Go to see Nina Conti

Nina Conti and Monk

Margaret and I watched this absolutely amazing film the other night.

It was called Her Master's Voice - Nina Conti: A Ventriloquist's Story and it was one of the most moving, disturbing and thought-provoking documentaries I've ever seen.

Ventriloquism is an entertainment form that's become a little threadbare. I guess Keith Harris and Orville have pretty much hammered every nail in its coffin and my first memories of ventriloquism came from Lenny the Lion, a really lame children's TV act where you could see the guys lips moving even more than the lion's. The lion (Lenny) also had no padding in his lower body so his back legs just hung loose and floppy. I know rationing had only just finished, but they could have shredded some newspapers to pack his belly.

Anyway, I do have something of a fascination for the art and I had a feeling that this would be good.

Nina Conti is the daughter of actor Tom Conti and she comes across as being a little troubled and emotionally damaged. We'd heard how, as a woman in her early twenties, she'd had an affair with actor and director Ken Campbell (some 40 years her senior) and it was him that had taught her the basics of ventriloquism and got her started. He left her the puppets in his will, including one that was a likeness of himself.

She gave the impression that her art, her act, had been a burden and she wanted to give it up. It was also clear that her relationship with Campbell had not been smooth, they'd parted, but she had not let go, not properly finished the affair and then he'd died before she'd had an opportunity to talk to him and draw a line under things.

So the point of the film was, it seemed, to lay the ghost of Campbell by attending the annual congress of ventriloquists in Kentucky and depositing one of the puppets in Vent Haven, a museum, mausoleum, where puppets whose operator/voice has died, can be laid to rest. It's a profoundly creepy place with rows upon rows of silent puppets sitting there, somehow more dead in their dumbness than the people who once gave them voice.

The convention is in a hotel that has nothing to distinguish it at all. It could be the Premier Inn, Peterborough for all the character it had, and the people gathered for the convention seemed an odd bunch of oddballs. Nina, deliberately, has set out to paint her art in a bad light and she is also on the verge of giving up ventriloquism.

There follows a number of amazing sequences, Nina bares her soul in extraordinary ways and through extraordinary means. In the first sequence she has got drunk and is talking like a drunk telling some painful truths in a conversation with Monk, her monkey puppet. It's extraordinary, as Nina appears to be very drunk, but Monk is stone cold sober (a remarkable piece of acting) and extraordinary content as Monk asks piercing questions. Conti said she didn't feel worthy of voicing Campbell's old puppets. Monk knew that that was not all. "You don't like this any more," he said of her habit of talking to and through dummies – the discipline that had dominated the last decade of her life. Conti tearfully shook her head.

Later on, she has a conversation lying in bed with a puppet which was a likeness of Campbell and had the conversation, or something like it, that she would have had if  Campbell had not died. She has an old lady puppet called Gran and Nina takes her swimming in the hotel pool in a sequence that almost has you believing that gran is a real person. The puppet shows real emotions.

Later, she takes Gran to Vent Haven and leaves her there in tribute to Russell. It's as if she's taking her own grandmother to an old people's home. She also stages Monk's death in an attempt to give up ventriloquism, but can't sustain the course of action. It's uncomfortable viewing and you're never sure how much is an act and how much is really Nina's troubled mind.

The documentary also shows acts and performances from the convention. Some of these are poor, some very good and some quite extraordinary. Nina interviews a ventriloquist who can do the distant voice, so it appears that the sounds are from some way away (I guess you could call it throwing your voice). Then there's a chap who can perform bifurcation, where he talks, but moves his lips as if he's saying something completely different, so his voice is saying one thing, but his mouth is saying something else. It's almost frightening, certainly freaky, but so clever. Try it yourself - I did and it just can't be done.

We also got a taste of Nina's act. She did a piece where Monk insisted that she stop working him and he would work her for a change. It moved from comedy, get-your-hand-out-of-my-bum humour to something terrible to watch as Monk "jumps" into Nina and she shakes violently and starts talking like Monk. The audience of ventriloquists hadn't seen anything like that and they were massively shocked (as I was). Nina is careful to end the act and become normal again very quickly. She knows it would be too awful to sustain, the audience are quite frightened (Monk might jump into one of them next), but when it's over they are thrilled and rush to contratulate her. Part of me wants the horror to escalate and continue, but mainly I'm also happy that I've been a little bit disturbed and now it's over.

It shows what a talented, thoughtful person and a good actress can do with a skill such as ventriloquism. It's a million miles away from Keith Harris and Orville.

Nina finishes by giving away her Ken Campbell doll to a young boy, who is thrilled to have it and has already started to improvise an act. It's a good ending. You're happy that Nina has laid a ghost to rest.

Conti directed the documentary and self-funded its making. If it comes on again, try to watch it. You can also see her on Russell Howard's Good News if you type “Russell Howard Nina Conti” into YouTube.