A Serious Life

DM Mitchell

Savoy hardback, 420 pages, £20.00

Published May 2004

ISBN 0861301145

Review by Mike Don (2004)

To those outside Manchester, Savoy is perhaps only vaguely known as a publisher of rather obscure SF and otherwise odd books. Round here, though, the view is rather different. Savoy has been a rumbustious part of the local scene for the last quarter of a century. Maybe I’m not the right person to review this since I know, and count as personal friends, the whole gang; David Britton, Mike Butterworth, John Coulthart and the rest.

In essence, Savoy has always been one of Britain’s most authentically subversive, ‘underground’ enterprises. In their time they’ve had shops selling edgy, disturbing literature, lurid girlie mags (‘Just another kind of fantasy’, quoth Dave to me on one occasion) and bootleg records; they’ve published strange and beautiful books – and disturbing comics – and have originated records, many with PJ Proby, to make the hair stand on end.

A thorn in the Establishment’s side, they’ve suffered for it with bankruptcies, BPI lawsuits, endless police raids, jail terms for Dave Britton (surely political imprisonment?). And yet they have survived. I doubt they’d thank me for the comparison, but here are the real Situationists. More than Raoul Vaneigem and his ilk, who’d throw a wobbler if they thought that anybody could understand what they were wittering on about.

Ah yes, the book. A very personal history of Savoy, including extended interviews with the principals over an extended period from 1995; influences, events, capsule backgrounds for each of their projects. Beautifully produced as always, but a book to be digged into and sampled rather than kept as a dry academic history; lack of such bourgeois affectations as an index, or even a contents listing, will infuriate academic anoraks.

Availability in high street bookshops is likely to be limited. No surprise there, then. •