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The piece started in the familiar way of charting the early life of young Gadd. Brought up in an orphanage he was unwilling and unable to mix with other kids and seemed only interested in music. Sure enough at the tender age of 13 he had started his own band – there was a brief interview ... Read review
Advantages: A well-crafted documentary Disadvantages: Uncomfortable subject-matter
On the 30th of July this year Channel 4 showed a one-off documentary about the rise and fall of Paul Gadd, otherwise known as the outrageous rock and roll star Gary Glitter. As I was out of the country for a while in 1997/98 I missed news coverage of his fall from grace, so was interested to snuggle down with hubby on the sofa to find out what all the fuss had been about.
This Diverse North documentary was introduced with a warning: ... ...initially suspected.
The piece started in the familiar way of charting the early life of young Gadd. Brought up in an orphanage he was unwilling and unable to mix with other kids and seemed only interested in music. Sure enough at the tender age of 13 he had started his own band – there was a brief interview with the “drummer” who fondly remembered that his drum set was actually a series of hat boxes!
On the 30th of July this year Channel 4 showed a one-off documentary about the rise and fall of Paul Gadd, otherwise known as the outrageous rock and roll star Gary Glitter. As I was out of the country for a while in 1997/98 I missed news coverage of his fall from grace, so was interested to snuggle down with hubby on the sofa to find out what all the fuss had been about.
This Diverse North documentary was introduced with a warning: not suitable for the easily upset or offended: oh no methinks, perhaps it is to be more of a roller-coaster than I had initially suspected.
The piece started in the familiar way of charting the early life of young Gadd. Brought up in an orphanage he was unwilling and unable to mix with other kids and seemed only interested in music. Sure enough at the tender age of 13 he had started his own band – there was a brief interview with the “drummer” who fondly remembered that his drum set was actually a series of hat boxes!
We witness the increasingly fame-hungry teenager seeking, with some success, his road to Damascus in Germany with a string of groups such as Bucket and the Boston Show Band and then the meeting of minds between his new producer Mike Leander and the newly packaged “Gary Glitter” in 1971. The producers interviewed a variety of people from this part of Glitter’s life and they were all clear that Leander was the mastermind of the “first manufactuered pop star.”
And what a success he was to be too.
During the 1970’s Gary Glitter was to score no fewer than 11 top ten hits in the UK starting with the junglesque “Rock and Roll parts I & II”. (Come on, you all know them: Do Ya Wanna Touch, Love to be Back, Leader of the Gang…)
So far so good, I have always had a soft spot for the pouting naughtiness and sliver platform boots of the Glam Rock Seventies – just enough time to make the obligatory cup of coffee in the ad-break, and straight back to the sofa with me…
The music turns more sombre and the second half of the show concentrates on the “other side” of the increasingly egocentric star. Cut to an interview with Justine Ackroyd, a lovely calm woman in her early thirties having a cup of coffee in her kitchen. It turns out that Justine was a friend of Paul Gadd’s daughter Sarah when she was growing up. (Gadd had married at age 19, fathered a child and then left at the age of 20!).
Slowly this documentary pieces together a story of rape and child abuse alleged by Justine. Her memories are deeply upsetting but very believable. The language she uses when talking about what her friends father did to her are haunting and made believable by the childish words she uses to express the feelings she had as that child. Justine was eight years old when the alleged abuse took place. Frightening? Moving? I should say so.
The producers walk us through the slow decline in the early Eighties of Gary Glitter into drunkeness and drug-abuse as he fails to come to terms with the new interest in Punk Rock taking over from the “last fashion” of Glam Rock. In 1980 he is declared bankrupt.
It is here that his life takes yet another turn: Gary Glitter meets and moves in with the Brown family who take in the otherwise destitute failing star and treat him like the son they never had. By the time their youngest daughter Allison is eighteen, she and Glitter decide to set up a home of their own. The documentary-makers credit Allison was “saving” Glitter from himself: she gets him off the booze and the drugs, he becomes a Budhist and a vegetarian and even runs three miles before breakfast every morning!
The newly-trimmed and healthy Glitter starts a slow come-back, starting with the University circuit, laughing at himseslf in a self-depricating and charming way on the Russell Harty show (Aww, Rest in Peace Russell) and even sending himself up in advertisements.
This documentary is really very clever at showing the new “acceptable face” of Gary Glitter, the man who you should have once locked your daughters away from had become a charming joker – more proof needed? They even show footage of Gary Glitter appearing on Children in Need!
Cut to Justine. Justine tells of meeting Glitter again, now that she is an anorexic fourteen: how he asks if she remembers their “evening together” and if she would care to slip into the bathroom with him. Justine is able to make her escape this time.
Finally the walls come tumbling down for Gary Glitter, on November 18th 1997 he takes his computer to be mended and when over 4000 images of child pornography are found on it the police are called. Allegations of down-loading child pornography at set against Glitter as are 5 others of indecent assault and 4 further serious sexual offences.
Allison Brown reveals that her relationship had started with Glitter when she was 14 but the case falls down, but the Guilty plea from him to the computer pornography stands and Paul Gadd is sentenced to a 4 month jail sentence.
Of course there was no interview with Paul Gadd himself in this documentary so one is always careful to consider if it really was a rounded picture of events. However, it did not seem to be treated in a sensational way and the interview with Justine is truly new information, and is sensitively treated.
For a one hour documentary a great many people are interviewed and the style is simple, straight-forward and well edited. Although not a fly on the wall approach, the interviewers and voice-overs never dominate, but serve to bring out the information as succinctly and powerfully as possible.
Overall this was never going to be pleasant viewing, but it is good British programme-making.
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