yourself up and all this stuff comes pouring through you, and sometimes you click in and sometimes not. I think that is exactly what the Alternative Miss World is saying: I will open myself up and see what happens.”

You talk in the film about transformation and people transforming themselves. Does this bring it into line with your work in general, because much of what you do is about transforming found materials into works of art?

“Absolutely. So that's very much the same, yes. The transformation. Through the different generations different transformations occur. Of course, I must say, I will see a costume come on and I'll think, 'Oh, that was 1978' or something. But they are different, of course. Nothing is original, as we all know. It's all interpretations of . . . . It's the same with this event.”

Do you think that through this process people sometimes discover things about themselves?

“Yes. I don't think we've ever had a baby born at the event but we've certainly had marriages formed and things like that. Life and death occurs. I think people do discover parts of their lives that they might have ignored or didn't know existed.”

Do you think there's a possibility that people then come away from it more complete?

“Yes, my message is about joy and happiness. Celebrating life. I think people forget it, don't they? They have so many pressures. So I'm hopefully there to be able to encourage them to realise this fact.”

Are you, in a way, giving people the space to play in that your parents seem to have given you and your siblings as children?

“I hand't thought of it like that, Stephen, but I think perhaps you're right. Yes, you're given a framework and you [play] within it. I give the contestants the day and the place and the time and everything, and then they do anything they want.”

I wonder if people sometimes feel that they need permission to express the more outragous aspects of their personality, and that's what you give them?

“I think this is true. As I said, there are so many limitations being put on us all the time.”

In the film it mentions that you had an experience with acid. How defining was that in terms of the way that you subsequently pursued your art?

“It gave me the confidence to actually create the art. Until then I had been an architecture student and thought about making things and doing things, but never had. I didn't have the confidence, which I think a lot of young people don't. Mine happened to be through that little trip. I only had one and I never touched it ever again. But it can come through other ways as well. This event, possibly will give people that confidence or make them think suddenly they want a change.”

How important was becoming part of the London scene in the early 70s?

“I suppose the London at that time was very open and the artistic community was very small. And fashion, really, things were very open. You could just move one to another. Everyone had gone to New York in the Seventies, so London was ignored, which was fabulous, because it was like a playground. You could just do anything.”

You went to New York but it didn't work out for you. Why was it a bad fit for you?

“Well there was a famous gallery downtown, I think Any Warhol was exhibited there, and I showed the guy my book of sculptures I had done, the Biba roof garden and things, and he just looked up at me and said, 'Smiling is out this year. Good bye.' So, as I say in the film, I became almost an alcoholic. Everywhere I went I was rejected. Everywhere. I was just interested.”

You've never lost your kind of joyful outlook. Has it been difficult at times to retain that?

“Of course there's pressures and things. I think you have to work on these things. That's why I took up yoga, which I've been doing quite seriously. And it's funny because it was age 50, I think, when my body suddenly said, 'I want to do yoga.' It wasn't my decision, it just happened. It was announced.”

You say in the film that if something is not flowing then it's probably not supposed to happen. So is this how you have led your life in general?

“It may indicate another direction, yes. So if something happens it means you just have to step sideways and you'll see another door, and you go through that door.”

How did you feel what you watched the film for the first time?

“[Laughs] I felt very humble. And yet, one thing that I thought that was fantastic was that Jes has created an entity. Okay, it's about the Alternative Miss World and me, and Michael [Davis, his life partner] and my art, and life and everything, but he has created something that stood up by itself. I just thought that was magical. He had created this living being. The message of joy really. He had created the message.”

The British Guide to Showing Off is out now

©Stephen Applebaum, 2011