Jubilee (1978 film)

Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) is transported forward in time to the present day, by the occultist John Dee (Richard O'Brien) by the aid of the spirit guide Ariel (a character from William Shakespeare's The Tempest) whom Dee commands. Elizabeth arrives in the shattered Britain of the 1970s and moves through the social and physical decay of the city, observing the sporadic activities of a group of aimless nihilists, including Amyl Nitrate (Jordan), Bod (Runacre in a dual role), Chaos (Hermine Demoriane), Crabs (Nell Campbell) and Mad (Toyah Willcox).

In one squat, Amyl Nitrite is instructing a group of young women — in so doing, valourising the violent criminal activity of Myra Hindley — before she reminisces about her time as a ballet dancer and introduces the audience to Mad, Crabs, Chaos, Sphinx and Angel (two incestuous bisexual brothers), and a sex-hating anarchist named Bod. Bod has just strangled and killed Queen Elizabeth II, stealing her crown in an arbitrary mugging.

From there the group move on to a café, where Crabs picks up a young musician named the Kid, Mad tears up some postcards and Bod attacks a waitress with a bottle of ketchup. Bod contacts impresario Borgia Ginz. On meeting Ginz, however, she is surprised to find Amyl performing a pastiche of "Rule Britannia." Sphinx and Angel establish a relationship with Viv, a young former artist, whom they take to meet Max, an ex-soldier. In exchange for sexual favours, Crabs takes the Kid to see Ginz, who auditions the Kid's band and signs them up under the name "Scum." Sphinx and Angel try to talk the Kid out of this, but he just laughs at their lecturing. Ginz is branching out into property management and has purchased "abandoned" properties such as Westminster Cathedral and Buckingham Palace, which are transformed into musical venues.

Meanwhile, Mad, Bod and Crabs asphyxiate Happy Days, one of Crabs' one-night stands, with red plastic sheeting. They proceed to break into the flat of androgynous rock star Lounge Lizard, whom Bod throttles to death. A fight breaks out between Kid and a policeman, at a disco session in Westminster Cathedral. After the gang all watch Kid's TV debut together, Viv and the three males pay a visit to Max's bingo hall, where violent police activity causes the death of Sphinx, Angel and the Kid, as well as two revenge attacks on the police officers responsible. One of them is castrated to death by Mad and Amyl; the other, who has just started an affair with Crabs, is blown up on his doorstep with a petrol bomb by Bod. Finally, Ginz takes the four women off to Dorset and signs a recording contract with them. Interspersed with these displays of contemporary anarchic violence, Dee, Ariel and Elizabeth try to interpret the signs of anarchic modernity around them, before they undertake a pastoral and nostalgic return to the sixteenth century at the film's end.

• Jenny Runacre – Queen Elizabeth I / Bod
• Nell Campbell – Crabs (as Little Nell)
• Toyah Willcox – Mad
• Jordan – Amyl Nitrate
• Hermine Demoriane – Chaos
• Ian Charleson – Angel
• Karl Johnson – Sphinx
• Linda Spurrier – Viv
• Jack Birkett – Borgia Ginz (as Orlando)
• Jayne County – Lounge Lizard (as Wayne County)
• Richard O'Brien – John Dee
• Adam Ant – Kid
• Helen Wellington-Lloyd – Lady-in-waiting
• Claire Davenport – First Customs Lady
• Barney James – Policeman
• Lindsay Kemp – Cabaret performer
• Gene October – Happy Days
• David Brandon - Ariel (as David Haughton)
• Siouxsie Sioux – Herself
• Steven Severin – Himself

The film is heavily influenced by the 1970s punk aesthetic in its style and presentation. Shot in grainy colour, it is largely plotless and episodic. Location filming took advantage of London neighbourhoods that were economically depressed and/or still contained large amounts of rubble from the London Blitz.[3]

The film had many critics in British punk circles. Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood manufactured a T-shirt on which was printed an "open letter" to Jarman denouncing the film and his misrepresentations of punk.[4] Jarman, according to biographer Tony Peake, was also critical of punk's fascination with fascism, while mocking its stupidity and petty violence.[5]

The film is now considered a cult classic,[6] and was released by the Criterion Collection.

In November 2017, the film was adapted by Chris Goode as a play at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre. Toyah Willcox, who played the role of Mad in the original film, performed the parts of Queen Elizabeth and Bod in this stage revival.[7]

• Jubilee at IMDb
• Jubilee at AllMovie
• Julian Upton: Anarchy in the UK. Derek Jarman's 'Jubilee' revisited Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 30, October 2000
• Jubilee an essay by Tony Peake at the Criterion Collection
• Jubilee: No Known Address . . . or . . . Don’t Look Down . . . an essay by Tilda Swinton at the Criterion Collection