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Where the fuck is Mark Lamarr?

Started by mippy, October 25, 2017, 01:07:51 PM

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biggytitbo

Do they get royalties on Shooting Stars and Buzzcocks when they're endlessly repeated on minor freeview channels?


Even £45 a year from that would buy plenty of Quavers.

Brundle-Fly

In his defence, when I used to frequent London comedy clubs in the late eighties/early nineties, he was the best compere on the circuit by a long chalk. He was funny enough on Shooting Stars and an excellent and knowledgeable  DJ.(if you like that sort of stuff)

Lamarr did have a reputation of being occasionally quite surly and bullish but I can't imagine that's why he isn't on TV anymore. He would have made an absolute mint in the nineties so unless he pissed it all up the wall, he could quite easily have retired without living that frugally. In Matt Lucas's autobiography, he mentions that after the second series, the Shooting Stars team were offered £200,0000 to fly out to the Philippines to perform the show for one night only at some corporate staff bash. They agreed to split the fee equally five ways but Lamarr wasn't keen, saying they'd all made enough money from the show already and not to be greedy so they all declined. This was the mid-nineties too. Skint? I think not.

DrGreggles

He still does stuff, mainly writing and script editing.
Not as 'Mark Lamarr' though, and not sure if it's under his real name or another alias. 

I personally think it's a shame he stopped stand up. He was probably the best compere I've ever seen.

mippy

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 25, 2017, 05:52:32 PM
It's a similar amount of work to Hughes though and he managed it didn't he?
I thought Hughes just bought a big house to live in himself?

Flats on our London road that are £350k now were £18-20k in the late 90s. You could probably have bought a pretty big house outright on one series of Buzzcocks (and he was doing that and SS at the same time)  and stick the rest in investments - if you don't take on an expensive addiction or divorce, living mortgage free would cut your expenses considerably. More so if you sold up when property prices went mental to go and live in a small village with a regular record fair or whatever. He had Buzzcocks and Shooting Stars around the same time.

I know Irvine Welsh says he couldn't have become a full-time writer if it weren't for property investments, though. But he's not a stand-up. He's a sit-down.

mippy

Quote from: DrGreggles on October 25, 2017, 06:38:12 PM
He still does stuff, mainly writing and script editing.
Not as 'Mark Lamarr' though, and not sure if it's under his real name or another alias. 

I personally think it's a shame he stopped stand up. He was probably the best compere I've ever seen.

That makes sense - whenever I wonder what became of some fly-by-night landfill indie fella, it turns out they've moved into songwriting for Paloma Faith and the like. The guy from Bros who wasn't a Goss ended up going into A+R and running Sony for a while.

Dr Rock

[tag]currently working on new material[/tag]

biggytitbo

He's not credited with anything on imdb so if he's still working he's doing it anonymously for no particularly good reason. He's friends with Sean Lock isn't he so perhaps he still works informally with him on stuff.

Dr Rock

I may not like the BBC for many reasons, but if they are choosing to not employ talentless unfunny has-beens who already had a career that long outlived its welcome, like Lamarr and Jupitus, they're at least doing something right.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 25, 2017, 06:50:27 PM
He's not credited with anything on imdb so if he's still working he's doing it anonymously for no particularly good reason. He's friends with Sean Lock isn't he so perhaps he still works informally with him on stuff.

His writing credit on 15 Stories High was in his real name - Mark Jones.

Brundle-Fly

Never understood the venom towards Phill Jupitus.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 25, 2017, 07:03:28 PM
His writing credit on 15 Stories High was in his real name - Mark Jones.


He's credited with that on IMDB under the name Mark Jones, no other credits though. Last appearance was 'Edinburgh Nights' in 2014 but no idea if that was new footage or not.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on October 25, 2017, 03:56:30 PM
I thought the rumour was that years of being a bit of a nasty piece of work finally bit him on the arse and the jobs dried up? Retiring at 50 sounds nice though so maybe he just couldn't be arsed any more..

Given all the sexual predators who have been an open secret in showbusiness for decades, I doubt a few stories about Lamarr being a bit of an arsehole would lose him much work.

After Buzzcocks, he retreated to radio because that's what he truly enjoyed. After a while, that became too much work for him and it was affecting his love of music, so he quit. Now he just hangs out with his mountains of records and money.

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 25, 2017, 07:07:31 PM
He's credited with that on IMDB under the name Mark Jones, no other credits though. Last appearance was 'Edinburgh Nights' in 2014 but no idea if that was new footage or not.

He hosted Edinburgh Nights back in the 90s. That was just archive footage.

daf

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on October 25, 2017, 07:06:04 PM
Never understood the venom towards Phill Jupitus.

It's swanking around with that extry 'l'. 'Phill' indeed - the sheer crust of the fellow!

mothman

He obviously got fed up of doing Buzzcocks. You could see it. All the more so when he'd gave somebody like Jimmy Cliff on, and he was genuinely visibly thrilled

Dr Rock

Quote from: mothman on October 25, 2017, 07:51:40 PM
He obviously got fed up of doing Buzzcocks. You could see it.

I'm not really keen on people paid to present shows making it obvious they are bored with it (see Paul Merton).

idunnosomename

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 25, 2017, 02:22:15 PM
The idea that he's exactly like 8-Ace but his poison is quavers is tickling me.

Eleven Quavers, the 1950s binman

Quick, submit it as a guest strip to Viz

Dr Rock

Just looked to see if he quit or was fired from Buzzcocks

wiipikipedia
QuoteAlthough Lamarr initially intended to return to Buzzcocks after one series away, he was ultimately replaced by Simon Amstell from the 19th series.


up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Dr Rock on October 25, 2017, 07:54:04 PM
I'm not really keen on people paid to present shows making it obvious they are bored with it (see Paul Merton).

I think he made it quite funny though. It was a running joke that he was losing the will to live. Merton doesn't seem to be putting a lot of effort in.

Bhazor

Yeah Lamarr always made a joke of his boredom and disinterest in the trashy guests they got. Merton just asks like a massive cunt.

up_the_hampipe

There's a good little montage of his evolution as host from that What a Load of Buzzcocks series https://youtu.be/2HM56kpHHig?t=18m15s


Glebe

Quote from: Bazooka on October 25, 2017, 01:15:10 PM
Didn't he and Mark Kermode morph into the same vessel?

Yeah, Kermode is anothef nifty fifties throwback... performs in some kind of skiffle band when he's not doing the ol' film criticising.

Enzo

He was quoted in that hatchet obituary of Sean Hughes wasn't he?

first I'd seen him quoted in anything since the blog interview a few years ago

QuoteMark Lamarr is the comedian with whom Sean's name is perhaps most closely associated, thanks to his hosting of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. "I guess you could have called us both womanisers," he says. "We were both young, rich and famous. We both had lots of girlfriends. One day he rang me, and it was the only time I remember him reaching out with sadness. He said: 'I really worry you and I are going to end up being lonely old men. I said: 'I'm not worried, because I like being alone.' The big sadness is that he didn't even get to be old. He just got to be lonely."

The Roofdog

Quote from: lankyguy95 on October 25, 2017, 06:08:50 PM
he mentioned their inability to give Lamarr a platform as an example of their ineptitude, which, given they're pretty good friends, might suggest that Lamarr isn't averse to taking jobs.

I think that's bull tbh: as far as I can tell Lamarr walked away from his 3 hour Friday night slot because they stopped commissioning his other specialist shows. The BBC definitely didn't cancel his main show. I loved them all.

Phil_A

Time to repost this again. Seemingly the last interview Lamarr did, in 2013. Still a bit cagey about why he quit doing his radio shows other than it was "a personal matter". Hmm.

http://famouslastwordsrecords.com/coffee/time-for-a-recall-to-the-airwaves/

I enjoyed his radio work and I'd be happy to see if return in that guise, but don't particularly miss him on TV. He really did turn into a bit of a monster in his latter years of Buzzcocks as many will attest.

Oh, remember the song Lamarr used to taunt Vic Reeves that time he was one? The one that goes OOOOOOOOOH FAAAAAAANTAAAAAAASIA?

Well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifNus1qMZN8

Icehaven

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 25, 2017, 06:19:36 PM
Do they get royalties on Shooting Stars and Buzzcocks when they're endlessly repeated on minor freeview channels?


Even £45 a year from that would buy plenty of Quavers.

Depends what your Quaver requirements are though. If you need one to, say, fashion your hairstyle around every day, then that's a lot of Quavers.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Phil_A on October 25, 2017, 08:48:22 PM
Time to repost this again. Seemingly the last interview Lamarr did, in 2013. Still a bit cagey about why he quit doing his radio shows other than it was "a personal matter". Hmm.

http://famouslastwordsrecords.com/coffee/time-for-a-recall-to-the-airwaves/

He did other interviews around that time, popping up on radio shows as a favour I guess. I mentioned it above, he said it became exhausting to find all this music for God's Jukebox every week. He enjoyed collecting records and listening to music, but that was becoming a job and he wanted to fall in love with it again.

Glebe

Perhaps he actually works in a branch of Poundland? Can anyone confirm this scandalous rumour I just came up with?

Enzo

Quote from: Glebe on October 25, 2017, 09:00:37 PM
Perhaps he actually works in a branch of Poundland? Can anyone confirm this scandalous rumour I just came up with?

I can't confirm that, but I can confirm that Poundland in Ireland is called "Dealz", which is the shittest name for a shop ever.

Bazooka

Quote from: Glebe on October 25, 2017, 09:00:37 PM
Perhaps he actually works in a branch of Poundland? Can anyone confirm this scandalous rumour I just came up with?

Correct, if you zoom in x 10000 to that image, he is clearly using his staff discount card for 1% off those Quavers and hair gel.

Captain Crunch

He also did Club Class way way back which I think might have been on Radio 1?