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In the BBC documentary The Great Hunger
The Life And Songs Of Shane MacGowan. a host
of Ireland’s most celebrated musicians pay tribute
to the former Pogue in such reverent a fashion that
if one didn’t know otherwise, one would presume
him recently dead. Bono proclaims him the greatest
songwriter Ireland has ever produced, Christy
Moore effectively suggests that the sun shines
out of an orifice best left unexplored, while Sinead
O’Connor calls him a genius who works only on two
engines. ."Imagine if he operated on the full four"
she ruminates, before going on to worry about the
state of his health.
Directed by Mike Connelly, the man behind the BBC’s disappointing Oasis programme. The Great Hunger is an utterly transfixing documentary of a broken man seemingly unaware of his standing among his peers. and unconcerned about the damage he seems so ready to inflict upon himself.
"Oh, I'm alrignt. I suppose." says MacGowan, seated at a table outside his local north London boozer, and drunk to the point of semi-consciousness. "But I really don't know what a the fuss is about."
The programme tells the story of MacGowan's
life from birth in Ireland, his upbringing in South East
England, before covering his punk years (first as a
lunatic Clash fan, then with his first band, the Nipple
Erectors), through The Pogues and The Popes, as
well as dwelling on the man himself in his assumed
role as Poet Laureate to bar flies everywhere. It’s
also something of a unique entity in the world of
documentaries in that the subject himself, frankly.
couldn’t care less.
"Can’t understand why anyone'd be interested, to be honest," says MacGowan, now slurring, his chin flecked with remnants of an earl ier meal and a liberal amount of spittle 'least of all me. Only agreed to the programme because they told me how much money I’d get'. Which was? "That's my business, mate.
MacGowan has yet to view the programme, nor is he likely to, "They didn't get anything on me,' he asserts. "I keep all my cards close to my chest, me. And all those nice words from people like Christy and that ...they’re all good friends of mine, but they don’t know the inner workings of my soul., so how revealing can it be."
He does, however, eventually concede that he may be a worthy subject for such treatment "It's because I'm brilliant, isn't it? That's what people tell me, anyway. But tell me this, if I'm so good. why has Bono get so many more millions than me? Why does he get millions and I end up getting fuck all?" Perhaps because he se 5 more records than you 'Yeah. and why the fuck is that .f I’m supposed to be so good. then?"
On camera a catatonic MacGowan admits to, 'being out of it most of the time " but isn’t, he insists, an alcoholic. "I never lose control ," he says ' I don’t start riots, don't get abusive or get into fignts or 5 sing loudly in bars.
People seem to have me pegged as a bigger drinker than anyone else." He takes another long. slow sip of his whiskey, then pronounces. "I'm not."
Query him on the last time he was sober however, and his eyes will glaze over "it’s been a long time," he admits, "I've gotten lazy recently, I don't work out anymore, don't eat well, don't swim. But I'm going to get back into it soon." When, exactly? "Before I'm 40." Which he’ll turn - albeit reluctantly, on Christmas Day.
MacGowan has recently completed work on his new album, Crock Of Gold, due out early next year. "It isn’t, he concedes, very good. ("It's probably good enough. but I'm past my best.") Elsewhere, he’s been writing film scripts in which he intends to take the lead role, that of a psychotic killer. "I've done two films, Sid & Nancy and Eat The Rich. which were total shit, he says. "I can do better myself" As yet, he hasn’t sold a screenplay "takes time," he says. "These film types. they’re pretty fucking blase.
The sight of Shane MacGowan in The Great hunger (why didn't they call it The Great Thirst?) has an almost ghoulish appeal. These days. he’s so wasted he can barely function. To raise a glass from the table to his lips takes at least 30 seconds, to light a cigarette, five minutes. At one point .in the conversation. a small crab apple falls onto Q's head from somewhere up above (no tree in sight. curiously) and bounces into MacGowan's lap. "What the fuck?" he asks rhetorically, before popping the offending item into his mouth. chewing and swallowing it, and immediately vomiting it up again.
"I'm nothing special" he says again. "If you consider The Irish tradition over the past four thousand years, I completely shrink into insignificance. I'm just a dwarf."