What does failure feel like?
From disastrous novels to ruined paintings, Sky Arts’ new season of programmes on failure explores the flip side of creativity
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Your support makes all the difference.“Failure is the ingredient you have to have,” argues Booker Prize-winning novelist (and Independent columnist) Howard Jacobson to failed author Giles Coren; and failure in the pursuit of success is the fascinating subject of a new Sky Arts season.
In a series of new programmes, the likes of Giles Coren, David Harewood and Tim Marlow explore personal and public failures in pursuit of artistic excellence and ask whether failing is an integral part of success.
Giles Coren: My Failed Novel (Monday 29 February, 9pm) explores The Times’ restaurant critic’s biggest artistic fiasco: the publication of his first and only novel, Winkler, which was a critical and commercial flop (it sold a mere 771 copies) when it was published in 2005. The book was largely ignored (“An unmitigated disaster,” said one of the kinder reviews) and hastily shipped off to the nearest pulp mill.
In the revealing and droll one-off film, Coren presents his book to literary stars such as Jacobson, Hanif Kureishi, Rose Tremain and Jeffrey Archer – and also to critics, including Stephen Bayley, who commented on Winkler’s “lavatorial awfulness” – to try to understand what went so horribly wrong. He also examines what it takes to write great literary fiction and why his effort, which took a decade to write, was such a dud. He even has the first 5,000 words work-shopped in a creative writing class.
Computer Says Show (Episode one Thursday 25 February, 8pm; Episode two Thursday 3 March, 8pm) demonstrates that not only can computers beat us at chess and park better than us; they might even be able to write a hit musical too. In the first experiment of its kind some of Europe’s leading scientists are training their computers to create a winning musical, including the premise, characters, plot, setting, structure, and much of the music and lyrics.
This two-part documentary follows the results. It is followed on 3 March by a live performance of the world’s first computer-generated musical, Beyond the Fence, as it’s performed in London’s West End.
The Fresco Fiasco (Thursday 25 February, 9.30pm) recounts the story of how, in 2012, residents of a small village in Spain were shocked to discover their beloved 19th-century fresco had been vandalised, only to find that 81-year-old local parishioner Cecilia Gimenéz was responsible. Concerned that parts of Elías Garcías Martínez’s Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) were flaking off because of the damp on the church walls, she took it upon herself to touch it up.
The documentary is preceded by Behold the Monkey (Thursday 25 February, 9pm), a drama based on the hapless Gimenéz and how her divine intervention has changed the fortunes of the small church for ever.
Also in the season, the Homeland actor David Harewood (1 March, 9pm) explores the disappointments, rejections and setbacks of the acting profession; and Tim Marlow looks at Art's Greatest Failures (Sunday 28 February, 8pm) and points out that some of our best-loved paintings are not without their flaws.
TO BUY: A LITERARY FLOP AND A BOTCHED PAINT JOB
WINKLER BY GILES COREN
Judge for yourself whether Giles Coren’s “sexually frustrated comingof-age novel” should have sold more than 771 copies. The dark comedy, which The Daily Telegraph’s critic described as “occasionally dazzling”, centres on a bored office drone who spectacularly goes off the rails. You can buy for 1p from Amazon.
THEATRE: BEYOND THE FENCE
Buy tickets now for the world’s first ‘computer musical’ premieres after Sky Arts’ ‘Computer Says Show’ at London’s Arts Theatre. Composer Benjamin Till and his husband and actor Nathan Taylor will be the human face of the show, using their experience in musicals to bring the material to life on stage. Showing at the Arts Theatre from 22 February to 5 March 2016. Tickets from artstheatrewestend.co.uk
ECCE HOMO (BEHOLD THE MAN)
If you’re keen on what Cecilia Giménez did to Elías García Martínez’s artwork, then there’s a poster showing off her DIY restoration job, which left the precious fresco looking more like something from Planet of the Apes than the son of God. Available for £11.55 zazzle.co.uk
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