Jubilee

Made in the white heat of the explosive punk era, and featuring some of its most outrageous protagonists, ‘Jubilee’s reputation has grown from a violent period oddity to a strangely prophetic view of a future we all feared would one day come.

 The Queen is horrified to see a derelict, besieged London, with roaming gangs of young, violent women brutalising anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. Chief among these is that headed by ‘Bod’ (Jenny Runacre in a dual role), the frosty, controlling Queen to ‘Amyl Nitrate’ (punk progenitor Jordan), pyromaniac ‘Mad’ (Toyah Willcox, crop headed and totally unlike her pop star persona only a year or two later) ‘Chaos’ (Hermine Demoriane) an almost silent, tightrope walking drudge, bed-hopping talent scout ‘Crabs’ (Nell Campbell) and Angel (Ian Charleson) and Sphinx (Karl Johnson) the incestuous brothers who populate the squat somewhere in London’s then-disused dockland.

Violence is everywhere in ‘Jubilee’, whether it’s humiliating the waitress in her dingy café, smothering a rock protégé ‘Good Times’ (Gene October) that Crabs has taken a liking to, or knifing one Bod has not taken to; Lounge Lizard (Jayne County, in true sleazy form). This would prove a problem when the time came to submit this sour confection to the British Board of Film Censors, the film only narrowly avoiding an outright ban.    

Crabs’ work is primarily performed for all-powerful media mogul Borgia Ginz, (Jack Birkett, or Orlando as he’s named) a riotously overplayed camp character who feels horribly familiar in this age of global media conglomerates. She introduces Amyl to the sinister mogul, and this results in one of the film’s more outrageous performances, the sight of Jordan as Britannia in a golden helmet,  a Union Flag mini dress (we’re not talking The Spice Girls here) skimpy underwear and using her trident for purposes surely never intended. Jordan’s version of ‘Rule Britannia’ was released under the name of Suzi Pinns for everyone’s delectation. Kid (Adam Ant) is another of Crabs’ protégés, whose performance runs the gamut from bored indifference to mad-eyed hilarity. The subsequent live performance of ‘Plastic Surgery’ by Adam and the Ants in Drury Lane theatre captures them at the height of their crazed, pre-mega stardom days. Surrounded by the cast and crew of the film, this scene is the only one which looks like a conventional rock picture.

Relationships between characters are explored in squirm-inducing detail, as the two boys add ‘Viv’ (Linda Spurrier) an artist with a penchant for painting everything in her flat black, to their sexual adventures. One of the few moments of levity comes with their visit to the relentlessly cheerful ex-soldier Max’s (Neil Kennedy) garden of plastic flowers. The character of Viv could possibly have been explored further, given that she puts out a highly emotional performance of all, later in the film.  

The murderous spree of this all-female gang spreads to assaulting members of the police force, and one of the most horribly memorable scenes is the attack on a policeman by Mad, in an intense, blood chilling performance by the cast’s youngest member. The area around Saint Saviour’s Dock, long before its invasion by swanky restaurants and shops selling tourist tat, makes for a highly effective backdrop to the gang’s bloody crimes.

The bleak vision of a future Elizabethan society seen by an earlier one must be one of the boldest, most original premises in a film to come out of the UK in the 1970’s. Made by a brilliant young director with little connection to the bourgeoning punk movement,   ‘Jubilee’ is certainly the most imaginative film about punk and time has not softened its impact.