tn2 Issue 4, 2014-15

CONTENTS 04 06 07 26 28 32 34

Jumble Uppers & Downers Homegrown Photo Essay Reviews Calendar Sex

EDITORIAL TEAM Meadhbh McGrath Matthew Mulligan Lola Boorman Alice Wilson Stephen Moloney Hannah Amadeus Harte Olen Bajarias Megan Burns Sorcha Gannon Daniel Scott Kathleen Girvan Kerry Brennan Eoin Moore Nicholas Kenny Elizabeth Mohen Michael Kemp Tara Joshi Eoin Lynskey Heather Keane Matthew Malone Ciara Forristal Emma Boylan

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HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Whoever you’re looking to please this festive season, we’ve got you covered. Our team presents their favourite gift ideas for everyone on your list.

WHITE SPACES BETWEEN

Fashion Editor Olen Bajarias styles looks by NCAD graduate Caoimhe MacNeice.

INDEPENDENT READING “There’s been a big feeling that bookshops are dying out, and I spend my life saying, they’re not!”

THE GOLDEN TICKET

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Whether you like it plain, crunchy, covered in caramel, with chili, to share, or all to yourself, chocolate is, biologically, the key to happiness. tn2’s very own Augustus Gloop, Food & Drink Editor Dan Scott, enters the world of Irish artisan chocolatiers.

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS “Remember none of this is real. This is a purely fictional experience, in no way based on reality.”

CLAP YOUR HANDS

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Deputy Theatre Editor Matthew Malone goes back stage at this year’s Christmas Panto and chats to Tinkerbell about flying, obsessing over boys who won’t grow up and her beauty routine.

THE HUNTSMAN

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Deputy Games Editor Nicholas Kenny talks to Achievement Hunter’s Jeremy Dooley about what it’s like playing games for your viewing pleasure.

PRINTED BY Grehan Printers 03

Looking for an escape during the craziness of Christmas shopping? coffeeangel on South Anne Street (off Grafton) is your oasis. The small space is minimally designed, using beautiful wood elements, and adorned with brewing paraphernalia from around the world. Their house coffee, Forsa Gala, is an everchanging espresso blend of seasonal beans. The latest iteration tastes of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, with a slight chocolate bitterness on the aftertaste. Order it as a cappuccino, and the Fruit and Nut turns into Dairy Milk, with cocoa perfectly balancing the sweet, perfectly steamed milk. Out of the range of treats here, the scones are my favourites, with creative flavours such as white chocolate and blueberry, hitting the perfect spots in sweetness and density.If you’re in the city at Christmas, pop in to coffeeangel for that perfect holiday feeling; the one you get with a warm cappuccino and a yummy scone at hand.

Vice does it WORDS BY LEONIDAS CONSTANTINIDESi thout losing its cool. This isn’t i it’much better.

PUBLIC SPACE

The Berkeley library, designed in 1967 by architectural collective ABK, was the winning entry for an international competition which aimed to represent the college in the 20th century. Standing the test of time, the smooth white reinforced concrete-finish exterior communicates clarity through simplicity. In accordance with the “truth to materials” dictum of the modernist architectural aesthetic, timber fibres are exposed and speckled across the façade. The floor to ceiling curved bay windows deliver the library counter with a flood of natural light and are one of the most striking features of the façade that neatly frames Fellows Square, echoing Streamline Moderne and the International Style. Ringing true with the functionalist “form follows function” mantra, the interior is centred around an open plan reading space, The Morrison Room, which features an impressive two-storey high, glass panelled ceiling.

WORDS BY HANNAH AMADEUS HARTE PHOTO BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

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IN THE GAME: DISCOUNT CULTURE A strong sign of the overtly consumer-driven aspect of “gamer” culture is the fact that digital sales hold the importance that they do.

The tradition began with the Steam Summer sales, the insane price cuts of which prompted other digital storefronts, such as The Humble Store, Good Old Games, and Green Man Gaming, to follow suit. Due to the cheap nature of digitally distributed titles, relatively new games could be dropped by anything from 50 to 90 percent, generating hype on forums and exciting players into making gratuitous purchases.

The frenzy isn’t quite as potent today as it was for the big summer and winter sales of old, but that’s partially because these effective sales tactics have developed into something new. Sales like these are now a near-constant feature across the web, with entire websites dedicated to running price comparisons on the seemingly endless deals going on throughout the internet at any given time. The drastic reductions during the sales are matched by the jacked-up prices of new releases, capitalising on day-1 hype. A price-skimming balance has been struck within this ebb and flow from rip-off to bargain. Absurdly, some gamers buy nothing new only to find themselves with far more titles than they can play whenever any of the major sales roll around.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

VIDEODROME

COFFEE X CAKE

Ah, those halcyon 2001 days: the pinnacle of Destiny’s Child’s oeuvre. In 8 Days of Christmas, their first ever Christmas single, one can’t help but question the trio’s then recent assertions about being “independent women” — especially when Beyoncé opens with the glittering boast, “On the eighth day of Christmas my baby gave to me / a pair of Chloé shades and a diamond belly ring.” Gender equality be damned, as the beautiful ladies frolick around a toy store dressed in a variety of glorious Santa-inspired costumes (a special mention to Michelle and those fur-lined flares) and sing of their respective boyfriends’ generosity, it’s difficult to not get caught up in the infectious festive cheer of it all. Snow, sassiness, shiny bubbles and saccharine smiles all serve as wonderful ornamentation to the unabashedly glitzy capitalism of it all — are those Destiny’s Child dolls on sale? Of course they are. Random shots of the girls with their guys on a kitschy carousel are interspersed between them back in the store, filling up their trollies with opulent numbers of gifts which the trio then generously hand out to a manic mob of children. “Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?”, the chorus asks. If Christmas is a time for commercialism and gaudy costumes — which it is — then the answer is, thankfully, a resounding yes.

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

NOTES ON A SCANDAL For an alternative Christmas movie, look no further than cult director Ken Russell’s short film, A Kitten for Hitler (2007). Born out of a conversation over film censorship — to which Russell was no stranger — this bizarre eight minute sees a young Jewish boy, Lenny, travel from Brooklyn to Germany on a mission to give “Uncle Adolf ” a kitten. Hitler weeps, bagels abound, and all is going splendidly until — well, this is one Christmas tale without a happy ending for its protagonist. Russell’s intent was to cause offense, resulting in his decision to cast a dwarf as the Jewish child protagonist, Lenny. The meeting between Hitler and Lenny quickly turns sour when Lenny is revealed to be Jewish, resulting in alarming and violent consequences which are subsequently parodied in absurd and unsettling ways. Cheaply made, with facile humor and in general bad taste, A Kitten for Hitler is more ridiculous than it is offensive, and an antidote to the more PC films that will inevitably be filling your TV this Christmas.

WORDS BY SORCHA GANNON

LITERARY MILESTONES On 19 December 1843, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the novella that would rapidly warm the iciest of Victorian hearts and reinvent Christmas as the jubilant feast we adore today. The spooky tale revolves around the visitation of cantankerous miser Ebenezer Scrooge by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, which results in his overnight transformation, inspiring generous mirth and raises galore. Dickens the author was delighted with this use of spirits as rousing literary devices, but Dickens the gentleman was less than enthused by the wonders of the supernatural. Despite some fascination with the spiritualist crazes sweeping his intellectual circle, Dickens remained sceptical of those who claimed the existence of paranormal activity. He helped found The Ghost Club, an exclusive London society devoted to the exposure of fraudulent psychics and mediums, which boasted Siegfried Sassoon and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as later members.

In what was essentially a Scooby Gang of respectable Victorian gentleman, the Ghost Club dedicated itself to the investigation and debunkment of paranormal hoaxes.

Tradition dictates that membership persists after death, and the society continues to meet in London monthly.

WORDS BY ELIZABETH MOHEN

FRONT SQUARE FASHION

HollyStar Pratt-Kelly Holly, a final year Law student, caught our eye with her amazing vintage jacket which she picked up at a Folkster kilo sale. Her shirt/ jumper combo adds a pop of colour, as well as a distinct preppy vibe.

Cumbrous law books make not the style icon, so luckily Holly has chosen a backpack that manages to hold them all without damaging her fashion cred.

WORDS BY MEGAN BURNS PHOTOS BY SERGEY ALIFANOV

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Athleisure with Pope Francis: On a recent visit to the Vatican, Diesel founder Renzo Rosso gifted His Holiness with a custom pair of white Jogg jeans, the brand’s relaxed-fit denim/sweatpants hybrid style, for the ultimate in papal slobcore.

Passport envy: Norway can now boast the world’s most beautiful passports, which bear graphic, minimalist renderings of Norwegian landscapes, and transform under UV light to show the Northern Lights in the night sky.

Klittra: A Swedish sex-ed group held a competition to find a new, non-awkward word for female masturbation, to promote “an open, positive view of sex”. That word turned out to be “Klittra”, a glamorous mix of “klitoris” and “glittra” (which means both “glance” and “glitter”).

Memrise: Frank Ocean’s first new solo material in nearly two years is a gorgeous, lo-fi affair, and offers an exciting teaser for his sophomore album.

Tracey Emin’s Brit Award: The design, which includes patchwork rosettes and the cloyingly sweet handwritten phrase “Congratulations on your talent on your life. On everything you give to others. Thank you”, is distinguished only by its yawning forgetability.

With Ant and Dec presenting, the 2015 Brits look set to be the most excruciatingly banal yet.

Stop trying to make “Metropopolis” happen: Spotify’s dubious “Breakout Genre” of 2014 is “a sophisticated, indie-leaning, and undeniably catchy cousin of mainstream pop”, that includes Charli XCX, Grimes and CHVRCHES.

Blade Runner 2: Although he won’t be directing, Ridley Scott has called the script “very, very good”.

We remain skeptical.

People are naming their babies after Frozen characters now: According to the BabyCentre’s list of the top names of 2014, tons of people are naming their kids Elsa. This movie came out over a year ago, can’t people just let it go?

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

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There is a line in a T.S. Eliot poem where the narrator, one J. Alfred Prufrock, laments, “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.” The anxiety of being merely playing a subsidiary, passive role in one’s own life is something that springs to mind when Dublin solo artist Stephen Tiernan elucidates the reasons for his choice of moniker: Participant. Speaking to tn2 after a serene, fire-lit acoustic performance in the somewhat surreal location of an old Georgian house on Henrietta Street, Tiernan explains: “The idea comes from when you feel like you’re just a participant, like you’re just taking part in someone else’s life — a supporting character.” It seems a fairly bleak, if refreshingly honest sentiment. Tiernan continues, “I like the idea that I’m fronting something under the name that is meant to mean ‘taking part’, but it’s just my project. As soon as I started writing these songs, it was always going to be Participant.”

Though you perhaps wouldn’t guess it from his pleasantly realised sparse, ambient soundscapes, Tiernan previously performed as a bass-player rather than a solo artist, and it was only after his band Heritage Centre went on hiatus that he realised how much he missed playing and accordingly decided to give his own music a shot. “I talked about Participant for years and years, but I put it

HOM EGR OWN off, I made excuses,” he says of the decision.

“Finally I convinced myself to put out this EP [Bit Slow] — you can’t just talk about it or be scared about people hearing it. I was frustrated that I wasn’t playing anymore, but also I felt like it was time — I’m getting older and it got to a point where it was like: I’m either gonna do it now, or it’s gonna pass me by.”

Certainly, the decision to go ahead with Participant and release the Bit Slow EP has turned out to be a welcome one. The record is a subtle, slow-burning one, with warm ripples of guitar swimming over a sea of atmospheric sounds and some beautifully fragile vocals from Tiernan. Lyrically he is disarmingly frank and earnest, notably in the title track with its opening lines, “Could you ever see / yourself lying next to me again / when I’m underachieving / paralyzed?”

He dismisses the notion that his lyrics are about any one incident or relationship, however: “The thing is, I tend to write quite thematically. It sounds like the songs are about one specific thing [...] but I might be writing about several different experiences

and putting them altogether in one song.”

Tiernan’s songwriting process in general is particularly interesting, picking out lyrics he wrote down a long time ago that stem from past events and using them now to reflect on more current themes in his life.

Experimenting with bits from his own work isn’t something Tiernan has restricted to lyrical ideas either, he explains: “I sample extensively from my own back-catalogue of demos and other bands I played in [...] I don’t think on the EP there’s a single sound that I didn’t record myself or sample from my own body of work. It took me ages, but it was really interesting.”

Bit Slow was a promisingly executed debut, and with a new EP in the pipeline for early next year and an increasing focus on polishing performances with his four-piece live band, it’s clear that — for all of Tiernan’s own misgivings — Participant is maybe more of a Prince Hamlet than a Prufrock after all.

Participant’s Bit Slow EP is out now. He plays the BelloBar NYE party on December 31st supporting Tandem Felix (tickets €10).

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI PHOTOS BY VINCENT SHERIDAN

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I WANT YO Bean and Goose Winter Bark ¤ 25, Temple Bar Food Market

Beard Trim ¤ 30-40, Beards & Barnets

Featured in our cover story, artisanal chocolatier B&G offer a half kilo slab of 70% single origin chocolate topped with a mix of nuts, orange peel and a dash of spice.

For any man who loves his beard, a snip at Beards & Barnets is the way to go, as they provide the perfect level of pampering for the modern bearded man.

Aeropress ¤28.75 , coffeeangel Recently declared the best coffee brewing device, the Aeropress allows for a totally different coffee experience with its lower pressure, which exacerbates the bouquet of a good quality coffee as opposed to the

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The Walworth Farce From ¤20 , Ticketmaster See all play, running from January 10 to February 8 at the Olympia Theatre.

WAYO Bag ¤50, Indigo & Cloth These indigo and denim bags are hand-dyed by Irish-based designer WAYO Textiles and crafted out of vintage Japanese fabrics.

That Glimpse of Truth ¤25 , selected bookshops Comprehensive and completely beautiful, this short story anthology will delight something quick and painless to kick their reading habit back into gear.

OU SO BAD Stacks Magazine Subscription ¤ 84, stacksmagazine.com

Roads Literary Classics ¤12.50 , selected bookshops

Christmas Cards ¤5.50 , Makers & Brothers & Others

Stacks selects an independent magazine every month to bring you a wide range of new and interesting publications including Cereal, Elephant and Delayed

Irish designer publishing house Roads has reimagined ten classic novels from Frankenstein to Journey to the Centre

These stunning laser-cut Christmas cards from Irish design company SNOW will give your holidays an artisinal, homemade touch.

Hive Share From ¤75 Give the chance to enjoy a year of Irish honey made from their very own beehive giftbox also includes handmade beeswax candles and lipbalm.

collection.

Mini Notebook ¤6.50 , Makers & Brothers & Others

Aesop Resurrection Hand Balm ¤23 , Makers & Brothers & Others

These pocket-sized, cloth bound notebooks by Swedish Bookbinders Design, are great for the aspiring writer, and available in a variety of colours.

Containing mandarin rind and rosemary leaf, this luxurious, soothing moisturiser is an ideal treat for winter and summer alike.

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W H I T E S PA C E S B E T W E E N

The location of the shoot, the now derelict baths in Blackrock, was decided upon even before there was any thought on the clothes. It is geographically liminal, occupying the space between the DART station and the sea. But it is also temporally in transition, existing in a time between its heyday as a popular nineteenth century leisure spot and just before it is completely demolished and redeveloped. The liminality of place directed the styling of the shoot. It was important for this shoot that the garments by Caoimhe MacNeice, a womenswear designer and recent graduate of NCAD, be worn by both male and female models. The idea was not just to break binaries but to create out of the rubble a proposition for a new way of dressing.

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CLOTHES BY CAOIMHE MACNEICE COATS FROM DUBLIN VINTAGE FACTORY WORDS AND STYLING BY OLEN BAJARIAS PHOTOS BY MARIA ROMANOVA HYNES MODELS JAMES IRELAND, DEIRDRE MCATEER

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we can offer that the internet doesn’t offer.” This idea that the bookshop is a centre of literary exchange, is one that is central to the ethos of the independent bookshop and is something that most definitely cannot be provided by larger commercial and internet based booksellers. Bookshops have historically been centres for literary activity and creation, a notion that was somewhat lost in past decades but which is being tentatively restored by these smalltime institutions.

Hamilton finds that “people come to independents because they want recommendations [...] And there’s a lot of selling done [...] in an independent bookshop I think, where I’ve read the book, I know my customers, I’ve got to know them over the years, this is a personal service that we can give that you can’t get anywhere else.” Hamilton adds that she would know 70 or 75 percent of their customers well, including what kind of books they would like. While these attitudes may sound parochial, it has resulted in a major success with Bridge Street winning this year’s Irish Times Bookshop of the Year Award. “Independent bookshops offer something different, and they offer you the chance to see things and find things that you didn’t know existed, which is still really hard for the internet to do, because with all the algorithms in the world, you get tied in to a bit of a loop as ‘you like this, therefore you’ll like this’, and it doesn’t take into account that part of human beings, which is discovering new things,” Johnston explains. “Our staff picks section is always the most popular area in the shop.

People like a personal recommendation, people like somebody else to say ‘I really enjoyed this’.”

Sadly, negative perceptions around bookshops still hold sway, many predicting a certain oblivion for booksellers. Johnston, a lifelong bookseller, has probably heard them all: “The frustrating thing is the amount of negativity around bookshops and how they’re outdated, and they can’t survive and that they’re doomed [but our shops] are thriving, […] and there’s no reason why bookshops and the internet can’t exist at the same time.”

So, while rumours of the death of bookshops seems to have been greatly exaggerated, what about the one season where they are almost certainly alive: Christmas. But it’s not an easy cash-grab for bookshops. “It is Big Season, and I was having panics because it always comes too fast,” Johnston frets. “The big thing is choosing the titles that you want to focus on, that you think people want, and you want to support and you want to make sure you have enough stock of […] which sounds very simple, but is complex.

We’re very democratic here as well as everybody kinda picks their own ones and we all work through them and it’s all done in a very much organisational way that allows everybody to get involved in it so. The way it works is that we put a blank spreadsheet and let everybody say choose ten fiction titles, and they’ll go back and it would be a mix of stuff they’ve read this year and absolutely adored,

“There’s always been this myth that bookshops are very backwards looking and don’t want to embrace technology, but no, they’d love to, they want to get books into people’s hands whichever way people want them.” stuff that is selling incredibly well, that people want at Christmas, and they’ll go off and do some research on their favourite blogs or websites or whatever and look at things, quirky things that people are talking about that mainly haven’t hit yet, and then it’s trying to find a mix of those.”

In the frantic Christmas shopping brawl, a knowledgeable bookseller is an invaluable asset. Johnston is quick to recommend his favourites for the holiday season. “There’s one book that I think is going to be a BIG breakout: The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide, it’s one of those sneak-outs that’s a small, little, quiet book, but it’s just flying and it’s just gonna keep on flying. It’s got really good reviews and it’s just a really nice little book. Non-fiction-wise, the Amy Poehler is gonna fly out and do well. It’s been a really good year with a really nice mix of stuff this year, which is always good to see because some years you’re just dying, some years there’s just really one or two big books and everything else is just a bit flat, but this year is a little bit mixed.”

With the creativity and freedom of identity that independents have, they may well be able to carve out their own niche in the marketplace by maintaining a sense of community and a personal touch, while the wider business world has become even more anonymous and disconnected.

WORDS BY MICHAEL KEMP ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL TATLOW PHOTOS BY SERGEY ALIFANOV

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AWORLDOFPUREIMAGINATION

C

ould you imagine a December without the cocoainduced food coma? ‘Tis the season where tins of Roses, advent calendars and selection boxes are ubiquitous, wrapped under the tree and sitting on coffee tables around the country. While milk chocolate was king of the confectionary world, in the last decade “ganache” has almost replaced “pesto” as the food buzz word. Dark chocolate not only provides a more unique, strong flavour, but comes with increased health benefits due to the higher cocoa content; a few squares thought to reduce heart disease along with a glass of fine claret, cocoa is also known to tweak neurochemicals to the same effect as sex and falling in love.

Even some compounds known as methylxanthines, used in the treatment of asthma, are found in the humble bean and bar. Cocoa, believe it or not, is a roasted seed of a fruit which grows on the trunk of a tree. The pre-roasted and therefore raw cocoa product, cacao has also taken the food market by storm, with grating slabs available as a topping to any food you can think of for an antioxidant- and flavour-filled feast.

Apart from the mega confectionery corps with international demand hailing from Ireland, more and more artisan producers are cropping up. Single origin is probably the greatest trend in the chocolate industry today, sourcing cocoa beans from one source, which possesses its own unique tasting notes, as opposed to using cocoa powder from multiple plantations without any significant or identifiable characteristics. From bean-to-bar to foraged infusions, we take a look at the world of Irish artisan chocolate, which has never been more enticing.

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G O O S E

Behind Bean and Goose are Karen and Natalie Keane, two Wexford born sisters who grew up with an obsession for baking and cooking. Coming from backgrounds in hotel management and the chocolate industry, they dreamt of starting a food business. After a weekend course on chocolate making with the renowned Kerry-based chocolatier Benoit Lorge, Bean and Goose’s fate was set.

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Named after the bean goose which is native to Wexford, the business has been running since February this year from Karen’s kitchen in Ferns, with Natalie coming up whenever she can from her home in Kinsale.

The chocolate is sourced from specialist single origin suppliers within Europe. It is then slowly melted and tempered on Irish soil, the latter process lowering the temperature until the chocolate begins to glisten, which allows it to mould properly as well as giving it its characteristic snap.

They produce high quality bars, often inspired by local produce, as well as from their own garden. One of their current signatures is the Winter Bark slab, featured as part of Love Supreme in Stoneybatter’s fantastic array of artisan goods. Inspired by organic hazelnuts that were supplied

by Hell’s Kettle in Co. Wicklow, to which mixed nuts, winter spice, orange peel and local honey are added to give an overall decadent warmth. Bean and Goose also look for new mixes for their truffles based on a 65% cocoa mass ganache, from chestnut and lemon to cumin and ginger.

B E A N

Karen isn’t a fan of hot chocolate based on the milk variety, and instead offers a dark, less sweet number which has gained popularity. Two options are available, Aztec or whiskey, initially based on a sugar and cocoa stock with various infusions from cinnamon to black cardamom, before freshly tempered chocolate is added and brought to the boil. Finished off with sea salt and vanilla paste, a shot of Carlowbased Writer’s Tears whiskey is added to the latter prior to serving.

Having a presence in over fifteen local stores nationwide and some of Dublin’s most prestigious markets, the next step for Bean and Goose is to expand their supplier base, as well as build a separate unit within the current grounds, and begin to make a bean-to-bar product. The Keane sisters operate a stall at Temple Bar Market every Saturday where they love to meet new people and customers, and feel there is a huge increase in consumer understanding on how chocolate is made, which has driven a huge demand for high end, small scale producers.

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COCOA ATELIER

Behind the brains of Ireland’s first and only chocolate boutique is Mark Amand, chef and founder of La Rousse foods. Having previously revolutionised the Irish food industry as a specialist supplier, Amand realised the lack of specialised chocolate boutiques in Ireland compared to their near one-per-village abundance in his native France. Setting about to create a chocolate laboratory and shop, Cocoa Atelier was opened in Dublin four years ago to roaring success.

Cocoa Atelier source their chocolate from the renowned Chocolaterie de l’Opera in the picturesque papal town of Avignon in the South of France. The single origin chocolate arrives in tablet form which contains the cocoa mass, cocoa powder, sugar and milk powder where applicable which is melted prior to the addition of infusions and moulding into one of their trademark twenty-something squares. Kate Saul, Cocoa Atelier’s general manager cites the Irish salted caramel as the most popular flavour. Ginger is also a firm favourite, as is their Jameson whiskey flavour which uses Redbreast 12 single pot still. More unusuals are also available such as Earl Grey and chestnut honey (where the honey is sourced from the chestnut tree, giving an oaky, dark undertone).

Cocoa Atelier’s small scale operation of artisan offerings gives scope to experimental creations.

Trends

predicted in the future by Kate are savory and herbal infusions, such as from sea and micro vegetables, which is something they are yet to experiment with fully but definitely in the pipeline. Their connection to La Rousse gives them fantastic access to a wide offering of supplier’s produce, and they have also created various contract signature chocolates in the past. A myriad of infusions from sloe gin to rhubarb chocolates were made from garden produce of

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WILKIE’S

Behind one of the artisan, bean-tobar suppliers to Selfridges is an Irish producer. Shana Wilkie sources cocoa beans from a Peruvian farmer owned co-op, using Grade 1 cacao of the Criollo variety, which is renowned for its fine flavour which is dependent on the terroir, as opposed to the Fostarero bean which Shana describes as the “bulk bean” most commonly used in mainstream chocolate today.

They come dry and fermented when delivered to Midleton before being cleaned, sorted and roasted which is temperature dependent on the amount of moisture lost or gained by the bean when transported. The cocoa is then cooled before being hand cranked and placed through a winnower, which separates the cocoa nibs using air flow.

The nibs can be ground from 36 up to 60 hours, allowing for the release of cocoa butter forming a liquid cocoa

the five star Ballyfin Demesne (where Kimye honeymooned this year), and recently Cocoa Atelier were able to produce a strawberry and champagne infusion for an Ascot enthusiast’s social gathering. Through their social media output, new seasonal infusions were also chosen by the public, most recently their lemon verbena flavour for the summer.

mass. The chocolate is then tempered and moulded.

Shana aims to focus production in Ireland for the future mainly due to their small production capacity, promoting Wilkie’s organic chocolate powder as well as meeting foreign markets being served in Germany, the UK and Norway. Although Shana wants to strengthen her rapport with Peruvian cacao farmers, the predicted cocoa shortage for 2020 is leading to larger companies buying plantations, due to previous trading resistance amongst farmers in order to prevent a decrease to their profits. Nonetheless, Shana hopes to “promote sustainable farming and fairness for all” and is confident that the farmers used will continue to produce organic, sustainable high quality produce.

NATASHA’S LIVING FOOD

While the other suppliers work on the roasted cocoa bean, Natasha Czopor favours the fermented, raw cacao product, being the only supplier in Ireland making cacao truffles from scratch. Following a twenty year journey from foraging in East Germany to bringing the trend to Ireland, Natasha took a leap for what she believes is still a huge gap in the market — raw, nutritious, ethical food. Cacao is the predecessor of cocoa, from the same plant but processed differently. Fermenting the cacao beans and pods together as opposed to roasting allows for the twelve thousand individual aromas to thrive, and gives a different, fruity flavour being sundried on bamboo as opposed to the blacker cocoa which has been exposed to much higher temperatures. Cacao naturally clumps due to the high fat content, which is separated in small batches at low temperatures to give both cacao powder and butter. At the production site in Parkwest, the chocolate is created via melting the cacao powder, butter (at 40ºC), with the addition of traditional superfoods such as agave nectar, maca and lacuma, as well as vanilla and Himalayan salt prior to tempering.

Natasha’s chocolates are available in truffle form in a myriad of flavours, such as bee pollen, mint and barley-grass, and chilli, as well as plain dark.

Natasha sources Arriba cacao beans from small co-operatives based in northern Ecuador, with the ethics of the source being a huge priority. As cacao is not a mechanised process, children are often involved and exploitation of plantations at low costs with high margins is rampant. Natasha feels that not only is she providing a food product, she’s also a role in educating the consumer that other people came before the final production via her passion, which often comes into conflict with potential consumers. However, creating an ethical and specialised product comes with a slightly heftier price tag, which often reigns consumer critique. Comparing other largescale companies’ prices who do not factor ethics into consideration is not possible in this realm, and Natasha feels that it’s not something that people want to know.

Following success in the market nationwide with both chocolate and other products, such as her raw kale crisps that have won a myriad of awards, Natasha still holds onto the dream that one day you can “pop into your local Applegreen and be able to buy kale chips and good quality chocolate”, awakening the nation to the healthier and more ethical alternatives available.

WORDS BY DAN SCOTT PHOTOS BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN, SERGEY ALIFANOV

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PICTURES

MOVING

Irish-born David O’Reilly has established himself as an internationally acclaimed animator. He speaks to tn2 about how his work can stand on its own merit as an art form and not an industry.

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nimation is everywhere: in games and films, from computers to television screens — theme parks are made in honor of these virtual realities.

Despite their distinctive slants however, the creators of these alternate worlds are often overlooked. David O’Reilly, Irish but LA-based animator and artist, therefore stands out with his vast success

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and recognizability as an animator.

For those who don’t already know of him, you may recognize his art from Spike Jonze’s movie Her (2013), which featured a hypothesized game of the future starring a small, foul-mouthed alien child. His style is certainly unique, a sort of cybernetic Vaudeville, clinical, yet chaotic — a fantastic combination.

As well as working on his own films, O’Reilly has made music videos for MIA and U2, and animated for Son of Rambo and Adventure Time. So, how did this prolific animator and his unique style come into being?

“I stepped into an animation studio when I was 14 and decided immediately I’d be doing that for the rest of my life,” O’Reilly says. This studio was Cartoon Saloon, an established animation

and film studio based in Kilkenny.

Unlike many who come to the very technical profession of animation through various foundation courses and degrees, O’Reilly falls into “the self-taught category only because [he] didn’t finish third level education”. His education was based around a system of mentorship which he argues is often passed over today, as institutionalised education is valued more than practical experience and apprenticeship, which he views as essential to the animation process. “There’s just a bottomless amount of things to learn and they all branch out into other fields of study.

Initially I was more into the technical and theoretical aspects of it than the entertainment side. That’s probably not unusual for a young brain though.”

Often “animators leaving school — especially in the US — are plagued by student debt and have a real immediate need to be employed. Because of this many don’t really get the opportunity to do their own work.” The twopronged perception of animation as a specialised creative form, as well as a vast commercial industry, is something that all animators must reckon with.

O’Reilly now lives in Los Angeles, a place so deeply and culturally defined by film corporations it can almost be considered an animated world in its own right, yet he seems in some way except from this, saying, “I don’t really pay attention to the industry side of it.”

Despite being in some respects a very individualistic artist, and boasting a very unique style for it, O’Reilly is a fairly frequent speaker on the subject of animation, as well as collaborator on a variety of projects — pretty much inevitable in the realm of digital film and something O’Reilly pursues in addition to his personal works: “I collaborate with people all the time.

That’s definitely one thing I wanted to do as soon as I could.” O’Reilly channels his own world view through abstract polygons, often giving them faces, features, joints, demeanours, none of which have their base in recognisable, concrete things: “Ideas can be vehicles for characters, and characters can be vehicles for ideas.”

O’Reilly’s 17-minute film The External World premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and Sundance 2011 and

“

This marriage of postmodern thought with a childlike aesthetic is becoming a contemporary trend in animation, which pairs simplified aesthetics with darker, deeper meanings.

“

received over 60 awards. It is a darkly humorous film — too subversive for China in fact, where it has been banned by the Ministry of Culture. O’Reilly’s paired back aesthetic here — at once a modernised and archaic animated look — results in a cerebral experience of this fabricated world, which mediates between external reality and subjective experience. Words scroll down the screen at one point in the film: “Remember none of this is real. This is a purely fictional experience, in no way based on reality. This is not happening in this universe or any other. Neither are these words. Neither are you.”

This marriage of postmodern thought with a childlike aesthetic is becoming a contemporary trend in animation, which pairs simplified aesthetics with darker, deeper meanings.

O’Reilly’s conception of his work is not the one most immediately associated with animation — entertainment — and he has always been compelled by its artistic scope rather than the commercial possibilities. It was not the notion of “being-an-animator” that enchanted him: “I think if you’re going into it actually caring about the industry and not the art form you’re doomed.”

Fifteen years down the line and whilst his specific artistic interests appear to alter constantly, his perspective remains the same. Animation is naturally a

public and interactive form, known most for its substantial role in films and games, and so by definition is much more an exchange between audience and creator: “Entertainment is a kind of loaded word, but I think whenever you see your work in front of an audience your instincts for certain things are more focused. You want to make sure they’re experiencing what you want them to, or even just that the ideas are making sense. I remember when that happened with me, and suddenly I realised this whole thing was a dialogue with the audience.” In July this year, he released his first video game, Mountain, which has no controls; the “player” watches the image of a mountain undergo seasonal changes, but while having no impact on the game’s evolution or development. In what is traditionally a genre of control, agency, objectives and goals, O’Reilly removes these aspects, forcing the “player” to reflect upon the nature of gaming. Mountain pushes the boundaries of what could be considered “a game”, and suggests an element of O’Reilly’s work in which the audience is constantly questioned and in flux.

Whilst O’Reilly’s success has been growing abroad, back in Ireland the industry, though still small in comparison, has been expanding, with

Irish animators working on a larger scale and on more international projects. The recent VFX and Animation Summit in Dublin, featuring talks from both Irish members of the industry who have left the country and those who have stayed to pursue careers, was testament to Ireland’s place in the a global community of animators. Generally speaking, with the success of films like Gravity, The Life of Pi and Interstellar, animation has been brought into the limelight as not just a feature of a great film, but as the main artistic event. Animation is fundamentally an imaginative form that offers endless opportunities for innovation, and as film relies more on the digital side of things, animation is becoming revalued and foregrounded, both in terms of its artistic worth, and the talent of those behind it. As with David O’Reilly, a new breed of animator-auteur, whose work challenges the premises of the art form as well as our interaction with technology, in what is in a unique filmic experience.

WORDS BY SORCHA GANNON, SOPHIE MURPHY PHOTO BY KEN TISUTHIWONGSE

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I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES

T

he Christmas Panto is an Irish institution. Bringing flocks of families, disgruntled or otherwise, to classic cartoonlike narratives peppered with topical references, nudges and winks, they are both a pillar of the theatre season and an unbudging tradition. Having hosted the Christmas Panto each year since 1873, this festive season the Gaiety presents Peter Pan directed by Daryn Crosbie. Tn2 talked to Sarah Bradley, who plays Tinkerbell in the production, asking her about the quirky sides of her job as well as the madness of being inside one of the largest productions in the country. A Trinity College graduate of Drama & Theatre Studies, Bradley started acting at a young age in musicals both professionally and with the Independent Theatre Workshop.

During her degree Bradley began to voice cartoons when not in class, debuting as a director in her final year with a production of Debris by Dennis Kelly, an interest she will pursue at Bristol Old Vic come April in their MA Directing.

All that said, talking to Bradely who calls from her dressing room on a Sunday afternoon in between previews, one realizes the energy and madness required to pull off The Christmas Panto, and indeed to bring life to the culturally ubiquitous Tinkerbell.

What’s your dressing room like?

It’s full of crap, all my shit, my hair products and beauty-makingstuff.

What’s it like getting ready, hair and makeup-wise, for Tinkerbell?

I have to pin up my hair, put a bald cap on, and then I put on a wig. I have to wax out my normal eyebrows and paint the eyebrows higher so that they become “pixie eyebrows”. She has a ton of glitter and green jewels on her face. It all takes about 45 minutes or more.

Do you feel there’s a difference in acting in “normal” plays to acting in pantos?

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It’s more animated, probably a bit more enjoyable actually because it’s less about your own emotions and feelings on stage and more about evoking it from the crowd. It’s really interesting to hear all the kids cheer and boo for you at different times. You get more of a response quicker from the audience — if you’re doing straight acting it’s harder to gauge what the audience are feeling, but if you have 700 kids screaming at your face you kind of get a sense of the general consensus.

Are there disadvantages to the element of play with the audience? Does it ever get disruptive with things like run time?

I suppose they are the final element to the show. What their responses are is just as important as what we’re saying.

Can you tell us about the production process for such a huge show?

The flying is huge! Nine different people in the production fly and there are three different flying tracks. The back of the theatre is a large computerised screen used to make it look like we’re flying over clouds and buildings and stuff like that. It’s a very, very techheavy show, it took about four days to get the tech done.

How do you prepare for a stunt like that?

Peter Pan went and trained in London and we got training from FOY who did the flying for the MTV awards. My entrances are seven or eight metres high up in the air and I’m terrified of heights!

Is this very much “theatre of the director” in terms of who your information is coming from, or is everybody involved?

It’s all the director’s vision and then we just add to it. So he’s an absolute genius and has it all worked out to a tee, and then everybody else works their hardest to get it done smoothly.

Yeah, and I had the books as well. She’s just a bit sassy and very self-oriented. I liked that, that’s juicy. Better than being the leading lady, like, that just sucks. She’s really bold and really naughty and kind of evil, but then people like her. I feel like she’s hit the nail on the head exactly.

How do you relate the fact that in the 1904 play by JM Barrie Tinkerbell was depicted simply as a light? Is Tinkerbell quite two-dimensional?

I actually think she’s quite a complex character, because she’s so in love with Peter Pan and wants all of his attention. I think because Disney made such her such a great character, people expect her to be in the show and not just a light!

Do you think it’s problematic that she’s a young woman obsessed with a man?

No, she’s just a poor little fairy who’s obsessed with a boy. I think we’ve all been there!

How are you playing Tinkerbell?

There’s a saying; fairies aren’t all bad, they aren’t all good, but they’re so small they can only hold one emotion at a time. She gets over-consumed by this singular emotion she’s feeling and and she doesn’t think about anyone else other than herself and Peter Pan. I play her like a little bold child. She’s clouded by her obsession rather than evil, not really wanting to kill anybody. That helps the panto style as well because she can just focus on the one thing.

What do you think about the panto as a form and prejudices against it? Is it a cash-cow?

I think it’s an under-appreciated cultural form. It’s a derivative of melodrama which was the main form of entertainment in the end of the 19th-, early 20th-century. That was all about big, spectacular

“You get more of a response

quicker from the audience — if you’re doing straight acting it’s harder to gauge what the audience are feeling, but if you have 700 kids screaming at your face you kind of get a sense of the general consensus.” sets. Lots of popular fringe-style theatre has a big link to pantomime because the whole idea of panto is complete engagement with the audience. It’s a narrative and a conversation that occurs between the actors on-stage and the audience. That kind of open dialogue disappeared when realism took over but fringe theatre is trying to regenerate that now.

I think calling it a cash-cow is a harsh criticism because it’s a theatre form that everybody in a family can get something from. Very few genres can achieve that; to be able to entertain a four-year-old and a 94-year-old at the same time is very important in art.

WORDS BY MATTHEW MALONE ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALICE WILSON

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a c h i e v e m E n t Deputy Games Editor Nicholas Kenny catches up with Jeremy Dooley of Achievement Hunter and delves into the recent phenomenon of the Let’s Play industry, the marriage of video gaming and comedy. ny of you are probably not familiar with Jeremy Dooley, or even with Achievement Hunter — the video gaming online entertainment channel, and a division of Rooster Teeth Productions — though this may soon change. Some may be aware of Rooster Teeth, however, from their hit machinima (the use of real-time computer graphics engines, generally video games, to create a cinematic production) series Red vs Blue, a show which combines the Halo video game franchise and filmmaking

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U N L O C K E D into a fantastic blend of action and comedy, or RWBY, their animated series, or maybe one of the many other projects that they have produced.

For the layman: “gaming achievements” are a set of goals scattered throughout a game, for which the player is rewarded points. These can range from things the player would normally do to the difficult, the amusing, and the absurd.

Achievement Hunter began in July 2008, when Rooster Teeth members Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo realised that there was no community-based website relating to gaming achievements, and proposed to Burnie Burns, then CEO of Rooster Teeth, the creation of a site based on showing how to obtain such achievements. Since then, they have become a gaming entertainment powerhouse, consisting of thirteen full-time employees and over two million subscribers to their YouTube channel, LetsPlay, which, among other things, posts recorded videos documenting a playthrough of a video

game, usually including commentary by the gamer(s).

Dooley himself grew up in Massachusetts, and got into video editing at a very young age. After coming across Achievement Hunter and realizing that combining comedy and careful editing could create such a potent form of entertainment, he took to it like a duck to water, and became a frequent feature on Achievement Hunter’s sister channel, AHCommunityVids, which allowed fans to submit videos for the company to upload. “I pretty much pulled out all the stops to make sure I could get a job with them,” he admits, looking back on the beginnings of his online success. “After threeor-so constant years of practice and editing, I eventually got there.”

Building an online presence wasn’t easy for him, and success certainly didn’t appear overnight, having spent a long time working on both his own channel and the videos he submitted to the AHCommunityVids. “It’s very easy to see the quality of the videos go up as time goes on. The videos are different from normal AH videos — more like the highly edited Play Pals show they have,” and he acknowledges that his work here definitely played a huge role in his getting the job.

Every summer since 2011, Rooster Teeth have held their annual convention, The Rooster Teeth Expo or RTX for short. During last summer’s RTX, in July 2014, Dooley and Matt [Bragg, contributor to Achievement Hunter, and creator of the MegaCraft show] were approached by Caleb Denecour [community manager of Achievement Hunter] the day before Achievement Hunter’s panel, and they were told that “he wanted us to approach the mic at the panel and ask for a job at Achievement Hunter — the way a lot of people do at those events. The plan was then to bring us up on stage and basically humiliate us as a skit-style joke.”

However, what actually occurred was very different, with Geoff Ramsey replying, “Alright, fuck it, you’re hired,” to the shock of everyone in the room, including Dooley and Bragg themselves. “I had my suspicions about something like that happening, but not as suddenly as it did,” Dooley admits, and the look on his face at that moment, livestreamed across the internet testifies to that. “It was unreal.”

When asked about whether he still had moments of disbelief at achieving his dream, the answer isn’t all that surprising: “I still have moments like that all the time. I’ll be riding to lunch with Joel [voice of Caboose in Red vs Blue, and Professor Oobleck in RWBY] and I stop and think ‘I can’t believe I’m in a car shooting the breeze with Joel Heyman.’ Or I’ll feel that way after recording a video with Geoff and Jack, or, more recently, playing Far Cry 4 and riding off a cliff on fire with Gavin [Free, creator of the Slow-Mo Guys channel, and has worked on films like Dredd, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, and Snow White and the Huntsman]. It’s an amazing feeling. Like working with movie-stars [...] And it hasn’t really set in yet that I’m technically one of them now.”

He wasn’t the only thing that Achievement Hunter picked up when they hired him – his own series Imaginary Achievements — in which Dooley and others pursue achievements which they themselves make up, and are not recognised within the game — has since become an established show on their channel. “It’s great to know I have full control over some Achievement Hunter content. Something that I actually own and contributed to this company.”

Obviously, the success of this kind of entertainment begs the question: what makes the Let’s Play industry so appealing and entertaining to viewers — in particular, in Achievement Hunter’s own work? Dooley shakes this question off, “It’s like asking someone what makes a comedian so appealing!

Looking at Let’s Players as people ‘just’ playing games is what makes them so confusing to people. Let’s Players are not just ordinary people playing games, but are actually entertainers and comedians, who use video games to generate the material they work off of.” The ability to play a game is something many people have, Dooley believes, but the ability to play a game, to create content from it that people will actually enjoy watching and laugh along with, is a very rare skill. “Geoff knows this, and it’s why he is so careful with who he hires.”

“It’s like asking someone what makes a comedian so appealing! Looking at Let’s Players as people ‘just’ playing games is what makes them so confusing to people.”

It’s no surprise that they have a long-running series of Let’s Plays in both Minecraft and the Grand Theft Auto series, both massive open-world games whose mechanics give plenty of opportunity for random and unpredictable events to occur, and have led to some of the best moments of entertainment on their channel. From the breathtaking moment of mass destruction in their “Things to do in GTA V — Achievement Knievel” video, to something as mundane being flipped into the air and spawning a new catchphrase, every one of their videos brings something new and unique to the table, and that is where the heart of their success lies. Their Let’s Plays, and several of their other series, rarely focus on the actual story missions of a game, but instead focus on pushing the games mechanics in new ways. From trying to land a plane on the side of a mountain, or a busy street, to trapping animals in Minecraft and spawning an internet campaign for their safe release, they thrive in playing games in ways that they were never intended to be played.

As to what the future holds, Dooley is cautiously optimistic, revealing that his participation in the company will only increase. “I’ve already appeared on several livestreams, as well as the RT Recap, and will be on On The Spot (Rooster Teeth’s Mock the Week-style panel show) very soon. I’ve also been approached and asked about my interest in helping with RT Shorts, X-Ray and Vav (RT’s latest animated series).” As long they continue to think up new ideas, he believes, they will continue to grow. “I’ve even talked with Matt (Hullum, the current CEO of Rooster Teeth) about some brand new projects coming soon in the future. With all the new content Rooster Teeth has been churning out lately, you can count on seeing me in a lot more productions in the future.”

WORDS BY NICHOLAS KENNY ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE WILSON

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location: Paris name: Sophie Wilson camera: Lumix GX1 27

EVIEWS

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THE HOBBIT Peter Jackson

“Will you have peace, or will you have war?” asks Bard (Luke Evans), the question that hangs over every man, dwarf, and elf in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Peter Jackson’s final delve into Middle Earth. As a foreshadowing answer to that question, the film starts with a bang and a blaze, picking up right where The Desolation of Smaug left off.

If you’re in search of stunning visuals, thrilling battle sequences, and other general epic happenings, BOTFA will exceed all your expectations and beyond. Creative license is certainly taken throughout, the success of the many and various deviations from J.R.R. Tolkien’s work subject to opinion. Where the film lacks, however, is in the character relationships and development; much tension and weight is given to foreboding glances and one-liners, while the most climactic scenes are quick and underwhelming.

Adapted from the Pulitzer prize-winning novel of the same name, Olive Kitteridge portrays an Americana beset with melancholy, pain, acceptance, loyalty and love. Set in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine, the mini-series follows the life of the eponymous lead (Frances McDormand) and her relationship with her husband Henry (Richard Jenkins), her son Chris (John Gallagher Jr) and the town’s inhabitants. Shying away from the quirkiness that plagues small-town American narratives, the show dissects this dichotomy of suffocating intimacy coupled with its deeply nurturing aspect — a dualism which simultaneously condemns and redeems a community from its own malaise. Olive herself is the hyper-realised version of this dichotomy, an antisocial curmudgeon who engages not only in petty behaviours but commendable acts of kindness, in an environment stifled with lost potential and buried grievances.

The unconventional marriage between

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Amid all the drama, however, the most poignant moment is one of relative calm is when we find Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman) sitting side by side in silence and battle-rubble while the wizard tries futilely to light his pipe.

Likewise, it is Freeman’s perfect and understated performance that shines like the Arkenstone through other somewhat over-acted portrayals. McKellen is, as always, brilliant, and other standouts include Evans, Aidan Turner as Kili, and Lee Pace as Thranduil.

With so much time dedicated to the battle itself, little is left for the ending, which is a tad jumbled and will raise questions for

OLIVE KITTERIDGE Sky Atlantic

anyone who has not read the book. The very last scene, however, satisfyingly ends where The Fellowship of the Ring begins, with an aged Bilbo (Ian Holm) preparing for his Long Expected Party.

While The Battle of the Five Armies is not without imperfections, it is unmissable for any fans of Middle Earth. Not surprisingly, the best line comes from Thorin (Richard Armitage), who, both paraphrasing Tolkien and essentially summing up the entire plot, gives us this little aphorism: “If more of us valued home over gold, the world would be a better place.”

WORDS BY ELYNIA BETTS

Olive and Henry, shrouded in what seems like bitterness, is deeply compelling and portrays a flawed marriage built on acceptance of the realities of longterm affection and intimacy, especially when affronted by potential infidelities.

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are Alright), the series has a theatrical feel with interiority of character given centre stage and the use of echoing silences highlighting the stillness and stagnation of small-town living in a community conditioned to suppress their emotions. The raw, nuanced performances by McDormand and Jenkins rescue the series from teetering into the melodramatic, and the supporting cast which includes Bill Murray, Rosemarie DeWitt and Zoe Kazan provides a wealth of well-drawn out characters, each crippled by their own personal yet universal circumstances.

Olive Kitteridge can be seen on Sky Atlantic on December 14.

WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

FUSED Project Arts Centre If you’ve ever wondered what PuzzleAdventure-Gaming: Unplugged would look like, Fused is your answer. Ten players from the audience guide our protagonist, Ste, through a series of suitably cheesy and nonsensical scenes designed as an homage to 90s point-and-clickers, commanding him over a microphone to interact with nonplayer characters or pick up objects. As the clock ticks down to looming appointments or self-destruct systems, the unlikely team of theatre-goers must leave their dramatic expectations aside and revert to nights spent sitting with siblings around a Playstation, brainstorming to figure out just how they’re going to get past that villain unseen. A clear split soon emerges among the audience as seasoned gamers gnaw knuckles while newbies flail in unfamiliar puzzle-logic — it takes a certain kind of person to see that a sandwich might be the key to the next level. Thankfully, the warm performance from Ste Murray opens this experience up for any level of player, and the pace of the show ensures the team in the front row bond quickly.

Arthur Fields’ Man on the Bridge in the Gallery of Photography is the opening up of an archive which maps the evolution of Dublin’s street society from 1933 to 1988. Fields firmly cemented himself as an institution on O’Connell Bridge where he stood 365 days a year for over 50 years, candidly capturing the daily stride of the Dubliner. The installation spans four rooms and two floors, centred around an enormous billboard sized collection of 3400 photographs, with an accompanying selection of featured photographs and heartwarming morsels of insight into the lives of the subjects. A video documentary perhaps the best compliment to the installation, portraying Field’s as a tradesman rather than an artist, making the collection an all the more genuine a look at a pre-internet Humans of Dublin.

Through Fields’ photographic time machine, we witness social exteriors soften with the informalisation of dress.

Who would have thought that in the 1930s, teenage girls were once sartorially indistinguishable from their mothers? As we watch the years rise, the same can be said of their hemlines. From 1966, photos of traditional Irish family units flower into the birth of Dublin youth culture,

Dan Bergin has scripted the piece with a keen eye for gaming convention, full of delightfully repetitive and vapid dialogue that’d fit perfectly on any console. The improvisation required by the cast is incredible with Ste Murray completely at the audience’s whim: a command to move into the next room requires an entire scene-change, and these can come every 30-second turn. As a nod to the older gaming-models mentioned at the opening

of the show, this play fits the bill perfectly, forgettable and irrational plot included.

This format is fresh and welcome, and Bergin’s next step might be to emulate the progression of more meaningful gaming.

MAN ON THE BRIDGE

a social microcosm which spices up the streets. Musical influences of the times are interpreted through fashion: hippies, mods, skinheads and punks map the changes in attitudes towards the camera, as stiffness and “say cheese” is replaced by boisterous, full frontal engagement and street banter. Couples who dare to defy the church through pre-marital displays of public affection are getting younger. We can even pinpoint the beginning of the Irish women’s revolution in terms of office wear and trouser rebellion.

Gallery of Photography

Fused runs at Project Arts Centre until December 13.

WORDS BY HEATHER KEANE

Fields successfully unravels the sociocultural history of the “photographic mile” as Westmorland Street and O’Connell Bridge were previously dubbed.

The exhibition gives a direct insight to the changing face of the social attitudes and norms of Dubliners.

Man on the Bridge runs until 8 January 2015 at the Gallery of Photography, Temple Bar.

WORDS BY HANNAH AMADEUS HARTE PHOTO BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

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DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION Xbox One Dragon Age: Inquisition, from legendary studio Bioware, is the third installment in the Dragon Age saga.

Bioware consistently raises the bar for video game storytelling and DA:I does not disappoint in that regard.

From the beginning you are thrust into a complicated rebellion/apocalypse story, with a mystery element thrown in for good measure. From there you spend your time preparing for an assault on the mysterious “Breach” by completing various missions and sending advisors to carry out a variety of tasks, all while feeling like all of these actions are necessary for your mission.

The story, however, isn’t perfect.

There is a certain point in the game where, after you build towards this big crescendo, the game almost resets at a different point in the story, so that it’s basically a repetition of the previous gameplay. It really saps the pace out of what was otherwise a fantastic story.

A major improvement made in this

installment is in the graphics. The landscapes look fantastic and the characters look incredibly real. In DA:I Bioware made one of the best looking games out now. The new graphics also serve to make the gameplay feel dynamic and more action heavy than it actually is. The gameplay, which gives

you the option of the tactical combat of Dragon Age: Origins, or the fast and fluid combat of Dragon Age II, and is packed with fancy particle effects that adds to the overall immersion of the game.

The mechanics are the Far Cry ones that we all know and love: shooting and scavenging are as tight and wellimplemented as ever and the fusion of stealth and high-octane shootouts holds up as a thrilling experience allround. The most notable change is a minor one to the driving controls that make them clunky and awkward, but

this is forgivable.

WORDS BY EOIN LIVINGSTON

FAR CRY 4 PS4 Far Cry 4 is Ubisoft’s latest first person fever-dream action game, this time taking us to the distinctly Nepalese fictional state of Kyrat rather than the depths of the jungle like in Far Cry 3.

Unfortunately, the differences between the games stop shortly thereafter.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Far Cry 4 is just a particularly meaty expansion of the previous game, as it runs off of the same engine and has an extremely similar feel. The game also boasts the same “fish out of water” story with a charismatic insane villain to boot. Pagan is more memorable and dynamic than Vaas was, and the scenery of Kyrat is much more varied and appealing. The art design of the game as a whole is much better, but its secondary characters are extremely forgettable and all pale in comparison to Troy Baker’s beautifully acted Pagan.

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Altogether, Far Cry 4 is not a major departure, but it didn’t need to be. If you liked the previous game you’ll love this one, but maybe hold off on buying a one way ticket to Kyrat otherwise.

WORDS BY DENIS STRANJAK

“Years later, long since fully grown and each of them enmeshed in his own particular form of unhappiness, none of Arthur Friedland’s sons could recall whose idea it had actually been to go to the hypnotist that afternoon.”

F

Daniel Kehlmann trans. by Carol Janeway

Daniel Kehlmann’s sixth novel begins on an odd note and gets progressively odder. The Brothers Friedman, abandoned by their father and committed to vocations with which they’ve long since become disillusioned, are very entertaining narrators. The book follows each of them through their weary neglect of duty, and documents the startling, cynical coping mechanisms that stand between them and farcical nihilism.

Martin is a priest who snacks in the confessional booth, Eric is a driven businessman trying to stave off the reality of his bankruptcy, and Ivan is an artist whose insight into the baffling logic of the art world have led him into dubious moral territory.

F is a novel about family history, one that goes to some unusual lengths to show how life gets shaped by circumstance and odd historical context. Kehlmann’s terse prose pulls the reader through the novel’s most ludicrous scenes, backwards and forwards through time and then again into a (supposedly) mundane world made to feel all the richer for the strange things that came before. F’s characters inhabit roles very familiar to the reader, but ones that are invigorated in his mischievous look at postmodern life. As a reading experience, F is not a book that will let you settle into a journey with its characters, and it’s hard to say exactly what insights it wants you to take from it at all. Comic, slightly dark, and willfully blank in the face of traditional questions about motivation and moral lessons, this book is one you’ll end up getting through very fast or despairing of completely.

WORDS BY DANIEL TATLOW

STANLEY’S

St. Andrew’s Street

Only a week after opening Stanley’s on St. Andrew’s Street had an air of quiet excitement about it when my two dining partners and I settled into the window seat for lunch. The white and olive colour scheme, with pale wood, low lighting, and vintage mirrors created an old Parisian charm.

The seats were comfortable and the table just big enough for the three of us. The waiter was attentive and careful to explain a menu that he was clearly enthusiastic about. He brought water and complimentary Guinness and treacle bread while we chose from the straightforward lunch list.

My partners opted for a sandwich each (€8), one spiced beef brisket and one with lemon and garlic chicken, along with a side of chips (€4), while I chose the pasta special (€14): a mushroom and chorizo pappardelle (a wide tagliatelle I soon learned). The food arrived quickly, and a steady stream of curious diners continued to be seated.

The baguettes were a little tough but were generously filled and topped with a portion of salad. The beef was

moist and complemented by a sharp horseradish and balsamic onions, while the flavours of lemon, avocado and beetroot balanced surprisingly well with the chicken. The chips were fresh, crisp and simply delicious. My pasta was full of various types of mushrooms and this was the main flavour of the dish, which was served in a light cream sauce with a generous portion of

Parmesan on top. So pleased by lunch, we had a look at the dinner menu, but with the mains coming in from €20, lunch at Stanley’s is the more affordable and highly recommended option.

WORDS BY KERRY BRENNAN PHOTO BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

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WORDS BY HEATHER KEANE

Project Arts Centre, tickets €16 (€14 concession).

Having scooped a joint Best Performance Award and a host of five-star reviews for its original run in the 2014 Dublin Fringe Festival’s Show In A Bag initiative, Dublin Oldschool is getting restaged and redesigned for an upcoming run at Project Arts Centre. Lauded for its authenticity in its representation of modern Dublin, Emmet Kirwan’s play infuses familiar characters with lyrical complexity to form a rapturous exploration of the city’s drug scene. Estranged brothers, Kirwan and Ian Lloyd Anderson — one a pillhead, the other a heroin addict — reconnect when one finds the other homeless. Both trip their way through their familial history on-stage, tension bubbling as the buzz wears off.

DUBLIN OLD SCHOOL

DECEMBER 10-13

WORDS BY LOLA BOORMAN

Block T, Smithfield. Friday 5-9pm, Sat and Sun 11am-7pm

WORDS BY ELIZABETH MOHEN

The James Joyce Centre Dublin, 35 North Great George’s Street.

Independent publishers and Joycean readings/Mulled wine and sweet treats and Christmas proceedings/Donations to Fighting Words are all you should bring – we’ll pause the song here, but these are definitely a few of our favourite things.

All this and more shall all be on offer at the Dubliners Christmas Book Market, to be held on December 14 from 12 till 4.30pm at the James Joyce Centre. Those attending can avail of a fine selection of noteworthy books from prominent Irish publishing houses including Lilliput Press and The Stinging Fly, while listening to readings from performers such as David Norris. A veritable winter wonderland for literary enthusiasts, the market should doubtlessly stir enough irresistible goodwill for participants to offer donations to worthy organization Fighting Words.

DUBLINERS CHRISTMAS BOOK MARKET

WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

The Downton Abbey Christmas Special can be seen on Christmas Day on ITV and on St Stephen’s Day on TV3 at 9pm.

Having forgone the festive atmosphere in previous Christmas specials, this year’s two-hour Downton Abbey finale sees the Crawley clan spending the holidays with newly-weds Rose and Atticus at Lord Sinderby’s castle in Northumberland.

Peace and goodwill are not on the agenda for Lord Sinderby’s butler Stowell who harbours an explosive secret that threatens to curtail the festivities.

Downstairs, Bates takes drastic measures to clear Anna’s name following the murder charges she faces for Mr Green’s death. Guest appearances are to be expected from Matthew Goode, as an addition to the retinue of Lady Mary’s admirers, as well as Jane Lapotaire (as Princess Irina), whose rescue is much to the chagrin of the Dowager.

DOWNTON CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

BLOCK T CHRISTMAS MARKET Running every weekend consecutively until December 21 is the Weekend Christmas Market at Block T in the heart of Smithfield where you can trawl the plethora of stalls in search of unique and locally produced gifts. With a host of great food stalls to keep you fueled throughout your shopping session, the Market will feature artwork for sale from local Irish artists and designers, an unique alternative to your regular Christmas lists. The regular Smithfield flea-market fare can also be expected accompanied by a number of DJs and performers creating your very own holiday soundtrack. It’s set to be a great environment for both a festive family outing or a secretive last minute shopping mission.

DECEMBER 25

DECEMBER DECEMBER 13-21 14

WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEYY

Available from December 11, pick it up for €6 from the likes of Fallon & Byrne, The Library Project, Block T and The Little Museum of Dublin.

GUTS is a magazine born out of the voyeurism and blurred lines between public and private life which have come to define contemporary relations and society in general. Each issue will see several young Dublin writers come together and respond to a specific theme by sharing secrets and stories, and ultimately self-expose for your pleasure.

Issue 1, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, will feature personal essays and confessional accounts from Nialler9, Maeve Higgins and Neil Watkins amongst others, as well as artwork by Mick Minogue.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

The Red Stables, Day tickets €12.50, weekend passes €20.

As the Christmas break approaches, some of us may be planning to spend a solid month indoors with the blinds closed staring dead-eyed at the computer screen. This weekend, why not instead pop down to Otaku Con to meet new, interesting people and hear about their plans to spend the following month indoors with the blinds closed staring dead-eyed at their computer screens.

Taking place in the Red Stables over December 13 and 14, the event will host video game and card game tournaments, a cosplay competition, and a number of panels featuring voice actors from the Street Fighter, Tekken, and Diablo series.

OTAKU CON

DECEMBER DECEMBER 11 13-14

GUTS

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WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

Tickets €9 (€7.50 concession).

The Light House Cinema will once again be filled with holiday cheer for their Naughty or Nice season of festive favourites. Enjoy some dazzling Christmas magic with timeless classics It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle of 34th Street (not to be missed on the big screen), or indulge with mischievous caper Home Alone. Christmas is all around in Love Actually, or find Bruce Willis wreaking Yuletide mayhem on terrorists in Die Hard. Alternatively, you could join a roomful of little Elsas and Olafs screaming the lyrics to Let It Go at the Frozen sing-along, but perhaps best to stock up on mulled wine in the bar beforehand. The Light House will also be selling gorgeous film-themed Christmas cards by local designer Alan Dunne to coincide with the program, starring Buddy the Elf, John McClane and Kevin McAllister.

NAUGHTY OR NICE

DECEMBER 14

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

Point Village, tickets €5–16.

“Like a roller disco, except on ice!”

Brought to you by the always-stellar team Discotekken and introducing their new sister night, The RnB Club, this festive event looks set to be excellent. With a groovy soundtrack of 70s and 80s disco, the promise of an after-party in Sugar Club, and the (optimistic) notion that maybe someone will be worse on the ice than you are, this is one of your best options for some fun, delightfully silly yuletide joy. Skates are included, there’s a €25 UBER code for all ticket buyers and, most importantly of all, there’ll be lots and lots of sweet, glittery disco balls.

Sign us up (and pray that those visions of Bambi on ice don’t come to fruition).

DISCOTEKKEN ON ICE

DECEMBER 20

BREATHING ROOM

H

e seemed a nice guy — a friend of a friend who I hit it off with — so it was only natural a few hours after we met that we were back in his flat kissing, clothes quickly coming off. If the foreplay seemed a little rougher than I was used to with hair-pulling and intense biting; if his hand grazed (in retrospect, almost questioningly) along my throat then; I didn’t really think much of it. Recently out of a relationship, I was ready for something new and this guy seemed exciting, fun and different. The fact that he just went for it then with no word of warning — squeezing my neck while I was on top, staring into my eyes almost aggressively - was surprising, yes, but I would never have thought to stop him. There was kind of a thrill about the vague suffocation, and there was something exciting about letting myself completely trust this guy I had just met — plus, if he was into it I was happy to go with it.

My friends, it seemed, had a significantly less lax attitude towards the idea of such encounters. “I feel like I would be scared if that were me”, said one girl, “I’d be concerned they were actually going to murder me.” Another friend agreed: “I don’t think I would enjoy that… I’d be concerned they’d get too into it and actually hurt me.”

Another girl threatened to kick her boyfriend out of bed when he tried it and, in fairness, I can understand all the reservations.

By the very nature of what it is, breath play is a risky game, with links to incidences of people passing out during sex and, even more worryingly, cardiac arrest.

Precautions do have to be exercised and you absolutely have to know when to stop.

I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit freaked out when it first happened, but I suppose that was part of the rush — and in the ensuing hookups with said guy, there was definitely something titillating about the aggressive nature of it all.

“I heard something really weird about you recently — I heard you were into really kinky sex,” a drunk male friend recently probed. Not that it was really any of his business what I get up to, but

the notion of there being some kind of sexual “norm” beyond which everything else is deviant and wild seems an anachronistic idea at best: everyone likes different things. As long as you’re getting choked consensually then there shouldn’t be an issue.

Ultimately, though, the bedroom is a fun place to enact fantasies, and it’s okay to be a feminist and still enjoy being dominated — the FKA twigs video for Papi Pacify does a great job of illustrating how darkly sensual and erotic rough sex can be.

This considered, there’s something a little off about the recent censorship placed on porn produced in the UK, essentially banning anything even a little “fetish” and, perhaps more worryingly, seemingly trying to erase any notion of female empowerment in the bedroom. Male “cum shots” remain a standard but, bizarrely, showing female ejaculation has been banned. What doesn’t make sense is that the ban to distinguish between consensual and nonconsensual acts — while understably banning the production of porn that shows rape acts is very much justified, it paints consensual acts that are viewed as “weird” with the same brush. While there is a danger in conflating pornography with real life experience, banning these acts implies that they are in some way “wrong” — shaming people, notably women, for their sexuality. The ban is nothing more than an attempt to impose moral judgements and restrictions on consenting adults and, by extension, on the private sex lives of consenting individuals.

“I heard something really weird about you recently — I heard you were into really kinky sex.”

The list of acts that have been banned is pretty long, but the most interesting are perhaps those which have been deemed as “lifethreatening”. I do understand the particularly sensitive, triggering implications of strangulation, with its fatal links. I won’t claim to be an expert in fisting, but its apparently life-threatening status seems a bit dubious — though it is hilarious that it’s only banned with the arbitrary proviso of all knuckles being inserted. As for face sitting, perhaps there was a poorly publicised incident in which someone tragically died from being smothered by a vagina, but otherwise this just proves the point that images of dominant female sexuality are being curtailed.

The UK government’s ban ultimately binds the smaller, more fetish and feminist porn production houses, making the porn available conform to the more “normal” mold. If people want to watch “weird” porn with physical restraints and aggressive whipping then they will. If people want to consensually practice “weird” sex with dirty talk and spanking then they will. Being made to feel morally inferior or ashamed for those desires is frankly archaic, and enforcing a nanny state psychology on it all just seems misguided and judgemental. The conservative, paternalistic sex brigade telling you what’s “normal” should be ignored: if you want some, go out and get some consensual kink.

WORDS BY ANONYMOUS ILLUSTRATION BY GRAHAM HAUGHT WWW.GRAHAMHAUGHT.COM

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