Alan McGuire interviews Brett Gregory about his new film
AM: What drew you to Peter Street’s story, and how did you decide to make him the subject of this documentary?
BG: After 11 months we finally completed our short film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’ in August 2024. Shot entirely on location in Bolton, it recently won Best Director at the prestigious Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Madrid, an achievement which we are all very proud of.
The plan was to follow ‘Before the Law’ with a short film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. With the script written, the narrative is set in 1982 on the edge of a run-down working-class town in the north of England during Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberalist ‘Reign of Terror’.
The lodger in Poe’s story has been reimagined as a desperate young adult female who has just been released from prison, while the landlord is envisioned to be a retired Tory councillor who is half-blind and bedridden. As well as differences between age, gender, social class and party politics, the primary aim of the story is to explore how state-sponsored poverty can corrode an individual’s mental health which, in turn, can lead to violence and even murder.
Influenced by the trenchant television dramas of Dennis Potter, the source material is out of copyright and the action is set in a single residential location so, in theory, it should be relatively affordable to shoot. This said, it would still be a large undertaking to effectively recreate the iconography of the early 1980s with northern actors who are politically on point as well as self-disciplined and memorably talented, so we are currently looking to join forces with an intelligent, resourceful and well-connected co-producer who, of course, doesn’t exist.
As a consequence, Gwyn Hemmings, director of photography, and myself agreed at the beginning of this year to refresh our energies by refocusing our attentions towards the documentary format as a part of our never-ending search for human authenticity.
Then, two weeks after we had reached this agreement, somebody calling themselves ‘Peter Street’ messaged me, out of the blue, on LinkedIn.
By way of staccato syntax he wrote that I was the only person he had come across on the platform who had ‘working-class’ in their biographical profile and, in turn, asked if I was interested in adapting a gothic short story he had written?
Now, since this wasn’t like one of the usual polished, pushy and pernicious pitches I tend to receive online, I was intrigued, and so carried out a bit of research.
To my surprise I soon discovered by way of interviews and articles published in, for example, The Guardian and The Bolton News, that Peter, born an illegitimate and illiterate child in 1948, was now, in fact, a published poet and memoirist.
Furthermore, over the decades, he had also been a slaughterhouse worker, a gravedigger and a war poet during the Bosnian/Croatian conflict during the 1990s. In turn, as well as suffering from epilepsy, and breaking his neck in the 1980s, he was only diagnosed as autistic when he was 66 years old.
My first thought was, ‘This is an incredible backstory.’ So I WhatsApped Gwyn, sent him some links, and said, ‘I think I’ve found our guy.’ And, fortunately, after I presented my documentary idea to Peter, he agreed to be found.
AM: How does the documentary explore the intersection of autism, poetry, and working-class life?
BG: As well as prejudice, marginalisation and injustice, a common theme in all of my work, whether it is drama or documentary, is struggle, the struggle to overcome and to accomplish.
So, with Peter’s autism there is the struggle to communicate on an interpersonal level, to be understood, and to fit in with others socially. Indeed, in the documentary, he reiterates that he likes to be left alone, but he never feels lonely. In turn, he can become frustrated with people very quickly, has difficulty remembering their names, and often appears distracted when you talk to him. He is also sometimes quite suspicious about your motives.
With regards to his poetry (see poem below) there is the struggle to create, to be published, and to be appreciated. Indeed, his creative writing, while formally influenced by North American experimentalists like E.E. Cummings, is altogether unique since it passes through the optics of his autistic worldview before it reaches the page. Thus, he has an intense confessional relationship with the politics of flowers, for instance.
Moreover, when you take into account the extreme labouring jobs he has had to endure over the years such as slaughterhouse worker and gravedigger – jobs which most of us could never imagine doing ourselves – the audience is reminded that working-classness is, as always, about struggle: the struggle to pay the bills, to survive, to enjoy life even.
AM: What challenges did you face making this documentary, and how has that affected the final product?
BG: As mentioned above, Peter is somewhat dissociated during interpersonal scenarios, has a short attention span, is quite impatient and, at 76, his memory is not what it used to be. As a consequence, along with a series of breaks, it took around 7 hours to interview him about his life, his work, and his poetry.
Following this it then took me another 60 hours to edit his responses into a clear and coherent linear narrative with a runtime of around 36 minutes. This is because nervous tics, stimming and sudden moments of exasperation would, now and again, interfere with what he was trying to put across. Importantly, however, I also had to focus on retaining his personality, character and singular presence on screen.
We had to carry out a short re-shoot a week later, and so I invited Peter to watch a rough cut of the interview which we had filmed and edited. He was overjoyed with it and, in turn, was also surprised.
‘I look so old,’ he said to me. ‘And why am I waving my arms about?’
Another challenge – which is ongoing – is shooting the landscape which surrounds the borough of Bolton as a part of the documentary’s opening sequence. Our aesthetic aim is to cross-examine the trite ‘It’s Grim Up North’ epithet by capturing the beautiful cairns, the rolling hills, the waterfalls and the woodland that enrich the region. However, the weather has been fluctuating between the Bahamas and Belarus just lately, and is still refusing to fall into line.
AM: How does the visual style of the documentary reflect the themes in Peter’s personal life and his poetry?
BG: It is difficult to say. Intense yet calm? Private yet public? Down-to-earth yet lyrical? Foreign yet familiar? I have never worked on a production like this before but, strangely, it feels like I have in some way, maybe in a dream.
AM: What do you hope audiences will gain from this documentary?
BG: An insight and a better understanding of what it is like to live with autism, how attitudes have changed over time, the prejudices and the progress. Peter is married with two daughters and six grandchildren, for example. Moreover, he strongly encourages audience members to seek out assistance, and to feel unashamed, if they believe they have undiagnosed autism themselves.
The documentary also advocates an appreciation of poetry – its discipline, its freedom, its potency – and explores how the working-class have been denied access to this art form over the centuries due to a crooked education system and a corrupt establishment. The film opens with a recitation of a poem by John Clare, for instance, who, during his life of penury and ill-health in the 19th century, was known as ‘The Peasant Poet’. I perceive a literary lineage here that leads to Peter Street and other writers like him who are in a similar socio-economic situation.
It is hoped as well that audiences further afield realise that Bolton is much more than its football club, the cotton trade, and Fred Dibnah. As well as its exceptional scenery and dramatic architecture, its political history is surprisingly anti-royalist and radical. Indeed, following ‘The Massacre of Bolton’ during the First English Civil War, James Stanley, the 7th Earl of Derby, was publicly beheaded in the town centre in 1651. It is of little surprise then that the Bolton Socialist Club, the oldest in the country, and is still going strong on Wood Street.
AM: This documentary is clearly part of a larger project. What other art forms or working-class artists are you interested in exploring in future films?
BG: Of course, things depend a lot on how ‘Autism and the Arts: Poetry with Peter Street’ is received by audiences, organisations and critics once it is released in the summer but, at this stage, it is clear that the format could realistically be developed into a compelling series. That is to say, intimate portraits of working-class citizens in the north of England who are on the autistic spectrum, but who also excel at painting, dance, photography, music, ceramics etc.
However, at Serious Feather, my production company, we are working without a budget as usual, and there are only four of us: Gwyn and myself, Andrew McCrorie-Shand (composer) and Jon Baldwin (associate producer).
As a consequence, we have to rely on the active support of like-minded individuals, groups and organisations who are also motivated to bring about progressive and positive change in whatever ways they can. For example, Peter Firth, who works with the multi-faceted Bolton-based arts and heritage organisation, Live from Worktown, has freely stepped in to provide the documentary with its authentic voiceover narration.
In turn, Andy Blundell, who is also from Bolton, has single-handedly created an incredible website called Landscape Britain and, during my research, he provided me with invaluable information with regards to areas of outstanding natural beauty throughout the region.
As always, solidarity is the key, so if there is anybody out there who wishes to become genuinely involved in our ‘Autism and the Arts’ documentary series, then please email me at brett@seriousfeather.com. Finally, here is a poem by Peter……
NOT BEING ME
for everyone on the autism spectrum
Childhood nights were dreams
of being a sheep
then up and outside of a morning
a quick check to see
if by any chance in the night
there had been a change
of being just like all my friends
and not the odd one out
like afternoon dance lessons
spent hidden
in the toilet
out the way because
I couldn’t dance the sheep steps
That’s why I dreamed
of being a sheep
so I could be like everyone else.
From the collection ‘Thumbing from Lipik to Pakrac‘ (Waterloo Press, 2009)
