Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan8 Sep 2019

Michael Feast

Actor Michael Feast has a deep personal history with Dylan. He won a role in the landmark 1968 London production of Hair by singing Outlaw Blues and Highway 61 Revisited. His drama school years were dramatised by Camden Town flatmate Bruce Robinson in the cult film Withnail & I. “It looked pretty much like it did in the movie. Biba bags hanging over lights and all that sort of caper”.

His Brighton Mod scooter and soul thing was shattered the first time he saw the cover and heard the contents of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. “Whatever else I was into, like Elvis, Dylan always had a place within and yet beyond that. It always fitted in and yet it never did.” Desolation Row is dissected and applauded: “The words and images hit me straight away. I see it as a dusty street in Mexico”. The Beatles, The Band, The Rolling Stones, Gram Parsons, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson are all name-checked by our self-confessed “musicologist geek” in this classic episode.

Michael Feast is a stage and screen actor: a veteran of the Royal Exchange, The Old Vic, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He worked several times with Sir John Gielgud, whom he later portrayed in the West End. Feast’s many television appearances include State of Play, Silent Witness, Vera and Game of Thrones. His film credits include roles in Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon as well as The Draughtsman’s Contract and Velvet Goldmine.

Trailer

Episode playlist on Spotify

Listeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.

Twitter @istrollingpod

Recorded 11th February 2019

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(80)

Sarah Lee

Guardian/Observer staff photographer Sarah Lee first watched Dont Look Back whilst perched on a crowded bed in a Camden flat with a struggling rock combo called Coldplay. As she’s now a BAFTA photogra...

11 Jun 202353min

Rebecca Slaman

Rebecca Slaman, writer and social media guru, is a fan of Bob Dylan’s “perfect random meme humour.” Twitter? “Girls lust after him! But I’ve seen some pretty egregious stuff. Old people don’t understa...

14 Mai 202350min

Bettye LaVette

In the 61st year of her singing career, five-time Grammy nominee Bettye LaVette warns us that our chat will be “straight, no chaser”. And she lives up to that promise. Bettye describes her surprise ba...

16 Apr 202350min

Simon Munnery

Like his main man Bob Dylan, comedian Simon Munnery knows a few things about heckles: aside from being arrested in Edinburgh for heckling Arthur Smith, he met his future wife when she heckled him in A...

19 Mar 202346min

Helen Barrett

Journalist Helen Barrett was lullabied to sleep as her mother sang Mr. Tambourine Man; she had it played at her mother’s funeral (“the Dylan version, not the Byrds cover”). To top it off, Baby, Stop C...

19 Feb 202353min

Michael Bonner

Michael Bonner, editor of music magazine Uncut, takes on Dylan’s 2022 UK concerts, as well as The Philosophy of Modern Song (“Dylan mimicking the critical noise around Dylan”). Other topics include an...

22 Jan 202344min

Stewart Lee

Comedian and columnist Stewart Lee remains “grateful to the people who brainwashed me into listening to Bob Dylan during a period of emotional and physical weakness.” He remembers seeing Dylan live at...

25 Des 202258min

Matt Rowland Hill

Writer Matt Rowland Hill is well placed to comment on Dylan’s ‘Property of Jesus’ years: “the kind of fire-and-brimstone Christianity that I grew up with was exactly the kind that Dylan converted into...

27 Nov 202251min