Blog Page 1589
Behind the Scenes with The Cast & Crew of Angels in America
A behind the scenes look with the cast and crew of Angels in America, including an interview, rehearsal shots and a glimpse of one of their make-up workshops.
Preview: Bluebeard
Cherwell’s Verdict: A Creative Bolt from the Blue
The inspirational framework behind the performance’s title, the 17th-century French folk tale by Charles Perrault, provides both fantastical and sinister undertones to this thoroughly modern one-act play from writers Douglas Grant and Howard Coase.
The audience becomes the lost wife of Perrault’s classic, wandering through the many-doored castle of dementia patient Claire (newly recasted Becky Banatvala)’s mind, with new light hed on her past and present through the script’s stitching together of present and past, memories and dreams, reality and illusion. Equally pertinent is the strong dynamic between Claire’s children, David (Michael Roderick) and Emily (Carla Kingham), who simultaneously embody two polar attitudes to the treatment of dementia patients whilst
dissolving into roles around Claire as she revisits her past and the recesses of her own broken imagination. A linear, chronological plot is done away with through fragmented visions of a hedonistic, continental, sexually liberated past picked from between the wastes of an enslaved present as Claire is gradually shackled by marriage, age and degenerative mental illness.
An intricately layered piece, the players’ intimate use of space creates a strong spatial contrast between the “bloody suffocating” domestic chaos of the nursing home that surrounds Claire and the dream-like Paris of her youth. Simple props and even single words are unwittingly triggered by Claire’s bickering children like chronological landmines, turbulently casting both her and the audience into an unworldly set of intermingled mental experiences, though in places the dialogue seems too fast-paced for some of the more lilting, esoteric moments. Yet whilst it is pitiable to watch Claire’s slowly-slipping grip on reality, the scenes also display a rebellious escapism optimistically shining through in lines like “You’re the only one keeping yourself anywhere!”
Though energetic, the lightning-quick, sporadic changes between reality and Claire’s memories and delusions sometimes wear thin in emotional depth, with emphasis on comically jocular accents and snappy bitchery threatening to eclipse the overarching pathos of the piece, and the staging is at times a little clunky. Nonetheless, nuances of character displayed by the cast and the blocking used reflect an ultimately loving family portrait strained by practical, financial and emotional pressures, and if the lighting of the Burton-Taylor can be fully mastered, the play’s surreal, explorative nature will stir any audience.
Bluebeard displays significant potential. This well-scripted modern family tragicomedy raises questions about the practicality and ultimate securing of mental wellbeing of individuals with dementia. It asks whether happiness if based in ignorance is happiness at all, and dissects the suffering caused to the relatives of those enduring the brutally bleak quotidian existence of their loved ones when the mind turns against itself. Together the three-strong cast present a production which by third week promises to amuse and engage.
Review: Villagers: {Awayland}
★★★★★
Five Stars
After their debut album Becoming a Jackal was nominated for the Mercury Prize, Villagers have a lot to live up to with their new album, {Awayland}. Frontman Conor O’Brien describes the new work as “diverse. It takes you on a trip through a musical landscape, as a tribute to your sense of wonder. It travels through space and time and leaves you back for dinner.” Piling on the expectation. Before listening, I was a little incredulous as to how this album could live up to what sounds like a blurb to a 90s Sci-Fi film, but I gave it a go.
The album is though, I quickly realise, incredible. It is particularly clever music, using rapidly variant keys and a myriad of instruments to create a sound that really does live up to the word ‘diverse’. Villagers use this vast diversity of sounds brilliantly, bringing in, for example, unnerving noises like a computer disk drive rebooting and a jumping CD to enhance the meaning behind the beautiful lyrics that could otherwise go unnoticed. The second track, ‘Earthly Pleasure’, uses these sounds, typically associated with malfunction, to express the doubt and confusion of the subject of the song.
Villagers manage to tell a story with their music, conjuring the image of this ‘Awayland’, this place of fantasy and discovery. It’s the kind of album that is best appreciated lying on your bed with headphones in and eyes shut to properly follow the journey that it is taking you on, and is definitely not background music, often using discordant, almost scraping sounds to pull you back in. At times it has the vague feel of a love-child of Mumford and Sons and Bright Eyes, but honestly, Villagers have achieved what is often difficult in indie music these days: a completely individual feel.
The album seems to be an experiment that has paid off extremely well. As Conor describes, he wanted to “stretch his imagination as far as it could go”. Well, congratulations Conor. It’s unlike anything we’ve heard before; it’s fresh, experimental and lives up to the tall order of your debut reputation.
Review: Utopia
★★★★☆
Four Stars
If anyone came to this show hoping for a gritty update of Thomas More’s 1516 opus depicting a perfect society, they will be sorely disappointed. I can only imagine the furious letters Channel 4 must have received from the Renaissance scholars who actually know what Channel 4 is. This program happens to be a slick and stylish thriller – though not the type that you might imagine from those critically overused adjectives. Utopia is clever and well-paced, but brutal, grubby and coarse at the same time. While the show may have a strong sense of style, it’s not fast cars and sharp suits that dominate, but wide-open spaces, bright filters and a kind of Brito-European aesthetic that actually serves to somehow make the UK look cool.
Utopia is a new drama from Channel 4, boasting a fairly complex plot that revolves around a graphic novel written by a dead mental patient which apparently predicts the future. This then falls into the clutches of a group of internet misfits who then find themselves embroiled in a huge conspiracy. Said conspiracy seems to involve Russian Flu medication, two oddly dressed assassins the Department of Health, a man-made degenerative disease and a mysterious absent figure called Jessica Hyde. However, the intrigue remains at street level with the aforementioned internet chatroom users and a blackmailed civil servant (Jamie from the Thick of it, playing a very different sort of government worker). While this might sound alternately clichéd and self-consciously quirky, it doesn’t come off that way at all, instead becoming a subtle and intricate piece of drama.
Of course there are inevitable comparisons to be made with Misfits, another Channel 4 (ish) show that deals with mysterious and possibly supernatural threats in an aesthetic urban environment. The two shows even share a cast member in Nathan Stewart-Jarret. However, the similarities end there. This is a decidedly classier affair, with its own distinct style of cinematography and tone; the stakes are higher than that of the more blasé Misfits.
Funny and well-written, Utopia is definitely worth a watch, but a word of warning – it’s pretty brutal. At the lighter end of it there’s an awful lot of poverty and many a depressing backstory, and on the other there’s the casual murder of children and extremely unpleasant torture scenes. The genius of Utopia is to throw all of these eggs (and more) into one basket for the very first episode, moving at a breakneck pace to cover more ground than some shows would in half a series (cough Heroes cough). Hopefully they can keep up the pace over the next few weeks, as this is looking like something very special that could set a great new precedent for homemade UK thrillers.
Oxford hosts European Integration Conference
Questions about Europe’s political and financial challenges and the role of states within it were addressed on Friday at Magdalen College in an event entitled ‘The Future of European Integration’.
Co-hosted by the Oxford German Forum Society and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German political organisation associated with the Christian Democratic Union, the conference featured a number of prominent figures.
External events disrupted arrangements, as speakers were affected by heavy snowfall, and Prime Minister David Cameron’s long-awaited Europe speech, around which talks were expected to revolve, was postponed due to events in Africa. Oxford University Chancellor Lord Patten cancelled his appearance at the last minute.
Dr Niblett delivered the keynote speech, in which he said the path that lay ahead for Europe will be “messy but not desperate”, predicting that the UK will remain within the EU.
Discussions with a panel including Dr Robin Niblett, director of leading foreign-policy think-tank Chatham House, and Anthony Teasdale, director for EU Internal Policies in the European Parliament, involved analysis of the history of the European Union and current challenges such as monetary policy and accountability.
Stephane Roux, president of Oxford German Society, commented on the theme of the conference. “This year’s conference looks at internal challenges facing the European Union. Over the last few years, there have repeatedly been concerns about Germany’s dominant position in the handling of the Euro crisis. The UK, in turn, has been criticized for its euroscepticism – both countries are still in the process of finding their position in the European community.”
The Oxford German Forum Society was founded in 2010 by Maximilian Hoell, a former president of the German Society. Its goal is to provide a platform for students engaged in UK-German relationships to discuss current affairs with practitioners and experts. It hosted its inaugural forum ‘Embracing the Shift of Powers’ in May 2011.
5 Minute Tute: The Italian Election
Who are the main parties running in the Italian election?
There are four main groups: first, the centre-Left Democrat Party; second, the centre-right Freedom Party (i.e. Berlusconi); third, a list which supports Mario Monti, the current Prime Minister, composed of various smallish parties; and fourth, a movement led by the anti-party populist comedian Beppe Grillo. In addition there are parties to the left of the Democrat Party, and to the right of Berlusconi, and one or two other smallish ones. The significance of the small parties lies mainly in how many votes each takes away from the larger ones.
What impact on Europe will the election have?
A win for the centre-left will mean a new ally for the French Socialist government, though Bersani is likely to be more cautious than François Hollande, since the markets are still sensitive to any weakness in Italy’s debt-reduction programme and any further weakness in its growth prospects.
Europe needs Italy to start growing again, but Italy can only do that when Europe does so as well. The more confident markets become that Italy can find a stable government, the better chance that the government can take growth-stimulating measures without causing renewed financial market turmoil.
What are the polls saying?
Polls indicate that in the lower house, the Democrat Party will win the largest share of the vote. Under the bonus system operating for the Chamber, that will guarantee a workable majority as long as the centre-left holds together in the face of the tough choices that will be needed. When the centre-left won in 1996 and 2006, it quickly splintered. In any case, Italy operates co-equal bi-cameralism. The government needs a majority in the Senate too. There, the bonus system operates regionally, not nationwide. So there’s no guarantee anyone wins a majority. Currently, the Democrats appear likely to be the largest group in the Senate, but will struggle to obtain a workable majority. The Freedom Party will probably be second.
What does Europe want?
The financial markets, most EU governments, and Italian business would like Monti to stay on as prime minister. That will be difficult after a bruising election campaign in which, to win votes away from Berlusconi and allies, Monti also has to keep his distance from the Democrat Party.
If the Democrats are influenced, as they may be, by parties to their left, and if the campaign has been bitter, a deal between Monti and the Democrats could be almost as difficult. This would apply whether Monti became Prime Minister, or Democrat leader Bersani took the top spot, as Bersani should if he has a majority in the lower house and a plurality in the upper one. A stalemate, requiring a renewed ambivalent grand coalition under Monti or someone else, would unsettle the returning confidence financial markets are beginning to show in Italy.
Does it really matter to the UK who wins?
It matters a great deal to the UK that Italy has a stable government, that financial markets continue to recover their confidence, and that the eurozone grows. The UK’s economic destiny is tied to the wider EU, whether the UK is in or out of the eurozone, or indeed whether in or out of the EU itself. If the EU economy suffers, the UK suffers. Political stalemate in Italy remains a big downside risk for the EU economy and therefore a risk for the UK.
Oxford sex ring trial begins
The prosecution has opened its case at the Old Bailey against nine men, aged between 24 and 38, accused of sexually exploiting six under-age girls in the Oxford area.
The trial may take three months according to Judge Peter Rook, who has sworn in a jury of seven men and five women, telling them that emotion should not play a part in their deliberation.
The men were arrested as part of Thames Valley Police’s Operation Bullfinch, which saw 14 addresses raided across Oxford last March in an investigation headed by Detective Inspector Simon Morton.
The court heard that the nine men accused of sexually abusing young girls in Oxford “ensured girls were guarded so that they could not escape”.
The charges, spanning a period from 2004 to January of last year, relate to offences that are alleged to have been committed against girls aged between 11 and 16. They took 30 minutes to be read out in court.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were told that one alleged victim, who cannot be named, was “sold” to Mohammed Karrar at 11 to “cure her bad attitude”, then repeatedly raped by him and his brother, Bassam Karrar.
The court was told that Mohammed Karrar charged other men £400 to £600 to rape the girl, now in her 20s, in a way she described as “torture” until she was 15. She also claimed to be injected with heroin.
After being impregnated by a member of the group at age 12, the court heard that Mohammed Karrar arranged for her to have an illegal abortion in a back-room in Reading. The girl claims she was also beaten for falling pregnant.
Jurors were also told that on one occasion Karrar heated a hair pin with a lighter and branded the girl’s buttock with the the letter M as he claimed to “own her”. The court heard she began self-harming and described her life as a “living hell”.
Noel Lucas QC, acting for the prosecution, opened the case at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, telling the court, “The evidence will show that these men, sometimes acting in groups and at other times separately, targeted vulnerable young girls between the ages of 11 and 12 and up to 15.
“The attention lavished on the girls at the outset was of course entirely insincere as it was merely a device to exploit their vulnerability.”
Mr Lucas told the court the defendants plied the girls with alcohol and introduced them to drugs, including cannabis, cocaine and heroin, until they became addicted and therefore dependent on their abusers.
He said, “It was in these ways the men came to exercise control over the girls who, because of their previous experiences and disturbed home lives, were likely to subject themselves to sexual exploitation and abuse.
“The depravity, and I use that word with care, of what was done to the complainants was extreme. The facts in this case will make you feel uncomfortable.
“Between acts of abuse sometimes stretching over days, the Oxford men ensured girls were guarded so that they could not escape.”
Of the 12-year-old victim, he said, “This brief summary of the very extensive and persistent abuse [the girl] suffered at the hands of Mohammed Karrar illustrates his view of her as something to be used and abused at will. If she had the courage to resist, he beat her. He branded her to make her his property and to ensure others knew it.”
Mr Lucas continued, “She frequently caught chlamydia. She was often covered in bruises and burns where the men had stubbed her with cigarettes.”
“If she refused to go they would threaten her, saying they would burn her house down and her brother would be burnt alive.”
A second alleged victim, 14, was reportedly attacked, beaten and raped by Bassam Kassar before a neighbour called the police. Officers found her “extremely distressed, crying and shaking”, before she told them she had been held against her will, raped and repeatedly smacked in the face.
She also said she had been held under a shower and injected with a drug, but later dropped her complaint after being persuaded by another girl who was “seeing” her attacker, the court heard.
Jurors were told that another 14-year-old girl was burned with a lighter and threatened if she refused to have sex with the men after meeting defendants Kamar Jamil, Anjum Dojar and Ahktar Dojar whilst living in a children’s home.
Mr Lucas told the court how she drank and took drugs “to the point of passing out because she knew what was expected of her”. He also said that the girl told a friend, “I have no choice. I just want to be loved. I’ve never been loved and this shows me love”.
The defendants, eight from Oxford and one from Berkshire, face 51 counts including rape, trafficking and organising prostitution between 2004 and 2012. They deny the charges, which relate to girls aged between 11 and 16.
The trial is expected to last until April. Defendants Kamar Jamil, Akhtar Dogar, Assad Hussain, Mohammed Karrar, Bassam Karrar, Mohammed Hussain, Zeeshan Ahmed, and Bidal Ahmed are all in custody.