Dunstan Bruce, member of pop group Chumbawamba, will be in Kendal later this month at a screening of documentary I Get Knocked Down.
The film is billed as the untold story of the Leeds-based anarcho-pop band and Duncan, a founding member, will take part in a question-and-answer session after its screening on February 17.
Most famous for 1997’s Tubthumping and its catchy chorus of ‘I Get Knocked Down, I Get Up Again’ – which propelled the band to number one, the band formed in 1982 and split up in 2012.
The band was known for its political activism and eclectic musical style, which combined elements of punk rock, folk, pop, and world music. Chumbawamba was known for its humorous and irreverent approach to political activism.
Members, who operated as a collective, turned down thousands of pounds for use of their songs in adverts if they did not agree with the advertiser’s values.
I Get Knocked Down is part music documentary, part unflinching character study, part punk version of A Christmas Carol, says Duncan, but fundamentally is the Istory of the most audacious anarchist music experiment of all time, and a call to arms to those who think activism is best undertaken by someone else.
Dunstan is now 59 and feeling frustrated at a world which seems to be going ‘to hell in a handcart’. The film explores how the now retired and middle-aged radical gets back up again, 20 years after his fall from grace. Dunstan is visited by the antagonistic ghost of his anarchist past; his alter-ego, Babyhead, who forces him to question his own life, sending him on a search for his long-lost anarchist mojo.
This film has an 18 certificate.
