ANOTHER training shoe ad! Another big production number! Another set of Bladerunner images! So what’s new or remotely interesting about Adidas’s latest expensive “catch-up” commercial with Nike and Reebok (who started earlier)? Simply that it dramatises the conflict between two of the great lifestyle scams of modern American youth marketing. On the one hand we have the world of the new technology, Cyberhype, on the other the celebration of the body and outdoors – the Natural High. So we start with the Bladerunner set, of course – and we hardly notice it, now it’s so familiar in this kind of ad. Then we have The Prisoner, a young blond man, very thin, brought forth in a monk’s robe to be interrogated by what appears to be Uma Thurman, in her Pulp Fiction black bob. And then, the updated, classic technology-myth emerges: they’re stealing our souls. “According to a professor at MIT, man will be able to download himself” – to interface with electronic systems, become part of them.
The personality will be transferred, the voiceover continues – while our boy, now stripped, is cruelly treated by invading circuitry, his dreams manifesting in clouds around him (somewhere between Michelangelo and Duran Duran’s Wild Boys video).There’ll be no need for the body once the transfer is completed, it can be chucked. It was about doing your best for someone for for whom you care deeply.
The care and love which Miriam gave her father in the flat that she made for him in her house was done with the greatest generosity of spirit. What she did was nothing to do with being a dutiful daughter. One day we would love to do something together, but it would have to be much more than just another “buddy” TV comedy series.Her generosity is well known A few weeks ago her father, who was in his nineties, died. I’ve done the same with The Killing of Sister George, her West End play.
Neither of us minds what we might criticise in the other because we know it’s done constructively. After-wards, I went through her notes about what she felt I should change. She enjoys dressing up and wearing big earrings, but not all the time.Where work is concerned, we help each other Miriam came to see me do Jean Brodie early on in the run. She asked me to help, so I took her to Wardrobe in Chiltern Street and put her in touch with a make-up artist and hairdresser Now she’s developed a style which is her own.
We have to accept her looking shambolic and as though she’s dressed by Oxfam, because other things matter more to her.Miriam started to worry about how she looked when she became successful in America. It’s their problem, not Miriam’s, if they can’t accept her for what she is. She’s a true free spirit and I admire the way she has managed to sustain a relationship for 27 years without having to live with the person to whom she is deeply committed.Without make-up, my complexion is almost albino and I look terrible, so you could say I have to live a sort of lie. Miriam wouldn’t dream of trying to pretend she was anything other than who she is. All of us withhold truths, but she can’t be deceptive and therefore some people find her shocking. I wait for things to come my way.Although we are such close friends, she can’t understand why I wanted to have children, but she has total respect for me, saying, with genuine tenderness, “They make you happy, don’t they? That’s what matters.” When Alexander was six weeks old, she came to see me, bearing a brown velvet Hush Puppy for him, announcing, “It’s perfectly safe, non-toxic and the eyes won’t come out.” It’s still one of the children’s most important toys.I have absolute respect for the way Miriam lives her life because she does it with complete honesty. With Gertrude Stein and Dickens’ Women, she took on the project herself and found her own directors.
The only thing that matters to her is whether someone has a talent she can respect. In America, to be different is something they celebrate, so she has become a star She’s always had the courage to do things off her own bat. Jealousy isn’t a word you would ever associate with Miriam, who’s never minded other people’s success, unless it was unfairly gained. Casting directors were frightened of her because she’s such a one-off She was always the maiden aunt or the misfit character. It hurt her a great deal, not getting the work, and she’s had to fight like a terrier for everything she’s achieved in her career She’s used sheer grit and determination. Her voice is extraordinary – I hope the younger generation listen to her because Miriam probably has the best received pronunciation of any actress I know.
