Mark of respect (From The Northern Echo)

Mark of respect

10:27am Tuesday 31st August 2010 in

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Comedian Mark Dolan has met the biggest, the smallest and the hairiest people in the world. He tells Steve Pratt why his extraordinary adventures aren’t a freak show and why he wants to hear from North-East cinemagoers for his Sky Movies show.

MARK DOLAN’S nationwide tour of his Sky Movies magazine show 35mm is no big deal. This, he says, could be the world’s smallest tour, as it takes in only four cities. One is in the North-East – Newcastle – where he’ll be talking to local filmmakers, historians and movie fans about the history of film and cinemas in the area.

Perhaps the “smallest” label is only fitting for someone who has met the tallest, the shortest, the smallest, the biggest, the hairiest and a good many other “-ests” in C4 documentaries under the label The World’s...And Me.

He tells me the stories have now been published in a book, although, strictly speaking, we should talk movies when he phones me from Austria where he’s holidaying with his wife and two children. But it’s difficult to ignore his extraordinary encounters with such characters as the world’s smallest man, tallest woman, shortest man, hairiest man. And let’s not forget the man who has 84 children.

The series was sparked by his appetite “for meeting people who have made extraordinary choices or are unusual in any way”. Some would say – indeed have said – that his programmes are little more than a freak show.

“I long harboured a fascination with people who are physically different, people in the Guinness Book of Records. I pitched the idea of going to meet some of them with the aim of humanising them and going behind how they look,” he explains.

“Channel 4 was persuaded by my promise that my tone would be sensitive and I wouldn’t bring back a freak show. Hopefully, by the end of watching the programme about the tallest woman in the world, people will see how remarkably they can get through life.

“Towards the end of the last series I started meeting people who had just made life choices and I enjoyed that because it didn’t feel ethically awkward.”

Those C4 programmes are very different to his other work – as a stand-up comedian and hosting Sky Movies 35mm film programme.

“When I’m going round the world making documentaries living out of rucksacks, it’s not a very glamorous process dealing with the ethics of whether it’s right to feature some of the people in our programme,” he says.

“Sometimes, it’s strange getting off a plane and shaving, putting on a suit and going into the glossy world of movies. “ Movies are the reason for his visit to Newcastle next Tuesday, when he’ll be filming for 35mm and hosting a preview screening of new British movie Tamara Drewe. Edinburgh, Dublin and Brighton are the other stopping-off places on the mini-tour.

Having children, aged five and one-and-ahalf, means he doesn’t get to have a night out at the cinema as often as he used to or would like. “That’s probably the main casualty of having kids,” he says.

“I’m in my 30s and over the party thing, but the kids are a great case for not going out. The only thing I miss since becoming a dad is the freedom to nip into the local rep cinema on a rainy Sunday and watch a film about Welsh miners.

“I used to go to the Everyman cinema in Hampstead where they had double-bills, like Annie Hall and Manhattan back-to-back. It was the best possible movie upbringing.”

He was recruited to present 35mm after appearing on other live Sky shows where his enthusiasm for movies was picked up. “I never pitched myself as a great movie expert. I’m very much in touch with the audience. Some of them are infinitely more educated in film than I am,” he says.

Seeing audience response to movies is a big part of the programme for him. That’s part of what you might call the bigger picture as he might follow a film from the early stages of being on set during filming through to the red carpet premiere. When that happens – as it did on the Batman movie The Dark Knight – he couldn’t be happier.

The 35mm tour has a dual purpose. “The idea is me dipping my toe in the water in terms of spreading the word about our movie show, and to get feedback, hear what people are interested in and want from the show,” he says.

Newcastle was chosen, he says (and apologises for sounding like “one of those out-oftouch politicians”) because it’s the North. He knows the area through his time at Edinburgh University when he had a girlfriend from Newcastle.

HE gets to watch movies for the programme (“which I would never call work”) and afterwards might find himself talking to the stars or interviewing them on the red carpet at the premiere.

Dolan says he’s a comedian by trade and “never pretended to be a journalist – I got lucky and had the chance to make documentaries”.

He still tries to do stand-up comedy once a week in The Amused Moose club, in London’s Soho.

He’s “having conversations” with C4 about what direction to go next with his documentaries.

He’s aware that his work is a mixed bag.

“If you look at my CV you might think are there psychological issues at play,” he says. “I think it’s just because I’m quite an obsessive person and there are some things I’m really into. I’m fascinated by people who make unusual choices or have a difficult lot because of physical appearance.”

COMPETITION

To be in with a chance of winning tickets to the screening of Tamara Drewe at Newcastle Odeon (Silverlinks) next Tuesday, or if you have any memorabilia, information or anecdotes on the history of cinema in Newcastle, email 35mm@bskyb.com

■ 35mm airs on Sky Movies Premiere/HD every Friday at 7.30pm.

For more information on 35mm on Tour, visit Skymovies.com

■ The World’s Most Extraordinary People…And Me is published by HarperCollins.