The Pulp documentary MUBI premiere is set for 25 September, with a worldwide theatrical run the day before: Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? arrives as the fullest account yet of a band that has somehow grown more itself with age. Directed by Garth Jennings and narrated by Jarvis Cocker, the 90-minute film captures the elaborate arena production behind More, the band’s first album in 24 years, weaving 20 live performances together with four decades of previously unseen archival footage.
That the film exists at all is partly a matter of luck. An initial attempt to shoot the reunion shows in 2023 collapsed when financing fell apart. More was recorded, new money was found, and the project resumed with deeper material to draw on. Jennings, whose earlier work with the band includes the 1997 video for ‘Help the Aged’ and a clip for ‘A Little Soul’ the following year, is candid about his motivation. ‘I did it because I love them,’ he told SPIN. ‘And I’m really glad I did it.’
More reaches number one as the Pulp documentary MUBI date is confirmed
The reunion had already produced one concrete landmark before cameras rolled properly. More debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, making it the band’s first chart-topping album in over 27 years, according to Wikiwand, the previous one being This Is Hardcore in 1998. For a band formed in Sheffield in 1978 and active across seven albums between 1983 and 2001, including the 1995 record Different Class, that chart position carries a particular weight. Pulp split in 2002, reformed as a touring entity between 2011 and 2013, then went quiet for another decade before this second, more fully realised return.
Jennings first encountered the band through John Peel’s Festive Fifty. A song called ‘Razzmatazz’, he recalls, ‘absolutely lit me up like a Christmas tree’. His path from teenage listener to director of both the live show and the documentary runs through a shared sensibility: a love of theatrical presentation, of precision dressed up as spontaneity. That combination is central to the film’s argument about what makes Pulp distinctive.
Designing a show that goes all in on theatricality
The staging for the More tour was, by Jennings’s account, conceived with ambition from the first conversation. Cocker arrived at their initial meeting talking about flying into the venue on a wire. Jennings went as far as sourcing a gymnast who could be dressed like Cocker and catapulted into the arena; the band’s management declined. What they settled on instead was a large velvet curtain, a riser, a glass staircase and a string section, all designed around Cocker’s silhouette in tailored suits. ‘Let’s have a beautiful big velvet curtain, and you’re going to come out and be revealed,’ Jennings explains. ‘Let’s celebrate it.’
Both Jennings and Cocker had recently seen ABBA Voyage in London, and its unapologetic joy informed the spirit of the production, if not its methods. Cocker is quick to add that no ideas were taken directly: ‘I don’t want to get sued by ABBA,’ he says, laughing. What the ABBA show clarified, rather, was the importance of keeping audience focus on performers rather than spectacle. When the avatars disappeared from the ABBA stage and only images remained, Cocker noticed the audience’s engagement drop. The lesson fed into how the More tour was built.
The archival dimension of the MUBI film was not Cocker’s idea. He expected a straightforward concert film; Jennings had other plans. The archive, drawn partly from a book Cocker wrote around four years ago, includes footage of his mother and grandmother, both of whom have since died. ‘There’ll be certain sections that will be like I’m dying and I’m seeing my life flash before my eyes,’ Cocker says. ‘Maybe that’s good practice before I actually do die.’
Jennings is particularly taken by a moment in the editing that he had not seen until late in the process: archival footage of Mark Webber painting his nails and confessing he keeps flooding his cuticles. ‘That is the most beautiful distillation of that young man at the time,’ Jennings says. The film makes room, too, for keyboardist Candida Doyle arriving on stage each night with a glass of champagne, dressed with her customary precision. Each member carries a distinct character; the film insists those characters are not incidental to the music but constitutive of it.
As for what comes next, Cocker is careful not to over-promise. Pulp have no touring plans at present. He mentions, with characteristic dryness, that he had his 63rd birthday the following day, and that jumping on top of monitors may not remain an option indefinitely. But there is a notebook in his shirt pocket. ‘I’ve got my fingers crossed,’ he says. ‘I hope that we will tour again.’
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