BOY NEXT DOOR (BOY GEORGE)

“AN ENGROSSING DOCUMENTARY”

-The Sun

“A FASCINATING STORY ABOUT THE FAUSTIAN PACT THAT PERFORMERS MAKE WITH STARDOM”

-Time Out

Made as Boy George re-emerged as a solo artist after a period of severe heroin addiction, the film explores the background to his emergence as the gender-bending star of Culture Club and his descent into self-destructive behaviour. Friends and family provide insightful contributions to George’s own very candid and humourous account of his rise, fall and rise again, while writer Jon Savage explains George’s journey with a sharp sense of the singer’s sense that he had betrayed his sexuality in presenting himself in Culture Club as a sexless doll-like figure, at time when being gay as a rock star got in the way of mass success. 

CREDITS

Written, produced and directed by Mark Kidel

Camera by John Christie and Leanne Pooley

Edited by Andrew Findlay

Third Eye, BBC

1995

Running time: 51 mins

“The film reveals a funny, complex and sensitive survivor” - The Independent

“Definitive profile of the gender-bending pop star with the carnival ear for melody” - Daily Express

“What have the Kursaal Flyers, Rod Stewart and Boy George in common? Probably very little, except that they all been the subject of documentaries by Mark Kidel. Like the Kursaal Flyers film, made when they were on the brink of success, and the Stewart film, made at Rod’s peak, this is about universal themes in pop – sex, drugs, and in Boy George’s case, heated rollers. The difference is that it’s a study of a pop star after the gold rush – and thus we see the downside. It’s not always a pleasant sight, but as a parable of 80s excess, Boy Next Door is required viewing” - Time Out