Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?: Review

Pulp demonstrates how great a band they are in their concert film/documentary, What Do You Do For An Encore?.

And in 2025, after reuniting to make their first record in 24 years, they went back on tour with a show captured here by director and long-time collaborator Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Sing).

This is supposedly their 566th show – though, as Jennings says in his press notes, this concert film was shot over two nights. Yet as Cocker says in his preshow intro, this performance is a lot more than a reunion. “This performance is an encore. An encore occurs because the audience wants more.”

So, what exactly do you do for an encore? It is a question first posed by Cocker in the 1998 song ‘This Is Hardcore’. Here, it is answered with an array of songs, from old hits to tracks from that latest album, ‘More’. But that is just one dimension to Jennings’ film, which will satisfy fans whilst serving as a good introduction to any newcomers. Because the performances are intercut with segments with Cocker charting the band’s history and slow rise to fame, culminating in their iconic, last-minute headline slot of Glastonbury 1995.

We hear about Cocker growing up in Sheffield, becoming fascinated by TV, forming Pulp with his school friends. We hear of him modelling his image on Echo & the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and trying to get John Peel to listen to the band’s tape. All the while, Cocker’s self-reflective, self-reflexive and occasionally cheeky narration offers an interesting insight into his mindset and the initial struggles. In other words, the half-documentary approach is successful, even if it is cluttered at times. Cocker likens this film to “a jumble sale”, and it does interrupt itself with old Milk Tray commercials and intermissions.

But What Do You Do For An Encore’s biggest problem is that the concert part doesn’t have the energy found in the great concert films. Maybe we as an audience have been spoiled by the dynamism on display in Stop Making Sense, the pinnacle of the genre, or other films like David Byrne’s American Utopia. And to be clear, this is not the fault of Pulp, with Cocker moving around the stage with great vigour and enthusiasm. However, this film is shot rather basically.

Jennings has decided to emphasise the performances themselves and the show’s strong lighting. That means opting for still frames alongside close-ups of the band’s very receptive fans (a concert film staple that Stop Making Sense actually avoided). Occasionally, there are long takes amongst the crowd and tracking shots on stage. Nevertheless, visually, this feels a little too conventional and almost non-intimate, with only a few of Cocker’s interactions with the crowd shown.

The passage of time is a key theme here. It’s been 24 years since Pulp’s last album, and 13 since their last tour. In that period, tragedy struck. We see that in an acoustic performance of ‘Something Changed’ which, through archive footage, becomes a tribute to bassist Steve Mackey, who died in 2023. A lot of time has passed for a band that first formed nearly five decades ago, but they have journeyed back to the top. ‘More’ reached No.1 in the charts. They are here again because of their devoted fans, old and new. Their audience clearly wanted more. In Cocker’s words, “You only get to play 566 shows if someone comes to see you.”

And with What Do You Do For An Encore, Pulp demonstrate exactly why they still hold that fanbase. This may be a standard concert film, but it’s fun too. It is a joy to hear the tune that is ‘Spike Island’ from that new record and their classics, mainly from their Mercury Prize-winning album ‘Different Class’. ‘Sorted for E’s & Wizz’, which leads right into ‘Disco 2000’. ‘Mis-Shapes’. ‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E’. And of course, the incredible ‘Common People’, which comes towards the end. By that point, after going through their history and their incredible back catalogue, it’s clear that Pulp are anything but a common band.

Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore? will have a one-night-only theatrical event on September 18 (U.K. and Ireland), September 23 (Canada), and September 24, 2026 (U.S.), and will be available to stream exclusively on MUBI from September 25.