This Is Your Life.
An Exhibition by Mitch Vowles & Jim Brook.
On Wednesday the 7th of January 1976, Welsh snooker professional Ray Reardon was recording a session for Thames Television’s Ladbroke International series at London’s Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn. Having finished up the last frame, Reardon began setting up a trick shot - requested by the event’s producers as possible programme filler - before the floor manager that day, David London, interrupted citing an unexpected ‘technical problem’. As filming resumed and Reardon launched into his piece to camera and subsequent effortless trick shot, a man entered the hall via the rear doors, vaulted the table surrounds and approached the six-time World Snooker Champion, tapping him on the shoulder. A visibly startled Reardon initially looked over the wrong shoulder, before his legs almost gave way and he grabbed the table for support. “There’s one red you haven’t potted yet”, declared the man, somewhat triumphantly.
Almost exactly four years later, on Wednesday the 9th of January 1980, fellow Welsh snooker pro Terry Griffiths was being driven through central London by Barrie Gill - the founder of sports marketing company CSS - following a long day of potential sponsorship meetings. While on their way to a Ford dealership showroom, supposedly for a similar meeting about an upcoming exhibition match, a large London bus pulled out in front of them, blocking the road ahead. That same mystery man, this time disguised as a bus conductor and brandishing a large red book resembling a family photo album, exited and made his way toward Griffiths in the passenger seat, grinning maniacally.
That man was, of course, television presenter and host of the long-running documentary series ‘This Is Your Life’, Eamonn Andrews. Andrews made a career out of doorstepping, ambushing and surprising unwitting celebrities, sports stars, cultural icons and even members of the public, before presenting them with that talismanic autobiographical tome and uttering the immortal eponymous epithet “Tonight, this is your life!”. The ‘victims’, as they were known in the particular parlance of the popular light-entertainment programme, would then be whisked away to a television studio, where they were expected to discuss and dissect their life in front of a live audience, aided and abetted by a cohort of colleagues, friends, family members and surprise guests. It was typically an emotional affair, and Andrews didn’t shy away from exploring the lows as well as the highs, the failures as well as the successes. Reardon, for example, was reunited with his fellow miners, those who had rescued him after an accidental roof collapse left him buried for almost three hours.
Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, who had appeared as a guest for Reardon’s episode, received the ‘big red book’ treatment himself in 1981, the snooker legend’s trip down memory lane only slightly marred by the fact that his then- wife Lynn wasn’t on speaking terms with Higgin’s mother Elizabeth. And despite tensions reportedly boiling over at the programme’s after-party, with Lynn receiving a slap across the face from an extended ‘Hurricane’ family member, Higgins himself always remembered the experience fondly. For at a time when only three television channels existed, to air your dirty laundry and the trappings of fame and fortune on primetime was, according to the ‘People’s Champion’, “almost like the British equivalent of getting an Oscar or a gold medal.”.
Despite coming to an end in 2003 - after 48 years, 43 series and 1130 episodes - at Collective Ending HQ we find the programme’s name in lights once more. Carnival lights, set within the green baize of a snooker table. It’s an apt title for an exhibition featuring two artists who don’t shy away from exposing their whole, honest selves through their practices. Autobiographical anecdotes abound, with tales of traditional Sunday chicken dinners and the resultant wishbone ritual. Sentimental stories shared within the sanctity of a snooker hall bridge the inherent North- South divide. Differences are put aside next to the coins stacked on the table’s edge by awaiting competitors. There are the aforementioned guests, albeit more akin to ghostly apparitions than their over-excited on-camera counterparts. A father absent save for his size-nine Slazenger trainers, another immortalised within a customised keychain. Family portraits etched in motorcycle jacket patches. An uncle’s pensive poetry and a grandfather’s affectionate put-down. The loitering Levi 501s of fellow pub goers. And Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins again - of course - omnipresent in that renowned red and white floral funerary wreath.
“Jim Brook, Mitch Vowles, tonight, this is your life!”
Essay by Hector Campbell.