Grin and Bear It (Paddington)

Paddington reimagined by Seth Guy.

"In the original television series of Paddington Bear, each episode demonstrates that whatever trouble Paddington gets himself into he is always forgiven, that essentially the message is that the Brits are a tolerant people. Both preceding and in the aftermath of Brexit however, our newspapers, televisions and the internet were awash with material which would suggest that we are in fact anything but tolerant and, so I made this work primarily in response to that and our methods of consuming this material. Whilst making my own recordings of Paddington Tube as part of my research for the project, I discovered, owing to its acoustics, that the original field recording that I had selected - a “brass band playing at Paddington” - (heard in the first 30 seconds of Grin And Bear It), can’t have been made in the Tube station, and is in fact I believe made in the railway station instead. Coincidentally, I also discovered that in two separate episodes of Paddington Bear, both the railway and tube stations are visited by Paddington and the Browns. This gave me the idea to link the two stations and build a humorous narrative around that link that would draw attention to serious issues but also entertain and delight listeners."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation