Bafta-winning filmmaker Tony Palmer set for Harrogate festival

Tony Palmer, 77, will be talking Harrogate’s RedHouse Originals art gallery about working with a glittering array of 60s and 70s music legends in their heyday including The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Rory Gallagher, Cream, Frank Zappa, The Who, Donovan and many more.

Taking place on Thursday, March 12, the event will also feature a special screening of rarely-seen footage of The Beatles shot at the height of the 1960s by the influential and groundbreaking Palmer.

The Rock goes to the Movies event is presented by Graham Chalmers of the Harrogate Advertiser and Charm events in conjunction with Harrogate Film Society.

The groundbreaking London-born film maker and cultural critic has enjoyed an incredible career, making more than a 100 films in total, ranging from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher (Irish Tour ‘74) and Frank Zappa (200 Motels), to his classical portraits which include profiles of Maria Callas, Margot Fonteyn, John Osborne, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Wagner, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams and more.

Among over 40 international prizes Tony Palmer has won over the last half century are 12 gold medals from the New York Film Festival, as well as numerous Baftas and Emmy Awards.

As well as a Q&A with the Harrogate Advertiser’s Graham Chalmers of Charm events fame, the event will feature a rare screening of Palmer’s brilliant film about The Beatles which featured in All You Need Is Love and which boasted a script by much-loved Beatles insider, Derek Taylor.

There will also be clips from Cream Farewell Concert 1968.

Independent Harrogate gallery RedHouse Originals has built a national reputation in original artwork and limited edition prints by a host of contemporary and modern international artists since it first opened in 2010, attracting in person appearances by the likes of Sir Peter Blake, legendary music photographer Gered Mankowitz and rock band The Coral.

Following an apprenticeship with Ken Russell and Jonathan Miller, the Tony Palmer went on to make All My Loving, the first-ever film about pop music history, which received unanimous acclaim when first broadcast in 1968.

Palmer was also famously responsible for the incredible live film – Cream Farewell Concert – shot at the supergroup’s last-ever show at the Royal Albert Hall, a memorable night with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.

When All You Need Is Love, Tony Palmer’s landmark, prime time, 17-part TV series documenting popular music in the 20th century was originally broadcast in 1977, it was widely hailed as “the best and most important television survey of popular music ever.”

The Harrogate Film Festival event is being supported by The White Hart, a four-star hotel in the centre of Harrogate’s stylish Montpellier Quarter boasting more than 90 modern bedrooms and a restaurant with two AA Rosettes five minutes’ walk from the Valley Gardens, Bettys Tea Room and Harrogate Convention Centre.

Rock goes to the Movies with Tony Palmer (interviewed by Graham Chalmers) in conjunction with Harrogate Film Society.

Harrogate Film Festival

Thursday, March 12, 7pm.

RedHouse Originals Gallery, 15 Cheltenham Mount, Harrogate.

More information at www.www.harrogatefilm.co.uk

Tickets available from www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk, in person at Harrogate Theatre Box Office or by calling 01423 502116.