Pulp have announced a new film, What Do You Do For An Encore?, directed by Garth Jennings. Read all about it exclusively on NME below.
The “kinetic” 90-minute movie charts the Sheffield band’s “extraordinary journey from obscurity to cultural touchstone”, with narration coming from frontman Jarvis Cocker. It is set for release this autumn via global distributor MUBI’s streaming platform.
What Do You Do For An Encore? is said to capture the spirit of the classic Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (1984) and The Band‘s Martin Scorsese-directed performance movie The Last Waltz (1978).
“It fuses the brilliantly choreographed stage spectacle of Pulp’s biggest ever arena show – part of the global tour for ‘More’, the band’s first album in 24 years – with four decades of colourful, never-seen-before archival material,” a description adds.
The feature-length project contains 20 songs, including hits and deep cuts, and serves as Pulp and Jennings’ “spectacular answer” to the question: “What do you do for an encore?”
What Do You Do For An Encore? is “a vibrant tribute to a band of brilliant misfits, whose unique blend of irony, rebellion, and razor-sharp social commentary resonated with generations of listeners and helped define an era of British culture”.
Director, screenwriter and actor Jennings previously helmed the music videos for Pulp’s 1997 single ‘Help The Aged’ and 1988’s ‘A Little Soul’ through his co-owned production company Hammer & Tongs.
He has also created videos Blur, Radiohead, Beck, R.E.M., Fatboy Slim and Vampire Weekend. Jennings directed the 2005 sci-fi film The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and wrote and directed the 2007 comedy Son Of Rambow, and animated movies Sing and Sing 2.
What Do You Do For An Encore? is a MUBI Production, and was edited by Barney Pilling (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris).
The film is produced by Octavia Peissel (Asteroid City, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar) for Opal Films, Danny Gabai and Amy Rattray for VICE Studios, and Paul Dugdale. Executive producers are Stuart Goldstein, Tom Healy and Rosie Taylor (VICE Studios); Harper Simon and Mark Sainsbury; Jarvis Cocker and Jeanette Lee.
An exact release date for Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore? has not yet been confirmed.
Meanwhile, Pulp are set to play ‘More’ in full when they headline London’s Royal Festival Hall next month to celebrate 50 years of Rough Trade. They’ll also treat the crowd to some classic fan favourites from their catalogue.
Cocker and co. are then scheduled to play their “only major UK headline concert” at Manchester’s Wythenshawe Park on August 28, before topping the bill at End Of The Road 2026. They’ll headline Mad Cool Festival in Madrid next month, too. Find any remaining tickets for Manchester here.
In February, Pulp shared the new track ‘Begging For Change’ from the star-studded ‘Help(2)’ charity album for War Child. They later digitally released an EP featuring two new songs, ‘Marrying For Love’ and ‘Cold Call On The Hotline’.
The frontman had teased last November that Pulp “might write some more songs” together. The update came after his bandmates Nick Banks and Candida Doyle told NME that they were “not itching” to make another new album. “An EP, maybe, or a single,” Doyle added.
When NME asked Cocker last summer if fans could expect a follow-up to ‘More’, he replied: “Maybe. We tried to not have a concept for this record or think, ‘This is it, this is our last gas’. I used to think that a lot.
“I had this weird thing that when an album was mixed and finished where I’d think, ‘Oh, I can die now and it would be OK’. That’s a terrible way to think about your life, really. I didn’t feel that with this record.”
Last summer, Pulp played a surprise set at Glastonbury under the cryptic moniker ‘Patchwork’. In a glowing five-star review of the show, NME wrote: “With songs for the mis-shapes, a whole lotta ‘L-O-V-E’ and even a Red Arrows fly-past for the glorious crowd-engulfing ‘Common People’, these legends capture the spirit of these hallowed grounds with a little peace, love and joyous wonky-pop hedonism.
“One for the books? Sure, but as Cocker puts it: ‘History and stuff like that doesn’t matter because it’s all about now and what we can do right now’.”
NME gave ‘More’ a four-star review, hailing it as “a mature but vital response to the second summer of Britpop”.
In other news, Jarvis Cocker is set to curate a new art exhibition at Hepworth Wakefield alongside his wife Kim Sion.
