Venue - Issue 300 - 30 September 2014

the next big thing showdown

venue

#300 / resurrecting sherlock holmes / aphex twin / bad fashion homegrown hip-hop / posh twats / / colour me cancer

03 concrete.venue@uea.ac.uk

venue

September 30 / #300

Editors Holly J. McDede and Adam White Cover Art Liam Painter

music 04-07

fashion 08-09

arts 10-11

creative writing 12-13

Editors Myles Earle and Mike Vinti

Editors Gemma Carter and Helena Urquhart

Editor Katie Kemp

Editor Jake Reynolds

Contributors Rachel Hayllor, Lindsay Stark, Elley Tourtoulon

Contributors Katie Kemp, Holly J. McDede, Brett Mottram, Harriet Norman

Contributors Luke Jones, Molly Pearson, Adam White

gaming + tech 15

television 16-17

film 18-21

competitions 22

Editor Joe Fitzsimmons

Editor Adam Dawson

Editors Neven Devies and Silvia Rose

listings 23

Contributors Holly J. McDede, Alexander Smith

Contributors Adam Dawson, Rob Drury, Melissa Haggar, Nour Ibrahim, Adam White

Contributors Joe Frost, Joseph Holness,

Contributors Myles Earle, Melissa Haggar, Oliver Hughes, Eve Lacroix, Holly J. McDede

Televisual

So there’s this old episode of Buffy where people find they can only act on things or confront deep-seated feelings once their voices are literally taken away, all that word salad and unnecessary verbal overthinking forcibly removed, leaving only impulse and a compulsion to just run with whatever you truly feel. This has been the first proper week back at UEA, and it’s got me thinking about how great that Buffy wisdom is in principal, how fantastic it would be if we

Fedor Tot, Adam White

didn’t overthink so much, instead just act on things and see what happens. So that’s what I’m gonna propose we all do. Freshers - you’re new, and you’re probably terrified. But just go for it right now, you’ve truly got nothing to lose. Second years - cling onto your hope and enthusiasm. It’s suddenly so real, but this is also the year to really step up and become your own person, far more than last. And third years - this is pretty much it, so you may as well make this last run the greatest it could

Editor Daisy Jones Contributors Charlie Methven, Robin Sidle

possibly be, right? And you may or may not have realized that Holly and I are alternating these. So one will be funny and wise, the other contemplative and annoying. But hopefully, for the three of you who may actually read this, it’ll have some kind of effect. Even if it involves gagging. I’m happy to make do with gagging.

Keep it real, kids Adam and Holly J.

music

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concrete.music@uea.ac.uk

Calvin Goldspink

The Next Big Thing Holly J. McDede takes a look at the tenth year of Norwich’s local music race Ah, the musical competition, the age-old pop culture phenomenon. There’s The Voice.

There’s X-factor, child of Simon Cowell, who once also fathered Pop Idol, which is totally different because it involves singing (see: The Voice). And don’t forget The Singer Takes it All, the greatest music competition of them all, where singers perform on a conveyer belt controlled by viewers at home operating an app that can either send them towards gold or to a dark, dark place. We just love it when people sing to us softly... or, nah, we just like to judge people.

But for the past ten years, there’s been a music competition here in Norwich that’s got some heart to it called The Next Big Thing.

The competition is what happens to The Voice when you take away the elaborate TV contract, call up the community radio station, and make the judges well-meaning, musiclovers. Don’t put cameras in front of their faces. Don’t invite the screaming fan boys and girls waiting for their One Direction. Then, set the music competition where the music scene is a combination of plentiful, diverse, often incredible, and often satisfied simply ringing through the stereo systems of good old Norwich.

Hemingway at Open Studios, All Photos by Gordon Woolcock

“Norwich is a really, really creative city. We are going to be the next South by South West,” Kate Roma, deputy manager at Future Radio, said. Future has been organising the event since 2008 when they took it over from the Eastern Daily Press. “They’ve got that event going on in the middle of Texas. It’s tiny! Norwich can do the same thing”.

To enter, contestants were invited to upload tracks, information about themselves, and videos to Outline, an online magazine

Calvin Goldspink performing at Open

about Norwich’s music scene. Then, a panel of music professionals got together, and discussed what bands should go through. Out of roughly 80 bands, 12 made it to the semi-finals. So far, the competition has just completed its first two semi-finals, with 6 bands making it through to the next round.

The first semi-final, held last Saturday in the OPEN Clubroom, included musical talents such as a former child star seeking to carve a solo identity in the U.K, a PTSD survivor using music to heal, and a band that calls itself Hemingway because “the literal translation means to write while drunk, and that’s kind of what we’re about”, according to frontman Chris Brennan. In the end, George Insull, a concept artist who digs through radio programmes and YouTube videos like a sound bite palaeontologist, the well-polished, undeniably catchy former S Club Junior member Calvin Goldspink, and alternative sock rockers Hemingway made it through to the next round that week.

The bands that made it through were selected by judges who have all worked in the music industry, including Anne Ross, who has worked with Revolver, Sony, V2, and MTV. “I liked Hemingway, but no one else seemed to,” Ross said. “It’s a struggle to judge with your heart and gut instinct or your judgement of how commercial something will be. But someone said, ‘Go with your heart’, and that’s why I said Hemingway”.

Sure enough, long-time Future Radio listener Dave Hart remembers when he went to a Next Big Thing competition in 2009, the year Ed Sheeran famously won the competition. “I didn’t think he was the best act there, but that just goes to show you what I

know,” Hart said. “It’s really funny to see him playing for stadiums and these big audiences when there were like 30 of us there that night at B2 watching him perform for the Next Big Thing”.

This year, Hart was surprised when one of his favourites, George Insull, made it through.

“I really, really enjoyed his performance,” he said. “But is he the next Big Thing? Probably not. But I’d gladly sit through an evening of that”.

George Insull’s work is probably too weird for The Voice, but for a local music competition in Norwich, he’s got a shot. His concept art album, Sale of Soul-Making, was originally about fencing and then morphed, somewhat ironically, into an album about TV talent shows. In some of his songs, it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re hearing, but it’s hypnothic weirdness.

When George Insull was announced as one of the winners, at first, he couldn’t believe it.

“Someone came up to me and said, ‘You went on to the next round!’” Insull said. “And then I remembered it was a competition”.

He’ll be competing in the final on October 10th. If he wins, he’ll get a slot in the Home Run Festival, a package offered at Future Studios, a session on Mustard TV, and a print package from Premier Print. All the finalists also get delegate packages to all events at Norwich Sound and Vision.

When Lily Church, who goes by L. Bizarro, got on stage, she proclaimed, “This song is about a specific wanker, but it can be applied to all wankers generally”. She started writing her songs about a year ago, and began recording on her phone. So she’s new to this whole music world. When she found out

George Insull at the Next Big Thing

about the Next Big Thing, she took it as an opportunity to be brave. “I don’t know how I feel about competitions, really.

I don’t know how you can single out some people over others. But music is what I want to be doing, so I went for it”.

For Calvin Goldspink, his victory was the result of incredibly catchy hooks and careful refinement. He entered the competition after spending five years in Los Angeles, and finally moving back to Norfolk. He said the Next Big

L. Bizarro performing at the Next Big Thing

Thing is nothing compared to the everyday competitiveness of musicians in Los Angeles.

“Being back in Norwich is refreshing,” he said.

“There’s more breathing room here. People are less desperate Another winner, Chris Brennan from Hemingway, looked at the competition as more of an opportunity to perform than compete. “I knew about it for years. I don’t generally do band competitions. It’s about popularity and how many people you bring through the door. So we kept away,” Brenan said. “But, we had some new material, and we wanted to push it farther. In the end, it was a good night out! Nothing too crazy”.

So far, George Insull, Hemingway and Calvin Goldspink have made it through.

While each performance was followed by some whispering amongst the audience about how good the performance was, and whether or not they had a shot, The Next Big Thing is not filled with the vicious judgements of the TV talent show. Perhaps it’s because each musical act is too good, but more likely, it’s because they’re too close to home.

The Semi-finalists are: Harry Edwards, Secret from Richard, Susan in Colors, George Insull, Hemingway, and Calvin Goldspink. You can watch the Finals on October 10th at OPEN.

music

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concrete.music@uea.ac.uk

Noisey

Homegrown Hip-Hop Mike Vinti runs through the booming UK hip-hop scene Since its conception, hip-hop has always been dominated by the U.S; born on the streets of New York, thugged-up in L.A. and chopped and screwed down South America, has provided the world with an ever changing cast of hip-hop superstars and new-school pioneers.

Yet, as the genre has evolved, more and more artists from the rest of the world are getting recognition for their work, especially in the UK and Ireland.

The UK and hip-hop have always had a somewhat one-sided relationship, and for too long the only Brits willing to tackle the genre have been Bristol-based stoners with a penchant for misogyny and violent puns (shout out to Dirty Dyke), but at last a series of credible rappers have begun to catch some hype. Garnering the most attention of late are Hawk House, a London-based collective who specialise in the kind of introspective conscious Hip-Hop associated with artists such as Mos Def and A Tribe Called Quest. Their latest EP A Handshake to the Brain takes an anthological approach to track listings, with tracks introduced as chapters. Throughout the EP Hawk House deal with ‘The Nervous System’, ‘The Thought Process’ and various other topics, weaving a conscious mix of spirituality and science with snippets of everyday London life reminiscent of Joey Bada$$’s more recent work with its talk of “third eyes” and dodging cops.

Hawk House are not only talented rappers, they’re a breath of fresh air in a genre still riddled with misogyny and homophobia. Her Anatomy is equal parts poetry as hip-hop, an empowering ode to an implied victim of sexual assault, celebrating ‘her’ femininity as strength;

“her lipstick becomes war-paint… her skirt is made of chainmail and those titanium sunglasses protect her face well.”

“At last a series of credible rappers have begun to catch some hype” On the more experimental side of the UK hip-hop spectrum we find Sub Luna City.

Billed as London’s answer to RATKING and counting none other than King Krule among their members, they fuse East Coast influences with the skittish percussion of UK Bass creating a hazy but unique take on hiphop. Their mixtape City Rivim MK 1 is the perfect soundtrack for letting the world drift by on a warm evening in the city, chopped up vocal samples and distorted melodies flit in and out of Edgar’s (King Krule’s Sub Luna alias) J.Dilla-esque beats.

However, Sub Luna City are more than just another Archy Marshall side project; he coproduces his beats with fellow member Black Mack and the chemistry between the group’s two MCs Rago Foot and Jadasea is apparent even over Soundcloud. Weed and Warfare is the standout track on the mixtape, the soul sampling, piano-led beat floats by, providing a backbone for Rago and Jadasea’s bouncing, groove infused vocals that take up the melody of the track.

It’s almost impossible to describe how infectious the production on City Rivims… is, or how well it complements the vocal talent of Rago and Jadasea. While only one tape into

their career Sub Luna City are one of the most exciting acts in Hip-Hop as whole, never mind the UK and by all accounts there’s plenty more to come.

In a sign of just how far the genre has come in recent years, one of the most hyped new artists in hip-hop hails not from New York or L.A., not even from London but from Dublin. We speak of course of Rejjie Snow, whose combination of lyrical talent and Irish inflection has taken the blogosphere by storm.

He first appeared on the scene early 2013 with single Lost in Empathy, which tells the tale of persecution against the Albino population of many African states; not your average breakout hit. Shortly after came Rejovich, his debut EP, released on Elton John’s Rocket Music Entertainment. Tracks such as Meddling Loops and Snow cemented his credentials as HipHop’s new great hope. In terms of influences, Snow’s rap style is reminiscent of U.S artists

“Hawk House are not only talented rappers, they’re a breath of fresh air in a genre still riddled with misogyny and homophobia” such as Schoolboy Q and Pusha-T; it’s gangster rap but not as you know it. The boy’s got drive too, latest single Nights Over Georgia dropped back in June and his debut album Dear Annie expected before the end of the year if certain blogs are to be believed.

Back between British borders, the Don’t

Flop rap-battle league has some serious gems hidden amongst their ranks. Take, for example, league co-founder Cruger, an even less likely MC than Rejjie Snow, whose mix of selfaware, lazy and sometimes incredibly violent rap and general awkwardness has earned him serious credibility on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the fact he hasn’t put out anything fresh in at least a year. Cruger comes from the same school of rap as Mike Skinner of The Streets, that of the everyday. I Need is an existential breakdown of a track, with Cruger picking apart the flaws in his life in the most uplifting way possible. He also maintains one of the most overlooked factors of Hip-Hop in the UK, a sense of humour. His rap battles are crass and hilarious and when battling alongside Don’t Flop’s other co-founder, Eurgh, they are basically unstoppable. Be sure to check out Cruger Vs Charron for some incredible put downs and his freestyle on LTMA’s YouTube channel with Pedro.

Of course, no discussion of rap in the UK would be complete without paying tribute to our beloved Grime. Often lacking the mainstream press attention of hip-hop, Grime is evidence of the rap talent already present in the UK. From Wiley’s Where’s My Brother? to Lethal Bizzle’s monstrous Pow! British MCs have been spitting fire for over a decade and forging an underground scene so strong the Metropolitan Police are still trying to shut it down. Hip-hop in the UK would be nowhere had the likes of JME and Dizzee Rascal (PreTongue ‘n’ Cheek) not already carved out a place for British accents in the rap game and given a voice to those so often denied one in the charts.

music

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concrete.music@uea.ac.uk

This Goes In

Branding in Music Videos For

Eve Lacroix

What do Nicki Minaj’s Pills and Potions, Lily Allen’s Hard Out Here and Azealia Banks’ Yung Rapunxel all have in common? Aside from chart-topping and mainstream success, a pretty blatant product placement of Beats by Dr Dre. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, you will recognise the image; the speakers are shaped like a pill. The first few times may have not been so obvious but, as this trend has been picking up speed since 2008, some of these products are starting to feel much more familiar and are gaining air time too. Let’s try this the other way around. Think of the Eos lip balm, which comes in brightly coloured spheres that you twist in the middle. How many videos can you name that it appears in? Some artists are repeat offenders, cue to Miley Cyrus and her single We Can’t Stop and Nicki Minaj with Anaconda, but also JLo’s most recent Booty.

“Remember, the music industry is a business.

Musicians rely on personal branding” Now, these product placements may be annoying and in the worst cases downright distracting. Shouldn’t we be focusing on the music? What kind of an image is the artist

trying to convey? Perhaps they even have a story line going! Of course, in certain cases like Kanye West’s art movie Runaway, a notso-discreet zoom in on a brand name would have been inexcusable. But the truth is, these obvious attempts to sell us speakers, lip balms, phones or shoes tend to appear in light-hearted pop songs. The directors of these clips aren’t necessarily trying to create a story line rather than make a visually aesthetic and fun video.

Remember, the music industry is a business.

Musicians rely on personal branding. They create or maintain an image in order to attain a specific audience, be it pre-teen girls for One Direction or misfit teenagers for My Chemical Romance. According to Brand-E’s report on Nielsen research, a product placement of five seconds can create a brand lift of 35%. As for the musicians, the exposure can pay between $15,000 to a quarter of a million dollars. So is this not simply a win-win between industries?

We must think about the way we consume art—when was the last time you bought a CD? In a day and age where artists no longer make money on album sales because of illegal downloading and streaming platforms like Spotify and Deezer, product placement can be a reliable source of income to continue creating music and lavish music videos. Artists’ income sources, and our means of consumption, have changed, so naturally the music industry has had to adapt. Rather than vilifying the advertising, shouldn’t we find a better way to support artists?

Against Melissa Haggar

Ah, the time old tradition of product branding in music videos. Suffice to say, if you spend your time watching the latest music videos, you’ve probably seen your fair share of products that are often not very subtly incorporated into music videos by popular recording artists. You of course have your serial offenders; a certain set of headphones and stereo equipment, a brand of vodka and an array of mobile phones, plus many, many more.

Product branding in music videos is seemingly everywhere we turn, and you won’t be able to get more than five seconds into a music video by Miley Cyrus or Nicki Minaj before the ever so familiar face of product

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the music?” branding rears its head. But what is so ‘bad’ about this form of product endorsement?

Whilst some product branding placement can be rather clever and witty, most of it ends up being less subtle and more blindingly obvious, and ends up detracting attention from the music and video itself. You’ll be watching a poignant story one second, and the next they’ll both be swaying along to their new Beats Pill. It certainly doesn’t make for compelling viewing.

The overt nature of product placement in

videos also seems to make the mistake that the audience is an inherent idiot; one who is not able to see a product unless you use up a good few seconds of the video mindlessly focusing on it, until the video becomes almost unbearable to watch any longer. The audience is constantly reminded that capitalism is rife, and if you have the money, we have the space

“They make the mistake that the audience is an inherent idiot” for it in our music video – no matter how out of place or ridiculous it is! There’s a place for everything - Latest music systems in a jungle?

No problem! Want to advertise your swanky new watch? Sure thing – we’ll make sure to solely focus on it for at least a couple of seconds – that way – no one will miss it!

Although there is no sort of moral obligation in terms of product branding and how you should use it in music videos, there is a certain twinge of disappointment when you are reminded of the very real fact that recording artists are perfectly happy to take money or free gifts for a short appearance of said ‘gift’ in their music video, even if it makes no logical sense to have it in there. Offenders, at the very least think of a more creative way you can tie in the products if you absolutely have to feature them; shot after shot of identifiable product rarely makes anyone want to buy it, it just makes it annoying and distracting.

music

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concrete.music@uea.ac.uk

Fact Mag

Aphex Twin Syro Oliver Hughes

Few artists will have more impact on a scene in our lifetime than Richard D. James. Practically every ‘electronic musician’ (for want of a better, all-encompassing genre adjective) in the last twenty years has been influenced by him in some way, even those who make music that is nothing like his own – even Skrillex has cited Richard’s most famous moniker, Aphex Twin, as his favourite artist. Radiohead’s monumental Kid A was heavily inspired by the Cornwall born composer as well. And

now, thirteen years since his last official release, 2001’s Drukqs, we have Syro, ending one of the longest droughts in an artist’s catalogue since My Bloody Valentine last year.

That isn’t to say he has been completely silent. A few DJ sets here and there, larger gigs and art installations, releases under two of his many, many pseudonyms, culminating in the Kickstarter project to release Caustic Window, a mid-90s collection of shelved B-sides. Syro, however, is music mostly made within the last few years. It isn’t old things thrown together – it is a meticulously arranged collection of new music.

And it is wonderful. As soon as the first track kicks in, a groove starts that is hard to stop until the very end of the record. This is some of the most richly textured music Aphex Twin has made – one struggles to find comparisons to his earlier works. It isn’t the ambient techno of the Selected Ambient Works series, the composed breaks of Richard D. James Album, the abrasive craziness of I Care Because You Do or Drukqs – though the former is perhaps its closest spiritual successor. There

aren’t the neo-classical elements some might have expected, or a dedication to the acid house scene that inspired his earliest works.

What we have instead is complex, melodically challenging and progressive dance music.

It’s impossible to pin Syro down. It charges across dance music from the origins of synthpop in the seventies to the present day and throws them all together with such precision it makes you wonder how James can all but perfect each one. He confessed to spending days at a time working on just a solitary sound – that level of care comes off after repeated listens. What first sounds cluttered and random straightens out, melodies emerge, the depth across the record becomes apparent. The rhythmic structure of his early works like Xtal or Ptolemy, the composed 4, the poppy Windowlicker, the droppy Come On You Slags – all of them are cut up, rehashed, and pieced together with a few extra layers thrown in for good measure on Syro, with vocal samples coming exclusively from James’s family.

The tracks are beautifully arranged. The album clocks in at over an hour, yet it pulses by

with every minute. The record sleeve features a list of equipment used, and it’s impressive – every bar is so intricate, whether it’s the stuttering percussion, sparkling lead synths or the squelchy acidic undertones to some tracks.

There are so many brilliant moments amongst these tracks it’s impossible to talk about them all, but the standout is certainly the closer, Aisatsana - a beautiful, almost lonely romantic piano piece dedicated to James’s wife, Anastasia (read it backwards). It was originally played on a remote controlled grand piano swinging from a pendulum, and it’s that level of creativity that makes Aphex Twin so rewarding and so relevant an artist to listen to today. His early works were ahead of their time, and now we are truly blessed to have new material. No one else could make music like this, and we should be grateful. It isn’t perfect, and it isn’t his best work – but it comes close, and that speaks many good things about what’s to come.

made a huge impact with a unique alternative R&B tone.

Goddess, an 18-track deluxe album, definitely feels like a debut. Her voice, hypnotic, mystical and (at times) ethereal, works so well with the production of her songs. The slow tendencies and synthy sounds highlight her voice and create this eerie atmosphere, especially with her track Brain.

This runs over into following track, This Is What It Feels Like, the single that loyal Banksfollowers were hoping would make it on to the album. The harmonies and deep electronic beats give this track a sense of another world.

You could listen to this track and imagine yourself in a fantasy world, a dark fantasy world.

The album as a whole has quite a dark and twisted feel; Banks’ voice seems suited to facilitating the listener with immense and

intense imagery, asking the listener to imagine her built from “calluses and crumbs” in You Should Know Where I’m Coming From. One of the things we love at venue Venue is tricky and playful lyrics, and Goddess has certainly got high marks from us for that.

Though we give credit that this is a debut album, apart from the track previously mentioned, the general sound and tone is quite repetitive and runs throughout the album to a point where it would be hard to distinguish one song from another. This is both a positive and a negative; having a continuous tone throughout her album makes her sound stand out and draws a focus on her alt-R&B voice.

However, whether listeners will make it to the end of her album is another matter.

It is easy to see that this album has some great production, with the likes of Al Shux and Lil Silva appearing on the credits as

well as time spent on it, with stories about love and the complexity of relationships told throughout. Particularly the single Drowning; telling the story of a complex and destructive relationship, going against the grain of what people may think to be a typical song about love, playing with deep R&B beats and sounds. With quite an aggressive tone, the track features echoing layers and distortion behind the vocals, almost creating a setting of an empty gothic church at night.

This album is one to most definitely watch out for. Banks, the female version of The Weeknd, has established a real standing point in the music industry with Goddess, and venue Venue approves.

Banks Goddess Myles Earle

With high expectations from music critics and fans, Goddess is the debut album from Jillian Rose Banks – aka Banks. Having made her way through the L.A. underground music scene to the main stage, Banks has naturally

fashion

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concrete.fashion@uea.ac.uk

Best Dressed at SOCMART

Helen Adamson History Society

LFW Lowdown

Lindsay Stark picks the best shows from London Fashion Week 2014 September means one thing: Fashion Week. With the shows kicking off in New York and making their way around the globe, stopping off at London, Milan and Paris along the way, the designers we all know and love (and some that quite frankly, we’ve never even heard of!) showcase their SS/15 collections to captivated audiences. Right now spring and summer seem a lifetime away and all we really want to do is snuggle up in warm blankets and fluffy coats. However, the designers are one step ahead of us , filling their runways with the yummy pastels, very short hemlines and delightfully dramatic textures, that come next spring we will all be wearing.

This year’s LFW, held at Somerset House, certainly didn’t disappoint, full of extravagant, wacky and wonderful shows. Here is a roundup of some of the best looks from this year’s LFW...

Burberry

Despite being well-known faces of the brand, Cara Delevingne and Kate Moss didn’t partake in the show. Instead they chose to sit front row and support their fel-

low supermodels Jourdan Dunn and Suki Waterhouse. This wasn’t the only surprise of the show and what really shocked many onlookers were the flat shoes that appeared on the catwalk. Models were sent down the runway in trainers and sandals, perhaps suggesting that (thankfully!) SS/15 will be about comfort and style, bringing an end to the painful blisters and twisted ankles of decades past. Trainers, in particular, look to be a big trend for the coming months and are a good way of incorporating some of Burberry’s typical Brit style into your wardrobe.

Topshop

Over the past seasons, Topshop Unique has presented a very grown-up and sophisticated look.

However this season it has presented a British seaside-inspired retro collection. Looks that are more fun and playful, and as a result, much more wearable. The collection is mainly based around red, white and blue pieces with a sporty twist. In terms of outerwear, sheer dresses took centre stage, with a splattering of strategically-placed Swarovski crys-

tals for added glamour. Although these dresses were beautiful, and looked incredible we do wonder how wearable they are - we aren’t sure how they’d go down in the LCR or Mantra! This trend does seem to be one that is sticking around, so layering camis under sheer tops, and choosing peeka-boo sheer panels on dresses is, perhaps, a more realistic way of incorporating sheer fabrics into our wardrobes at home!

Henry Holland

Henry Holland revealed that his SS/15 collection was based on standing out from the crowd, a theme that was particularly evident throughout the show. Bright colours were teamed with vibrant patterns, including a new twist on the over-done floral print that seems to reappear every spring.

Co-ords such as crop tops and skirts were also popular, along with over-sized tops and matching trousers. Florals are usually a common theme in the spring/ summer collections of many designers, however we absolutely love how House of Holland have revamped them in such a stylish, creative and individual way!

Fashion Gone Rogue

Fashion Faux Pas Rachel Hayllor discusses the controversy that has hit the High Street Albert Forsey Law Society

The fashion world has long been considered a home for the flamboyant, the outspoken and the bizarre; as such, it is and has always been dogged by controversy. From Vogue Italia’s trend piece on ‘slave earrings’, to John Galliano’s 2002 Christian Dior collection inspired by the homeless (no, really), the fashion industry has proved time and time again to be comically out of touch.

The vapid and vacuous cast of characters in the fashion world has spawned many a spoof including Ugly Betty and Zoolander, which lampoon the elements of the ridiculous in a world that seems so totally alien from every day life. Where are the Karl Lagerfeld’s shopping for shampoo in Tesco to keep their immaculately platinum ponytails in good nick?

Where are the Vivienne Westwood’s queuing up at the bus stop, tugging their netted skirts

“Were we offended? Yes. Were we surprised? Not a chance.”

Livvy Flynn

Feminist Society

out of the way of passing mobility scooters?

Have you ever seen John Galliano fixing his pirate-y moustache in a New Look window?

High fashion gets a bit of a free pass on controversy, because for most of us it isn’t part of our day-to-day lives. It is so divorced from

normality that if we see something we don’t like we can just look away and continue on in our separate spheres. However, this craving for controversy has trickled down into the high street and is becoming increasingly common.

News broke this week that Urban Outfitters, in its infinite wisdom, had been stocking sweatshirts that appear to allude to the 1970s Kent State University shootings, in which four students died in a political protest.

The sweatshirt features ‘distressed’ holes with the appearance of gunshot wounds and a red dye that pools around the punctures giving the impression of a bloodstain. Urban Outfitters’ management has thus far pleaded ignorance on the subject, denying that any such connotation had occurred to them, but let’s be honest, they’ve been caught with their hands firmly in the cookie jar and crumbs down their front. This shameless attempt at bolstering their lackluster sales year (a 10% drop in the first two quarters) merely comes across as desperate and has sent their brand approval rating through the floor. Were we offended?

Yes. Were we surprised? Not a chance. This flagrant move to introduce some ‘edge’ to their image is one of a number of tactical missteps by a grossly mismanaged brand.

With hits such as ‘Holocaust t-shirt’ and the

‘Eat Less’ v-neck, this is one tune the public are sick of hearing. Media mongering like this doesn’t make people want to spend their hard earned ducats on your products, it makes them want to put their money back into their purse and then hit you round the head with it.

“They’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, crumbs down their front” At its best, high fashion is art, it is expressive and creative and at times controversial. Meanwhile the high street, which is charged with producing imitations of high fashion trend pieces for a lower price and as high a profit as possible, lacks the kooky charm and innovation that gives high fashion the occasional pass. What we’re really seeing here is just a case of laziness, a thought process that says: ‘why innovate and advance when we can instead shock and offend?’. It further entrenches the view that high street fashion is just a profiteering exercise, which largely takes the fun out of the whole affair. If high street brands want to be ‘edgy’ and turn a profit, they have to put aside shock tactics and create something unique, something that creates excitement rather than anger.

fashion

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concrete.fashion@uea.ac.uk

Photography Will Cockram

Model and Stylist Elley Tourtoulon

Cute Capes for Cold Days Elley Tourtoulon gives us the rundown on this autumn’s must-have So, you’ve bought a cape. Congratulations, you are now one degree more chic than those who possess only sleeve-based outerwear. But next comes the harder decision: what to wear with your cape? Joining the ranks of the caped fashion crusaders takes some forethought, so venue Venue have going to give you a little cape 101.

Whether you bought the cape to look like a vampire or a superhero, we’ve got some tips to style your way into the cape coat hall of fame.

The basic thing to get right with a cape is balance. The cape usually involves a lot more material than the traditional coat, and it’s that flowing feeling the fabric creates that makes it such a luxurious garment. But it is also this excess of fabric that can create a top-heavy silhouette that requires more thought to balance than a simple coat - for example we’d suggest avoiding a long skirt

with a cape as this will look quite blockish.

For those of you with full-length cape coats, this isn’t so much of a problem. If your cape is armless, as longer capes usually are, then we suggest adding a chunky bracelet or two to break up the bare skin of your arms. Match it to the colour of your cape and wear it closed for a monochromatic look. Our top tip for a longer cape is to try a stronger makeup look, like a wine lipstick for a pop of colour. This will keep your face from getting lost amongst the fabric!

Now for the mid-length cape coat, the best friend for those of you with amazing legs.

Dressed correctly, it can curtain off the rest of your body to exhibit your pins. To really show them off wear your favourite spray-on jeans or go that bit slicker and wear leggings.

This will highlight your legs and balance the

eye as it is drawn up your silhouette. A simple skater dress works really well with this cut of cape, and can look really cute and flouncybecause we all know half the fun of a cape is the swooshing factor. To keep your outfit from getting too cute, chunky shoes are a cool twist for an alternative look. A pair of Doc Martens really mixes up the final silhouette which is useful as autumn approaches. You’ll be dry and looking super stylish as you stomp through puddles. You’ll basically be Sherlock and we’re 99% sure that Benedict Cumberbatch has a cape - Sherlock Holmes definitely did.

Accessories are really crucial for your cape. Choose a complimentary colour or something that appears elsewhere in your ensemble to tie the look together. To keep things subtle you can tuck the ends of a scarf into the collar. This is a stellar accessory for

a cape as sometimes the wide-open bottom lets in more wind than a tight fitting coat, so the scarf has a bonus of keeping you warm. If you’re following our earlier advice of wearing some chunky bracelet jewellery, match the bangles to the scarf to finish off your look.

At venue Venue we can’t quite decide whether kimonos count as capes. They’re definitely beautiful, and they score very highly on the swoosh factor, which inclines us to include them. For a summer take on the capes, then a kimono would be perfect. You can scarcely move in the high street shops but for gauzey patterned smoking jackets and tassle-fringed kimonos, and the Memoirs of a Geisha fan inside us all heartily approves.

So now that you have been inducted into the way of the cape, go forth and swoosh for your life!

arts

10

concrete.arts@uea.ac.uk

Northern Ballet’s Cinderella: Dancers in the Spotlight Harriet Norman explores the intensive programme of Northern Ballet dancers who will be heading to the Norwich Theatre Royal stage this October at the Northern Ballet, you are always acting and conveying the story of your character. Yet with the Northern Ballet’s story of Cinderella, the relationship between Cinderella and the Stepmother is more complex, offering a depth to the characters for the dancers to explore.

Prudames found the role of Cinderella very emotional, showing Cinderella rising from the cruelty of her stepmother to becoming a strong woman that the Prince has to work to prove his love for.

“This production of Cinderella is far from the traditional tale; it’s definitely more twisted” Bill Cooper

Cinderella is the Northern Ballet’s newest production to be gracing the Norwich Theatre Royal stage from 7th to 11th October this year.

Full of the magic that makes Cinderella an everlasting fairy tale, the Northern Ballet’s performance is a dazzling production under the direction of David Nixon.

But behind the beautiful scenes created by set designer Duncan Hayler are the long hours of training and dedication from the dancers.

The grace of being a ballerina combined with a classic fairy-tale is a dream for many aspiring young dancers. But in the same way that Cinderella rises through hard work and patience to become a princess, so too do the hardworking determined dancers of the ballet world.

Abigail Prudames is one such dancer

who worked her way up to dancing her first principle role in a ballet as grand as Cinderella.

Leaving home in Knaresborough at 11 to join The Royal Ballet School in London was the beginning of her journey to become a professional ballet dancer.

After balancing dance and academic schooling, she finished ballet school to go on to join the Northern ballet company as an apprentice in 2011. A few years on she has had to learn a variety of different dance roles, which can be a gruelling task.

One of the most impressive talents of ballet dancers is their combining of excellent acting and dance technique through expressive storytelling.

Prudames is used to conveying the characters she is given, because as a dancer

Isaac Lee-Baker will be starring alongside Prudames as the Prince. Starting at Brixton Youth Club, he was entranced by a pas-de-deux in his P.E hall through the Royal Opera House educational programme. He went on to join the Royal Ballet School’s Associates Programme, finally graduating to join Northern Ballet in 2012. Lee-Barker remembers the commitment it took to study dance at a young age saying, “You have to give up quite a lot, but at that age it’s great experience”.

He has enjoyed the process of exploring the Prince’s character development, from the start of the production where the prince is “a stuck up guy” to “a flurry of love” when the Prince is entranced by the character of Cinderella.

Something that is very special about this production of Cinderella appears to be that it has been carefully thought about and not just in terms of the classic fairy-tale.

As Lee-Barker says, “this Cinderella is far

from the traditional tale and is definitely more twisted”. Something both dancers have loved about this new production of Cinderella is the extensive lengths the company have gone to in order to create an original and exciting ballet for the audience.

Set in elegant Imperial Russia, the ballet features stunning winter scenes and beautiful ballroom sequences. The Northern Ballet have even called upon the magical talents of Richard Pinner to teach the dancers tumbling, juggling, stilt walking and acrobatics, which the dancers were eager to learn alongside the challenge of learning new skills to perform.

Although there may be no pumpkin and mice turning into an extravagant carriage and horses, this production of Cinderella stands ready to be a magical and dazzling performance.

Bill Cooper

Introducing...

UEA Literary Festival Autumn 2014 Brett Mottram introduces this year’s line up for UEA’s annual Literary Festival This autumn, the UEA Literary Festival promises to offer a blend of laughter, reflection and excitement with renowned writers such as Ian McEwan, Stephen Fry, Margaret Drabble and Bernard Cornwell making appearances alongside lesser-known authors such as Eimear McBride, whose novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing was written in 2003 and published last year.

Someone else you may be unfamiliar with is Tash Aw, who studied on UEA’s famous

Creative Writing MA, and cites among his influences writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov and Gustave Flaubert.

In addition to fiction, there will be autobiography (Stephen Fry’s new book More Fool Me) and biography (Richard Holmes has written studies of Shelley, Johnson, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin).

The festival was first held in 1991, and since then has been host to some of the finest contemporary writers and personalities,

including Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Jeremy Paxman, Simon Schama, A.C. Grayling, Simon Armitage, Richard Dawkins and countless others – just check out the archive.

All money raised goes towards student scholarships and university activities, and you can buy individual or season tickets. And that’s just this autumn; the festival is held in the spring as well, so there’s even more to look forward to.

So, appearing this autumn (8th October to 26th November): Stephen Fry, Ian McEwan, Bernard Cornwell, Tash Aw, Jane Smiley, Margaret Drabble, Eimear McBride, Lawrence Norfolk, David Vann, Richard Holmes

More details can be found on the website: www.uea.ac.uk/litfest/home See you there!

arts

11

concrete.arts@uea.ac.uk

Toasters on the Wall Holly J. McDede takes a look at an art campaign to make Norfolk’s walls a bit more interesting When Norfolk-based artist Sam Harrons was growing up, he idolised Toasters. In case you were distracted by the inevitable image of a boy watching bread pop out of his beloved kitchen appliance day in and day out: that's Toasters with a capital T. As in, the team of street artists who've been mischievously painting iconic toasters on walls, escalators, lamp posts, and pub toilet doors around the world for over a decade.

When Harrons saw his first graffiti art toaster almost 7 years ago, he decided he needed a brand name for himself and his own street art, similar to the way Toasters managed to forge an identity. Years later, Harrons has gone on to launch the SHhhh collective, symbolised by an empty quote bubble to represent the SHhhhthis-is-a-secret nature of his sometimes illegal

Toaster’s London Street Art, Red Bubble

“It makes it less of a forbidden, naughty thing”, Barron said. “It's approved of. It's like the community is saying, 'Yeah, we want this.'”

Toasters began as a New Years’ resolution between two friends who spent many days and nights in the kitchen debating the past, present, and future of graffiti art. They

Toasters on Barrack Street, Bill Smith from the EDP

street art. Recently, Harrons joined Frazer Bailey in collaboration with Moosey Art on his Get Walls campaign, which seeks to use Norfolk’s walls in creative ways. Bailey and Harrons invited Toasters to Norwich to paint some Norwich City Council-approved toasters on Barrack Street. “If we could think of any artist to invite to paint on our walls, it would be Toasters,” Harrons said. “I think the world is just a cooler place with toasters on our walls”.

Now Baily and Harrons are in search of more walls to snazz up around Norwich, and more artists who'd like to get involved. Walls are everywhere, but they don't necessarily belong to the public. While Barron originally entered the illegal world of tags (oh my!) he says he's learning to accept the legal art scene.

“If we could think of any artist to paint our walls, it would be Toasters” were tired of the stereotypical graffiti art images of poorly drawn love sticks (if you catch my drift), illegible signatures, and cries for anarchy followed by too many exclamation points. So they took an everyday,

inoffensive, household object, and brought it outside to the streets. Hence, the toaster.

Barron wishes there was more street art in Norwich, but says it's been popping up more and more every day. This past summer, a project called the Wensum Paste Up sent students at Wensum Lodge to the St. Stephens underpass to hang up posters of their artwork in the often overlooked underpass. Since then, many of the posters have been taken down, or spray painted over.

Life moves on, even toasters stop working eventually, and when it comes to street art, it's perishable and impermanent by design. But where there are walls in Norwich, thanks to people like Bailey and Harrons, there will be art.

Artos

“The Last Confession of Sherlock Holmes” UEA Graduate Kieran Lyne talks to Arts Editor Katie Kemp about the road to making it as a writer To take on the revival of such an iconic character as Sherlock Holmes, particularly one so embedded in the British culture, is always a tentative game, under which one must be careful not to get caught in the shadow of one’s predecessor.

Kieran Lyne, who graduated from UEA with a BA in History in June 2013, is one such writer who has recently taken on this immense legacy with the publication of The Last Confession of Sherlock Holmes, a text claiming to be the revelation by Dr Watson of how he and Sherlock Holmes deceived the world.

I caught up with Kieran to find out what led him to delve into the mind of Mr Holmes, and how he found himself going through the stages of being published.

When was it that you first started writing and why did it appeal to you as a creative outlet?

I first started writing in the summer of 2012.

Prior to joining UEA to study for a degree in History, I first attended the Royal Northern College of Music where I specialised in playing the bass guitar.

However, I dropped out soon after as I realised I didn't want a hobby to become a profession. It took away part of the joy of playing.

Whilst studying in my second year at

UEA, I decided to put pen to paper. I felt that I needed a creative outlet, and writing seemed to be something to fill the creative void. I was a complete novice at the time, and kept my written words very close to my chest, but over time I began to realise it was something I could potentially make a profession out of.

Why did you decide to continue the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, as opposed to writing something completely fresh?

When first starting out, I would produce mainly short stories; and so as a Holmes fan, it was a natural progression to start toying with the idea of writing a Holmes story myself.

In particular, it was the characters created

by Arthur Conan Doyle that I found greatly appealing. Despite the fact that in continuing with Holmes’ story I would be writing within the genre of crime fiction, it is the characters who remain primary to my writing, whilst the plot, though important, remains secondary.

Due to the reinvigorated and global popularity of Sherlock Holmes I felt my story had the potential to slot into this market nicely, and it was therefore worth trying to get published.

You initially planned to go on to

do an MA after graduation. What made you decide to stick with writing instead?

I decided to stick to writing the story instead of studying for an MA because every time something Holmes or Jack the Ripper-related came up I panicked and had to frantically check the internet to make sure there was nothing encroaching on my idea, which got a bit tedious after a while!

That, and as I had already developed the main plot outline, it was simply a case of writing it and I thought with no real commitments or responsibilities and Holmes once again so popular, what better time than now?

You are the youngest writer ever to be endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate. How has this helped you in the process of getting published?

It was actually the Conan Doyle Estate who recommended me to MX Publishing. Initially I had very little success in finding an agent, so then decided instead to go through the process of self-publishing the text as an eBook. Before going through this process I contacted the Conan Doyle Estate, as I wanted to avoid any tricky legal situations regarding the copyright of Holmes. So it was after approaching the estate that my story was endorsed and I was then brought to the attention of MX. Essentially,

if you’re thinking of getting published, you need to just go for it. It’s a great feeling when you finally have your name on a piece of work you’ve slaved over for months on end.

12 “I’m bowled over, I’m totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can’t ever sleep again” - Harold Pinter, Betrayal For this issue, we asked for submissions on the theme of beauty. What is beauty? Is it always in the eye of the beholder? How can we discuss beauty in interesting and unique ways? Here’s what people have had to say... enjoy!

- Jake Reynolds

creative writing concrete.creativewriting@uea.ac.uk

McCullin Irishman

Submit your own to @miniaturestory on Twitter Twilight is the time for moths; dim, grey, half-seen, half-felt, disguising their nature in a trick of the light. Do not bring in the lamps.

From the Last Frontier

This hair is no longer hair Not like we knew it Not strands but thickets A hard hat of ash Some proper dust-up Speckles on a face, in its marks and lines The cracks and breaks of it all Tribal, you yelled

But those eyes!

Eyes that hurt and that plead and that long Lived eyes Yessir eyes Oh won’t you lend me your hand eyes Of a perfect white This neverwas of a place But this place that could

Molly Pearson The first time I acknowledged to myself that I loved you, a patch of my skin blistered and died. The remnant was rough to the touch, the dull crimson of poison ivy, and crinkled like a first-degree burn. It was on my left arm near the elbow.

It’s funny in retrospect how little I minded.

The disease seemed innocuous at first. I thought it would clear up in time. Thousands before me have told themselves the exact same lie.

We met up for a drink with our mutual friends. I sweated through the jacket that covered the scabs on my arm and talked to you in words I barely understood. Your replies were sound and motion; my senses, trying to follow them, spilled like alcohol across the table and dripped onto the floor. Under the hot blue light your eyes were large as a ghost’s and shining.

The next morning when I woke, I found that it had spread. The rough patch by my elbow had more than doubled in size, creeping down towards my hand and upwards to my shoulder. It was harder now, and a darker red, the colour of liver. When I tried to bend my arm, the joint resisted. I was starting to calcify.

Luke Jones

I rode out into a country, One that hides itself from The greyest city in the world, At ninety miles an hour Down the wrong side of the track No need for traffic laws when Your car is the only one.

I booted up my computer and scrolled through encyclopaedias of different ways to die.

As the brick-red waste Dotted with blasted shrubs Gives way to the grasslands, The horses come out Play-fighting like a pack of dogs, And cover in a single hour The distance that took me Five days of hard riding To the pulse of the radio.

Then I bit the bullet of my lower lip and dialled. Not in at the moment; please leave your message after the beep. I hung up.

Later the scab on my arm cracked and began

to weep a pale, viscous fluid that clung to my fingers like oil. I covered it with a bandage, but the infected skin crawled until I couldn’t sleep. At last I got up and switched on the light. The bandage was damp and smelled hotly of decay, and the disease had grown far beyond it, covering the whole arm and half of my chest. My sheets were slimy with white secretion, littered with a patina of hairs shed by the dying flesh.

tisone tablets, which you could snap in half to speed up their effect. I took them one after the other and lay on my bed and made paper aeroplanes out of the brochures the doctors had given me. The title of every leaflet was prefixed with psycho. I supposed I ought to be grateful.

A hundred years back, they would probably have dissected me and put me in a jar.

I booked an appointment with my GP. Urgent. On the pristine surface of the doctor’s desk, my fingers looked brittle enough to snap.

She inspected my arms with a microscope, ran her gloved hands across my ridged red ugliness. Perplexity pressed its thumb between her eyes. ‘I can’t see anything wrong,’ she said.

Formaldehyde.

Nor could the skin specialist she referred me to. In his mint-green consulting room I heard the word hypochondria for the first time.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘I look like something out of an eighties B-movie!’ I said.

I looked into his eyes and said, ‘Please.’

‘I’m terribly sorry.’ His politeness, shallow as the puddles on a bathroom floor. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

I went home and opened my medicine cabinet. Sudocrem lay uselessly on the surface of the skin for hours, unabsorbed, until I wiped it off. Aloe vera stung like cold fire but did nothing. Vaseline was a waste of time.

I took pills. Benadryl, bicoloured antihistamines and the tiny white moons of hydrocor-

Ethanol.

no trace of the disease that was consuming me, inside and out.

I still held the shot glass in one mutilated hand. A cool trickle ran down the side of my face as I tilted my head back and poured it into my eye. The pain was almost unbearable, and through my tears I saw the room break apart into a thousand glittering facets. I filled the glass again.

The scales were creeping up my neck now, over my ears and chin; soon they would cover my face. I touched my blistered cheek. ‘Why can’t anyone see it?’ I whispered. I was miserably drunk. ‘For fuck’s sake, why can’t anyone see?’

Glutaraldehyde.

Phenol.

All those elixirs of death with their pretty little names.

It’s funny, but I’ve never mentioned love to you. Our relationship is built on small things, in-jokes and song lyrics and moments snatched from our separate lives, tiny specimens in dozens of jars. Love isn’t life, but it fills the spaces in between.

I called you again, and this time I left a message. Then I went downstairs and made myself a shot. I can’t remember what it was; some kind of schnapps that smelled like cinnamon.

That didn’t matter. It was time to look.

The mirror I had hitherto ignored was framed on three sides by wall, its bottommost edge perched above a sill that grew bottles of beauty products like toadstools. But when I gazed into its silvered heart I saw I hadn’t changed.

I was a little paler than usual, my expression anxious and drawn, but my reflection showed

The next morning you knocked on my door.

Leaning against the doorframe, buckling under the weight of your gaze, I said nothing; watched you try and turn your wince into a smile. Relief like warm soapy water. Then you spoke.

‘What’ve you done to your eyes?’ you said.

‘They look really bad.’

I went to the kitchen and found a ball of steel wool lying in a Gordian knot on the draining board. Following, you found me kneeling on the floor, bubbles of fluid seeping from the cracked and darkening skin as I scoured my hands and face as if I could wash this cancer away.

You caught my wrist. ‘What’s happening?

What are you doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

Quick-Fire Questions with Molly Pearson

Beneath the bare trees The old man slit a sheep’s throat And tamed a maddened horse, And watched me struggle with a tent; He had a drunkard’s grin.

Angered at first Yet he was so reasonable; For I am the only one Intruding on this land, A figure of fun, A devil come to gape at The people who hide in A sky so clear and liquid It buries all your miles.

Though the ghosts of red stars Still shine through the smog, Their life goes on forever.

Extract from “Skin”

Adam White

This is not an object of note

Microfictions

13

In three words, why do you write?

I. Couldn’t. Not. Biggest literary inspiration?

Carol Ann Duffy. Not because she’s my favourite writer, but because I remember getting my GCSE English textbook and reading poem after poem by her, in awe. I was thinking: ‘My God, this woman has written about murder, necrophilia, psychopathy, criminality… and she’s our Laureate and her work is required reading for just about every teenager in England! There’s hope for me!’

Favourite place in the world?

Any bookshop, any library. Any beautiful or interesting historical place.

Will Cockram

Tea or coffee?

Tea. Tea as black as the darkest recesses of my soul… but preferably decaf.

Something everyone should read?

The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. A fantastic insight into human psychology as well as literature.

When did you write this piece?

I wrote Skin six months ago following a cult horror movie marathon, which led to me sitting up until 3am, typing away in a sort of manic Cronenbergian frenzy. I produce some of my best work that way.

Favourite period of history?

The Victorian era. It produced some of the greatest writers of all time, and too many of my stories involve skulking around opium dens in the fog.

What do you think is overrated?

Polite small talk. Chit-chatting to people we’ll never meet again puts us in a rare position of social freedom. Sadly, most of us waste it because we’re so desperate to avoid rocking the boat. Release your inner Oscar Wilde or Winston Churchill!

Dare to disagree!

Who is the best writer in the world?

Poetry, D.H. Lawrence. Prose, Nabokov. Is that cheating?

Who is your favourite literary character?

Fuchsia Groan from Gormenghast.

presents

film nights week 3 - 7th october

week 2 - 30th september

damn good sing-along

cult classics

starship troopers

rocky horror picture show

week 4 - 14th october

week 5 - 21st october cult classics

black history month

pulp fiction

mississippi burning

week 7 - 31st october halloween special

night of the living dead week 8 - 5th november

damn good sing-along

bonfire night special

saturday night fever

v for vendetta

cult classics

silence of the lambs week 13 - 9th december cult classics

fear and loathing in last vegas

80s kids

12th october

disney

26th october

back to the future 2nd november

pirates of the caribbean 9th november

godfather

16th november

rom coms

23rd november

baz luhrmann

week 10 - 18th november ure lectatre the 4

democracy special

the strawberry statement week 12 - 2nd december damn good sing-along

dirty dancing

lecture theatre 2 6pm - free entry

pixar

7th december

lord of the rings 14th december

80s sci-fi

seating limited

week 11 - 25th november

5th october

30th november

week 9 - 11th november

a clockwork orange

student comedies

potterfest

week 8 - 4th november

cult classics

28th september

semester 1

the butler

lecture theatre 1 12pm - 11pm

19th october

week 6 - 28th october black history month

sunday marathons

gaming + tech

15

concrete.gamingtech@uea.ac.uk

Wikimedia

The Future Is Yesterday

Alexander Smith looks at some of the features of the new iPhone 6 Last week Apple released iOS8, the socalled ‘largest iOS release ever’ for users of their iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. Every year around iOS update time, Twitter goes wild with user impressions both praising and despising the update.

There is, however, another group of people that pop up on Twitter at this time - Apple Bashers or, more broadly, users of Google’s Android phone operating system.

In previous years the focus of Apple Bashers has been an emphasis on the closed nature of iOS, as it can only be used on an Apple made device. More recently though, they are suggesting that Apple’s exclusive mobile operating system isn’t even worth getting mad over. One popular image circulating

social media pokes fun at both iOS8 and the newly released iPhone 6. Titled ‘iPhone Users - Welcome to 2012’ it compares some iOS8 features to its Android counterpart.

“What good is a technical specification if it is of no use to the vast majority of users?”

The punchline being that these features have existed in Android for over 2 years.

In a way, they’re right. Android phones have had features such as NFC payments, custom keyboards, SwiftKey-style typing suggestions, battery statistics, and widgets for at least a couple of years now. However, the belief that this means Apple is failing to innovate in such

a competitive field is perhaps unfounded.

Looking at mobile payments (NFC) for example. Your Android phone has NFC on it, brilliant, but what can you do with it? Have you ever used it? It’s likely that you haven’t. There are many reasons for this but put simply, it has been up to Apple to secure the partnerships with payment processors and retailers. This

“This is innovation in its own right!” ensure that when iPhone 6 users get a software update with shiny new Apple Pay capabilities, they are able to actually use it somewhere.

Apple have signed some huge partnerships including McDonalds, Subway and Disney

to help launch their mobile payments system.

This is, in fact, what Apple does best. And it is still innovation. What good is a technical specification if it is of no use to the vast majority of users? The aforementioned spoof image suggests some features of a future iOS update that, once again, Android users already have. Looking at it simply reiterates the point.

App installations via the browser and ‘virtual buttons’, are features that in all likelihood Android users have never considered using.

Apple continues to periodically update its mobile software with a swathe of improvements and not all are necessarily brand new. But all are well thought out and developed to an exceedingly high standard. This is innovation in its own right!

Big C, Bright Colours Holly J. McDede talks to developer Tom Street Cancer grows in our bodies, and in our culture, from literature to movies. Some have tried using books. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars details the lives of two cancer stricken children in love. TV shows like The Big C find a way to laugh at the ridiculousness of dying.

Then there’s Tom Street, a Norwich native, and graphic designer, who sees the world through interactive maps and diagrams. For his final project at Cambridge School of Art, he wanted to make cancer easier to look at.

“It just makes you think we need to get this sorted out.”

“Personally, I’ve had grandparents diagnosed with cancer. When I was in school, my mom had a benign brain tumour,” Street said. “You go to the Internet. You have a Google, and you’re sort of hit by all these

horrible images. You don’t want to see them, really, when you can show them in a soft illustration that’s so much more friendly for the eye and not so worrying. That’s my inspiration for making an iPad app”.

He decided to make an app for bowel cancer because there’s not a whole lot of information about it online, even though it’s the third most common type of cancer.

Plus, it’s gross, bloody, and not located in a place people like to discuss over dinner.

The app features an interactive map where anyone can scroll down and learn about the different stages, treatment, and hear personal stories from bowel cancer patients.

“It was really important to make the information style really soft, really friendly, as approachable as it could be,” Street said.

“So I went with pastel colours. It’s almost child-like. It explains everything from the diagnosis to treatment. When most people do search the internet and see the horrible things, they don’t want to see them again.

I had to look at them for two months and get my head around them. That was my inspiration more than anything else. It just makes you think this needs to be solved soon and we need to get this sorted out”.

“It was really important to make the information style really soft” For two whole months, Street had no choice but to keep looking at bowel cancer.

He has no medical background, but what he knows are images and graphs. The app is like an e-book, and people can scroll through it to find information about the disease, treatment, and cures. When Street was finished, he needed a name. He went with Help, because it sounded good and matched his intention.

Street has recently been approached

by Beating Cancer and Norwich’s cancer research group, The Big C, about his

Photo Credit Tom Street

work. The intention is to make Help available on the App Store. Cancer is always a difficult subject to address, and while Help may not make cancer easier to bear, it’ll at least make it easier to look at.

television

16

concrete.television@uea.ac.uk

Televisual

Glue

Starring Jessie Cave, Tommy Knight, Yasmin Paige, Billy Howle Airs on E4, Monday, 10pm Melissa Haggar Skins and This is England ‘86 writer Jack

Thorne has debuted a new murder mystery drama series, Glue, an 8 episode series depicted in the idyllic English countryside. But this is no Midsomer Murders. It is quickly established that someone has met a sticky end, and almost everyone is keeping tight grip on their secrets.

The new E4 show features a whole range of talent, from Harry Potter’s Jessie Cave (who plays housemate Annie) to one half of Rizzle Kicks, Jordan Stephens, who portrays Rob, boyfriend to Tina (Charlotte Spencer), who has

Our Girl

Starring Lacey Turner, Ben Aldrige, Iwan Rheon, Sean Ward, Kerry Godliman, Sean Gallagher Airs on BBC1, Sunday, 9pm Adam Dawson Putting any show up against Downton Abbey isn’t a smart move. On Saturday night, BBC One fought it with its new drama Our Girl.

The audience were not kind to it – Downton had 5 million more viewers. But for those of us tired of seeing rich people complain about how hard their lives are, we watched medic Molly Dawes (Lacey Turner, always wasted in EastEnders) on her first tour of Afghanistan. As if fighting the War on Terror (whatever that means now) isn’t bad enough, she has to deal with the intensely masculine atmosphere of the army.

no idea about his future plans and seems to be perfectly happy hanging around in a bath with her all day. Also part of the countryside gang is Cal (Tommy-Lawrence Knight), brother to Eli (Callum Turner), Janine (Faye Marsay) and James (Billy Howle). With so much talent to give it’s no surprise that the show starts off in a rather intriguing, albeit slow, manner. We’re introduced to the cast slowly, which allows them to fully take centre stage.

The group spend their free time taking drugs and generally goofing off, and it seems that there are some interesting characters to deal with. Rob seems to be one of the more brazen of the bunch, and certainly appears to be one to watch across the next couple of episodes, along with his girlfriend Tina, who seems to have a wilder side. The episode is constructed well enough to showcase both sides of the characters, and their relationship as a whole. Jessie Cave performs particularly well as Annie; her wide eyed stare becoms a

frequent feature of the episode. Turner’s Eli, with his wide range of emotions and sullen attitude, is captivating.

After the death of one of the group, it becomes clear that everyone’s got an agenda and some people know more than others.

Cue police officers, enter right. Yasmin Paige sheds her skin as Beth Mitchell in Pramface, and takes on the role of the young and equally ambitious police officer Ruth, who is appointed secondary on the case. Ruth seems to know a bit about the other young characters, and this is what makes her possibly one of the most intriguing additions to the show so far.

She shows young talent at its best.

Glue, unlike other series based in the city, has a unique set of sequences. For instance, where else would you see grain tombstoning?

It’s a spectacle to behold on screen, and one of the more visually pleasing sequences that manage to engage you without saying much at all. Although the episode starts out like any

other drama, it quickly distances itself from some more contrived shows, due to how much more realistic in terms of teen behaviour and the secrets that people can keep. The characters are engaging without being overtly annoying, and the drama is drawn out, and by the time you are half-way through you’re more than likely hooked. The actors are fresh and original, and the self-destructive nature of some of the characters is undeniably appealing and thought-provoking, which makes for a great beginning to a short series.

If you do nothing else on Monday, make sure you’re watching Glue. The series seems destined to get even better, so immerse yourself in a countryside which holds plenty of hidden secrets, and more than a few surprises.

It would be easy to criticise the politics of the show – aren’t we all against the war now?

Didn’t we learn these lessons years ago? Yes we did, and so did the show. It doesn’t tiptoe around the brutality of its subject. A soldier returns to camp with half a leg missing. Molly

Molly has to deal with the ingrained sexism of the army, something no one else on the base seems to get. The sexist language of the Captain and the troop seems natural, going unquestioned by the men, as we assume it would in what is essentially an allmale environment. Lacey Turner’s reaction to the comments finally lets us see that she can actually act, never mind EastEnders. At the end of the first episode, after saving a soldier’s life, the boys cheer her as ‘one of the lads’, and leaves the audience wondering why she has to be.

If the writing isn’t as careful across the rest of the series as it was in this episode, Our Girl could easily demonise all Afghan people and creates heroes of every soldier. As it stands after the first episode, it’s instead a solid show which would be all too easy to dismiss as an hour long Army recruitment ad if you didn’t bother to watch it.

What’s on TV

“Soldiers are people doing their job” openly questions what’ll happen when the troops leave for good. Our Girl isn’t really about the political right and wrongs of the war though, it’s about people doing what they think is right. If this fits our own personal views is by the by – the characters are so well written, from the Captain who trusts his higher ups to know what they’re doing to Iwan Rheon’s blind anger at all Afghan people, you can begin to understand each viewpoint. The writing also doesn’t judge any of their politics, which you shouldn’t do either. Soldiers are people doing their job.

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concrete.television@uea.ac.uk

Teenage Dreamers

Nour Ibrahim looks at the constant shifting representation of teenagers on TV You have your audience: the teens. Then you also have their parents. Take, for example, the US remake of the beloved British teen drama Skins. It was cancelled by MTV after one season of only ten episodes. Why? It was too risqué for Americans. Advertisers withdrew their support due to low ratings, and controversy over teen sex scenes forced the show into dissolution. Imagine a bunch of angry parents complaining vigorously and adamantly until it was cancelled, basically. In a wholly un-teenage rebel fashion, no fuss was kicked up and no one

“The desire for an idealised adolescence is the core principle of all these shows” really paid attention to the show enough for it to even garner cult status amongst its intended audience. Why didn’t it appeal to US teens in the same way that the original did with their UK counterparts? Do parents hold more sway over their sheltered young across the pond? The issue might be the long-standing way American shows view teens. Or rather, how they want them displayed.

Shows like Glee, Boy Meets World and Dawson’s Creek left teens, and parents too, with a ‘deeper’ message at the end of its allotted timeframe. Characters lived and learned from their mistakes, and everything more or less always ended for the better. They teach while appealing to parental sensibilities. At the other end of the spectrum you have Gossip Girl and 90210 which portrayed a more outlandish teen

lifestyle that pandered to the superficial and unattainable, but made for highly entertaining TV. Parents and non-teens (one assumes) brush these shows off as ridiculous due to the very unrelatable situations these teens find or put themselves in. If teen shows can teach you an important life lesson (like an afterschool special) while still being over-the-top enough to hold an adolescents’ attention, then all the better for it.

The appeal of the extreme, and the vital need for it, stems from the fact that teens get to live vicariously through their fictional counterparts.

They already live a humdrum teenage life where everyone else seems to be having more fun than them, so a realistic teen show would offer no escape or entertainment.

Skins, however, is a bit curious, a show that is in-between what teenagers want to watch and what they’re experiencing themselves right now as they grow up. The earlier seasons had just the right amount of believability without boring its audience. It portrayed realistic teenage stories, un-sugarcoated.

“Skins felt non-judgmental” Although actions had consequences, they felt more like general life lessons than specifically aimed at teen problems that desperately need to be fixed or stopped immediately. This show did not glamorize teen culture but it did sometimes take it to the extreme, like a lot of other teen shows. In realistic fashion, the characters would do things and then not quite learn their lesson or the moral point on which they were

obviously failing. Thus, like the rest of us lowly humans, they would continue to err, repeating their mistakes.

Rob Drury

“If teen shows can teach an important lesson and be overthe-top, all the better for it.”

The desire for an idealized adolescence – whether pandering to adventurous, thrillseeking teens or to cautious, sheltering parents – is the core principle of all these shows. It just depends on who the audience is. Skins felt nonjudgmental while dwelling on issues of morality, as well as the socially imposed morality of our culture and society versus an adolescent need to be individualistic and separate. In essence, to figure out who you are outside the bubble of society before you can begin to place yourself in it and feel like you fit in.

These are shows domineered by network executives and written by people long out of their teens (often also acted by people who have aged well, but are long out of their teens too).

Last I checked teens weren’t writing their own television shows. If they were, who knows what amount of order or chaos would ensue. We can take YouTube as an example. It depends on the writers and their goals for the show. It’s a fine line. The writers need to titillate and want to educate. They want to inform the teens they once were and help them face the fundamentals of life they’ll now be facing as they reach adulthood.

The Fall Schedule Adam White explores the launch of new US TV and the returns of old favourites Network television just isn’t cool anymore.

All those buzzed-about shows you watch? The ones with zombies and dragons and lady-jails?

They’re all on cable, or being beamed directly to your living room through the magic of online streaming. Network TV still soldiers on, seemingly surviving on blind faith. Whist cable TV and original content from streaming services lead the way in terms of innovation, there’s a strong stench of creative bankruptcy to many of this season’s new network shows.

Few of this fall season’s new shows are driven by original ideas. Even when they’re not directly adapted from other sources, there’s a lot of cribbing of more successful shows or movies, or merely replicating existing premises with a thin variant. You want cops? How about cops on computers? Or a cop who’s immortal?

If so, check out Scorpion, or Forever! Then there’s Bad Judge. It’s just like Bad Teacher... but with a judge!

All eyes are on Gotham. Sure, it’s yet another comic book adaptation, but it also navigates through the problems that sunk Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. by being set in the past instead of a present day overly indebted to preexisting franchises. The show explores Gotham City pre-Batman – Bruce Wayne is nothing

more than a rich orphan at this point. The focus is firmly on a young police officer named Jim Gordon.

ABC is hedging its bets on How to Get Away with Murder, the new show from Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.

It looks melodramatic in the way Rhimes’ shows usually are, and this one features the perpetually underutilized Viola Davis as a lawyer and professor teaching her students how to get the right result for their client, no matter if they’re guilty of whatever crime they’re being accused of.

The Hellblazer adaptation Constantine (with its swaggering British demon-hunter protagonist) looks a trip, while sitcom A to Z (about the season-long courtship between a couple called Andrew and Zelda harharhar) could rise above its gimmicky premise with help from the flood of talent it has in front of and behind the camera – it stars Ben Feldman, and is executive produced by Rashida Jones.

Network television isn’t a total wasteland, but it’s very much a world overpopulated by cop series, bland hits like Modern Family, and shows that have been on for a million years (we were all fetuses when Supernatural started, weren’t we?) Along with a few promising new

The Best Thing You’ve Never Seen

series, there are some golden shows coming back over the next couple of weeks too, like The Good Wife, Elementary, Brooklyn NineNine, and The Mindy Project. Or just wait for Hannibal to come back next year, whatever.

Clear Breakfast

Roger & Val Stevenson are two characters that have a very special place in my heart. The couple were on the screen for only two series between 2010 and 2012, but they occupied such a cosy, warm and normal corner of the schedule, I defy you not to be won over by them.

Written and performed in a style similar to Stefan Golaszewski’s comedy Him & Her, the overwhelming factor in Roger & Val Have Just Got In (and the main joy in watching it) is just how smack-you-in-the-face mundane it is. Whether the pair are sifting through the ‘big drawer’ for the vacuum receipt, Val has another story about the devious Pam Bagnell, or Roger’s upset because Val’s defrosting the fish fingers for tea in his special fridge, there’s nothing sensational about it. There’s no overthe-top slapstick, no grotesquely stereotypical characters, and no jokes you’d expect to hear coming out of the changing room of a Year 7 boy’s PE class.

Because the comedy and setting are so normal, the drama in it becomes all the more

“Billed popularly as just a ‘comedy’, there’s much more to Roger & Val Have Just Got In” gripping and affecting. We follow Roger’s troubles at work following a mishap with the ‘Reply All’ button (a cautionary tale for us all in the digital age, no less), the ups and downs in the couple’s relationship, and we discover their past, full of pain and heartache. The drama and comedy are so complex and beautifully entwined you can understand why the show isn’t known by many. Billed popularly as just a ‘comedy’, there’s much more to the show than that, meaning someone looking exclusively for laughs could be turned off.

Each episode follows the couple in realtime for the first half hour after they’ve just got in from work or being out. Real time drama tends to be slower and not particularly edgy or stimulating. Where an episode of 2 Broke Girls can jump about with abrasive guitar riffs between scene jumps, Roger & Val is soft, gentle, and the biggest change is when they go upstairs. We don’t even see outside their house, so their sofa essentially becomes ours. Their kitchen table becomes ours. Their staircase, once again, become ours. It’s another reason why the show’s so compelling, because we inhabit the exact same space they do.

If you need another reason to love it, let’s discuss the casting. In what other show could you have both Dawn French and Alfred Molina, together as the only two characters in this glorious little world? The two work with and against each other amazingly well, and make Roger and Val Have Just Got In the best thing you’ve never seen.

film

18 The Riot Club

Director Writer Laura Wade Starring Dormer, Max Irons, Douglas Booth Runtime 100mins Drama Joseph Holness If The Riot Club was to be described using only one word, it would have to be flaccid.

The premise of the film, a group of privileged students at Oxford causing havoc in a country pub, implies that we might expect a scathing indictment on the ‘Bullingdon Club’ and its pervasive influence at Number 10 or simply a criticism of the privilege afforded to those with money and status in modern Britain. In lieu of these expectations what we are confronted with is less a Loach-esque piece of social commentary but rather a middling drama that takes an interesting premise and does nothing with it.

Based on the play Posh by Laura Wade, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, its stage roots are clearly evident in the final product, with a large portion of the running time taking place in one room. This proves to be somewhat of a weakness, as the writing and direction feels far more confident and lively during this period and the scenes that bookend it feel bland and even pointless at times. Rather than use the opportunity to expand on the source material to give the characters greater depth or explore the class issues further, they feel wasted and poorly judged.

One might argue that the greatest fault lies with director Lone Sherfig. Having achieved

The Guardian

critical success with 2009’s An Education, Sherfig has cut her teeth in largely romantic comedies, a background that is apparently evident here. A sizeable amount of screen time is afforded to the relationship between Miles (Irons) and Lauren (Grainger), and despite the

“I’m sick to fucking death of poor people” directors best intentions this relationship never truly pays off and proves only to be a fleeting distraction from the narrative.

The cast is populated with a host of young handsome but vanilla British actors, and although none of them are truly bad, Sam Claflin as the despicable Alastair Ryle was the standout, in all they fail to make a lasting

impression. The most memorable performance would have to go to Tom Hollander as former member Jeremy who conveys the subtle elitism perfectly without seeming like a caricature in such a short space of time.

The Riot Club is not without its virtues.

Despite issues with its direction, the character’s dialogue was a joy. The form of posh banter that they employ is as ludicrous as it is funny and goes some way to remind you that these are just kids at university, albeit with way too much money and egos the size of a country manor. The pacing is well judged too, the film skips along in a breezy 100 minutes, although the last act does drag a little bit.

More than anything, The Riot Club just feels like a wasted opportunity. The timing for a film of this nature is perfect and in the

hands of a more capable director, or at least one who is more versed in the social issues that the source material references, this could have been incendiary and created a talking point that started a serious discussion about the relationship between class and politics that exists in this country. Unfortunately what we are offered is a wet and unambitious mess that has substituted politics for teenage angst. There is real talent on display from the rising actors and more so in writer Laura Wade, and although this may be a misstep, there is certainly reason to believe that there is more to come in the future from those involved.

sarcasm fully in tow but is befuddled when he discovers he cannot find any fakery whatsoever in her act. The two begin to develop a relationship and Stanley finally begins to crawl out of his cynical, rationalist shell, with other shenanigans occurring along the way.

The trouble with the film is that, while plenty of Woody Allen films have their fair share of philosophical ideas, the wonderful Crimes and Misdemeanours comes to mind immediately, the philosophy in his latest film is just utterly lightweight. There is discussion

simple, whimsical romantic comedy. Despite having Colin Firth as a leading man, it somewhat succeeds in this respect. There are plenty of witty lines splattered around the film, and a few laughs. Then again, nowhere near as many laughs as Allen’s best films.

Emma Stone puts in a great performance with a lot of charm, humour and sweetness.

There’s a particularly funny scene during a séance where she goes into a trance in an attempt to contact the dead, parodying all those supposedly spooky séances we’ve seen in countless ten-a-penny horrors over the years. There’s a wealth of great supporting performances too, from Marcia Gay Harden as Sophie’s financially protective mother to Eileen Atkins as Stanley’s slightly clichéd but wise old aunt. The look of the film too, is quite pleasant, with a luscious soft focus to the landscape giving the south coast of France a romantic, nostalgic sheen.

So, it’s another nice, whimsical romcom from the man who’s made more of them than anyone else. Woody Allen fans will probably enjoy it enough, though it’s hard to see anyone really savouring every moment of Magic in the Moonlight. Firth is its biggest turnoff and almost exclusively ruins what would have otherwise been a solid if forgettable comedy.

“All my optimism was an illusion” TechnologyTell

Magic in the Moonlight

Director and Writer Woody Allen Starring Colin Firth, Emma Stone Runtime 97mins Comedy Fedor Tot Another year, another Woody Allen film.

The quality of his work in the past 20 years or so has grown increasingly hit-andmiss, with every Midnight in Paris or Blue Jasmine sitting alongside snore-inducing

blandness like To Rome with Love or Melinda and Melinda. Magic in the Moonlight isn’t one of Allen’s worst films thankfully, but it is incredibly light and inconsequential.

The story begins in 1920s Europe with Stanley (Firth), a stage magician touring under a Chinese pseudonym and astonishing audiences all over the world. He is a hopelessly cynical man who puts complete faith in science, rationality and Nietzschean atheism. Lured to the Cote D’Azur by a friend who claims to have found a truly brilliant clairvoyant by the name of Sophie (Stone), Stanley is then asked to debunk her. He arrives with all his

about whether God is dead, or whether the supernatural really exists, but Stanley is such a pontificating bore about his atheism and supposed rationality that he makes Richard Dawkins seem like a sensitive, genteel flower who keeps himself to himself. His ‘conversion’ is also so sudden, it’s hard to believe it’s credible. It doesn’t help that Colin Firth is and always will be an utterly charmless leading man for romantic comedies like this. A solid actor in the right role, he’s simply not built to take on the roles that, in a bygone age, would have gone to Clark Gable and Cary Grant.

The film’s philosophical edge is so dull that one eventually just has to ignore it, and approach the film for what it actually is: a

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A Most Wanted Man

Director and Writer Anton Corbijn Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright Runtime 122mins Thriller Joe Frost Based on a 2008 John le Carré novel of the same name, this Anton Corbijn (Control)-directed ‘thriller’ feels a lot longer than its two hour running time. No doubt many will disagree and there is much enjoyment to be found in the dialogue of Andrew Bovell’s (Lantana, Edge of Darkness) screenplay adaptation, however this would have been much more entertaining in its original book form or as a TV mini-series.

We are reminded at the beginning of how the 9/11 attacks of 2001 were planned in Hamburg and it is this oversight that has created a paranoid state of security. The plot is centrally concerned with the idea of surveillance and who is under it. We follow the case of Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin, How I Ended This Summer) a Chechen Muslim immigrant who has illegally made his way to Hamburg to lay claim to his dead father’s fortune. Dobrygin’s performance is a solid turn as the intense young man and when we learn more about Karpov’s painful upbringing, his delivery is incredibly affecting. Russian intelligence has been sent to Germany denoting Karpov as a highly dangerous person and likely a terrorist.

Heart Attack Annex

“Have you ever seen blood on the street?”

It is through the actions of an espionage task force, created to gather intelligence from the local Islamic community, that the story is formed.

It is the true star of the film, Philip Seymour Hoffman who leads this task force as agent, Günther Bachmann. While the character is a tiresome, cliché figure of the world-weary agent who is starting or finishing a cigarette at almost every scene transition, Bovell’s lines and Hoffman’s performance of them is what carries this film. We don’t learn a great deal about Bachmann over the course of the movie apart from some exposition, which is annoyingly crammed into the last twenty minutes, but it is highly enjoyable to be in his company and there is no question that we share in his frustration at the gung-ho powers above him.

The film itself may drag and the general criticism of the way that America deals with terrorist threats is starting to wear very thin in the media, there is a lot to be said about gathering intelligence (Bachmann’s analogy about the task force being like a shark and how it is misunderstood by his superiors is a rare but welcome moment of levity) and fans of HBO’s The Wire will recognise many similar themes being addressed. In addition the comments on how those in authority judge threats by ethnicity and religion are actually quite refreshing and thought-provoking.

As may be becoming obvious however is that the film’s standout feature is its fantastic performances of which there are many.

Hoffman reminds us of exactly how huge the vacuum that his sad, untimely death has created with a convincing German accent and the great weight that he brings to any expression or movement. Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe and Robin Wright make up the rest of the cast

that will be recognisable to the average viewer and are all on top form. McAdams shines especially in an interview scene and Dafoe shares some brilliant screaming matches with Hoffman. Nina Hoss as Bachmann’s gentler colleague Irna Fey will no doubt be a favourite of viewers and Mehdi Dehbi will surely be receiving a lot of offers after his brilliant portrayal of Jamal, a conflicted informant.

Complaints about the pacing aside, the only other real gripe is that the characters are all speaking English. It’s nonsensical and reflects either an unfortunate lack of effort on behalf of the film-makers or the studios lack of faith in a foreignlanguage picture to make money which sadly is likely well-founded. Overall, this film is certainly worth seeing but just probably not after a long day.

Retrospective: Larry Clark Adam White looks back on the seminal director’s controversial exploration of teenage sexuality Larry Clark’s name is synonymous with outrage. From his early work as a photographer, behind acclaimed art collections like ‘Teenage Lust’ and ‘Tulsa’, to his envelope-pushing feature films such as the 1995 cult classic Kids, ‘dirty old man’ descriptives have followed him throughout his career. An interest in young people on the fringes of society, in particular their sexuality, is present in the majority of his works. It's that very predilection that has both defined his artistry as much as it has created a Helen Lovejoy-style dismissal of much of his output- controversy that lingers to this day.

Even though we exist in an era where sex in popular culture is overwhelmingly commonplace, there are still areas and angles to sexuality that remain off-limits. It’s not uncommon to see depictions of teenage sex in film and television, but varying perspectives on it are limited. They are often comedic, with sex and virginity presented as goofy escapades or hurdles clueless young men have to overcome.

When presented in mainstream drama, sex is artistic and abstract. Think Skins or typical E4 sex - full of attractive young actors floating around in sexy slow-motion. When it comes to sexuality in Larry Clark’s work, he's not interested in pretty. He's interested in fucking.

Not moody camerawork and Hollister floor models, but pasty, pimply actors fucking in

bright light on dirty sheets.

Some of his youthful protagonists view sex as a kind of haven, the oddly beautiful (and unflinchingly graphic) threesome that closes his 2002 film Ken Park an expression of freedom from the broken homes the characters seek shelter from. Kids features a lengthy, fantastic sequence of young women talking about their sexual likes and dislikes, poking fun at male ignorance while, across town, a group of similarly-aged young men discuss what women supposedly want with hilarious, misogynistic naivety.

At the same time, however, Clark doesn't glorify adolescent sex. He depicts sex as fun, but he's also willing to depict young, sexuallyactive people as monstrous, just as capable of sexual violence as the adults we generally associate it with. The skate-kid protagonist of Kids deliberately seeks out young girls in order to take their virginities, his specified immorality depicted as shockingly casual and everyday rather than overtly sadistic.

The sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of Nick Stahl's titular sociopath in 2001's Bully is uncomfortably banal, part of a world where intimidating male bravado and female degradation are merely part of life.

There is an almost documentarian authenticity to much of Clark's work, from his

films’ mostly loose approach to narrative and the naturalistic dialogue his protagonists speak in, to his use of actors with notable personal troubles. Larry Clark is many things: a voyeur, a provocateur, an explorer of filth. But most of all he is an artist of truth. We seem to move through the world with blinkers on when it comes to taboo matters - an “if we don't see it, then it doesn't happen” approach. Clark unearths subjects that we know are out there but are reluctant to confront, subjects we’ve been conditioned to feel outrage over. Some being entirely justified, others not so much.

Art exists to be questioned and pondered over. Not only the ideas at hand, but our own reactions as viewers. His 2006 feature Wassup Rockers, about Latino skate-culture in Los Angeles, opens with a monologue, addressed to camera, from a topless 14 year-old boy sitting on his bed. He talks about his friends and his interests. And it feels uncomfortable to watch. This is a young topless boy in a room being filmed by a much older man. Is it wrong? Something vaguely sexual? But, more importantly, what’s happened to us that we automatically associate such a scene with something perverse? All of that, those questions and areas of personal subjectivity, make up Larry Clark's genius. Like him or not, he gets his reaction.

DazedDigital

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Experience in the Film Industry Silvia Rose internships out there in production companies or film studios, they’re always on the lookout.

The industry’s booming despite how much piracy is going crazy at the moment.

Do you think contacts and networking is key?

It depends on what area of the film industry you want to get into. So if it’s the production side of things, it’s very useful to have contacts not only to offer you opportunities, but to point you in the right direction. They can tell you how to take your first steps within the industry, which can often be quite intimidating. It’s very helpful for someone to show you a rough path you can take. Then again, contacts aren’t essential. Like I said, there are so many internships out there.

Tell me about the companies you worked for. What do they do?

I worked for a short film TV channel and inhouse production company called Shorts TV. They broadcast short films and also make their own shows. They do a lot of coverage of film festivals like Cannes because a lot of the time you don’t hear about short films; people are only interested in star power. I also worked for Passion Pictures, a production company who have done loads of great stuff. They’ve made three Oscar-winning documentaries: Searching for Sugarman, One Day in September and Man on Wire. They also have a very talented visual effects team which they’re known for. They’ve done a lot of commercials. The car insurance meerkat for example... They’re all about finding new talent. So that’s very encouraging for film students.

What kind of work were you expected to do?

Lucas Aldrich

Already planning for next summer? For some of you it will be festivals, holidays...Others will be looking into gaining experience (that’s not ‘life’ experience, but CV-boosting, impressive, brownie-points experience). If mention of work experience and internships this early on in the year makes you feel nauseous, don’t turn the page just yet. If you are passionate about film and are dreaming of a job in the industry, experience is essential. Not just for the formality of putting it on your CV, but perhaps more importantly, for your own benefit. It will make you feel more confident when approaching prospective employers in the future and will give you a stronger sense of what they will be looking for. It can also be a lot of fun. Thirdyear English & Creative Writing student, Lucas Aldrich, spent the summer interning for two film companies in London. He spoke to Silvia Rose about his experience and how it has inspired him to pursue a career in the challenging, fast-paced, fascinating world that is the film industry.

Tell me about your background with film.

Has it always been an interest of yours?

I grew up with film. My mum works for Dreamworks so I’ve always been around it.

I’ve met a few actors and directors in my time.

I suppose I properly got into it around three or four years ago when I realised how much value it has as an art form. Good films seem to grasp me more than anything else. A really good film is the only thing that can move me to tears. It’s definitely the medium I’ve delved into the most. There was a point when I made a conscious decision to watch as many films as possible, I ended up watching about three classic films a day.

How did you initially get involved?

A lot of it was serendipitous. I knew a lot of people through my family, so I kept getting really lucky. But there are so many good

At Passion I was working as a runner which is a lot of menial work looking after the studio, but you can also tell them what you’re interested in and they’ll try and accommodate you. They also offer work experience which is unpaid, but they try and make it worthwhile, like an educational experience. If you don’t have connections, they will try and give you connections. This kind of work is all about what you put into it. Most people have started out as runners, so everyone is happy to talk to you about their experiences. At Shorts I worked in the production department. That was amazing because it’s such a small team, they actually really need your help so it doesn’t feel like you’re a hinderance. When I got there I started cataloguing footage and helped organise stuff, which would then make the editors’ jobs easier. I mentioned that I wanted to be a writer so they gave me some research work, which eventually evolved into them asking me to write a TV show- which is being aired on Shorts TV.

dream- was amazing.

What skills did you gain?

The ability to network and not feeling embarrassed about getting yourself out there.

Also learning the ins and outs of how things actually get produced, for example when I assisted the shoot for a Galaxy advert. It was just three celebrities standing still saying lines to the camera, and that took an entire day and countless takes. There’s so much detail in everything. Then there’s the type of equipment that they use, and editing skills, which you can only really learn with someone showing you.

Has it changed your perception of the film industry as a whole?

It’s hard to say because I haven’t been involved in feature film production, but it’s made me realise how much work there is and how many positions there are. It’s showed me that you can’t go into it with a vague interest in film, you have to figure out pretty quickly which field you want to work in.

Do you think it’s harder than you imagined?

In a way. It’s easier to get into than I thought, there’s something for everyone if you’re really committed to it. But it can be a bit of a grind working your way up.

Has the experience inspired you to pursue a career within the industry?

Yeah, definitely. Then again, I’ve always known I’ve wanted to work in the industry. There’s something to be said for being part of a team and seeing something being worked on and then bloom. There’s no real equivalent to that, you feel so proud to have been involved.

What tips could you give students if they wanted to do something similar?

Put yourself out there. If you want it then all you have to do is look for internships, there are so many studios out there. If you do get one then you have to throw yourself into it, don’t turn your nose up at the fact you might have to wash dishes. Eventually it will all pay off.

Being a runner is gruelling and people are so busy that they can sometimes be quite short with you, but then those people come back and they help you out. Even if it’s hard, what isn’t hard, you know?

Useful Links info@nullpassion-pictures.com info@shortstv.com

What was the most memorable moment?

Definitely writing the TV show. It’s a very simple bio thing, each episode is dedicated to a short film maker, showing their work and talking about it. It wasn’t particularly creative but writing something for my job- which is my

www.bbc.co.uk/careers/work-experience/ creativeskillset.org/ www.totalfilm.com/contact-us

film

21 Short Film Special

L’accordeur (2010)

Director and Writer Olivier Treiner Starring Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Daniele Lebrun, Gregory Gadebois Runtime 14mins Thriller Overlooked piano protégé, to the confusion of his agent, assumes the role of a blind piano tuner after a public nervous collapse at the prestigious Bernstein Prize renders his identity invisible. Initially the power of his deception, as he expounds the loss of his creative self by mirroring his suffering in a physical loss of sight that people can grasp, allows him to see into the intimacies of his clientele and, consequently, he finds himself able to play again. But it is only when he witnesses something he shouldn’t, leaving Adrien truly blind to his fate, that his redemption takes place in Olivier Treiner’s moody French thriller.

Treiner’s gloomy visuals and delicate score intelligently explores some very relevant points on the ineptitudes of contemporary social politics to understand mental suffering, in this case particularly loss and identity, as something physical. In Treiner’s world, life gets lost in poor communication.

Silence, as much as the understated quality of the piano score, is a key element in the film’s allure; the dark tone and the presence of

43,000 Feet (2012) Director Campbell Hooper Writer Matthew Harris Starring Dylan Pharazyn Runtime 9mins Drama

Statistician John Wilkins is sucked out of a plane at 43,000 feet where he must quantify his descending thoughts in the 3 minutes and 18 seconds before he hits the ground.

Top Short Film

a building tension. It would not be an unfair comparison to say that the use of shadows, narrow corridors and refined use of sound are unavoidably Hitchcockian in the way that the pace of the tension feels natural and unforced.

The visuals and music are extremely sensory which works well with the film’s concept. For instance, the Bernstein Prize scene, a place that rewards musical expression, shines pompously golden in comparison to the rest of the film that is set in semi-darkness or pale light. The event proclaims itself as art and the piano tuning appears bland, yet the protagonist’s expressive talent is never seen because he is unable to perform under those circumstances/ lights. He resorts to developing his physical façade in his role as a piano tuner because in his words, “People are nicer, less suspicious.

They give more.” His clients change in front of him and in one scene a woman even dances half naked around the room while he plays. He needs to be connected with people to express and yet his agent at dinner misinterprets the piano tuner’s motives as being voyeuristic or deviant.

The irony of the protagonist’s subverted act is also reflected in the lighting. Having to pretend that you are blind to see and be listened to reflects on social insensitivities towards internal human qualities that go missing when not understood.

The liberating moment being that, without ruining the twist that is well crafted, sudden but not forced and is genuinely shocking, the tuner manages to play while under pressure of

possible death lurking out of his vision, saying, ‘She can’t kill me while I’m playing’. The music finally resonates over vision and in the end what is valued is expression and feeling as the film ends and he plays to the end of the song and then stops.

The conceptual thinking and style is engrossing, intriguingly mysterious and quick, but the major criticism would be that the character development is not given enough space. The film contained an incredibly ambitious amount of information for a Short, it could have stretched to a great feature length, and this left some key elements lacking. The protagonist’s talent and failure is not really

exhibited, so the tragedy of his fall from grace and his depression is not properly dealt with and was in turn left unfelt. The result is that L’Accordeur is a difficult film to process and requires a lot of work from the viewer to unravel. It takes a few viewings to work out why the piano tuner needed to be blind, whether or not he was a voyeur, and why it ends the way it does. There is some irony in a film that explores communication and fails to communicate itself. Having said that, it’s still gripping and well worth a watch.

Hooper’s film engages light-heartedly in the abstract gap between human experience and reality in sequential time. The statistician protagonist’s hypnotically calculated stream of consciousness rationally narrates his thoughts as he processes his plummet towards the inevitable, “It’s not going to be okay!” moment.

However, it’s the visuals, with Hooper’s background in advertisements and music videos, which make 43,000 Feet stylistically interesting. Rather than showing footage of the fall itself, the film places us in the isolation that Wilkins feels from the real world that he

hurtles through.

Fragmented visuals are used to represent Wilkins’ journey towards his fate. He is surrounded by the confusion of falling rain as he puts his suitcase into the boot, you see the car door lock, the light switches on, he thinks about what he will say to reporters if he survives. As the character composes himself the shots become clean; empty skies intersected by graphs, the story of a time travelling bum, and the eight injuries he will receive if he falls in the correct manner.

You know he is falling, but the playfulness

of the visuals, the narration of the intimacy with the protagonist’s pseudo-omniscient thoughts and a detachment from his predicament creates an interchanging feeling. Both of the weightless space between reality and the incongruous limbo that Wilkins inhabits. These tensions and oppositions in Hooper’s composition make the short stylistically interesting and give it an extremely thoughtful and wry, stimulating quality. It sensitively confronts human intellectual arrogance and portrays our actual separation from the world itself.

Perhaps where the film falls down (no pun intended) is that it takes a liberty in asserting the stereotypical detachment of the statistician as the voice of humanity. It is difficult to believe that someone sucked from a plane, statistician or not, would reflect on his past and what he would say to reporters if he survived in such a composed way. For this reason the director could be accused of being overly ambitious in his subject matter and indulging too far with his concept whilst simplifying and failing to capture the full horizon of human experience.

But 43,000 Feet gets away with it because it is ironic, engaging and clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously.

JB Beaudoin

The short is available to watch at http://vimeo.com/72408751

The short is available to watch at http://vimeo.com/85116343

Competitions 1/10 - 14/10 concrete.competitions@uea.ac.uk

Dingbats From the Quiz Society’s own Charlie Methven Try and decipher the images!

1.

signeD Wheatus Posters!

2.

Tweet us your photos from Damn Good presents the Skool Disko and win a signed Wheatus poster!

Did you have a great time at the Skool Disko? Did you sing Teenage Dirtbag at the top of your lungs? Were you one of the lucky few at the front who lead singer Brendan baptised with alcohol? Surely you’d like a memento of your night - and Concrete has just the thing.

We’re giving away five posters signed by Wheatus, the 00s legends themselves, and to get your hands on one, all you have to do is tweet us a photo from at the Skool Disko. Whether you really got your St Trinian’s on or just rocked up for the gig, we want to see you at the LCR last Tuesday night.

Daisy Jones Guidelines for entry: Tweet us a picture @Concrete_UEA of yourself at the School Disko with the hashtag #WheatusPosters Deadline: October 14

PARIS

LBW

LONDON

BOWTIGERLER

3.

Dr. do

Quiztime!

From the Quiz Society’s own Robin Sidle 4. To the nearest whole number, what is the area of Norwich in square miles?

5. What links these images?

issue’s Winner

Congratulations to Jake Melhuish, who won our Lynx for Peace competition!

6. What do you get if you multiply the number of brothers Ron Weasley has in the Harry Potter books, by the number of sisters Elizabeth Bennett has in Pride & Prejudice?

7. Who had the (slightly compromised) honour of scoring the first goal of the 2014 World Cup Finals?

FLIP & REVEAL 3. Doctor Dolittle 2. The Cat in the Hat 1. Down and Out in Paris and London

5.The actors share their character’s names (Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton in The Devil Wears Prada; John “Jack” Nicholson as John “Jack” Torrance in The Shining; Ellen De4. 15

Last

Generes as Ellen Morgan in Ellen, Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers; and Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd in Cheers)

7. Marcelo Viera 6. 20

Listings 1/10 - 14/10 concrete.listings@uea.ac.uk

Spear of DeStiny w/ CC41

negative approaCh + JaCkalS + MenShevik

propaganDa

publiC ServiCe broaDCaSting + raDio phoniC workShop + ulriCh SChnauSS

weD 1 oCt (£13)

fri 3 oCt (£4-5) (on Door)

throwing MuSeS w/ tanya Donelly Sun 21 Sep (£20)

fri 3 oCt (£11)

thu 9 oCt (£16)

MeltDown

ChaSe & StatuS

Mark raptor w/ freeze the atlantiC + Speaking in italiC

the holD SteaDy

Sat 4 oCt (£3.50-4.50) (on Door)

fri 10 oCt (£23)

Sat 11 oCt (£18)

Mon 6 oCt (£6.50)

eSCape the fate + glaMour of the kill tue 7 oCt (£14)

pirate feSt 2014 w/ aleStorM + lagerStein, reDruM, rainbow Dragon eyeS

reD bull preSentS the reD bull Culture ClaSh

StateS & eMpireS w/ the intent

fri 3 oCt (£12-14)

weD 8 oCt (£15)

thu 9 oCt (free!)

DragonforCe + neonfly fri 10 oCt (£16)

propaganDa

fri 10 oCt (£4-5) (on Door)

MeltDown

Sat 11 oCt (£3.50-4.50) (on Door)

patent penDing w/ the hype theory

Sat 11 oCt (£5.50-18.50) (Call for availability)

billy loCkett

Sun 14 oCt (£9)

thu 2 oCt (£5)

Sub foCuS w/ MC iD pluS gueStS the a liSt

Sat 4 oCt (£4.50)

DaMn gooD preSentS... the oneSie party tue 7 oCt (£3.50)

blaCk veil briDeS w/ atilla + fearleSS vaMpire killerS + DraMa Club thu 9 oCr (£20)

hoSpitality feat. freD v & grafix fri 10 oCt (£11-13)

the a liSt

Sat 11 oCt (£4.50)

more listings at concrete-online.co.uk/events

12 “I’m bowled over, I’m totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can’t ever sleep again” - Harold Pinter, Betrayal For this issue, we asked for submissions on the theme of beauty. What is beauty? Is it always in the eye of the beholder? How can we discuss beauty in interesting and unique ways? Here’s what people have had to say... enjoy!

- Jake Reynolds

creative writing concrete.creativewriting@uea.ac.uk

McCullin Irishman

Submit your own to @miniaturestory on Twitter Twilight is the time for moths; dim, grey, half-seen, half-felt, disguising their nature in a trick of the light. Do not bring in the lamps.

From the Last Frontier

This hair is no longer hair Not like we knew it Not strands but thickets A hard hat of ash Some proper dust-up Speckles on a face, in its marks and lines The cracks and breaks of it all Tribal, you yelled

But those eyes!

Eyes that hurt and that plead and that long Lived eyes Yessir eyes Oh won’t you lend me your hand eyes Of a perfect white This neverwas of a place But this place that could

Molly Pearson The first time I acknowledged to myself that I loved you, a patch of my skin blistered and died. The remnant was rough to the touch, the dull crimson of poison ivy, and crinkled like a first-degree burn. It was on my left arm near the elbow.

It’s funny in retrospect how little I minded.

The disease seemed innocuous at first. I thought it would clear up in time. Thousands before me have told themselves the exact same lie.

We met up for a drink with our mutual friends. I sweated through the jacket that covered the scabs on my arm and talked to you in words I barely understood. Your replies were sound and motion; my senses, trying to follow them, spilled like alcohol across the table and dripped onto the floor. Under the hot blue light your eyes were large as a ghost’s and shining.

The next morning when I woke, I found that it had spread. The rough patch by my elbow had more than doubled in size, creeping down towards my hand and upwards to my shoulder. It was harder now, and a darker red, the colour of liver. When I tried to bend my arm, the joint resisted. I was starting to calcify.

Luke Jones

I rode out into a country, One that hides itself from The greyest city in the world, At ninety miles an hour Down the wrong side of the track No need for traffic laws when Your car is the only one.

I booted up my computer and scrolled through encyclopaedias of different ways to die.

As the brick-red waste Dotted with blasted shrubs Gives way to the grasslands, The horses come out Play-fighting like a pack of dogs, And cover in a single hour The distance that took me Five days of hard riding To the pulse of the radio.

Then I bit the bullet of my lower lip and dialled. Not in at the moment; please leave your message after the beep. I hung up.

Later the scab on my arm cracked and began

to weep a pale, viscous fluid that clung to my fingers like oil. I covered it with a bandage, but the infected skin crawled until I couldn’t sleep. At last I got up and switched on the light. The bandage was damp and smelled hotly of decay, and the disease had grown far beyond it, covering the whole arm and half of my chest. My sheets were slimy with white secretion, littered with a patina of hairs shed by the dying flesh.

tisone tablets, which you could snap in half to speed up their effect. I took them one after the other and lay on my bed and made paper aeroplanes out of the brochures the doctors had given me. The title of every leaflet was prefixed with psycho. I supposed I ought to be grateful.

A hundred years back, they would probably have dissected me and put me in a jar.

I booked an appointment with my GP. Urgent. On the pristine surface of the doctor’s desk, my fingers looked brittle enough to snap.

She inspected my arms with a microscope, ran her gloved hands across my ridged red ugliness. Perplexity pressed its thumb between her eyes. ‘I can’t see anything wrong,’ she said.

Formaldehyde.

Nor could the skin specialist she referred me to. In his mint-green consulting room I heard the word hypochondria for the first time.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘I look like something out of an eighties B-movie!’ I said.

I looked into his eyes and said, ‘Please.’

‘I’m terribly sorry.’ His politeness, shallow as the puddles on a bathroom floor. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

I went home and opened my medicine cabinet. Sudocrem lay uselessly on the surface of the skin for hours, unabsorbed, until I wiped it off. Aloe vera stung like cold fire but did nothing. Vaseline was a waste of time.

I took pills. Benadryl, bicoloured antihistamines and the tiny white moons of hydrocor-

Ethanol.

no trace of the disease that was consuming me, inside and out.

I still held the shot glass in one mutilated hand. A cool trickle ran down the side of my face as I tilted my head back and poured it into my eye. The pain was almost unbearable, and through my tears I saw the room break apart into a thousand glittering facets. I filled the glass again.

The scales were creeping up my neck now, over my ears and chin; soon they would cover my face. I touched my blistered cheek. ‘Why can’t anyone see it?’ I whispered. I was miserably drunk. ‘For fuck’s sake, why can’t anyone see?’

Glutaraldehyde.

Phenol.

All those elixirs of death with their pretty little names.

It’s funny, but I’ve never mentioned love to you. Our relationship is built on small things, in-jokes and song lyrics and moments snatched from our separate lives, tiny specimens in dozens of jars. Love isn’t life, but it fills the spaces in between.

I called you again, and this time I left a message. Then I went downstairs and made myself a shot. I can’t remember what it was; some kind of schnapps that smelled like cinnamon.

That didn’t matter. It was time to look.

The mirror I had hitherto ignored was framed on three sides by wall, its bottommost edge perched above a sill that grew bottles of beauty products like toadstools. But when I gazed into its silvered heart I saw I hadn’t changed.

I was a little paler than usual, my expression anxious and drawn, but my reflection showed

The next morning you knocked on my door.

Leaning against the doorframe, buckling under the weight of your gaze, I said nothing; watched you try and turn your wince into a smile. Relief like warm soapy water. Then you spoke.

‘What’ve you done to your eyes?’ you said.

‘They look really bad.’

I went to the kitchen and found a ball of steel wool lying in a Gordian knot on the draining board. Following, you found me kneeling on the floor, bubbles of fluid seeping from the cracked and darkening skin as I scoured my hands and face as if I could wash this cancer away.

You caught my wrist. ‘What’s happening?

What are you doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

Quick-Fire Questions with Molly Pearson

Beneath the bare trees The old man slit a sheep’s throat And tamed a maddened horse, And watched me struggle with a tent; He had a drunkard’s grin.

Angered at first Yet he was so reasonable; For I am the only one Intruding on this land, A figure of fun, A devil come to gape at The people who hide in A sky so clear and liquid It buries all your miles.

Though the ghosts of red stars Still shine through the smog, Their life goes on forever.

Extract from “Skin”

Adam White

This is not an object of note

Microfictions

13

In three words, why do you write?

I. Couldn’t. Not. Biggest literary inspiration?

Carol Ann Duffy. Not because she’s my favourite writer, but because I remember getting my GCSE English textbook and reading poem after poem by her, in awe. I was thinking: ‘My God, this woman has written about murder, necrophilia, psychopathy, criminality… and she’s our Laureate and her work is required reading for just about every teenager in England! There’s hope for me!’

Favourite place in the world?

Any bookshop, any library. Any beautiful or interesting historical place.

Will Cockram

Tea or coffee?

Tea. Tea as black as the darkest recesses of my soul… but preferably decaf.

Something everyone should read?

The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. A fantastic insight into human psychology as well as literature.

When did you write this piece?

I wrote Skin six months ago following a cult horror movie marathon, which led to me sitting up until 3am, typing away in a sort of manic Cronenbergian frenzy. I produce some of my best work that way.

Favourite period of history?

The Victorian era. It produced some of the greatest writers of all time, and too many of my stories involve skulking around opium dens in the fog.

What do you think is overrated?

Polite small talk. Chit-chatting to people we’ll never meet again puts us in a rare position of social freedom. Sadly, most of us waste it because we’re so desperate to avoid rocking the boat. Release your inner Oscar Wilde or Winston Churchill!

Dare to disagree!

Who is the best writer in the world?

Poetry, D.H. Lawrence. Prose, Nabokov. Is that cheating?

Who is your favourite literary character?

Fuchsia Groan from Gormenghast.