SPILL FILM REVIEW: PULP: WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AN ENCORE?

PULP: WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AN ENCORE?

MUBI

SEPTEMBER 23, 2026

What Do You Do For An Encore? is part concert film, part historical document, as director Garth Jennings attempts to tell the improbable second rise of Sheffield’s finest Britpop product, Pulp. Let’s start with the music – it’s a live recording taken from a triumphant tour last year, coming off the back of their incredible #1 album More. If that was all there was here, it’d probably be enough to satisfy die-hards – the atmosphere of the live concert, plus Pulp’s mastery of the stage, Jarvis Cocker’s wit, and everything else, would make it a great watch. Speaking as a watcher who missed it the first-time round, the concert film certainly gave me a better appreciation for This Is Hardcore than I had previously, with the titular song in particular being elevated to masterpiece status by the sonic cacophony shown here. Each band member gets a moment in the sun, and rightly so – in this more enlightened age, it’s clear both the band and Cocker want Pulp to be more about the whole than the individual.

So, the music’s triumphant then – and why not – but what of the film itself? Like contemporaries such as The New Order Story, it pulls in a great deal of goodwill from its narration, done by Cocker himself. Cocker’s unassuming Yorkshire-ness really gives the film a nice, homespun, warming feel that’s often missing from the laddish nature of these documentaries. The inclusion of inserts from other band members and, hilariously, his grandmother and other family members, delivered with that traditional northern bluntness, puts a smile on the face immediately.

SPILL FEATURE: LOTS OF PEOPLE WANT TO BE A FIREMAN OR A SPACEMAN. I WANTED TO BE A POP STAR. – A CONVERSATION WITH JARVIS COCKER OF PULP

If you already know the story, you won’t gain or lose a lot from this film, although I do think it’s better told by those who were actually there, rather than those trying to latch onto the scene of the time. Cocker in particular provides some pretty amusing lines, especially citing Barry White (!) as a singing influence while thinking over his life during a hospital recovery.  That said, though, even if the story’s familiar, it’s worth taking the journey, even if it’s just to relive the highest of the highs (that 1995 Glastonbury performance, for example), or the lowest of lows (the eventual ebbing out of the band following This Is Hardcore in 1998), because it’s all done with complete honesty and with a refreshing lack of bullshit. Perhaps that’s because, as we cross back into the present, we see a band both successful (as it was then) but finally comfortable in its own skin, as it never quite seemed to be in their initial heyday.

I don’t know if this film represents the high point of Pulp 3.0 (yes, this is their second reunion, something I’d forgotten!), or whether it’s just a signpost on the way to, if you’ll pardon the pun, more…but I do know it was a story worth telling either way. I left smiling and a bigger fan than ever. Even if you were never convinced by them, give this rags-to-riches story a good look over. It’s warm, homely, and more importantly, real, and that’s better than 99% of music documentaries you’ll ever find.

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