![]() He is the author of The Complete David Bowie, described by the artist’s longtime producer Tony Visconti as “the best Bowie reference book one could ever hope for”. Nicholas Pegg is one of the world’s leading authorities on the life and work of David Bowie. It was quintessential Bowie: a cracked actor to the tips of his fingers. On stage, the song ‘Cracked Actor’ was accompanied by one of Bowie’s wittiest routines, as he donned a Shakespearean doublet and brandished a human skull, a rock star Hamlet pondering the ephemerality of life and the vanity of fame. And whatever the role, from Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ to the ruler of Atlantis in Spongebob Squarepants, it was unfailingly tackled with intelligence, warmth and sincerity. As both actor and musician, he was always drawn to life’s outsiders, to the people stranded on the fringes of society: Newton, Baal, Celliers, the Elephant Man. In the wake of his breakthrough role in The Man Who Fell to Earth, casting directors often regarded him as a go-to guy for outcasts and loners, a niche which happened to suit Bowie’s tastes very well. Many a rock star has taken a stab at acting, but with more than 20 feature films, half a dozen television roles and a celebrated Broadway run to his credit, Bowie the actor was no dilettante, building up a substantial body of work. So it’s hardly surprising that when Bowie set aside his music and turned his hand to the thespian art, he did so with great proficiency. The same is true of his videos, which found him embracing with relish an ever-changing succession of roles, from the New Romantic Pierrot of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ to the love-struck Buster Keaton of ‘Miracle Goodnight’, from the callow youth and preening rock god of ‘Blue Jean’ to the button-eyed enigma of ‘★’ and ‘Lazarus’. The theatrical sensibility which permeated Bowie’s songwriting spilled out into his legendary live performances: from the physical theatre of the Ziggy Stardust shows to the revolutionary staging concepts of the Diamond Dogs tour (“my set is amazing,” he sang on the accompanying album, and on stage it came true), and from the stark monochrome aesthetic of the Thin White Duke concerts to the rainbow-hued rock theatre of the Glass Spider tour, Bowie persistently blazed a trail for others to follow, redefining the parameters and possibilities for the staging of live music. On the sleeve of Hunky Dory he even describes himself as “the actor”. On Aladdin Sane he adopts the character of an ageing Hollywood star to sing ‘Cracked Actor’, a title later appropriated for a famous documentary portrait of Bowie himself. “I felt like an actor,” he sings in Ziggy Stardust’s opening number ‘Five Years’. Time and again in his lyrics, Bowie identifies himself as the player in his own drama. On stage, on screen, on canvas or in song, the notion of performance is always there. A man of many parts, Bowie turned his hand not only to music and acting, but to painting, writing and filmmaking – and what linked them all was his compelling sense of theatre. “I feel like an actor when I’m on stage, rather than a rock artist,” David Bowie once observed. The set also celebrates his performance in Everybody Loves Sunshine (released in the United States as B.U.S.T.E.D), filmed on the Isle of Man. Isle of Man Post Office proudly presents David Bowie as performer in this set of eight stamps spanning fifty years of his remarkably varied career. 2017 Isle of Man Decimal Coin Collection.The 2023 Manx Wildlife Trust 50th Anniversary Coin Collection.Special Limited Edition Uncut Printer's Panes.International Linguistics Olympiad 2022 Postage Paid Sheetlet.Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - 70th Anniversary of the Accession to the Throne. ![]() Special Limited Edition and Signed Covers.Turning Point – The Battle of El Alamein. ![]() The Coronation of HM King Charles III and HM Queen Consort Camilla. ![]()
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