Alice Lowe and Steve Oram spent seven years developing the script for Sightseers before it was picked up by producer/director Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead fame. They then enlisted director Ben Wheatley, whose genre-bending 2011 film Kill List is one of the finest horror films to emerge out of recent British cinema, and Sightseers finally came to life.

The film follows Tina (Lowe), who is whisked away from her home in the West Midlands where she lives with her neurotic mother (Eileen Davies) by her new boyfriend Chris (Oram). They embark on a romantic caravanning trip across the heritage sites of the English countryside, but what begins as the perfect British holiday quickly descends into something much darker, as Chris’s intolerance of litterbugs, noisy teenagers and “Daily-Mail readers” reveals a tendency to murder anyone who threatens the peace of his idealistic escapade. Although Tina is shocked that her lover is a serial killer, she insists that the unexpected turn of events will not ruin their short holiday together. 

An unexpected and critically acclaimed hit during awards season, the film achieves exactly what a self-proclaimed ‘black comedy’ should: it doesn’t deliver a succession of blows which alternate between slapstick hilarity and cheap shock, but instead slips between the genres seamlessly and unpredictably, placing the audience in an unnerving position where we genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or recoil. Although the film has widely (and rightly) been hailed as one of 2012’s funniest pictures – Oram and Lowe’s performances as sightseeing brummies are pitched to comic perfection, and the interplay between the couple has all the warm domestic banality you’d expect – the most striking thing about the film is how genuinely unsettling it is, a dynamic which responses to the film have overlooked. Wheatley’s intense naturalism is almost surreal, and the way the film has been put together is reminiscent of the unconventional editing in Kill List, where the camera cuts away just when scenes seem to be gathering pace, or lingers after logical cut-away beats. The result is a strange rhythm which leaves the audience searching for meaning in places where there is none to be had. Notably eerie yet genuinely heart-warming in places, the complexity of tone in itself makes this film a sight you want to see. 

I spoke to Steve Oram about his experiences making the film.

Congratulations for winning ‘Best British Film’ at the Jameson Empire Awards on Sunday. Have you been surprised by the critical response to the film and how much people have embraced it? 

Very much so, yeah. It’s been a bit of a dream because we went into it with slightly low expectations, what with it being a low-budget British dark comedy. It’s always difficult for films like ours to do well, but it’s been amazing. It’s been embraced by people and we’ve been totally delighted and surprised. We were up against Skyfall and Les Mis for that award and we all kind of thought, ‘There’s no way we’re going to get this.’ So thank-you, Empire readers.  

Where did the idea come from?

It came from a sketch that Alice and I did at a show called ‘Ealing Live’ about seven years ago. It was just us being brummies, big brummies who go to castles and then kill people, and it made us laugh a lot. We kind of made it into a sketch and then those humble origins became the film over a long period of time.

You and Alice Lowe were developing the idea of Sightseers for a long time. Was it difficult to hand over the directing responsibility to somebody else? 

Yeah, it is difficult of course, but it’s a necessary part of the process, and it’s important that we had someone we trusted. We knew Ben [Wheatley] as a friend already: we had worked with him before and we loved Kill List and Down Terrace, so it felt very natural.  During the process he was very true to what we’d written and what we wanted to do, so everything felt very organic, which I think shows in the final product. When you’re with like-minded people it all works out well.

The dialogue feels spontaneous. Was there much improvisation or was it very tightly scripted?

It was tightly scripted, yes, but on the day we’d do one version on script then we’d go off script and do an improvised one. Ben’s great – he just kept saying, ‘Look, we’re in an interesting place, let’s just mess around here, let’s just hang around some standing stones and do a load of weird dialogue and piss around.’ Loads of good stuff came from that which actually made it into the film. So it’s very much a mixture of the two really. I think it’s difficult to improvise without having a tight script in place and a tight idea of what it is you’re doing, otherwise you just end up rambling and talking nonsense – which we’re all very good at. 

Although the film is marketed as a ‘black comedy’, the film is surprisingly moving. Was it always your intention to make the central relationship so ‘romantic’?

Yes, absolutely. It was almost the most important thing when we were making it, because while we knew that our sketch was funny and we could make a funny film that was 15 minutes long, we also knew that in order for the audience to stay with us over an hour they had to engage with the characters. The characters had to be believable and real, and all the work we did was really concentrated on making them weirdly sympathetic. If you were to take the killing away, they’re just a couple on their first holiday arguing a bit and falling out. 

So the characters are very real. Were they based on yourselves?

Well, you know, neither Alice or I are serial killers. We had to do a lot of research to inform that element of the role. To be true to that profile of a serial killer was very important. But there were also elements of our own characters within it, and Alice’s and my dynamic as people very much comes out. We always found that the normality is the interesting thing, really. It’s the truth of serial killers – that they are in many ways, and in many aspects of life, normal and socially adept. They probably do go to Crich Tram Museum and have a look around. They appear to be just like anyone else and that was what we wanted to go for, not to make them horrible, grimacing villains, because that’s not the truth of serial killers.

You mentioned the Crich Tram Museum – did you feel it was important to have these features of the English countryside so prominent in the film?

Absolutely, it was always central to the idea to explore these visiting routes. Lots of our holidays as kids, for both me and Alice, were the ‘British holidays’, and we would go to these places. The film comes from our affection for them and from wanting them to be seen. Also, the fact that Chris visits and cares about these places makes him more sympathetic. My Dad used to take me on holidays like that, and it was he who chose the route. He designed it for a research trip that we did about four years ago when we were writing the film. He picked out all these amazing places and most of them made it into the final film, which was pleasing. 

Do you prefer the writing or the acting? 

Well, in the case of Sightseers they’re almost the same thing because we wrote in a very improvisational way and they’re entwined. I think at heart I’m a writer and that’s sort of what I do and care about. Acting is kind of a bonus, but it is part of it and it’s hard to separate them. 

What advice do you have for people who are interested in scriptwriting, acting or directing for TV and film? 

Just do stuff with your mates and don’t be precious about anything, especially when you’re starting out and you’re young. You’ve just got to mess around. You’ll be amazed if you just stick your videos up on the internet and all that – there’s no excuse now, what with technology. But also, the other piece of advice is to be realistic about whether you have got it, and whether you want to wait twelve years before you actually get anywhere, because that’s what happens. It won’t happen overnight, it just won’t. So you have to ask, ‘Do I want to wait until I’m thirty five before I get anywhere – or maybe I won’t at all’. It’s a real big career to take on – it’s very competitive, much more so now than it has ever been, I think.

What’s your next project going to be? 

I’m working on various scripts and ideas, various film-things that I’m hoping to get made this year. There’s one about a terrible hitman who is totally unsuited for the job. He goes up to Shrewsbury to kill a man and his ‘simple’ brother tags along. It’s a bit like Of Mice and Men but with a kind of dark side. It’s a dark tragedy-comedy. I’ve been enjoying working on it and hopefully it will come out soon. More writing! More films please! That’s what I want to do.

Sightseers has now been released on DVD.

George Catlin was born in Pennsylvania in 1796, just as the world of the American Indian was being irreversibly transformed.

A visionary and entrepreneur, the sense of showmanship and spectacle comes through in the exoticism of Catlin’s portraits. The exhibition holds more than fifty, all of prominent American Indian Chiefs, fur traders and villagers. During his time spent painting and collecting artefacts in America, Catlin created an ‘Indian Gallery’, which he took with him to show across all of Europe and America. This is the first time since the 1850s travelling exhibitions that they have been shown collectively outside the United States. In 1839, Catlin’s collection amassed nearly 500 objects and portraits, yet he was bankrupted and forced to sell his ‘Indian Gallery’ to pay his creditors. He even sold two grizzly bears to London Zoo in 1840 after his travelling show had failed to attract enough visitors. The Gallery was later bequeathed to the Smithsonian where it has remained, until this selection was chosen for exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

During Catlin’s five journeys to the United States in the 1830s, his practice was to paint on site, sketching and showing his subjects their portraits.  Although some of the portraits are unfinished and have rushed brush strokes, owing to the haste with which Catlin painted, the subjects override the occasional dearth of technical skill. Catlin truly captures the considered expressions of his subjects, obviously aware of how acculturation was altering their society. A particularly interesting portrait documents the change of one Wi-Jun-Jon after his first visit to Western America. His profile is depicted in traditional dress, including the Mandan shirt, one of which is exhibited alongside the portraits. The other half of the painting depicts him with his back facing the audience; he is shown fully ‘westernised’. He wears a full suit, top hat and holds a fan, illustrating how all aspects of culture and custom were to be affected with the arrival of the West.

The portrait of La-Doo-Ke-A or Buffalo Bull is also notable for its influence in the later legend of Buffalo Bill. A Grand Pawnee Warrior, he sits with arrow in hand and the Buffalo horns across his chest. The portraits display the colourful ornamentation and ceremony of American Indian tradition in a manner that only a great showman could do justice to.   

Catlin’s work, as he intended, captures an important moment in world history. Many of the people depicted in his portraits would soon be affected by catastrophic smallpox outbreaks, but their memory lives in the ethnography of Catlin’s collection. The vibrancy of the American Indian people is caught in the russet ochre and burnt reds of the portraits, which remain to be a colourfully historical tribute to their subjects.             

“Were they Frenchmen and, preferably, dead,” the works of the East London Group artists would “already command high prices”. This was the verdict of one contemporary critic on the group’s 1930 show at the Alex, Reid and Lefevre Gallery.

These East London artists – working class men whose only artistic training had been evening classes in Bow under an ambitious Yorkshireman, John Cooper – enjoyed a string of successful exhibitions at the Lefevre before the Second World War. They had previously exhibited at the Whitechapel, of which one critic wrote, “the excellence, good taste and originality of the work… would easily hold its own by comparison with many seen in our West-end galleries.” By 1936 two of the group reached the summit of exhibitions: the Venice Biennale.

Despite the enthusiasm of contemporaries and the quality of their output, today this group is barely remembered. They suffered the double blow of war and the demise of their leader and teacher Cooper, who died of encephalomyelitis in 1943. Cohesive continuation proved impossible, although individual members carried on painting.

But a hefty new book, and accompanying exhibition of several of their extant works, may do something to reverse this trend. From Bow to Biennale: Artists of the East London Group, written by David Buckman, has been extensively researched, (the credits run to several pages) and was done so in the nick of time. Buckman began work in the late eighties, and managed to meet and interview several artists involved with the group, most of whom died in the mid-nineties. The result is something both academic and entertaining; much of the work is focussed on establishing the facts, but it is brought to life by the opinions and memories of those the author managed to track down.

From Bow to Biennale is lavishly illustrated, too. Much of the East London Group’s output was rooted in the everyday experiences of the artists. Particularly stunning is Bow Road (1931) by Elwin Hawthorne (or, Elwin Hawthorn; the “e” was a mistake introduced in a catalogue of the first Lefevre show). The scene is, at first glance, quite tedious: a few people stand around on a grey street, one of whom seems to wait for a bus. Yet Hawthorne introduces a sense of mystery. The shadows are long, and the outermost branches of the trees appear as thin as spiders’ webs. One cannot help wonder why there are so few people on what appears to be a main road, and why everything is so desolate. And this was painted well before the notion of nuclear holocaust was conceivable.

But their output was not restricted to scenes of East London. There are pictures of Brighton and Ilfracombe. Nor did they just paint. Their lithographs were used for Shell adverts, and Cooper produced a number of mosaics. The artists were of humble backgrounds, but their work was far from parochial.

The exhibition at the Abbott and Holder gallery celebrates the publication of the book. Buckman talked of how difficult it had been even to assemble the paintings that they had, and of how, given the productivity of the group, there must be tens of works by the East London Group lying forgotten in attics and under beds – so it might be worth getting round to that spring clean.

From Bow to Biennale: Artists of the East London Group, by David Blackman, is published by Francis Boutle. The accompanying exhibition takes place until 6th April at Abbott and Holder, 30 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

Doctor Who’s return in ‘The Bells of St John’ was a funny mishmash of an episode, that welcomed (well, sort of) a new companion with what seemed like a rehash of several episodes from the last few seasons. We had a monster consuming people through new technology (as in ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’), spinning head robots (as in ‘The Beast Below’), and the Doctor using a robot to act as himself (mirroring The Tesseract). More generally, the style of the episode was very reminiscent of series four’s first episode (in which humans are converted into walking fat). The list goes on, and this level of recycling came across as a little odd in my book — though almost certainly unintentional, it made the episode one of the weaker openings since Steven Moffat took over the franchise; even though I didn’t like ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ all that much, it had a bit of originality to it.

The episode saw the Doctor trying to track down his sort-of companion from the Christmas special, Clara, who is also both a futuristic Butlins redcoat-Dalek and a Victorian governess. Sort of. Her importance and mystery was front and centre, but it’s hard to fully engage with such a similar storyline to that of River Song, and it doesn’t feel like Clara’s been around long enough for us to get on board with the Doctor’s obsession. Also, given that he hadn’t really met Clara before, the amount of physical contact he made with her was genuinely slightly uncomfortable – I mean, he stroked her hair a lot. I’ve never been more aware that the Doctor is supposed to be a 1,000-year old alien, and that the women he picks up are generally in their twenties. 

Clara certainly seems a lot less insufferable than her Oswin persona last year (I was concerned we might end up with a Jar Jar kind of scenario), but it’s early days. Certainly, I would say that it’s becoming harder and harder for the companions to seem distinct from one another as the series goes on. The recent backlash against Doctor Who’s treatment of women has been slightly blown out of proportion I think (especially the online arguments about Amy changing her surname), but as time and actors move on it is becoming clear that female characters do come across as less developed than their male counterparts in the series. Compared with characters like Rory or Captain Jack who really brought something different to the TARDIS crew, it feels that the primary companion role is in danger of becoming generic. Admittedly it is part of the structure of the show to have a character acting as a surrogate for the audience, but Doctor Who should be capable of meeting higher expectations. Amy Pond, for example, really did seem quite different to her predecessors.

It wasn’t a bad start to this run by any means — it looked great, some of the ideas were pretty cool and a motorbike charge up The Shard will always get my vote. But fundamentally it just didn’t seem particularly original, and the ‘modern technology is trying to kill us’ trope has been done to death (in Who and elsewhere). Still, while Clara may never eclipse Amy, I’m willing to give her the chance over a series that includes a long-overdue journey through the TARDIS and a Cyberman episode written by Neil Gaiman. 

Oh, but please stop doing the ‘Doctor Who?’ question. It was never funny or deep, but now it’s starting to grate.

3 stars