The Alcohol Years

Imagine if Proust had sat down, pen in hand, and found he really had lost the past, blotted out in a haze of booze, drugs and embarrassment. If he'd had Carol Morley's chutzpah, he'd have advertised in the local press for anyone with a clearer remembrance and interviewed them on camera. In Carol's case, this is a really brave move, as her interviewees remind her that between 1982 and 1987 she was the most promiscuous party animal Manchester has ever known, a universal groupie who slept with anything that moved. It may be adulterated narcissism, but Morley stays offscreen, and most of her interviewees are less than complimentary. Cleverly melding home movie footage from the '80s with new material, the result is funny, revealing, and (something Morley has never been accused of before) a bit of a tease.