Michael Smith (writer) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Michael Smith is an author and broadcaster best known for Citizen Smith, a series examining what it means to be English (BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

, 2008); Michael Smith's Drivetime, a six-part road movie exploring the cultural impact of the car (BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

, 2009); and A Journey Back to Newcastle: Michael Smith's Deep North (BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

, 2010).

Both series were produced and directed by Simon Egan of Bedlam Productions

Bedlam Productions

Bedlam Productions is an independent film and television production company based in Soho, London and has been in operation since 2009. Bedlam was founded by Simon Egan and Gareth Unwin; the two met while studying film at Ravensbourne College...

, who went on to co-produce the multi-Oscar- and BAFTA-winning The King's Speech.

Smith regularly makes short films for BBC2's The Culture Show

The Culture Show

The Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two Arts magazine programme. It is broadcast in the UK on Thursday nights at 7pm, focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts...

, including: the Oxford behind the dreaming spires; Patriotism in Music, to mark the 300th anniversary of the anthem Rule Britannia; a call for a more inclusive approach to heritage from the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

; a critique of the Skin exhibition at London's Wellcome Collection

Wellcome Collection

The Wellcome Collection is a museum at 183 Euston Road, London, displaying an unusual mixture of medical artifacts and original artworks exploring 'ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art'. The Collection comprises three public exhibition spaces, an auditorium, events space, cafe...

, later included in The Culture Show

The Culture Show

's Best of 2010 programme; a piece on accents to mark the opening of the Evolving English exhibition at the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

; a hymn to shopping malls, classical and contemporary, from the perspective of the flaneur; a tour of the regenerating East End of London; an "art crawl" around galleries and spaces in Deptford and Peckham in SE London which takes place on the last Friday of each month; and a review of Dr Dee, the new opera by Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...

, premiered at the Manchester International Festival

Manchester International Festival

The Manchester International Festival is an international cultural festival of original new work, held in the English city of Manchester. It is a biennial event, first taking place in June–July 2007, and subsequently recurring in the summers of 2009 and 2011...

.

He made three films for the The Culture Show

The Culture Show

at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

: the first recounting his experience as a 'Festival Virgin'; a second on how the city of Edinburgh's dark side is mirrored in numerous festival productions - focussing on the work of the Traverse Theatre, he evoked the legacy of murderous denizens of the Scots capital, Burke and Hare and Jekyll and Hyde; and an evocation of Edinburgh's magic as a drama set - how the city itself is the real star of the Festival.

Subsequent films for The Culture Show

The Culture Show

included a review of the 2011 Postmodernism exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, and a tour of the edgy arts scene in Birmingham, rejecting the silly claim that Brum is the 'most boring city in Europe'.

Smith completed Paris Postcards, a series of six short films for Eurostar

Eurostar

Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....

in 2009, followed by similar series exploring Amsterdam, Lyon and Avignon in 2010. The Amsterdam films were photographed by Danfung Dennis, whose 2011 documentary Hell and Back Again was a Sundance

Sundance

Sundance Resort is a ski resort located northeast of Provo, Utah, spanning over on the slopes of Mount Timpanogos in Utah's Wasatch Range. Snow skiing began on the site in 1944...

award winner.

He developed his meditations on "London" in another short film, Drift Street: Michael Smith's Guide to the Olympic Park, London 2012, which was premiered in July 2011 on a narrowboat housing London's Floating Cinema.

He started writing by producing a series of pamphlets which he would later work up into The Giro Playboy (Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...

, 2006). They were distributed through cafes and trendy boutiques in London and Brighton and quickly became collectors' items.

Shorty Loves Wing Wong (Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber

, 2007), a prequel to The Giro Playboy, incorporating art by Jim Medway, was the follow-up.

Both Faber books were preceded by collectable limited editions, published by Simon Finch and To Hell, respectively. The Simon Finch edition collected together the early The Giro Playboy pamphlets and a CD of readings, set to music by collaborator Flora, packaged in a hand-stencilled pizza box. Shorty Loves Wing Wong was accompanied by an exhibition of Jim Medway's artwork at London's Paul Stolper Gallery.

His writing has been anthologised in collections, including: Oysteropolis, in On Nature (Harper, 2011), and extracts from The Giro Playboy in Reactions 5: New Poetry (Pen & Inc Press, Uni E Anglia, 2005).

Smith has also written features for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

newspapers, The Idler
The Idler
There have been three British publications called The Idler:* The Idler , a series of essays by Samuel Johnson and his contemporaries.* The Idler , a literary and humorous magazine started by Jerome K...

, Zembla and Fire & Knives, as well as regular columns for magazines like Dazed & Confused
Dazed & Confused (magazine)
Dazed & Confused is a British style magazine, that was set up in 1992 and published monthly. Its founding editors were Jefferson Hack and Rankin...

, Good For Nothing and Bare Bones/Le Gun.

He has performed many readings. With Flora, he held a fortnightly residency at London's Whitechapel Gallery

Whitechapel Gallery

The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...

. Gigs have included: Richmond-upon-Thames Literary Festival, Port Eliot, Hay, Clerkenwell and Hackney festivals; London's Colony Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Filthy Macnasty's, Boogaloo, and the Great Eastern Hotel; gigs in Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh; and European venues such as the Crossing The Border Festival in The Hague and Shakespeare & Co in Paris.

Smith has been heard on numerous radio stations, notably BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

, BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

, BBC London

BBC London

BBC London is the BBC English Region producing local radio, television, teletext and online services in London and parts of the surrounding area. Its output includes the daily BBC London News and the weekly Politics Show on television, the BBC London 94.9 radio station and local coverage of the...

, and various regional stations.

A third book, The Birds, about romance, is due soon. Smith is also currently working on several film projects.

External links

Michael Smith's official website
BBC2 Culture Show page
The Guardian review of Citizen Smith
Faber And Faber, Smith's publisher
Michael Smith's page, Conville and Walsh
Conville and Walsh
Conville & Walsh Ltd is a literary agency founded by Patrick Walsh and Clare Conville in 2000, and based in Soho, London. The agency numbers six book agents in a staff of eleven.Conville and Walsh is a full member of the Association of Authors' Agents....
A short film of Michael Smith touring the Olympic Park and introducing his film 'Drift Street' commissioned by the Floating Cinema

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