Tim Burton is to switch on the illuminations... is this the sort of cool Blackpool needs?
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.I was about to write that August 2015 is a good time for Blackpool, but it would be naive to be straightforwardly cheerful about the town that gave us the “brides in the bath” murders of George Joseph Smith, or was chosen as the setting for a Channel 4 documentary series called 999: What’s Your Emergency?.(Much to the council’s relief, a proposed follow-up called Holiday Hospital 999 was cancelled.)
On the other hand, the Front has been expensively refurbished and visitor numbers are up. And Nick Hornby’s novel Funny Girl, about Barbara Parker, who is crowned Miss Blackpool in 1964 (she later spurns the title), is in paperback. Blackpool’s illuminations feature in the most praised passages of Andrew O’Hagan’s Man Booker longlisted novel, The Illuminations (but, this being literary fiction, they symbolise something more than just having a lovely time in the resort).
Tim Burton, celebrated director of Edward Scissorhands, is to switch on those illuminations early next month. This is a coup for Blackpool. Burton’s Hollywood pedigree means that he eclipses such recent switchers-on as Jonathan Ross and Peter Kay. Moreover, Burton is a Blackpool regular. In 2012 he directed a video in Blackpool for “Here With Me” by The Killers. As with all Burton works, everyone in it looks nearly dead. He has also filmed scenes of a forthcoming feature, a more prolonged near-death experience called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, in the town.
It kicks off with a murder, and I wonder why so many Blackpool dramas begin with a death, whether it be that of a mill girl in the play Hindle Wakes or a young man murdered in an amusement arcade in the BBC TV series Blackpool? But I wonder (a) whether Blackpool isn’t already perceived as gothic enough without Burton; and (b) whether he likes Blackpool partly because he doesn’t like it – which is my own position.
When I visit it I can’t decide whether I mind that it’s overrun by half-naked young women on hen dos (there are worse things to be overrun by, I suppose). Is it terrible or charming that guest houses were still advertising “colour TV in lounge” until well into the 1990s? When, a few days after 9/11, I saw Osama bin Laden face masks on sale, I couldn’t decide whether this was admirable or really quite frightening. And is a stick of rock shaped like an erect penis an amusing artefact?
Brighton had its trunk murders, and still has its seamy side, but when I think of Brighton I think of sunshine. When I think of Blackpool I think of the illuminations, which are a sort of embracing of the dark.
The employment of Burton, king of the undead, suggests the same. He’s cool, yes – but is it the wrong sort of cool for the town at this (possibly) promising juncture?
Andrew Martin’s novel The Yellow Diamond will be published by Faber in November
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments