Sighting of Barney Bubbles in BBC 1971 doc New Horizons: The Alternative Society
//Barney Bubbles pasting up a page layout at Friends office on the upper floors of 305 Portobello Road, 1971//
//Caroline Coon in interview about Release at the drug charity’s premises at 50a Princedale Road, W11//
The BBC TV documentary The Alternative Society is an intelligent snapshot of London’s Notting Hill-based early 70s counterculture.
//Bubbles reaches for the trusty Cow Gum//
//Handling a Friends paste-up//
//Using an em rule to gauge spacing//
Broadcast almost exactly 45 years ago – on May 24 1971 – and narrated by the controversial US artist/filmmaker/producer Harvey Matusow, the film was shown as part of the New Horizons strand and is mediated by interviews with an array of eloquent spokespeople led by Richard Neville and Alan Marcuson of the underground press and activists including Ian King (of BIT) and Caroline Coon (of Release).
It is also peppered with footage of rarely filmed places and people, the most interesting of which for me is the short section showing the late graphics maestro Barney Bubbles at work in the offices of Marcuson’s Friends magazine.
In the film Bubbles is referred to by his first name as the publication’s sometime art director; by this time he had vacated the neighbouring 307 Portobello Road, which he operated in 1969-70 as a creative commune.
//Nik Turner in space/glam finery in the basement of Friends Market//
The Alternative Society also focuses on the Friends Market in the ground floor and basement of 305 and 307 Portobello Road, part of which was situated in what had previously been Bubbles’ art studio Teenburger. In passing the camera captures an exiting Nik Turner, horn-player of Hawkwind, who were soon to record their breakthrough LP X IN Search Of Space which was, of course, packaged in an extraordinary Bubbles design.
A good section of The Alternative Society – taken I guess from a 2007 rebroadcast on BBC4 – can be viewed here or below (Bubbles features from 08.08 – 08.24):
I covered Bubbles’ sojourn in Portobello Road in my monograph Reasons To Be Cheerful; signed copies are currently available via the SHOP on this site (see top right on the menu bar).
You can pay via PayPal to this address or purchase from eBay.