Issue 113 / April-May 2021

SPOTLIGHT
“I started seeing
my past as what it
was, and not what I
thought it was”
SAM BATLEY
A poetic storyteller through
word and image, the artist’s
latest project brings stories of
recovery to the film screen.
“It’s not meant to be like this, it’s meant to be
different,” utters SAM BATLEY in the closing line of
forthcoming short film Three Bull-Mastiffs in a Corner
Kitchen. The film, written by Batley in collaboration
with filmmaker Paul Chambers, is informed by Batley’s
continuing journey of recovery from addiction.
In the last year Batley has flourished as a writer and
photographer. This has led to live readings of his poetry at
La Violette Società and being part of a joint photography
exhibition at Love Wavertree Community Hub.
He is an artist who has faced up to his past and turned
his pain into purpose. He is now clearly grounded by his
creative outlets and talks with such passion about his love
of Liverpool, how it inspires him creatively and the energy
it gives him. “Liverpool’s saved my life, and I don’t say that
lightly. Liverpool saved me. I feel like I’ve found somewhere
I’ve started to put roots down,” he happily proclaims.
Although now relocated to Liverpool, Three Bull-
Mastiffs in a Corner Kitchen offers a raw portrayal of
his life as a young man growing up in a South Yorkshire
mining town, focusing on the cycles of addiction that
Batley was experiencing at that time.
The foundation of the film draws its main dialogue
from a poem that was the first thing Batley wrote in
recovery. “As I was getting into recovery, I was starting to
get some clarity over my past. Pieces started to fit together
and I started seeing my past as what it was, and not what
I thought it was,” he admits. “I was becoming more aware
of the feelings attached to the past. The whole thing was
about revisiting that part of myself and seeing it for what
it was.”
What he produced is a brutally honest piece of
writing, a pounding release of consciousness which
confronts old ways and habits. It acts as the heartbeat of
the film and provides a compelling energy through which
the film’s messages are conveyed.
The film’s title, which is the first line of the poem,
draws on Batley’s experiences when picking up drugs
from a dealer. The three dogs were used by the dealer
to go badger-baiting and would frequently be physically
damaged from the activity. “They are a representation of
the chaos and the foreboding of the space I used to go
into,” he recalls, “as the bull-mastiffs would be the first
thing that I’d see.” The dogs are omnipresent throughout
the film and act to highlight the spectre of addiction,
one formed in an isolated and long forgotten pit town
where hope and opportunity were overcast by the bleak
surroundings. “I can’t remember the pits, but I waint [sic]
forget, I’m not allowed to forget,” the poem reads.
The film powerfully captures the boredom of long
empty days, the endless cycle of nothingness which
enhances the attractiveness of substances as a means
for escape. Batley confirms this. “You’re bored as fuck, sat
about. There is an energy about the place, there’s fuck all
to do, the nature of pit villages is that they are isolated.
Just them days when there is fucking nowt to do.”
The theme of masculinity hangs heavy throughout
the film, framed succinctly on the promotional artwork
as “fragile masculinity, fragile ideas of pride” – ideas
and prescribed norms that are passed effortlessly
from generation to generation. The peer pressure that
demands this conformance is cleverly reflected in the
early scenes; the submergence in the everyday routine
of drug taking, the confusion of wanting it to be different
while doing nothing to change that. “No one gives a
fuck as much as me, I’m just willing to do absolutely
fuck all about it,” Batley’s narration poignantly outlines,
highlighting the feelings of entrapment.
By his own admission the whole project has been
a surreal experience; almost ghostlike seeing his life
played out on screen. “It was a roller coaster. It wasn’t
necessarily negative. Some parts were over-powering,
and some were really beautiful,” he says. “Revisiting
them spaces and experiences in a detached way, I’m still
processing it now.”
When the film is released it will be accompanied with
a behind the scenes documentary offering a closer look at
the personalities within the project. The documentary is
likely to be the happy ending the film doesn’t give us. As
well as Sam’s experiences it will draw out the stories of
the other members of the cast who are also in recovery.
Stories of hope, strength and positivity which the team
behind the project will aim to serve as an inspiration to
others in their own early stages of recovery, or even those
still struggling to take them first steps.
Three Bull-Mastiffs in a Corner Kitchen positively
underscores that people can recover from what has gone
before; there is a different way that’s about living and not
merely existing. As the film displays, Batley has found a
way for his life to be different. !
Words: Andrew Stafford
Photography: Sam Batley / @sambatley
Three Bull-Mastiffs in a Corner Kitchen will premiere later
this year. One Day At A Time is currently in production.
@sambatley
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