George Melly on Surrealism: 'The Journey'

Jazz singer, writer, and self-confessed surrealist George Melly takes a day trip through rooms, streets and a strange café... with brief and curious encounters on the way. Among them, the last of the surrealists in England and a top punk rock band. His destination – the Hayward Gallery and a major show of pictures and objects from the days of Dada and Surrealism. But what is ‘the journey’ as they called it, and is it possible to make it today and still be surprised?This film was made for the “Art and Design” Strand of the Arena series to coincide with a major exhibition on Surrealism at London’s Hayward Gallery. It was an attempt to describe the ideas and not simply to catalogue the works of the Surrealist and Dada movement and to provide a fresh and original perspective on one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century. The “journey” taken by the film becomes its subject rather than the destination of the Hayward Gallery which is only reached at the end of Melly’s odyssey.