Composite: Guardian design; Courtesy of Mubi View image in fullscreen Composite: Guardian design; Courtesy of Mubi Film Interview ‘People think fame is a magic wand’: Jarvis Cocker on old songs, young fans and his granny’s verdict on Pulp Rebecca Nicholson Before the release of a joyful film on the history of the Sheffield band, frontman Cocker and director Garth Jennings talk dark times, taking inspiration from Abba – and why there could yet be another record
Fri 11 Sep 2026 06.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google W hen the director Garth Jennings first moved to Paris, Jarvis Cocker , who was living there, dropped in on his old friend. “And I nearly got you arrested,” the Pulp frontman recalls. It was bonfire night, and Cocker had taken some welcoming fireworks over to Jennings’ place. “It turned out Garth’s apartment was quite near to the – not an army base, but what’s it called?”
“So obviously they didn’t like explosives,” says Cocker. “We got told off for that. The best welcome to Paris.”
“It was lovely,” adds Jennings, fondly. “I remember it very well.”
The men had first met in the late 1990s, when Jennings directed two gorgeous music videos for Pulp, for the singles Help the Aged and A Little Soul . Now, almost 30 years later, they are working together again, on Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? This joyful, funny, celebratory film is a hybrid beast: part concert movie and part documentary on the long history of the band. The live show was filmed at London’s O2 Arena in the summer of 2025, on the night that Pulp were told that More, their eighth studio album and first album in 24 years, had gone to No 1 in the British album charts. You can see Cocker waving around the trophy on stage.
Jennings, director of Son of Rambow and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , has lived in Paris for the past 13 years, where the animation for Sing, his wildly successful kids’ musical film franchise, is made. He is working on a short Christmas special, and the third and final film in the series. “It’s a slow process,” he says, from the studio, “but we’re getting there.” Cocker moved back to London a few years ago, and today he is at home, getting ready to headline the End of the Road festival . It will be Pulp’s last show for a while.
You can blame Instagram and Abba Voyage for the existence of What Do You Do for an Encore? Pulp, formed by Cocker in Sheffield in 1978, split up in 2002. They got back together for a reunion tour between 2011 and 2013, the final date of which was captured for another idiosyncratic documentary, Florian Habicht’s Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets . Cocker had considered those shows to be a fitting – and final – farewell.
“When Pulp got together that time, I had this idea that things had ended in a not-nice way, and I wanted it to have a happy ending,” Cocker says. “I thought the way to do that would be to play concerts, and we invited Russell Senior back” – the violinist and guitarist had quit in 1997 – “and I just thought it would be like: we’re all friends, everything’s good, and then we’d all retire,” says Cocker. “And to be honest, that tour did seem to do that.”
View image in fullscreen ‘I don’t go to shows any more. I’m an old bloke’ ... Jarvis Cocker. Photograph: Tom Jackson So when a promoter got in touch years later, to ask if Pulp would be interested in playing again, Cocker had to think about it. “Because the worst thing to do would have been to spoil the happy ending.” How did h…