Simone
Lahbib has come a long way since she posed for a photograph on the stairs of
the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh one night way back in the 1980s. There she is,
the then twenty-something future star of prime-time TV shows such as Bad Girls,
Monarch of the Glen and Wire in the Blood, perched in front of the window
sporting a little black dress and a hat of plastic fruit, looking every inch
the girl about town. The trade union sign championing the NHS beside her is the
perfect counterpoint. In an unemployment-riven era when Lahbib’s generation
were terminally skint, a revolt into style made politics and partying
after-hours bed-fellows in the same just cause of creating a scene.
Only
now, however, has the black and white picture of the Stirling-born actress made
her a cover star. The cover in question is that of Nite Life During Wartime:
Edinburgh and beyond 1980-90. This second of photographer and writer Innes
Reekie’s occasional series of pocket-sized photo-books archiving a past gone mad
is launched in an edition published by Jeremy Thoms’ Stereogram imprint at the
capital’s Stills photography gallery next week.
Reekie’s
previous volume, Sometimes Pleasureheads Must Burn: The Birthday Party and
beyond 1982-89, also published by Stereogram, focused on Nick Cave’s former
band captured on a trip to Edinburgh. The follow-up, the Talking Heads
referencing Nite Life During Wartime, immortalises a moment during roughly the
same period when Edinburgh was brought to life by its own characters.
Edinburgh
contemporaries of Lahbib included former Josef K singer Paul Haig, Associates
vocalist Billy MacKenzie and future front-woman of Garbage, Shirley Manson. High
on a post-punk anything goes mentality, they had stars in their eyes and ideas
and attitude aplenty. There were bands to be formed and parties to be crashed,
with the social whirl moving from Edinburgh Wine Bar on Hanover Street, to the
City Café on Blair Street and the Hoochie Coochie club in Tollcross.
“I have
such great memories of the old days in Edinburgh,” says the now London-based
Lahbib. “I was there the other day, and me and a friend had a wander around,
and reminisced about the flats we’d shared and the places we went to, and all
the second-hand shops we used to go to. All the clothes I’m wearing in the
pictures in the book are all second-hand, partly because that’s all we could
afford, but partly because everything then was about being original, and being
creative.”
Also featured in Nite Life During Wartime are
images of dancer and choreographer Michael Clark captured during the Edinburgh
International Festival run of his ballet, I Am Curious Orange, featuring The
Fall. There are shots too of Edinburgh post-punk irregulars such as Boots for
Dancing, Fini Tribe and So You Think You’re a Cowboy, as well as poet Paul
Reekie. Beyond Edinburgh after dark, there are moody images of the now
demolished Leith Central Station, plus photographs from Reekie’s adventures in
eastern Europe after fleeing the UK’s own hard-line reactionary forces.
“It was
the height of Thatcher’s Britain,” says Lahbib, “and it’s really interesting that
in the picture I’m standing next to the sign, because as I’ve got older, saving
the NHS is one of the things I’ve become passionate about. So even though I
probably wasn’t that politically aware at the time, it’s still had an effect.”
Lahbib
originally trained as a dancer, and spent four years at ballet school. By the
time the image adorning the cover of Nite Life During Wartime was taken, she
had already made her onscreen debut in the title role of Cary Parker’s piece of
big-screen 1980s Glasgow whimsy, The Girl in the Picture. Although the part was
small, it gave her the taste for something more.
Rather
than capitalise on her film experience straight away, Lahbib decided to learn
her craft, and studied drama at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh. Early
stage work included Wildcat’s production of Oh, What a Lovely War, with stints
on Taggart before she moved to London. Once there, she was cast as a regular in
long-running London-region only TV soap, London Bridge. From there she moved
into cop show Thief Takers before appearing alongside Forbes Masson and Stephen
McCole in Skins creator Brian Elsley’s mini-series, The Young Person’s Guide to
Being a Rock Star.
Lahbib
moved into the mainstream by way of three series of Bad Girls, before
eventually joining Monarch of the Glen and appearing opposite Robson Green in
Wire in the Blood. Lahbib also ran a performing school for young people. This
led to her founding a children’s’ acting agency after one of her charges, Dylan
McKiernan, was cast in Ken Loach’s film, I, Daniel Blake. Lahbib’s now
thirteen-year-old daughter, Skye, meanwhile, has appeared in several series’ of
Grantchester, playing her mum’s former co-star Robson Green’s daughter. Lahbib
also co-runs her own producing house, Contro Vento, with her husband, actor
Raffaella Degruttola, with several films under their belt.
Now back
acting and producing full time, with a number of projects due for release, for
Lahbib, Nite Life During Wartime is a step into a time and a place when she and
her generation were on the cusp of making it.
“Going
round all my old haunts and seeing Innes’ pictures has really taken me back,”
she says. “There were all these people having fun, having adventures and doing
these really creative things that were about to take off. Innes was a part of
that, but he was also taking all these pictures of everything that was going
on. Clever him.”
Nite
Life During Wartime: Edinburgh and beyond 1980-90 by Innes Reekie is launched
at Stills Centre for Photography, Edinburgh on June 20, 6.30-9pm.
The Herald, June 15th 2019
ends
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