The event- issue 118- 15th November 2000

, November 15 2000

''No Mum, it's,aB! Honest•••''

lt's the

umbing down issue!

Plus!

"Burtons? What's that?" King Adora "Don't even go there!" Chat show hell Arse or class . Awards ceremonies

11 11 11

- --- -

-

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

-~-~---~-

-- -~-

------

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

-- - -

-~

-~

the·

- -eVent =====-.:::::::::::=-==::=.--==-::::::::::==.::::::=======---=========--:::::=:::::::.:==='=" c

In

In u

he phrase "dumbing down" has become sorely overused over the past decade. lt is no surprise, therefore, that the accusation is starting to look a tad hackneyed. lt has been flung around with starling abandon. Every time an artist forgets to make her bed ; every time the news starts an hour later; every t ime a manufactured pop 'band ' reach number one: what, then, follows, manacled to their ankle? Two words ... and they ain't pretty.

Just a minor quibble though. Who, more often than not, are the accusers in this Salem witchhunt? The public? Rarely . The government? They wouldn 't even presume to be so silly. The media?

There you have it. Or rather, more specifically, the press. Now it is quite easy to dismiss the claims of the likes of The Sun, whose very existence is, how shall we say ... dumb? Scale the media ladder a little higher and you have the middle-market tabloids, spouting their nouveauriche patter like there's no tomorrow. Their genuine belief that they are responsible for the intellectual well-being of the country is there for all to see. While all around are losing their brains what is the Daily Mail and its ilk doing? Well, in truth, it is coming ou_t with the same jingoistic headlines as its down-market siblings, albeit with more polished undertones. Yet juxtapositioned within the cosy walls of the bandwagon are page three pictures of Posh Spice combined with the grandmotherly advice to "wrap up warm". Carol Vorderman is advised to go back to her kids and stop the skirts before they turn into G-strings.

Yet she is plastered over the front page with gay abandon.

What has the Mail achieved? lt would seem that

T

"The fact that Steps and Westlife make it to number one is not a sign that we are all turning into brainless mongoloids. Rather it is indicative of the power of mass marketing and the appalling music taste of ten-year-old girls." they have hypocrisy down to a fine art . They try to inspire real debate on a subject but are bogged down in the very dumbing down they are accusing others of. How can a newspaper decry the likes of Big Brother when it is partaking in the same kind of voyeurism as the rest of the nation, although in a more harmful way? Scaremongering, small -minded values and cereal box patriotism? Could they be responsible for the intellectual vacuity that has taken over our country? Never!

The argument that high art and popular culture cannot function separately in their postmodern bubble is a result of unwavering snobbery in regards to the former . Tracey Emin 's Turner Prizewinning bed may not be 'art ' to some but it should not be used as an example of the dumbing down of British life. Quite the opposite. Anything that inspires an intelligent discourse should be welcomed . Anything that might prompt someone to enter one of our galleries should be paid its dues. The fact that Steps and Westlife make it to number one is not a sign that we are all turning into brainless mongoloids. Rather it is indicative of the power of mass marketing and the appalling music taste of ten-year-old girls. Nothing more, nothing less. And besides, aren't Steps a millennium version of Bucks Fiu? If things haven 't really changed over the past few decades then we must have reached a plateau in levels of

e

3

t

Cutting-edge reportage from the world of music

5 Shea Seger Texan folkstress interviewed, My ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Vitriol interrogated

6 King Adora

•

'

Named after a vibrator, these chaps are causing a 'buzz'! Ho.

0

l\

7 Award Ceremonies Backslap wankery or genuine cultural value? Knowledge: The Police

Insight

•

The dumb issue: Are we really dumbing down?

8 An audience with Trisha Just what sort of people do they get in a chat show audience?

9 Beryl Bainbridge The Booker Prize-winning author, on the dilution of language

10 Operarse?

Opera: high art or elitist piffle? We put the fat lady to the test

1.11111••11 11 John Waiters

Acclaimed director on his latest film and the art of trash cinema

Oi philistine!

12-13 Are you a George Bernard Shaw or a Bernard Matthews?

..-~~ Test your culturedness and that in our fantastic, once in a life time DUMB QUIZ!

14 Music: Fatboy Slim; U2; Sonique; Daft Punk; Mansun - -...... 15 Film: The Way of the Gun; Pitch Black; Bedazzled; The Skulls m 16 Video: Any Given Sunday; Stuart Little; Man on the Moon; Kevin and Perry Go Large once held dry Ice In my hands for two minutes.

17 Arts: Grease onstage; next day I had really bad bums but it got me Pratchett's Latest; Hooking Up by of an essay deadline. Steve McMahon (BI03) Tom Wolfe; set my grandmother's hair on fire with a 18 TV/Radio: Poisoned; Base •strar~rter and we had to put it out with a coat.

Apthorpe (BIOi) Jumping; The Sunday Format 19 Interactive: Metropolis Street ran Into a tree once and nearly sliced half my off. Dave Gotcain (CHE2) Racer

iye talkl•

·----·

dumbing down, so much so that the statement has become an umbrella term for anything we choose to be intellectually sniffy about. lt would seem that we have , instead, become rather selective about how we view the past . Rosetinted spectacles and all that ...

However, to argue that this emphasis on lowbrow entertainment at the ex pense of so-called high art is missing the point. There appears to be a real market for it . For every game show hosted by Bruce Forsyth you have someone to watch it. For every copy of the Daily Telegraph with a nude picture of Anthea Turner in it, you have a Tory to buy it. This so-called "dumbing down " is, it would seem, what the masses want... a response to our need for a quick entertainment fix . One could done so many dumb things In my life that I argue that the media is simply responding to our think of just one. Lisa (WAM) own intellectual barrenness. There is a demand for it. There always has been. fell Into a plate of curry, got it all over my front.

But does that mean that we, the viewing public , broke two plates and a glass as well. Naomi are merely drones? Are we unable to think son (MUS 1) beyond what we see on our television screens, incapable of wiping the dribble from our chins?

No commentator, it would appear, would be I mean, it was a big building and I ran into willing to argue to draw that conclusion . it 's and bust my nose. John Light (CHE2) alright to insult what the "common man " likes to watch, just not the man himself. The Daily Mail I was about eight I thought tortoises were would never presume to call us dumb now would lc£rmo,ose•d entirely of stone so I dropped one it? about 6ft up and it shattered. My next door 1m1iglirbot~r told me off. Gemma O'Donnell (EAS 2)

People:

Eventhor

n

The best guide to what's on in Norwich. Ever.

The Event is produced fortnightly by Concrete: PO Box 410, Norwich, NR4 7TB Tel: 01603 250558 Fax: 01603 506822 E-mail: su.concrete@u~a.ac.uk

Editor · Steve Colllns • Arts Editor · Jlm Whalley • Aim Editor · Merek Cooper • Assistant Aim Editor · Astrld Goldsmith Music Editor · Elln Jones • Assistant Music Editor · Anthony Lovell • TV/Game Editor • Markland Starkle • Assistant TV/Game Editor · Kathryn Hlnchllff Listings Editor · Katherlne Everltt • DTP · Elln Jones · Adam Chapman · Steve Colllns · Nick Henegan · Markland Starkle · Merek Cooper · Jlm Whalley • Thanks to • Chrls Blgsby for helping with Interviews • God of the fortnight · Curries and pizzas Contributors • Alex Thorpe · Phll Colvln · Nlcola Mallett · Jonathan Rolfe • Steve Qulrke · Nick Henegan • Peter Clarke • Jamle Robson · Joss Stacy Waddy · Robble Uprltchard · Jenny Wiles • Slmon Thornhlll · Adam Chapman • Charlotte Ronalds · Tlm Bragger · Jack Burton · James Goffln THANKS very much to everyone who helped out • please call again!

Printed by: Eastern Counties Newspapers, St Andrews Business Park, Norwich

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

the

~- event _=_T_

4

I

Masterclass!

Hiya! My name's Vicky. That's not

n

ov~t;

u

01

<t JO\

t<~K~s

n

t!lrm.v'h the f!no h ~-' . c·"' ,. :v

f.'(

real name 's Victoria, but sometimes people call me Vicky. Some people call me Posh also, because I am. Posh, that is. Hahahaha!

Anyway , jokes aside, The Event has asked me to review great works of literature, so here's my quick guide to culture and that. Lovely!

st•pcr<;t

ShaP110n Tweed

Th us Spoke Zarathrus tra by Friedrich Nietzsche

n:,

Over the years actors have tned many different approaches to creating a character on screen.

Harrison Ford claims to be from the "lets pretend" sc hool of acting, whereas Robert De Niro has long been a devotee of using 'method'.

Thanks to my long and illustrious career in this business we call movies (including such smashes as Body Chemistry 4 : Fu ll Exposure and Sh adow Warrior 11 : Hunt for the Death Merc hant) , I believe I am in a unique posit ion to finish this argument once and of all.

Well, on this one I'm with Bob. If possible I t ry to bring a method to every one of my perform ances.

However, while M r De Niro sometimes spends months getting under a character 's sk in, thinking like them, behaving lik e them, sometimes even going to work as them, I have devised a much more simple system that any budding ac tor can try in five minutes. Here's how it works: take the title of the film (or advert) in which you have agreed to star, then think of the expression that most sui ts those particular words. This expressi on can then be used t hroug hout the production. Th ere are several advantages to such an approach. Firstly, by having your face set in a particular fashion you can devo te all you ability t o remembering all your lines and saying them in the right order (a problem I have part ic ular tro uble wit h) . Secondly, if you look exac tly the same in every scene they can be edit ed into a different order without loss of continuity. ft is for the same reason that I am naked in so many of my films apparently , I 'm t old, editors find clot hes extremely diffic ult to mat ch. Thirdly ... er... lets just look at the success using my approach can bring. In Cannibal Woman in the Avocado Jungle of Death I felt that Avocado required me to seem alluring. while 'Death' instantly implied puzzlement. Therefore, in all my scenes I appear sexily baffled. The producers were so delighted with my rote I was instantly presented with the lead in The Most Dangerous Woman Alive, a far most prestigious project where, if you rent it, you'll see I chose 'cross' as the best expression to use.

Of course, mine is not the only method I recommend. My good friend Eric Roberts has fashioned a great career using the method of being Jutia Robert ·s brother. This year he has starred in 14 films- Tom Hanks has only made one! If that isn 't success I don't know what is. I myself have considered moving my career in t his direction, perhaps by marrying a major star like David Hasse/hoff or Hulk Hog an. But that's in the fu ture, for now I'm going to continue with my one expression technique that I've catchi/y titled "Shannon Tweed 's One Expression Tec hnique". it works for me and, if you'd like to star in movies like Indecent Behaviour Ill or my latest hit Diaries of Darkness, it could work for you too!

Animal Farm by George Orwel l

I liked this one, espec ially the bit when all t hose pigs started playing pok er. But it ·s a bit silly really , isn 't it, because pigs would never play poker. Not with those trotters. ft says on the back that its all about communism, but I rec kon they 've cut out all the blue stuff for the kiddies · version cos I couldn 't find any saucy bits. I found the film adaptation at the back of my David 's video collection, though , and to be honest I think it lost something in translat ion.

Ulysses by Jame s Joyce

Do you remember that children's cartoon in the eight ies called ·utysses'? Well this is a tot lik e that , in that it has the same name, ·utysses·, also. But it is a bit different in that it hasn't got a little robot with the big eyes and also, it is not se t in space. Nei ther does it have that theme tune that went ·'Yoo-/ee-seees no-one else can do the t hings you do-oo". But then I suppose it wouldn't, because it's a book and it doesn 't make any noise, unlike a cartoon. Any way, this is a lovely book, with a g reat cover and lots of wordfilled pages. M akes a good doorstop.

This is about how Superman got his super powers from fivmg tn a cave and talking to the animals.

At feast I think that's what it's about. There's no mention of Lois Lane or telephone boxes at all.

And unlike Superman's later novels. there are no pictures or bangs. I was a bit disappointed really, and I wouldn't say this book is very ·super' at all.

In fact I would say that it is rubbish .

The Bible by God

I saw a play of this once with Phi/ip Schofield in it. and it was fantastic. I didn't muc h like the book , though . There was one good bit where Philip gave t his man his sigh t back, so this book might be of interest to blind people, but they can 't read, so it probably wouldn't. But t o be honest I sk ipped to the end to see what happened cos I g ot bored, and it was all a bit funny. Not funny ha ha, though, funny weird. ft was a bit like that film with the meteor and Bruc e Willis, but Bruce didn 't save the world.

Anyway, I think this might be the sort of book people who have lots of time on their hands migh t like to read, like t hose who are in hospital, or prison. Not the t erminally ill or prisoners on death row, though: they haven 't got much time at all. Hahahaha! Yes. The Odyssey by Homer

Not as funny as his television work , but well written for a yellow man with only fo ur fingers.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eri c Carle

Searing poststruc tura/ist critique of fin de siecle consumerist malaise. An incandescent tou r de force of political allegory, Cate rpillar was a seminal satire of pos t-punk y uppie culture,

depicting a mammonite bug as Britain's alienat ed pro let ariat, relentlessly probing the rott en core of capitalism as he eats his way throug h melons, bananas, apples and cakes. A fizzing . hyperkinetic electro-shock of a novel, this modern fable of epic urean excess caused riots on the streets of Britain upon publication: thousands descended upon Whi tehall and tried to eat the whole House of Commons, dressed only in steeping bags. A momentous classic of postpost modern satire. viscerally arttcufated in lacerating prose on cardboard pages with holes in them. Your life will never be the same agatn.

dumbass

This issue we'll be asking the question, are we really all dumbing down? Or has the human race always been inherently f---king stupid? Here's an eye-opening little list to put things in perspective, proving that stupidity has always been rife, and natural selection sometimes has its off days ...

"it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands when you have spend half your life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment."

Margaret Thatcher gets excited about the Faulklands, 1.982

"If, in the act of copulat ion, the woman earnestly looks on the man, and fix her mind on him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman even in unlawful copulation, fixes her mind upon her husband, the child wi ll resemb le him even if he did not beget it."

Aristotle , 4th century BC

" When we get piled upon one another in large cit ies. we shall become as corru pt as in Europe . and go eating one another as they do there."

Thomas Jefferson, 1.787

"it is once and for all clear that the earth is in the middle of the world and all weights move towards it. ..

"it's never too late to be what you might have been."

George Eliot, 19th century

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over t he world I can 't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be that skinny but not with all those flies and deat h and stuff.''

Marlah Carey, mid 1.990s

"50 years hence ... we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing those parts separately. under a suitable medium ."

Winston Churchill , 1.932

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history.

But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."

Dan Quayle , 1.995

"The French people are incapable of regicide."

Louis XVI , 1. 798

Ptolemy, 2nd century AD

"Jupiter's moons are invisible t o t11e naked eye and t herefore can have no influence on the earth . and t herefore wou ld be useless and therefore do not exist."

Francisco Siui , 1.61.0

Not by Jim Whalley

Compiled by Nic k Henegan

~

Cyberspace Oddity: W;mi. "root of humanity', mn<1h, dumbnes~? J.l~t In Britain ... it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public except as a clerk in a t ropical fish store. lt is Illegal for a te n year old boy to see a naked mannequ in .

In Yo rk, it is legal t o sl100t a Scot sman with a bow and arrow. Exce pt on Sundays.

Lon don Hackney Carriages (taxis/cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats.

All Eng li sh males over the age 14 are to ca rry out 2 or so hours of longbow pract ice a week supervised by t he loca l clergy .

In Chelsea. a pensioner may not be impersonated.

t~ll,.

a

100~ 'lt

http:/ j www.dumblaws.com/ ...

In America . .. lt is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church . (Alabama) lt is illegal fo r a father to ca ll his son a "faggot" or "queer" in an effort to curb "girlie behavior." (Staten Island) lt is a misdemeanor to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehic le, unless the target IS a whale. (Californ ia) Det onating a nuc lear dev ice w1t hin t he city limits results in a $500 fine. (Chico) lt is il legal fo r children to have un usual haircuts. ( Mesquite) it's ill egal to possess realistic di ldos. (Dallas)

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Blaggery Corner's shrinking, but it's still got oodles of prizes t o give you . Answers in the Hive competition box as usual. Quick smart, no dilly-dallying!

WIN ! Two pairs of tickets to the Kitchen al l-nighter (house. trance, techno) at The Waterfront on Friday November 24.

Q: Why should you get the tickets? (no less than 1 0 words) WIN! A copy of Kevin and Perry Go Large plus other freebies!

Q: Have you ever seen your mum and dad having sex?

WIN! Two prize bundles for new fil m The Way of the Gun: including soundt rack CD, T shi rt and poster .

Q: Do you feel lucky, punk?

WIN! Two pairs of tic kets for Caramba Iatin party! (LCR. Sep 17) Q: Who says 'Aye Carumba '?

WIN ! Two pairs of tickets for Keith Harris and Orvil le on November 21 in the H1ve!

Q: Just how handsome is Keith Harris, rig ht? (M arks out of ten)

-- --- --- ---- ~- - --·--- - -- ~-------

- - -- -----

-

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

~-eveiit

&

lii~!JJ~.,tor

Shea Seger supported James at their sellout performance at the LCR, and has recently released her debut album The May Street Project to critical acclaim. Elin Jones went to find out more ...

They may seem a little bit scary, especially if you've heard about their fisticuffs with fellow tourmates Crashland, but My Vitriol are really jolly nice. Just don't tell them I said that.

Have you felt any pressure after the hype you 've received?

Seth (Guitar): We haven't had time to th ink about it! Everything ' s been going so fast and we have been constantly gigging or recording, plus when you're stuck in a recording studio you're ji)St cut off from everything anyway.

How have recent bad reviews affected yoli?

Seth : That 's the thing about live music you don 't know what it's going to be like, it might just all fall apart . it's like watch ing someone on a tightrope, if they make it that 's great but if they fall off it ' s entertaining in a different way .

"Passing out on the pool tables was one of my specialities back in university... very embarrassing!"

How do different parts of the country react to you?

Ravi {drums) : lt is quite different regionally ... the Deftones g ig in Scotland was amazing, the k ids were crowd surfing before we had even begun ... actually we may be doing something with Chino [Moreno, Deftones lead singer] soon .

What 's the worst tour you 've been on?

Ravi: Well the Crocketts tour's been the most fun, but the Kerrangl tour on the other hand had its ups and downs for obvious reasons, w~ic h you might know about [ 'clash' with tour mates Crashland] ...

Seth: The press sensationalised certain aspects ...

Carolyn (bass): We're too boring, the press has to make something out of nothing!

How 'Important' Is your music?

Ravi : We like to cross boundaries in terms of musical styles, that's what we're all about .

Have you had any strange fan requests?

Carolyn : Only Som (lead singerjguitar) ... someone wanted him to lick their beer can 'cos he didn 't have a pen!

What was the first ever album you ever bought?

Carolyn : 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson Ravi: I think it was the Level 42 album 'Runn ing in the family' Do you have any 'crazy' student stories?

Ravi: Loads yeah ... passing out on the pool tables was one of my spec ialities back in university ... very embarrassing!

Tlm Bragger and Slmon Thomhlll

n an industry dominated by Barbie-doll Britneys and Christinas, Shea Seger is a breath of fresh air. Just as blonde and beautiful as the aforementioned 'artists' , she has a vulnerability about her that Victoria Beck ham et a/ can only dream of with all their pouting and Wide-eyed looks into the camera. On meeting her, Shea Seger comes across as your typical gir1-next-<loor replete with freckles and an easy laugh which comes frequently throughout the interview - her sense of humour coming in handy as the interview was being carried out in the Hive ...

Although she describes her music as "mutt dog .. . bluesy pop with beats", Shea's debut album The May Street Project has a Beth Orton/Aianis Morisette feel about it, with her singer-songwriter roots clearly visible (but not in a bad hairdo kind of way) . The May Street Project is a rounded blend of acoustic guitar ballads and synthesised tracks which complement each other and fit into the stream of consciousness feel of the album as they are all written by Shea herself, an attribute sadly lacking in today's music world.

Shea's songwriting started early on. At the age of two she began to learn the piano and spent much of her childhood writing fragmented lyrics which stood her in good stead when she was awarded a scholarship to a theatre school in Virginia. From there she went on to star in musicals "that all the

I

"She describes her music as 'mutt dog bluesy pop with beats." bluehairs go to see on weekends". As with many theatre school luvvies (All Saints, Louise, Spice Girls) , she claims never to have stopped loving music and carried on writing. She was eventually rewarded when she secured an agent in Britain and released her debut album.

Although the music was written throughout her life, without the pressure of writing in anticipation of releasing an album, it follows her life stories and emotions, giving it a clear structure. She explains "[the album] is completely streamlined, it is a project. I don't necessarily know if I would do the music in the same capac ity as I'm doing it now if I didn't have a story. lt tells honest stories." lt is this refreshing honesty that sets Shea apart from her rivals, her roots in smalltown Texas as well as her parents' avid interest in her work have meant that she has kept her feet finmly on the ground (yes, she is a living cliche). But with superstardom surely on the way , judging by the very positive press that she has received since the release of her album and single (Last Time), will she be able to stay grounded?

For now she seems to be taking it in her stride, saying that "those [reviews] that do come in I read, but don't take them too much to heart, I see them as an acknowledgement." Whilst her innocence and naivity about the music business is endearing, you cannot help feeling slightly apprehensive about her Mure. After her somewhat sheltered up-bringing being thrown into a notoriously bitchy and volat ile business does seem rather like sending a lamb to the slaughter. Did she know what she was letting herself into?

The child of an artist and a music connoisseur, it is hardly surprising that Shea has gone into this field.

She agrees "I think I knew that I wanted to be in music from when I was a little kid .. . I just didn't know when. lt ended up being in London - I came over here a couple of years ago and started to write and I ended up staying here for a bit. " In fact, it was in London that she made the contacts that she collaborated with on her album and found an agent (only two years ago) who gave her the motivation she needed to amalgamate her work . Since then she has been concentrating on winning over the British

audience before tackling Europe. The album hasn't been released in America yet then? "No it hasn't. I just really started over here. I wrote and recorded the Project and did it over here and will go from here to new territories. I'll move on to Europe and then the States will come after that. lt will be interesting!" lt may seem surprising that she is starting her career in London, especially as her genre of folksy music has such a large audience at home in the States.

However, the competition is also far greater over there with singers like Leanne Rymes not even

"After school Shea starred in musicals 'that all the bluehairs go to see on weekends."' bothering to raise their profile in Britain. Will Shea admit to pandering to market forces? " I just feel like I can breathe in London." Thought not. Shea is currently on tour with James to raise her profile, and has managed to win round the huge crowds with her bubbly personality and original songwriting. Playing to crowds of up to 2,500 has been a challenge as a debut artist, but Shea is taking it in her stride- no doubt still giggling to herself as she goes. Let's hope she can stay that way.

Bllfll 2 street Influenced sportswear hip hop and designer clothing

PERitY ELLIS

cf.·tJ"'-

~

~• &~.

• IHtJ

AMERICA

14 St Benedicts Street, Norwich Tel: 01603 6ttt8o

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Apnl must be "important " . But isn't this the same tired terminology that yer Travplays would use to justify stoical adherence to their parents' record collections? Again there's the contradictions. the brilliant lack of definition apparent 1n every inchoate band who chips away at the negative space around themself by defining what they're not - fake, derivative, [shudder] Coldp/ay without a complete idea of what sort of shape they'll end up sculpting for themse lves once they've got past t he razorsharp cheekbones and hazardous hips . And as self-professed butcher-cum -architect Mr Richey Edwards m1ght testify. such selfcreation can have a darker side.

Big lsn "t Beautiful. the band's last single , is a hideously catchy pu nk-pop song complete with a who-hoo middle e1ght and handclappy choruses. it is also about male anorexia.

Belting out such slogans as "skinny is sexy, sweet anorexia", "every boy wants a body to die for " . and lusting for the feeling of 'bones on bones', it's not the sort of song you can whistle along to with a completely clear conscience. Think the Manics· 4st 71b as sung by Billie Piper. Scary, huh?

"We don't agree with self abuse , but I understand it to a degree: to the degree that

"I'm not about to carve 4 Real into my arms or anything."

King Adora are a rather confused bunch. They want to burn out and last forever. They don't want to be a part of Dadrock but they subscribe to the same ideals as Travis and Coldplay.

They don 't want to encourage anorexia but they write songs with titles like Big Isn 't Beautiful. Hmmm. Steve Col/ins tried to fathom out the biggest buzz to come out of Birmingham since ... er ... the Ml .. .

I 0% DISCOUNT WITH THIS A DVERT & STUDENT ID

artyn, the Nicky Wire-alike bass player of the band named after a big vibrator, leans forward slightly and smiles: "We're gonna v1brate you in a minute." As threats go, 1t's not very threatening . In fact, it's rather silly. King Adora, music press darlings and heirs apparent to the Manics· tarnished t1ara as androgene queens of Richeyrock, are pretending to be scary. it isn't working. For a start noth ing rea lly sounds that frightening when said in a light Brummie brogue. and secondly, wel l. .. vibrate me? I mean, the PR said I was 'brave' for even interviewing them at all, but if that's the best they can do. I've been getting the wrong end of the lover's aid already.

M

"We 're here for a good ~( U( BOUGHT AND SOLDFORCASH time not a long time.

And we're having a ~ MUCH \ COMPACT DISCS • RECORDS MORE THAN VIDEOS • BOOKS • MAGAZINES great time, we love it.

1 aJusr Aeo A We take as much as we ~ SHOP ~ AUTOGRAPHS • FILM • SPORT can to excess and enjoy (J ~ AND MUSICMEMORABILIA ourselves. We're not gonna fade out."

• 0

"Naaaoo!" say s M artyn, sounding for all the world like Noddy Holder. "No need to be afraid of us. We're harm less! But it depends w hat you find scary I suppose ... " it's si ll y rea lly. There's something rather geriatri c about bei ng scared or shocked by a band li ke King Adora, like your gran crossing the street to avoid teenagers. And make no mistake, King Adora are very much an adolescent band. Not in the dumb Eminem sense, but in their complete insecurity. in the way they seem to balk at the very thought of fitting into the ramy-day classicism of their contemporaries whilst desperately wanting a place in the Outsider School of Rock Self-Definition's prestigious alumni (see Manics, Smiths. Pistols et c) . it's that awkward, gauche conflict between acceptance and alienation which makes the early stages of any band's rise genuinely exciting , when it actually seems like they might do something new, simply because

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

they haven't got a f-king clue what they·re meant to be doing anyway. King Adora are caught right up in the middle of that conflict, and they're loving every confusing, absurd minute. ost kingly Adorian Matt is curled up on a bench immediately after coming offstage in in a loosely heldtogether ball of eyeliner and hand me-downs.

His arms are slightly scarred, his hair's a mess. He looks like the half-formed aborted foetus of Richey Edwards and Nancy Spungen, and in an age when punk means Blink 182's toothless ye lpings, he's from a different planet altogether.

"Of course people are suspicious, because we don't dress, look and talk like ... Coldplay and Travis", he muses, lingering over the offending terms before flicking his Internal bitch switch. "Coldplay are a bit like a cold shower anyway: I don't think there's that much of an ache in Chris Martin's voice. And JJ72 as well - I don't think there's much of an honesty there either. I think Coldplay are probably good people and they're trying to do something but I don't think there's 100% sweat and balls and passion and heart going into t hat stuff at all ."

Sweat , bal ls heart and pa ssion? Sounds like a rather suspect macho-rock pastie for a band so gloriou sly playing dress-up in the M anics cast-offs. " Bu t to us that's w hat was quite disappointing about the Manics," says Martyn, "they started out with one idea and then it's like 'oh it 's alright, we can change that now'. They were important, and now they just don't excite us. But we're not gonna do that."

So the Manics' passion didn't last as long as King Adora's battery-powered stamina will?

Martyn chuck les, takes a long drag on h1s cigarette, squints, then launches into the first of many contradictions.

"Well, really at the moment we're here for a good time not a long time. And we're having a great time, we love it. We take as much as we can to excess and enjoy ourselves.

But we will endure." - and then, five mmutes later - "it's that whole attitude of burn out or fade out. We're not gonna fade out ."

Presumably ·endurance· here means leav1ng an impression; they repeatedly cla1m their desire that their album scheduled for next

M

I felt I could write a song about 1t. But we don 't encourage that at the same time, 1t"s not some sort of punk thmg, it's anorexia. " Erm, but it is a punk thing, isn't it? You're a punk band, Big lsn ·r Beautiful IS a punk song. Both are to some extent questions of self 1mage, and therefore of self-control. The two are mseperable.

"But that's taking the song at face value" says Matt, "reading between the lmes, the song's written from the pomt of view of an anorexic male saying 'skinny is sexy, big isn't beautiful'. it"s meant to be a heartfelt song from that point of view."

Are you comfortable that you're attracting a self-abusing audience? " Yes, we are attracting an audience where there's a lot of people in there who selfabuse, and hopefully they can find something to help them stop domg that. We encourage expression but we 're not trying to encourage negative expression. I'm not about to carve 4 Real into my arms or anything."

But punk is negative self-expression to some extent isn't it? Matt's covered his arms now, and he pulls his knees in closer.

"Fans do approach us with marks on their arms ... to be honest they don't really flaunt it on you. They' re not like. 'look at me'; they're just ve ry into wh at we're doing and they' re exc ited t hat somebody's doing something that connects with them. But we're not counse llors. I don't see how we can take that responsibilty, we can't do half an hour of songs and half an hour of counselling."

So, to recap: attention-seeking aggression at odds with emotional vulnerability; vehement individualism at odds with a yearning for the security of canon1ca l comfort in the haunted halls of rock alienation; a kamikazee death drive at odds with a longing for longevity ... Christ, when are these rock bands going to grow up?

Well. never, hopefully. As soon as cum-filled young pups like King Adora start getting a coherent agenda, prioritizing e1ther form or content, or striving for consistency in a manner befitting adults- well, then the game·s up, and we m1ght as well start shopping for sensible shirts. Oh, which reminds me. Matt, just for the record .. . you won't ever do a Manics-style Burtons phase on us. will you?

Matt looks genuinel y confused.

"Burtons? What's that then?""

Yes, yes. yeeees. Get ready to be vibrated.

ee

7

iKnowledge --------------• The Police 43

The people versus the elite. As awards ceremonies line up to crown the year's top acts, the Event asks if the music-buying public can be trusted to judge ...

Prosecution ••• t's the MTV Europe Music Awards this week.

The artists whom have been deemed squeaky clean enough to receive heavy video rotation on the aforementioned channel will gather for an evening of schmoozing, boozing, and in most cases, losing . But for the winners, there will be congratulations all round, and a chance to thank everybody in the world, ever, especially their fans who voted for them. There's a problel)1 here. Awards ceremonies like this are supposed to honour the worthy- the acts whom have given us the soundtracks to the year, channelling genuine emotion into songs which are thoughtprovoking and uplifting. But instead of that, what do we get from MTV? Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears. Oops, they've done it again.

Voting for the MTV Awards couldn't be simpler.

You can do it online- and to make things even easier for you, those lovely people at MTV have taken it upon themselves to handily restrict the artists you can vote for to five or six household names. 'Wait a minute' , I hear you cry, 'What if I don't want to vote for any of the artists that MTV say are deserving of such a high profile award?

Suppose I think that MTV are just pandering to the lowest common denominator pop music market, and are overlooking acts who don't make videos and may not sell as many records? Or t

I

they're just nominating the stars whom are going to be available to collect the awards on the night in question, thus ensuring a celebrity studded audience?'_There's absolutely nothing wrong with thinking like this- in the most part, it is absolutely true . The last people who should be allowed to vote for such high profile awards are the general public, especially children. Why should the opinion of a 12 year old internet obsessive who happens to like the Backstreet Boys, and listens to nothing else except pop

"The last people who should be allowed to vote are the general public" music be allowed to decide that they are the winners of the 'Best Group' category? They are up against the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Travis amongst others, and do you know what? The Backstreet Boys will beat both of these musically more credible and talented bands because they have the most fans, and it makes me thoroughly sick.

The Mercury Music Prize is the way an award for music should be done. lt is rigorously shortlisted over a period of several months (as opposed to

the MTV awards, which draws its shortlists from whoever has sold the most records) from every genre of music, leading to a diverse and generally superior collection of nominees. Better still, real experts on music who listen very widely ie. editors of credible music magazines and the likes of John Peel and Steve Lamacq are allowed to decide upon the winner. Surely it is true that they know more about music than the aforementioned 12 year old, and are in a better position to judge what is good and what is mass produced for the undiscerning ear?

I'm not saying that all pop is bad, nor that there are rio good acts nominated for the MTV awards (the likes of the Foo Fighters, Moby, Eminem and Cypress Hill are all in line to win various categories), more that the immature and narrow listening tastes of children should not be allowed to dictate the award of major prizes. Despite their lower profiles, the awards which are voted for primarily by adults will always carry greater credibility, as will those upon which experts on music are allowed to decide. Sadly for MTV, this means that in the main, the winners of their awards will always be representative of the opinions of the musically infantile who fail to look beyond the playlist to the bigger picture.

Who did what?

Drummer Stew art Copeland was the driving force behind the early line-up of The Police and was first to recognise the obvious talent of a geordie art teacher who went by the name of Sting. With the late addition of guitarist Andy Summers, whom they met while touring Germany with original guitarist Henri Padovani (catchphrase: "I was once in The Police, you know .... no really!"), they created a mixture of jazz, reggae and rock music that made The Police one of the most critically and commercially successful bands of the 80's.

But surely the SO's are best forgotten?

Only if you never want to hear classic songs like Roxanne, Can't Stand Losing You or Walking on the Moon again. The Police are one of a handful of bands who prove that the 80s weren 't as bad as everyone remembers. Every album, from their debut Outlandos D'amour to 1983's Synchronicity, is full of brilliant tunes that are far superior to most of the dress that frontman Sting churns out these days. Hey, at least he's not Phil Coli ins!

Anthony So where are they now?

Sting split the band at the height of their powers after Synchronicity in 1983. This gamble obviously paid off for him as he's now one of the biggest stars in the world with a string of solo album and single hits to his name . He's currently working on songs for the new Disney film The Emperor's New Groove. Stew art Copeland composes soundtracks and Andy Summers sits around the house waiting for Sting to call about a reunion.

So which Is best?

They're all good. Regatta de Blanc and Ghost in the Machine are perhaps the most consistent albums and Synchronicity is pretty good if you can listen to Every Breath You Take without thinking of Puff Daddy and wanting to throw up.

Defence.. ~ here has been a flurry of mus1c award ceremonies lately- the Mercury Music Award, the Q Awards and the MTV Europe awards coming up, to name but a few. With these comes more controversy over voting than the Presidential elections. lt is worth remembering, however, that all the music awards are different - otherwise what would be the point of having so many? The Mercury Music Award is well known for being judged by so-called 'professional music critics' and is widely considered to be the most valid award because of this. DJs like John Peel and Steve Lamaq know a lot about music. No-one's debating that, but do you ever get the feeling that they don 't actually like music? They seem to be critics in the literal sense of the word, instead of liking songs for the way they make you feel they judge them purely on their worthiness. Noone would call S Club 7 musically cred ible in any sense of the word, but who wouldn 't be cheeredup by hearing Reach playing at the LCR? Now imagine Badly Drawn Boy (winners of this year's Mercury Mus1c Award) playing in the same situation. They're clearly more credible, but if you

In Retrosoect:

don't empathise with what they're trying to say or the way they ' re saying it then their music will be meaningless to you.

The Q and MTV Awards are different in that they are awards for the artists who cater for the specific audiences of the award-givers. At the Q Awards, David Gray 's Baby/on won Best Single over Coldplay and Eminem. Whilst this may make

"Isn't it better that the audience judges, rather than having their musical tastes dictated to them?" my blood boil (I mean, David Gray?), I can appreciate that I am not the target audience of Q magazine and if that's the music the readers like then why shouldn't Mr Boring win an award for it?

I would, however, agree with the award for classic song writing which went to Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams. Even as I'm writing this I can hear you gnashing your teeth - how could I possibly sanction an ex-member of Take That receiving an award for his song writing? Just answer me this- do you know the words to

Angels? I thought so. Even if you listen to nothing but Green Day and Metallica, somehow the words to 'classics' like Angels and Millennium will have permeated your subconscious, only to be released in a beer-sozzled moment when the whole pub is united in wailing the chorus at the top of their voices. Robbie certainly knows how to get people 's attent1on and can identify with common issues. His popularity is testament to his wide appeal and shouldn't be punished because an elite group of critics think he's too ·poppy' (pop music being a term derived from the word popular, doesn 't the fact that it 's popular speak for itself?).

The MTV Awards will be voted for by the audience of MTV . They 're not professional music critics, but pay to listen to the music they like. Some of these will be 12 year old computer geeks, but some will be 20 something professionals who can actually afford to subscribe to MTV and buy pop music. Isn 't it better that the audience judges, rather than having their musical taste dictated to them by ageing rockers who many of the audience wouldn't even recognise?

"De do do do de da da da is all I have too say to you."

Jack Burton

Elln Jones

W-ednesday, November 15,. 2000

lt's a noisy, many-headed monster that devours human pain every second of every day, all over the world. Now in its twenties, the chat show audience has grown up to be a rather terrifying beast, but is it the chimerical cross section of a dumbed-down society or a bunch of sad voyeurs? Jonathan Rolfe went on Trisha to find out .. . ine twenty-five on a weekday morning is no student-fri endly hour, but it is at this time that Ang lia Television's flagship chat show, Trisha, appears.

Jenny Jones and Oprah are consigned to the even-lowlier Channel Five , and it is sad to think that the image that most comes to mind is the chair-swinging , lover-beating facades of such transatlantic twaddle as Springer. lt is far easier to talk up the vacuity of that than " issue based'' discussions. The Trisha Show has had as many strippers, deviants and ne'er-do-wells as any , but the expectations and reactions of the audience are different .

The first thing to account for is its massive popularity, which is nationwide. Marie Picket! is an aud ience researcher on the programme, and she organises for coach-loads of people to appear

this. "it's the sort of th ing that wom en like to watcll, and a lot of them are mothers wh o have got children at school ." This of course is not universal ly the case. Although male viewers only amount to about 25% in the studio and at home . the number of men who turn up and watch regularly consistently surprises Marie.

As the media is full of accusations about how so much easier everything is now in our culture, you'd think in this supposedl y "low " medium that the young would get more involved than their elder counterparts. Marie commented on thiS as we discussed what "grips" different age groups on the show. " If it's about people sleeping around or cheating on their partn ers then that's obviously going to be of greater re levance to a younger age group, and they're going to feel more prone to stand up a11d say something. I think it depends a lot on the subject. " The audienc e researchers mail-drop all areas of the community , including pubs, clubs and "anywhere where people work. " They also rec e1ve about seven hundred ca lls a week after a tra iler is shown .

The issue of the program was bull ying , a " stock " top ic at the moment. The show 's guest s were principally young girls and their distraught parents . As one of the girls read part of a not e her bullies had given her about her being overweight, she burst into tears (she was painfully thin). The audience seemed t o react in weekly over two days of filming. The show is just one of three ways. They either went for gestura! as popular at home - well over a million people tutting and a nod of sympathy , or they made a tune in everyday, and the word never stops comment expressing their personal empati1Y , or spreading. " it's good selling a show like this ," they just looked extremel y uncomfortable.

Marie explains, "because you can go out mto the To help the crumbltng teenager, Trish a turned streets and say ·we're from the Trist1a s11ow. both their c hairs away from the facing aud1ence in we've got a coach going from this area ·, and order to make th e conversation eas1er for th e g1rl. everybody knows what you're talking about. I've never had anybody say they don't know w11at it is.

Could this be showing tile failure of "exposure" of certain problems? Is this some sort of emotional Everybody's heard of it." Whic l1 as it wou ld appear, is more than can be said for many voyeurism?

Of course , Marie is eager to defend tile show cultural luminaries of the past, who fewer and against any such accusations, cl aiming that fewer young er peopl e seem to have heard of. people do phone into the show and tell the As we talk, the wait ing room is bu zzing with groups from Kidderminster and Birmtngham. With researchers how genuinely moved they were by the ex ception of a few company execut ive s. they its content . There's often been an argum ent that viewers , as they do with soaps, wotch them as are all women. Marie explained the reasons for they know that "raking" other people's misfortunes w ill produce very watchable conflict. Marie interjects - she's obviously practised at defending the show on this point. " I think we have strong subjects they could be rape, abuse or violence , or it could be the re-union of a mother and son who haven't seen each other for twenty-five years. They 're still subjects based on emotions. You don't want to get up in the morning and only see • FREE pregnancy tests doom and gloom, though if it was all light-hearted, it wouldn't be • Confidential advice and information rea listic."

But do the audiences treat the • Time to think through your choices with experience as an entertaining a trained counsellor excursion, or are th ey genuinel y moved by what they see? "Some • Practical care and support, whatever show s won 't affec t everybody, " you ~ecide Marie concedes , " but everyone is different. Peopl e do phone up and • Post abortion and miscarriage talk about it. We get e-mail s from counselling hundreds and hundreds of peopl e, or t hey write t hank -you letters."

• All services FREE and open to both men Psycholog ists have long sa1d t hat .and women model cases are not advisable t emplates for the way 111 which the • Come on your own, with your partner viewer sorts out thei r own l1ves. So or with a friend or relative what does t11e aud1ence pi an to get out of the ex perience? "People love OPENING HOURS t o get involved," she says. " M any peopl e w ho watch it at home and Mon 1Oam · 4.30pm Wed/Fri 1pm · 4.30pm then c ome into the st ud1o say it's Please call to arrange an appointment great t o see wh at ac tu all y goes on.

Norwich Pregnancy Crisis Centre, The Fishergate Centre, what actual ly happens." Seei ng Fishergate, Norwich , NR3 I SE (0 1603) 768777 behind-the-sc enes. and yourself on television. seems for many to be th e Registered Charity No. I 06 1535

N

"As one of the girls read part of a note her bullies had given her about her being overweight, she burst into tears"

Pregnant?

Worried?

Call us for help

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

greatest satisfaction.

What is also satisfying for an audience is displacing the knowledge of a supposed "expert" with more "homespun" solut1ons. But isn't it often the case that a show ' s emphasis is increasingly placed on experts to get more reliable , less reactionary comments? Marie thinks not. "We definitely wouldn't drag experts in to go over the audience. lt ·s good to have people in the audience who the producers know have had experienc e of the issues. " People who have spoken in one part of the show often move into the audience for the next.

Opinions of personal experience seem to matter more , as the scorn of the host at the idea of antibullying policies in schools showed Trisha sees them as an admiss1on of failure.

On the notion of audiences who clap and whoop merely for the sake of it . Marie believes that there's no such contrivance

"The chat show may be disdained as 'light entertainment,' but how can this number of people be wrong?" here. ''The idea is that if somebody feels they want to do that here, tl1en that's how somebody else at home is feeling. That's what we tell our audiences, if you're feeling it then you can guarantee that 20,000 people at 11ome are fee ling the same thing, so don't be scared to jump up and react , and to say what you feel.

But we wouldn't force anybody. " t makes you wonder if chat shows are stil l a good forum for addressing such person al issues. as there is no lack of alt ernat ives any more. In an era of mass att ent ion t o t he complexities of ordinary people's lives. and when t he mtern et and docusoaps accou nt for so muc h of t he public's viewing, are aud1ences for chat shows getting more di fficu lt to find? Marie doesn 't th tnk so. " Peopl e st ill love to come along .

These fly-on-the-wa ll doc umentari es and t he internet wi ll only provoke more mtng ue. cert ainly not less."

Such is the

I

popularity of these shows the public come in droves to be part of them. They are shown on television because people still want to see them.

As the television companies say, that ' s "democracy." Their cl1oice. The genre seems flexible enough to compensate for people's changing tastes. lt may be disdained as " light entertainment", but can this number of people be wrong?

the

---event c:;;;;::;;;:;::=~=====D=u=m=b=in:=.:!g~d=o=w=n=?=路====:::::==========' Beryl Bainbridge has become as well known for her controversial views on the ill effects of not talking propah as for her novel-writing. Elin Jones met her to discuss Britain's dumbness, and her bestselling unwritten novel ... can't stand Liverpool accents ...they're disgusting." This rather abrasive opener may seem out of character from Beryl Bainbridge at first glance. The wizened, petite lady perched on the edge of a huge armchair in the hotel lounge, puffing on her trademark ciggie, looks far too world-weary to launch into such a tirade on our first meeting. The author of well-received novels such as An Awfully Big Adventure (later made into a film starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rick man), Harriet Said, The Dressmaker and Winter Garden, she has been through the proverbial mill during her long career, having grown up in war-torn Liverpool, missed out on the Booker Prize five times, and caused a public outcry following her comments about colloquial accents. Hence her opening gambit. lt soon becomes clear that Dame Bainbridge is not one to mince her words, especially not on the subject of the 'dumbing-down' of standard English, a topic which has earned her so much criticism in the past.

"The Liverpool accent didn't exist when I was younger. it's a put-on thing. I mean, think of the Beatles, they don't have that kind of accent like on Brookside. it's a sort of made-up thing."

Obviously an issue close to her heart, then. After her views on colloquial accents were aired

'' I

"Everything is dumbingdown. lt's in everything ...

Everything on television is advertisements now. lt's all controlled by commerce." recently there was a national rumpus, sparking phone-ins on television shows and extensive coverage by The Guardian, amongst others. This had no effect on the resiliant Bainbridge, however - at her age she sees no point in holding an opinion which you are not prepared to defend In the face of opposition, and her upbringing had indocrinated her to believe that elocution lessons were the only way to ensure that standards in education and intellectualism did not slip. As a child, Bainbridge received elocution lessons privately, and she believes that this is the way forward for education in order for people to secure a better future for themselves.

You may well ask how an accent can affect your career opportunities, but Dame Bainbridge has the answer- "the less you can speak properly, the less intelligent you will sound. What is the point of speaking if you can't speak the Queen's English?" Maybe someone should pose the same question to the people of Norwich. However, this is no joking matter, Bainbridge is of the opinion that "you can wipe out the class system in two decades if everybody was taught to speak properly." Her rant extends to the education system which she believes should include elocution lessons in the curriculum as "a lesson like mathematics, being taught how to speak the English language."

Her opinions about the falling intellectual standards in modern society reach from education to include the arts and music. Like many others of her generation, Bainbridge does not attend "the pictures" very often ("probably the last film I went to was a Disney one with my grandchildren"). preferring the theatre which was, after all, where she spent most of her youth as a student at the Liverpool Playhouse. However, she did review Titanic when it was released, as she had written a book on the same subject. Although she enjoyed "the bit of the real going down, and the last quarter of an hour", somewhat unsurprisingly she thought that "the love story and the bits with the Irish people were just silly."

Her novel on the subject focussed on the American first class passengers so that she

would be able to discuss the workings of the ship and the shipping line, areas of the tale that the other passengers wouldn't have been able to discuss as they had no knowledge of them. Although her novel was concerned with the personal aspects and stories on board the ship, she did this so that the number of people who died in the disaster would not seem anonymous - she did not do it to 'dumb-down' this very serious story. She has other criticisms of the film, too, but these are mainly to do with the technical aspects which she feels have been left by the wayside in favour of the obligatory Hollywood love story. Her views on music are much the same - "The older you get, everything is dumbing-down. it's in everything. I li~e war-time songs and The Beatles. Now [music] is not as tuneful and technology has advanced so much that in actual fact you can do most things on a synthesiser. it's got to have a tune. If it's got a tune it's alright." Even the allconquering Beeb doesn't escape the s.harp tongue of Dame Bainbridge- "everything's advertisements now. it's all controlled by commerce. The BBC is getting that way." lt would seem that she is not a big fan of market forces, and leaves it up to her publishers when it comes to sales of her novels.

T

he main reason for the so-called 'dumbingdown' of culture, she proposes, is an obsession with trying to please too many people. "I bet when they did the Great Exhibition in Queen Victoria's time they didn't try to be popular, they just put the best things they could find into it.. . The greatest dumbing-down is the contents of the Dome. [But] I've never been." it may be argued that this type of blind condemnation is unjustified, but she is unshakeable in this, as well as her other rather controversial and extreme views.

In her novel-writing, Bainbridge is also very much set in her ways and unshakeable in her intentions.

For her new novel she has decided to write the story of Samuel Johnson, a story which has already been told by Boswell In great detail. Not one to be stopped by this fact as she was Interested in the subject, she has decided to focus on Johnson's relationship with Mrs Thrale to make the account different from Boswell's. She says "I had done all the other books on my childhood and I suddenly thought I'd like to move away from that and do something different." it would seem that books on subjects as varied as the Crimean War, the Titanic and Adolf Hitler weren't 'different' enough. The way in which the novel is being written is a new genre for Bainbridge, though. "it's called According to Queenie, who is the daughter of Mrs Thrale. In every chapter the writer says what is happening and then Queenie writes a letter when she's much older and contradicts almost everything. it's not written in the first person because I've done four in that way. I can't tell you how difficult it's going to be writing in the third person. The sentence construction is so much harder because you keep having to say who's saying the damn thing."

Although she is only half-way through writing the book (which should be finished by Christmas) it has already appeared on The Times' best-seller list on the Internet, a fact which Bainbridge finds highly amusing. "One week it was number 21 in the bestseller list and the next week it was number 15. I wasn't even half-way through writing it! I was hoping it would go on like that and then I wouldn't even have to write it."

111 Unthank Road Norwich Tel: 01603 626068 Irish folk, first Sunday of each month Live jazz, thir

Sunday of eac

onth

Latin American ev y Wednesday evening - an enjoyable e

eriencel

ot and cold food available (vege option) 0 Lunch ti l 2-. Opm every day

Evening food, Mo day to Saturday

6pm- 8pm undays, full English roast until 3pm

Bee 'J'den, car parking, access facilities For the disa ool table, quiz machine, well behaved c 1 路welcome

Mad bar stall, a crazy lancllorcl Wednesday, November 15, 2000

10

The Last Supper Harrison Birtw ist e

B

eing a student' s a funny old bu siness. Largerdrinki ng, dope-smoking, hormon e-heaving lazy gits. True? Well I'm not gon na get into that now. But in post-student life (ie. life after uni). somewhere the student is expected to morph into a cultured midd le class, New Labour vo ti ng creatu re of the establi shmen t. Now this I fi nd j ust a little bit scary. Where does the culture come from? it's not that I'm necessarily an unc ultured person, but opera -well, I just don't get it. it's something I th ink I should like rather t han som ething 1 actua ll y do . I mean. fat It alian women attempting to smash glass by replicati ng noi ses that only cats can achieve (whilst being st rangled), just doesn't seem to be high culture. Opera is just so elitist. and those that seem not to appre ciate it are catego ri sed as liki ng worthl ess mass cult ure. So, like a good investigative re porter, I donned my meta phorical ballgown, and was whisked (okay, went by myse lf) t o the classiest th ing showing in Norwich. I was all set to see The Last Supper, a contem porary opera by Harrison Birtwistle .

The performance itse lf, though, rather than being a modern version of the story was actually 13 dead guys being invited to a reunion to look through the "three zeros of the year 2000". Hmmm.

When approached with the quest ion co ul d the Last Supper, a richly symbolic and sacred rel igious 1ssue, be turned into an opera. Birtwistle responded "Certainly , thirteen blokes sitting round a table is rather intriguing, don't you think?" Well, no, I don't and seeing 13 dead guys discussing the negative 2 ,000 years of life that they missed, especially singing "The Holocaust- that was baaaaaad" in warb ling voices just

doesn't seem l1ke the epitome of high cultu re. Indeed one of the guy' s balls clearly hadn't dropped and if it wasn't for the beard then I really would have thought him a woman.

After the supert1tles pose the question "Who is God?", a fat lady sings. Oh. 'over already?', thinks I. But alas not, as she proceeds to describe how we've invited all the disciples to another supper. Well, not me, love .

Nevertheless they soon enter one by one through the lit-up portal and take a damn long time to go about it.

Th e whole production was so co nfused th at I didn't even notice Jes us come on st age, and t hen didn't realise it was him. Partly because, as it turns out, he is a midd le aged, bal ding bl ond guy, and also because we just saw another Jesus having a fit on a crucifix above the m. Not quite sure what that was all about. And according t o the program, the fragmented form of the music was su pposed to be filled in by my own subconscious. Not mine, I'm afraid .

My conclusions about the performance, then. Well, it did have some good point s, not least the angelic chorus who appeared from the shadows wearing golden masks. But I think the main problem was that rather than creating a totally original piece, the final product¡ was a B-rate Fiddler on the Roof, which saw Jesus dancing on the table and Peter. or rather the guy that played him, forgetting his dance moves and missing his cue on the canon. So, no, I haven't changed my mind about opera, and qu1te frank ly, if th1s is the best that the experts can come up with, well, I reckon you can get more culture attending the LCR. And that's saying something.

Charlotte Rona/ds

Opera: what's that all about, then? Hefty viking ladies belting out a load of drivel or a serious art from of universal appeal? Aria aficionado Rhiannon Davies and recitative rubbisher Charlotte Ronalds put the highest form of high art to the test when they headed off to the Theatre Royal to see the Glynebourne Touring Opera.

l.a Boheme G Puccini retentious. irrelevant, upper class nonsense is what comes to most students ' mi nds whe n they th ink of opera . Indeed, as I stood in the foyer waiting to see Glyndebourne's production of Pucc ini's La Boheme. the majority of the people milling around were. shall we say. "mature". This common stigma attached to opera, of it as just being a load of old, fat people singing about irrelevant subject matters could not be further from the truth, especially with regard to this production. For a start, the cast were all young and of an average weight which made the plot believable (1t is about a group of young, st arving bohem1 ans) and the overall actmg (yes. they do act as well as sing) far more vibrant than 1f the ch aracte rs had been played by older people.

Also. the director. David McVicar, set out with tile intention of interpreting the opera through the eyes of contemporary student life. He concentrated on expressing the youth of the characters through such methods as play fights and drug-taking. In usmg a modern set the director demonstrated opera's ability to transcend t1me, the characters opening a fridge rather than cupboards, wh1ch Puccini's first singers would 11ave done. and having a fire extinguisher in the l1allway.

The opera opens with four young bohemians who are penniless, starving and so cold that they resort to burning their plays to create warmth .

Th1s image , while extreme. is very close to today's stereotypical students who, having spent all their money are unable to buy food or afford to have the heating on (ring any bells?). The end of this act is driven by a sequence of three of the most beautiful melodies ever written as Rodolfo and M11ni meet for the first time and fall in love.

P

â&#x20AC;˘

Wednesday, November 1.5, 2000

The tu nes echo each other and return re peatedly th roughout the duet and it is hard for the au d1 ence to re mai n unmoved as th e music reache s its cu lmination when Mimi and Rodolfo leave the stage, still singing an aria in praise of love.

The ensemble at the end of the second act illustrates perfectly opera's capacity to create an emotional range impossible in drama. The characters express their wild emotions simultaneously through song high lighting the power of the1r relationsllips in a way that a simple argument or conve rsation cou ld never achieve_ Mimi's death, which could have been prevented had she had the money for a doctor. will today find echoes in many poor fam il ies in the United States. In the final act. the conversation between the dying Mimi and her true love Rodolfo is made far more moving due to the melody echoing that of their first meeting. lt was the beauty of the music as Mimi died and the lights went up which caused a large percentage of the aud ience to hastily wipe their eyes; indeed, the music is so powerful that even a CD of La Boheme can reduce people to tears by its fina l note. it IS this abil1ty to move you through music that opera is all about and probably why their story lines usua ll y end ei ther extremely sadly or in ecstatic happiness .

If opera is not enjoyed by people of all societies then it is due more to their preconceived prejudices than to the operas themse lves.

I enjoyed the performance immensely and came out with a lighter heart, clearer head and felt ready to face the world and essay deadlines again .

Rhiannon Davies

11

John Waters is something of an anomaly in the 'dumb debate': a director who combines eating dogshit with politics. Astrid Goldsmith heard Hollywood's 'King of Bad Taste' talk about his new film, Cecil B Demented... he Japanese press called his last film, Pecker, "a Disney movie for perverts". His notorious 1980s gross-out classic, Pink Flamingos, is the second most-rented video in America after Jerry Maguire, but is banned in this country in its full , uncensored glory. Hairspray, the film that launched Ricki Lake (hooray) , is the most popular choice of video for children's birthday parties in the States, but most of the kids (and the parents for that matter) are totally unaware that Devine, who plays Rick i's mother, is actually a 350 pound man. He hosts the Porn Oscars. He's gross! He's funny! He introduces himself as the Puke King and c ites Passolini as a cinematic hero... who else could it be but John Waters? lt seems somehow appropriate that Waters chose the Oxford University Debating Chamber to screen the world premiere of his latest film, Cecil 8 Demented. For a man who has never been afraid to go for the most obvious, crude and stupid.jo!les in his movies, it is fitt ing that he picked the ultimate in ironic venues. The Chamber is large and cold, with uncomfortable seats, and has the atmosphere of a church, very old and hallowed, with a crowd made up of Oxford students in tuxedos and posh frocks. John Waters steps up to the microphone to a round of polite applause to give a pre-screening speech, which turns out to be a 45 minute stand up routine. "I can see the headlines now ...'the Puke King hits Oxford'. Well, I say if it' s good enough for Mother Theresa, it's good enough for me."

For such a dapper, unassuming-looking man (kind of like a mid-fifties version of Steve Buscemi with a pencil moustache), he has a bit ing sense of humour. He tells witty anecdotes that make fun of American attitudes to cinema: " Everyone has limits.

One family rented Pink Flamingos without knowing what it was about, and they actually phoned the police hallWay through when it got to the bit when Devine eats dogshit . What I want to know is, why didn't they just turn it off? Surely that would have been easier. That's what I did when Forrest Gump started running." He offers his opinion on a wealth of topics, ranging from Liberace's boyfriend to drugs: •1 don't take drugs anymore. They're so retro. Especially the drugs you kids have got nowadays, Ecstasy and Spe(:ial K? A drug that makes you love everyone? What a horrible idea."

Waters is so passionate about his subject· trashy films · that he is willing to travel all the way to Oxford to promote them. For his speech wasn't just a plug for Cecil 8 Demented, it was a tribute to his director heroes (which included William Castle, . famous for putting electric buzzers under cinema seats in his film The Tingler, giving audience participation a whole new meaning) and a genuine attempt to make us laugh. it is fair to say that John Waters is no ordinary director.

In an era where most of the 'dumb comedies' produced by Hollywood are far from dumb, Waters is giving us something entirely different. The Scream

whilst drinking red wine. The terrorists are a mishmash of every minority Waters could think of, and he cheerfully plays around with percept ions of sexuality in a way that the Hollywood sex comedies would never dream of for fear of being subversive and offensive. There is the gay hairdresser with 'Aimodovar' tattooed on his arm, who is actually straight, and in agony because he really wants to be gay. There are lesbians (you know .... real ones!),

T

"Waters uses his 'dumb' movies as vehicles to make his political standpoint clear."

"American Pie affirmed that female masturbation was only performed by Slovakian tennis players with big breasts " obsessive compulsive wankers and a character who has a beard but I think was a woman. John Waters doesn't have to try and dumb down for the audience, his movies are dumb by their very nature, but with admirable political messages, something which most Hollywood directors are too afraid to do.

In contrast to the sanitised pap that Hollywood produces, Waters' films are dirty and rude and funny. The dick stuck in the zip tpat caused moral outrage in There's Something About Mary? That's nothing compared to the filth Waters clearly revels in: stapling flesh, sticking needles under fingernails, branding, pubic hair, 'teabagging' (hitting somebody on the forehead with your testicles), eating dogshit (Devine actually did this, it was real canine

trilogy and other recent slasher comedies are famously ironic and self-referential. Like their 1980s predecessors (the Naked Gun series and the two Hot Shots films), their humour relies ito a certain extent on the elitist presumption that the audience have extensive knowledge of particular films.

Similarly, the recent bout of 'sex comedies' such as American Pie, Road Trip and There's Something About Mary are not as base as they claim to be. All feature highly attractive actors, A-list celebrities in the case of There's Something About Mary: Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon. All are produced primarily for the teenage boy market, and are therefore innately sexist- here, the purpose of lesbianism is entertainment for boys, not something really practiced by girls when they're on their own.

American Pie affirmed what we'd all secretly thought for a long time · that female masturbation was only performed by Slovakian tennis players with big breasts. Their political agenda, if they have one at all, is merely to reaffirm patriarchy . ecil 8 Demented shoves its political agenda right down your throat. The basic plot follows a group of c inema terrorists, led by Ceeil (Stephen Dorff), as they kidnap spoilt brat A-list star Honey (Melanie Griffiths). and force her to star in their underground no-budget film . Their interpretation of 'realism' is capturing real-life violence and acts of cinema terrorism on film, as they storm NC17-only cinemas and hold shoot-outs on the set of Forrest Gump 2. Most of the crew die for their art. The message is to support underground cinema. There are no sub-plots, no hidden meanings, no in-joke int ertextualit y, no symbolic moments. it is chaotic and childish and out-and-out fun. Sometimes the cast are more like the Muppets than real people. Everyone has their own uncomplicated character trait, and sticks to it. For example, the Satanist has black nails, wears an 'I Love Satan· t shirt and performs rituals all the tirrie

excrement ) ...t he list is endless. And. instead of revering A-list celebrities, he creates stars, using his childhood friends in his movies. Griffiths and Dorff are now teetering on the B-list, but instead of making t hem look beautiful to save their careers, both are made up to look trashy and punky. But not in a good way. The terrorists turn Honey's silky auburn locks into. a bleached frazzled mess and Dorff looks... well. .. demented.

Mainstream cinema has recently produced two different, potentially excit ing trends in the 'dumbing down' mould. But both slasher and sex comedies, however inventive the deaths, however gross the teen-boy humour, do little to break away from the dominant ideas of Hollywood cinema. Waters pushes it that bit further, sometimes to produce genuine disgust. But he does something more important. He uses his 'dumb' movies as vehicles to make his political standpoint clear.

In Pecker, he explored the invasion of the press into people's lives and the differences between 'high' art and trash art. In Hairspray, he considered the race issue. In Cecil 8 Demented, he champions the cause of underground cinema against the mainstream Hollywood monster.

Sure, his movies are messy and childish, but this is really the only way to reach the much-sought-after teen audience. Most kids and young adults just won't go to weighty political dramas or satirical films (Wag the Dogj8ulworthjany Tim Robbins film) . John Waters is one of the brave ones of his generation, and he obviously has great fun doing it .

A word of warning, though · if you liked Forrest Gump, don't even think abouit going to see any of Waters' movies.

FREE WHOPPER WITH EVERY EVENING CINEMA TICKET

C

24HR BOX OFFICE D~BD3 22~9DD

www.stercentury.com

•

VISA

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Dumbness: there's a lot of it about nowadays. Since BBC Director General Greg Dyke announced plans to ·dismantle the Beeb's Education department recently, everybody's been getting all in a tiz about the state of modern culture. But are we really dumbing down, or is it all just a bunch of reactionary media-hyped arse?The Event decided to put an end to all such nonsense once and for all by asking the cultural ubermensch that is t he UEA student:

Think you knol!v your Tolstoy So what's all the fuss about then? Adam Chapman takes an objective look at the 'dumbing down' issue, examining whether those who are supposedly at fault are from your Talking Heads really the culprits, or whether the blame lies a little higher up? from your Three Colours?

Here 1S a naught y little he BBC must be thanking its lucky stars people watching the news. No one seems willing to t is Tony Blair's fault, according to that it seems to have pulled off address why it makes a difference if the BBC some. VS Naipaul, author of A niggler to nip at you something of a coup, actually launching choose to fill a slot that was already of such House for Mr Biswas, one of its programmes to a largely importance. Surely the Corporation has simply lambasted the PM in a recent knowledge •• ·• positive, albeit guarded, response. For an filled t he hole left by ITN? At the t ime even Tony article in Tat/er magazine,

I

T

:1. Which of the following did Shakespeare not write

about? a) King b) King c) King d) King

Henry Henry Henry Henry

V IV part I VI VII

2 Not an fan McEwan storyllne? a) Man makes wife disappear through the power of origami b) Children bury their mum then turn to incest for solace c) Blind fat man crushes own cat in sex game gone wrong d) Couple indulge in sadomasochistic sex before being murdered

:W Who directed the Three Colours films? a) Marc Caro b) Krzysztof Kieslowsk i _ c) Luc Besson d) Francois Truffaut

U A novel by To/stoy?

The Idiot The Outsider Anna Karenina The Plague

a) b) c) d)

12 Who wrote The Unbearable Ughtness of Being? a) Jean-Paul Sartre · b) Milan Kundera c) Friedrich Nietsczhe d) Janet and Alien Ahlberg

3 Which of t he following artists did not die In the twentieth century? a) Mark Rothko b) Willem de Kooning c) Caspar David Freidrich d) Gustav Klimt

b) Film direction c) Architect ure d) Sculpture

4 Which of the following philosophers rose to fame

:14 Name the novels (and authors) from which

pre-twentleth century?

these first lines are taken (write your answers next t o the questions please): a) "When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect." b)"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Bonapartes." c) "Marley was dead: to begin with. " d) "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

a) LudWig Wittgenstein

b) Martin Heidegger c) John Locke d) Jacques Derrida

5 Which of the following Is not known for psychoanalysts? a) Jacques Lacan b) Sigmund Freud c) Roland Barthes d) Melanie Klein 6 Order the following composers chronologically (.1· 4):

1) 2) 3) 4)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Ludwig van Beethoven Claude Debussy SCatman John

i Which of the following authors has not been nominat ed for this year's Booker Prize? a) Treua Auopardi b) J.G.Ballard c) Kazuo lshiguro d) Margaret Atwood

S Which of the following Is by Milton? a) The Odyssey

b) Paradise Lost c) Ulyssess d) The Waste Land 9 Who designed the Gugenhelm museum In Bilbao? a) Rem Koolhaas b) Damien Hirst c) Frank Gehry d) Norman Foster

13 What Is Henry Moore most famous for? a) Oil painting

15 Which of the following actresses has not appeared In A/an Bennet's Talking Heads? a) Patricia Routledge b) Helen Mirren c) Thora Hird d) Julie Waiters :1.6 Mat ch the following works to their composers: a) Gymnopedie #1 b) Clare de Lune c) Air on a G String d) The Flight of the Valkeries :1.7 Not a famous historian? a) Thomas Carlyle b) E P Thompson c) A E Housman d) A J P Taylor :1.8 Which of the following Intellectual movements first appeared In the twentieth century? a) Deconstruction b) Struct uralism c) Empiricism d) Existentialism

Wednesday, November 15 , 2000

institution which has suffered most from the media's relentless campaign against "dumbing down" (despite being one of its chief culprits) the BBC has seen itself attacked from all quarters; print journalism, politicians and pundits alike have all queued patiently to take a shot at the Corporation. The move of the Nine O'Clock News to an hour later is held up as only one occurrence in a long list of insults to the intellectual well-being of the country as a whole. The news that Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has sought to dismantle the education department has, to some, proved the last straw. Dyke now faces the prospect of departmental strikes under the justification that the BBC is no longer fulfi lling its public service remit. The BBC is quick to defend the decision: "This is not about dumbing down," claims one spokesperson, "the philosophy is that education and learning should be part of the mainstream output of the BBC. Education is now central to its mission".

This has not stopped politicians from fervently jumping on board the 'dumbing down' bandwagon.

While Chris Smith has guardedly given the BBC News six months to prove itself in its new slot, all political sides seem united in their criticism.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for broadcasting argued that it w ill mean fewer

"Politicians might haye more cause to complain about the News affair if the level of political discourse that takes place in this country was of a greater quality"

Blair waded into the fray, urging ITN to rethink their plans, saying that the News at Ten "played an important place in our national life" . If the .slot was of such importance then there really should not have been a problem with the BBC fill ing it.

But politicians are a sensitive bunch. The idea that they may not get their carefully prepared soundbites onto prime-time is probably more than their egos can cope with. And so it is that we come onto another area of daily life that has been a prolific observer of the laws of dumbing down.

Politics. Indeed, polit icians might have more cause to complain about the News affair if the level of political discourse that takes place in t his country was of a greater quality. Surely then it would have earned the right to go out earlier?

However, with a Labour government getting tangled up in its own web of PR and the Conservatives rabidly shouting "SPIN!" at anyone who will listen. the chances of a serious political debate are few and far between. lt seems rather rich. therefore, that it should be these highly juvenile men and women who make a living out of backbiting who should prove to be some of the most vocal critic.s.

arguing that his anti-elit ist policies had created a country of average people. "lt is terribl~. this very plebeian culture, an aggressively plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian," he argued.

Naipaul's view, al though harsh, is shared by

Think you know your Billie from your Big Brother from your Beatles? Here ~s a wee little teaser to test your lowbrow knowhow,. ...

"VS Naipaul has argued that 'it is terrible, this very plebeian culture, an aggressively plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian'" an ever-growing number of people and it has become distinctly unfashionable to contradict the intelligentsia. Melvin Bragg, presenter of one of television 's more high-brow programmes, The South Bank Show, puts pay to these critics, "We are not short of foolish senior citizens of culture puff-puffing in. A headline can always be hailed like a taxi by denigrating the present and pompously pumping up the past". lt would seem that our country 's mentality that "things ain't what they used to be" is still very much in ' existence.

There are very few areas of public life that some would deem untouched by the curse of dumbing down. Indeed, it has become such a rigid part of our parlance that it can be used to refer to an ever-growing number of terms. Even our very fine university institutions have run into conflict with the intellectual dictators, as ministers pursue political targets to fil l up courses with plans to introduce two-year foundation degrees.

The argument that this will lead to lower expectations and worsening standards is definitely of concern, but if things have been getting worse over the past decade or so then it would mean that the vast majority of people at UEA are gibbering idiots, unable to distinguish between Dostoevsky and Sunset Beach.

Well. in response to those who say that we are the spawn of a whole generation of idiocy, you have the chance to redeem yourself in the form of our own quiz, the very apotheosis of dumbing down... trivia.

Which member of Rve did Bl/1/e Piper go out with? a) J b) Abs SCott d) Ritchie e) The other one

2 Which of the following Is an album by Belle and Sebastian? a) Pull Your Socks Up, You Look Like A Gyppo b) Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant c) If The Wind Changes You'll Stay Like That d ) Put An Elastoplast On it Dear, it's Weeping

Nowadays, you usually don't have much of an incentive for demonstrating your intelligence (apart from a degree) ... so in order to test how terribly clever you are, and win a big box of COs worth a whopping £800 (and no, they're not all crap) circle the answers think are correct in each quiz and place your completed page in the Concrete competition box, conveniently situated in the Hive. Go on, clever clogs ...

d ) I Put a Spell on You

:li Not an album by the Beatles? a) Please Please Me b) Let lt Be c) Penny Lane d ) Magical Mystery Tour

1.2 Who won t he M ercury Music Prize this year? a) b) c) d)

Coldplay Badly Drawn Boy David Gray Macy Gray

To which magazine did Posh'n 'Becks sell their wedding photos first? a) Hello! b) OK! Woman 's Weekly d) Heat

1.3 Which of the following Is a member of

5 Which Big Brother star has just released a sin-

:1.4 With which British director has Madonna just

Slipknot? a) Rat b) Clown c) Snake d) Margaret Thatcher

had a baby? a) Danny Boyle b) Guy Ritchie c) Gary Oldman d) Guy Fawkes

G Who wrote American Psycho? a) F. Scott Fitzgerald b) Brett Easton Ellis c) Alice Thomas Ellis

.15 Which of the following Is not a Sunset Beach character? a) Antonio b) Gabbi c) Juliet d) Caitl in

. .- - - - - - - - - - - -. . d) Sophie Ellis Bexter

CDs!

b) She's The One c) Twist and Shout

1 Which of the following Is not by Stephen King? :1.6 Which of the following words has Noel

a) Pet Cemetary b) The Shining

Watchers d) The Breathing Method Who directed t he colour version of Psycho? a) Harmony Korine b) Alfred Hitchcock Gus Van Sant d) Vincent Galla

S Number the following chronologically (14): a) b) c) d)

Bill and Ben Tellytubbies Tweenies Basil Brush

Gallagher not used In his songs? a) High b) Pie c) Guy d) Aquiesce

1.7 Which of t he following has Cralg Oavld claimed 'wouldn't be 1/ght' when courting a lady? a) Treating her wrong b) Having a one night stand c) Let ting one go in the j acuzzi d) Throw her off a bridge

:1.8 Who's dead?

Name t he original composers of .•. (scribble In the answers) a) Take On Me

a) b) c) d)

Pete Best Marvin Gaye Art Garfunkel Smokey Robinson

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Inspected: Music ------~-----------------------· evetnhet 14

Whether you know him as the skinny one form the Housemartins, Zoe Ball's fella, or plain old Norman Cook, the king of t he 303 is back with this, his third album under the Fatboy Slim moniker.

On first listen Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars may seem a bit of a disappointment if you were expecting eleven dance floor fillers in the Gangster Tripping mould. However, once you've come to terms with the lack of big beat anthems you can get to the heart. or should that be the soul, of a record that ranges from the ambient cool to a soul Inspired funk fest.

In fact, what you have here is an album that could be the soundtrack to your night without even having to get up and change the CD, unless you're easily bored of course.

There is the soulfully sumptuous Talking bout my Baby to get you In the mood to dance into the the techno rant Ya

--

U2's latest album is testament to their maturity in what can only be described as a cash-ancl-carry music industry. The opening track Beautiful Day, like their unforgettable classic With or without You, makes you feel good just by knowing it's on your shelf.As I listened, I felt happy to say that although the sound is something unexpected in terms of technique, it Is undisputedly all theirs. I am nothing but impressed, as always, with their ability to always produce decent music with an edge of originality (the politics are still there

Mama to get the club fired up and then when you get home there is t he sexily soaring Sunset (Bird of Prey) on hand to provide the best five minutes of chilling out time you 're ever likely to experience.

And in a departure from his reliance on the sample good old Norm has enlisted the help of everyone's favourite pop nutter, Macy Gray, to provide the vocals on two of the tracks. The gravelly one is at her funky best and what with the screaming wawa guitar Love Life and Demons have a real '70s feel. lt may be that the Fatboy has moved away from his big beat roots towards a more soulful sound but you can't deny that he gives it a twist that has the power to wear out even the sturdiest pair of dancing shoes.

Half way between the gutter and the stars? Time to get the space suit out I think.

===•

though), but I guess that is because there is so little music of the same quality and consistant class out there. They have produced a tangy fresh sound for themselves, that while it won't get the raves won by Achtung! Baby by music critics, surely will be fondly remembered by anyone who buys it.

Another nugget to add to your collection. Just don't put it next to your Kylie albums; they won 't look good.

Daft Punk One More Time They may not be eating our beef or letting our lorries through, but these French lads can still pen a fantast/que floor filler. Dead simple (as all good dance anthems are) and vocal led, this Is uplifting enough to have the people at Wonderbra scratching their heads in bewildered admiration.

Encore!

Anthony Lovell

Sonique I Put a Spell On You

Jocelyn Stacy Waddy

Sonique's third single from her album Hear My Cry is a re-mix of Screamin' Jay Hawk ins· 1950 hit I Put a Spell On You, as heard on numerous car adverts. The former lead singer of &Express

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~a~~l'msilleshe~rMhMwe~~o~hasmade successfully eludes categorisation; through its hybridity it welds together industrial nihilism with soft , sardonic vocals. The vocals carry a certain unnerving potency which is interlaced within seemingly innocent lyrics; You and Your Friend is a confessional song of Torres· sexual desires to be with a man and his girlfriend. Torres tackles the cliches of contemporary music by reversing love songs to produce cynical, dark anti-love songs. Ideas of love and rejection are central to this whole album, and Somebody Holes Yac acts as an antedote to all those feel good celebratory songs through its parodying of this style.

British group I'll show you five, no ten, great Fall albums. What's more, The Unutterable would rank among them. The opening track Cyber lnsekt has an irresistible pulse driven by drums that crackle like machine guns. Elsewhere, their garage guitar scorched earth policy is applied with formidable effect, they blaze through tracks like Songs of Temperance and Hands Up Billy with more fervour than an American presidential election campaign.

Yet this album owes as much to Kraftwork as it does to the Stooges; the almost trance-like panning keyboard sweeps employed on Das

Live

idiosyncratic nasal tones of Mark E Smith. The Unutterable sees Smith turn the famously sharp side of his tongue towards "England's glasnost" in. Devolute. But there's as much wit and social comment on here as there Is bile, the drug parody on Octo Realm!, Ketamine Sun and the pointed characterisation of the modern man on Or Bucks Letter both raise a genuine laugh.

Like cardigans a good Fall album never goes out of fashion and this one's a cracker; buy it for your Granny this Christmas.

Robble Uprlchard

that stands in contemporary music . There are certainly parallels to draw between Snake River Conspiracy, and the electro-gothic sounds of Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie, but they transcend the trappings of such genres to produce a unique, and competent sound. Unfortunately, its lo-fi nature, despite critical acclaim, will undoubtedly fade into the dark realms of obscurity as it tunct ions around an acquired taste. SRC have a long way to go before finding a market for their sound, but this debut album is a truly firm base from which they can hopefully project themselves.

Jamle RobsQn

the cross-over from dance DJ on a par with Judge Jules et a/ to mainstream pop artist look easy and has won critical acclaim for her work. This single is in the same vein as her previous releases and will fill dance floors across the country, but its main advantage is that lt actually covers a decent, well-known song.

EJ/n Jones

Frankie Goes to Hollywood Welcome to the _ ' Pleasuredome What is it with the Frankie Goes To Hollywood revival? For the third time this year, Holly Johnson's distinctive vocals are stripped from the mild disco-funk of the original and remlxed into something generically lbiza-style, which might sound reasonable in a club but is pretty pathetic in the cold light of day. Welcome To The Pleasuredome was hardly a classic in the first place, and this can only tarnish its reputation. As if those dodgy t-shirts didn't do enough damage in the 80s.

Tlm Bragger /

Mansun Electric Man Paul Draper denies accusations that this is a love song for guitarist Chad. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions about that one. In the meantime, sit back and soak up the sunny atmospherics of this gloriously superior pop song.

How did these guys not sell out the LCR last

. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .m.a=. . . . . .a.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .~. . . .~~la~IM~~~week? frequent line up changes, they managed to When a band have been around as long as James, it's inevitable that a live gig will miss out some of perform well as a unit, and continue to produce new material. lt was a polished performance, with your favourite songs. lt's also inevitable James' trademark slow build, lull and dramatic unfortunately : that you get fans who only like the finale pulled off to a t -especially in a frenetic early stuff, before they were famous. And insist on telling you. All the way through the gig. rendition of Born of Frustration.

This was a high-energy and enthusiastic Plagued by the kind of late twentysomething fan performance from a group who show little sign of who's more used to listening to James in the waning, despite over 15 years of touring and background at a dinner party than live on stage, I began to wonder whether something supernatural playing. They played most of their popular tunes, including She's A Star and Laid, but not Sit Down had been left over from Halloween. Some evil spirit that had decided to linger and screw up my or Just Like Fred Astaire, but with nearly half the set made of new songs, there was still a definite night by asking a fellow member of her coven "Is edge to the performance. this a new track? " at every turn, just as I was beginning to enjoy each new song.

The twentysomething's went home early, perhaps frightened that their broomsticks might end up on As with their gig at UEA last year, much of the night's set was made of up of new work , a bonfire. I stayed for a startling encore and a including one that was prefaced by the warning final glimpse of why James can charge £17.50 for . that the band had never played it live before. lt's a night in the LCR, and get away with it.

James Goffln a mark of the strength of the band that despite

Wednesday, November ·1s, 2000

Jenny Wiles

..

__ eVeiit

Inspected: Arts

15 Hooking Up Tom Wolfe

In every sense Tom Wolfe's last two books have been big. Released in 1989, Bonfire of the Vanities was one of the best selling novels of the late 80s and early 90s. Its 700 plus pages virtually defined an entire decade; critics hailed it as The Great American Novel. lt was made into one of the worst films of all time by Brain DePalma. A Man in Full took Wolfe the next eleven years to write. Again in well over 700 pages he takes his characters through most of the issues effecting humankind in America. As with Bonfire, A Man in Full stayed in the best: sellers list for many months and was universally loved by every critic who took the time to read it.

On its release Time magazine put Wolfe on its cover and changed its title from red to white for the first time in the magazine's history.

Therefore the muted media response to Wolfe's new work, Hooking Up, seems a little mystifying.

Perhaps because it's a 'collection of essays and fiction' rather than a novel, perhaps because at 293 pages it won't break your wrists to read, for some reason the world 's press has chosen to see it as just another book. Of course in many respects it is, Wolfe is hardly the first to publish

this kind of collection; but most of the themes addressed in Hooking Up are at least of the scope of his novels, only presented in a rather more conventional format. Within a hundred pages he summarises the reasons for and repercussions of America's domination of the world in What Life Was Like at the Turn of the Second Millennium: An American World and successfully argues first for and then against neuroscience's claim to have proved the non-existence of the soul In Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died. The ageing satirist clearly isn 't scared of aiming high.

The fiction aspect takes the form of Ambush at Fort Bragg, a novella Wolfe wrote intending to include it in A Man in Full, but then released as a stand alone work in audio-book format, read by Edward Norton. Bragg is a deeply ironic tale set In the cut throat world of television journalism and fully deserves this first appearance ir. print.

Despite tackling subjects including the potential of the Internet, genetics, and the death of the American novel, Hooking Up is consistently interesting and occasionally compulsive reading.

Largely this is thanks to Wolfe's perpetual need to annoy everyone he doesn't like, a tendency

that is particularly evident in My Three Stooges, an unremitting attack on John Updike, Norman Mailer and John lrving, where he chastises them for failing to use their talent and ignoring the real life around them.

At the same time he rarely fails to point out his own brilliance - Stooges' introduction is essentially a list of his wide-ranging achievements. With most authors this would appear to be a painfully egocentric exercise, but Wolfe has developed a knack for presenting his opinion as fact. Every issue raised has been fully researched and you finish the book with the distinct impression of being wiser than when you started. lt is only later that doubts begin to emerge that maybe Wolfe is only telling us what he wants us to know.

Hooking Up is the product of a man who no longer has anything to prove and is simply enjoying inflicting his opinions on others. it's entertaining, thought provoking and infuriating in equal measures, although it's hard to argue with a guy who can effortlessly use the word electroencephalography, twice.

Jlm Whalley

Book review:

Theatre review: Harold Pinter's play of lust, lies and, of course, betrayal was admirably performed by members of the UEA Drama Society last week. Although billed as a love story, the play is about anything but. In keeping with Pinter's penchant for strangled affairs and awkward relationships nothing is ever quite as it should be.

The play itself revolves around the affair between Emma (Kat Realffl and Jerry (Will Seymour), and their relationship with Emma's husband (Jerry's best friend, Robert, played by Brian Slake) . lt contains all the hallmarks of a typical Harold Pinter play: frequent pauses in dialogue, conversations that go nowhere before stopping abruptly, and constant references to absent characters . However, in Betrayal the linear movement of the plot has an unusual twist, in that it runs backwards. For Betrayal begins at the end of Emma and Jerry's affair and ends at the beginning of it. In this way, as the play spans out, it reveals particular things that seemed reliable at the beginning of the play to be not so certain after all; for instance, how much Robert really knows about the affair, and for how long he has known it. The performances themselves were all generally well acted- Andy Davies' cameo turn as the haughty Italian waiter sparked much amusement among the audience. The rigidity of Pinter's script was put across well by each of the three main actors, who highlighted the restrained dialogue with an air of reserved self-awareness throughout; even during the brief dashes of passion, which appeared consciously unnatural because of it. Overall, Richard Mann's concisely directed production successfully conveyed the ambiguity and decaying nature of the relationships explored within this "love" story.

Get greased-up, everyone's favourite musical has finally shimmied its way to Norwich .

Grease needs no introduction since its release in the 70s the hair gel, pink jackets and on songs have made it a runaway success, the film was even re-released last year for its 25th anniversary.

For those of you who have been living under a stone, or in Norfolk, Grease follows the story of Danny Zucko, the original lad, and Sandy Dumbrowski as they bumble their way through teenage romance . The two met on holiday and, after a passionate (ie they held hands - this is a pastiche of the 50s, remember) fling were forced ta part when Sandy had to return to Australia. Or so they thought. By some strange twist of fate, Sandy's parents decided to move to the States and, miraculously, she ended up at the same high school as Danny. Didn't see that coming. After the fantast ic rendition of Summer Loving (a-wella-well-a-well-a-huh) the pair are reunited by uber-slapper Riuo and the rest of the Pink Ladies.

Unfortunately, the gentleman that simpering Sandy met at the beach has morphed into a leather-wearing, swaggering T-Bird who is none too impressed to find the girl who he had described to his friends as

being "good - you know what I mean .. . " standing before him in a cheerleaders outfit (not many men I know would complain about that!).

After a series of sing-alongs, sleepovers, heart-searching and carrenovation Sandy has a Stars in your Eyes moment as she reappears looking worryingly like a young Peggy Mitchell in spandex leggings and about 5 cans of hairspray. I don 't know what the Spice Girls would have to say about her dramatic change for the benefit of her man , but it seems to do the trick because before you could say 'feel your way' she has Danny exactly where she wants him kneeling between her legs.

The film of Grease shot John Travolta to stardom and was Olivia Newton-John's first acting role, and the stage version has had its share of stars. Luke Goss, Shane Richie and Darren Day have all donned the leather jacket as Danny Zucko, but luckily Norwich has been spared the · dubious honour of their presence and instead welcomes Steven Houghton (him from London's Burning and Bugs) to the Theatre Royal. This production has had a hugely successful run in the West End and promises to be 'a blast' in Norwich too .

Elln Jones

So, one of the most prolific 'fantasy' writers of the era has churned out his latest trip into the Discworld just in time for Christmas. This, the 25th in the series, does what every Discworld book before it has done and looks at our world with the dry satire that comes from letting the minority group be things that moss can grow on.

Following the exploits of a brand new character, William de Worde, The Truth is set in the city of AnkhMorpork as the Discworld faces up to a new invention - the printing press. William is the accidental editor of the world's first newspaper, set up against the wishes of the establishment to tell the common man what he wants to hear.

Mixing together many of the regular characters, Pratchett doesn't go far from the formulaic pattern of his more recent Discworld offerings, with the bad guys obviously bad and the regulars in the middle ground .

Unfortunately for de Worde, he has to cope wl th all the perils of a journalist' s life- people that want him dead, a suicidal vampire and, worst of all, a man who wants him to publish pictures of humorously shaped potatoes. Things soon go sour ,for him as his independent

lt looks like having a laugh is what the arts are all about in Norwich this week.

The UEA Literary Festival goes out with a bang, featuring two of Britain 's all time great comics and noveiists (Michael Palln, November 15, Stephen Fry, November 27) and our best selling living author (according to his press release, the egotist!), namely Terry Prachett (November 20).

All three have sold out in Lecture Theatre 1, but there will be a video link up to the less salubrious Lecture Theatre 2. Tickets will be available on the night, on a first come, first served basis.

Also in town are Cralg Charles (LCR, November 14) and Jeremy Hardy (Playhouse, November 16) for their respective stand-up tours.

Expect clever but dark performance poetry from Charles (whose tour is worryingly entitled Sick Bag) and more conventional , though no less sharp, material from Hardy who is currently best known for his work in BBC One's If I Ruled The World.

Jlm Whalley

• J •

newspaper is challenged by an official publication that makes up its stories (sound familiar), and his investigation gets him too close to the truth for his own comfort.

The Truth is just as good (or bad, depending on your point of view) as any of its predecessors, and not just for the regular. reader. A newcomer to Pratchett may even find the story more gripping if they don't know which way the characters' that everyone else knows loyalties lie. Seeing characters that have been built up over previous novels through the eyes of someone else is a real hit.

As before, Pratchett leaves you guessing to the turns in the plot time ancj again , while still keeping the stinging satire there for all to see . Blending together wonderfully funny and bittersweet moments within the space of a few paragraphs, The Truth also leaves strands of plot hanging in the air at the end so a possible future sequel could easily be written.lf you are still guessing over Christmas presents at the moment, you couldn 't go far wrong if you bought The Truth. Or, for the more monetarily challenged his previous book The Fifth Elephant has recently been released in Alex Thorpe paperback.

...

~

the

==~~'="=sfu~e=~c=t=e=d=:=v =:::::: · ~ J!e:;::;o=;.-;=-~.;:::::=::..~~-==;:-:;==== :i: eve nt ~9 Directed by: Ol ivier Stone Starring : AI Pacino , Cameron Diaz, James Woods and LL Cool J

Apparently, what we play is soccer and it's the Americans who play football... confused? 0/iver Stone schools us on the finer points of his national game.

Sunday? Why Sunday you ask? Doh ... because that's when Amencan footbal l games are trad1tionally played. American football? But I ne1ther appreciate nor relish the s1gh t of big men 1n big paddmg running up and down a big field and jump1ng on eac ll others heads. you say. Well of course you don't. You're Brit1sh and wou ld rather watch ugly men kickmg each other on a patch of muddy grass.

Even by Hollywood standards 1t was something of a gamble trying t o market a subject over here that t he maJorit y of the population couldn't give a rat's plague-ndden gonad about and that"s largel y why you m1ght not have heard of 1t . But would 1t make any difference if I sa1d 1t was Americ an Footba ll by Ol 1ver Stone? W1th AI Pacino. And Cameron Diaz. And James Woods .

Yes, t11e James Woods.

You're still baffl ed. That' s f1ne - perfectly understandable. But once 1t gets going even non-sport fans would fmd 1t hard not to get caught up. A lot of it wouldn 't look out of place on a Grandstandesque promo and once you're beneath the surface 1t becomes much more than the sum of its bruised and stirnng parts. Pac1no IS superb as the aged coach trymg to get h1s struggling team back on the rails w1th the help of old campaigner Denn1s Qua1d and precoc1ous talent Redd Foxx. whilst fighting battles 1n the boardroom with the ruthless young owner ( D1az) .

~·

The nature of th1s two-and-a-half hour beast is perhaps better suited to v1deo. The dialogue can come so th 1ck and fast that you' ll only catch it after repeated v1ewings and t he quality of the direction means you shoul dn 't sacrifice t oo much of the film's enormity. However if you really don 't underst and the game at all (t hough by the end I fe lt I was able to confidently identify "good '" and ··bad ·· things) . it might help to have a member of our own very wonderful football team on hand to expla in things. That's assummg they 're not all jumpmg on my head because of what I sa1d earlier. Speak1ng of wh1ch be warned that they also have hideous, yet somet 1mes oddl y amusmg mJunes.

There are the usual conflicts over personal and financial commitment, sacrifice and "doin ' it for the team"' wh1ch never nse above t11e predictable. although they're earn ed off w ith the sort of panache that leaves most other US sports films for dead .

But sl1ould you ever start to tire of the affluent, self-obsessed , over-hy ped lifesty les that some of the characters lead and think to yoursel f "well, it'd only happen in America··. you might want to take a look at this year's team photo on your bedroom wall. Whether that's Chelsea or Bedlmgton Terners, 1t's almost certainly closer to home than you think.

Duncan Gates

Man on t 1e iVioo

~

Directed by: Rob Minkoff

Directed by: Milos Forman

Starring : Hugh Laurie Geena Davis Jonothan Lipnicki

Starring : Jim Carrey Courtney Love Danny Devito

I saw a mouse. Where? There on the screen. A little mouse with clothes on.

Well/ declare. The best cat and mouse story since Tom met Jerry and decided that they didn't get on.

The misunderstood underground comic hero of America is given the biopic treatment. If you 're not familiar with Andy Kauffman 's genius, then you 've come to the right place.

Once upon a time there was a mouse, who was hated by a cat, had an extremely irntating litt le Amencan brother and was the proud owner of doting parents. Sounds like a soppy fa1ry tale. the kmd of fil m you hate? We ll th ink agam, because Stuart Lit tle is defi nitely not what 1t seems.

Adapted from th e 1945 chi ldren's book by EB Whit e. Stuart Litt le is a bit of a cat and mouse story. Combining the tale nts of Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie and new ch1ld star, Jonathan Lipnicki, t11e fi lm centres around the Little family who want to adopt a second child. And hey. in a totally unrealist iC Children's film fash1on they adopt an orphaned mouse cal led Stuart.

However, feelmg threatened. the house cat Snowbell, plots to ruin the1r happy family, resulting in a series of problematic situations for the little rodent.

The film might sound like a simplistiC load of old rubbish , but in fac t 1t manages to combme a w1tty script wi t h amazing animation and an allstar cast. it's no c1nemat1c classic , but then what do you expect from a c hildren's mov1e?

However. it certainly gives Disney a run for 1ts money in the animation stakes and in terms of script. 1t"s orig inality wins by miles.

I adm1t, I do have a bit of a fasc mallon with chil dren's movi es, espec iall y those with cute c haracters, but Stuart Little definitely surpasses cute.

However. unlike most children' s f1lm s that leave a sic kly sweet t aste in your mouth when the moral theme IS thrown at you, 1t c ame as a surpnse to me that at the end of t he fi lm I didn't fee l lik e headmg t o the to1l et w1t h my fmgers st uck dow n my throat. The f1lm coul d 11ave been laugh abl e ru bbish. after all . how co uld a cat and mouse story possibly surpass Tom and Jerry ?

But Stuart Little is a f1lm I could watch again and aga1n. 1t"s so w1tty and l1ght-hearted t hat I t hmk even t he most t1ard nosed person wo ul d love 1t.

Nicola M allett

For those of you who are groaning at the thought of another film starring the rubber faced J1m Carrey. think twice before you wnte this one off stra1ght away.

In a nu t shell. M an on the Moon dep1cts t he life story of Andy Kauffman, one of t he most famous co med ians in Ameri ca n history, and st ar of the sitcom Tax i, fo r t hose of yo u who mig ht remember it. The fi lm traces his life from his younger years when he was t elling j okes to the characters on his wa llpaper t hrough to his sudden death (don't worry, that hasn't ru1ned t11e film for you ) . Watch out for the wrestl1ng scenes. they make up some of the best moments of the film.

The film IS a realistic and touch ing tnbute to the eccentric comed ian and Jim Carrey takes on Kauffman's character so realistically that you find yourself forgetting that the film is based on a true story and actually feeling that Carrey IS 1n fact Kauffman. Admittedly the ro le is made for Jim Carrey, with lots of stupid jokes as well as room for h1s face twisting antics. but 1t"s 111s best act1ng to date . and his portrayal of Kauffman is spot on.

Better st ill IS the fact that Courtney Love for once manages not to go total ly mad with the eyeliner, m fact (shock horror) she 1s actually quite attract1v e 1n her rol e as Kauffman's wife.

If you are thmking , 'who the hell IS Andy Kauffman . I've never l1eard of h1m ' then that is th e best reason to rent th1s video. The only thmg I knew about l111n before I saw th e mov1e was that he was famous enough for REM t o wnte a song about h1m (M1 ch ael St ipe IS a fan ) . How ever, t he fil m IS so well wn tt en and direc t ed t hat yo u feel as if you k now Kauffman ins1de out by the end.

This is defm1 tely one of the funniest movies of the year, go an d rent 1t qu 1ck ly before everyo ne else cloes.

Nicola M allett

Directed by: Ed Bye Starring : Harry Enfield , Kathy Burke and Rhys lfans Harry Enfield breaks on to the big screen in this feeble comedy, stretching a three-minute sketch into a full length feature film. The cracks are showing.

I rea ll y fee l fo r Harry Enfield's k ids. When our parents do embarrassing th ings, most of us have t hat smal l comfort , underneath t he sham e, of know ing that eventual ly w'e ' ll be able t o forget the unpleasantness. But think of the poor Enfi eld child, whose father not only tho roughly embarrasses himself on a weekly bas1s, but also goes on national television to do it. And now. thanks to the mag1c of movies, the whole thing is now been comm1tted to celluloid and will live forever. Hopefully, ngorous therapy w1ll remove the pain. Unfortunately. it won't remove the ac t ual film . wh1ch would, qu ite frank ly, be of far greater benefit to humanity. We can on ly hope that t he original mast er print of th is fil m has been st ored on de fect ive ce lluloid and wil l event ually be lost t o the hum an race. th ank s t o a slow process of irreparable degradat ion .

Enfield , along w1t h Kathy Burke who must obviously have owed him a favour. reprise t heir roles from Enfield's sketch shows as the two atypical teenage rs who hate their parents and are desperate to lose their virgmity . In this ca se. though, events are relocated to the clu bs and

beac hes of Ibiza. Perh aps t hat's so we w on' t not ice that a one-joke t hree-m inute sketch has -suddenly been ex pan ded t o a one-joke eight yminute film. But. believe me, you 'll feel every second.

Even if some of the one-liners are passable, it's just cringe mducing watching a balding middle aged man, and a middle aged women with her breasts taped down, pretending to be the faces of youth. Purists would argue that the who le pomt of the sketches has always been about exploring the funny side of teenage life from a sophisticated adult perspec t ive. That may be true. but someone obviously didn't tell that to Enfiel d, si nce this movie is aimed di rect ly at the American Pie audience. pl ay ing th e game purely to ga in g ross-out poin ts. Let's be fa ir here. vo mit has never been t he most sophisticated of bod ily flu ids.

Is there anyt hi ng redeeming in th is sorry mess?

Well. yes. one thing . At least now Kev 1n and Perry have gone large. maybe they'll finally go away.

Phi/ Colvin

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

_,...

the

__ event

Inspected: Film

17

~

-

The Wa of the Gun Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie Starring : Benicio Del Toro, Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis

Spot the odd one out: heavily pregnant women, gruesome violence and spectacular shoot-outs. In this film you won 't have to, all these elements are expertly woven together In a de/c/ous/y deadpan thriller from the writer of the Usual Suspects.

There's always something special about movies which do things differently to a genre . A couple of years back, The Usual Suspects did it to the thriller. Now Christopher McQuarrie has tryed his hand at the action film. The result is refreshingly intelligent and goes by the name of The Way of the Gun. There aren't, after all, that many action films which have two heroes who act like villains, a car chase which never goes above five miles an hour and the full agony of childbirth. But don't for one moment think that this film makes any compromises, from start to finish The Way of the Gun is an unquestionably brutal film but, is also one of the most intelligent the action genre has produced in recent years.

The story is deviously simple . Two partners in crime, Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro, decide to abduct Jul iette Lew is, a pregnant surrogate mother, hoping to hold her unborn child's parents to ransom. This family, though, aren't the type to be messed with and the kidnappers find themselves pursued across Mexico by a variety of hired guns. it's soon apparent, though, that whilst our kidnappers seem to have no motivation for their actions whatsoever, those doing the chasing all have other motives than just following orders.

This twist means we have no real good or bad guys, and with lies and secrets in abundance, nobody's innocent. And it works, mostly because of the strength of the central performances.

Especially those of Phillippe and Lewis: who convey the respective agonies of mental self-doubt, and the sheer physical pain of bearing a child.

They're supported by the wonderful James Caan who literally oozes professionalism as the family's head hit man and thankfully removes the lingering memory of last year's Mickey Blue Eyes. On the subject of redemption, Benicio Del Toro is hereby absolved of the sins that he commited while working with Shane Richie ... er sorry Guy Richie on the awful Snatch.

Although the film's subtext is deep, it 's never far from another lengthy shootout and the ghost of Tarantino stalks the movie. However McQuarrie's visual style, like his story, doesn 't make compromises. There 's no slow motion or freeze frames to accompany the brutal action and the film purposely looks bland and unglamorous. We're left in no doubt that the harsh reality which comes from following the way of the gun is by no mean glamorous or heroic . And there really aren't a lot of action films which will tell you that.

Ph/1 Colvln

...

The Skulls

Pitch Black Directed by: David N. Twohy Starring: Vin Diesel Radha Mitchell

Marooned on a strange planet with a br/ck-shlthouse of a psychopath and Indigenous population of bloodthirsty monsters. it 's not all fun and games in this low-budget big-scare scl-fi flick. Makes Castaway 2000 look like a picnic.

The first thing to say, Denis Norden style, is that "if you're one of those people" who know every camera angle of the Alien films, you are not going to like this. Pitch Black is set on a desolate planet with shadowy, light fearing skeletal

aliens and has an obligatory "trust no-one" stance. Its tag line is "fight evil with evil " , so there 's presumably a morality subplot in there somewhere as well.

Director David Twohy wrote Terminal Velocity and eo-wrote G I Jane, so don't expect an introverted melodrama. it centres on a transport passenger ship that is forced onto a barren and dazzlingly sun-baked world whilst the crew prematurely emerge from a deep cryogenic sleep. Docking pilot Carolyn Fry (played by Australian Radha Mitchell, who has appeared in everyone's favourite reason to miss afternoon lectures, Neighbours) takes command from the dead captain and manages to save a handful of people, including the muscular captive psychopath Riddick (Ripley anybody?) Vin Diesel , who was briefly in Saving Private Ryan plays him, and with more than just "light in his eyes" the film is his from this point on. Farscape fans can also expect to see Claudia Black, who plays Shazza.

The planet is a seemingly static presence, orbited by three suns. So what possible chance, you . might ask, could there ever be of an eclipse?

Well , wouldn't you know it, there's one just around the corner, and as the stinging amber glow fades beautifully into the long Pitch Black, the horned horrors swarm into the sky, and the chase is on. Suffice to say , the rest is a guessing game of who will make it back to a salvaged 路 craft alive. But trust me, if you 've already decided halfway through , it's not who you think .. . There is a half hearted attempt at character interaction between Fry and Riddick that partly resembles the muted trust between Linda Hamilton and Arnie in Terminator 2 as much as anybody.

The film is ludicrous, implausible and sci-fi obsessives can barely have known a greater opportunity to nit-pick, but it's gripping and very watchable. The spectacular contrasts of vision between the humans and aliens are really its saving grace.

Oh yes, and watch out for the boy Jack. A moment of revelation on the trail through the predators to the new craft is _worthy of the " I cannot believe they did that" award on its own.

Jonathan Rolfe

i&

Bedazzled

Directed by : Rob Cohen Starring: Joshua Jackson Paul Walker

Directed by : Harold Ramis Starring: Brendan Fraser Liz Hurley

Ever wanted to join a secret society? Well don 't. Watch this film instead, thank your lucky stars you decided against it then go home and have a nice cup of tea.

Seemingly devoid of originality, Hollywood yet again falls back on the remake. Liz Hurley is the scantily-clad princess of darkness and Brendan Fraser is the eternal geek who just needs a bit of help. .

For a secret society that has supposedly been around for centuries and can count ex-presidents of the USA among its members, The Skulls are pretty hard to take seriously . For one thing, everyone knows who they are and what they do (Hello, secret society?) .

They're not even hard to find, with their society insignia placed prominently on the roof of the building where they meet and perform their bizarre rituals. Rather ironically, then, The Skulls is a film that begs to be given credibility as genuinely spooky adult movie. However, on further inspection turns out to be yet another bog standard teen flick, competing for space in an already crowded market. All questions are answered with the supposedly adult phrase: " I can't tell you, it's a secret". Not big, not clever, just plain irritating .

The Skulls not so secret society is based at an American college attended by our hero, student Joshua Jackson, whose ambitions in life are to row, study law , and join the college's foremost elite secret society (well, who doesn't want that?).

He 's soon given his chance and starts living the good life of instant wealth, status and fast cars that The Skulls offer to all their members. Of course, as often happens in these secret societies, things take a nasty turn and it all starts going wrong. After spending the first half hour desperate to get in, Jackson spends the rest of the film trying to get out of the Skulls alive (Some people are never satisfied) .

Joshua Jackson is another Dawson's Creek starlet desperate to prove he can play an adult more convincingly than a sixteen year old in this his first starring role. Unfortunately for him after the promising start, complete with stunning initiation rites, the film slips slowly into the quicksand of yet another unremarkable teen thriller. So there you have it, a film with one pretty good half and one fairly dull one. Is it worth spending you 're hard earned money on? I can 't tell you, it 's a secret.

Phi/ Colvln

Satan has always been a popular choice for many of Hollywod's heavyweight actors; whether it 's AI Pacino in Devil's Advocate or Gabrial Byrne in End of Days. While these celliod Beelzebub's may be spine chillingly effective there still seems to be somethings missing from your average cinematic interpretation of ultimate evil. Liz Hurley has finally hit the nail on the head; we 've never seen the dark prince in a nurse 's uniform , a snakeskin print bikini or, or perhaps most disturbingly, dressed as a jaw-droppingly beautiful Traffic warden (remind me to get a ticket if I ever visit LA). Looking good in various of red is the only real talent that Hurley displays but somehow she looks so devilishly gorgeous that she makes up for a complete lack of comic timing. Hurley 's Jack of (acting) talent is made up for by the rest of the cast, who turn in excellent performances that provide a well needed balance and help to do justice to a slightly shaky premise.

Brendan Fraser plays office misfit Elliot Richards, a man with with no friends, no job propects and even less cahnce with the girl of his dreams, workmate Alison Gardner (Francis O'Connor).

He's the kind of guy that "friends" from work avoid in case he corners them and forces them to look at Polaroids of his beloved stereo speakers. Then Satan (Hurley) steps in and offers him wealth, popularity and Alison in return for his mortal soul. This agreement leads to what is essentially a series of sketches detailing Ell iot's attempts by making him rich , intelligent , well endowed and gay or a powerful Colombian drug lord complete with Argentinean footballers 's dodgy perm and cheating wife.

Fraser pulls off each reworking of his central character with assured comic skill that makes you think he may be capable of much more. This, coupled with an enjoyed performance by O'Connor and some interesting direction from Ramis (the man responsible for Groundhog Oay),make for a diverting comedy wih just enough laughs to keep you interested, until you get round to renting the vastly superior original.

Jack Button

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

路 路路

18

~=='=n~s~ected: TV/R=a=d=i=o=======eVeiit C4, Tuesdays at 9.00 m

Edge: Seconds To Impact Essential TV 01: - -Cutting Whereas some of you probably like to spend you're copious amounts of spare time doing essentially harmless activities, such as going to the pub and getting drunk , and then perhaps going on to a different pub and getting even more drunk. There are people out there who prefer to jump off incredibly high objects, with no safety equipment, and no guarantee that they will sti ll be walking, talking , living human beings at the end of it. Hmm, I know which I'd rather do. Wel l if you are actually quite tempted by the latter, then it might be a good idea to watch Cutting Edge: Seconds to impact. The new series follows a group of people who practice the art , if you can call it that (pavement art is perhaps more appropriate), of base jumping.

In order to qualify as a base jumper, all you need to do is jump off four different types of object. Easy you're thinki ng. The garden wall maybe; the playground swing- we 're halfway

Essential Radio: I wish I liked Hollyoaks, I really do. But sadly, I don't. And yet time and time again I find myself watch ing it anyway, as it fits so neat ly into the post- Neighbours pre-real te levision black hole.

However, this Tuesday I dec ided that enough was enough, and that I shou ld see what del ights we re available on the wire less. The Sunday Format, a satirical news programme presented by Lee and Herring's comedy buddy, Emma Kennedy, and Alexander Armstrong (of Armstrong and Miller fame). found it 's way onto the stereo.

This, frankly , sounded pretty boring, but I reasoned, surely better tlran watching the exploits of Tony , Ruth, Finn et al. Luckily for me, The Sunday Format was absolutely fantast ic . The t ake on the news came as a satirical and biting take on the empt y words that fill Sunday

there already , but no. Think again. Think bigger . Think Cheddar Gorge .

The four types of object are as fol lows, a bridge; an antenna; a building and a mountain.

Base j umpers generally have a shorter lifespan than their non-kamikaze counterparts. No coincidence.

The programme shadows Jon, Rob and Dave as they attempt to out do each other on the insanity score. Rob, a scaffolder by trade, instructs the others on the finer points of their pastime ( ie. One, two, three ... jump.) Dave is a qualified diving instructor; therefore, because of his skills at avoiding death in this field, he is automatically a novice in base terms.

Buildings pose the greatest challenge to the longevity of this sport . As members are more likely to die from these jumps. Maybe t hat 's why when people are trying to kill themselves they climb to the top of a very tall bui lding.

Hasn't anybody ever mentioned this to t hese

people? Obviously not.

The main reason to watch this show is to try and understand what drives these people to stare death in the face with such apparent indifference. They are not your average loonies, indeed they perform everyday roles as varied as bankers and builders. At one point Rob gives us a limited insight to his thinking, through his insistence for hugging his eojumpers before each and every suicidal mission- " lt could be the last time we say 'see you later, mate , have a good one' " . And to think t hese people are allowed to wa lk among us. He even elaborates, "it's like your dad dying and you don't get to say goodbye to him " .

Perhaps Jon sums up matters best- "lets just party," he says. Base jumpers are almost certainly the maddest people on the planet.

Luck ily fo r us they won't be around for long.

Kathryn Hlnchllff

The Sunday Report R4, Tuesdays at 6.30 m supplement type journal ism . I know now t hat if I can answer yes to the question: " Has your doctor diagnosed you as an alcoholic?" - that that wo ul d make me an alco holic , and that I shou ld probably cut down on my intake of alcoho lic beverages. I also learnt that investing in the PA NT , wou ld be a bad idea , as the PANT hasn't been doing too we ll on the stock exchange recent ly.

The show was laugh-out-loud funny for the most part. lt was reminiscent of The Day Today (a show which incidentally started on Radio 4 as On t he Hour) - don 't be surprised when this turns up on BBC 2, grossly modified and not as funny. This is your chance to be there first, and annoy your friend s by t elling them the TV version is not as good as it used to be on the radio. Who could ask for more?

Steve Qulrke

Poisoned C4, Wednesda s at 8.00 m

Essential TV 02: The ever-cheerfu l Channel 4 is show ing an involving documentary about the dangers of poisoning . lt promises to be a fascinating insight into a problem wi t h a greater fatality rate even than that of traffic accidents. There are apparently on ly thirty-one known antidotes to its effects, despite there being literally mi llions of different poisons around.

The production is set at Guy's and St Thomas's Medical Toxicology Unit in South London. The centre, which is part of the National Poisons Information Service, examines all aspects of the science , particularly suicide methods and accidental poisonings of both chi ldren and adults. As a service only available to the medical profession itself, it investigates the entire process of poisoning, from the init ial inhalation, swallowing or intravenous taking, to the preliminary effects on the body, and finally the recovery and longer lasting reactions a human will have.

The examples explored are achieved on the

programme through special use of computer aided 3D images, and they show the react ions of the heart and brain when subjected to various levels of toxic substances. People, acc identally or otherwise manage to put almost anyt hing into every orifice they can find, and the department are on ly too aware of this. The series prom ises to be a comprehensive overview, when it probably wou ld have been quite easy j ust to focus on drug abusers and the scientific effects of the ir habits. lt wil l also offer a few handy words of advice.

This will include everything from what to do when children take something they shouldn't, to the potentially massive scale disaster of an industrial leak. And just to make you feel really uncomfortable, you can hardly be safe anywhere there are all sorts of hidden poisons lurking in the streets and countryside too. Watch with your scarf or handkerchief ready as a mask if necessary.

Jonathan Rolfe

.

Essential Soaps

------------------~----~ti

Eastender's Ray Evans is living proof th at a man can only take so much. Okay, he was more thar1 happy to sort things out with Pat , even after the sordid details of her rumpy-pumpy session s with Frank were exposed. But the discovery that Pat own s a nice line in lingerie was just too much for th e mild man nered car sal esman .

Ever since th at fat eful day Ray has been ac t ing like a man possessed. Obviously the tra uma of glim psi ng the offend ing underwear has prom pted his Vi agra and scotch fue lled rampage around the square. First he t hrows Pat out into the street. then lays a right hook on Frank and then decides it might be a good idea to renew a business part nership with less t han bright Barry.

Meanwhile, Pat has pulled her self together.

Putting on her brightest slap she marches over

Wednesday, November 15,- 2000

to the Vie to demand a G+ T and Peggy is more than happy to oblige, giving her rival a face ful l of mother's ruin. Onc e the 5ft terrier has been subdued by Mel, Walford 's rounde st resident storms behind the bar, tells the reg ulars what she thinks of them and grabs the beverage she came in for in t he first pl ace .

Over in Hollyoaks, Luk e has di sowned his fa mily and sold his story fo r a coo l 拢 20 ,000 . A remarkable 20 grand it is too seeing t hat it has landed him a rather snazzy motor, a diamond for Mandy an d t he deposit on a flat, and it sti ll hasn 't run out!

And the burning question on Brookside Close is who bumped off old slapper Susanne? And, more importantly , who actually cares? 路 Nick Henegan

19 Essential Game 01: c

=~======Metropolis

Metropolis Street Racer is the greatest driving game the world has ever seen. There: what else do you need to know?

Okay, perhaps a little more detail would be useful. MSR, as the makers (Bizarre Creations) would like you to call it, allows the player to race around the centres of three cities, namely San Francisco, Tokyo and London. This doesn't mean that you get three tracks, all basically the same, maybe with the odd famous monument stuck in the background. lt means that you get the centre of each city, exact in every detail. Excluding people, if it exists in real life it also exists in MSR, right down to the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. The shear size of the game is

unbelievable. According to Bizarre there are 262 different tracks available to be unlocked, along with 50 cars from 16 manufacturers, all of which are photo-realistic. Some magazines have predicted it may take years to finish everything .

And the realism doesn't end there. Because of the Dreamcast's internal clock, if you start playing the game at five o'clock in the evening in Britain it will be nighttime on the London circuits, whereas the sun will just have risen if you choose to race in San Francisco. The detail is so exact that if you drive past Big Ben on the hour you can hear it chime. Another wonder is MSR's soundtrack, which comprises of 32 specially written songs, played in the game by nine radio

Street Racer

stations (three for each city). These stations even have adverts (the Tango ads are particularly amusing) and weather reports relevant to the current conditions. MSR would be great even if you couldn't actually drive the cars.

There was never, however, any chance of that happening. lt is mainly thanks to the driving that the game has arrived a year later than was originally scheduled and every hour of that extra time has clearly been fully exploited. Sometime during production Bizarre realised that, apart from a few cosmetic differences, all driving games are essentially the same- win at whatever cost to progress further. lt was with this in mind that they developed the " kudos " system. In MSR it isn't necessarily the person who wins the race whom progresses. Each contest is rated in terms of a kudos score.

Kudos points are awarded for classy performances, ie. power sliding round corners, avoiding the sides of the course and cleanly beating your opponent. At the same time points can be lost for smashing opposing cars out of the way and pinballing from side to side down the track . Virtually every setting of the game can be customised in an effort to force your kudos points higher, lowering the time you have to beat or giving the other cars a head start are examples. A high kudos score is vital to advaRcing further into the game.

Every aspect of MSR has been finely tuned to provide the ultimate racing experience possible without wrecking dozens of extremely expensive cars. You owe it to yourself to buy it, and if necessary a Dreamcast as well.

Jlm Whalley

Continuing with the theme of the Webspace Oddity column on page 3 of The Event , this issue's Web Review takes a look a sites that highlight the low-brow side of the internet -well, a relatively small section of the low-brow side, anyway: stupid sites.

• Totallystupld.com: a good one to start the list off with, since it covers a wide range of dumb ideas, ranging from "dumb science" (why do all scientists wear beards? Do they really keep your face warmer?) to the chance for you to buy property in Puerto Rico. No, really.

The site also contains it's own pointless anitmated mascot, Dancing Jimmy. All in all a great way to spend your time, whilst trying to get on with that essay. http:/; www.totallystupid.com • Onllne Bubblewrap: the ultimate timewaster!! Yes, online bubblewrap does exactly what it says on the tin - it's just one page filled with virtual popping plastic that does just that when you run your mouse over the bubbles. The best bit is that the bubbles reappear after a few seconds, allowing you to continue bursting to your heart's content. Fantastic . http:/jwww.urban75.com/Magjbubble.html • Sodaconstructor: This site allows you to create your own virtual robot thingl And then you get to pull it apart as it tries to mov~ around the screen. Just like pulling the legs of spiders!

Watch it squirm! Trust me, this is the most useful and entertaining site you will ever find on the world wide web. http:/ ; sodaplay.comjzoo;index.htm

Wednesday, · November 15, 2000

-

== 20=---=======E =v=e===n==t=h== o=ri=z= o= n= := F= ·•Im ==-:==-~'C::=::.==~==~-

the

event _

The essential guide to what's on in Norwich over the coming fortnight

•

FllSA= Eilm Lake Placid

Thursday 16th November - 7pm Scary monster film of the year but instead of super intelligent sharks a la Deep Blue Sea or giant snakes and the l1ke, it's a huge Asian crocodile that has somehow found its way into America's most popular fishing lake. If you liked Jaws then you'll love this as 1t follows it almost to the letter.

High Fidelity

Friday 17th November - 8pm Screen adaptation of N1ck Hornby's best seller set in Chicago instead of London, featuring the delicious John Cusak. Cusak IS excellent as the apathetic Roi:J, a specialised record shop owner in a bit of a love turmoil.

This f1lm is highly watchable and in places very funny.

End of the Affair

Monday 20th November - 9pm Neil Jordan's likeable attempt at Graham Greene's unflattering selfportrait. Ralph Fiennes plays the wellregarded English novelist whose affair w1th a marned woman Jullanne Moore leads him into a moral and metaphysical maze. Fine perform ances and excellent cinematography make for a well-crafted film.

Essential Film: eedazz!ed steal the enigma device from a damaged German U-boat. it's good tense stuff with great special effects but not one for historians.

Monday 27th November. Back Bar6.30pm All star cast for Luc Besson's historical epic. The film follows the life of the French saint who rises from peasant girl to war hero, only to be pulled down again. Besson's heavily stylised approach g1ves a real essence of the period but underlying the period detail is a fable of modern gender inequality and power.

Ghost Dog: Way of the Warrior

Tuesday 28th November - 8pm Forrest Whitiker plays Ghost Dog the hitman - a reclus1ve professional who likes his privacy and thus deals with the mob through an agent. Things go wrong when a witness to a hit forces the mob to destroy all the evidence including Ghost Dog. A highly anginal treat of a film.

UCI Ster Century The Kid

Another Disney film. Actually , maybe this one is the latest one. Starring Bruce Will is as a kid. Well I don 't know. Just 'cos I rev iew it doesn't mean I've seen it.

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century Hollow Man

Showing at :

UCI Loser

City~Film=.==-~ Bedazzled

Showing at:

See Essential Film, right.

UCI Ster Century

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century Billy Elllot

A wee Northern boy finds himself getting into ballet despite the turmoil his local community, not least the rest of his family, is going through. There's not a dry eye in the whole of the auditorium by the time the credits go up.

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century Cinema City - Sunday 26th November 7.30pm Blalr Witch 2 : Book of Shadows

Sequel to the highly successful lowbudget 'horror' file of last year.

Directed by Joe Berlinger Blair Witch 2 has been slated by practically everyone bar us and What's On TV.

Looks just like another cheesy American offering? Well, OK it reeks of one, but people all over the country have found themselves smirking into their popcorn despite this. Yep. this film is guaranteed to have you spraying the couple in front of you with coke all the way through. A ·socially inept ' (very PC here, don't you know) Technical Support advisor ( Brendan Fraser), falls in love with a eoworker who doesn't even know he's alive. To get to her Ell iot strikes a deal with the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley); in excange for his soul she grants him 7 wishes.

But being the devil she doesn't make things easy for him and creates her own hilarious subversions of Elliot's desires to make his life a living hell. Wanting to be rich and powerful he ends up unexpectedly as a Colombiam drug dealer being headhunted by the police. Bad , sure- but a 7' 6" basketball star? not hing can go wrong there surely. Well, it can if your "equi pment" doesn't measure up.

Schoolboy humour at its best which of course means that it wil l appeal to us all.

Katherlne Everltt

A twisted remake of The Invisible Man with Kevin Bacon . Except nowhere near as good , despite t he special effects.

Another sappy, ever so unamusing attempt to make us laugh at how pathetic American co llege students really are: in a kind of 'unoriginal storylme· kinda way. You're a loser if you go and see it.

Final Destination

Mission Impossible 2

Showing at:

Joan of Arc

Tuesday 21st November - 8pm 17 -year old A lex has a dream about a plane crashing and decides with several other classmates not to fly to Paris the next day . The plane explodes mid-take off and Alex and his pals feel they have cheated death. However the grim reaper won't be cheated and one by one ..... V. scary movie that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Thursday 23rd November- 7pm Tom Cruise returns as Et han Hunt who, much to our relief. chooses to accept his mission. Different to its predecessor, John Woo adopts a more frenetic. energetic special effect approach.

and the majority of them were in fact American. Amazing.

Little Vampire

What is the world coming to? Vampires now no longer drink blood, and they are a persecuted minority. Give the kidd ies violence is what I say! make 'em wet their pants in fear. it builds character.

Just like taking Sunday afternoon wa lks along cliffs.

Showing at:

UC I Ster Century Nurse Betty

Renee Zellweger in a nurses uniform being all pouty . Not really my cup of tea, but then again I 'm not beerguzzling, football -watching bloke so maybe that's why. I'm sure it's got it's intellectual merit too, excellent script, watertight plot, etc.

Showing at:

UCI

Showing at: The Perfect Storm

Friday 24th November - 8pm A perfect storm is one where a number of meteorological incidents collide to create the best conditions for the best (well, worst if you're caught in it!) possible storm . George Clooney is at the helm ass1sted by Mark Wha lberg.

The storm scenes are fantastic and tension runs high as the inevitable conclusion rears its ugly head.

UCI Ster Century Coyote Ugly

Lots of ladies who wear very few clothes work in a bar and learn selffulfilment through serving drunken men . Written and directed by Germaine Greer ... in another dimension perhaps.

Showing at:

Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps

Just because someone can use latex doesn 't mean that they shou ld be given the right to waste our money like th is.

And no I 'm not referring to Janet Jackson this t ime.

Showing at:

UCI Cinema City - Saturday 25th November 2.30pm

UCI Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

U-571 Sunday 26th November - 8pm World War 11 submarine drama that plays a little loose with historical facts.

A US submarine is on a mission to

Dinosaur

Disneys latest hit mov1e about talking dinosaurs. According to new archaeological evidence and scient ific findings all dinosaurs did actually talk.

The Coen Brothers' (of Fargo fame) latest film, starring George Clooney, John Turturro and John Goodman, based, extremely loosely, on Homer's Odessey ... Very highly regarded and

worth a look at on the bug screen before it comes out on video.

Showing at:

UCI

universities .. that's if you can get past the vapid bunch of knobheads who inhabit lame-arse movies like th is one.

Un less of course you stil l have a bit of the 12 year old in you.

Pitch Black

Showing at:

New film on the block about what happens if you were to experience a very long solar eclipse on another planet. You know , the kmd of 'need to know' stuff that helps us through life.

UCI Ster Century

Showing at :

ucu Ster Century Road Trip

Thing s always seem better at Amencan

Purely Belt er

Another northern British 'comedy ' released soon after Billy Elliot. only really rather crap. Centred around tw o football-obsessed teenage boys from the rough s1de of Newcastle. Have you heard that one about the two homework-obsessed girls from the posh

Use our searchable listi ngs database at

www.concrete-online.co.uk Wednesday, November 15, 2000

eVe iit ___ .=E:.:.v.;:;;e.:.:n~th;.; ;.;o; .; r;.;.;iz; ;.;o;. .;n;.;.; :;. .;F;. .i;~lm~/C.;..l;;:;;;;;u;;:;;;;;b;;:;;;;;s==/

~s~==--21-

G ==::! i

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Dinosaur What Lies Beneath Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows Billy Elliot The Little Vampire Road Trip Coyote Ugly Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps Mohabbatein Bring lt On

side of the home count1es? Now that was funny.

Showing at:

UCI Cinema City - Fri 24th Nov at 5.45pm, Sat 25th Nov at 5.45pm , Mon 27th at 5.45 pm , and Tues 28th at 8.15pm What Ues Beneath

Michelle Pfei ffer and Harrison Ford in th1s passible attempt at Hitchcockian horror. remember to take you pillows to hide behind, all you weeds out there.

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century Wonder Boys

When I first heard about this one I t hought 'fi nally, my perfect movie', but al as it 's a bit different t o what I had expected. You actually follow the exploit s of a college professor as he tries to sort out the mess that is his life. Not very sexy, but a good film anyway .

standard student nights. You still get the drinking and the pulling but in a v. spacious and dark environment filled with more Norfolk accents then you're used to.

WeRK: November 15/ 22

Manhattans Weekly programme of grooves brought to you by the resident DJ Shaun Johnson.

Value for Money: November 16/ 23

Liquid A great night had by all. Well that's what you tell everyone, you can't actually remember what happened . £2 b4 11pm, £3 after (NUS) Bassment: November 16/ 23 MOJOS

Get down and mix With the seriously trendy types who take pride 1n the1r appearance and shop in all the nght shops daaahl ing . Better rethmk the jeans.

Fridays Garage Nation : Friday 17th November

The Waterfront Kickmg it up big stylee w1th garage tunes. Wickedy wickedy waaahh . £12/£9 advance Empower: November 17/ 24

Fat Pauly's Tonight you are empowered to get completely shitfaced and throw up all over your best friend . That's empowerment, being completely in control. 17t h feat. Profane, 24th feat.

Cheese Cake Truck Entry £3

Reverb: November 15/22

Po Na Na The Moroccan-style souk bar on the corner bangs out some funk and soul for your pleasure. And can we emphasise those cool cushions enough? You really have to see them for yourself. £1 after 9pm

House of Mirth

Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoiz go head to head in this Battle of the Gingers.

Only one will remain victorious in this carrot-topped delight. A master piece of of period drama. find out what happens to Lily Bart. a doomed (or is she?) American beauty in the thrall of New York society .

Hot: November 17/ 24

lt's the Business: November 17/ 24

Showing at:

Cinema City- Wednesday 15th November & Thursday 16th November at 2pm, 5.30pm, and 8.15pm. Friday 17th & Saturday 18th at 5.30pm.

Monday 20th & Tuesday 21st at 5.30pm. Wed 22nd & Thurs 23rd at 2pm and 8.15pm .

The Golden Bowl

.

A golden oldie but still worth a mention as we keep our minds open to everything here, oh yes. This is a story of the adulterous love affair between an impoverished Italian prince and an attractive Englishwoman. Many t asteful and decorat ive scenery and costume designs. Sounds crap, doesn't it?

Showing at:

Cinema City - Fri 24th November at 8.15pm, sat 25th at 8.15pm, Monday 27th at 8.15pm, and Tuesday 28th at 2.30pm and 5.30pm.

Spank:November16/ 23

Time A night with a title to raise an eyebrow or two. Surely it's worth checking out to see what actually goes on. No cheesy pop here thankfully . £1 b4 11pm (NUS) Chains on Velvet, feat. Squid: November 23

Fat Pauly's Entry £3 Entry £3 The LCR Disco: November 16/ 23

UEA As ever the LCR speaks for itself so I really don't need to tell you about it...

Ok, ok, it's my job to tell you. Here you get a night of wild dancing, much drinking and maybe a bit of snagging . lt 's a student thing . £3/£3.50 on the door Charty Handbaggy: November 16/ 23

The Loft Popular gay n1ght in the not-to-bemissed zebra striped building. No really, you can't miss it.

Wednesdays Superfly: November 15/ 22 MOJOS

This dark, underground club offers us a cool mix of funk, drum & bass, and R'n'B for a chilled out Wednesday eve. £3 Aockln ' Sheep: November 15/ 22

Ikon Cheap and cheerful fun with the locals, and an 'mterestmg' alternative to the

DJ Twister: November 16/ 23

Joe Alans Upl ifting house night.

70 's night: November 16/ 23

Hy's If you need a fix of Retro music, flares, orange wigs and Austm Powers talk on a Thursday night this is the only place in town to get it. £2 (NUS)

Meltdown: November 18/ 25

The Waterfront One of the best nights in town , featuring indie classics that will always be, like, your most favourite songs, ever. £3 (NUS) Panic Alkllghter (Hard House): November 18

Liquid Enter through the glass doors, strut past the huge lava lamps and get your groove on in a darkened room with flashing lights and a hazy atmosphere.

Cool . £2 b4 11pm, £3 after

Mojos If you want chilled on a Saturday night then the dark underground cavern of Mojos IS the place to be.

Sundays

Mondays Aockln ' Sheep: November 20/ 27

Ikon More sheep??? We just can't get rid of them can we? I suppose they're trying to escape the floods in Wales. £2 b4 11pm Funky Jam Carwash: November 20/27

Liquid Popular Monday night out. For maximum enjoyment make sure you avoid all dunk and raving knobheads.

Underground Bands: November 20/ 27

Mojos Low-fi indie n1ght until 2am . If you take your music seriously and don't want to look like a drunk twat on the pull then this is the place for you .

Play: November 20/ 27

Po Na Na "And we all go hand in hand , hand 1n hand to-oo Parkside! "

Po Na Na Chain club/ bar gives the locals (and you) something more of a selection for delectation.

Marvel: November 17/ 24

Tuesdays

Parkslde: November 17/ 24

The Loft The zebra building goes 'straight ' for the night (of course all are welcome).

Hip hop, funk and soul , and very good it is too.

SO's night: November 17

The Waterfront You're guaranteed to know every song off by heart, ones that you thought you'd long forgotten. Just let yourself get lost in this magical 80's retro night. £4/ £3 Pam's House: 24th November

UEA LCR Clubbmg music that lasts all n1ght.

Guaranteed to get you totally sloshed and unable to function the next day which is always the sign of a good n1ght before. £9/£7 The Kitchen: 24th November

The Waterfront 10pm-6am. Can you handle it? Well , can you .

Life: November 21/ 28

Time Nightclubs are certainly the places to see a few memorable things that you will remember in your life . You may even be involved in a few of them if you 're lucky! £1 (NUS)

Saturday Rewind: November 18/25

Elegance: November 17/ 24

Mojos A slinky R n' B evening . Remember to make sure you fit in with the general theme and don't get sloshed so much that you have to be apolog1sed for and carried out slung over someones shoulder.

Po Na Na A very funky idea for a night out because here they actually teach you how to dance so you don't have to worry if you have two left feet. Plus, even if you don't want to learn how to salsa, it's a great opportunity to laugh at those who think they can .

Lessons start at 7pm for beginners and end at 9pm £3 (NUS)

Fat Pauly 's Entry £4

Manhattans Not really a lot of choice on a Sunday night, but that's because of that whole annoying 'Monday' thing the next day.

Warning, despite the title you should go here if you're religious and expecting a different ty pe of eveni ng.

DJ Jam: November 15/ 22

Thursdays

Hy's If you can't get a bit of satisfaction on a Saturday n1ght after a hard week's slog in the lecture room then it's a very sad state of affa1rs 1ndeed. £4 b4 11pm, £5 after

Sunday Service: November 19/ 26

Fat Pauly's Entry £3

Hys This DJ hands out a free jar of strawberry jam to everyone who comes t o t his night. Only ki dding ... you' ll have to get it from Tescos. Unless of course you become his friend and then he might buy you one.

Satisfaction: November 18/ 25

Hy's DJ Rob Mac is back playing top tunes at this tombland venue. £3

Showing at:

UCI St er Cent ury

Salsa: November 21/ 28

Saturdays

Hytlmes: November 17/ 24

Ikon You will definitely be hot tonight after hours of mad dancing, binge drinking and outrageous flirt ing. Yeah baby, yeah!! £4

Alternative night feat. Hotwlred and Wrecked'em: November 15

£12/ £9 advance

Student Night: November 21/ 28

Liquid Typical student n1ght only for students.

No Norwich lads and lasses are allowed in , so we're quite privileged really.

Maybe it's more the case that they want to protect them from us though.

Who knows? £1 b411pm

Oysterband: Wednesday 15th November

The Wat erfront An interestingly named folk band graces our famous UEA venue by the river. So for all you folk fans who've been frantically scanning the listings for something good, here's your big break! £9

<

Hefner: Thursday 16th November

The Wat erfront A Radio One selection of evening session faves. If it wasn't for crowds of drunken people it would almost be like sitting in your bedroom at home.

Support act includes Whistler. £6 JTQ: Sunday 19th November

The Waterfront What a better way to nurse a hangover than to spend it listening to an evening of acid jau in a big warehouse type place. £9 Alternative night feat. No Comply and Wee Wllly Wlnky: Wednesday November 22

Fat Pauly's Entry £3 The Splltters, Malnllne and Project Mork: Saturday November 25

Fat Pauly 's Jools Holland: Saturday 25th November

UEA Booooooooogie wooooooooogie!!!!!!

And not much else really . The king of the piano sets up his instruments in the LCR and gets ready to give us a veritable feast of music.

SOLD OUT The levellers: Tuesday 28th November

UEA Do you fancy a drink? Just the one.

SOLD OUT

Funk Friction: November 21/ 28

Owens Cafe Bar Not really a club but it has the whole atmosphere thing going on . There's music and alcohol and lots of other people your age (and a bit younger usually) and you can't really ask for more than that . Unless you're into a different kind of thing in which case why are you reading 'Clubs'? Turn the page to Mise .

Slinky: November 21/ 28

Hy's The place with seethrough floors and no stairs for slinkys to go down . Poor show.

Relatively Speaking: Wednesday 15th

November - Saturday 18th November

Theatre Royal - 7.30pm and matinees on thur and sat at 2pm A comedy starring Susan Hampshire about a woman who is reluctant for her husband to be to meet her parents, and when he trys it all gets very confusmg ! £3.50-£16

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

~. . .

-

22

...

-· -- - -

--- --- -- - -- - - - -- - -

Terry Pratchett: Wednesday 22nd November

Jazz Brunch: Saturday 25th November Norwich Arts Centre - 1pm

Theatre Royal- Mon-Thur 7.30pm, Fri and Sat 5.30pm and 8.45pm A chance to smg along to You're The One That I Want. Summer Nights and Grease Is The Word, with Danny, Dandy, R1zzo and the rest.

This 1s a highly acclaimed production of thiS the longest runnmg show in broadway history. £3.50-£24.50

UEA- 7pm The biggest name in popular fantasy fict1on is finally here. The don of the Discworld has landed in Norwich, whoopee! I hope he wea rs his big black hat. remember he does s1gnings after the talk but you won't be able to take your whole collection of books, just one per person. £2.50 (NUS)

No comment.

Free entry (well I suppose you can't charge for it now can you? it's hardly the new thmg in town)

Phanto m Of The Opera: Monday 27th November - Saturday 2nd December

UEA Symphony Orchestra: Wednesday 22nd November

Theatre Royal - M on-Sat 7 .30pm, matmees on Thur and Sat at 2.30pm Funny play about a man in a mask, wntten by someone who sadly does not wear one. But this is not the real thing, its luckily an adaptation. Ken Hill's P of the 0 is a funny, 1mmensely enJoyable, tongue 1n cheek version of Leroux 's classic story. pok1ng fun at melodrama and the pretensions of the world of opera. £3.50-£18

Norwich Cathedral - 7 .30pm A chilled out evenmg in a b1g church listening to classical music is a surprisingly good way to spend an evening .

One wonders why more people don't partake? Featuring music from Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue). Griller and Martinu. £6 or £3(wlth NUS)

Mise M ichael Palin: Wednesday 15th

November UEA 7pm Author of Hemingway's Cha1r and Pole to Pole. or more famously known as the stuttering guy who had ch1ps and ketchup pushed up his nose in A Fish Called Wanda. Whatever you do don't mention th1s incident in the quest1ons at the end of the talk! £2.50 (N US) Free lunchtime concert: Wednesday 1 5th November

Music Centre. UEA - 1.05pm Mus1c from Mozart and Elgar played by Laura Cordmer (bassoon) , and Christopher Moore (piano). This IS some of UEA talet at it's best. pop along and support them. The music lot are really a very fnendly bunchl £0.00p The Kaos Renaissance: Wednesday 15th November

Norwich Playhouse - 7 .30pm A performance which is funny and moving, featuring a breathtaking array of visual surprises . lt finishes on a h1gh note. bulld1ng to a crescendo of violence and absurdity. Wicked . £9/£6.50 (NUS)

In The Countryside - Any Questions?: Wednesday 22nd November

Norwich Playhouse - 7.30pm Th1s is a bit of an interrogation evening by the sounds of things. There are a panel of experts on countryside issues and you get to ask them anything you want. you can really pick their brains! £5 John Mayers's lndo-Jazz Fusions: Thursday 23rd November

Norw1ch Arts Centre - 8pm I think there's a bit of a Jazz fetish in th1s place. £7 (NUS) Tony Remy: Friday 24th November Norwich Arts Centre - 8pm

Jazz funk. Enough already!! £7

The M agic Of Gershwin : Sat urday 25th November

Norwich Playhouse - 8pm lnternationallly acclaimed jazz smger Lee G1bson makes her (yes it's a woman) long-awa1ted return to Norwich to offer her own tribute to the great George Gershwin. £11/£8 .50 (NUS) Kes : Thursday 23rd and Friday 2 4th November

NorwiCh Playl1ouse - 7.30pm An adaptation of one of SouthYorkshire's most celebrated 60's novels. The story of B1lly and his beloved kestrel 1s told in a d1rect and accessible style which will engage audiences of all ages. £9/ £6.50 (NUS)

- - --- - -- .

event

Eventhorizon: Theatre/Mise

Grease: M onday 20th - Saturday 25th November

-- - --

Essential gig:

~

it's a great moment. He sits down. flexes h1s knuckles and utters the Immortal words: "and now for some ... BOOGIE WOOGIE!!!! " Yeeees. Despite the fact that Jools Holland seems to have been around forever. half of us weren't even born when he presented The Tube- ok. exaggeration. his grandad status doesn't seem to be slowmg him down. Don't be put off by the fact that your dad also loved h1m at th1s age and the 'turning into ones parents ' phase seems to be commg early (give me a few more years please!). If Rolf Hams can do it then Mr Holland certainly can. and they were both 'on the scene' enough to appear at Glasto th1s year. amongst the throngs of spaced out dopeheads, tripping clubbers. and that b1g dragon made out of branches and twigs 1n the Green Fields . So many of us have been seduced by his godlike mastering of rhythm and blues that his UEA gig was qu1ckly a sell out. or is 1t h1s boyish charms that brings us excitedly to the LCR? Who 's to say? But when he straddles the seat and gives us the performance of a lifetime on that big 1nstrument of his ....just look at those fingers go, you know tle isn't just any old piano player. Sleek, stylish , always smartly dressed and very charismatic (you may ask what then is he doing 1n Norwich) .

Jools Will always sat isfy. Later Jools.

Katherlne Everltt

Stephen Fry: Monday 27th November

UEA - 7pm Infamously funny author of books such Making H1story and The Star's Tennis Balls. and an excellent Lord Melchett in Blackadder He might even do the accent 1f you ask him. wait a minute. that is his accent. £2 .50 (NUS)

Ustings were written and compiled by Katherine Everitt. All details were correct at the time of going

to press.

Essential Event: London Film Festival Tour All thmgs considered Norwich is not the most culturally advanced place on God's green earth. That ·s not to say that I hate the place but you can feel slight ly neglected living in this secluded little outpost. Thank goodness then for the touring programme of the London film festival, bursting into our lives like little ray of sunshine this November. Cinema City acts as the showcase for four films culled from the London festival line up. two of which arrive months ahead of their release date. alongside others yo u would never normally get to see from t he comfort of your own parish . it all kic ks off on the 17th of November with Ang Lee's martial art-house film Crouching Tiger, H1dden Dragon. Mixing M atrix-style fight scenes and romantic period drama. t his film has been described as Jane Austin meets Bruce Lee. The following day on the 18th November there is an exclusive preview of t he new Woody Alien offeri ng Small Time Crooks. Th e master of self-depreciating comedy is agai n on top form in this film. Small Time Crooks focuses on a termina lly stupid couple who are elevated to the social elite by the surprise success of a cookie shop which they only set up as a front for a bank job. A treat for die-hard fans and newcomers alike .

The programme is com plet ed w ith low budget gems What's Cooking (19th November) and Eeny Meeny (20th November). Like Christmas, this only happens once a Merek Cooper year so make t he most of it .

AI an Barnes' Nonet: Thursday 16th November

Norwich Arts Centre - 8pm A night of modern jazz. £10/£8.50 (NUS) Jazzhearts: Friday 17th November Norwich Arts Centre - 8pm

Another night of jazz. £8.50/£7 (NUS) Promenade Concert: Friday 17th November

Norw1ch Playhouse The Cawston Silver Band (from UEA), perform under musical director Alan Broadbent with a guest choral ensemble. The programme finishes with a promising-to-be-great performance of 'Rule Britann1a'. £4 (NUS) Jeremy Hardy: Saturday 18th November Norwich Playhouse - 8pm

Described as "one of the sharpest comedians on the circuit" (The Guardian) apparantly Jeremy is a household name. So for a night of laughter get down to the Playhouse. £10/£8 (NUS) Merengada: Saturday 18th November Norwich Arts Centre - 8.30pm

10 pe1ce Latin band playing high energy Salsa and Merengue dance music. £7.50 (NUS)

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

ABC Taxis All Star Taxis Beeline Taxis Bettacar Taxis Five Star Taxis Goldstar Taxis Kestral Taxis Loyal Taxis lub , Cinema City Fat Pauly's Hy's Ikon King Of Hearts Liquid Maddermarket Mojo's Manhattans Norwich Arts Centre Norwich Playhouse Po Na Na's Ster Century Theatre Royal The Loft The Waterfront Tourist Information Time UEA Studio UCI UEA Union Ents

01603 01603 01603 01603 01603 01603 01603 01603

666333 7 44444 767676 747474 455555 700700 666611 619619

01603 62204 7 01603 441044 01603 621155 01603 621541 01603 766129 01603 611113 01603 620917 01603 622533 0:1603 629060 01603 660352 01603 766466 01603 619961 01603 221900 01603 630000 01603 623559 01603 632717 01603 666071 0870 6078463 01603 592272 0870 0102030 01603 508050

Socs!

Then get ·n early for the new socs section of !

Bands/DJs!

Contributors' eetings at 1pm on Mondays, Room

1.33, upstairs in Union House.

Katherine Everitt i the Concrete office,

upstairs in u

·

Your CV will thank you for iL

House

Use our searchable listings database at

~~-~~~~~~=~~~~~~~.concrete-online.co.uk

Book now for Christmas!

Menus available - £14.50 ead

-

Open Christmas Day 12 1 0°/o discount on food with UEAINUS card

Great value food served: Mon-Fri, Lunch: 11.30am-2.30pm Dinner: 6pm-1 Opm All day Saturday and Sunday York Special - Sunday roast £4.95 Big 6' scr en satelite TV for all main sporti Large FREE nction room with bar rivate bookings -

l~~ (f)

G)

~ -=:Jg We are .. ~~ here ....

cn

Laundret;;j ~

Lloyds

TSB

~~rrr Unthank Road

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

IC

139-141 King Street Norwich • 01603 632717

NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER Tue 14 Craig Charles

£6

Comedy from the star of Red Dwarf and Robot Wars

Wed 15 Roachford

CA NCELLED

NOVEMBER 14 KARAOKE

Cancelled

WED 15 THU 16 SUN 19 THU 30

OYSTERBAND FOLK £9 HEFNER QUIRKY POP £6 JTQ ACID JAZZ £9 DUM DUMS £7 .SO

Refunds available from Box Office

Fri 17

Caramba!

£2.50

Latin party featunng live salsa band

Sat 18

Club Retro

NOVEMBER 21, 9pm CABARET NIGHT

£2

SUN 3

£3.50

Pam's House

SUN 10 TERRORVISION

£12 £10

HARD HITTING ROCK

£7

WED 13 KILLER QUEEN TRIBUTE £5 THU 14 EVOLUTION FEST 2000£7

Club night

Sat 25 Jools Holland Tue 28 Levellers

THE MISSION GODFATHERS OF GOTH

Come in fancy dress and claim a free bottle of Vod ka Source

Fri 24

DECEMBER

SOLD OUT SOLD OUT

FEATURING EARTHTONE 9, GUANO APES, STEPKINGS, MIOCENE

DECEMBER Fri 1

£8.50

XLR8/Da Bomb Garage anthems

Sat 2

Faith/Mixmag Tour £7.95

Keith Harris and Orville

featuring Lisa Loud

Sun 3

£12.50

Reef

Uncut

M on 4

Union Xmas Bash

£10

featuring Bji:irn Again

Tue 5

Supergirly

EVERY SATURDAY

..

New date. Old tickets still valid or refunds available before Nov 3

s

Free !AR1Y

£7.50

Australian comedy duo

....

Fri 8

Dr Feelgood

"'" ··'

£12.50

·-

plus Eddie & the Hot Rods, the Hamsters, and John Otway

Sat 9 Club Retro £3.50 Wed 13 Shane McGowan and the Popes £13.50

NEXT YEAR APRIL Sun 1 Gary Moore MAY Sun 13 Deacon Blue

PLUS IN THE STUDIO .. .

18 NOV • PURE AS SOUL MOTOWN AND NOTHERN 25 NOV • WRAITH GOTH, ROCK, ALTERNATIVE 80s 2 DEC • IN THE BAG LOOSE FITTING BAGGY HITS FROM MANCHESTER 9 DEC • RAWKUS ROCK, NU-METAL, GRUNGE, POST-GRUNGE &SKATE-CORE

FROM 10PM · £3 ON THE DOOR

FRI 17 GARAGE NATION

£9

Ray Hurley, MC 2 Ton, Baron and Nardo plus drum & bass from Randall, Fluid and Dimension. 1Opm to 4am

FRI 24 KITCHEN ALLNIGHTER £9 Hard house, trance and techno 10pm to 6am

£18.50

DECEMBER £20

FRI 1

EVERY THURSDAY THE LEG NDARY

FRI 8

THATCHER YEARS

£3

80s nostalgia without shame

LC

Dl CO

£3.00 ADV • £3.50 ON THE DOOR

HALLELUJAH ALLNIGHTER£3 Hardhouse and Trance, plus funky in the Studio, and Trip hop and big beat in the Cafe-Bar

FRI 15 FAITH PRESENTS RUMBLE TBC Allnighter, 1Opm to 4am

TICKETS FROM UNION HOUSE BOX OFFICE 10AM-SPM MONDAY-FRIDAY

CREDIT CARD 01603 50 80 50 All prices are advance only, 1nclude any student discounts, and may be subject to a booking fee

For the latest details, visit us on the web at www.stu.uea.ac.uklevents