XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls

Mark Fisher, editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls , talks to director Charlie Thomas about the making of This Is Pop, the superb XTC "rockumentary", as it makes its North American debut on Showtime. Charlie Thomas: What do you call that noise? HOW DO YOU make a rockumentary when your principal subject detests rockumentaries? That was the challenge faced by Charlie Thomas when he set about filming the story of XTC. He knew there'd be little point in proceeding if he didn't have chief songwriter Andy Partridge on board. He also knew Andy was bored silly with the clichés of rock'n'roll reportage. What was he to do? "Persuading Andy was the key," says the moviemaker.  Andy told him that every couple of months a director would get in touch wanting to make an XTC documentary, every time Andy would suggest ideas and every time he'd never hear from them again. Thomas gave him a call and they chatted for an hour. "We found