As it’s the last issue, Cherwell Stage has endeavoured to provide their loyal, likely rather limited, audience with a thoroughly hackneyed ‘round-up’ of this term’s dramatic offerings. Pinter prevailed this term, with an accomplished production of Celebration at the Michael Pilch Studio, along with the famed ‘Hothouse at the Playhouse’: a stellar cast, enormous budget and one of the slickest PR machines in recent years made for a predictable hit. Fry’s Latin! at the Burton Taylor Studios in second week delivered a hit of scandalous preparatory school nostalgia, with Chelsea buns and a certain delightful perversity combining to make for a wonderful evening. Godber’s Teechers, in the same venue, was also set in a school, but there all similarities ended, with a group of stroppy teens being inspired by their charismatic drama teacher in the playwright’s most autobiographical work. If you missed Cherwell’s interview with him last week, have a look online for musings on class and classrooms. 

The Barefaced Night was among the strongest of the Keble O’Reilly’s productions, an innovative new piece of dance theatre, with elements of movement, live music, poetry and storytelling coming together to retell a Scandinavian folk tale. Another worthy contender was Lars Sorken: A Norwegian Noir also in 6th week, a pleasingly bemusing and bleakly comic piece of new writing. A retelling of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast was perhaps a little too ambitious, but compensated with some decent performances and beautiful costumes. Chekhov’s Shorts allowed for some comic relief, with outstanding direction and witty characterisation meaning that each of the seven short plays, accompanied by a live string quartet, made for good viewing. The OUDS New Writing Festival as ever provided one with the chance to scope out new talent among the fresh writing and observe the burgeoning of new student directors with characteristic variety: quantum physics, the early life of Enoch Powell and two businessmen in a dinghy all featured. 

If you’ve neglected your Oxford drama quota this term, fear not. You can still catch Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience, performing at both the Ashmolean Museum and the Corpus Christi Auditorium, if musicals take your fancy. If not, the Oxford Imps are sure to impress with One Arabian Night at the BT, with Alex Mills’ study of human interaction in Out Through the In Door to follow. Hilary’s certainly been generous. Farewell then, gentle audience, and ensure you return refreshed – Trinity’s teeming with theatrical treats.

Exeunt.

Ishy Din’s cleverly crafted, playful exploration of four young Muslims’ lives in Britain is full of surprises. The balance between the unremarkable, faintly depressing image of four working men having a ritual piss-up in a Northern bar and the much messier, unstated cloud of failure, resentment and guilt that draws them together year after year gives the piece a nuanced tension.

The premise: a taxi driver, a halal butcher and two budding professionals meet for their annual pool game to honour the memory of a dead friend. As the play opened, and three men started guffawing over ‘pakis’, kebab vans and white guys, I must admit I flinched a little and had the worrying thought that I might be in for a hackneyed comedy night of cultural clichés, or worse, some transparent ‘critique of racial barriers in Britain today’.

Thankfully, I’d got it all wrong. Filtering through the familiar, though entertaining bravado (‘My spunk is so fertile I’m gonna leave it to science’) and wild social generalisations, is a very sharp and refreshingly irreverent take on contemporary British, and Muslim, culture. What’s more, the relentless flaring up of personal tensions allows for the highly defensive characters to offer us a glimpse of their most deeply-rooted frustrations whilst not threatening the play’s realism. Clearly, there’s been a lot of effort put into creating a realistic, representative set-up. A typical pub-red plush carpet, bar stools and constant, perhaps unnecessary, chart hits playing in the background are completed by a real bar downstage, whose white barman silently reminds us of the fact that the characters are part of an ethnic minority within their environment, an issue that is subtly dealt with between the lines of the play, but is never crow-barred in.

Muzz Khan’s deliciously crude, puffa-jacketed, loud-mouthed taxi driver ‘Shaf’ nevertheless lets an impressive emotional and moral complexity leak through his macho persona, and promptly steals the show. Khan’s swaggering physicality and aggressive drawl capture the audience with ease, whilst not compromising his portrayal of Shaf’s extreme vulnerability. Asif Khan provides hilarious light relief as Kamy; while very occasionally bordering on hammy, he likewise manages to convey an earnestness that is at times very moving. Neither Jaz Deol as the less hardened character of Billy nor Peter Singh as the smug Mo are given strong roles, but they are both consistent, and avoid two dimensional foil territory. Snookered is remarkable in its honesty and humour, but also in its ability to go beyond ethnic and racial ‘issues’ to explore the diverse ways in which we express frustration, vulnerability and guilt. It’s a shame it was only on for two nights.

4 Stars

Get ready for ‘Banghra, Bops and Breakups’: Chutney and Chips 2012 comes to Oxford in 7th week. Offering an insight into the experience of British-Asian students at the University, the production promises exuberant music, costumes and  dance pieces mixing Eastern Bhangra and Bollywood with modern Western dance, all in the name of celebrating a truly multicultural Britain. Vibrant colours and equally vibrant emotions combine to create Oxford’s own East is East or Bend it like Beckham, with added sub-fusc. 

Chutney and Chips Productions was founded to fill a huge gap in the market. While many other universities in the UK have been producing Asian cultural shows for years, Oxford had nothing similar to offer its student community. Each year a new committee is formed to take over Chutney and Chips Productions; writing an entirely new script and finding a fresh cast and crew. One of the most unique and exciting features about the production is that its profits go to numerous charities, as chosen by the committee. 

This year’s tale follows two generations as they struggle to assert their individuality in foreign surroundings. Plunged into a world completely removed from that of their parents and tempted with the freedoms of university, both Rupinder in the 1950s and Kiran in 2012 face a choice: should they stick to their parents’ wishes, or should they follow their heart? Should they choose chutney…or chips? 

Who am I? Am I Indian or am I English? If I’m Indian why can’t I even speak Hindi? If I’m English, why do I support India against England in the cricket? Integration for ethnic minorities into British culture is imperative. Associating purely with people of one’s own origin, and speaking only in their language can create divisions between communities. Yet, equally one’s motherland culture is just as important. One’s roots and heritage are inescapable, and if you don’t accept where you’ve come from, surely it is not possible to accept who you truly are? Fears of loss of identity through assimilation can be a constant worry for some ethnic minorities. 

Luckily, there is a solution and it’s in the title of the play itself: Chutney AND Chips 2012. It is perfectly possible to have the best of both worlds, loving whoever you want and still being proud of your ethnic heritage. This is the main message behind the production. Living in a multicultural society, we can celebrate our heritage whilst considering ourselves British. Indian heritage of gripping stories, harmonious music and colourful dances resonates in Chutney and Chips 2012. If you’ve never experienced this side of Indian culture, what better way of experiencing it than this? This isn’t just a play for those with connections to the subcontinent; it’s a play for anyone concerned about contemporary Britain. 

Why does Jonathan Freedland use a pseudonym if he declares his real name and photo on the back cover? More to the point, why did he write Pantheon? It’s clear that Freedland has no personal investment in the story. There’s no zest or excitement in his writing. The characters are lifeless words on the page. Not only that, they are thoroughly dislikable. Kurt Vonnegut advised writers to give the reader at least one character they could root for, and after reading Pantheon, I can understand why. The main character, James, is a war-injured scholar whose default response to any interaction is uncontrollable rage. This gets repetitive quickly and the character never develops. Dialogue is uninspired, alternated only with stretches of painfully bland descriptions from James’ completely contrived internal monologue.

The story’s impetus is James beating his wife. She leaves with their son for America to escape and the narrative concerns James tracking them down. Had James been less of a wooden construction, the time spent with him may not have dragged as much. Yet it would still be difficult to endure Freedland’s childish grasp of grammar, unskilled narrative pace, and dull content. Freedland says that Pantheon, besides being a ‘riveting story’, brings a secret into the open.

This secret is an affinity of numerous American scholars with eugenics: an interesting idea to explore but the plot point feels thrown in as an afterthought. It manifests close to the story’s end and Freedland seems to want to get it out of the way. Having spent the book’s entirety finding James’ family, the reunion is not a deserved reward for the reader’s perseverance.

It’s hard to find reasoning behind Freedland’s delayed  introduction of the secondary character, Taylor. He does not interact with James but Freedland’s attempt to make his narrative distinct is fruitless. Perhaps this too is an afterthought. Like much of the book, the reason must be page-filling. Is Freedland attempting to mimic the likes of James Patterson’s or Dan Brown’s blockbuster structures? If so, he fails.

This isn’t personal, and I don’t wish to damn Freedland as a person. He is an influential Guardian journalist and seems a principled man. It’s a shame neither of these make him a capable novelist. Pantheon shows Freedland possessing all the atrocities of a bad writer: he is tedious, lazy, and either believes his readers to be ignorant or does not consider them at all. Jonathan-Bourne-Sam-Freedland is not the next Harris or le Carré. He is the next roll of toilet paper in my bathroom.

With its bloodied silhouette snaking and swirling against the sparse grey expanse of Stratford’s skyline, Anish Kapoor’s looming ‘ArcelorMittal Orbit’ tower demands recognition. Funded by Indian steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal, Kapoor’s tower won the prestigious commission from a shortlist which included Antony Gormley. It stands now, in the final days of completion, shedding off its last scraps of scaffolding, like a burning scarlet monster, a demented helter-skelter, at the centre of London’s Olympic Park.

The observation tower cum sculpture is Britain’s largest work of public art to date. Located between the park’s Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Centre, the Orbit will impress itself upon the press coverage this summer as an ambassador for London’s Olympic Games as well as a new and immediately recognisable emblem of contemporary British culture.

Looking at photographs of the 115m tall Orbit, this might seem concerning. The structure looks undeniably sinister, unstable and even apocalyptic – like Dr Evil’s headquarters or a supersized clotted artery. Standing in front of the Orbit however, I was very happily surprised.

Whirling and swooping red tracks sweep up and around towards the sky in loops that just scream out with energy and a sense of dynamic movement. And whilst Boris Johnson continues to force comparisons with Paris’ Eiffel tower, and Rome’s Trajan Column, Kapoor’s tower immediately conveys a feeling of newness and genuine originality that is difficult to ignore.

Aesthetically, the Orbit is not perfect. Its upward, whooshing forms are halted along its centre, bunged up by the functional grey staircase that twists around its core to the viewing platform. The tower lacks the elegance and seamlessness of the London Eye or Eiffel Tower, and perhaps for these reasons has evoked such divided and vehement responses from critics.

But Kapoor is an artist who so far has shown that he knows how to connect with his audience. In 2009 he was the first living artist to have a major solo exhibition at the Royal Academy where his interactive and pioneering sculptures attracted more visitors than any London exhibition has ever seen. In Chicago’s Millennium Park, his enormous, stainless steel bean-shaped sculpture titled ‘Cloudgate’, draws in visitors daily, walking in and around the work, playfully admiring themselves in its warped and polished reflective exterior.

It is the interactive capacity of Kapoor’s £19.6 million Orbit that will, if anything, ensure the sculpture longevity, past the brief window of 2012’s summer games. Boris and the Olympic Park Legacy Company hope that the Orbit will attract up to one million fee-paying visitors per year and will help to regenerate Stratford, making the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park a tourist destination for generations to come. It still remains to be seen that whether, in the depths of a recession, the British people will come to appreciate or to resent such a distinctive and important work of public art.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit tower is due to be  completed in May 2012

Valentine: In conclusion, I stand affected to her.

 Speed: I would you were set, so your affection would cease.

Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, II.i.79-81

It feels sacrilegious to say it while sitting in the foyer of the National Theatre in London (I’m here to see Collaborators with Simon Russell Beale, which I justified academically by spending all morning in the British Library looking at playtexts from the early 1600s, and because tickets were only five quid and Simon Russell Beale can do anything, even make Stalin funny), but the rehearsal process for Two Gentlemen of Verona has so far confirmed what I always sort of suspected:

When in doubt about the meaning of a Shakespeare line, it is probably a sex joke.

And don’t think I haven’t done my research looking for hidden subtleties in lines like:

Speed: Why then, how stands the matter with them?

Launce: Marry, this: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her.

(III.v.19-21)

I did just spend an hour riffling through every book on directing in the National’s bookshop, only to discover that most of what’s there is about choosing a play, casting a play, and the initial rehearsal, so I probably ought to have read them a month ago. But I can’t suddenly become cultured and professional now. It would give my cast a heart attack.

There’s no denying that Two Gents is a crass play, full of sarcastic servants and boorish servants, gangster outlaws, and not-particularly-convincing cross-dressing. It’s full of young people meeting other young people. Of course it’s about sex.

A friend asked me why I even picked Two Gents, given my obsession with really human, realistic characters. It’s certainly a far cry from my last stint directing, Brian Friel’s Translations in Trinity 2010. And it’s an early work. We can see the foundations being laid for Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, but Shakespeare’s not quite there yet when he writes Two Gents. He’s a decent playwright, but a little more time and practice are required for him to ascend to god-like status. But there’s something about the way Two Gents depicts young people going to a new place, getting caught up in the glamour and excitement of it, and losing track of who they are and what they value; I have a suspicion that many Oxford students can relate.

So what do we do with all these sex jokes? Do we trust the audience to get them on their own, even when the slang is five hundred years out of date? Do we highlight them with a physical gesture? Or will that just turn the play into a bizarre marathon of thrusting hips and suggestively raised eyebrows? Given that Two Gents has a lot of wooing, a little fighting, an attempted rape, and three different outlaw attacks, it’s certainly a physical play in its own right. In an attempt get the cast to be willing to snog/fight/hug/lean on one another, I’ve introduced both a weird game that is like tag but ends up with spooning other cast members who are crouched in the foetal position, and my personal favourite, the Huggy Bear Game. The cast undertook these exercises in remarkably good humour, with only minimal jokes about me being a lunatic.

All through school I wanted to be an actor, until one day I realised that I love acting but often couldn’t stand actors, so I certainly couldn’t cope with them surrounding me for the rest of my life. The egos, the conflicts, the rivalries, and the drama: So. Much. Drama. But theatre always pulls you back in (I’m seriously contemplating a heroin addiction as a healthier alternative), and the Two Gents cast is a fun, down-to-earth bunch. Aside from the days when a certain leading man just doesn’t show up to rehearsal and I sort of want to strangle him, or when I have to ask an actor to ‘say that again, but at least a little bit like you mean it’, and despite my terror regarding Wednesday’s first run-through, I do love the Two Gents cast.

And luckily, the Two Gents cast finds Shakespeare’s sex jokes as funny as I do.

Kate O’Connor is the director for Barbarian Productions’ The Two Gentlemen of Verona to be performed May 1st-5th in Christ Church Cathedral Gardens, complete with penis jokes. Tune in next week for an actor’s perspective, and for more information about Two Gents visit their website, www.barbarian-productions.com, or follow them on twitter @twogentsox.

As Andy Warhol lay upon the factory floor, profusely bleeding from the bullet wounds administered by actress and author Valerie Solanas, it was Billy Name who clutched him to his breast and supported him, as he supported him throughout his entire star-studded career. From the opening of the factory on East 47th Street in 1962, Warhol thought of Name, his lover, friend and contemporary, as a man who ‘inspired confidence. He gave the impression of being generally creative … I picked up a lot from Billy.’ 

Name and Warhol first came into contact in the early days of the 1960s, when the former was working as a lighting designer with Nick Cernovich and playing as a musician at the Theatre of Eternal Music. Name recalls ‘it was the end of the period of the romantic avant-garde bohemia, when artists ‘kept’ younger artists and a male artist would always have a young man around.’ Soon enough, Warhol and Name began a relationship of both professional and personal passion. ‘I started working with Andy when he first got the loft space which became the factory in January 1963’ he tells me. ‘We were friends and lovers for some years before that.’

Name’s work at the factory was famous. It was Name that instigated the iconic ‘silverising’ of the factory, bedecking every inch of the place with tin foil, shattered mirrors and silver ornament – a look Warhol picked up from Name’s identically silverised apartment. As Warhol’s work rocketed to renown, Name became chief photographer at the factory, converting a bathroom into a darkroom and taking up residence in a storage cupboard. Name captured celebrated shots of Warhol’s self-titled superstars in all their avant-garde glory — polished to perfection at legendary parties and orgies, celebrating fake weddings and crashing on the factory’s beloved red sofa after amphetamine-addled adventures.

Even today, Name’s identity is defined by this flurry of photography, his brief capturing of a world of pop, plastic and primary colours. Silk screen prints of his factory photos are to be displayed at the New York Metropolitan museum of art this September. As I question him about his artistic legacy, and the legacy the factory left with him, his role in the Warhol story becomes clear. ‘I was a character at the factory in its day. My work as narrator began after Andy died. Many people are interested in the work and scene of the factory. I respond to these people.’ Warhol created the idea of the fifteen minutes of fame, and it is because of Name’s continuing work that his own legacy has not been lost in the blink and speed of a shutter.