The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Two extraordinary natural-born storytellers
Keith Richards: The Origins of the Species: Saturday, BBC Two The Marvellous World of Roald Dahl: Saturday, BBC Two
Keith Richards and Roald Dahl: together at last!
They may not seem like natural bedfellows, but during Saturday’s generous documentary double-bill, it struck me that both were naturalborn storytellers and nonconformists who have enriched our culture immeasurably.
If you had to define the essence of Keith – eau de Keef – then look no further than the moment in Keith Richards: The Origins of the Species when he recounted a charming childhood memory of his visits to Dartford marshes.
“I saw my first dead man there,” he noted. That faux-casual use of “first”, as if it was merely a throwaway detail, spoke volumes about a man who understands his own myth.
This entertaining hour in the company of one of rock music’s great raconteurs was a Rolling Stones documentary with a difference: it ended at the point where the band were about to form.
It focused instead on The Human Riff’s formative years in monochrome, bombsite Dartford, told in his own colourful words. It also functioned as an iconoclastic piece of post-war social history.
A keen history buff with a distinctive eye for detail, Keith should have his own BBC Four series by now. If they don’t hurry up, Channel 4 will poach him as the new host of Time Team.
Despite his legendary intake of Bad Things, his memory is remarkably lucid.
Reliably funny and engaging – your cup would runneth over with joie de vivre if you’d survived what he has – he told his story with wry nostalgia and genuine warmth, especially when discussing his family.
Julien Temple, a director famed for such classic documentaries as The Filth and The Fury, bolstered Keith’s anecdotes in typically inventive style with an eclectic collage of archive footage scored to Stones music and period pop hits. His camera revelled in the lizardlike contours of rock’s craggiest visage.
That nicotine cackle and woozy grin were in full, glorious effect.
When infant Keith’s England was being bombed during the war, Roald Dahl was protecting it as an RAF pilot.
The Marvellous World of Roald Dahl began with him crashing his plane in Africa. He was lucky to survive. A life-changing incident, it inspired his first piece of published writing. He frequently returned to the magic and terror of flight.
As this fascinating and touching essay made clear, all of Dahl’s classic yarns contained elements of autobiography. Childhood encounters with vicious adults, the tragic loss of comrades during the war, even his own wife’s stroke – her mangled language inspired The BFG – all found their way into his work.
Yet he incorporated these dark matters with such sensitivity, they never felt ghoulish.
Told using extracts from his memoirs, as read by Robert Lindsay and illustrated by the great Quentin Blake, it confirmed my belief that the most beloved children’s author of all time – face facts, Fergie – was one of the greatest literary geniuses of the 20th century.
He understood implicitly that children love reading about frightening things, just as long as the author lightens the darkness with humour.
He endured the horrors of war. His survivor’s guilt inspired him to write about children who’d lost their parents. One of his daughters died when she was only seven. When his young son had a severe brain injury, he co-invented a valve to alleviate his condition. Several thousand other children benefitted from this invention, which was never sold for profit. An extraordinary man. A kindly subversive. Keith and Roald both.