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Never Apologise: An Exhibition from the Lindsay Anderson Archive

Four stars

 Lindsay Anderson’s status as Britain’s great lost outsider filmmaker has long seen the anti-establishment auteur behind If… (1968), O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982) championed by the University of Stirling, which holds Anderson’s considerable archive. To marks the centenary of Anderson’s birth, the life and work of this self-styled anarchist shows rarely seen production stills, theatre programmes, press cuttings and writings, with each section punctuated by written commentary from key collaborators.

 

Anderson’s stage work at the Royal Court is acknowledged alongside his films, while his contribution to television is marked by angry broadsides from columnists outraged by his radical production of Alan Bennett’s play, The Old Crowd (1979). There are images too from The Whales of August (1987), Anderson’s final feature prior to his death in 1994. This brought together veteran Hollywood stars Lillian Gish and Bette Davis  in an elegiac swansong for all involved. Artist Stephen Sutcliffe contributes two blown-up publicity images of Arthur Lowe and Christine Noonan from his 2007 Anderson inspired exhibition at The Changing Room Gallery in Stirling, Is That All There is?

 

One of the most fascinating images on show is of Anderson flanked by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of 1980s popsters, Wham! After Anderson was hired to film the duo’s tour of China – the first by any western band since the Cultural Revolution. Anderson’s unseen cut of the film saw him removed from the project in a way outlined in a glorious litany of defiance shown here. The photograph of the incongruous trio is the perfect illustration of the sort of contradictions the decade threw up, as the worlds of commerce, art and public relations collided. As Anderson wrote, however,  ‘No art is worth much that doesn’t seek to change the world.’ 

 

MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling, Until 30 April.

 

ends

 

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