The Book - Summer Special by The Book

ISSUE 5: SUMMER 2012

Free

CELEBRATE SUMMER

FAST GIRLS GOES FOR GOLD FESTIVALS PHOTO SPECIAL AL FRESCO FILMS & PLAYS + ADVENTURE HOLIDAYS 40 TRIPS WE DARE YOU TO TRY

REVIEWS  BLOGS  GAMING  STREET ART  STYLE  DEBATE

Contents Editor’s Letter

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Issue 5 SUMMER 2012

Foreword

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Reviews MUSIC

Nature Raft the Coruh River, Turkey dam and blast! due to construction work, this is the last year in which you can raft the Coruh river. It’s an adrenaline-filled roller-coaster ride on grade 4-5 rapids through 1,500-metre-deep gorges in the heart of the Kackar mountain range. Water By nature (www. waterbynature.com) offers a seven-day package for£895 including guides, equipment, meals and tents. Bike the Pyrenees, France On the border between France and Spain, the Pyrenees mountain range covers hundreds of miles. Serious cyclists are rewarded with some of europe’s most spectacular views. If you don’t bike, hike – or just cheat and drive up to sites such as the principality of Andorra high up in the peaks. Pyractif (www. pyractif.com) offers a variety of cycling packages. Hike up the Virunga Volcanoes, Africa Straddling the borders between rwanda, uganda, and the democratic republic of the Congo, this eightvolcano chain is one of earth’s most active volcanic regions and a veritable salad bowl for mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, and other wildlife. Check on the security situation in Congo before going, but the steep five-hour hike up Nyiragongo rewards you with heady views

Sex sells, but Cameron’s not buying it, says Laurence Green

If David Cameron had his way, ‘sexy’ music videos would come served with a big, chunky 18 rating, just like movies and video games. In recent months, the Prime Minister has made quite a case for a change to the way the promo clips are classified in his efforts to reduce the early ‘sexualisation’ of children; with talk of hefty penalties for record labels if they break the rules. It might all seem a bit heavy-handed, but it’s hard to

argue with the fact that Rihanna’s latest video plays straight into Cameron’s hands – Where Have You Been positively drips with sexuality. Like some sort of primordial Eve in a new Garden of Eden, Rihanna slides through a glistening river and writhes amongst the nestling arms of a tree, often with nothing more than her hands or a couple of paltry leaves to preserve her modesty. It’s a brazen, unashamed flaunting of the body in thrall to an

As prices go up and innovation declines, festivals become more about the ‘experience’ (in an interesting parallel with rising university tuition fees), with the original spirit of musical variety relegated to small side-show ‘niche’ tents, and the whole thing amalgamating into a vast,

A corporate sheen is smeared all over the purchasing process, bombarding you with extras promising a better, more exciting, more pleasurable experience. You can’t even say the names of festivals without invoking their paymasters. Gone are the days of subtle sponsorship, such as Tennent’s lager creating T in the Park (July 6-8) or Virgin Media giving us the V Festival (Aug 18-19). Now we’ve got the Barclaycard Wireless Festival (July 6-8) and BT London Live (Aug 12). If there’s any festival this year that does offer a flair of something different, it comes from the least expected of places – ’80s uber-pop production house PWL. Hyde Park’s Hit Factory Live (July 11) offers wall-to-wall back-to-basics pop via the likes of Jason Donovan and Bananarama – and though it’ll probably be

packed with sparkly, pink-hatted hen-night party types, there’s something refreshing about its unerring singularity of intent. It’s not trying to be cool, it’s not trying to pander to all audiences, it’s just Pure Pop. Even the commercial extras are the blatant, straight-forward kind: the festival offers a two-disc compilation CD of the key songs for £9.99 extra when you go to order your ticket. So, are festivals still worth it? It remains as infinitely debatable as who might end up headlining next year’s crop. And as expensive as the big festivals can be, there are always more poking up that cater to tighter budgets: the Lytham Proms Best of the ’80s event (Aug 3), a snip at £37.80 for a day ticket, or Oxford’s Sound City festival (Aug 19) at £36.50. Alternatively, you could hang up your wellies and watch them all on television instead, and save yourself a whole load of mud. See our festivals photo-story on p48, starting with Bestival (pictured above)

Most adventurous holiday: Camping for two weeks in the Scottish isles. I spent most of it climbing up some of the highest mountains in the country in frightful weather, oh, and putting up with pesky midge bites! Worst festival experience: The Urban Games festival at Clapham Common. It rained all day, everyone was reduced to sheltering under the food marquees and most of the live events were called off.

Release: June 11

Laurence Green asks if festivals are worth the money, money, money seething mass of burgers, beers and portaloos – or, for those who can afford it, the ‘Premium Club Experience’ and ‘Hotel Package’ bolt-ons.

Summer anthems: The Pet Shop Boys’ Se A Vida É for pure ’90s nostalgia; there’s a real carefree optimism in the lyrics. Also Girls Aloud’s Long Hot Summer for sheer fizzy pop energy.

Hot Chip In Our Heads

Forget about the price tag? What with Glastonbury taking a year out, Reading & Leeds (August 24-26) must be rubbing their palms at becoming the de facto ‘Big’ festival. But are they really worth over £200 a ticket? Is any festival? The headliners are utterly underwhelming – gothic legends The Cure aside, Foo Fighters and Kasabian are the kind of inoffensive, ‘oh, everyone will like them’ Radio 1-friendly rock acts that can be safely wheeled out without incident (see the initial outpouring of rage that greeted the announcement of Jay-Z’s headline slot at 2008’s Glastonbury). In an age when festival audiences are shifting from students to forty-something city slickers with bonuses to splash, this kind of ‘safe’ act is becoming all too common.

overwhelming desire – that is, to sell more records. Rubbing her thighs and thrusting her hips, she offers herself up to be consumed whole by an insatiable public appetite. But should an artist like Rihanna be stigmatised by a big red label of censorship? Because beyond the smouldering looks, there also lies real artistic merit. Art has long been a defence against censorship: Lady Chatterley's Lover escaped being banned because of DH Lawrence’s exquisite prose. Style and theme, choreography, the very concept of the short-form video itself; all these should be considered. To slap an 18 rating on indiscriminately would be an unfair generalisation. And make it more appealing to under-18s, obviously.

Josh Osho L.I.F.E. Release: July 23

South Londoner Josh Osho knows how to make friends in high places. He first came to the attention of Island Records’ Darcus Beese – the man behind Amy Winehouse – and it wasn’t long before Osho had lined

up anthemic lead single Redemption Days with a guest appearance from Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah. Osho takes a cleanly focused, back-to-basics approach on L.I.F.E. (a nod towards the aphorism Learning Is For Ever), combining slick contemporary production and soulful vocals to create a debut record that soars with transatlantic ambition. (LG)

Since their 2004 debut Coming On Strong, Hot Chip have released a new album every two years with unerring regularity. But then again, there always has been something of a machine-driven ethic to their quirky, eclectic brand of electronic whizkid-ery – and that’s never been more true than with In Our Heads. Their fifth album feels like it recaptures that focus so many bands only ever seem to possess on their debut efforts. New single Flutes stands as a brave ambassador for the album – kicking off with much of the concise, pop shapeliness that saw 2006’s Ready For The Floor gracing the UK Top 10. But amidst its sprawling, tripped out overtones, there’s a persistent energy to the rubbery bass and miscellany of percussive elements. It’s intelligent music for an intelligent age, with an addictive tactile edge to it.(LG)

Sam Sparro Return to Paradise Release: June 11

Four years after his self-titled debut, Aussie Sam Sparro is back with his new album, Return to Paradise. Inspired by the soul and funk sounds of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the record is a marked progression from his last effort. The styling this time around harks back more heavily to that era, especially considering Mr. Sparro’s moustache. He still manages to pair his soulful voice brilliantly with an army of bass chords, synths and funky piano grooves, as heard on the album’s first single Happiness, which can evoke only that. (NM)

Epilogue

of the world’s largest lava lake. Spend the night on the rim to fully experience the spectacle: it’s more fiery than Alan Sugar’s boardroom. www.visitvirunga.org Walk the Great Ocean Road, Australia Australia’s strikingly beautiful Great Ocean road includes a 104km walking path, from the bustling resort town of Apollo Bay to the extraordinary Twelve Apostles rock formations. Hike up steep hills and plunge into valleys, through dark fairytale forests and along cliff tops and deserted sandy beaches. Top deck (www.topdeck.travel/ oceanroad) has packages starting at £266 for three days, right up to a 22-day trip from Sydney to darwin. Take a tea train in the Himalayas, India The darjeeling Himalayan railway is nicknamed ‘the toy train’ because of its historic steam locomotives. Cross the lower reaches of the eastern Himalayas to the rolling hills and lush green tea plantations of darjeeling for less than a quid. Stop off for some ‘tea tourism’, where you can stay at a tea garden and join in with the picking. www.darjeeling.gov.in/dhr.html Kayak through the Grand Canyon, USA Gouged out by the Colorado river over six million years, the Grand Canyon is 446km long and reaches depths of more than 1.6km. visit settlements and caves once inhabited by native Americans, kayak through the

Lava Falls rapids, or walk along the new glass-floored Skywalk overhanging the abyss in Grand Canyon West. A 14-day tour with Intrepidtravel (www. intrepidtravel.com) takes you through canyon country from £1745, starting in San Francisco, stopping in Las vegas and ending in LA. Quad bike across lava fields, Iceland This land of boiling mud holes, spitting geysers, thundering waterfalls and white glaciers is the most sparsely populated in europe, with an unspoiled and magical landscape. So of course the thing to do is ride a quad bike full-throttle across lava fields with steaming mountains of ash (www.adventures.is/Iceland/ ATVQuads). Iceland is more affordable now after three years of financial recovery, and summer is surprisingly warm and green. Kayak in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland The island of Barra, with its west coast beaches of white sand, abundant wildlife and crystal-clear sea, is an ideal spot for your first strokes. Clearwater Paddling (www. clearwaterpaddling.com) offer a six-night lodge-based tour of Barra and neighbouring uninhabited islands for £645, including kayaking equipment and guiding, local transport, food, wine and board. Climb the Andes, South America The world’s longest mountain range stretches throughout the entire South American

continent, from the Caribbean to Tierra del Fuego, taking in wind-tossed peaks and sizzling volcanoes, and the red rock canyon lands in Argentina’s high- altitude deserts. Trek with llamas in the footsteps of native Andeans in the multi-coloured hills of Purmamarca, view flamingos at Laguna Chaxa, or watch geysers erupt at el Tatio in Chile’s Atacama desert.

Left to right: be a lava lover in the Virunga National Park; walk The Edge in Toronto; go on surfing safari in Hossegor, France; and get grizzly in Canada

Wildlife Backpack across a super-volcano, USA The Yellowstone national Park is the world’s oldest national park and home to wonderful wildlife. It is also sitting on top of a massive, slumbering super-volcano whose eruption could render two thirds of the uS uninhabitable. The Yellowstone Association offers multi-day packages with wolf watching, geysers, mud pots and hot springs. www.yellowstoneassociation.org Swim with killer whales in Norway Jerv, or european wolverine, inhabit norway’s large pine forests along with brown bear, wolves, elk and lynx. In the semi-frozen fjords of northern norway you can watch, and even go snorkelling with, killer whales. Many local charter companies run whalewatching trips from Tysfjord. Observe amphibians in Portugal Amphibians and reptiles are the cornerstone of Portuguese

20 Music: Rihanna’s video 25 Film: summer blockbusters 30 Stage: Edinburgh Festival 35 Art: Yoko Ono 40 Gadgets: liquid metal 43 Blogs: working abroad — 44

Style Study SUNGLASSES

44 Fashion: throwing light on shades 48 Photo-story: catch festival fever 54 Inside Job: how to be a video game producer

Style Study SUNGLASSES

Shining Armour

PHOTOGRAPHY: Joseph Fox MODEL: emily Beirne STYLIST: holly Cox HAIR & MAkE-uP: Donna oliveiro

Topshop, Cat’s Eye, £16 Topshop, Flat Top, £15 Ray-Bans, Erika. Provided by Sunglasses Hut, £100

Stage Editor: —Christine Twite Art Editor: —Faye Robson Gadgets Editor: —Nigel Kendall Contributors: — Joseph Fox, James Jackson, Stephanie Keller, Nora McLeese, Costas Sarkas, Rupal Shah, Bizu Yaregal

ono wouldn’t be caught dead without his signature tinted shades. Most celebrities use them to disguise their faces; ironically, we probably wouldn’t recognise him without them. He’s not the only one with this obsession: Nicole Richie owns two hundred pairs, Kanye West’s have shutters on them and Lady Gaga has designed a range that takes pictures and records videos. Part eye-protector, part style statement, sunglasses are the ultimate marriage of fashion and function. The origins of sunglasses can be traced back 2,000 years, to the Emperor Nero. He used to watch gladiator matches through polished emeralds held up by slaves to soften the sun’s glare. Not exactly the most practical approach, but it was a start.

River Island, Retro, £13

Editor and Publisher: —Kohinoor Sahota Editorial Consultant: —Dominic Wells Art DirectIon: —Bb/Teasdale Editorial Assistant: —Eva Stamler Music Editor: —Laurence Green Film Editor: —Neil Clarke

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They protect from the glare of publicity as well as the sun. Nora McLeese discovers how shades became cool ‘Every generation has a Wayfarerwearing superstar who embodies the cooler-thanthou attitude’

James Ayscough, an 18th century English optician, recommended blue or green tinted shades in eyeglasses to correct vision problems and these are believed to be the true precursors to sunglasses. It wasn’t until they were developed further for the U.S. Air Force, in order to reduce the high-altitude glare for pilots, that they really took off. Frames were made thinner to increase visibility, and in 1936 ‘aviators’ – still one of the most popular styles – were born. Today sunglasses are a Hollywood staple, but it was only in the 1950s that they were adopted by some of the hip movie stars and suddenly became a byword for cool. Ray-Ban Wayfarers made their debut in 1952, and were popularised by James Dean.

Editor’s Letter:

Go for it!

Chapters

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Laurence Green Music Editor

The Video Rihanna/ Where Have You Been

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Don’t have a holiday. Have an adventure. From swimming with killer whales to coasteering in Wales, from going bear-watching to just going bare, these trips are made for thrill seekers

Music ‘As expensive as the big festivals can be, there are always more poking up that cater to tighter budgets’

The Mission AdvenTure

Tom Rivest, Great Bear Nature Tours

4 The List: top 10 events 6 The Big Question: should you stay in London for the Olympics? 8 The Mission: start your adventure here 16 Cover feature: Fast Girls

The Mission AdvenTure

They have resurfaced as a trend several times since their introduction: from the Blues Brothers and Tom Cruise in Risky Business and Top Gun to Twilight’s Edward Cullen, every generation has a Wayfarer-wearing superstar who embodies the cooler-than-thou attitude. By the 1960s, they progressed from ‘cool’ status symbol to a full-blown emblem of the hippy counter-culture. Functionality again played a part, but of a different kind – shades were useful in hiding the dilated pupils and bloodshot eyes of drug use. But it was also a new birth for ‘designer’ shades, such as Teashades (‘tea’ being slang for marijuana) with round-wired frames worn by the likes of John Lennon and Ozzy Osbourne. This paved the way for a more playful approach in the ’70s and ’80s. Elton John parodied the ‘cool’ of rock-star shades by wearing increasingly ridiculous versions, and shutter shades placed style over function as the plastic lats offered no UV protection. By the new millennium, actors were wearing sunglasses less for their original purpose – to shield their eyes from the bright lights on set and from the California sun on location – than as a statement of their fame and, simultaneously, a tool to ostentatiously hide it. These days we are very familiar with celebrities using sunglasses as a barrier between them and the public – or more often, the paparazzi. Lady Gaga regularly wears shades in interviews, but for Barbara Walters she

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n your marks, get set, go! Making this bumper issue has been like running a marathon. We’ve added more pages so you won’t be lost for ideas about what to do over the coming months. This is, of course, going to be one of the most exciting summers for London as the Olympics hurdles into town. We couldn’t help putting Fast Girls on the cover: it’s written by Noel Clarke and stars Lenora Crichlow and Lily James, for whom we predict big things. The feel-good film taps into the sports-fever and patriotism sweeping the nation, and we hope the cover captures the mood. But if the thought of sports is enough to make you want to sprint out of the capital, read our Big Question (p6) which asks: should you stay in London for the Olympics? Did you know that it costs £2,012 to sit in the best seat at the opening ceremony? For some more unusual statistics, we’ve also found out the fine for streaking and the number of condoms provided for athletes. If you are thinking of going away this summer, don’t book without first consulting our adventure travel guide (p8). These aren’t your average suggestions: my favourites include going down the Catacombs in Paris, skywalking over the Grand Canyon, or hanging off the top of the CN Tower. For something a little closer to home, flick through our festivals guide (p48). We had fun laughing at pictures from last year’s events and capturing the festival spirit. Hopefully the weather will have less drizzle and more sizzle, so we can whip out our sunglasses. In our Style Study (p44) we look back at how this summer’s accessory went from pilots to celebrities. We are also excited to share our fashion photo-shoot, which was shot by the talented Joseph Fox, and inspired by the iconic picture of John Lennon wearing multiple sunglasses. As we reach the finish line of almost a year in The Book, we hope we get a gold medal for being one of the most exciting new magazines. See you in September! Kohinoor

—4

The LIST

1:/ Jubilee June 2-5

Not since Queen Victoria has a monarch spent 60 years on the throne. On June 3 there will be a water parade from Hammersmith to Greenwich, on June 4 Buckingham Palace will host a concert including Paul McCartney, Elton John, Jessie J and JLS, and between 10pm10.30pm 2,600 beacons across the county will be lit. Not feeling it? Then download the re-release of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen, or head to Feeling Gloomy at the O2 Academy Islington on June 2 for miserable punk anthems of 1977 (from £4.50).

3:/ Shop

4:/ Olympics

Cheer on Britain in style. In Selfridge’s pop-up store The Big British Shop, most of the content has been exclusively designed. The homage to all things Brit stretches from the iconic Paddington Bear to pieces by Vivienne Westwood. And for all the queens out there? A tiara store. Tantrums optional.

Even if you’ve got no tickets, there’s the opening ceremony to watch on TV, masterminded by theatre and film director Danny Boyle; and giant screens in Hyde Park, Victoria Park and the Olympic Park showing the action throughout the Games. It’s the greatest sporting show on earth, but has it been worth so much of London’s time and money? Join the debate on p6.

until Aug 31

2:/ Pride

July 27-Aug 12, Aug 29-Sep 9

July 7

5:/ Streetscape

London didn’t just win the bid to host the Olympics, but also World Pride 2012. The city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community will be out and proud. The parade will begin at Baker Street, and this year the route will be half a mile longer, taking in more iconic landmarks and as ever ending up in a huge street party in Soho.

The Science Museum, V&A and Natural History Museum are all on Exhibition Road, which has had a £29.2 million revamp into a streetscape space shared by pedestrians and cars at 20mph. To celebrate there will be a free festival combining science and culture, events includes marching bands, scientific experiments and t’ai chi classes.

July 28-Aug 5

The LIST

— 5

6:/ Mela Aug 19

Jay Sean headlines this free Asian festival in Gunnersbury Park in Ealing, 1pm-8.30pm. As well as live acts, expect classical music, DJs, street art, comedy and dance. From the Sanskrit for ‘gathering’, the Mela has been going since 2003 and attracts about 60,000 people, a third of them non-Asian.

7:/ Carnival Aug 26-27

Europe’s largest street festival, attended by a million people, is a prisoner of its own success. The carnival floats, steel bands and street stalls are fun, but you may find yourself shuffling along in a crowd resembling a rush-hour Tube when you want to dance. The chicken at Mama’s Jerk Station is great, though.

8:/ Weiwei June 1-Oct 14

Architecture buffs get excited about the summer opening of the Serpentine Pavilion by a different artist each year – for the rest of us, it’s a great place to have a drink after a walk across Hyde Park. This year, it’s Herzog & de Meuron and dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

9:/ Hackney

10:/ Tennis

Hackney has come a long way from a grim no-go area to a happening place for hipsters, and now the location for the Olympics. The area has produced some of the biggest music acts in recent times such as our former cover star Labrinth, Plan B, Professor Green and Leona Lewis, who will all be taking to one of the six stages. There will also be international acts – Rihanna, will.i.am, Lana Del Ray and Jay Z, anyone? The majority of the tickets have been reserved for residents of Hackney and the other five Olympic boroughs. If you’re not one of the 100,000 ticket holders, you can still join the party by listening live on Radio 1 or watching on BBC Three.

Usually Wimbledon is an excuse for relaxing with strawberries and cream, but this time we’ll be on tenterhooks: we have in Andy Murray the best chance in decades at a British champion – and he’ll be going for Olympic gold, too. Head to Henman Hill, now renamed Murray Mound, to cheer him on.

June 23, 24

June 25-July 8

—6

The BIG QUESTION

Q: A:

Should you stay in London for the Olympics? By — NoRA mcLeese & Dominic Wells

No –

YES –

by Nora McLeese From the time I learned what the Olympics Games were as a young child, they’ve been on my bucket list. I’d been planning to blow all my hard-earned cash some day on a trip to the Games. It just so happens I moved to London from America last summer, setting me up for the experience of a lifetime. The energy and spirit the Olympics bring are incredible. I don’t even generally care for sport, yet the Games suck me in. To witness thousands of athletes and fans from around the world, bursting with national pride, congregating in the name of friendly competition (we hope) is amazing. And not only did I move to an Olympic city, but into an Olympic borough. The stadium at Stratford is just a javelin’s throw from my flat. The Olympic torch will be run down the road I live on, and I’ll be waiting alongside, ready to high-five the torch bearer as the procession passes by. No doubt my area will be overrun by tourists and Games goers. I’ve already noticed a spike in crowds. Great! The people are part of the experience. I’m looking forward to watching events for free on giant screens in Victoria Park as a part of BT’s London Live, which is also hosting viewings in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. Rooting for your country as a part of a collective is much

by Dominic Wells more exhilarating. You win together and you lose together. The Cultural Olympiad surrounding the Games is a vast celebration that brings together a number of disciplines, from art to food. I’m always keen on free events and the London 2012 Festival has quite a few. Casts from every London musical, for instance, will take to the stage in Trafalgar Square on June 23-24 as a part of West End LIVE. Or perhaps the highlight will be BT’s ‘Rooting for River of Music, your country’s which will exhilarating... feature stages all along the You win Thames hosting music together, you from each of lose together’ the six populated continents. It will represent all 205 Olympic nations, with performances on July 21-22. Confirmed artists include Scissor Sisters for North America. I am also one of the lucky sods that has an actual ticket to an actual event. But even if you don’t, you can join me and thousands like me in front of the giant screens, or camping out along the routes for marathon, triathlon and cycling events. Like I said, it’s about the people. And the Olympics help bring us all together. l

I love the Olympics. There’s nothing better than curling up in front of the TV, watching other people do exercise for you. They’re lifting weights; I’m raising a beer glass. They’re throwing a discus; I’m hurling a pizza into the oven. They’re running the 400 metres; I’m running a nice hot bath. What’s not to like? But that doesn’t mean I want them on my doorstep. To meet the costs of the Games, which almost quadrupled since the UK’s successful bid, Londoners have had to pay, between us, an extra £1 billion in council tax. That’s expensive telly programming. And what do we get in return? Snarled-up traffic with special go-faster lanes for VIPs only. Tube stations so packed at peak times that London Transport has, after years of careful planning and preparation, finally managed to come up with the following solution: ‘Go to the pub and travel after 6.30pm.’ And we’re the Cinderellas at the ball. Londoners received no preferential access to tickets, which turned into a bizarre lottery where the few ‘lucky’ buyers ended up, bewildered, clutching expensive tickets to minor events they never even really wanted to see. Imagine if you’d decided to host a huge party, splashed loads of cash and several years on getting it ready, and then turned up to find the guests inside having a great time and the bouncer telling you you’re

The Big Question

— 7

The Olympics in numbers

00 0 00 00 0 0 0

Official cost of the Games. The bid estimate was just £2,400,000,000. The best seat at the opening ceremony costs £2,012. The fine for streaking is £20,000.

Number of Cokes that will be served at the Olympic Village – along with 100 tons of meat, 232 tons of potatoes and 300 tons of fruit & veg.

Number of condoms being given away to the athletes during the Games. There will be 14,000 athletes taking part – and 20,000 journalists.

not on the list. That’s what the Olympics means to London. Yes, there will be screens in Hyde Park, Victoria Park and then Trafalgar Square showing the games. Big whoop. I could get the same effect in my own home: just knock a hole through the ceiling to let the rain in, and invite a bunch of strangers in off of the street to stand between me and the TV screen. Is it any wonder protest groups are springing up all over? It takes a brave

campaigner to challenge the Olympics – sorry, I mean the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – when a special act of Parliament has authorised £20,000 fines for breaching their trademark. Check out www.blowe. org.uk, which held a competition to design anti-Olympics posters. They’re brilliant. The linked rings of the Olympics are turned into the lenses of CCTV cameras; the riot shields of police; or the zeros in £9,000,000,000, which is how much the Games have cost overall. Or click through www.

counterolympicsnetwork.wordpress.com to some of the groups attacking Olympic sponsors’ questionable record on environmental and working conditions, or the campaign to Save Leyton Marshes. Londoners will breathe a sigh of relief when these Games cross the finishing line. Then we can get back to the sports we do best: the High Jump (which follows on from the Essay Procrastinathon); Ducking and Diving; and, of course, Synchronised Drinking. l

—8

The Mission ADVENTURE

Tom Rivest, Great Bear Nature Tours

Don’t have a holiday. Have an adventure. From swimming with killer whales to coasteering in Wales, from going bear-watching to just going bare, these trips are a thrill seeker’s paradise

Nature Raft the Coruh River, Turkey Due to dam construction work, this is the last year in which you can raft the Coruh River. It’s an adrenaline-filled roller-coaster ride on grade 4-5 rapids through 1,500-metre-deep gorges in the heart of the Kackar mountain range. Water By Nature (www.waterbynature.com) offers a seven-day package for£895 including guides, equipment, meals and tents. Bike the Pyrenees, France On the border between France and Spain, the Pyrenees mountain range covers hundreds of miles. Serious cyclists are rewarded with some of Europe’s most spectacular views. If you don’t bike, then hike – or just cheat and drive up to sites such as the principality of Andorra high up in the peaks. Pyractif (www.pyractif.com) offers a variety of cycling packages. Hike up the Virunga Volcanoes, Africa Straddling the borders between Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this eightvolcano chain is one of Earth’s most active volcanic regions and a veritable salad bowl for mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, and other wildlife. Check on the security situation in Congo before going, but the steep five-hour hike up Nyiragongo rewards you with heady views of the world’s largest lava lake.

Spend the night on the rim to fully experience the spectacle: it’s more fiery than Alan Sugar’s boardroom. www.visitvirunga.org Walk the Great Ocean Road, Australia Australia’s strikingly beautiful Great Ocean Road includes a 104km walking path, from the bustling resort town of Apollo Bay to the extraordinary Twelve Apostles rock formations. Hike up steep hills and plunge into valleys, through dark fairytale forests and along cliff tops and deserted sandy beaches. Top Deck (www.topdeck.travel/ oceanroad) has packages starting at £266 for three days, right up to a 22-day trip from Sydney to Darwin. Take a tea train in the Himalayas, India The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is nicknamed ‘the toy train’ because of its historic steam locomotives. Cross the lower reaches of the Eastern Himalayas to the rolling hills and lush green tea plantations of Darjeeling for less than a quid. Stop off for some ‘tea tourism’, where you can stay at a tea garden and join in with the picking. www.darjeeling.gov.in/dhr.html Kayak through the Grand Canyon, USA Gouged out by the Colorado River over six million years, the Grand Canyon is 446km long and reaches depths of more than 1.6km. Visit settlements and caves once inhabited by Native Americans, kayak through the Lava Falls Rapids, or walk

along the new glass-floored Skywalk hanging over the abyss in Grand Canyon West. A 14-day tour with Intrepidtravel (www. intrepidtravel.com) takes you through canyon country from £1745, starting in San Francisco, stopping in Las Vegas and ending in LA. Quad bike across lava fields, Iceland This land of boiling mud holes, spitting geysers, thundering waterfalls and white glaciers is the most sparsely populated in Europe, with an unspoilt and magical landscape. So of course the thing to do is ride a quad bike full-throttle across lava fields with steaming mountains of ash (www.adventures.is/Iceland/ ATVQuads). Iceland is more affordable now after three years of financial recovery, and summer is surprisingly warm and green. Kayak in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland The island of Barra, with its west coast beaches of white sand, abundant wildlife and crystal-clear sea, is an ideal spot for your first strokes. Clearwater Paddling (www. clearwaterpaddling.com) offer a six-night lodge-based tour of Barra and neighbouring uninhabited islands for £645, including kayaking equipment and guiding, local transport, food, wine and board. Climb the Andes, South America The world’s longest mountain range stretches throughout the entire South American continent, from the Caribbean

to Tierra del Fuego, taking in wind-tossed peaks and sizzling volcanoes, and the red rock canyon lands in Argentina’s high-altitude deserts. Trek with llamas in the footsteps of native Andeans in the multi-coloured hills of Purmamarca, view flamingos at Laguna Chaxa, or watch geysers erupt at El Tatio in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Wildlife Backpack across a super-volcano, USA The Yellowstone National Park is the world’s oldest national park and home to wonderful wildlife. It is also sitting on top of a massive, slumbering super-volcano whose eruption could render two thirds of the USA uninhabitable. The Yellowstone Association offers multi-day packages with wolf watching, geysers, mud pots and hot springs. www.yellowstoneassociation.org Swim with killer whales in Norway Jerv, or European wolverine, inhabit Norway’s large pine forests along with brown bear, wolves, elk and lynx. In the semi-frozen fjords of northern Norway you can watch, and even go snorkelling with, killer whales. Many local charter companies run whalewatching trips from Tysfjord. Observe amphibians in Portugal Amphibians and reptiles are the cornerstone of Portuguese wildlife. The mudflats and

Left to right: be a lava lover in the Virunga National Park; walk The Edge in Toronto; go on surfing safari in Hossegor, France; and get grizzly in Canada

The Mission Adventure

Go for it!

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The Mission DANCE

Photo - Sarah Yvonne Phillips

sandbanks of the Sado estuary, just south of Lisbon, swarm with cold-blooded creatures. From the plodding Spanish terrapin to spiny-footed lizards, marbled newts, west Iberian painted frogs and the Montpellier snake, there’s plenty to spot.

Climbing sand dunes in Peru By Nora McLeese

Sand stretches as far as the eye can see. It seeps into my trainers with every step. Suddenly half of my leg disappears. I have to slip off my shoe to pull free. A snaking trail of struggling souls moves slowly ahead and behind me. And when, after what feels like hours, we reach the summit, it’s like being on top of the world. The desert around Peru’s Huacachina Oasis has some of the highest sand dunes in the world. Adventurers come here from all over the world to race in buggies or sandboard down the sides of the dunes. From our vantage point we see an endless horizon flooded with reds, pinks and purples. The setting sun is painting the sands. It is breathtaking. Nothing else in the world exists – or matters – at that moment. The trek was our reward on a day off from building dormitories and kitchens in Lima to provide free housing for Peruvian students. Flying halfway across the world for anything is an endeavour, but shipping two-dozen teenagers to South America for a service project is beyond comparison. Part of the venture is experiencing the local culture. We worked side-by-side with Peruvian carpenters and engineers, sharing traditional foods at the end of the day. One afternoon even featured a pick-up game of football. Obviously we lost. It just so happened we were there during the 2006 World Cup. Watching the final together with our new Peruvian friends was exhilarating. The energy was palpable. After two weeks of hard work and incredible experiences, it was time to go back home. I’ll never forget climbing those dunes, especially the view from the top. Five more years of travel later and nothing has matched it yet. I don’t think anything ever will. Agape Volunteers runs programmes in Kenya, Masai-land, Ghana, Tanzania and India. www.agape-volunteers.com

Join a safari in Africa and Romania... Crossing the African plains in a 4×4 hot on the trail of lions, elephants and giraffes needn’t cost the earth, given that Top Deck offer 20% off a range of safari packages in June (www. topdeck.travel/africa/safari-tours). Closer to home, Romania is European safari central. The Piatra Craiului Mountains and Danube Delta have two-thirds of our bear population, as well as wolves, chamois and lynx. ...or snorkelling safari on Lundy Island, UK Lundy is famous for its birdlife, and its waters are England’s only Marine Nature Reserve; home of sponges, corals and a colony of grey seals, and in the summer often visited by basking sharks. From May to October the Island Warden offers snorkelling safaris and guided walks. Only a two-hour ferry ride from the Devon coast, Lundy is really a world away. You have to search hard for signs of modern life, so expect quiet evenings indoors unless you head to the tavern to socialise with the locals. www.landmarktrust.org.uk Travel to remote islands with Seacology Islands contain unique habitats with one-of-a-kind biodiversity. Seacology offers a variety of adventurous expeditions to places such as Zanzibar, New Guinea or Fiji. Travellers get to visit Seacology’s projects, which protect island ecosystems – such as coral reefs and rainforests – while providing benefits to local communities, including building schools, medical centers, or fresh water systems. www.seacology.org Go nude in Plakias, Crete Plakias is a small and serene beach town on the south coast of Crete, where you can enjoy the fabulous clear water of the Libyan sea and a setting of

mountains, cliffs and a huge sweep of golden sand. Add in adventure by stripping off in the nude area at the far eastern end of the beach. Visit the grizzly bears in Canada As anyone who’s seen the funny and tragic film Grizzly Man will know, grizzly bears look cute, but they’re also lethal predators. British Columbia is one of the best places to find them, and Great Bear Nature Tours (www. greatbeartours.com) are the acknowledged tour experts. Guests at their floating Great Bear Lodge will have two expeditions a day, on which you can also see wolves, seals and on occasion humpback whales which arrive in July. Go ape in Camp Leakey, Indonesia

Camp Leakey mainly re-introduces older orang-utans to the rain forest, and also provides an opportunity to watch orang-utans in their natural surroundings, with proboscis monkeys, macaques and gibbons. A jungle trip there with Adventure Indonesia (www.adventureindonesia.com) includes a boat down the Lamandau River and a Dyak Tribe village. Indonesia is also

home to the prehistoric-looking Komodo Dragon (above).

Sand Blokart in Hayle, Cornwall Also called land yachting, blokarting involves blasting around the beach on a long, thin, three-wheeled steel buggy with a sail. Blokarts can be used almost anywhere, but the beach is best. www.adventure-cornwall.co.uk Build a sandcastle at Golden Sands, Bulgaria Forget Spain: Europe’s real beach beauty is in Bulgaria. The Golden Sands resort sits less than 16km from Varna, a city filled with cheap hotels and camping sites, and has awards for environmental awareness. You’ll find banana boating, jet-skiing and windsurfing, and with virtually no tide you can spend hours building a gargantuan sandcastle. www.bulgariantouristboard.com Go Jurassic in Bridport, England The closest you can get to walking with dinosaurs in Britain – or in their footsteps at least – is along the Jurassic Coast. The friendly Dorset town of Bridport is a great base from which to explore England’s first natural World Heritage Site, whose amazing rock structure depicts 185 million years of history. www.jurassiccoast.com See the sand sculptures in Søndervig, Denmark Søndervig hosts the World Championship Sand Sculpture Festival. This year

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The Mission ADVENTURE

Snake wrestling in the Amazon By James Jackson

In 1910, the Bronx Zoo laid down a daring challenge: $50,000 to anyone who found them a live and healthy 30ft snake. Ninety years later the prize remained unclaimed. It seemed to me irresistible: a Boys-Own dare from a bygone age of bearded Victorian explorers, lost worlds and colossal exotic beasts. I had spent five months on a solo trip through South America before I arrived at the great plains of Los Llanos in Venezuela. I teamed up with a local Indiana Jones and a farmer who whispered of 30ft leviathans in distant swamps. We wielded long sticks, poking the water ahead of us. Each time we came across a glistening green, inksplodged eunectes murinus, submerged up to its nose, we’d grip its head, then drag the snake onto the bank to measure it. After a day or so, a sudden flurry under the surface and glimpses of huge loops of scaled torso foretold a monster. When we finally heaved it onto dry land, the Bronx booty was, for a minute, looking odds-on. The snake’s head was as big as a mastiff’s, its trunk a good foot wide. Incredibly, it still fell short, stretching out to 24ft. Before we dragged it back, I had to get a photo. My snake-chums heaved the beast onto my shoulders for the money shot. My knees buckled. Gallons of white liquid – urine? Faeces? – poured forth all over my back. Then it started to squeeze. It wrapped around my head so I couldn’t see. My ear cartilage started to crunch. Its immense strength effortlessly powered its coils like a tightening vice. A primeval fear seized me. One of my cohorts rushed in, but the snake took him on too, its tail seizing his arm. Eventually, we managed to extract the reptile and manoeuvre it back to its swamp. It was only when watching it ease back into the muddy gloom that I finally felt guilt. Our cod-heroics seemed ugly and cruel, a poor excuse for disturbing a remarkable animal. But at least we were the last – the Bronx Zoo reward was cancelled in 2002.

Trek the Sahara Desert, North Africa Play at being Lawrence of Arabia on this ocean of pure, golden sand, stretching for almost 4 million square miles. Trek on camel-back across the dunes to a secluded oasis, where a spicy Berber tagine awaits over an open fire by Bedouin tents. Camel Trekking Morocco (www.cameltrekking.com) offer cheap trips such as a three-day tour in a 4×4, including a night under a Berber tent and two hours of camel riding for £125 per person. Go wild on the Isle of Harris, Scotland The Isle of Harris has some of the most unspoilt beaches you’ll see, offering a variety of fishing spots from deep rocky points to flat sandy surf beaches. The Hebridean isle also offers some of Britain’s best climbing, hiking and surfing, and wildlife including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins and golden eagles. www.explore-harris.com Dine facing Uluru, Australia The vast sandstone bulk of Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, is revered by local tribes and changes colour at different times of day. Dine under the stars as an astronomer points out constellations at Sounds of Silence Dinner (www. ayersrockresort.com.au/ sounds-of-silence), or relax in one of the Longitude 131° luxury outback camps facing Uluru (www.longitude131.com. au) and watch the sun set. A different kind of rock concert. Sandboard on Colchester dunes, South Africa, or Devon Sandboarding is like snowboarding, but on dunes. Colchester in South Africa has

Photo - Steen Holm

the theme is ‘Seven Wonders of the World’, and 36 of the world’s best artists will transform 8,000 tons of sand into astonishing works of art. The tenth anniversary festival, running from June 5 to October 28, will feature the biggest continuous sculpture wall of all time, 200 metres long and up to 7.5 metres high. www.sandskulptur.dk

the biggest coastal dune field in the Southern Hemisphere. But Britain, with over 10,000 miles of coastline lined with stunning sand dunes, also has excellent conditions. Take a course (www.surf-wax.co.uk) or just use an old board and get going.

Sea Go coasteering in Pembrokeshire, Wales

Coasting is what you do in your studies. Coasteering is a sport that mixes swimming, climbing, scrambling, diving and even caving. Preseli Venture (www.preseliventure. co.uk) offers everything from half-day sessions to whole weekends from their outdoor activity centre and eco-lodge. You can also try sea kayaking or surfing, and there’s a great beach 15 minutes walk away. Sail around the Gulf of Fethiye, Turkey Follow in the wake of Odysseus and set sail in a traditional wooden gulet around the Gulf of Fethiye, with its overwhelming scenery of mountains and beaches, rustic villages and scattered islands. Adventura (www. adventura.com) offer accommodation, return flight and meals for £849.

Go wall diving in Borneo, Malaysia The islands of Sipadan and Lankayan in Borneo are among the world’s top 10 dive sites, with thriving reefs dropping off thousands of feet very close to the shore. ‘Wall diving’ them is spectacular, but dangerous for the novice. A 12-day diving safari with AquaFirma (www.aqua-firma.co.uk) also takes in the Layang Layang atoll and the islands of Mabul and Kapalai for £1,895 excluding international flights. See Shark Bay, Australia Shark Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site, comprises more than 900 miles of coastline full of white beaches, fiery red cliffs and sapphire lagoons. Summer is best, as the wet season (December to February) can render roads impassable. Private transport is advised: don’t forget to carry water, spare tyres and extra fuel. www.sharkbay.org Surf the Soup Bowl, Barbados or in Hossegor, France The beach break waves in Hossegor are amongst the most powerful in the world. For something a bit more tropical, the Soup Bowl at the village of Bathsheba is a jewel. British surfing champion Russell Winter is a fan of its turquoise tube-rides. Go whale watching in the Azores, Portugal Adrift in the middle of the Atlantic, the Azores are a remote archipelago of nine islands. Pico and Faial are best: whales use the channel between them nearly every day from April to October. Tour operators advise that B&B deals offer better value and food to half-board hotels.

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The Mission ADVENTURE

Swim the Lycian Way, Turkey The Lycian Way follows the remote southern coastline, known as the Turquoise Coast for its extraordinary clear water, under which you can see submerged Lycian ruins. Swim Trek offers a seven-day trip from £710 excluding flights (www.swimtrek.com). Go in summer, or go cold Turkey.

Teaching in Thailand By Rupal Shah

Packing for Thailand was nerve-wracking. Mosquito repellent, check; colouring pencils, check; inflatable ball, check. This was going to be an adventure well outside my comfort zone. My friend and I had volunteered to teach English for a month at a primary school in a rural town in the very north of Thailand. Looked after by a teacher, we soon became part of the family. The children loved us, and followed us everywhere. We used song and games (hence the ball) to make English fun. I never knew how much The Hokey Cokey could inspire little learners! School life took a little getting used to – teachers are respected, and students would bow if they passed us. Children also spent an hour before school cleaning the classrooms. Not sure if it will ever catch on here! On weekends we would travel, covering the Golden Triangle – the famous Mekong River separating Thailand, Laos and Burma. We also went elephant trekking, white water rafting and got a Thai massage at a women’s prison. As volunteers and farang (foreigners) we became minicelebrities everywhere we went. In the evenings we’d teach the locals in return for food and beer. One time, in a very bad rain shower, a woman on a motorbike offered to give us a lift to the bus stop, even though it meant leaving her three young children on the side of the road! The language barrier proved trying at times. We resorted to teaching our host mum the English names of food, whilst she did the same in Thai. It was our cultural exchange as we couldn’t go further than that. Also the primary school declared holidays at the drop of a hat, which meant we missed our lessons; a month was simply not enough time to make progress. Overall I would recommend teaching abroad to anyone who doesn’t want to visit a country as a tourist, but to become a part of it. On the flight home, I was already planning my next teaching trip abroad!

City Walk the edge in Toronto, Canada The CN Tower is the tallest man-made structure in the western hemisphere, famed for its terrifying glass floor. But if standing on that is not enough, you can now go outside the tower and walk hands-free along the circular edge of a 356-metre abyss. Lean way out over the edge on a restraining cable with the entire metropolis at your feet. Tickets are $175. www.edgewalkcntower.ca Go behind bars in Tokyo, Japan Toyko’s bars are like no other city’s. You could get served by a man in a frog outfit (Kagaya Bar) or by a man re-enacting Mongolian wrestling (Genghis Khan Tokyoten); or you could start your night as others finish it, by getting locked up. Alcatraz ER (www.alcatraz-er. net) is themed after a prison hospital; at the Lock-Up (www. kitanokazoku.jp/lockup/index.html), you’re clapped in handcuffs as you arrive and led to a ‘cell’. Brave the Catacombs in Paris, France Beneath the city streets, the Catacombs house the remains of six million Parisians (below),

transferred in the 18th century after the churchyards started spreading disease. Bones, broken gravestones and mortar make up a labyrinth of obscure galleries and narrow corridors twice as long as the Paris Metro. Dead good. Admission is €8. www.catacombes-de-paris.fr Go dragon boat racing in Shanghai, China

In dragon boat racing, a drummer sets the pace as 20 team-mates paddle furiously in a long canoe with a dragon figurehead. The Shanglong Dragon Boat Racing Club (www.dragonboatsh.org) welcomes newcomers and is composed mostly of ex-pats from over 20 nations, who meet every Sunday morning between February and November.

Fly on the trapeze in New York, USA If the Empire State Building is not exciting enough, visit Trapeze School New York. Thanks to the summer outdoor location in Hudson Park, you can even get some sightseeing done: see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and World Financial Centre whilst whooshing through the skies. Classes from $47. www.newyork.trapezeschool.com Climb in Angkor Wat, Cambodia The ruins of Angkor Wat are a vast temple complex and outstanding testimonial of the Khmer culture from the 9th to the 15th century. For amazing panoramic views, climb the centre tower. It’s steep, and hard work, but thoroughly worth it. Try to visit at daybreak when the sun rises from behind the temples, casting reflections of root-infested ruins and sky in the surrounding ponds. Fly a MiG over Moscow, Russia What to do in Moscow? See the Red Square? Lenin’s Tomb? The Kremlin? All very well, but then again you could break the sound barrier in a Russian fighter jet, loop some loops and climb to the edge of space. Fifty days’ notice is needed for security clearance. This can’t be done on a backpacking budget: the aptly named Incredible Adventures tour company (www. incredible-adventures.com) offers a five-day MiGs Over Moscow package for $26,000. But isn’t that worth three years of uni fees? Compiled by Eva Stamler

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Cover Feature Fast Girls

LIVE FAsT TRY YOUNG

Dominic Wells catches up with the rising stars of Fast Girls

n the race to get a sports movie past the finish line before the Olympics, Fast Girls wins by miles. Bert and Dickie, the BBC’s rowing movie starring Matt Smith, had a false start, coming out too early. Otherwise there’s just a documentary – Ping Pong, about 80-year-old wiff-waffers – and the re-release of Chariots of Fire, neither of them out till July. In structure, Fast Girls breaks no new ground. It’s the same formula you’ll find in any sports film: clashing-personalities, learning-tobecome-a-team, underdogs-triumphing. That’s fine, it works. Even The King’s Speech is basically

Cover Feature FAST GIRLS

Rocky in disguise – the reluctant king overcoming his personal demons with the help of an unconventional coach and a pre-climactic training montage. What separates Fast Girls from the pack is that most of the cast are women, and black. The script is by Noel Clarke of Adulthood fame, and Lenora Crichlow of Being Human makes a strong lead as Shania, the council-estate girl who can’t afford decent running shoes yet finds herself thrust onto the world stage in the British relay team. ‘Making a film like this is important,’ says Crichlow, whose father was



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Cover Feature FAST GIRLS

‘As soon as I saw those stomach muscles forming it was all the incentive I needed. I did 600 sit-ups a day’ 

Notting Hill’s godfather of black radicalism. ‘It’s not about creating an issue and it’s not a racially motivated film, which is so refreshing. But at the same time it’s really nice to see British women of colour in really positive leading roles.’ It’s a small irony, then, that the break-out star is likely to be Lily James. She plays Lisa, the princess of the track: her father is head of the racing committee; her bedroom is filled with trophies; her baby-blue uniform is always spotless; she’s the only posh girl – and the only white girl – on the relay team. She and Shania clash from the start. ‘I can’t believe I’m here,’ says Shania, looking round the training camp in wonder. ‘Nor can I,’ bitches Lisa. But James gives the ice-queen role more subtlety and depth than you might expect, as it transpires that her character’s privileged life is a gilded cage, and her dad is supportive only so long as she brings him medals. The fatherdaughter relationship is one that resonates with Lily personally: her father died during her first year at drama college. From stage to screen ‘My whole world changed,’ she tells me. ‘My dad was the reason I got into acting. He played guitar, so I grew up singing to Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, and found acting when doing musicals at school. When I first read the script I became quite emotional.’ It must be hard not to have him sharing in her success now. ‘That is the hardest thing,’ she says, with a quiver in her voice. ‘Everything I’ve done since leaving drama college I can’t tell him about. But I feel everyone who’s left this world is still here with us, I really believe it.’ Lily wears her heart on her sleeve. In conversation she’ll swing from tears to giggles in seconds. She’s dressed down today, in a baggy white shirt, and her hair is back to brunette. She had to be ‘dragged kicking and

screaming’ to the hairdressers, says Fast Girls’ director, in order to dye her hair ivory-tower blonde. And yet she scrubs up well. There’s a couple of party scenes in Fast Girls where you see a flash of the redcarpet diva she might well become. It worked for Keira Knightley, after all. A decade ago Britain’s biggest female star was just a gawky teenager in a small British film about football, Bend It Like Beckham. A year later she was starring in Pirates of the Caribbean. Can Lily see a career in corsets ahead? ‘Funnily enough,’ she laughs, ‘I’ve been cast in the next season of Downton Abbey, so maybe that’s already happening. I love period drama, exploring the history, and all the costumes. But it’s also so contained and reserved, I sometimes want to scream.’ She’s already appeared in one blockbuster, Wrath of the Titans, which she says was an ‘insane’ experience. ‘It was my first film and everywhere you go there’s someone holding an umbrella to shade you from the sun. It was always “Do you want this? Do you want that?”’ Yet despite her burgeoning screen career, Lily sees herself as primarily a stage actress. Her performance in Othello at the Crucible Sheffield, just a year after drama school, had one national paper gushing: ‘We may have a new star actress on our hands... she practically sweeps all before her as Desdemona.’ She is clearly dedicated. Like many actors Lily hates watching herself on screen, but forces herself in order to learn from her mistakes. She admires Michelle Williams and Carey Mulligan for their honesty, and the long dialogue scene between Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s Heat leaves her literally breathless with excitement: ‘They crossed all the cameras so they got every angle in one go and it’s just incredible!’ She got her own taste of method-acting on Fast Girls: for six weeks before shooting the

actresses trained with Olympic coaches for two and a half hours every day, eating only highprotein, low-fat meals. ‘I became obsessed,’ says Lily. ‘I have an addictive personality. I don’t really exercise much, but as soon as I saw those stomach muscles forming it was all the incentive I needed. I also did 600 sit-ups a day: 50 V-sits, 50 sit-ups, 50 leg raises, and repeat.’ Filming was even more challenging. Some days it was so cold they had to clear ice off the track, and the director wore long johns under his trousers, yet Lily was dressed in running shorts and a skimpy crop-top pretending it was summer. She can laugh it off now, but a Tweet from her at the time betrays the pain: ‘Freezing just doesn’t cut it. I’m blue. KEEP SMILING.’ There was a plan for the girls to do a publicity stunt at the Cannes Film Festival: running a race right along the Croisette. ‘We said “over our dead bodies”! But we will be rocking out in heels and Fast Girls T-shirts.’ It’s a refreshing change for the best of young British talent to be represented at Cannes by several black actresses and one white. In 1996, when the British film industry threw a yacht party for their brightest young stars, not one black actor was invited – even though Marianne Jean Baptiste received an Oscar nomination for her role in Secrets and Lies. ‘No parties for me, though!’ says Lily. ‘It’s such a shame. We are being flown out on the Friday morning, and back again on Friday evening so that we can be off to Manchester on Saturday for promotion. We are literally just going out for work.’ She’s got game Lily has no plans to leave London any time soon. She’s just uprooted herself and her cat Coco from Dalston to a new flat in Hackney Central, and loves the east London life. ‘There are so many pockets of different styles and life. I love the little coffee shops and bars, and Broadway Market. I have a kind of boho style, and you pretty much have no choice but to start shopping in charity shops when you live here!’ Strangely for someone starring in a movie about the Olympics (though it’s never

Cover Feature FAST GIRLS

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Smells like team spirit: In Fast Girls, co-written by Noel Clarke, the girls manage to set aside their differences after a big night out (below) and pull together on the track (right)

‘It’s a refreshing change for young British talent to be represented by several black actresses and one white ’

mentioned by name, for trademark reasons), she’s ambivalent about the Games on her doorstep. ‘I didn’t bother applying, the ticket situation was awful. As soon as I get excited, I hear another thing that’s not quite right: the reserved lanes of traffic, the money spent. My elder brother works for Sky Sports and is a massive boxing fan, and all these boxing groups in east London have no money; it’s all gone to the Olympics. That said, the athletes

working with me were so inspiring, you have to remember that’s what it’s all about.’ That same will to improve clearly drives her. It’s why she’ll end up being more than just a pretty face in empty action films like Wrath of the Titans; why she’s likely to be become a real star. ‘When you see people like Meryl Streep and Al Pacino,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘they all started on the stage. There’s something lost now with the demise of rep theatre, the time to

develop yourself before being thrust into the spotlight. To be entrusted with big roles before you feel ready…’ Suddenly her introspection vanishes, and she flashes a huge grin: ‘Then again, I guess you’re always learning, so you might as well take each opportunity and go for it!’ Here’s hoping she’ll be swapping gold medals for a gold statuette someday.∂ Fast Girls is released on June 15

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Music ‘As expensive as the big festivals can be, there are always more poking up that cater to tighter budgets’

Forget about the price tag?

Laurence Green asks if festivals are worth the money, money, money What with Glastonbury taking a year out, Reading & Leeds (August 24-26) must be rubbing their palms at becoming the de facto ‘Big’ festival. But are they really worth over £200 a ticket? Is any festival? The headliners are utterly underwhelming – gothic legends The Cure aside, Foo Fighters and Kasabian are the kind of inoffensive, ‘oh, everyone will like them’ Radio 1-friendly rock acts that can be safely wheeled out without incident (see the initial outpouring of rage that greeted the announcement of Jay-Z’s headline slot at 2008’s Glastonbury). In an age when festival audiences are shifting from students to forty-something city slickers with bonuses to splash, this kind of ‘safe’ act is becoming all too common. As prices go up and innovation declines, festivals become more about the ‘experience’ (in an interesting parallel with rising university tuition fees), with the original spirit of musical variety relegated to small side-show ‘niche’ tents, and the whole thing amalgamating into a vast,

seething mass of burgers, beers and portaloos – or, for those who can afford it, the ‘Premium Club Experience’ and ‘Hotel Package’ bolt-ons. A corporate sheen is smeared all over the purchasing process, bombarding you with extras promising a better, more exciting, more pleasurable experience. You can’t even say the names of festivals without invoking their paymasters. Gone are the days of subtle sponsorship, such as Tennent’s lager creating T in the Park (July 6-8) or Virgin Media giving us the V Festival (Aug 18-19). Now we’ve got the Barclaycard Wireless Festival (July 6-8) and BT London Live (Aug 12). If there’s any festival this year that does offer a flair of something different, it comes from the least expected of places – ’80s uber-pop production house PWL. Hyde Park’s Hit Factory Live (July 11) offers wall-to-wall back-to-basics pop via the likes of Jason Donovan and Bananarama – and though it’ll probably be

Reviews MUSIC

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Laurence Green Music Editor

The Video Rihanna/ Where Have You Been Sex sells, but Cameron’s not buying it, says Laurence Green

Summer anthems: The Pet Shop Boys’ Se A Vida É for pure ’90s nostalgia; there’s a real carefree optimism in the lyrics. Also Girls Aloud’s Long Hot Summer for sheer fizzy pop energy. Most adventurous holiday: Camping for two weeks in the Scottish isles. I spent most of it climbing up some of the highest mountains in the country in frightful weather, oh, and putting up with pesky midge bites! Worst festival experience: The Urban Games festival at Clapham Common. It rained all day, everyone was reduced to sheltering under the food marquees and most of the live events were called off.

Hot Chip In Our Heads Release: June 11

Josh Osho L.I.F.E. Release: July 23

up anthemic lead single Redemption Days with a guest appearance from Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah. Osho takes a cleanly focused, stripped-down approach on L.I.F.E. (a nod towards the aphorism Learning Is For Ever), combining slick contemporary production and soulful vocals to create a debut record that soars with transatlantic ambition. (LG)

Since their 2004 debut Coming On Strong, Hot Chip have released a new album every two years with unerring regularity. But then again, there always has been something of a machine-driven ethic to their quirky, eclectic brand of electronic whizzkid-ery – and that’s never been more true than with In Our Heads. Their fifth album feels like it recaptures that focus so many bands only ever seem to possess on their debut efforts. New single Flutes stands as a brave ambassador for the album – kicking off with much of the concise, pop shapeliness that saw 2006’s Ready For The Floor gracing the UK Top 10. But amidst its sprawling, tripped out overtones, there’s a persistent energy to the rubbery bass and miscellany of percussive elements. It’s intelligent music for an intelligent age, with an addictive tactile edge to it. (LG)

Sam Sparro Return to Paradise Release: June 11

Four years after his self-titled debut, Aussie Sam Sparro is back with his new album, Return to Paradise. Inspired by the soul and funk sounds of the late ’70s and early ’80s, the record is a marked progression from his last effort. The styling this time around harks back more heavily to that era, especially considering Mr. Sparro’s moustache. He still manages to pair his soulful voice brilliantly with an army of bass chords, synths and funky piano grooves, as heard on the album’s first single Happiness, which can evoke only that. (NM)

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Reviews MUSIC

Lianne La Havas Is Your Love Big Enough? Release: July 9

The Gig That Changed My Life Annelies Van De Velde, of up-and-coming electro-pop group Kovak, on Muse I didn’t know I was a Muse fan until I saw them live. It was the summer of 2004 and I was at Glastonbury with my boyfriend of the time. Muse were headlining the Sunday evening and if you’ve ever been to Glastonbury, you’ll know that by then you’re feeling pretty darn knackered. What happened next definitely woke me up. That year it was muddy. We had lost everyone else and arrived at the Pyramid stage fully clothed in our waterproofs. We stayed up higher on the hill than usual, getting a great view of the whole of the stage. I can’t remember which song came first, but what I do remember was a huge amount of lights and to my surprise, knowing and loving every single song. We had only gone because they were the headliners. Until that point, Muse were one of those bands that I occasionally heard playing in the background, almost frantically clashing with whatever else I was doing. But that night, I realised the genius of their music. It’s dynamic, energetic, almost operatic and has loads of depth. It’s up there with Queen, Coldplay and all the greats. Their songs swept away the whole crowd that night and the energy in the air was tangible. But what really stuck with me as a performer was that they hardly moved. They stood there, confidently bashing out hit after hit, with Matt Bellamy’s haunting vocals perfectly clear, cutting through an almighty soundscape of music. And this taught me that if you have brilliant songs, the rest will follow.

Kovak’s new album is out later this year. www.kovak.co.uk

Lianne La Havas has taken her time since signing with Warner Bros in 2010. But as a labour of love, her debut album states an impressive case for La Havas’ voice; wonderfully, silkily smooth in a way that casts her as a natural successor to the likes of Corrine Bailey Rae. Last year she appeared on Later... With Jools Holland to rapturous acclaim before releasing a free EP of tracks recorded live in LA on her website – she’s clearly generous as well as talented. (LG)

Azealia Banks Broke With Expensive Taste Release: July 23

The first impression is misleading. When Azealia Banks appears in her 212 video clip with cheeky plaits, Mickey Mouse jumper and a mischievous smile, you wouldn’t guess that behind this bloomy façade is actually a sharptongued, foul-mouthed rap talent. But Miss Banks is definitely one of rap’s rising stars. Her Lazy Jay-featuring hit has been greeted by choruses of praise from the NME – who crowned her coolest personality of the year – and the BBC, who put her third on their Sound of 2012 countdown. All in all, her debut LP is set to be more than promising. (ES)

StooShe Swings & Roundabouts Release: June 25

Brand new rude-with-a-purpose girl group StooShe were only formed in 2011 but they’ve already made an impact. Their first two singles, Betty Woz Gone and Love Me, showcase their quintessentially British R&B pop style, paving the way for a cleaned-up version of the latter to reach no. 5 in the UK Singles Chart. When the girls – Alexandra Buggs, Courtney Rumbold and Karis Anderson – release their debut album, Swings & Roundabouts, look out for songs that suggest an En Vogue and TLC for the 21st Century. Just a bit ruder. (NM)

Maximo Park The National Health Release: June 11

The first album since 2009’s Quicken The Heart marks a much-awaited come-back from North East favourites Maximo Park. Lead singer Paul Smith claims The

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Trouble Release: June 11

National Health is ‘about taking back control, and being a force for change in your own life’, and the title track certainly sounds like a band revitalised, surging with choppy guitar riffs and passionate vocals that recall the energy of the band’s debut effort A Certain Trigger. Expect the band to perform a smattering of the new tracks when they take to the stage at this year’s Hop Farm Festival on June 30. (LG)

Nightlife Cheapskates at Moonlighting, every Wed at Moonlighting, W1D 4DR, from £5 Enjoy rock-bottom drink prices, music covering new-school disco to old-school hip hop, and laid-back members of all campuses of the University of London to party with. Southbound at the Phoenix, second Sat of the month at The Phoenix Club, W1G 0PP, from £3 Yee-haw and line dance to music from the Deep South. Don’t expect any pink fluffy cowboy hats and hen parties. This is the real deal.

Anyone that goes onstage in a dinosaur onesie deserves undivided attention. After slowly bubbling under for a good year now since the release of his second EP, All in Two Sixty Second Dancehalls, 27-year-old Oliver Higginbottom is about to blow up this summer with a string of major festival appearances at home (Bestival, Rockness) and abroad (Sonar, Lollapaloza), as well as the release of his debut album Trouble. There’s nothing extinct about the electro bleeps and heavy basslines. Totally enormous indeed. (CS) Music previews by Laurence Green, Nora McLeese, Costas Sarkas and Eva Stamler

Lucky Voice Neighbours Night, every Wed at Lucky Voice Soho, W1F 7NH, and Islington, N1 1RG, from £5 Wednesday nights just got sweeter for the neighbours of these two venues. If you can prove you’ve got a W1 or N1 postcode, you get 50 per cent off a karaoke booth. Sing your heart out. The Penthouse, Tue-Sat, WC2H 7NA, from £10 Enjoy stunning views of Big Ben and the London Eye whilst partying. Dine at the 7th floor restaurant first to get free admission.

3 months full-time or 1 year part-time World class education needn’t take forever. It should be well planned, continually adapted to the times and presented by passionate professionals. That’s what happens at Shillington College and we have the record to prove it. Our students are taught by outstanding designers and are getting top design jobs. Starting with no prior experience they graduate with a professional portfolio and an in‑depth knowledge of the design programs. Enrolling now for September 2012 full- and part-time courses. London • Manchester • New York • Sydney • Melbourne • Brisbane www.shillingtoncollege.co.uk

Learn Graphic Design Fast.

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Reviews MUSIC

TOP 10 gigs BRINGING LIVE FUNK, SOUL, LATIN & JAZZ TO THE SOHO STAGE. BAR TICKETS £10 | SEATED TICKETS £15+ | DOORS 7PM Free bar entry with a student card until 30th June 2012 www.floriditalondon.com

LIVE AT FLORIDITA IN JUNE SPEEDOMETER

UK’s finest Funk revival band who worked many of the US funk legends including Sir Joe Quarterman, Eddie Bo, Marva Whitney, Sharon Jones and Lee Fields

FUNKSHONE

Original funk act acclaimed for their wild funk drum breaks, razor sharp rhythm section, driven bass lines and a whole lot of soul

KING PORTER STOMP

King Porter Stomp delivers a unique union of upbeat ska, dub and conscious hip hop

HANNAH WILLIAMS & THE TASTEMAKERS

London’s Deep Soul’s Funkiest New Diva - “A funk bomb waiting to go off!” – Blues & Soul Magazine –

STAC

Part of the uber cool Wah Wah 45’s label stable, Stac brings her off-kilter and highly original soulful sound which has won her many fans to the heart of Soho

THE MIGHTY MOCAMBOS

The stuntmen of Funk who recently opened for Lee Fields

REUBEN RICHARDS

& SOUL TRAIN One of the tightest bands in town blending the Soul of the man, sprinkled with a touch of Blues and Gospel, and seasoned with R&B

Every weekend on rotation the hottest Latin sounds around, perfect for dancing the night away, with:

ROBERTO PLA (FRI) CUBAN COMBINATION (FRI) LOS CHARLYS ORCHESTRA (SAT) 100 WARDOUR STREET | LONDON W1F 0TN 020 7314 4000 | info@ﬂoriditalondon.com

Coldplay Emirates Stadium & Wembley Stadium, June 1, 2, 4, June 9 The little band from UCL have grown so big that one stadium’s just not enough. After their penultimate album, producer Brian Eno told them they could do better. And they did. Paradise, off their latest, is one of the catchiest lighter-aloft stadium anthems ever. Avicii O2 Arena, June 4 Avicii’s arena-exclusive tour is the first of its kind for a house DJ, who are normally relegated to dark club corners. The 22-year-old Swede pulled off another coup last December when both his song Levels and the song that samples it (Flo Rida’s Good Feeling) sat side-by-side in the UK Top 5. A$AP Rock Electric Ballroom, June 5, 6 The Harlem rapper is making his live debut with a string of European dates. Expect tracks from mixtape LiveLoveA$AP and upcoming album. He’s undoubtedly one of the most talked about artists of the moment and a must-see for fans of hip-hop. Keane O2 Academy Brixton, June 8 The alternative group from Sussex have been riding high since 2004, and their live shows have always garnered positive reviews. The group’s songwriter and pianist Tim Rice-Oxley has compared their new album Strangeland to 2006’s Under The Iron Sea, so long-standing fans won’t be disappointed. Alanis Morissette O2 Academy Brixton, June 27 Alanis Morissette is still best known for Jagged Little Pill, the soundtrack to female teenage angst of the ’90s. But late last year, the Canadian songstress announced she’d recorded 31 new songs for her follow-up to 2008’s

Flavors of Entanglement, which was inspired by her split from fiancé Ryan Reynolds. On the heels of its release, she will play three UK gigs. Garbage Brixton Academy, July 1 ’90s favourites Garbage return to promote their first studio album in seven years. Self-releasing it on their own label STUNVOLUME, Shirley Manson and co. are looking to recapture their uniquely fiery brand of slickly produced alt-rock. Gabrielle Aplin Dingwalls, July 5 Expect cutesy acoustic pop from 19-year-old YouTube sensation Gabrielle Aplin who has amassed more than six million views over the course of her three EP releases. Laura Marling Royal Albert Hall, July 7 This grand venue marks a celebratory culmination to an incredible couple of years for Laura Marling in which she took home a BRIT and released her third album, A Creature I Don't Know, to universal acclaim. Lady Antebellu Hammersmith Apollo, July 16 The Grammy-winning American country group of Need You Now fame tour their latest album, Own The Night. Selling 347,000 copies in the US in its first week, it topped the country charts for 13 weeks. Lady Gaga Twickenham Stadium, Sep 8-9 On her Born This Way tour Lady Gaga promises ‘the most spectacular show London has ever seen’. From most artists you’d dismiss this as PR fluff. She’s actually building a castle on stage. Danny Boyle, director of the Olympic opening ceremony, has some monster competition on his hands. Compiled by Laurence Green, Nora McLeese and Bizu Yaregal

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Film Blockbuster Diary:

June 1: Prometheus; Snow White and the Huntsman

15: Jaws

20: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

29: Storage 24

July 3: The Amazing Spider-Man

20: The Dark Knight Rises

Aug 3: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

13: The Bourne Legacy

17: The Expendables 2

22: Total Recall

Sep 7: Dredd 28: Looper; Resident Evil: Retribution

Unoriginal sins

Neil Clarke finds more action than ideas in the summer blockbusters Of the summer blockbusters, only the timetravelling Looper and Storage 24 are true originals. The first features an assassin who discovers his target is himself, but older (and balder – he’s played by Bruce Willis). The second is an attempt to do a 28 Days Later for monster movies, and is a British poor relation. Our film industry simply doesn’t have the resources for ‘proper’ blockbusters – although the new Judge Dredd film looks set to challenge this assertion. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, adapted from the book, looks too similar to Van Helsing for comfort, and taps into an already-wearying trend for mash-up. [And what’s with this turning Presidents into action heroes? FDR: American Badass, out in late September in the US, features Roosevelt fighting off a werewolf invasion.] Otherwise we’re forced to make do with further G.I. Joe and Resident Evil instalments (barely acceptable even if you’re a 13-year-old boy, with no friends), and a new version of Total Recall apparently shockingly bereft of the tri-breasted prostitute.

As for The Expendables 2, this is the sort of film it would only be excusable to watch if it were being played on a coach, in Peru (which it probably already is), while cranked up to an unavoidable volume. At least The Bourne Legacy appears constructed with a proficiency which suggests it’d be possible to sit through. Snow White and the Huntsman also looks pretty decent and full-blooded, especially compared with this year’s previous take on the story, Mirror Mirror.

And then there’s the third entry in the current po-faced, self-regarding Batman trilogy. Would someone please bring back the camp into Batman? Christopher Nolan’s insistence on realism only makes Christian Bale’s infrasonically voiced Caped Crusader more ridiculous. ‘It’s like The Godfather, only with capes!’ No. It’s not.

‘Integrity, creativity and innovation stand little chance in the face of the studios’

It’s not news that trifling matters like integrity, creativity and innovation stand little chance given that studios hate to gamble with their mammoth expenditures, but the rebooting of the Spider-Man franchise is an unashamed demonstration of this. With Raimi and Maguire out and Andrew Garfield in, even this series has come over all portentous, absurdly, for such a transparent piece of outsider wish-fulfilment.

Not so coincidentally, Jaws, often credited as having invented the mass-release summer blockbusters, is re-released in June. At least Spielberg’s shark tale had one good result: Alien (1979), originally pitched to the studios as ‘Jaws in Space’. Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s return to ‘the universe of Alien’, and advance word is terrific. But it’s arguable that the killer aliens are one of those perfectly formed creations which don’t need their origins explained, in the way that no one needed to know Darth Vader used to have scatter-cushions.

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Reviews Film

Neil Clarke, Film Editor Favourite travel film: Koyaanisqatsi and Life in a Day, which show disparate footage from all around the world. Or Werner Herzog’s re-cut of A Year in the Taiga; insights into the day-to-day lives of those subsisting in what could be an almost entirely different world. Most adventurous trip: Travelling around South America was pretty damn special. No encounters with machete-wielding drug dealers or coked-up gunrunners! Romancing the Stone, it isn’t. Worst summer holiday: Getting horrendously sunburnt in a Kentish town.

The anger in manga Neil Clarke reviews the teen vigilante movie Himizu

To say this film is easy to watch would be an untruth. But maybe that’s unsurprising given that this is the third instalment in Sion Sono’s ‘Hate Trilogy’: the other two being Love Exposure (a four-hour meditation on religion and up-skirt photography) and Cold Fish (about a serial-killing tropical fish enthusiast). This adaptation of Minoru Furuya’s manga concerns a teenage boy, Sumida, who is trying to live a quiet life, ‘like a mole’ (the himizu of

Keith Lemon: The Film Leigh Francis, Kelly Brook, Verne Troyer Release: Aug 24

It’s a matter of some bafflement that, ten years on from Bo’ Selecta!, Leigh Francis still exists. That a refugee from that programme, and a character deemed worthy of his own show by ITV2 (alarm bells, anyone?), has been granted the opportunity to carve what is presumably intended to be a furrow in Sacha Baron Cohen’s field… Surely this is one of the signifiers of the end times? The prospect could scarcely get any more pitiful unless you, say, threw in some washed-up celebs. Well, Verne Troyer, Kelly Brook, and David Hasselhoff. As if playing himself playing a lifeguard in Piranha 3DD wasn’t humiliation enough already.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Ai Weiwei Release: Aug 10

First-time filmmaker Alison Klayman must have been thanking her lucky stars as Ai Weiwei’s international fame skyrocketed during the period she was following him for this documentary. This artist-cum-political activist’s run-ins with the People’s Republic authorities could have succumbed to easy topicality. Instead – and despite the danger of documentary portraits becoming necessarily hagiographic – Klayman has delivered an investigation of a man

the title), in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. This wouldn’t be wildly dramatic, though, so instead he is driven off his rocker by a combination of parental abuse, neglect and the attentions of debt-collecting yakuza gangsters. This leads him to become a knife-wielding wannabevigilante on an ‘existential quest’ to prove himself in a world of unhinged crazies. Obviously. The trailer describes the film as, ‘an unpredictable and emotional courageous enough to challenge a corrupt governmental system. When asked whether he has become a brand, Ai responds that he has become ‘a brand for liberal thinking and individualism’. Which sounds like merely a cute line… Until you remember that it got him detained without charge for two months, and realise how involved he was in promoting transparency in cases of governmental cover-ups, like the suppression of details of deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Teri Meri Kahaani Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra Release: June 22

A triple-whammy love story comprising segments set in 1910, 1960, and 2012 (this part in London), with the cast playing different characters in each, is an interesting premise. It’s almost impossible not to imagine equivalent multi-era permutations of existing films: say, a Puritan Annie Hall, or a Roaring Twenties Eternal Sunshine. (Or, why not go the whole

experience that stabs you in the heart’. Says it all, really. And it’s an emotional experience which constitutes quite a lot of crying, screaming, shouting, slapping and punching; both Sumida and stalkercum-love interest Keiko really shouldn’t be that pretty after the amount of beatings they take. At times quite hard to watch, the violence is counterpointed by the presence of sitcom-ish neighbours displaced by the disaster and living in tents, creating a tonal imbalance hardest to avoid in relation to the disquieting verisimilitude of scenes filmed in the tsunami wreckage. The film is not without its faults, including occasionally clunky dialogue, and the tsunamiaftermath setting doesn’t quite fit – it was incorporated into the script after its completion. But it does at least try to say something important about damaged people, and the cycles of violence and mental imbalance in which they can become caught. Himizu lacks the greater sense of fun of Love Exposure, but does at least suggest a chink of optimism in its final children-are-the-future assertion to ‘not give up’. Himizu is released on June 1

hog and relocate Moby Dick to outer space? Oh, wait; they’re already on that. Really.) Format aside, the vibrant artificiality and raging camp of its production design is quite fun – not unlike Depression-era musicals – while both stars have enough charisma to mainly avoid the pitfalls of bland on-screen romantic pairings.

Anna Karenina Keira Knightley, Jude Law Release: Sep 7

Another month, another period drama for Keira Knightley. That woman clearly has a masochistic thing for corsets. After the

Reviews Film

Strawberry Fields Anna Madeley, Emun Elliot

Release: July 6

Ill Manors Riz Ahmed, Natalie Press Release: June 6

Due to the vagaries of endlessly variable release dates, a full review of Ben Drew AKA Plan B’s directorial debut appeared in our last issue. Could it be that some last-minute tinkering has been deemed to be in order? Let’s hope so: scrapping the last, oooh, half, for starters would much improve matters. Facetiousness aside, there

might even be a good film struggling to find its voice behind the flashy look-at-me camera effects. A London of guns and gangs and pimps never seems to lend itself to articulate, clear-eyed representation – sadly, as such an approach could create something potentially timely and worthwhile. With a more coherent plot, better characterisation, and maybe more made of a nascent multiperspective format, this could have been a workable drama. As it is, it compares poorly with last year’s Top Boy mini-series from Channel 4, where ‘grittiness’ isn’t mistaken for meaningfulness.

It’s hard to avoid the shadow cast by the recent Martha Marcy May Marlene over a film described by the distributor as ‘a twisted tale of sibling rivalry, sexual awakening and mind games one hot English summer’. And that’s a mixed blessing given the overly-effusive reviews for that film which, though efficient, was really just another example of a specific indie-cinema subset characterised by uncomfortable events in sun-kissed bucolic settings (see My Summer of Love, Mean Creek, The Scouting Book for Boys, a few François Ozons). The consensus from last year’s BFI London Film Festival is that this is a visually gorgeous little number, with a beautiful presentation of its Kent strawberry farm locations. Some find the characters’ motives and behaviour insufficiently well drawn, but it seems churlish to condemn rather than embrace the existence of any ‘micro-budgeted’ British filmmaking.

entertaining but uneven live-action cartoon Hanna, Joe Wright returns to literary adaptation, apparently with a hankering to tackle a heavyweight author. Trailerless at the time of writing, it’s unlikely that this will be anything less than a handsomelymounted historical weepie, with Knightley doing her wistfully pouty shtick. Aaron Johnson, the young fiancé of artist Sam Taylor-Wood, gets the tougher job of trying not to look ridiculous while rocking blond curls and a ’tache, the poor lamb. (Note: he fails.)

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Rewind

A classic scene revisited Film: The Ghost (2010) Director: Roman Polanski

Writer and director Asad Shan’s top travel scene I love Roman Polanski’s films. I saw The Ghost recently, where Ewan McGregor plays the ghostwriter of the Prime Minister’s memoirs, in the island of Martha’s Vineyard off the American east coast. It’s a masterpiece of suspense. But also it makes sense for a writer to go to some small town to work. And because a major politician was involved – Pierce Brosnan is great as the Tony Blair figure, he’s a real actor now – the environment is even more protected and closed off from the world. The scene that really sticks in my mind is when the ghostwriter is investigating the death of his predecessor who supposedly fell from the ferry and drowned. He meets this old guy in a cottage by the sea, who says, ‘I’ve lived here 54 years, and I’ve never seen tides that would wash a body up in that way.’ He knows something suspicious was going on at the beach, but didn’t bother to report it; he’s happy, doesn’t want any trouble. You see that in society: someone gets stabbed, and they just walk away. Should we do what is right? Or what makes us contented? It made me think.

Rock of Ages Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta

Release: June 15

Okay, the pros: 1) Director Adam Shankman’s Hairspray remake was arguably better than John Waters’ weirdly tame original. 2) There looks to be a certain amount of fun to be had with the eclectic ensemble cast (well, if Alec Baldwin with long hair does it for you). 3) Bryan Cranston. And the cons: 1) ’80s nostalgia.

Enough said. 2) There’s apparently no equivalent of Hairspray’s civil rights plot, or even the opportunity for fat chicks to shine. 3) Russell Brand. As for Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Republican, that could go either way. Musicals are one of those puzzling mediums which can whip up a frightening level of hysteria in their audience, so if you’re going to see this, you’re going to see it. But caution is advised when the best they could find for the climax of the trailer is a clip of Tom Cruise squeakily signing a girl’s breasts.

My own movie, 7 Welcome to London, is also a thriller about roots and rootlessness, and about doing the right thing. It’s the story of an immigrant to East London, who gets a call from his parents in Delhi: he has to find £50,000 in 24 hours, or their lives are in danger from a loan shark. I’m taking it to Cannes. I love it there. When I took the trailer last year, I went to ten parties a night, hopping between yachts and marquees. Most deals are done over a champagne breakfast, and the rest of the day is about having a good time!

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Reviews FILM

The Turin Horse János Derzsi, Erika Bók

Festivals Open City Docs Fest, June 21-24 A hundred films from round the world are screened on the UCL campus. A highlight will be the world premiere of the re-edited Flashback, a superb record of 1993’s Glastonbury Festival, which goes on selected release on June 29. East London Film Festival, July 1-8 Opening with the premiere of a never-seen Amy Winehouse concert film, and closing with The Last Elvis, this is a biggerthan-ever celebration of music and movies.

Release: June 1

Ice Age: Continental Drift Release: July 13

FILM4 Fright Fest, Aug 23-27 The ‘Home of Horror’ attracts thousands of genre fans each August to the Empire Cinema for premieres, previews, personal appearances, signings and scares.

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

Portobello Film Festival, Sep 1-18 Over 17 years old, this launched the careers of Shane Meadows and Guy Ritchie. All screenings and events are free, taking place in bars, studios, parks, galleries and cinemas.

Release: Aug 17

Release: July 27

Brave

The western attitude to animated films still – still! – amounts to ‘cartoons are for kids’; so, while we wait for a rival to foreign animation greats Katsuhiro Otomo, Marjane Satrapi, or Satoshi Kon, here’s what we have to contend with.

Ice Age continues to career towards a long-overdue extinction, still essaying an eminently hateful glibness. At least its subtitle might prompt inquiry into plate tectonics. By contrast, despite having to develop a new story around the original environmental fable, Dr Seuss’ The Lorax looks quite sweet, and imaginatively strange. Zac Efron voices the 12-year-old Ted while, in an inspired move, a gravelly Danny DeVito plays the diminutive Lorax. In spite of Cars, Pixar-backlash has yet to occur, and, though nearer to conventional Disney output, Brave seems unlikely to provoke scores of haters. At least the lead strikes a blow for gingers everywhere, and isn’t quite as insufferably simpering as the Disney Princesses franchise.

TOP 10 outdoor screenings

Syon Park, Aug 9-12 With 40 acres of gardens a short walk from Richmond tube, the grounds of this estate become an amazing place to take in classics under the stars. Price TBA, www.syonpark.co.uk

Rooftop Film Club, until Aug 30 Take three really cool London rooftop locations with stunning views: Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch, the Roof Gardens in High St Kensington and Netil House in Hackney. Add a bunch of classics – from The Big Lebowski to the The King’s Speech – and throw in wireless headphones, drinks and comfy seats and all you need to do is voodoo chant the weather into submission! From £10, www.rooftopfilmclub.com Made in Britain, June 6-8 Curated by East London’s Rich Mix, these daytime screenings bring animation and features to the Broadgate Circle. This year is Jubilee themed so expect the best of British. Free, www.richmix.org.uk

Midsummer Night Screen, June 22, July 20, Aug 31 They’re rolling out the astroturf again at Dalston Roof Park for themed evenings on films with cool soundtracks: early ’90s for Empire Records on June 22; pink wigs for Lost in Translation on July 20; a preppy pool party for The Graduate on August 31. £7, www.midsummernightscreen.com

Film 4 Summer Screen, Aug 16-25 Tickets for this annual film frenzy at Somerset House on the Strand sell out faster than a Lady Gaga acoustic session in Soho Square. Booking opened on May 18, so be quick. Combining classics and double bills with UK premieres and awesome surround-sound in one of London’s most beautiful courtyards, this is a summer institution. From £14.50, www.somersethouse.org.uk

Pop Up Screens, from July 6 Setting up in areas where students can actually afford to live (Hammersmith, Morden, Lewisham), Pop Up Screens have lined up seven kick-ass weekends of everything from Weird Science and Anchorman to Top Gun and Dirty Dancing, with a bar and ostrich burgers. £8, www.popupscreens.co.uk

The Nomad, from Aug 18 Last year London’s roaming pop-up cinema organised circus artists performing alongside The Lost Boys in a Zippo’s Big Tent and a live jazz band preceding Some Like It Hot at the Opera Holland Park. Fully fledged themed events, not just screenings. From £8.50, www.whereisthenomad.com

A deliberately repetitive, sedate black and white meditation on the ‘heaviness of human existence’, comprised of 30 long shots, sounds like a parody of a tedious auteurist ‘masterwork’. Yet the long-awaited and self-declared final film of Béla Tarr looks astonishing. The Turin Horse takes as its starting point the whipped horse which Friedrich Nietzsche supposedly encountered, shortly before a mental collapse which blighted the last ten years of the philosopher’s life. Following the monotonous lives of this titular horse and its owners, the trailers alone have a weird power, despite their lack of dialogue. What’s extraordinary about this director, who has set out to articulate an evocation of humanity’s struggle through life, is that he can elevate such hardships to a soberly apocalyptic pitch. Oh, and if the 146-minute runtime isn’t enough, check out Tarr’s seven-hour Sátántangó. Film previews by Neil Clarke

Chiswick House Open Air Film, Aug 30-31 Genteel Chiswick House seems ideal for Keira-corseter Pride and Prejudice on August 30. Less so for The Blues Brothers the next night, though it does give you the chance to wear sunglasses after dark. £12.50, www.chgt.org.uk The Scoop Outdoor Film Screenings, Sep 12-28 It’s hard to beat Tower Bridge as a backdrop. Especially when you’re paying zilch to check out classics and new releases in this cool little amphitheatre outside City Hall (far left). Turn up early, with a cushion. Free, www.morelondon.com/scoop.html Peckham & Nunhead Free Film Festival, Sep 13-23 This little festival (near left) could have anything from a live DJ scoring of Battleship Potemkin on the roof of a Peckham car park to bike-powered screenings at Herne Hill velodrome. Free, www.freefilmfestivals.org Compiled by Costas Sarkas

Photo by Siobhan Dempsey © Copyright South Wind Blows Design & Art Direction StudioPretty.com

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Stage ‘Some of the biggest stars in London theatre started at the Fringe’

Fringe benefits Christine Twite tells you how to get the most from Edinburgh’s festivals As London’s Olympics draw to a close, the cultural Olympics begin. Just four hours on the train, through some of the most beautiful countryside and coastline in the country, takes you to the largest festival in the world. The Edinburgh Festival has been a British institution since 1947, but don’t be confused: the term actually refers to several different festivals going on at once, spanning theatre, film, literature, international work, art, jazz and blues, in an explosion of creative forces. The initial plan was to create an ‘Edinburgh International Festival’ to pull Britain out of the 1940s gloom of rationing and austerity, and celebrate foreign culture in the wake of post-war xenophobia. But eight theatre companies who had not been officially invited gate-crashed the city, securing their own spaces and promoting their own work. This became known as the ‘Edinburgh Fringe Festival’, and so began two of the major parts of the annual super-festival in August: the International Festival and the Fringe Festival.

The Fringe Festival, or EdFringe as it is affectionately known, now attracts thousands of artists, comedians and theatre-makers with its famous open-door policy: anyone who can pay the train ticket and find somewhere to sleep can perform. Some of the biggest stars in London theatre started here. Benedict Cumberbatch, who recently won Best Actor Olivier in the National Theatre’s Frankenstein (as well as playing Sherlock Holmes on TV), made his Fringe debut as a student in 1998 in Rat in the Skull. West End starlet Sheridan Smith (also fresh from Olivier success) appeared in National Youth Music Theatre’s Bugsy Malone in 1997. Productions that do well at the EdFringe can find new life touring across the UK and beyond, and even now London venues are still booking hits from last year’s festival. Of course, for every success story there’s a depressingly bad comedian or an ill-thought-out student flop. But it’s part of the Fringe’s charm that the Joe Bloggses of the world can stand side to side

with the John Malkoviches; and occasionally, it is the unknowns who come up trumps. The best way to experience the festival is to book a few key shows ahead (say from the International Festival, and some fringe shows at the Traverse, Pleasance, Gilded Balloon and Underbelly), then just chat to the other festival goers once you’re up there to see what the underground hits are. Stock up on sleep before you go – there are shows around the clock. Last year’s Herald Angel Award-winner was Hotel Medea, an all-night extravaganza from dusk till dawn (playing at London’s Hayward Gallery July 21-Aug 11). For the early birds this year – or those who have not been to bed at all – Shakespeare for Breakfast starts around 9am and serves up croissants and blank verse to a sleepy morning audience each day. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on August 3-27, www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk, www.edfringe.com, www.eif.co.uk

Reviews stage

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Going up Christine Twite explains why you should be catching LIFT

From the middle of the West End to a car-park in Croydon, the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) shows that all the world’s a stage. Top of the billing has to be the amazing eight-hour version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby created by New York’s Elevator Repair Service. Renamed Gatz, the show is set in the office of a small business where one employee finds a copy of the novel on his desk. As he reads the book aloud, the office background begins strangely to parallel the narrative. You’ll be pleased to know there are three intervals for the show, including an extended dinner break so you can return refreshed. The Arab Spring has initiated

not just new political freedoms in the Middle East, but new forms of artistic expression in response. This year over half of the LIFT shows are from the Middle East, including shows straight from Iraq, Tunisia and Lebanon. In the world premiere of 66 Minutes in Damascus, the audience arrive as tourists in Syrian capital, only to be arrested by the secret service and drawn into a very visceral experience of contemporary Syrian troubles. White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, a hit of last year’s Edinburgh festival, is written by Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour. As he is unable to leave the country, his absence is marked by an empty chair on stage. Each night a new performer

‘This year half of the shows are from the Middle East’

reads out the script, never having laid eyes on it before, in front of an audience who are occasionally called upon to act as characters in the narrative. Closer to home, You Once Said Yes is a one-on-one theatre experience in which you are led on a series of encounters in London,

Backstage:

meeting characters who ask you to make choices that affect the outcome of your story. So you’re not just an audience member, but writer and performer too. London International Festival of Theatre takes place across London, June 12-July 15, www.liftfestival.com

Comedy

Anthony Gray, Royal Opera House

Anthony Gray, 30, went to Trinity College of Music, trained as a classical singer and performed across the country. Travelling to Brazil he discovered a music education programme, and came back to the Royal Opera House as an education officer. He explains what happens before curtain-up. What happens backstage before a big opera? It’s madness. We have three or four different shows on the main stage, so each matinee or evening performance the technicians have to move the sets to get the correct show in place. (The sets weigh tonnes so we have a fully automated floor to move things.) As a singer you need have a warm-up with the chorus master, so by the ‘half ’ – 35 minutes before the curtain goes up – you can get into costume and makeup. The important singers have their own personal make-up artists and dressers. As a singer or chorus member, what do you do during the show itself ?

Simon Amstell, Numb, 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, June 8, 9, from £25 Amstell left Never Mind the Buzzcocks because he was fed up of being mean. This from a man who once made Britney Spears cry. The new show offers soul-searching on loneliness and depression – you’ll see the funny side.

You have to keep your energy high and concentrate on warming up your voice. Operas can last up to three hours, so when you’re not on stage you need to keep your voice warm and body relaxed. It’s exhausting! Once you’ve done La Bohême for the twentieth time, people tend to get into a bit of a routine and often can relax on stage more than you’d imagine. Does anything ever go wrong during a performance? Sometimes during quick changes, singers have been known to go on with half their dresses undone at the back because they didn’t have time to do it up. It can look funny from the side of the stage, but the audience can’t see. Contrary to popular belief, working with our

Youth Opera Company children is brilliant. The kids are actually very professional and want to get everything perfect. I often see them reminding the adults what to do before they go on stage! What advice would you give to would-be singers? Getting into a good music school is important. There are a lot of schemes and institutions for aspiring opera singers: the National Opera Studio is one, and at the Royal Opera House we have the Jette Parker Young Artists’ Scheme. Opera is mental; you have to have a good social life. I still do athletics training every week and love my hip-hop music. It keeps me sane! Interview: Christine Twite

Jimmy Carr, Gagging Order, Richmond Theatre, June 17, from £25 The most ruthless comedy machine of TV and stage will crush you with his wit. Greenwich Comedy Festival, Old Royal Naval College, July 13-20, from £12 Stars include Sean Lock, Isy Suttie, Richard Herring and Jerry Sadowitz. So intense it takes place in two tents. Rhys Darby, This Way to Spaceship, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, July 20-23, from £21 2012 is the end of the world in the Mayan calendar and, in his first UK show, the Flight of the Conchords star is sure the superpowers have a spaceship in which to flee and he wants to climb on board.

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Reviews STAGE

Witness

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The Royal Court Theatre, June 1-30, SW1W 8AS, from £20. www.royalcourttheatre. com

Christine Twite, Stage Editor Most adventurous holiday: Trekking in the Atlas mountains in Morocco: honestly, the most beautiful place in the world. Must-see play outside London: Anything up in Edinburgh this August, obviously! (See p30 for my suggestions on how to survive.) Summer is the season for outdoor Shakespeare too. Favourite al fresco theatre: It has to be the Minack theatre in Cornwall. It’s set into a cliff rock-face and looks over the sea. Glorious!

Guardian

Crow

The Borough Hall at Greenwich Dance, June 18-July 7, SE10 8RE, from £10. www.nationaltheatre. org.uk

Handspring Puppet Company is fast becoming one of the most imaginative theatre companies. Having brought to life the horses in the sensational War Horse, the company has now set its sights on a more mature and philosophical theme: Crow, the book of poems by Ted Hughes. This is no children’s

The Times

Time Out

show: although Hughes did begin the poems for children, the character of crow quickly became a sardonic quasi-human figure who sees the grotesque nature of life as well as the beauty. Expect masterful puppetry mixed with Hughes’s insightful writing. This production is part of the larger Greenwich + Docklands International Festival (GDIF), bringing a host of interesting productions to East London, including a large selection of free shows. Check out the Greenwich Fair, a 21st century reimagining of a Dickensian Fair with a host of fascinating productions and events.

The Royal Court’s Jerwood New Playwrights programme has been going for some time now, and has helped discover and support some of the most important playwrights of our time, from Sarah Kane to David Greig and Mark Ravenhill to Ayub Khan Din. Vivienne Franzmann, whose The Witness is coming soon to the Royal Court, is one such writer who is lucky enough to be supported by the scheme. In this, her second play, she charts the story of Alex, a girl from Rwanda, who was captured on film by a photographer from England. After her picture won him awards, the photographer adopted her and took her back home. But Alex is now grown up, back from university, and things are beginning to unravel about the past. With performances from David Ajala, Pippa BennettWarner and Danny Webb, this hard-hitting show should be a highlight.

Presents

Operation Greenfield Battersea Arts Centre | 7 – 23 June | 8pm* Operation Greenfield is a visually fantastical and quirky exploration of faith and friendship. With a stage full of instruments and the thrilling beat of live music, Little Bulb Theatre capture the confusing, awkward and beautifully naïve time of adolescence. In this fast paced, feel-good show audiences join them in an innocent and extraordinary rollercoaster ride into adulthood. *On 19 & 23 June the show starts at 9.45pm. Watch the European Championship match at BAC.

£15 (£10 concs)

Booking: 020 7223 2223

www.bac.org.uk Battersea Arts Centre Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TN

‘so recklessly talented you want to hug them’ Guardian

Reviews STAGE

Pina Bausch, the subject of a startlingly beautiful film premiered by Wim Wenders last year, was one of the greatest modern choreographers. The melancholic, bizarre and sometimes darkly funny works she created for Tanztheater Wuppertal were lauded the world over until her premature death a few years ago. Since then rumours of the

company’s split have been rife, but Tanztheater is still together and is now bringing work to the London 2012 festival, part of the Olympic celebrations. Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican have joined forces to bring together ten productions by Pina themed around ten different cities. Tanztheater would move to each city for a time to soak up the atmosphere and culture, then go back to Wuppertal to create a dance piece from their experiences. Each is unforgettable in its own way: Hong Kong’s piece Der Fensterputzer is set to the backdrop of a hill made from red silk roses, while ...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si si si... considers Santiago.

Fear

1936

The Bush Theatre has only just moved to its new home and already it has boasted a splendid range of new plays, one even directed by a certain David Schwimmer. Now it’s landed another coup in securing Dominic Savage’s first play. Dominic Savage was a child actor in the 1970s, appearing in TV series and even Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. He didn’t turn to writing and directing until his thirties, but made an almost immediate impact with a Best New Director BAFTA. With acclaimed BBC dramas such as Born Equal and Freefall behind him, he turns to the stage for the very first time. His story starts with a failed robbery leading to the death of a banker, and spirals out into the larger landscape of contemporary London, considering difference and greed in the modern world.

While most of London’s theatre industry is quietly pretending that the biggest sports event on earth isn’t in town, Sadler’s Wells revives a fascinating play, first performed at the Arcola Theatre in 2010, that puts under the spotlight some of the darker issues behind the Games. The play focuses on the 1936 Olympics that were held in Berlin, at a time when Hitler was in power. We witness the plight of the athletes from around the world, whose awareness of Hitler’s treatment of Jewish athletes forces them into a moral dilemma. Tom McNab, who is a former Olympic coach, wrote 1936 and will be speaking after the performance with other sports personalities about the play and its resonance in modern times.

Pina Bausch World Cities

Barbican and Sadler’s Wells, June 6-July 9, from £15. www.sadlerswells.com and www.barbican.org.uk

PENNY ARCADE: BITCH! DYKE! FAGHAG! WHORE! Arcola Theatre, June 27July 22, E8 3DL, from £15. www.arcolatheatre.com

You can probably tell by the title that the production contains ‘adult themes and content’. But mindless comedy this is not. More art house than fringe theatre, the hot-headed American performance artist

Penny Arcade brings to London her international cult hit. The show, created in 1990, mixes theatre, cabaret and erotic go-go dancing. But there is a point to all this revelry, as Penny skilfully begins to question current conceptions of gender, sexuality and feminism. If you are as intrigued as us about the go-go dancing (apparently she sometimes hires local erotic dancers to help her out), be sure to arrive a good half an hour before the performance starts, so that you can experience the fun first hand.

Bush Theatre, June 18-July 14, W12 8LJ, from £10. www. bushtheatre.co.uk

Tender Napalm

Southwark Playhouse, June 11-23, SE1 2TF, from £10. www.southwarkplayhouse. co.uk

‘Your mouth... it’s such a wet thing. I could squeeze a bullet between those lips.’ The premise is simple. Two people, a man and a woman, sit opposite each other on the stage. What follows is a startling

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piece of new writing, following the way in which love can be both passionate and agonising. The two characters mythologise their relationship, rearticulate it and reform it in front of your eyes. This is a revival of the production from last year, which opened to energetically positive reviews. Written by the award-winning Philip Ridley, the production comes back to London for a few weeks only following a UK tour.

Sadler’s Wells, July 18August 5, EC1R 4TN, from £25. www.sadlerswells.com

Stage previews by Christine Twite

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Reviews STAGE

DISCOVER A WORLD OF ARTS IN A SQUARE MILE

BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Exclusive Student Discounts 40% off tickets for the ‘Postcard’ Series - now only £6 ‘Postcards’ from the Balkans, Spain, Paris, Vienna, America’s East Coast, Leipzig, Home and Purgatory! Concerts from some of the world’s most talented young classical musicians in the City’s most beautiful churches Simply use code 62427 when booking at colf.org, or quote ‘The Book’ over the phone or on the door

Spectacular St Paul’s Cathedral Concerts from just £5 Mon 25 & Tues 26 June, 8pm Experience the epic Berlioz Requiem, with over 300 performers including the LSO and Sir Colin Davis.

Tues 3 July, 8pm The English National Ballet performs excerpts from Suite en blanc and two exciting new choreographic commissions set to music by Vivaldi and John Rutter.

Thurs 12 July, 8pm Arguably the greatest European jazz musician since Django Reinhardt, Jan Garbarek reprises his collaboration with The Hilliard Ensemble to play their mesmerising Officium Novum.

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Festival Sponsor

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre May 18-Sep 8 A Midsummer Night’s Dream always benefits from an al fresco setting. For something different, performances alternate with Ragtime: The Musical, which received 13 Tony Award nominations when it opened in New York. From £17.50, www.openairtheatre.org Watch this Space June 1-Sep 9 This year running as part of National Theatre Inside Out, the two-month festival of outdoor street theatre, cabaret, music and film will be taking over the South Bank’s Theatre Square with over 108 companies and around 450 performances. Free, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/insideout The Scoop June 6-8, June 13-15, July 5Aug 5 The Scoop’s plays are gloriously free, but still highly ambitious. Three frivolous nights each for Much Ado About Nothing and The Importance of Being Earnest are followed by The Trojan War and Peace – a free adaptation of Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy. Make sure to be there early to snatch one of the amphitheatre’s 800 seats. Free, www.steamindustryfreetheatre.org.uk Shakespeare’s Globe June 8-Oct 13 The open-air, free-standing Yard, in a replica of the theatre in which Shakespeare’s company performed, is the best way to experience The Bard as originally intended. This summer’s productions include Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, Hamlet, Twelfth Night and As You Like It. Most excitingly, Mark Rylance is back, playing Henry V, and Olivia in Twelfth Night. From £5, www.shakespearesglobe.com Ham House and Garden June 10 Ham House, in Richmond-uponThames, is one of Europe’s greatest 17th-century homes. It hosts the Cambridge Touring Theatre’s comical musical performance of The Sword in the Stone. £12.50, www.nationaltrust.org.uk

St. Paul’s Church June 28-Aug 4 The garden off Covent Garden Square is the hidden gem amongst London’s outdoor theatre venues. For this summer season it is creating an exciting promenade production of As You Like It. £9, www.iristheatre.com Old Schools Quadrangle, Bodleian Library July 11-26 The Bodleian Library is housed in a remarkable group of buildings which form the historic heart of the University of Oxford. The Old Schools Quadrangle (above) makes an atmospheric setting for Hamlet, performed on an Elizabethan-style stage in a touring production by Shakespeare’s Globe. £18, www.shakespearesglobe.com Winchester Cathedral July 21 Illyria touring theatre celebrates its 20th anniversary, and the Jubilee, with a rousing production of Henry V. Winchester is holding its own Best of British Festival, and this magnificent cathedral will make a spectacular backdrop. £12.50, www.illyria.uk.com Woburn Abbey Gardens Aug 4, 11, 18 There’s no better location to watch Jane Austen’s Emma than in these 30 acres of flower beds, woodland glades, ponds and lawns. Also showing: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aug 11) and Oscar Wilde’s evergreen The Importance of Being Earnest (Aug 18). £13.50, www.woburn.co.uk/abbey/ theatre Morden Hall Park Aug 16 In the historic rose garden of Morden Hall Park, the awardwinning Lord Chamberlain’s Men present ‘The Scottish Play’ as it used to be performed in the time of the Bard: as an authentic all-male production. Also touring to other historic venues around London. £14, www.tlcm.co.uk Compiled by Eva Stamler

Nick Holmes www.grumpychicken .co.uk

TOP 10 al fresco theatre

24 JUNE – 27 JULY

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Art

Clockwise from left: FLY, Smile Film No. 5, AMAZE Installation View This is Not Here, and Smile 2010 (detail)

The art and soul of Yoko Ono

It's time to acknowledge her art, not fame, says Faye Robson John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as ‘the world’s most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does’. The description holds true today. This is, in part, because her work has been so varied and experimental, but mostly because of Ono’s celebrity as the widow of a Beatle and the overwhelming attention that her other, more easily categorised, activities generate. She is, for example, a committed activitist, supporting a range of causes – from gay rights to autism awareness – under the wider banner of her ‘Imagine Peace’ initiative. Ono would doubtless argue that all of her endeavours, from poetry to charity work, are ‘art’ – each a way of expressing her characteristically positive and humane message – and her multidisciplinary approach has been embraced by Serpentine Gallery. To The Light, the first major London showing of Ono’s work for a decade, will include installation, film, performance and music.

One confirmed work is Smile, in which people from all over the world are invited to upload and share photos and videos of their smile. This warm-hearted piece follows on from Ono’s previous, and extremely popular, ‘wish tree’ project, the best known incarnation of which appeared at MoMA, New York, in 2010, where hundreds of people have so far followed Ono’s instruction to ‘Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it and tie it around a branch of the wish tree.’

forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies.’ These minimal, democratic instructions shift the emphasis of the artwork to the ephemeral and immaterial, and seem radical even today, in an art world still packed with saleable objects. They betray Ono’s formative involvement with the Fluxus group – a loose association of artists, musicians and writers, whose works are marked by an interest in chance and indeterminacy, as well as the art ‘event’ over and above the art object. Another less cosy theme in Ono’s work is the female body and bodily sensation more generally. The surface of the skin and the strange, fleeting nature of physical experience is emphasised by video works such as Fly (1970), in which a house fly is filmed as it wanders across Ono’s naked body. Similarly, in Cut Piece, first performed in Tokyo in 1964, audience members were instructed to ‘cut’ Ono’s draped clothes from her until she sat naked on stage. Perhaps an older and more polished Ono will not be performing this work at Serpentine, but it reminds us how original and ground-breaking her work could and can still be, when we are really willing to see it and her for what they are.

‘People from all over the world are invited to upload and share photos of their smile’

These pieces, emphasising communal effort and simple, even child-like, gestures, are just one strand of Ono’s output, and a strand some viewers may find one-dimensional or, dare I say it, sentimental. However, they have their roots in early conceptual projects such as Grapefruit, a book of simple instructions for meditative mental exercises: ‘Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody

Serpentine Gallery, W2 3XA, Jun 19-Sep 9, www. serpentinegallery.org

Reviews ART

A different class Artists turn teacher for a month. Faye Robson reports

Must-see exhibition outside London: I really want to see Miró: Sculptor in the open air at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Favourite outdoor art piece: It was only temporary (until May 27), but there was an amazing Louise Bourgeois Spider in the garden of the Freud Museum.

London is having a bumper year for exhibitions. A sprawling Lucian Freud retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery was followed by David Hockney’s eye-popping, blockbusting show at the Royal Academy; over 20 years’ worth of Damien Hirst’s art are on display at Tate Modern. There’s been no shortage of big, bold art to see. But what is there to do?

about the way they think? Hayward Gallery on the Southbank is offering just such an opportunity this summer, with over 100 artists from 60 nations participating in its Wide Open School programme. The first project of its kind, this high-energy, large-scale event transforms the gallery, for one month only, into a school designed and run by practising artists.

How about an experience that puts you at the centre; an opportunity to learn, not just about the things that artists produce and sell, but

Some of the ‘teachers’ are acting as lecturers rather than practical instructors (Tracey Emin will be talking with author Jeanette

Andy Warhol: The Portfolios

Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21 7AD, Jun 20-Sep 16. From £5. www.dulwichpicturegallery. org.uk

Hayward Gallery, SE1 8XX, Jun 11-Aug 5. From £6. www. thesouthbankcentre.co.uk

A space made so dark your eyes are not able to adjust. A room placed under a curse. A gallery filled with the waves of energy generated by a battery-powered transmitter. These are just some of the ‘invisible’ works exhibited in this thrilling survey of 60 years in conceptual, communicative art. Seeing isn’t always believing.

Warhol described life as ‘a series of images that change as they repeat’. If so, art mirrors life in these screenprint multiples, made from 1962 to 1984, including Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.

Invisible

You can build your own lie detector or learn to make sushi with a celebrated Japanese chef (classes by Mark Allen and Shimabuku, respectively). You can take a ride on the London Eye to learn about the history of time-keeping in the city, or practise meditation with Turner Prize nominee Roger Hiorns. I like the sound of Ernesto Neto’s Macro-Micro Sculpture Dance class on physicality. Go on, be bold and get up-close and personal with your favourite artists. Hayward Gallery, SE1 8XX, Jun 11-Jul 11, www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Road to 2012: Aiming High

National Portrait Gallery, WC2H 0HE, Jul 19-Sep 23. Free. www.npg.org.uk

The third, final and most ambitious exhibition in the Portrait Gallery’s photographic Road to 2012 series – documenting the Olympic project in Britain from every possible angle – finally opens, with highlights from all three years alongside new portrait commissions by artists Nadav Kander, Jillian Edelstein and Andersen & Low.

Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye

Tate Modern, SE1 9TG, Jun 28-Oct 14. From £12.20. www. tate.org.uk

Putting the ‘Modern’ back into Munch, this revisits the work of the Norwegian master best known for charged Expressionist paintings such as The Scream, exploring his engagement with turn-of-thecentury political events and ‘new’ technologies such as photography and film. The show features over 100 paintings and photographs, alongside little-known film works.

Most adventurous holiday: Not quite a holiday, but I was working in New York for six months, where I knew no one and had no money. Adventure! Worst summer holiday: West coast of Scotland with my parents when I was 17. Should have just gone to Ibiza.

As you may by now have gathered, this is no traditional art school – no one is advertising watercolour or life-drawing classes (though Mark Wallinger is presenting a two-day course on the history of drawing). Instead, the emphasis is on exchanging ideas and practising new ways of thinking.

Faye Robson, Art Editor

Winterson on ‘autobiography’ in art, for example), but most of the artists are getting truly hands-on, giving classes, workshops and seminars on subjects ranging from method acting to meditation.

By Margaret Wertheim. Photo © Institute For Figuring 2011

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Reviews ART

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The Unilever Series: Tino Sehgal

Tate Modern, SE1 9TG, Jul 17Oct 28. Free. www.tate.org.uk

The thirteenth commission in this iconic series, which has filled the Tate Modern Turbine Hall with everything from three-storey metal slides (Carsten Höller) to the light of a huge burning ‘sun’ (Olafur Eliasson). Sehgal creates ‘live’ works based on interactions and conversations with his audience. Art previews by Faye Robson

Shakespeare: staging the world

A collaboration between the British Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company, this wide-ranging exhibition brings together objects, performances and texts in an exploration of Shakespearean London, national identity and the power of theatre to transport. As renowned scholar Jonathan Bate has it: ‘Potentially the most exciting thing to have happened in my 30-year love affair with Shakespeare.’

Photo courtesy of Andrew Dunkley, Tate Photography

British Museum, WC1B 3DG, Jul 19-Nov 25. From £12. www. britishmuseum.org

Another London: International Photographers & City Life 1930-1980

Tate Britain, SW1P 4RG, Jul 27-Sep 16. From £8.50. www.tate.org.uk

As the eyes of the world turn to London in summer 2012, Tate takes a look back over photographic responses to our fair city, as captured by non-British photographers. Featuring iconic artists such as Bill Brandt, Henri CartierBresson and Robert Frank alongside lesser-known talents, this show takes in every aspect of London life – from Royal weddings to the arrival of punk.

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Reviews ART

Framed Ben Eine takes typography to a new level on the street, and even has one of his canvases in the White House Collection after it was gifted to the Obamas by Mrs Cameron. Outside Village Underground on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, this work is dedicated to Homes for London.

TOP 10 fringe galleries

Cell Project Space, E2 9DA Countless great small galleries can be found near Bethnal Green, including champions of new work Chisenhale Gallery and student-supporting Vyner Street Gallery. We love Cell Project Space as it rents space to, and exhibits the work of, emerging artists. Art Licks Tours, various locations This may not be an actual gallery, but we couldn’t leave out the walking tours run by the good people at Art Licks. With the aim of introducing you to ‘the art scene beyond the obvious’, these bi-monthly events take in pop-up galleries, artists’ studios and project spaces in Hackney, Hackney Wick and Peckham.

Foto8 Gallery, EC1Y 0TH The newly renovated Foto8 Gallery (formerly HOST) is London’s centre for photojournalism. As well as its popular Summershow, the gallery hosts great rotating exhibitions, photography workshops, documentary film screenings and artists’ talks. It’s also just across the road from the coffee-cumbike-shop Look Mum, No Hands. Parasol Unit, N1 7RW Not so small, Parasol gets little attention, despite its invariably beautiful shows and exciting publications programme. This not-for-profit gallery is devoted to contemporary art – their current show, dedicated to Belgian filmmaker David Claerbout, runs until August 10.

Showroom Gallery, NW8 8PQ It may have been around for 20 years, but Showroom still seems cutting-edge, with its commitment to community projects, emerging artists and ongoing collaborations with specialists from outside the art world. Recent projects include a series of talks, performances and screenings about ‘listening’ and the role of the voice. Tony’s Gallery, E2 6HR Nestled just off Brick Lane, this street and urban art gem will present a packed programme leading up to the Olympics. Catch the work of Christian Grillitsch, a young Berlin-based artist who makes intricate paintings by skidding his bicycle back wheel on the canvas. Matt’s Gallery, E3 4RR This summer the gallery will experiment with the dual presentation of an artist’s studio and a public exhibition, highlighting its policy of working closely with artists. From September 5, check out REVOLVER, curated by critic Richard Grayson and gallery director Robin Klassnik.

High Roller Society, E2 0SY Owned and run by one of London’s leading street artists, High Roller will be making a splash again this summer with their Whitecross Street Party on July 21-22 (far left). The Outsiders, W1D 4DG This porn-shop-turned-gallery sells its own exquisite limited-edition books on the ground floor, with fresh young talent given space in their basement ‘Dungeon’. American-bred Logan Hicks’ first show opens on July 20, featuring intricate, picturesque stencil paintings (near left). Village Underground, EC2A 3PQ When on Great Eastern Road, look up. You’ll see brightly graffitied tube trains on the top of a building. This is a studio and performance space for 50 artists, writers and film-makers, where exhibitions and gigs are held. On June 16 Amanda Palmer mixes the two with pop-up art and an acoustic set. Compiled by Faye Robson and Stephanie Keller

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Not so heavy metal

Forget Terminator 2. Liquid metal is real, discovers Nigel Kendall Is it just me, or has everything gone a little flat lately? Over the last ten years, every single field of human endeavour has been utterly transformed by a merry-go-round of digital technology. We consumers have draped ourselves in the finest gadgets that our money can buy, and increasingly tuned in on our high-speed mobile devices to discover when the next one will be out to replace them. The problem is that they’re all starting to look the same. Once it has been decided that the ideal shape for a mobile phone or a tablet is a big screen on the front with some clever gubbins stuffed inside the back panel, you don’t really leave yourself much wriggle room in the design department. The challenge is particularly acute for makers of Android handsets, whose products not only look the same, but even behave the same. In the world that Samsung, HTC and Toshiba (see review, page 41) inhabit, this problem is known as ‘product

differentiation’. For us consumers, the result is half an hour with a near-identical phone or tablet in each hand wondering which one to pick. Back in 1843, in a report to Congress, the boss of the US Patent Office said, ‘The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.’ I think I know how he felt.

‘Rumour has it that Apple has already bagged itself a supply of Liquidmetal for its next generation of phones’ Or, rather, I did. Until I discovered Liquidmetal. This recently developed material is as easily mouldable as plastic, stronger than steel, and has the atomic structure of a liquid, even though it’s a metal. It is almost certainly what our next generation of gadgets will be made of.

Liquidmetal allows perfect casting and no rough edges. It won’t scratch, and it’s lightweight and strong. Nearly 70 years after the introduction of the plastics that we all take for granted today, we stand on the verge of another materials revolution. Omega has already produced a watch with a Liquidmetal bezel, guaranteed never to fade, scratch or tarnish. Excited internet rumour has it that good old Apple has already bagged itself a supply of Liquidmetal for its next generation of phones and laptops. But there’s no reason it should stop there. Within 50 years, Liquidmetal could be the default material in everything from home electronics to aircraft. A few atomic-level magic tricks and it might even do the job of glass. The technology merry-go-round is about to get a very big push. Here we go again. For more on Liquidmetal, see www.liquidmetal.com

Reviews GADGETS

Game of Thrones PS3, Xbox 360, PC

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Lust Have

Vax cardboard vacuum cleaner www.cardboardvax.com

What do you do with a hit TV series that looks like a video game? Why, turn it into a video game, of course. This forthcoming RPG is based, like the TV show, on George RR Martin’s fantasy cycle A Song of Ice and Fire. As long as the developers have been allowed to take liberties with the plot strands, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be one of the hits of the year. Since fantasy fiction created the role-playing genre, it’s nice sometimes to see the debt being repaid, even if there is a distinct whiff of franchise about the whole thing. At the time of writing, the exact release date is unknown.

It won’t be going into production for a while yet, but this machine is worth mentioning for four reasons. The first is that it was developed in Britain by Jake Tyler, an industrial design student at Loughborough University, as part of his final year project. He began at Vax on work experience, and has been taken on full time to see it through. The second is that it is made of cardboard and other recycled materials, yet functions as well as a ‘real’ vacuum cleaner. The third is that you can draw all over it to customise your vacuum with your own designs. Just like a tattoo. And finally, Vax are asking for volunteers to test out a prototype in their home, so you might be able to get your hands on one early, and for free.

Kindle Touch £169 (3G), £109 (wi-fi)

App Market Blabla Car (free)

This is the iPhone extension of the online car-sharing service that replaces hitch-hiking with a paid lift. The idea is simple: drivers post their next trip online, with a price (say £20 to Manchester). Passengers then contact the driver, and bingo! Cheap travel with an eco twist. The main site, at www. blablacar.com, has a special section devoted to university campuses, where passengers and drivers can get together to share costs.

Toshiba AT200 series tablet

Best price: around £290 (16GB)

The quest for a viable alternative to the mighty iPad continues with this machine, which Toshiba claims is the thinnest, lightest 10.1-inch tablet in existence. In some ways, it beats the Apple machine hands down, cramming a MicroSD card slot and USB and HDMI connectors into its side. Out of the box, it runs Android 3.2, which gives you access to the thousands of apps available via Google’s Marketplace. The system is ready for upgrade to Android 4 when it appears. The touch screen is not as sensitive in operation as the iPad’s, though the high-definition display itself is crisp and bright. If you’re a die-hard Apple refusenik it might just be the machine for you. Go for the cheaper 16GB AT200-101 over the 32GB AT200-100 and buy a 32GB memory card to expand it.

Where summer holidays are concerned, Amazon’s latest version of its all-conquering Kindle e-reader is the ultimate suitcase lightener with the capacity for around 3,000 books. The touch screen works well, though hardly revolutionises the reading experience from the preceding (and cheaper) push-button model. Given the price difference and the increasing availability of wi-fi and mobile phone tethering, the wifi-only unit is the one to go for. One gripe: why charge an extra £12.99 for a mains adapter? One tip: since the Kindle does not read the ePub format, any ePub e-books you have will need to be converted. Use Calibre (PC and Mac, free from calibre-ebook.com).

Nigel Kendall, Gadgets Editor Most adventurous holiday: Tonga, sumo wrestling. Tonga is a beautiful kingdom where one Japanese resident is trying to create a sumo stable with the largest local youngsters. And believe me, many of the local youngsters are large. Don’t take it badly when an 11-year-old Tongan hurls you to the ground. Worst summer holiday: Tenby, Wales. Britain is a wonderful place to go on holiday when it’s sunny. Outside London, though, when it rains, it is a festering pit of boredom and misery. Best exotic video game location: Ruins. I love ruins, so anywhere overgrown with creepers and dotted with secret passageways, as in the Uncharted or Lara Croft games, is fine with me.

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Blogs

www.pommietravels.com

Behind the Blog Pommie Travels offers an inspiring mix of budget travel tips for backpackers, fun feature articles and to-the-point travel information. It’s run by Victoria Brewood, a 25-year-old from Manchester, who after graduating from university in 2008 decided there was more to life than the hours between 9 and 5.

How many destinations do you travel to each year? Last year I went to 11 countries, and I expect the figure will be even more this year. By this spring I’d already been to Australia, Ireland, Montenegro and Poland.

for information about the place they’re going to visit. I also think it’s important to get your branding right. My brand is that I’m a solo female traveller, and I have never had a 9 to 5 job, so I’m showing people that it is possible to travel and work remotely.

Do you get any freebies? I do get offers from Tourism Boards and PR companies to go on organised press trips. That wasn’t always the case, but bloggers are now finally being accepted as members of the press.

How do you drive traffic? Most readers arrive through Google search. I take SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) into account, but I don’t let it dictate how I write – there’s nothing worse than reading something that sounds like spam. I also drive traffic through Facebook and Twitter. Some people utilise StumbleUpon, but you have to use it daily for it to have any impact.

There are so many travel blogs. How is yours different? I try to update on a daily schedule, and I provide tips and useful information. Most people searching the internet aren’t looking for a diary-style account; they’re looking

How can you gain money from a blog? Private advertising, Google ads and affiliate marketing are the main ways. My advice: in order to make money from your blog, treat it like a business from the start.

Women’s tennis

Gay banker

With all the excitement about the Olympics, don’t forget Wimbledon. Women’s tennis doesn’t receive as much attention as men’s, but this blog aims to change all that. Tennis-crazy Marija Zivlak, who is 26 years old, runs the site. It’s the ultimate resource for latest news about female players, information about matches and amusing tennis videos.

This summer London hosts the World Pride festival, which makes this the ideal time to discover The Gay Banker. The design, a simple blogspot page, could do with sprucing up, but it’s the content that makes this popular. It’s great for young people struggling with their sexuality: requests for advice are always welcome and published in the Dear GB category, followed by a helpful answer of course.

Freelance Students

What was your most adventurous travel experience? Probably the time I won a competition to film a road trip around South Australia with World Nomads. I had six weeks to drive around South Australia in a van and video all my adventures. I went shark-cage diving, swam with sea lions and dolphins in the wild, took a flight in a tiger moth, camped in the outback and drove across some epic wilderness areas.

www.womenstennisblog. com

www.gaybanker.co.uk

www.freelancestudents.co.uk

Writing a CV would be a lot less scary if you only knew where to start, where to end and how to do the rest in between. That’s where the Freelance Students blog comes in. It helps solve CV mysteries – should I put my work experience first or education? – and what to do if an application has been completely ignored. Again.

What have you learned? My personality has changed so much since I started travelling – I’m more laid-back and I have a lot more confidence. There’s that quote: ‘Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer’, and it’s so true. I’ve made tons of friends, met people from all walks of life, seen incredible sights and created moments I’ll remember forever. Interview: Eva Stamler

Follow the tweeter The RSC’s Twitter feed is one you won’t want to be ‘bard’ from as the World Shakespeare Festival gets underway. Find out extra information about the latest productions and behind-thescenes gossip: @RSC: What is the attraction of Shakespeare for an Arabic audience? Director of Romeo + Juliet in Baghdad tells all http:// bit.ly/KasI5Z #WSFRomeo The summer is the perfect time to remember that there is more to life than just studying. Uni’s Not For Me takes that thought a little further talking about youth unemployment and different opportunities for under 25s: @unisnotforme: Meaningful work experience is crucial to a successful apprenticeship, says Ofsted http://ow.ly/aiPs5 via BBCNews Follow us on @

thebookmagazine for

updates and exclusive offers.

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Style Study SUNGLASSES

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Shining Armour

They protect from the glare of publicity as well as the sun. Nora McLeese discovers how shades became cool

‘Every generation has a Wayfarerwearing superstar who embodies the cooler-thanthou attitude’

PHOTOGRAPHY: Joseph Fox MODEL: Emily Beirne STYLIST: Holly Cox Hair & Make-up: Donna Oliveiro River Island, Retro, £13 Topshop, Cat’s Eye, £16 Topshop, Flat Top, £15 Ray-Bans, Erika. Provided by Sunglasses Hut, £100

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Style Study SUNGLASSES

Shades

1960

Jackie Kennedy Onassis famously used her oversized glasses to protect her privacy and preserve her poker face. The large saucer-like style is favoured by the wannabe First Ladies of Hollywood such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Paul Smith, Kieran. Provided by McClintock, £190

1984

Ray-Ban Aviators were just as integral to Michael Jackson’s image as the fedora and glove. At the 1984 Grammy Awards he accepted seven awards wearing his shades and only took them off for the record-breaking eighth, the most won by an artist.

Ray-Bans, Erika. Provided by Sunglasses Hut, £100 Topshop, Round, £16 Shuron, Freeway. Provided by McClintock, £180

whipped them off, saying: ‘I don’t take my glasses off for many interviews, but I’ll take them off for you.’ The act symbolically shows the celebrity opening up, not just physically but also personally. Take Rihanna after Chris Brown assaulted her or the Jackson clan at Michael Jackson’s funeral, who all, in order to maintain a sense of privacy, hid their eyes. Blocking the eyes is a surprisingly good shield. If you can’t see someone’s eyes, it’s hard to know what the other person is thinking. Not being able to make proper eye contact makes the wearer seem one step further removed. For Vogue Editor Anna Wintour, it’s more than just a fashion statement. Wintour remarked to Morley Safer: ‘Sunglasses are seriously useful. I can sit in a show and if I’m bored out of my mind, nobody will notice. At this point they’ve become, really, armour.’ Miles Davis, coolest of all jazz musicians, used them as

protection of a different kind. He wore shades, he once said, to avoid eye contact with racists. For fashionistas it’s the bigger the better, and most take their cue from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who wore shades to hide from photographers. Victoria Beckham, Paris Hilton and especially the Olsen twins wear sunglasses so big that they practically engulf their faces. Functionality is still vital for sunglasses, but there’s no doubt that fashion has become a major component. A good pair of shades can instantly make you look cooler. But be aware that there’s a fine line between ‘cool’ and ‘tool’. Just ask Aussie party boy Corey Worthington, whose news segment went viral in 2008 after he refused to take off his sunglasses. Sometimes eye contact is necessary. And you should never, ever wear your sunglasses at night. Sorry, Corey Hart. l

1999

The Matrix is, you might say, a battle between the oh-so cool sunglasses worn by the heroes and the standard variety worn by the Agents. Even in the acrobatic fight scenes, no one loses their shades. Only in defeat do they fall off.

Style Study SUNGLASSES

through the decades

1961

Audrey Hepburn proved diamonds and sunglasses can go together by topping off her chic look in Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Victoria Beckham channels the icon by teaming a little black dress with dark shades.

1986

1966

Tea-shade sunglasses, so called after the ’60s slang for marijuana, were popular amongst hippies and the leader of the pack was John Lennon. They have since been seen on Ozzy Osbourne and, more surprisingly, Mary-Kate Olsen.

1988

Ray-Bans were designed to protect the eyes of Second World War pilots. Hip in the ’50s, they were nearly cancelled in 1982 until a deal to place them in TV shows like Miami Vice and movies like Risky Business and Top Gun took sales to 1.5 million a year.

Sunglasses got the approval of high-end fashion when Vogue editor Anna Wintour made herself look more chilly than cool by wearing dark shades with a razor-sharp bob. It helped earn her the nickname Anna ‘Nuclear’ Wintour.

2007

2008

Sunglasses and rap go together like rhythm and blues, but Kanye West, with his ’80s-throwback shutter shades, is the only rapper to have sparked a high street trend. Yours will cost a couple of quid; his were custommade.

Lady Gaga landed like a meteor into the pop world, and did so wearing the most outlandish disco-ball sunglasses in her video Just Dance. She has recently designed sunglasses with Polaroid that double as a digital camera. Picture that.

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â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 48

Photo-story Festivals

With no Glastonbury this year, we track down where the wild things are

Bestival, Sep 6-9 Where? Robin Hill Country Park, Downend, Isle of Wight, £180 Who? Stevie Wonder, Sigur Rós, The xx, Two Door Cinema Club, New Order, Orbital Why? It’s not just about the music, but also about the fun and dressing up in silly costumes. In 2010, Bestival achieved a Guinness World Record by having 55,000 people in fancy dress.

Andrew Whitton

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s s

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Photo-story Festivals

s Download Festival, June 8-10 Where? Donington Park, Leicestershire, £155 Who? Black Sabbath, Metallica, The Prodigy, Tenacious D, NoFX, Rise Against Why? The incredible costumes prove that heavy metal fandom is not all doom and gloom. This year is Download’s tenth anniversary, so it should be wilder than ever.

Photo-story FESTIVALS

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Photo-story Festivals

Marc de Groot

s Anthony Mooney

Elouisa Georgiou

Creamfields, Aug 24-26 Where? Daresbury Estate, Halton, Cheshire, £135 Who? David Guetta, Deadmau5, Calvin Harris, Example, Knife Party, Avicii, Benny Benassi Why? With a mix of electro, house, garage, acid and minimal, Creamfields is the festival for dance music.

The Big Ones Isle of Wight Festival, June 21-24 Where? Seaclose Park, Newport, Isle of Wight, £190 Who? Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Pearl Jam, Jessie J, Noah and the Whale, Tinie Tempah, Lana Del Rey Why? One of the originals and famous for its incredible line-ups, which have included Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and The Who. O2 Wireless Festival, July 6-8 Where? Hyde Park, London, £135 Who? Deadmau5, Rihanna, Drake, Pitbull, Ms. Dynamite, Professor Green Why? London’s Hyde Park rocks out to three nights of big names in urban music.

T in the Park, July 6-8 Where? Balado, Kinross-shire, Scotland, £199 Who? Kasabian, Snow Patrol, The Stone Roses, Florence + The Machine, Nicki Minaj, David Guetta, Peter Doherty Why? There are an impressive seven main stages, stalls and shops with a large funfair, including a Big Wheel. Latitude, July 12-15 Where? Henham Park Estate, Beccles, Suffolk, £175 Who? Bon Iver, Elbow, Paul Weller, Laura Marling, Bat For Lashes, White Lies Why? Latitude has a European feel to it. Along with the four main stages there’s also the opportunity to enjoy some art, comedy, poetry and theatre amongst other activities.

The V Festival, Aug 18 Where? Hylands Park, Chelmsford, Essex , £175 Who? The Killers, David Guetta, Emeli Sandé, Nicki Minaj, Pixie Lott, The Ting Tings Why? Mainstream crowd-pleaser with some great headliners. eading & Leeds Festival, Aug 24-26 R Where? Little Johns Farm, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berks; Bramham Park, Leeds, West Yorks £197.50 Who? Foo Fighters, Kasabian, The Cure, Florence + The Machine, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Vaccines Why? Reading is believed to be the world’s oldest popular music festival still going. It now shares its line-up with its sister festival in Leeds.

Compiled by Eva Stamler

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KOS MEDIA

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Inside Job VIDEO-GAME PRODUCER

Video-game producer —JENNIFER CLIXBY

Jennifer Clixby, 30, studied computer science at Edinburgh University before getting a job at Lionhead Studios. She now produces the Fable video-games. How did you enter the games industry? I’ve always been into computer games; I grew up playing my brother’s old ZX Spectrum. Then when online gaming came in I was playing Quake 2, and got chatting online to some people who worked in the industry. It sounded like fun. I came to ‘We Lionhead on their work always experience programme in late 2003, and found they were put a looking for an Assistant female Producer.

slant on a game’

What does being a producer involve? The obvious job in games that everyone thinks of is computer programmer, but it’s more like the film industry: we have a lot of disciplines that make up the gaming experience. There’s animation, design, art, writing, foley sound, music composer… and producers, who help coordinate all these different departments. What do you like most about your job? We are making entertainment – it’s our jobs to make something fun. There are moments when you’re playing a game that you worked on and you’re so happy it’s all coming together, there’s nothing like it. You were included in Develop magazine’s ‘30 under 30’ – one of only four women on the list. What did this mean to you? I was really pleased, it’s an honour just to be put forward. Even at Lionhead there’s only about 10% women, but I never really notice that – we have a common interest, which is games, so we speak the same language. Anyway I was always a tomboy growing up!

Games tend to be made by men and played by men. Is it really a career for women? Absolutely! I work on the Fable series, which is magic and swords so quite a traditionally male arena, but we always put a female slant on a game. In Fable 2 and 3, for instance, you can play as a male or a female character. The other characters change as a result: you get a male love interest if you play as a woman, and your relationship with Ben Finn, who’s a loveable rogue voiced by Simon Pegg, takes on a different kind of bond. What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter the industry? There’s two great websites, www. gamesindustry.biz and www.develop-online. net, where you’ll find news and jobs. You can start as a paid intern, like I did. Lionhead has about eight a year. Do anything to learn your craft. If you can afford to work for free for a couple of weeks, do work experience wherever you can. And don’t give up! Keep trying. Any insider tips? Don’t wear a suit to interview. When we see people turn up in a suit, that’s how we spot they haven’t worked in the games industry before! Fable Heroes is out now. Fable: The Journey will be released this autumn

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