Why Mick Jagger's really Jumpin' Jack Cash

By Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail
Updated: 16:53 EDT, 9 April 2009

Mick Jagger: Jumpin' Jack Flash... or Cash?

Mick Jagger's such an astute businessman that he has been dubbed the Alan Sugar of rock. The Rolling Stone legend runs the band the way the entrepreneur and The Apprentice ringmaster controls his businesses.

Philip Norman, who wrote a celebrated book about the Stones and is about to embark on a biography of Jagger (covering him from the early Eighties), told me that Mick runs the group like a corporation.

'I suppose the analogies with Alan Sugar are quite strong, except Mick can talk like Alan Sugar and he can also talk like John Gielgud: he has so many different voices to use in different company,' Norman asserted.

He added that Mick was like a supreme monarch, 'particularly when the band's on the road'.

'Lots of people on those tours have the power to say "no", but only one person has the power to say "yes" - Jagger,' Norman added.

But Mick has always been savvy about money, having the wit at the end of the Sixties, when the group's finances were in disastrous shape, to hire a business manager who knew how to make the money go further. Because, in those days, who knew how long the gig was going to last?

Norman made the point that almost 50 years ago, no one would have predicted the Stones 'out of all those British bands would be the ones to last'.

Also, so many younger bands seem to be emulating the Stones and their stagecraft.

'Mick was the first one to stand out there without a guitar and treat the microphone like a phallus,' said Norman.

'There are only two ways of holding a microphone if you are a rock singer: one is the Jagger way, the other is the Jim Morrison way, holding it as if it's a little baby bird between your hands.'

Norman wants to shine a light on longstanding myths such as how come Jagger got busted on the first occasion he ever tried LSD.

'The Establishment was simply out to get him and he was never really wanting to be that outrageous, he was much more interested in social advancement,' Norman told me.

The author will also capture the wives and lovers, and roll into the 'arrogance and hubris and the vanity that is probably bigger than any earthly instrument could measure'.

But he insists the biography, due out in two years from HarperCollins, will be positive in tone overall because, like me, he admires Mick and how he and the Stones have survived to entertain his grandchildren's generation.

'It's gone beyond a question of age; they are a national treasure,' Norman declared.

Broccoli: A very British New Yorker

Cubby Broccoli discovered the licence to thrill in British movies - and it was all down to bread and dripping.

The legendary film producer who, aside from the Bond movies, was also behind stirring action pictures such as Hell Below Zero, Fire Down Below and Cockleshell Heroes starring Trevor Howard, pictured (and Call Me Bwana, but never mind), came from a farm on Long Island, New York, but became an Anglophile. And that didn't just mean the Savile Row suits. 

Cubby Broccoli was behind action pictures including Cockleshell Heroes, which starred Trevor Howard (pictured)

He became a fan of some of this country's most basic culinary dishes, his daughter Barbara Broccoli told me.

'He loved sitting with the film crews, having those fry-ups for breakfast, and his favourite was bread and dripping. Not good for your diet! There were no airs and graces about him,' Barbara recalled of her father as the British Film Institute launched a special season of films and events to mark the centenary of Cubby - real name Albert - at the BFI's centre on the South Bank which runs through this month and May.

Cubby called the Bond franchise 'the golden goose', and it endures. The pre-planning on the next Bond film has begun, and it will shoot next year with Daniel Craig in his third outing as 007. 

The BFI has restored several movies including Dr No and From Russia With Love which is having an extended run from April 24 through May 7.

Maggie Gyllenhaal will star alongside Emma Thompson in the sequel to Nanny McPhee

Assorted Bond practitioners, such as composer David Arnold, costume designer Lindy Hemming and stunt czar Vic Armstrong, will be holding masterclasses, and there are loads of screenings and tons of activities such as Bond School for those aged ten to 14 from next Tuesday to Friday.

Call 020 7928 3232 or visit www.bfi.org.uk/ whatson for information.

Nanny knows best - she chose Maggie

Oscar-winning Emma Thompson has rounded up Maggie Gyllenhaal to star with her in the sequel to Nanny McPhee.

The latest film about the magical nanny (before you ask, no, she's very different from Mary Poppins) starts filming next month at Shepperton Studios and on locations around London.

The first Nanny McPhee film, based on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda novels and released in 2005, was a big hit.

Emma wrote the screenplay for that one and has also written the new one, which she has set during World War II. It's about a group of children who are evacuated from the city to the countryside.

Ms Gyllenhaal, who starred in blockbuster The Dark Knight, recently ended an off-Broadway run in Uncle Vanya. The character she plays in Nanny McPhee 2 is, for now, being kept under wraps.

Meanwhile, Emma is writing a screenplay for a new version of My Fair Lady which will shoot next year and star Keira Knightley.

Emma can be seen in Last Chance Harvey next month opposite Dustin Hoffman. I saw it on a cold day in New York and it's a lovely, warm romantic picture.

Is Istanbul ready for Yorkshire's finest?

The Calendar Girls are going global - taking their clothes off in a dozen different languages.

The show, now running at the Noel Coward Theatre, London, will strip off in all major territories next year.

Next March, Calendar Girls will launch in Brisbane and that production will tour Australia including Sydney and Melbourne through 2010 before taking in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2011.

The play, based on the real-life story of how the Rylstone & District Women's Institute branch in Yorkshire raised funds for Leukaemia Research by appearing in tastefully nude poses for a calendar, will also cut across Canada from September next year.

Life in the raw: The UK and West End cast of Calendar Girls

Another troupe of Calendar Girls will march on Germany, Cape Town, Turkey and - ooh-la-la! - Paris.

Each region has different sensitivities about how the actresses who will play the main roles can be revealed.

'We're licensing a company to put it on in Istanbul because the authorities there are less - what can one say - accommodating about nudity and things like that,' explained David Pugh, who with Dafydd Rogers has produced the UK and London production-which features Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Gaynor Faye, Brigit Forsyth, Julia Hills and Elaine C. Smith.

However, he added: 'The Turkish don't want Turkish actresses taking their clothes off; it's not acceptable.

But they're happy if we fly girls in from the UK or elsewhere.'

In London, the show is carrying an advance of close to £2 million, the kind of money usually taken by big musicals.

I can see why it's popular. It's enormously touching and, I gather, tighter and sharper than when it began at Chichester last year. Surprisingly, it packs more of an emotional punch than the 2003 movie.

I was reading something recently about there being no examples left of what it is to be English. Well, this show epitomises a heart-warming quality this country has behind its often brittle facade. That came through with the original Yorkshire Calendar Girls, and it shines in the play at the Noel Coward.

• A share of royalties, profits and all ticket booking fees will go to Leukaemia Research.

Ambridge was never like this!

Felicity Jones has had quite a time travelling the world to make movies with Michelle Pfeiffer and Helen Mirren. But she always returns to Ambridge. 'I've been doing it now for ten years - it would be weird not to,' said Felicity (above) who plays love-cheat Emma Grundy in the broadcasting institution The Archers.

Away from fictional village life, the 25-year-old has become one of the most versatile of our rising stars.

Last year, she held her own opposite Penelope Wilton and Margaret Tyzack in Michael Grandage's acclaimed Donmar production of The Chalk Garden. Next month sees the Oxford graduate sharing the big screen with Ms Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates and Rupert Friend (above with Felicity) in Stephen Frears's sumptuously costumed and photographed movie Cheri, based on the novel by Colette. Mr Friend plays Cheri, the pampered son of a courtesan who is tutored in the art of high-living and much else by Pfeiffer, a refined artisan.

Felicity Jones: A rising star

But Cheri is pushed into an arranged marriage with Edmee, a virginal heiress, played by Felicity with a quietly determined edge.

Actually, it's the relationship between Edmee and Cheri that, for me, gave the movie some spark. 'Edmee's so young, and her mother has used her as a commodity - to marry her off when she becomes useful.

She seems quite a victim but she has her own way of asserting herself,' Felicity noted, adding: 'She loves Cheri but is petrified at the same time.' In the movie, Friend wears more make-up than Felicity.

'He's beautiful. I love the vanity of his character, it's as though he's been petted and treated like a little boy.'

After shooting Cheri, Felicity hurled herself into Julie Taymor's idiosyncratic film version of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren playing Prospera, Felicity as Miranda and Ben Whishaw as Ariel. It was a project that called for rehearsals in London, studio work in Brooklyn and location filming in Hawaii Then it was back to Ambridge.

'Ed and Emma are supposed to be in domestic bliss at the moment, and in radio terms happiness in love probably isn't the best thing,' she observed, before adding slyly: 'I have just been recording some episodes to be broadcast later this month.' Hit that dial!

Watch out for...

Steve Evets, Eric Cantona (yes, that Eric Cantona), Gerard Kearns and Stefan Gumbs, who star in Ken Loach's comedy Looking For Eric, which opens here in June and is rumoured to be heading to the Cannes Film Festival.

This is a fabulous movie. Screenwriter Paul Laverty and Loach have come up with a story about Eric, a divorced postman (played by Evets) who is obsessed with everything Cantona, and during a mid-life crisis he ends up talking to the poet-footballer. Eric the postie shares a house with two step-sons, one of whom is mixed up with gangsters.

He has a grown-up daughter from his first romance and a bunch of close pals from work who just want to make our Eric laugh.

One of them, played by John Henshaw, talks about laughter being the best medicine. 'It lifts your spirits, it produces endorphins and all your body feels good.' And this film's the best movie medicine I've had all year.

• The way things are going, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jack O'Brien, who is directing the Phantom sequel Love Never Dies, could end up rehearsing four casts simultaneously in London this summer: one for London's Adelphi, one for Toronto, another for Broadway and a fourth for Shanghai. The idea was for the Toronto company to go to New York, but what if it's a hit and can't leave Canada? The score is just thrilling, the best Lloyd Webber has produced in decades. It's going to be the biggest theatrical event London has seen when it opens here in October. Lloyd Webber will officially announce the show on May 7, and tickets will go on sale shortly afterwards.
• 

  Brian Conley: Frocks on

  Brian Conley, who will be inheriting Michael Ball's frocks when he takes over as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray at the Shaftesbury Theatre from July 27. Mr Conley knows his way around a musical stage thanks to roles in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jolson (he was diamond in that) and others. This season it seems every guy wants to put on a dress.
• Oliver! at the Drury Lane will recoup its £4.5million costs in five weeks. The National's transfer of War Horse at the New London is a hit. Wicked is a powerhouse at the Apollo, Victoria (not for me, but girls love it). Billy Elliot remains the best show in town. The West End has become a magnet during these gloomy economic times, although I'm surprised Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert is slow to build at the Palace. Maybe an original score and better support performances for star Tony Sheldon would have helped. Oh, and kill to get tickets to see A Little Night Music at the Garrick.
• Nonso Anozie, Jenny Jules and Lucian Msamati, who lead Rufus Norris's production of Wole Soyinka's play Death And The King's Horseman which is running at the National's Olivier Theatre as part of its Travelex £10 season. I think the first 20 minutes suffer from an over-emphasis on drumming. In Nigeria, certain beats send certain messages, and I don't think the audience I saw it with were receiving those messages. But then Norris gets into the heart of the story  -  a Yoruba king in Nigeria's Oyo state dies and his lead horseman has to commit an act that will send him on a journey to guide his king. The colonial bosses (this is set in the Forties), however, have other ideas, and the stroke of genius is to have Ms Jules (one of our best actresses) and Mr Msamati, both black, play the stiff-upper-lip district officer and his wife in white face. Once the story got going I was totally gripped and this had nothing to do with the fact that my father and grandfather were Obas (kings) in the same region where this play takes place. The name Bamigboye means 'he who carries the crown'.