The Event - Issue 150 - 12 March 2003

02 contents

THE

CONTENTS: 12.03.03

EVENT

The Event comes lapdancing back to you, degrading it's journalistic body for the pleasure of you the valued and trusted reader.This fortnight we're pole dancing with Turin Brakes and encouraging the good folk at Nexus to slip a couple of crumpled fivers into our cleavage. Wearing a wry smile, we drop our pants to reveal The Event Film Awards; whereas the Oscars can sometimes be nothing more than a shrivelled up impotent disappointme nt, our TEFAs are a viagrapacked rod of correction, putting the film industry to rights with sensible d e cisions and the right amount of sarcasm. We also get down and dirty with The D4 , do a belly dance for UEA creative writing superstar Patricia Duncker, and give Minataur and UEA Drama Soc a quickie round the back of the club.

Luke Wright, Editor

Editor-in-Chief Katie Hind Editor Luke Wright Editorial Assistant Alpa Pate l Arts Editor Kathryn Hinchliff Assistant Arts Editor Nathan Dixon

04 THE EVENT FILM AWARDS Forge t the Oscars, here we present TEFAs (and no , it's not the Welsh mafia)

06 TURIN BRAKES The whimsical British acoustic duo wax lyrical ahead of their LCR appearance .

08 THE D4 The Event chats to New Zealand's latest rock n roll outfit to chat about rock, and/or roll .

09 NEXUS TV We catch up with UEA's own television station as they prepare their entries for the student televsion awards.

10

PATRICIA DUNCKER UEA's latest literary star chats to us about her new novel, her love for reading and crap b -movies .

11

PRESENTING DRAMATAUR The rift between UEA's drama society and Minotaur has lasted for 25 years or so, but this year they patched things up and collaborated on 24. The Event caught up with both groups to find out wh at the future holds.

Film Editor Ryan Stephens Assistant Film Editor Phil Colvin Music Editor · Mischa Pearlman Assistant Music Editor Joe Minihane TV & Radio Editor Britt Juste Assistant TV & Radio Editor Sarah Edwardes

03 Opinion Poetic deco nstruction of celebrity style bibles

03 Critical List Fortnigh tly round -up of the best in live events.

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06 Burn Out/Fade Away Eccentric sixtie s rocker Family

Contributors: Emma Ap-Thompson • Helen Ashford • Gavin Bates • Simon Brett • Clare Butler • Catherine Clemow • Christian Floyd • Jocelyn Heath · Kate Herrington • Jon Last · Amy Hewitt • Alistair Lawrence • Jenn Marshal! • Jane Mathews • Serena Murray • Jim Parke r • Ben Patashnik • Joel "Joel" Stickley · Tom Sutton · Paul Wade · Fletcher Walton • Jim Whalley And finally ...

Thanks to the courageous and mature leadership of Concrete's beloved first lady in these turbulent times - long live free speech!

The Event is published fortnighHy by Concrete: Post: PO Box 4 10 , Norwich, NR4 7TB Tel : 0 1603 250558 Fa x: 01603 506822 E-mail : su .concrete@uea .ac .uk Printed by: Archant Newspapers, St Andrew 's Busi ness Park, Norwich

12 .03 .03

Spiritualized, Stephen Malkmus and The Ticks, AFI

15 Singles Blur , Coldplay, The Kills, Delta Goodrem

So You Think You Know 16 Films The Oscars, of course

Listings Editor Matt Sargeson

14 Albums

08 Cinefile 1999 straight-to-vide o classic Office Sp ace

1 1 Almost Famous Hard Battling Ne w York Outfit Ins truc tion

The Rules of Attraction, The Recruit. Ice Age, xXx

19 Arts Th e Vagina Monologues, Girlfriend in a Coma, Drama Soc

20 TV/Radio Red Nose D ay 2003, Girls and Boys, Esse ntial Soap s

22 Listings Films, gigs, clubs and arts in Norwich this fortnight

opinion 03

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Luk W · ht rhymes his way to a conclusion of the celebrity gossip magazines. Why is it that we care so much? '

With the Catherine Zeta-jones Vs Hello batUe reaching closure the world once again divides itself into camps. Some say that Ms Zetafones deserves all she gets. They say that by selling the rights to her wedding to OK magazine then she was out for all she could get and that she has no right to then sue Hello for printing unsolicited pictures of her big day. What they fail to realise is that by selling the rights to one magaizne for a considerable sum, that magazine then has a vested interest in making sure no one else steals their exclusive. Ms Zeta-]ones and her wrinkly old man were simply covering their backs from press intrusion in what should be an incredibly personal affair. If she had not agreed anything with OK then she would have had paparazzi coming in from all angles. I am by no means a celebrity fanatic, and often I feel these people can get everything they deserve from the press. put I am incesned by the gutter press' insistance on making, breaking and shoving tltese people in our faces day in day out. We are led to believe that these people are better than the average man in the street, but then given the chance to rejoice in their pain and misery when the press decide they have had enough of them. Apart from the fact that this is cruel, it is'also incredibly sad, boring and a complete waste of time. What do we actually gain from seeing pictures of another broken star, or indeed what Catherine and Michael's cake looked like? 1111 that happens is that we put ourselves down by thinking we aren't as good as some puppet pop diva and then take out our insecrutities on them, and'the only people laughing are these magazines as they profit by patronising us.and destroying them. Nice.

It's Getth!g Bot in Here Hello and come and worship at the temple of celeb And see exclusive pictures of the back ofBeckham's head They've got a telephoto lens pointing up to heaven It may look like 666 but it's only S Club Seven On a mad night out at Stringfellows with Atomic Kitten In Britain's celebrity love affair the public's getting smitten And the showbiz bibles that keep the tabs are more than well aware They know that we nwst be infonned ifJack Ryder cuts his hair It's getting hot in here so can't you feel the heat Nicole appleton's puking in the streets (Again) Ok. Now come and worship at the soapstar synagogUe Find out what Ross Kemp thinks about when he's on the bog Then pretend that you are a guest at Steve McFadden's wedding

It's like you're a l.ondon socialite and not just some t**t from Reading Cos if you ignore the photographer's reflection in the blacked out glass

You can imagine that you were there chatting with Kym Marsh So refer to members of the Hollyoaks cast by their fust names so When people are confused as to who you speak of you can say "err don't you know!!"

It's getting hot in here so take off an your woes Now wear some cheap copies of the David Beckham's clothes Oh, Oh I can't stand the heat this gossip's too hot to handle It's like some bas***d journo's got my balls over a candle And is repeatedly screeching in my ear I s;m Robbie eating..enn..cake Christ it's getting hot in here I'm gonna debydrate And you'll find my dried out body in booth in China White's Eavesdropping on Kylie Minogue and Ms Dynamite And supporting my paparazzi those kindly Kodak Nazis Cos I need to find out about Elton's latest party So when I'm drinking lattes with the not-so-literati I'll know an the vital gossip from the illuminati And I'll keep on believing it until I'm in my grave Patronised and evaporated by this heat wave.

Critical List A new fortnightly round-up of all the best gigs, plays, films and shows that any self-respecting UEA student iust can't afford to miss •••

01 Finch Emo-lite baby metaller thrashings. Take your backpack and sweatband and join the band in moaning about girlfriends. Huzzah!

Norwich Waterfront, Mon 24th March, £8.50 (01603 508050)

02 The Hours It's winning everything, it's got Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, it's got Sylvia Plath ... if you only see one artsy film this fortnight make it The Hours.

Various cinemas, various screenings (See listings)

03 Jackass: The Movie Knoxville, Steve-0, Wee-Man, Preston, Barn and Bunny take the game up a notch in this month's Guilty Pleasures and make the pranks even more immature and, thus, more achingly funny. I make no apologies for liking jackass. So there.

Various cinemas, various screenings (see listings)

04 An Audience with Paul Daniels The drunken old lech is wheeled before an audience and poked with questions relating to his sorcerous chicanery before being trialed for witchcraft. You might like it. .. but not a lot.

Norwich Playhouse, Fri 21st March (01603 598598)

rock! Yeah •..

05 Reef May be a surprisingly good time, as long as they don't get all serious about a comeback and igno~;:e such Chegger's Choices as Naked and Put Your Hands ...

UEA ·LCR, Tue 18th March (01603 508050)

06 Depoprovera et al Not Another Jackass Movie

A clutch of local talent, and surely something for everbody, especially the chug-a-lug behemoth ofrock dreams that is ... Depoprovera.

Ferryboat, Thu 13th March (01603 613553)

07 Love Liza

"Bey you guys!"

The fantastic Phillip Seymour Hoffrnan takes on the role of Wilson Joel, a young man literally bereft following the unexplained suicide of his wife, Liza. Also, directed by the gliy who played Dick in High Fidelity.

Cinema City, Fri 14th- 17th March (01603 622047)

Tickets: £4 - £18.50 NORWICH THEATRE llOYAL

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Theatre Street, Norwich NR2 1RL

BOX OFFICE: (01803) 83 00 00 vwvw.theatreroyalnoiwich.co.uk

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04 features

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE Nicolas Cage 16% Michael Caine 17% Daniel Day-Lewis 34% Jack Nicholson 32% Vin Diesel 1%

Nicole Kidrnan Renee Zellweger Diane Lane

for Spirit, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were the only people at UEA who have seen it. Ice Age, which was component, but not great [see review on page 18] is in second place. Like I said, slim pickings.

40% 46 % 14%

A strange section on the questionnaire because two of the Oscar nominees for this section Qulianne Moo re and Salrna Hayek) haven't had their films released in Great Britain at the time of the poll so people are understandably reluctant to vote for them.

Renee Zellweger is a deserving winner for her part as Roxie Hart in Chicago -proving she can do more than whine and look good in huge knickers. Everyone seems impressed with Kidrnan 's role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Though I've often see n her as overrated, she did do a very good job in the film and the radical transformation was unnerving to see (but that 's a completely different category). Diane Lane is nominated for Unfaithful, a film which I haven't seen because I was trapped in the Swiss Alps for two and a half months last summer with Spider-Man playing constantly at the local cinema the entire time, but others don't have that excuse and still don't seem that impressed.

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BEST DIRECTING Chicago Gangs of New York The Hours The Pianis Talk to He r

32% 34% 21 % 9% 4%

It saddens me to see Alrnodovar, one of Europe's greatest modem filmmakers, relegated to last place. But such is the world we live in. Martin Scorcese is the winner with 34% and he deserves it.

Gangs of New York may not be the most accomplished of his films , but considering he has a long list of revered films to his name and has never won an Oscar, this is more of an honorary award for his back catalogue than for his latest venture. Chicago, one of my favourite films of the last year, comes in a respectful second place, and properly the most skilful film of the past year, Stephens Daldry's The Hours comes in third with a disappointing amount of votes. Roman Polanski 's holocaust drama The Pianist, which played for less than a week at Norwich's UCI, is unsurprisingly neglected, but still manages to beat Alrnodovar's Talk to Her into last place.

III~NTilllY." This is one of many categories that are very tightly contested. At the Oscars it will be a very close contest between Day-Lewis and Nicholson, two well-respected and deserving winners. But our TI.'FA poll shows that Day-Lewis just beats Nicholson to it by a mer8 2% for his role in Gangs of New York. I don't think that Cage is worthy of an Oscar just yet -he still has a lot of work to do to reach the same level as the top two - and Michael Caine has a great deal of appallingly bad movies to his name, and that isn't an easy stigma to shake off, it would seem. Vin Diesel isn't an actor, and I'm not going to dignify even the small percentage he got with any further commentary.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

BEST ANIMATED FEA1URE FILM Ice Age Lilo & Stitch Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron Toy Story

26% 34% 5% 35%

Do people not understand the nomination process? Toy Story is fantastic , yes, but it can't be nominated because it was made in 1995. Therefore, the winner by default is Disney's darkly humorous Lilo and Stitch. It's probably the most deserving of the batch in a category that has, to be honest, slim pickings this year, which may explain people's wish to nominate Toy Story. Only 5% voted

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM El Crimen Del Padre Arnaro Hero The Man Without a Past Nowhere in Africa Zus & Zo

14% 36% 27% 11 % 12%

I'm not quite sure what to make of this section. Not only are Talk to Her and Y Tu Mama Tambien orrunited from nomination in the Oscars, no one seems to have voted for them here, given the choice to, but still vote for them heavily in other categories. Odd. Zhang Yimou's Hero, which doesn't even have aUK release date as of yet, uncarutily wins by a long shot, perhaps on the strength of its uplifting title. Aki Kurismaki's The Man Without a Past comes second place and Mexican religious drama El Crimen Del Padre Amaro comes third despite having a similar handicap to Hero.

Nowhere in Africa isn't released until April here and Zus & Zo doesn't have a release date yet so that explains why they're pretty much ignored. Still, that doesn't explain Hero's victory. I think some indifference-inspired random ticking may have taken place.

BEST PIC1URE Chicago Gangs of New York The Hours The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers The Pianist

24% 18% 13% 36% 9%

Is UEA filled with fantasy-obsessed geeks? Yes, it would seem so.

I can't really comment on The Two Towers because l haven't seen it, or Fe/Jowsh1p of the Ring for that matter, and have no interest in doing so. The film isn't nominated for an Oscar in this category, so don't hold your breath for a win. My personal choice, the superlative Chicago, come s a distant second to the ogre-battling, filmedin-New Zealand nerdfe st, and if I was placmg money I'd certainly bet for it to win on the big day. Gangs of New York falls into third place (proving what I postulated above) but still manages to force The Hours into fourth place, sadly. The P1anist's fans show their

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12 .03.03

features 05

So, You Think You Know •••

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support once again, but futilely, it would seem.

WORST PICTURE xXx Crossroads Star Wars Episode 11 Scooby Doo The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

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34% 23% 33% 6% 4%

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3) In which year were Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Woody Alien all nominated as Best Director?

4) Who begun their Best Actress acceptance speech with the words "I'm practically unprepared... " ·and then went on to give the longest in the history of the awards?

5) This year sees composer John Williarns become the most nominated man alive, with his 42nd. For which film is he nominated?

42% 35% 23%

6) And who is the man, now deceased, with the most nominations of all time?

OK, one bit of kudos I'll give The Two Towers is that it looked impressive and it's probably everyone's favourite to win this category. I thought the effects in Spider-Man were fantastic (and much better than the we-can-see-the-strings efforts in X-Men) and I'd honestly prefer to see it win. But it won't. Episode 11 may have been incredibly dull, but it seems that lots of people thought it was pretty. Maybe they're right.

7) What was the last fully black and white film to win Best ~cture?

8) Who keeps his Best Actor Oscar in a chicken coop because he believes it increases the size of his hens' eggs?

9) Who, after not getting a Best Director nomination in 1975, was heard to comment "I can't believe it. They went for Fellini instead of me."?

BESI'WRITING (ADAPI'ED SCREENPLAY)

18% 21% 29% 23% 9%

Well, fans of The Pianist are certainly a loyal bunch, I'll give them that, but loyalty isn't going to cheer you up much when you keep losing. Last place again, my friends. Chicago finally wins something, as Bill Condon's fantastic adaptation of the Broadway musical gets a big thumbs-up from UEA. Considering that he was robbed of an Oscar for Gods and Monsters, it puts a big smile on my face. The Hours does better than in other categories, but still second place for another excellent, though depressing, film.

Adaptation, another near-miss in many other categories, comes in a respectable third place, still missing out. And I'm shocked and disheartened by the success of About a Boy, though it's still only in

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BESI' VISUAL EFFECTS

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I) What is the Oscar connection between the following films: It Happened One Night, One F7ew Over the Cuckoos' Nest and The Silence of the LambS?

left during- I don't like having my nostalgia fantasies ruined).

Crossroads fares surprismgly well, presumably because no matter how poorly written, badly acted or sickeningly sentimental a film is, Britney in her underwear will still distract from it quite nicely.

Scooby Doo, which I actually thought was good fun, is spared any huge humiliation and only a few people seem to agree with my opinion on The Two Towers. Oh well.

About a Boy Adaptation Chicago TheHours

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xXx seems to be the unanimous victor in a year that saw some truly awful films, and I can't say I disagree. Episode 11 continues George Lucas' streak of failing to entertain anyone (I never saw it after Episode I had the privilege of being the only film I've ever

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Spider-Man Star Wars Episode 11: Attack of the Clones

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10) Who has made history this year as the first fictional person to be nominated for an Oscar?

11) In 1998 Judi Dench became the winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar with the shortest amount of screentime in Shakespeare in wve . For how long was she on screen? fourth place, thankfully, but then I hate Nick Hornby and Hugh Grant. ·

12) And who in 1991 won Best Actor despite only having been on screen for sixteen minutes?

BESI' WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

GangsofNewYork MyBigFatGreekWedding Talk to Her Y Tu MamA TambiEm

24% 14% 28% 34%

And finally my faith in mankind is restored Y Tu Mama Tambien is one of this year's films that I'd recommend to everyone, and it seems that - glory be! - a lot of people actually agree with me. It certainly makes a pleasant change. If it wins on the day, I'd be incredibly surprised, because it's foreign, and nominated outside that category. Almodovar is given second place for his excellent Talk to Her, so I'll forget any disrespect from earlier. I'd like to see him win, just because Almodovnr deserves another Oscar after winning Best Foreign Film for All About My Mother in 2000. Gangs of New York, perhaps the year's biggest movie, is only in third place, and surprisingly at that, as some parts were undeniably tedious, but it can be explained by the final nomination: My Big Fat Greek Wedding- the film with the worst title ever- comes in last. Is anyone surprised?

13) Which Best Director nominee could end up appearing in court if he appears at the Oscar ceremony?

14) What was unusual about the nominations of Kate Winslet and Gloria Swanson for Best Actress and Supporting Actress respectively in 1997?

1) They are the only three films to have 'swept' the five major award cate gories of Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay 2) None, despite being nominated five times 3) 1977 4) Greer Garson 5) Catch Me If You Can 6) Walt Disney with 64 7) The Apartment in 1960. Not Schindler's List in 1993, which contains colour sequences 8) Russell Crewe 9) Steven Spielberg 10) Donald Kaufman. Nominated for Best Screenplay for Adaptation alongside his 'brother' Charlie 11) Eight minutes 12) Anth(;my Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs 13) Roman Polanski who in 1978 fled the USA for France to avoid sentencing on a conviction of statuary rape 14) They were both nominated for playing the same character in the film Titanic

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06 features

Burn Out,

Instrumental Fade Away Brake-Down whatever ha ppened to ...

Who? Formed under the guise o f The Farinas in 1962 at the hotbed of Rock'n'Roll activity that is Leicester Art College, Family went on to become arguably the most underrated rock band of the late 1960s, producing material envied by much of the music elite, including a certain Mr J Lennon. A quintet of the highest musical quality , Family comprised of Roger Chapman (vocals, sax), John Whitney (lead guitar), Jim King (tenor sax and vocals) , Ric Grech (bass) and Rob Townsend (drums). They received much attention from the press and radio at the time and were courted by The Beatles as one of their favourite bands at the time . They played massive gigs, including one at Hyde Park, and their albums have become de riguer in any muses collection.

Somehow though, they have been lost in the melaise of British late sixties culture.

Wha t?

A strange blend of rock'n'roll and r'n'b sensibilties, combined with obscure and sometimes downright weird lyrics (What the hell bad eggs don't smell/When glossed with sleek perfume) made Family part of the hippy circuit of 1967, a bandwagon soon forming around them. When they're firs t album, Music In A Doll's House, was released in July 1968, it received the critical thumbs up, but little chart success, although they remained a major force on the underground scene. A little known fact is that The Beatles were considering calling the White Album , A Doll's House before Family took the title (and some would argue the musical glory) some three months before the Fab Four could get their LP pressed and released.

Why? Family were pretty far ahead of the game in terms of musical innovation, perhaps a convenient excuse for their true lack of commercial success. Along with early Pink Floyd, they can be said to be pioneers of prog-rock and taking the initial hippy dream and transmuting it into something altogether different, although not necessarily accessible.

Their second album, Family Entertainment, c harted at number six and they spent 1969 touring their next LP , Anyway, reac hing number seven in November 1970. By this point however, the curtain was drawing on drug hazed hippiedom, with the advent of Led Zeppelin and the heavy rock scene taking ove r in Britain.

can think of only three really satisfying ways of destroying a faulty dictaphone. First, to burn it, preferably on a small disposable barbecue bought for that specific purpose, so that the whole operation can be conducted without fear of getting melted plastic on your sausages, pork chops or spicy beanburgers. Second, to throw it from the top of a mountain down into a ravine full of jagged rocks. The appeal of this approach is that you can watch it splintering into thousands of tiny shards as it makes its long journey down to the valley below. The third method is to place it on the ground and jump up and down on it repeatedly, yelling 'You bastard! You wankarsed bastard twatbangle! I'll teach you to record fifteen minutes of static noise instead of my interview with Gale Paridjanian from Turin Brakes! Gaah! ' But I digress. Gale Paridjanian (a name which I am glad to be writing down rather than saying) is a thoroughly nice bloke. He also has a lot of interesting things to say about music and the music industry, things which I will not be quoting in this article.

He is half of the band Turin Brakes, whose 2001 deb ut album The Optimist sold over 200,000 copies in the UK alone. The other half is Oily Knights. Oily was at film school when the pair recorded their first EP, The Door, and the song was originally intended as the soundtrack of a short film he was making. This plan fell apart disastrously, however, when they accidentally became hugely

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It's been two years now since the release of The Optimist, and Gale and Oily have finally returned with a new album. It's something of a departure from the rninimalist acoustic aesthetic of

their previous stuff; whereas The Optimist was self-produced and relatively homespun, with the band even doing their own work on the design of the inlay, Ether Song is an altogether more glossy affair. They flew out to LA to record it, and it is produced

by Tony Hoffer, a man who has previously worked with bands like Beck, Supergrass and Air. Clever production tricks aboundelectronic noises, looped and reversed samples, specially engineered atmospherics - but at the same time, the album has a strangely relaxed feel. A few tracks start with studio chatter and most of the songs, according to Gale, were treated as if it were a live recording session . The weird thing is, it works . The combination of melodic folk-pop and polished hig h -fidelity production could create a disgusting Frankenstein's m onster of an LP, b ut instead, the result is a professional-sounding second album which retains a measure of its predecessor's laid-back charm.

According to Gale, working with a producer was a liberating experience, taking off a certain amount of pressure and allowing them to concentrate on the business of writing songs. Far from feeling dwarled by the big LA studios, Gale and Oily had discovered a comfortable niche. t's understandable that being put in a position where all they had to do was write songs appealed to Gale and Oily.

They are, at heart, songwriters first, the grubby business of recording, mixing and mastering being just a distraction.

Gale describes writing songs as 'meditative' and says that making an album is, for them, a process of investigation where themes and ideas are allowed to emerge and develop. All of which sounds fairly intellectual for two blokes with guitars. These guys evidently take music seriously, and think a lot about it both in the abstract and in terms of their own output. They make intelligent, thoughtful music, and clearly love doing so. And luckily for the rest of us, they're pretty good at it as well. Ether Song may be a philosophical work, or a meditative treatise on solipsism and love, but it's also an enjoyable album with some damn good songs on it. It deserves to do well, and it probably will, although whether it will be as big a success as The Optimist remains to be seen. Oily and Gale certainly hope it will be, and they've been taking no chances in terms of publicity. They recently performed on the jonathan Ross Show, as well as at the live launch of the BBC 's new entertainment channel, BBC3. They've been dutifully touring the country, playing to fans in all sorts of venues, including of course our very own LCR. If Ether Song doesn't top Turin Brakes' debut in terms of sales, it won't be for want of trying .

Is this the aim for Oily and Gale, to sell as many albums as possible, to make it as big as they can, to attain superstardom?

Strangely , and despite the best efforts of the evil dictaphone , I remember Gale's answer to this one word for word: 'We want to put a dent in people's lives, a dent that stays there.' It's a simple enough aim- to make music that 's important to people, music that moves or inspires them, music that , at a very b asic level, does something. And you can't help but feel that they're on the right track.

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So where are they now?

The game was up for Family by 1973 . They did not though, take the route of many early seventies groups (Heroin deaths, summer suicide, personal Jumbo Jets) and split before they fell out, making a farewell album, It 's Only A Home, and touring to say goodbye and thanks to their fans , by now a sadly dwindling bunch. They remain much respected today, Family Entertainment hailed by some as one of the greatest albums of the sixties. If you're looking for a way in, try routing out a copy of Dolls House and Entertainment, which are available in one double album.

Their material does however, remain tough to get hold of, so get down to the second h and record store.

foe Minihane

ii'ijfii 12.03.03

Turin Brakes: two weird disembodied heads are better than one.

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08 features

Cinefil e OHice Space

no.28

Work s u cks.

Yes , it does. I don't like my job and don't think I'll go anymore.

And the film?

No , it does not. Despite critical indifference, the ignominy of a straight-to-video release and- wowzers! the handicap of Jennifer Aniston, Office Space is one of the c omedies of the nineties. Taking into consideration its subject matter and sly social commentary, part of a trend towards anarchic anti-consumerist pictures which fought for the emancipation of the white-collar worker see Fight Club and The Matrix- perhaps it's the comedy of the nineties. One of an elite breed of flicks including National Lampoon 's Animal House and Airplane! which never ever stop being hilarious, where every repeat viewing is as funny as the first, as if you've taken mind rubbers, Chris Morris style, and erased the memory so it can be enjoyed again. Except you don't have to . Because it's a classic.

Behave! It's by him what done Beavis and Butthead!

True, the asinine animated adolescents created by Mike Judge - who puts in two cameos - are an acquired taste and other aspects point to a bleak 90 minutes such as Gary Cole (Midnight Caller) as "obnoxious, pig of a boss" Lumbergh, a supporting cast rooted firmly in television (the bigwig from NewsRadio, the less-famous fat guy from Cheers) and the central character's shoes filled by the other dude from Swingers.

Jon Favreau?

No, the other one, the amazing Ron Livingstone, assaying miserable computer programmer Peter Gibbons (choice quote: " I realised, ever since I started working, every day of my life has been worse than the day before it... every single day that you see me, that 's on the worst day of my life"). His monotonous existence as an abused cubicle slave for an "evil, faceles s corporation" in Anytown, USA comes to an end following an enlightening visit to an 'occupational therapist '. Judge mercilessly skewers the shallow-caring culture of modern America in "these scenes. The shrink (a bit part for corpulent canuck Mike McShane) promptly drops dead on the spot, leaving Pete in a perpetual trance of blissful relaxation. Cue cheery Hawaiian tunes and a liberal sprinkling of gangsla rap as he proceeds to drift through life cynically without a care, wondering if he 'll get laid off. He gets promoted. And dates Jennifer Aniston. You'll love it.

Yeah, right, all sounds a bit like The Office's Gareth.

It was released while Ricky Gervais was still the second funniest thing on The I I O 'Clock Show and Chris Langham's People Like Us was confined to radio. Gervais and and Stephen Merchant are actually fans - during The Office's first series, professional heel David Brent recalls

the 'send off' they gave old Pete Gibbons. So there .

Anything else?

Supporting characters, all memorable , led by King of the Hill alumni Stephen Root as squirrely bore Milton Waddams, the basis of Judge 's SNL animations which led to the film, and David Herman as the unfortunately monikered rap fan Michael Bolton (" No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!")

F7etcher Walton

ii#IWI:tjjยงii

12 .03.03

lt's only rock n roll ... e Strokes . The Hives. The Kills. The White tripes. The Libertines. Comet Gain. The (ugh) ines. The Kills. The Star Spangles. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The Datsuns. Rock and roll is suddenly everywhere. Or so it seems - the music papers love it and indie kids everywhere will die for it (or at least wear ties for it) - but the truth is that rock and roll has always been around, a fact lost and forgotten among the ridiculous hype that was and is the NMEs New Rock Revolution. Just because the media and the mainstream suddenly take an interest in a genre doesn't make it new, and new it certainly isn't. That said, rock and roll is just as important now as it ever was . But why? What exactly is rock and roll?

What makes rock and roll rock and roll? And what separates the real rock and rollers from the fakes and the pretenders? A leisurely chat with New Zealand's The D4 (and yes, they're fed up with being asked about the Datsuns), and all becomes clear.

The interview takes place in the Waterfront's main dressing room, where the band members have set up camp. While the other half of the band are at a pub, frontmen Dion (vocals and guitar) and Jimmy (ditto) sit, drink, smoke and answer questions. Any notion of formality is dropped as the interview - their very first of this UK tour - becomes more of a conversation, the two of them talking amongst themselves as much as with interviewe r and photographer, revealing a sensibility and intelligence so often devoid in today's popular culture. They also have a great, if rather dry, sense of humour, and there is a wonderful dynamic between the two of the m , as they constantly entertain and interrupt each other and finish each other's sentences. Take for example, the following exchange, which occurred al"ter b eing asked why they formed the band: Dion: "Because I don't like to get out of bed until about 4, so it's the perfect job.

Jimmy: I'm the same as Dion. Ge tting up in the morning really sucks. So it's a good job in that respect."

D: "Yeah, it's the best job."

J: "Plus, we always wanted to play music and this just happens to be the band that's clicking and is working really well."

D: "We basically just get paid to hang out."

So when did you first to play an instrument?

D: " I was probably about six .... " J: "You were a pianist."

D: "I was about six when I played my first instrument, which was the piano for about 4 years."

J: "I played the recorder at school. I could play The Entertainer." .D: "I love the piano now, but back then I didn't give a shit."

J: "It's like anything your parents make you do ."

D: "They made me play Ode to joy and Chariots of Fire , and I wanted to jump on the p iano and set it alight like Jerry Lee Lewis."

It is clear, then, from what they say, and from their performance

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"Rock and roll," explains Dion, "is not just a style of music. It's an attitude and a way of life. Anyone that plays rock and roll will tell you that."

"It's having an independent attitude," adds Jimmy.

"And musically ... we like to play raw, simple music that everyone can like, because that's the thing about rock and roll. It started off with the blues or jazz, and everyone could feel the emotions and where they were coming from, from Charlie Parker to Howlin' Wolf. It 's a primal thing, and it's an attitude and a way of life, just a way of looking at stuff' " One thing I really like," says Jimmy with a cheeky smile on his face, "is going to stay in a nice hotel because walking into those places people are always initially like, 'What the fuck? What are you doing in here? You look like a scruffy c*nt.' And it's like, 'Yes, I am a scruffy c*nt and I am totally entitled to be in your hotel. ' I know it's a small thing, but I used to get kicked out of so many places when I was younger because I didn't have the right clothes, or I dressed scruf!ily, or whatever. " Rock and roll is not, however, just subversion for its own sake. It's about individuality, and being allowed to be who you are, despite what society may think: "It's about being you, being yourself and rebelling against the

Ab ove: Dion (left) and Jimmy. Hiding in the shower. Ahem. norm, whatever that is ," says Dion. "Probably a 9 to 5 job and a boring kind of life. Some people dig that, but it's not for me."

"We've come from suburbs. And I just grew up with a real loathing of suburbs. I like wild open spaces and I like cities but sprawling suburbia is probably one of the driving forces of what we do. " So you're not moving b ack home al"ter the tour is over?

"Well none of us have got houses any more," says Jimmy. " We haven't got flats or places to live or anything."

So where do you stay when you're back home?

Jimmy: "Mates' places, girls' houses."

Dion: "Shelters. Anyone who will give us a couch. " Jimmy: " It's quite good, cause we're not normally around for very long at home so people are happy to see us and put us up , but we don't overstay our welcome."

Do you mind the sense of displacement that that must give you?

Dion: "I love that. It's part of being in a rock and roll band."

Jimmy: "And it adds things to your playing and your writing. That kind of displacement is good. I remember living in this beach place for a while and it was fucking beautiful, right on this clifftop, awesome, and I was really, really happy there , but as far as writing rock and r oll songs, it just wasn't really that conducive to that."

Dion: "You 're too comfortable. Being in the city or in weird places where things are off-kilter and you don't have a structure makes it a lot easier to tap into that vibe.

Jimmy : "That's the thing that I like about the thing we're doing at the moment. We don't have a routine. I mean, there are certain things about it that follow a similar pattern, but every show is different, every place we go is different, everything we do is different and it doesn't really have any set structure. Every day is different and I fucking love that."

His passion is infectious. It makes you want to ditch the degree, grab a guitar and travel forever , never looking back. Because that's what they do, and that's their life. Jimmy and Dion have found something which gives them purpose, makes them happy and makes their lives worth living. It's only rock and roll, but they love it.

BUT THAT'S NOT 1\LL! JIMMY AND DION TALK ABOUT ... .. .the Datsuns: J: They're our friends. And we wish them all the luck and they're doing really well. We're very proud of them and pleased for them. But we do get asked about them, which is annoying ...

D: ... because we love them and they're great guys and they're a tucking band. But we're in the D4, you know, and if people want to talk about the Datsuns, they should ask the Datsuns. ~ies:

D : We get more boys, actually, which Jimmy's very happy about, being gay. No, I'm taking the piss. Things have changed for us in that respect, as far as girls being nice to us and stuff, which is bizarre. They used to be mean to us. ... the best thing about being in the band: J:We once met the guy who impregnated Kate Moss. That was pretty cool.

D: I asked if I could have a go, but ...

J: Initially, I didn't really fancy her, but I was doing a shitty job for a while and read lots of shitty women's magazines that were around to fill the time and Kate Moss was in all of them.

So I ended up having a sexy dream about her, which wasn't pom o but was just quite beautiful. And now I have a soft spot for her, so to meet him was amazing.

- -- -

-~-----

features 09

ex

Meeti

5

As one of only a handful of student TV stations in Britain Nexus TV is something to be proud of. ~ talks to Nexus secretary Chloe Hall about their past, present and future •••

most of us are confronted with the word 'Nexus', the first thoughts that spring to mind vary from another middle name for Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator, to an unfoW\d moon of Pluto. For some of the luckier ones, it's like a distant echo of a past life, a sort of hazy deja vu. It definitely rings a bell somewhere, but how or why is anybody's guess. It's only when you really start mulling it over that the penny finally drops, and you remember that Nexus isn't the new Ford model after all, but the name of UEA's very own student television station.

Let's start from the top then. What exactly is Nexus and what does it do? Well, run by students for students, Nexus is in fact one of only nine student TV stations to exist in the entire coW\try. That's not bad going really, when you think about it. Based at the studio in Union House, it's an approachable society made up of creative and tecl:mical folks who work relatively . hard week in week out to provide us with a small but entertaining variety of progranunes. Unbeknown to most of campus, it's flying the flag for UEA at this year's prestigious NaSTA (National Student TV Awards) in Glasgow, and is actually in with a good chance of doing some serious damage. Over the past five years it has scooped up no less than three NaSTA awards, the pinnacle of which was a highly cornrnended last year when they were pipped at the·post by television orientated Bournemouth. And that's not bad either, considering, as Nexus Secretary Chloe Hall puts it: "They spend their degrees making TV, we do it in our own time". The accolades don't end there. Last year it was blessed with a brand spanking new digital editing suite which is home to an equally swanky Final Cut Pro machine, which (so my sources assure me) is one par down from the equipment the BBC use. And check this out for praiseworthy~ Suggs is a former member.

Yeah, yeah, Nexus Schrnexus, I hear you say. If they're so hip 'n' cool and just plain down with it, what sort of progranunes do they make? Well, on the serious side of things there's Nexus News, a weekly news show focusing on campus and local stories, as well as one documentary every semester. Last semester they made a French film complete with subtitles, and they were recently responsible for the production of an anti top-up fees trailer, which was screened to a large audience in the lecture theatre before the film society showing of Scooby Doo. On the not so serious side of things, Nexus has two weekly entertainment shows that go by the name of SPAM (Student Pranking Arts and Music}, including It's All About George, Nexus's own take on Jackass, but which as Chloe says, comes "without the danger", and Film Reviews in the Loo, hosted by a guy from his own bathroom where the films are rated by sheets of toilet paper. They've even done their own version of Street Mate, the rather imaginatively titled Uni Mate with genuine, willing contestants who have actually been packed off on a dinner date and a free spin on the floor at the LCR.

"ClN

that run Nexus spend half their time working like Trojans to make weekly progranunes that nobody can watch. Even though Chloe rather modestly claims that it's "not a huge problem" and that "to be honest, even if the progranunes d~n't end up being broadcast, we just make them for the fun of it", any normal hearted person could see that, quite frankly, it's just not on. To think that two students stripped down to the waist in the City Centre and had a dual down Gentleman's Wallc with wet fish, and none of it has ever been broadcast, is just terrible. In happier days, back in the seventies, the lack of TVs meant that Nexus was a thriving student station with hW\dreds of student watchers gathe~g roW\d in the Hive to see it.

Nowadays, it may be thriving at NaSTA and dawn some W\Ventured corridor of Union House, but to everyone else it might as well be invisible.

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S

.llnyone who is interested in joining Nexus can sign up at the next Soc:Mart in September.

Pictures: (in descending order) Chloe Ball and Studio Manager Jon Ellis in The Nexus Studio; Nexus Secretary ChloeBall

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So where the hell can we see all this entertaining stuff then?

Well, it might come as a bit of a surprise to say that.from here on in, it's a bit of a sob story. Alas, due to some easily explainable blips in communication between Nexus and the Union, Nexus's valuable one-hour slot in the bar has unforiW\ately dwindled down to nothing. For one brief and glorious flicker, it used to be the case that student progranunes could be broadcast in the Hive between the (somewhat deserted) hours of three and four, although due to cables causing fire hazards and the popularity of the juke box it never really had the chance to take off. What this means however is that the dedicated people

12.03.03

I

l_

10 features

Writing Creatively

he Arts Building, a seminar on the complexities of Poe and his perspective on the city aside, is not perhaps the obvious choice for an hour of literary fun. But behind the scenes of mundane EAS admin activity, people checking pigeon holes and handing in essays, it is home to a wealth of the great and good, or at least the talented and published. On an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon it is my good fortune to be sitting in a comfy chair in an 9ffice on the second floor opposite one of the most successful, widely travelled, well-read and funny women I have ever met. I'm having a chat with Patricia Duncker, one of UEA's very own creative writing professors.

She's emphatic, has an obsession with adjectives, and regularly breaks into peals of raucous, infectious laughter. As we talk she shares a life that has been one long love affair with books. She grew up in the West Indies and with her brother away at boarding school sought companionship and adventure in the family's library. "I read like a wolf, I read absolutely anything and we didn't have very many children's books, so I read everything my parents had. I liked exciting war stories and I liked spooky religious thrillers of which, for some reason, my mother had a lot. I didn't understand a lot of what I read - probably just as well - but I got a taste for stories with driving narratives, and I got a taste for the supernatural. "

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lli\Siii~T (~1\SI~ I~ItJIS." Her favourite author is George Elli ot, but she cites the first story to really capture her imagination as Seven Pillars of Wisdom byTE Lawrence. "It's about the war in the desert and it's a quite extraordinary book, it 's very florid, very baroque and over-written and, because he was writing about homosexuality in a period before you could say you were homosexual, it's all wrapped up in the most extraordinary arch phrases." Duncker strongly believes that what you produce as a writer is the product of what you read; "books are made of other books", she says, and her appreciation of the importance of a skilful use of language is clear in her own work. It is also something she insists on in her students: "I love books which are beautifully written, it always comes back to the language, to whether the writer is using language in a way that's muscular, innovative and robust." She was first inspired to write by her aunt, another Patricia and another successful author. "I first met her in the early 60s when she came to visit us in Jamaica. I thought she was terribly glamorous and very clever, and I wanted to be glamorous and clever!" But while she believes craft can be taught she is firm that talent cannot.

It is something you have to be born with. As someone who loves books, and got into lecturing because it gave her the opportunity to spend her days reading, she gets a lot from those she works with. She is demanding but encouraging: "When I teach writing I'm offering myself to my students as their reader, as an exacting, sympathetic but very challenging reader. I want nothing more or less from them than excellence." hough her passion is books, Duncker does conede there is more to life: "One hopes you would e spending most of your time reading, but you o have to get on the bus and eat and live , so the hole world around you filters into what you write. I'm very interested, for instance, in B-movies. I love watching late night crap films on the television. Then you get absolute basket case films , and those are the ones I find really intriguing." She has also become one of the many millions applauding Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings, even suggesting that it's better than the novel because it cuts

A

ii#IW!Jijยงii 12. 03. o3

Duncker: b elieves "books should transport people ". They' d probably get us into Uni quicker than the number 25 .

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Duncker writes because she has something to say. Her most recent book, Seven Tales of Sex and Death, is designed to "disturb and provoke" with the intention to make her readers

"revisit the cliches of sexuality and violence , to read them afresh - and think again." The tales deal with a wide range of subject matter and illustrate Duncker's interest in that which we, as a society, conceal rather than disclose. They are deeply unsettling and follow in the footsteps of The Deadly Space Between, a previous work and a thriller that, according to the Daily Mail, "subverts conventional morality and confounds expectations". As well as the release of Seven Tales, this mo nth sees the paperback edition of Duncker 's novel, james Miranda Barry, hitting our shelves.

She may be a busy university professor with a lot on her plate, but when inspiration strikes there's a small house in France where an artist in need of space can hatch her latest literary wonder. I ask how much more Duncker thinks she has to say and she laughs: "as long as I go on reading I think I'll go on writing. I love writing, because that's the closest engagement with language, the most exc iting bit of all is the first draft and it's just thrilling. I enjoy it more and more as I get older and, I hope, better at it." Seven Tales is certainly a book that pushes the boundaries of convention and , if her animation about writing and ability to put a fresh new perspective on all aspects of life is anything to go by, we can look forward to many more. She says has an old fashioned respect for " the power of fiction to transport people", which will ensure increasing success and a growing readership.

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

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

features 11

Almost Famous

Drama at UEA

Looking Beyond the Top 40

no. 11

wo societies, both alike in dignity, at fair UEA, where we lay our scene... The ancient grudge between Drama Soc and the Drama degree student theatre company Minotaur has lasted for nearly a quarter of a century since the latter was formed in 1979.

However, as respective presidents Menna B!'!van and Tom Wilton arrive for this interview together, actually looking quite friendly, it becomes clear that times have changed.

So, what's going on? "We're havilrg a baby," laughs Menna.

"Yeah, we're going to call it Dramataur," adds Tom, just as I begin to wonder if relations have developed further than I thought.

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(;ilN ONI~ J.A)CJ\'11~ 'I,Dil'l, iliJ..-l~IJ»OJl­ '1,1\N'r J)ll'ril 'I,ION SI\IJJ..J.. I )JJ~ll)li\IJ)'S '1,1\11.. 1\ 'l, SIJ(;U S D0 It'r NO'I,J(;J~? " "Basically as soon as you get to UEA and join one group you're told you don't like the other" explains Menna, "just because you both do the same thing it's assumed there'll be rivalry. The way I see it, because we do the same thing we should stick together." Tom agrees: "most Minotaur members also want to become involved in Drama Soc productions, and most Drama Soc members are interested in supporting Minotaur shows, so it works both ways."

This year, things have been different between the two groups and this is largely down to this year's presidents. Menna . remem)::>ers "It just got to the point where we were thinking: 'this is crazy', and this year we decided to do something about it." And they did. This year saw the first ever collaboration between Minotaur and Drama Soc in the form of the 24hour project. A group made up of both Drama Soc and Minotaur members wrote, cast, rehearsed and performed a piece in 24 hours, and although both presidents agree it was a "nightmare" to organise, they are both also of the opinion that it was well worth it; "by the end of a very long night, you just kind of forgpt they were from these 'rival' groups. We'd really like to see more collaborations between Drama Soc and Minotaur in the future." mproved relationships and collaboration have benefited both groups in terms of resources and publicity. · "Between us we probably own every costume, prop or other random article needed for most productions" says Menna, "it makes sense to share." (Where else can one locate that all-important imitation skull I mermaid's tail at such s~ort notice?) There's also that rather vital resource, a~tors: "We thought we needed more actors for our production of [Ibsen's] Ghosts" remembers Tom, "so I just contacted

I

Rec.

UEA Dranta Studio:Where it all takes p lace

Menna and she put the word out to see if anyone was interested in getting involved. As it happened, we were O.K. with the ones we had, but the fact it was even suggested was pretty revolutionary."

Publicising each other's shows, workshops and events is undoubtedly one of the major benefits of this improved relationship. Productions are time-consuming and expensive, and both groups have to contend with the LCR for their audiences.

As Tom points out: " Coldplay vs. some experimental theatre that's a tough battle to fight!" Both presidents agree that publicising shows on campus is a problem as porters and cleaners frequently tear down. posters. Minotaur, as an independent theatre company, is: self-funded and cannot afford to constantly produce more and more publicity material. The committees of both groups are student-run and continually putting up new posters takes time. However , both group's shows still pull in large audiences - they are just keen to reach wider ones.

What was once a harsh rivalry seems to have turned into a mutual appreciation society, which shows just how far relationships between the two groups have been developed this year: "I'm always really impressed by the inclusiveness of Drama Soc" says Tom, "people always go on about theatre being a dead art form but Drama's the second largest society at UEA which proves that people do care about it. ·Drama Soc gives them a forum to get involved." Menna admires the achievements of Minotaur "they're small, they're poor, but they put on great shows. They're not part of the Union so it's harder for them. This lot do drama all day, every day and still produce amazing, really professional performances in their spare time."

Speaking of performances, it sounds like March is definitely the month for drama at UEA: on 27th-29th Tom promises a "magical" interpretation of one of Shakespeare's trickiest plays, The Winter's Tale. Between the 26th and 29th, Drama Soc presents Spring Awakening, and on the 30th and 31st the annual musical and collaboration with Music Soc: Return to the Forbi dden Pllinet. For information on any of these performances contact Menna or Tom, I'm sure both of them will be delighted to help.

Another one of our favourite pieces of city street art. If you think you might know wh ere this particular piece is then drop us a line (su .concrete@uea.ac.uk) and you can win this fortnight's single choice.

Photo: Sbnon Brett

The band three of you were involved with previously Errortype: 11 - received critical and underground acclaim b ut failed to make it big. Do you think you're overdue recognition with Instruction?

Arty Shepard (vocals/guitar): Nobody deserves to be given anything; you've got to work for it.

Errortype: 11 were heavily overlooked but it was mostly our own fault because we made some stupid decisions ...

I think success depends a lot on timing and from the · second this band started things fell into place so, whilst I don't think we're overdue anything, it looks like we got some 'karma points' from our previous suffering.

How do you avoid the pitfalls this time around?

Ad<nn Marino (bass): You can never·totally avoid the pitfalls, but we've learned from our mistakes.

Musically, we've become more focussed and that 's helped us go at everything else full-force.

Arty: Part of the problem with Errortype was that we had no money. That problem hasn't disappeared, but this time around I was just, like, " If we're gonna do this let's do it right as I'm sick of fucking around".

So we're taking every risk we can take and using our experience to our advantage.

Are you signed?

Adant: No. Gravity put out our EP but the rest - the recording costs, the plane tickets, the van -.has all been self-financed.

Arty: We' re hop~ng to make the money back through selling the EP but there's no guarantee we will. A tour like this (supporting Hell Is For Heroes) was too good to turn down, though.

British hands with an obvious American influence tend to get criticised by purists. What do you m ake of the British post-hardcore scene from what you've sei:m of it?

Arty: Hundred Reasons truly inspired me when we toured with them last year. They use their success to take others with them and a lot of bands won't do that. Hell Is For. Heroes are exactly the same.

It's cool to see heavy music doing well here because when I think of British music my favourite bands are people like Suede; bands that would never get big in America. I see a distinct difference in the way British bands write songs - a different appr oach to melody - in songs like (former HR single) Falter, for example. I prefer that. The opposite is bands like the Lostprophets who embrace a more commercial, American style.

How much do you think you can achieve, ultimately?

Adant: We take it day by day. Right now things are happening for us and it's great. .

Arty: It would be pointless to put an upper limit on what we hope to achieve. We follow the same advicel'd give to young bands: write the best songs you can and hope for the best!

Alistair Lawrence

12.03.03

1 2 One hundred magazine promotion

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our

os "Once we had found thi.s out, we quickly decided that we couldn't afford not to do it."

David believes that one of the key features of 100 Magazine is

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e've all been there- bored one Tuesday afternoon after a boring lecture. All you want to do is something fun, something to take your mind off of that essay, but you can't think of anything.

Fear no more. The Evening News 100 Magazine is about to be available in a shop near you. Designed for young people like yourselves, we are about to launch a new guide which will give you a choice of lOO things you can do with your week. We will

tell you what is going on- and where.

100 Magazine is the first of its kind anywhere in the country. It isn't just a listings publication, it's far more interesting than that. So where did the idea come from? And why is it being launche d? · Evening News Editor, David Boum explained that the newspaper were looking tp give their re.: tders more on Fridays, in line with other publications. ''We were looking to improve the Friday package to compete with other newspapers which have lots of supplements."

But the project did not happen immediately. It took well over a year to get right. ·

"One of our former members of staff, Zak Ireson, left to start up his own business, but he came to the Managing Director of Archant completely coincidentally with the concept of the mag-

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MAGAZINE

azine. His idea wa~ to Il).ake it monthly and that it would go out around Norwich," he said.

However, David stepped in and grabbed the idea for his newspaper, but he thought it was too much of a good idea just to publish it monthly, so he put together a plan to distribute it in every edition of Friday's Evening News.

Such a venture is not something that can be done quickly, as David found out. Before he could even think about its launch, there were so many areas which needed to be investigated particularly whether the population of Norwich would like it.

Time needed to be put into the project and the team behind 100 magazine had to be certain that such a publication would not discourage current readers from buying the Evening News.

"We put together a dummy and got lots of focus groups in. We had three groups, regular readers, occasional readers and non-readers who were aged between 25 and 55. We had to be careful because we wanted to switch on new readers but not get rid of old ones. They took them home with them and asked their friends and families if they liked them. It was all very positive.

its size - which ensures that it has a "coffe.e table culture".

"It is so good for advertisers if a magazine has a shelf life of a

week and that's what l OO magazine aims for."

But what is such a trendy, new magazine doing in a place like Norwich? Hardly a city at the hub of coolness? David disagrees. He believes that the magazine is able to compete with publications in other areas - even those cities which are seen as being more trendy than Norwich.

"I think it bears up to comparisons in any number of cosmopolitan areas. It isn't just a listings magazine, it contains so much more than that."

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ndood, it do". As well M • weekly wi<h • top celebrity, we will also be bringing you the best days out in East Anglia and London.

But not just that, there is soniethi.n g for everyone and because it is simple to use as it is !iivided up into sections, it really is an essential guide to your week. So if you're into pubs and clubs, check out our best nights out, while if you're more of a stay-at-home-person, there's reviews and previews of the best new books, computer games, films and gadgets. · Even better are our competitions, we will be giving out the best prizes in town.

So, don't get bored. Get your hands on a copy of 100 Magazine.

I=~~~~~~

NEW 100 MAGAZINE UFE'S BEST BITS REVIEWED. FREE WITH THE

26.02.03

EVERY

FRI DAY~

13

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14 Albums

Spiritualized Every so often in life, one likes to indulge in personal pleasures: for some it's shopping, some eating, but for Jason Pierce it's songwriting. Not that that' s a bad thing per se. Prolific artists are something sadly lacking in the realm of good songwriting these days. Jason Pierce does however, miss a key point, in the fact that he doesn't know when to stop writing one song and move onto the next. If this was evident in the band's first two albums, then the Complete Works takes the piss. Selfindulgent doesn't quite cover it. The entire collection makes Pink F1oyd sound like a stripped down punk rock band with a sharp perception of when to put down their instruments and head to the bar. Take Feel So Bad (Rhapsodies) for example, a thirteen minute opus (think Tubular Bells covered in a maelstrom of white noise) which dies after about five minutes but insists on remaining on the stereo for another eight. It lingers like the smell of shit on your shoes if you don't make a point of cleaning it straight away. And this is just for starters. 100 Bars sees Kate Radley (foriner keyboard player before Pierce decided to sack his entire band and make a second album with a bunch of session musos) count to one hundred to the background whining of a synthesiser and Medication is an overly long romp through keys and strings which is utterly unnecessary. In fact, this e.n tire coll~ction is a pretty pointless

Stephen Malkmus and the Ticks

Away from the Sun

Pig Lib

album. An excellent follow-up to their debut LP, The Better Life, it does much more than just satisfy. There is a O.uency to this album that gives all the tracks a degree of similarity and completeness that was absent on The Better Life.

This can largely be attributed to producer Rick Parashar, who has also worked with the likes of Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

From the bitter, Grammy nominated When I'm Gone, to the 'lighter waving' ballad Here Without You, the band continue to supply heavily melodic, singable choruses that hold a comme.r cial strength without losing their complexity.

·AFI

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] oe Minillane

3 Doors Down Away From The Sun is 3 Doors Down's second

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exercise in self-aggrandisement, a highlight of what Jason Pierce does inbetween writing fairly average songs for his albums proper. But do we really care? Well not really. Perhaps this album would have mattered a few years ago. Instead, it shows Pierce to be the self-indulgent wanker that he is.

Complete Works doesn't even improve with persitent listening and requires an ability to numb your mind and think of the pleasures that await when the album is finished and the nonnal world can resume.The aural pain which this album induces is akin to a dog barking throughout the night, but not in the next door neighbours garden actually in your bedroom. Or like Barn Marghera waking his parents at three am letting off fireworks in their bedroom. Except this album isn't funny. Or clever. Just pointless. Spirtualized clearly are floating in outer space, and seem to have lost any earthly contact. Do yourself a favour and don't buy this record, it could do untold damage to you and your hearing

The title track to the album is a powerful anthem emotional angst often attributed to post grunge alternative rock. With a hint of Creed, it is a song of isolation that really sends a shiver up your spine.

If you could make any criticism of 3 Doors Down, it would be that they are nothing original, and that similarity between many of the ·tracks which I deemed an advantage may be seen as a criticism by many. But if you like this kind of music, or the first album, you will love this.

Christian Floyd

Stephen Malkmus' eponymous debut solo album a couple of years ago was a lot of fun; partly an extension of his work in Pavement and partly a shameless homage to Bowie. I remember putting it on in the office where I was working at two summers ago, only to hear a loud cry from across the room of "Get this Lou Reed shit off!" from my deputy manager.

Having joined up with the Ticks this time round, Malkmus is definitely not trying to do anything new. There is still that unmistakable Pavement sound, a little more polished, perhaps a little more mature. And this is no bad thing. Malkmus seems to be wearing his infiu-

ences on his sleeve again but this time, instead of Bowie, the album has a far more country feel to it.

On first listen, the album is perhaps a little slight and some tracks pass you by leaving little or no impact. Tracks like Ramp of Death, Vanessa from Queens and Us however, are sweet as. After a while you will be won over because the record is wonderfully relaxed, creeping up on yo.u and leaving you feeling calm and content.

Tom Sutton

Stephen Jones

·

Sing the Sorrow Hands up who saw this coming? Erstwhile prcr teges of Offspring frontrnan Dexter Holland and cult goth-punks A Fire Inside they may have been, but spotlight-dwelli.ilg contenders they were not. At least not until now.

Continuing the trend of numerous 'scene' bands making their major label debuts in recent months, the calculated risk taken by the East Bay quartet should perhaps be applauded the loudest. Rather than retread the admittedly fertile ground that threw up their Black Sails In The Sunset breakthrough and its equally impressive follow-up, The Art Of Drowning, Davey Havok and eo. have taken their sound to the next

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Almost Cured of Sadness proverbial level. From the plodding atmospherics of opener Miseria Cantare, with its defiant ''You are one of us!" conclusion, to the spooky acoustic shudder of its Now The World curtain call, Sing The Sorrow is utterly unapologetic, counterbalancing the trademark vampiric hardcore punk of its creators with deeper delving into none:.more-black balladeering than has been attempted previously. Ignore the ignorant, 'mini-Misfits' catcalls. AFI clearly have, in the process growing strong enough to nip their doubters in the neck and O.y off into the night.

Jllistair Lawrence

Reviewing music is definitely not my forte, and when Stephen ]ones of Babybird fame's CD Almost Cured of Sadness was put in my hand, I knew right away that this wouldn't be my kind of music. However, to give it a fair shot, I opened my mind up from the rigid boundaries of pop and Sarah McLaughlin. I found it to be a catchy little CD, although a little bit strange. Perhaps in order to truly appreciate the weird trance tracks, you need to be a little high. The tracks seem to appeal to me as something great to play in the background at a party, or at a close gathering of friends. Simple, good beats, odd voices and lyrics, and elementary remixing seems to

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work for this particular CD, making one oddly interested while playing it. Tracks such as Jesus Freaks and Candy Asses and My Girlfriend Killed Jesus did not bode well for musical content, but most of the songs had a little more to them than morbid titles. My advice: listen to the first half of the CD, appreciate the different songs, then move on to more familiar tunes to chill out to.

The last half of the CD is more of the same, but it gets progressively worse.

]enn Marshall

Evan Dando Baby I'm Bored

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smell of Grievous Angel. What we have instead is And after about seven years absence from the music business, fonner Lemonheads front man a collection of twelve sweet country songs, often Evan Dando returns with a triumphant debut sad but not quite aching. This isn't the sort of solo album. Well, sort of. It depends what you album you want to tell all your mates about, but were expecting. it is the sort that may sort you out on a Sunday morning. Dando thankfully still has an ear for a In his heyday in the early nineties, Dando seemed to have the potential for something pret- · 'good tune and his voice is as mellow as it ever was. By the time you finish listening, you may ty special, was even occasionally referred to as the next Gram Parsons. But of course, he tucked wish that Evan had been putting albums out like it up! His early promise as a major songwriter this for years. got lost somewhere in between drug addiction and becoming a roadie for Oasis!

But let's not be under illusion here: this is not the TomSutton album we've been waiting for, it doesn't even

break dancing

_...

12.03.03

line dancing

tap dancing

belly dancing

lap dancing

Singles 15

Going Live

Single Choice Blur Out Of Time First things first. 'This is a great song. An incredibly simple 路 ballard with some cute, subtle lo-fi pickings over the verse and a chorus infected with the sweetest of Mr Albarn's pop sensibilities. In short, it's beautiful, sad but hopeful and makes you think about sunset without feeling like Sting.

Talking of Sting, there's some crap Spanish guitar in the middle just so we don't forget that Damon's into world music now and doesn't like war etc etc. But we can forgive him for that, cos if Damon didn't make a bit of a nob of-himself every once in a while then he just wouldn't be Damon. So, yeah, it's a good song and you should buy it, or tape it off a friend, or listen to it on the radio, or download it off the internet, or whatever it is you do with good music.

Right, now I've got 50 words left to lament the loss of Graham. Yes, yes it's all very sad but the black rimmed one hasn't really wanted to be in Blur for about six years now so it's probably for the best that he's gone. And besides, Blur will break up for g ood after this album has been toured so it doesn't matter. Let's just savour the last bitter sweet notes of the best British band since The Smiths.

Luke Wrigh t

and previews. Getting bored yet?

This issue: the good, the bad and

Delta Goodrem Fried My Little Brains

Born to Try My two favourite things in the entire world are Neighbours and cheesy love ballads. If you combine the two you get Delta Goodrem, aka Nina. And this song is like sex. And I don't mean a shag or a fuck or an LCR grope; this song is like making love to your old lady by a log fire in a house on a lake on Christmas Eve with freshly laid snow on the ground, me and Nina, together at last. It may be a minute too long but, hey, that can only be a good thing!

TomSutton

I Am Kloot

There are many reasons for disliking Fried My Little Brains, the follow up to the downright dirty Black Rooster EP from The Kills . There are blatant rip-offs from Exile era Stones and Queen of Punk Cool, PJ Harvey. It's basic and unchallenging.

Yet one man's gripe is another man's grope. Sure it's simple, sure it nicks nearly every basic riff Keef ever wrote in a druggy stupor, but dammit it works. Cat Claw is sassy rock'n'roll, the title track a thumping modern blues number and Fuck The People will make you want to fuck people. It's that good. A fully realised White Stripes. With a wicked taste in retro rock ]oe Minihane

Finch

Untitled #1

Okay, let's cut to the chase_ There will always be bands or musicians who are better than others. That's just the way things work - not every band can be amazing. Or great. Or even good. There is, however, no excuse for a band to be as absolutely dreadful as Violent Delight, who supported (a very good) Hell is for Heroes some three Mondays ago.

They were so bad it was shocking, so ridiculously awful, in fact, that they don't really deserve a mention here, but to leave them out would be to excuse them for their utterly dreadful performance and for being the piss-poor mockery of a band that they are.

Not quite so dreadful, are Sula, who sound like a very bad Sunny Day Real Estate when they were at their worst. They played alongside Rockastella, all.but.last_ and The Asleep at last week's Meltdown Live at the Waterfront. The f9rmer weren't much better, but were at least fronted by three young girls wearing ties. Which is always good. all.but.last. started very well but couldn't maintain the intensity of their first few songs, which, probably not coincidentally,were mainly earlier songs from when the band were named Palo Alto. The Asleep, despite one false start midway through their set, delivered as solid and as tight a set as ever, showing quite clearly why they were headlining. Sometimes these things make sense. The next Meltdown Live is at the Waterfront on Thursday, March 13, and will be headlined

by Freefall, a band who are always guaranteed to give a good performance. So yeah, check it out.

Oh, and the D4 played the Waterfront last week, supported by the fabulous OK Go. Both were absolutely great, especially the latter, who were not only muiscally brilliant (imagine if Weezer had been around in the 80s and combined keyboads with Beach Boys-edque harmonies) but also a lot of fun to watch. Rarely do support bands totally win an audience over, but they did, and, taking nothing away from the D4, who were awesome , they totally deserved to.

Letters to You

Untitled #1 is a fairly upbeat number but is dragged rather

blandly along by vocals that sound like Ken Livingstone slogging through a children's bedtime story. In fact, the entire song could be the latest theme tune to an animated show starring Bob The Builder's surrogate brother.

Untitled #1 is fairly inoffensive but remains pretty much a nonentity. Much like most middle-of-the-road music of this genre, it goes round and round but never really gets anywhere. As such, it deserves its rather apt, self-indulgent, slightly ironic post-modern, title. They may well be Kloot, but that is all they will ever be...

Gavin Bates

Currently one of the most hotly tipped bands doing the punkrock rounds, Finch are a tightly screwed-up ball of emotional intensity. With a rolling bassline that's reminiscent of Rival Schools, the song's heartfelt lyrics really are affecting, with apparent simplicity melded with a visceral power that succeeds in creating a result worthy of being the first track on any self-respecting mix tape for that 'special someone.' It might not be to everyone's tastes, but nonetheless Finch are probably going to become synonymous with success in the coming few months ..

Ben Patashnik

Jennifer Lopez

Caesars

Alii Have

Jerk lt Out

Yet again Jennifer has enlisted a credible rapper (well, LL Cool J) to produce a mediocre track to the same format of every other song she has done. For this track there is a vague attempt at some kind of female empowerment but "all I have is my pride" sounds just as true as "I'm still Jenny from the block." The video is just as tacky, so to avoid messy projectile vomiting, sick bags are recommended. However, the song being released almost at the same time as her new fihn should raise enough profile to sell at least five tickets!

Amy Hewitt

When I first listened to this I wasn't greatly impressed, but it is a grower. Combining elements of alternative music such as The Hives and The Coral with a slightly older punkish element akin to The Undertones, jerk it Out has a late 60s/ early 70s feel but suffers from repetitive lyrics and over-familiar guitar riffs.

It is certainly the best track- Out of My Hands and She's a Planet are quite similar, although the latter is slightly rockier but has a bad Status Quo resonance. Overall, Caesars are a very average band who are responsible for a very average single.

Helen Ashford

Mellafone

Cold play

Every Word I Drop EP

Clocks

Take a pinch of Coldplay, two teaspo ons of post-Bends Radiohead, a tablespoon of Massive Attack and sprinkle a little Four Hero over the top. Mix well and heat in a saucepan for approximately 18 minutes. Voila- you'll have Every Word I Drop, the new EP from Mellafone, the brainchild of Bournemouth duo Chris Mears and James Childs-Evans.

Mears' tender, Chris Martin-esque vocals combine well with the sample-laden, off-tempo beat of the duo's music- especially on the mellow, drum n bass inspired Stay Strong- to produce four songs that, while not easy to sing along to, are a pleasure to listen to.

MischaPearlman

'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. 'The same can be said of Coldplay. In fact they have muc;:h in common with London: sometimes dark, sometimes depressing, with the nagging ability to knock you sideways and keep you cheery at your lowest moment. When it comes to Clocks, the third single from A Rush Of Blood To The Head, there's no difference. A four minute romp through lovelorn lyrics backed by rolling piano and a thundering bassline , it's what you'd expect, but it's still ace. But if we do tire of life, then we know who to blame. foe Minihane

As this is the last issue before Easter, there's loads to cram in. On the 20th March at the Arts Centre is the New Deal for Musicians Showcase, a collection of bands and D]s who are all unemployed and who are part of the New Deal initiative to give unemployed musicians the chance to be heard.

If you fancy something slightly different to satiate your musical appetite, on Monday 24 at Kafe Da is the Malagasy World Music Night, which will feature west African drummers, Bhangra music and salsa, and should be a lot of fun .

Of course, there are also plenty of gigs going on_The wonderful Biffy Clyro return to Norwich again on March 17 to play the Arts Centre, while the next night annoying rockers Reef play the LCR. Saturday the 22nd sees piano punkers Something Corporate intimidate the Waterfront just two nights before throaty shouters Finch do the same thing. That night, which is the 24th, Athlete will be at the Arts Centre, so whether you fancy something loud or quiet, you should be quite happily satisfied. Unless you want both.

All the really big names, though, seem to be coming here in April - at the beginning of the month, Public Enemy, Placebo, Daniel Bedingfield and the Coral will all strut their transvestite-clad stuff (or not) at the LCR in the space of eight days, with the Vines to follow on the 25th. Lucky everyone's not going to be going home for the Easter holidays then, isn't it.

Finally, the wonderful Avril Lavigne is doing a small tour of Britain this month, and it seemed only fair to go down to Brixton for one of her concerts in order to tell you all about it next term. The full report will follow in the first issue back after the holidays. Rock and roll all the way, baby!

12.03.03

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16 Film

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Director: George Clooney Starring: Chuck Barris Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the product of three men capable of two very different kinds of work. First there is Chuck Barris, the subject of the film. Following ten years as a successful producer of network television game shows such as The Gong Show and The Dating Game (the original Blind Date), Barris published an "unauthorised autobiography" confessing his responsibility for 33 murders while working路 for the United States government. Whether true or (99% definitely) false , the concept of trashy TV producer by day, spook assassin by night makes for almost infallible paranoid cinema.

Then there is George Clooney, TV God and movie star, who divides his time between accepting tens of millions of dollars for Ocean's 11 and championing less mainstream efforts like Insomnia and Solaris. After spending so much time around Steven Soderburgh and the Coen brothers, the ex-Chicago paediatrician, making his directorial debut, has had the perfect quirky education to bring Barris' delusions to the screen.

However, ideal though Chuck and George may be for each other, both rely on the singular script-writing verve of Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman would appear to be the model of consistency, turning out one example after another of genre-defying hilarity.

But his need to push ideas to their breaking point leads to one of two distinct results; on the one hand there's.films like Being John Malkovich and Adaptation that entertain and impress with their narrative twists and U-turns; on the other there 's Human Nature (yet to be released in Britain thanks to its dismal US performance) and, unfortunately, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that simply snap.

Not that Confessions is worthless. Within the broken mess there are dozens of superbly handled scenes. Barris' childhood is made suitably oppressive with sepia tones and static camera.

Clooney the director knows how to make proceedings look pretty, applying stylised lighting and angles whenever he can. The sequences where Barris is sent to Europe both to chaperon the winners of his game shows and off a couple of communist spies are particularly effective thanks to the snowy landscapes allowing some striking tricks with shadow.

Clooney has also managed to recruit an embarrassing wealth of star power to help out with his first directing gig. Sam Rockwell (graduating from indie films and villain-duty on Charlie 's Angels) as Barris gives the best display of crazy charm since Me! Gibson twitched and twinkled his way through Lethal Weapon . Making the most of zany supporting roles are Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts and a horribly elderly Rutger Hauer. Clooney himself dons a moustache to play a government recruiter and it is to be hoped he appreciates that not every novice filmmaker can call up Brad Pitt and Matt Damon for a quick sight gag.

In fact , it may be the shear weight of talent that is Confession' s

The Rules of Attraction Director: Roger Avary Starring: James Van Der Beek Afte r seeing The Rules of Attraction you will never be able to w atch Dawson 's Creek the s ame way again. This is a good thing. This antichrist of a teen movie comes courtesy of writer/dire ctor Roger Av ary's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel on disenfranchised, nihilistic and callous college students. Rules is a twisted rollercoaster through meaningless sex, drug abuse, suicide, excess and narcissism. It also is one of the most deliberately perverse and enjoyable films to come out of Hollywood in a long time.

The film begins with a bizarre reverse trip through each of the main characters life. Meet Sean Bateman (the younger brother of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho and played by James Van Der Beek) an emotional vampire, drug dealer and student; Lauren a gorgeous undergrad (played by Shannyn Sossamon) trying to maintain her virginity for her boyfriend Victor who is currently touring Europe; finally Paul (Ian Somerhalder) a witty, sensitive gay student who's life lacks forward momentum.

These three all go to Camden College, New England and are caught up in each others' lives - Sean wants Lauren who wants Victor who once shagged by Paul who wants Sean. It's a messy situation.

I'm sure that when you first heard of a movie based on Bret Easton Ellis book staring James Van Der Beck you would have thought it was awful joke, that the Hollywood movie machine had managed to destroy another interesting and enjoyable novel by turning it into some soulless popcorn flick. Well, that's what I

ij#IW!fij搂ii 12 .03 .03

thought. Thank god I was wrong. This movie is innovative, intere sting, well acted and funny as h ell. The characters are all dislikeable and d on't care about anyone apart from themSelves with the exception of Sossamon's Lauren, though even she is caught up in her own personal delusions and dreams . Van Der Beck's Sean is more of Alex from Clockwork Orange than Dawson Leary. He really plays against character and pulls it off fantastically.

The movie reveals in the art of cinema. Fantastic wipes, freeze frames , splits screen, rewinds and speed up footage the best examples of these being at the very beginning with the introduction to the character and the review of Victor's tour of Europe. Avary seems to love the camera and the freedom it gives him to play with perceptions and filmic stereotypes. The direction at times feels quite influenced by Kubirck's Clockwork Orange especially with the use of classical music, the way time is extended, and compressed by the camera and with it's路 similarities between Sean and Alex. It would be easy to make comparisons to Fight Club and its nihilistic ponderings but it really isn't necessary.

Rules is a brilliant blast of fresh air and a truly ordinal in its treatment of the teen movie genre.

Avary has produced a highly entertaining movie which sticks it middle finger up at all teen movies and asks them outside for a fight.

Paul Wade

undoing. Barris' story did not require Kaufman's flash-backs and slight-of-hand to make it interesting, just as Kaufman's already overblown script didn't need complicating by Clooney's love for artistic visuals and casting his friends . Damningly, for all the effort that has clearly gone into its production, the film feels much longer than its hour-and-three-quarter running time. And that, for this kind of picture, is inexcusable.

]im Whalley

Film 17

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The Recruit Director: Roger Donaldson Starring: AI Pacino In the current political climate, any American thriller involving the CIA would have to tread incredibly carefully, and The Recruit sensibly shies away from usual 'terrorists and explosions' tack of such films, giving us instead and twitchy, paranoid story where the enemy lurks firmly within government walls. James Clayton (Colin Farrell), a disorganised computer programmer who refers to the CIA as "a bunch of fat, old white guys who feel asleep when we need them most", seems an unlikely candidate for the initiation into the clandestine arts of the agency. However, shady recruiter Waiter Burke (Al Pacino) lures him into training by revealing that his dead father was not, in fact, a common or garden oil worker, but rather a highly trained operative within the CIA. In order to find out more about his father's double life, Clayton accepts a place to train 'The Farm', where recruits are taught how to shoot, fight, spy, skulk, and generally double-cross each other. Upon completion of his training, Clayton remains sceptical (in fairness though, the sign outside CIA headquarters reading "The George Bush Center of Intelligence" would give most people doubts), but his compelling relationship with his mentor, Burke, leads him to accept a place with the agency.

Despite some of the expected predictability that is intrinsic to the genre, The Recruit does contain some genuinely surprising plot twists, although the denouement is reached you will have already have worked it out. Mostly shot in atmospheric gloom, it builds up the tension excellently as Clayton slowly realises he's willingly thrown himseU into a 'World where he cannot trust unconditionally or become close to anybody.

Al Pacino is mesmerising as the suave, unblinking and seductive Burke and Colin Farrell convincingly portrays the confusion and frustration of his character. The sizzling che~stry between the two also provides the majority of the interest in the film, as Burke comes to the startling realisation that his protege might well surpass him. The film also raises some fairly thought-prov.oking questions; how much does your job dictate the person you are, and to what extent can an agency about which nothing is known be trusted? And, although the film avoids obviously prodding any political sore points (apart from the aforemention dig at George W), it does refer to some pertinent issues regarding globalisation and control - as one character says at one point "no country with a McDonald's has

ever attacked the US." At this point, the plot embarks on a convoluted path as Clayton finally undertakes his first mission: to hunt down a fellow trainee who is not all he seems. The tense, nasty relationship that results from this gives some of the film's most gripping moments, as the two battle to keep their own agendas secret and prevent the other from realising their own goals.

By the end the viewer is left to question who is the real enemy.

The Recruit is a decent political thriller with good performances from both Pacino and Farrell. The plot may shy away from the more pressing political issues and be a little contrived and predictable in places, but it's still a good piece of cinema that is genuinely tense and involving.

Jane Mathews

Blue Crush

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Director: John Stockwell Starring: Kate Bosworth The surfing movie. Is that a sub-genre? But of what; the sports movie? Is that a sub-genre?

This, and many other questions flew through my qead as I immersed myseU in the experience that is Blue Crush (USA working title Surf Girls) Why? Well since this movie has a supermodel-thin plot and all the depth of a paddling pool for dwarfs, the mind had plenty of time to ponder such complex issues as this.

The surfing movie (I'm happy with that) has made only a handful of contributions to cinema over the years. There was Point Break, the slick testosterone heavy (directed by a woman, trivia fans) action classic that pitted a wetsuit-clad FBI agent Keanu Reeves against, urn, a wet-suit clad bank robber Patrick Swayze. And there was the confusingly similarly titled Blue Juice, a Ewan McGreggorstarring promotional film from the Newquay tourist board. So here we have another addition to the niche in this light-weight offering.

Okay, the plot. Bare with me here. Sexy surfer chick Anne-Marie is haunted by repetitive flashbacks of a near-death accident, to the point that her previously unsurpassed confidence on the waves has taken a knock. Which is too bad, really, considering that there's a big surfing competition on the horizon with prize of a corporate sponsorship deal that she so dearly craves. Ever since her mother exited a year ago under circumstances that are never properly explained (she may have died, she may have run off, it's irrelevant really) she has had to look after her wayward little sister, and that fame and cash would really

come in rather handy.

Along the way, Anne-Marie larks about with her two chums Eden (Michelle Rodrieguez) and Lena (real-life surfer Sanae Lake) in their crummy, authority-baiting job as maids in a swanky beach based hotel, has a predictably obligatory romantic sub-plot with her falling for a bulging-biceped quarterback jock called Matt. And they 'party' a lot too.

Is it any good?路Well, it probably would have been a big disappointment if I had had any high expectations of it in the first place. I'm sure it will find an audience with fourteenyear-old girls and, well, men of any age who like lots of 'necessary' shots of bikini clad buttocks and breasts. The surfing bits are nicely choreographed, the sun kissed Hawaiian backdrop being as easy on the eye as the aforementioned body parts (don't worry girls, there are plenty of male specimens too). But what we have here is essentially another 'fighting against the odds whilst finding yourself drama, a kind of Rocky-lite for girls. It also reminded one of The Fast And The Furious; like that fun flick it was based on an article from a magazine - always a good indication that we are in for a deep, thought provoking ride. It is not implausible that you will be rooting for Anne-Marie, competently played by Kate Bosworth, as she rides the 'pipe' to her destiny. Yeah.

JonLast

12 .03.03

18V~/DVD

Director: Starring:

Rob Cohen Vin Diesel

Rob Cohen has a lot to answer for. In 2001 he produced one of the great film surprises of the year , by releasing The Fast and the Furious which was not only fast, but actually also quite furious . And so , endowed with a bigger budget, exotic European film schedule and a title like xXx, many dirty old men in raincoats flooded cinemas expecting great things from the follow-up .

Unfortunately, though, when it arrived, xXx turned out to be little more than a loud, obnoxious action film starring a lump of lard answering to the name of V in Diesel.

Despite not being the seedy porn-fest , which might justify such an awful title , xXx does get off to a promising start thanks to the e a r splitting talents of German hard rockers Rammstein.

Unfortunately, though, it soon becomes apparent there was no stylistic thought behind this manoeuvre in terms of sound design, when it turns out all Cohen did was turn the volume up for the entire film. Leading to a frankly unpleasant two hours of horrifically intrusive rock music and explosions.

If you can stand it you might be able to make out the c onvoluted plot of Vin Diesel being recruited

by Samuel L. Jackson to be a secret agent.

Laughable on paper, hilarious on celluloid. Of course, the real judge of a secret agent is not his overly elaborate stunts or gadgets, but that little thing I like to call sartorial elegance . On which Vin Diesel falls by virtue of being a loudmouthed, overly-tattooed yob with a vocabulary somewhere on a par with that of a German porn star.

The whole thing wa s designed to be the start of a franchise set to rival that of James Bond. Which makes you not only que stion whether Rob Cohen knows where the volume control is on his mixing desk, but also whether he actually had any reason to make this film other than to fulfil some sort of adolescent 'I can do it better tha n the Brits' fantasy. Well , he can' t. And we're the ones who have to suffer by watching the fruits of his misadventures .

Thanks for nothing, Rob.

Phil Colvin

Ice Age

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Director: Chris Wedge Starring: Ray Romano

Director: Joel Zwick Starring: Nia Vardalos

It 's easy to approach this film with a certain amount of cynicism. The mere thought that Ice Age was promoted by a fast fo od company doesn't bode well, but appearances can be d e ce ptive. The animation film has come on it leaps and bounds over the past eight years , Toy Story and Monsters !n e both by Pixar have set the level at an incredibly high standard while Disney is still producing 2D animation and have released some poor films over the past couple of years. lee Age is produced by 20th Century Fox and has enough promise to suggest that there be another company of note in the rapidly evolving animation market.

Set in prehistoric times, the story revolves around three animals (a sloth, a mammoth and a sabre toothed tiger) trying to return a baby back to its tribe.

It's basically three mammals and a little baby. Although nothing new story wise , the graces of the film make up for the lack of originality. The animation throughout the film is outstanding; the use of darker colours in direct contrast to the brightness of say Monsters !ne is one of the strengths of the film. Some of the scenes are truly stunning.

The ice cave scene is particularly memorable employing scenes of both action and witty humour in regard to some of the animals and objects trapped in the ice. The humour is also varied throughout the film ranging from Chaplin-esque slapstick to

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a modern fairy tale with a little something special: a very quirky but very lovable Greek family.

It's the story of an ugly-duckling type, Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), who decides she's sick of working in her parents' Greek diner and being appraised for marriage to Greek boys by her relatives. She starts taking colle ge classes and transforms he rself into a lovely, self-confident woman. She also catches the eye of charming teacher !an Miller (John Corbett) , who's surprisingly still single. The two hit it off, with just one small catch: he's not Greek. !an and Toula's struggle to stay happily together despite the impending culture clash is a simple, sweet love story that could easily fall into fairy-tale cliches, but successfully avoids them. This is due in part to screenwriter Vardalos ' evocations of the Portokalos family , who are such a large presence in the film that they are a plot by themselves. Beyond Toula's immediate family is the entourage of aunts , uncles, and cousins who flow in and out of each other's lives. There's crazy aunt Voula (Andrea Martin), who runs a travel agency and dry cleaners but still finds time for Olympic-caliber nagging. One of the funniest characters is Grandmother Yiayia (Bess Miesler) , who barely speaks but sneaks around the neighbourhood and swigs Budweiser during important family "conferences."

Toula's parents are fabulous as well, especially when contrasted to the Miller pareRts. The Millers (Fiona Reid and Bruce Gray), are rather refined, reserved, and a bit culturally unenlightened. Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine), meanwhile, sprays Windex on everything from stains to psoriasis, and tries valiantly to remain "head of the household" despite his younger daughter's defiance.

Maria (Kazan) serves up "that steaming side dish, guilt" and

ii*l41iMij@il

subtle ve rbal humour about the chara cteristics of animals. The depiction of the Dodos being responsible for their own demise through sheer stupidity is a well-observed highlight.

The comment 'There goes the last female ' when several of them fall off a cliff provokes loud laughter.

The characterisation is also one of the strengths of the film . The mismatching interplay between the characters again is a source of humour. All of the characters have distfnct personalities and a history. However, one of the central characters Sid the sloth that is at first amusing and charming does get irritating JarJar Binks style which is never a good thing. The film does also suffer towards the end; a strong start is marred by a predictable conclusion that descends into crowd-pleasing morality and cutesy sentiment. But saying that it's ostensibly a film for children and a darker ending would have done it no favours.

Ice Age is neither a classic nor particularly a work of technical genius in the current standards of animated film, but through the enhancements of strong characterisation and sharp humour it performs its task as a likeable and worthy feel-good movie.

12. 03.03

JimParker

interesting bits of wisdom ("The man may be the head of the household, b ut the woman is the neck. And the neck can turn the head any way she wants to ") . The families are utterly different, and their introduction to one another results in a collision of culture that is both hilarious and very enlightening about the ways we all misunderstand each other.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a terrific first effort from Vardalos , who drew material from her stand-up comedy routines about growing up Greek. The writing is in fine form, and Vardalos is totally genuine as Toula. It's a funny and touching film that's just bursting with life.

Jocelyn Heath

•

Arts 19

Girlfriend in a Coma Douglas Coupland

The Vagina Monologues: TWy Blackwood discusses Bush, and we don't mean the Gulf- or do we?

Theatre Preview: Vagina, vagina, vagina! Among the sexual subjects most forbidden to speak about, this aspect of the female body is at the top of the list and remains to this day somewhat of a mystery, to women as well as men. Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues brings this taboo subject out in the open in witty and provocative monologues compiled from stories the author collected. Far from being merely an alternative form of navel-gazing, it is actually uproariously funny; some stories will make you laugh until you have tears streaming down your face and a few will make you cry. The performance was very successful in the UK last autumn and a sell-out in the West End, 'The West End's Funniest and Sexiest Show Now On Tour' according to the flyer publicity blurb, and it's

The Vagina Monologues

difficult to disagree. Performed by three women, Rula Lenska, Jenny Jules and Tilly Blackwood, this show is open to everyone.

Whether you possess a well-trimmed privet or a rampant, unruly bush - or are unlucky enough not to have one at all- the performance should prove both a learning experi~ ence and good laugh. It's main purpose is to bring to light stories of various females' sex lives, interviewed by Eve Ensler, American playwright and performer. Initially hesitant to divulge the personal details of their lives, Ensler found that, funnily enough, once women got talking about taboo subjects like sex, orgasms, birth and intimate relationships, they could not stop talking. A great way to lower one's inhibitions for one night and get more

comfortable with the term vagina and all its functions, as the monologues express women's sexual fears, desires, problems, and even political programs. The Vagina Monologues is an experience unique to any other show. A mixture of stand up comedy, monologue, and soul searching, it is a worldwide show put on partly for fundraising purposes for women.

The show will run from the lOth to the 15th of March at Norwich Theatre Royal. A portion of all the ticket sales for the show are donated to the V-day fund, an organisation providing aid for single mothers and women's shelters.

]enn Marshall

Boo Spring Awakening, St Peters Methodist Church Spring Awakening was ahead of its time.

Written in 1891, it had to wait almost a century before the alleviation of censorship laws allowed a full, unadulterated performance in 1974.

Written by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening explores the confli~ between the repressive adult world and the vibrancy, beauty and emerging sexual spontaneity of the adolescent.

Falsely appointed as a vil1ain of the German bourg,eoisie, Wedekind was in fact a moralist wearing the immoral as a mask.

The play discusses the denial of sexuality, a denial deeply ingrained in society through generations of deception handed down by the adult world through a jumble of fictitious , farcicallies designed to smother natural sexuality: birth explained away·as having been dropped down the chimney by the stork or, alternatively, being carried under your mother's heart.

The situations experienced by the characters the awakening of sexual feelings , homosexuality, masturbation, rape, pregnancy, abortion, the pressures of a rigorous education and the exposure of moral corruption - all have a strikingly modem resonance. The trials of puberty are timeless, as is Spring Awakening.

Imagine that you're a 17-year-old girl, you've just lost your virginity to long-term boyfriend and all-round nice guy Richard on the ski-lifts above Vancouver and then, inexplicably, you fall into a coma. This is the main concept of Coupland's sixth novel and those who have been raised on his slice-off-life early novels may find the sudden shift to a more surreal subject matter jarring.

The first chapter, which is used to introduce the characters through Jared, an old friend who previously died of leukaemia and is now living as a ghost at the end of the world, begins the novel in an overtly surreal manner.

But this is simply Coupland showing off his style before indulging such considerations as the plot. The remainder of the early chapters are steeped in the teen angst that Coupland is renowned for and make for disturbing reading to our generation because of Coupland's knack for manipulating the reader with similar situations to our own.

The novel takes another turn towards the surreal (but still strangely credible) when doctors discover that Karen is pregnant and she gives birth to a healthy baby girl while still in the coma. Richard's inability to cope with being a teenage single parent on top of the usual quandaries leads to a disturbing account of alcohol abuse. Finally, seventeen years later Karen wakes up to find that Richard has spent the entire time waiting for her to recover, her other friends have done nothing with their lives, and she has a daughter who is, mentally, the same age as her.

Before long, the gang realise that Karen's coma is happening for a reason and find themselves at the end of the world with Jared.

Unfortunately his appearance also marks a downward turn in the book's quality. The plot demands that the ending be something extra- • ordinarily bizarre to top off the novel's gloriously fantastic concepts but instead it's mundane and anticlimactic. That said, Girlfriend is a fantastic novel full of gloriously mad ideas, written in Coupland's simple yet frenetic style, and has enough issues and personal conundrums to mess with the mind of even the most assured reader.

Ryan J Stephens

Revte~ Seven Tales•••

Patricia Duncker

Stylistically speaking, the play is a crazy mixture of the naturalistic and the surreal, descending from the relatively sane into some of the most bizarre and fantastical theatre you're likely to see in months. The surreal and comic elements of the play beautifully heighten the tragedy through contrast, Wedekind believing that the play is more gripping the more harmless, sunny, laughing the performance.

Wedekind broke through the theatrical cliches of his time with what he said and how he said it. But he was not merely a teacher or a preacher, he was an educator; he does not leave an audience with the sense of ineffectual pessimism but rather with the optimistic possibility of change. As the critic Alfred Polgar said, Spring Awakening is 'a battlefield over which the sun rises. • Wedekind was both loved and hated, admired and despised ; hailed as an apostle and condemned for being a devil. The play runs from Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th March come and decide which side of the fence suits you.

DrantaSoc.

Seven Tales is provocative; pornographic, gratuitously violent and designed to disturb.

It deliberately challenges the conventions of what it is, and is not, acceptable to say.

Duncker wrote the collection of interconnected short stories as a response to the B-rate movies she enjoys watching on late night TV and confesses to an outright refusal to 'toe the line of political correctness, middle-class morality and good taste'. She undoubtedly succeeds in her aim and has produced a book that addresses the cruel, sinister and terrifying in our society. All the stories are narrated in the first person, which gives them an uncomfortably close to home feel. Rather than providing an impassive eye through which the reader witnesses the events that unfold the narrator is always involved, implicated as a witness if not a perpetrator, at times playing a central role, in the action.

Whether it is Sem who is desperately trying to track down the man behind her high school · lesbian lover's brutal murder or Sophia, trapped in the future and forced to choose between life as an unemployed wife or underground sex worker the narrator draws the reader into their world. The stories are told

with the skill of a writer who is in possession of a frighteningly vivid imagination. There is always the sense that something unspeakable is around the corner, every childhood nightmare is evoked, and when there is a humorous aspect of a situation it is comedy of a macabre grotesque nature. Smallarms ends with a shoot out in a restaurant, the narrator lying in her lover's blood commenting that she never liked the tie he died in. This wry twisted style remains constant throughout the collection and there will be those who find the attempt to make domestic violence funny in the final tale My Emphasis a bit much.

Following the success of her thriller The Deadly Space Between Duncker became known for her ability to make her readers question conventions while eagerly turning pages and Seven Tales has its fair share of sex and death. It isn't for the faint hearted or weak of stomach but this isn't Rosamunde Filcher and it's not meant to sit easy.

Katherine Clemow

12.03.03

·""'

0

•

sent• I Are you one of those sly people that always manages to dodge the charity people in the street? Or maybe it is you who oh-so conveniently becomes blind when they smile hopefully at you as they slowly freeze to death.

Mmmmmmmm. Sound familiar? Thought so . W e ll frug ali ty only pays for so long people - that is until they use the power that is the BBC to guilt trip you. They lur e you in with all this fuzzy funniness and Lenny Henry in a red leather codpiece and then they hit you with those pictures and tha t footage. A tear forms in your eye, your steely , tight resolve begins to melt and then it's all over. Now , while the little red nose is funny and very affordably priced , you ' re not laughing anymore are you ?

Red No se Day 03 (RND03) is immine nt , a nd it ' s coming to your television screen soon. Don't even try to act vacuous a s if you really had no idea . Come on - it isn ' t like you could have missed the shameless flaunting and genera l over-exposure thanks to Jamie Oliver and yet another " cheeky " adver t.

Rest assured , all the celebs will be there doing their bit, al though it seems that this y ear there is an extremely unhealthy and distasteful addition to the festivities. It seems th a t the endless stream of talentless nobodies (reality TV stars ) are now finding yet ano ther way to hog the limelight for an extra five minutes we cou ld all do w ithou t. What was once mildly annoying has now become something so irritating that it is beyond anyone ' s understanding or threshold of pain. Yes. Charity has now taken it upo n itself to fuse w ith reality TV. In an unprecedented, terrible and downright c ru e l m ove, the days where Hu gh Grant kissed Dawn Fr e nch fo r sweet , -sweet chari ty are over.

••

e

Now th e b est yo u' ll get is th a t pregn a nt (Go d fo rbid) " minge r " Ja d e e ndange r ing children a nd the e lderly , while jabbering o n about a kebab as she takes to the road in a car : a piece of machinery, I think you' ll agree , that requires brain power. The words " de a th" and "w ish" spring immediately to mind . I think you ' ll join with m e as I wo n der which g enius at the BBC came up wi th wha t is arguably the most danger ous and foolhardy spec tacle to ever be wi tnessed .

While I am confident th at things can only get better, so far things are not looking too promis ing. Th e grating voice of G a reth S C lub join i n the fun : It 's all for G a tes singing with the Kumars still plagues my nightmares, and Girls Aloud s till exist. More ' s the pity.

Although I' m fully a w are that some of you will be rubbing your hands in glee a t the thought of more hybrid reality TV to pass your time between episodes of The Mullet ... ! mean The Salon, some of us wi ll be on a quest. If you are not out and about on this fateful night, try very , very hard to see the good in all of this . French and Saunders are bound to be there, as well as the o ther golden oldies from Comic Relief nights past, so it can ' t be all bad. Plus- remember the bigger picture peop le .. . it's a ll in the name of charity .

The opportunity for you to help somebody else should be enough to keep you in on Comic Relief nigh t, even if you have to sit through some nonsensical wit te ri ng courtesy of all the dimwits who have graced our TV screens since reali -

Essential Soaps ..

charidee , mate . ty TV was unleashed.

Now , I know that you have that twenty thousand word essay to do for tom o rrow or so-and-so is at a house party really, really drunk and it ' s the perfect time to make your move but stop thinking abou t yourself for a second. Peel away all the silliness and the strange , yet highly amusing little red nose with the funny tuft of hair. Use the beer money for something worthwhile . Pick up the phone and pledge something if you have it, then hope against hope that the money will ac tually go to some good use like they say it will. 1 promise it won't hurt too much , unless the loan cheque has been squeezed dry comple tely. Now don ' t you feel all smug and happy w ith yourself? Ah . . . catha rsis.

BBC I , Friday 14, fr om 7pm

Films On TV 01 Edward Scissorhands Tirn Burton's wond erful mod ern fairy tale is being shown again, and if you haven 't seen it, you should.

If you've already seen it, the n have a quiet Friday night in- you know wh at to expect: it' s at once touching, humorous, and surreal. Dep p is wonderful as the e p onymous character.

Channel4, Friday 14th March, 8pm

02 Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Holl yoaks: Which mindle ss blonde fool will the serial ldller choose?

What could be more hilarious than putting a doctor, his wayward brother and lecherous old father in a house together? Answer: give them a baby to get into all sorts of scrapes with and watch the hilarity unfold . This week it's the fruit of Paul's loins which is descending upon the Trueman household . Of course, there are some deep issues involving family planning and parental responsibility which should really come out of this whilst the Truemans argue over who's going to change the nappies. But, then, as long as it's funny it doesn 't really matter about the kid, right? This is a good point, though, to remind us of that pantheon of great parenting skills: Phi! Mitchell, who this fortnight will find out his latest squeeze, Kate, isn't quite all he thought she was.

We 'll all be expected to sympathise with him, which is a bit rich considering his skeletons in the closet that include divorce, adultery , alcoholism, arson and possibly the murder of his ex wife , Lisa. Well, maybe he didn't kill Lisa. We'll find out this month via the tried and teste d format of te dious flashback episodes charting their final mee ting in Portugal. A couple of hours of television which you can b et will probably not involve extremely stimulating conversations conducted in a calm and dignified manner.

··=··

12 .03.03

For more articulate dialogue this fortnight you'll have to look to Ramsey Street where ten year old Summer is having a heart to heart chat with Steph after Daniel breaks her heart and laughs at her. Which, although tedious, does mean we are spared the ghastly prospect of Neighbours 'doing' paedophilia. Never one to shy away from hamming up important social commentary, though, our favourite antipodeans need to deal with the aforementioned Daniel and, more specifically, the prospect that he may be being abused . Joy is us . Meanwhile, Rosie begins to get suspicious of Ruby . Who, incidentally, is planning to break into Harold's house to rob him and fund her gambling habit .. . A bust up between old hag and portly vicar, therefore, can't be too far away. My money's on the vicar. Rosie looks like she could handle herself in a fight.

My potential enjoyment of Hollyoaks this fortnight is yet again stifled by the resident serial killer who still hasn 't managed to kill any of the mindless blond fools who inhabit the stree ts of Chester. And until he does I won 't dignify his ineptitude with further commentary.

Phil Colvin

Before Guy Richie was famous for being Madonna's husband, he was famous for this film. Probably quite funny the first time you see it, but before long the jokes become tired and irritating. Vinnie Jones as a violent gangster is one of the filrti•s few genuine highlights.

Channe l4 , Sunday 16th March, lOpm

03 The Sting Robert Redford and Paul Newrnan act their socks off in this classic seventies crime-drama comedy se t in 1930s Chicago. The two leads try to screw over a gang boss, and the ensuing shenanigans our so wonderfully scripted that you'll think it was made last year.

BBCI ,Wednesday March 19th, 11.45pm

04 Fly 11 The sequel to David Cronenberg's 1986 smash, minus Cronenberg, unfortunately·. It's not particularly good but if truckloads of gratuitous gore is your thing, plan to avoid the LCR. Channel S, Thursday March 13th, 10. 10pm

TV21

TV and Radio Miss This: ighlights

Boys and Girls

Saturdays, Channel 4, 9pm

Text: Sarah Edwardes

R born in th USA Saturday, ITV, 9.35pm Davina McCall (of course) hosts this new show about the trials and tribulations of a bus load of ex-celebrities sent to America courtesy of ITV. Unfortunately, rather than simply leaving them there to fend for themselves in true 'I'm a Celebrity .. .' style, the plan is to re-ignite their careers with a rigorous schedule of gigs across the States . Contestants vying for the best seat on the tour bus include Sonia and Gina G, and we, the viewers, have control over who is first to be sent home. Egos aplenty, this should be a riveting clash of the pop has-beens.

Channel4 sinks whirling and screaming further into an abyss of BBC Choice-like desperation with this little nugget of monkey dung. How any right minded, semi-coherent production team could have thought that a show where people win prizes based solely upon their aesthetic appeal would be something that people actually want to watch is beyond my comprehension. There aren't enough words in the dictionary to sufficiently describe how crap this show is. Actually, no, there is a good one - crap. Hosted by the previously amusing Vemon Kaye of T4 fame (soon to be known simply as "that ex-celebrity who presented a crap show on Channel4") Boys and Girls entertainment value perches tenuously somewhere between the new version of Blind Date and watching your housernate pluck out overgrown nostril hair. Of course the presenter had to be beautiful... this is a show that endorses the idea that "ugly" people, "mingers" to those of you who hav~ been living in a pop culture vacuum for the last couple of years (lucky buggers), should not only be ritualistically disparaged on national television for their unfortu-

nate appearance, but should also be denied the luxury of any kind of prize. The rules of Boys and Girls are simple, one might even describe them as backward; one hundred girls and one hundred boys sit in the audience, segregated of course, to prevent any unprecedented hanky panky. The luscious Vemon Kaye picks numbers and the persons (one male, one female) in the audience with the corresponding numbers come to the stage.

They pick a prize, any prize. Now comes the complicated bit. Hope you've got your thinking caps on 'cos this one's tricky. The audience then decides whether the person deserves that prize by voting them either "minger" or "fit". The "fits" are allowed to walk off with their prize whilst the "migers"toddle back to their "minger" lairs where they doubtlessly cry themselves to sleep whilst considering going under the knife to correct their social unacceptability. This is ego shattering, mind-numbing, empty-headed, pretentious, and above all incredibly dull television. Just go to the pub.

Enuna Ap-Thomas

Th Sopranos Tuesday, Channel 4, 10.35pm Sandwi~hed

between the return of The West Wing and the never-ending wait for the new series of ER to transfer to terrestrial, comes the sixth series of The Sopranos. Perhaps not as blisteringly exciting as when it first hit our screens in the nineties, this American drama about the fortunes of a gangster family from New Jersey still makes must-see viewing. In fact, the only complaint to the made about the return of such a quality series is that once again even the best of our home-grown dramas will most likely be left looking badly written and unimaginative in comparison.

Girls and Boys: 'cos they're different, right.

Jonath n Saturday 1 Radio 2 1 1Oam Anyone convinced that the only possible pleasure in ·listening to Jonathan Ross on the radio is you can't see what he is wearing will be missing out on this gem of a programme. Ross is in his element on Radio 2's Saturday morning slot, by turns charming and taunting the week's star guests with a sharp wit and barely disguised delight. Cc-presenter Andy prcwides a range of music that can genuinely be called eclectic, and the equally diverse assortment of celebrity interviewees keeps the show fresh and consistently funny.

Consider this hangover TV you don't even have to open your eyes for.

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm 'Apparently, all that drinking champagne and eating vol-au-vents while lackeys coat the latest orchidflower-and-seal-blubber cosmetics onto your perfect porcelain skin and paint Van Gogh's Sunflowers on your nails is hard work. Then, as if that wasn't enough, you are forced to walk in a straight line all the way to the end of the catwalk and back with a jacket held over one shoulder. Life doesn't get any harder than that. Which is simply to say that it will be interesting to see if Channel 4 manage to elicit our sympathy with the beautiful people in the first instalment of this three-part documentary.

Hav You

m mb r

What Not •••

Thursday1 BBC2, 8pm As if taunting a poorly-dressed innocent for their ill-

advised fashion choices wasn't a bad enough one-off occurrence, Trinny and Susannah are back to check up on their prey in this new series. Expect unnecessary cruelty in the 360o mirror, gratuitous boob-references and a growing feeling of shame as the memory dawns of a whole catalogue of your own clothing mistakes, most of which are not yet far enough in the past to be blamed on youthful naivety. Take this as a warning, but remember: these women were once Sloane rangers. Nobody is innocent in the world of fashion.

l

-路

22 listings

Ban1 Marger: Professional jackass ... and so drean1y ... mnun

Campus All films start at 8.30 pm and are shown in Lecture Theatre One unless otherwise stated. Tickets

Analyze That Mon-Thu 20:30 Fri-Sat 20:30 23:10

拢2.75

Catch Me If You Can Mon-Wed, Fri 14:30 17:30 20:30 Sat-Sun ll :30 14:30 17:30 20:30

28 Days Later Thu 13/ 03

Chicago Mon-Sun 15:00 18:15 20:45

Bowling For Columbine Fr 14/ 03

Daredevil Mon-Thu 15:30 18:00 20:3ll Fri 15:30 18:00 20.30 23:00 Sat 12:30 15:30 18:00 20:30 23:00 Sun 12:30 15:30 18:10 20 :30

Red Dragon Tue 18/03 Harry Potter and ...

Thu 20/03 Windtalkers Fri 21/03 Anita and Me Tue 25/ 03

Adaption Mon- Sun 13:30 16:00 18:30 21:00

Far From Heaven Mon-Fri 15:30 18:00 20:45 Sat-Sun 13:00 15:30 18:00 20:45 Final Destination 11 Mon 21:45 Wed 19:15 21:45 Thu 19路15 2 1:45 Fri 19:15 21:45 24:00 Sat 19:15 21:45 24:00 Sun 19:15 21: 45 Harry Potter And The Chambe ..

Sat-Sun ll :45

Jackass:The Movie Mon-Thu 15:00 17:15 19:15 21:30 Fri 15:00 17:15 19:15 21:30 23:45 Sat 13:00 15:00 17:15 19:15 21:30 23 :45 Sun 13:00 15:00 17:15 19:15 21:30 Lord Of The Rings: The Two ..

Mon-Thu 16:00 Fri 16:15 Sat-Sun 12:30 16:15 Maid In Manhattan Mon-Thu 13:30 16:00 18:30 21:00 Fri 13:30 16:00 18:30 21:00 23:30 Sat 11:0013:3016:0018:3021:00 23:30 Sun 11 :0013:3016:0018:3021:00 Solaris Mon-Thu 18:45 21:15 Fri-Sat 18:45 21:15 23:40 Sun 18:45 21:15

Thu 15:00 17:45 20:30 The Ring Mon-Thu 13:30 16:00 18:45 21:15 Fri-Sat 13:30 16:00 18:45 21: 15 23:50 路sun 13:30 16:00 18:45 21:15 The Wild Thornberrys Mon-Fri 16:45 Sat-Sun 12:45 14:45 16:45 Treasure Planet Mon, Wed-Fri 16:45 Sat-Sun 12:15 14:30 16:45 Sun 12:15 14:30 16:45 Two Weeks Notice Mon-Thu 13:15 15:45 18:15 20:45 Fri-Sat 13:15 15:45 18:15 20:45 23:20 Sun 13:15 15:45 18:15 20:45 23:30

The Good Thief Mon-Sun 13:15 15:45 18:30 21:00 The Hours Mon-Fri 15:1 5 17:45 20:15 Sat-Sun 12 :15 15:15 17:45 20:15 The Life Of David Gale

Solaris Adaptation Frida Jackass, The Movie

The Hours About Schrnidt Analyze That Catch Me If You Can Final Destination 2 The Ring Chicago The Musical Gangs of New York Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers The Pianist Two Weeks Notice City of God

The Magdalene Sisters 12/ 03 - 20/03 Set in lreland during the 1960's, this film dramatizes the lives of three young women sent to Magdalene Laundry for fallen women as a punishment for their'sins'.

Love Liza 14/ 03- 17/03 Seyrnour Hoffrnan (BOOG IE NIGHTS) is simply outstanding as Wilson Joel, a young man literally

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bereft folloWing the unexplained suicide of his Wife, Llza.

Frida 2 I /03 - 03/04 A long cherished project of Salma Hayek and a Iurrunous and unflinching portrayal of a truly remarkable woman, FRIDA is powerful and captivating viewing.

Stiff Little Fingers Wed 19/03 The classic punksters return for another tour of theu: pogotastic back catalogue. Huzzah! £12 Something Corporate Sat 22/03 New emo-lite tunes from sens1t1ve teens with backpacks and sweatbands ... probably. £7.50 Finch Man 24/03 More erne-lite wares, this time decidedly heaVler and more, dare I say, badass. Woop! £8.50

Reef Tue 18/03 "Put your hands on ... " ... Gary Stringer and eo. as they try once

more to revive their plodding, doddery brit-rock fortunes . £12.50 Kanda Bongo Man Wed 19/03 The man, the myth, the legend; the war decorated bongo assassm deals out yet more syncopated death Wlth his magic fingers. Coo. £5

Ikon Student night with classic hits from '70s, '80s and '90s Wlth DJ Stuey D. £2 before I !pm, £3 after.

The Light Bar Superfly - Funk, ska, soul and hiphop. £3.50

Biffy Clyro Mon 17/03 Glaswegian erne-rockers return, and should be seen by all. Sublime and spectacular. £6

The Loft Hornee: Resident DJs Hip, Hot, happenin Gay rught. £2

Athlete Man 24/03 Jangly pop band named after cakey-bake maker Daley Thompson. £7

UEALCR School Daze - More school classics and fancy dress in the LCR. £4 LIQUID Fab 80s.- classic tunes from the great sounds of the 80's Students £2 all night. Members £2

Stonasaurus Wed 19/03 Album release party and bluntfuelled adventures mto the murkiest depths of the hip-hop underground. Et voila. £FREE!

UEALCR Now That's What I \Call 90'sClassic cuts from our teenage decade all n-n-night long. £4

Depoprovera + The Big Picture Thu 13/03 Shining local talent destined to tear the walls from the cosy Ferryboat and one day ... EXPLODE!!! £3.50

WATERFRONT Main Auditonum: MELTDOWN Pop, Alternative, Rock & lndie. In the Studio: WRAITH - Goth, metal, rock & alternative '80s and '90s.

Open 10-2am. £4.50(£3.50 NUS) door.

P o Na N a BUTTER ME UP- Steve Wurley playing phat and filtered funky house. Twisted Skunk playing the very best in funked up big beat, disco breaks and breakbeat.

8pm- lam.

Free before 10, £3 after.

Brannigans DJ Paul Alien plays anthems and good time hits.

Free admission.

LIQUID Funky Jam Carwash - 70s and 80s music with DJ Chris Alexander and R 'n' B playing m the second room.Members and students £2 all night.

Po NaNa PLAY -It's Po Na Na's student night Wlth DJ N1ck South Join the gang for funk and classic grooves.

Open 8pm-12.30pm.

Free entry.

The Light Bar Real - chart, dance and R 'n' B. Open 10pm-2am.

Free before 10.30pm, £2 after.

Time LIFE@TIME. Student rught, Cheesy anthems through the decades.

Admission £4, £3 for members/NUS

Calamity Jane 17103 - 22/03 The much loved Wild West musical gets another amng ... this t1me Wlth the 'Brum'-vo1cmg Toyah Wilcox in the title role. £16.00 Corpse!

24/03 - 29/03 Full of mtrigue and surpnses, theatncal tncks and hokum, this comedy thriller IS "not so much a whodurut as a whodurut to whom!"

Sigh. £9.00

Eleanor of Aquitane frl 14/03 RSC actress Eileen Page recreates the extra-ordinary life of Eleanor of Aqultane m this enthrallmg play. £8

Ennio Marchetto Sat 15/03 Enruo has taken the world by storm Wlth his mgeruous paper costumes and hilanous parody of all our favounte cultural1cons £10

An Audience With Paul Daniels Fri 21/03 Argh matey, the mighty Captain Daruels answers your questions on his pu:atey sorcery and B-list celebnty cocktrul parties. "You'll like 1t but not a lot". £10

The Most prestigious event in the UEA entertainments ea lender has now been confirmed for this year. ..

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Lei4euze '1!:e4MZ, la fleuee 2003

Entertainments Tickets: £ 29

Dinne r+ Entertainmets: £ 39 On Sale Friday 21 March, from Union Box Office at 9.00am, restricted to two per student (campus card req.)

Because of high demand we recommend queuing early.

People in queue will be entered in a prize draw to win transport to the venue by helicopter!

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