Culture

It was inevitable there would be a few nerves. After two and a half years of hard work, The Road to Sparta was going in front of an audience for the first time. It was a relatively friendly crowd as we had chosen the Adventure Film Festival in Athens for the premier; these were people who were tuned in to extreme sports but there were nerves nonetheless.

Would this gathering of hardcore extreme sporty types go for a film which holds its shots and breaks into the contemporary narrative of four runners battling to complete the Spartathlon with a series of sonnets?

“Poetry, dammit, in a running film? What’s that about? And don’t get me started on the music…”

So yes. Nerves.

DUBLIN’S MIDNIGHT BUILDERS

It wasn’t the first First Night that my co-director Roddy Gibson and I had shared. That would have been sometime around December 1982 when we were at university in Dublin. I played the part of Aladdin in a scurrilous pantomime that Roddy had written with his two old schoolfriends Graham Pasley and Stanley Townsend.

Quentin Letts backstage during Declan Hughes’ 1983 production of Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance. He was playing the role of the Mayor (Photo: Barney Spender)

Darragh Kelly backstage during Declan Hughes’ production of The Duchess of Malfi, DU Players 1984 (Photo: Barney Spender)

It featured such luminaries as Pauline McLynn, Darragh Kelly, (future Booker Prize winner) Anne Enright and “Mother Goose” Lynne Parker, all big noises today in the theatre, literary and telly world. Quentin Letts, now a very respectable parliamentary sketch-writer for the Daily Mail, may have done something interesting with a carrot. As I recall my role largely consisted of vigorously rubbing a silver teapot while singing a smutty version of Down at The Old Bull and Bush.

For the next three years we worked on many productions together in Players. Occasionally we shared a stage – my Cardinal Inquisitor sparred sneeringly with his measured Galileo – but most often it was in the making of the play. Roddy was and still is a Master Carpenter so he was inevitably tasked with building the sets. I tagged along as the Carpenter’s Mate. Or perhaps that should realistically be: carpenter’s mate.

This would involve fetching nails, dropping nails, looking for nails; a lot of my work seemed to involve nails. And paint. And changing the music up in the sound booth.

There was a lot of Tom Waits (Blue Valentine and The Piano has been Drinking) and, when we were feeling very silly at about three in the morning, an album of traditional Danish folk songs. This was the cue for a break from the work and some semi-crazed thigh-slapping Morris-style dancing in the middle of the stage. And a lot of giggling. Did I mention that a few beers were usually taken during the course of the set-building?

Sometimes stout was called upon to relieve the stress of studenthood. Roddy Gibson (right) and Barney Spender (centre) joined by Donald Clarrke in Maynooth 1985 (Photo: Barney Spender)

Sometimes these would be all-nighters. Beyond the beer and the silly dancing there were spells of silence and spells of talk. About Things. Things that 20 year-olds want to talk about but often don’t because they don’t want to look daft.

Going through the night builds a trust and an intimacy; something we rediscovered not just with each other but with other members of our crew when we finally got to shoot The Road to Sparta in September 2014.

The high point of Roddy’s carpentry skills was the construction of the serving hatch for my 1984 Dublin Theatre Festival production of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, featuring John O’Brien, another who has since built a career in theatre, and a fellow called David Taylor, nicknamed The Professor. Actually, this wasn’t really a nickname but a title. He was a professor; something clever in science or engineering. He could act too and quaff stout and tell funny stories. He was all right, The Professor.

The dumb waiter was wonderfully concealed behind wallpaper of fading newspapers which had to be replaced after every performance. And it was extra heavy which meant that when it first comes into play and slams down, the audience and the actors actually leapt in surprise.

Our last collaboration, though, and our last First Night had been in December 1987 when we helped another old university friend Mary McGuckian stage her version of Thomas Merriman’s The Midnight Court in an old biscuit factory in London’s Docklands. Roddy was again in charge of sets. This time it was a whopper and he needed more help and I was delighted that it wasn’t just me groveling around the floor looking for nails.

“Oy Geno! Stop feckin’ dropping nails!” would come the cry.

“Sorry man,” came the reply from a crest-fallen Kevin Rowland who had been roped in to help by Mary, his girlfriend at the time.

Kevin also helped us to strike the set at the end of the run, after which we drank beer together at the cast party. This was not his happiest period musically. He had had great success with Dexy’s but they had split and he was something of a forgotten man. I loved that he was so humble about what he had achieved; as far as he was concerned he was just one of the lads working back stage. And when it was his turn to fetch a beer, he went. I love that he found his muse again and reclaimed his place at the top table.

A NEW COLLABORATION

And so fast forward 29 years. Where did they go? Well, Rod went into film-making and I went into journalism. Now our two paths had come together again to make The Road to Sparta.

This was no coincidence. It was as much a time of life thing as anything else. In 2012, Roddy’s great friend Graham Pasley died of a heart attack at the age of 50. In February 2014, our mutual friend Dessie Kirkpatrick died suddenly from a cancer which hadn’t even been diagnosed a week earlier.

Dessie’s funeral at Golders Green cemetery in London brought together many of our old friends from Trinity. Amid the mourning, there was also much laughter and remembrance of times and collaborations past; a realisation that in this room were some of our favourite people in the world.

During Dessie’s funeral, I realised two things. One was that we were now at an age where putting stuff off was a risk. Graham and Dessie both died suddenly and way too young. That could happen to any of us so if we wanted to do things it was best to do them now. Or as my wife said: “Barney, either make this film or shut the f*** up about it!”

The second thing I realised was that in order to make The Road to Sparta happen, I had to have Roddy at my side. I knew the story and the overview of what I wanted; Roddy had a camera and, more important, faith.

He was certainly impressed by the core idea.

Rob Pinnington feeling the pain during the Spartathlon (Photo: The Road to Sparta)

“So what is this Spartathlon?”

“Well, it is an ultra-marathon…246 kilometres.”

“Hold on, 246 kilometres? That’s about 150 miles…”

“Yes, it’s six marathons…back-to-back.”

“Hey?”

“Yes, they have to run it in 36 hours…”

“…that’s feckin’ mental.”

He was impressed by the race but still needed some persuading; my ability to sum up The Road to Sparta in a nutshell , known as my “pitch” in the biz, was less than convincing.

“Well, Roddy, it is a film about running but it isn’t a running film. It isn’t a sports film… Well, it is but it isn’t… I don’t want it to be about who wins the race… It is more than that… It is about dreams and history and beauty and trying to achieve the seemingly impossible…I can already hear it.”

I know. You can’t hear a film. Except when you come from a radio background and you already know who is going to be writing the music for the film.

He still wasn’t convinced until about one month before the 2014 Spartathlon. We were with our families at the Green Man Festival, lying back on the grass and taking in some gorgeous Welsh summer sunshine.

The directors at work. Roddy gets to grips with the camera while Barney considers lunch (Photo: Magda Gouma)

“Rod. What is the worst that can happen? We go and make a 20-minute film and have a great week working together in Greece. Beer, sunshine … It’s not that bad.“

And so Roddy joined me on the road to Sparta.

And he was conquered. From the moment the race started in the arc lights under the Acropolis in Athens, it stopped being “A Film by Barney Spender” and became “A film by Barney Spender and Roddy Gibson”.

A true collaboration which grew outwards. Roddy brought in one of his ex-students at Middlesex University, Marius Ulevicius, to operate the second camera. Later his Middlesex colleague Béatrice Herraiz joined the team to create the maps which play such an important part in the journey.

The RTS crew in Sparta: Standing Marius, Roddy, Barney. Seated: Tryfon, Andreas, Vasilios (Photo: Marius Ulevicius, 2014)

The RTS crew in Sparta: Standing Marius, Roddy, Barney. Seated: Andreas, Tryfon, Vasilios (Photo: Marius Ulevicius, 2014)

I had already booked in Tryfon and Andreas from Old House Playground to come out for the shoot; their task was to write a score for the film. They responded by bringing a guitar and djembe with them and composing on the road; sometimes literally on the road.

Occasionally they would disappear into a secluded olive grove; most usually they would create in the back of the van. Clive Martin had agreed to produce the music which, given that he twiddled the knobs when David Byrne was putting together his part of the Oscar-winning soundtrack for The Last Emperor, was a massive bonus. Clive knew about music in film.

A year later, in the summer of 2015, Alicia Stallings agreed to come on board as well. Alicia is a poet of distinction, a classicist who understands ancient and modern Greece. We needed a lyrical way of depicting the story of Pheidippides, and she responded with a wonderful series of sonnets. Manos Arvanitis joined us for a dawn shoot at Marathon Bay when Roddy and I went back to do some pick-ups; another memorable week that led to Roddy’s first encounter with tear gas. Manos is a part of the team as the artist behind the poster.

Ownership of The Road to Sparta had gone way beyond Spender and Gibson.

So, why the First Night nerves?

I suppose it comes down to responsibility. To everyone who has contributed – the runners, the race, the artists, our families, the crowd-funders, the exec producers Jimmy and Tom who had backed the project from the start. Responsibility to Greece as well. We were showing the light and the dark. In some ways it is a love-letter to a very conflicted country.

Nervous also because Rod had sweated buckets in the previous two weeks to complete the colour correction and the audio dub. The film was effectively finished on Thursday, three days before the screening. I had not seen the corrected film; my first viewing was with the audience in Athens.

SHOWTIME

Roddy arrived in Athens at 4am Sunday morning, a couple of hours after me. We had about three hours sleep before clambering out and heading off to Athens College. We were met by Christos and his wonderful electric hair. He and Roddy disappeared into the control room to fix the sub-titles while I chilled in the October sun, thinking about how to introduce the film to the audience. If there was an audience.

And then a surge of excitement as I stepped into an empty theatre. The film was running. It looked stunning on the big screen, the music better than before as it boomed from each side of the stage. Nervousness gave way to excitement.

As the morning progressed, people turned up, including two of our runners, Rob Pinnington and Angela Terzi. Sadly, Mark Woolley couldn’t make it over from Spain while Dean Karanazes was tied up back in California.

That word responsibility came back. I hoped we had treated all of our subjects responsibly.

When you run a race of 246 kilometres, you are stripped bare. There is no hiding place. A man with a camera can capture that. And that gives him a power. And a responsibility. You don’t want to hide anything but you don’t want to abuse the trust that these runners place in you.

Another responsibility: we heard that morning of the death of John Foden, the man who had proved that a runner could leave Athens and arrive in Sparta “the next day”, as Herodotus had claimed of Pheippides. Without Foden there would probably not be a Spartathlion. And without Spartathlon there would be no film. We all stand in John Foden’s debt.

All smiles after the screening: L-R: Barney, Manos, Rob (not in training), Angie, Vicki Karpouzi, Roddy, Magda Gouma (Photo: Nick Petalas)

When the time came, just about everything went according to plan. Roddy and I introduced the film, Kostis Papadimitriou, the president of the International Spartathlon Association, gave a short tribute to John Foden, and then we settled back into our seats.

It is an incredible feeling to watch your own creation appear up there on the big screen. Even more astonishing is the sound of the audience reacting; laughing at the funny moments, audibly whincing at the more unpleasant. And clapping and cheering at the end…what was that about?

Everyone was very kind about the way we had treated the race and Greece and the runners. Especially the runners. Of all the comments that came our way, none meant more than those from Rob and Angie, two of the four that agreed to be filmed as they went through the seven circles of hell.

“You did it lads,” said Rob, giving us both great bear hugs. “You did it. That is what it is like to run the Spartathlon.”

Angie looked a little shaken by the film.

“It was very emotional,” she explained.

“I had forgotten so much of what went on. It all came back. And I love how you got inside the runners’ heads. The voices, so many voices. That is what it was like.”

A successful first outing which now means a year out on the festival circuit. We hope to get The Road to Sparta to every continent in the next 12 months so if you know a friendly festival…And in the meantime, I have to put my producer’s hat back on and try to sell the bugger to television. Never done that before so it could be interesting. Then there is the question of the soundtrack album. Not to mention tee-shirts, hoodies, hats and so on. And DVDs, of course. So much to do, so little time.

A great collaboration (Photo: Roddy Gibson)

That lies in the future; in the present lay the question of celebrating the First Night. And we did okay there; in good Greek fashion, lunch rolled into evening and a trip to the pub. It was a memorable night. At least I think it was; made more memorable by my alarum waking me in Exarchia on Monday morning at 08.30 … just as my flight to Paris was taxiing up the runway of Athens airport.

No plane. Never mind. It’s Athens.

Better walk.

Or run.

©Barney Spender 2016

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Follow The Road to Sparta on Twitter @theroadtosparta or on Facebook

Brief Encounter … with Bowie

Posted by barneyspender on January 11, 2016

Posted in: Culture, Music, Spender. Tagged: Absolute Beginners, David Bowie, Declan Hughes, DU Players, Gary Olsen, Jeff Goldblum, Linda Marlowe, Mermaid Theatre, Saskia Reeves, Steven Berkoff, Tim Roth. 1 Comment

Like many people this morning, my thoughts are with David Bowie who has died in New York from cancer at the tender age of 69.

I heard the news at breakfast, much as I had done when news of John Lennon’s death flashed through the British airwaves 35 years ago. That was in New York as well. Dangerous place, obviously.

And as the news slowly filtered in, my mind drifted back to a late summer’s evening in London in 1986 when our paths crossed for the first and, as it turned out, only time. I doubt it was a moment that writ large in the great man’s memory-banks in the 30 years that followed but I am afraid I still revel in the fact that once upon a time, I met David Bowie.

GROWING UP WITH BOWIE

As with so many people, Bowie’s music has played across the background of my youth and my adult life. At school in the late 1970s, I recall heading over to Rupert Bates’ room to drink coffee and listen to the single of Ashes to Ashes. Again and again and again. It was that kind of a song.

At university in the early 1980s I was in a Players’ production of The Duchess of Malfi, directed by Declan Hughes. He was an exciting director to work and learn with, Tarantino-esque in his musical vision. All his plays had fantastic soundtracks, even the Jacobean tragedy of Malfi.

He opened the play with a tableau of corpses, beautifully lit by John Comisky, and the haunting strains of Bowie’s Warszawa. It was compelling theatre.

I danced, or did my feeble impression, and chatted up girls to songs like Let’s Dance and China Girl. I liked him as an actor too. Not just big shows like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. I was particularly taken with him in a BBC production of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal. And many years later when I had kids, I revelled in the way they clicked with Changes when it came up in Shrek, albeit in a non-Bowie version. They instantly recognized the original when I had Hunky Dory on in the car. And later when we introduced them to the television series Life on Mars, they again jumped at the music. Bowie for all generations.

But let me tell you about that night in 1986.

METAMORPHOSIS

The Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars: the first theatre to be built in the City of London since the 17th century

I had left Dublin in the summer and found my first job in London, as stage doorman at the Mermaid Theatre, an oasis in the cultural desert of the City. The theatre had been set up by Bernard Miles for precisely that purpose. The fact that it was so close to one of Shakespeare’s old theatres in Blackfriars gave it a borrowed heritage. Miles would drop in regularly to say hello to the workers. John Junkin too.

Barbara Penney was the theatre manager and she had done a deal to bring in Stephen Berkoff’s Metamorphosis on an eight-week run. Tim Roth, pre-Reservoir Dogs and Hollywood stardom, played Gregor Samsa with Linda Marlowe, Saskia Reeves, Gary Olsen and Berkoff himself miming their way through Kafka’s tale of dung beetles and isolation.

It was outstanding and quickly became the hot ticket in London. It became usual to have big names come to the stage door to meet the actors. Usually they were old theatre friends but sometimes they were big names: Dustin Hoffman came through as did Topol, Roger Daltry, Adam (of Ants fame) and even a rather pop-eyed Jeff Goldblum who was charmingly giggly as he asked to meet with Tim Roth.

“Yeah you know, I don’t know him but I thought it would be kinda neat…you know The Fly meets The Beetle?”

He laughed and I laughed with him. I had been to see him in The Fly just a few weeks before at the Phoenix in East Finchley. It was rather a nice idea. Had I been a hack at that stage I am sure I could have made a few bob with the tabs on that angle.

Then one evening it came to pass.

Another superb performance, we could hear the audience whooping and cheering at the curtain call. Then the cast came off stage, drained and sweating, and wearily headed up the red staircase to their dressing rooms.

At this point there was usually a short lull. The audience couldn’t come through to us direct from the auditorium. They had to exit the theatre, walk around the building into Puddle Dock and come in at the stage door.

As usual there was a huddle of autograph hunters gathering outside and a line of well-wishers queueing up to talk to the stage doorman: me.

Waiting at the back of the line was a tall, slender man in a well-cut suit. He hovered as others came and went. Finally, when there was no one left in the line, he stepped forward gingerly and smiled.

“Hello. I wonder, would it be possible to go up and see Steven Berkoff. He’s a friend of mine.”

There was a pause. Not that I was waiting for him to say any more. I was just star struck. Standing in front of me was David Bowie.

David. Fucking. Bowie.

Standing.

In front of me.

And asking my permission.

To go and see his mate.

I blinked and gathered myself. Tapped out Berkoff’s dressing room number.

Steven Berkoff performing in his 1986 adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Photo: Roger Morton)

Of course they were friends. They had just made Absolute Beginners together. Julian Temple had been panned for it but there had been some good moments, notably Bowie and Berkoff. It was another film I had seen recently at the Phoenix on a late night double bill with Stop Making Sense.

I had gone to see it with Omar Shawkat, a would-be actor from Louisville who had somehow landed on the doorstep in East Finchley when I shared a flat with Donald Clarke and Roddy Gibson. Omar had insisted that it was de rigeur in Kentucky during Stop Making Sense to leap out of your seat and run around the auditorium.

Sounded a bit daft but fuelled by a couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen we had given it a go. But what they get up to in Louisville didn’t go down so well in north London and we were in no uncertain terms invited to cease. Absolute beginners. That was us.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me just check in with him. He may be coming down.”

“Of course.”

A pause. Then phone in hand, I looked up at him.

“It is Mr Bowie, isn’t it?” I asked stressing the pronunciation of the name. Bowie as in Bowie Knife as opposed to Bowie pronounced Bow-wow-wow.

“Yes,” he smiled. “Bowie.”

I nodded and smiled back as Berkoff answered the phone.

“Hi Steven, Barney here … There is a gentleman down at the stage door to see you. Mr Bowie… Just wondering if you are on your way down or whether you would like me to direct him to your dressing room…sure…not a problem…I will do that…ok…cheers.”

I put down the phone and stood up. I wanted to be on eye level with the great man.

David Bowie in Julian Temple’s Absolute Beginners which also featured Steven Berkoff

“Steven says you should go on up to his dressing room. Have you been before?”

“No.”

“Ok, well they don’t have numbers here. They have names. Stephen is in Cripplegate. Just go up the stairs and turn to the left. You will see it on the right hand side.”

“Top of the stairs, turn left.”

“That’s it.”

“Thank you, Barney.”

He turned towards the stairs and headed up to Berkoff’s dressing room. I remained standing for what seemed like minutes, hours. Time stopped. Had I heard right? Had David Bowie just thanked my by name?

And that wasn’t quite the end. When he and Berkoff came down the stairs about 20 minutes later to head off for dinner at Joe Allen’s – everyone went to Joe Allen’s – he said it again.

Berkoff handed over his dressing room key and boomed a parting farewell. I liked Berkoff immensely but he did like to boom.

As he followed him out of the stage door, Bowie turned towards the stagedoorman.

“Thanks very much, Barney. Have a good evening.”

And he was gone. Only later did I kick myself for not looking closer at his eyes. I had heard about the different coloured eyes but in spite of looking straight into them, I hadn’t registered them. Never mind. I had just met David Bowie.

Ok, so our total mutual interaction on Planet Earth was probably under two minutes but for me it was so much more than that. He gave me the gift of a story that night which I have occasionally unfurled in the interim. And of course there is his music, his art.

Bowie may have gone but we will always have the music. That is an amazing gift for all of us.

Thanks Mr Bowie.

©Barney Spender 2016

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Farewell to the King of the Sporting Lens

Posted by barneyspender on September 19, 2015

Posted in: Culture, Rugby union, Sport. Tagged: Diego Maradona, Grand National, Juergen Klinsmann, Martin Johnson, Mike King, Olympics, Photography, Steven Downes, Tom Jenkins. 5 Comments

It is almost two weeks now since the photographer Mike King collapsed at his mother’s house and died at the appallingly young age of 52. It has been a pretty horrible fortnight for everyone who knew Mike.

Many of us hadn’t seen him for months or years but his regular presence on Facebook, sometimes chirping and chirruping on other people’s posts or sharing one of his own photographs, meant that he was very much a presence in our lives. His sudden death has stunned us all.

The more comments I have read during the week has made it abundantly clear that I was not the only person who valued Mike’s basic core of decency as much as his extraordinary talent with a camera. But perhaps this is the norm when someone dies, we hurry to sing their praises. And then forget them.

Except I don’t think Mike will be forgotten quickly.

Odd man out: Diego Maradona catches the camera before taking on the USSR at Italia ’90. ((Photo: Mike King)

On a professional level he was one of the best sports photographers there has been. If you want to think in sporting terms directly then he was to photography what Usain Bolt is to athletics, what Lionel Messi is to football. One of the best, not just of his own generation but across the ages. His images will outlive all of us.

He started young, just 22 when he went to Los Angeles for his first Olympic Games. And from there he was launched. Olympics, World Cups, Grand Nationals. He did the lot, always delivering a punchy news image which had an X-factor in terms of mood and composition. He wasn’t trigger-happy in the way many photographers now are in the digital age. I recall interviewing him in around 2006 for Athens International Radio and he made the brutally frank observation of the future of photography: “If you fire off a thousand pictures, one of them is bound to be half-decent.”

West Germany striker Juergen Klinsmann takes a tumble during the 1990 World Cup final (Photo: Mike King)

Mike learned his craft in the age of smoke and mirrors when a photographer would shoot some film during the first half of a match and then send it off with a runner to deliver direct to the sports desk. I seem to recall a lot of hairdryers in press boxes as well but that may have been in the 1990s when laptops came into play.

Mike’s work for the Observer and the Sunday Telegraph was outstanding. His image from the 2001 Grand National of a jockey flying through the air, won him many awards including Sports Photo of the Year. It is now an iconic image as indeed are several others including Diego Maradonna in the team line-up and Juergen Klinsmann rolling on his head. There are others. Many others.

Mike’s favourite photo: so many stories going on in this image of the 2001 Grand National (Photo: Mike King)

“When I was embarking on my career in the strange world of sports photography the person who helped me more than anyone else was Mike,” wrote Tom Jenkins, another master of the lens, on Facebook.

“He was a massive inspiration not only because of his beautiful creative eye but his technical ability was second to none. He was the undoubted master of follow-focus in those halycon days when cameras didn’t tell us what to do.”

What has come through since Mike’s death is how universally liked he was. In his excellent obituary for the Sports Journalists Association, Steven Downes describes Mike as a “kind and gentle man.” I cannot put it better.

I was the recipient of his kindness on several occasions. Once when I was running the London Marathon for the first time in 2002, he offered to do some shots of me so that I could boost my fund-raising for Lepra. On a crisp February morning, we met on Peckham Rye and he fired off a roll of film. They are all excellent photos although perhaps, if I were to criticise, they showed the rolling contours of the runner’s stomach just a little too clearly.

Haile Gebrselassie giving some good advice to a first-time marathoner (Photo: Mike King)

I was also working on the race as a writer and had managed to secure a ten-minute spot with the great Haile Gebrselassie. We did the intereview in a little broom cupboard of an office; at one point the door nudged open and there was Mike with his beloved Nikon F3 up to his eye and a grin on his lips, snapping the moment. Not sure it meant too much to Haile but it meant a lot when Mike later sent it to me.

Not long after that I roped him in to do some photos for a feature I was writing about Martin Johnson, the England rugby captain. It meant a trip up to Leicester.

“I’ll drive,” said Mike in a manner which brooked no argument.

“Sure that would be great,” I replied. We are going to meet him at the training ground at 11. I would like to be there by half ten. Traffic is never too clever getting out of London. How about we leave at about seven?”

An example of Mike’s vision. A stunning photo of rowers at Hampton in 1991. (Photo: Mike King)

“No I will pick you up at half past eight. Plenty of time.

“But Mike, we have to get around London and then on to the M1. That might be cutting it a bit fine.”

“Ok, call it eight-fifteen.”

The famous black Saab stopped outside my flat in East Dulwich at around eight twenty-seven.

But I needn’t have worried about time. We were in Leicester by ten and eating a traditional trucker’s breakfast at his favourite cafe.

I won’t pretend it was the most relaxed drive I have had – I am not a great passenger and did feel the need to close my eyes on a number of occasions. But Mike was chilled to the core as he drove and chatted all the way.

As we lived close to each other in East Dulwich we would occasionally drive to Twickenham together. I think his record was about seventeen minutes. Had he not ben a photographer he might easily have become Cabbie King in London. He was a true Londoner – he took some wonderful photos of the city – and understood the backstreets as well as anyone – and this in the days before SatNav.

“Snap of my day. Clouds from Greenwich Park on a long exposure.”
Mike King, October 19, 2014

Later, when we had moved to Greece we were letting out our flat in Nunhead. He was across the Rye in East Dulwich. Our boiler went on the blink leaving leaving our tenants in the cold. Mike volunteered to take them some heaters and made sure they were ok.

He didn’t need to. We were mates but not bosom pals. It was just Mike. If he could help he would.

Mike will be missed for many reasons. Mainly because he was such a good guy. All of those who knew him will be thinking of Mike’s kids. They are still young, perhaps too young at the moment to understand what a broad impact their father had on the rest of us.

One day, when they are able to take a step back from the grieving, I hope they realise not just what a fine man he was but also what a great artist he was; the King of kings.

©Barney Spender 2015

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Stallings takes on the men for Oxford poetry chair

Posted by barneyspender on June 4, 2015

Posted in: Books, Culture, Greece, USA. Tagged: AE Stallings, Ian Gregson, John Psaropoulos, Joseph Trapp, Oxford University, Ruth Padel, Seamus Heaney, Sean Haldane, Simon Armitage, Wole Soyinka. 4 Comments

AE Stallings takes inspiration from the Classics

The literary world is aflush, it seems, with ruddy-cheeked excitement at the election for the next Oxford Professor of Poetry, a chair that has cushioned many celebrated posteriors since Joseph Trapp first took up the post in 1708. According to that fine literary reference library Wiki, he was a churchman fond of reciting the works of Shakespeare in Latin.

Since then there has been a stream of prominent churchmen (not all of whom could quote Shakespeare in Latin, I suspect), a series of academics and critics and even a couple of genuine A list poets; Cecil Day-Lewis, WH Auden and Robert Graves are all on the list as, indeed, is my old friend Seamus Heaney.

Did I ever ever tell you the one about how I persuaded Heaney to translate Beowulf?

There are five runners this year: Simon Armitage, Wole Soyinka, Sean Haldane, Ian Gregson and AE Stallings. Reading between the lines, any of the five would be excellent but I have to admit that I am biased on this one. Had I passed through the hallowed halls of Oxford rather then the dirty doorways of Dublin, then my vote would be going to Stallings

It is important that I lay the cards on the table. I have never met Armitage or Soyinka although I will admit, in the case of the latter, considerable hair envy. Shades of Don King. With a beard. Nor have I come across Gregson or Haldane.

The demands of being one of America’s top poets: signing at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

But I have known Stallings for the best part of a decade now, almost throughout the period that we lived in Greece and since. She has mixed me the most divine mint julep; her husband gave me a job; our kids have played together. Absolutely, I am biased.

What was interesting about Alicia is that, unless you were particularly wired into the poetry world, you would never have guessed that she was such a prominent voice. I mean lots of people say “oh yes, well my wife writes poetry” but how many of those actually mean anything more than a six-line ditty in the kids’ birthday cards? She always came across as a very decent, funny, slightly frazzled young mother, more concerned about keeping the lollipop out of her son’s hair than composing an epic poem in iambic pentameter.

The first indication I had that she was a touch above the ordinary was when I went to a reading at the Athens Centre in the lovely suburb of Mets. Her poetry bristled; it flowed effortlessly with rhyme and rhythm. There was a lot of humour and a great deal of dexterity in the way she swapped her forms. She explained how she would set herself exercises, writing in different meters and different forms. Every poem was different. She enthused about the mechanics of poetry as well as the ideas within a poem.

AE Stallings reading to a packed house at Rhodes House, Oxford, June 3 2015 (Photo: Julian Baird Gewitz)

By that stage I already knew her husband John Psaropoulos in his capacity as editor of Athens News, a weekly English-language newspaper that had been going since the 1950s. I had managed to persuade him that non-Greeks living in Greece really were interested in knowing what was going on in the world of Greek football and hence a column was born. Alas, a change of ownership in 2008 led to John’s departure and the Athens News has subsequently closed down. John is still going strong as the Athens correspondent for Al-Jazeera.

One of the high points of the summer was their garden party to coincide with the Kentucky Derby. As a Georgia girl, it was the one sporting event bred into Alicia from an early age. And with it came the mint julep. And a very late night.

Alicia’s reputation has grown over the last decade. The award in 2011 of a MacArthur Fellowship propelled her into the premier league; it is sometimes known by its other name of Genius Grant. At that point, I did my one and only interview with her for the magazine Insider Athens (which you can read below).

And now Stallings, who was herself a student at Oxford, stands alongside four men for the vote, open only to graduates, for the post of Professor of Poetry.

I hope she wins for many reasons but there are three that stand out.

First, in the 307 years since Joseph Trapp took up office, there has never been a woman in the post. Actually, that is not quite correct. Ruth Padel did win the election in 2009 but stood down nine days later over an argument about the nature of canvassing. And that is a serious omission that urgently need addressing.

Second, as a Classics graduate and translator as well as poet, she may be the first Professor of Poetry to go one better than Trapp and quote Shakespeare in Ancient Greek.

And third, because she is an all-round good egg who will bring vibrancy to the lecture theatre and inspire the new crop of Oxford students to dig deep and discover their own poetry.

If you are a graduate of Oxford University then you are entitled to vote. Registration – which can be done by clicking here – closes at noon British Summer Time (GMT+1) on June 8 while voting ends on June 17. The winner will be announced on June 19.

©Barney Spender 2015

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Literature Genius rhymes with…

Poet AE Stallings talks to Barney Spender on her new status as genius, after receiving a grant from the Chicago based MacArthur Foundation, popularly referred to as ‘genius grants’ and on meeting her Muse in modern-day Athens

The American poet AE (Alicia) Stallings hails from Atlanta, Georgia but for the last few years has been living in Athens. Her first collection of poems, Archaic Smile, won the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Yale Younger Poets Award. In 2008 she was given the Benjamin H Danks Award by the American Academy of Arts, partly in recognition for her 2007 verse translation of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things). She is also the Poetry Programme Director of the Athens Centre. In 2011, she was one of 22 fellows worldwide to receive the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States and has awarded more than US$4 billion in grants since its inception in 1978.

Congratulations on winning the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship… what does it mean to you to be named a ‘genius’?

The MacArthur Foundation discourages that nickname (the genius grants) precisely because ‘genius’ comes as so loaded and fraught a word. It’s the sort of thing that could potentially be intimidating for a writer, because of course a writer always has to be willing to start with the blank page and to write something bad, to fail utterly. Still, I have been thinking of it as the “no excuses” grant. I can’t go around and complain that I can’t afford the babysitting to work or a space to work in. Now I can, and I just have to get on with things!

You have two small children; is that a help or a hindrance for your poetry.

There is a famous line from Cyril Connolly: “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.” In a sense, he is probably right. The most obvious way in which having children has affected my writing is that there is less of it. On the other hand, children also are fascinating for a poet to have. It is like having the world made new before your eyes the way they look at things. And of course, language acquisition – much less bilingualism – is fascinating. Kids are natural poets. A three-year-old can beat a working poet for inspired lines or phrases with one sticky hand tied behind his back any day. I am not above stealing lines from my children.

Was the grant for a particular work – or for a body of work?

As I understand it, it is for future work, which may or may not be a continuation of what you have been doing already. It is a big vote of confidence, basically, that you have more to write and do.

How is it likely to affect your standing as a poet in the US?

It does certainly raise your profile. There was a spike in book sales for a while (never terribly high for a poet anyway), and I think that my forthcoming book, Olives, will get more attention—and be subjected to greater scrutiny, perhaps.

Does being a ‘genius’ now mean that you can beat your husband at Scrabble?

Sometimes the better part of genius is NOT beating your husband at Scrabble. And presumably you can now get him to do the chores around the house Well, I hope it takes some pressure off John as being the sole breadwinner in such uncertain times. He’s always been helpful around the house. (I have a much higher tolerance for chaos—though genius has a nicer ring to it than slob.)

Is there such a thing as ‘a good place to be a poet’?

Anywhere you can write poetry is a good place to be a poet. Some poets need urban decay or dreary provincial towns to be inspired, some need to wander lonely as a cloud among drifts of daffodils. I was worried when I moved to Athens that the Muse wouldn’t have my forwarding address, but she seems to have found me here. Actually, being a Muse, she was probably born here. So how does the noisy, polluted, strike-laden city of Athens suit your process? I probably prefer daffodils – or wild amaryllis – to urban decay, so maybe it is not so much Athens as Greece that suits me. But, again, the poems get written. I can write pretty much anywhere if need be – a side-effect of motherhood – and often write at a local café against a backdrop of throbbing Greek pop music and the clacking of backgammon.

You have a background in Classics – has that helped you relate to Greece?

Maybe. Maybe it hurts. I am not sure. I think in a way it was easier to write about Greek mythology when I wasn’t smack in the midst of it all the time.

What was the first poem you ever wrote?

I couldn’t say. I was probably making up poems from six or seven years old. I had my first poem accepted for publication at 16.

Did it win any prizes?

No, but I got paid! I got a cheque for fifteen dollars. And the poem only took about an hour to write so I thought, “Well, this is an easy way to make a living”. And, er, here I am.

So, did you always set out on a career path to be a poet?

I think I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but probably didn’t know I wanted to be more exclusively a poet until high school. And the enthusiasm of editors for my poetry – as opposed to a novel manuscript languishing somewhere in a drawer – may have nudged me in that direction too.

I like the fact that use humour in your poetry; it is something that many people feel is incongruous in “serious” poetry…

I love humor in poetry. And rhyme is certainly a good vehicle for humour. Humour and seriousness, of course, are hardly exclusive of one another. A humorous poem can say deep and serious things, and a ‘serious’ poem can be shallow as the paper it is written on, not to mention dull. Plenty of serious poets such as Housman and Eliot, have written splendidly funny poems.

You mention those two – who else is on your poetry reading list?

I love Seamus Heaney, William Blake and I am also a big fan of Philip Larkin, Thomas Hardy, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop. Among contemporary poets, I always look forward to new books by Don Paterson, Kay Ryan, Richard Wilbur. I like poets that nourish my own writing. I am attracted to wellcrafted, musical poems that take some emotional risks.

Any Greeks?

Cavafy is my favourite modern Greek poet, which is hardly surprising. Lately, I have been very much enjoying reading and translating Sikelianos, who writes in a wonderful assortment of forms – sonnets, quatrains and so on. And I am currently at work on an English verse translation of the Cretan epic-romance Erotokritos.

I did hear a rumour that your cure for writer’s block is a strong mint julep. Any truth in that?

I wouldn’t turn one down. Are you buying?

Athens Insider, February 2012

Tsagarakis has Designs on the Parthenon Marbles

Posted by barneyspender on February 25, 2015

Posted in: Culture, Greece, History. Tagged: Amal Alamuddin, Björk, Duchess of Cambridge, Lady Gaga, Lord Byron, Lord Elgin, Madonna, Parthenon Marbles, Spyridon Tsagarakis. 2 Comments

Artwear by Spyridon Tsagarkis: photographed at the Parthenon in Athens by George Katsanakis, 2014 Copyright: George Katsanakis

World Exclusive: Artwear by Spyridon Tsagarakis: photographed at the Parthenon in Athens by George Katsanakis, 2014 (Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis)

Spyridon Tsagarakis is perhaps best known as a fashion designer; his clothes can be found in the wardrobes of many high profile women such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge.

But he is also an artist and more recently a campaigner for the righting of a wrong that Britain did to his native Greece over 200 years ago and which continues to sour relations between the two countries.

“I have been working on this project since 2004 and I will continue working on it until the Parthenon Marbles are returned,” says Tsagarakis who chose barneyspender.com to reveal for the first time a photograph of one of his art works taken in front of the Parthenon in Athens (click on the photo above to see it full-size).

Ever since the 7^th Earl of Elgin laid out his towel in the Hellenic sun at the start of the 19^th century and bought a favour from the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire, debate has rumbled on about who is the rightful owner of the set of Parthenon Marbles that currently resides in the British Museum in London.

Another British earl, a contemporary of Elgin, weighed in early. Having already taken a snap at the Scotsman in his 1807 poem The Curse of Minerva, Lord Byron took a second swipe in his longer and better known poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

Byron in Albanian Dress by Thomas Phillips, circa 1835

“But most the modern Pict’s ignoble boast,
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:
Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
Aught to displace Athena’s poor remains:
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,
Yet felt some portion of their mother’s pains,
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot’s chains.

Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorr’d!”

Unlike Elgin, Byron’s stock is still high in Greece, which is hardly surprising given that he showed his philhellenism not by making off with a shipload of swag but by joining the fight for independence, dying in the cause in 1824.

7th Earl of Elgin by Anton Graff around 1788, before his looting of the Parthenon began

Notwithstanding the legality of Elgin’s actions – a documentary currently being made by my old colleague Helen Skopis debunks the veracity of the firman that he obtained from the Ottomans – there is also the question of morality. Where should the Parthenon Marbles be kept: the British Museum in London, which has been custodian for the last 200-odd years, or the Parthenon Gallery of the Acropolis Museum in Athens where the marbles were born and where they resided for the 2000 years before Elgin appeared on the horizon?

For Tsagarakis, who was born in Crete but is based in London, there is no question to answer.

“The marbles are not the Elgin Marbles, they are the Parthenon Marbles,” he says. “It is quite obvious they belong in Athens.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise to discover that another admirer, who has invested in his work, is Amal Alamuddin, the lawyer consulted by the last Greek government about the return of the marbles. Last year saw the release of her husband George Clooney’s film The Monuments Men, the story of an Allied team trying to save artefacts from the Nazis.

“Lord Elgin arrived in Athens in 1800 to make a study of the Acropolis monuments,” says Tsagarakis. “Athens, remember, like most of the Hellenic world, was a part of the Ottoman Empire. It had been occupied, just as it was by the Nazis in the Second World War.

“Elgin secured a written permission from the Grand Vizier of Constantinople to conduct excavations around the foundations of the Acropolis provided that will not cause damage to the monuments and make casts of statues to decorate his home in Scotland.

“Elgin had not written permission to remove any part of them. Nevertheless, he bought the silence of the Ottoman officials and stripped sculptures from the Parthenon, causing untold damage to the monument.

Some of the marbles removed from the Parthenon by Elgin. Note the folds in the dress and how they match those of Tsagarakis

“He removed the back of the frieze and cut sections from the Parthenon and the Erechtheion which caused one of the metopes to break. And so he dismembered one of the most important works of art in the history of mankind which had remained largely intact for more than two thousand years.

“It was an act of vandalism and an act of theft. How can that possibly justify the British holding on to them?”

For the British Museum’s justification for keeping the Parthenon Marbles in London click here.

The issue so vexed Tsagarakis that he decided to use it as inspiration in his work, notably an art piece whose folds and design echo the Parthenon itself.

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

“It started to visit the archaeological site of the Acropolis and studying each item,” he explains. “Then I entered the process of constructing the fabric in France, so that I got the right tone. The making of the fabric was the only part of the process when the work moved out of my hands. Then when I got hold of the fabric I started to crease it by hand.

“It isn’t a quick process. It takes about four years to complete ten pieces. Each year I continue to work on the project and each year I add more pieces to the collection, although they are all different. I am currently busy on works that will be sent to the White House and Smithsonian in Washington DC.”

SHOOTING ON THE ACROPOLIS

Four months ago, Tsagarakis finally fulfilled an ambition, working with the photographer George Katsanakis to shoot the creation at the Parthenon itself, a notoriously difficult achievement given the strict guidelines on photography of ancient monuments laid down by the Greek Culture Ministry.

“I wanted to photograph the art work on the Acropolis and have the picture travel across the world. I am an artist and it is perhaps the only way that I can make this statement in a way that it will be heard. That was important to me.”

So important that Tsagarakis also issued an artist’s statement to run with the photo, giving his views on the Marbles.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

“The richness of the folds, which made the Ancient Greek sculptures unique, is used as a means of expression through a modern approach. This particular collection of my work, under the umbrella titled ARTWEAR, is a conscious choice with cultural reference to Ancient Greece. These art pieces, consisting exclusively of loose folds of wool, imply the ancient Greek statues, some of which have not been returned to Greece and are still in the British Museum. Each and every one of the Parthenon Marbles is a monument of inestimable value both for the Greek nation and humanity in general.

The Parthenon Marbles which are still in the British Museum must be returned forthwith to the Acropolis Museum. The visitor to the Museum is bound to feel not only admiration and honour but also respect and awe inspired by the Parthenon and the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis.”

Artist-Designer: Spyridon Tsagarakis
Photographer: George Katsanakis

For Tsagarakis, who says his works belong more in museums than on catwalks, the ancient culture remains a major influence on his creativity.

Lady Gaga on a visit to Athens in 2014 wearing a Tsagarakis creation (Photo: Spyridon Tsagarakis)

Lady Gaga on a visit to Athens in 2014 wearing a Spyridon Tsagarakis creation (Photo: Spyridon Tsagarakis)

“The art of Ancient Greece has exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries right up to the present.

“The techniques they used awakens in me the idea that I can construct anything I imagine. And that is very important because I can isolate any idea and so generate many thoughts from that. Above all, there is absolute harmony in the construction and that is something I want to achieve when I create something.”

Single-handedly, Tsagarakis, who has agreements in place to work with Givenchy, Alexander McQueen and Hermes, may not convince the British Museum that it should return the marbles to their birthplace. But he is another artist chipping away at the hard rock of public opinion.

With the help of the likes of Lady Gaga, Björk, Lana del Rey and the Duchess, he may just keep the issue in the public eye until the day the marbles are returned home.

You can keep in touch with Spyridon through his Facebook page.

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Long Day’s Journey into Night (and back into day again)

Posted by barneyspender on October 6, 2014

Posted in: Culture, Film, Greece, Running, Spartathlon, Sport. Tagged: Angie Terzi, Dean Karnazes, Mark Woolley, Rob Pinnington, Spartathlon, The Road to Sparta. 6 Comments

It was around 11 o’clock on Saturday morning when Dean Karnazes (right) slipped past the ruins of the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea, made a left up a narrow road and emerged into the plateia.

Checkpoint number 60, 189.3 kilometres into the 246 kilometre journey between Athens and Sparta. Just 57 kilometres to run to complete the 2014 Spartathlon.

When he reached the checkpoint, his supporter-in-chief Dimitris huddled him into a shady corner. Check those feet, a change of shirt. A piece of dried meat and a fig? A shake of the head.

The Californian sat hunched in his chair, head resting in his left hand while he squeezed a wet sponge over his neck with his right. Dimitris dug his fingers into his shoulders, working the muscles back to life.

He turned to the camera crew that had been following him since the race started under the Acropolis in Athens some 28 hours earlier. He nodded a weary acknowledgement, no hint of a smile. Then looked back down at the floor.

“This….”

He squeezed the sponge once more and grimaced as Dimitris hit a knot.

“…is the most difficult race … I have ever raced in.”

A shake of the head when a bottle of water was offered.

“So damn tough….My stomach….I can’t eat. I feel so bad…you can’t imagine.”

And that was that.

Karnazes is someone that the ultra-running world admires greatly. He has competed in some of the most gruelling races in the world. Hell, he has won Badwater which is hardly a walk in the park – unless that stroll is 217 kilometres through the corruscating heat of Death Valley in California.

And with his books, television appearances and personal sponsorship deals, he is one of the few to make anything approaching a living out of running.

Given his indefatigable efforts over the years, Karno is regarded in the non-running world as a machine rather than a man. So for him to say what he did about the Spartathlon means something. The machine was on strike. The man was taking a hiding.

This, as it is every year, was a tough, tough race.

Toughest obviously for the runners, the pain and increasing fatigue in evidence at every checkpoint.

SUFFERING ON THE ROAD

We were following four of them for the film The Road to Sparta. They all suffered, even Mark Woolley who had finished the last three of his previous five Spartathlons.

Nick Papageorge nurses Rob Pinnington’s feet at the halfway point in Nemea

The rain posed early problems, the wet conditions a recipe for blisters; the 30 degree heat that followed increased the dangers of dehydration. Rob Pinnington was struggling with his feet, his supporter Nick Papageorge working overtime at the checkpoints to work the grease and get him back moving again.

Mark had collapsed towards the end of a 333 kilometre race in the Himalayas a month earlier and felt every stride jangling through his body while Angie Terzi was being spoonfed her dinner while taking a massage.And then battling bravely on into the night and beyond.

At times the checkpoints resembled military hospitals; prone bodies, hot soup, pus, blood, tears and wailing. And a dull-eyed acknowledgement that the only way forward was over the top and back into the fray.

For the camera crew it was slightly easier. We did at least have wheels, a choice selection of nuts, Bombay Mix and Oreos and the chance occasionally to grab a few winks of sleep. And we had music, something that the runners are denied (no ipods or mp3 players allowed). We had Tryfon and Andreas, the boys from Old House Playground, picking on the guitar and tapping on the djembe, working on the first themes of what will become the soundtrack for The Road to Sparta (see below).

Magda Gouma is one if the most willing workers in the world with a million euro smile – just don’t get between her and her coffee (Photo: B Spender)

The only time there was a hint of revolt came shortly after we had seen Karnazes in Tegea.

Andreas leant over towards the driver’s seat and stage whispered in my ear.

“I think we need to give Magda some coffee.”

“Okay. We just need a couple of shots of Dean running and then we can head back to that taverna we passed a few kilometres back. About half an hour?”

“No, Barney, den katalavaineis. Half an hour will be too late. We must give Magda coffee. Now! ”

Magda, our “running” camera, was to be neither ignored nor denied. Coffee and tyropita were taken. Calm was restored.

Emotionally, the Spartathlon puts you through the ringer. You try to be objective, grown-up, hands-off film-makers but find yourself cheering on all of the runners.

“It’s the Hat Guy!” someone would note.

Cocktail Dress Lady (Photo: Spartathlon)

Hat Guy
(Photo: Maria Samolada)

“Come on Hat Guy!” we would all shout, banging our hands against the car and giving him a clenched fist or thumbs up.

It was the same story for Cocktail Dress Lady and Backwards Face.

And when you see someone on their last legs, just missing the cut-off and slumping to the ground in distress, well, it would be wrong to deny the tear in the eye and the lump in the throat. Another dream crushed on the side of the road.

THE HOME STRETCH

The finale is like nothing else I have seen in sport.

The runners, dog-tired physically and mentally, arrive at the bottom end of Sparta and slowly but surely begin to find a new lease of energy. From a distance they can hear the crowd gathered in the high street. The furrowed brows iron themselves out; there is a calm and a hint of a smile; an understanding that this incredible journey is about to come to the happiest of ends.

The Spartans arrive to pay tribute to Leonidas (Photo: Spartathlon)

When they turn into the high street they have about 400 metres to run before they touch the feet of the statue of Leonidas. In stark contrast to the last stretch of city marathons, no one breaks into a sprint. This is their victory parade and each athlete that makes it this far relishes every single step.

Cheered by the spectators who line the road or watch from the cafés, they make their steady approach to Leonidas. Children run with them. Sometimes someone will hand them a flag. Up the steps and across to the statue. A kiss of the toes, the laurel wreath and sip of sacred water; their Calvary finally over.

Their lives will be different now because their perception of their own capabilities will change and the perception of other people towards them will change.

This Spartathlon is truly a monumental race. Just ask Dean Karnazes.

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Barney Spender’s documentary film The Road to Sparta is now in post-production. It is due for release in spring 2015. It has been funded purely by crowd-funding and by sponsorship. If you would like to contribute then contact Barney via Twitter or through The Road to Sparta Facebook page

The Rough and Rocky Road to Sparta

Posted by barneyspender on September 23, 2014

Posted in: Culture, Film, Greece, Running, Sport. Tagged: Dean Karnazes, Donald Clarke, George Stephanopoulos, Michael Lawrence, Roddy Gibson, Spartathlon, Swing Away, The Road to Sparta, Trinity College Dublin. 1 Comment

This is going to be interesting. Very interesting. A test of mind and body. Sleep deprivation, hunger, inevitable unforeseen problems threatening to derail the best laid plans. At times over the course of the 36 hours, there will be laughter; at others real pain and darkness.

Ultimately though, it will be crowned with the glow of completing a task that once seemed completely beyond our limitations; that Julius Caesar moment of “Veni, vidi, vici”.

I am talking about the Spartathlon, the 246 kilometre ultramarathon which starts 7am in Athens on Friday and ends 7pm in Sparta.

But I am not just talking about the runners. I am talking about those who work the touchlines; the administrators, the support crews and my own team, the men and women who are putting together The Road to Sparta, a documentary about the running of the race.

After 30 years as a sports writer and commentator, I am about to get my first taste of directing a film. It is exciting but, like the runners we will be filming, it is also daunting. Can I do it? Can I tell the story? Can I get the unity of style between four different cameras? Can I match my ambition with talent? Will my runners all finish or will they all drop out? What about Pheidippides?

The Road to Sparta has been a long time in the brewing. I first encountered the Spartathlon while living in Greece in 2006. I loved it. I covered it each year until 2009. Since then, it has been at the back of my mind. It would make a good film. The history. The landscape. The extraordinary deeds of men and women, reaching beyond their known capabilities.

A CALL FROM DR HOUSE

Two years ago, I drew up a treatment but it was lacking in definition and it fell between the cracks. I got a full-time job and it receded further into the background.

Then, in March, a terrible thing happened. An old friend from university days in Dublin, Dessie Kirkpatrick, was diagnosed with cancer and died within a few hours. He was 51. It was an awful shock for everyone who knew him.

Roddy Gibson on location. He is Director of Photography on The Road to Sparta

The night before the funeral I stayed with Roddy Gibson. Donald Clarke was there too. And Glenn Johnston. The years rolled away. There was a depth to the conversation that there rarely is with friends made later in life. No explanations were needed for anything.

At the funeral, we rubbed shoulders with many men and women that we had known as students over a quarter of a century before. Beneath the grief lay laughter and camaraderie and a warmth that came simply by being in the same room as these people who had seen each other emerge from the cocoon and take flight.

It suddenly seemed ridiculous that we only saw each other occasionally. And never worked together.

“You know what Rod,” I whispered to him. “We are going to make that film together.”

When we left TCD, Roddy, Don and I shared digs in East Finchley, the grotty ground floor of a house with damp-greased walls and a single-bar electric heater. Donald and I both had jobs in London theatres – Don was in the box office of the Palace while I worked the stage door at the Mermaid. Rod, meanwhile, continued being a student. He went to Middlesex Poly to study film. I would argue that my finest moment as an actor on celluloid – apologies to Clare Grogan for this – came in Rod’s first student film Wednesday, a two-hander where the woman speaks all the lines and the man just reacts. Oh, and downs a pint of milk which spills down his naked torso.

“It’s all in your dimples, Barney,” Roddy would chide kindly.

When he finished his course he set up a small company and for the next gazillion years worked busily on corporate videos, short films, crewing for other people on bigger films. He learnt his trade inside and out. So well in fact that he returned to Middlesex – now a university – to head up their Film and Video department.

He knew about the Sparta film. He had been one of the few I had trusted to discuss it in the very early stages of germination.

A few days after the funeral I read a Tweet from the actor Hugh Laurie. It went like this:

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, to wait in life until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that no one is ever actually ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

Dr House had nailed it. I had been thinking ahead too much, putting problems in the way of action. Laurie had nailed it. Just do it.

That Tweet led to a late night email to Roddy. He agreed to come on board as Director of Photography – the man who will tell me I know stuff about where to point a camera – and the rest began to slip into place.

FINDING THE TEAM

I found three runners, three-time finisher Mark Woolley and two guys he was mentoring, Rob Pinnington and Nick Papageorge, who had both tried and failed in the past.

Unfortunately Nick had to drop out through injury but he will be in Greece, operating as support crew for Rob.

There are a lot of women who tackle the Spartathlon and I wanted that to be reflected in the film as well. And so Angela Terzi, an Athenian nurse running the race for the first time, came into view. And then, thanks to one of my New York connections George Stephanopoulos, currently producing Swing Away, a golf comedy in Crete, came the news that Dean Karnazes was running the race for the first time as well.

Dean Karnazes has won Badwater but is entering the Spartathlon for he first time

Dean Karnazes has won Badwater but is entering the Spartathlon for the first time

Karnazes is well known in the ultra world. You name it he appears to have run it. If you want to get a measure of his engine, cop this: in 2007 he ran 50 marathons in 50 states of the US in 50 days. His wife must love him because she could easily have had him certified.

This is a review of his excellent book Ultramarathon Man

We spoke and Dean leapt at the chance to work together on the film, not least because I wanted to bring in the Pheidippides element. He was the runner in 490BC that was sent from Athens to Sparta to try and get reinforcements to face the Persians at Marathon. According to Herodotus “he arrived the next day” thus setting in motion the whole Spartathlon movement.

Dean is writing a book about Pheidippides and intends to run the Spartathlon on the same diet of grapes, olvies, figs, dried meat and water.

At the same time, I was trying to gather crew and raise money. Family members helped; my daughter took the camera as I shot a short teaser trailer which my brother Henry edited (see below). Friends rushed out of the woodwork. My old co-presenter at Athens International Radio, Helen Skopis, began working on the Athens end of the operation while Manos Arvanitis designed the poster you see at the top of this article. Ioannis Melissanidis, the gymnast turned actor, agreed to do a voiceover for Herodotus.

James Phillipson, the herald for the Greek olive industry in the UK, immediately pledged financial support; Michael Lawrence, a painter, I knew from Hydra produced a painting that could be used as bait in the crowd-funding. It is gorgeous. I wish I could keep it. Music producer Clive Martin and the band Old House Playground both signed up to make the soundtrack without a thought for financial reward.

Anyone who contributes on the crowd-funding site has a chance of winning Michael Lawrence’s specially commissioned work The Road to Sparta

When the crowd-funding opened, the funds began to roll in. One of George Stephanopoulos’ collaborators on Swing Away, Tom Hiotis, came on board as an Executive Producer.

We could still use some funding as the budget is tight so if you are able to contribute go to our crowd-funding page here.

Marketing Greece and Aegean Airlines both helped on the flights while the Spartathlon organisers have bent over backwards to help. It has been thrilling and just a little humbling. A lot of people putting their faith in you has that effect.

Tonight I fly to Athens, the race begins in Athens on Friday and ends in Sparta on Saturday. The 300 or so athletes who will start the race have my full admiration.

As do my crew of volunteers who are only on the first lap of putting together something which I hope will do justice to this most remarkable of races.

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One Man and His Blog

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