91Èȱ¬

Bruce Lacey defies categorisation. He painted, made sculptures, films, installations and was a performance artist in the 60s. Roger Law goes in search of an artistic enigma.

Bruce Lacey was born in Catford in 1927. He had a childhood which included visits to the Lewisham Hippodrome where his father enthusiastically took part as a volunteer in the variety acts, and a stint at an explosives factory in Wales during World War II. All these were influences on the young Lacey, who buzzed with a maelstrom of ideas, each notion quickly pushed aside by the next.

By the 1960s he was carving a path in London between entertainment and art, working with Michael Bentine, Peter Cook, and the jazz and satirical musicians Tony and Douglas Gray (The Alberts). But he felt he was falling between two stools. In his own words. 'Show business didn’t quite accept me, because they thought I was an eccentric artist, and the art world had disowned me because they thought I was just a crazy performer'.

Later in life Bruce Lacey left London and settled in Norfolk, where Roger Law finds his works in Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery.
When he died in 2016 he left behind a huge portfolio of creative endeavours, from paintings, films, installations to a giant head you can get inside, now in storage with Glasgow Museums.

Roger Law himself has a distinguished career both as a satirist, famous for television's Spitting Image, and as an artist in his own right. He talks to those who lived and worked with Bruce Lacey to find out how in his various guises he made the extraordinary out of the ordinary.

Bruce Lacey interviewed by Gillian Whitehead, 2000, National Life Stories 'Artists’ Lives', C466/99 © British Library Board.

Presenter Roger Law
Producer Mark Rickards

A Whistledown Scotland production for 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3