Sam Smith Genuine England - ACE058.2

Puppet man. Sam Smith’s VO says "Children’s toys are mainly about pretending to be grown up". Puppet woman. "The things I make are about what it’s like when you get there." Another male puppet ("Since I found my things were being copied, they all carry a written guarantee that I did them and they’re British."), holding up a bench seating four figures; view of river behind. Sea of wooden ships. Sam Smith opening the blinds. Photograph of Smith as a boy. He talks about his early life, intercut with woman puppet combing her hair, photographs of early twentieth-century liners. A lion; Smith’s VO repeating "crossing the line, lions round the eyes, lead kindly lion…" and other phrases from the mane. VO continues to talk of early life: drawing of four-funnel liner and of small boy with toy boat. Various nautical themed creations. A tram. Smith talks about trams and their painted numbers giving the illusion of three dimensions which introduced him "to a world in which things were not always as they seem". Photographs of tram and shop windows; Smith describes the shop where his clothes came from. Victorian paper figures. Details of painting of theatre-goers while Smith talks about watching scenery being delivered and visiting the theatre where, from side seats, he could see into the wings. Tiles sets in various combinations. Puss in Boots. Smith describes his reaction to the (female) Principle Boy. Photographs from Edwardian variety acts; an articulated puppet moving on a string. Smith says he "became an addict of theatricality". Smith with a volume of an educational part-work, The Living Races of Mankind, collected by his father, in which he first found pictures of naked women. Photographs. The Happy Handbell Ringer, with moving breasts. Cats. Photograph of Lillian Gish. Paintings of women "How beautiful they were the lovely ones." Box of tiles: The Trunk – Fond Memories. Smith talks about going to the cinema as a teenager, and about his life being "something like a magic lantern – the scene flickers for a moment, and then goes for ever, leaving only a myth". Smith with some toys which he describes as making themselves. Swimmers in bathing huts. Smith making a seated figure; he thinks that being able "to give [his] heart to making something [he knows] is going to be thrown away … is a measure of being slightly civilised … it’s really worthwhile doing the unnecessary with love".