Jonathan King as Oscar Wilde, from Vile Pervert: The Musical: "There's nothing wrong with buggering boys ... "
I hadn’t ever expected to have sight of Jonathan King’s cock, but life’s full of little – or not so little – surprises. In his Vile Pervert: The Musical movie he parts his flasher’s mackintosh to reveal all (contemptuously mocking and flaunting his own notoriety), an unveiling to 90 minutes of mischief and mayhem from the currently disgraced monarch of misrule.
The greatest compliment I can pay him is that he is authentically and spectacularly shocking. There’s no question in my mind that this show should premiere on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe – provided that audiences agree to be tied and gagged to prevent disruption.
King has set to music his decline and fall (and furious afterlife) precipitated by sex with under-age teenage boys, crimes for which he was convicted and jailed, with a libretto part-inspired by tabloid mock-horrors and King's own impenitence. He makes his case for innocence and in the process lampoons and scandalises his enemies – such as PR Max Clifford (comically reinvented here as Waxie Maxie, the smarmy, money-grubbing “silver stoat”) and Sun editor Rebekah Wade (reborn by King as Flame Mitchell in drag and long red wig, whose mantra is: “Two tits good, two balls bad”).
King has two principal arguments in his defence: evidence against him is unreliable (and I think there's a case to answer, at least); in many other countries, he would not have been prosecuted in the first place. He won’t win new friends; he may even alienate a few. He will disgust further his critics. But what of the show?
I would place it up there with Tracey Emin’s soiled bed or Damien Hirst’s pickled carcasses or one of Mark McGowan’s demo stunts: events of pre-meditated lunacy that must be marvelled at because no one thought to do the like before. Who would think to dress up as Oscar Wilde (I like the attention to sartorial detail) and sing “There’s nothing wrong with buggering boys”, or show a cartoon of the silver stoat cock-arsing his clients, but King?
Among the permutations of the unthinkable Vile Pervert is certainly one. It should be staged at the Tate Modern as a living art exhibit, as King - or his looped hologram - serenades against "professional victims" (his accusers) and reminds uncomprehending tourists that he once wrote a weekly column for The Sun and earned thousands of pounds a week from it – “I saw the hardcore porn on journalists’ computer screens, there for ‘research’ … the bestiality, necrophilia … I know where the bodies are buried,” he informs/threatens.
Vile Pervert works for me as a storm of raging energy and transcends the personal issue by its disgraceful assault on media and PR power - on the lies, the bullshit. In that sense I think King has done something here that’s better than he could have hoped. The Wades, the Cliffords, and so many others, need major trashing: we need to see these people scurrilously mocked just for the hell of it - to put them in their place. So we can see them and keep our eye on them. They have real, unaccountable power - more real power than most politicians.
The King is certainly not dead - news that won't please everyone.
To see the complete movie, Vile Pervert: The Musical, click here
45 comments:
I can't see the movie, it keeps cutting out and then I'm told the site is down. But I saw King's cock and it resembles an anaemic chipolata.
Right on, brother!
Mr King was at school with my nephew and a more charming man you couldn't hope to meet.
You have strange tastes in friends, Madame. Or is King really a friend? Your piece is so nuanced it's hard to make out whether you're friend or foe. I think "vile pervert" sums him up really.
Thank you Lavinia, always a pleasure to hear from you.
I could not have wished for a better or more fair review. Thank you Madame.
Sorry about the cutting out Anon - try a smaller low quality file.
As for the chipolata, I think you're being kind. It was a very cold day. I did think of doing it with a full erection but decided that would be over the top and might destroy the point.
Well, you've hit a new low Madame, that's all I can say. This blog generally is a disgrace - a peculiar marriage of high and low, and you can't much lower than this. I can only think that you're bopolar.
Excellent review. I have no doubt King did wrong but as you say his musical show raises wider matters than his own "injustice".
Well done Jonathan King for sending up the nonsense surrounding this case
What's bopolar? The same as koala?
This could be bigger than anyone thinks. Pure anarchist punk of the finest kind.
Just watched it and thought it was the most disturbing and frightening thing I've seen in years but also the funniest and that's what won me over - the Shami Chakrabarti video is fantastic.
first thing to get me off the sofa in 34 years
The movie is a suicide note
I wouldn't be surprised if King himself is commenting on this blog anonymously. But yes the "musical" is entertaining in a dreadful sort of way, and likening it to Emin and Hirst strikes me as an ambiguous compliment. Are you saying it's a post-modernist abortion, but that in a world of no values, how can anyone tell good from bad? I thought so.
From The Sun:
Published: 12 Mar 2008
A US CABBIE has accused pervert pop mogul Jonathan King of abusing him as a teen.
Alex Santarelli describes his abuse at the hand of twisted Jonathan King in a heartbreaking video posted on the Internet.
Alex, now 42, claims King approached him at a New York swimming pool when he was just 15, lured him back to his apartment on the promise of giving him records, played a porn video then performed a sex act on him.
The Minneapolis resident said he had decided to speak out after he was outraged to read King’s Internet claims that he was innocent saying the boys he had sex with were old enough to know what they were doing.
Confronting King on the YouTube video, Alex said: �I want to address what happened between you and me back in the summer of 81 when you preyed on me at the swimming pool at Jones Beach.
�You walked up to me where I was a 15-year-old kid looking 13.
�You had me fooled I thought you were just a cool older guy. I am pxxxxd at myself for being so naive.
�You and I both know - you sly fxxxxxg fox - you managed to get me out of my clothes naked in your bed.
�You are guilty and stop the bullsxxt. I am sick of you protesting your innocence.
�This guy does not have the discipline to stay away from boys who are under the age of 16.
�This isn’t an isolated incident, you’ve been up to this for years, there’s nothing special about me.
�I am a fxxxg young guy you put the moves on.
�You are a fxxxg phoney and don’t even try and deny it.
�There is a heavy price to pay in the long term.
love the madonna - keep it up
oh and i heard a rumour someone new's running this site
someone should tell that Alex guy that having a transgenerational wank is not King Lear. The fuss they do make over nuttin
And what a relief to see the back of Ken Livingstone - he predated Thatcher!
Bipolar
Has Fallowell taken it over - again?
surfpup's using long words now
Ken Livingstone dated Thatcher?!?
Well I confess I have just watched that film from start to finish. That Wilde bit! Oh my God. Well, the whole thing really: soooo funny - and chilling. Jonathan, if you're there, those are very big things you're saying!
And I wish I had as much energy...
If I post I'm happy to use my name - hasn't anybody noticed?
And as I say in the movie - sadly "I didn't do it" is a terribly boring defence.
What's a girl to do?
my older mate give it me
I laughed from the first frame (which took ages to start) - could Universal sue? I bet Michael Angelo gets the joke though.
The reason people think Anon is King is because Anons usually slag off but they forget defending or praising a Vile Pervert requires anonymity for many.
A classic posting in its way, that's what blogs are for. I hate to say it but I agree with Arcati -this should be worked into a stage musical, with gags compulsory at the door to prevent hecklers and stage attacks.
If modern art is about shocking us - and shock value alone is the decider (along with the acquiescence of critics, Brian Sewell excepted, of course) - then Vile Pervert is a masterpiece. It maybe cough up my breakfast.
Of course King fucked those boys. His position is he did nothing wrong, that's what he really thinks. The boys he fucked were in the grey 15-16 age category. The men who then accused him were traumatised ex post facto in the light of the tabloid witch-hunts. Nonetheless, King knew the law and was rightly jailed.
I see Arcati has specialised "her" act of milking the freaks while artfully distancing herself with tricksy prose. Mind the gap, dearie.
It won't be just Universal that may sue but Clifford and others libelled in this film. And I believe the Curt man is based on someone who accused King of sexual impropriety - so he could sue too.
MA,
Congratulations on a brilliant review.
I have now viewed King`s film in it`s entirety - not quite Michael Moore enough for Cannes, I suspect, but I say - good on you girl ! (Jonathan that is)His film wasn`t as disturbing as Saló. His opponents will hate him more now (he he)which is his intention, I presume. He is very clever - just look how it`s generated so much interest/debate on your post, MA.
P.S
Way back in the 80`s, while I was trolling the West End,JK nearly knocked me down with his white open top RollsRoyce in the Haymarket. Luckily mouth to mouth wasn`t needed. Mind you, I must have been around 18 - too old ?
Did you manage to fill your wicker basket full of them nasty weeds today, Dear? Are you aching now?
The Sooter ventured out today, inspected her estate (for the first time this year). She chased off Ginge, who`s been shitting in her territory all winter.
Max Clifford is so yesterday. Can't you smell the passé stench of him?
I filled many old bags with them nasty weeds and MA is a fit old bird with not an ache in reach.
Bit late for Sooter to be inspecting her estate ...
Oh and thank you for the kind remarks on the review Adrianos (and others). I hope you're not suggesting that JK deliberately tried to run you down in his White Rolls. Or perhaps he mistook you for someone else.
As for Cannes, perhaps the most notorious film I ever saw there was Sex: The Annabel Chong Story in which Grace Quek had actual sex 251 times with 70 men in 10 hours - the movie was well regarded by Robert Redford at Sundance.
Vile Pervert is Mary Poppins by comparison.
'Sex: the Annabel Chong story' - now available for 5.99 from MDC on the South Bank. But she was obviously seriously fucked up - personally I wouldn't have waved my cock within 10 yards of her.
As for Mr King - well from the way the Sun and its tabloid bretheren go on you'd think he was some sort of mass rapist.
That far exceeds Claudius`s wife, Messalina`s record
I really dont like King's music - even the hits - but I was surprised to find I watched the whole film. Mischievous, cheeky and laugh-out-loud funny - one line alone will make it Film of the week at News Int.
its about time someone made a noise about false allegations and ridiculous historical abuse cases. I know of course that many are true, but really, enough is enough. Good on him I say, the hypocrisies that surrounds such cases seems awful, if he had been a 25 year old woman with a 15 year old some twenty odd years ago who would care!
Boys have and will diddle with each other and some with older men. Its happened for eons and is not gonna stop anytime soon. The fact that a fifty year old man can complain that when he was 15 he had a fiddle with some bloke, not once, but twice, thrice and so on, returning again and again and it destroyed his life is garbage. A statute of limitations is needed, and the assumption that if the individual returned then there was obviously not a problem. We are not talking about 10 year olds here after all, but teenagers and all that entails. The film raises some interesting questions on that front.
it STILL would be classified as a felonious crime..man or woman...hate to be the bearer of bad news Anonymous...a 15 year old boy...sounds so familiar!
Always amazed when people think about this in terms of the law, it has little to do with it really, or proof would be required. I think the issue is you cannot prove you did or did not do something years ago, the presumption of innocence is reversed.
In addition, why are all the big stories about gay men and boys, a little one sided at times, and will juries will have homophobes on them who would not give a damn for the truth?
I wish that the truthful statement you make illustrating equality converted into equal justice for men accused of this type of crime. Unfortunately it does not and never will. Homophobia is intrinsic in our system and processes despite many great strides made in recent years.
The main rule of thought here, is that King is a serial child abuser.
He is hoping beyond hope that his human rights were violated.
He had no respect for the human rights of the children he abused.
He arrogantly shows his perverted self, and wants everyone to believe that his abusive World was OK, because the kids loved the money.
He cannot rely on the Court over age of consent, because no matter what age it was, he had no right to abuse boys of preteen age.
Some rubbish has bene posted as comments. Watch the film and get the facts of the story. The UK is doing SHOW TRIALS to prop up the NEW LABOUR Government. They are the REAL criminals who have stolen your pensions and your taxes and killed thousands in pointless wars.
JK is one of the UKs best loved music makers and presenters and this film proves that more than the lack of evidence against him ( none to be exact ) in a SHOW TRIAL.
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