Tish
Paul Sng’s accomplished documentary pays tribute to a photographer whose art provided an insider’s view of Britain’s working classes.
This is a film with two heroines. One is the talented photographer Tish Murtha who lived from 1956 to 2013 and the other is her daughter, Ella, who has done much to ensure that her mother’s art remains in the public eye. The special appeal of that work centred on it offering an insider’s take on working-class life in the north of England. Tish herself was of Irish descent but was born in South Shields, the third of ten children. A move to Elswick in Newcastle-upon-Tyne meant that she grew up there in the family’s council house where she started to show an interest in photography at the age of fifteen or sixteen. This would lead to her studying at the School of Documentary Photography at the University of Wales but her desire to record marginalised communities took her back home in 1978 and it would be her photographs taken around there in the next few years that would be her greatest achievement. Many examples are, of course, included in this documentary ably made by Paul Sng.
Having detailed Tish’s work in the north east including a series of photos taken to document the Save Scotswood Works Campaign (that being in relation to the huge Tyneside Vickers factory which was nevertheless closed down in 1979), the film follows on with footage relating to the period just after she came to London in 1982. There she contributed to recording images in a similar vein but now centred on Soho and those involved in its sex industry. When she left a few years later it was to go back north, first to Elswick and then to Middlesbrough where she would die of a brain aneurysm at the age of fifty-seven. In her later years she was struggling to get by and, although at this time some of her work was exhibited, one gets the impression that she was a somewhat forgotten figure who, save for her bond with Ella who had been born in the 1980s, had left her best days behind her. It was all too typical of this phase of her life that when she made an application to the Arts Council it was rejected.
It is Ella herself who is a central figure in this documentary since there is virtually no archive footage of Tish and to compensate for that we see Ella seeking out siblings and friends of her mother together with individuals such as David Hurn, her tutor at Newport, and Philip Herbert, a friend met in Soho, who became Ella’s godfather. These interviews are notable for their warmth, found not only in Ella's personal dedication as Tish’s daughter but in the fondness of the memories expressed by the interviewees. Back in 2013, we had another accomplished documentary about a distinguished photographer who had gone even more unrecognised. That was Finding Vivian Maier and there the artist was more complex and strange which made for a more gripping narrative than one finds in Tish but the affectionate nature of the film makes up for that. Furthermore, with three contributors having died since Sng filmed them it is apparent just how valuable Tish is in being able to draw on those who were close to her. In addition, the film is able to use letters written by Tish herself which are heard on the soundtrack read out by Maxine Peake (there are also discreet images which without ever being overelaborate use Shin-Fei Chen to represent Tish in images that capture the background to her everyday life). Valuable as all this is, the main function of Tish is that it offers a wide audience the opportunity to see a fine range of the artist’s photographs. And there is a happy ending in that information contained in the film’s closing statements reveals that Tish’s work is now represented in the permanent collection of Tate Britain.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Ella Murtha, Glenn Murtha, Carl Murtha, Mark Murtha, Eileen Murtha Brown, Philip Herbert, Gordon McDonald, David Hurn, Mike Critchlow, Daisy Hayes, David Swidenbank, Shin-Fei Chen, and the voice of Maxine Peake.
Dir Paul Sng, Pro Jennifer Corcoran, Ph Hollie Galloway, Pro Des Siam Colvine, Ed Lindsay Watson and Angela Slaven, Music Alexandra Hamilton-Hayes, Costumes Siam Colvine.
Demon Snapper Productions/Freya Films/Hopscotch Films/Velvet Joy Productions-Modern Films.
90 mins. UK. 2023. UK Rel: 17 November 2023. Cert. 15.
