The event- issue 104- 3rd November 1999

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contents: ~Du®[Ju ©O:Ou~B 04

how to be ... a thespian

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chop it off: does censorship damage the arts?

05

small talk: rob lockwood

06 07 08 09 10 11

fourceful: the unstoppable rise of film four kazuro ishiguro: writer son of uea returns fierce creatures: super furry animals interviewed stay at home: the internet shopping revolution shack + my life story the ad man: writer and film publicist christopher fowler interviewed square eyes: the event endures 15 hours of non stop.. televison

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ocru~ rp@©u@cg] 8 14

music: sfa live, mogwai, pet shop boys, primal scream, basement jaxx, squarepusher, ian brown, supergrass, merz

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film: the winslow boy, sixth sense, carrie two

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arts: hard shoulder, col/ege.com, babe/ anthology, asylum & one to another exhibitions

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video ..... game: rogue spear, eric clapton, spawn

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bands on the net inspected

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television: soaps, music of the millenium, cops, legends of the fall, eleven o'clock show cinema: your guide to whats on the big screen listings: the comprehensive guide to all that's happening in norwich over the next two weeks plus blair witch and carling premier competitions

editor-in-chief: james tapsfield editor: Iuke turner arts editor: alex mcgregor music editor: darcy hurford screen editor: adam chapman listings: alex copy editing: ciaire saunders photos: martin bailey for SUP,er furry animals, mark edwards dtp: Iuke turner, carollne jeater, mark edwards contributing writers: james goffln, astrid goldsmith, katie holzwart, becky fielding, steve coillns , kris siefkin, martin brock, rachel poole, evan thomas , metin alsanjak, jenny mccan, william lakemaii, Iuke chllton, kylie norman, elln jones, sandra ison, michael cutts, marie rounsavell , ayo mansaray, rachel cooling, gemma catchpole , kate wenlock, melani davis, imogen dyckhoff, thanks to: tart and the slapper, pete large, clare for the tickler

the event is produced fortnightly by concrete: po box 410, norwich, nr4 7tb tel: 01603 250558 tax: 01603 506822 e-mail: su.concrete@uea.ac.uk and printed by: eastern counties newspapers, rouen road , norwich nr11rb

THE EVE.NT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEM.BER 03, 1999

WIN ! WIN! Wl Last week saw one of the most important events of the literary calender - the awarding of the prestigious Booker Prize, in the past won by the likes of UEA's very lan McEwan and Kazuo lshiguro (interviewed in this issue of the Event). This year the victor was JM Coetzee for his book disgrace, a tale-of love gone wrong and the frailties of personal relationships. In association with Random House Publishing The Event has three sexy hardback copies of the novel to give away. All you have to do is answer the following simple question: Who won the Booker Prize last year?

Answers in the Concrete competition box in the Hive

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oose talk: o the most spine crushingly depressing holiday season IS once again bearing down upon us, much like a drunkenly amourous William Hague surely bears down upon poor Fffffffion after a night of heavy dnnkmg and misplaced jingoism with John Redwood and Magg1e Thatcher. Of course I'm talk1ng about the pointless Hallowe'en and the painful Guy Fawkes N1ght. Guy Fawkes Night, Chnst in a cartoon. Do we have a Lee Harvey Oswald N1ght? Do we? Do people go to the basements of car parks on the November 22 each year shooting random passers by because they couldn't have possibly killed Kennedy either? Why stop at Guy Fawkes, what other pol1t1cal assass1ns could we celebrate? What about that guy who killed Anwar Sadat? Once a year we could all try to wreck the Middle East peace negotiations - mind you I think Robm Cook already does that.

The mam problem w1th Guy Fawkes N1ght IS that surely we give the Spa n1sh enough problems as it 1s rap1ng the1r coastal c1t1es each summer w1thout reminding them of th1s . Pause to cons1der the absurd1t1es of this please. We don't phone the Mayor of Salem each year to rem1nd him that h1s town murdered 19 1nnocent people 300 years ago under the susp1c1on of be1ng w1tches. Maybe we should, but we don't. I wonder 1f there's a way we could somehow comb1ne the summer's larg1ng of 1t w1th Guy Fawkes N1ght. We could, for example, at the end of the hol1day, wh1le party1ng for the last t1me 1n MannumiSSion. burn the DJ. That way we could get both "holidays" out of the way w1th 1n one fell swoop. And also we m1ght finally nd ourselves of Boy George.

S

I ask you this question, are there any single people who actually enJOY November 5? Standmg there 1n the mud, having to watch all your friends hug their

america: where the problems of society have been sold, where every child carries a briefcase, out of which to sell crack

shadows of cloaked figures movmg behind me I'm gomg to be preny scared . And the effort those kids have clearly gone to to ternfy me would thus deserve a treat. This way the children learn to earn their treats and as such would be more respons1ble With ll.

I can't believe that people want the UK celebrations of Hallowe'en to be increased to fit a more American model. That's a good 1dea. Amenca: where the problems of soc1ety have been solved.

Where old people stride confidently down the darkest alleyway and every child carnes a bnefcase. probably out of wh1ch to sell crack.

Can anybody else spot the Inherent contractions in the scale of America's celebrations for Hallowe'en?

For a one day a year parents encourage their ch ildren to dress up like ghouls and demons and walk around the streets late at night talking to strangers.

The other 364 days of the yea r these same children aren't even allowed to read Harry Potter books because these same parent believe it will turn their children into Satamsts. Just another example of the folk dev11 creat1ng, let's blame everything and everyone except ourselves, the soc1ety in which we ~ve.

A/ex McGregor

beloveds' for warmth wh1le you have to hug yourself. your nose runnmg like a haemoph1lliac who JUSt cut himself shav1ng, with the gradual realisation shin1ng m your mmd that as you look up at the underwhelming spectacle m the n1ght sky that, my God, even the Amencans do th1s sort of th1ng better than us.

At least there seems to be a po1nt to Guy Fawkes Night. Hallowe'en on the other hand makes as much sense as the mcreasmg populanty and longevity of Club Retro. These little bastards knock at your door and JUSt expect sweets and stuff for do1ng nothmg. Has anybody actually asked for a tnck 1nstead? I wonder 1f you d1d, would a f1ve yea r kid whip out a deck of cards or a wheel of death or' something? Surely 1t should be tnck and treat. If I'm s1tt1ng at home and suddenly the power's cut, I hear grotesque screams and moans and then I see

the tickler: NOTYAEDSUGNASPS ETCOBTFLMSTARDH V F VGEY I 0 F P RQE I P EXD i NOSAURSZHNR SRPBONSSDI IHTOO DOPEZAHRELOUOSD E L F AA L L0 A L L0 RA I HFAROYAURNDCBUG S HKLRDT F EGX Z ET Y RALOPIPOZONELNE QRBRRWRWCKACKOP WRN IMANUSTLHCTO U I PS L J 0 Q K H L U U Y·B FSEDNESDRAWOHAH GSTMDUEEYQVMCEY ho hum, it's mid term blues, but we've a thing to put a bounce in your shoes! bring a completed tickler to the concrete office and a whole world of literary delight could be opened for you. in association with random house the event has three fine books to give away - on the backstreet boys, five and ... wait for it ... ricky martin!

1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7:

Band get drunk in the Royal Albert Hall (13) To me, to you (7 ,8) He's got news for you! (5, 7) He lived in Jellowstone Park (4,4) Bonjour twice (4,4) Take a walk with them (9) Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson do E.M. Forster (7,3)

8: Crap band shoved into the garden 4,5) 9: Band of geniuses? (7) 10: Manic tidal wave (7) 11: Can you tell what it is yet? (4,6) 12: 03 or music programme (5) 13: Bob or Magic Roundabout character (5) 14: Gerard's got a big one (4) 15: __ Smugglaz, naughty muso's (4)

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THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY,NOVEMBER 03, 1999

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so you want to be a:

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~GD®~ ~ OCIDITU actors are great. thespians, on t he other hand , have long been regarded as posh flouncy idiots with too much time on t heir hands. want t o be one? here 's how ... what do they do?

Ponce about. They are the masters of poncmg. Typical mannerisms include limp wrists, extravagant hand movements to emphasise how important everything that comes out of their mouths is; pouting, minci ng walks, etc. They kiss on bot11 chee ks twice (" it's continenta l, daahling") and smoke menthols. Incessantly.

They are also big fans of putting visual "quotation marks" round all of the1r words when speaking. Oh yeah, and they attempt to act occasional ly. Pinter is a favourite ("Well , you know, he's just ... [long pause] the quintessential minimalist, one could say.") what do th ey wear?

There are two types of thesp: the Purists and the Wacky Ones. Purists usually only wear black (to blend with the interi or of the dra ma studio), although oa tmeal rollnecks go down a treat when going to the theatre.

The girls don 't wear makeup and never, ever, pluck their eyebrows. The Wacky Ones are all "totally, completely mad !!! " and dress accordingly. Stri ped leggings, yellow DMs, lots of hair (usually with pencils stuck th rough), purple dungarees, etc. And look, they're even so kerazy they even paint each nail a different colou r! where do they go?

They try to spend every waking hour in the drama studio or some rehearsal space (quite often the Hive) ... "creating". When not exhausting themselves wi th tortuous physical theatre, they enjoy visiting Cinema City to watch European Arthouse Films.

They do go to the pub occasionally, but only when ostentatiously clutching a copy of Sartre's collected wo rks.

And they all have life membership to Costa Coffee (because Starbucks is just oo commercial). wh ere wi ll they go?

To hell hopefully.. . for all their liberated posturing, they will grow up to be the most conservative , straight-laced suburbanites. They wi ll drive their brats to prep school in their Renaut Espaces and Range Rovers and go to Nice in the summer for their fa mi ly hols. Well , it's one kind of hell .. .

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1999

parents in south carolina are t rying to have the harry potter books banned on grounds of their 'harmful content'. katie holzwart asks if censorship of the arts can go too far ... eet Ha rry Potter, a likeable 11-yea r old who has been stirring up ' controversy in South Carolina. This endearing young hero of JK Rowling's wizardry novels has seen parents attempti ng to persuade the South Carolma Board of Education to review whether or not the children's novels are suitable for classroom use.

They clai m that the content promotes witchcraft , Satanism , and will create in chi ldren a cu riosity in the occul t. But overall they view the series as having "a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect and sheer evil. " In other words, Harry cou ld be on his way to join the long list of banned books.

With such strong opposition you might think that the British author's novels are ston es of chHdren ra ndomly picking victi ms to kill, but instea d it foll ows the story of an adventurous young man, our Harry Potter, an orphan who discovers that he is part of a long legacy of wizards. He attends Hogwarts School of WitChcraft and Wizardry and spends his days learning in school and participati ng in after school sports . (Where they of course play a form of lacrosse, only flying and with broomstiCks) In hiS JOurneys w1th his friends he realises h1s desti ny as a wizard, overcomes adversity and encounters

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right and wrong.

Despite the Sou th Caroli na parental disapproval, the series has beco me increasingly popular, with more than 8 million copies of the series sold, an d several parents have even attributed their children becoming avid readers to these novels. Last week, a ta lk Rowling gave in Washington DC was sold ou t as child ren and parents flocked to see her. The kids

harry potter: a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect and sheer evil hung on the bal conies and took pi ctu res w1ldly as if they were at a rock concert. But even with th is popularity some are still sceptica l about the possibility of Harry being a bad influence. So now what? Is this book going to be banned because 1t upsets a few parents? Well, the school board decided that the dec1s1on to elirn1nate the book from the South Carolma curnculum would be up to each local school county. But what might th is mean for Harry Potter and his huge follow1ng, w1ll he continue to be part of the classroom?

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Unfortunately, once ep1sode agam weof encounter another censorship vs The Arts.

Parents fear that these stones may give their children the wrong 1dea, and therefore the schools must be politically correct, and 1n turn ban the material. (Iron iCa lly that all th is hullabaloo comes from one of the last sta tes to still fly the Confederate flag m front of the1r state capitol) Nevertheless, more and more these days it seems that people are easy to jump on the bandwagon to ban or severely censor all forms of art. We are ridding our l1ves of hardcore pornography but along with that we sometimes lose classic novels , paintings, and plays to censorship . The establishment strives to mamta in a 'decen t' society, but consequently are creating a padded and sheltered society. I use the word "padd ing" because it seems as though we are afraid of what ....·~·'··"'""'"' certain forms of art might do to us, and therefore they are eliminated. Art should make us uncomforta ble and encourage the audience or reader to question

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small talk: rob lockwood the event: so you 're the marketing manager for the norwich arts centre, what does the job involve?

We try and put on something different every night of the week except Sundays when we're shut, and I publicise these events. I design the quarterly brochure, and get it out to the 8,000 people on our mailing list, and I'm duty manager once a week, which means being in charge of the building for the evening. I really love the writing, that's probably my favourite part of it, and designing posters.

how has the national lottery grant you recei ed affected the centre?

We used to run everything on a really basic level , quite amateurish, but now we've got a multi-media suite, with a couple of Apple Macs and PCs, internet stuff, and video editing; the resources we've got available now are fantastic .

themselves or their surroundings. But because we may never view or read those materials that spark controversy, I think we become less sensitive.

If we knew nothing of the Holocaust because 路all of the materials had been banned for fear that they might lead to extremist ideas, then how will would know when it is happening again?

We live in a society in which we are constantly bombarded with ideas so surely this should be renected in art, which in turn we can examine and increase our awareness of said society.

We are so fearful that a film may cause violence we ignore the fact that it more than likely will deter a violent action. Therefore, in this effort for decency we create the dull, mediocre and ignorant. I ask, where would I be without Catcher in the Rye, without the antics of Holden? Dead in a ditch.

Perhaps not literally but I would lack that small bit from Holden has infiuenced me.

H

owever, putting aside the ridiculousness of the Harry Potter situation, where does art really become offensive? Sensitivity to art is subjective, therefore how can we place regulations on something which has such a personal decision? lt cannot be done. There will never be a solution, this will continue to be a vicious circle. Then again, what about the idea (and it isn't that original) that we all have the right to choose whether or not to, for instance, to watch a film. For example, I liked the film American History X because it made me feel uncomfortable and it made me think, it was rough but I made it through. Whereas The Texas Chainsaw Massacre almost killed me and I am now too petrified ever go to Texas. But, despite the fact that

the establishment strives to mantain a 'decent' society, but consequently are creating a padded and sheltered society this film was gruesome I had the right to watch and I chose to, but, and here I stress my point, I did not have to.

We have ignored the fact that society has somewhat of an ability to chose whether or not to experience a bloody movie or listen to music with explicit lyrics.

However, I honestly believe that some material is too explicit and should not be available to children or even certain adults, but unfortunately there exists that grey area of censorship. But, I believe that in the grey area we are too quick to censor or mould something into a politically correct material. This is the category in which fall some of the classic infiuential novels, artists and musicians. Here I site an example of this "grey area."

The Brooklyn Art Museum is currently showing an exhibit entitled Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection. lt features the work of an up and coming artist, Chris Ofilia and his depictions of

is it becoming easier to attract acts to norwich as it's becoming better known?

Getting the bands isn 't a problem, it's the audience; there's a lot going on in Norwich with a relatively small audience. Norwich Arts Centre is getting a really good reputation, especially for folk, comedy and jazz; and we rely on enthusiastic people who are obsessed with alternative music to programme that kind of thing, and they put it on and we try and help as and when we can. The problem with pop bands is that they're either nothing and no-one has heard of them, or they're huge, so with our capacity of 250 we don 't really fit in - having said that though, we do get up and coming bands.

the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and pictures of genitalia cut from porn magazines.

Mayor of New York Rudolph Guilanni has adamantly condemned the exhibit as offensive and is on the verge of cutting all public funding to the museum.

Th is is its only viewing in the States, but it was extremely successful in Germany and Britain. Is this art offensive or provocative, has it crossed the line?

This takes on the form of a "grey area" censoring, in this instance there is no definitive answer. But, being as we are quick to jump on the bandwagon of censorship, more than likely the censors will win in some sort of way, and hey if they can't censor it well then why not just force the artist to compromise their work.

The act of censorship has been severely overused, in some instances it has become out of hand. But, what if we need to censor films or music to protect our children from acting in malicious ways? With the recent number of school and public shootings in America , perhaps it is wise to take a careful look at what we are feeding into the minds of our children.

I hail from the area of Colorado in which the Columbine High School shooting took place, and we are literally still devastated by the actions of that day.

This does bring up the fact that perhaps the entertainment industry has created a 'culture of violence', and children are desensitised by the infiux of violent films and song lyrics. Realistically speaking though, despite the fact that we have pinned down some of the cause of this problem, we haven't looked at another piece of the puzzle. Some argue that there does exist a filter between those films and etc. and children: their parents. But within the last few years there has been a noticeable breakdown in the parent-child relationship, children are expected and encouraged to be more independent at an earlier age.

The culprit: parents are having to put more hours in at the office and therefore spend less time parenting. Therefore we have less control over what child ren observe, be it from the increase in violent films or the decrease in parental supervision. But how do we truly know the cause of this recent escalation in aggressive teenage behaviour? Is it the violent films, parents' absence, or a more general, deep seated malaise within society itself?

Perhaps society ought to stop concentrating on eliminating the alleged causes and focus on dealing with the situation at hand. We have severely veered from the original goal of censorship; our targets have become those materials that are crucial in creating a level-headed young person. Unfortunately there is no easy way out, and I believe we are quick to censor because it is the most effortless solution.

Although there may be no easy answer do not despair; take comfort in the thought that as long as there are writers and artists like JK Rowling there will be more Harry Potters.

And finally, are you afraid of clowns?

How did you know that? I'm not afraid of clowns, but they are horrible; grown men shouldn't behave like that. The worst thing about them is that you know that under their red noses and silly hair they're grumpy old alcoholics who hate kids!

Becky Fielding

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路 THE EVENT,.. W~DNESDAY, NOVEMBER路03 , 1999

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film four is fast becoming a potent rival to the nasty hollywood behemoths that dominate our cinema screens. the company's forthcoming release, east is east is set to be another gem in already prolific pedigree. steve col/ins investigates the phenomenon ... etwork television at the close of the technological century seems to be having rather a rough time of it; forever accused of 'dumbing down' in the face of competitive threats from outer space and underground. The popularity of satellite and cable are, it is said, having an inversely proportional effect on the general quality of our viewing. lt is indeed hard to a argue that there isn't a d1sconcert1ngly large amount of identical, lowest common denominator budget programming (fly on the wall/house makeovers etc) that seems to seep

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smorgasbord of Hollywood-processed blockbusters

as any Iuddite without Satellite Will tell YOU' a good film On terrestial tV is an occasional rariety and myriad va riations on one marketable theme is a none too mouth-watering prospect.

as an art form rather than simply looking to up the ratings. Offering such delights as full widescreen format (where possible), no annoying ad breaks (the programmers actually credit you with an attention span over ten minutes) and in-depth documentaries/critical introductions to accompany certain films, the great British public can now see how good their own films are for a subscription fee roughly equivalent to renting a coup le of videos.

Also shown are the "best of modern independent film making from Europe and the US" , and generally loads of stuff that'll turn you into a super-cultured

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the whole beast looks set to make the Brit1sh film industry quite a bit healthier.

The latest production from the company comes in the form of Damien O'Donnel's acclaimed East is East released on British shores on November 5.

Essentially a tale of Anglo-Asian teenagers growing up in early '70's Manchester and their various attempts to break free of their father's restrictive Muslim orthodoxy, the movie is being sold as a "poignant, funny portrayal of the difficulties faced by mixed-race kids in Britain". Following the disappearance of eldest brother Nazir (lan Aspinall)

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the BBC, and surely anything that allows that woman off of You've Been Framed into your house without asking can't be very nice. But nowhere does the supposed 'dumbing down' of terrestrial te lly show itself more glaringly than in movie programming. As any Iuddite still not familiar with the wonders of satellite, cable and now digital TV will moan, any half-decent films on BBC and ITV are little more than occasional rarities which seldom interrupt the torture loop of wheel-em-out Bond films and tenth-repeat blockbusters.

In fact up until April of 1998, the only other alternative was satellite and cable giants such as Sky Premier and Moviemax - fine if mainstream cinema releases are all you're after, but for the more discerning cmeaste the standard

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At this pomt enters FilmFour, the alternative film channel from Channel Four dedicated to bringing you, the intelligent viewer, "the best in modern independent cinema" and generally providing an altogether more nourishing diet of foreign cinema , 'home-grown' talent and non-Hollywood fare usually overlooked by the major movie channels. Since its inauguration in April last year, the channel has strived to showcase a wide variety of 'alternative路 cinema, with a strong emphas1s on displaying film

and well clevah film person.

Yet the channel itself is only the public face of a multi-headed movie monster. Beginning in April last year, FilmFour's agenda was the amalgamation of all Channel Four's cinematic activities into one big daddy of a corporation; in the words of Chief executive Paul Webster, "a film studio 1n microcosm ... a British owned, Bntish financed company that controls all aspects of film product1on, d1stnbution and TV broadcast for all our ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~---.ti tles". Having inhented the illustrious back catalogue of predecessor Channel Four Productions (Trainspotting. Madness of King George, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Martha meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence -

plus hundreds more).

F1lmFour looks like 1t's got a fair bit to live up to. But a brief look at what's in the p1pelme ra1ses hopes for the station's future; cult director Kev1n Smith's follow-up to Chasing Amy, the long awa1ted Dogma is set to go under the Film Four banner, as are David Lynch's Straight Story and A Taste of Sunshine,

wherein Ralph Fiennes gets to look a b1t dashing. All promising stuff, and considering the greater marketing force available to the newly-expanded and restructured company,

THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1 999

escape marrying a woman of his father's cho1ce, younger brother Sajid (Jordan Routledge) decides to take suite and rebel against the future of arranged marriages and chip shop work which his dad George (Om Puri) has planned out for him. Writer Ayub Khan Din's story has already been nominated as Best Original Screenplay in the British Independent Film Awards, with its carefully handled balance between drama and comedy winning over audiences at the

You get the best of modern independent films from europe and america Cannes, Montreal and Toronto film festivals, whilst fledgl ing director Damien o路 Donnel (responsible for 1995's cn\lca lly lauded school drama short, 35 Aside) has also been nommated for Best Director in the Hickox awards. As 1t is, East is East couldn't be under a more capable wing, with the importance of Channel Four's place in British filmmaking having been established since the station's launch m 1982, and still contimung to grow. According to the company's b1gger cheeses, the overall Intention seems to be making a dent m Hollywood: "Our restructunng w1ll enable us to bu1ld strategic mternational alliances that w111ensure the films we finance are marketed and distnbuted world-wide in the most effective and efficient way".

Overall, FilmFour IS a company learnmg the lessons of 1ts predecessor. The British film mdustry, brought up on a traditionally British character-forming d1et of Hollywood flops which has been occasionally permeated w1th some truly great films, IS one which has found it's 1dent1ty, and its main selling point, 1n a general notion of 'quality not quantity'. As such East is East could not really have picked a better t1me to be released; FilmFour is a company which has seen 'Brit flicks' through an abnormally protracted adolescence into a fairly healthy, wellrounded 1ndustry which occasionally manages to embarrass the pec-fiex1ng, block-busting Goliath that is Hollywood by making films that are really rather good, old chap. Who says size matters?

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~event)

you might not be able to pronounce his name, but kazuo ishiguro is one of the finest writers produced by uea's acclaimed ma in creative writing. with a film adaptation of novel remains of the day under his belt, ishiguro returned to uea and had a quiet chat with kris siefkin...

T

wenty years ago a quiet, self-assured student came to UEA to join one of the first ever MA's in Creative Writing. Twenty four years old at the time, born in Japan but raised in Britain, he studiously spent the summer prior to arrival writing short stories. As he says of that time, "I'd never taken writing seriously before and I was aware that I'd be surrounded by serious writers on the MA, so I rented a cottage in Cornwall during the summer. lt was there that I wrote much of the work I presented whilst I was on the MA." By the end of his MA this same student had signed a publication deal with Faber and Faber for his first novel , A Pale View of Hills : the book he was already writing whilst still a UEA student.

Twenty years have since passed and that former student, Kazuo lshiguro, is now one of Britain 's most respected authors. In the intervening years lshiguro has already had more success than most novelists experience in their whole careers. He has twice been nominated for the Booker Prize - winning it once for his novel The Remains of the Day (since made into a movie with Sir Anthony Hopkins) - has

we had to write differently to what was happening in contemporary fiction at that point won the Whitbread Prize for An Artist of the Roating World, and has developed an equally impressive reputation of being notoriously shy about giving interviews. Yet on only his second trip back to Norwich in twenty years I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of the man behind the novels.

Whilst it might be true that lshiguro displays a certain reticence about agreeing to interviews, during the interviews themselves he is a remarkably open and generous subject. What should have been a forty-five minute chat became fifty minutes, fiftyfive minutes, an hour and was ultimately only brought to a close by his prior engagement elsewhere. So what, then, did the impeccably neat lshiguro have to say about the direction his writing career has taken over the last twenty years?

"When I came to UEA in 1979.. .one of the th ings which steadily emerged amongst us, perhaps prompted by Malcolm Bradbury, who was

what happens when control and precision in the character's lives goes to far. They're about how difficult it is to know what a good life is, how you have to discover life, challenge conventions." And he admits that this is not always easy for his readers. As he says about his most challenging novel The Unconsoled : " Unconsoled is a difficult

generation tried to use history as a backdrop. We the course at that time, was a feeling that we had felt the need to go back in time to find settings to write differently to what was happening in when the world was still in turmoil. " However, unlike contemporary fiction up to that point. We all came many of his contemporaries, with that idea very clearly in out lshiguro is not afraid to voice heads. And I think there was a very strong feeling, which his concerns about his looking back was perhaps slightly unfair... , that a lot of the writers who'd been very well regarded in the Seventies were very provincial, very English writers. lt would be unfair to name them but there were several writers who were held this awareness, this up as an example of the 'consciousness' of what he is accusation that English writing that sets lshiguro's was pre-occupied with things apart from many of his like class, and examining English society.· lshiguro continued, "The accusation was that the writing tended to be about middle class preoccupations and nv~•rwhPimir1111v concerned in terms of plot with affairs in the media. Whether we liked it or not we all operated under the assumption, at that time, that we had to - ;;..r.-..___________...__. lshiguro spent twice as long make our writing more international. Nobody quite knew what that meant.. .But it wasn 't just something that was happening here at UEA. When I went to London and got involved with the publishing scene then it was definitely what was going down at the time, but I kind of think we've come through that now.· When I asked if he felt that having been brought up in two cultures had helped produce th is 'international flavou r' to his writing, or whether he had felt any kind of disjuncture growing up Japanese in Britain, lshiguro explained that he felt there was an important balance between these two aspects of his life.

"Being five when I came to England 1 probably didn't feel any disjuncture, any change, so for me it was not that difficult. Though looking back it must have been quite odd because my parents always expected to go back. In that sense we were still Japanese, but because I was so young when we left, Japan itself was just the house where I grew up ... that was all I could remember of Japan. A part of me will always be Japanese .. . because I was brought up Japanese, in a Japanese family ... but th is was also with in a British context.·

it's always worried me; that use of history, that easy borrowing of seriousness book. I sympathise with readers because it doesn't work in the usual way."

There is a certain dramatic tension therefore between lshiguro the easy conversationalist, sat before me neatly dressed in his trademark black suit, black T-shirt, polished black shoes and lshiguro the technical novelist, who challenges the reader to examine what they see, what they read and sometimes even how they read. But perhaps this is lshiguro's very appeal: his ability to challenge literature and take it in new directions whilst still seemingly operating within literary conventions.

Maybe then, on reflection, there isn't such a tension there: after all there can't be many writers who can wear a T-shirt with a suit and still manage to appear impeccably dressed .

researching The Remains of the Day as writing it, for lshiguro his novels are about precision and control, but in a totally different way: "My books are about

shiguro's first novel A Pale View of Hills is set in Japan but, as he explained , "though I don 't usually acknowledge this, A Pale View of Hills was originally set in Cornwall in the 1970's. I only transplanted it to an earlier Japanese setting later because I thought it would give it an extra resonance.

Yet, as he freely admits, lshiguro's feelings about th is process are more than a little mixed , "part of the reason for writing was to preserve those memories of Japan and the thought that they were about profound things.

As I got older I worried that the memories were fading, but I've always felt slightly guilty about my use of history. I think it's a part of writers of my age. Because we were bom into relative stability after WWII my

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the pixies what's the big fuss then?

The name might make you think of a load of elves gaily skipping around a toadstool, but only if you spent too much time as a Brownie Guide. The Pixies were the leading lights of alternative rock back in the days when alternative meant alternative. They had strange and wonderful lyrics, lots of guitar, and a mesmerising front man in Black Francis. Nirvana worshipped at their altar, as a comparison of Nevermind with Death To The Pixies wil l reveal.

best of times, so does Gruff think that Super Furry Animals suffer from being 'different'?

He muses for some time, as indeed he does quite a lot during the interview. Talking to Gruff gives you the sort of feeling African tribesmen probably had when they consulted the village wise man. You ask the question, wait with baited breath for what feels like ages, and, sure enough, the answer emerges, rather slowly, almost inaudible, but still pretty damn clever. In Britain, Gruff reckons, we have "a pecu liar situation, where the press dominates opinion so much ."

Guerilla, the Super Furry Animals ' third 'proper' album, was released earlier this year to immense critical acclaim. More experimental than Fuzzy Logic, catchier than Radiator, it also proved that no, this band had still not run out of ideas, musical or otherwise. As albums go, Guerilla is fairly optimistic, something which Gruff says was done deliberately.

Vocals were generally contributed by Black Francis, a rotund chi ld frightener with a powerfu l set of lungs whose real name was, rather more prosaically, Charles Thompson. He also wrote virtua lly all the Pixies' material and played the guitar. Sometimes though, bassist Kim Deal did a bit of singing, the results including Gigantic. Joey Santiago played the gu1tar, and David Levering drummed. sold a few records then?

Hmm. The Pixies· most successful release is probably the 1997 best-of compilation, the charmingly entitled Death To The Pixies. Otherwise, their records have only been bought by a minority, usually the minority which goes on to form more bands, Kurt Cobain being a prime example. which is best?

did they have a lyrical obsession with blood and guts?

You could say that. Debase sees Francis singing about "slicing up eyeballs", Gouge Away is based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah where Samson gets his eyes gouged out, nice really; and Monkey Gone To Heaven features someone being "killed by ten million pounds of sludge" which is surely not a pleasant way to go.

forget dullards like the stereophonics, it's the super furry animals who are at the innovative cutting edge of the welsh musical explosion. darcy hurford attempts to get some sense from interplanetary traveller and furry frontman gruff rhys .. .

so, what does the future hold?

The likelihood of the Pixies reforming seems small.

Displeased at their failure to become successful, Black Francis left, changed his name to - wa it for it - Frank Black, and still fai led to become successful.

Drummer David Lovering achieved brief fame in the band Cracker. The greatest success story, however, goes to Kim Deal , who, after relative obscurity as a Pixie achieved fame, fortune and a bit of MTV rotation as a member of the Breeders and later, the Amps. in retrospect.-"if man is five, then the Devil is six, and if the Devil is six THEN GOD IS SEVEN!"

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who did what?

1991's Trompe Le Monde is probably their best album - it was also their last, as they split up soon afterwards. Death To The Pixies is an ideal introduction to the band though, contain ing all you need to develop into a fully-fledged Pixies fan.

~event)

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uper Furry Animals. Super Furry Animals . A name to make all sorts of images pop up in the mind, none of them musical. A hamster with clairvoyant powers might be a super furry animal, so might a cat that saved its owner's life. The Littlest Hobo was definitely super, furry, and an animal. But a band responsible for some of the most exciting, most imaginative, most runningaround-with-a-mile-wide-grin music being made at the moment? Not th e most obvious of names, to be honest.

As the band's singer, Gruff Rhys is keen to put the blame on someone else, more specifically, fellow band member Daffydd "lt was Daffydd's idea really," he says, with the quiet, slightly hesitant voice of a man whose mind is slightly ... elsewhere. "He told this girl in a pub that that was our name, up until then we didn't have one. Then she got 50 T-shi rts printed up with the name on. When we played our next gig, there were all these women there wearing T-shirts with 'Super Funy Animals ' on them . And we thought that meant we'd got too famous to change our name ."

Unfortunately, the combination of amusing name, Welsh nationa lity, and a well-documented proclivity towards il licit substances seems to have given the Super Furries a reputation for being a bit, well, wacky, at least in the eyes of Britain ·s music press, for whom it's all a bit too much. They admit to taking drugs! They write songs about mobile phones and use calypso drums! And, they're from Wales!

Oh my God , they must be away with the psychedelic faeries or something! "it's lazy really", comments Gruff. it's easy to see why, after having always tried to make music that elevates itself above most other bands' releases by dint of actually having ideas behind it, it's annoying for the Super Furry Anima ls to be dismissed with the view that they just take too many drugs. Britain, and certainly England, tends to be quite insular at the

THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1 999

i think people with engl ish as a second language can really bring something different to lyrics "We recorded 25 songs and selected the most. .. shiny songs for the album. Guerilla's a jukebox album, a collection of your favourite singles.

The lyrics on the next English album will probably be heavier." it's not just vacuous pop, mind you. In fact, you might even be able to consider Guerilla as - gasp- a concept album! The alien on the cover, by the way, is called Pie and he's a 'God of Communication'.

Just thought you should know ...

"Guerilla's about themes of communication, phones and things" adds Gruff. "The lyrics are quite flippant." lt sounds a bit more menacing though, not only from the title, but also because of the little sentence on the back of the cover- 'NON VIO LENT DIRECT ACTION', which does give the impression it's all aimed at someone. But evil people the world over can relax, 'cos it's not. Well, not rea lly...

"The name Guerilla was conceived as a cheap pun on 'Super Furry Animals', just a crass pun. 'Non violent direct action' was just to make sure no one read any violent connotations into the title" And , with a small smile; "If you are going to campaign against anything, then non violent direct action 's the best way of doing it."

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here's also a Welsh-language album, called Mwn, due out next year, meaning we can expect two Super Furry albums in 2000. Mwn is, according to Gruff, "downbeat with sunny intervals", and takes a step away from the electronic, quasi-dance influences of Guerilla; "The next album's total ly non-digital. We recorded it in 12 days, just a band playing together".

Given that, as a band, the Super Furry Animals are completely bilingual, it does seem surprising that they make relatively few Welsh-language recordings.

True, the B-sides compilation Out Spaced featured several Welsh tracks, like Arnolfio and Dim Bendith, but, compared to bands in a similar situation, Stereolab say, who divide their material fairly evenly between French and English, the lack of occasional mother tongue is interesting. Apparently, the reason is simple. "I sang in Welsh for 10 years before this band", sighs Gruff wearily. "I exhausted all my ideas."

Which is not to say that you have to be a native speaker to write good lyrics, as Gruff points out; "I think people with English as a second language can

really bring something different to lyrics. Like Bji.irk translates Icelandic idioms into English and creates something new. Then you get Ace of Base, who probably can 't speak English ... and don't care ."

The point being that Ace of Base exemplify the extraordinary success of bland lyrics about nothing in particular that al l too many groups achieve. As you'd expect from a man whose debut Creation single was about the supposed kidnapping by aliens of a French market trader in the 1970's, Gruff is rather disparaging about certain Mancunian bands with sibling rivalry problems; "Some people feel some kind of duty to recycle the rock & roll of the Fifties", he murmurs; "hip-hoppers compete to find new words, new ways of saying things."

Talking to Gruff, you get the impression that lyrics are an integral part of the songs, rather than something to be tagged on at the end. Maybe that 's why he has a lot of respect for a band who have taken a slagging or two for their recent recordings; the Manic Street Preachers.

"They're an interesting band" opines Gruff. "I like the lyrics. They've created a climate where it's alright to use long words in pop and read books."

Wh ich is something to be grateful for in the face of check shirt wearing, Loaded 'reading' primates and primatesses here, there and everywhere. If the Super Furry Animals didn't exist, the charts would be a much harsher, more boring place. The name may be slightly unwise, but there's no faulting anything else.

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~event)

waiting for the day when norwich city centre ·turns into a ghost town? Well it might be a few years away yet, but as james goffin explains cyber shopping could soon take over the need to trawl the city for clothes, food or cd's as it all becomes available at the click of a button ... b~ok web serv1ces based in the UK, IS now owned

by WHSmith. Normally regarded as one of the sleepiest monoliths on the high street, its CDParadise and Internet Bookshop sites are two of the best sites to visit if you want that Japanese-only CD release , or a book that your local shop ins1sts IS out of print. The sites aren't the cheapest or fastest, and charge extra for delivery, but do carry a large enough range to make them worthy of a visit.

For books, though, the best choice remains Amazon. Through it's UK s1te, you can get practically any book that has ever been published, normally w1th at least 20 per cen t off the bookshop price.

Although you have to pay postage costs on top of that, you can still make substantial savings on course books 1f you buy three or four books at a time - and for popular titles you can get delivery w1thm a few days, or a couple of weeks for rarer books.

H1gh Street shops are also qu1ckly sett1ng up their own competing s1tes, and m1ght soon bnng to an end the weekly student ritual of a corndor trip to Tescos. The food g1ant has JUSt caught up w1th frozen food specialist Iceland 1n offenng grocery shopp1ng from home, mean1ng that you no longer need to suffer the embarrassmen t of queu1ng up at the checkout w1th a trolley full of beer and economy new potatoes. For a delivery charge of £5 per order, the supermarket w111 pack up your order and bring 1n round to your house at a t1me you spec1fy - which could be much cheaper and eas1er than arrang1ng tax1s for a house of students to get to the shops. At Iceland, del1very IS free providing you spend over

Woolworths, Dixons and WHSmiths, as well as banking serv1ces from HSBC and Abbey NatiOnal. lt may not be quite what Howa rd expected, but the future of shopping is here. And your'e on your own.

you might run the risk of evil glances from rabid third years struggiing to finish thier essays while you decide between ordering frosties or coco pops Shopping tips: _ - Never send your credit or debit ca rd details by e mail. Only use secure webpages (called SSL). indicated by a key or padlock on the screen.

- If you 're wo rried about sending credit card details over the internet, ask if you can do it by phone or send a cheque. . Stick to companies you 've heard of. lt's easy to set up a webpage, so if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

- Look out for hidden postage costs , and currency conversion costs if you 're ordering from overseas sites.

£40.

t's the kind of thing that always got Howard Stableford excited - every year on Tomorrow 's World, the che rub-faced presenter would tell us how in the futu re we would have fridges that ordered food themselves, we would be able to shop through our televisions, and never have to leave our houses unless we rea lly felt like being sociable.

Well now, thanks to the wonders of the internet, that technological holy grail of agoraphobic is here ..

No more do you have to brave the evil stares of local shoppers on St Stephen's Street as you fight with wizened old women for a place on the bus back to campus. No more do you have to search frantically through you r pockets for you r fina l pieces of silver at the supermarket checkout, as the secu rity guard hovers ominously by. All you have to do now is start up your browser and the shopping world is your oyster.

As with most of these things, 1t started in America.

Just as the internet was taking off, a small website popped up called , bizarrely, Amazon, that sold books over cyberspace to anyone wi lling to fl ash a credit card at them . The clever bit, though, and the bit that makes internet shopping perfect fo r students, was that they were knocking off paperbacks at vastly discounted prices, at up to half the price of a traditional shop.

By setting up links with publishers, Amazon was able to offer a range of books so great that your local Waterstones wou ld collapse under the weight, but 'without actually having to hold any of them in stock, making it a ridiculously cheap business to run.

Thanks to the widespread availability of cheap internet access in the States, Amazon became vastly profitable as booklovers from across the continent ordered books ranging from airport bestseller trash to rare academic titles, and finding them much more easily available than via their local waspish shop assistant.

But books aren't the only things you can buy on the

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internet. Everything from music to clothes to cars is now up for grabs if you surf on the to right site and

everything from music to clothes to cars is now up for grabs if you surf on the right site and they like the colour of your plastic they like the colour of your plastic - and what's more, it's now also available on this side of the Atlantic.

As well as a British version of Amazon , a number of UK companies have gone live with web shopping sites over the last year. One of the most versatile and successful is Streets Online, who have a series of on li ne shops se lling COs, videos and computer games much cheaper than in high street stores.

Audiostreet is their centra l site, flogging off chart COs at around a tenner with free delivery in the UK. Compare that to a £15 price tag on the high street, and the benefits of spending your student loan on the internet become quickly obvious. What's more, thanks to the rapidly expanding number of competitors, a healthy loyalty scheme means that after buymg only a few albums, you can collect enough points to claim a free CD. But this generosity comes at a price; Audiostreet, and its re lated video and games sites, limit themselves to mainstream titles, using contracts with dominant international publishers to keep service time and costs down . If you 're looking for an obscure album, or a 7' single from a couple of yea rs ago, you won't find it here .

Surprisingly, one of the best stocked audio and

Innovations like these are supposed to mean that you have to spend less time and money shopping, and more time enjoying yourself, but for most students they still entail the ugly prospect of descending amongst the geeks to the Computing Centre labs, not many people's idea of enjoyment.

Even in the more pleasant surroundings of the library, you still run the risk of evil glances from rabid third years struggling to fin ish their essays while you deal with the •!.'i'"'~ trickier question of whether to buy Frosties or Coco Pops.

The answer is to do away with those nasty computers, and get to grips with a much friendlier prospect: shopping on the telly. Just launched on satellite tv, and following soon on cable and digital terrestial telly, the big stores are gearing up to sell to you via the goggle box.

Already available on Sky are online stores from

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WEBSITES Amazon UK · www.amazon.co.uk Audiostreet COs · www.audiostreet.com HMV · www.hmv.co.uk Iceland · www.icelandfreeshop.co.uk Tesco · www.tesco.co.uk WHSmith Online · www.cdparadise.com WHSmith Online · www.bookshop.co.uk

WEDNESDAY,

NOVEMBE~

03, 1999

~event) they're regarded as one of 'Iiverpooi 's finest products though admittedly cast don 't offer much competition. martin brock chats to shack ...

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he head is the most prominent part of the body, sitting on the shoulders, above everything else. And Michael Head from Shack stands head and shoulders above anyone else mak1ng music at the moment. A recent NME cover labelled him as 'Britain's Greatest Songwriter'. How does he react to this? "I am, I'm not particularly bothered about anyone else. You have to believe in yourself. I just write songs, good songs." But can anyone match this incredible abil ity? "I look up to my brother, he's as good as me if not better. He's shyer and is finding his feet." Like Oasis, Shack have two brothers involved. Mick sings, John plays guitar. However, unlike the Mancunians, they are not just a two man band-. "When I write a song, I do 1t on the

you have to believe in yourself. i just write songs, good songs acoustic. I chose the bass player and drummer and I chose them well. I can trust them to mess around With my ideas. The two best drummers are ours [lain Templeton] and Ringo Starr.

He knows exactly what I want, it's not hard work in the rehearsal room ."

You wonder how such a fantastic line up came together ...

"We had four drummers come down, but straight away w1th lain we knew that we were meant to be. He suggested the bass player [Ren Pany]. and, after a couple of minutes, we gelled. 75 to 80 per cent of bemg in a band is gettmg on." Shack have been going for a good few years now and Michael Head for even longer.

His first band was The Pale Fountains, formed after he and friends qu1t their dead end jobs to become mus1c1ans. The Strands and a solo career then came in-between 1991's Waterpistol and th1s year's HMS Fable. With this continued disappeanng I reappeanng act, is it a constant battle to prove themselves? "I don 't feel I have to prove myself to anyone. it's down to people to come and find us. Personally, I get great

satisfaction from someone coming up to me saying that they heard some of our stuff and that it's great!" The band's first album, 1988's Zilch was "artistical ly killed" by the production of lan Broudie, now singer in the Lightening Seeds. How have things evolved over the years?

"We're just more positive with ourselves and we've grabbed a tighter hold on the reins. We're going to be more in control now."

Mick is an extremely amiable man, but you sense that he doesn't take any nonsense from people. An example is with Th e Liverpool Echo, who wrote a nasty piece about him after he m1ssed an interview. "lt had me saying that people from Everton are bitter, twisted and cynical. I mean, I was born in Everton!"

And yet he's a fan of Liverpool FC ...

"Me Mam was a Catholic, my father a Protestant. She chose the religion, he chose the football team. I think they're doing well after all the pre-season problems. The players who've come in to take key positions are doing well. I had a season ticket, but gave it to my sister as I don't really get time to watch nowadays."

One of the reasons for this is that Shack are currently on tour with Bet~ Orton. The tour's going well though. "it's hectic" says Mick. "Good Queen Beth, she's chosen her musicians well. We 're qu1te susceptible to doing people's heads in, but it's going good. " A big fan of psychedelic music, Mick lists the greatest moment of his career as playing acoustic gu1tar onstage with Arthur Lee of Love. His favourite current band is the Super Furry Animals and he says there's some good stuff coming from Liverpool to watch out for. Even if it's not his cup of tea, he respects what people are doing, "unless it's obvious they're just there to make dough."

Mick ends the interview with some personal philosophy. "My brain wouldn't allow my mouth to let anything out that wasn 't good. So I know it's good and if anyone else does, that's fantastic!" He checks up on his newly shaved mohican before he leaves. it's not qu1te even so Ren'll sort it out, then it'll be perfect for tonight. Just like the music? Check 1t out and see .. .

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they 've ditched the strings and spangly suits for a more refined sound, but will it deflect the criticism? rachel poole spoke to jake shillingford and paul siepel of my life story before their recent waterfront gig ... fter an absence of nearly two years, My Life Story are back with a new image, new single and their third album on the way. MLS, hailing from Southend-on-Sea (not exactly th e first place you'd relate to glam pop!), formed in 1993, their debut album Mornington Crescent being released in 1994. lt was their second album The Golden Mile which won the band wider recognition not all of which was positive. Best known for their

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my life story have always done the opposite of what everyone else does and now everybody has a string section s1ngles Twelve Reasons Why, Sparkle and Strumpet, My L1fe Story encapsulated all that was glamorous and glittery. They were a 13 piece punk/pop orchestra who dared to be different. Nowadays they've decreased to the four original members: Jake Shillingford (lead vocals and guitar), Paul 'The Crow' Siepel (bass), Danny Turner (synthesisers) and Simon Wray (drums).

There has been a "strip down on sound", claims Jake, mostly because "the string players were off doing other stuff so it was a natural th ing just to go back to basics." Nowadays everyone fro m Westli fe to the Manics use a string section, yet MLS were considered unusual in the mid -1990's using such a diverse range of instruments to create pop music.

As Jake explains, "We're a band with our own ideas and our own manifesto. MLS have always done the opposite of what everyone else does and now everybody has a string sect1on."

When writing the new album the band spent a lot of time listening to the records they bought when they were kids, and this has had an influence on the style of songs they came up with . Jake uses Walk Don't Walk as an example: "it's a tribute to people like Th e Temptations and AI Green - those really honest, great pop songs. We were just writing honest, basic stuff." Paul explains how the first two¡ albums were largely about escapism and were a send up of the glamorisation and commerc1a l1 sat10n of the industry. However, with this album they "didn't want to do anything with frills on it", he explains.

That applies to their image as well. Jake has discarded his sparkling silver suits for jeans and tight T-shirt, and h1s once trademark kiss curl ha1r IS now longer and shaggier. Yet even with this new understated image, Jake continues to ooze pizzazz.

The new single Empire Line was released on October 18. Like all MLS songs it has to be mocking somethmg and th1s time it's the "false glamour" of the modelling industry. Jake 's enthusiasm about this song is obvious and he even goes as far to say "lt genuinely is my favourite MLS single. it's got all our trademarks plus the new things we're bri nging in.

This song is a great signal for what the album to come will sound like."

Any M LS fan could not help but not1ce that the band appears to have a fascination with the colour emerald green . lt appears as a b-side on about 70 per cent of the singles s1nce Sparkle. Although the • onginal song Emerald Green was a "legitimate" song it has now turned into "a sort of competition " to see

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THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1999

if they can use the same lyrics to create different songs.

They explain how the latest song "started off as a really Rolling Stones sort of track, so 1nstead of Paint it Black it's Paint it Emerald Green."

A band you either love or hate with a vengeance, MLS are continuing to do what they do best. The change Jake ta lks about may not attract that many new admirers, but old fans will be more than satisfied.

~event)

hristopher Fowler began writing as soon as he could hold a pen. Growing up in the heart of London he translated the things he experienced, and others that he didn't, into writing. He has called his work "social satire with an edge of black comedy" and is keen not to be pigeon holed as purely a "horror writer".

"Publishers like compartments, and horror was the only one that they felt I frtted into." · However, he hails the welcome return in the nineties of some excellent, popular comic writing with authors like Geoff Ryman, Magnus Mills and Chartie Higson. But his most prized influences are more often than not unheard of experimental writers that he is keen to keep to himself. "Now some of these books are being published for a new

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underdogs are Interesting, but it's a very british thing that we don't like 'heroes and very quickly knock them down generation and I feel like saying, no these authors are mine!"

But his claim is that who he has read is not as important as the world that surrounds him: "it's not so much who I've read but the fact that I work in Soho in the middle of the British film industry, a blackly humorous area in which to work. I'm surrounded daily by the hippest people, all trying to outdo one another, and one really only has to spend time in the local pub to get all the material you need. For example, Quo Vadis, the restaurant next door to me is currently exhibiting the work of Damien Hirst, so diners get to stare at pickled cow heads and horrific surgical instruments while they eat their very expensive meals. it is being picketed by animal rights protesters, and there seems to be a mariachi band playing to the gathered crowd. This, to me, is not nomnal life.·

you may not have heard of christopher fowlers books, but he's the chap responsible for the trainspotting and reservoir dogs .ad campaigns. evan thomas catches up...

Fowler's books make you laugh, make you cringe, make you think. In novels such as Spanky, Personal Demons, and his short story Home .Again, he writes story lines with plenty of twists while all the time keen to wave the flag of the underdog. "Underdogs are interesting•, he explains, "but it's a very British thing that we don't like heroes and very quickly knock them down or undercut them." His protagonists are·always bright, young personalities with a grudge of varying degrees against hierarchical societies. "Well, the subject of class is never far from an Englishman's mind", he notes; "I think it exists in the US to a lesser extent but it's still there.

You're never going to see someone from the projects in a Hampton golf club unless he's sweeping the leaves. I think it provides a good starting point for many a dramatic situation, and the most pointed examples of class-clashes are in Psychoville and Disturbia." His work always centres heavily in and round the capital, setting a pleasingly flawed backdrop of inner city London, and ,in such an environment he excels.

But while his work is popular in the U.K and mainland Europe his relationship with America is not so easy; "I had a New York agent who had a nervous breakdown and failed to follow through my initial overtures to U.S

press. • His first book was 'censored' for the USA • three whole chapters were removed, and it was "packaged badly. • Roofworld, which is one of his most successful novels in the UK, tells the story of rival gangs fighting across the rooftops of London, but in the States it perfomned poorly.

"I changed publishers, but part of the problem was that the people appointed to handle the next two books didn't seem to understand them, and neither did Hollywood · the Paramount scri pt of my novel Rune begins with Nazi U·boats surfacing; why, I never read on to find out! I don't pretend to be for mass consumption but hell, some US publisher should have run with Spanky, surely? That was the last book I offered to the US. I publish in the rest of the world and I do very well in the UK, which is enough for me. My only disappointment is the expense of import copies for my few US fans. • Always dark and satirically comic, he has now begun to adapt his success for the big screen. "I've written the screenplays to several of my books, and they're in various stages of development, but two have directors and casts assigned. or you see Christopher Fowler the Writer is only half the man. Essentially his day is split in two. One half is spent writing and the other is spent as part of "Europe's largest advertising and marketing agency for the motion picture industry."

Based in Soho The Creative Partnership was set up in 1979 by Christopher Fowler and Jim St urgen. At the time film advertising was not regarded as a specialised art, and seeing an opening in the market the pair decided to set up their own company, applying the expertise they brought with them from advertising. Perhaps you have only heard of Christopher Fowler the author or never heard of him at all. But almost certainly his company has persuaded you to see the best films of the decade.

The marketing campaigns for Starship Troopers, Reservoir Dogs, Golden£ye, Trainspotting and Notting Hill were all mastermii'lded in Soho. But when asked if he would ever consider making the transi,tion to directing his own feature film he is in no doubt.

"I spend time on film sets in my day job, but I know that I would never have the discipline to direct personally. To be a director you have to be a complete bastard" he explains. "There's a saying in the movie industry that a happy film-set is a bad film." His attitude is unsurprising when he recounts his first experience on-set: · A friend of mine was directing and he told me to go and sit

F

somewhere quietly. I sat on a desk having no idea that it had just come off the set it collapsed and I brought the entire set crashing down.· When asked what films have particularly caught his eye recently, he points to the growing number of 'lndies' that

i'd like to see the millennium dome circus tent crash and burn. if i wanted to live in a funfair i'd move to disneyland creep across the Atlantic. "In films, the end of the action-hero movie and the birth of ,s:Jecent US independent hits, from Grosse Pointe Blank to Rushmore and Election is a positive step forward."

On the subject of movie advertising he is keen to recognise that over-hyping a movie can be very damaging. As far as The Phantom Menace is concerned he believes that "the filmmakers kind of got all that they deserved" and notes that in this case "the backlash began before the film even opened.· In the case of the new 'King of Hype' however, he can forgive the fever that surrounds the Blair Witch Project. "The filmmakers did it off their own backs, so more power to them. Nowadays we do get films that are absurdly over-hyped and I think this makes audiences feel that they are being condescended to. But as far as Blair Witch is concerned, the fact that two guys can create this much interest in a low-budget picture over the Internet has really scared the bigger Hollywood studios, and that's great" Christopher Fowler's work constitutes an ever growing map to the nightmarish London of his past and present, often creating the ultimate 'Faustian ride' along the Thames, a ride he feels will be ruined by the forthcoming Millennium 'celebrations', for which he reserves his final, damning thought: "I'd like tO< see the Millennium Dome Circus Tent crash and bum, hopefully knocking over the British Airways Ferris Wheel. If I wanted to live in a funfair I'd move to Disneyland."

mr fowler kindly signed and gave us the books pictured above. all you have to do to win 'em is tell us the name of a water fowl. answers In the box In the hive

THE EVENT-; WEDNESDAY,- NOVEMBE~ 03, 1999 I

perky presenters

adam chapman takes a 15 hour plunge into television madness...

morning ·massacre ®Ll~®®

CJ

®®~®®

0 7:00 Eamonn Holmes or Johnny Vaughan. Hmmm. Difficult choice this. one.

Despite the interminable smugness of the latter, Vaughan seems the best bet. I have. nothing against the startlingly inoffensive Holmes, but the idea that the hours might pass by and I would end up watching Lorraine "I have a ferret up my skirt and therefore always feel the need to shriek in my annoying Scottish voice• Kelly didn't exactly fill me with joy. So Channel 4 it was, and what a transformation since Kelly .

Brook return~ to what she does best. Usa Tarbuck, despite being Jimmy Bullseye's daughter, is very effective opposite Johnny as she seems to be ~e only person who can actually shut him up. it's the bloody crew who piss me off. How much braying and fake laughter can one VERY TIRED "journalist" take? Not bloody much I can tell you. lt's a bit like watching TFI Friday but ~ut The Most Unfunny Man In The World(tm) flaunting his ego for ~e entire nation.

~ ®~~®

CJ

~ @~®®

~--------------------------------~~~ ~~~~~~~~u~~~OC~~~~Me~~~ooe~~~~~~M~~dh~~~

••

ee

11

•• •• ••

male presenter (whcse name I've forgotten but ~e BBC seems to have cloned two of ~em.)

Wi~out wanting to sound like the ladies who sit at bus stops complaining about "~e youth of today", no wonder there are so many young people "underachieving". Yes, I know I sound like a pompous twat but my God! We have ~e Tweenies, ~e Teletubby replacements. Then a cartoon about a spider, called, imaginatively enough: Spider. And then ... And then ... (the bile collecting in my mouth as I write). Then we have ~e Chuckle Brothers, who last time I looked had bEen banished to a low-rent ~eatre in Great Yarmouth. I now fear for the future of the human race.

16:00 ~et us bask in the warm~ ~at is Fern Britton. Thank you Fern for saving me from ~e bleach~ white smiles of the BBC. 16:30 Sadism takes over my TV weari~ brain. I don't change ~e channel. Manic grin. There is an innate hatred of an~ing Delia in the house and so I set out to watch Delia's Christmas Collection. And sit back and watch ~e reaction .

Yas, my housemate, a normally mild manner~ young lady, turns vicious, insulting everything from her patronising presenting to her blend food. Me pointing out that she has made (JIIer £24 million doing ~is job is irrelevant appareotly. I am eloquently dismissed as "Mr. Ooh I love Delia". Am now happy that I have inflict~ pain on o~ers .

17:10 Blue Peter. ~ are the days of loo paper rolls and sticky back~ plastic. Now we have modelS presenting - TV presenters: h new sex symbols?

17:30 A choiOe of 1\eighbours (again), Pet Rescue, House lrNaders and Channel 5. I won't say which one I settled for as it's a wee bit sad.

15:25 - 16:00 HELP!!!!!!

•• • 11

Mental state at laOO Am hungry (Delia wasn't such a good idea in the end as not ooly am I hungry, but have annoyed Yas so much that she also refuses to cook for me) and emotionally exhaust~. Prone to snapping at people (although don't know whether ~is is much of a change).

Me ntal state at the e nd of the two hours: Raging headache and slightly moody.

Verdict: Not a good start, and do you realise how much effort it takes to stay in front of the television when you have to?

------------------- --- -----------..1 in the words of d:ream

••

®®~®®

CJ

~ ~~®®

09:00 Talk shows. Kllroy starts earlier so have to watch that. The prospect of watching old leather face calling his audience "friends" is somewhat daunting, and somehow I manage to get into conversation with my housemate Yas about Kilroy's chin which looks ·like it's been under the sunbed for too long and now resembles Fr~die Krueger's. The show was about fat women, how insecure they feel and how hard ~ey find it to lose weight. .. which made me feel hungry and smug.

09:30 Can't stand fat people feeling sorry for themselves so try Trisha instead. Wish I hadn't. Why is it she always feels the need to make people who are really Insecure about their looks sing really awful songs on national television as if to show the world that they do have some worth after all?

09:45 Americanised pap Hang Time which was actually very funny, albeit unintentionally. lt's all about this high school basketball team, one of whose players suddenly develops a drug habit (as you do). What follows is probably the most ham-fist~ anti-drugs message ever seen on TV. He gets stoned, forgets to mend a friend's motorbike, he crashes 3nd then we get the 'drugs are bad' message as our doped up anti hero gives up dope for life. Surprisingly amusing in an "aren't Americans stoopid" kind of way!

10:30 This Morning. ~ng Knob and Queen Shaky are cr~ng over their victory at ~e National Television Awards. Talk about graceful in victory! I am near tears, but am not allowed to change ~e channel as my o~er housemate Sandy who has now joined me seems to hold a strange sympa~y for Judy (who sadly seems to have stopped shaking). Am troubled.

10:45 Change to Sunset Beach.

10:46 Change back. (Far too much cardboard and silicone for this early in the day). Suffer in silence (well, semi-silence) through awful woman from the Daily Mail who reviews soaps and agony aunt Denise Robertson looking like someone's pissed maiden aunt at a wedding.

And so it goes on and on and on and on and on and ... (you get the point) .••until past midday.

1111 .-11 11 1111

Me ntal state at 12:15 Despite an unexpected respite earlier on am brought down to a depressing low by Richard Madeley and his hair (fantastic use of a hair dryer!). A one man argument against the impending SO's revival fashion magazines he wants to Impose on us.

Verdict Rnd myself longing for Neighbours to come on. (Also find myself longing for a gun but we shall ignore my homicidal tendencies at this point). On the plus side, the aspirin is finally starting to work. That or am slowly slipping into a coma. Long to be in my lecture.

poor susan ~~~~®

CJ

~®~®®

12:15 A medley of current affairs. People di~. Governments failed. Places got flooded. And in Norfolk a sheep got lost in a field. Yes, Anglia News, ladies and gentlemen ...the epitome of banality and pointless news. However, the kind foks at Anglia seem to have got rid of lvor the second hand car salesman turn~ weather presenter which, believe me, makes my news extra-.aganza all the more palatable.

12:35 National news.. .Julia Somerville and her wobbly neck.

12:3 7 Fall asleep for the rest of the news.

12:57 Get woken up by legendary ~~e tune for Shortfand Street ("is it you or is it me...some other words...Shortland Streeeeet") and suddenly my day has improved ten-fold. I seem to be ~e only person in the house, however, WllO can stomach the New Zealand so after much protestation have to tu m the sound off until Home and Away oomes on.

13:25 What's happened to Ailsa? She's turned into a catatonic psycho intent on killing Alfl Do I care? Not a bit. In fact Home and Away seems to be even worse than I expect~ so I only watch until the commercial break and switch over to the BBC for...

13:4 5 NEIGHBOURS!!! Now you can start by calling me sad and get it over with now but I've ooen waiting for this all day. I haven't a clue as to what the appeal is. Perhaps it's nostalgia for when I was ten and used to watch it when I came back from school, who knows? Either way it's perfect escapism (bear in mind I've been watching TV now for four and a half hours!) from the horrible day I've been having.

13:49 lt seems Susan Kennedy is on the brink of having an .affair with someone who resembles none other than my parent's ex-gardener, Mr.Nell! Am thus disgusted by whole sordid affair, but in ~e fine traditions of my house ("poor Susan· often being shouted at the television during ~e whole KarVSarah affair by someone who ~shes to remain nameless lest we think her sad) we still manage to sympathise with the woman we all secretly wish was our mum (in a weird Oedipus kind of way).

14:09 Am happy now.

14:10 OH MY GOD! Dick Van Dyke has escap~ the shackles of dodgy cockneyism in Mary Poppins to make very bad programme with what looks like Chachi from Happy Days.

14:11 1t is Chachi! Far too surreal for my liking and find myself regressing.

15:00 Am now cursing the existence of all American television executives. DAMN THEM ALL!! I!

••

Verdict: lt's true, afi:lmoon television is either aimed at students, children or ~e unemployed. This seems to give me added incentive to leave university, get a good job and never have kids.

the final countdown ~ ®~®®

CJ

~~~®®

18:00 Another food programme. Am slowly wasting away by this stage as can·t be arsed to get up and cook myself some food so find it decidedly cruel. And who the hell came up ~than idea for a foody dating show...Cilla would turn in her grave (supposing she was actually dead).

18:30 The Times outlines tonight's HoiJyoaks as follows: "Darren tells his dad a few home truths". I pass.

18:31 Now decide to sample Look East. Sheep finally found in a seclud~ house in Norfolk.

19:00 Tune into Channel 4 to sing·along to the theme tune. What fun! . 19:4 5 The BBC is depressing me. Lots of people whose relatives can't stand them and then left are begging for them to get in touch. I can see why they left in the first place. Imagine having to wake up next to that heifer every day.

20:00 Oh joy!!! Laurence Uewelyn-Bowen turning someone's dining room into a mock Egyptian burial chamber. At ~is stage I can barely oontain myself from peeing on ~e floor in excitement (sarcasm repotedly being the lowest form of wit). I take advantage of urinary problem by spending ten minutes in the bathroom as cannot face going back to ~e livng room. Consider staying in here for ~e rest of ~e night but know I can 't. I'd like to pretend that this is because I have to finish the job at hand tut it's really because someone needs to have a shower. I damn all clean people.

20:28 Let us pause for what we have just~tnessed: a nearly middle-aged man~~ ridiculous hair defacing someone's house. Hello? Aren't there laws about this type of vandalism?

20:30 Time for the most smug woman in the world. The presenter of Home Front, that bastion of Middle England. Have visions of all the middle-aged housewives around the country gathered around their TV 's, a pen in one hand and a pad in the other, taking notes on how to improve their swags and tails.

21:00 Coming into the final stretch. Don't care anymGre (seEm also to have lost ~e ability to word full sentences). Watch end of crap film on Channel 5, our house getting unecessarily good reception bebre switching over to ~e breath of fresh air that is Davina McCall. ..

21:30 The difference between Streetmate and Blind Date is 1hat the former has a much higher propensity of good looking people, not much of a surprise I suppose, considering you get to choose who you gc out with. And Davina only chooses people she fancies and seems to have remarkably good taste. Susan Kenn~y has been usurped.

22:00: THE LAST HOUR!!!! And it's not a bad programme!! Depending on your point of view I guess. Ally McBeal. Hailed as a feminist Icon by lazy magazine editors who found ~emselves let down when she turned out to be a seriously unstable and vaguely annoying character. And so the backbiting·began. But I, reknowned for ....- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . my ability to take things at face value (!), (actually like it (being at heart a big girl).

23:00 Have strange urge to smash the television in but sadly can't summon • • stomach muscles to work. Am stuck in the sinking part of our armchair wi~ a spring digging into my backside. HELP! !I

soap

Mental state at 15:00 I wish Neighbours was on all day. lt has been but a brief respite in an otherwise horrible day. On the plus side my

Mental state at the e nd of my 15 hour ordeal: Difficult to say as I can barely stay awake. A mixture of emotions: relief that I ended on a high, confusion as to why I did it in ~e first place and malnutrition from eating too many Pringles.

Verdict: In my scientific opinion (if that bloke off This Morning can call himself a doctor so can I!) TV does indeed make you stupid, anti-social, prone to violent outbursts and in love with characters from Australian soaps. Especially if you don't have a remote control! If this is what the unemployed do all day I'm going down the job centre nowt If only I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --

- - - - - - - -could get up off the sofa.

hangover has gone!

Ve rdict: I love you Susan.

THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1999

THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1999

----------~------------~---------- -----

~event> and the way the tracks merge together, making the EP so very easy to listen to. Nothing new, of course, just Mogwai.

Metln Alsan]ak

merz Ui)i)~[J'~ The band's official website has said that the video for the first track of the EP, Stanley Kubrick is "filmed in black and white and features midNineteenth century characters, a spaceman, bright lights, a potato and lots of very strange goings on involving the ingestion of a vegetable". This kind of visual idea is entirely suited to the way the EP sounds. lt is a kind of space lullaby; the delicately growling bass tones of Stanley Kubrick rock you to a gentle, peaceful calm. The last 'song', Rage:Man ambles along at a very slow pace, but fantastically builds up to an incredible wall of sound, without losing any of the melodic ideas of the beginning section. You feel like you could meditate to it. lt has an undeniable charm to it that stems from inventive track titles such as Bum Girl Prom Queen,

'Eclectic' accurately describes the sound on Merz' s debut self-titled album, which includes the single Many WeatheiS Apart. Influences such as Finley Quaye and Beth Orton are subtly apparent in the laid back, spaced out folk tunes. Conrad's unusual voice is partly due to his Yorkshire via central Africa accent, and his musical experience results from touring with barn dance, South American and African bands, as well as hip-hop acts.

Travelling and experimentation with various forms of world music have had a clear influence on the sound he produces, which is fresh and innovative. A fusion of technology, ·mixing, scratching and techno alongside traditional instruments such as strings and acoustic guitar, create an intoxicating blend of

sounds. This eloquent music, sprinkled with natural imagery, could accompany you on a journey through a mystical forest "You're in wicked company·, Conrad sings; we never doubted it. Tune in, chill out, roll SOI'fle funk and turn Merz up.

Jenny McCann

the pet shop boys

14

uuH~~OH{f@

The Pet Shop Boys have, it seems, tried to infiltrate the ranks of Da Yoof by donning Keef Prodigy hairstyles, adopting a half-realised Eurodisko· aesthetic and releasing a record which sounds like a tenth-generation Xerox of what made them any good in the first place. Witness the sub-trancy Closer to Heaven and the ersatz balladeering of The Only One - a track so functional it must bore even that bloke on the keyboard. Glimpses of what them so memorable do peep through; the snappily-titled You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk is a paradigm example of the duo's perfectly constructed keyboard-demo pop rnuslc, but alas, having dipped their toes in former glories they go scuttling back to comedy-camp carry on; all safely naughty Village People chorus lines and handbaggy beats. The net effect of Nightlife is something of a whimpering adjunct to an alre'!dy nearly finished career. Uke your pant-clad dad on an Ibiza beach, anachronistic, rather embarrassing and a wee bit sad.

Steve Collins

uea, lcr Imagine the scene at the first ever UFO landing. A hypnotised crowd stands staring into spinning purple lights as the air is filled with incomprehensible voices and screeching electronic noises. Then the Super Furry Animals step out to perform their forthcoming single, Mobile Phone.

Following excellent support from the High Uamas, the band of one-time Stereolab collaborator Sean 0 Hagan's, the Super Furry Animals arrived at UEA from another planet. There is no other group quite like the Fumes. How many other bands could spend seven minutes playing one chord? Or play their guitars like a double bass before sitting on the floor to deliver a keyboard solo? The band oozed class. lt was five songs into the set before lead singer Gruff Rhys felt obliged to address the crowd.

·can someone turn the lights down?" he mumbled.

"I'm going blind up here.· lt was the pattern for the rest of the set, with the band barely stopping to . catch their breath as they played songs from all three of their albums, including their first major hit, God! Show Me Magic! and more recent offerings like Are In My Heart and Demons.

The Furries were encouraged by a chaotic mob; at one point it seemed there would be no one left in · the LCR if anyone else attempted to surf. The usual Welsh (or perhaps faux-Welsh) contingent attended, waving the Red Dragon flag from the back, while at the front, the moshpit was a whirlpool of sweat, with waves of bodies constantly pulling the fans under. lt was almost impossible to remain standing up, desperately trying to keep your head above water as feet came at your head from every direction, and your mouth filled with hair from the pony-tailed biker wedged in front of you. Ttlis was no Celine Dion gig.

The set ended with a bizarre rendition of The Man Don't Give A F**k, which was accompanied by five blokes onstage dressed as the band's alien mascots. The Furries themselves sneaked offstage and left their costumed friends waving to the crowd for ten minutes as the speakers blasted out an extended version of the track. Afterwards, the lights went up to reveal a bemused crowd, wondering what happened to the encore.

I'll bet the Super Furry Animals were laughing all the way to _, Jupiter.

Luke Chilton

__

....,..

fHE.EVENT: WEDNESDAY; NO~EMBER·03,.. 1999

UiiD<IDflW Yes, they've done it again. Supergrass' new single Mary is their third single from their third, eponymous album. lt is an incredibly funky little number, the vocals surprisingly Beatles sounding, but this is definitely worth buying. This is sure to be another Top Ten hit. Proof, if any more were needed, that Kylle Norman 'Grass is great.

square pusher

17

®OD[W®U' lfunU'fJ'W ~Uil~IJiJil<IDO~

supergrass

©®O®©~H®Uil ®H~~®®I1il

Hirsute techno-boffin Squarepusher, known to his mum as Tom Jenkinson, retums with another collection of acid-flecked techno jiggery, shot through with his own unconventionally funky bass playing.

This seventeen track rnini album treads familiar ground for anyone already aquainted with Sheffield's .weirdest imprint and home of Aphex Twin, Warp Records, and is thus unlikely to find much of an audience with the brain-damaged largin' it Ibiza massive.

Considerably more accessible than the recent output of the prolific Jenkinson, this set shows how his diverse influences, from acid house to drum & bass via experimental jazz, are pleasingly mangled into a coherent whole. That said, the aura <;>f percussive and harmonic strangeness that envelopes this recording still disqualifies it from being the sort of music played at dinner parties held to convince visiting parents that you don't really live in a squalid underground drug cave. For that purpose, stick to the Stereophonics, and leave the Squarepusher music to soundtrack your David Lynch-esque film studies flashback project. Buy this record if you love the acrid stench of strange.

Wllllam Lakeman

shack !P)llilOO~®t!®~[Ju®U' This is the latest single from Uverpool band Shack.

They rejected the names Hutch, Shed and Bedpost before settling for their current moniker. They then sat down and wrote this mumbling, uninspired song, nicked a chorus off Embrace, didn't bother with middle eights or bridges and ran home in time for Luke Chilton tea.

primal scream ®W<ID©~H[l(\oo ®"/]®® If a tacky computer game soundtrack overlaid with Pet Shop Boys monotone droning sounds like your kind of music then go out and buy this single! Not tuneful enough to be enjoyable, not uplifting enough to dance to and not imaginative enough to be atmospheric, Swastika Eyes is the latest release frorn Primal Scream - and l hope it's their last.

Elln ·Jones

basement jaxx Don!JiJl [.ID uu~ ®llu®on~ Originally relt:lased in January as a limited edition promo, Jump 'n' Shout was re-released due to popular demand. An obscure song it may be, but it is loud and thumping and would be amazing in a dub version. On the other hand, if it's easy listening Sandra /son music you're after, forget it.

01 02

SHANIA TWAIN

03

TOMJONES

Following up his successful debut solo outing,

reload

Unfinished Monkey Business, lan gives us an

04 05 06 07

TRAVIS

come on over SCLUB 7

s club

ian brown O®W® O~lk\® 00 {{@lliJUD~<IDHUU

DAVID BOWIE

offering from his new album which shows a change in direction. Big beats replace the trademark guitars and it bores into your head rather than grating on your ears. Best played loud, the new material seems well worth insp~cting on the strength of this.

hours

Martin Brock

the man who

LEFTAELD rhythm & stealth STING

brand new day MACYGRAY

OS on how life Is

09 International velvet 1 0 supergrass CATATONIA

SUPERGRASS

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- -- ·

-- -- . --- --- -- - -

----------

~event out now coming soon to: starring:

cinema city nigel hawthorne jeremy northam rebecca pidgeon guy edwards

Set in London in 1-912, The Winslow Boy is a David Mamet adaptation of Terrence Rattigan's acclaimed play. lt sees the youngest of the Winslow family Ronnie (Guy Edwards) return to his family home having been dismissed from the Naval College at Osboume for stealing a five shilling postal note.

Despite the evidence against him, his plea of innocence is believed by his father Arthur (Hawthorne) who dedicates himself to clearing his son of the charges. Over the course of the year the publicity surrounding the case escalates as it grabs the national conscience, making the Winslows a household name.

And that is all there is to it. The characters are so uniformly well-observed that such a simple plot never threatens to veer towards slightness. The main plot occurs alongside a backdrop of early 20th Century social observation (the suffragette movement and the evolution of socialism) creating a genuine atmosphere wh ich helps Mamet's interpretation of the play to escape it's theatrical origins. Although not always successful , there often being a sense of claustrophobia in some of the scenes, Mamet manages to open up the film by expanding the action outside of the Winslow household to the House of Lords where the case finally ends up. it is easy to see why the film was Singled out for special praise at the Cannes Film Festival.

Hawthorne's performance as patriarch is typically brilliant, combining pathos with humour throughout, building on the reputation he already has for being one of the most consummate of British actors. However, it is Jeremy Northam as Sir Robert Morton the attorney who is used to fight Ronnie's case, who comes out of this film in the best light.

Often cast in parts with fundamental character flaws his performance here is one of such power and command of the audience that he steals every scene he's in. it's a good thing that he shares very few scenes with Hawthorne. Imagine the outcome!

Hawthorne and Northam are ably supported by Gemma Jones as Grace Winslow and Guy Edwards as young Ronnie. Indeed Edwards (who you might recognise off the slightly less acclaimed Julia Jekyll & Harriet Hyde on CBBC) is only 14 years old . His performance is remarkably assured, and because of his angelic face you can never escape the suspicion that Ronnie did actually steal the postal order in the first place. it is only Rebecca Pidgeon 's portrayal of elder sister Catherine Winslow that sometimes falls a little flat. A member of the su.ffragette movement and an advocate of "the social good" Pidgeon is somewhat ham-fisted in her portrayal of such a forceful woman . But this is but a minor gripe in a truly involving adaptation wh ich never once manages to fall into the usual costume drama traps. The Winslow Boy is notable if anything for Mamet making a film without once using the word f**k.

Adam Chapman

released: playing: starring:

november 5th odeon bruce willis , haley joel osment, toni collette

Before I even entered the cinema I was under the impression that the film I was about to see was scarier than The Blair Witch Project. This does not bode well for Blair. I am not saying that Sixth Sense wasn 't scary, it just wasn 't fantastically scary.

Although some scenes did genuinely make me scream like a pre-school girl , there wasn 't much general suspense to the film . This was probably because I couldn 't shake the expectation that Bruce Willis was about to pull out a gun and shoot the nearest European terrorist.

Sixth Sense is a psychological thriller based around an 8 -year old boy, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) who has a secret; he can see dead people. The only person it seems able to help him is child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), 'thinking· his way through the film, taking every moment to ponder life's little questions. However Willis is a convincing, if a little hammy, psychologist employing all his ability to overcome public preconceptions that he can only play the action hero.

The real star of the piece, however, is Sear who comes across excellently as the reluctant channel of ghostly visions. Only half way th rough the film is

there a shift from what the audience see to the point where we finally see what the child endures on a daily basis. When he reveals his secret to Willis we can see the (typical?) psychologist's response of bringing the child's experiences down to a series of medical conditions, thus spurnng the audience to take the child's side (do we believe it is just an overactive imagination as well?). In this light the film is quite disturbing, but not enough to make you really care. By the end of the first half-hour I wanted people to die so we could see them nosferatu.

Harsh but fair.

From the writer-director M Night Shyamalan comes a film typical of a genre, wh ile managing to breath new life into it with his portrayal of a tormented young soul. We feel for the child, but as we meander unknowingly towards the end, and the final excellent twist, we get a broader sense of perspective. All is not what it seems for any of the characters, and the audience too. Joel Osment, already tipped as an Oscar hopeful, is brilliant as the 'freak' whose main aim is to rid himself of the fear that is dominating his life.

Sixth Sense is a brilliant film which leaves you with one thought; but if I told you that the film would be ruined - though it does add a spooky Freudian "Tell me about your mother angle .. ." to the film . Oh, OK then. I'll let you know the secret. Yes, Cole Sear's mother is Muriel Heslop from Muriel's Wedding.

"You're terrible Mariel ... ", Mfchael Cutts

-..

i

•i

I released: playing: director: starring:

november 19th

tbc Katt Shea amy irving john doe

Horror movies have undergone a resurgence in the late Nineties, which is probably the excuse for a sequel to the 23 -year-old Carrie . The original film told the story of an outcast who uses her telekinetic powers to reek terrible revenge on her spiteful classmates. The Rage - Garrie 2 recounts the tale of psychic teenager Rachel Lang, ostracised at high school, who becomes the victim of a vicious prank.

Sound familiar? it's a near identical plot to the original, with a love story and a moral chucked in.

Director Katt Shea has had a distinguished career, appearing in Psycho 3 and directing family favourite Stripped To Kill . She has assembled a cast of

unknowns and TV stars for The Rage, including such luminaries as the kid out of Home Improvement and ex-punk rocker John Doe. Only Amy lrving remains from the original , returning to her role as Sue Snell, the sole survivor from Carrie .

While Carrie was a disturbed psychological horror, its sequel will see added gore and special effects; • .. .a lot of people die from big shards of shooting glass. Pieces stick into people and do all kinds of bodily damage" explains special effects supervisor Roy Arbogast gleefully. How wonderfully inventive.

Suspiciously, however, this film is being released shortly after The Blair Witch Project, in the cynical hope of scooping up some of that films horrorhungry punters. Unfortunately, fans of the original Carrie won't be happy with a regu rgitated replica , and those who haven't seen the first fi lm really aren 't really going to be very interested in this.

Luke Chflton

·THE EVENT; WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1999 . . . .. .

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5 college.com jon buscall

hard shoulder julia bell Sex. Drugs. Cri me. Cars and the roads they drive on. The new anthology, Hard Shoulder doesn't make life in Birmingham look much happier, or simpler. Edited by Jackie Gay and UEA's very own Julia Bell , Hard Shoulder compi les sixteen new stories by Birmingham's you ng writers and paints a none too flattering p1cture of England's industrial hole.

The stories range in theme from theft and loveless interaction, to drugs and ca r wrecks, and in each there is a sense of isolation which makes Hard Shoulder a hard book to read w ithout a large store of cigarettes .. and booze nearby. If you believe in such a thing as postmodernism , these authors have all simultaneously hit upon a post-post-modern search for human community. The isolation-in-a-big-city-full-of-people theme is one that should not go unnoticed. Perhaps the writers of Birmingham are trying to tell us something about their fellow Brummies.

Hard Shoulder is worth its weight for the editors' submitted stories. Gay Green, leaves the main character stranded and missing her defunct love life outside of Birmingham, but redeems her with a new start.

Bell's short story, Hard Shoulder does the same, but like Green, leaves the reader without a real resolution. Which whi le giving the collection a freedom to be an anthology, by not locking the prose into a single controlled environment, does rather leave for a slightly unsatisfying meal. The steak was good but I only got one mouthful.

Hard Shoulder depicts a world where sex is to scar, love is a shorter word f0r obsession, wa lls are for graffiti, cars are for stealing, women are for grabbing, and stories are for writing without a sense of conclusion.

Marie Rounsave/1

There is an email stalker roam ing around the UEA campus, causing hysteria amongst the normally apa thetic student body; th is is not however a headline cu lled from the annals of Concrete bu t the plot of UEA graduate Jon Buscall's much talked about novel Co//ege.com.

Much has been made of his searing and very thin ly disguised criticisms of our bel6ved university, its American influences (too many), the grey concrete (yes, we all know that it's depressing) and the pretensions of literary studies (abstract and empty); but, and Busca ll seems unaware of this, none of th is is new or original.

This is a book of almost relentless cynicism, leaving no aspect of UEA life untouched . As one of the characters, Nick, comments on the prospects of having to spend a year in Norfolk Terrace , "the room has a bed and a ca rpet but not much else to recommend it. .. brown and orange cu rta ins that look like they've been there since the university opened in the Sixties ...and it occurs to me that someone might have committed suicide in this room once" . His character is the cool, urbane and narcissistic first year, one could say the author's mouthpiece. The enjoyable parts of the book are the exchanges between the freshers; their insecurities and self-obsessions are detai led and so too is the tedium and banality. Indeed passages on the shag quest that is the LCR wil l surely chime with and amuse UEA readers.

That aside, the novel seems to dea l with the subjects it attacks at the level of cliches and stereotypes: as a resu lt there is little depth and the plot is wafer thin . This is a shame. One can't help but feel that the author didn 't have too good a time whilst at UEA,路and this novel is the result of that experience. A Couplandesque take on UEA and university life that fails to capture the imagination.

Ayo M ansaray

one to another exhibition the sainsbury centre

asylum exhibition the sainsbury centre

One to Another, an exhibition at the Sainsburv Centre for Visual Arts, is a mixture of original work

by Roger Ackling and ancient Oriental ceramics.

Ackling himself says, "I want to see what they make of each other, whether they communicate." I couldn't decide if this worked , although the idea of a contrast between old and new is interesting. To create his pieces, Ackling sits on a beach in north Norfolk, burning patterns into pieces of driftwood using a magnifying glass. "Th e brightness of the sun, the passing of the clouds, are all recorded in the intensity of the lines of tiny black dots." The best pi eces were the lollv sticks; as his wise, if slightly anal wife Svlvia writes, "Once they are burnt, the sticks are pla ced togeth er with the same tactility, to reveal their flat torso forms and the responding spaces between."

Go and see if it only for the lollv stiCks. Rachel Cooling a'nd Becky Fielding

The other Part of the exhibition, Asylum by James Casebere, explores our relationship with institutional architecture. He constructs tabl etop, models of architectural spaces and photographs them.

Concerned more with form than detail , he simplifies interiors, creating "unnerving, uncanny, yet eerily beautiful pictures." The works are strangelv appealing set of to advantage in the minimalist environment of the Seckler Wing.

The contrast between light and dark is a vital element, with pools of light falling on objects, singling them out for your attention. They have the potential to be sinister, but the use of light, and the space created by their simplicity, makes them beautiful. We especially enjoyed th is section of the exhibition , and our advi ce is go and see it while yo u can .

Rachel Cooling and Becky Fielding

THE EVENT, WEDNESDAY;'NOVEMBER 03; 1999

babe I ma creative writing anthology Put down you r textbooks and read Babe/. Reassure yourself that not every good author is dead and not every author is out of reach (or out of touch).

UEA's very own Creative Writing MA group members have put together a new collection of literature written in your century, for the next . century.

Andrew Motion introduces the collection and hails the students' col lective concentration on creation, self discovery and self definition, but the work speaks for itself. From Ti m Ashwell's absurd short play, Toast, and Frances Chapman's consciousness altering excerpt, Ruhe , to Kate McCormack's humorous and realistic excerpt, 360 , and Sonia Lambert's cathartic ghost story, Highbury Fields Forever, Babe/ is a mosaic of varying backgrounds and idiosyncratic authors.

This is the key to Babel's success; its diversity. Contained within the pages are scripts, short stories and poems. And within these mutlifarious pieces lie comedy , drama and the absurd. Of course not every piece surpasses its technical excellence to become a terrific read but these shortcomings can be overlooked, especially considering the amount of ideas and the intent held within. After all, so many novels get by with a singular idea that it is refreshing to read a book with several.

Motion himself writes, "the open -mindedness of the anthology shows that everyone is completely engaged with being themselves for the benefit of their readers". A brave new twist on a literary world focused on impressing the right connections to the right literary agent.

Babe/ contains the realistic , the experimental , the talented and the beautiful. If not because student literature is little known and rarely read, read Babe/ because it's good stuff.

Marie Rounsave/1

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[!®WD®~ This is not a game where you re-enact Rourke's Drift by lobbing sharpened sticks of wood at a far more heavily armed Michael Caine and cronies before they give your backside a proverbial Colonial thrashing. Instead Rogue Spear involves far more technical methods of killing. Based on the series by multi million dollar grabbing author Tom Clancy, the game sets you as commander of a special elite force of hard men and women (in these PC times) whose purpose it is to foil the plans of some well moustached Arabian terrorists (not terribly PC), just to bring in the old cliche. You and your team of operatives have to complete a series of tricky missions, beginning by rescuing hostages in a museum of antiquities, before moving on to storm hijacked airliners, infiltrate the bad boss's hideout and rescue military personnel shot down in Kosovo. The old ones are the best, as they say. The missions are carried out in fantastic detail - you have to carefully plan your route, select the best people for the job, and choose weapons from a dazzling and vast array of nasty guns, grenades and other boomy things.

As well as the complexity in planning the graphics are incredible

rogue spear

with superb detail that places you right in the situation. In fact, things can get hairy at times as you jump and writhe in your seat as you desperately try to blow the head off the terrorist whose just spotted you sneaking around.

The controls are surprisingly easy to master, with the mouse used to aim and fire, and keys for movement. However, some weapons deserve special respect - it is most disheartening to incorrectly throw a grenade, have it land right in front of you , and then KABOOM! your entire team goes up in a puff of smoke. The only complaint to aim at Rogue Spear would be the same as could be applied to most games of this genre - why can't we have a go at being the baddies? Surely it would be great fun to hijack a plane and then pick off a load of rugged American Bruce Willis wannabes with a high powered sniper rifle? Aside from this minor complaint Rogue Spear is great fun to play, fast moving, detailed and totally absorbing. lt goes to places other shooty games such as Goldeneye and Quake cannot touch. Now where did that grenade go? Bugger.

KABOOM. Luke Turner

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spawn

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You would have thought that when a successful and wealthy musician reaches late middle age, they would decide that maybe they're getting a little old for the music lark. You would be forgiven for thinking that usually, they're 'past it'. But oh, no, not Eric. Mr Clapton is here to prove to us that it 's never too late to make sepia videos to go with boring songs.

This tasteful collection of songs shows us how varied ale' Eric is. There's the Eighties section, featuring Phil Collins (another personal favourite) on drums, gyrating keyboard ists and the obligatory smoke machine. There's the soulful acoustic section where Eric gets to show everyone that he can play guitar. And yes, Lay/a is in here. Twice. And then, finally, we get to Eric's new stuff. The videos are resplendent with MTV-style editing and cool youngsters with dreads leaping into the air in slow motion. Cos,

clapton chronicles

like, Eric's in with the kids, man .

One particularly confusing moment in the video is during the song If I Saw You In Heaven . While the song itself is touching (it was written about the death of his young son), the video is for it leaves much to be desired. Eric is sitting on a rooftop with his acoustic, surrounded by about 80 electric guitars in their stands. Is this Eric's stand against the rock excess of his youth, rejecting the electrics for his good old acoustic? Or is he simply showing everyone how many guitars he owns?

Whatever. Watch ing this video is not a very good way to spend an hour. This is all you need to know. Further persuasion might be the fact that Phil Collins eo-produced most of it. The press release suggests that, with Christmas coming up, this is the perfect present for your dad .. .they said it ...

Astrld Goldsmith

The third animated series of the hugely successful comic book anti-hero Spawn sees him do battle with the forces of evil once again - as they say evil never sleeps or something. For the uninitiated, Spawn is the nightmarish creation of Tom McFalarlane, and tells the tale of AI Simmons, a CIA agent killed in the line of duty, rescued by the devil Malebolgia, compelled to his bidding as a 'hell spawn '. He must fight the darkness within, and all the unsavoury characters that litter the grimy streets, that kind of thing. If that wasn't bad enough he has to protect his former wife from more skulduggery afoot, and put up with the blabbering of the mysterious old man who has a habit of appearing from nowhere and disappearing midsentence. What is it with these old wizened blokes with white beards, they always know everything and can speak only in riddles.

As animations go, it is a very stylish affair, and in this it owes much to the Japanese Mangas that were so path breaking and innovative. One thinks of the likes of Crying Freeman and the aesthetic of Akira, but here everything is darker; nothing ever places during daylight, darkness reigns supreme. Some quite respectable actors, the likes of David Keith (Something About Mary) and Jennifer Leigh lend their voices to the characters.

Spawn does however suffer from what all comic heroes ultimately succumb to, one dimensionality; he has about as much depth as the paper the script was written on. So, one has to put up with episode after episode of basically the same dialogue, of the usual kind ... 'I must fight the darkness .. . who am I ... I can feel the evil within .. . blah blah .. .' , and this does get rather tiresome . For fans of the genre this will be a minor complaint, but to others, who one suspects are in the majority, it will seem rather empty. Spawn is less hell on toast and more Batman with a touch of angst and self-loathing.

Ayo Mansaray

THE

EVENT~ · WEDNESDAY,

NOVEMBER 03, 19.99

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radiohead

music is at the forefront of the internet revolution, with mp3 downloads giving major labels the proverbial willies. most bands now have their own websites, so Iuke turner donned his geeky specs and went asurfing on the net to find if the sites of some of todays leading acts offer an apt companion to the music, or are just another way for the music industry to get money off you, the kids ...

~o[j'~)(ru~©GiJ®CID@o©©oOJJlk\ Radiohead are one of the few bands in the world who cannot be faulted . The lyrical and musical passion, the integrity, both artistic and personal, the near - spiritual live performances. The band were so determined to uphold this integrity that they learned website design themselves; thus the ent ire content comes from them, rather an anonymous designer in a record company office. Adm ittedly, this has perhaps made the site look a little simple for some tastes, but the scanned in Thorn Yorke artwork (as used in the Bends and OK Computer sleeves) is both beautiful and disturbing, and the minimalist approach heightens the most important part of the site; The Words.

"Everyone's got blood on their hands. I can't bear those words. Maybe I'm not damned after all. Listen, this is how it works. Banquets for the investors. The big fish eat the little ones. I can't bear to watch the news.· This is fairly typical of the maze of text which makes up the bulk of the site; a stream of consciousness version of OK Computer, exploring the bands ' despair at the corporate nature of late Twentieth century culture and society.

If you 're a "kicking screaming Gucci little piggy" or a die hard capitalist corporate investor you probably won't like this site. If you have a soul, you 'll love it.

design: Quite good, in a bubbly, teeny weeny kind of way. They have cute aliens floating around too. 7/ 10 content: Fine if you're an eleven year old. If you 're a student and like this you 're either an advanced kidd ie or a paedophile. 4/10 corporatey sucky: well, th is is low rent pop music, isn't it? Sinister Woolworths "we 'll help you kiddies" association . 2/10

david bowie ~o@CIDwo@IID©W~® From pre- teens to a man who in the real world would be collecting a pension and hanging around parks wearing a dodgy mac. Yes, it's the wonderful world of Mr David Bowie, the man who thinks he's so far ahead of the times he was once convinced that he was actually

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bjorn again Oh yes, those perennial pests of UEA actually have their very own website. This may not be in keeping with their faux - Seventies roots, seeing as the internet then consisted of two blokes with cans and a bit of string yelling hello at each other even though they were only five feet apart. This site even offers an explanation as to how the (once again it pains me) 'band' were formed, claiming it was the result of their helicopter colliding with a sparkly platform shoe resulting in amnesia that caused them to write songs suspiciously exactly the same as those written by ABBA. One can 't help but wish that the crash had been somewhat more violent, especially when you get to the things to buy part of the site, which actually has albums recorded by the 'band' . The cheek of it. Listen everyone: THEY'RE NOT REAL. They're probably all called Kevin , or Sharon and have bad body odours. Fortunately you can actually contact the band by email through the site, perhaps to warn them of the dire consequences they face should they come to Norwich once again. Not that we'd do a silly thing like that.

From the sublime we move, or rather plummet, to the ridiculous S Club 7. it does seem odd how a band aimed primarily at those who have only just developed above the level of wetting their pants on a regular basis are so popular with you lot at the LCR. The bands' (though that seems an abuse of the term) website confirms their readership, and ought to make you feel very embarrassed. The language is an even more infantile version of Smash Hits; everyth ing's "fab" and "brill ". The site also takes a sinister tone with the apart in association with er, Woolworths; entitled Kids First it'll help you "Get over bullying and worrying about not having a job in the future." Aaaah. When companies get involved with this kind of thing one can't help feel a little cynical. They treat their staff like monkey's and flog some of the most grotty tat known to humanity ...surely the same people looking at this website will be those looking for a shop to buy their S Club 7 singles and rulers before the school term begins?

One of the plastic rejects in the band also offers helpful advice for the traumatised teen - though the words he allegedly wrote are so lucid they sound suspiciously like they were written by someone who actually has a mind of thei r own. Anyone whose seen S Club Seven interviewed will know they aren 't exactly privileged in the intelligence or personality departments - even Jayne Middlemiss was able to do a Paxman on them .

Utter arse.

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corporatey sucky: there's nothing wrong with selling some merchandise on the web, but having your official site devoted to it is a bit sad. 2/10

content: A rollercoaster ride through the depths of the bands psyche. 8/10

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content: disappointing, really just a car boot sale on the web. 4/ 10

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design: very nice; bowie (or someone paid a lot of money by Bowie) has created a futuristic blend of images and graphics.B/10

design: quite simple, but helps to convey the sites 'message'. Thorn Yorke artwork superb. 7/10

corporatey sucky: They flog their own stuff, but that passes the test, especially as it's all called W.A.S.T.E Products. Aside from that part of the aim of the site is to attack corporate nasties. 9/10

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an alien from outer space. Now, however, he's launched himself as a multi media mogul, with this site, davidbowie.com supporting the main bowie.net internet provider site, which you have to pay a subscription for.

While Bowie may claim that he is at the forefront of the internet revolution the cynics among you may see this new venture as an attempt the net the old bugger a whole lot of cash. Virtually every bit of the site is designed to get him more money; you can buy his abysmal art, pay to sign up to Bowie.net, link to sites that flog his records; it all might be nicely designed and sexy looking, but this is really nothing more than a .cyber cash register. The man who sold the world? More like the man who sold his soul.

design: abysmal, looks like its been knocked up in half an hour. 1/10 content: if you like Bjorn Again you might find something of interest on here. I cou ldn't. 2/ 10 corporatey sucky: no real sponsors as such, but flogging albums of covers as your own is a bit steep.

5/ 10

portishead ~o['g)@[J~~~[ffi@(ID@o©©oOJJ[k\ Aaaah, after all that nasty hoo ha it's nice to return to something of quality, perhaps the best designed site examined by the Event. Portishead's site reflects the imagery used on their eponymous second album and the spin off PNYC. Each band member has their own section in which they can put their bits and bobs. In her typically shy fashion Beth Gibbons says very little, though she does provide us with all Portishead lyrics, which is nice.

Adrian has links to sites by bands and films he likes, in fact including the Radiohead address above; while Geoff gives us pictures of tea bags, fags and er, Clint Eastwood. Fans can also down load short videos of the band, including the films for Numb and Glory Box; and there's even reviews of thei r recordi ngs · including some of the criticism reserved for second album Portishead, which is nice in a modest sort of way. design: probably the best. In keeping with the rest of the bands releases etc. 9/ 10 content: again very good, the band members' sections are interesting, and the video downloads are well worth looking at. 8/10 corporatey sucky: none really, just the odd t-shirt for sale 7/ 10

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So, all the youth of Albert Square are partying it down in Brighton and oh my, what excitement! The question we are all asking is, will Mel fall for Steve again? When Steve heads off to Brighten to follow his ex, in need of a friend and a break from the bitch iness of back home, we do wonder whether that spark that was once present between the pair is about to be re-ignited. Steve has always had a soft-spot for Mel but since Saskia's interference and the whole ensuing affair, Mel has moved on and is now engaged to lan Beale. This we all know, but what is yet to be revealed is will the electricity between Mel and Steve seduce Mel into giving up everything with her bland but very safe fiance? Is an affair inevitable in light of the show's need to sustain the drama of its storylines over the last couple of months?!

Perhaps writers of Eastenders will instead rely on the secret encounters between Ricky and Natalie for the focus of the action. Yep, the infamous trip to Brighten is troublesome when it comes to 'old flames'! When left alone on the campsite Ricky and Natalie are rudely interrupted by Beppe and Sam's confrontation, with the latter character in a later episode giving the blue-eyed angel Master Butcher more than he can handle!

And what about Matthew Rose? Well, while the whole Square is effectively in mourning there is one fiesty little madam who is not yet prepared to give up hope. Perhaps predictably, Teresa di Marco sets about organising a campaign for Matthew's appeal and release. The whole square is shocked when her first meeting, held in the Vie, is attended by Steve's very own sister Jackie Owen ..... but will she tell?!

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the 11 o'clock show

music of the millenium

channel four weekdays 23 :00

channel four Saturday , november 13 time : tbc

The thrice weekly topical satire has returned, and has yet to even find the same footing as the underwhelming first series. Which all in all is not a good thing. it's not that this is a bad programme, it's just incredibly lazy: Stealing innumerable gags from Lee and Herring, the general format seems achingly like The Friday Night Armistice and the super1ative Brass Eye and The Day Today. However funny Ali G may well be, Dennis Pennis did it all first, albeit in a far more irritating and whiningly obnoxious manner. Although Ali G was undoubtedly the runaway success of the first series • indeed he has his own show coming soon - he has already run out of British celebrities and members of the establishment to mock on account that they all know who he is, and let's face it, one doesn't need to be a comedic genius to mock Americans.

Channel 4 did it last year with John Peel, Jo Whiley, Justine Frischmann and Bob Geldoff. This year they're doing it again; however only Jo Whiley has survived to appear in this sequel.

Joining Jo presenting the 1999 Music for the Millennium is MTV stalwart Richard Blackwood. Richard will no doubt attempt to instil a modicum of ener~ into the show instead of the rather sedate performances by his predecessors, which is hopefully a good thing considering that the show is a three hour epic looking at music over the last one thousand years.

Taking in both classical and popular, although I think we all know that Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will be voted number one, Oasis

For the fans of Matthew out there on campus, the news is mixed. As far as storyline is concerned, everything is still under wraps, but I do know this ... ...Joe Absolum (Matthew) has now made his decision about whether to stay on the show. He reports that he is sorry to leave but is now going to be directing all his efforts into his band Hung-up.

Rumours have recently been flying around that Matthew is to abandon his career as a thesp in order to go to university. Rumours have also suggested that he'd chosen UEA as his place of study. However, the Event, with our top fl ight showbiz contacts, can exclusively reveal that this is an utter load of twaddle, and that Matthew has no intention of gracing our concrete spires, well, those chimney things, with his presence.

Much is in store for the residents of Emmerdale this week. Kelly takes her fantasy of living in her dream cottage too far when she holds a dinner party there. If this isn't enough, she dons the owners jewellery only to be busted by the lady herself.

After her cosy experience under the stars with Ashley, bubbly Bemise is back in her element as she tries to match-make Trisha , the floosy barmaid with new-comer Richie. Old storylines are still plodding on Kathy and Eisa continue to battle over "icle' Alice, but it appears that a final decision is in sight. Rnally, Chris and Uam begin to see each other in a new light - perhaps this is the end of a tedious ordeal...

Gemma Catchpole, Kate Wenlock , Melani Davis, lmogen Dyckhoff

will have two entries in the top ten and there will be no mention of Elgar.

Still that is what happens when you let the public vote for anything.

When will people learn democracy simply doesn't work. lt seems somewhat peculiar to be -broadcasting another Millennium inspired musical show.

For one reason this must mean that last year's Music of the Millennium wasn 't actually for the Millennium at all but rather for 1998, and indeed seeing as we've still got another 14 months to go before the actual Millennium I'm sure they'll be yet another show to come.

Maybe in the future Channel 4 could be a little accurate with their titles;for example we'd all known where we stand if the show were called Music To Fill A Three Hour Programming Gap In Our Schedules.

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BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR CASH MUCH \ COMPACT DISCS • RECORDS MORE t HAN VIDEOS • BOOKS • MAGAZINES 1aJusr ACP A ~ SHOP ~ AUTOGRAPHS • FILM • SPORT ~ AND MUSIC MEMORABILIA

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legends of the fall

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channel four date and tim e tbc While Anthony Hopkins fulfils his life long ambition to be a cowboy, Legends of the Fall is a lot less rewarding for the rest of us.

They were talking about Oscars for this one, but the only accolade it received was for Best Art Direction.

And that's the biggest plus point for this film, its arresting scenery, whether it is the open prairies of Montana, the battlefields of World War One or the writhing bodies of Brad Pitt and Julia Ormond.

The plot concerns the love of three brothers, Pitt, Aiden Quinn and Henry Thomas (still best known as Elliot from ET) for one woman, namely Julia Ormond. Of course there are subplots, the most prominent of which is Hopkins patriarch descending from the powerful, dominating figure at the beginning of the picture to the insane, helpless, childlike shell of his former self.

Along the path a World War also gets in the way, as does Brad Pitt's short-lived career as a bootlegger, short lived due to the savage beating he receives from his rivals in the dad~ booze business. However, none of this really holds much resonance. The war sequences feel particular1y tame, especially given the recent cinematic ventures into det~iling combat. Director Ed Swick attempts to instil an epic sweep and a sense of Greek tragedy but for all his efforts the film is hamstrung by a leaden central performance form Pitt (clear1y pre-Seven lack of maturity), a cold and placid love affair between the aforementioned Pitt and Ormond and criminal underuse of both Quinn and Thomas. However from the comfort of your own armchair loaded, as it were, with an assortment of nibbles this will pass the time inoffensively.

Alex McGregor

T.I:IE EVENt; WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 1999

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(€event) a midsummer night's dream tuesday, november 2 - saturday, november 6 & monday, november 8 1 7:15 A new all star version of Shakespeare 's class1c comedy. Starring Michelle Pfieffer as Titan1a, Stanley Tucci as an unli kely yet joyful Puck and Kevin Kline as the scene stealing Bottom . run lola run friday, november 12, saturday, november 13 & monday, november 15 17:15 tuesday, november 16 - thursday, november 18

neighbouring nations natural resources and not pay back the UN loans he took out.

big slice of B-movie cheese. More fun than Star Wars .

the long kiss goodnight sunday, november 7 17 :00 Desperately overlooked auct1oneer from Renny Harlin which concerns Gena Davis' amnesiac housew1fe remembering she's actually an ice cold assass1n. She teams up with PI Samuel L Jackson to save the day from the baddies, one of whom is played by a guy that used to be in Minder.

the idiots monday, november 15

21:00 cruel intentions friday, november 5

21:00 Sarah Michel le Gellar fai lS to convince and Ryan Phillippe does a bad John Ma lchovich impression in this inferior update of Dangerous Liaisons.

eyes wide shut fnday, november 12, saturday, november 13 & monday, november 15 20:15 tuesday, november 16 - thursday, november 18

monty python 's life of brian sunday, november 7

17:30

19:00

The last work of one of the Twentieth century's greatest artists, Stanley Kubnck. lt may not be his best film but this is still a great film drenched in umistakable Kubrickisms.

After th e recent Python reunion here comes another chance to see one of the funniest movies ever made. Lucky bastards.

the mummy friday , november 5 23 :15 A legionnaire stumbles upon an anc1ent Egyptian city containing a mummy with a horrifying curse.

Stars Brendan Fraser, John Hannah and Rachel Weisz.

hideous kinky monday, november 8

18 :30 Kate Winslet's first post Titantic outing is heavy on Moroccan atmosphere, thanks to director Gillies MacKmnon , but light on performance and script.

forces of nature tuesday, november 9

beautiful people friday, november 19 23:15 A helter-skelter comedy about the political absurdisms that arise when a group of Bosnian refugees attempt to start their new life in Brita in. An extraordinary film which handles its subject matter with poignancy.

High concept rom -com with Ben Affleck and Sand ra Bullock. Let's face it, if you wanted to see this one, you wou ld have done so already.

wild wild west saturday, november 13 14:30 Summer blockbuster that wasn 't quite as big as was expected. This has to its credit a patomime performance from Kenneth Branagh and Will Smith doing his tha ng. He truly is the slickest there is.

Woody Alien's sati re on the pursuit of fame is tempered by the fac t that he's clearly enamoured by the very people he sets out to mock. Still very funny, though.

asterix conquers america saturday, november 6 14:30 Pretty self explanatory really. it's all there in the title. Wh ile in America Asterix has to steal

Lars Von Trier follows up the multi -award wi nning Breaking The Waves with this 'comedy· about a group of middle class intellectuals who pretend to be mentally disabled .

divorcing jack tuesday, november 16

20:15 Breathless German thri ller in which a young woman has exactly twenty minutes 1n wh ich to save her boyfriends life. Th1s innovative fi lm tells the tale from three different perspectives.

18:30

21:00

celebrity thursday, november 11

Wonderful politically charged screw ball comedy that's as black as they come. David Thewlis is brilliant in the lead with magnificent support from Jason lsaacs and Robert Li ndsay.

the sixth sense Starring Bruce Wi llis and Toni Collene. Slow burning chiller that's genuinely frightening and unnerving yet slowly transforms into someth1ng tragic and touchmg. An outstanding film ; a big studio project that's subtle and intell igent.

19:00 This Oscar winning tale of a father desperately trying to shield the horrors of the holocaust from his young son is touching, tragic and very funny. The phrase bitter-sweet has never been more appropriate.

bowfinger Brilliant. Steve Marti n pl ays the washed up fi lm director who is determined to have Eddie Murphy's superstar actor in his new film, whethe r Murphy is aware of it or not. A wildly original film which keeps getting funnier. An unmitigated joy.

runaway bride Richard Gere and Julia Roberts re-team with Pretty Woman director Gary Marshal for this, erm, comedy about a woman with commitment problems and the jaded journo who falls for her... Will she, won't she?

Will we give a damn?

american pie Billed as a gross-out comedy American Pie in reality is actually quite a sweet hearted piece of fluff.

Consistently entertaining with a likeable young cast but it's "Buffy" star Alyson Hennigan who steals the show with a single line of dialogue .

deep blue sea An artlessly contrived start and an ending which fi zzles out a little short of the finish line. However the middle hour of this giant shark movie is terrific fun. Samuel L. Jackson gets the best punch line and Thomas Jane makes for a reliable hero but LL Cool J steals the show as the preacher turned chef who knows the secret to a perfect omelette .

the blair witch project Judge the hype for you rself as one of the most profitable movies, in terms of budget to gross, of all time finally hits Britain.

tarzan The best movie Disney have made si nce The Lion King. Everyone knows the story , the deep ca nvas animation techn ique is stunning but you 'll have to ignore Phil Coli ins unwanted wa rbl ing over the top.

This features the voices of Minnie Driver and Glenn Close.

21:00 Not quite Indiana Jones meets Evil Dead but close.

Brendan Fraser plays the reluctant hero in this grea t

random hearts Harrison Ford plays a cop who begins an affair with Senator's wife Kristen Scon Thomas after their respective spouses are tragically killed in an air crash. Directed by Sidney Pollack, they're talking Oscars for this one.

life is beautiful thursday, november 18

19:00

the mummy friday, november 12

The Exorcist. You may not flee from the cinema in terror for your life but this will slowly seep mto you, ruining bedt1me for a week or so. lt will re-awaken your fear of the dark, guaranteed.

the blair witch project The closest our generation is going to get to its own

pushing tin Dark comedy starring John Cusack as an air traffic controller who attempts to ruin the life of rival BillyBob Thornton when the latter attempts to take over the top spot at the Airport from our John. Directed

by Mike Newell. fight club David Fincher proves that he is the most innovative director in Hollywood and the only heir apparent to Stanley Kubrick with this tale of obsession, drug abuse, and bare knuckle boxing. Starri ng Brad Pin, Helena Bohnam Carter and the Oscar tipped Edwa rd Norton in the lead.

monty python's life of brian

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With a whole host of quotable lines, which just increase with fu rther v1ewings, "Crucifixion? Good " and of course "what have the Roman 's ever done for us?" , here's another chance to see what is at the very least one of the most deservedly seminal films of all time. Mocking in equal parts dogma, indecision and hero worship the Python team's most famous big screen outing has been often imitated but never equa lled. it's a sign of Life Of Brian's timeless quality that even Eddie Murphy is

David Thewlis plays a reporter living in a near future Northern Ireland. He stumbles upon a conspiracy which involves Nothern Ireland 's Leader to be, Robert Li ndsay, gangster Jason lssacs and the IRA. You'll learn more about Irish politics watching this tha n watch ing any ITV news programme.

In addition to the very black (priest black -as Ted would have put it) humour, th is fil m also has the ability to delve into shocking plot twists without any warning leaving the viewer unnerved one -moment yet laughing the next.

You 'll leave the lecture theatre feeling drainedbut 1n a good way.

referencing it in his new movie Bowfinger. L..--.:.-=-~:......-"""

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wednesday:

thursday:

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wax magic the waterfront - club night Monthly masterful mayhem ripping the riffs on the drum & bass tip. I don't know what that means.

lc r uea - club night Essex comes to Norwich for its weekly trip. £2.75

carnival of the bizarre lcr- gig Taking a break from touring the Deep South, one would imagine, this carnival "boasts" Satanica with her snakes and the undead ringmaster Dr Haze. Bet he's still alive.

charty handbaggy the loft - club night Long running and popular gay night.

david essex the theatre royal - gig Insert your own joke here. Hopefully the years spent in anonymity have sent him mad and he'll go on some unmitigated right wing tirade a la his War of The Worlds "let's all live underground" speech. superfly mojo's - club night Big lapels, big hair, big tunes, big crowd. rammed icon - club night Another evening of retro action with the added bonus of cheap drinks; pints are 80p all other drinks are £1.20. pure swing manhattens - club night Nuff said. The regular swing night continues. the longpigs + darkstar. waterfront - gig After a long break the Longpigs are back with their broken heart ballads and buzzsaw pop with support from the floor shakingly marvellous Darkstar. £8.00

michael englis h the theatre royal - gig Teenage country and Irish singing sensation. If that's not going to do it for you ... well done.

david hare's skylight the maddermarket theatre - play One of the most acclaimed plays of the nineties. On a winter night, a teenage boy calls on a young teacher to beg her to be reconciled with his father.

Show starts at 7:30 pm. royal philharmonic orchestra the theatre royal - gig A huge sixty piece orchestr9 consisting of some of the world's finest classical musicians will be performing work by Beethoven, Haydn and Schumann. elite icon - club night • The usual chart music and dance tunes for you to large it to, Ibiza stylee. £2 B423:00.

Perphat.

22:00 - 02:00. £3/3:50. club retro lcr - club night Get your retro rags on 'cos let's face it you don't often get the chance and shake your booty. £3. david hare's skylight the maddermarket theatre - play.

See Friday 5. maximum rhythm and blues the theatre royal - gig An ace line up of rockers belt out classics. £3 to £16:50

rick's place - c lub night Carling is 99p tonight as the mixture of commercial pop and dance gets another outing. You lucky lot.

Free entry B4 23:00.

re:f resh ikon - club night Club anthems and hits galore, with regular guest DJs. £2 B4 22:30 plus a free drink B4 23:00 with a ticket.

in th e mix mojo's - club night An evening of trance, techno and house made all the more appealing by the cheap drinks and free entry before midnight.

gorgeous manhatten's - club night House music is the star this evening. The music don't stop 'till 4am.

sati sfac tion hys - club nights House and Swing. Succinct and to the point. £4 B4 23:00.

the monastary of sound rick's place - club night Chart tunes galore. There ain't no party like a Rick's Place party.

hy ti mes hys - club night You've got to get up to get down and at Hys you'll be getting up all night long. £3.

the all s eeing i the waterfront - gig Sheffield's finest dance masters head to Norwich presumably without the cavalcade of guest singers that have enlivened their numbers recently. £8.50

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sister sledge lcr- gig Get lost...in music as the Seventies comes back to life, again. nckets are £10 in advance.

£5.

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meltdown the waterfront - club night The weekly indie outing at the Waterfront also features acid tracks and big beat tunes upstairs.

tfi mojo's - club night A mixture of music at Mojo's this evening. Another varied night to celebrate the weekend. dance club manhatten's - club night If you think you can hack till 4am then this is the place for you. If not check the TV guide. ric k 's place - club night.

Dress code will apply this evening. Put on the closest thing you have to an ironed shirt and shake it around with the townies. £3 B4 23:00

£5 OFF top two

carnival of the bizarre []JJ@@ ~©IT'~ w®@JITiJ@~@J~w ~ [Ji)@\'f@[Jffi]IID@[J' ©~ Body piercing is all the rage these days - one cannot walk around the UEA campus without seeing unfortunate individuals whose noses, eyebrows, tongues or lips seem to have had a particularly nasty encounter with a staple gun. The folk who make up the Carnival of the Bizarre, however, take self impalation to an entirely new level. Not for them the fearful shrinking from the needle, oh no, they take great delight in shoving bloody great bits

of steel through various parts of their bodies.

Wednesday's show in the LCR features such delights as the scantily clad 'human angle grinder' Lucyfire who also does a sideline in being a lightbulb while snacking on a spot of fire. Also joining in the fun are Amy, the world record sword swallower, Macabre the sword balancer, and the whole lot is compered

by Bruce Forsyth's close showbiz relation , Dr Haze.

Audience participation is not recommended.

prtces at evening performances oust present tills voucbt~.r at tlme of fiooktng. llPltted to two ttckets per purc.base.

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sunday: ffil@IY@ITUD[Q)@(? @'Y the australian pink floyd lcr - gig Another Brick in the Wal l and the Side of the Moon to name but two. I'm sure on the night you 'll get ten or twelve numbers as the best Pink floyd tribute comes to town . Tickets £9. :,. _I

international club fraser hall, 59 Bethel Street - club night A chance to exchange culture and expand your own as the International Club throw another very welcome bash. £2 sunday service manhatten 's - club night House night until 02:00 . Free entry. extra smooth sunday the garden house - club night relax away the dying hours of the weekend to sorne fuine drurn & bass, hip hop and live instrumentation.

Free

monday: ffil@IY@ITffil[Q)@(? @@ sanctuary icon - club night Icon's popular student night, with discounted drinks and a vareity of music.

Free B4 22 :00 underground mojo's - club night Popular lo-fi and indie night. £3 . Open till 02:00.

carwash. liquid - club night Seventies night - hey they saw a gap in the market - dress appropriately and you'll get in for free (or show them your UEA card) .

wednesday: ffil@IY@ITUD[Q)@(? jl@

sebastian faulks lecture theatre one - gig Award winning novelist of Charlotte Grey and The Fatal Englishman discus!ieS his work as part of the Literary Festival. Tickets £2. blood brothers the theatre royal - play The vastly popular West End musical begins a spell at the Theatre Royal.

Tickets range from £3 to £20.

superfly mojo's - club night I wonder if one could go to a Seventies themed club every night of the week?

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student night liquid - club night Another chance to get off campus and dance to some cheesy pop in student only surroundings.

Drinks £1.

rammed ikon - club night Lots of, ahern, retro tu nes with the added bonus of pints being a mere 80p. pure swing manhatten's - club night Swing, swing and swing some rnore, until you get dizzy and have to sit down. Free entry. blood brothers the theatre royal - play Willy Russell's hit musical. Warning: lt does not feature the Chuckle Brothers going on a killing spree.£3 -£20

slinky hys - club night Hy's have their very own student night too. With half price drinks.

Free entry with Student ID.

thursday:

arsonists norwich school of art and design - club night All the way from N.Y.C. A five rnan show of live MC'n, DJ'n and Breakin ' all thanks to the nice chaps at the Turntable Society. £5.

lcr uea - club night Hit me baby one more time ... and maybe I'll slip into a coma and not have to go. £2.75

hawkwind + harvey bainbridge the waterfront - gig 30th anniversary tour of "legendary warriors". Don't

blood brothers the theatre royal - play In today's age surely promoting the exchange of bodily fluids should be preceded by a strict warning. £3.00-£20.00

geneva, live in the hive illl®fm O©f?9 ~illl®@@tiDJj 9 OD@W@[li]i)/:Q)@f?

forget not to wash for weeks and wear your biker jacket. £11

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__Puberty is a strange thing. You get tall, funny hair singer who had a girly voice didn 't really go down appears and you get randy. If you're a bloke, your terribly well with you r average Adidas clad Shed voice will drop into a manly growl. Uriless, that is, Seven fan . you 're the lead singer with Geneva. When the band Geneva are returning to the musical arena with a new single and tour, one night only of which will be first surfaced in the heady days of Br*t P*p; much was made of his falsetto which threatened to played in the LCR. The gig will be a Live in the Hive demolish the pint glass stock and windows of every event , and in the fine tradition of past glories such as Beth Orton and Travis the gig will be free. venue they played . However, despite the success of This could be the only time you go to the LCR and singles such as No-one Speaks and Into The Blue they-neveneally managed to hit the big1ime:-Th'eir· ---- actually 15e pleased that you r drin k comes in a brand of emotional, searingly romantic music with a plastic.

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rick's place - club night Commercial hits and party tunes. Drinks are £1 all night.

Free B4 23:00 otherwise £2 charty handbaggy the loft - club night Popular gay night. £3/£4 in the mix mojo's - club night Trance, techno and house- hoohaa.

Free -entry before 00:00. james taylor quartet the waterfront - gig Every time I think it's going to be James Taylor with his unique brand of contemporary, bitter-sweet folk rock but no it's the hammond friend ly acid jazzers.

Tickets £8.

friday: ffil@IY@ITUD@@(? jl~ dreamscape vs delusion allnighter the waterfront - club night Hardcore old skool and drum & bass until 6 am also featuring a chill out Playstation area. Tickets £13. perfecto on tour lcr - club night Featuring Paul Oakenfold, Dope Srnugglaz (not big or clever) and Perfecto -guests. 21:00 to 02:00.

Tickets £11.

elite ikon _- club night Chart and party favourites to get you in the mood for the weekend. £2 B4 23:00. rick's place • club night More top chart tunes plus that Carling's still only 99p. gorgeous manhatten's - club night Happy house club night till 04 :00. £5.

saturday: ffil@IY@ITUD[Q)@(? jl~ jools holland lcr - gig Returning once again with his Rhythm and Blues orchestra with the added bonus of support form The Medieval Baebas.Sold out meltdown the waterfront - club night lndie hits down stairs, more dance intensive numbers upstairs £3:50 re:fresh ikon - club night Club anthems and top tunes with the regular DJs. £2 84 22:30.

tfi mojo's - club night Come celebrate Saturday at Mojo's with a mixture of music. rick's place - club night Still no sign of Bogie. Still if you dress up nice he might be there, and if not you 'll stil l get a number of a big chart tunes. £3 84 23:00 dance club night manhatten's - club night Pretty self explanatory. Although the title doesn't tell you that it all goes on till 04:00 . blood brothers the theatre royal - play There is _a matinee today. £3- £20

sunday ffil@IY@ITffil[Q)@(? jl~ sunday service manhatten's - club night Free entry for this night of the very best in house music. la doors the waterfront - gig Not a joint tribute band featuring Light My Fire and There She Goes but the Los Angeles based Doors Tribute band, but, hey, you knew that. £7 everything but the girl lcr- gig Returning after a spell away but not losing any fans, unlike body weight, the LCR plays host to the popular acoustic guitar liking, wannabe drum & bassers.

£11

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blood brothers the theatre royal - play I can't th ink of anything glib. it's a musical, that's either going to do it for you or not. £3- £20 whamtastic SO's mojo's - club night Eighties excrement, sorry, excitement with cheap vodka. Free entry 84 23:00.

Free 84 23.00

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michael frayn lecture theatre one - gig Award winn ing author of Copenhagen comes to UEA to discuss his work as part of the international literary festival. £2

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steeleye span the maddermarket theatre - gig 30th anniversary tour for the persistent folk rockers.

you. Not that I'm bitter.

Free entry with UEA card

£11.

slinky hy's - club night .

The other student night wh ich boasts half price drinks and a lot shorter queues too.

blood brothers the theatre royal - play After resting upon the Sabbath their back to sing, sing, sing. £3- £20

Free entry with Id or £1 live in the hive hive - gig Geneva, see not to be missed 21:00 Free entry to students

--WIN! WIN! WIN!-#

blair witch goodies

underground mojo's - club night lndie and lo-fi night £3, students less

Just in time for the Witching Season we are giving you the chance of winning a fantastic array of Blair Witch Project goodie bags, including a bag, T-Shirt, CD, book , torch and much much more. All you have to do to win this fantastic prize is answer the easiest question in the world ...

sanctuary ikon - club night Ikon 's popular weekly student outing featuring current chart tunes with retro classies - how rare.

Free B4 23:00

Which witch looked better with a chimney on her?

The first person chosen out of the lot of you wins. it's as simple as that!

Put your name, year, e mail and answer in the competition box in the Hive or pop up to the Concrete office in Union House.

carwash liquid - club night Get on the love train and sod off somewhere else, just for a change. As always dress up in your funky gear and it is free entry for us student types.

booze booze booze

1111!1!!!11111 ...and plenty of it. One lucky Event reader can win the quite staggering prize of a case of Carling Premier lager, t-shirt and bag, whi le four runners up can claim a t shirt and bag .... all in association with the next NME I Death in Vegas tour th1s November.

And all you have to do to win this fab prize is answer the following question .. .

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blood brothers the theatre royal - play Another chance if you haven't gone already . £3 - £20

What state is Las Vegas in?

student night liquid - club night Drinks are a pound and there will always be at least one woman you wish wasn't there making a point of getting off with really ugly blokes right in front of

Its easy peasy ... leave your name, year, e mail and the answer in the competition box in UH or the Concrete office

@o[[@©u©CfWg @~j1,2l,®® Hys The Loft ®~~®®® ®~®@@@ Manhattans @~jl,~j!, Ikon @~jl,~ Liquid ®~~712l,71 The Waterfront Mojos ®~~~~ @~@71@@ Zoom 71®71@712l, Concept @@@~©© Rick's Place Canary Cue Club ®~71~71© ABC Cinema ®~~®7171 Cinema City ®~~@~71 @~jl,@@~ Odeon @~@®2l,71 Maddermarket @@@~®~ Norwich Arts Centre Norwich Playhouse 71®®~®® @~@@@@ Theatre Royal UEA Studio ®®~~71~ Norwich Puppet Theatre ®~®®~jl, King Of Hearts 71®®~® UEA Union Ents ®@©@®@ Norwich Castle Museum ~~~®~~ . @©@@ j!,@~j!,@~ Scoot @©@@ @@@@@@ Talking Pages

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lis tings written and compiled by a/ex mcgregor. all details correct at time of going to press

With Thl Voucher With Thle Vouch r Union C On

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FRIDAY 5th NOVEMBER

Unl n Card 0

SATURDAY 6th NOVEMBER or 13th NOVEMBER

-,T-~E EV,ENT, W~~~ESDAY,. N.OV~fVI_BER

93 . 1999 w

FRI 22 OCT

MY LIFE STOJIY + YOUNGER YOUNGER 28'S WED 20 OCT

£6.00

£6.00

TUE 26 OCT

BREAKBEAT ERA + BASS ODYSSEY

WED 27 OCT

WED 27 OCT

WED 3 NOV

TOE 26 OCT

THU 28 OCT

£7.00

FRI 5 NOV

£7.00

JTQ(111E

£11.00

.lAMES TAYUIR QUARIET)

THU 11 NOV

£8.00

L.A. DOORS

SUN 14 NO

£7.00

· COLDCUT

THU 18 NOV

£9.00

DELIRIOUS?

FRI17 DEC

I

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I I

I I

lW

£9.00

+ IMAGINATION

£10.00

PINK FLOYD SUN 7 NOV

£9.00

PERFECTO ON TOUR FEAT. PAUL OAKENFOLD

FRI12 NOV

£11.00

JOOLS HOLLAND

£8.50

TOE 9 NOV

£5.00

THE AUSTRALIAN

THE ALL SEEING I

HAWKWIND

£10.00

SISTER SLEDGE

£8.00

THU 4 NOV

£11.50

CARNIVAL OFTHE BIZARRE

LONG PIGS +DARK STAR WED 3 NOV

CAST

BETH ORTON

HERBALISER

., ,

£11.00

JOE STRUMMER SAT 23 OCT £12.50 ILLEGAL EAGLES£9.50 SUN 24 OCT

SYMPOSIUM + CRASHLAND + SCARY MONSTERS

I

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SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

131 • 141 llag Street larwlch Tel 01603 632717

SAT 13 NOV

FUN & FROLICS

AFTER THE CAST GIG FUN IN THE HIVE WITH

INFLATABLE GAMES TUES 26 OCT DRINKS PROMOTION· RD & SMIRNOFF MULE £1.00

HYPNOTIST AND MINDREADER

PETER ZENNER

STRICTLY UEA SU ONLY • TICKETS £2 OR £5 TO INCLUDE ADMISSION TO CARNIVAL OF THE BIZARRE (WED NOV 3)

TUES 2 NOV

£14.50

EVERYTHING

BUT THE GIRL

SUN 14 NOV

£11.00

BUSH FRI19 NOV

£10.50

MORRISSEY£16.00

FRI19 NOV

TICKETS ALSO ON SALE FOR IAN BROWN 3/12 £12.50 BJORN AGAIN 7/12 £13.50 LIGHTNING SEEDS 13/12 £13.50