Jarvis Cocker breaks his silence

Jarvis Cocker gives a rare television interview tonight (October 28).

The Pulp singer, who has been absent from public life in recent years, breaks his silence in an interview with Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, broadcast at 10pm on BBC4.

Cocker tells Wark: “The celebrity thing is a big factor, a big myth in our society. I think it’s almost like, without getting too pompous about it, it’s almost like something to believe in, isn’t it, it’s like heaven, it’s like believing in going to heaven, it’s like thinking 'God, if I get famous, everything is going to be alright'.”

And of the state of contemporary politics, Cocker reckons, “I would just like something a bit more alive. You know, it’s like the nearest thing to an act if social insurrection recently was people scrapping outside Ikea because they had cheap leather settees. Now I think that’s sad – that that’s what gets people worked up, a cheap settee.”

He also talks openly about his "personal meltdown" following his rise to fame, and his intriguing involvement in the new Harry Potter film.