In Disney+ series Pistol, the Sex Pistols, UK punk rock pioneers, are back on TV 45 years on from God Save The Queen

Inspired by the memoirs of guitarist Steve Jones, this Danny Boyle series has already angered Sex Pistols singer John Lydon, who tried to stop its production
Meanwhile, in Netflix drama Money Heist: Korea, the spiky dynamic between Tokyo and her despised gang leader in the field, Berlin, may decide the outcome

Stephen McCarty

Published: 8:45am, 22 Jul 2022

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How ironic that the Sex Pistols should enjoy their cultural apogee when lampooning a mere 25 years of Elizabeth II in hit single God Save the Queen, in 1977.

The four horsemen of civilisation’s apocalypse were supposed to flare out like a cheap firework. And although the band might have done just that (bar the odd reappearance), the Pistols’ legacy was a prominent part of the buzz surrounding Britain’s recent platinum jubilee jollies for Her Majesty, a whopping 45 years on.

Surreally, the fearsome foursome had softened into a sort of cuddly, cosily accepted part of a society they were supposed to bring down. Time makes toothless even the sneeriest revolutions.

So thank director Danny Boyle for revivifying the phenomenon in Pistol (Disney+), a six-part series that bottles the shock wave punk rock inflicted on a country that was less a grey and financially depressed mid-’70s backwater than a comatose void.

Pistol is based on the autobiography of Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones (2nd from right), pictured with original band members Paul Cook, Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) and Glen Matlock in 1996. Photo: Andrew Shaw/Reuters

Based as it is on Lonely Boy, the 2016 autobiography of guitarist Steve Jones, Pistol puts Jones at the centre of the story and makes him the band’s musical director to Johnny Rotten’s lyricist.

As the singer, and an articulate and aggressive interlocutor, Rotten (since known by his real name, John Lydon), always owned the most outrageous headlines. And he’s making more now, having sued to stop the making of the series thanks to “not being included”, while Jones, Boyle and others assert that Lydon refused to participate.

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Either way, he can’t be objecting to his uncanny portrayal by a snarling, waspish Anson Boon, or that of a slippery Thomas Brodie-Sangster as band manager and sly master of manipulation Malcolm McLaren. Sydney Chandler is confessor Chrissie Hynde and Toby Wallace exposes the fragility behind the tough facade of the self-doubting Jones.

Perhaps Lydon derides the liberties taken by a production “inspired” by events, which doesn’t pretend to be a documentary and isn’t a Sex Pistols biography. (And who could have foreseen the grubby agents of chaos ever going, in effect, to Disneyland?) Authenticity has always been non-negotiable for him. Here, in a songwriting session, he is asked by Jones: “What have you got?”

Lydon replies: “Truth.”

A still from Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area. Photo: Netflix

Break the bank

It didn’t take long after the obliteration of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, for East and West Germany to reunite and citizens to mingle freely. North and South Koreans can only dream of the same freedom, but if it arrives the Northerners might find themselves in the same economic bind as innumerable “Ossies” from the German East.

Hence the career path chosen by the North Korean contingent of the gang of armed robbers in Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area (Netflix), a remake of the Spanish original and burdened by a subtitle seemingly put together by a committee of civil servants (even if it is a riff on Joint Security Area).

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Set in a unified Korea, criminal big cheese The Professor (Yoo Ji-tae) and his unmerry band of robbing hoods, who use city names as code identities, have taken over the suspiciously poorly guarded national mint in a sort of get-rich-slowly scheme requiring them to negotiate a siege laid by the military. But if it pans out, they will be four trillion won wealthier.

The first six, tense episodes (six more are due soon) explore the psychological pressures affecting robbers, hostages and security forces. Nairobi is a smooth-talking con-artist, Denver may be a murderer and hacker Rio could be the key to the mission’s success. But it is the spiky dynamic between Tokyo (Jeon Jong-seo) and her despised gang leader in the field, Berlin (Park Hae-soo), that may decide the outcome.

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