Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but Pop Screen says: welcome to our episode on Poly Styrene: I am a Cliche! Co-directed by Celeste Bell in collaboration with Paul Sng, it follows Bell’s journey to explore her late mother’s iconic time with the punk band X Ray Spex, as well as her troubled life and – more important than it sounds, this – her one-of-a-kind fashion sense.
The documentary is based closely on the book Day-Glo, by Bell and Zoe Howe, and on this episode We Are Cult‘s Mark Cunliffe joins Graham to discuss what was left out from that text, as well as appreciate Poly Styrene’s classic work with X Ray Spex, her distance from the mainstream British punk scene, the afterlife of her band and her still-underrated solo career. We also pitch an ITV1 detective series starring Kate Bush, although we’re still unsure why.
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