ENTERTAINMENT
cinema
iews v e R THE BEATLES: EIGHT BY JOHN CAMPBELL DAYS A WEEK DANDY MAN
SCALE IT DOWN
A must-see show of outrageously funny proportions. Australia’s international award-winning prince of circus and physical comedy, Daniel Oldaker, aka Dandyman, will thrill with a kooky, eclectic, unique and quirky show featuring: jaw-dropping circus, absurd acrobatics, side-splitting comedy and mischievous highjinks. See Dandyman balance watermelons on his head, witness everyday drinking straws come to life before your very eyes. His clowning rivals Buster Keaton; take a dash of Mr Bean, throw in a pinch of Jim Carrey, a handful of Frank Woodley, cross Salvadore Dali with Jerry Lewis, throw in some juggling balls, a bow-tie made of straws and a whole lot of charisma and you’ve arrived somewhere in the neighbourhood of Dandyman. Don’t miss this master of manipulation in his familyfriendly show,
Experience Scale Free Network’s Microscope Drawing Laboratory in Mullumbimby these school holidays! Led by local artist and art teacher Jacqui Smith, the project – supported by Arts NSW’s Country Arts Support Program – comprises Microscope Drawing Workshops for children aged 8–16, a Microscope Drawing Laboratory Open Day for the whole community and an exhibition at Mullumbimby Library of artwork produced.
Saturday at the Drill Hall in Mullumbimby at 11am and 7pm. Adults $20, children $10. Tickets: www.varietyville.com or Mullum Bookshop, on the door if still available. Info danieloldaker. com or 0404 154 292
EMBRACE AGAIN Owing to popular demand, Brunswick Picture House are screening Embrace. When body image activist Taryn Brumfitt posted an unconventional before-and-after photo in 2013, it was seen by more than 100 million people worldwide and sparked an international media frenzy. The film follows Taryn’s crusade as she explores the global issue of body loathing, inspiring us to change the way we feel about ourselves and think about our bodies. In a world swamped by altered, unrealistic and sexualised images of women, this is the kind of informative, helpful film parents might want to take their daughters and sons to see, and teachers might want to show their students. Saturday 6.30pm at Brunswick Picture House.
OPEN MIC AT THE COURT HOUSE!
The Court House Hotel in Mullumbimby has a brandnew lineup of hot new open mic comics for their open mic comedy night. Now every quarter, you don’t want to miss the hottest new talent on the block. Fast, furious, and always outrageous, emceed by Mandy Nolan – and free! Thursday 6 October at 8pm.
The four Microscope Drawing Workshops are on 5 and 6 October at 10am–12 noon and 1–3pm at the Byron School of Art, Dalley St in Mullumbimby. Children will be introduced to ideas of scale, forms in nature, and the connections between art and science. Booking is required for workshops. Please contact Jacqui on 0402 129 811 or jacqsmith@gmail.com. Workshops and open day are FREE.
DIVINE YOGA
This Saturday in Murwillumbah sacred dance artists present a unique performance where yoga meets dance. Featuring the Odissi exponents Sanatani Romboli (Italy), Bharatnatyam Ballerina Aruna Pavrithram (Sydney), and Murwillumbah's own Nayta Shakti Dance Collective (fresh from their recent Sydney Opera House performance), they will collaborate with special guest artist and dance scholar Monica Singh Sangwan (Melbourne). Live music accompaniment will be presented by Bhavi and LAYA with vocalist Mohini Cox. Dance in Devotion at Murwillumbah Civic Hall. Doors opening from 5pm a pre-event mini ‘Festival of India’ titled Peacocktail. Dance performance from 7pm. $20. Contact gaittothespirit@gmail. com or 0477 167 336.
TALKIN’ BIG LEZ
COMEDIAN CHRIS WAINHOUSE – THE ANTI CHRIS APPEARS AT THE BALLINA RSL BIG GIG ON THURSDAY Episodes of The Big Lez Show now receive between 500,000 and two million views and the channel has more than 350,000 loyal subscribers. The boys have been approached by Comedy Central, who commissioned a five-part API off series called The Mike Nolan Show. Jarrad Wright, Izak Whear and Tom Hollis will be in conversation with local comedian Mandy Nolan at 6pm Wednesday 5 October at the Byron Bay Community Centre. Tickets $20 and on sale from Screenworks, www.screenworks.com.au. This event is co-presented by Screenworks and Screen NSW. Tickets $20 plus booking fee www.screenworks.com.au. Recommended as an MA event owing to coarse language, drug references and violence.
EIGHT DAYS A WEEK The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years is based on the first part of The Beatles’ career (1962–1966) – the period in which they toured and captured the world’s acclaim. Ron Howard’s film will explore how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr came together to become this extraordinary phenomenon, The Beatles. It will explore their inner workings – how they made decisions, created their music and built their collective career together – all the while exploring The Beatles’ extraordinary and unique musical gifts and their remarkable, complementary personalities. The film will focus on the time from the early Beatles’ journey in the days of The Cavern Club in Liverpool to their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966.
Younger people might scoff, but if you weren’t there when it was happening, you can have no idea of the unprecedented, profound and lasting impact of the Beatles. They were more than just ‘of their time’; they changed their time in a way that has not been repeated by any performing artists since. Ron Howard’s documentary of the Fab Four’s early period of hard and relentless touring covers the years from 1962 until 1966, and includes remastered footage of a performance at Shea Stadium, New York, in 1965 that, for old fans at least, is an absolute knock-out. Interviews and gigs from various locations, many of them in B&W, have been painstakingly compiled in chronological order to give an insight into the energy, creativity and fun the boys were having until, ultimately, the pressures of their own success and the demands of the media and a doting public began to take their toll. In one aside, George (do I really need to say Harrison?) comments that he felt for Elvis, ‘because he was on his own. We’ve at least got each other to cope with it all.’ There is the ebullience and the off-the-cuff wit – ‘I’d like to be a duke,’ Ringo says when asked what more they could achieve, Paul’s fierce ambition, John’s irreverence – ‘We’re bigger than Jesus’, and, above all, there is the astonishing output. There seemed to be no end to the group’s ability to come up with yet another hit song, with only hindsight allowing us to now understand the significance of Lennon’s genuine dismay expressed in the lyrics of Help. Commentaries are provided by, among others, Whoopi Goldberg and Elvis Costello, comedian Eddie Izzard and director Richard Lester, and Sigourney Weaver with, remarkably, a shot of her at one of the concerts – ‘I wore my best dress, because I knew they’d see me’. But it is the tightness of the band, the faultless harmonies, Lennon’s primal voice and Ringo’s banging away on his minimalist drum kit that stick in the mind. A fantastic flick, whether you are a tragic or not.
SNOWDEN
‘We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom.’ It was an Fb platitude, but it seemed appropriate after seeing this. Oliver Stone has earned a reputation as one of cinema’s foremost chroniclers of contemporary American society – albeit with critics along the way sniping at him for the liberties he might occasionally take with the facts. His films have delved into the assassination of JFK, the psychedelia of the Doors and the war in Vietnam (in which he served), so it was to be expected that he would eventually turn his attention to the digital age and governments’ response to the threat of terrorism. Telling the story of Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who exposed the secretive surveillance of its own citizens that US agencies indulged in, frequently illegally, Stone is, of course, preaching to the outraged converted. But is he (was Snowden?) telling us anything we don’t know? I doubt it. And as one who expects his safety and comfort to be secured by any means, I have to admit that it seems vaguely hair-shirtish that we in the liberal-thinking West would get our knickers in a knot over it. En masse we rush to blurt out whatever flies into our heads on a plethora of social media outlets, but want to take umbrage at the thought that what we make ‘public’ it is being noted to guard against others blowing us up. As happened to the sad Kim Philby, Snowden now lives as an exile in Moscow (where they don’t spy on their citizens – haha), having been detained there on his way to sanctuary in Ecuador (where journos who expose truths unpalatable to the ruling regime routinely ‘disappear’). It’s a film that is expertly made but, perhaps owing to its towering self-importance and high-minded imbalance, is lacking in tension. Fantastic performances from Joseph-Gordon Levitt in the part of the eponymous ‘hero’, Shailene Woodley as his pole-dancing girlfriend and a creepy Rhys Ifans as a CIA knob don’t quite make up for the boredom that descends in the overlong third act.
Screening in Byron at the Piggery. Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 6pm and Sunday 4pm.
Meet the three guys from Tweed River High School who are rapidly becoming one of Australia’s biggest online sensations with their hit comedy series The Big Lez Show. Screenworks and Screen NSW are bringing Jarrad Wright, Izak Whear and Tom Hollis to Byron Bay Community Centre on Wednesday 5 October to talk with Mandy Nolan about their show, their success, and to screen some new material. Jarrad, Izak and Tom went from doodling comics with textas and pens at school to creating the massive online sensation The Big Lez Show in just a couple of years.
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo September 28, 2016 35