Heroes and Vaudevillians

There's some jiggery-poguery going on down at the old Bull & Bush as THE POGUES and KIRSTY MacCOLL roll out the barrel for charity. SELECT joins in the dancehall craze, on the video shoot for their covers of Cole Porter songs on the AIDS benefit LP, Red, Hot And Blue

Shoot In London's Hackney Empire, the ghosts of past audiences are disturbed by the technological carnage of a film set lights, cameras, cranes, tracks, monitors and cables, as far the eye can see. The occasion is The Pogues' video shoot, working with director Neil Jordan, for their tracks on the Red Hot And Blue Aids benefit LP.

Onstage, The Pogues mime spiritedly to Just 0ne Of Those Things as limbo dancers travel under a line of burning firelighters for what seems the 100th time. Watching open-mouthed from the balcony is a school year of children in sailors' uniforms. Below them, a dancer in a Black Adder codpiece twirls endlessly while cancan girls smoke tired cigarettes.

Backstage, people yell long-distance demands through cellphones and mix speedballs of equal parts coffee and panic. Time's a wastin'...

Spider Stacey, wearing a vaudevillian wide-boy outfit, is not in the best of moods.

'I'm not very interested in videos. I don't see the point of them and few of them are any good. Nobody buys a record because it has a nice video. We are in the middle of a tour and normally it wouldn't make much sense to come down from Liverpool to London to make a fucking video, but with the Red, Hot And Blue thing. it's important to get the message across in as litany forms as possible."

Are you pleased to be working with Neil Jordan?

"The good thing about this is that he's directing it as if he was directing a film. He's being very painstaking, so it should come out well. But, really, I just don't like videos, and that Neil Jordan is directing this one is neither here nor there."

He's not over keen on the band's barrow boy attire.

"They're a sort of early 1900, musical pastiche. I don't think it's particularly apt... We could dress like Vikings and it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Spider Phil Chevron is in a better mood than Spider. "Generally speaking, videos are a pain in the me, but I'm enjoying this one. Neil Jordan is great, a director with a lot of imagination. Neil's shooting it literally two lines at a time, except for Kirsty's Miss Otis Regrets, which is being done pretty straightforwardly. I don't enjoy making videos at all. It's usually just an excuse to go and get blotto."

There's no overt link with the subject of the Red, Hot And Blue project in either the video or your choice of songs.

"Well, there's room for those songs and videos that address the AIDS thing directly - Erasure's video does that pretty successfully - but there's room for all sorts of approaches. That's one of the strengths of the whole thing. Mind you, I wonder what Cole Porter would have thought of it all. He was, after all, the man who told Frank Sinatra to please stop singing his songs unless he could stick to the tune..."

Kirsty MacCoIl is being made-up for her role in Miss Otis Regrets. Over a black dress, her face looks ghostly. "Normally, I'd direct any video I star in, just to have a little control. I got so fed up with spending thousands of pounds and not having what I wanted on the screen at the end of the day. I produced my last few videos and co-directed them with a friend, so I'm net used to leaving it to somebody else...probably why I'm so cagey today."

Paris Later, Neil Jordan barks instructions from his position in front of the stage. "Do we need the chair? The chair, do we need it? Get rid of it then, yeah? And, ah...Kirsty, could you move forward just a bit cos we can't see you behind the dancers? That's fine. Alright, we're going to go with this one. No more rehearsals, let's just do it... Where's Shane? Has anyone seen Shane?"

"Ssssskkkrrrhehehehskr......"

The laugh could only belong to Shane MacGowan. "This is great, better than usual, a little more time in the pub. Am I happy to be working with Neil Jordan? Well, I'm never happy to be working at all, you know what I mean? But this is as good as it gets. As for the Red, Not And Blue thing, I really don't know how we got around to doing it. I like Cole Porter, though. I like the songs that I know."

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Heroes and Vaudevillians

There's some jiggery-poguery going on down at the old Bull & Bush as THE POGUES and KIRSTY MacCOLL roll out the barrel for charity. SELECT joins in the dancehall craze, on the video shoot for their covers of Cole Porter songs on the AIDS benefit LP, Red, Hot And Blue

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