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Issue: 132

Art Fashion Film Internet Music Television

The Event Celebrates The Kings of Rock Inside... Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Little Britain Eyes

Contents Features TV 9

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Regulars

Creative Writing 10 Listings 14 Horoscopes 11

Well there’s not so much space for me to chat to you lovely readers this issue as we’re just being too generous for our own good and giving away loads of top loot. It was a sacri- ﬁce, but one we were all willing to make. But enough of la- menting the things we’ve not got quite enough of, because this issues is a stonking 24 (count ‘em) pages long! That’s right, there’s four more pages for you guys now, guaranteed,

New Little Britain 12 & 13

Film 18, 21 & 22

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Hello

Centre Spread

Music 14, 16 & 17

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every fortnight from this point on. This means that things are all shufﬂed around, but take advantage of this and rather than skipping to your favourite pages straight away, peruse with wonder a few of the less familiar sections. Embrace change!

Editor-in-chief 4BSBI &EXBSEFT

Kate

Art Editor 3PBOOB #POE

Competitions Rufus Wainwright tickets up for grabs! As you already know, Rufus Wainwright will be playing at the LCR on Thursday 8th December. But I’ll bet you didn’t know you could win tickets!

Deputy Editor "OOB 4UFXBSE Contributors: Ben Baruch, Sam Sheppard, Catherine Barter

Fashion Editors -BVSB $PCC ,BUISZO 8FTU Contributors: Carina Rizvi

Film Editor 4FCBTUJBO .BOMFZ Contributors: Henrietta Burgess, Becky Rutt, Claire Carter, Chris Hyde, Eddie Howarth, Sean O’Shea, Richard Boakes, James Berrill, Natasha Kundaiker

Music Editor $IBSMFT 3VNTFZ Contributors: Chris Hyde, Constaz Mage, Mia Butreeks, Kelvin Knight, Greg Sullivan Alex Caldwell, Will Holloway, Andrew Riley, Elley Taylor, Emma Johnston, Kate Bryant

To win a pair of tickets, answer this question: 8IBU T UIF OBNF PG 3VGVT GBNPVT TJTUFS Send your answers to concrete.event@uea.ac.uk

TV Editor $ISJT )ZEF

Free tickets toJarhead!

Contributors: Becky Rutt, Rebecca Hunt, Ben Sparshot

Creative Writing Editor .FSJOOF 8IJUUPO

To win a pair of tickets to see a preview of Jarhead, just answer this simple question: 8IP EJSFDUFE +BSIFBE

Contributors: John Tosch, Barney Tidman, Andrew Garthwaite, Jenny Andres, Benjamin Woods, Rebecca Bowe, Alexandre Naughton, Bex Harris, Holly Curtis, Luke Owen

Send your answers to concrete.event@uea.ac.uk

Get a copy of The Krays on DVD! If you think you’re ‘ard enough to own a copy of The Krays on DVD then you’ve got a lot of bottle! But if you really think you’ve got what it takes then drop us an email in your best

Editor & Designer ,BUF #SZBOU

cockney patter to concrete. event@uea.ac.uk and tell us how much you want it!

Listings Editor 'JPOB #JMMJOHT Internet Editor ,BUF #SZBOU

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Fashion

Eye is back #PIP DIJD IBT CFFO QVU UP CFE BOE UIF MBJECBDL CBSFGBDFE CFBVUZ UIBU XFOU XJUI JU 5IF TVO IBT TFU PO B TJNQMF TMJDL PG MJQHMPTT BOE B DBSFGVM TNVEHF PG CMVTI -BVSB $PCC XFM DPNFT B GBCVMPVT QIBTF GPS GBTIJPO GBDFT UIJT XJOUFSy

ow the hot summer sun has gone into hibernation, so have the days when nights out meant fl ip fl ops, fl oaty dresses, and never questioning whether tonight would be a coat night. Fashion lov- ers know unless you want frost bite (can’t see that catching on), displays of fl esh will be put to bed until at least March. Pale (and dare I say hairy?) limbs will be kept under wraps in layers of wool, thick scarves and snug boots resting above the knee. But if the wind and the chills mean your beautiful bare limbs can no longer get you noticed what can? Fear not attention seakers, sub zero seasons call for a reinvention of the face. Make the most of eve- nings indoors by giving your make up trunk an overall. Bin brushes that have seen better days, and send transvestite tints to the trash. Spend time fi nding tones that perfectly suit you. Identify your hair shade, complexion, and character, and co-ordinate colours with care. Dress your face with the precision you normal- ly reserve for your body. Start by choosing a new foundation which suits a paler face, many department stores offer a free colour matching service, meaning tide marks or ghost like complexions are thankfully sidestepped. Al- though the products they sell are more pricey than

those sold at chemists, the quality is highly superior;; a bottle of decent foundation can last up to a year, and the coverage should take you from day to night. And come on girls – you wear your face every day! A care- fully applied fl ush of bronze can also perk up a drained complexion. Choose a shade which has tiny particles of gold in its depth. The sparkle will catch the light and instantly make you look healthier with an enviable glow. To fi nd the exact place on which to apply it to, suck in your cheeks and add glitz to the hardest part of the bone, directly below the eye. The most important part of the fi nished face will reside in your peepers. So let your stare affi rm your sex appeal. Open up the window to your soul, and exaggerate your eyes with excessive make up in every colour residing in the rainbow – as long as it’s bold. Start by curling the lashes with a pair of heavy duty eye lash curlers. To gain a fl irty curl, blast the wand with your hairdryer for a couple of seconds, squeezing just above the lid. Then slick with masses of mascara, alternating between two brands will unsure a thick set. Don’t worry about clumps as they only add to the bad girl style. But if you can’t bring yourself to do blobs, allow each coat to dry

before adding another. Once the mascara has dried, you could start by lining the lower lids with liquid colour, layering like mad with thick midnight black. Resting your elbows on a table whilst you draw, should unsure your hand provides a steady line. For a doll-like style add small dots of black powder to the tip of the lashes. This gives a wide eyed innocence perfectly complimented with pale, muted lips. Or for feline-fl irty eyes, paint a thick line across the upper lid, fl icking up just next to the outer corner of the eye. Or you could start off light, fi lling the lid with baby blues or ice whites, and the gradually graduating through the colour spectrum, until the skin above the crease of the eye is a velvety navy. Finish by highlighting the brow bone with a frosty glitter. Fake eye- lashes are also a sure way to stun this party

season. Falsies are making a comeback and have been ﬂ uttered on many a famous face of late, from Girls Aloud, to the Simpson siblings, Jessica and Ashley. The lashes look luscious alone with a dab of subdued colour on the lids. But for a really wicked look add plenty more mascara, ensuring your eyes enter the room moments before you do. To increase vampish attraction further, slide a ﬁ nger lightly coated in Vaseline across the closed eye. Not only will this add a dewy gloss but give your look, an “up all night” allure. Be careful how you complete the look. Bold lips and weather worn cheeks are too much. Keep the mouth neutral in creamy shades of beige and compliment the cheeks with a subtle a dusting of sparkly powder. For a lasting effect, add a coy smile and bat- ter those lashes.

Bad gal black Fashion Editor’s Tips

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Achieving to die for eyes is a hard art, it takes practice, patience, and a lot of cotton buds. It’s all too easy to send a beautifully crafted eye into disarray with an unwanted twitch of the wrist. Even worse, unforeseen circum- stances such as uncontrollable sneezing or stabbing yourself in the eye with a mascara wand can mean washing it all off and starting again. However, most mistakes can be seamlessly corrected with a cotton bud dipped in cleanser. You can also avoid achieving an ar- ray of unattractive splashes of powder below you lid, by adding a line of ﬂ esh coloured powder to the skin just below the eye. Once

the look is complete, simply dust off the resi- due and your left with clean, ﬂ eck free skin. Other errors which can ruin your look are the unavoidables, such as “mascara goop”. This unattractive spoldge of black in the corner of your eye can instantly ruin the appearance, again just take a cotton bud, this time a dry one, and rescue the unsightly thing with a soft scooping action. If you are a novice in the art of good make up, it’s best to leave the rest of your look – foundation, bronze and lipgloss to the end. This means major mess ups don’t result in the whole look being wasted.

Fashion

Who ever told you it was wrong to fake?

h c u o t n e d l o g e Girl with th

Brush Strokes Every great artist relies on a timeless set of tools. Like other make up, when it comes to brushes, it’s often worth paying a bit more. The more pricey the device, the less likely it is that the bristles of the brush will escape down your face. A decent implement can last for years. Prolong its life span by gently squeezing excess powder from the hairs with a baby wipe. For the bottom lids, the brush you require is ﬂ at and blunt, creating a neat straight line. This way you dictate the thick- ness of your look, not your tools. Upper lids call for a thick ﬂ uffy tipped brush. This al-

lows the eye shadow to be swept effortlessly across the eye, creating clean, constant colour. Sponge applicators are also affective. If the eye brush jungle is really too much for you to trek through - you can’t fail with a clean cotton bud. Pull gently at the ﬁ bres at the end, this will create a thick expanse with which to work your colour on. When using bold shades such as peacock green and ocean blue, the depth of the colour is key. To intensify the tint, dip your brush or sponge in water then apply.

Disco Diva Eye am a Celebrity

Mint dream

The hottest celebs know that the way to make a show is with a heavily made up eye. Style idol, Nicole Richie highlights her deli- cate face with night time blacks lining the eye. She tends to keep her mascara subtle and always ends with light, creamy lips. Multimillionaire sisters, Mary-Kate and Ash- ley Olsen market their own make up. One of the hottest looks they sport is sexy smoky eyes. Their A-list look can in fact be achieved with ease. The “sat round a bonﬁ re too long” eye style, can be accomplished by dipping a ﬁ nger in a pot of brown shadow. Make sure the shadows packed with shine and sparkle

to avoid just looking ill. Spread your ﬁ nger across the closed eye, dabbing gently along the lower lashes. Finish with coat after coat of mascara. This gives a lazy rock chick affect. If all this eye know how really confuses you, a simple way to achieve a new look is coloured mascara. This eighties favourite is making a comeback in every shade possible. The most eye catching tubes come in a variety of hues. Victoria Beckham goes for greens and blues and Madonna favours ma- roon. Just apply to the naked lash, and ﬁ nish with lots of smudgy eye liner on the lower lash in a matching shade.

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Arts

Child Play’s grown up *O UIF MJHIU PG UIF 5IFBUSF 3PZBM T /PSGPML 4DIPPM T 5IFBUSF 1SPKFDU UIBU JT CFJOH QVU JOUP BDUJPO UIJT XFFL 5IF &WFOU T %BWJE 4IFQQBSE JOWFTUJHBUFT UIF KPZT PG ZPVUI UIFBUSF BOE SFBMJTFT XF DBO BMM MFBSO GSPN PVS JOGFSJPST

ast week as children from three primary schools prepared for their performance of La Cenerentola at the Theatre Royal, The Event went in search of youth drama here in Norwich. Rossini’s La Cenerentola seems hardly the place to start when introducing eleven year olds to the performing arts and the opera is hardly the most accessible of art forms, and yet since 1997 the Theatre Royal has successfully produced two classical drama or opera-based shows a year usually to packed houses in the main auditorium. No mean feat to be sure, and this autumn they seem to have pulled it off again as Sunday’s performance looked set to fill the Theatre Royal once more. The three schools involved in this autumn;; Holt Primary, Corpusty Primary and Langham Village spent the week leading up to the performance in weeklong workshops run by the projects’ Creative Director Sophie Grimmer, and wrote their songs and choreographed their own movements to express part of the La Cenerentola storyline. Rossini’s version of Cinderella, written without the traditional fairytale element, was first performed in 1817, and in 2005 the children had the opportunity to retell that same story in fifteen-minute versions. They have also all had to learn the difficult ‘Tutto cangia a poco a poco cessa alfin di sospirar’, which was performed in Italian by all the schools in the show’s finale. Within the scheme also, the children will be able to watch the Glyndebourne on Tour’s production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola when it comes to the Theatre Royal in November. This seems a perfect way for the Project to end with the children seeing an opera and perhaps even visiting a theatre for the first time. And as the Norwich Schools Project patron opera composer Jonathon Dove has said, “Opera changes people’s lives. Doing opera rather than simply observing it, brings people together like nothing else. Composing and singing and acting together, we continually surprise ourselves by what we can achieve, how much we can express, how great is the sum of all individual utterances”. Such blind enthusiasm

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from a biased insider seems obvious, and yet it is truly amazing to see how the schools in this autumn’s Project have been swept along by it and felt its obvious beneﬁts. And the Event spoke to Beryl Knowles, head teacher at Holt Primary in the north of the county, and she praised this “positive effect”, saying that in the intensive week of in-school workshops it had been quite fantastic to see the conﬁdence grow in each of the children involved, and that the levels of teamwork and focus required had been no problem and that many children had shone beyond expectations. The Norfolk Schools Project aims to tackle somewhat, the drastic cuts in music provision in schools in the last few years, a problem exacerbated in Norfolk by the rural location of many of the schools. The barriers to participation and viewing in the arts are not easy to break down;; they require considerable funding and appetite to tackle, and a huge amount of fun and energy for these attempts to succeed, and yet this project seems to achieve just that. Since 1997, 401 teachers have participated in workshops that provide skills in dance, drama and opera that can be transferred into the classroom and amazingly, 1376 children have been given the chance to perform at the Theatre Royal. In choosing schools with a high percentage of children from low income backgrounds and in choosing schools as with this year’s participating schools, that are in rural parts of Norfolk, the Schools Project has been able to have an incredible effect on the county’s youngsters who otherwise may well have found opera and drama alien and unapproachable. The Norwich Young Peoples Theatre (NYPT) provides a range of theatre, music and movement classes for ages 5-25 in the Open Youth Venue, a former bank, in the city centre. The Event spoke to Peter Beck, a director of NYPT to gauge his feelings about the effects of youth drama and its successes in Norwich and his prognosis seemed generally positive, he said he felt that “youth provision up to the age of sixteen in Norwich was generally good, especially in dance” and that there were a number

of successful drama companies ready to take up the baton once actors reached the age of sixteen. He described some of the numerous opportunities that the NYPT was able to provide including theatre and allied arts classes throughout the age groups and the senior production groups to which many former UEA students are involved with. The classes with the NYPT are lead by professional tutors who continue to work in the theatre whilst teaching and visiting tutors provide classes in specialised forms such as mask-work, stage combat and mime. Recent productions from the NYPT include April’s memorable The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with its two-hundred strong cast, which was performed at UEA in the Drama Studio, and Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, which was the ﬁrst production performed at the Open venue. Currently the NYPT are preparing to perform The Crucible and the critically acclaimed Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill in early December. Much work is being done to bring the Open venue

5IF TDIPPMT JO UIJT BVUVNO T QSPKFDU IBWF CFFO TXFQU BMPOH CZ JU BOE GFMU JUT PCWJPVT CFOFmUT right up to date in terms of rehearsal and performance space and the development of a modern youth-orientated venue is to be celebrated and the effects of the NYPT’s parent organisation the Norwich Theatre Project are being felt across the East of England. The Event also visited the Garage, in Chapel Field in Norwich. A predominantly youth-orientated performing arts venue, the Garage is home to a number of groups that play a hugely beneﬁcial role in the community and that help young people break into the arts. Whilst there the Event met with Carrie Mansﬁeld, of Limelight, and she spoke of the “real successes of the programme which aims to provide a future for young people through the arts”;; the scheme offers unemployed 16- 25 year olds a root back into education or a career by using performing arts to develop motivation, communication, tolerance and problem solving skills. A former Princes’ Trust project, Limelight’s courses run for twelve weeks and use drama, creative writing, circus skills and introductions to directing and production skills to achieve these goals. The Garage is also home to a number of other groups including Norfolk Dance, which offers opportunities for all age groups and

abilities to work with professional dancers and companies, and the City College Norfolk (CCN) whose performing arts department is based there. Norfolk County Council provided the building, once the Theatre Royal’s scenery store, and the NELM (North Earlham Larkham and Marlpit) Development Trust provided £2.5 million worth of funding for the renovation and refurbishment of it, and the Garage opened in April 2004. The Garage is undoubtedly a fine performing arts venue, its three sprung floors dance studios and two further rehearsal spaces and its multi- purpose auditorium with retractable seating and the latest sound and lighting technology are incredibly impressive, and yet this is not just a place to find the stars of the future, but one in which social inclusion and helping the local community play a huge part. It is the regional centre for the embryonic Young Peoples Arts Award and provides a whole variety of courses for all abilities. The Event spoke to Gill Dean, the Assistant Manager of the Garage, who was, similarly to Peter Beck, positive about the state of youth drama in the city. She focussed on one project at the Garage, Vision Street that was funded by Broadland 102 Kidz charity and involved amongst other activities, graffiti art and street dance, to illustrate how the Garage site was helping the community by playing host to charities and other groups looking to help young people. The Garage also, along with the Playhouse, was East Anglia’s host for the internationally renowned celebration of youth drama, the Shell Connections National Theatre Festival. In 2005, the Garage hosted plays that had been chosen to perform at a professional venue from a large number performed in the region and these included Catherine Johnson’s brilliant and powerful one act musical Through the Wire set in a Young Offenders Institute. This venue is modern in its attitude and function, gone are the elitist barriers that denied the arts from many in only the recent past and its hosting of various charitable organisations is of real and vast benefit to Norwich residents and especially its youth. The Garage retains links to the Theatre Royal, who were instrumental in its set up, and the sense, even in a brief visit, was of a fun, exciting and truly well equipped performing arts venue. The Event spent a week visiting venues and speaking to professionals and volunteers involved with youth drama in Norfolk, and was pleasantly surprised to find what it did. The youth arts movement in Norwich is a strong and vibrant one, and what’s more it seems well funded and has the use of a number of excellent venues. Wander outside the UEA ‘bubble’ and you may well be amazed at the quality of the youth drama and performing arts.

Arts

Bestsellers

Theatre

1 5IF 1FOVMUJNBUF 1FSJM

Arcadia

Lemony Snicket £7.99 Bloomsbury

6&" %SBNB 4UVEJP 5IVSTEBZ UI 'SJEBZ UI /PWFNCFS This version of Tom Stoppard’s play, Arcadia, was enchant- ing in its humour and challenging in its outlook. The cast were uniformly confident in their roles and the interwoven narratives were well executed under the direction of Ross McGregor. The play, which is split between two time periods but takes place in the single setting of Sidley Hall, was beautifully controlled throughout. With the majority of cast members playing two parts, McGregor’s version of Arcadia switched back-and-forth, from the dawn of the Romantic period to the present day with aplomb. In the play we follow the escapades of two modern-day re- searchers, Adam Moulder’s egotistical, Byron-obsessed Bernard Nightingale and Sarah Handley’s more grounded, dispassionate Hannah Jarvis, as they compete to uncover the truth behind the story of times past, the time of the other narrative which is set in 1800s England. The mysteries which they attempt to unravel form the core elements of the plotline of the piece and the audience was kept suitably engaged throughout the play by the powerful interaction between them. As they fought for possession of the truth, their performances were, at many times, first-class. Catherine West’s performance as Thomasina Coverly particularly caught the eye. Thomasina’s youthful curiosity defined the plot, and West’s characterisation, with a combina- tion of doe-eyed innocence and fleeting adolescent genius,

and was a huge success. Joseph Wells as Thomasina’s an- tithesis, her tutor Septimus Hodge, was not found wanting;; Hodge’s sardonic nature and his myopic confidence in the truth as he saw it, perfectly offset West’s performance. The chemistry between the pair positively fizzled and the dialogue as a whole was perfectly executed through out the play, though occasionally it was rather too fast for the audience to digest. The musical interludes, especially the opening number which was wonderfully choreographed to a track by Rufus Wainwright, were particularly emotive throughout and always handled delicately so that they remained relevant to the plot and never became spectacalised or distracting for the audience. It was Theo Leonard however, who in both of his roles, as the Mathematician Coverly and the Poet Chater, so often stole the scene. His flailing, failing Chater was an amusing oppo- site to the sexual and scholarly confidence of Hodge. Laurie Miller-Zutshi and Emily Aylward turned in decent performances, and yet in rather less memorable roles, while Matt Hassall was impeccable as young Coverly in both realms. The production’s humour was it’s greatest asset and the memory of a clever, funny and challenging play will linger long in the mind. %BWJE 4IFQQBSE

2 +BNJF T *UBMZ Jamie Oliver £6.99 Corgi Adult

3 6OUPME 4UPSJFT Alan Bennett £6.99 Abacus

4 5IF 4IBEPX PG UIF 8JOE Carlos Ruiz Zafon £6.99 Penguin

5 (VJOFTT 8PSME 3FDPSET £6.99 Corgi Adult

6 5IF 8PSME "DDPSEJOH UP $MBSLTPO Jeremy Clarkson £7.99 Vintage

7 .BSHSBWF PG UIF .BSTIFT John Peel, Sheila Ravenscraft £6.99 Time Warner Paper- backs

8 5IVE Terry Pratchett Ebury Press

9 5IF %B 7JODJ $PEF Dan Brown£7.99 Vintage

10 4DPUMBOE 4USFFU Alexander Mcall-Smith £8.99 BBC Books =

Books

" (VJEF UP 4UVEZJOH BOE -JWJOH JO #SJUBJO ,SJT 3BP Aimed at international students, this book is a comprehensive guide to UK studying. It’s up- to-date, and covers everything from applying for a visa to shipping things back home before leaving. It’s helpfully broken down into sections like health, money, and accommodation, making it easy to ﬂip to relevant information. It’s also packed with useful addresses and website links, and exhaustively documents British air- lines, average temperatures, tax rates, common diseases, and plenty of other such exciting facts. As a practical and factual guide, it’s thorough and clearly presented. Where it’s slightly lacking is in grittier cultural information, which

can be just as essential to the well-being of an international student as knowing how to buy a stamp or contact their embassy. A section on ‘British Customs and Habits’, for example, discusses the all-important British pastime of queuing, but for a student guide, a warning about the British student custom of getting wasted in the Union at every opportunity might have more relevance. For internional students who prefer being well-prepared this book is a great idea – a thor- oughly valuable resource for studying in the UK, Not a thrilling bedtime read, but deﬁnitely useful. $BUIFSJOF #BSUFS

4FDSFU )JTUPSZ %POOB 5BSU The Secret History is a fat book. It is not just fat in the sense that it spreads itself well over ﬁve hundred pages, but is saturated with the juices of a psychological thriller. Rife with suspense, mystery and cryptic clues for the reader to endlessly chew at, it is little wonder Donna Tart received an astonishing one million dollar advance for the novel way back in 1992. Set in an intimate Vermont College, the novel is told through the eyes of twenty-year old Richard Papen, who has spent an unspectacular and neglected youth in Californian suburbs, gazing in front of televisions and the occasional novel. With a forte in Ancient Greek he ﬁnds himself in the company of a mysterious group of brilliant yet reclusive students and their equally pe-

culiar Professor. Soon Papen ﬁnds himself sub- merged in an attempt to revive ancient Greek mysticisms and a supposedly innocent ritual that invokes the ancient Greek Rathyl’s patron G-d, Dionysus, which eventually goes horribly wrong. The Secret History is a intelligent novel, intertwining the stereotypical traits of the modern student (sex, drugs and rock n roll supposedly) with an original twist of Greek tragedy. Tart’s ability to suffocate the reader’s mind with gripping storylines means this novel is hard to put down, and whilst some have criticised The Secret History’s wordiness, it is a meagre hitch next to the novel’s endless imagination. #FO #BSVDI

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Primetime

Macbeth ##$ QN .POEBZ

Following the success of 2003’s Canterbury Tales, in which the BBC took Chaucer’s classic stories and moved them into a contemporary setting, four of Shakespeare’s most popular plays have been given the same treatment. Much Ado about Nothing was moved into a regional news studio and The Taming of the Shrew was set in the world of party politics – but what of Macbeth? Macbeth has been relocated to the busy world of a kitchen in the restaurant of a top Scottish hotel and stars James McAvoy (Shameless, Early Doors) and Keeley Hawes (Spooks) as Joe and Ella Macbeth, the head chef and maitre d’ . All the main characters of the play have been incorpo- rated into the restaurant in some way – Duncan is a famous TV chef and Banquo works alongside Macbeth in the kitchen, for example. The three witches are represented as three bin men, which seems tenuous and weird at ﬁrst, but they admitted to Joe that, by going through his rubbish, they’ve learnt a lot more about him than he’d have suspected.

Suds

:PVS EPTF PG TPBQ OFXT )PMMZPBLT Finally, Justin’s fate was revealed this week - the jury have given him his freedom. To celebrate, the two families threw him and Darlene a party although she refused to attend and locked herself in her room. When good girl Nicole saw Justin again she decided to try and lure him into bed and ended up lying to best friend Nancy about her bedroom conquests. Louise stepped up the anti-drug rape campaign this week and became convinced that Danni has been a victim of drug rape. After delving deeper into the case, she began to suspect Andy and accused him at the St Andrew’s Day party. Bombhead spent the week longing to meet his real father and, when he hired a clown company, he coincidently did find him. After enduring Lee’s anger and criticism he now has to make a very important decision about his future. Gilly is still obsessed with fresher Jessica but can’t fight his shyness to actually ask her out so enrolled Rhys’ help. The St Andrew’s Party will be a night of false accusations with a dangerous outcome for one of the characters, so it is definitely not one to miss. #FDLZ 3VUU /FJHICPVST Things sure have been pretty bad for Stu recently what with being made temporarily blind after risking life and limb in the pub fire, having his best friend trying to ruin his wedding and now finding out that his new wife is actually a nut case. Sindi revealed all after Stu caught her pushing Toadie (or a stunt- man that looked nothing like Toadie) down a flight of stairs. She was in fact behind all the ‘accidents’ that had been happening on the street and had carried them out in a desperate attempt to gain some control over her life. The men in white coats were called for and Sindi is now safely locked away. On a different note there has been plenty of love action happening in Erinsborough, with Conner and Serena finally declaring their love for each other, Joe telling Lynn that she is the only Sheila for him and the dramatic revelation that Steph and Max are expecting a baby. All this, coupled with the adventures of Izzy and Paul, has meant it’s been a dramatic week in Ramsay Street! 3FCFDDB )VOU

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The restaurant setting worked superbly and the way in which the characters were included was very cleverly done. The killing of Duncan, for example, was brought on by the restaurant gaining its third Michelin star and Duncan taking all the credit, leading to Ella Macbeth handing Joe a kitchen knife. The appearance of Banquo’s ghost was inspired – after killing him in a nearby ﬁeld, Joe received a call from him on his mobile phone. These touches meant that it could be watched as either a bloody contemporary drama or the play itself, and it worked well on both levels. One problem was that the characters weren’t explicitly introduced as being who they were. For example, this reviewer didn’t realise who Macduff was until Joe had killed his family. If he’d been referred to as Macduff rather than the modern ﬁrst name he’d been given then this problem would have been avoided – but, equally, if it had been watched as a drama rather than the play, then this maybe wouldn’t have been a problem.

Macbeth was a fantastic interpretation of the original play, as were the other two programmes that have so far been shown (the ﬁnal one, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is being shown next week). As demonstrated by ﬁlm - Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet and Ten Things I Hate About You, for example - Shakespeare’s plays can be translated easily into many different settings. With the popularity and brilliance of this series, another batch of the Bard is hope- fully not too far away. $ISJT )ZEF

TV DVD

$SFBUVSF $PNGPSUT 4FSJFT 1BSU b 3FMFBTFE After what seems far too long, “Creature Comforts” has ﬁ- nally returned to our screens for an anxiously anticipated second series. The idea behind the programme is child- ishly simple – a sequence of interviews of “the great British public”. A series about people then? No. The ﬁne men and women at Aardman Animations have touched the hearts of children and adults alike and the occasional person who just likes everything anthropomorphic. It is the animals of mother Earth at centre stage of this wittily funny serial. Be it a tiger talking about how many times he’s been out for an Indian in the week or whether its details of cliff-diving given by a lemming, each episode can be assured of at least one ‘laugh out loud’ moment. Every instalment focuses on a different aspect of life in general, ranging from the world of sport to favourite imper- sonations. Even the menial has been rendered hilarious, shown delightfully by a family of moles complaining about the leek in their bathroom ceiling. Much of the comedy and cleverness of the series is lost if you merely listen to the creatures’ speech;; it is the attention paid to subtle background details which add depth and humour to the charac-

ters (as anyone who has ever seen Wallace and Gromit will appreciate). Popular favourites, such as the infamous Captain Cud- dlepuss & Trixie, make a welcome return but are not over- played so much as to make the audience tire of them. The new characters are surely destined to become classics - I can say confidently that Muriel & Catherine are the best deaf old bats on British TV in the truest sense of the words. What started as an award-winning short film in 1989 has produced a new generation of comic genius. The time and energy spent in making these models, as well as the filming of the shorts, must be mentioned;; 4 seconds of filming is completed every day, and the accuracy required to make these ‘documentaries’ believable make it a painstaking process. “Creature Comforts” should be admired not just in terms of its comic value, but also as a masterpiece of modern television. Nick Park’s still-frame creation has spawned from a mere pastime to a multi-million pound business. It is a definite highlight of a Sunday evening, even if you never look at your pets in the same way again. #FO 4QBSTIPU

Telly Classics 4PNF .PUIFST %P A"WF A&N The beret, the mac, the ill-ﬁtting tank top and the “oh Bet- tys” combine to create the legend that is Frank Spencer and “Some Mother Do ‘Ave ‘Em”. The show followed the adventures of two newlyweds - the accident prone Spencer and his incredibly patient wife Betty. Although the storylines were never brilliant, few could forget Spencer’s death defying stunts, ranging from dangling over a cliff-edge from the ex- haust pipe of a Morris Minor to roller-skating under a moving lorry. What sets this sitcom apart from the rest is that Michael Crawford, as Spencer, performed all his own stunts which would no longer be tolerated by television companies (and their insurers) but created some of the most amazing and hilarious physical comedy ever seen on television.

The audience both sympathised with and laughed at the dim-witted Spencer. He was the ultimate loser and victim of his surroundings with everything falling apart at his very touch. He had only good intentions but they always ended in disaster and chaos whether it be getting a job, home im- provements or learning to drive. The show remained light- hearted as Spencer was saved from misery by his sheer na- ivety, persistence and, most importantly, his absolute love for Betty and his daughter Jessica. It remains a classic for a nation who values the unsuspecting innocent ﬁgure comi- cally struggling in an unforgiving world and has stood the test of time despite of the dodgy hair dos and wobbly sets! 3FCFDDB )VOU

Glossing Over The Cracks

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hink of any show from the 70s and the things that it’s now remembered for. You might think of bad acting, cringe-worthy scripts or terrible clothes – or maybe even the trademark that many programs from that decade have;; a low budget. Take Starsky and Hutch, for example – a car chase in the show no- toriously involved stunt doubles driving the pair’s Torino down narrow alleys, sending boxes tumbling out of the way and a shot of the actors in a mock-up of the car in front of a screen of moving trafﬁc. Compare that to its modern day equivalent, in which the relatively gentle nature of that has become as glitzy and over-the-top as possible, with exploding cars, death-defying stunts and breakneck speeds and the 70s equivalent seems nearly prehistoric. It’s a trend that is becoming worryingly more and more frequent in today’s TV – with bigger budgets and computer technology getting ever more advanced, producers can afford Hollywood makeovers for their shows. But is this such a good thing? Take Lost, for example. It’s one of the most original programmes of recent years and completely hooks anybody who watches it. It is also famous for having an enormous budget – each episode of the ﬁrst series cost around $2.5 million (£1.4 million) to make and, with a total of 24 episodes per series, it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that’s a lot for just one show.

The pilot episode alone (a two hour special in which a plane crashes and the survivors work out how to cope) cost $12 million. It can be argued that Lost needs such a big budget, with its wide range of actors and staff, as well as effects and tropical island location. This amount of money does seem ridiculous, however, and spending such a large amount can hardly be justified when most of it is going on visual things such as effects. If the program itself is good (and it really is, in this case), then why do we need all these special effects layered over the top of it? Such an argument cannot be used for other programs that are doing the same thing, however. The US series Monk, about a detective that suffers from obsessive- compulsive disorder, is currently having its third series shown on BBC2 on Saturday af- ternoons. Back in the first series, the show was vastly different – the characters seemed more rounded and the mysteries seemed to be a lot more inventive. As it grew in popularity and star actor Tony Shalhoub picked up several awards, including an Emmy for his brilliant portrayal of Monk, TV executives realised that they had a hit on their hands and began to lavish more money on it. With that, the quality of the programme went out of the window. The latest series has been much less inventive than before, with mysteries being solved relatively quickly due to the airtime being filled with various ways to spend the budget. For example, a episode late on in series three has a long and very ostentatious car chase as Monk and his as-

sistant follow the episode’s villain. It’s not needed at all – it doesn’t further the plot and seems to be there just to use up the budget that the show has suddenly been landed with. If the quality of Monk had increased as the budget clearly did, then it wouldn’t be a problem – however, if anything, the quality of the show as a whole has declined since the ﬁrst series. Our homegrown programmes are also suffering from this problem. Spooks ﬁn- ished its fourth season a couple of weeks ago and, while it had some very memorable episodes, it didn’t feel like it was on a par with previous runs. One of the show’s

5IF NBUUFS PG TUZMF PWFS TVCTUBODF OFFET UP CF TUPQQFE CFGPSF JU HFUT DPNQMFUFMZ PVU PG DPOUSPM selling points is it’s use of dramatic effects, such as the zooming in and out of key things (which sometimes makes viewers feel a bit nauseous) and the three views that will sometimes appear onscreen – one shot of a mission in progress, one of the rest of the team back in MI5 HQ and one of the target, for example. This style of shooting, while deﬁnitely different and fresh, is sometimes too much to be taken in at once and is

a bit too stylish for its own good. One example of over-reliance on stylishness occurred in the penultimate episode of the series, in which there was a ludicrous car chase as two agents drove at around 100mph on a road winding through a dense forest – in complete darkness. With only one pair of night vision goggles, the driver decided that it would make more sense for the passenger to wear them and tell him when to turn. The scene lasted no more than a couple of minutes, but featured many hair- raising near misses with trees, sharp corners and narrowly avoided crashes – all shot in night vision to make it more dramatic. It was clear that the show was trying to shoehorn a tense James Bond-esque car chase in, but it seemed very far-fetched and, again, point- less. While it is possible that the undoubtedly- already-planned fifth series will cut down on these flashy sequences, it is doubtful. Rome started on BBC2 a few weeks ago and the fact that it’s been developed by HBO and BBC (two of the biggest television chan- nels on the planet) shows instantly. It follows the plots of politicians in the city to prevent Caesar from regaining power on his return to the city after conquering Gaul (clearly As- terix and his potion failed). On top of this main plot, the lives of various other citizens are detailed, from slaves to merchants, in all their stereotyped toga-wearing, chariot-racing and orgy-indulging glory. With this comes the show’s price tag of £60 million, making it the most expensive British TV drama ever made. To this viewer, that is completely over the top;; and it doesn’t even show. The programme meanders around, showing the audience all these different people’s lives over the course of 11 episodes, but how the stupidly large budget was spent isn’t clear at all. Yes, there are well thought out chariot races and over 350 speaking parts, but how on earth did that come to that much? With so much money, you would think that the show would benefit from it, but it has just become a very preten- tious and glitzy drama with characters that are difficult to identify with. This trend seems to be the Hollywood- isation of television. Whereas, many years ago, TV’s biggest shows were simple and clearly had a budget of only a few quid, the most popular shows today are those in which money fills in the cracks that appear due to the low quality of the rest of the programme. ‘If it has a dodgy script, a poor premise or unknown actors – no worries, let’s spend millions of dollars on flashy computer effects to beef it up and make the audience think that it’s good’ seems to be the general attitude of TV executives. Ultimately, the matter of style over substance needs to be stopped before it gets completely out of control and we end up with listings in which every show is akin to a film with suitably sized budgets – which will clearly not make good television.

Event 9 The

Creative Writing

Poetry TAXI

A drunk in the garden his dead white stare

Cabby’s Corner

Cabby’s corner is dedicated to the taxi drivers of Norwich with their endless facts, stories and revelations. Next time you get a taxi bring your notepad and email your own cabby’s corner to m.whitton@uea.ac.uk Well, what it is is, I’m an in-som-ni-ac. Honestly, can’t sleep a wink. Knack- ered all day long, then the second I put me head on the pillow, boom - it’s like I’m on crack. So I ﬁgured I might as well be making some money, right? And anyway, I ﬁnd driving really sooth- ing - all those lines, all those lights, the rhythm of it....gets me really woozy. Af- ter few hours of this, I can just pull into a layby and spread across the backseat for a kip. But then, I haven’t slept this week at all, not a minute of shut-eye for over 8 days, so I could just drop off at any ...

The Undertaker A dusty silence I clasp my hands And try to see the logic In a distraught mothers wish To have no flowers on the coffin. The deceased was allergic to pollen. They all expect me to understand Because I wear a black suit, make my money from tombs. I really need a neon sign Big and bold in the window, preferably bright pink, ‘Does not understand death any more than you, But coffins measured while U wait’. Friendly neighbourhood undertaker. That’s me. I could switch professions. Become a Butcher, a baker, Even the frigging candlestick maker, But people would still be scared. I’ve seen death too often to be trusted. And no one wants to get too close. When I die I’ll crumble To become the dust That spirals in the chinks of light in the shop. "OPO

Leaving home 01 So she walks down the street with her hair in ribbons, cool not caring, In her hands plastic bags full of pocket money, (Suburbs closing and exploding in her head) Checking her face in car mirrors, mini movie screens. The radio playing the beat of the lost and alive teens, Someone calls and hears her dial tone. So she walks down the street with hair in ribbons, remembering forgetting. #BSOFZ 5JENBO

Event The

The naked lunch Lay sprawled slovenly I covered my eyes to preserve your modesty But you had none What happened to manners and cultlery? You ate with sticky ﬁngers Protruding suggestively Licking in motions I knew Though could not remember I watched your left overs jealously Wished you could ﬁt me on a plate The table was inviting But you averted your eyes knowingly Did it taste better than me? Vegetarian blood is sweet And I am ripe for the pickling...

Drunk in the Garden

his awful mouth open to collect the rain My wife placed daisies over each gray eye Tomorrow we will roll him over Breathless with the beauty of it

3FCFDDB #PXF

+PIO 5PTI

These Nights

Untitled

Man, when I learnt to love you. I was young and childish And when you told me that your aftershave Would lead to intimate surprises I beamed, I didn’t know I was your fool.

I’ve got eyes the size of saucers the kind that spin those magic tea-cups on the boardwalk. they light up when I think of Coney Island, and I think of Coney Island so I can think about you and that subway and those sirens, whirring like my bad whistle whirring but the only sirens here are false fire alarms, and they mean nothing. some pigeons here, but not the kind that lure you like all demure, just so they can steal just as filthy but not so clever and their eyes don’t spin like eating acid but these bon fire fire works explode outside and I shiver inside from dull dry heat I look a round and around spent but still a hotel guest squatting little tramp I’m trying to see you, but I’m bad with direc- tions

When we went to see the night happen And laugh, and learn to laugh at it. I didn’t know I was your fool. Fairy Godmother, my brother in arms I want those nights again Bring back the eager ritual Redress my adolescence for me to cast off I want those frantic half hours of preparation Before high street degradation, When I didn’t know I was your fool.

The Clay

"OESFX (BSUIXBJUF

You’ve turned to constellations again. To andromeda, sculptor, pyxis. To the unspoken wisdom of the ox, the pig, the rat. I made you a rosary of rhinestones, emerald and sapphire glass. How you grasped that iridescent imitation, turned it between your bony ﬁngers, the translucent skin of the tips vigorously massaging each traitor. You bared your teeth in appreciation. Spread your swollen cracked lips to show only blackened canines generations in the sharpening. As though you were made to devour the ﬂesh in search of something easier to swallow. +FOOZ "OESFT

The Substitute Last summer we received a sofa bed, Due to lack of room and want of guests;; A fold out substitute for travelling heads Placed in a room where ambition digressed. It’s purpose hidden under socks and frocks And sometimes by my slumped slumbering Old dog;; who jumped when springs refused to lock In a folded steel cage wanting stretching. The summer to follow he passed away Body limp and wilting my dazed hopes, As unconsciously we congregated Round the place he’d layed, deputing the hole Where tears leaked, for me on the ﬂoor And for my Dad, arms crossed, by the door. #FOKBNJO 8PPET

Prose

The Naked Lunch

which way where to look "MFYBOESB /BVHIUPO

Still There The magnetic letters on the fridge Spell your name. You got everywhere- tomorrow, Can’t you take yourself away? After the door closed behind you this morning, Your shadow tugged at my jeans As I cleaned the kitchen, made breakfast. I went to tidy up the debris of your stay And found you again. I shook you out of my duvet with the creases And you settled cheerfully back As I smoothed it into daytime folds. I wanted to work, but you hung around Tickling the back of my neck Until the essay words blurred and danced Like last night’s imploding stars. I gave up and wrote this instead, Resenting you for being nothing more than a thought.

Familiar Man That man there, smoking his cigar, at the table in the corner. Does he seem familiar? Dusty top hat poised upon dusty pile of books. Crowning glory. The lethargic elegance of his long legs lying clumsily beneath the table. Forgotten. He looks tired. He looks familiar. He looks at me. Ah, I remember. I’ve seen him by the by the church, back against the wall in a casual pose, but he twitches and fidgets as though he’s waiting. His fingers tense and spasm, right hand, as though it should possess something. His left dances, nervous and stilt- ed, across the rough stone wall. As though he’s waiting, waiting for someone. I think it is a woman. She’s promised to leave her husband for him, to meet him by the church. She put on her scarf and coat. She gently placed an envelope on the hallway table, an envelope filled with her pain, anguish and remnants of love, her cliché;; smoothing it down, a last caress. She slipped off her wedding ring. Then she looked in the mirror. So this man, her lover, was waiting, waiting. Now he sits at that table in the corner with his cigar, his dusty hat and books. I think he’s waiting still. )PMMZ $VSUJT

Poesy This is prose. You can see it’s prose, because it’s all on one line. Until I run out of space and have to go on to the next one. This, However... Is poetry Because I’m hitting Enter At seemingly-random Intervals? So what, I ask, Would happen if you were to write poetry all on one line rather than hitting Enter at seemingly-random intervals? Or Prose On Far Too Many? -VLF 0XFO

Creative Writing Section Expands!

Your voodoo works backwards, your power Increasing with every expression you leave )FSF JU JT QFPQMF 5IF GBCVMPVT GVMM QBHF behind. I don’t want you to think I mind, you know. 5IF &WFOU /FFET ZPV UP mMM UIJT TQBDF But even though I jumbled the letters, XJUI QSPTF QJFDFT QPFNT BOE QJDUVSFT Washed the duvet and shooed your shadow JMMVTUSBUJOH ZPVS XPSLT PG HFOJVT away- You’re still here, and I miss you. 1MFBTF FNBJM ZPVS DPOUSJCVUJPOT UP I write other words with the magnetic letters And pretend you don’t know what it is I’m saying. N XIJUUPO!VFB BD VL #FY )BSSJT

Horoscopes

HOROSCOPES Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18

Gemini: May 21 - Jun 21

What a horrible couple of weeks you’ve had, thank god that last fortnight is over. Let’s see what the stars have in store for you this week. Oh…more of the same.

You should deﬁnitely leave the country as soon as possible, and pack lightly as well. I don’t have time to explain, just seriously, get a taxi to Stanstead, now!

Your friends think you’re psychic, but soon they’ll realise that you already saw neighbors at lunch, and that’s how you knew. Leave the real predictions to the pros.

Aries: Mar 21 - Apr 19

Leo: Jul 23 - Aug 22

Scorpio: Oct 24 - Nov 21

It seems your heart’s desire has turned you away. But if you think about it, “we should just stay friends” has many sexual connota- tions. The stars say you’re in there!

Wear blue this fortnight. The stars say it probably won’t bring you good fortune, but you have to admit you look pretty damn good in it. It brings out your nose.

You should take advantage of any Libras that you know, they’re hot for Scorpios at the moment. But act quickly, next fortnight you’re just gonna get on their nerves.

Cancer: Jun 22 - Jul 22

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 23

You must have slagged off the stars or something. It looks like Jupiter has deliberately altered its orbit for the sole purpose bringing you bad luck all week. That’s harsh.

The stars have prophesized a bad week, but that NASA probe has disrupted the whole cosmic ﬂow. It’ll miss Mars by a long way, but its brought you good fortune.

The stars say you’ll pull a beauty, get drunk, go out on the town, feel like celebrating, get a ﬁrst on your essay and then hand your essay in. Maybe I have my chart upside down.

Pisces: Feb 19 - Mar 20

Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22

Watch out for envy, wrath, greed and lust this fortnight, they could bring your downfall. But you can laugh at lust, gluttony and pride, they won’t do you any harm, silly sins.

You will be betrayed by a Scor- pio, but don’t worry about it. I was board and decided to look two weeks ahead and they will have a pretty tough time of it next fortnight.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19 I know you’re supposed to be a goat and all, but you shouldn’t eat everything that you’re given. That’s bound to come back up again sometime this fortnight.

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21

Taurus: Apr 20 - May 20

Advertorial

The Legend That Is Roy Walker

aturday the 5th of November, at the LCR, the Now 90s club night reafﬁrmed Roy Walker’s status as an absolute “legend” in the eyes of the student population. Hosting a game of “car park catchphrase”, the ever successful Radio One competition run by Chris Moyles, Roy Walker gave four students a chance to win a model Lotus. As Roy Walker stepped out onto the stage to the familiar tune of Catch- phrase a roar went up from the crowd. He shared the stage with two beautiful models from Norwich - a gorgeous yel- low Lotus Exige and a stunning red Lo- tus Elise, which were set up to sound their horns and ﬂash their lights to in- dicate which student had the answer. Walker challenged the crowd to guess such Catchphrases as “Let sleeping dogs lie” and “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings”. Faced with a deafen- ing crowd Walker adlibbed much of the competition to help the students

along, proving that his stand-up skills come in very handy when faced with 1500 keen spectators. After the contest Roy did a meet and greet with the many students who were queueing at the side of the stage, including posing for many cameraphone photos and signing various body parts, before posing himself with the cars on stage. Speaking after the event, Walker said he was “overwhelmed by the re- sponse”. The event at UEA was in fact only the ﬁrst of a 5 University tour, which will carry on till Christmas. In fact, it was the ﬁrst time he had ever taken Catchprase on the road, a fact which he wishes to remedy now: “I didn’t think it could be as good as this, or as stylish! I never expected 1500 people.” Although he was rather hesi- tant about doing it again without the cars, having responded when asked about them: “Well, who wouldn’t love a Lotus?”

Walker obviously looks back on his time at Catchphrase with a great deal of fondness, having worked on the show for 14 years, from 1985 to 1999. When asked if he missed it, he enthusiasti- cally answered: “Yes, it was my game!” But adds with some regret, that they went on to ﬁnd cheaper presenters. Nowadays he tours the country exer- cising one of his other many talents: “Well, many people don’t know this but before I did Catchphrase I was a stand-up comic, so I’m touring doing that now.” And as well as this, he appears in an apparent gem of a cameo in the ﬁlm Jealous God. Given the popularity of the night though, would he consider coming back to Catchprase? “Absolutely. I am forever grateful to Chris Moyles and his millions of listeners! The feedback here has been very humbling”. -PVJTF )PSOFS

Event 11 The

Feature

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ittle Britain returned to our screens last week for it’s third series, with a host of new characters mixing with the old, and it was thankfully not too bad after the sell-out and lacklustre second series. Well, maybe ‘not too bad’ is a bit positive. Actually, it was pretty dire. Matt Lucas and David Walliams have said in recent interviews that they don’t think the show is getting old yet and that they’re not retreading old ground or recycling catchphrases. Hmmm….. Three new characters were introduced to us in this episode, with three more to be shown in future episodes. The simplest of these is Mrs Emery, where the joke is that she… pis- ses herself. The sketch showed her in a supermarket, where she bumped into a friend and, while chatting, started urinating onto the ﬂoor and seemed completely unaware that she was doing so. The reaction of the friend, and lack of reaction from Mrs Emery, started off mildly amusing, but the joke grew old quickly. She carried on peeing for the rest of the sketch and even as she walked off. It was completely over

the top and the fact that she does this seems to be the only joke with the character, in the same unfunny toilet humour mould as the WI ladies from series two. Presumably we’ll get to see her wet herself in all kinds of “hilarious” situations over the course of the series. Another new character was Sir Norman Fry (played by Walliams), a funny parody of politicians trying to cover their backs with ludicrous stories. In the sketch, he’d been accused of raping a man and gave a press statement to explain what happened – after picking the man up, he’d driven to a dark alleyway and stopped to get a Murray Mint from the glove box. While doing this, he’d accidentally jumped on the man and insert- ed part of himself into the man. This was actually pretty funny and it was topped off when Norman tried to kiss his wife (Lucas), who shied away from him. Clearly the excuse wasn’t washing with her and this much more subtle humour worked very well. The ﬁnal new characters in this episode were Dudley and Ting Tong. Dudley, played by Walliams, is a loser with a comb-over who lives in a high-rise ﬂat by himself and has ordered a Thai bride. When Ting Tong, the

bride, turns up on his doorstep and looks nothing like the one he’d ordered, he threat- ens to complain, prompting Ting Tong to get down on her knees and beg, leading to the character’s catchphrase of “maybe just stay for the one night”. The jokes used were fairly funny, but Lucas’ portrayal of the character and the set-up in general could be

+PLFT UIBU XFSF GVOOZ UXP ZFBST BHP BSF EFG JOJUFMZ OPU BOZNPSF both seen as pretty racist. It will be interesting to watch the development of this pair over the series. All the other characters were more familiar, such as Marjorie Dawes and Sebastian. The more popular characters from series 2, such as Anne and Bubbles, appeared too, but their sketches were quite predictable. In the last series, Lucas and Walliams gave

Emily Howard (the rubbish transvestite) a partner with similar leanings, which seemed to follow the logic of “if one makes people laugh, two will make them laugh twice as much”. It seemed a bit desperate, really, and made the sketches seem a bit forced. Bubbles, the infamous fat lady from the spa, was given this treatment in a sketch where her ex-husband (played very well by Rob Bry- don) appeared at the spa with his new wife, a similarly overweight black woman (Walli- ams). The two got into a catfight which led to them rolling around naked on the floor, much to the approval of the Brydon character. It was all too easy for the sketch to descend back into this and, despite opening promisingly, it did and the hoped effect of ‘double the characters means double the laughs’ really didn’t work. The other characters were similarly tired and repetitive. The jokes that were funny two years ago are definitely not anymore. Yes, we get that Daffyd thinks he’s the only gay in a village of gay people. Yes, we get that Andy can walk and is taking advantage of Lou behind his back. Yes, we get that Sebas- tian fancies the Prime Minister. The formula

has gotten stale through overuse and over- reliance on catchphrases but still seems to be massively popular. The huge audiences that the show gets means that Lucas and Walliams are pressured to keep churning episodes out while they’re still ﬂavour of the month (this is the third series in as many years) which leads to unimaginative and boring sketches like this. If they had a gap of two years, for example, before bringing out the inevitable fourth series then maybe they could make it fresh and funny again. For now, however, this series looks like it’ll simply be retreading the well established route of previous series and this reviewer, for one, will not be watching anymore due to sheer boredom with the characters. The impact of Little Britain in the last couple of years has been frightening. From chavs quoting Vicky Pollard at each other (do they not realise it’s satirising them?) and the hugely popular audio books to the many awards it’s picked up (such as the Best Com- edy at this year’s National TV Awards, beat- ing Extras and Max and Paddy) and cash-in merchandise released (you can now buy things like dolls, stationery, clothing and posters), the success of Walliams and Lu- cas’ vehicle is undeniable. They’re currently embarking on a mam- moth six month sell-out tour around the UK, which will be followed next October with a residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in London for the entire month. Now, think of how much money that’s making each of them. The six month tour has sold out completely. An average theatre they’re playing at has roughly 1,200 seats. At £30 per ticket, that’s £36,000 per night. And that’s every night for six months. While this money has to pay the theatres, the roadies and the set designers etc, its still a lot of money. Coupled with the merchandise (£10 for a programme and £20 for a T-shirt) and the ofﬁcial tour

DVD and book that are planned for release, the tour is apparently going to net Lucas and Walliams £5 million each. Their DVDs have also raked in money for them. The first series of Little Britain became the biggest selling TV DVD ever, selling 13,500 copies in the first week alone and 1.3 million in 2004 (despite it being released in October), as well as becoming the first non-film title for ten years to be the number one in the best-seller list at Christmas. The Comic Relief DVD released in February (sold for £5 with only £3.40 of that going to Comic Relief) raised around £1.6 million for the charity, so it clearly sold in vast quantities too. An appearance at Live 8 showed how massive they’ve become in only a couple of years. Matt Groening is apparently interested in getting some characters to appear in The Simpsons. A film is rumoured to be in the script stages. A cross-over show in which Vicky Pollard meets Catherine Tate’s Lauren (half an hour of “yeah but not” and “bovvered” sounds like quality television) is in development. A tribute act, Littler Britain, is riding on the pair’s coat-tails and performing up and down the country. All this from two blokes who met at Bristol Univer- sity 15 years ago and wear their influences (Monty Python, The League of Gentlemen) so proudly on their sleeves that the way in which they’ve overshadowed each of those acts is criminal. Little Britain, like it or loathe it, is here to stay and Lucas and Walliams, while they’re still in the limelight, are milking the public for every penny they can squeeze out of them and, with merchandise being released seemingly every month and the tour and third series DVDs waiting to be released, it’s clear that this is going to carry on for a long time yet.

Ting-Tong and Dudley When mail-order bride Ting-Tong Macadan- dang arrives on the doorstep of his bachelor pad, Dudley is surprised to see that the Thai is completely different to the description and photo in his brochure. As she pleads with him to let her stay, Dudley eventually relents and lets her stay, clearly due to the hint of unknown pleasures that Ting-Tong promises obliquely. The sketch will presumably repeat itself over the coming episodes, with Dudley trying to get rid of his new bag- gage and her trying to take his mind off the

matter. Again, it feels a bit like Lucas and Walliams have paid close attention to controversial issues in the UK and are satiriz- ing them with all their worth. The issue of Thai brides has been debated for years and it’s unlikely that the sketch will change people’s opinion on the matter. Either way, it’s pretty funny – although Lucas’ portrayal of Ting-Tong (‘crazy’ in Thai) does err a little close to being quite racist. The nature of the characters gels in with the feel of the rest, but it does feel like something out of a very

Event The

new series, she turns up looking very or- ange due to a mess-up with some suntan lotion, which prompted the Fat Fighers to turn the tables and insult her, mentioning foods such as Jaffa cakes, marmalade and Tango. This was a funny role-reversal but it soon retreated back to familiar ground as the horrible Marjorie laid into one over- wight woman. From her (relatively) humble beginnings as the mother of George Dawes in Reeves and Mortimer’s Shooting Stars, she’s been turned into a character that now exists purely to hate. She has no redeem- ing qualities, unlike most of the other indi- viduals in the show, and is so cruel to the

Bubbles is a horrendously overweight woman that lives at a spa in the British country- side without paying for it at all. It could be seen as being a parody on the idle rich that populate such establishments – or it could be seen as a chance for Lucas to take off the clothes the character is wearing and bare the character’s disgustingly ﬂabby body the world. Unfortunately, it always feels more like that the latter rather than the former and descends the sketch into the realms of farce and gross-out body humour. In the last series, she was chased around the spa by the owner, who demanded that she paid for her treatment (leading to some hilariously random lines, such as giving her husband’s phone number as “12345….6”). This always led to Lucas peeling his clothes and attempt- ing to seduce the owner, prompting amused disgust from all viewers. In this series, she’s

been given a rival and, from the look of the ﬁrst episode, it seems like she’ll constantly be facing off with her. This will inevitably lead to naked fat people and more horrible scenes. The twist that Lucas and Walliams have given Desiree, the rival, is that she’s black, which means Walliams has blacked up and been given horrendously oversized lips. This in itself is gross enough (not to mention horrendously un-PC) , but it seems as if they made her black simply to differenti- ate her from Bubbles as they are otherwise exactly the same character. The pair have potential to create humour simply from their childish arguments, but it’s clear that every single one of these will descend into a cat- ﬁght. It follows the same pattern as all too many Little Britain sketches – once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

un-PC 70s BBC sitcom in which people that don’t ﬁt in with the British idea of “normal” is to be made fun of (see “Love Thy Neigh- bour”). The catchphrase of “just stay for the one night” seems destined to join the ranks of the many others from the show and it will be interesting to see what the pair does with these characters. Either way, they are still funnier than some other characters (such as the puerile toilet humour of Mrs Emery and Maggie and Judy).

Marjorie Dawes One of the funniest characters in the original series, she became a bit boring and repetitive in series 2 and this series seems to be promising more of the same. You know the format by now – Marjorie insults the Fat Fighters club, pretends that she can’t understand Meera and generally throws a tempter tantrum. In series one, there were some original things done with the character, such as when she visited her mother in hospital or the supermarket. However, Lucas and Walliams clearly realized that she was the most amusing when in the Fat Fighters club scenario and have stuck her there ever since. In the ﬁrst sketch of the

Bubbles DeVere

Fat Fighters that it’s not funny anymore. However, she’s gone so far into this mould that any chance of changing her personal- ity is completely gone and her sketches will rely on insults and put-downs forever more – it’s difﬁcult to see the monster that she is now doing the gentle yet absolutely hilarious “dust, anybody, no?” routine again. She’s been used for laughs so much that she’s simply not funny anymore and Lucas and Walliams need to rethink what they do with her for the next series to sustain interest in her.

Sir Norman Fry One of the 9 new characters promised in this series. David Walliams plays this character, a politician who has to hold press conferences frequently to bail himself out of the awkward situations that he’s got himself into. In this ﬁrst episode, we watched him give a statement from the drive of his country house, along with his wife (Matt Lu- cas) and children. The joke is that he clearly raped a black man (or “Raaaaaaaa-stafarian” as the out-of-touch politician calls him) and is trying to come up with excuses, no matter how poor they are, to save his career and dignity. It’s a particularly well realised char-

acter and makes fun of the many politicians that do this in ‘real’ Britain (step forward, Mr Blunkett). There are many aspects of comedy with the character – the viewer pictures what actually happened, listens to the poor excuse that Fry concocts and watches as his wife looks disgusted with him, yet has to put on a happy face for the cameras. Lucas and Walliams have clearly thought of many different scenarios for Fry to worm out of and hearing the different excuses for his actions throughout the series will make this one of the funniest characters – and there won’t be a catchphrase in sight!

Event 13 The

Music

Kate Bush Golden Sounds Aerial

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In 1998, after the success of his remix of Cornershop’s “Brim- ful of Asha”, Norman Cook released this album to critical ac- claim. The world clearly agreed with these critics, as it rightful- ly went platinum. Seen by many as one of the most accessible and imaginative big beat albums, it showcases Cook’s wide taste in music as the album veers crazily between loads of genres – a typical rock song can suddenly melt into a hard house anthem with no warning, but still sound brilliant. While it’s only 11 tracks long, the four singles alone are arguably among the biggest dance songs of the 90s;; Right Here Right Now, The Rockafeller Skank, Gangster Tripping and Praise You. Alongside these are songs such as Fucking in Heaven (built around the repeated, spoken line ‘Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven’), the early 90s rave-athon Acid 8000 and the weird guitar and synthesizer mix of Built It Up, Tear It Down. Since this masterpiece, Cook’s work went downhill with follow-up Halfway between the Gutter and the Stars (a pale imitation of this album) and the strangely different Palookaville. While he strives to make another album that can better this, it’s difﬁcult to see how he, or anybody else, could. $ISJT )ZEF

Kookie songstress Kate Bush has returned to our airwaves and album charts after a rather lenthy break with the release of Aerial. Most of the hubbub around the album so far has come from over excited fans, easily enough to put the un- initiated off picking it up. The general consensus seems to be that this new release spells a return to Bush’s former glory with the familiar teaming of understated melodies and whispy vocals. The ideal way to a number one slot, with a guaranteed body of loyal fans all bound to pick up at least one copy for their collection. This unquestionable success makes it all too easy to simply dimiss Aerial as a reworking of Bush’s older work, and not engage with the album for what it is - an impressive and engaging effort. The ﬁrst single release from the album, King of The Mountain, is indicative of the slow burn nature of Bush’s style. Something in the song’s wailed chorus haunts the back of the listener’s mind. It is only when it has been heard a number of times that it truly unfolds into a very pleasing and rich track, with far more to offer than much of its competition in the charts. This quality is both a blessing and a curse and, although entirely intentional, is perhaps an ob- stacle for the fair-weather listener. The complexity prevents Aerial having the immedite and more visceral appeal of some of Bush’s greatest work, Wuthering Heights for example, but also suggest that her hiatus was a worthwhile one. Much of the album has a playful tone to it, brought about by the ecclectic subjects Bush turns her lyrical pen to. She ﬁnds inspiration in everything from Pi to washing machines, remaining an accomplished and insightful writer. Bush is unafraid of simple wording, with the repetitive chorus of Bertie (‘you bring me so much joy, then you bring me more joy’) a mantra-like loop that the song etches itself, being one of the most outstanding moments of the album.

This willingness to embrace a diverse wealth of experience is one of the strengths of the album, making it a worthwhile purchase for those less familiar with Bush’s catalogue and preventing it from feeling exclusive or snobbish. Overall, Aerial is a mature album. Do not expect to ﬁnd an obvious poppy number thrown in to appease the listener and dilute the denseness of the other tracks. All the songs are unapologetic in their layered complexity. The album is truly a joy to listen to, but this joy has to develop and at times this can be a chore, albeit a worthwhile one. It will undoubtedly receive rave reviews and be hailed as the work of a returning genius, but would perhaps better be described as an afﬁrmation of why Kate Bush has had such a successful career and as an album worthy of praise in its own right. ,BUF #SZBOU

What’s On Wednesday 23/11/12 3PCJO 5PXFS b BEW 7.30pm Waterfront "MLBMJOF 5SJP 40-% 065 7.30pm LCR .BSL 5IPNBT BOE 3PCFSU /FXNBO b 8.30pm Norwich Playhouse ,BSJOF 1PMXBSU b BEW 8pm Norwich Arts Centre

Thursday 24/11/05

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Friday 25/11/12

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Saturday 26/11/05

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Sunday 27/11/05

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Monday 28/11/05

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Tuesday 29/11/05

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Wedmesday 30/11/05

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Music

Thirty Years of Röck

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e’re Motör- head and we play rock and roll”. 30 years on the road and M o t ö r h e a d still don’t do stage sets, they still don’t do fancy lights, no pyrotechnics, no special effects and no gimmicks. 30 years perfecting the hard rock sound and all that was needed was a clockwise turn of the volume gauge. It’s somewhat ironic that heavy metal’s most acclaimed group should be so subtle. Com- pared to the technology of the current music scene their approach is little more than basic: Phil Campbell is by no means the most skilled guitarist in the world, with a wall of amps behind you anyone could make a ﬁnger picking riff howl like a siren. And its not as if even the most hardcore fan would claim that Lemmy Kilminster can actually sing anymore. At this stage it could be said that drummer Mikkey Dee is a proved mas- ter of the skins but the point is that Motör- head have got something that rock school cant teach you. It seems rather boring to call it experience but the rock and roll life means nothing if you haven’t actually expe- rienced it for yourself. Of course it’s probably the same old story, there was sex, there was drugs and there was rock and roll. Every generation knows it in one form or another and, though they love to think it was different or better for them, Motörhead have been the role models for the children of the last three decades. Morphine replaced the illegalised cocaine, heroin became the cure for morphine, methadone the cure for heroin, the cure was never different from the disease “so why change our style?” Lemmy explains “the music doesn’t improve, only our opin- ions of it do”. A Motörhead gig is a no-frills unmiss- able experience that will have your ears ringing for days. The fans from 30 years ago glare at the middle aged upstarts for jumping on the Ace of Spades bandwagon 25 years ago;; who frown upon the young wannabes for going off on their new model Harleys every Sunday;; who dead eye the student metal scene in fake-faded skin-tight Iron Maiden tee-shirts;; who glower at the little rock kids lining the barrier;; who look backwards at their leather clad parents out to prove that one day they were cool too. All of them together create the most bizarre blend of denim, leather, bleach blonde, bald- ing, pierced, mulleted, young-old metallers you will ever see. During the Ozzfest in 1998 Lemmy was quoted for saying “young music is supposed to piss old people off, that’s how it works, all young people’s music sounds the same to me,” which almost

shows how a band only becomes legendary when they finally manage to transcend the generation gaps. You can’t really argue that any of Motörheads new music is really what the kids lining the front want to hear, they’re waiting for the Ace Of Spades, same as their parents standing at the back. And, self admittedly, they haven’t changed, in fact it almost seems that they haven’t aged, “we’re doing good stuff – I don’t really see a reason to change what we’re doing if it’s right”. Musical trends are on a constant loop, the ‘80s synth sound is back in vogue for instance, but Motörhead are somehow still attracting new crowds like they have become some music tradition. There is clear evidence that hard rock is not just reserved for the stereotypical middle- aged trailer trash with bikes. Despite the diversity of generations there is very little diversity of style. Lets face it, rock and roll is the ultimate stereotype, take The Dark- ness whose genuine skills in the genre are portrayed as a parody for the mainstream listener while all the time they have no need at all to exaggerate the trademark idiosyn- crasies of rock. Motörhead themselves may not float on the melodrama of peers like ACDC or Kiss but they remain as influential through their sheer devotion to the rock and roll lifestyle. Bands these days don’t offer the same unadulterated deviation as the old rock legends, its all showmanship, even Pete Doherty himself is criticised for acting up in front of cameras. It wasn’t “ironic” to not give a damn in rock and roll;; you just didn’t. These days’ trendy rock stars smoke roll-ups or Marlboro lights, back then it was Marlboro Red and a bottle of JD just for starters. They wore leather jackets to last them the rest of their lives where now you buy tanned leather jackets and woollen scarf to last until tank tops are back in. Maybe this was why the crowd was so hush as the band left the stage after vowing to return for

" .PU¤SIFBE HJH JT B OP GSJMMT VONJTT BCMF FYQFSJFODF UIBU XJMM IBWF ZPVS FBST SJOHJOH GPS EBZT the encore. Maybe its just an inspired respect for a trio that have become genuinely deaf, alcoholic and scarred because of the life style everyone wants to be able to buy instead of experiencing for themselves. As well as this it’s strange how Motör- head has become a household name but at the same Ozzfest in ’98 they couldn’t even

make the main stage. In the past Lemmy has criticised music media for indirectly manufacturing bands for short-term successes and that’s all the kids seem to want to hear. But, as he explains, when it comes down to it people look back with a fondness to the music they loved when they were an adolescent;; “they get their first fuck, and they smoke their first cigarette, or first joint, or whatever it was, and they had a good time for the first time with that music in the background”. Somehow that doesn’t really explain why Motörhead is still such an attractive prospect for youth rock fans but there’s no doubt as to why the older fans want to accompany their children to the gig. Clearly totally deaf from the constant eardrum battering Lemmy surely is the godfather of loud and has somehow made his career into something beyond the standard rock icons of Bono or even Ozzy. In total, over the years Motörhead have had 10 different members come and go and the only

one to have played at every gig for the full 30 years is of course Lemmy. Swaggering out, perfectly on cue, the man himself required no introduction and none was given, oddly enough the LCR was silent. Aside from the ringing ears every pause between every song the crowd went hush. Was this a silence of pure respect? Was it that we were all deaf too? Or was it just because this was what 50 year olds do at gigs? Either way it did more for the air of appreciation than twice as many screaming fans could. “Can you hear us ok or should we turn it up a bit”. Motörhead play so tight live they need the impromptu guitar and drum solos to make you sure they’re not just playing the CDs, 30 years of virtually nothing but touring and Lemmy doesn’t even seem bored of those three words everyone has paid £25 to hear. It might seem painfully clichéd to ﬁnish with them but the song itself is the best description of Motörhead’s career as a whole, no one would really doubt that Lemmy himself is the ace of spades.

Event 15 The

Music

Bloodhound Gang 5IF 8BUFSGSPOU

Opening support act Lucky nine, made up of members from A and Hundred Reasons, manage to please the crowd by playing some very good driving metal. Front man Colin’s vocals penetrate ears in a very good way, adding to the wall of sound effect that all the gig goers want to hear - maybe a bit out of place here, no toilet humour, but they still win over the fans. Beer swigging Japanese mentalists Electric Eel Shock then burst on stage like crazy Tokyo advertising, pounding their songs out to an enjoying audience. Their humour is simple, shouting rude words and metal pastiches, but they put smiles on faces. Special mention to the Mohawked, naked, four sticks wielding drummer… “What’s up Knor-witch bitches?!” As expected the Blood- hound Gang come out waving middle ﬁngers in the air and singing songs about vaginas, poo, beer and weed. What is surprising, however, is what a tight live act they are. Singer Jimmy Pop’s vocals are strong and they play the crowd a great selection of their own hits, and cover tunes by Franz Ferdinand, Jay Z, Kanye West, Linkin Park and others. Be- tween songs they delight the crowd with puerile jokes about the English, cock sucking, fat people, Michael Jackson and chlamydia. But it is not until the encore that the now utterly wasted band starts really pulling out the party pieces. Firstly, they

Off the Record

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The global music industry is currently taking major steps to limit and combat the highly contentious music pirate industry. As students we are all aware how common and arguably socially acceptable downloading is but at the same time we know it is illegal. None of us would steal a CD from a shop but somehow it doesn’t seem so morally wrong to get a five finger discount online;; it’s intangible and guiltless. In the last two years 15, 519 Americans faced civil lawsuits over file sharing copyright crimes prosecuted by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The IFTP have targeted users of P2P networks including Gnutella, eDonkey, Bit- Torrent, WinMx and SoulSeek. Similarly £140, 000 has already been coughed up by 96 prosecuted British BitTorrent buffs. It hardly seems fair to target the “little man” in such an extreme way when the actual file sharing sites are getting off so lightly. Napster, and many high profile BitTorrent sites had previously been targeted by the film industry for providing copyrighted films without obligation to the public but the majority of sites now only operate an intermediate ground where the standard file sharing software is completely legal. When it comes down to it the balance between a hefty, but slightly unlikely, fine to the opportunities of downloading is not that concerning. Some of you campus dwellers may have already figured out that little way of freely downloading music off iTunes but aside from this any P2P sharing will have you cut from the network immediately and leave you facing a reconnection charge. The music and film industries too are doing all they can to deter people from file sharing. They are saying that it doesn’t matter if you download 30Gb to distribute or whether you download just a couple of songs to test out a new band, everyone is vulnerable to liability however remote it may seem. $IBSMFT 3VNTFZ

Event The

form a human drum kit, which is played very skilfully by their drummer. Then the night takes a sour note when the crowd are ‘treated’ to Jimmy Pop mounting an ampliﬁer and re- vealing his arse to the crowd only for brick shit-house bass- ist Jared, possibly the least talented professional musician since Bez, to vomit down his arse crack (after beer-bonging a bottle of Jagermeister!). If that wasn’t disturbing enough, he then throws up into Pop’s open mouth. Some of the crowd love it;; others look very ill. The band ﬁnishes with their signature tune ‘Bad touch’, and stumble off stage. All in all a fun gig. Doubt anybody went for a kebab afterwards though. "OESFX 3JMFZ

Live Gigs Mylo -$3

Mylo was the soundtrack to many a summer this year. On the Outside, whether this was dripping with traditional Eng- lish showers or reigning with blistering heat, inside, and out of the speakers ‘Destroy Rock and Roll’ supplied a perfected selection of sunshine rays. So their debut at UEA, amidst the scathing of autumn, promised to be a joyous deliverance back to the warmth of summer. The audience encompassed a chocolate box selection of characters, with only a handful of teenagers, switching the lime-light onto the ageing, high-spirited rave go-ers of the 90s, desperately clinging to the thumping bass and their dazed and eclectic dance moves. Sadly, fond hopes for a busting of ‘big box little box’ were not fulﬁlled and there was not one glow stick in sight! But, Mylo gratefully managed to feed all those hungry buzz-

Skin

ing souls with a wholesome meal of delectable tunes. ‘Drop the Pressure’ roared and charged at every open ear, edging the crowd into gushing raptures of heart swelling appreciation, as all bounced and jostled to the glittering exhilarating haven of illustrious beats. ‘In your arms’ tipped all faces into a broad elated grin, voices gleefully sung out and bodies blindly swayed and fumbled with dance. And ‘Valley of Dolls’ gloriously rallied a wave of affection. The music was perfection, but Mylo held no real stage presence, it was just as crisp as playing the album in your bedroom. There was unfortunately no spark;; however support act Filthy Dukes created enviously ﬁery vitality on stage. Mylo set an electric scene but only the audience ﬁlled it with vibrancy. &MMFZ 5BZMPS

-$3 The ﬁrst night of Skin’s UK tour. A strangely sparse crowd. The Waterfront’s humble stage, and a performance almost too big for it to contain. The night began well as the club provided a warm haven from the November night. But it wasn’t just warm – it was hot. And it was intense. The support act Make Good Your Escape played boldly and smoothly. It was Keane meets angry guitars, and they just got better the more they played. Maybe there was even a System of a Down- esque drum solo in there somewhere… The crowd responded well and you could tell they didn’t want to leave the stage, but leave they must. Because Skin was there and she wanted to be heard. From the start of her set she ensured that she was in control. No warm-up, no chatting to the crowd, just

straight into what she likes to term as “clit rock”. There are inﬂuences of punk, rock, reggae, metal but her style is entirely her own. She bounced, jittered, and coquetted her way around the stage, matching and raising the energy in the room with songs from her new album Fake Chemical State (March 2006). Skunk Anansie fans weren’t disappointed either as she played such classics as Selling Jesus, Hedonism and a particularly beautiful rendition of Weak, just the way we remembered them – raw, yet melodic, charged yet moving. When she left the stage people screamed for an encore that she wasn’t going to give, knowing that she’d left a crowd begging for more, but satisﬁed all the same. &NNB +PIOTUPO

Music

Singles (PSJMMB[ %JSUZ )BSSZ

It’s been a busy year for Damon Albarn’s animated four-piece – following a second album that has so far sold 4 million copies worldwide, two singles that peaked at numbers one and two and a sell-out ﬁve night residency at the Manchester Opera House, Gorillaz are releasing the third single from ‘Demon Days’. ‘Dirty Harry’ is based around a simple chorus sung by Albarn and a children’s choir;; it’s quite sinister hearing kids singing about how they need a gun. The track then explodes into bass-heavy funk, with keyboards playing the melody and Al- barn yelping in his trademark falsetto over the top. This pattern of chorus with very few instruments then all-guns-blazing funk continues before a complete change in direction for the song, as Bootie Brown of LA combo The Pharcyde suddenly appears and raps over a simple drum and bass beat, which melts back seamlessly into the main tune afterwards. All these different elements of the song come together surprisingly well;; the chorus is guaranteed to get stuck in your head! Coupled with another brilliant and original video (this time set in a desert and conveying the track’s political message very well), ‘Dirty Harry’ is a fantastic way for 2D, Murdoc, Russel and Noodle to end the year of their triumphant return. $ISJT )ZEF

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Hospital Food is an upbeat track, a rally against the force feeding of every day media nourishment. “Tell me something i dont already know” Gray croons in his discreet yet touching vocal style but those fans who might have been seeking a change of direction may now be saying the same thing. He had never promised an evolution in musical character so those familiar piano chords and sparkles of woodwind are no great surprise but welcome all the same in a bizarre famili- arity that even the ignorant would warm to. The track does go so far as to introduce a brighter, even cheesy keyboard intro, a trait of the 80s as is ever becoing a mainstream vogue. In tune with the rest of his album, and indeed all his albums before that, Hos- pital food is a soul search, a song of emotion which doesnt suck you in but instead lets you follow his narrative as an onlooker. $POTUB[ .BHF

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Brian Christinzio is a one man band, the American Badly Drawn Boy. He provides us with sunny tunes with piano backing but this is by no means written for radio pop, Couldn’t You Tell is a subtle and intelligent blend of melody and lyrical pleas- antries. Rural music like something from a fairy tale. The focus is heavily on creativ- ity and it therefore becomes hard to take it completely seriously, songs of lullabies and clown stories are just too innocent to ﬁt comfortably into the indie scene which they are designed for, however snug it sounds. Remind yourself that there is a real world

and the journey down the Mississipi on a wooden raft will soon be forgotten. Its nice that a musician can afford to be so honest when they write lyrics of life and love without ulterior motives of self promotion and it’s this blissful ignorance of Couldn’t You Tell which makes it special. Such a subtle contribution to the music industry is likely to make very little impact but in his own way Brian Christinzio has made his mark. .JB #VUSFFLT

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Nominated for the Mercury Award having made their ludicrously titled album, Stars of CCTV, in a taxi office for just £300, Hard Fi have been heralded as pioneers in the development of new hybrids, namely the combi- nation of punk and reggae, and as the rough diamonds with empty pockets, full to the brim with cultural significance. Re-release Cash Machine shows more urban respon- siveness, explained by influences such as Massive Attack and The Specials, than their more successful singles to date;; throwaway pop tunes about nightclubs. However, it seems the incorporation of different genres, leads to an adoption of utterly ridiculous lyricism: “I wonder if I’ll ever gets to where I wants to be.” Frontman Richard Archer lacks the vocal attitude of Alex Turner or Liam Gal- lagher, which invariably defines this genre of music. In the words of that Monkey from Sheffield, “Don’t believe the hype.” ,FMWJO ,OJHIU

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With The Monkeys causing riots on the radio and The Kaisers storming foreign shores,

its easy to forget about the eccentric, quirky, originality of The Futureheads. No worries though, Area shoves them right back into the forefront;; an emphatic two and a half minute reminder of these lads ability to construct a ﬂawless pop/art-rock anthem. Paranoid lyrics ranting on about security issues initially doesn’t sound like the greatest of ideas but hell, it works, gloriously at that. After all, this is the band that rehashed a Kate Bush number, and in turn, possibly created the indie-rock anthem of the year. Area is a sharp, jagged, tuneful, guitar driven, 21st century anthem, encapsulating everything that you d want from a contemporary pop-rock song, and then some more. From the sing-along opening, to the quirky rants and raves “you have to buy an alarm, because lasers pick up movements in the dark,” it becomes so very hard not to enjoy. The lyric “Your area is in ruin” may not go down so well in certain parts of the world right now, but these fellas mean no harm. The only intention here is effortless thrills, courtesy of a band at the peak of their game. (SFH 4VMMJWBO

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King Creosote has been recently undertak- ing his first headline tour, having supported many acts from Domino’s (home to Franz Ferdinand) roster. At once jaunty and dead- pan, “Bootprints” is a slightly skiffle style shuffle that acts as a gently sarcastic ditty to lure one’s grumpy self out of bed in the always too early morning. The nicely scan- ning rhyming of the verse tells us, “We love ourselves to death/But weekly we’ve got re- grets” referring to the traditional weekly night out watching, “Girl’s skirts/hitched beyond

a decent height.” The verse then ascends a couple of keys into a chorus of humming organs and a yearning vocal. A quick toot of brass then settles into to a nice “Female of the Species” style xylophone solo. Xylo- phone solos are not to be sniffed at really, are they? Whatever, “Bootprints” is a charm- ing, uniquely British slice of eccentric pop, reminiscent of a Mull Historical Society, Ed Harcourt or a leftﬁeld Kaiser Chiefs lacking a keyboardist with a silly hat. Hot Chip’s remix starts off twinkling and slightly orchestral before switching to a Fischerspooner-esque groove of modestly interesting proportions. The remix is a rather cheap b-side, but at least, less skinﬂint than many others. "MFY $BMEXFMM

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The towers of London are renowned for their infamous live shows, big hair and big attitude. One thing that the Towers of London aren’t known for is their tunes or originality. Their brand of music has been described as mock-rock, hair-rock, and poodle rock. Their sound is reminiscent of an under par Motley Cru tribute band or a butch version of the New York Dolls i.e. without the Dolls kitsch charm. “How rude she was, but lucky for me it was light entertainment” yelps Dirk Tourette during the chorus of the title track. It’s hardly Coleridge. Listening to the Towers of Lon- don’s new release is anything but light entertainment and the urge to press skip on the hi-ﬁ was almost overriding particularly during the Guns’n’Roses style guitar solo which comes around the 3 minute mark of the song. Towers of London are so frequently riled by the mainstream indie press and listening to this release it is easy to see why. This is an anthem to London hipsters who go “boozing at Koko” in Camden town. Per- haps these are the people who buy Towers of London’s records. If you’re a fan of 80s in- ﬂuenced music you’d be well advised to buy the Futureheads single and stay well away from this 8JMM )PMMPXBZ

Event 17 The

Film

Main Feature

Flightplan

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Following on the heels of the Wes Craven-directed Red Eye comes another aeroplane-based thriller, Flightplan, star- ring Jodie Foster as aeronautical engineer Kyle Pratt, whose life has been shattered by the recent death of her husband. With her mental state in shreds, she makes the decision to ship the body of her dead husband back to New York on the same plane as herself and daughter Julia. As she ﬁnalises her plans, she is aware of being followed at every turn by malicious, shadowy ﬁgures. Once safely boarded, mother and daughter curl up on the back row of the aeroplane (one which Kyle, predictably, helped to build) but when Kyle wakes up, her daughter has vanished.

Embarking on a series of agonising and increasingly hysterical searches for her daughter only serves to antago- nise the crew until, after a number of investigations it is revealed that there is no record of Kyle’s daughter ever having boarded. The desperate Kyle refuses to accept such apparently flawed information, even after a thorough check of the whole plane has been instigated with no resultant appearance of a little girl. Suddenly it appears that Julia is just a figment of the traumatised Kyle’s imagination. Could she really have died alongside her father in his tragic accident? With sedation, Kyle finally accepts the fact that she has been hanging on to the memory of her dead daughter

for too long, that it is time to let her go…or is it? This film, directed by German-born Robert Schwentke, seems to aspire to be a lot more than it is, which is, despite its A-list cast, a very high-budget B-Movie. Try and imagine sustaining the tension in a thriller based almost entirely on an aeroplane and revolving around one woman’s search for her missing child. Exactly. It is frankly impossible - even if you do add some big explosions, quite a lot of screaming, saying of prayers and the bludgeoning of people around the head with helpfully to hand implements. Yes, one is initially sucked in by Jodie’s impassioned pleas for help from fellow passengers and even by the idea that she might be suffering from delusions, but for two hours? Despite the fact that Schwentke offers up myriad theories as to what is really going on (such as terrorist conspiracy) this film still flounders in predictability. The end result being that you have a film that has been over-hyped and really does not warrant the vast amounts of money that must have been ploughed into its – admittedly very impressive – aeroplane set. However, this is not the fault of the cast, who cope manfully with the ill-conceived script;; and Jodie Foster’s performance is certainly beyond reproach. Cast in a similar role to that of 2002’s Panic Room in which she also had to delve into cramped spaces and launch herself at practi- cally everyone in sight, she is certainly persuasive as the distraught Kyle and is clearly committed to the role. As an exploration of the art of persuasion it certainly poses some interesting questions about the fragility of human convic- tion, but this is really not enough to maintain the interest of an audience. As a fairly vacuous thriller, Flightplan is certainly passable, but is without a doubt unworthy of its self-created publicity. )FOSJFUUB #VSHFTT

Five Great: Rock Star Performances A cluster of recent biopics and documentaries have made efforts to chart the lives of various rock legends, with varying degrees of success (Scorsese’s Dylan film No Direction Home was a pearl;; recent Brian Jones biopic Stoned, is a more uneven affair). But what of the real-life rock folk who have turned their hands to fiction film acting? The misfires are too many to count of course, but here are five performances that hit all the right notes. 5PN 8BJUT 4IPSU $VUT Something of a regular on the 1980s and 90s indie scene, growly avant-garde musician Tom Waits did his best work with Jim Jarmusch in Down by Law, and here in Rob- ert Altman’s multistrand masterpiece Short Cuts. A down-on-his-luck, boozy loser, Wait’s exquisitely drawn Earl Piggot is nevertheless a joy to watch, and his ludicrous Hawaiian boogie with Lily Tomlin is one of the film’s brightest highlights.

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%FCPSBI )BSSZ 7JEFPESPNF New wave pop icon Debbie Harry dives into a hellish world of snuff TV, corporate corruption, and S&M in David Cronenberg’s cult psycho-thriller. Playing a character split between the real world and protagonist Max Renn’s fevered hallucinations, Harry shim- mers with sexual menace, a noir-ish centre of knowledge and potential danger. She doesn’t put a foot wrong, and the famous scene where Harry stubs out a cigarette on her own breast capitalises on the singer’s glassy pop-star image to breathtaking effect. %BWJE #PXJF 5IF .BO 8IP 'FMM UP &BSUI British director Nicolas Roeg had already harnessed the swaggering charisma of Mick Jagger in Performance (1970), and The Man Who Fell to Earth sees him extract a similarly marvellous performance from David Bowie (right). Of course, Bowie was no stranger to

the idea of a persona, having essayed space rock god ‘Ziggy’ and ‘The Thin White Duke’ on the music stage, but his first feature film was something different. As the ghostly pale starman who arrives on earth, only to crum- ple under an excess of alcohol, TV, and sex, Bowie glides through Roeg’s dazzling world of pain and corruption with perfect other- worldly anguish. #KPSL %BODFS JO UIF %BSL Bjork’s turn as Selma in Lars von Trier’s film is for many an impossible thing to watch, despite the euphoric song-and-dance moments. Certainly she faces an unrelenting succession of disappointments, betrayals, and losses made the more heart-rending by Bjork’s vulnerable performance. But there are flashes of the bizarre elfin charm that powers the singer’s music, and her commitment to the depiction of Selma’s gradual, tragic an- nihilation is nothing short of astounding.

&NJOFN .JMF Eminem has always slipped through a variety of personae with an ease and glee that en- sures he remains both hard to pin down and constantly primed for provoking outrage. His character in Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile is perhaps the most startling act of them all – a rapper and a father (here by default) as usual, but now with the toxic antagonism replaced by a rueful, inward quality. Not that Jimmy ‘B-Rabbit’ Smith lacks grit, and the rap ‘battles’ as performed by Eminem are genuinely exhilarating. 4FC .BOMFZ

A New Hollywood?

Film

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ocumentary film may once have been classified as boring and more for the older generation but as films like the recent March of the Pen- guins line up for Oscar nominations it is being seen under a new light. In the past few years documentary film has reached new heights, taking over the ever popular Hol- lywood fictional movies. By looking at several recent films I am trying to find out why this is the case. Is the public so numbed by big blockbusters that what they now crave are films that explore the truth about the world around them? Or is it our obsession with reality TV that impels us to watch these films, hoping to fulfil our voyeuristic nature? Whatever the case, documentary film is huge right now and audiences cannot get enough of it;; whether it portrays reality or fiction it has certainly caught the public’s eye. Controversy comes hand in hand with most documentary films, especially those directed by names like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock. The new age of anti- American attitudes is reflected in these films and sees a direct attack on the United States not seen in mainstream cinema before. Recent events in America have seen a wave of discontent around the world and films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Supersize Me attempt to discover the truth behind these thoughts. Bowling for Columbine, the film that first brought Michael Moore into the public eye in 2001, grabbed headlines around the world and several awards. It has been credited with making the documentary film a populist proposal once more. It has also been criticised for being a single man’s viewpoint, and for being polemic, where the facts are distorted to fit the thesis – rather than documentary, where, supposedly, the facts are explored to arrive at a thesis. Fahr- enheit 9/11 faced similar criticisms but they did not stop ratings at the box office. These films are popular because people want to know more about America;; however they are only the directors’ view of America and have been criticized for portraying a false reality. A documentary is defined as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ and more and more audiences are choosing to watch this rather than fictional movies. Recent documentaries have used methods of entertainment in their films to make them more appealing to audiences and this has worked. March of the Penguins, which is due out in the UK in early December, sees Morgan Freeman narrating. He is a well known actor and has helped the French film’s success because audiences who are already fans of Free- man will be encouraged to see the film. The March of the Penguins, Luc Jacquet’s gentle documentary about the grueling Antarctic migration of the emperor penguin is set to

reach new heights at the Oscars this year. It has been a huge success first in France and more importantly in America. The new film is a breakthrough for documentary film as it is probably the first nature documentary to reach the big screen. ‘In the harshest place love finds a way’ is the tagline for the film that promises to be more exciting and more

*T UIF QVCMJD TP OVNCFE CZ CJH CMPDLCVTUFST UIBU UIFZ OPX DSBWF mMNT UIBU FYQMPSF UIF USVUI PG UIF XPSME BSPVOE UIFN romantic than any other ﬁlm this year. The popularity of the ﬁlm is due it seems to the fact that it is different from the usual Hol-

lywood generated film;; and audiences seem now to be asking for more than that. Documentary film is popular because it portrays reality to an audience and allows people to make their real life heroes and heroines from the film. Even though it does use reality it is not to be mistaken for reality. Each documentary film sees the portrayal of reality through the director’s eye. Mor- gan Spurlock’s recent 30 Days has become popular because it is controversial and en- tertaining. It is reality TV but in a documentary style. The recent film documentary Touching the Void saw huge success also and placed highly in Channel 4’s recent Top 50 Docu- mentaries. The film follows the real life story of two young climbers as their journey goes horribly wrong. The re-enaction is very true to life but also provides the audience with nail biting action every second, so ensuring its success. The fact that the story was so true to life made it even more popular as audiences could place themselves in the same situation. Murderball, which has recently come out, has been really popular, featuring fierce rivalry, stopwatch suspense, and larger-

than-life personalities. Winner of the Docu- mentary Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for Editing at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Murderball is a film about tough, highly competitive rugby players. From the gyms of middle-America to the Olympic are- na in Athens, Murderball tells the story of a group of world-class athletes unlike any ever shown on screen. It is a fast action film which follows the life of a real group of disabled athletes who fought through the stereotypes and became world renowned sportsmen. This film just adds to the popularity of documentary and supports the view that audiences are bored with fictional films. With March of The Penguins following in the same successes as Fahrenheit 9/11 in the Oscars, it seems a new dawn of film has be- gun. Documentary film is seeing success as it never has before and the ball keeps rolling. Supersize Me, Touching The Void, Murderball and March of the Penguins are portrayals of reality that audiences cannot stop watching. The numbers at the box office prove their success and it seems that in the not too distant future our love of hard hitting and entertain- ing documentary film will be shown, and may eradicate our need for fictional Hollywood.

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Event 19 The

Film

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bout halfway into Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert Downey Jr takes up the voiceover mike, and asks in his best smooth, rascally tones whether ‘we’, the filmgoers, have solved the mystery yet. Well, no we haven’t – and the thing’s only going to get more unsolvable as it goes, but then it’s hard to stay irritated with something like a plot – however labyrinthine – when Mr Downer Jr is providing not only an audacious meta-voiceover, but also a steam of humor- ous, foul-mouthed banter (with his private eye partner Perry Van Shrike), and a series of absurd slapstick set-pieces. All of which is to say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s chief pleasures are comic, and the comedy finds its way into nearly every corner of the film. On release, Black’s film was discussed primarily as a noir-action hybrid: noir because of the murder mystery narrative, the voiceover, and the frequent references to 1940s and 50s noir texts, both film and literature (Sunset Boulevard, Farwell My Lovely, Brett Halliday’s hardboiled 1941 detective novel ‘Bodies Are Where You Find Them’);; action because of the central ‘buddy’ pairing, and the run of films Black had a scripting hand in during the 1980s and 90s, including Lethal Weapon (directed by Richard Donner in 1987), The Last Boy Scout (directed by Tony Scott, 1991), and Last Action Hero (directed by John McTiernan, 1993). Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, his first film as director and his first script for six years, is something of a comeback for Black after a period of self-con- fessed creative stasis, and though it does draw on elements of the earlier film scripts, it’s also clearly a more personal project than any of them. As an auteur-type debut, Kiss Kiss Bang

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Bang has understandably been persistently linked to the ‘serious’ concerns of ﬁlm noir. Black himself has talked in interviews about the moral choices that the characters face – the allure of a ‘dark side’ that is both out there (in LA) and in here (in the actions and thoughts of the heroes). But the moral ambiguity and feverish paranoia that suf- fuses noirs like Out of the Past (1947) and The Big Sleep (1946) is just about absent here, replaced – or at least dispatched to the shadows – by a intricate mesh of comedic strategies. The most forceful of these strategies is Harry’s (Downey) voiceover. Playing on the noir convention of expressing the inter- nal thoughts and feelings of the (anti)hero through his own disembodied murmurings, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has its protagonist constantly comment on both the current situation and his place in it. Harry goes at

%PXOFZ T RVJDL TJMWFS QFSGPSNBODF DPNQBSFT GBWPVS BCMZ UP BO JO GPSN 8PPEZ "MMFO least one better than Bogart though: not only does he talk about what’s going on, but he talks about the ﬁlm itself as an artiﬁ- cial world, created by his own ‘story’. In one early scene, for example, Harry gets in a bit of a muddle trying to narrate a back-story to

the audience;; his solution is to simply spool the film backwards and rerun some earlier footage (complete with pencilled-on anno- tations: ‘Me’, ‘Harmony’, ‘some asshole’). Near the end, he assures us ‘don’t worry – I saw the last Lord of the Rings. I’m not going to end this 17 times’, before playing out a series of endings – less than 17 – that conclude with Harry at a desk one year later, talking directly to the audience about how things have turned out. All this is the kind of clever-clever self-referentiality that proved the downfall of Last Action Hero of course, but it comes off here thanks to newfound lightness of touch from Black, and a quick- silver performance from Downey, whose mix of sincerity and winking self-awareness compares favourably to an in-form Woody Allen. Black’s script too owes a debt to Al- len, a director who moulded the ‘Brechtian’ distancing devices at work in the cinema of his heroes – most notably Ingmar Bergman – into works of nervy comedy (witness for example that Black-esque moment in Annie Hall when Alvy conjures up Marshal McLu- han from outside of the film narrative in order to settle an argument he’s having with snobbish professor). Another, less highbrow vein of comedy that runs through Kiss Kiss Bang Bang combines slapstick (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd et al.) with a penchant for absurd ‘bad taste’ gags, as pioneered by John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray) and since refined into more palatable forms by various indie and mainstream filmmakers, including Brothers Farrelly and Coen. Almost all of the gags in Black’s film revolve around pain or death made absurd by its context. The worst

of these slip into juvenile cliché, as when Harry is made to endure testicular electro- torture;; but the best take the noir hero and his façade of cool cynicism, and reinvest him with everyday feelings of embarrass- ment and powerlessness. When Harry, mid- urination, finds a body in his bathroom, and in a state of shock continues to relieve himself over the corpse, it’s agonizingly funny – but also an arrestingly realist moment of human weakness in a film genre (noir, and also action) traditionally about artifice and fantasy. The idea of stock film characters – like detectives, or gangsters, or maverick police officers – walking and talking like ‘real-life’ people, with trivial conversations and constant references to pop culture, is now a common source of humour in cinema. Indie films since the early 1990s (Slacker [Richard Linklater, 1991], Clerks [Kevin Smith, 1994]) have often made this their chief focus, but it was Tarantino and Pulp Fiction (1994) that set up casual pop-dialogue in the mainstream. The verbal humour in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is of a less self-conscious variety than that in the Tarantino world, and there is certainly nothing as grandstanding as Bill’s famous superhero speech in Kill Bill Vol. 2 but Black’s characters do adopt a similarly lively approach to language. The quickest, sharpest stuff is the rattled-off dialogue between Harry and his detective partner ‘Gay Perry’ (Val Kilmer): ‘Look up idiot in the dic- tionary’, says Perry, after Harry throws his prize gun in a lake, ‘you know what you’ll find?’ ‘A picture of me?’ hazards Harry. ‘No! The definition of idiot. Which is what you are!’ Although the love/hate set up between the two mismatched heroes is quite standard (and a staple of the buddy action scripts Black has worked on), the dialogue is as bright as a button, and always challenging language conventions with a self-aware wit and invention. Knowing he and Harry must seem like a law enforcement cliché to the guy they’re interrogating, Perry sets the record straight: ‘This isn’t Good Cop Bad Cop. This is fag and New Yorker, and you’re in a lot of trouble.’ Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is not a bona fide comedy film, and it does make gestures at generating suspense, weaving plots, and probing character morality. But set next to other recent noir efforts like Sin City and A History of Violence, it comes up lacking intensity;; and next to a large-scale blockbuster like War of the Worlds it falls short on breathless action. The tagline for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang emphasises sex and violence re- gardless of course, promising ‘Sex. Murder. Mystery.’, but an articulation of its brilliant wit would be more to the point. Perhaps the promoters are saving ‘Jokes. Gags. Self-ref- erential humour.’ for the DVD release.

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The death of the Rolling Stones enigmatic guitarist Brian Jones has been open to numerous theories. Stephen Woo- ley’s theory is the result of ten years research and new found evidence which suggests that Jones was in fact murdered. The film focuses on the three months leading up to his death, yet at the same time is interspersed with flash-backs throughout Jones’s life. The flash-backs are an absolute stunning homage to the 1960’s sex and drug culture that the band was immersed in. These scenes are filmed with affectionate nostalgia, incorporating the quality of 1960’s cinematography along with brilliant set designs and costumes. Some of these come close to feeling like authentic footage and successfully encapsulate the attractiveness of the era. Throughout the film the flashbacks become increasingly sordid and perverse but never without losing this sumptuous sheen. Leo Gregory’s portrayal of Jones is, at times, compelling and he conveys an innocence and vulnerability in Jones that makes him endearing. Wooley’s view of Jones is clear from his dealings with the film;; we are encouraged to see Jones sympathetically as a tragic soul. The soundtrack to the film provides a sexy and star-studded backdrop, most often to the drug-taking scenes. However, the musical score is heavily used in the opening scenes of the film, bizarrely becoming more prevalent any time Gregory is on screen. It’s as if Woo- ley wanted to create a romantic, mythical creature in Jones and felt that the only way to do was to add a flowery musical score that is only distracting from the action of the film. Throughout the film there is a constant struggle where the film teeters on the line of clichéd sentimentality. However with a bit of full-frontal nudity and S&M Wooley tries to balance this out. Yet the surrealist ending ruins the film – it’s more like a Sunday night ITV drama rather than a “wild and wicked” rock biopic. This battle with sentimentality throughout the film is hindered by the script. The dialogue of all the characters is clunky and simple and is not helped by its unin- spired delivery. The quality of the supporting cast is varied;; the women spend the film trying to be topless for as long as possible. David Morrissey is convincing as Stone’s womanising manager Tom, appearing as a standard of reason throughout the film. There is a surprise appearance of David Walliams, of Lit- tle Britain fame, who is believable as Stones financial advisor despite his huge retro glasses. Visually the film is stunning and sexy, giving an attractive quality to the rock n roll culture of the 60s. However, the care- less script and irrelevant sentimentality heaped on the film spoils it. Unlike the characters, this film needs an injection of something strong so that the dialogue can keep up at the pace of the visuals - maybe then we would have a film that is of the same controversial quality that made the Stones a success. $MBJSF $BSUFS

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth film in the series and, with a stellar cast and the excellent direction of Mike Newell, it outshines all expectations. The special effects are absolutely spectacular and your jaw will drop at some scenes, such as the huge Quidditch World Cup stadium and the first challenge of the Triwizard tournament, in which Harry faces an enormous dragon. It also stays faithful to the book, as it includes all the key scenes and, despite some alterations, still makes sense and remains the tense and dramatic story that J.K. Rowling wrote. It is much darker than the previous films and some segments, such as the action packed last half hour, are reason enough for the 12A certificate. It is possibly the best Harry Potter film yet and sets a high standard for the fifth film to surpass. $ISJT )ZEF

Cinefile N o 62 .

Yojimbo

5IF $POTUBOU (BSEFOFS %JS 'FSOBOEP .FJSFMMFT 3FMFBTFE Compared to recent films with a similar subject matter (The Interpreter, Lord of War), the Constant Gardener embeds its political morals within a story that is deeply affecting, without resorting to any Hollywoodisms whatsoever. The ‘heroine’ is murdered in the first scene, leaving us to follow a retrospective thriller enshrouded with a haunting love story, as her husband reluctantly begins to uncover a disturbing industry/govern- ment cover-up. Weiz’s character is one of those outspoken, educated yet emotionally willful and morally flexible women who is fascinatingly irritating, and she is partnered enigmati- cally with Fiennes, a quietly controlled ‘gardener’ and occasional member of the British High Commission. Along with Bill Nighy, Danny Huston and Pete Postlethwaite they em- phasise a quintessential Britishness in drama – an unusual gravitas already staged by the controversial subject matter. Fernando Mierelles, one-time director of City of God, lends a similar intense reality to his location, making it a character in its own right. I thought the film was stunning. $MBJSF $BSUFS

.ST )FOEFSTPO 1SFTFOUT %JS 4UFQIFO 'SFBST 3FMFBTFE For all its quality personnel – Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Stephen Frears at the helm – Mrs Henderson Presents is an underwhelming experience, weighted down by a script of wincingly earnest tributes to British wartime solidarity. The early scenes roll along nicely enough, with Dench’s amateur theatre manager striking up an affably antagonistic rapport with her business partner (Hoskins) as they go about introducing female nudes into 1930s British theatre. But the social implications of the new entertainment get a heavy-handed treatment, and there isn’t enough humour to compensate – although Dench ﬁlls out her character with customary zest. 4FC .BOMFZ

4P XIBU T JU BMM BCPVU Riddled with the kind of action you would expect from the godfather of the adventure film (Spielberg would later follow in Kurosawa’s deeply embedded footprints), Yojimbo tells the story of a wandering samurai (Toshiro Mifune) who finds himself walking in on a town violently torn between two rival- ling clans of gamblers. The mysterious intruder takes little time to become involved in the action, swaying tactfully between allegiances in an attempt to get rid of all the gamblers by any means possible. ,VSPTBXB BOE .JGVOF ,JOE PG MJLF #VSUPO BOE %FQQ Subsequent to our two favourite connoisseurs of the weird, Kurosawa and Mifune are celebrated as perhaps the most perfect partnership in cinematic history. Unlike Burton and Depp, the two’s chemistry goes far beyond that of twisted mise en scene and thematic plots. Like many of Kurosawa’s additional pairings with Mifune, Yojimbo sees both performance and direction feeding hungrily from one another. While in Seven Samurai, Mifune’s frantic, animated performance is brought to life through Kurosawa’s kinetic cinematography, Yojimbo’s shots remain sturdy and powerful, mirroring the sullen yet towering energy which Mifune constantly ema- nates. #VU JU T BMM BCPVU PME PME +BQBO *T JU FBTZ UP VOEFSTUBOE XJUI PVU B IJTUPSZ MFTTPO While it’s well worth checking out the bfi edition for the excellent commentary from film historian Philip Kemp (he gives a useful historical background on the film’s setting), the main themes which Kurosawa illustrates are simple human rela- tionships such as friendship, honour, love and hate;; elements which are just as relevant in today’s age of fast-paced thrill- ers and blood-splattered crime, and ones which just about anyone can enjoy. As the Sergio Leone remake A Fist Full of Dollars proved, the bare essence of the story can be lifted and placed in any setting and in any part of time with no loss of the excitement and energy that fuels the sheer enjoyment of the original. *U T OPU BT XFMM LOPXO BT ,VSPTBXB T PUIFS FGGPSUT "OZ SFBTPO XIZ Well, while it’s not Kurosawa at his pinnacle of prowess, and Mifune is certainly a far throw from his groundbreaking, over- powering performance in Red Beard (ironically his final film with Kurosawa) Yojimbo nevertheless stands as a shining example of what such a perfect collaboration of actor and director can achieve. &EEJF )PXBSUI

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Film

Special Feature Millions

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How refreshing is it to a see a British film endorsed by the BBC? I found myself feeling quite patriotic in a time when most mainstream films seem to have the backing from one Hollywood company or another. Millions is the exciting tale of how two young brothers, Damian and Anthony, go about spending money after a fortunate discovery in the local fields. The problem is, they have only twelve days to spend the money as England is about to convert to the Euro - distressing I know. The performances of the youngsters played by Alex Etal and Lewis McGibbon far outshine their elder colleagues, given that the former have no previous experience. Their portrayal of childhood innocence constantly evokes sym- pathy in the audience for the loss of their mother. James Nesbitt, on the other hand, plays a typical widower: bitter and uncommunicative towards the children until coupled with Daisy Donovan (The 11 O’Clock Show), whose role as a charity worker is poorly executed. Damian’s sheer luck in finding such a vast sum enievi- tably leaves you pondering as to what you would do with the money. Damian doesn’t know what to do, and ends up giving away large sums to anyone who asks. Anthony is not so gullible. He finds himself having to watch his younger brother’s every move as he wants the money for a more personal gain. Despite close attentions from saints and a criminal, who originally stole the money, Damian and Anthony are finally caught out by their father. It then becomes a race

to deposit the money into the bank in an inconspicuous manner before the Euro deadline comes into place. Whilst you may be thinking that this is just an extended children’s programme, it does appeal to a more mature audience. For example, a nun smoking a spliff doesn’t only come across as being comical but also more relevant to adults - you would hope. The special effects also create a more sophisticated appeal along with the constant reli- gious and political references. The editing is a trademark of Danny Boyle who employed the same techniques in his

previous major work, Trainspotting. Millions is certainly a ﬁlm to be watched over the festive period as it illustrates generosity and good will. The kind hearted, good natured attitudes of the young brothers is the deﬁning feature of the narrative. The ending is cheesy but this should not affect your decision to watch it. It portrays lots of qualities relevant to all ages, which makes it certainly one for all the family. 4FBO 0 4IFB

DVD Releases )PMJEBZ *OO %JS .BSL 4BOESJDI 3FMFBTFE CZ 6OJWFSTBM 1*DUVSFT Okay, it’s saccharine and twee to the extreme, but Holiday Inn remains pure, unalloyed joy. It’s impossible to talk about highlights: from Astaire’s stunning ‘ﬁrecracker’ sequence, to Cros- by’s sublime ‘White Christmas’, the simple story of friendship and showbiz is a delight. The eponymous seasonal getaway is depicted in sets all too absent in today’s Hollywood, and contemporary stars can’t hold a candle to the calibre on offer here. It’s telling that the only insincere moment is a patriotic montage depicting American military action. This brand of pro-American propaganda can only feel ironic in today’s political climate, but in context such complaints are minor. This special edition includes a comprehensive range of extras, so all together now! – “May your days be merry and bright!” 3JDIBSE #PBLFT

$IBSMJF BOE UIF $IPDPMBUF 'BDUPSZ %JS 5JN #VSUPO 3FMFBTFE CZ 8BSOFS )PNF 7JEFP It’s a story that needs no introduction, and for those you who felt the 1971 Gene Wilder version lacked Roald Dahl’s imagination and acid wit, Tim Burton delivers a movie that is not only rich and magniﬁcent in creative vision, but one that will pull at the heart strings of even the most cynical viewer. The sets are surreal, lush with vibrant colours yet distinctively Burton, blending in the gothic and pop art styles to create an enticing yet sinister atmosphere for the visually stunning chocolate factory. Freddie Highmore is adorable as Charlie, and the Bucket family bring warmth to the otherwise cold re- lationships in the movie. The children appear almost to have been picked off the page from Quentin Blake’s illustrations and are sufﬁciently bratish to deserve their comeuppances. Johnny Depp is brilliant with his hilarious yet deeply disturbed portrayal of Willy Wonka. A simply scrumptious movie. /BUBTIB ,VOEBJLFS

.S .ST 4NJUI %JS %PVH -JNBO 3FMFBTFE CZ UI $FOUVSZ 'PY )PNF &OUFSUBJONFOU 'FTUJWBM %JS "OOJF (SJGmUI Not to be confused with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1941 comedy, 3FMFBTFE CZ 1BUIF %JTUSJCVUJPO -UE Doug Liman’s summer blockbuster sees Brad Pitt and Ange- lina Jolie as John and Jane Smith, a couple bored with married life, so much so that the film opens at a counselling session. The twist is that, unbeknown to each other, they are both assassins working for rival organizations. This is quite an amusing idea, but unfortunately it all breaks down after the first hour, when traditional action movie rules apply: nobody notices enormous explosions next door, and the police don’t exist. But Pitt and Jolie work well together, which is lucky con- sidering that there aren’t really any other characters. Anyone expecting a Bonnie and Clyde-style finale will be disappointed, but it’s good fun and certainly never boring. +BNFT #FSSJMM

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Annie Grifﬁn’s caustic ‘tribute’ to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and all its self-congratulating, narcissistic delusionals holds up well on another viewing. Not all of the large ensemble cast quite make the grade, but there are plenty of performances to cherish: Stephen Mangan’s childish, cosseted star comedian;; Lucy Punch’s ruthlessly ambitious aspiring stand- up. The unshowy, documentary-like tone and freewheeling narrative owe something to Robert Altman, although there’s little on show to compare to that director’s entertainment- event ensemble piece Nashville. Festival does win out on the outrageous gag front though, and the bawdy humour here is a bracing change of pace from most British TV comedy. 4FC .BOMFZ

Internet

Tap in to Tokyo Plastic

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he majority of the internet is a barren wasteland. There is endless space, and not even tangible space, resting in the wings of every page we visit. Oftentimes an innocent surfer will take a wrong turn and be timed out;; their cursor will drop off the edge of the cyber world into a chasm of white nothingness. It is at these times when we realize what an uninviting and ownerless entity the internet can be. Word after page and page after word, it is those moments when something truly different and stand alone enters the frame that the true majesty and scope the internet offers, not just as a media but as an artistic outlet, is revealed. Tokyo Plastic embraces the blanched infinity of the internet, yet is a rare joy to visit. It is a little bubble, all its elements working in sync and entirely separately from the dirge surrounding it. The viewers’ every click is met by a series of reactions within the pages. Rather than make a chore of navigating the site, Tokyo Plastic builds in short animated sequences that lead from one page to the next. Red dots blink, little dollies wobble, then nod and are engulfed by an oscillating ball of teeth and tentacles. After a few minutes on the site, it becomes second nature to dart your eye to each corner of the screen, looking for clues as to where the next wiggly surprise might slither from or to. Sadly, the site is a world apart from most others, and this is reflected in the number of high-profile projects its creators have been involved in and the awards various parts of the site have won. The same minds that conceived Tokyo Plastic also created adverts for MSN Search, Honda and MTV all of which can be viewed on the site. Despite

how prolific and idiosyncratic the work of the site’s creators is, they remain somewhat elusive. They refer to themselves as DC and LJ, but otherwise stay as anonymous as superheroes, only eager to promote their artwork and its achievements. One short film, Opera Dude, won the audience award at the Sundance Online Film Festival in 2004. It is just one of many fully formed short animated sequences (as opposed to the amusing tit bits Tokyo Plastic litters itself with), all of which are worthy of individual praise separate from the site. The films all share some common ground, being built around anime style figures and invasive but simple percussion, childlike and inviting. It is these characters that help to tie the site together, like the work of an auteur gathered into a portfolio. Underlying the pretty things on Tokyo Plastic is the occasional gnarled, black leg/arm or robotic creation, reminiscent of Chris Cunningham’s work and just as disturbing. These figures are far more united with the work exhibited by Tokyo Plastic in New York, giant Transformer style robots splattered with what appear to be red blood

stains. From the images on the site, these ﬁgures seem huge and are undeniably scary, forming an intriguing counter to the cutesier images. Much like the way the worthiness of the site’s animation belies the fact that its simply a functional website. Ultimately Tokyo Plastic is unlikely to

change the face of the internet. Its attention to detail and effortless ﬂare invest in the artistic and unlimited nature of the internet, but it seems to be an investment few others are willing to make. XXX UPLZPQMBTUJD DPN

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