FREE TAKE ONE! // THEATRE WEST // Pub theatre perfection // A NOVEL PREMISE? // The best (and worst) big screen literary adaptations
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www.venue.co.uk nO.973 // october 2011 // FREE
// ALICE COOPER // Shock-rock‘o’clock // MICHAEL MORPURGO // From page to stage to screen: the incredible journey of ‘War Horse’
BIG GIGS, GUERILLA ART, OSCAR TIPS, FRINGE FAVOURITES & MORE: AUTUMN’S ABOUT TO DETONATE IN BRISTOL AND BATH
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Contents
Contact
editor@venue.co.uk @venueeditor
Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings
p.14 Fall’s gold PIC: RICHARD CANON
Yep, the loan-flushed students are all back, the summer’s on lockdown and everybody’s touring, performing and booking the big names. We look ahead to a jam-packed autumn/ winter and pick our theatre, film, music, clubbing and other artsy highlights.
p.26 The lit parade With a packed roster of novelists, politicos, philosophers, scientists, artists and others, the Cheltenham Literature Festival opens this month in typically rude health; we chat to ‘War Horse’ author Michael Morpurgo (pictured) and look ahead to some recent bestsellers about to hit the big screen.
p.24 Alice Cooper The eminently quotable, theatrically-minded horrorrocker raises hell at the Colston Hall later this month as his notorious Halloween Night Of Fear takes to the road. We nervously dip a toe into the bloodbath.
Features
Regulars
p.13 I predict a riot? Film director Emily James talks direct action protest
// inbox //
// Film //
// Comedy //
p.41 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy… Lars von Trier’s Melancholia…
p.74 The pick of this month’s funny stuff
// Music // p.51 Zun Zun Egui… Eliza Carthy… Wilco…
p.4 Letters, opinion, guff…
// Clubs //
p.32 The big pictures: Steve Wright takes a stroll down nostalgia street
// i saw you //
p.65 Ist Das/Das Ist: Timbuk2’s techno titans
p.34 The silly season: Our round-up of the weird, wonky and WTF? news stories that staggered before the public eye this summer
// newshound //
p.7 Did you see me?
p.36 A satirical slice through the quivering quiche of local news
// Performance // p.69 Theatre West at the Alma… Northern Broadsides’ We Are Three Sisters… Rambert back in Bath…
Get every issue of venue delivered early
// ART // p.76 Museums, galleries, exhibitions and installations
// BOOKS // p.79 Our favourite short stories
// Days Out // p.81 Day trips, outings and family fun
// skills // p.84 Workshops, courses, jobs and stuff
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p.89 Local LGBT events and news
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Inbox Tat’s all folks // Robin Askew’s tattoo column was a treat, especially the bit about “tramp stamps” (‘And Another Thing’, issue 972). He might like to know that we Germans call these ‘Arschgeweih’ – ‘ass antlers’. Also, as a further mark of tattooing’s inexorable slide into the mainstream, in 2008 Mattel released a ‘Totally Stylin’ Tattoo Barbie’ to mark the doll’s 50th anniversary – it came with a special pink ‘tattoo gun’ thingy, a ‘tramp stamp’ tattoo dedicated to Barbie’s penis-less beau Ken, and a selection of (temporary) tats with which kids could brand themselves if they were feeling particularly nonconformist and rebellious. Interestingly, when Mattel released a similar Barbie in 1999 with a tattoo on her stomach, the public outcry was sufficiently great that they removed the
Letter of the month
dolls from shops. Ten years on, a doll that young girls can ‘ink up’ themselves is available with barely a murmur of objection – despite the ongoing debate about the marketing industry’s rabid sexualisation of young children. Perhaps rather than a fad, tattooing has become a rite of passage that (like so many other things) kids are being encouraged to undertake earlier and earlier. Anyway, I’m off to the laser removal clinic to get this giant Gary Glitter face removed from my left buttock. Wish me luck. Peter Stoiber, Hotwells Good luck, Peter. And thanks for sharing. Here’s a tattoo-free £10 Waterstone’s Voucher – perhaps you could put it towards a copy of ‘No Regrets: The Best, Worst & Most @%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever’ by Aviva Yael and PM Chen. Or perhaps not.
Cabot kettle
Picture this // Re: the Venue version of the ‘Famous Bristolians’ picture (‘The Famous Forty’, issue 972). Had you thought of making your version available as a
BIG GIGS, GUERILLA ART, OSCAR TIPS, FRINGE FAVOURITES & MORE: AUTUMN’S ABOUT TO DETONATE IN BRISTOL AND BATH
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Issue 973 Autumn preview
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poster? If not – please seriously consider. Would love to have it on the back of my toilet door. I’m sure it would sell like hot Bath buns! Jeff Lucas, by email
Venue Magazine Bristol Office Bristol News & Media, Temple Way, Bristol, BS99 7HE Tel 0117 942 8491 (12 lines) Fax 0117 934 3566 Bath Office Bath News & Media, Floor 2, Westpoint, James West St, Bath, BA1 1UN Tel 01225 429801
Fax 01225 447602 Email (Editorial): editor@ venue.co.uk / (Advertising): ads@venue.co.uk / (Classified ads): classified@venue.co.uk Website www.venue.co.uk Twitter @venueeditor Group Editor Dave Higgitt Editor-at-large Joe Spurgeon
// The riots. I know, old news now. But it did seem odd to me that after round one of rioting in Stokes Croft, the police had not learned a few lessons. Firstly, that the Stokes Croft/St Pauls area is a very difficult area in which to contain a crowd, being as it is a network of little interconnected streets. Secondly, that the Stokes Croft/St Pauls area is not a good area in which to kettle up an angry mob, being as it is a densely populated neighbourhood, where lots of families live. Why then, after the first bout of violence, did the police gather their troops and provocatively park up their vans all along the Croft, as if in readiness for a battle? Doing this gave any potential troublemakers
Associate Editor Mike White Studio Manager Cath Evans Design Team Sarah Clark, Sarah Malone Production Charis Munday Sub-Editors Tom Phillips, Jo Renshaw Advertising Manager Becky Davis Bristol Advertising Adam Burrows, Ben Wright, Bex
a heads-up of where to start a ruck, and created an atmosphere of anticipation and tension that can only have exacerbated what happened later that evening. If you must make a big display of force, do it in an area which isn’t full of families, and which has limited and easily controlled exits. Cabot Circus, for example, would’ve been perfect. If you’re aiming to attract trouble (and rolling up in riot vans and body armour certainly attracts rather than diffuses a rowdy mob), then please, for the sake of our families, do it in a less populated area. Is it that the gaudy chain stores of Cabot Circus are considered more important than the families of inner city Bristol? It certainly seems that way. Jean, St Pauls
Baddiley Bath Advertising Nejla Unal Distribution and Subscriptions Simon Butler Publication Co-ordinators Emma Gorton, Ruth Wood Art Steve Wright Books Joe Spurgeon Classical Paul Riley Clubs Adam Burrows Comedy Steve Wright
Days Out Anna Britten Dance Steve Wright Events Mike White Film Robin Askew Jazz Tony Benjamin Lesbian & Gay Darryl Bullock News Eugene Byrne Rock Julian Owen Roots Julian Owen Skills Anna Britten Sport Simon Fry Theatre Steve Wright
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editor@venue.co.uk Each Letter of the Month receives a £10 voucher to spend in any Waterstone’s store nationwide.
Weighty issue // Found this great new word on t’interweb and it tickled me: “Kummerspeck, m. (genitive singular Kummerspecks): Excess weight gained due to emotioncaused overeating.” This is, I believe, a phenomenon often observed in Aldi Bedminster. Please ask your Food and Drink editor. Mrs Hugh Jass, Southville
helps encourage people out of their cars, and thus helps to reduce the choking levels of car traffic in Bristol, is a good thing. If it also helps public transport at the same time, so much the better! If only they’d spend it on trams instead of buses though, so we could be more like Amsterdam, Strasbourg et al. Anyway, here’s hoping the council has the balls to implement the parking levy and not be swayed by the pathetic bleating of the local business community. Bruce Jacques, Easton
Ashton Cor! // Loved your Brisfest feature (‘The People’s Party’, issue 972). Ashton Court Festival returning in 2012? How about that! I’m so delighted, and equally pleased I heard it first from good ol’ Venue. Keep up the good work. Jason Clutton, Redfield
Flawed popular
Parklife
www.joeberger.co.uk
// I hear that Bristol City Council are planning to impose a levy which would see firms charged £1 per day for every car parking space they provide for staff, in order to raise extra funds for a better bus service. What a brilliant idea. Anything that
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// Just spat my cornflakes everywhere reading Robin Askew’s anti-tattoo sniping (‘And Another Thing’, issue 972). He’s spot on about how a thing (e.g. lower back tattoo) is for a brief moment seen as cool and different, then is adopted by the mainstream and simultaneously becomes conformist and sh*t. This is true of most things – by the time everyone likes it, it isn’t cool any more. Why is it that the next stage after something being universally liked is that it becomes universally mocked?
What does that say about the human race? Dave Reddern, by email
Changing times // Bristol’s big industries of old were slaves, tobacco, chocolate and sugar refining. Once venerable trades, now vilified catalysts of cancer and obesity. Today, (arguably) our biggest claims to glory are dubstep and graffiti – once vilified underground movements associated with drug use and vandalism, now venerable bastions of modern cool – as displayed by that ace Fear No Evil graf event/block party on Nelson Street last month. Funny old world, innit? Fran Plummer, by email
// SEVERN BORE // Opinion. If you like that sort of thing... // Here, read this: http://tinyurl. com/6y7y4tb It’s a reader’s letter to the Evening Post early in September from a man who cares for a sick or disabled family member. It’s headed “Caring is a civic duty, not about making a profit”, and he says it all a whole lot better than your correspondent (enjoying considerably better health than I deserve) ever could. Bristol City Council’s Liberal Democrat-run administration are currently privatising social care, despite assuring voters and staff they wouldn’t before this year’s local elections. According to think-tank Demos, it’s slashed over 30% of its adult care and support budget alone. The same report (see tinyurl. com/62ohrkr) ranks Bristol 147th out of 152 councils in England & Wales for its disability services. Of course, the thing about social care, and home care in particular, is that it takes place behind closed doors. If it doesn’t affect you directly, the savage nature of these cuts won’t be noticeable. But for many disabled, terminally-ill and isolated individuals all over the city, the services provided by Bristol are literally a lifeline. The council’s in-house service, say the Lib Dems, is very expensive. It’s far cheaper to privatise. Play whatever sleight-of-hand you want with numbers, but a privatised service generates its “efficiencies” by paying low wages to inexperienced staff with a high turnover. They work to a strict timetable, meaning the level of care will suffer. And at the end of it, a fat profit for the private firms running the service. The abuses at the Winterbourne View and other care homes ought to make us all think twice about the quality of privatised care, but apparently not. Oh, and the council recently increased the price of its community meals service by 33% as well. Welcome to Bristol. How civilised are we?
october 2011 // 5
9/27/2011 12:10:08 PM
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6 // october 2011
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9/28/2011 3:06:32 PM
ISawYou
To submit an I Saw You email isawyou@venue.co.uk web www.venue.co.uk/isawyou
// Reach out to someone // I Saw You - Trying to steal a fishhead from our CEO's pocket... I Saw You EMMA... at SouthBank. I thought you were Sarah (!) I sang Deeply Dippy while you smoked an electronic cigarette. We talked. I was entranced by your beauty, enriched by your smile and quite intoxicated by your energy (though your Samba left a bit to be desired!) Don’t know if any of the lucky guys with you were the ‘Main Man’, but I should have said something, anything, so left with regrets. Here’s my long-shot. If you have any interest, even just as friends, do please get in touch. I Saw You Re: 'Shine on you crazy diamond'...not sure if this is for me but just in case it is... can i have a hint that will let me know it's really you? please get in touch. I Saw You - I saw your ad. Is it "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" the Pink Floyd song? I Saw You - Hang on a minute! Is there a link between: Go go Gorgeous Mobile Salon, Eve's other, whisper to a tree and make me feel amazing and shit at the same time? I Saw You - Not sure I'm Eve's other...but thanks anyway! I'm not sure it's you either...but if I got it right, I think it was just nice getting to know each other and feeling good. All I can add 4 now is: believe in your target, it's doable, can be hard, but you can do it! And also believe in the one you love, cause if it's real love, you'll never be old and poor ;-) I Saw You Matt at the Cooler on Sat 17th. You were visiting from London. You and your mates all had a picture of your mate's girlfriend on your phones. I had a really good night and am kicking
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myself for not getting your number. I hope you see this and fancy replying. I Saw You - It was on Thursday 15/09/2011, around 5pm. We were on opposite ends of the crossing outside the Mint Hotel in Temple Way. I was the Asian guy with black hair in the white shirt and black trousers, you were the caucasian bruentte with your hair tied back and in dark blue gym gear. We were both wearing headphones and kept looking each other, smiling the whole time. We looked at each other as we walked past each other, but I wish I could have talked to you I Saw You... black curly hair & lovely figure - Argos, Cribbs Tuesday 6th sept. I carried your shelves to your car - mercedes c class. You said you had a handyman coming to put them up. Any other odd jobs I could do for you??!! I loved your perfume I Saw You Foxy Welsh scientist, chilling in the OE (slightly incongruously, but this redounds
I saw you in my minds eye thinking about you and thinking of you. Selfish of me to want you to be sat in front of me for a few hours. To look at you again would be a real treat. I don't think life will have it that way. You avoid me like the plague.
I saw you trying to teach me Greek and I was over the Moon! So sorry I couldn't have been a better student though. Kalinihta. x
to your credit). I am the colonial type who asked you if you had a spare safety pin for my pipe. You didn't but I thought you were nice when we talked. Now kicking myself for not asking for your phone number. But I really did have to go home and read those pages. If you read this, please do email. I'd really like to see you again. I Saw You last Saturday (10th September) in the outside / smoking / garden area of DOJO Nightclub... you had on a lovely little dress, you sort of climbed up on the roof from a beer table, I tried to help you and we kissed momentarily... you were good! I think you were upset about something... anyway our paths have to cross again. I Saw You - Would love to see the chap again in the lounge bar old market Saturday 10th September about 10ish with the single black high heel shoe, you looked amazing. I Saw You - this morning, and I've seen you most mornings for over a year now. You make me so happy. You're the partner I was always looking for x I Saw You and took the 'Risk' in Castle Park wooden castle the night of the first Stokes Croft riots! You are Inevitably All I Ever Wanted, and all I ever will. Take a risk and give it one last chance. I love you with all my heart I Saw You Sunday 9th Sept 1pmish train/s from Clifton to Bath (Keynsham for me) with your tennis kit...OMG you were sooo hot, wish I had gut's to do more than smile. Heard you on phone and you said your name was Rufus...Rufus I owe you a drink if this finds you...you made my day
I Saw You Gareth, when you delivered to my work everyday. I also saw you now and again on the way to work. It always made me smile. I hear you've switched jobs now, & will be travelling around the country, & I might not see you again. This doesn't make me smile. I never had the courage to ask for you're number... But I hope it's not too late. I Saw You - you were working at the kite festival on a stall- i gave u a flower. was too scared to talk to you properly! I Saw You - Late afternoon Wed 7th Sep, we exchanged smiles on the steps outside Tesco in Clifton village. You - bleach blonde crop, dressed in black, me - battered leather jacket and jeans.Fancy a cheeky bevvy? I Saw You at Shambala we met, your name is Grant and you live in Bristol too. Intoxicated we hunted for my tent to get a smoke and some rum.. Once there rum was spilled over your jumper and tobacco, we lost the torch and could'nt find anything,your phone broke after being submerged in water,then you were gone!- apart from that things were passionate and sweet.. Hope your phone works now, would be lush to hear from u if u get this... I Saw You Victoria in paperchase. I am buying fictitious reletives birthday cards just to see you.
For more i saw you – plus I’m Sore At You – see: www.venue.co.uk/isawyou OCTOBER 2011 // 7
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Bristol & Bath in pictures
Are you a photographer? // Pro, semi-pro, amateur… if you have a Bristol or Bath-related pic and want to show if off, email it to editor@venue.co.uk and the top three will get posted up here.
this mont winner!h's
‘Feek’ – Stephen Morris (top)
‘Untitled’ – Angi Nelson (above)
‘Doggles’ – Thomas Barnes (right)
// We had a great many pictures of the epic (Europe’s biggest ever) street art splurge See No Evil (www.seenoevilbristol.co.uk) in the centre of Bristol, but this – taken by super snapper Stephen Morris and featuring the work of local graffer Feek – was our favourite. Ffi: www.stephen-morris.co.uk
// “My favourite subjects to capture are landscapes, but as I do not drive, this rarely happens – so I often end up photographing some of the many wonderful creatures that are in my partner’s reptile shop.” Ffi: www.flickr. com/photos/anginelson
// “It’s a local dog sporting a pair of ‘Doggles’ – cool sunglasses built just for dogs!” Ffi: www.flickr.com/ thomasbarnes
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This month’s prize (CDs or downloads up to a value of £50) is kindly provided by AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) who publish thousands of comedy, drama and factual programmes in both CD and downloadable format. Ffi: www.audiogo.co.uk
OCTOBER 2011 // 9
9/27/2011 11:08:04 AM
And another thing... Tom Phillips doesn’t envy today’s students one bit.
I
t took me all day to travel from Cornwall to Cambridge. I had two suitcases and a plastic bag with a kettle in it. The kettle rattled on my lap through four long coach journeys and a short taxi ride. It was gone 10pm when I arrived, deposited outside a very solid wooden gate in what could have been, in the darkness and mist, a gothic castle. I had got there but had no idea of how to get in. There was no handle, no bell, no knocker, no lights in any windows. Stumped, I stood on the pavement, wondering if this was a Kafkaesque initiation ceremony. Eventually, someone resembling an extra in ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ turned up and, without saying a word, opened a small doorway cut into the gate. Once I’d followed him in, there were no further clues. All I could see was an
Tom Phillips arrives at Cambridge, 1983
“I decided that the first thing I needed to find was the HQ of the local Communist Party.” 10 // october 2011
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empty courtyard. The ‘extra’ disappeared. Eventually, I found the Porters’ Lodge. Behind a long wooden counter, a black-suited man, who appeared to be digesting a wasp, checked entries in a ledger. Without looking up, he growled an enquiring “Yes?” “I’m here,” I said. “Evidently,” he replied. An embarrassingly long silence ensued. The keys hanging on hooks, the dusty clock, even the porter himself seemed to date back to the nineteenth century. After what felt like half an hour, the porter relented. “Still here, sir? Might I take it that, god help us, you are one of ours?” Effecting magnificent disdain, he took my name, looked me up in the ledger and produced a key. “G8,” he sighed. “And I trust, sir, you will prove less tiresome than your predecessor.” He described the route to my room and I rattled away across the courtyard with my suitcases and kettle. Everyone else in the building had either gone to bed or not yet arrived. The next morning it took me two hours to find another human being. It was the ‘extra’. “Where on earth do I get milk and tea?” he pleaded in impeccable public-school tones. “Have you tried a shop?” “Gosh. I hadn’t thought of that. And where would I find one of those?” I decided that the first thing I needed to find was the HQ of the local Communist Party. That was 1983 and the beginning of my three-year student career. Fast forward to 2011 and I’m delivering my own daughter to university. She’s going to Newport so we’re
Student accommodation: ain't what it used to be
there in forty minutes instead of fourteen hours. She’s taking a car boot’s worth of kit but doesn’t have to supply her own kettle. When we arrive... Well, this isn’t a whinge about how easy students have it nowadays, but, hell, we’re not met by a saturnine ironist in black serge, but by a bunch of chirpy folk in bright yellow T-shirts who not only show us where to park and who to talk to, but even help us carry the Fragrant Teen’s things up to her ‘flat’ (gone are the days of mere rooms). Downstairs, there’s a blizzard of leaflets and lists, a congenial bunch of grown-ups ready to answer questions about everything from internet connections to doctor’s surgeries. If I’d been given that much information, it would’ve taken me three days, not three years, to work Cambridge out. The downside of all this jollity, of course, is that it merely disguises painful truths. As a state-schooled
interloper in the archaic ritual of a ‘Cambridge education’, I might have had to deal with anachronisms who considered that everything went off the rails when Oliver Cromwell decapitated Charles I, but at least I didn’t emerge from the whole experience encumbered with vertiginous debt. Nor was my course boringly vocational. I got to study stuff for its own sake and not because I was being groomed for the jobs market. In short, it was all a wheeze. Students nowadays might have chirpy souls to point them at the nearest Asda but they’re also entering a realm of mortgaged learning and institutions funded according to their vocational ‘impact’ rather than their ability to open minds. Higher education has become dryly pragmatic and, what’s more, this generation of students won’t even leave with dining-out stories about the institutional bores they encountered on their first day.
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9/27/2011 4:14:57 PM
TOM ALLEN Fri 7 & Sat 8 Oct
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JOSH WIDDICOMBE Fri 14 & Sat 15 Oct
NICK HELM Fri 21 & Sat 22 Oct
PATRICK MONAHAN Thur 27 Oct
JIMEOIN Fri 28 & Sat 29 Oct
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The Interview Emily James Riot cops, optimism and superglue: Mike White talks to the filmmaker working behind the scenes with the brave outlaws of the environmental direct action movement. By necessity, the direct action movement is quite a secretive world. They’re heavily under surveillance by the police and constantly at risk of being infiltrated, so it’s very hard for the average person to really know what they’re like or to get a glimpse into what they’re really trying to do. The idea behind ‘Just Do It’ was to give the public the opportunity to see them as people – as the brave, passionate individuals they are. The film follows an ensemble cast of about six different activists from groups like Climate Camp and Plane Stupid, during a year in their life in the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. We see them do things like blockade
“Going into a situation and realising you don’t actually have any rights was very scary.” Emily James venuemagazine
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RBS bank with stepladders and superglue, attempt to shut down power stations and travel to Copenhagen to protest against the summit there. Feeding occupying workers in a closed-down windturbine factory, learning how to use a bicycle to defend against a baton charge, and making cups of tea for riot police – there’s quite a range of things that fall under the banner of direct action. I’d never done any direct action myself. I’m a film-maker, I went to the National Film and Television school and spent about 10 years working in TV making documentaries, commissions for Channel 4… but I’m also quite passionate about climate change, having worked on films like ‘The Age of Stupid’ and ‘What Would Jesus Drive?’, which is about the American car industry and its attempts to deny climate change. I was essentially recruited by Plane Stupid to film them shutting down Stansted airport in 2008. It was just the action as it happened, the kind of footage you’d see on the news – but of course they can’t ring up the BBC and say “Can you be outside Stansted airport back fence at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning?” without some people getting a bit suspicious. So they tend to ask somebody who they trust. I did that for them and got the tape off to the news, and that served as my introduction. They felt they could trust me after that. This label of ‘activist’ is sometimes not helpful, because it makes people believe it’s an all-or-nothing thing, that people either are activists, or they’re not, or that it’s just a lifestyle choice that people are making. I’d like to see a world in which everyone
Just doing it: film-maker Emily Wright
was actively interested in the way our planet is run, rather than it all falling on the shoulders of a very small percentage of people. Public apathy is a huge problem. We can blame a lot of that on a consumer culture that’s steeped in advertising, constantly telling us that to be happy we should focus entirely on our own selves and our belongings – things that ultimately don’t bring us much happiness. The real issues that face society are overlooked, because we’re encouraged to ignore them. I think that’s quite sad and it’s certainly not doing us any favours. Obviously riot police don’t always respect a press card but in the more physically intimidating situations, knowing I had that card in my back pocket made it easier for me to be bold. Copenhagen was the scariest, because they had passed this set of laws a few months before the conference which basically gave the police carte blanche. They were just making it up as they went along; it was like all bets were off – none of the normal rules applied. There was one occasion where they kettled all of the press and then pushed the protesters around a corner so that the press couldn’t see what they were doing
to them. Normally you go into a situation and you think you know what your rights are, so going into a situation and realising you don’t actually have any rights was very scary. I hope that the people who see the film will get a deeper understanding of what those involved in direct action are like and why they do what they do. As we’ve been doing the cinema release, we’ve gone around to meet the people who are coming to see the film, and the feedback has been really encouraging. Even people who were quite sceptical of the activist world were won over simply by being given the chance to see them as people. Hopefully that means that the next time some direct action news story comes up at the pub, rather than buying into the easy, quick dismissals that people often use, they’ll maybe stand up for them and say “Actually, I support these guys”. But mostly it’s just to reposition them into what I think is their rightful place in history – as heroes. CATCH JUST DO IT AT FREE PUBLIC SCREENINGS AT ALL MAJOR UNI AND COLLEGE CAMPUSES – INCLUDING BRISTOL – ON TUE 18 OCT. CHECK HTTP://JUSTDOITFILM.COM FOR DETAILS.
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Diaries out! Autumn’s here and it’s bringing with it a huge healthy dollop of entertainment. From Bombay Bicycle Club to Kneehigh Theatre, a big-screen ‘Wuthering Heights’ to In:Motion, it’s all in here. Robin Askew, Adam Burrows, Alice Edwards, Huw Oliver, Mike White and Steve Wright are your trusty guides.
14 // october 2011
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From left to right: Gold Panda, SBTRKT, Shakespeare comes to Arnos Vale, Bristol according to the camera of Luke Vagnolini, Pinch powers up Subloaded
FROM 2 OCT EVENT
THINKING CAPS ON FOR THE FESTIVAL OF IDEAS // A kaleidoscope of cleverness from some of our era’s most fascinating thinkers. In the next two months Stockport author Owen Jones waxes lyrical on his specialised subject – ‘Chavs’ – (4 Oct); philosopher Steve Fuller explores what it means to be human both now and in the distant future (13 Oct); cosmologist Lisa Randall radically revises our understanding of the universe (17 Oct); fearless investigative writer Misha Glenny enters the shadowy world of cybercrime (2 Nov); and Jeremy ‘never-take-no-for-an-answer’ Paxman explores the tragedy and comedy of British empire-building and its repercussions today (24 Nov). These are just a toe-dip in the insight on offer – come on, feed your brains. FESTIVAL OF IDEAS WATERSHED, ARNOLFINI AND SELECTED OTHER VENUES IN BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. IDEASFESTIVAL.CO.UK
3-15 OCT
THEATRE GET THE MEASURE (SORRY) OF ARNOS VALE CEMETERY // Bristol’s Roughhouse Theatre – whose Albert Camus adaptation ‘Outside’ we’ve just enjoyed – make a quick return with a dual run for two of the Bard’s lesser-known works. They’ll be interchanging Will’s playful, courtship-themed debut ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ with the altogether darker ‘Measure for Measure’, a portrait of power, corruption and lies in Renaissance Vienna. The venue? Bristol’s ramblingly romantic Victorian necropolis, Arnos Vale Cemetery. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE WILL BE PERFORMED IN ARNOS VALE CEMETERY, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. ROUGHHOUSETHEATRE.COM
5 OCT MUSIC BLING YER BAMBOO WITH GOLD PANDA // Gold Panda’s live sets bring a legendary lightshow to accompany his bubbling organic electro wizardry. Last year’s debut LP ‘Lucky Shiner’ scooped The Guardian’s First Album Award for being “a combination of warm, lo-fi electronica, a patchwork of crackly samples and melodies that stick”. Support comes from Glasgow loner Dam Mantle, whose crisp, mellifluous and playful peregrinations offer a fresh take on dubsteppity-type dance.
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GOLD PANDA PLAYS THEKLA, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. THEKLABRISTOL.CO.UK
6 OCT
MUSIC FEAST ON THE BEATS OF SBTRKT // Aka mysterious beatmonger Aaron Jerome, never seen without his colourful tribal mask. He’s remixed MIA, Mark Ronson and Basement Jaxx (alongside cutting a few singles and EPs of his own) but has only just got round to unveiling his eponymous debut LP – a beguiling mix of thickset beats and wide-eyed emotion. Taking in 2Step, dubstep, house and techno soul, it’s not an easy album to recreate live, but he’s been making a fine fist of it with the aid of live drums ’n’ keyboards, the sugary-voiced soulman Sampha – and that spooky mask. SBTRKT TAKES IT AWAY AT THEKLA, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.THEKLABRISTOL.CO.UK
7-8 OCT CLUBS
MAKE A MOVE AT IN:MOTION OPENING WEEKEND // Last autumn’s In:Motion was the biggest thing to happen to the West’s clubs scene in years, and it looks like being just as unavoidable for serious party heads this time. The self-styled ‘underground music season’ kicks off on Friday 7 October with a four-room show from drum & bass stalwarts Hospitality featuring Camo & Krooked (live), High Contrast and MJ Cole. Meanwhile, Bugged Out! bring eclectic dancefloor dynamite to Saturday 8, with turns from Jamie Jones, Untold and Fake Blood. IN:MOTION 2011 IS AT MOTION, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM
7 OCT
CLUBS
7-28 OCT ART
SEE BRISTOL THROUGH SNAPPER LUKE VAGNOLINI’S EYES // Bristol photographer Luke Vagnolini adorns the walls of Stokes Croft’s café/gallery/cinema/ creative hub The Arts House with 32 photos taken in our city over the past three years. Luke’s images have a pungent atmosphere of frenetic urban activity, and the tightrope that cities walk between work, rest and play, order and chaos. Bristol is the first of a planned world cities series that’ll also include Paris, London and New York. LUKE VAGNOLINI EXHIBITS AT THE ARTS HOUSE, STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.THEARTSHOUSE. ORG
8 OCT
EVENT CELEBRATE SMALLNESS AT THE SCHUMACHER CENTENARY FESTIVAL // A two-day event exploring the work and vision of the late, leading ‘green’ ethics thinker E.F. Schumacher, author of ‘Small Is Beautiful’. Lively lectures and debate include Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP, Radio 4 performance poet Matt Harvey, founder of climate change awareness site 350.org Bill McKibben and cocreator of the Transition Network Rob Hopkins. A concert entitled ‘Small World’ takes centre stage on Saturday evening – performers include Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu and kora player Seckou Keita. On Sunday, wise up with workshops and watch premières of thoughtprovoking flicks like ‘The Four Horsemen’ and ‘Future of Hope’. THE SCHUMACHER CENTENARY FESTIVAL IS AT COLSTON HALL AND THE WATERSHED, BRISTOL. FFI: 0845 4585925, WWW.SCHUMACHER.ORG.UK
CELEBRATE SEVEN YEARS OF DUBPLATE DRAMA WITH SUBLOADED // Subloaded remains the Bristol bass blowout to beat, and its seventh birthday line-up oozes class from start to finish. Mark Ernestus of Berlin dub-techno pioneers Basic Channel/ Rhythm & Sound appears with roots reggae singer Tikiman, and there are back-to-back sets promised from Pinch & Peverelist, Guido & Gemmy and Appleblim & Gatekeeper, among others. Powered by the notorious Dirt Soundsystem, this is sure to pack enough bottom end to knock your fillings into Stapleton Road.
8 OCT-27 NOV
SUBLOADED SEVENTH BIRTHDAY IS AT THE BLACK SWAN, EASTON. FFI: WWW.SUBLOADED.CO.UK
SAVED FOR EVER IS AT THE VICTORIA ART GALLERY, BATH. FFI: WWW.VICTORIAGAL.ORG.UK
ART
SEE JUST HOW WELL-ENDOWED THE VICTORIA ART GALLERY IS // The VAG’s autumn exhibition ‘Saved for Ever’ celebrates the gallery’s vast permanent collection, much of which rarely makes it on show. The show tells the story of how the gallery acquired its copious art collection, which includes (and these’ll be on show) works by Turner, Gainsborough, Paul Klee and Samuel Palmer, and also explains how said collection is looked after, restored and added to.
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9 OCT
MUSIC GET SPOOKED OUT BY SARAH BLASKO // Heartbreak and hope converge as the loveweary Australian chanteuse comes to these yer parts on an intimate, small-venue tour. After finding inspiration whilst writing the score for a production of ‘Hamlet’, she recorded last album ‘As Day Follows Night’ in Sweden with Björn Yttling (Peter, Björn & John), whose recent production roster includes Camera Obscura and Lykke Li. Spooky, melancholic magic. SARAH BLASKO PLAYS LOUISIANA, BRISTOL. FFI: LOUISIANA.NET
12 OCT MUSIC
TAKE A RIDE WITH BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB // Radio 1 A-listers and young gen darlings Bombay Bicycle Club return to Venueland following last year’s sold-out St George’s gig. Second album ‘Flaws’ had been a bold move
in a fresh, stripped-back direction – gone was the infectious jangle-pop of old and in its place came mellow banjos and John Martyn covers – but on ‘A Different Kind Of Fix’ we hear them rediscover fun, throttling indie rock ’n’ roll. Expect hook-laden melodies and loads and loads of jumping up and down. BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB PLAY O2 ACADEMY BRISTOL. FFI: 0844 477 2000, WWW.O2ACADEMYBRISTOL.CO.UK
14-16 OCT ART
ANOTHER COG IN THE BEDMINSTER RENAISSANCE: IT’S BV OPEN STUDIOS // Not for nothing did we give Bedminster’s BV Studios our prestigious Top Banana Award for the most significant contribution to the arts in Bristol last year. So we’re delighted that the city’s largest independent artist’s community will be rolling up its modest shutter-door this month for a showcase of new work from its 100odd resident artists. Open Studios don’t come bigger nor, hopefully, better than this. BV OPEN STUDIOS BEDMINSTER, BRISTOL. Ffi: WWW. BVSTUDIOS.CO.UK
14 OCT MUSIC
STEVE LOUNT THE COMEDY BOX, BRISTOL What’s coming up at the Comedy Box this autumn then? Richard Herring with his quirky analysis of human relationships in ‘What Is Love, Anyway?’ touring in November. Exceptional stuff. And then there’s Jimeoin, a brilliant observational Irish comic based in Australia – it’s only the second time we’ve managed to book him in 19 years. You’ve probably seen him do a spot on ‘Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow’. Where else will you be going out this autumn? I’d love to see Stephen Merchant at Colston Hall, just to catch up with him, really. He did his first open spot at the Comedy Box over 10 years ago now. I fondly think we kick-started his career!
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15 OCT
EVENT SAVOUR THE SEASON AT COEXIST AUTUMNAL BANQUET // A very seasonal banquet laid on by those inspired souls who transformed Hamilton House from a neglected office block into a thriving community hub. Now they’re planning a community kitchen, promoting healthy living and food for fun, via workshops and an affordable, accessible hire-out facility. With this in mind, they’re taking over the Paintworks event space for a celebratory six-course feast with lashings of live entertainment for afters. Chefs from top local eateries will each prepare a course, and circus performers and swing bands will provide the entertainment. Eat, drink and be very merry. COEXIST AUTUMNAL BANQUET PAINTWORKS, BRISTOL. FFI: HTTP://COEXIST.HAMILTONHOUSE.ORG/P/COMMUNITYKITCHEN.HTML
18-22 OCT
THEATRE LET CORNISH CAROUSERS KNEEHIGH SPIRIT YOU AWAY… // A return for the ever-inventive Kneehigh Theatre, whose heroic, exuberant folk-tale retellings have so animated Bristol’s theatre scene over the past decade. They’ll be transforming St George’s’ serene interior into a place of wilderness and war as they weave live music, found sound and storytelling to tell “the story of what happens when your father accidentally sells you to the devil”…
BASTE YOURSELF IN THE BERLIN COOLNESS OF APPARAT // Berlin’s techno wunderkind explores uncharted musical territory, touring for the first time with a full live band to share the dreamy orchestral melancholy of new album ‘The Devil’s Walk’. We’d say something like “a cerebral slice of post-dance inventiveness” but we don’t want to sound any more pretentious than we already do.
KNEEHIGH’S THE WILD BRIDE IS AT ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.STGEORGESBRISTOL.CO.UK
APPARAT ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL. SEE WWW. ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK FOR DETAILS.
20 OCT
15 OCT
MUSIC
MEET THE VOICE OF HOUSE MUSIC ROBERT OWENS // As a member of Fingers Inc, Robert Owens was there at the birth of house. Since then he’s lent his exquisite, church-honed vocals to everyone from Frankie Knuckles (1989’s peerless ‘Tears’) to Photek and Coldcut, as well as solo smashes like ‘I’ll Be Your Friend’. Owens is no slouch as a DJ either, and his blend of contemporary deep house and classic Trax should make The Big Chill’s second birthday a very special occasion.
GET JAZZY WITH GILAD ATZMON & ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLE // As a member of The Blockheads, Gilad got to play with the late great Ian Dury. He’s also jammed with Robbie Williams and Paul McCartney, but don’t let that put you off. The man The Grauniad called the “hardest-gigging man in British jazz” uses his remarkable sax to explore political themes and the music of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, and his tours with the Orient House Ensemble (a quartet, including Gilad himself) have left jazz fans breathless around the world. In Chapel Arts Centre’s superb natural acoustic, this should be a rare treat.
ROBERT OWENS IS AT THE BIG CHILL BAR, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.BIGCHILL.NET/BRISTOL
GILAD ATZMON & ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLE CHAPEL ARTS CENTRE, BATH. FFI: WWW.CHAPELARTS.ORG
CLUBS
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From left to right: Sarah Blasko, Bombay Bicycle Club, Partick Monahan, arts eats itself at Savage's new show, and Tin-Tin hits the big screen
21 OCT CLUBS
LOOSEN YOUR LIMBS WITH CRAZYLEGS // Joy Orbison (Hotflush) and Jackmaster (Numbers) are at the forefront of a new eclecticism in UK dance music. Drawing on house, techno, two-step, grime and ghetto bass, they’ve taken their fast moving, back-to-back sets to clubs and festivals all over Europe, and this autumn they’ll be dropping in for the birthday of Crazylegs, whose similarly kids-in-a-sweetshop approach to genre has made for some of Bristol’s best parties of the last three years. Also on the bill is the raw, R&B-inflected house of fast-rising young Canadian Jaques Greene, as well as a truckload of local supporting talent. CRAZYLEGS IS THREE IS AT THE BLUE MOUNTAIN, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/CRAZYLEGSCLUB
22 & 27 OCT COMEDY
HUG HIM! HE FEELS GOOD! HE’S PATRICK MONAHAN // Turbocharged and hugely likeable IrishIranian comic tours his new show ‘Hug Me I Feel Good’. We’ve been seriously impressed with PM: “A joy from beginning to end, most memorably his riffs on growing up in the cultural schizophrenia of an Irish-Iranian family. Like Billy Connolly at his zenith, he has the ability to pull you into his mongrel world completely by talking to you one-to-one, coupled with the surreal observational eye and juiced-up energy of a young Eddie Izzard.” PATRICK MONAHAN PLAYS THE RONDO THEATRE, BATH (22 OCT) AND THE COMEDY BOX, BRISTOL (27 OCT). FFI: WWW.RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK AND WWW. THECOMEDYBOX.CO.UK
22 OCT-27 NOV
ART INTERROGATE THE NATURE OF ART, CELEBRITY AND SPECTACLE, AND STUFF, WITH BRISTOL’S SAVAGE // Solo show for Bristol artist Savage, whose work “engages with the culture of consumerism, apparently affirming and even celebrating it, yet with such a degree of futility and emptiness that ultimately it is negated”. Savage’s new multimedia show looks inside his own condition as an artist being packaged and promoted by the gallery system as part of a market-driven culture obsessed with novelty and spectacle. Better be amazing, then… SAVAGE EXHIBITS AT SPIKE ISLAND, BRISTOL. FFI: HTTP://SPIKEISLAND.ORG.UK/
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22 OCT
EVENT LET FANTASY TAKE OVER AT BRISTOL-CON // Jump on the nearest spaceship or, failing that, a bus and head on down to Bristol-Con for this one-day celebration of the diverse and compelling world of sci-fi and fantasy. Study the life-cycle of the author, learn how to unleash your inner novel and discover what writers really think of their fans. ‘Doctor Who’’s Paul Cornell and local authors Gareth L Powell and Colin Harvey are among the guest speakers. The truth is out there, and it’s never been nearer. BRISTOL-CON AT RAMADA HOTEL, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLCON.ORG
23 OCT
MUSIC QUESTION EVERYTHING WITH INCISIVE RHYMERS WHY? // Best known for their smart, wry tongue-twisters, California’s foremost alt. hip-hop trio Why? return to our shores for a brief stint backed by a grand piano. Lauded by critics for his melancholic spin on rap, frontman ‘Yoni’ Wolf’s morbid lyrics aren’t for the light-hearted – sex, death and confusion are his stock in trade – but the way in which his effortless wordplay mingles with easy-going electronics makes for a daydreamy, head-nodding delight. WHY? PLAY COLSTON HALL 2, BRISTOL. FFI: 0117 922 3686, WWW.COLSTONHALL.ORG
25-29 OCT
THEATRE REMIND YOURSELF WHY NOBODY DOES IT LIKE MIKE LEIGH // The power of Mr Leigh is such that his new play was already booked for some of the country’s most prestigious theatres (including Theatre Royal Bath) before the king of emotive, kitchen-sink realism had even put pen to paper. All we can tell you thus far is that it has the chucklesome title of ‘Grief’ and that Leigh’s long-term collaborator Lesley Manville leads the cast. Knowing Leigh, it’ll also be honest, affecting, uncannily true to life and perhaps a little uncomfortable in places. But we really can’t say for sure. MIKE LEIGH’S GRIEF WILL BE STAGED AT THEATRE ROYAL BATH. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK
26 OCT
FILM GET QUIFFY WITH ‘THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN 3D’
// Steven Spielberg is in the director’s chair, Peter Jackson’s producing and Andy Serkis is doing his ‘performance capture’ thing as Captain Haddock. How can it go wrong? Er, let’s wait and see, eh?
SARAH ROBERTSON THE COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL Highlights of the year so far at the Hall? My personal highlight had to be Laura Marling in April. The audience were stunned into silence at the beauty of her voice and the maturity of her lyrics. It was the most magical gig I’ve ever seen at the Hall – no confetti cannons or in-your-face visuals, just an extremely talented performer, a guitar and some incredible songs. What’s coming up that we should be getting excited about? I’m really excited about seeing folk band Bon Iver, whose latest album, named after the band itself, is just as good as the last. Plus we’re all really excited about the Hall hosting Bristol Old Vic’s Christmas show in December, ‘Coram Boy’. It was a huge hit at the National Theatre and we’re really lucky to be hosting a new version that promises to be visually and aurally spectacular – a real showcase event for Bristol. And where else will you be heading off to? You can tell that I like Laura Marling, so I won’t be missing her show at Bristol Cathedral on 25 Oct. And the new Kneehigh play ‘The Wild Bride’ is a mustsee at St George’s in October – to see such an inventive and playful company perform in their beautiful auditorium will be pretty special.
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The whole thing is done in motion capture stylee, which explains why Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are cast as the near-identical Thompson and Thomson. And boy reporter Tintin? That’s Jamie Bell. We have no info on who’s playing Snowy. ‘THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN 3D’ AT CINEMAS EVERYWHERE.
28-30 OCT
FILM BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS WITH AFRIKA EYE // This year’s Afrika Eye Film festival delivers another excellent selection of premieres and previews. They’ve got the world premiere of Bristol-based director Simon Bright’s documentary ‘Robert Mugabe…What Happened?’, plus regional premieres of the Harry Belafonte
documentary ‘Sing Your Song’ and, from Morocco, ‘The Satanic Angels’: the true story of a heavy metal band who were arrested and jailed by the Islamic authorities for being in league with Satan. AFRIKA EYE TAKES PACE AT THE WATERSHED, BRISTOL. FFI: AFRIKAEYE2010.BLOGSPOT.COM/
28 OCT
CLUBS GET (JA)PAN-FRIED AT TOKYO DUB // Nobody does soundsystem dances like Tokyo Dub, but even by their standards this one is a bit special. Glasgow bashment aces Mungo’s Hi Fi top an outstanding bill that also features German digidub heavyweights Jahtari, Bristol rap champ Buggsy and jungle pioneers Remarc and Peter D (More Rockers). Best of all is The Bug – the industrial dancehall alias of inspired cult producer Kevin Martin – whose ‘London Zoo’ was one of the most thrilling albums of 2008. TOKYO DUB IS AT MOTION, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM
28 OCT
MARK COSGROVE WATERSHED, BRISTOL Good summer at The Watershed? Always – audiences really appreciate the cultural programme we’re putting on: everything from new world cinema to the Cyclescreen festival and explorations into creative uses of digital technology. The spirit of adventure and discovery is very much alive in Bristol. Personal highlights? Seeing the new score to ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ performed by musicians Adrian Utley and Will Gregory and the rapturous response they received at London Southbank centre. What’s coming up that we should be getting excited about? The Afrika Eye festival in October – it’s going to be a major event with previews of some great films. And then there’s the Encounters Bristol International Short Film Festival in November – there’s always such a buzz when it feels like the film industry has landed in Bristol!
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FILM BEWARE ‘THE IDES OF MARCH’ // Gorgeous George Clooney returns to the director’s chair for the first time since, er, ‘Leatherheads’. This promises to be much better as it’s a political thriller about an idealistic young press agent (Ryan Gosling), who gets a crash course in dirty politics while working for a Democratic presidential hopeful (that’ll be George himself). Think of it as a US ‘The Thick of It’ without the laughs. ‘THE IDES OF MARCH’ AT CINEMAS EVERYWHERE.
29 OCT
EVENT MOVE OVER MICHELANGELO! IT’S THE BIG DRAW // Ever looked at a Picasso painting and wondered what all the fuss was about? Then join the Arnolfini in celebrating its 50th anniversary with wacky interactive art events from speed drawing to the construction of a Super Museum of Drawing, and see if you can out-paint the greats. Artist Michelle Cioccoloni is on hand for help and advice.
THE BIG DRAW IS AT ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL. FFI: 0117 917 2300, WWW.ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK
29 OCT
EVENT BRAINSSSSS! IT’S BRISTOL ZOMBIE WALK // Splatter fake blood across your best undead
finery and lurch through the streets moaning and terrifying unsuspecting pensioners. The Bristol Zombie Walk’s become a pretty big deal of late, with hundreds (thousands?) of carefully decomposed walkers shuffling through the city in search of brains to consume. Makes a nice change from the hordes that normally wander the streets glassy-eyed in search of brain-dead consumerism. BRISTOL ZOMBIE WALK EXPECTED TO BE SAT 29 OCT (DETAILS TBC AS WE GO TO PRESS). FOR EXACT ROUTE AND TIMINGS, CHECK TINYURL.COM/BRISTOLZOMBIES
4 NOV
MUSIC DROWN IN BEHEMOTH SLUDGE-ROCK WITH THE MELVINS // A great many bands these days seem to get called ‘seminal’ and ‘influential’, but Washington foursome The Melvins truly altered the topography of modern rock. Their wilfully obtuse take on experimental riffwork prepared the way for Nirvana (Melvins drummer Dale Crover smacked the skins on ‘Bleach’) and everything that came after. Now into their fourth decade, they’re as strange and heavy as ever, still fronted by Sideshow Bob-haired guitarist Buzz Osborne. This tour sees the living legends wrestle through classic albums like ‘Melvins’, ‘Houdini‘ and ‘Bullhead’ alongside a welter of new stuff from last year’s monolithic ‘The Bride Screamed Murder’ LP. THE MELVINS CHURN OUT THE RIFFS AT THEKLA, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.THEKLABRISTOL.CO.UK
4-5 NOV
FILM FILL YOUR PANTS AT FRIGHTFEST // That’s right: London’s legendary horror film festival is heading west for the first time. Details were scanty as we went to press and they’ve asked us not to mention any of the titles of films likely to be shown. But we can tell you that this all-nighter will run from 9pm on Fri 4 to 7am on Sat 5, when breakfast will be served to the emerging gore-sated zombies. FRIGHTFEST TAKE PLACE AT THE WATERSHED, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.WATERSHED.CO.UK
4 NOV
FILM RAISE YOUR GLASS TO ‘THE RUM DIARY’ // It’s been delayed so often that we thought it might never get released. Johnny Depp stars in Bruce (‘Withnail and I’) Robinson’s adaptation of the Hunter S Thompson novel about a hack who
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From left to right: blind musician Hassan Erraji at Afrika Eye, the Bristol Zombie Walk, 'The Rum Diary', Aardman's newie 'Arthur Christmas' and Dave Gorman
finds himself at a critical turning point in his life. ‘THE RUM DIARY’ AT CINEMAS EVERYWHERE.
8-12 NOV
THEATRE GET A LITTLE TOO NEIGHBOURLY WITH 1927 //A welcome return for 1927, the inventive company who – like our own Forkbeard Fantasy – mix live music, storytelling, performance, animation and a fascination with film’s silent era. Their latest show (deep breath) ‘The Animals And Children Took To The Streets’ is set in a sprawling, stinking tenement block, where curtain-twitchers and Peeping Toms live side by side – and where the wolf is always at the door. THE ANIMALS AND CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS IS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK
10-19 NOV
FILM GET REEL WITH THE BATH FILM FESTIVAL // Details were still being confirmed for the 21st Bath Film Festival as we went to press, but we can expect previews of classy films that are not due to open until 2012, including Ralph Fiennes’s ‘Coriolanus’ and the new one from Steve (‘Hunger’) McQueen: ‘Shame’, starring Carey Mulligan (pictured). They’re also planning a big Ken Loach retrospective and a premiere of the Chippenham-made feature film, ‘Bash Street’. THE BATH FILM FESTIVAL TAKES PACE AT VARIOUS VENUES IN BATH. FFI: BATHFILMFESTIVAL.ORG.UK/
11-19 NOV
MUSIC JOIN THE WOLFGANG AT BATH MOZARTFEST // Much more than a celebration of the back catalogue of Wolfgang Amadeus (though there’s plenty of that too), this year the high-brow nineday classical fest includes horripilating harmony ensemble The Sixteen unfurling the magic of Purcell and Handel in Bath Abbey (close your eyes for the full effect), serene string quartet recitals in the Guildhall’s grand surrounds, and the virtuosic Nash Ensemble unpacking a feast of Haydn, Dvorák, Borodin and Brahms in the Georgian splendour of the Assembly Rooms. Go on, treat your ears. BATH MOZARTFEST VARIOUS VENUES IN BATH. FFI: WWW.BATHMOZARTFEST.ORG.UK
11 NOV
MUSIC SET SAIL FOR ST. VINCENT // As an ex-member of The Polyphonic Spree
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and Sufjan Stevens’s backing band, and best buddy of Grizzly Bear and The National (whom she joined on stage at Latitude festival this year), Annie Clark has a CV overflowing with American indie rock royalty. The talented multiinstrumentalist and Twitter queen (400,000 followers – how?!) has so far released three critically adored albums under the St. Vincent alias – ‘Marry Me’, ‘Actor’ and this year’s ‘Strange Mercy’. It’s twisted artful pop, all dark lyrics, complex arrangements, silvery horns and fluttering harmonies – expect goosebumps. ST. VINCENT IS AT THE FLEECE, BRISTOL. FFI: 0117 945 0996, WWW.THEFLEECE.CO.UK
11-20 NOV
ART CLEAR YOUR DIARY AND GET AN OVERDRAFT EXTENSION: BATH ART AFFAIR RETURNS // The first Bath Art Affair – a 10-day extravaganza of talks, events, auctions and, of course, selling exhibitions at galleries across town – hove into view last November, and was deemed such a success by all and sundry that BAF2 is inked in to return this autumn. Expect some high-profile exhibitions and illuminating speakers at bo.lee, Edgarmodern, Rostra & Rooksmoor and all of the city’s most adventurous artspaces. BATH ART AFFAIR IS AT GALLERIES ACROSS BATH. FFI: WWW.BATHGALLERIESGROUP.COM
11 NOV
FILM PULL A CRACKER WITH ‘ARTHUR CHRISTMAS’ // Bristol’s very own Aardman Animation’s first feature since ‘Flushed Away’ in 2006 – and their first film for Sony – is a 3D CGI adventure which reveals the ingenious, high-tech operation beneath the North Pole that ensures kiddies all get their Christmas presents on the same day. The voice cast includes James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Hugh Laurie and Jim Broadbent. Director Sarah Smith is a TV veteran who’s worked with The League of Gentlemen and Armando Iannucci. ‘ARTHUR CHRISTMAS’ AT CINEMAS EVERYWHERE.
11 NOV
FILM GET BONNETED-UP FOR ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ // It’s safe to assume that this new adaptation of the Emily Bronte novel won’t be a conventional one. Director Andrea Arnold is best known for
her gritty contemporary Britflicks ‘Red Road’ and ‘Fish Tank’. She’s also deliberately chosen an unstarry cast, including Kaya Scodelario from ‘Skins’ as Cathy and newcomer James Howson as Heathcliff. Depressingly, the music is by coffee table folkies Mumford and Sons. ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ AT SELECTED CINEMAS.
12 NOV
COMEDY SWITCH YOUR PHONE TO ‘MEETING’ FOR DAVE GORMAN’S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION // Engaging, thoughtful, concept-led comedian looks in at the Hall for this brand new show in which he forms a double act with… a projector screen. Cast your Powerpoint prejudices aside, this will not in any way be a business meeting. But some bullet points will be used. DAVE GORMAN PLAYS THE COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.COLSTONHALL.ORG
KATE CROSS THE EGG, BATH Good year at the egg? We’ve had a fantastic fifth birthday. We’ve launched The School of Culture and Creativity, which embraces a number of new initiatives to nurture local talent. And our faithful audiences return as regularly as ever. What’s coming up that we should be getting excited about? ‘The French Detective and the Blue Dog’: the egg Christmas production. Believe me, it’s going to be a cracker! There’s also Tim Crouch’s ‘I, Malvolio’ and Alibi’s ‘Deepdown Cowboys’. And where else will you be going out? I hope to catch up with some children’s authors at the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature and also follow egg associate artists Pins and Needles to see their new show ‘Flies’ at the Brewery in Bristol.
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Twilight Talks MONDAY 17 OCTOBER 6 pm to 7.30 pm Photography and the discovery of the universe An informal talk, with stunning images, about photographic developments that captured the universe. Speaker Professor David Malin, British-Australian astronomer and photographer Venue The Bristol Gallery, Unit 2, Building 8, Millennium Promenade, Harbourside, BS1 5TY
FRIDAY 21 OCTOBER 6 pm to 7.30 pm The changing faces of the heavens Come and hear about how the Mesopotamian, Hellenistic and Italian/French medieval worlds saw the heavens. Speaker Darrelyn Gunzburg, Department of History of Art Venue The Bristol Gallery, Unit 2, Building 8, Millennium Promenade, Harbourside, BS1 5TY
TUESDAY 25 OCTOBER 7.30 pm to 8.30 pm Synthetic biology: hope and hype Join researchers at this Science Café to discuss how far we should go to ‘engineer biology’ in our drive to deliver cheaper and faster routes to drugs, biofuels and new materials for medical applications. Speakers Dek Woolfson, School of Chemistry and Ainsley Newson, Centre for Ethics in Medicine Venue Café At-Bristol, At-Bristol, Anchor Road, Harbourside, BS1 5DB
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BOOKINGS
Free admission. To book contact Diane Thorne; tel: +44 (0)117 33 18318, email: diane.thorne@bristol.ac.uk
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PIC CREDIT: Ilkka Räsänen/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011
From left to right: Steven Berkoff, splashdown at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and the excellent 'The Animals and Children Took to the Streets'
12 NOV
CLUBS CAGE FIGHT SOME BASS WITH DMT & COIN OPERATED // Two legendary rave crews – Bristol’s DMT and London’s Coin Operated – team up for what looks set to be the loudest, hardest and messiest party of the autumn. Mystery headliner aside, the bill sees drum & bass destroyers Calyx & Teebee go back to back on six decks, while hardcore deities Tango and Ratty promise “a history lesson from ‘93 onwards”, with plenty of vintage jungle. Elsewhere, there’ll be everything from dancehall to techno, but the thing we’re really intrigued about is ‘Hell In A Cell’ – in which DJ teams representing the UK and France battle for supremacy from a locked cage in the middle of the dancefloor. We’re not expecting actual wrestling, but who knows? Either way, this will not be for the faint-hearted. DMT & COIN OPERATED ARE AT LAKOTA, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.LAKOTA.CO.UK/
14-16 NOV
THEATRE PREPARE FOR A VOLCANIC ‘CLOCKWORK ORANGE’ // Volcano deliver their own muscular, clear-eyed versions of everything from Ibsen to Ayckbourn. Now they re-examine Anthony Burgess’s inventive, disturbing parable of 60s urban alienation, 50 years after its first appearance – and they promise to “sidestep the cult movie and recaptures the shock of the original novella”. VOLCANO PERFORM A CLOCKWORK ORANGE AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
15-19 NOV
festival of short film presents another showcase of the best animation and live action work from around the globe. This year’s guests include Francine Stock, presenter of Radio Four’s ‘The Film Programme’. There are also 3D and RED film workshops, and a fabulous vintage movie bus. Plus, of course, the everpopular South West Showcase and infamous Late Lounge. ENCOUNTERS TAKES PLACE AT THE WATERSHED AND ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.ENCOUNTERSFESTIVAL.ORG.UK/
ART WHERE ART AND HOUSE-SNOOPING MEET: IT’S THE NEIGHBOURHOOD ART TRAIL // They were two of the first neighbourhood art trails on the scene: now Totterdown’s Front Room and the North Bristol Arts trail are, unsurprisingly, two of the biggest and best – and they fall within a week of each other, turning the otherwise dour days of November into a glittering smorgasbord of visual adventure (and a chance to sniff around people’s bijou town houses). FRONT ROOM (TOTTERDOWN, 18-20 NOV)/NORTH BRISTOL ARTISTS (BS6, BS7 AND BEYOND, 26-27 NOV). FFI: WWW.FRONTROOM.ORG.UK AND WWW. NORTHBRISTOLARTISTS.ORG.UK
19 NOV
MUSIC SWOON AMIDST WILD BEASTS’ BEAUTEOUS LIVE SHOW // Recently proclaimed “the most inspirational, intriguing, effortlessly enrapturing band at work [in Britain]” by the BBC, the splendour of Kendal’s flamboyant, operatic Wild Beasts has finally cracked the mainstream. Commanded by Hayden Thorpe’s erratic falsetto and Tom Fleming’s deep quivering croon, underpinned by tribal rhythms and an incessant bass groove, their literate musings are at different junctures funny, sexy and macabre. WILD BEASTS IS AT ANSON ROOMS, BRISTOL. FFI: 0117 954 5800, WWW.UBU.ORG.UK/YOUR-UNION/ ANSON-ROOMS
GOING DARK IS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK
19 NOV-11 MAR
FILM KEEP IT SHORT AND SWEET WITH ENCOUNTERS // Now in its 17th year, Bristol’s world-renowned
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THE VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR (OWNED BY THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM AND BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE) EXHIBITION IS AT BRISTOL MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY. FFI: HTTP://BIT.LY/PULEJK
18-20 NOV & 26-27 NOV
THEATRE COME STARGAZING WITH SOUND & FURY // Bristol-raised Sound and Fury like to stretch their audiences’ sensory expectations. 2006’s ‘The Watery Part of the World’ (70 minutes of total darkness and aquatic surround sound) was followed by last year’s majestic ‘Kursk’. So hopes are high for ‘Going Dark’, in which the owner of a planetarium re-awakens our wonder at the cosmos.
16-20 NOV
best wildlife images taken around the globe during the previous year. Beautiful, dramatic, at times profoundly moving in its depictions of nature’s rhythms and man’s mostly negative influence on same, the WPOY is a stunning fusion of the inherent drama of nature and man’s creativity and technical know-how.
ART PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE THE WONDER OF NATURE: IT’S WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR TIME // An early start this year for the fabulous annual touring exhibition, collecting together the very
MATT AITKEN START THE BUS, BRISTOL Have you had a good year at Start The Bus? We’ve had some amazing nights over the year as we enjoyed our third year of business. As we speak the venue is going through a revamp so it will be better than ever. Personal highlights? There have been so many I don’t know where to start. A few that stick out include Mirrorwriting singer Jamie Woon, Oxford psychedelic-pop group Fixers, and Teengirl Fantasy, who were named as one The Guardian’s New Bands of the Day. What’s coming up that we should be getting excited about? Every Thursday sees our resident DJs Hear No Evil play. We also have a monthly night in conjunction with Vice Magazine. Forthcoming names include Shabazz Palaces, who are known for stretching the possibilities of rap music, Tennessee indie rock band JEFF the Brotherhood and loads more. On top of this we still have our Squeaky Hill Quiz every Monday and Start The Jumble Sale on Sundays.
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From left to right: James Blake, Joker and BOV's Christmas biggie, 'Coram Boy'
21-26 NOV
THEATRE HEAD INTO THE BEWILDERING ATHENIAN FORESTS WITH FILTER // We’re tickled pink to welcome back Filter, the brilliantly inventive theatre troupe who treat each play less as a piece of text than as the basis for an evening of careening physical inventiveness and musical virtuosity. Filter’s ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Tobacco Factory was a joyous riot, culminating in a conga around the audience, and we’ve no doubt that their ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ will follow suit. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
22 NOV
MUSIC STRETCH HIP-HOP’S HORIZONS WITH SHABAZZ PALACES // Freewheeling, unhinged hip-hop from enigmatic Seattle man Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler (late of 90s jazz-hop coolniks Digable Planets), who’s now calling himself Palaceer Lazaro. It’s cerebral, train-of-thought stuff, with glitchy, twinkling beatscapes and song titles like ‘A treatease dedicated to The Avian Airess from North East Nubis (1000 questions, 1 answer)’. Woozy basslines, playground chants, jazz snippets and synth wobble collude for an unpredictable sonic adventure. SHABAZZ PALACES WILL BEFUDDLE START THE BUS, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.STARTTHEBUS.TV
25 NOV
CLUBS BLOC ROLLS INTO TOWN // Since 2007, Bloc Weekend has established itself as the UK electronica festival to beat. This one-off event at Motion should keep us going while we wait to hear where 2012’s festival will be. Headlining is Easton bass prodigy Joker, whose long-awaited debut album ‘The Vision’ finally drops on 8 November. Also on the bill are Dutch dubstep masters Martyn and 2562, and jaw dropping cross-genre electronicist Luke Vibert. Don’t miss. BLOC IS AT MOTION, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM
25-27 NOV
EVENTS BE MYSTERIOUS AT THE STOKES CROFT MASQUERADE BALL // The Compass film festival unites with the art space mavericks The Motorcycle Showroom for a
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“collaborative event exploring the mysterious, the illusory and the hidden”, promising bands, beats, burlesque beauties, circus freaks, installations and films, including live experimental silent film accompanists Minima.
taking over the Colston Hall for 10 days with its Christmas show. It’s the stage adaptation of Jamila Gavin’s Whitbread Award-winning tale of two cities (Bristol and London), two orphans and two conjoined destinies.
THE STOKES CROFT MASQUERADE BALL THE OLD MOTORCYCLE SHOWROOM, STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.COMPASS-FILM.CO.UK
CORAM BOY IS AT COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK
28 NOV
FOR EVEN MORE AUTUMN HIGHLIGHTS, VISIT WWW.VENUE.CO.UK
CLUBS FORGET EVERYTHING WITH DJ SHADOW // Californian Josh Davis earned his place in history in 1996 when his debut album ‘Endtroducing’ took instrumental hip-hop to a new level of sophistication. Now he's back with long-awaited new album 'The Less You Know, The Better', an inventive beatfest featuring Tom Vek, Little Dragon and Talib Kweli. Ignorance is truly bliss. DJ SHADOW IS AT THE 02 ACADEMY, BRISTOL FFI: WWW. O2ACADEMYBRISTOL.CO.UK
29 NOV
MUSIC GET YOUR SPINE TINGLED BY JAMES BLAKE // Though now in the spotlight for his recent Mercury Prize shortlisting and collaborations with Bon Iver, James Blake carved a niche for himself as a producer of crisply wrought bass music before he began adding plaintive lovelorn crooning over the top. The result, as heard on this year’s self-titled debut, is a beguiling mix of spine-tingly electronica and fractured white boy soul. JAMES BLAKE PLAYS THE ANSON ROOMS, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.UBU.ORG.UK/YOUR-UNION/ANSON-ROOMS
2-3 DEC
COMEDY SHARE SOME BEWILDERMENT WITH ELIS JAMES // If you wanna catch a glimpse of someone firmly on their way up the comedy ladder, make a beeline for Elis James, a bilingual Anglo-Welsh comic with an engaging bewildered-underdog persona. "The anecdotes and observations flow freely, with an endearing wit and fine sense of timing and pace,” praised chortle.co.uk. ELIS JAMES PLAYS THE COMEDY BOX, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.THECOMEDYBOX.CO.UK
20-30 DEC
THEATRE WARM THE WINTER COCKLES WITH CORAM BOY // Bristol Old Vic has no Main House this winter, as it undergoes an extensive refurb, so it’s
CARRIE RHYS-DAVIES THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL Highlights of the summer at the Tobacco Factory? That’s really hard but perhaps uppermost in my mind is the Summer School we’ve just run with two really awesome local companies – Fairground Theatre and Kompany Malakhi. It was a fantastic week and I was so proud of what everyone achieved. What’s coming up that we should be getting excited about? There’s so much to look forward to but I’m most excited about the Bristolbased Idiot Child’s new show ‘You Are Not Doing It Right’, which comes to The Brewery at the end of September. And this year’s Christmas show, a new version of ‘Cinderella’, directed by Sally Cookson, is going to be really special. And where else will you be going in Bristol, Bath, the South West or beyond? I can’t wait for 1927’s ‘The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets’ at Bristol Old Vic and I’m also really looking forward to seeing Laurence Boswell’s work at the Ustinov. And I’m going to try and get to London to see ‘London Road’.
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9/28/2011 5:00:06 PM
Robin Askew talks religion, freakshows and, erm, Ronnie Corbett with venerable rockmeister Alice Cooper.
T
he original shock-rocker, 63-year-old Alice Cooper (he changed his name legally, y’know) outraged public morals in the 70s, then spent the early 80s getting drunk and recording albums he doesn’t remember. After that, he sobered up, found god and golf, and became a respected Elder Statesman of Rock. Today, he tours tirelessly, hosts his own syndicated radio show, and is a chatshow regular, spinning yarns about his friendships with Old Hollywood (Groucho Marx, Mae West, Peter Sellers), New Hollywood (Johnny Depp), the odd surrealist (Salvador Dali) and, of course, just about everyone in the entire history of rock – from Elvis onwards. Alice’s new album, ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’, is out now and he brings his Halloween Night of Fear to the Colston Hall on 26 Oct. This will be our first chance to see his hotshot new guitarist Orianthi, whose previous employer, Michael Jackson, is indisposed. The show is sold out.
What’s the idea behind introducing freakshow performers into the show? Well, if it’s Halloween you kind of want to get that sideshow. It gives me the excuse to use local talent. We always have an audition in London for the street acts – you know, people that can put a tube up their nose and blow milk into a balloon or whatever. I find those things infinitely interesting.
I saw some photographs of you reacting to the auditions. Was there anything that was just too disgusting to use? Not really as disgusting as I was expecting. I was expecting less burlesque and more freakshow. There were a few people that did some things that were like, “OK, I’ve never seen that before.” One girl does this whip act where the whips are on fire. That looks really good in the dark. At least that was innovative. It wasn’t “Oh look, I’m going to swallow fire.” OK, I’ve seen that seven million times. That’s no big deal. Show me something I haven’t seen. You know, fart fire! There’s something. Ha ha ha.
Are you easily shocked? Not really. I think I’ve seen just about everything. I get more shocked by CNN than I do by Marilyn Manson or Lady Gaga. Reality is so much more shocking to me. Everything I do on stage is choreographed and rehearsed and done so that it really is a good effect. It looks like it just happens, but it takes a lot of rehearsal to get that.
24 // october 2011
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There aren’t many Christians in their sixties who can pull an audience of heavily tattooed and pierced weirdoes. You must be very proud. Well, the thing about it is the Bible says Christians will be “a peculiar people”. I know plenty of good strong Christians who are the craziest people. In their faith, they are totally strong. But in their daily life they are just as mad as anybody else out there. They have a stronger moral base, but that’s about it. After that they’re pretty insane.
It’s great to hear Alice sticking it to disco again on ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’. Oh yeah, absolutely. I can’t let disco go that easily. Everybody says disco is dead. I said, “It’s in disguise. It’s called hip-hop now.”
My favourite story in your autobiography, ‘Golf Monster’, was the one about Liberace being secretly macho and nobody recognising him in his Levis and cowboy boots. That was the weirdest night. And to this day, Shep [Alice’s manager Shep Gordon] and I are still scratching our heads going, “Wait a minute – was this guy putting this on for us?” Because he certainly wasn’t coming on to either one of us. We’re sitting there watching the show, and it was so over the top. It was so gay. It was beyond gay. Then we went back in the dressing room. And the dressing room is as gay as could be: poodles everywhere. Then there was a back dressing room with a leather couch. And he says, “Why don’t you guys wait back in here?” He meets the ladies, shows them the jewellery, shows them the puppies. As soon as everybody’s gone,
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he says, “Get these damn dogs out of here!” And it was a different voice! He said, “You guys wanna go get a beer?” And I went, “Is he putting this on now?” Because I honestly didn’t know if he was sending us up or not.
Do you think you’ll ever solve the mystery of what happened to ‘Alice’s Brain’? [In 1973, Salvador Dali created a ceramic sculpture of Alice’s brain, with a chocolate eclair running down the back and painted ants spelling out ‘Dali’ and ‘Alice’. It hasn’t been seen since.] You know what? That is still my holy grail. I’ve got feelers out all over the world. Somebody’s got it. Somebody’s got the Alice Cooper brain. I’m looking at a picture of it right now. A big poster of me sitting there with the diamonds on, Dali holding the brain over my head and pointing to it. Nobody knows where that brain is. If I ever do find it, it’s probably going to cost me a lot of money.
When you’re on stage with your daughter [Calico Cooper has been in the show for years] and she’s wearing a skimpy nurse’s outfit while watching her father getting put to death each night, don’t you ever think: “There’s some freaky Freudian shit going down here!” Yeah, you know my daughter and I have such a funny view of it. Nobody gets it better than us. It’s so hard not to laugh. There’s a point where I have to come up behind her and grab her hair and put the knife to her throat and smack her down. And the whole time, there’s that feeling of, “Please don’t make me laugh! I’m in character right now.” She’s a trained actress. I’m the one that has to bite my lip every once in a while. But here’s the funny thing: there’s a picture of her and I, and in the paper it’ll say: ‘Alice Cooper seen with gorgeous 22-year-old girl’. I send it back to my wife and she says, “It’s right. She is a gorgeous 22-year-old girl.” Very few people understand that she’s my daughter.
To a whole generation over here, your great mate Iggy Pop is known as that weird leathery old geezer in the insurance ads. You've done a few commercials yourself. Where do you draw the line? I did a couple of adverts with Ronnie Corbett. We did a thing where we were like the odd couple. If it’s a clever commercial, I’ll do it. Alice where he doesn’t belong is always funny. That one was okay because I was a big fan of The Two Ronnies. When they said it was Ronnie Corbett, I said: “Well of course I want to do it.”
You got Johnny Depp up on stage with you at the 100 Club in London recently. What are the chances of getting him to join you at the Colston Hall, given that he lives just down the road in Bath these days?
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Hey, listen – if he’s in town. We told him if this whole acting thing doesn’t work out for him he could join the band. He said, “You would be surprised. If I had eight months off, I would be out touring with you guys.” I said, “That would be great. You have an open invitation.” ‘Cos he’s a really good guitar player. He could play for Thin Lizzy.
So it might happen? Oh, absolutely. I’ll give him a call when we get into London and say, “What are you doing?” I think they finish this ‘Dark Shadows’ movie in December, so he will be around when we’re there.
ALICE COOPER’S HALLOWEEN NIGHT OF FEAR IS AT COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL ON WED 26 OCT BUT IT’S ALREADY SOLD OUT. SEE WWW.VENUE. CO.UK FOR THE FULL VERSION OF THIS INTERVIEW.
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9/27/2011 12:12:13 PM
Michael Morpurgo
HORSE POWER Since being picked up by Bristol Old Vic’s Tom Morris for the National Theatre, ‘War Horse’ has galloped through the West End, cantered its way to awards glory on Broadway, and is now settling down in the stables of a certain Mr Steven Spielberg. Joe Spurgeon meets its author, the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Morpurgo.
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“It’s a book that has been enormously good to me, which is strange because it had extremely unpromising beginnings.”
I
t’s really wonderful to re-work stories which have stood the test of time. In a sense, what you’re doing is becoming a student in the masterclass of some wonderful storyteller. You’re acknowledging the extraordinary power of these stories because they have lasted.” An impassioned Michael Morpurgo is discussing his recently published take on ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’, the allegorical, centuriesold fable beloved of numerous readers and writers (many of whom have published their own embellished versions) including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning. “The challenge was that most children today don’t know ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’; by and large, they don’t read long narrative poems like Robert Browning’s. Another reason it hasn’t been re-told is because of the slightly dodgy nature of what the Pied Piper does [i.e. lure children away after a corrupt council renege on their promise to clear up the town]. I was pretty conscious of that, so the challenge was: how do you make it acceptable in this day and age? Can it be done? Because, in the end, if it is to remain the same story, the piper has to pipe the children away. So, as I always do, you’ve got to go back and start where the storyteller originally began.” Returning to the earliest available source text is a common practice in Morpurgo’s work as, he explains, he looks for meaning that might have been lost – or “Disneyfied” – over centuries of reinvention. With ‘The Pied Piper…’, that place, it seems, was a litter-strewn, socially divided town run by power-drunk bullies and a bent mayor – suddenly, the contemporary resonances of the piper’s tale are only too clear. “We all know in this country the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than it’s ever been. The mayor [in the story] is typical of people in power – and I’m not pointing the finger at Boris Johnson here – but you know what I’m talking about. People in power try to get away with fooling people and the moral for us today is that if you lack integrity and ethics, then it comes back to bite you – you will get your comeuppance.” It’s not the first time, to use the modern parlance, Morpurgo has “reimagined” a children’s classic, having previously tackled Aesop’s Fables, Beowulf and Hansel and Gretel amongst others. His incredible body of work, which saw him anointed as the third Children’s Laureate (2003-2005), also encompasses his own original output, imbued with simple-cum-magical natural
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Michael Morpurgo (LEFT) on ‘War Horse’ settings, underdog triumphs, vivid, pastoral scenes along the dreamy Devonshire and Cornish coastline or the horrendous human horrors born on the battlefields of the Great War. “We can see Dartmoor from our window. The farm we live on is by two rivers – one of which is the Torridge. The Torridge has very famous literary associations not just through Ted [Hughes – who also lived here and will form the subject of one of Morpurgo’s two appearances at the forthcoming Cheltenham Literature Festival] but through Henry Williamson who wrote ‘Tarka the Otter’ about that river. It’s very empty and has remained very unchanged in the 30 or 40 years that we’ve been living here. So a lot of my books, including ‘War Horse’ and ‘Private Peaceful’, have their roots in this place.” And so, inevitably to ‘War Horse’, Morpurgo’s latterly successful children’s novel about the extraordinary odyssey undergone by a boy, Albert, and his beloved horse, Joey, sold to the cavalry and shipped to France to be used as a battle steed during World War I. “It’s a book that has been enormously good to me, which is strange because it had extremely unpromising beginnings. Apart from not winning the Whitbread Prize in 1982 when it was shortlisted, it just didn’t sell well. The day after I came back [from the prize ceremony] Ted Hughes rang me up and said ‘let’s go fishing’. So we went out fishing and we ended up walking in the countryside for a bit and then went to a teashop. He hadn’t mentioned the debacle from the night before but eventually leaned forward and said, ‘Oh, that prize last night Michael, it doesn’t matter. A prize is just a prize. It’s not good if you win it, it’s not good if you don’t win it. It makes no difference to the book.’ And then he said something lovely: ‘‘War Horse’ is a fine book and you will write a finer one.’ He was wonderful that way. A fantastic teacher. “Still – somehow, for 20 years, ‘War Horse’ sat on the publisher’s backlist and if it sold more than 1,500 copies a year, we’d be pleasantly surprised. The publishers, bless their hearts, kept it in print. I have no idea why. “Then out of the blue the National Theatre’s [and now Bristol Old Vic’s] Tom Morris began looking for a very specific project for a wonderful puppet company that he’d worked with at Battersea Arts Centre called the Handspring Puppet Company. He’d worked with them on a small scale and he was convinced they deserved something bigger. He’d been looking for two years for some kind of story where the animals took centre stage. He didn’t know ‘War Horse’ at all and
was recommended it by his mum, who’d read it by chance. Within two weeks, the National Theatre was committed. It took two and a half years to get it to the stage after that. Only the National Theatre – I think perhaps in the entire world – have the financial muscle and wherewithal to put together such a risky idea. Then they just got in all these amazing people and I became convinced that something wonderful might happen. By press night, they had got it together and it has simply roared away. I don’t kid myself – this is down to the genius of the people that have made it: the puppeteers, the music, the lighting, the two directors and of course the National Theatre. It’s a journey peppered with chance, risk and luck, luck, luck. “It’s the same thing with Spielberg. To put all this money and effort behind the story – that just doesn’t happen! It’s been an extraordinary journey full of people who believed in it both as a play and then as a film. Luckily for me, those people from Tom Morris to [Hollywood producer] Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg are massively talented, geniuses of storytelling.” Given Spielberg’s previous track record with war-based films, the movie, slated for a January release, has already been tipped for Oscar glory, despite no-one having seen the finished version yet. How close has Morpurgo been to it? “I don’t know what he’s done any more than anyone else. I’ve seen the trailer and I’ve been on set but that’s it. What I liked about it was that he’s very, very conscious that the book is at the heart of it. I’d be sitting behind him when he was directing and I saw he had the script there, but he also had the book. I’ve no doubt that he’s more than capable of making the most extraordinary film. I’ll see it in the next couple of months I hope, but what I do know is that the man who can make ‘ET’, ‘Jaws’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and’ Schindler’s List’ is the right person for this story.” An artist who revisits the original text before striding forth with his own? No wonder Morpurgo’s pleased. MICHAEL MORPURGO WILL BE AT THE CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL (7-16 OCT) DISCUSSING ‘WAR HORSE’ (‘FROM BOOK TO PLAY TO FILM’) ON SUN 9 OCT (4PM) AS WELL AS PERFORMING THE STORIES OF TED HUGHES AT 12NOON THE SAME DAY. MORPURGO’S RETELLING OF ‘THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN’ (WALKER, £12.99) IS OUT NOW. ‘WAR HORSE’ CONTINUES TO RUN ON STAGE IN THE WEST END AND THE SPIELBERG-DIRECTED FILM IS OUT IN JANUARY.
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Friday 7 & Saturday 8 October at 8pm Champloo Dance Company in
WHITE CAPS Explosive break dance moves, award-winning film and a soundtrack by Type Sun take audiences on “a gripping and magical journey through the dance of life” (THE GUARDIAN).”
<= Wednesday 12 – Friday 14 October at 8pm Marcello Magni & KP Productions present
TELL THEM THAT I AM YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL Seven words, seven stories, seven moments of theatre, played out by an international cast which includes Complicite cofounders Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni.
<= Tuesday 25 October at 7.30pm Tavaziva Dance Company in
DOUBLE TAKE The acclaimed Bawren Tavaziva fuses traditional African and contemporary rhythms and moves to share his experiences of crossing continents and cultures through dance. In a double bill with OBEY THE WIND by Z Movements. A contribution to Black History Month.
<= Thursday 10 & Friday 11 November at 8pm ACE dance & music in the regional premiere of
ICE Six quicksilver dancers, music, film, light and the influences of futuristic Japan and ancient Africa are brought together to explore how technology is influencing our lives.
<= Tickets: £13 (£9 concession) St Paul’s Church, Portland Square, Bristol, BS2 8SJ
BOOKINGS: www.circomedia.com or 0117 922 3686 (Colston Hall box office)
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Lit Fest extra
“We want to prove that Bristol has an appetite for literature.” It’s not just Cheltenham that’s going batso for books this month, novelist and event organiser Jari Moate gives us the lowdown on Unputdownable, which, he tells Alice Edwards, is Bristol’s first literature festival. Tell us about Unputdownable. It’s the first ever literature festival in Bristol and there’s a twist in the tale, that’s for sure. Instead of simply responding to a publisher’s calendar and trotting out the most famous person we could find, we’ve hand-picked our authors to get the ones who address real world issues. We have both the established and the up-and-coming so it’s not celebrity worship. I suppose it’s a DIY festival – maybe even anarchic. It will get people out into community venues, such as libraries, churches and Foyles bookshop. We’ll be drawing the city together. Our hub is Stokes Croft which probably doesn’t sound like the traditional location for a literature festival, but it’s a rich, thriving place. After the events of this year – the riots – Stokes Croft is ready for a life-affirming response. Headlining the festival is ‘Mock the Week’ guest Milton Jones with his ‘10 Second Sermons’, as well as Simon Day with ‘Comedy and Error’, a fantastic book about battling addiction. We’ll also have a Literary Crime Lunch with a surprise crime venue. Thriller writer Sophie Hannah will talk about the search for justice – in particular the miscarriages of justice and how characters seek their revenge accordingly – while new writer Stuart Evers will be answering questions such as “Should David Cameron read more sci-fi?” alongside the brilliant Chris Paling. Given that Bristol already has a poetry festival, a short story festival and many other literature-based events, was there a gap in the market? There was in Bristol, probably because of lack of opportunity. But now the culture of the city is changing. We want to prove that Bristol has an appetite for literature, but not one that’s as conventional as the Cheltenham festival. There’s also this idea that all cities need a literature festival. After writing [my novel] ‘Paradise Now’, I wanted to talk to my own city about the reasons behind the story but there was no platform to do so. So I’ve made one. And it’s good to start in a place where there hasn’t been a big festival before because it means there’s no history, no bad blood. Having written yourself, how would you encourage other new writers? Write something! Get your pen moving across the page. The first chapter you might throw away – in fact, you probably should – but you’ll find something to preserve, something that delights you, and that’s the start. Never be afraid of a blank page. People say that you should write about what you know. I think you should write what you care
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about. You can learn endless facts and figures and snippets of information but you can’t learn to care.
Lit man: Jari Moate is the brains behind Bristol's new festival Unputdownable
It can’t be easy getting such an event off the ground during these inauspicious times. It’s definitely a risky venture but one that’s worth it. We have no public funding. The money comes from gifts and personal funds. The charity Love Bristol is also involved. The rest is volunteer work. We have 35-40 volunteers but only about six in the hard core. There’s an interesting event you’re holding in a prison… The festival launches at Ashfield Young Offenders’ Institute. Children’s author GP Taylor – who was once thrown out of a talk he gave to schoolchildren for using the words “bogey” “bum” and “fart” – will be there working with the kids and feeding their imaginations. And in the afternoon the kids will be released on temporary licence to showcase their work. So fiction has a broader purpose beyond mere entertainment? Fiction has two purposes. One is to provide escapism, whether you’re turning the pages of a fluffy easy-read or a highbrow hardback. But really good art makes people stop in their tracks and think again. It makes you reframe who you are. What you do afterwards with that knowledge is up to you. But it can change your life and that’s a reflection of reality, not fantasy. Does Unputdownable have a long future? We definitely want it to be an annual event but that entirely depends on what happens this year. So if you want to see year two, come along to year one! UNPUTDOWNABLE TAKES PLACE AT VARIOUS VENUES IN BRISTOL FROM 14-23 OCT. FFI: WWW. UNPUTDOWNABLE.ORG
* WIN WIN WIN * CHELTENHAM LIT FEST TICKETS! Fancy a day out at a literature-saturated Cheltenham on us? We’ve got a full day’s worth of lit fest tickets (two per event) to give away to one lucky winner, including events featuring Melvyn Bragg, AS Byatt, the Strictly Come Dancing crew – Arlene Phillips, Lilia Kopylova and Darren Bennett – The Times Debate on probity and freedom, and guest director Ben Fogle, all on Sat 15 Oct (events take place from 12noon, last one finishes at 10pm).# To be in with a chance of winning, just tell us who is NOT a guest director at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. Is it: Ben Fogle a) b) Michael Atherton c) Mike Tyson EMAIL YOUR ANSWER TO EDITOR@VENUE.CO.UK BY FRI 7 OCT. THE WINNER WILL BE NOTIFIED IMMEDIATELY.
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f there’s one thing Hollywood dislikes, it’s originality. Give ‘em a TV show, a remake, a sequel, a computer game or even a theme park ride (‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) and the suits will be happy. That’s because half the marketing has already been done. With a pre-existing fan base, these adaptations are already ahead of the pack in a crowded marketplace. Historically, novels and plays have provided the voracious industry with its main source of material. In some cases, the films have become so iconic they’ve arguably eclipsed their literary origins. Can you think of Anthony Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ without picturing Malcolm McDowell in Droog attire? And does anyone actually read Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’ any more? Ismail Merchant and James Ivory built a lucrative industry on literary adaptations, but only while talented Ruth Prawa Jhabvala was writing the screenplays. Austen and Brontë have given rise to flourishing bonnet and corset industries, while providing the National Trust with vital income. And for many years, Ian Fleming’s James Bond single-handedly kept the British film industry afloat. Authors have also benefited enormously from the arrangement, though some haven’t lived to see the rewards. Pity poor old Philip K Dick, for example. He died four months before the release of ‘Blade Runner’ and could hardly have anticipated that in the next millennium his name would become a byword for big-budget, mind-bending science fiction thrillers. Stephen King, meanwhile, must rank as the most adapted living writer. One King novella collection alone (‘Different Seasons’) yielded three films: ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Apt Pupil’ and ‘Stand By Me’. But it’s not always plain sailing when it comes to literary adaptations. Quite apart from snobbery (The Guardian once produced a list of the best ones which pointedly disdained to include Potter or Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, while finding room for the daft-looking killer plants of ‘The Day of the Triffids’), there’s the problem of reader identification and ownership. Woe betide the film-maker who has the temerity to deviate from the beloved text. The film industry’s rather cynical calculation seems to be that if it’s a book that everyone’s reading on the tube or on holiday, then they’re all going to go and see it anyway. The challenge is to bring in an additional audience and
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From bestseller to the box office (from top): the ‘Twilight’ saga; ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’; ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’; ‘One Day’; ‘The Shining’; ‘The Help’; ‘War Horse’; ‘Elegy’; ‘The Cat in the Hat’; ‘The Beach’; and, most triumphantly, the very silly ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’
then flog them the branded tiein paperback. Frequently, that means casting a star that the good citizens of Buttf*ck, Idaho will recognise. The danger is that neither the star’s fans nor the book’s enthusiasts will respond. Take ‘One Day’, for example. The problem here is that no one who enjoyed David Nicholls’s novel seems to have pictured corn-fed American Anne Hathaway as mousy northerner Emma Morley. While it would be untrue to suggest the film is a flop, it’s been soundly trounced at the box office by ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ (a TV spin-off, you’ll note), and you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who liked it. Perhaps the most egregious example of this phenomenon is ‘Fever Pitch’. It’s safe to say that nobody ever thought of nerdy, weedy Nick Hornby as Mr Darcy, but that didn’t prevent Colin Firth being cast in the lead role of the film version of Hornby’s autobiographical novel. Incidentally, ‘Fever Pitch’ is a rare example of a popular modern novel that’s been ruined twice. It was Americanised as ‘The Perfect Catch’. Nobody went to see that either. So let’s have a bit of fun with this and consider the worst adaptations. If you’ve the stomach for trolling through the barely literate world of internet forums, you’ll find that just about every film of a book has been branded ‘WORST MOVIE EVAH!!!!’ by someone – even Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ (though that may be author Stephen King himself, who prefers the plodding, if more slavishly faithful TV movie version). One suspects
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st
Some books translate to the big screen really well. Others turn from literary gold into cinematic dross. Robin Askew blows the raspberries.
that some of the ‘haterz’ are simply having a go at books they dislike, perhaps understandably (‘Twilight’, ‘Battlefield Earth’, ‘The Da Vinci Code’), and no adaptation would satisfy them. Other screen versions are dismissed unfairly, so I’m going to unilaterally rehabilitate Terry Gilliam’s ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ (it’s great – get over it), ‘The Lovely Bones’ (yeah, we could all do without the afterlife wallpaper, but Saoirse Ronan is terrific) and ‘Starship Troopers’ (Paul Verhoeven brilliantly satirised author Robert Heinlein’s dreary right-wing polemics – upsetting apoplectic US bloggers should be considered a delicious bonus). I also enjoyed ‘The Golden Compass’, but I’m going to keep quiet about that. There are two things every American movie star feels s/he has to do to prove their acting ability. One is to appear on the London stage. The other is to raid the dressing-up box and ponce about in period garb. There’s no shortage of terrible heritage films, but one stands out. Roland Joffe’s 1995 adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ with – ulp! – Demi Moore was the only costume drama ever to dominate the Golden Raspberries. Awful kidlit flicks are ten-a-penny, particularly now the pressure’s on to come up with a new Harry Potter. But has any author been quite so poorly treated as Dr Seuss? Just when you thought nothing could be worse than Jim Carrey in ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, along came Mike Myers in ‘The Cat in the Hat’. In the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, David Lynch’s famously unwatchable ‘Dune’ reigns supreme. But spare a thought for the late Isaac Asimov, whose celebrated Robot stories gave us the sub-par ‘I, Robot’ and saccharine ‘Bicentennial Man’. Then there’s ‘Tales of Earthsea’, adapted apparently randomly from Ursula Le Guin’s much-loved novel series, which was a rare stinker from Japan’s Studio Ghibli. Popular middlebrow literary fiction seems to fare particularly badly. Back in 1996, E-popping Generation X (remember them?) all read Alex Garland’s ‘The Beach’ on, er, the beach. Four years on, they all complained
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about the film version starring Leo DiCaprio. AS Byatt won the Booker Prize with ‘Possession’, but Neil LaBute’s eccentrically cast film adaptation was a disaster, introducing a sub-’Scooby Doo’ mystery plot. Titans of American fiction have no cause to rejoice. Whatever Philip Roth’s merits as an author, they’ve yet to translate to the screen. ‘The Human Stain’, in which Anthony Hopkins got it on with Nicole Kidman, was turgid, preposterous and miscast. ‘Elegy’ was even worse, boasting a similarly sleazy and unbelievable age-gap romance (Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, anybody?), with the viewer invited to empathise with self-pitying menopausal Roth figure’s viewpoint. Cormac McCarthy has had a hard time too. Billy Bob Thornton’s ‘All the Pretty Horses’ was dull as ditchwater. And given how rapturous McCarthy’s acolytes were about ‘The Road’, we had a right to expect something more than a very slow, boring trudge. Hurrah, then, for the Coens, who did him proud with ‘No Country For Old Men’. The problem with adaptations of so many of those fad novels that become word-of-mouth successes and/or literary award-winners is that they’re so painfully stodgy and self-important: ‘Snow Falling On Cedars’ (Ethan Hake mopes), ‘The Shipping News’ (Kevin Spacey mopes), ‘The Hours’ (Nicole Kidman mopes with a funny stick-on nose), and so on. We’re reaching the bottom of the barrel now, with little space left to guffaw at Nic Cage’s Cornetto accent in ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’. Apologies if I’ve missed one of your least favourites, but there’s been a lot of ground to cover and I didn’t even have room for bad comicbook adaptations (‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, ‘Catwoman’). So what’s the biggest stinker, then? I’m going to nominate a film that most who’ve had the misfortune to see it have banished from their memory: Mike Newell’s 2007 adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, scripted by Ronald (‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’) Harwood. Rarely has so much talent been squandered. It’s got the lot: daft accents, silly character make-up, extraordinary scenery-chewing from minor players, a clumsily episodic plot, and legover sequences that seem to have crept in from a softcore sex comedy. In short: WORST MOVIE EVAH!!!!
UPCOMING NOVEL ADAPTATIONS: We Need to Talk About Kevin See review (p.48) in film section. Out: Oct 21 The Help A big US hit, based on Kathryn Stockett’s Oprah-esque bestseller about a wealthy white woman who persuades black domestic servants to tell their stories in 60s Mississippi. Out: Oct 26 The Rum Diary Bruce Robinson’s much-delayed adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s first published novel, starring Johnny Depp. Out: Nov 4 Wuthering Heights Andrea Arnold shakes up the Emily Brontë classic. Out: Nov 11 The Well Digger’s Daughter Remember ‘Jean de Florette’ and ‘Manon Des Sources’? Well here’s another Provencal yarn for the holiday home-owning classes from Marcel Pagnol, adapted and directed by Daniel Auteuil. Out: Dec 9 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo David Fincher does Stieg Larsson for people who can’t read subtitles. Rooney Mara attempts to fill Noomi Rapace’s considerable punk boots. Out: Dec 26 War Horse Out: Jan 13 Spielberg’s ‘one man and his horse’ WWI prestige flick, adapted from the novel by Michael (‘When the Whales Came’) Morpurgo (see feature on p.26).
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Bristol had over 50 cinemas just after World War II, and more still during cinema’s between-the-wars, pre-TV heyday. Images of these myriad lost picture palaces can be found all over the photographers’ site flickr.com: here’s a selection from photographer Stephen Dowle, aka Fray Bentos, who grew up in the city after the war. Odeon Winterstoke Road, Ashton // “‘All streamlined curves,’ says Andor Gomme, ‘a really snazzy piece with the air of a gigantic smug bird pushing its breast forward while its wings are demurely folded back and go down the side elevations in long steps.’ Well, you can see what he meant … “The cinema converted to bingo in 1961 and is
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currently some kind of children’s play centre. The corner turret has become a handy site for mobile phone aerials.”
Gaumont CinemA Baldwin Street, Bristol // Photographed on Wednesday 17 April 1974. As Stephen recalls on his Flickr page: “The programme is a Disney double-bill: ‘Herbie Rides Again’ and the supporting feature
(remember those?) ‘Run Cougar Run’. It must have been the school Easter holidays. The bus is on the no. 1 service, Stockwood-Henbury.” The Gaumont was owned by Rank, at the time one of the two major cinemas owners in the UK along with ABC, who owned the cinema on Whiteladies Road (see separate picture). “The commissionaires and usherettes wore a brown uniform and the in-house
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LOST CINEMAS film magazine, on sale at the box office, was called Showtime. “The building opened in 1892 as Livermore’s People’s Palace. With the coming of silent films it converted to cinema and was renamed The Palace, becoming The New Palace with the arrival of talkies. I think it was still The New Palace when, in 1955, I was taken here for my first-ever visit to a cinema ... also to see a Disney film, ‘Bambi’.” The Gaumont closed in March 1980 and has been through many changes of use since, most recently as the Sports Cafe. It’s currently unoccupied.
Metropole Ashley Rd // Stephen: “‘Are you sixteen?’ Once again the dreaded question, always addressed to me from behind the desk of a box office by a basilisk-eyed middle-aged woman wearing a brown tunic with epaulettes and a pleated skirt hanging from childbirth-widened hips. ‘Ye-eah,’ I lied. “It was the same every week. Last Saturday it might have been at the Scala on Cromwell Road; the Orpheus, Henleaze; the Globe, Lawrence Hill; or the Vandyck, Fishponds. But on this occasion it was the Metropole, Ashley Road, St Pauls. There was a moment’s hesitation, probably designed to make me sweat a little, but the gnarled, agespotted hand, with its wedding ring grown too tight for arthritic fingers, disappeared beneath the counter and depressed an invisible apparatus. A salmon-pink, twopart ticket was extruded from under a little flap, just in front of the word Automaticket. ‘Shame the devil,’ said the uniformed usher as he tore the ticket and thrust one half back into my hand, ‘I wish I’d looked that young when I was sixteen.’.
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“The film I had come to see was ‘Tamahine’, an innocuous romantic comedy starring the forgotten Hong Kong-born starlet Nancy Kwan. I think Miss Kwan’s bottom was briefly visible and there were one or two kissing scenes. This had qualified the film for an A certificate, meaning that no one under the age of 16 could see it unless accompanied by an adult. I was never sure what the function of the adult was supposed to be on these occasions. “The Metropole first opened in 1913 but the structure we see here was a 1938 rebuild. By the time of this photograph, Saturday 20 April 1974, it had been a bingo club for six years. In March 1980 it became a furniture store. It was finally demolished in September 1989.”
ABC Whiteladies // Stephen: “‘Indescribable’ is the epithet used by Prof Andor Gomme in ‘Bristol, an Architectural History’ of this tower belonging to the Whiteladies cinema. He then proceeds to describe it in some detail: ‘... square and plain until an octagon takes over, whose principal faces leak down into the walls of the tower in long inscribed panels between which many little mushroom-shaped holes are pierced.’ Those creepy faces, half man, half lion, with ribbons under their hairy faces, put the tin hat on it for me. The whole effect can give you quite a funny turn. “I attended the Whiteladies cinema on many occasions and passed it literally thousands of times, for it was on the bus route which I worked for many years as both conductor and driver. “The cinema was opened in 1921 and its architects were La Trobe
& Weston. It was what would now be called an ‘entertainment complex’, including a restaurant and dance hall as well as a cinema. The restaurant, called Dick Turpin’s Tavern, was always advertised during the cinema programme.”
The Globe Lawrence Hill // Stephen: “The Globe’s auditorium seen from a platform of Lawrence Hill Station. The cinema had closed on 7 January 1973; the photo was taken on Tuesday 16 January and the building was demolished during July and August.”
Kings Cinema St Judes // Stephen: “Dismantling the canopy, Sunday 29 November 1981, as the preliminary to demolition of the building. I suppose the managements of pop groups choose to advertise with fly posters so that fans are misled into thinking they are participating in something ‘edgy’ and subversive. “Among those singing beat combos whose posters have been affixed to the boardedup cinema are The Pretenders, who will be supported by The Flying Padovanis at the Hippodrome on Saturday 6 December; The Human League, The Stray Cats (at the Locarno, Sunday 13 December); The Dead Kennedys, The Exploited (also at the Locarno); and Mr ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne.” WITH COPIOUS THANKS TO FRAY BENTOS’ FLICKR PHOTOSET LOST BRISTOL CINEMAS. SEE HTTP://BIT.LY/ON58EW FFI. YOU SHOULD ALSO VISIT BRIZZLE BORN AND BRED’S FLICKR SET BRISTOL’S CINEMAS (HTTP://BIT.LY/NE7S2B), AS WELL AS THIS ARCHIVE SITE: HTTP://BIT.LY/ONF6Q0 FURTHER READING: BRISTOL CINEMAS (DAVE STEPHENSON AND JILL WILLMOTT, THE HISTORY PRESS, 2005).
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A good time to bury bad news? And so farewell to the Summer of 2011, dominated by national headline stuff like riots, phone-hacking, Libya, Japanese atomic meltdowns, financial collapses and the end of civilisation as we know it. So did that mean we missed out on the traditional summer “silly season” of daft stories? Of course not, says Eugene Byrne, our man interviewing a skateboarding parrot for the front page splash.
// “Mum crept back upstairs to wake up her boyfriend Dave who went downstairs with a baseball bat and prodded him. There was no response, so they called the police,” Nicola Phillips’s son told reporters. Ms Phillips had been woken by her dog Tyson barking, got up and found Gary Harrop asleep in the conservatory of her Taunton home. Mr Harrop, 29, had broken into her house, but had taken 11 Valium tablets beforehand, and was now dreaming sweet dreams on the floor, surrounded by several of Ms Phillips’s possessions. Harrop was sentenced to 15 months after pleading guilty at Taunton Crown Court. The court heard that he had 19 previous convictions, but this was his first dwelling burglary... Yeah, but wouldn’t it have been far better if the homeowner and/or her boyfriend had shaved his eyebrows and written some silly things on his face and posted the lot on the web?
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// The red-tops went mad for crime-fighting ninja Ken Andre, 33, discovered by C4 documentary ‘Superheroes of Suburbia’ patrolling the streets of Yeovil by night. He’s got all the ninja gear and wears a hearing aid so’s he can pick up sounds from far away. He claims to have settled several incidents of antisocial behaviour, and on one occasion left a wrong ’un tied to a lamp-post for the police to pick up. “I am a force for good and have been doing this for many years. I have walked down the streets and no-one has ever seen me – even in urban areas,” said the unemployed father of two. He is armed with a wooden staff and has developed a special roar which is good for dispersing crowds of youths. “I do not look for trouble. But if there’s a problem and I can help, I do it with my ability using minimum force,” he said. An Avon & Somerset Police spokesman told swns.com: “We would never encourage people to take the law into their own hands or put themselves in danger.”
The same TV programme also featured ‘The Dark Spartan’ and sidekick ‘The Black Void’, patrolling the streets of Torquay on weekend evenings. The duo dress in black and carry police shields they bought on eBay. The Dark Spartan is a financial advisor and father of two by day, while the Black Void works – oh yes! – in a comic shop. The Void suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, which can cause him some trouble in sticky situations. The Dark Spartan began patrolling a few months ago after telling his wife Julie: “I’m off out tonight love to patrol the streets of Torquay and check out some crime.” She told the programme: “I wasn’t that surprised.” // “He slid the card down in the door and it opened. There was no damage to the lock or the door. He went in firstly for the warmth and hoped to find a jacket. He said he had every intention to bring the clothes back in the morning,” Christine Hart, prosecuting, told Yeovil Magistrates.
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The court heard how Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 18, used his Conservative Party membership card to break into Chard police station, where he took various items of police uniform as well as body-armour, handcuffs and a baton. He was challenged at 3.20am by a constable who saw him standing outside the station wearing a police issue jacket and balaclava. When asked where he got the items, he reportedly said, “Your security is shit. I got in with my card.” He then assaulted two officers as they arrested him. The former public schoolboy had gone into the station earlier saying he had been thrown out of his hotel and asking for a lift home. The duty officer refused his request, but made him a cup of tea. The officer later left, locking the station behind him, but Bonehill-Paine succeeded in gaining entry with his card. Admitting burglary and assault, he was sentenced to a 12-month community order to include 100hrs unpaid work and supervision by the probation service.
// Ian Magee, 63, of Williton in Somerset has caused a minor furore both in his community and among the petrolhead community by making a bird box painted to look just like a speed camera. After he became fed up with motorists breaking the 30mph limit outside his home he spent two weeks in his garage making the fake device, which he has put up in his garden, along with a proper CCTV camera to deter vandalism. Avon & Somerset Police have no problem with it as it’s on private land, but the town hall killjoys at West Somerset Council are looking into it as it doesn’t have planning permission. Meanwhile, Mr Magee told reporters that it’s had the desired effect: “It has been great so far and has convinced so many people. Even off-duty ambulances and police cars slow down when they see it.” He believed that bats might have started nesting in it, which would cause a huge problem for the council as they’re a protected species. // HITLER’S BRISTOL INVASION PLANS yelled the front page of the Evening Post on 17 August. On account of a wartime German map of Bristol marking industrial sites, docks etc. going up for auction. The temptation to take that clip from ‘Downfall’ and do a YouTube of how much the Fuehrer had been looking forward to seeing the Banksy mural and visiting M Shed but those bastards at First Bus had put their fares up YET AGAIN was almost too much. Fortunately for you, we resisted it. // “Pippa’s seared snapper... and why it makes her ‘an asset to any kitchen’: How Her Royal Hotness spent four weeks at a VERY select cookery school,” said the Daily Mail on 31 August. Apparently, Pippa Middleton had attended a cookery course in Somerset. Nine years ago. This story merited almost 900 words. // A blue tit was eaten by a carnivorous plant. Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, who runs a nursery at West Pennard, Somerset, and has been breeding carnivorous plants for 30 years, was astonished to find that one of his pitcher plants had swallowed
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a tit. It’s thought that this is only the second time that such a plant has been recorded eating a bird anywhere in the world. “I think it must have leant in to pluck out an insect that was floating on the fluid inside, tipped in too far and become wedged and unable to get out,” he said.
// Right, this is a serious story… You remember US food conglomerate Kraft? Bought Cadbury’s. Sweetened the takeover deal by promising to keep the Cadbury factory at Keynsham open. Broke their promise the minute the deal was signed. Kraft boss Irene Rosenfeld was too busy to appear before a House of Commons select committee to explain herself. Now it turns out they’ve cut the number of sweets in a tin of Roses by around 11, while keeping the price the same. The move is a result of rises in global cocoa prices, partly because of hedge funds buying up cocoa just to drive prices up.
// Beach volleyball players, Bath-based Zara Dampney and Shauna Mullin put their arses up for sale, securing a sponsorship deal with betting firm Betfair which is to put matrix barcodes on their bikini bottoms. “There is huge interest in beach volleyball and we want to ensure that our advertising campaign is seen and remembered by as many sports fans as possible,” said a statement from Betfair.
// Deborah Hunt, 43, was jailed at the beginning of September for driving down the M5 in the wrong direction for 23 miles. She was over twice the legal drink-drive limit. Bristol Crown Court was told that Hunt drove her partner’s Peugeot 806 onto the southbound carriageway of the M5 at Junction 24 near Bridgwater at 11pm. Realising she wanted to go northwards, she performed a U-turn from the slow lane to the fast lane, driving northwards up the carriageway at 60mph. Police finally caught up with her nearly three junctions later, when she performed a further U-turn, only stopping when the car ran out of diesel. Yeah, yeah, funny story, but only because she didn’t kill anyone… Sentenced to seven months for dangerous driving and a further two months for driving under the influence of alcohol, she was banned from driving for 15 months and told she would have to prove she was sober before her licence was returned.
// But the top story has to be the one about the summer riots in Calne, Wiltshire. It was in last month’s Venue, but in case you missed it... A group of five youngsters, with their hoods up, and armed with bricks, assembled outside the Tesco Express store in the town on the night of 9 August for some copycat looting. They proceeded to try and smash their way into the store, without having grasped the basic point that the hoodies they’d seen on telly smashing shop windows were doing so because the shops were closed. The Calne Tesco Express, on the other hand, was still open. As they were banging away at the plate glass, bemused shoppers were coming in and out of the automatic sliding doors. They legged it when the police approached, but a number of suspects were soon arrested after finding their plans on Facebook.
AND IN OTHER NEWS (The actual, like, important stuff that happened round here.) // Grasping local private sector bus-monopoly First increased fares YET AGAIN. They used their well-established PR ruse to claim that some fares were going up, while some were going down. But you’ll find that for most people on most routes they’re mostly going up. // Bristol City Council’s Liberal Democrat administration pressed on with the effective privatisation of home care services. // One of Michael Gove’s beloved Free Schools has opened in north Bristol. It’s in old government offices in Southmead, but the pushy parents behind it want the old St Ursula’s site in posh Westbury-onTrym. Private schooling at public expense, what? // The row over public transport continues, with some people questioning the need for bendy buses in the first place. They’re better than ordinary non-bendy buses how? // Multinational arms giant BAe Systems is planning to sell off Filton airfield for short-term profit (it’ll be houses, you wait and see). This will commence the long slow death of Bristol’s proud aerospace industry, providing highly skilled and well-paid jobs for 100 years. Or do you seriously believe you can have an aerospace industry without a bloody runway? // The row over the City stadium and/or town green at Ashton Vale went on. And on. // The gorillas were brilliant though, weren’t they?
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Newshound GoING UP
THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF LAST MONTH...(and some other stuff) //
Golf Balls
I
had no idea anything was untoward until the prizegiving was called out for this individual and I was ever so slightly surprised to see he was wearing a lady’s mini-skirt,” Bath Mayor Bryan Chalker told the Bath Chronicle afterwards. “I handed him his prize and he turned around and dropped the skirt. It was totally uncalled for. “I just assumed he would be wearing underpants, but I saw the shock on people’s faces and after a few seconds he was escorted out. I feel very sorry for the club as it wasn’t their fault and they have gone out of their way to apologise.” Cllr Chalker was speaking following an incident at Bath Golf Club’s Sham Castle home at a charity event organised by the Rotary Club of Bath. The mayor was presenting prizes to club members who had taken part in a tournament earlier that day. The club has since received an apology from the man in question, and he has resigned his club
// FACT BITES // A BRISTOL UNI SCIENTIST IS LEADING A CONTROVERSIAL EXPERIMENT THIS MONTH TO SEE IF IT’S POSSIBLE TO CONTROL THE WORLD’S CLIMATE.
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membership. The club in turn has apologised to all who attended the event, which was raising money for the Dorothy House hospice. Club chairman Stan Frith said in a statement: “An incident occurred at Bath Golf Club, a private members’ club, last Friday. An apology has been received by the club and the club has in turn extended an apology to all
1 kilometre
Length of hose being lifted up by balloon in an attempt to pump water into the atmosphere.
Sulphate aerosols
What you’d actually pump into atmosphere if the experiment is a success. They have a cooling effect on the area they’re above. It’s, like, a kinda (temporary) sunshade to offset the greenhouse effect.
£2m
Cost of the UK-funded experimental project.
SPICE
those who were present.” Ha-ha! Did you see what he said there? “Private members’ club.” Hargh! If it wasn’t for one private member showing the mayor his private member (and the 19th hole, tee-hee!), there wouldn’t have been any trouble. Wonder if the offending golfer was blackballed?! Snigger! (Oh do grow up! Ed.)
Mucking around with forces beyond our understanding
Criticism of experiment from some scientists. Project leader Dr Matthew Watson of Bristol Uni agrees, saying you’d only try a stunt like this as a last resort in the event of sudden climate instability.
Dr Watson’s blog
thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.com
One bloke’s toe... James Byrne, 29, who works in the building trade, was sawing through a piece of wood when he lost the thumb from his left hand. Now surgeons at Frenchay have taken the big toe from his left foot and made a thumb of that. The docs say that he’ll need to get used to walking sans big toe, but the benefit of being able to use both hands properly at work is much greater in the long run. Mr Byrne is delighted with his new digit. Good old Frenchay. Good old the NHS. Showering down, in fact... All the world’s gold and platinum ore came from space, according to Bristol Uni boffins. Earth’s great big Golden Shower took place over four billion years ago when loads of meteorites fell when the planet was being formed. Molten iron sank to the Earth’s core, dragging huge amounts of precious metal with it. Now there’s enough loot in the core to coat the entire planet with a layer of bling four metres thick. Dr Matthias Willbold of Bristol University department of Earth Sciences: “Our work shows that most of the precious metals on which our economies and many key industrial processes are based have been added to our planet by lucky coincidence when the Earth was hit by about 20 billion billion tonnes of asteroidal material.”
GOING DOWN
Name of project, as in Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering.
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email editor@venue.co.uk web www.venue.co.uk
Say what? //Round
these parts // Hi, darling, I’m ho... Why are you burning joss sticks? And where has all the furniture in our living room gone? And the TV and your precious ‘Top Gear’ DVDs? And why are you sitting cross-legged on the shagpile in just your vest and pants? You are most welcome to the ashram... Don’t tell me. You’re setting up as a guru to swindle gullible self-indulgent idiots. I want you to know right now that it’s completely fine with me provided I can carry on eating meat, and don’t have to worship you. My role is strictly confined to counting, banking and spending the money, OK? There is more to life than material things. What need does the true pilgrim have of mere money? Oh yeah, you’re good. What’s this? You must partake of this sacramental drink. Clear your mind of all thoughts and
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prepare yourself for a spiritual journey.
Vinegar, tabasco and Ribena, mostly.
Shouldn’t there be some suitable background music? That is a profound insight you have gained from the wisdom of the ancients. Dwell in this space while I prepare the ambience.
If I drink this I’ll puke! That’s exactly what happened at a “healing workshop” run by self-styled shaman, healer and homeopath Peter Aziz in Weston-super-Mare a while back. He gave his punters proper ayahuasca and some of them had terrifying hallucinations, while others puked their guts up.
Do what? Oh. Right. You’re putting a CD on. OK... What the?!... Um, I was thinking of something more, spiritual... There is profound knowledge in He should be locked up. the words, “My milkshake brings He was. He got 15 months at all the boys to the yard”. Bristol Crown Court. But do you want to know the funny bit? He What is this muck you want was charging these people £100 me to drink anyway? for his drugs and clueless hippy Ayahuasca, a drink the native bullshit. Amazonians (who are very wise, and authentic, you know) Well, let’s hope the goddess prepare from the stem bark bestows bounteous blessings of two types of vine from the upon your latest enterprise. rainforest. Meantime, I’m starving. I’m going to make pizzas for tea. Really? What do you want on yours? Well, no. The active ingredient As the acolyte said to the of proper ayahuasca, enlightened master, “make me N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) one with everything”. is a Class A drug, so I mixed it up from stuff in the kitchen. Kindly leave the ashram.
You probably walk past it every day... No. 24 Where they used to execute people // There’s a roundabout at the junction of St Michaels Hill, Hampton Road, Cotham Hill and Cotham Road. From medieval times until the 1820s when the new gaol opened on Cumberland Road, this is where most of Bristol’s felons (along with a few innocent souls, no doubt) met their ends. The precise location of the gallows is uncertain, but it was probably on Cotham Road just before the junction. This was at the edge of the city boundary and back in the day was mostly open fields. So, weather permitting, a nice public hanging was a pleasant outing for the local populace. The condemned criminals would be taken from Newgate Gaol (where the Galleries, Broadmead is nowadays) and up the hill. All manner met their ends here, including Protestant zealots burned at the stake during the reign of the equally fanatical Catholic Mary I. Most people were hanged, though, including women who had killed their babies and who nowadays would be treated with much more leniency on account of postnatal depression. Many more people, some mere kids, were nubbed for crimes which would barely get a community sentence now. Among the most famous hangings were those of John Vernham (burglary) and Joshua Harding (shoplifting), both sentenced to be executed on 4 September 1736. Vernham was hanged, but after being cut down, his body still showed signs of life. His friends immediately carried him to St Philips, where he was revived, but died the following night. Harding was also revived after being cut down and was returned to Newgate, where hundreds of people came to visit and gawp. He was pardoned and given a home in an almshouse. “Half-hanged Harding”, as he was known, appears to have been convicted of another crime soon afterwards and was sentenced to transportation, presumably to America or the West Indies.
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WEB FLUFF BRISTOL DRUG & ALCOHOL SURVEY. GOOD CAUSE – PLEASE HELP https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bristoldrugsurvey
BANKSY’S BRISTOL GUIDED TOUR APP FOR SMARTPHONES banksybristoltourapp. co.uk
NEW BRISTOL FIRM WILL HELP YOU TRACK YOUR MOODS www.moodpanda.com
KEEP BRISTOL’S CARE HOME SERVICE bristolhomecare.blogspot.com
CHARTING THE TAX DODGES OF RICH INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES www.taxresearch.org.uk
//The mists of time// Come take our hands and join us as we frolic and gambol in the leafy meadows of the happy land of the past, when men were men, women were women and hedgehogs were otters. It was 1991 and this was some of the stuff in Venue that October. // News: “On Tuesday October 15, Norwich Union’s five and a half acre Galleries complex in Bristol’s Broadmead shopping centre will finally open its gates to the public.”... The first person
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Newshound
The News, Digested
Joblessness... Housing developments… Asbestos dumping… Bus cards… // Unemployment in the west of England has seen a 104% rise in 12 months; 21,269 in the three months to August, compared with 10,844 in the same period last year. There were 11,508 people claiming Jobseekers Allowance at the end of August, some 4.1% of the total available workforce, and 2,541 in Bath & North East Somerset, 2.3% of the available workforce. // Residents, community groups and businesses are being consulted to develop a new “community vision” for the notorious Westmoreland House and Carriageworks site on Stokes Croft. See www.carriageworks. org.uk
Conservatives and two Greens. // The first show home at the huge Bath Riverside development opened last month. Developer Crest Nicholson Regeneration is working on the first phase of the project which will eventually see 2,000 homes on the former Western Riverside site. The project has been dogged by controversy, including fears that it might cause Bath to lose its UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
and health risks rigorously at such a large site, and ensure the correct waste is deposited in a safe way.” // Bus operator First has unveiled plans to provide new ticketing technology in Bristol, Somerset and Avon. The “touch in touch out” machines are to be introduced from this autumn, enabling passengers to use credit and debit cards and, eventually, payment cards similar to London Oyster Cards to pay for their journeys. The new system will eventually also accept payment by mobile phone. Any suggestion that First making this interesting announcement at the same time as it put up its bloody fares yet again was not a coincidence would be a deplorable cynicism.
// September’s council by-election in Southmead ward saw Labour’s Brenda Massey recapture the seat from the Liberal Democrats, who were pushed into third place behind the Tories. Bristol City Council’s composition is now 32 Liberal Democrats, 22 Labour, 14
// A resident is mounting a legal challenge to plans by Bath & North East Somerset Council to permit the dumping of 645,000 tonnes of asbestos waste near Chew Valley Lake. Local objectors to the dump at the Stowey Quarry near Bishop Sutton include broadcaster, comedian and medic Dr Phil Hammond, who voiced fears that the waste could pollute one of Bristol’s main sources of water. He said: “I doubt the Environment Agency has the resources to monitor pollution
// One secondary school place on every six in Bristol is currently vacant. Around 700 places in the city’s 21 state schools are unfilled, including 70 places at the muchvaunted Free School which opened this term in former government offices in Southmead.
in Bristol to be imprisoned for non-payment of the Poll Tax, 69-year-old Tony Whitfield, was sinterviewed at Horfield nick during visiting hour by Venue: “When you’ve spent as long as I have in the RAF, this is pretty easy,” he said. “This is such a grossly unfair tax that I made a decision never to pay it.”... Advanced Transport for Avon, the private firm founded in the mid-1980s to build a tram system for Bristol was in trouble. There were bills to pay, and now privatised bus firm Badgerline were unveiling a rival scheme. “Parliamentary approval was gained in 1989 for the first stretch of track from Portishead to Wapping Wharf in central Bristol. Trams were due to be running on the disused
British Rail line this year, but work on upgrading the 12 miles of track has not started.”... Bath businesswoman Chloe Blau was advertising Trabants in Western Auto Trader. She had 1,000 of the East German cars waiting to be shipped over to loving new owners at just £1,500 apiece. “Buy a piece of history! Make a collector’s investment! Drive a fun car!” read her advert. So did she get any response from the ad? “Well, no,” she told Venue, but she was convinced that the notorious commie cars would become collectors’ items... And here’s a big article all about Bristol’s different “tribes” , with little thumbnail portraits of such disparate groups as Nedheads (fans of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, who congregated on College
Green every Friday evening); Skate Muties (“The more scars, bruises and contusions, the better – it indicates ‘radness’.”); New Age Ravers; Paisley Psychos; Old Bluesers and then something called ‘Bristaliens’. The latter came from the Home Counties or boring Northern city suburbs to study here and settled on graduation and said things like: “There’s loads going on round here, and it’s so much cheaper than London.” And “We got it for 30 grand just before the prices went mad.”
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Film
sponsored
Debt on arrival Based on an Israeli film, ‘The Debt’ tells the story behind a Mossad mission to catch a Nazi war criminal in East Berlin. Robin Askew tracks down its director and cast.
T
here’s one thing Dame Helen Mirren is particularly eager to correct. The suggestion that she underwent selfdefence training for her role in ‘The Debt’ is, she insists, untrue. “I do have a fight in it,” smiles the scarily well-preserved Mirren. “We call it the geriatric fight, between a 60-year-old woman and an 80year-old man. It’s really hard to get up once you’re down.” A remake of a 2007 film that was little seen even in Israel, its country of origin, ‘The Debt’ is a work of fiction – even though, as Mirren points out, “it has that feeling of ‘this could have happened’.” Two stories unfold in
“I really like films that demand that your brain works at the same time as your heart.” John Madden, director venuemagazine
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parallel. In 1997, retired Mossad agent Rachel Singer and her two male accomplices are national heroes for having tracked down a notorious Nazi war criminal known as the Surgeon of Birkenau in East Berlin three decades earlier. History records that they shot him dead while he tried to escape. But information has now emerged to contradict this official version of events. Back in 1966, we find out what really happened. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity to tell a story that is both a very pure cinematic genre – the genre thriller – but also one that actually allows a very complex emotional and psychological drama to unfold at the same time,” enthuses director John Madden, who’s best known for the multiple Oscar-winning ‘Shakespeare In Love’. “Usually those things pull against each other in a project and you have to stop the thriller for a moment in order to fill in character and catch up on who they really are. This film is very different. You understand who these people are through the story that’s unfolding. It’s an amazing challenge in terms of the material, but a great opportunity as well.” There is also, he acknowledges, a responsibility on the part of the film-maker to be aware of the political ramifications of such a story. “It’s a big responsibility,” he nods. “This is the biggest theme in terms of recent modern history. You owe a debt to take that seriously, particularly when you’re dealing with a story in a genre that is not famous for moral complexity. We were very, very concerned and vigilant about not reducing things to simple dimensions and not using the
holocaust or its aftermath, and the pain engendered by it, as a useful hook. The chief way, I think, in which you can honour that material is by making the people real and making what they do truthful. We booted out any idea that was led by narrative requirements but didn’t feel true.” With Mirren on board as the more mature Rachel, Jessica Chastain was cast as her younger self. Jessica who? Well, if you haven’t come across this versatile 30-year-old daughter of a Californian firefighter and a vegan chef, you will do soon, because she’s in virtually everything over the next few months. You’ll see her as a southern sexpot in ‘The Help’, a smalltown cop in ‘Texas Killing Fields’, Virgilia in Ralph Fiennes’s version of ‘Coriolanus’ and the supportive wife of bonkers Michael Shannon in ‘Take Shelter’. Terrence Malik, who gave Chastain her break in ‘The Tree of Life’, was so impressed that he’s already cast her in his next film. “It really is feast or famine in this business, which I’ve learned recently,” she laughs. “I’ve made 11 films over the past four-and-a-half years. It’s a very strange experience to learn the other side of the profession – the press side of it. In fact, I had never done a press junket before this year. And all of a sudden over the last six months it’s like every day. So I’m still finding my footing. But my normal personal life is exactly the same. I never get stopped. I think I’ve been recognised twice. Sometimes I get mistaken for Bryce Dallas Howard.” As written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, ‘The Debt’
by
boasts a very different structure to that of the original Israeli film, ‘Ha Hov’. “Because the movie is suspended between two time zones and it’s about how history is made and transmitted and so forth, it suggested itself naturally as a non-chronological structure; in particular, because the movie begins with a very big question mark, which is this pretty shattering event,” argues Madden. “Explaining and understanding how and why that happened and what it means is the structural principle of the film. I really like films that demand that your brain works at the same time as your heart and, in this case, your guts are working too. Obviously one of the pleasures in a film, though not in life perhaps, is having the rug pulled out from underneath you.” ‘THE DEBT’ OPENS ON FRI 30 SEPT. SEE REVIEW ON PAGE 46 AND WWW. VENUE.CO.UK FOR SCREENING DETAILS. Helen Mirren gets tough in 'The Debt'
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Film
sponsored
by
//THE MONTH AHEAD// Sleeping Beauty (TBA) // (Dir: Julia Leigh, 101 mins) First-time writer/director Julia Leigh collaborated with Jane Campion to produce this decidedly creepy and unsettling erotic drama from Down Under. Adapted by Leigh from her own novel, it stars Emily Browning as Lucy - an impecunious, emotionally deadened student who’ll do pretty much anything to make a bit of spare cash. Eventually, she lands a job at a remote and exclusive ‘Sleeping Beauty Chamber’, where she’s sedated and lies naked on a bed. Elderly men can then fulfil their erotic fantasies by doing pretty much what they want with her, except penetration. Naturally, she soon begins to wonder what actually goes on while she’s dozing… SLEEPING BEAUTY IS OUT ON OCT 14
Contagion (12A) // (Dir: Steven Soderbergh, 106 mins) Yay - Gwyneth Paltrow dies! Don’t worry, we’re not giving anything away here. Her character perishes in the opening scenes, and it’s all in the trailer anyway. Gwynnie is the first victim of a lethal airborne virus that starts to spread among Proper Americans as well as Funny Foreigners. Matt Damon is her bereaved hubby and Kate Winslet’s a boffin looking for a cure. Lest you imagine you saw all this before in ‘Outbreak’, Steven Soderbergh brings it bang up to date by casting Jude Law as a mad-eyed blogger peddling nonsense. Oh, and it’s in 3D. CONTAGION IS OUT ON OCT 21
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (15) // (Dir: Troy Nixey, 99 mins) If the title sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a remake of a 1973 TV movie. Unpromising as that might sound, this was a film that scared the crap out of the young Guillermo Del Toro. He grew up to direct the likes of ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ and ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, which gives you some idea of what to expect from this suitably spooky remake, which he produced and co-scripted. Bailee Madison plays a kiddiewinkie who finds rather more than she expected while exploring the basement of the sinister mansion that dad Guy Pearce is renovating. DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK IS OUT ON OCT 7
42 // october 2011
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Real Steel (12A) // (Dir: Shawn Levy, 127 mins) Whoa! Robot smackdown! In the future, blokes beating the crap out of one another have been replaced by giant robots beating the crap out of one another. That’s progress, kids. But away from the big corporate bouts, there’s a thriving underground scene. And it’s here that we find washed up old-timey pugilist Hugh Jackman attempting to bolt together his own tin contender from old bits and bobs. This being a Disney movie, there’s a lot of fatherson bonding guff to endure. But they’ve used ‘Avatar’/’Rise of the Apes’ motion capture technology to create the fighting ‘bots, so at least the action should be fun. REAL STEEL IS OUT ON OCT 14
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Fancy a film this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings
En garde! It's 'The Three Muskateers 3D'!
September 30 // Melancholia (15) See review on page 47. // The Debt (15) See feature on page 41 and review on page 46. // Guilty of Romance (18) See review on page 46. // Red State (18) See review on page 47. // Shark Night 3D (15) See review on page 48. // What’s Your Number? (15) (Dir: Mark Mylod, 106 mins) Yet another reactionary romcom, anyone? This one has Anna Faris fretting over a bullsh*t women’s magazine article which asserts that any woman who’s had 20 or more partners is likely to stay single for life. As her tally is perilously close to this magic figure, she naturally revisits her former lovers in case she’s overlooked The One. // Abduction (12A) (Dir: John Singleton, 106 mins) What’s happened to John (‘Boyz N the Hood’) Singleton’s career, eh? First that crappy ‘Shaft’ remake, then ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ and now this vehicle for Taylor Lautner (frowny, shirtless wolfboy in the ‘Twilight’ flicks), who plays a teenager uncovering his real identity as he flees rival bands of killers.
October 7 // Johnny English Reborn (PG) (Dir: Oliver Parker, 101 mins) Belated return of Rowan Atkinson’s largely unfunny useless MI7 agent, who originated in a series of TV ads
// STILL
SHOWING // // The Change-Up (15) (Dir: David Dobkin, 112 mins) Feeble bodyswap comedy with Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. // Crazy, Stupid, Love (12A) (Dir: Glenn Ficara & John Requa, 118 mins) Steve Carrell returns to ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ territory as a divorced loser who’s tutored by suave player Ryan Gosling. HHHHH // Drive (18) (Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn) Classy, violent action flick from the director of ‘Pusher’ and
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that no one can remember. Gillian Anderson, Dominic West and Rosamund Pike are also along for the pay cheques. // The Lion King 3D (U) (Dir: Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff, 89 mins) We’ll be getting a lot of these, as the studios revisit their biggest hits for 3D makeovers. // Midnight in Paris (12A) See review on page 45. // Perfect Sense (15) (Dir: David Mackenzie, 92 mins) It just seems as though David Mackenzie is being unusually productive, but this one’s been sitting on the shelf for more than a year. Fortunately, it looks rather more promising than last month’s godawful indie music flick, ‘You Instead’. In October’s other global pandemic drama, Ewan McGregor (who was in Mackenzie’s ‘Young Adam’) and Eva Green enjoy a love affair while people start going down with a bug that affects sensory perceptions. // Tyrannosaur (18) See review on page 48.
October 14 // The Three Musketeers 3D (12A) (Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson, 110 mins) Oh, that’s just great: yet another remake of ‘The Three Musketeers’ and yet another 3D flick in which characters can’t stop chucking things out of the screen at us. To make matters worse, it’s directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who has yet to make a good film and was responsible for the career of Jude Law. As usual, there’s also a role for Mrs. Anderson (Milla Jovovich). But don’t let us put you off. ‘Bronson’ with - him again! - Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver. // Friends with Benefits (15) (Dir: Will Gluck, 109 mins) Charmless f*ckbuddy comedy with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. HHHHH // Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (12A) (Dir: David Yates, 130 mins) The most successful Potter flick in the series, and now the third biggest hit ever at the UK box office behind ‘Avatar’ and ‘Toy Story 3’. HHHHH // I Don’t Know How She Does It (12A) (Dir: Douglas McGrath, 89 mins) Sarah Jessica Parker stars in a working mom chick flick adapted from the bestseller by Daily Mail
// Albatross (15) (Dir: Niall MacCormick, 90 mins) Likeable Felicity Jones, who was supposed to have been made a big star by the feeble ‘Chalet Girl’, stars in a comingof-age drama about a bookish teenager whose family life in a south coast hotel is shaken up by the arrival of scrumptious hottie Jessica Brown Findlay, to whom her writer dad takes an instant shine. // Dolphin Tale 3D (U) (Dir: Charles Martin Smith, 112 mins) Harmless kid/injured dolphin bonding yarn in the ‘Free Willy’ mould. Mind you, at nigh-on two hours it’s awfully long even if it is in 3D. // Footloose (12A - pictured) (Dir: Craig Brewer, 113 mins) This month’s remake that nobody demanded is a new version of the ‘80s smalltown ‘kids wanna rock’ musical, with no one you’ve ever heard of taking the place of hoofin’ Kevin Bacon and chums. Dennis Quaid gets the role of the Rev. Old Square, who inveighs against the evils of youthful bootyshaking. // Texas Killing Fields (TBA) (Dir: Ami Canaan Mann) Michael Mann’s daughter Ami takes the reins of this Texan swampland serial killer flick (dad produces), which is allegedly based on real events. Chloe Moretz plays the troubled teen in peril. // Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (12A) See review on page 45.
// Black Power Mixtape 19671975 (TBA) (Dir: Goran Olsson) Fascinating documentary edited
together from footage that languished in a Swedish cellar for three decades. Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis and Harry Belfonte are among the interviewees. Screened as part of Black History Month. // Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (PG) (Dir: John Schultz, 92 mins) Whiny, shrill, frantic ADD kidflick adapted from Megan McDonald’s books. Guaranteed to give over-eights a migraine. Postponed from last month. // Monte Carlo (PG) See review on page 47. // Paranormal Activity 3 (TBA) (Dir: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman) As usual, they probably won’t show this one to the press. But it seems to be some kind of prequel revealing the origin of all that spookery. Interestingly, this instalment is co-directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who gave us that cleverly marketed alleged documentary ‘Catfish’. // Restless (TBA) (Dir: Gus Van Sant) Your terminal disease weepie needs are met this month by Mia (‘Jane Eyre’) Wasikowska. She comes over all wan and peaky while romancing Henry (son of Dennis) Hopper, whose best friend is the ghost of a kamikaze pilot (no, really). Expect moping and twee indie music. // We Need to Talk About Kevin (15) See review on page 48.
hackette Allison Pearson. // The Inbetweeners Movie (15) (Dir: Ben Palmer, 97 mins) Now officially the UK’s most successful independent comedy ever and the second biggest hit of the year. Who’d have predicted that? HHHHH // Jane Eyre (PG) (Dir: Cary Fukanaga, 121 mins) A fresh, visually impressive adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic from the director of ‘Sin Nombre’ with excellent performances by Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender and Judi Dench. HHHHH // Killer Elite (15) (Dir: Gary McKendry, 116 mins) Together at last: Jason Statham, Clive Owen and, erm, Robert De Niro in an adaptation of hapless adventurer
Ranulph Fiennes’ controversial alleged true tale of SAS derring-do, ‘The Feather Men’. // Mr Poppers Penguins (PG) (Dir: Mark Waters, 94 mins) Jim Carrey inherits a bunch of poopy, bitey penguins in a dismal, disingenuous ‘family film’. HHHHH // One Day (12A) (Dir: Lone Scherfig, 108 mins) The film everybody hates of the book everybody loves. Apparently. // Rise of the Planet of the Apes (12A) (Dir: Rupert Wyatt, 105 mins) The summer’s most enjoyable blockbuster, still going strong. HHHHH // The Smurfs (U) (Dir: Raja Gosnell, 103 mins) Annoying little blue critters return to torment a new generation in 3D.
October 21
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Watershed 28-30 October 2011 African films from an African perspective from Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Morocco & Egypt Revolution, democracy, dictatorship ENTER YOUR SHORT FILM (max 20 min) EYEFULL international short film section Theme ‘Africa Alive’ Closing date 30 Sept.
FFI www.afrikaeye.org.uk
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// REVIEWS //
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“No, really: in the future, people will go to grossout comedies and buddy movies and I’ll be a huge star”
Review
Midnight in Paris (12A) USA 2011 94 mins Dir: Woody Allen Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Carla Bruni, Nina Arianda, Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard // Woody’s European vacation brings him back to Paris for the first time since his ill-advised 1996 song’n’dance flick ‘Everyone Says I Love You’. Naturally, ‘Midnight in Paris’ is being hailed as a return to form. But it’s mandatory for someone to say that about every new Woody Allen film. It certainly sees him in a more playful and whimsical mood than of late as he riffs on some of his greatest hits (‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’, that priceless Marshall
McLuhan scene in ‘Annie Hall’, and so on). But here’s a spoiler alert. There’s a twist 20 minutes in that most reviewers have given away. I’m about to do the same. So if you don’t want to know about it, turn the page now. Owen Wilson gets to play the Woody figure this time, though he does so in his usual laid-back, slightly whiny style. He’s hack Hollywood scriptwriter and frustrated aspiring novelist Gil, who’s on vacation in Paris with his high-maintenance fiancée Inez (McAdams) and her right-wing Republican parents, who have an inherent dislike of the French. Things aren’t going well, partly because Gil describes the Tea
Party as “crypto-fascist airhead zombies,” but mainly because Inez is more interested in shopping than in sharing his romantic reveries about the illustrious artistic past of the City of Light. Worse still, her insufferable knowall pal Paul (a great performance by Michael Sheen) shows up to argue with cameoing tour guide Carla Bruni. Wandering alone through the streets one night, Gil is beckoned into an antique car and finds himself transported back to the 1920s to hang out with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Picasso, Cole Porter, etc. And who better to read his unpublished manuscript than Gertrude Stein? Yes, Woody’s Paris is as
travelogue-y as his London and Barcelona, but there’s a creative spring in his step here that’s been absent for some time. The scene where Gil attempts to explain time travel to the surrealists (including Adrien Brody’s splendid Dali) - and gives an uncomprehending Bunuel the idea for ‘The Exterminating Angel’ - is priceless. There’s also a neat twist to Golden Ageism when he falls for Picasso and Modigliani’s muse Adriana (Cotillard), only to find that she’s bored by the 20s and dreams of the Belle Epoque. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website http://www.sonyclassics. com/midnightinparis/ Opens: October 7
Review Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (12A)
USA 2011 87 mins Dir: Morgan Spurlock // If there’s one thing more depressing in modern documentary filmmaking than the celebrity ‘personal journey’, it’s the film-maker who insists on telling us how the film was made - usually to underline their cleverness or bravery. With ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’, Morgan (‘Super Size Me’) Spurlock does at least have the defence that the making of his film is the subject. He’s also a fairly engaging guide, coming across like a lighter, fluffier Michael Moore. The trouble is that this approach smacks of timidity. Some of the really interesting stuff he uncovers about the product placement industry is relegated to the margins and never investigated properly. Noting that ‘Iron Man’ had more than 14 ‘brand partners’ plugged on screen and/or through tie-in
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products, Spurlock’s big idea is to see if he can make a ‘docbuster’ about the product placement industry funded entirely by product placement - or ‘brand integration’ to use the industry’s own weasel phrase. Needless to say, all the major corporations tell him to f*ck off. So he winds up wooing smaller, pluckier firms attracted by his own ‘brand personality’ (that’s ‘playful’ and ‘mindful’, according to a consultant), including a deodorant manufacturer, a small airline, a vegetarian food company, Mane ‘n Tail horse shampoo (“also for humans!”) and, of course, Pom Wonderful - who paid $1m for that above-the-title plug for their
wholesome pomegranate fruit drink (“40% as effective as Viagra”, apparently). In return, he uses his sponsors’ products exclusively onscreen, blurring out images of any of their competitors, and is bound by a series of lawyerimposed rules. Bizarrely, these including not disparaging the entire country of Germany. Spurlock’s enthusiastic, brazen sell-out is all good knockabout fun. The likes of Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky play along and add intellectual heft respectively. But when Hollywood’s product placement king Norm Marshall reveals that he’s had scripts changed on behalf of his clients,
you want to know which ones and why. Similarly, directors such as Brett Ratner and JJ Abrams only get soundbites to talk about the suits who shove products into their films (“GE is my boss,” says ‘Hancock’ director Peter Berg. “They don’t give a f*ck about art”). And the whole business of ‘neuromarketing’ used by the sinister-sounding Buyology Inc to make film trailers is surely worth a full investigation of its own rather than an aside. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.sonyclassics.com/ pomwonderfulpresentsthe greatestmovieeversold/ Opens: October 14
“So you marketing folks really do drink blood?”
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Review Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy UK 2011 127 mins Dir: Tomas Alfredson Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, Kathy Burke, Toby Jones, David Dencik // There’s a strong whiff of Trebor Mints, Harp lager and stale ashtrays about Tomas (‘Let the Right One In’) Alfredson’s suitably grainy and downbeat adaptation of the John le Carré spy classic. But while this is a Cold War period piece in which duplicitous grey men (they’re all men, apart from Kathy Burke with a rather alarming posh accent) who have no lives outside the deskbound
end of the espionage game scheme against one another in grim, windowless rooms at ‘The Circus’, the prize is a familiar one: favour with the Americans, who view MI6 as leaky and shambolic. The story has Control (Hurt) and Smiley (Oldman) ousted after a mission went disastrously wrong in Budapest. Subsequently summoned back from retirement after Control’s death, Smiley is charged with finding out which of his former colleagues has been a long-term double-agent, the chief suspects being weaselly Alleline (Jones), suave Haydon (Firth), gruff Bland (Hinds) and insecure émigré Esterhase (Dencik). Working under
(15)
Smiley is dedicated Peter Guillam (Cumberpatch, in the Watson role for a change), while hot-headed field agent Ricki Tarr (Hardy) is the closest the film gets to a traditional movie spy figure. Despite the languid pacing and lack of action, Alfredson delivers some impressively tense set-pieces in his atmospheric, elegantly flashback-driven portrait of this murky, squalid world where rival camps seek to establish fiefdoms. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Oldman particularly impressive as the fastidious, emotionally desiccated Smiley, who’s betrayed personally and professionally. Awards are
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He knew his first move would be to change that bloody wallpaper
certain to follow, though it won’t do much for the spooks’ annual discreet recruitment drive at Russell Group universities. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.tinker-tailor-soldierspy.com/ Now showing
Review The Debt (15) It’s always embarrassing to get chucked off for shagging in the toilets
USA 2011 113 mins Dir: John Madden Starring: Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Ciaran Hinds, Sam Worthington, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas, Jesper Christensen // Back in 1966, young Mossad agents Rachel Singer (Chastain),
David Peretz (Worthington) and Stefan Gold (Coskas) were sent to East Berlin on a dangerous mission to capture Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel (a suitably chilling Christensen) and bring him back to Israel to face trial. The mission didn’t go entirely according to plan, and Vogel was shot dead while trying to escape. That’s the official story, anyway. But the fact that the older Rachel (Mirren), David (Hinds) and Stefan (Wilkinson) are looking a tad shifty as they continue to be feted for their heroism 30 years on suggests events didn’t take place exactly as described. The publica-
tion of a book about the mission by Rachel’s proud daughter proves to be a catalyst for the trio to confront their past. David promptly hurls himself in front of a truck, while the now divorced Rachel and Stefan find themselves forced to deal with some unfinished business. In flashback, we learn what really happened all those years ago. Unlikely as it might seem, this is adapted by ‘Kick-Ass’ duo Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn from the 2007 Israeli film ‘Ha Hov’, which was never released here. Operating in much the same territory as Spielberg’s ‘Munich’,
‘Shakespeare in Love’ director John Madden works hard to balance his duty of solemnity (this is the Holocaust, after all) with the obligation to entertain. The result is a potent mix of score-settling, guilt and moral ambiguity, which is more gripping in the tense period scenes that don’t feature its big-name stars. Plucky pensioner Mirren eventually gets to perform some ‘Red’-style action, but alas this is all in the service of a rather implausible climax. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
parts from a mannequin. We then meet busty, demure housewife Izumi (Sono regular Megumi Kagurazaka), who’s trapped in a loveless marriage to a famous romantic novelist. Determined to do something before she’s 30, Izumi embarks on twin careers as a nude model and - I sh*t you not - a sausage saleswoman. A third strand focuses on university literature professor Mitsuko (Togashi), who enjoys a sideline as a proselytising prostitute. Although this degenerates somewhat into pervy love romps (dig that pink paint!) and shouting, there’s also a rich vein of black humour,
especially when Mitsuko’s sour mum turns up. Observant viewers will also note that Izumi’s sausages get larger and more tumescent as she explores her sexuality. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
Website www.seethedebt.com Opens: September 30
Review Guilty of Romance (18) Japan 2011 113 mins Subtitles Dir: Sion Sono Starring: Megumi Kagurazaka, Miki Mizuno, Makato Togashi, Kanji Tsuda // It just seems as though Sion Sono is unusually prolific at the moment. His hugely enjoyable sex, violence and tropical fish flick ‘Cold Fish’ was released here recently, but was actually made more than a year ago. Billed as the final part of his ‘Hate Trilogy’, ‘Guilty of Romance’ is once again based very loosely on a true crime story, with lashings of sex and intermittent violence. But after a strong start, it begins to meander
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and still feels over-long despite being shorn of 30 minutes after screening at Cannes. Undeveloped literary references, an ill-fitting classical soundtrack and a pseudo-feminist ‘liberation through prostitution’ message all prove rather baffling, but Sono remains a great visual stylist and many individual scenes work well. There’s also plenty here for connoisseurs of full-frontal female nudity. The set-up has a detective (Mizuno) investigating a bizarre murder case in a Japanese city’s love hotel district. In a derelict apartment, two bodies appear to have been chopped up and reassembled with
Website www.koi-tumi.com/index. html Opens: September 30 He struggled to get used to the novelty cashpoint
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Review Melancholia (15) Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany 2011 135 mins Dir: Lars Von Trier Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Keifer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgard // Cheery old Lars Von Trier follows the genital mutilation fun of ‘Antichrist’ with what he describes as “a beautiful movie about the end of the world”. Structurally, ‘Melancholia’ proves to be much the same as its predecessor, with an arty, doom-laden slo-mo prologue cut to classical music (the overture from Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’, fact fans) and the main story carved up into chapters.
The first chapter centres on a sub-’Festen’ wedding reception from hell. Justine (Dunst) has just married Michael (Skarsgard) and all the guests have gathered at a luxury country hotel owned by her sister Claire’s (Gainsbourg) moneybags hubby, John (Sutherland). Controlling Claire has organised the whole expensive show, but grumpy Justine seems to be suffering from some form of depression and generally proves rather annoying. Just as you’re yearning for more of Charlotte Rampling’s splendidly bitter mother of the bride, the whole thing ends. Part two expands on the event that was shown explicitly in the
Review Monte Carlo (PG) USA 2011 109 mins Dir: Thomas Bezucha Starring: Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy, Catherine Tate // A feeble tweenie companion piece to Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’, in which a trio of American girls live their dream in the south of France, ‘Monte Carlo’ is a vehicle for Justin Bieber’s squeaky-clean, chipmunk-faced Disney Channel squeeze Selena Gomez. You certainly can’t fault this hymn to unmerited fame for chiming perfectly with the zeitgeist, if you believe the survey claiming that the sole ambition of more than 70%
of teenage girls is to be a celebrity. But poor Ms. Gomez is presented with a challenge beyond her modest talents in playing two roles, one of which is a rather unlikely Hispanic English posho with a cut-glass accent. Said posho is Cordelia Winthrop Scott, a snooty heiress who’s the spitting image of Texan teen Grace (Gomez again). Grace is fulfilling a lifelong dream to visit France with her airhead blonde pal Emma (Cassidy), but is also lumbered with wet-blanket stepsister chaperone Meg (Meester). When mistaken for Cordelia, she hesitates for all of 30 screen seconds before helping
Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings prologue: the Earth is about to collide with a giant planet called Melancholia that’s just popped out from behind the sun. This time the focus is on Claire, who’s becoming increasingly anxious. Justine, meanwhile, has perked up a bit to greet Armageddon with serene fatalism and gratuitous nudity. The whole first chapter is entirely superfluous, and it’s only in the last 30 minutes or so that the film begins to exert a grip. However, people don’t actually behave like this outside art movies. Von Trier grudgingly acknowledges the existence of the internet but misses a trick in not depicting the end of the world more realistically as
“Hey look - we’re all buggered!”
humanity’s last great collective vicarious experience, hosted by David Dimbleby on News 24 and observed through cameraphones pointed skywards. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.melancholiathemovie. com/ Opens: September 30
“Wow! It’s, like, culture and stuff!”
herself to the conveniently absent heiress’s jewellery and clothes and being whisked off to Monte Carlo for a big charidee event, with Emma, Meg and the paparazzi in tow. All three girls then get romanced by hunksters of various nationalities, which at least silences whiny Meg’s conscience for a while. Naturally, there’s a perfunctory comeuppance right at the end after lots of snogging, partying and dressing up. Grace learns a
lesson from - titter! - Gandhi, while Emma realises her destiny is with a dull hometown bloke rather than Johnny Foreigner, so long as he invests in a fancy dimmer switch. A cameoing Catherine Tate, meanwhile, pockets her cheque and hopes that no one will recognise her. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
Michael Parks has a great turn as a folksy, grandfatherly, fundamentalist zealot, while John Goodman is on fine form as his gum-chewing, conscience-stricken ATF nemesis. It begins like a teen sex comedy with a trio of adolescent horndogs lured by a hot MILF (Leo) for group sex in a trailer in the woods. Instead, they find themselves drugged and held captive in the compound of the heavily armed Five Points Church headed by fag-hating preacher Abin Cooper (Oarks), whose congregation pickets the funerals of homosexuals. If this reminds you of anyone, the film is careful to point out, presumably for legal
reasons, that the Phelps family of the Westboro Baptist Church are an entirely different bunch of bigots. While the teens are tied to crosses awaiting execution for their sins, the ATF surround the compound. Agent Keenan is instructed to avoid another Waco, even if that means slaughtering children. Rather ironically, it all gets a tad preachy in places but there are some nice touches, such as Parks being so rightwing that even neo-Nazi groups distance themselves from him. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
Website www.facebook.com/ officialmontecarlomovie Opens: October 21
Review Red State (18) It had been a tough battle, but she finally got the hamster back in his cage
USA 2011 88 mins Dir: Kevin Smith Starring: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman
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// Apparently stung by criticism that he can’t actually direct, Kevin Smith recently announced he’s retiring from film-making after his next project. Of course, it’s always possible that this is just part of the huckstering for ‘Red State’, which he self-distributed in the US. Certainly, all his directorial weaknesses are on display here, notably the long, talky expositional scenes that drain all tension from what is billed as a horror film. But while the tone is all over the shop and the subject matter makes shooting fish in a barrel seem like Olympic archery, there is fun to be had in the film’s scattershot cynicism towards church and state.
Website coopersdell.com/ Opens: September 30
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Review Shark Night 3D (15) USA 2011 91 mins Dir: David R. Ellis Starring: Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack, Sinqua Walls // With two months to go until brilliantly titled sequel ‘Piranha 3DD’ is released, opportunistic bottom-feeders are eager to cash in on our natural craving for a 3D aquatic blood’n’boobies fix. Whereas Alexandre Aja’s ‘Piranha 3D’ was a slyly funny take on the genre - or a ‘guilty pleasure’, if you’re a PC wretch afflicted by moral qualms ‘Shark Night’ is just a bog-standard piece of hackwork from the director who blessed us with ‘Snakes on a Plane’. Yup - ‘Sharks in a Lake’.
Hot college minx Sara Paxton invites her buff buddies to spend a weekend back at her folks’ luxury Louisiana island abode. Along the way they run into sinister redneck Chris Carmack, with whom she has a history. Should you be interested, this is pretty much the same plot as the upcoming unnecessary ‘Straw Dogs’ remake. In what we might charitably interpret as a post-ironic twist, Token Brother Sinqua Walls is the first to get chomped in the saltwater lake, losing an arm in the process. Obviously, they have to get him to a hospital quickly. But that doesn’t happen, largely because everybody behaves very stupidly indeed.
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“Hey, girl - put some clothes on: you’ll catch your death!”
So what are the sharks doing there? That would be telling. But the explanation, when it comes, is spectacularly dumb. Constrained by the certificate, Ellis doesn’t even deliver the gore and nudity we paid for, offering instead some crappy effects straight out of one of those tiresome ‘Mega Shark’ movies. Walls gets the silliest scene, waving his stump angrily as he wades out to
take revenge on the rotten toothy beast that scoffed his limb. But Paxton deserves at least some credit for suffering seemingly endless trauma without ever changing out of her bikini. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.iamrogue.com/ sharknight3d/fullsite/index.html Opens: September 30
Review We Need To Talk About Kevin (15 ) However bad things got, they still knew how to party
UK/USA 2011 112 mins Dir: Lynne Ramsay Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell // Most assuredly not recommended for new or prospective parents, Lynne (‘Ratcatcher’) Ramsay’s adap-
tation of Lionel Shriver’s epistolary novel seems to place nature firmly in the dock in the great ‘Nature vs Nurture’ debate. It also confirms her status as a great sensualist; if they gave an Oscar for most obsessive use of the colour red, Pedro Almodovar would have serious competition. Ramsay’s fractured narrative structure will be hard going for many, at least initially. Only by observing which haircut Tilda Swinton is looking wan, tormented and anxious beneath can we be sure where we are in the chronology of events. That writer Eva’s (Swinton) sulky son Kevin (Newell, then Miller)
has done something terrible as a teenager is obvious from the outset, as she’s abused in the street and lives alone in a dilapidated, vandalised house wearing her default expression of abject misery. We learn that from his difficult birth onwards, Kevin was always a little bleeder, screaming so loudly and continuously that Eva even parked his pram next to a road drill for some blessed relief. He also proved adept at manipulating uncomprehending dad (schlubby Reilly, rather miscast). Later, he takes a turn for the sociopathic. This feels so much like a misery memoir version of ‘The Omen’ that
it’s a wonder they didn’t go the whole hog and call it ‘We Need to Talk About Damien’. Alas, the little sod’s dialogue is never very convincing, rather like those wise-beyond-their-years Hollywood brats. Ramsay subtly points up the similarities between mother and son while pushing all the appropriate liberal arthouse buttons, even permitting Kevin to deliver a Hanekestyle rebuke to the wretched, hand-wringing audience for being swept up in his story. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
but Joseph’s assumptions about Hannah’s cosy, privileged lifestyle prove unfounded when we meet her hubby, James (Marsan) - a violent, manipulative bully. Without downplaying the power of Mullan’s performance, Joseph is a character well within his discomfort zone. And while James is arguably the most irredeemable bastard Marsan has ever played, he’s comparatively two-dimensional. As the focus shifts and this
slowly becomes Hannah’s story, it’s Olivia Colman - she of TV comedy fame - who impresses the most in a heart-breaking role. Considine keeps redemption on a tight leash without extinguishing all hope, but this is not for the misery porn averse. Indeed, the only cheery interlude occurs at a funeral. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
Website www.artificial-eye.com/ Opens: October 21
Review Tyrannosaur (18) UK 2011 92 mins Dir: Paddy Considine Starring: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan // How do you engage audience sympathy for a character who’s introduced drunkenly kicking his own dog to death after an altercation with a ‘c*nt’ in a bookies? That’s the challenge facing Paddy Considine’s first feature as director. An expansion of his short film ‘Dog Altogether’, ‘Tyrannosaur’ is very much in the tradition of great homegrown actors’ impressive if ultra-bleak directorial debuts (think Gary Oldman’s ‘Nil By Mouth’, Tim Roth’s ‘The War Zone’ or Peter
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Mullan’s ‘Orphans’). As one might expect, it’s also an actors’ movie, with compelling, vanity-free performances from its three leads. The pooch killer is Joseph (Mullan), a crumpled, unshaven widower who’s prone to random outbursts of rage and spends much of his time down the pub with a racist buddy. After an altercation, he seeks refuge in a charity shop run by Hannah (Colman), a nice middle-class Christian who lives in a pleasant suburb on the posh side of town. They don’t exactly strike up an immediate friendship (“Why do you hate god so much?” “Why are you so f*cking stupid?”),
Website paddyconsidine.co.uk/ Opens: October 7
It was a crude but effective method of getting rid of cockroaches
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CINecisms Afrika Eye festival … Big-screen music events … McLuhan’s Message … Mountain movies
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of Lovers Rock (Oct 23), charting the history of the British ‘romantic reggae’ scene. Director Menelik Shabazz will be there to talk about his self-financed documentary … Other big-screen music events this month are the nationwide premiere of Martin Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Oct 4) and, for those who just can’t get enough Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera live from the Royal Albert Hall (Oct 2). For more refined tastes, the Curzon has the little-seen Italian opera Adriana Lecouvreur (Oct 8) … Also at the Curzon are two free screenings of Home (Oct 15 & 16) - Yann ArthusBertrand’s spectacular film of earth
ho’d be a heavy metal band in an Islamic country? Back in 2003, fourteen young musicians were jailed in Morocco for cavorting with Beelzebub and “shaking the foundations of Islam”. Their story is told in The Satanic Angels (pictured), a highlight of this year’s Afrika Eye (Watershed, Oct 28-30). The festival also features the premiere of Bristol-based director Simon Bright’s new documentary, Robert Mugabe … What Happened? Simon will be present for a Q&A after the screening on Sat 29 … Black History Month screenings at the Watershed include The Story
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Senna (12)
from the air … This month’s National Theatre Live screening at selected cinemas is Arnold Wesker’s evergreen comedy, The Kitchen (Oct 6) … October’s Watershed Sunday brunch season ties in with the big month-long McLuhan’s Message bash and includes a couple of Cronenberg flicks - eXistenZ (Oct 9) and Videodrome (Oct 30) - plus the inevitable Annie Hall (Oct 2) … Hardy outdoor types who fancy a break from all that fresh air can jog along to the Cube for the Out of the Mountains Film Festival (Oct 6-9). And with Halloween on the horizon, how better to celebrate than with the Cube’s screening of that splendidly named 1971 cult horror flick Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Oct 27)
BOX OFFICE
bUMS ON SEATS
Takings for the weekend of September 23-25
1
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
2
Crazy, Stupid, Love
£2,104,762 (£6,924,269, 2 weeks)
Chart copyright Screen International
// Adults flock back to cinemas as Tomas Alfredson’s brilliant Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (pictured) enjoys a second week at the top by a very comfortable margin, having deposed The Inbetweeners Movie after its impressive four weeks at number one. But with £43m in the kitty, the misbehaving teens seem unassailable as the second-biggest hit of the year (behind young master Potter, obviously). Four new entries indicate the current volatility of the chart, as the likes of One Day and I Don’t Know How She Does It arrive on a tidal wave of hype and then promptly disappear again. Of these, Drive scored the highest screen average, while Killer Elite had the softest opening despite its big-name cast. Rather alarmingly, The Smurfs has now taken nearly £16m to become the second biggest hit in the top ten. Just outside the chart, the blu ray-plugging Jurassic Park reissue added another quarter of a million quid to its total tally.
// DVDs //
6
Friends With Benefits
£580,641 (£5,309,886, 3 weeks)
7
Killer Elite
£860,112 (new release)
£481,143 (new release)
3
8
Warrior
Jane Eyre
£808, 410 (new release)
£445,455 (£3,884,955, 3 weeks)
4
9
The Inbetweeners Movie
The Smurfs
£410,817 (£15,954,669, 7 weeks)
£754,226 (£43,284,169, 6 weeks)
5
Drive
£607,454 (new release)
10
The Change-Up
£378,226 (£1,631,363, 2 weeks)
// Now one of the most successful cinema documentaries ever released in the UK, Asif Kapadia’s unexpected summer hit is a portrait of god-bothering Formula One champ Ayrton Senna. You don’t need to know or care anything about motor racing to be engaged by this true-life drama, which is skilfully constructed from archive material. Out: Oct 10. HHHHH
ALSO RELEASED // Thor (12) HHHHH A lot better than we feared, Ken Branagh’s enjoyable Marvel comicbook adaptation zaps effortlessly back and forth between Asgard and Midgard, getting strong performances from its slumming cast, which includes Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins. Out: now … Viva Riva! (15) HHHHH Cocky petrol-thief Riva seeks to elude murderous gangsters in this slick, politically aware slice of Afrosploitation from the Democratic Republic of Congo, boasting plenty of violence and explicit steamy sex (including a wholly gratuitous lesbian interlude). Out: Oct 17 … Potiche (15) HHHHH Francois Ozon directs Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve in a lightly feminist, 70s-set comedy about a boss who’s taken hostage by his striking workers, obliging his trophy wife to run the family business in his absence. Out: Oct 10 … Mother’s Day (18) HHHHH Rebecca De Mornay does torture porn with aplomb as a psycho yuppie-menacing matriarch in this remake of the 80s Troma home invasion flick. Out: Oct 24 … Rio (U) HHHHH Solid, second-division CGI parrot romance from ‘Ice Age’ director Carlos Saldanha, with Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway assuming beakster voice duties. Out: Oct 24 … Life in a Day (15) HHHHH “Crowd-sourced” YouTube flick compiled from 80,000 user-submitted videos shot in 197 countries on one day. For something so allegedly ground-breaking, it’s all a bit ho-hum. Out: Oct 10 … Green Lantern (12) HHHHH Ryan Reynolds wears the silly costume in this risible DC barrelscraper taking a pick’n’mix approach to all the usual superhero guff. For comics nerds only. Out: Oct 17
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Music Talkin’ ‘bout Jackson
For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music
Julian Owen gets claustrophobic with Parrington Jackson.
A
lmost without exception, it’s the last refuge of the desperate music hack: so, tell me, how did you get your name? Cue variations on a quintet trying to recall just what leap of inspiration led them to The Five Of Us. With the band sitting before us today, however, it’s subtly instructive. As any lover of Bristol folklore will tell you, Robert ParringtonJackson was gunned down in his office at the Odeon in Union Street in 1946. “It’s quite a morbid thing, I suppose,” says Parrington Jackson frontman, guitarist and chief songwriter Rich Bromley of their co-opting the unfortunate cinema manager’s name. “I was looking for lyrical inspiration and reading up on murders. Some people love it, some say it sounds like an estate agent’s, but it’s good for Googling – if you call your band something like ‘Bricks’...” The name fits, for this is a band
whose songs inculcate a certain claustrophobia, a peeking at life from behind closed fingers. “In my musical inspiration I’ve always been drawn towards the darker side of things,” admits Rich. “If I’m really happy I don’t feel comfortable writing ‘I’m so in love, the sun is shining, I’m having such a great time.’ It doesn’t grab me. Whereas if I’m really p*ssed off, I can get it out. It’s more interesting writing about murders, prison, that kind of thing.” That darker side is all over new double A-side single ‘Planet’/‘Primitive’, launched at The Croft – early readers take note – on Fri 30 Sept. The former is a start-slow, pace-quickening lick of broodsomeness, the latter more immediate: over an early-years U2 bass line and skipping drums, three guitars pace urgently up and down, individual changes of direction adding greatly to the whole. “Those Bambi eyes cannot disguise what lies beneath,” sings Rich. When laid out with appropriate phrasing, that’s one smartly rhyming line. All told, the
release is a welcome addition to the frequently formulaic indie-rock oeuvre. It wasn’t ever thus. Rock Desk first heard Parrington Jackson a couple of years back, when their debut EP arrived together with comprehensive press notes, all wrapped up in an eye-catching, logo-embossed folder. Good art, not without ambition, but without the songs that should attend it. These were early days, though. “It’s evolved massively,” recalls bassist, James Maggs. His rhythm section compadre Shane Tremlin takes up the story: “We jammed a lot to find our sound and carried on from there. I think I’m the only one in the band who would listen to hip-hop. Just because, drumming wise, I take a lot from it.” Instructively, guitarist Lloyd Cowling notes that: “I listened to a lot of drum and bass back in the day. The way things rumble in, you learn to play the instrument’s sound rather than play the notes and scales – it opens up a new way of playing.” “That was a big change,” says Rich. “The guitarist
Super tie guy: Rich Bromley (centre) and the other Parrington Jacksons
“In my musical inspiration I’ve always been drawn towards the darker side of things.” Rich Bromley, Parrington Jackson venuemagazine
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we had before was grade eight and very much of a ‘play by the rules’ mindset, whereas Lloyd goes by instinct.” Add together the jamming lessons learned and a third guitarist (absent today), Shane’s brother Max, and you’ve a heady brew. We first noticed the great leap forward at the Bristol Acoustic Festival in January. Most indie acts would use such a setting for little more than knocking out plaintive strumalong versions of their electric set. Not so Parrington Jackson. Besides texture-enhancing violin, their acoustic approach means that, says Rich, “at a lot of points we have three guitars going, and I can’t think of any songs where two guitars play the same thing. It’s great – the band has evolved into something I never expected.” “It was really good for us to have the opportunity to strip it all back,” says James. “It exposes everyone a lot more, even to the point of changing songs. We work it out acoustically, then go back to the electric version and take something new to it. [With the new single] we wanted to capture what you’d hear if you walked into our rehearsal room.” The attention to detail is paying off. Firmly inked onto local festival organisers’ Must Book notes – this year they played BrisFest, Harbourside, and were the only unsigned band in the Fleece at Dot To Dot – they also notched up three dates at Edinburgh’s Fringe Fest. Their support slot CV is similarly impressive, including Best Coast, Guillemots, The Vaselines and Shonen Knife. “We always study them,” says Lloyd. “‘That’s a good idea, but he should have done this with it’, and maybe incorporate it.” The Parrington Jackson method – early ambition, willingness to learn, and burgeoning flair – is working. Says Rich: “It’s a slow-burning process. In the first year on the circuit you’re bottom of the bill and unknown, the second you move up a bit, third year top, and once established you move on and out.” FFI: WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ PARRINGTONJACKSON
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Music // THE MONTH AHEAD //
1.
ROOTS Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
2. JAZZ Alan Barnes
// Shouty and preachy as Peyton’s title suggests, though not quite so damn big in the band dept: wife Breezy on washboard and brother Jayme on drums. Sounds big, mind, in a stomping, bar-brawling country-blues kind of way. Touring a tribute album to delta bluesman Charley, ‘Peyton on Patton’.
// The unassuming manner of hard-bopping reed player Alan Barnes belies the fierce energy and precision of his playing. It’s made him an asset to countless big and small modern jazz outfits and it’s guaranteed to shake up the dust at St James’. ALAN BARNES BLOWS INTO ST JAMES’S WINE VAULTS, BATH ON THUR 13 OCT.
REVEREND PEYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND PLAY THE TUNNELS, BRISTOL ON TUE 25 OCT.
PIC CREDIT: EMMA NATHAN
ROOTS Eliza Carthy /Marry Waterson
ROCK Anna Calvi
3.
// You’d imagine Calvi might have been a tad embarrassed had her Mercury shortlisted eponymous debut album pipped ‘Let England Shake’ to the prize, so deep is her sonic debt to PJ Harvey. Still, as ubiquitously airplayed new single ‘Suzanne & I’ attests, she’s voice and ambition enough to mine her own distinct, rich seam yet. ANNA CALVI PLAYS TRINITY, BRISTOL ON MON 31 OCT.
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// It only took vividly coloured hair and an irreverent attitude to see Eliza Carthy tagged the leader of a latterday folk revival. Well, that, the beauteous voice and beguiling fiddle-wielding talent. Her third album of self-penned material, latest offering ‘Neptune’ takes folk into typically wide-ranging fields, including reggae, music hall and torch balladry. Be sure not to miss cousin Marry ‘Daughter of Lal’ Waterson in support, either, for she’s blessed with her mother’s voice. ELIZA CARTHY PLAYS THE COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL ON THUR 13 OCT.
4.
5.
CLASSICAL Bristol International Piano Duo Festival // Kick-started by an ‘Archduke Trio’ from the estimable musicians of IMS Prussia Cove, and ending with Opera North’s Gavin Bryars take on Tom Waits and “orchestra of the moment” the Aurora under the dynamic Nicholas Collon, St George’s Bristol’s October rocks. Tucked into the middle is an enterprising duo festival which, from Gwilym Simcock to Charles Hazlewood and The Army of Generals, sneaks jazz and comedy into an eclectic hands-on celebration. BRISTOL PIANO DUO FESTIVAL IS AT ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL, WED 12-SAT 15 OCT.
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PIC CREDIT: WWW.BRISTOLMUSICFOUNDATION.COM
ROCK Fear of Fiction Festival 2
6.
// Splendid second helping all-dayer from FoF Fest, with the distinctly guitarleaning indie-rocking bill of locals lining up thusly: Last Days Of Lorca, Little Victories, Kill Cassidy, The Goodness, Idles, A Day At The Races, Aged Yummy, Archimedes, Scarlet Rascal, In Your Honour (pictured), Towns, Spectres, Holy Stain and Call The Doctor.
// MUSIC NEWS//
FOFF2 TAKES PLACE AT THE LOUISIANA, BRISTOL ON SAT 29 OCT.
CLASSICAL The Fairy Queen
7. JAZZ Phronesis
// English Touring Opera’s Bath stopover might be short this autumn, but, two nights, two shows, it’s decidedly sweet! New into the ETO stable, ‘The Fairy Queen’ is Purcell’s exuberant respray of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ – given in Tom Guthrie’s 2005 Armonico production with dancers and acrobats. Bolting the stable door there’s James Conway’s muchacclaimed Flavio, first seen during the 2009 Handelfest. ENGLISH TOURING OPERA IS AT BATH THEATRE ROYAL, MON 17-TUE 18 OCT. PIC CREDIT: RICHARD HUBERT SMITH
ROCK Schnauser
9.
// In 2005 Danish music graduate Jasper Hoiby decided to stay on in London, launching a new jazz piano trio that almost instantly took the UK scene by storm. Now involved in half a dozen other great bands, it’s still Phronesis, with Ivo Neame’s clever piano and wildfire drummer Anton Eger, that best showcases his amazing talents. PHRONESIS APPEAR AT ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL ON THUR 6 OCT.
// Fully ace Bristol four-piece mix psych-prog influences to whimsically arch affect. Stewart Lee agrees, enjoying the ‘Sound of Meat’ album’s “Smearing of flip pop-cultural analysis over Beach Boys harmonies and the sort of baroque inflections favoured by 1970s technicians such as Todd Rundgren and ELO”. SCHNAUSER PLAY THE CROFT FRONT BAR, BRISTOL ON FRI 7 OCT.
ROOTS Alejandro Escovedo // The son of Mexican immigrants, Escovedo is the songwriter’s songwriter, as evidenced by hat-tipping covers from the likes of John Cale, Calexico, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Howe Gelb. A splendidly varied career, from his arrival on San Francisco’s old school punk scene in the 70s to founding country-punk forgers Rank & File, today he’s largely plying the kind of loose-limbed Americana you’d expect of an Austin, Texas dweller.
8.
10.
// Exciting times at the Louisiana, with the opening of the cellar as an “intimate space for lo-fi gigs, acoustic nights, art shows and club nights”. ‘Intimate’ is the operative word, would-be promoters/performers, so get planning and visit http://thelouisiana.net ffi… We’d strongly recommend you wrap your ears around ‘Verses For Vs’ (pictured), an inspired project from the everfertile Choke forum in which artists submitted vocal tracks to be paired with/ worked over by random producers. Best in our book is War Against Sleep vs Jo Bennett, but judge for yourself by downloading them all here: http://choke. bandcamp.com... Many congratulations to local tunesmith Jason Flinter, who scooped the Best Rock Song award at the rather prestigious UK Songwriting Contest with the AC/DC-styled ‘Danger Deep Water’. Ffi: www.thesongdiner.co.uk... Totterdown Art Trail is looking to programme a whole lot more music at the Nov 19/20 event, with Front Room AMPLIFIED organising gigs in pubs, churches, cafes, artists’ houses and gardens. To register your interest go visit www.frontroom.org. uk... And finally – truly finally – Rock Desk is undergoing one of its periodic regenerations. Next issue, the music section will be helmed by – in splendid tradition – Name TBC At Press Time. In the meantime, huge thanks to BrisBath musicians, promoters and readers for giving me (Julian Owen) the most extraordinarily rewarding eight years. It’s been glorious. And those are sincere thanks, mark you – without your combined efforts earlier this year, there’d be no Rock Desk to regenerate at all. Keep up the good work, Julian x
ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO PLAYS ST BONAVENTURE’S, BRISTOL ON WED 12 OCT.
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Music
For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music
Wright on Time
Tony Benjamin catches up with Emily Wright after a storming set at Brecon Jazz Festival.
“We’re always working to discover what our sound will be.” emily wright venuemagazine
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it when I’d got to the last tune, it felt like no time. But all gigs are like that, whether it’s a duo thing in a café or a big hall. You use it to learn more about what you can do, it’s always the next part of the journey.” Emily’s musical journey started with Suzuki violin lessons as a child in Bristol, and the violin became her musical focus as she went on to gain a music degree from Cardiff University. There’d been some classical singing lessons in her teens but it was at a pre-uni summer school where jazz came into her life. “There’d been lots of music but I’d never really been opened up to jazz. Then I went to [home of the legendary Dankworth family] Wavendon and first heard Jacqui [Dankworth] singing. Someone suggested I should have a go and I had a really great time. I still studied straight music for my degree but afterwards I thought I should do a postgraduate jazz course so I went on to the Royal Welsh [College of Music & Drama].” The jazz performance course at the Royal Welsh is highly respected and numbers fellow Bristolian and improvised music guru Keith Tippett among its staff. “He’s great. He actually made me cry once – but in a good way. I used to dread his Friday free improvisation class. He would pick a few people out and you just had to get on with it, with no explanation about what you were supposed to do. All the other singers wouldn’t do it and I was so new to it all. It was a whole new experience...” She grimaces at the memory. “Afterwards I was really glad I’d done it, though, and it’s something I bring into all my work.”
Emily Wright: effortlessly cool
PIC: Bethany Crowe
W
hen an unsigned band gets a gig at a top national jazz festival, even the Saturday midday graveyard slot, it’s no mean achievement. For vocalist Emily Wright and her band Moonlight Saving Time, being booked for Brecon Jazz 2011 was an important opportunity to reach a new national audience. What happened on the day was truly remarkable as tickets started selling like hot cakes, forcing the organisers to move them to a larger venue. Even that sold out, however, with large numbers standing at the sides of the 300-seat hall throughout the band’s effortlessly cool performance. When a very satisfied audience was leaving an hour later, there was an eager queue buying up the last few copies of the band’s self-made CD. How did Ms Wright feel about the experience? “If I’m perfectly honest my first thought was just relief that we’d managed to get through it without any major disasters. But it was amazing to do it – it was my first gig in front of a big festival audience like that and it just flew by. I couldn’t believe
Her fearlessness as an improvising vocalist was one of the things that made her stand out from the crowd when she began to appear on the Bristol jazz scene some five years ago. While most ‘jazz singers’ are very much the centre of attention, Emily takes a more equal role in the Moonlight Saving Time quintet, singing the songs, but also weaving vocal music into the sound like any other instrumentalist. “I’ve never wanted to be ‘the singer in the band’,” she explains. “I’m one fifth of the sound. When you start up a band with four very experienced players like this, you think ‘Oh crap! How can I tell them what to do?’ So we’re always working to discover what our sound will be.” The band members are, indeed, a heavyweight bunch of jazz talents – Nick Malcolm (trumpet), John Hyde (guitar), Will Harris (bass) and Mark Whitlam (drums) – capable of some very
accomplished contemporary jazz, but Emily’s comfortable stage manner reflects her confidence amongst them. “People expect you to dance around and do the usual songs, but I’m not a dance-around singer! And we pick the songs we think fit us. Sometimes I’m doing stuff that’s not bog-standard and I can see some of the audience isn’t getting it and I think ‘What am I doing? Why don’t I start a function band?’ But you have to try stuff out, and if you’re passionate about what you’re doing you might even convince other people sometimes.” Given the overwhelmingly positive response to that Brecon performance, there should be no doubt that Emily Wright makes a very convincing argument indeed. MOONLIGHT SAVING TIME ARE APPEARING AT THE BRASS PIG, BRISTOL ON THUR 13 OCT. FFI: EMILYWRIGHTMUSIC.CO.UK
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Music
Got a gig to list? Upload it to us at venue.co.uk/ submit-a-listing
Heads up: it's Zun Zun Egui!
// don't miss // Wilco
// ROCK Ever welcome return of Jeff Tweedy and co, who set the bar nearimpossibly high with their pioneering alt.country, the mother genre clasping all manner of unlikely and unruly sonic noise to its breast. Touring eighth studio album, ‘The Whole Love’. WILCO THUR 27 OCT, COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL
the big gig
Zun Zun Egui/Green Gartside Zun Zun Egui are an exciting enough live prospect, but Huw Oliver’s equally intrigued by the re-emergence of the man with the colourful first name. // A reclusive pop legend making only his third showing since 2006 certainly constitutes a ‘big gig’. Green Gartside has unveiled a revamped Scritti Politti in every decade since their 1976 inception, but in super-sharp contrast to the Duran Durans and Erasures of this world, he always pops up ready with fresh ideas. Anxiety problems and a heart attack after a gig with Gang of Four resulted in stage fright for Gartside – until 2006 he hadn’t performed live for over 20 years – but now you can catch him in a rare live performance supporting Bristol psych-rockers Zun Zun Egui. What to expect? Other than the fact he has a new band in tow, we haven’t the foggiest. Scritti’s first shock transformation came after a visit to NY in 1984: from DIY squathatched post-punk to glossy chart-bothering synth-pop. Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis (whose trumpeting can be heard on ‘Oh Patti’) were newly recruited admirers. In a “life-changing moment” in the late 80s he discovered Run DMC and latterly decided to make an album which spanned all of R&B, funk and reggae. At the time absorbed in selfdoubt and secluded in rural Wales, his 1999 LP ‘Anomie and Bonhomie’ was a warped version of rock-rap, whilst his appearance on a Kylie album came as even more of a surprise. His Mercury-nominated 2006 album showed an
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unforeseen level of acoustic introspection, but in spite of all of these musical shifts, the wellread musician has always instilled the same leftist politics and philosophy into his music. No one knows whether you’ll be able to yell along to hits like ‘Wood Beez’ and ‘Perfect Way’ or hear new material (he claims to have 100+ songs in the works), boogie on down or marvel at his soft acoustics, but we have an inkling this’ll be a rather memorable warmup regardless of what’s planned. As for headliners ZZE, they’re not likely to let you down. Instruments will flail, time signatures will confound and singers will squall Mauritian Creole, French, Japanese and nonsensical English. Not to mention the kaleidoscopic visuals, noodling bass-lines, hard rock riffs and twisted dance moves. Sounding a bit like Femi Kuti covering Captain Beefheart or an even more maniacal Islet, with ‘Psycho Killer’ vocals and the odd math-y Battles-esque intricacy thrown in, debut album ‘Katang’ spans psychedelia, prog, world, heavy metal and every peculiarity between. It drops in early October but this massive album release party comes to Bristol towards the end. ZUN ZUN EGUI, GREEN GARTSIDE & OTHERS PLAY TRINITY CENTRE, BRISTOL ON SAT 29 OCT. SEE LISTING ON WWW.VENUE. CO.UK OR 3CA.ORG.UK FFI.
Baxter Dury
// ROCK Aptly titled, that new – third – album: ‘Happy Soup’. A splendid melange of brilliantly varied electroedged pop, it should see Dury established as so much more than Son Of Ian, and acclaimed as a drywitted, minutiae-detailing storytelling songwriter in his own right. BAXTER DURY WED 26 OCT, LOUISIANA, BRISTOL
BSO/Karabits
// CLASSICAL Hot on the heels of his searing Shostakovich 10 last season, (and having signed up for an extra three years at the BSO helm), Kirill Karabits (pictured) opens the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra season with another Soviet symphony: Prokoviev’s lofty No 5 – prefaced by operatic Berlioz and mellifluous Mendelssohn. THE BSO THUR 6 OCT, COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL
Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares
// WORLD Grammywinning Bulgarian female folk choir whose miraculous harmonies and genuinely haunting vocal music are steeped in ancient grandeur. LE MYSTERE DES VOIX BULGARES TUE 25 OCT, COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL
Siddy Bennett
// ROOTS Following a splendidly successful summer touring the festival circuit with the Chai Wallahs’ crew, it’s a welcome hometown return for the charismatically fine folk-leaning singersongwriter, nimbly-worded narratives and all. SIDDY BENNETT SAT 22 OCT, MR WOLF’S, BRISTOL
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Reviews // ALBUMS, SINGLES, EPs, downloads// THE BAD JOKE THAT ENDED WELL
‘Ringside Seats’ (EP, self-released)
// Zips in on an express banjo instrumental thrum, giving way to Band-like organ and accordion bounce in track two, wherein we’re introduced to Alex Studer’s dreaming gas station attendant voice, a bruised romantic intoning “I’ll watch the leaves come off the trees, I’ll wish the wind would let them be.” This is desert plains music, all long roads and rails to the horizon, oft-hard guitar adding riven steel to the country mix. ‘Shooting Gold’’s sticky fingered Stones balladry affords a rare break from songs urgently whipping along, pistons pumping, like flashing blue lights are gaining in the rearview mirror. Thrillingly distinct, brilliantly produced, this is a masterful debut. (Julian Owen) HHHHH www.reverbnation.com
// Smile, LOOKALIVE! (or SLA, for those with chilblains) wear their enthusiasm for punctuation, cute-but-meaningless titles – eg ‘Casablanca Was A Disaster Movie’ and ‘Old Habits Die Hard (And I’m Bruce Willis)’ – and American pop punk firmly on their nicely laundered Topman sleeves. This gristly slab of The All-American Rejects/My Chemical Romance/ Blink 182-age is the Bath fivepiece’s debut overture to the world at large, and what a briskly efficient thing it is, too. Hooks to skateboard to, vocals that would get them at least to ‘X Factor’ boot camp, interesting arrangements and tight-as-a-cornrow production. Frankly, all that stands between you and victory is too much fun at uni. (Anna Britten) HHHHH www. facebook.com/smilelookaliveuk
// Fiercely mixed to fizz with high end, these exquisitely machine-tooled recordings are an intriguing dish, like Hard Fi butting heads with Skinny Puppy, or The Knack produced by Roli Mossiman. Extraordinarily tight, without an ounce of spare flesh, the tightly-wound guitars on ‘Jennifer’ recall the spacious dub of The Police’s early postpunk urgency while the drums locks down with the weight and precision of a bank vault door. ‘Fresh Air’ sneaks in a deliciously ugly synth line, like a modem blurting data over old-school Mod action. Definitely ones to watch. (Kid Pensioner) HHHHH www.myspace.com/ centrefoldsmusic
CHATTABOX & SAMUEL OTIS
‘Song Of The Fly’ (LP, Leo Records)
// Hip-hop is always at its most convincing when you can hear where it’s coming from. This mixtape pairs Tyneside rapper Chattabox with MC Samuel Otis and DJ Needlefluff of Bristol’s lowercase collective, and features beats and guest bars from so many others that it makes for a good snapshot of the UK underground. The lyrics strike a range of classic Brit poses from kitchen sink drama to Viz-style scatology, and the beats take in everything from classic funk to dirty electro. Meaty and varied enough to reward multiple servings, ‘Hard Graft’ is best enjoyed with a brown ale in one hand and a Blackthorn in the other. (Adam Burrows) HHHHH http://killamari.bandcamp.com/
// Drumming poet Steve Day has long experience of working words into free jazz, and this latest album boasts a classy acoustic quartet of improvisers. They give the music a fine range from spacious/reflective (‘A Line Through Language’), groovy in a David Byrne-ish way (‘Catwalk’) and Nymanesque neo-classicism (‘Song Of The Fly’) with piercing violin and rumbling bowed bass framing the sound. Day’s beatrecalling poetry has Eastern leanings and BoHo swagger, the quirks working best in the whimsical ‘Snow At Easter’ and the political ‘Persona Non Grata’, the unresolved gravity of which gives the record its suitably inconclusive ending. (Tony Benjamin) HHHHH www.leorecords.com
‘The Meteors Are Coming’ (LP, Little Paradise Records)
CALL THE DOCTOR
‘Riots.’ (EP, Fear of Fiction)
SMILE, LOOKALIVE!
CENTREFOLDS
‘Fresh Air’/’Jennifer’ (Single, self-released)
STEVE DAY
‘Hard Graft’ (Killamari Records) // Patti Aberhart’s living the dream: black bob, lip gloss and scarlet nails, a tendon-taut band and all the sass a modern post-punk starlet needs. Despite the title, ‘Riots.’ is no soundtrack for street battles. Opener ‘Flaws’ has a few – mainly when the blokes join in for the chorus – otherwise this is punchy, polished post-punk with more than a hat-tip to Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Best bits? All the rest, really: ‘Here to Haunt’ brings a pile-up of razor-cut riffs; ‘Stood Beside Her’ is episodic, moving, like Karen O fronting Smashing Pumpkins; and if closer ‘Roundabout’ don’t kick out yer jams, seek medical advice. (Mike White) HHHHH www.myspace. com/ctdoctor
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Music
For more reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music BrisFest 2011 - there's always something to escape to, be it Buggsy (main), Dakhla (below, top) or Dub Mafia (centre) as the happy crowds (bottom) attest
Live review
BrisFest 2011
PICS: ELLEN DOHERTY; WWW.DUCHESSPHOTOGRAPHIC.COM
Harbourside & elsewhere, Bristol (Fri 23-Sun 25 Sept)
// It has been 20 minutes since BrisFest opened its gates, and it is difficult to tell what in particular has stopped Venue in its tracks. It could be the toxic fumes from the graffiti artists spray-painting the boards that line the passage from the entrance to the main stage, or the sight of the bearded gentleman having his face painted before noon and therefore – Venue would like to presume – soberly. It could be the hula hoopers, who, with the bass from Mr Wolf’s reggae blaring between acts, become a welcome, mesmerising source of calm, even as they perform their choreographed routine to Michael Jackson’s ‘Blame It on the Boogie’. Whilst it could not have been predicted by the organisers that these events would all coincide, there is an impressive attention to detail throughout the weekend, which means there’s never a long stretch where you won’t see, for instance, someone being kicked around in a barrel or cycling a piano around in circles. And so, by Sunday evening, watching a band with no less than three ukuleles covering ‘Money for Nothing’, you’re surprised – but hardly – when a unicyclist with a handlebar moustache, wearing a tuxedo, taps you on the shoulder so he can continue to navigate the crowd.
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It’s a community event, a fact which is never more obvious than when some of the less advanced hula hoopers, who range from 5 to 55, are practising on Saturday afternoon. A poorly timed trick, and suddenly a hoop is catapulted towards a young girl, who is almost taken out as she bobs along to an adult dance troupe’s backing music. No apologies necessary, her dad signals – it’s an inclusive collection of performers, and a forgiving and receptive crowd. That said, if you walk past the Gryphon Heavy Stage later that day, you’ll hear “COME IN OR F*** OFF!” shouted at the groups of people walking past the tent. It’s easy to sympathise with the parents who are less than forgiving, quickly ushering their children towards the Kids’ Area. But despite this incongruity, and a few others in the same vein, the programming is largely focused and considered, if not a little predictable at times. There’s the aforementioned Heavy Stage, which is largely populated by sleeveless shirt-wearing, tattooed teens, where you’ll see barrier climbing and singers straining so hard to scream that you can spot them hours later in the crowd by the redness of their cheeks; there’s the
acoustic stage, inoffensive if not a little vapid; the Weapon of Choice stage, showcasing the bass heavy – hip-hop, dubstep, funk, reggae; the Access to Music tent, which only allows bands under the age of 25 to play; and the main stage, which sees anything from cancan dancers to soul singers, covers bands and even that Mr Motivator running a workout set. As in previous years, there’s no one act or performance that will stand out as a highlight. In fact, it’s certain that everyone in attendance this year will take away a different picture of the festival – whether it is being assaulted by a juggler, seeing your child breakdance on the main stage or taking part in their first mosh pit, or one of the obscenely revealing outfits donned by certain audience members, which will forever be emblazoned on Venue’s consciousness. It might be the degree of Bristol pride which is rarely seen at events like this, and which permeates the performances and the betweensong banter. It can all be a little overwhelming – two days of constant entertainment – but the variety at BrisFest means there is always something else to escape to. (Leah Pritchard)
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LIVE REVIEW
Factory Floor/Anika/Hype Williams/H
PICS: ELLEN DOHERTY; WWW.DUCHESSPHOTOGRAPHIC.COM
Arnolfini, Bristol (Sat 24 Sept)
// Celebrating 50 years of Bristol’s brilliantly quixotic Arnolfini gallery, tonight’s bill fittingly eschews the mainstream. First up is newbie H: hunched over a perplexing array of cables and consoles, she diligently teases out improvised squiggles and eerie, electronic scree. There are flashes of promise, but it lacks cohesion, like a puzzle she hasn’t quite solved. By contrast, the sinister future beats of Hype Williams – aka London duo Roy Blunt and Inga Copeland – are hugely captivating, a flipped-out dubby miasma in which seemingly anything goes: floor-trembling bass and desolate synthscapes are cocooned in a malevolent but strangely ornate John Carpenter-like score, humanised only by the occasional soulful warmth of Copeland’s voice. Relentless brain-melting strobes heighten the multi-sensory assault. It’s fabulously dark stuff, but if this terrifying apocalyptic deconstruction is the future, lord help us. Having released her self-titled debut album last year on Geoff ‘Portishead’ Barrow’s Invada
Records, Anika is a highly intriguing prospect. Dressed ominously in head-to-toe black, the sounds are distinctly crepuscular: a new wave, protoelectro conflux of Siouxsie, The Slits and Broadcast, shot through with early 4AD froideur. The voice that emanates from her slender bones is startlingly immense and suitably detached, but full of allure. The intense spell she arouses is briefly broken by loose-lipped voices from the back of the hall, but the icy chanteuse is unmoved. There’s a faint flicker of a smile towards the end, but we could’ve imagined it. As their moniker suggests, Factory Floor’s pounding, metronomic groove could well have been riven from industrial machinery, their bludgeoning four-to-the-floor techno channelling the best bits of Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle and F*ck Buttons. The drummer thraps the skins like he’s beating metal into shape, his visceral beats reducing the crowd to a fist-pumping animal mass. As birthday years go, it’s been a rather memorable vintage. (Vic Dada)
LIVE REVIEW
Cosmo Jarvis/The Darlingtons/Jacket The Fleece, Bristol (Wed 21 Sept) // The apparently required Jacket – aka Jack Hobbs – plies plaintively sung songs featuring interchangeable guitar strums and lots of AA rhyme schemes whereby “taking time” means that he will soon be, inevitably, “feeling fine”. A set with as much variation as his wildly jumping eyebrow levels would prove a great leap forward. The Darlingtons are of a different genre, but the same lesson to be learned. The jackhammer, gut-kicking indie power churn is built well enough but, oh, the harvest to be reaped from seeds of a more considered structure rather than just every. Last. Song. Sounding. The. Same. Ditto the singer: splendidlyvoiced – overarching, like Dave
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Gahan – but phrasing rigid as a Sudoku grid. African rhythm, ska beat, a big melodic scale-straddling guitar solo of the type that was supposed to be killed by punk. Thus, the first three songs from Totnes-hailing Cosmo Jarvis (pictured). Now here’s variety: a singer-songwriter wandering into trendsome Vampire Weekend chic, ‘classic’-period
Elton John into Efterklang. Admirably, any correlation with musical fashion is pure happenstance – clearly, this is a man simply playing whatever the heck feels right. Indeed, as we note this very point, he straps on electric mandolin to lead a banjo-accompanied widescreen country hoedown. There is a single, silk-thin common thread, mind: a
bounce-pop coating. That, and straightforward get-thee-to-thefront-and-dance fun. He ends with a lengthy fret solo, straight off the back of a Duane Eddy twang riff, and then chordially constructs a launch pad for a kids-jumping punk-mosh storm. Biggest compliment is that this whole stylistic smorgasbord sounds not contrived but utterly, flowingly natural. (Julian Owen)
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For more reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music
LIVE REVIEW
Social Flatline/Natural Tendency/Live Wire Louisiana, Bristol (Thur 24 Sept) // Following the first yelpy, frantic opening track by Live Wire, there’s a definite influence that won’t allow a finger to be placed upon it. That is until the lead singer announces, “This next one’s a cover of Green Day. It’s called ‘Basket Case’.” Bing! There it is. The rest of the set is basically covers and, as such, very difficult to review. They can play, the singer has a decent enough voice, but, really, ‘Year 3000’ by Busted doesn’t belong in a local institution like the Louis. The (presumably) ironic devil horns on the guitar were a nice touch though. Natural Tendency kick off in
spectacular fashion, frontman Ed Taylor authoritatively taking ownership of the stage and injecting some much-needed energy into the unusually stoic crowd. Musically they toughen things up, an American skater rock aesthetic with glam sensibilities, enjoyable synth noises flying about all over the place. In fact, as the gig progresses, the glam-ness becomes more apparent, almost verging at times on stage show theatricalism, particularly with the soaring vocals. It’s an odd combo which doesn’t work all the time but when it does, they really fly. In fact, the more
theatrical the better. Social Flatline (pictured) offer a more straight up sound – driving but poppy, toying with a harder sound but never really getting there. It’s a bit like skinny dipping with your pants on – still good fun but ultimately unrewarding, because it could have been more. Think Sum-41 or Blink 182. Not that they don’t have moments: ‘4309’ and ‘Forget’ offer a glimpse of a more mature and satisfying direction, but they fall back into the standard tempo and formula after promising openings. Again, covers pepper the set – The Rembrandts
(yes, the ‘Friends’ theme tune), the Wurzels (something about a combine harvester) and The Who (‘My Generation’). Not sure if it’s some sort of inherited reverence but The Who should really remain untouched. Still, they’re clearly confident enough to tackle it and if personality gets you anywhere in this game, they should go far. (Stuart Roberts)
LIVE REVIEW
LIVE REVIEW
The Croft, Bristol (Fri 5 Aug)
Bath Abbey (Thur 15 Sept)
Black Roots/Dallas // Something in the air’s revived the dormant giant that was Bristol’s live reggae scene and it’s a welcome reminder of just how good those days were. The Fleece fills steadily for the early PA set from veteran lovers rocker Dallas (a regular Black Roots support in the day) and he sings with conviction to warm things up. While there’s a pleasing number of younger people, there’s no doubt that the core audience probably last saw Black Roots (pictured) at Trinity circa 1985. Time may have thickened/ greyed/embaldened them, their dancing may be more shuffle than skank, but the love is still there, and once the snap of a one-drop drumbeat launches the 10-man Black Roots sound, it’s that love that flourishes. Happily it’s instantly apparent that 20 years away
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and the sad loss of bass man Derrick King earlier this year haven’t blunted the Black Roots sound one jot. Old favourites like ‘Juvenile Delinquent’, ‘Chanting For Freedom’ and ‘Opportunities’ still have the authentic freshness of their early days, with sweet Wailer-like harmony vocals and tightly woven trumpet and keyboard filling the sound around slamming riddims. The drumming is impeccable, crisp and deadly efficient, the bass is rightly economical, only the occasional ‘dub’ sections waver a little. Above all they look as delighted to be doing this as the punters are to hear them and, if we’re cheated of ‘Bristol Rock’ or ‘Frontline’, then it’s a good enough reason to catch them again, and soon. (Tony Benjamin)
BSO/Pinheiro
// A balmy mid-September evening and the honeyed stones of Bath Abbey basted with youthful Mozart, soulful Grieg and the scandalously neglected Frank Bridge at his most approachable. What’s not to like? It’s a question the slimmed-down Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra must have been asking itself faced with empty pews. But those who stayed away were the losers. True, the capacious acoustic set up a marriage of beautiful architecture and musical effect rather than indelible detail, but the orchestra’s young Portuguese ‘Conductor in Association’ Rui Pinheiro had a stylish way with Mozart; and if the Grieg ‘Elegiac Melodies’ took a while to settle, ‘The Last Spring’ coalesced, then ignited. The 60th anniversary of Bridge’s death has been a theme of this summer’s BBC Proms, and Bath got a taste of his early style – before the more avant-garde voices of Europe turned his Englishness distinctly
cosmopolitan. Composed on the cusp of 1910, the ‘Suite for String Orchestra’ struck an appropriately autumnal note in its opening Prelude – the Abbey lending its own warm halo to Pinheiro’s resonant urgings – and the Intermezzo was supple, Pinheiro at one with its vein of English pastoralism, even if the music of the brooding Nocturne couldn’t shake off a certain nebulousness. Mozart’s pretty much contemporaneous Overture ‘La finta giardiniera’ and ‘Symphony No. 29’ showed off Pinheiro’s classical credentials – which included incisiveness and an instinct for persuasive tempi (though the punchiness of the Symphony’s first movement left little room for its balancing spaciousness). But the star was Richard Watkins’s conker-coloured account of the evergreen Horn Concerto No. 4 whose famous rondo turned several audience members into budding conductors, and all but had one listener dancing in his seat, face beaming as if rain had fallen after a 10-year drought! (Paul Riley)
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mark simmons photography
Loren Lopez - Blue Candy E.P - www.myspace.com/lorenlopezmusic
mUsiC || doCUmentary || natUraL WeddinGs t: 07778 063 699 w: www.marksimmonsphotography.com
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Clubs Was Ist Das?
For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/clubs
Adam Burrows meets the new regime at TB2.
W
hen Marco Bernardi took the helm at Bristol’s Timbuk2, it signalled a change of culture at the club. “The previous management didn’t have a knowledge of electronic music,” he recalls. “The drinks weren’t right, the staff weren’t right, and a few of the nights just weren’t good enough.” Marco is on a crusade to bring world-class dance music to Bristol, most notably with flagship house and techno nights Das Ist and Ist Das. “I’m from Glasgow, where techno and electronica are much, much bigger than they are here. It’s easy to live in a city and follow suit, and go for a bass-orientated sound because that’s the Bristol sound – but that’s not my sound, and it’s my club.” Marco’s sound – for the uninitiated – is thoughtful, soulful machine music. Under his own name and alter ego Octogen, he’s produced an impressive body of work for labels like Clone, Soma and Frustrated Funk. “I’ve never DJ’d much,” he admits. “I’ve generally played live, so that limited how many gigs I did. The three places I always wanted to
play were Berghain, Fabric and Rex, and I think not playing all the time helped me get where I wanted to be.” He now lives in Bristol full time. “Yeah, I’m a Bristolian now,” he says in broad Glaswegian. “I can play BrisFest. I’m drinking cider!” Marco’s connections have resulted in some inspired bookings, from big names like Marcel Dettman, Slam and Dave Clarke, to cult heroes like Intergalactic Gary and Newworldaquarium, but the soon-to-be-renamed TB2 isn’t a one-man mission. Promotions manager Jamie Harvey, who previously ran long-running house and techno nights Loco and Switch, has been involved with the club for six years. They met when Jamie booked Marco to play at Loco. “He’s just as much a lover of quality electronic music as I am,” says Marco. “And thanks to Jamie there’s always been house and techno here on a Saturday night.” It could be argued that Jamie’s nights provided the jump-off point for the club’s new-found focus, which is about to be made explicit with the change of name and new logos and signage designed by Crazylegs promoter Andy Musgrave. Bristol has long been known as a bass- and breaks-oriented city, but Jamie and Marco both see signs of change. “House
and disco have been bubbling under for the last few years,” says Jamie. “During the last year of Switch we started to see a lot of 19-, 20-year-old girls and guys dancing to house music, and they were properly into it.” Marco cites the success of Julio Bashmore, adding “maybe people are getting sick of that [makes noise like a pneumatic drill] wobbly, screechy bass sound.” Whether that’s true or not, the TB2 ball is really starting to roll, with bookings coming up for The Advent (15 Oct), Alexander Robotnik (25 Nov) and Layo & Bushwacka (2 Dec), plus repeat visits from Dave Clarke and Marcel Dettman in the new year. “Once guys like Dave have been to the club,” says Marco, “it’s much easier to get other people you want. The only reason we can confirm Ben Klock for 17 February is that Dettman told him what a good time he’d had at Timbuk2.” All this should be great news for anyone who takes their dance music seriously. “I’ve watched this place develop, and then struggle a bit,” says Jamie. “Back then it was run by business people, but now the DJs and music lovers are running the club.” FOR FULL TB2 LISTINGS SEE WWW. TB2.CO.UK. FOR AN ARCHIVE OF PREVIOUS SETS PLAYED AT THE CLUB SEE WWW.SOUNDCLOUD.COM/ TB2_BRISTOL
Jamie Harvey (left) and Marco Bernardi (right) are bringing a new name and new direction to Bristol's Timbuk2
“Now the DJs and music lovers are running the club.” Jamie Harvey, TB2 venuemagazine
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// NEWS // Unity VI… Futureboogie latest… // Unity, Bristol’s annual mega-rave, returns for its sixth instalment on Sat 22 Oct. Billed as “the country’s biggest collaborative party”, it brings together DJs, promoters and performers from across the dance music spectrum to celebrate the diversity of the local clubs scene. As D.O.P’s Ross Chester – one of the event’s organisers – explains, “Unity started as goodwill protest against the lack of local promoters involved in the Ashton Court Festival. This came about when the dance stage was omitted from the line-up, resulting in a huge part of Bristol’s musical culture not being represented.” That was back in 2005, and it’s since taken on a life of its own, becoming a key fixture in the city’s clubbing calendar. Amazingly, this year’s party will be free entry. “We thought this year, more than any other,” says Ross, “a free party would mean that everyone has the opportunity to join the celebration, and hopefully create an atmosphere even bigger than we have had before.” As in previous years, more than 40 local club nights will be represented across Lakota’s four arenas, with mainstays like Empathy and Blowpop working alongside relative newcomers like Sureskank and Crazylegs… Futureboogie Recordings launch their fourth 12” this month with a party at The Bank of Stokes Croft on Sat 1 Oct. The release is a four-track EP from Behling & Simpson, aka Bristol bass aces I.D and Baobinga in their alternate guise as producers of slow, narcotic house music. Behling & Simpson are on the bill themselves, alongside Coat of Arms, Christophe, Lukas and the Futureboogie DJs. Entry is free before 11pm.
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Clubs // THE MONTH AHEAD // METRIPOLIS Julio Bashmore
1.
51º27’ Rustie & Canblaster
// Julio Bashmore has had an incredible year, with tracks like ‘Father Father’ and the sublime ‘Battle For Middle You’ blowing up dancefloors all over the world. His infectious blends of deep, soulful house, swung percussion and spacious dub are perfect for 2011, and have gone a long way towards putting Bristol on the 4/4 map. Bashmore’s hectic touring schedule takes in everywhere from Belgium to the USA this month – don’t miss the chance to catch him at Bath’s cosiest club night. METRIPOLIS MOLES, BATH, FRI 1 OCT. FFI: WWW.MOLES.CO.UK
SH*T THE BED Ms Dynamite & more…
UFO VS HEADRUSH John Heckle
3.
// Raw, melodic and unashamedly muso, Liverpool’s John Heckle makes explosive house music with a big nod to classic Chicago. He performs it completely live – twisting synths, drum machines and samples into alternately jazzy and industrial shapes, and his recent session for FACT mag is one of the most impressive things we’ve heard all year. Supports include Bristol acid fiend Placid and Idle Hands chief Chris Farrell. UFO VS HEADRUSH TB2, BRISTOL, SAT 8 OCT. FFI: WWW.TB2.CO.UK
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// From UK garage pirate radio icon to Mercury winner in the space of a year, Ms Dynamite’s (pictured) career started with a bang and fizzled out almost as quickly. The last two years have seen a return to her roots, with a series of club and vinyl performances – most notably ‘Wile Out’ with DJ Zinc – that have re-established her as a force-of-nature MC to be reckoned with. Also preparing to raise the temperature are bashment kings The Heatwave, techstep pioneer Ed Rush and Bristol’s very own Ms Dynamite collaborator, Redlight.
2.
// Thekla Fridays continue to bear fruit as Rustie rolls into town. The gifted young Glaswegian combines videogame sounds, hip-hop influences and wide-eyed synth work in a gloriously giddy blend that devours the history of dance music while charging headlong into the future. With debut album ‘Glass Swords’ about to drop on Warp, this is the perfect chance to catch one of Britain’s truly maverick producers. He’s joined by Canblaster of France’s Club Cheval crew, whose top-notch mix for XLR8R early this year took in everything from frantic Chicago juke to ultra-melodic progressive house. 51º27’ THEKLA, BRISTOL, FRI 7 OCT. FFI: WWW.THEKLABRISTOL.CO.UK
SH*T THE BED MOTION, BRISTOL, FRI 14 OCT. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM
4.
LOST! The Advent
5.
// Hot on the heels of Slam’s visit on BrisFest weekend here’s another brush with techno royalty at the newly renamed TB2 (see feature on p.65). Active since the late 80s, Cisco Ferreira – aka The Advent – has done amazing, groundbreaking work across the acid, electro and deep techno genres and is still going strong – with recent releases for Tresor and his own excellent label Kombination Research being played out by everyone from Joey Beltram to Adam Beyer. This is sure to get very sweaty indeed. LOST! TB2, BRISTOL, SAT 15 OCT. FFI: WWW.THEvenuemagazine ADVENT.COM/
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// A Spectre calls // IN:MOTION Hessle Audio Presents
6.
// Although doing its best to shake off the dubstep tag, Hessle Audio has long been one of the mightiest labels to emerge from that scene, with a near-perfect back catalogue including killer releases from Untold, TRG and James Blake. Check out their recent ‘116 & Rising’ compilation if you’re not convinced, or – better still – get yourself to Motion for this takeover night featuring label heads Ben UFO and Pearson Sound (aka Ramadanman - pictured) alongside Jamie XX, Blawan, Pangaea, Peverelist, October and a live set from Jamie Woon. Don’t mention the ‘d’ word. IN:MOTION, MOTION, BRISTOL, SAT 15 OCT. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM
8.
INTRIGUE Loxy, A-Sides and more
7.
// Deep drum & bass specialists Intrigue return after the summer break to launch the ‘Many Things’/‘Perpetual’ EP – a pair of lush, soulful rollers from US producer Random Movement and label corunner Ben Soundscape. Ben plays tonight as half of The Insiders, while the guests include two veterans who need little introduction – Renegade Hardware resident Loxy (pictured), and the ever prolific DJ A-Sides. This should be a treat for lovers of the more sophisticated end of breakbeat culture. INTRIGUE DOJO LOUNGE, BRISTOL, FRI 21 OCT. FFI: WWW.INTRIGUE.ORG.UK
9.
TEACHINGS IN DUB Aba Shanti-I meets Word, Sound & Power
RAVE ON AVON A Nightmare on York St // BrisFest 2011 has been and gone, but this fundraiser for next year’s event looks like a winner. London’s Ikonika (pictured) is one of the most quirkily melodic producers in the post-dubstep landscape, and her ‘Contact, Want, Love, Have’ album for Hyperdub was one of 2010’s most impressive debuts. The bill also features a raft of local talent, including fast-rising Apple Pips alumnus Arkist, H.E.N.CH man Komonazmuk and jungle and breakcore leviathan Parasite. RAVE ON AVON LAKOTA, BRISTOL, SAT 29 OCT. FFI: WWW. LAKOTA.CO.UK
// Trinity is still the best venue in town to experience the elemental force of dub reggae, and with two of the world’s finest systems meeting here for the first time, this dance should shake Bristol to its foundations. London’s Aba Shanti-I (pictured) has been tearing down Babylon since the early 90s, and his session is an annual highlight of the Notting Hill Carnival. His opposite number at this clash is the even more experienced Robert Tribulation – a member of UK system Great Tribulation back in the 70s, and now at the helm of Word, Sound & Power.
// There are those who will say that Tardis-like pub backroom The Black Swan isn’t quite the life-nudging force of raveology it was before it wrestled through a licence snafu a couple of years back. They may be right, but when local promoters Tiki cook up a line-up – their biggest to date – that has the exact degree of depth, ballistic beat intensity and straight-up quality that was heard here on a monthly basis half a decade ago, you’d be wise to don your filth-repellent shoes in preparation. Headlining the main room, not for the first time, is Drumcorps. Conceived around 2005 by Berlinbased American Aaron Spectre (pictured), its chief aim was to entwine two of the main strands of Spectre’s taste: ferocious, clottedsnare breakcore and modern metalcore/grind brutality. A handful of releases, notably 2006 album ‘Grist’ (based around lovingly demolished samples of bands like Converge, Botch and Pig Destroyer), made Drumcorps an arguably bigger draw than Spectre in his original guise, and played well on the extreme metal side of the fence too. Also boasting past Swan form is FFF, a Dutchman named Tommy de Roos who has been puking out tracks since the late 90s. He’s normally found at the intersection between heart-meltingly overdriven ruffneck jungle and helium piano rave, both in effect on his spectacular 2011 album ’20,000 Hardcore Members Can’t Be Wrong’. The room ain’t getting much softer lower down the bill either, with Brighton’s Techdiff lending his razor-sharp, loosely Venetian Snares-esque skills, along with Bristol’s Eraserhead and Leeds’ ragasoaked Helix. Room two has – well, more of the same for the most part, with locals like Breakwhore and Michael J Rocks plus the grinning gabber hellstorm of Weyheyhey!!; Jungle Syndicate and the fellows who do the infamous Micro_Raves are jointly holding it down in the third room. (Jordan Minnesota) BLACK TO THE SWAN PART II IS AT THE BLACK SWAN, BRISTOL ON SAT 8 OCT. Aaron Spectre: likes it ferocius and brutal
TEACHINGS IN DUB TRINITY CENTRE, BRISTOL, FRI 14 OCT. FFI: WWW.3CA.ORG.UK
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october 2011 // 67
9/27/2011 4:41:34 PM
manna
ISSUE TWO
Encouraging
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christian commu
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Bringing peace ever be ‘just’? ●
to people in the
dEc 2010
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on the front line
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E.indd 1
FINAL PROGRAMM
THE ROYAL BATH & WEST SHOW - OFFICIAL PROGR AMME 2011 24/05/2011
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venuemagazine
9/28/2011 3:23:40 PM
Performance
THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART
West inn shows Steve Wright looks forward to another piping-hot season of new plays from Theatre West.
E
very year since 2003, Theatre West – who’ve championed new writing since 1990 – have produced an autumn season at the Alma Tavern. This annual smorgasbord of new writing has become a bolted-down highlight of Venue’s theatrical year, for the excitement of seeing the freshest new writing staged in the Alma’s intimate black-box space. This year, the season is in place as usual – but the manner of its creation has been different. Instead of inviting scripts from all comers, Theatre West – aka co-founders Ann Stiddard and Alison Comley – invited 50 of their favourite local playwrights to write a piece inspired by a photograph, randomly assigned. It all started last winter, when Alison was in Berlin. At a city market, she found a stall heaving with old photographs, all of unknown origins. “It was fascinating looking through and wondering, ‘who are these people, what were these stories?’,” Alison recalls. The idea came to her that these images could form the stimuli for the next season’s plays. “I spent a cold hour on the
“We are giving writers a platform early in their career.” Ann Stiddard, Theatre West venuemagazine
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pavement choosing photos – I thought we’d need a good mix, of landscapes and scenes as well as faces.” The next stage was to invite 50 selected writers to come to the Alma one winter evening, and select a picture (all hidden in envelopes, so no peeking) as their jumping-off point. Then came a weekend in May, for which the writers each sent in 10 pages of script, with all 50 excerpts performed script-in-hand in front of Alison, Ann, a panel of judges and members of the public. Audiences and panels voted on which scripts they liked. Alison: “It was a good way of doing it. Knowing that we couldn’t possibly stage all 50 scripts, it was a way to involve lots of writers without committing everyone to all the energy and investment of writing a full script.” Nine of these 50 excerpts were selected, and the writers asked to convert them into fulllength scripts, with support from dramaturgs. Then came another couple of days deciding which five would make it to full production. The other four plays will get rehearsed readings at the start of the season. “It’s been interesting to see how writers have responded to their photos,” Ann reflects. “Some have taken a literal approach, where you can see exactly where in the image the story has come from: others have been more oblique.” The final five include (and the season kicks off with) ‘The Darkroom’ (4-15 Oct) by Steve Lambert, whose brilliant ‘Showing the Monster’ was part of Theatre West’s 2009 season. Inspired by an image of a post-war garden party featuring some slightly enforced jollity, Steve’s play is set shortly after World War II, and features
a couple – he was a code-breaker during the war, and then suffered a nervous breakdown – living a blameless existence in their country cottage. When a friend visits from London, however, the trio find a box in the air-raid shelter – and its contents are the cue for secrets about our hero’s past to come tumbling out. Elsewhere, Penny Gunter’s ‘Dorian’s Second Life’ (18-29 Oct) is a highly physical, one-man show about a man whose obsession with a certain high-adrenaline sport has had dramatic effects upon his family life. ‘Raising Kamila’ (1-12 Nov), by local poet/playwright Edson Burton, is set on a tugboat on the Rhine, peopled by boatowner Oskar and his travelling companion Kamila. When Lukas, an artist, comes aboard, their peaceable rhythms are upset and truths are revealed. Alison: “It will mean creating a boat for the Alma, which will be a nice challenge!” Next up is ‘I Remember Green’ (15-26 Nov) by Southwest Scriptwriters member Heather Lister. Ann: “This one explores the relationship between parents and their son who was blinded as a result of a fall, for which the father feels responsible. The writing is very lyrical and poetic.” The excellent Andy Burden
directs this one (he’s joined, in a talented directing pool, by Pameli Benham, Sita Calvert-Ennals, Amanda Horlock and Ed Viney). The season’s last play is ‘Sitting with Thistle’ (29 Nov-10 Dec) by Bristol University student Marietta Kirkbride, which centres on two siblings staying at their grandmother’s house in mid-Wales. Cue a black comedy that unearths the deep-seated relationship issues between the two. A fine season, in short. All good, meanwhile, on planet Theatre West? “We’re in good health,” Ann beams. “We got Arts Council funding this year for the whole season, at the first time of asking, and we are one of the very few companies actually producing new writing in Bristol… We are giving writers a platform early in their career.” And giving Bristol audiences quality, thoughtprovoking new writing, year after year. THE THEATRE WEST SEASON AT THE ALMA TAVERN, BRISTOL BEGINS WITH THE DARKROOM (4-15 OCT). FFI: WWW.ALMATAVERNTHEATRE.CO.UK AND WWW.THEATRE-WEST.CO.UK FOR A LONGER VERSION OF THIS FEATURE, SEE WWW.VENUE.CO.UK
What's in a picture? Two of the photographs used as stimulus for the scriptwriters of Theatre West's 2011 season ('The Darkroom' is below, 'Raising Kamila' above)
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9/27/2011 12:06:30 PM
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Performance
THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART
// THE MONTH AHEAD //
1.
STORYTELLING From Bangla to Brum // Performer Saikat Ahamed (last seen as Ben Gunn in BOV’s midsummer ‘Treasure Island’, and before that as the eponymous hero of the Tobacco Factory’s 2009 Xmas show ‘Ali Baba’) gives us an evening of family tales – specifically his mother’s 1950s journey from the new nation of Bangladesh to Birmingham, via Pakistan and Glasgow. Bengali folk tales, shadowy demons, Glaswegian hospitality and unrequited love: all of human life will be here… FROM BANGLA TO BRUM IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL ON SUN 2 OCT. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
2. THEATRE My Previous Self THEATRE The Golden Dragon
3.
// ATC (‘Ivan and the Dogs’, ‘Eurydice’) and Drum Theatre Plymouth coproduce Roland Schimmelpfennig’s tragicomic tale of globalisation set in your local takeaway. Five actors play a huge cast of characters – a Chinese migrant with toothache, Thai/Chinese/ Vietnamese cooks, two air stewardesses, plus a cricket and some ants – in a deconstructed soap opera that whisks audiences from the High Street to East Asia and back. THE GOLDEN DRAGON IS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC FROM TUE 18- SAT 22 OCT. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK
4. THEATRE Loose Tongues/ For Jimmy
LOOSE TONGUES AND FOR JIMMY ARE AT THE HEN AND CHICKEN, BRISTOL FROM SUN 9-WED 12 OCT. FFI: WWW.FACEBOOK. COM/PAGES/INKLING-PRODUCTIONS
5.
// Dynamic dance troupe Sonia Sabri Company present their latest piece, which fuses the grace and vigour of India’s traditional Kathak dance style with the rhythms and rhymes of hip-hop culture. Beatboxing, b-boy dancing, table playing and song and dance will fuse in this marriage of two kinetic dance forms.
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MY PREVIOUS SELF IS AT THE WARDROBE THEATRE, BRISTOL FROM TUE 18-FRI 21 OCT. FFI: WWW.THEWARDROBETHEATRE.COM
// Double bill upstairs at Bedminster’s Hen & Chicken. Staged by Inkling Productions, ‘LT’ is a dark comedy of interweaving monologues by six characters who are linked in ways they never realised; ‘FJ’ is Lucy Lucy’s play marking the anniversary of the death of Angolan deportee Jimmy Mubenga in October last year, and is performed by top Bristol actor Duncan Bonner.
DANCE Kathakbox
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// Part of an increasingly busy programme at Kingsdown’s fledgling Wardrobe Theatre, a cosy space above the White Bear pub. ‘MPS’ is a devised piece by Bristol’s Edible Theatre, whose hero Nick has retrograde amnesia. Through a diary of YouTube videos and a Facebook profile, Nick is hoping to construct an understanding of his own existence and to ‘friend’ an imperfect stranger – his previous self.
KATHAKBOX IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL ON MON 24 OCT. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
6.
THEATRE Dr Marigold & Mr Chops // The redoubtable and ever-captivating Simon Callow feeds his lifelong Dickens habit with this performance of two of the great realist’s short stories. Dr Marigold is a travelling salesman who adopts a little deaf and dumb girl; Mr Chops is a freak-show turn who wins the lottery and a place in society. “Unalloyed Dickensian joy,” purred The Guardian’s Michael Billington. DR MARIGOLD & MR CHOPS IS AT THEATRE ROYAL BATH FROM MON 10-SAT 15 OCT. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK
venuemagazine
9/27/2011 11:10:11 AM
Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings
PUPPETRY Wolf Tales
7.
8.
VARIETY Variety in the Factory
// An engaging hour of kids’ puppetry by Bristolians Pickled Image. We’re backstage at a performance of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, with PI stalwart Dik Downey on fine form as voice and puppeteer for both the sweet ol’ grandma and the dastardly wolf. The latter, dandyishly dressed in silks and furs, is a fine comic creation – a foppish, well-spoken and rather kindly animal, proudly rattling off his distinguished history on the stage. Earlier the same week comes another Pickled Image family puppet show, ‘Travels With Granddad’.
// Much-praised comedy/variety troupe Slightly Fat Features return for another set of musichall, cabaret and sketch-show shenanigans. Expect gravitydefying stunts, logic-busting routines and much madcappery.
WOLF TALES (FRI 28-SAT 29 OCT) & TRAVELS WITH GRANDDAD (MON 24-THUR 27), THE BREWERY, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
WALKABOUT THEATRE Hunter’s Moon
VARIETY IN THE FACTORY IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 25-SAT 29 OCT. FFI: WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
10.
// A second walkabout performance in Leigh Woods from the troupe who brought you the beguiling, springwelcoming ‘Whispering Woods’ earlier this year. Tonight they promise “a sumptuous feast of fireside tales, aerial artistry, music, dancing and twilight adventures in the wildwood”. Suitable for all ages: meet by the North Road entrance, and bring a torch. HUNTER’S MOON WILL BE PERFORMED IN LEIGH WOODS, BRISTOL ON SAT 8 OCT: PERFORMANCES AT 6PM AND 8PM. FFI/TICKETS (£7): NBAMBREY@GMAIL.CO
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9. THEATRE I, Malvolio // Latest in this series of Shakespeare dissections by sometime Bristolbased actor/writer Tim Crouch, who takes a prominent (but not starring) character from one of Will’s plays and places him centre stage. After the brilliant ‘I, Caliban’, ‘I, Banquo’ and ‘I, Peaseblossom’, expect a hilarious and oft-unsettling rant from ‘Twelfth Night’’s pompous and “notoriously wronged” comic foil. I, MALVOLIO IS AT THE EGG, BATH (WED 5-SAT 8 OCT) AND BRISTOL OLD VIC STUDIO (TUE 22-SAT 26 NOV). FFI: WWW. TIMCROUCHTHEATRE.CO.UK
october 2011 // 71
9/28/2011 5:22:26 PM
Performance
preview
We Are Three Sisters THEATRE // Author and poet Blake Morrison is arguably best known for his moving memoir of childhood and parenthood, ‘And When Did You Last See Your Father?’ He’s also spent the last few years, though, producing new adaptations of the classics (and we mean the Classics) for Halifax’s brilliant Northern Broadsides, themselves renowned for their robust, Yorkshire takes on great works. Thus far Morrison has
preview
PIC : ZOE SQUIRE
Flies
72 // october 2011
Performance Previews 973.indd 72
THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART
given them versions of ‘Oedipus Rex’, ‘Antigone’ and ‘Lysistrata’ (or, in his memorable renaming, ‘Lisa’s Sex Strike’), all salty with northern flavours and humour. His latest adaptation, touring this autumn, leaps forward a couple of millennia and commingles two of literature’s most famous sister trios, real-life and fictional. “A few years ago a good friend who knew the adaptations I’d done for Northern Broadsides suggested another one,” Morrison recalls. “Why not a version of Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters’, featuring Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë instead of Natasha, Masha and Olga?” And so here we are in Haworth, North Yorkshire, in the 1840s, in a gloomy parsonage with neither curtains nor comforts; Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë light up their world with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas. And throughout their confined, yet intensely lived lives, they write. The idea of fusing the two stories, Morrison explains, is not as wayward as it might first appear. “Chekhov had read about the Brontës (probably in Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte) shortly before writing ‘Three Sisters’; their story was clearly an influence on the play. So there are good reasons for transplanting the play to Haworth and for identifying the Sergeyevna sisters with the Brontës; they even have a troubled and self-destructive brother in common.” Which is not to deny that the two stories also have their manifold differences. “The longer I worked on the adaptation, the further I moved away from the original so as to avoid
WE ARE THREE SISTERS IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 4-SAT 8 OCT. FFI: WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
THEATRE // What’s your deepest, secret and most crippling fear? Sharks? Small spaces? Buttons? Goth music? Dennis, for his part, is terrified of flies. And at the start of Oliver Lansley’s tale of paranoia, phobia and cling-film, Dennis determines to conquer his fear of flies, whatever the cost. Based on an original concept by Toby Farrow, and with a live soundtrack from Bristol discopunk innovator Kid Carpet, ‘Flies’ channels elements from Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ in its story of one man’s quest to conquer an irrational yet all-consuming
phobia. The show’s being staged by Bristol’s excellent Pins and Needles, they of the haunting Poe-esque chiller ‘Ernest and the Pale Moon’. The show, billed as a mix of theatre, stand-up comedy and gig, has been created with support from Bristol Old Vic’s artist development strand, Bristol Ferment. From the top, then… in an attempt to escape his fears, the long-suffering Dennis boards a plane with a one-way ticket. Sadly, his fresh start is cut short after he lashes out at an unsuspecting passenger with a copy of the in-flight magazine.
misrepresenting the reality of the lives being explored. Chekhov has a doctor and teacher in his play, and so does mine. But allegiance to the facts required that I also add the girls’ father (Patrick Brontë) and his curate, as well as Branwell’s married lover, Mrs Robinson. Brontë scholars will find some liberties being taken, nevertheless – with the events of several years compressed into a much shorter time-scale. “But I hope the play will also offer some insights – into the place of love and passion in the Brontës’ lives; into their divided feelings about London; and into their disagreements over having their books published pseudonymously. Above all, I hope that, by taking a cue from Chekhov, the play will banish the gloom surrounding the Brontës and reveal the northern humour and resilience they showed, despite the ever-present threat of death and disease.” “Anyone who has read a Brontë novel cannot fail to be stirred by their overwhelming humanity, charged emotion and brooding, prescient unease with the status quo,” adds Barrie Rutter, Broadsides’ founder and artistic director, who directs the new work. “With exquisitely drawn characterizations, a nod to Chekhov and a touch of poetic licence, ‘We Are Three Sisters’ is a pearl of a play which evokes with piercing clarity the life and distinct personalities of these three spirited individuals.”
// NEWS // Polish Dance Theatre // Across the weekend of 22-23 Oct, the Polish Dance Theatre company take over the Theatre at the City Academy, Russell Town Avenue, Bristol for two days of workshops and performances. The former will include sessions in contemporary and hip-hop dance for intermediate levels, and an advanced-level modern dance session; the latter features performances of four made-in-Poland contemporary dance pieces including ‘Mat’, ‘Voracity’ and ‘The Outline’. Costs are £15 for the four performances, or £30 for performances plus workshops. Ffi: http://bit.ly/nNEXcz To avoid a law suit, Dennis must visit psychiatrist Dr Rickman, who encourages him to recall formative moments from his life – including failed romances, doomed school outings, bizarre domestic rituals and his inability to hold down a job as a dental nurse. In an absurd tragicomedy of survival and alienation, Dennis must come face to face with his nemesis, The Fly – a suave and debonair psychopath – before he can truly move on with his life. FLIES IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 4-SAT 22 OCT. FFI: WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
venuemagazine
9/27/2011 11:18:50 AM
Performance PREVIEW
Rambert Dance DANCE // Defying the idea of the arts and science as miles apart, Rambert Dance have taken the inspired step of appointing a scientist-in-residence. Professor Nicky Clayton FRS, a zoologist/ psychologist, was introduced to Rambert's artistic director Mark Baldwin by Darwin's greatgrandson, when they worked together on his evolution-inspired
dance piece ‘Comedy of Change’. And, as she says, “we both clicked”. Rambert’s latest collaboration ‘Seven for a secret, never to be told’ takes its name from the nursery rhyme about magpies, part of the crow family with which Clayton has been working for much of her professional life. “We did a lot of talking, sitting down, playing with ideas,” Clayton reveals. Part of her work with birds is around how the latter might think without words. “This new piece is about how young children think, how they see the world
and how important play is. The overall theme is that children look like mini-adults – but they're not, inside or outside. When they are very young they don't realise that their ideas are different from other peoples'. Children are locked into the moment, they have no concept of the past or the future. They can do things without feeling the consequences of their actions.” The piece’s first section looks at how children spontaneously copy what they see, and how this leads them to explore new ideas. Next comes a meditation on the power of play. “Play allows you to explore your social world without consequence. Games often have completely arbitrary rules,” Clayton explains. One of the things she has noticed is the difficulty experienced by trained dancers when using natural, childlike steps. “There's a wonderful tension to making that kind of natural movement as an adult and the attempt to capture the limitless energy of a child. It's a great irony that we've all been kids once, but
that trying to move like that as an adult is far from easy." As with all their recent tours, Rambert offer one featured piece at all their destinations, while the other two will vary from venue to venue. Bath's pairing is ‘Monolith’ and ‘Roses’. The former comes from Tim Rushton, artistic director of the Danish Dance Theatre, who makes his UK debut with a piece about mystical energies haunting ancient gathering places. The latter is a celebration of love and relationships and is the work of American Paul Taylor, a former Martha Graham dancer whose own company has been absent from these shores for far too long. As Nicky points out, a scientist once said, “We speak with our vocal chords but communicate with our whole bodies.” A pretty good description of what Rambert do themselves.
“I tell stories and I use the body as my tool to express emotions, evoke images and even provoke reactions. I like to think that my work has the intensity of a raging bull at times, and at others is as soft and delicate as water.”
to the idea of physical containment and isolation, and then to the questioning of freedom. Finally the prison became a symbol of all these ideas.
“I wanted to concentrate on the effect of being shut away on the body and mind, and to find a kind of honest beauty out of the ugliness of such situations." The piece’s accompanying music, by 65daysofstatic, he describes as “a mixture of innovative hard-edge rock, a driven, industrial sound with highly complex compositions and, more importantly, an emotional depth and softness.” Of his work, Abreu reflects,
work behind them in the West End, for the RSC and for Bristol’s Shakespeare at The Tobacco Factory. The play follows events before, during and after 1415’s Battle of Agincourt between the English and French – a battle that Henry has been urged (by the Church) to win in order to detract from troubles at home. The conflict is viewed through the eyes of common soldiers, the French court and Henry V himself. From our review: “The entire story of Henry’s invasion of France and the Agincourt showdown (complete with sub-plots) in less time than it takes to down a couple of pints
in the bar? Indeed. And it works perfectly. Burden’s ‘Henry’ boils down its action and themes to a pacey, episodic 85 minutes and retrieves a complex history play from Olivier-esque posturing. “Its contemporary relevance (leader invades foreign country with only tenuous evidence for justification) emerges through the change in focus that a cut-down version brings, and the sharp juxtaposition between the king’s high politics and the realities of war for low-lifers like Pistol and Nym is all the more revealing. Brilliantly, it never seems rushed and serves as both a fascinating
PREVIEW Jean Abreu
DANCE // Some choreographers spend ages searching for a suitable subject, but Brazilian Jean Abreu's best ideas come when he least expects it. ‘‘‘INSIDE’ was one of these off-shoot ideas,” he reveals. “For some reason, I began thinking about male violence. That took me
PREVIEW Henry V
THEATRE // Back by popular demand, Company Boudin’s edited version of Shakespeare’s bloodthirsty history play. The script has been trimmed from Will’s original by CB founder (and the Rondo’s visionary former artistic director) Andy Burden, who also directs: it features a cast of four, all locally-based actors (Alan Coveney, Alex Dunbar, Mark Ross, Dan Winter) with some very decent
venuemagazine
Performance Previews 973.indd 73
THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART
RAMBERT DANCE COMPANY PERFORM ‘SEVEN FOR A SECRET, NEVER TO BE TOLD’ AT THEATRE ROYAL BATH FROM THUR 20-SAT 22 OCT. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK
JEAN ABREU DANCERS PERFORM ‘INSIDE’ AT BATH SPA UNIVERSITY THEATRE ON FRI 28 OCT AND AT THE TOWN HALL THEATRE, SWINDON ON FRI 21 OCT. FFI: WWW.BATHSPALIVE. COM
reimagining for old hands and a vibrant introduction for those who think Shakespeare might not be for them.” HENRY V IS AT THE RONDO THEATRE ON FRI 7 OCT. FFI: WWW. RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK
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9/27/2011 11:22:02 AM
Comedy
w w w. t he c o me dy b ox .c o.u k
// THE MONTH AHEAD //
1.
COLSTON HALL Stephen Merchant
2.
// He’s tall, rich and very funny. But poor old Stephen can’t find a wife. After work experience at Venue, his first stand-up gig was in the Comedy Box in Bedmo, back in ’97. Now, (partly) as a means to find a mate, he’s embarking on his first ever full-size tour, ‘Hello Ladies’, with a four-night stint in his old home town. Form an orderly queue, girls…
KOMEDIA Jerry Sadowitz
STEPHEN MERCHANT SAYS ‘HELLO LADIES’ AT THE COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL FROM THUR 20-SUN 23 OCT. FFI: WWW.COLSTONHALL.ORG
// Now here’s someone we don’t see enough of round here. Scots/New Jersey comic/magician JS is a unique talent, oddly (and brilliantly) blending sick and self-loathing humour with some eye-poppingly dextrous sleight of hand. And, to the best of our memory, he hasn’t been down these parts since circa 2005. Book ‘im. JERRY SADOWITZ IS AT KOMEDIA, BATH ON THUR 27 OCT. FFI: WWW.KOMEDIA.CO.UK
THE BREWERY The Noise Next Door
3.
COMEDY CAVERN Earl Okin and Matt Rudge
// The pick of this month’s Sundaynight pairings at the cosy Cavern sees MR, an upbeat, Somersethailing comic and former TV presenter, supporting EO, a veteran and versatile entertainer whose variety-style music and comedy blend channels Harry Connick Jr and Victor Borge. Okin, who’s supported the likes of Fairport Convention, Van Morrison and Wings, delights in the nickname of Ol’ Horny Mouth. No, not what you’re thinking: it refers to his astonishing ability to orally recreate a small brass section. EARL OKIN AND MATT RUDGE PLAY THE COMEDY CAVERN, BATH ON SUN 23 OCT. FFI: WWW.COMEDYCAVERN.CO.UK
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4.
// Rising sketch troupe continue The Brewery’s fine-looking monthly improv-comedy series. Five agile, fearless, frenetically high-spirited and really rather well-spoken chaps, TTND speed through an hour of pacy, inventive sketch and improv comedy, relying almost entirely on audience suggestions. The belly-laugh count might oscillate, but the opportunity to watch five lithe comic minds going through the gears is as fascinating as it is funny. THE NOISE NEXT DOOR ARE AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL ON SUN 30 OCT. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM
6.
RONDO Monkey Poet
5.
// “Stand-up poetry” from the Mancunian whose brew of politics, social comment and profanity has got him likened to Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Mark Thomas. Not for the faint-hearted, on balance: YouTube ’im to see if he tickles ya. MONKEY POET PLAYS THE RONDO THEATRE, BATH ON WED 19 OCT. FFI: WWW.RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK
COMEDY BOX Tom Allen // Camp mannerisms, clipped diction and some nicely withering insights into modern Britain are the cornerstones of Mr Allen’s act. Said chortle.co.uk: "He has Ronnie Corbett’s genius for digression and Victoria Wood’s ear for hilariously mundane comments and platitudes and the sheer music of words." Very able support, too, from the pianoplonking James Sherwood and the wry, Bath-hailing Tom Craine. TOM ALLEN ET AL PLAY THE COMEDY BOX AT THE HEN & CHICKEN, BRISTOL ON FRI 7 & SAT 8 OCT. FFI: WWW.THECOMEDYBOX.CO.UK
venuemagazine
9/27/2011 12:04:38 PM
Comedy
w w w. t he c o me dy b ox .c o.u k
Trew faith Just three months after the demise of Jesters Comedy Club, owner David Trew returns with a brand new comedy night bang in the centre of town. Steve Wright looks back and forward with Mr Trew.
I
always felt that Jesters needed to be better located. In its early days in the mid-90s, our location almost did us a favour, but inevitably times change. Stokes Croft’s ‘edgy’, urban feel doesn’t really suit the middle-class demographic that stand-up comedy attracts, and we were always competing with that. The recent riots were no help, of course, and the negative press about Tesco opening up in our old venue just confused people who thought we’d disappeared.” David Trew, founder and director of the recently departed Jesters Comedy Club, is musing on the latter’s 16-year occupancy of Bristol’s Stokes Croft. And he’s doing so from a very different address: College Square in the centre of town, surrounded by a historic school and cathedral, and the site of David’s new comedy venture. Yes, just three months after Jesters’ demise, RIPROAR Comedy starts this month. After a launch night on 15 October, the new comedy night will continue every Saturday night thereafter, with additional Friday nights a possibility for 2012. Sited in The Cresswell Centre, a brand new performance venue on the Bristol Cathedral School site, RIPROAR will follow, in some ways, its Jesters antecedent – three comics a night, food and drink served on the premises – but will also differ in certain key ways. “It’ll be the Jesters ideology transposed into a city-centre venue, with some great added bonuses,” Dave explains. Such as? “A full theatrical lighting rig, a quicker and more efficient food service (with food by Bristol’s Soil Association-accredited Lettuce
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and Lovage, www.lettucelovage. co.uk), a massive underground car park two minutes’ walk away, raked seating at the back for that enclosed feel. Not to mention being situated in one of the most beautiful parts of the city centre, away from Bristol’s ‘Booze Britain’ high streets…” Jesters (and its parent brand Metropolis, under which name, since 2008, David put on music gigs alongside the weekly comedy) closed in July after 16 years’ trading. What brought about the end? “Metropolis was created for our live music ambitions and Jesters operated as a brand within that brand. Both the music and comedy gigs needed to make money, but music never really did, despite our employing one of the most confident music promoters in the UK, who worked very hard, but failed to generate sufficient profit from music gigs to meet our costs.”
A difficult first year for Metropolis was followed by further problems, as the company was now trading with a debt millstone around its neck. “In the days of easier money (pre-recession), banks would have given us credit to trade ourselves out of that position. Without this possibility, though, nerves took hold amongst certain shareholders who went down the legal route to force the business to close. This was ultimately what killed Metropolis, and took Jesters with it, despite comedy being the only thing that ever made any money.” All very stressful at the time: looking back from today’s perspective, though, David’s glad it happened. “I now feel like Jesters was of its day. In 1995, it was the best thing I’d ever done, and to see it prosper as it did was wonderful. But times change, and you need to change
with them. The last year of Metropolis featured boardroom bust-ups, shareholder disagreements, and neighbours on our back about the music. I’m glad to be away from all of that. To be out on my own again with a new project has completely revitalised me.” David promises an evening of ‘focused comedy’ at the new venue. “The sight lines are great, the seating will allow for everyone to feel more engaged than they were at the cavernous old Jesters premises. The bar and food service are both within arm’s reach, too.” RIPROAR COMEDY OPENS WITH A LAUNCH PARTY ON SAT 15 OCT, FEATURING COMEDIANS ERICH MCELROY, TOM ALLEN AND GEOFF NORCOTT. RIPROAR COMEDY COLLEGE SQ, BRISTOL, BS1 5TS. FFI: 0117 914 0910 OR WWW.RIPROARCOMEDY.CO.UK
David Trew - the man behind the long-serving Jesters Comedy Club is upping sticks to launch a new night, RIPROAR, in the city centre
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9/27/2011 11:58:40 AM
Art
GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND MORE
// THE MONTH AHEAD // GROUP SHOW Contemporary Swedish Painting
1. 2.
// Atmospheric, inventive, bold: the brilliant contemporary landscape painting programmed by Bristol’s Lime Tree Gallery is among the best art you’ll see in town. So we’ll be casting an interested eye over this exhibition devoted to contemporary Swedish art. As you might expect, treatment of the unique Scandinavian light and the dour sparseness of its countryside are a speciality, though portraiture (‘Molly’ by Carl Gustafsson, pictured) also features.
PORTRAITURE PROJECT pre{faces}
CONTEMPORARY SWEDISH PAINTING IS AT THE LIME TREE GALLERY, BRISTOL FROM 29 OCT-24 NOV. FFI: HTTP:// LIMETREEGALLERY.COM/
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// You’ll have to be quick to catch this exhibition of portraits by three top-notch Bath artists – Malcolm Ashman (portrait of ZR Lawrence, pictured), R Scott Fraser and Venue Emerging Artist Award winner Ben Hughes – but it does also launch a three-year project to seek out and record the people of Bath, of all ages and all walks of life. Volunteer sitters are welcome: see the website for details. PRE{FACES} IS AT BATH ARTISTS’ STUDIOS FROM 29 SEPT-2 OCT. FFI: WWW.PRE-FACES.CO.UK
3. WILD LANDSCAPES Walking Through The Veil // 2D/3D group show at Bedminster’s Grant Bradley Gallery, exploring the thin and porous boundary between human and animal worlds, fact and folklore. From “the ancient vales of Wessex to the cold, Nordic tundra”, expect “a journey through natural landscapes where wind and snow blows, wolves and arctic foxes circle and the division between humans and animals is blurred”. WALKING THROUGH THE VEIL IS AT THE GRANT BRADLEY GALLERY, BRISTOL FROM 8-29 OCT. FFI: WWW. GRANTBRADLEYGALLERY.CO.UK
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MYTH-INSPIRED PAINTINGS Leading The Giant // Drawings and sculptures from bo.lee regular Beth Carter, drawn from a rich allegorical world that fuses myths, legends and the vast, many-peopled worlds of our dreams. Beautifully composed and rich in narrative possibility, Carter’s works have long been favourites of ours. You’ll find a mix of human and animal forms, and all points in between: highlights include a two metre tall bronze Minotaur. LEADING THE GIANT IS AT BO.LEE GALLERY, BATH FROM 17 OCT-10 NOV. FFI: WWW.BO-LEE.CO.UK
OIL PAINTINGS Rachel Milne
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// Beautifully crafted oil paintings – including still lifes, portraiture and homages to Veronese and Caravaggio – by this gifted, prolific painter, based at Bristol’s Jamaica Street Studios. Milne’s composed, elegant scenes focus on the everyday objects around us, and on the fluidity of the oil paint itself. RACHEL MILNE EXHIBITS AT BRISTOL FOLK HOUSE CAFÉ/BAR UNTIL 3 NOV. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLFOLKHOUSE.CO.UK
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Got an event to list? Submit it to us at venue.co.uk/ submit-a-listing
ARTS FESTIVAL InsideArts
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// Three-day Festival of the Arts and Humanities at Bristol University, with a programme of free events both inside the uni and across town. Lectures, workshops, film screenings, a lunchtime concert, poetry recital and more, all culminating in a public debate at Watershed about why the arts and humanities matter. A question InsideArts should, by then, have answered in some style. INSIDEARTS TAKES PLACE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL AND ELSEWHERE FROM 18-20 OCT. FFI: BRISTOL.AC.UK/INSIDE-ARTS AND TWITTER.COM/INSIDEARTS
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ART TRAIL West Bristol Arts Trail // Fourth instalment of this annual neighbourhood art trail, stretching from the fringes of Redland to Dowry Square, Hotwells. Nigh on 100 artists exhibit in 57 homes and venues including the Clifton Lido and the Rose of Denmark boozer. The trail features a fair few well-known names, too, including painters Henry Shaftoe, Ann Gover, Edward McGuirk, Joanna Wright and Lilian Delevoryas. THE WEST BRISTOL ARTS TRAIL TAKES PLACE FROM 15-16 OCT. FFI: WWW.WESTBRISTOLARTS.COM
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PHOTO-PORTRAITURE The Innocence of Childhood // Photographs of children playing, gossiping, intriguing or simply watching adult life go by in a still war-crippled 1950s Britain. The photographer? One John Chillingworth FRPS, a staffer with the pioneering photojournalism quarterly Picture Post. Pictured: ‘Our Gang, Liverpool’ (1954). THE INNOCENCE OF CHILDHOOD IS AT THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, BATH FROM 3-28 OCT. FFI: WWW.RPS.ORG
ATMOSPHERIC LANDSCAPES Traces
// P sim Br sta Po
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TH SO
NEW TALENT SHOW New Blood // Bath’s White Room Gallery takes over the Octagon to show off the art world’s next generation of thrusting young tyros. Five graduates from London’s Royal College of Art (sculptor Candida Powell-Williams, ‘Heavy Drape’, pictured) exhibit works including sculpture, installation and optical paintings. Check out, on his YouTube page, the hypnotic, faintly erotic installations of one Mark Davey… NEW BLOOD IS AT BATH’S OCTAGON GALLERY FROM 12-16 OCT. FFI: WWW. THEWHITEROOMGALLERY.COM
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// Bristol painter Anne Adamson exhibits a series of her ethereal ink and acrylic paintings in the Colston Hall’s nicely blank-canvas artspace The Glass Room. Anne collects her images from memory and imagination, creating strange worlds where anything might happen. Says she: “I like to convey a sense of displacement and ambiguity, drawing on the fragmented imagery of dreams where scale is unpredictable and isolated structures occur in unexpected settings.” ANNE ADAMSON IS AT THE GLASS ROOM, COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL FROM 7 OCT-6 NOV. FFI: HTTP://BIT.LY/QSC0AT
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Books
// top ten //
Autumn leaves
The fine folk at Foyles choose their favourite micro fictions.
Short stories
The Book of Other People – edited by Zadie Smith (Vintage, £8.99) // Zadie Smith curates a collection of quirky tales and character sketches from some of the literary world’s biggest names. Works from David Mitchell, Colm Tóibín and AL Kennedy are among the written contributions, alongside graphic works from Posy Simmons and Daniel Clowes.
Top of this autumn’s more eyecatching publications is Paul Stephenson’s ‘Memoirs of a Black Englishman’ (Tangent, £9.99). Complete with an introduction by political titan and former Bristol MP Tony Benn, this autobiography from one of the leading civil rights campaigners of his generation is essential reading, covering in detail Stephenson’s lifelong commitment to fighting prejudice, including the notorious Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963. ‘Banksy Myths and Legends’ (Carpet Bombing Culture, £5.95), collected by local journalist Marc Leverton, features many of the well-known and not so well-known legends and myths that have sprung up around Bristol’s favourite artist. It illustrates, more than anything, the increasingly chaotic and unreliable nature of how ‘information’ and ‘facts’ are communicated and shared. And those who can’t get enough of Mr B can download themselves the Banksy Bristol Tour app (iTunes, £1.99), an informative collaboration between Bristol’s Tangent Books and local web development company Gravitywell which includes background information as well as a handy map detailing the pieces discussed. Regular updates and extra content are promised, too. Sticking with the graffiti theme, Stephen Morris’s ‘Further Off the Wall’ (Redcliffe, £5) continues where the Bristol photographer left off with 2005’s ‘Off the Wall’ in highlighting the city’s more adventurous and impactful street art in another engaging collection of photographs. Feeling peckish? ‘Pieminister: A Pie for All Seasons’ (Bantam Press, £17.99), published by an imprint of intergalactic publishing giant Random House, is the long-overdue first cookbook from the UK’s premier pie-makers. Put together by Pieminister founders Jon Simon and Tristan Hogg, whose enthusiasm
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bounces off every photo-heavy page, the hefty volume posits that anything and everything can go into the crusty creations – and there’s plenty more on food history, accompaniments and ingredient sourcing, too. The perfect accompaniment to one’s favourite pie may well be found in ‘Booze for Free’ (Eden Project Books, £9.99), a recessionbusting look at home brewing courtesy of Bristol author Andy Hamilton. Hamilton uses his vast experience of the process and his expert knowledge of wild foods and plants to come up with barrel loads of great ideas for a very cheap tipple or two. With the current debate over ‘free’ schools, a timely publication from Herbert Adler Publishing is Hussein Lucas’s ‘After Summerhill – What Happened to the Pupils of Britain’s Most Radical School?’ (Herbert Adler, £9.95). Bristol-based writer Lucas interviews several former pupils of the radical school, founded in the 1920s, to discover what effect the revolutionary style of education had on them, with some interesting revelations. Making his debut this autumn, is Bristol-based former drama teacher and actor Christopher Morris, whose novel ‘The Cry of the Loon’ (CreateSpace, see Amazon for price) has been years in the making and mines the beauteous ruralscapes, lakes, mountains and woodlands of Quebec, as an errant TV producer is drawn into a smalltown world of mystery, murder and missing children. Finally, set in the mid-70s, Mike Manson’s second novel, ‘Rules of the Road’ (Tangent, £8.95), follows university drop-outs Felix and Boz on their summer odyssey to Greece in search of the fullblown hippie experience. It confirms Manson’s stature as a top-drawer comic writer, particularly in the fine detail of his set pieces. Occasionally surreal, always extremely witty, it’s worth it for the chuckles alone.
THANKS ONCE AGAIN, TO THE FABULOUS FOYLES, 6 QUAKERS FRIARS, CABOT CIRCUS, BRISTOL, BS1 3BU, 0117 376 3975, WWW.FOYLES.CO.UK
Joe Melia eyes up some seasonal booky treats.
Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut (Random House, £10.99) // The great American satirist and novelist, probably best known for ‘Slaughterhouse 5’, started his writing career by selling short stories to Collier’s magazine. Those and others make up this collection, a rich and varied read full of humour and invention. Bristol Short Story Prize Vol. 4 – Various authors (Bristol Review of Books, £10) // Twenty authors are brought together in this collection, the fourth annual celebration of Bristol’s burgeoning literary scene. Wit, invention and all manner of writerly skill abound, not least in ‘My Girl’, the story that won Emily Bullock the prize. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov (Harper Collins, £6.99) // Asimov does science fiction the way it should be done, taking neat little ideas and from them extrapolating thoughtful, humane and witty tales. Forget the rubbish movie, these stories eschew bombast for something much more enjoyable and rewarding. American Short Story Vol. 2 – edited by Richard Ford (Granta, £12.99) // Granta’s second volume of
short stories is a great collection of the cream of the USA’s contemporary writers. Richard Yates, John Cheever, John Updike and Carol Joyce Oates as contributing authors would be four superb reasons to buy this book alone, and yet there are more! Full of wonderful storytelling from cover to cover. Stories for Children – Oscar Wilde (Hodder Stoughton, £4.99) // Written by Wilde for his own children, these stories are full of the spark and wit you may recognise from his other more adult fiction. Satan in the Suburbs – Bertrand Russell (Spokesman Books, £7.99) // Well known for his philosophical texts, Russell’s first collection of short stories is, well… brilliant! Sinister, humorous and a little surreal. No-one Belongs Here More Than You – Miranda July (Canongate Books, £8.99) // This is a stunning collection of short stories from a wonderfully quirky and highly original writer. By turns surprising, amusing and touching, together they’ll fill you with a renewed sense of wonder at the world. The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin Books, £18.99) // This beautiful tome containing all 56 Holmes short stories, as well as four full-length novels, is a joyous, ingenious crimefiction tour-de-force from the man who invented the genre. The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl – Roald Dahl (Penguin Books, £16.99) // The master of children’s fiction was just as skillful at crafting dark and twisted tales for an adult audience. There’s a lot of fun to be had as this peerless storyteller lets his imagination run riot. Definitely not for the kids!
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Two Man Show
“The Gift” by Steven Lindsay
Philip Richardson and Steven Lindsay
Sept 17 - Oct 20
84 Hotwell Road, Bristol BS8 4UB Tel 0117 929 2527
www.limetreegallery.com
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DaysOut
family fun and trips away
Trail Blazing Julian Owen mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed for a crack at Ashton Court’s bike trails.
N
o two ways about it: I’m daunted. Daunted like Sunday morning, groggily facing a barrel-chested fast bowler after “Oh yeah, I can bat a bit” drunken braggadocio the night before, when the local cricket captain was looking for a last-minute stand-in. Until now I’d have told you *dismissive laugh* I know how to cycle. I mean, blimey, I face down Bristol traffic on a daily basis and head off along the National Cycle Network for me holidays. So when Days Out asked whether I fancied trying out the new mountain bike trails at Ashton Court I was, like, “Oh yeah, I can ride a bit.” Hang on... mountain bike trails? That’s where the big boys hang out, shaving pistonstrength legs for aerodynamic effect and nonchalantly leaping bikes priced like small family cars over fallen oak trees. Right..? So it’s just as well that I don’t know now – standing beside Ashton Court’s golf/cycle centre on a weekday afternoon – what I’ll learn later. Namely, that the track has been laid out
by Phil Saxena, Architrail MD, once chief racetrack designer on the world cup circuit. “We worked in 26 countries. Nearly 100 tracks.” Beijing Olympics included. Indeed, Ashton Court is listed as one of the official mountain bike training venues for the 2012 Olympics. Gulp... I head down the gravel path and turn left. Calm blue ocean calm blue ocean cal... woooah! And furthermore, whooosh and weeee! Boy, but this is fun, a series of thrillsome undulations and tightly twisting banked corners. It all feels rather ‘Junior Kickstart’, to the point where I fear that, if I fall off, a fleet of doddery St John Ambulance men will fall down behind me. A flying-at-full-speed cyclist on an expensive machine speeds by in the opposite direction and sniffs disdainfully. I assume this is because I’m on my tame-looking hybrid, pannier and all. Cuh. 50 yards later, at a crossroads, I see I assumed wrong. ‘No entry’ says the path ahead. I’ve been going the wrong way. Shamefaced I turn around and then, at the apex of a tight righthander, promptly fall off. Sitting on the ground, marginally shaken and checking my legs are still attached, I repentantly realise I’d give my kingdom
for the sight of a doddery St John Ambulance man. Back at the gravel path, I see a sign – discreet, but a sign nonetheless – that I should have turned right. By the time I’ve completed the 6.5km course, I also realise why I fell. As it details in belatedly read trail tips, “Look where you want to go, rather than at what you want to miss.” In short, lead the bike with your eyes. And consider me an absolute convert. For someone used to cycling and simultaneously appreciating disparate flora and fauna, this was an eye-opening contrast of full-on, adrenalinepumped concentration. “If you’ve had that experience, hopefully lots of other people will as well,” enthuses Phil. No fear on that score. “I’d be flabbergasted if there’s another trail that gets as much use,” says Paul Hawkins of 1SW, an organisation coordinating touristattracting cycling ‘hubs’ in the region. “In six weeks it clocked up 30,146 passes, an average of 412 per day, up from 160 [on the
estate’s original trail].” Phil has anecdotal evidence, too. “Any evening you’ll see people on £50 bikes right up to £6,000. And luckily, most of them look to be having lots of fun! Even though it’s got lots of lumps and bumps, the shape means it’s quite safe to ride. And it’s weatherproof, so you’ll be able to ride it in the depths of winter. Good fun for everyone. The oldest rider I’ve seen was 74. He came three times a week while we were
Ace racetrack designer Phil Saxena (far left) is the man behind Ashton Court's new mountain bike trails
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// The economic cycle //
www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99
// Increasingly, in many people’s eyes, cycling is seen as a political act. And generally – Bullingdon alumni Boris and Dave notwithstanding – it’s regarded as a vehicle of the left. Erroneously so, in your correspondent’s view, but not surprising. After all, by its road de-clogging, non-polluting nature, to travel by bike is an intrinsically communitarian gesture. Now, that’s a dainty fact to set before the choir, but not much good if you’re looking to impress the merits of cycling upon “No such thing as society” subscribers. So let’s shift the grounds of debate. Ideally, into the front garden of the boss Venue learned of who ordered an employee to drive half a mile to a meeting because arriving by bike “doesn’t project the right image”. Tell him this: at the end of August the London School of Economics released a report stating that regular cyclists take 7.4 sick days per year, compared with 8.7 sick days for non-cyclists. That equates to an annual saving of around £128m through reduced absenteeism, rising to a projected £2bn over the next 10 years. Good for our efficiency drive, eh, boss? Oh, and while I’m here, they also suggest that a 20% increase in cycling levels by 2015 could save further millions by way of reduced congestion, pollution levels and NHS costs. Now, that’s almost certain to come to pass, because cycling is not only good for economic growth at large, but a rapidly growing industry in itself, currently valued at some £2.9bn a year and rising sharply: 2010 saw 3.7 million bikes sold – a rise of 28% - and more than a million people take up cycling. Including your ever-slimmer secretary. Why not offer her and other cycling employees the same mileage expense rate as company car drivers? Purely for the efficiency drive, of course...
Wheels on fire! Blaze a (new) trail round one of Bristol's best green bits
working, just wishes they’d happened when he was younger.” Back to the aims of 1SW. “A lot of tourism in the South West is coastal-centric and very seasonal,” says Phil. “This is year round, not on the coast, so you alleviate pressure. We took a feasibility study and turned it into a funding bid working with people like Bristol City Council, National Trust, the Rural Development Programme for England and the Forestry Commission.” In November a trail will open in Leigh Woods, with Architrail also working on miniature BMX tracks in Cumberland Basin, Stockwood and Fishponds. Another benefit, says Phil, is that “it helps you to learn how to ride better. If you start commuting to work in the morning you’re a safer rider because you’re used to throwing the bike around twists and turns.” He doesn’t sniff at my bike choice. “We’ve had people up there on road bikes, even. We love all kinds of cycling, and want other people to do it. If you get kids used to riding their bikes all the time, and loving it, it means when they get to school age they’ll start riding there and hopefully continue when they get to working age. They’ll be healthier, happier people. Trying to persuade someone who drives a BMW to work each morning
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to commute by bike in the rain is probably more difficult than catching them young.” Important note. I rode the ‘moderate’ blue trail. What did I miss on the red one, Paul? “You’d have encountered steeper drops, bigger corners. Fundamentally with the blue trail you should be able to pedal around it sitting in your saddle and not fall off. That sounds a bit derogatory...” Not at all, I protest, without elaboration. “On the red trail, unless you start working the bike – standing up, pushing it around – you’re gonna really struggle.” Bit much for me at the moment, but after a little more practice? That’s the point, says Paul. “If we’d only built an extreme trail for the same old people to ride, we’d keep them happy but not really achieve a lot. But all the informal feedback says we’ve got a lot of genuinely new people. Once you’ve ridden It's Boris. With a bike it a few times, look at the 1SW website and see what else is there: ‘OK, I’m going on holiday to Cornwall next month, I’ll take my bike’.” Come springtime, the current hut will be replaced with a golf/cycle centre, in 30-minute riding range of 300,000 people. I’ll be the one with hybrid, pannier and broad grin. FFI ON 1SW AND A MAP OF THE NEW TRAILS: WWW.1SW.ORG.UK FFI ARCHITRAIL: WWW.ARCHITRAIL. CO.UK
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Skills//Gay Diversity challenge “Diversity is a gift,” says the director of a unique careers fair at At-Bristol this month. Anna Britten and Darryl W Bullock find out why an inclusive workplace is good for everyone.
I
t’s easy to typecast people. We all make assumptions about who is the “right type of person” to be our friend, neighbour, sweetheart, Twitter pal. Employers are no different. As a result, many groups are under-represented in or excluded from the British workplace. The need increases for greater diversity in all areas of British working life – and Bath and even racially variegated Bristol are no exception. As Oona King wrote in a newspaper last year: “We’re further adrift than most people realise. For example, in the ‘real world’, just over half of British people are women. But in ‘TV world’, only a third of television people (fictional characters, newsreaders, chat show hosts etc) are women, and I would hazard a guess that they are disproportionately pretty and under 30 at that. Disabled people and gay people fare even worse.” All of which is the sort of thing to make the old school Alan Sugars of this world harrumph, of course. Yet savvy businesses are realising that a diverse workforce can make good business sense, too. For example, by 2025, nearly half the population will be aged over 50. Organisations that practise ageism will lose out at they miss out on a huge talent pool. Diversity drives up profits, too – the estimated disposable income of the UK’s ethnic minority market is £32 billion, the LGBT market’s disposable income £70 billion, and the closer a workforce reflects the
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customer base it serves, the more likely it is to tap into some of that wealth. In short, good businesses will not use the economic situation as an excuse to push diversity on to the back burner. They will take account of race, disability and gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief and gender reassignment. Diversity Careers, taking place in Bristol this month, is a multi-spectrum careers event looking at all strands of diversity from BME (black and minority ethnic) to LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and aims to bring together jobseekers and graduates from all walks of life with employers who will value them. The day will also feature traders, representatives from local universities and there’s even an after-party, from 6pm at the Shore Café Bar in the nearby Bristol Hotel: another opportunity for informal networking. Director Daryn Carter will be known to many for his role in bringing Bristol Pride to fruition for the last two years. He also
worked as a diversity champion at the BBC. His new venture sees him pushing a diversity message alongside partners Stonewall and organisations such as Pride as well as local and national firms, including GE Energy, Hewlett Packard, St Pauls Carnival, Cabot Circus, Google, Jobcentre+, BBC, Ernst &
Daryn Carter (right - and pictured below with Amy Wilson and Anna Rutherford of Pride Bristol) launches a new inclusive careers fair in Bristol this month
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For a brochure and details of forthcoming courses please telephone The Clifton Practice 0117 317 9278 or simple visit our comprehensive website www.cpht.co.uk
Venue Publishing, publishers of market-leading titles such as Venue and Folio Magazines, has a vacancy in its Bristol office
Publications Co-ordinator Part-time (20 hours) maternity cover (6 months)
This vital role involves ensuring the smooth flow of copy between advertisers and the production department. The Publications Coordinator will also provide administrative back up to the sales and production departments. The ideal candidate will be flexible, enthusiastic and able to work to tight deadlines in a fast-paced but friendly environment. The post requires attention to detail and excellent organizational skills. You will be both literate and computer literate, with a good working knowledge of Word, Outlook and Excel. Hours are flexible, you would need to work a minimum of 4 days per week preferably 5 days per week. This is a temporary job providing maternity cover; you will be given a 6-month contract. Duties •B uild and maintain good working relationship with advertisers on a number of publications and websites. • L iaise with these advertisers to advise on deadlines, collate copy and provide proofs. •P rocess incoming copy for ads, proof read completed artwork and liaise between advertiser and production with any amendments. •G eneral clerical duties including filing, mailshots, creating and updating databases, and answering the phone. Renumeration £6.25 per hour Please email your CV and a covering letter explaining why this is the perfect job for you to Commercial Manager Becky Davis: b.davis@ venue.co.uk No phone calls please. No agencies Venue is an equal opportunities employer
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// NEWS //
Skills//Gay
Pedals and paper houses Skills to grab this month
An office erupts into action, yesterday
Young, Bristol City Council, Bevan Brittan, Burges Salmon, Enterprise Cars, Beachcroft, JP Morgan, the RAF and British Library amongst others. Companies who want to get involved can still do so by emailing daryn@ diversitycareers.org “Thanks to my background, I’ve been engaging with lots of different communities in and around the Bristol area, from LGBT to women’s charities, and many of the people I spoke to were saying that they felt there weren’t enough opportunities for them in the workplace, or anywhere they could go for
specific information. Listening to them inspired me to set up Diversity Careers.” Carter feels that, for even the biggest organisations, the need for diversity is still something it’s too easy to sweep under the carpet – especially in a recession. The solution lies, he believes, with concerned individuals. “People need to stand up and say to their employers, ‘Well, what do you do about diversity?’ It’s so easy for people in a company to become complacent and not want to rock the boat, especially in a recession, but it’s important to look and see what
Working Out // It may be the 21st century, and the LGBT community may have come a long way along the road towards full equality, but sadly some people still have to face discrimination and homophobia in the workplace. All employees are protected by the Equality Act 2010, yet it seems that message of acceptance and tolerance isn’t filtering through to everyone, a shame since research from
Stonewall (founded by Sir Ian McKellen - pictured) suggests that “concealing sexual orientation at work reduces productivity by up to 30%, and people who are out in supportive workplaces are more creative, loyal and productive”. According to the 2010 Out Now State of the UK Workplace Report, many LGBT workers felt uncomfortable with the undercurrents of homophobia flowing through the workplace, commenting on the negative impact of homophobic jokes bandied about in workplaces for example. FFI: VISIT WWW. STONEWALL.ORG.UK
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your company does, not only for existing staff members but also in reaching out. If someone hears about this event, or Pride, they should take it to their boss and say, ‘How can we get involved?’” While only the crustiest oddities now bat an eyelid about the right of ethnic minorities and women to feel at home in the nation’s businesses, there remain several other groups still struggling for the same level of acceptance. “Having worked in the LGBT field for six years I have found that people often feel unable to come out at work. Even though homophobia is on the agenda in terms of the outside world, of feeling safe on the streets, a lot of people have been saying ‘Yes, but I would never come out at work.’ There’s a lot of concern about how coming out will affect them in terms of promotion, and how their colleagues will treat them. That needs addressing. We’re seeing a lot more LGBT staff networks, for example at Tesco. “The main reason for doing this event is that there’s a feeling of a lack of support coming through LGBT community groups about where to go for job information or where to get advice on careers. I worked with the BBC for 10 years and still heard stories about homophobia, or from people who felt unable to come out at work.” Along with companies keen to attract new talent, the day will also feature guest speakers, workshops on interview skills and help with writing the
// High-quality Bikeability cycle training is being made available to local school children for free by B&NES from this autumn – it previously cost £20 per child. It is hoped the number of young people taking part in the training will rise substantially from last year’s 900. The Bikeability training standard is designed to give the next generation of cyclists the skills and confidence to ride their bikes on today’s roads and is part of the council’s ongoing efforts to encourage young people to walk or cycle to school together with its Safer Routes to School programme and BikeIt project. Schools are already booking through an easy to use and convenient online system via www.cyclinginstructor.com // Crazy about all things Japanese? Machiya – The Delicate Townhouses Of Kyoto is an illustrated lecture by expert Pauline Chakmakjian, a Trustee of the Japan Society of the UK and founder of The Japan Room cultural salon. Machiya townhouses (pictured) are found mainly in central Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, and are unique and charming architectural phenomena. The lecture takes place at the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath from 6.308pm on Thur 20 Oct. Places are free but must be booked in advance. Ffi: www.meaa.org.uk // Also at MEAA, three afternoons of origami workshops as part of Heritage Open Week (Mon 24-Fri 28 Oct). Turn up to the Assembly Rooms between 2pm and 3.30pm Wed 26-Fri 28 Oct to help make some of Bath’s buildings for a giant origami version of the city. You can also make your own origami houses to take home. The workshops are free and operate on a drop-in basis. Ffi: www.meaa.org.uk
venuemagazine
9/27/2011 4:10:59 PM
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LANGUAGES
Leftbank
Learn Spanish and French at Leftbank New courses for Beginners and Improvers with qualified tutors Tel: 0117 944 4433 or email: nick@leftbankcentre.co.uk 128 Cheltenham Road, Bristol, BS6 5RW www.leftbankcentre.co.uk
OFFICE & STUDIO SPACE
Synthesizer & mallet percussion players wanted. Alternative Bristol band seeks two intuitive musicians for live shows http://volander.bandcamp.com Tel: Stef 07970 281 952 stef@toyboxstudios.co.uk
Accredited by Worcester University Now in its 16th year
Experiential Introduction to Dramatherapy: models, methods & their application
Taster:3rd-5th June Bath
T: 01225 427601 Rachel@scenario59.freeserve.co.uk www.dramatherapy.org.uk
HAIRDRESSER Established Hair Salon lease for sale in prime city centre location ffi: ads@venue.co.uk
Relaxed informal lessons - music awareness / theory / technique - work towards grades or simple arrangements - good rates - can travel to you. 35 yrs experience / working musician David 07980 369776 davidmguitar@gmail.com www.myspace.com/davidmguitar
PIANO TEACHER WANTED
Piano tutor / player– experienced in playing boogie woogie – wanted to give me tuition. Contact Bernie 07748 038407 fitnessb1@yahoo.co.uk
Piano & Vocal Tuition Experienced tutor has been teaching privately and in colleges for 10 years. ✓ Classical and Contemporary repertoire ✓ Music Theory and Ear Training ✓ Preparation for Exams and GCSEs ✓ Composition for children ✓ All levels welcome! Please contact Elena on
07889 489657
elenakay_lawson@hotmail.com www.myspace.com/elenakaymusic
www. venue. co.uk
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full colour
£175 +VAT
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Classified enquires:
t: 0117 942 8491 // b.davis@venue.co.uk
MUSIC TUITION Harmonica Tuition All styles - all levels - all ages. Professional teacher with CRB. Contact Moses T Jones 07707 193437 Moses.jones88@yahoo.com
TUITION
HOMES, GARDENS & GREEN BUSINESS
Italian lessons
with qualified Italian teacher. Call Agata
0117 9502 320 Art Tuition
Evening painting class and daytime, outdoor sketching class. Bristol based. 07971 620572. andrewhardwickwith @blueyonder.co.uk
TRADES PEOPLE WANTED
WANTED
TALENTED TRADESMEN
TALENTED APPRENTICES
To restore an historic building & create a DIY film. If you can demonstrate your skill to camera & have an artistic entertaining passion & can work & party hard – call
To restore an historic building & create a DIY film. If you would like to learn general building trades & have an artistic & entertaining talent, good on camera & can work & party hard – call
GREAT BRITISH FESTIVALS 0117 9736948
Using environmentally friendly products
Tel us on 07805632527
HEALTH & WELL BEING
GREAT BRITISH FESTIVALS 0117 9736948
VAN HIRE
MAN WITH
VAN DELIVERY & REMOVALS ESTABLISHED 1995 Call Kosta on
H: 0117 9553782 M: 07970 590807
PAINLESS REMOVALS
Stephanie Betschart
100% Reliable, Efficient and
Free Initial Consultation:
Professional. Fully Covered.
07977 889747
KEITH HALL GARDENS
88 // OCTOBER 2011
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HPD SFBT(Hyp) MNCH(lic)
07731 784 254 Clinics in Clifton, Bishopston & Windmill Hill
www.stephanie-hypnotherapy.co.uk
Steve 0117 941 2689
Counselling
With experienced counsellor For individuals and couples Freddi Manson DipCouns. MBACP Please phone for a chat 07792 186 720 / freddihello@hotmail.com www.freddimansonbristol.co.uk
Thinking about changing the world?
re l a t e
Why not start with yourself and then help one or two others. Become a volunteer Relate counsellor and work with adults and children experiencing relationship difficulties. • You will need to be available for 6 to 8 hours per week. • Counselling experience is helpful but not necessary. • Join us at Relate in supporting the most difficult
challenge going – relationships!
• We work in Bristol, Bath and Weston-s-Mare. • Telephone 0117 9428444
OPTION 4
full colour
£25 +VAT
Small w43 x h20mm
The Assessment & Therapy Service
Domestic and Commercial Gardening
For your free estimate Please call 0117 9024765 | 07817 971 568
For positive changes today
Est. 1978
HOMES, GARDENS & GREEN BUSINESS Fencing, Hedge cutting, planting, turfing and Tree work. Lawns, pruning and clearance. Decking, Pergolas, Ponds and Wooden Structures.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
All aspects of Garden Design and Gardening Garden Design, Planting Plans, Plant Sourcing & Installation, Garden Maintenance, Gardening Consultation and advice. Enquiries contact Louise Palmer (t) 01179 668991 / (m) 07761117393 (e) Lou_palmer21@hotmail.com
Assessing and treating a wide range of mental health problems. For example: • depression • anxiety • trauma • OCD Clinics in various locations around Bristol. Daytime and evening appointments available. For more information contact Dr Matthew Simmonite (Clinical Psychologist) on 07801993966 or send enquiries to matthewsimmonite@yahoo.co.uk
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October 1 //Mr Gay UK (pictured) The Queenshilling, 9 Frogmore St, Bristol, BS1 5NA, free before 11pm. Ffi: www.queenshilling. com • Once again the Queenshilling hosts the Bristol heat of Mr Gay UK. There’s a holiday in Morocco, £2,000 plus a photo-shoot for the cover of BENT magazine for the winner.
Meet BBC, Cabot Circus and Hewlett Packard recruiters at the Diversity Careers Fair
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offers a safe, affordable space for gay and bisexual men and women to enjoy a cuppa, some conversation and the opportunity to meet others. October 14 // Diversity Careers Day AtBristol, Anchor Rd, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5DB, free. Ffi: www. diversitycareers.org • See feature on p.84. October 16 // Lesbian & Children Network Ffi: 07813 754291 or rachely@ talktalk.net • Kid-friendly walk around Snuff Mills, starting at 2.30pm.
// Bear Day The Bath House, Lower Floor, Century House, 3-4 Pierrepont St, Bath, BA1 1LE. Ffi: 01225 465725 or www. thebathhouse.org.uk • Bath’s gay sauna hosts its monthly Bears’ special.
perfect CV. “I’ve been speaking to a range of different companies and have been overwhelmed with their response,” says Daryn. “And it’s not just for people who have suffered discrimination; you might simply want to work for an employer that shares your own values. Some HR teams, for example, have said that they have wanted to do this because they are aware of problems in their own workplace; they want to show the employees they already have that they value them. “Mental health is another area that is going to be coming up on a lot of people’s agendas – it’s classed as a disability but a lot of people are scared to admit they’ve got a mental health problem because they’re worried about how they’ll be treated. It comes down to a lack of understanding.” Carter insists it is in companies’ interests to embrace diversity. “Diversity is a gift. Any type of difference in the working world should always be welcomed. Companies have a legal requirement to support
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diversity but actually it is really good for the workplace, from teamwork to creativity. Furthermore, the public is loyal if it sees an organisation that is aligned with their own values.” Naturally, Diversity Careers itself offers a very broad admission policy. “We’re hoping to attract everyone – all jobseekers, especially people from one of the many diverse communities in the Bristol area. People who want advice on CVs or interview skills, and people who are working within a company and thinking it’s time for a change. We welcome absolutely everyone, even those who do not feel they fall into an underrepresented group, to come along and talk to over 50 companies, with more being added every day. Local interest has been really good. Big firms have been telling me that it’s a great idea and that they’re really keen to support it.” DIVERSITY CAREERS TAKES PLACE ON FRI 14 OCT AT AT-BRISTOL, ANCHOR RD, BRISTOL BS1 5DB. FFI: WWW.DIVERSITYCAREERS.ORG
// Primal Red October Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol, BS2 0NW, 10pm-4am (no entry after 1.30am), £8 members/£10 guests. Ffi: www.clubprimal.co.uk • The members-only club night for guys into the fetish scene. Strict dress code: rubber, leather, military (pictured), biker, skin, construction kit, uniform or, for the brave, naked or jockstraps and boots. No jeans or trainers allowed, unless part of skinhead or construction worker’s gear.
October 2 // Living Springs Metropolitan Community Church United Reformed Church Halls, Grove St, Bath, BA2 6PJ, 6pm • Gay church, open to all. Recognition and blessing of relationships offered. This year’s Harvest Thanksgiving service is combined with Living Springs’ 22nd anniversary celebration. October 8 // The Rainbow Cafe St Michael’s Centre, next to Little Theatre Cinema, off Westgate St, Bath, BA1 1SG, 10.30am12.30pm. Ffi: 0870 811 1990 • Organised by Gay West, each Saturday the Rainbow Café
October 20 // Indigo Library, Goldbrick House, Park St, Bristol, BS1 5PB, 8pm, £5 (inc glass of prosecco). Facebook: Indigo Bristol • The popular networking group hosts their monthly get-together for lesbian/bi/queer women in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. October 21 // BLUF at GEAR Bristol Club O, 7 Lawrence Hill, Bristol, BS5 0BY, 9pm-4am, £10 (membership free but required for entry). Ffi: www. gearbristol.co.uk • Gear, the club for gay men into rubber, work wear, leather and sports kit, is hosting the launch party for BLUF Bristol, a new club for guys into leather uniforms. October 28 // Horseplay Halloween Nightmares (pictured) The Cavern Club (under The Crown), All Saints Lane, St Nicholas Market, Bristol, BS1 1JH, £4/£3 before 12midnight. Ffi: www. facebook.com/HorseplayBristol • Night for gay/bi guys and girls and their friendly friends. Confront your worst nightmares with a special Halloween Horseplay. Dress up as the thing that you fear most and dance those scares away. Jockeys PonyM, Bronco and Jim Carna soundtrack your terror with dirty disco, synth and house, cheap beer and a house party vibe.
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HUNGRY FOR MORE? Flip the page for Venue & Folio’s food & drink mini-mag, Eating Out West
Skills//Gay
// THE MONTH AHEAD //
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