Blog Page 1567
5 Steps to Bluffing Cinephilia
Cinephilia (n): Not a nasty virus or a particularly niche sex-crime (although it can be either. Or both.), cinephilia is a love of cinema, and this Oscars season you too can join the fun:
- Master the Jargon: The key to sounding like a cinephile – your best bet is calling everything “Interesting”. With a capital ‘I’. Yes it’s totally without meaning, but it sounds analytical. Also try “meta/pastiche/derivative” or a combination of all three, with prefixes like “proto/post/psuedo”. You could even go for “aspect-ratio” or “sound-mixing” if you’re feeling ambitious. If you get really stuck just talk about the phalanges.
- Have more impressive favourite films: Put the BFI ‘Sight and Sound’ Top 20 List in hat. Pick out four. Wikipedia the plots. These are now four of your five favourite films. Be sure to instagram well-worn DVD covers of these four with bowls of popcorn with caption along the lines of: ‘Just Me and Battleship Potempkin again. #Director’sCut.’
- Get a bit meta: Speaking of favourite movies: Cinema Paradiso. It’s now your ‘omfgfavouritemovieofalltimeever’. You know how Harry Potter is all wise because his greatest fear is dementors, and they embody fear itself? Cinema Paradiso is a film about loving cinema. It’s your new equivalent: a film of the cinephile, by the cinephile, for the cinephile. Pseudo-Meta-Interesting.
- Lead (dominate) the Conversation: Never be content to talk about the actual film in discussion. Make constant reference to earlier work/short films/that one that was only shown that one time in one cinema in a bunker in St Petersburg in 1923.
- For actual info we heart IMDb/Empire Magazine/Rotten Tomatoes. Or watch some films and have some thoughts. Your call.
From Stage to Screen: Les Misérables
★★★★☆
Four Stars
Nominated for eight Oscars, this adaptation of the stage classic is directed by Tom Hooper and stars an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, and Amanda Seyfried. The film tells the story of Jean Valjean, a former prisoner who becomes mayor of a town in France. Valjean agrees to take care of Cosette, the illegitimate daughter of Fantine, and must avoid being captured again by Javert, a police inspector. This blockbuster cost an estimated $61 million to make, but has already broken the record for opening weekend box office sales for a musical.
I can’t act. And I certainly can’t sing. So for me, at least, the magic of musicals is that some people can. They really can. And, if you’re lucky enough to be sitting in a theatre, these people are belting out those songs right before your very eyes.
I can vividly recall seeing Les Mis in the West End, but it isn’t the faces of the characters which I recall but the spine-tingling ohdear-lord-I-think-I’m-going-to-cry moment as they start to sing ‘One Day More!’ Never have I wanted to be able to sing more than at that moment. And never have I been more relieved to be sitting in a darkened room where no-one can see me sneakily weeping.
Unfortunately, there was no surreptitious sniffling from me in the cinema. Some of the magic was missing. Whether it was actually being able to see Anne Hathaway’s face (daubed in something amusingly akin to plaster of Paris) as Fantine lies dying, or seeing the revolutionaries’ barricade put in perspective amidst the backdrop of the city, blocking merely a side street instead of dominating the whole of the stage: something just wasn’t quite as powerful.
Despite some dramatic helicopter-shots across the French alps as Valjean makes his penitential pilgrimage homewards, and scenes swooping through the labyrinthine streets of 19th century Paris, somehow the grandeur is missing; and against such a backdrop, the characters struggle to assume the epic proportions of the stage.
Nevertheless, there are moments which are all the better on the silver screen. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are fantastic as the swindling innkeepers; The ‘Master of the House’ scene is a jaunty cacophony of trickery. Madame Thernadier spins from table to table, nabbing hats, purses and even the odd glass eye, whilst the Master cheerily serves up a pint of piss. Their reappearance at the wedding – Cohen in a fetching pin-striped yellow suit – is a welcome relief from the focus on the semi-boring Marius and Cosette.
Focus on the solos is occasionally tedious (Russell Crowe’s voice is plain boring, even if he is teetering on the precipice of a tower for ‘Stars’);however, Eponine’s ‘Little Fall of Rain’ and ’On My Own’ are touching, even if a little bit of a soggy sentimentalist cliché (girl is sad; cue rain).
Hugh Jackman as Valjean makes a miraculous transformation from a mangy inmate to a rather dapper, high-collared gentleman (I would), and Gavroche has all the chipper, alright gu’vnor gumption of the Artful Dodger. I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. I might have welled up at ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’. Both times.
Review: Splash!
★☆☆☆☆
One Star
After the hysteria of the Olympics passed, it seems that many an athlete found themselves flung to the summit of Mount Celebrity. Bright-eyed and able-bodied they may be, but rarely are they blessed with that sparkling charisma which is required to navigate the rocky path to media personality, before the country’s attention switches to the next batch of lobotomised karaoke stars.
Come 2016 there will be no contorted, gurning, slightly terrifying cartoons plastered across the underground to remind us that we’re (apparently) really into sports. In order to strike while the iron’s hot, PR teams have mobilised faster than Britney’s post-Vegas annulment and have carved TV careers out of toned bodies, good bone structure, and little else.
We have gawked at the abs on display in the swimming pool, but as US gold medallist Ryan Lochte demonstrated when grunting his way through a 90210 cameo (then commenting on the difficulty of “memorizing lines and trying to, like, say them and still, like, do movement”), Olympians should stick to what they do best: running, jumping, and looking good in lycra.
No exception to the rule is Tom Daley, British diving bronze medallist and tween heartthrob whose autocue-reading skills are about as natural as a GCSE French Oral. Olympian hero-worship is second only to fawning over K-Mid’s royal foetus in the list of things that make me want to emigrate to the Siberian tundra. Combine it with a ‘Celebrity’ reality show, however, and you have another thing altogether. It’s a peculiar vein of schadenfreude that’s brought out by watching those desperately clinging onto the outer fringes of the D-list undergo all manner of demeaning rituals on national television.
I’ve sat through them regurgitating animal entrails on I’m a Celebrity, felt kind of weird watching them go cold turkey on Celebrity Rehab and still can’t shake the image of Rebecca Loos’ porcine masturbation on The Farm. ITV, in all its infinite wisdom, has a particular knack for taking slightly more respectable competitions and adding in the potential for serious bodily harm (see Dancing on Ice; like Strictly Come Dancing, but everyone’s waiting for the inevitable ice-skate to the jugular).
In the Daley-fest that is Splash!, not only are contestants forced to endure Chirpy Northerner Vernon Kay, but they must also throw themselves off a diving board higher than two double-decker buses. Just in case the promise of seeing celebrities hurtling towards possible injury doesn’t grab your attention (which, for those of us who saw Jade Ewen as the final nail in the Sugababes coffin, is more than enough), producers have added dubstep and glitzy set-pieces.
There are also tarted-up swimming costumes which wouldn’t look out of place in a strip joint and a dive/dance opening number strangely reminiscent of the final pageant routine in Miss Congeniality. Oh, and Jo Brand is one of the judges.
America’s War of Independence from Guns
On Tuesday, Vice-President Joe Biden outlined plans for US gun law reform, which if implemented might be the first major federal gun law passed in almost two decades. As yet, chances of success are slim, expectations low, and opposition unrelenting. Pro- gun lobbyists have the constitution on their side. However, Sandy Hook is Obama’s chance to redirect the focus of the gun debate away from the rhetoric which maintains that to carry and own a collection of guns is integral to the ‘American dream’.
Some fear that stricter regulation will cause a rise in gun crime. Yet this is hard to judge, just as competency in using guns successfully for self-defence is difficult to prove. If those who used to procure guns legally now continue to do so illegally, that may contribute to crime figures, even though no casualties have been inflicted. There is also scope for selective interpretation in how necessary guns are for survival. A 1995 survey revealed that guns are used for self-defence in the US around 2.5 million times a year. However, ‘self-defence’ could be interpreted as merely ‘carrying’ (and as a consequence deterring the criminal from action in the first place). Guns make you feel safer; they don’t necessarily make you safer. Paranoia appears to cloud the belief that hav- ing a gun is akin to saving a life.
Changes hinted at by the Obama administration so far should be effective. Obama prioritises the problem of mass shooting, and with such strong opposition, he would be wise not to begin by tackling the problem of gun crime in its entirety. While the changes might not reduce the number of incidents, it should reduce the casualty rate. Adding more types of gun to the list of banned firearms would reduce the chance of a semi-automatic firearm with a large magazine capacity inflicting a higher level of damage on civilians. Speaking emotionally on Thursday, Biden stressed three times how the children were not just shot but “riddled” with bullets. Since 1982 there have been 62 mass shootings, and of the 142 guns owned by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. Must they allow weapons with the potential to claim so many lives at once to remain on the legal list?
The US has not only a large number of mass shootings for a highly developed country but also the largest number of school shootings in the world, most infamously Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and most recently in Taft Union High School. Obama said in his response to Sandy Hook: “As a country, we have been through this too many times.” The individualist gun mentality of ‘each man for himself’ will not prevent disasters like these from happening, and can hardly be a palliative for them afterwards.”
The use of firearms by “well-regulated militia” to protect against tyranny is clearly not relevant in a modern, developed state. Rather, the pro-gun lobby is more concerned with preserving the gun industry, the annual contribution of which equals the US budget for the arts. Hence the 2nd Amendment is wantonly interpreted out of context by pro-gun lobbyists, who never mention their financial investment in guns.
On the other hand, perhaps America is beginning to win the war against guns: fewer and fewer Americans own guns, as rising levels of gun ownership actually reflect an increase in gun collecting. After the Aurora massacre gun sales rose in the anticipation that Obama would try to re-implement Clinton’s Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994, which expired in 2004. These are just the withdrawal symptoms of a decreasing number of gun owners.
The rehabilitation planned to wean Americans off their guns is not unreasonable, and in the light of the shooting at Aurora, it makes sense. The ‘assault weapons’ banned by the 1994 Act were used by the killer, who might not have acquired them if they had been illegal. In any case, it is more rational than the National Rifle Association’s proposal to install a policeman at each school. Nor should we rely on the ‘easy’ digital solution of expanding questionnaires. Simply adding provisions to the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) is not enough. Bush, who refused to renew Clinton’s Act, was willing to improve upon the background check system, but that did not prevent mass shootings reaching double digits in 2012 alone. Obama can do better.
There might be no clear solution to the problem of mass shooting, but a gun is an unlikely answer. In the last 30 years no mass shooting has been stopped by an armed civilian, and the potential fatality at Taft Union High last Thursday was avoided by an unarmed teacher. Crucially, mass shootings are often an extension of the killer’s suicide plan, and a person with nothing to lose must be a lot harder to deter by intimidation. This was the case for Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook.
The fact is that even Switzerland, a country just as protective of its gun rights as the US (both were nations born out of a military struggle for independence), has fewer loopholes in its gun legislation. In 2008 it joined the Schengen Treaty and adapted its laws to the European standard. Why do US states hesitate to do the same for their own federal government?In theUS a background check is not required to purchase a gun privately (i.e. at gun shows or on the internet), but in Switzerland while a permit is not needed to purchase a gun at a store, it is now needed for private gun trading, and privately acquired weapons over the past 10 years must be registered. What effect might that have had at Columbine, where one of the shooters purchased his guns at a gun show? What if the Sandy Hook shooter’s mother hadn’t been a gun collector? We’ll never know unless we at least give gun law reform a trial.
The Feminist Question
“To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don’t know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan.”
This is how Julie Burchill chose to characterise transsexual inequality in Sunday’s Observer. The piece was a follow-up to a fight between her long-standing friend and fellow journo, Suzanne Moore, and the ‘transsexual lobby’. In its deceptively plain and respectable typeface, the piece exemplifies the problem of populist feminist debate: introspective, self-referential, and happily couched within the gentility of leftist Comment sections, feminism is defined in the public consciousness by a small set of loudly proclaimed representatives. The debate is small and insular, founded on the preservation of small and insular groups. It reflects a political sphere in which black women have their own distinct and separate niche, as though middle-ground feminism is synonymous with a middle-class, white majority.
The recent history of feminism goes some way towards explaining this state of affairs. Women in the media have, in the past few decades, admirably and doggedly kept women’s issues in the spotlight, and in referring to themselves as feminists, forwarded the idea of feminism as an integral element of daily politics. Yet as a result, the evolution of feminism as a public entity has been shaped in the discussions of a narrow media elite. The vast majority of the public aren’t interested enough, committed enough, or possessed of enough time to explore the happenings of global feminist activism, or youth feminist blogging, or intellectual feminist criticism. They get their feminism from the media, to the effect that the ‘ivory-tower’ accusations so often levelled at leftist media end up colouring the image of feminism; and feminism has plenty of that, without the Observer’s help.
When ‘the issues’ are referred to – rape conviction rates, the gender pay gap, or similar – the term ‘feminism’ does not feature. It is used, instead, in pieces like Burchill’s, debating the internal politics of a self-defined world. As a result, feminism becomes easily separated from the issues, to the detriment of that great mass of activists who do their incredible and essential work under the unhappy banner of ‘feminism’.
Part of the problem is the nature of ‘feminism’ as a political entity – neither disparate nor united, and unsupported by a concrete agenda, or even common policies. The term means something different in every instance of its use. If a word is, in operation, defined largely by the way in which it is understood as opposed to the meaning intended, then ‘feminism’ is almost always lost in reception. It’s paradoxical, then, that feminism has got a reputation for exclusivity partly because it is so diverse and universal. It’s impossible to find cohesion in an ideology that encompass- es the interests of half the world’s population.
The answer is not to try. Cohesion isn’t necessary in feminism, any more than it is possible. Unity and community must be main- tained, though, even where agreement is not. So often the ‘core principles’ of feminism come down to debates between essentially compatible camps, which not only perpetu- ates a detrimental public image and detracts from the important interests of the warring parties, but also obfuscates the ideology of the movement as a whole.
Julie Burchill has made the feminist debate about herself and her cohort, pitting a false, generalised ‘us’ against a false, generalised ‘them’. But the interests and opinions of transsexuals as individuals within a movement dif- fer no more widely from the ‘average’ feminist than ‘average’ feminists’ opinions differ from one another. Burchill, in attacking any interest that chooses to group together beneath feminism’s banner, is guilty of defaming the larger, already embittered, company.
Feminism is founded on an immovable principle of equality. If any element within the whole is seen to hold preference or primacy, or if any element is set below the rest, then the entire ideology is undermined.
Review: The Handmaid’s Tale
★★☆☆☆
Two Stars
The crucial issue with this interpretation of The Handmaid’s Tale is you absolutely need to have read the book. If unfamiliar with the story then entry into this extremely experimental piece of theatre will scare you – and possibly cover you in red cloth. Also enter aware that this is an opera. Against a haunting background of accordions, strings, piano, a cappella and by the end several large glass empty bowls, the story of Offred is played out.
A ‘Handmaid’, or birth surrogate, in the totalitarian regime of a future American dystopia, the constant change of actress portraying her character is another source of confusion; although it did highlight well the loss of personal identity, this theme is more effectively conveyed before anyone sits down. A mute selection of performers direct audience members to remove their coats and shoes to be draped instead in the striking crimson dress of the Handmaid’s, who then – silently – escorts you to your seat, creating an opressive mood instantly.
The successful scenes continue in this vein, expanding upon Atwood’s themes. The ceremony is distinct, made even more dehumanising and uncomfortable than one could imagine, by the lack of a bed but also the most effective use throughout of repetition in song. The epilogue strikes the correct note of scholarly satire and clarification while the recorded tapes are also used well.
However, the majority of scenes dragged on too long. Multiple long pauses of almost five minutes left audience members wondering if this was a technical fault or a chance for poignant reflection. If the latter, again while once an effective technique, it was, like many others in this piece, overused. Played out atop a giant scrabble board some metaphors are stretched to their extreme and in many cases, while Atwood’s prose is award-winning, do not suffer well the conversion to song.
The music takes precedence. Melancholy notes are evocative although they never seem to reach a high volume and impactful crescendo, which may also have made the end of this production easy to spot. While it tries hard this production is undeveloped though coloured with a few strikes of potential.
Diary of an Angel
Becky Luffman (Set designer)
We’ve been building the set for the last three days, and it’s shaping up quite nicely. Having never even handled a handsaw before, I am learning a lot of things quite quickly. It’s great to watch the set being made, though seeing it in in reality is strange; my 2D sketches are now something that people – actor people – will actually need to walk around in. I just hope that once it is finished I can begin to get excited about the show happening, right now it’s more of an impatient child demanding my attention that I’m shushing with one hand as I drill with another. This is the first Playhouse show that I’ve been involved in, so the pressure is on!
Jack Sain (Director)
With less than two weeks to go, it’s quite a long time since I drifted into my friend’s room and told him about a play I thought was fantastic. Now we’re knee deep, I can’t believe so much has been achieved in such a relatively short space: Angels is an amazing play, but nothing if not a challenge.
DESIGN TEAM: “So does the Angel actually have to fly?”
ME: “Yes.”
DESIGN TEAM: “I don’t think that’s actually been done by students before, Jack.”
ME: “Cool.”
Asking a twenty-year old girl to play an octogenarian rabbi is equally hard, to say nothing of onstage nudity and putting some very confidently heterosexual men very far out of their comfort zones (which in fairness they’ve done with admirable zest). And it’s a brilliant play: I can shroud it in many layers of pseudo-intellectual bollocks, but that’s the simple fact. Yes, it’s about social issues, yes it’s about politics, yes it may cause some schoolboy giggling (bloody hope so too), but it’s also a really, good play. And that makes it all worth it: I’ve loved every second. Fingers crossed you guys do too.
Jessica Campbell (Associate Artist)
I came on board as the dubiously-named ‘associate artist’. It’s turning out to be one of the best roles in student theatre: helping with rehearsals, watching runs and offering comments – or keeping schtum as one sees fit. The Angels cast shows off the absolute best – though the seven (brutally charming) men outnumber the three (equally impressive) women, so one leaves the rehearsals drenched in thespian testosterone. The play’s homosexual relationships make for some of the most interesting confrontations and its surprising to see how even Oxford’s finest are at times unnerved by the gay scenes. In rehearsals these are often followed by a short exchange of notes from the lucky participants: ‘No more pre-kiss peanuts, ok?’, ‘No Thai sweet chilli crisps’, ‘Don’t be so awkward with your arms…’ I won’t reveal which performers test their heterosexual nerves, but rest assured, watching their relationships form and break apart is devastating – and also pretty sexy.
Holly Morse (Costumier)
The challenge: source costumes for a play set in 80s NYC featuring a fantastic array of characters including a rabbi, a drag queen, an Eskimo, an angel…. This should be easy, right? In the weeks leading up to opening night of Angels in America I have found myself doing some weird and wonderful things in the name of costume; spending hour after hour at the Oxfordshire Drama Wardrobe Collection and finding myself up a ladder in the National Theatre Wardrobe contemplating Eskimo costume (That’s right, they have more than one!) I’ve also became addicted to eBay, doing victory dances each time I win another unforgivably 80s item of clothing. At moments like these I’ve wondered whether this costume sourcing business is messing with my mind. I became sure of that fact when, on a freezing December morning, I got up at 5am to go costume hunting at a vintage market… in the dark. Everyone else had torches. FML. But it has not been in vain; the wardrobe for Angels in America is coming together beautifully. Bring on the quick changes!
Nathan Klein (Composer)
When composing to a deadline I am so terrified of not getting a good idea that as soon as one comes, getting it down in any shape or form has to be the only priority. I would love to say I’ve sketched melodies on matchbook boxes on the way to sessions at Abbey Road—as I am informed is a rite of passage for all the greats—but unfortunately I neither smoke (sorry girls), nor have the budget to record at such a premises (cheers Simon). Instead, I leg it from the piano to the computer, smash in the idea on my keyboard and sit in a euphoric state with the playback on loop.
Next the idea has to be developed. I find there is about a 30 minute time period from the initial conception where things happen, but after, a 3-5 hour break ensues as I force anyone within a mile radius to listen and praise (only praise is accepted at this fragile time). For these 30 minutes, you need tunnel vision. This works okay in Oxford as you can shut yourself away reasonably easily, but imagine the dilemma of a nagging family over Christmas. For these reasons, I entered my lowest state of creativity over the holidays by simply playing everything straight into Logic (the music software I use). So now 0th week must be spent re-interpreting all of the ideas onto paper so that others can interpret them into sound during the recording session in 1st week. I hear that this is a similar method to Hans Zimmer, except that he whistles around 3 notes into his iPhone and emails them off to an army of composers and orchestrators. Magically, an hour of music is spun out of those three notes. Clever idea. I wish I had an army of orchestrators. Any volunteers?
Katie Ebner-Landy (Marketing Associate)
As Marketing Associate, or using my preferred ex-title, “Stunt Manager”, I believed I wrangled myself one of the coolest roles in this production. Although I don’t quite pull any stunts – my original title was rebuked for this very reason – I have had the opportunity to organise a couple of events, about which the party planner in me gets quite excited.
I was keen to use some of the marketing to emphasise the political edge to Angels in America, and after bouncing around ridiculous ideas with Simon, we decided on three, relatively optimistic, objectives.
- Get the Union involved.
- Have a university wide “Queer Bop” in 1st week.
- Keep our print material in people’s wallets and out of the recycling bin.
Cue lots of carefully worded emails – be warned: don’t miss the Q off ‘LGBTQ’ – and meetings with senior Union officials. Objective 2 didn’t go fully to plan, Entz reps are actually much busier than I had previously assumed, but Objective 1 was achieved in its entirety. We have a partnered Union debate in 1st week: “THW be glad to have gay parents” and, although we didn’t get 38 colleges involved, we do have a series of collegiate LGBTQ events coming up, including a Queer Bop at Trinity. And, a deal at Angels cocktail bar in Jericho which is on our business cards. Just a heads up.
Hannah Hurley (Co-Producer)
Producing at this stage of a production is somewhat of an odd role to fill. Tuesday was spent papering Oxford with posters, whilst yesterday I was knee-deep in saw dust, helping make set. Of course, this follows months of preparation: in places, my endless to-do lists look utterly mad: comments about meeting playhouse staff and finding rehearsal rooms are in several places sat next to the phrases like ‘Find bald cap and call RE coffin.’
In general, these lists have been characteristic of my life for the last six months. Jack quite concisely told me that we absolutely needed to fly an angel in the playhouse and, in the same breath, asked for on-stage snow. Along with the Production Manager, we’ve so far managed to make both things happen. Snow machines, power tools and flying angels are just part of what has made this a wonderful show to produce; I just hope you enjoy the production as much as I’ve enjoyed the process.
Selali Fiamanya (Actor)
As the only science student in the play, and one of two who’s a Playhouse virgin, I figured I had some catching up to do. Affirmative action can only get you so far, y’know? It’s time to research how the pros get down. And who better to learn from than these cats, who are more comfortable on the Playhouse stage than in jumpers from this millennium. First things first: get a moleskine. All the best actors have moleskines. Secondly, I heard one of them talking about method acting. I gave it a go over the holidays, and I feel being caught by your father in his wife’s tights and heels watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s will not only make me a better actor, but a better person. Long live the theatre.
Flanders and Swann: A Modern Duo?
I had never heard of Flanders and Swann before I saw the publicity that announced Tim Fitzhigham and Duncan Walsh-Atkins’ revival being performed in Oxford this Saturday, and yet within seconds of watching one of their videos online I felt like I recognised them. The musical comedy duo, Flanders and Swann, singer and accompanist respectively, sing whilst at the same time talking in pleasant voices; a small scale Gilbert and Sullivan. The jokes in the songs I looked at on Youtube were quaint but also faintly risqué: in ‘Madeira M’dear’ an old man uses madeira to seduce a young woman, while in ‘A Song of Patriotic Prejudice’ national snobberies about the differing regions of the U.K end up nonetheless satirising the casual xenophobe himself. Others contained pure silliness reminiscent of Monty Python. But I was intrigued to meet Tim Fitzhigham, who plays the role of Flanders and comes from a very successful comedy background (he has won numerous accolades in performances at Edinburgh), to discover why now was the moment for a revival of this particular act, and what the act’s wider relation to contemporary and past comedy might be.
Tim reveals that he has been acquainted with Flanders and Swann for a very long time. “‘The Canoe Song’ by Flanders and Swann is my earliest childhood memory apart from swallowing paint. I think my parents must have loved it. I guess there was an album in the house and I must have started listening to it then.” I ask him then what prompted him to perform their work professionally as an adult. “Well Duncan and I were asked to do a charity concert by Duncan’s Granny, who used to be a dancer, and had this kind of fantastic west end turn of phrase, although she kind of fitted in nowhere [living in] Sussex. She used to raise money for the local cottage hospital and we did Noel Coward one year, ‘cause we were working on a Noel Coward review, and then the next year she said, ‘Darlings, I don’t think I can guarantee a house again for Noel Coward, I just don’t think I can hold the seats’. And so we sat down and I said to Duncan, ‘Why not Flanders and Swann? I’ve always loved them,’ and Duncan said. ‘Ahh, I’ve always loved them.’” This partnership led not just to fruitful artistic performances but also a concrete development for the community: ”The Plaster Cutter at the cottage hospital was entirely the result of these two charity nights.” The success went from there as it turned out that there was a wide interest in Flanders and Swann.
I was interested to ask whether the success of their version of Flanders and Swann was due to a recent surge in interest for musical comedy, as with performers such as Bill Bailey and Tim Minchin; or instead more nostalgia for the past. “I think it is certainly both of those things, but I think also thirdly let’s not underestimate these songs are just funny. They are really funny songs. The banter is good and people just do like hearing funny, well put-together, brilliantly crafted lyrics and great musical numbers. And I think Michael and Donald were some of the best we have ever had at that.” Fitzhigham views the songs as empirically good in themselves, citing Donald’s (Swann’s) gift as a composer and Michael’s as a lyricist. But there does seem to be a nostalgia element that drives people to the shows: there are few places to see what used to be such an important act. “People who have heard Flanders and Swann want to hear him done right. There is not that much television footage of Flanders and Swann and not that much cinematic footage either. Flanders and Swann’s shows were released as cinema reels when they finished touring them – that is sort of how big they were. And you think that now we don’t have an act, probably globally, apart from some of the American acts who can do a tour in the theatre and then finish the tour and say lets do a cinema release now.”
The transition from such popularity to being almost unknown among young people seems to demand an explanation. “I think it is the fact that Flanders and Swann were famous at just the wrong time for television. So they didn’t really do television. So every time you get all these countdowns that everyone watches on the television: Flanders and Swann simply weren’t in them. They were touring the world and playing massive theatres when no one had a television set.” But the fact that, because of technology, Flanders and Swann do not play a role in our collective memories of comedy means that we have a poorer understanding of how comedy has changed. “If you look at Noel Coward, and you see a single guy sitting at a piano singing really fast sort of patter comedy songs, and you look at Peter Cook and ask yourselves, ‘How did comedy go from Noel Coward to Peter Cook? How did that happen? What is the missing link?’ The answer is Flanders and Swann. So if people like comedy, and like knowing how it came together, Flanders and Swann are a vital missing link.”
The relevance of Flanders and Swann to the Oxford student is not limited to their importance in the development of musical comedy, but they were also both Oxford students (as indeed Duncan did). Fitzhigham remarks, “Donald was an Oxford man through and through. I would say not having been to Oxford like Michael, there is a lot of Oxford humour in there.” I worry, though, that this Oxford element might be old-fashioned and politically incorrect; and so venture to ask whether the work is politically incorrect and a bit out of its time, especially Madeira M’dear. “I think one has to be sensitive about these things. There’s nothing in there I couldn’t hand on heart explain away. I think we’ve all seen doddery old men trying to pursue younger women.” I question him about the arguably xenophobic ‘A Song of Patriotic Prejudice’. “At the beginning of the song you they are just going into English xenophobia, but by the end of the song you’re very clear that what they are actually saying is that everybody thinks they are slightly better than someone else, that they are using a stereotype to make someone become aware of their own foibles, and that is comedy. Rather than being a politically outdated song or a politically incorrect song, it becomes the most politically correct song. They were doing things that perhaps even the audience at the time didn’t quite get. It certainly is a joy for a modern audience to see quite how far thinking they are.”
Swann and Flanders are lucky to have two professionals with such a passion for them to be around today to perform their work. It is not just nostalgia which should draw us to the comedy of two Oxford students from more than half a century ago, but also their modern appeal.
Flanders and Swann: Homage to musical comedy greats is on at the Oxford Playhouse this Saturday
Modern Golden Opulence
MODEL HANNAH NICHOLSON
FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHS AGATA WIELONDEK
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