The event- issue 120- 17th January 2001

Suffering!

Apocalypse!

Misery!

Cyborg !

War!

Pag

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lNe're all a fearful peek a cinematic fortune telling

Plus! s

ap they're watching you in interview

talk pants

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=2=~=~=~c~==========~efit In The In us

In

Cutting-edge reportage from the ents'n'arts front line

Levellersrrerrorvision Two bands, few teeth.

DefTex/Eibow Deck-bothering local boys!

Crap-named indie boys!

Roy Hattersley Big man of politics. Hear him roar.

Keith Harris Nappy-rummaging duck fister comes clean

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Insight In-depth features, comments , analyses and gubbins

So this is the future ...

Celebrity crimes and what could happen next 09 Beautiful Creatures Behind the scenes of the latest Britflick 10 Puppet on a string Norwich Puppet Theatre probed 11 Safe Surfing?

Web censorship at UEA: what do they know about you?

12-13 "Where we're going, we don't need roads": the 'futures' of film exposed 08

Ins Everything reviewed and previewed for your pleasu re

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Music: Apartment 26; Ash ; Limp Bizkit Film: Quills; Vertical Limit; Crouching Tiger ...

Video: High Fidelity; U571 ; Return to Me Arts: Metamorphosis; pottery at the Sainsbury Centre TV/Radio: West Wing; Soaps Interactive: Hitman; WWF Smackdown 2

Eventhorizon 20-23 The best guide to what's on in Norwich. Ever.

The Event is produced fortnightly by Concrete: PO Box 410, Norwich, NR4 7TB Tel: 01603 250558 Fax: 01603 506822 E-mail: su.concrete@uea.ac.uk Printed by: Eastern Counties Newspapers, St Andrew's Business Park, Norwich

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ur mums have drummed it into us ever since poor little Andrew was taken to casualty after that fateful reconstruction of the A-Team got a bit out of hand, and grey-haired old busy bodi es with not muc h else .to do in the ir ret irement have been tell ing Points of View for years. Yes, we've heard it al l before: "TV is bad for your health my lad, it 'll rot your brain and you'll turn out a good for noth ing couch potato.

Just mark my words ". Right, mum.

But it seems that in spite of us having laughed off such ridic ulous c laims, good old mum was right after all. A new report by the Royal Society fo r the Prevention of Accidents blames TV for a 27% rise in injuries sustained in the home, and it's not just any form of television that safetyconscious boffins are blaming for t he plight of injury-prone Britons. No, it 's those pesky DIY shows such as BBC favo uri tes Chang ing Rooms and Ground Force wh ich are doing al l the damage .

The two shows have been condemned for encouraging the clueless public to undertake tasks that are beyond their minuscule home improvement capabilities as well as ignoring safety precautions to save time.

Master of bad taste Lawrence Uewelyn Bowen was slammed- no, not for his puce and pink dining room - but for using power tools without tying his flowing locks back, whilst Ground Force presenters were accused of irresponsible use of electricity in the garden.

But isn't this just scare-mongering? Surely DIY lovers aren't going to cut corners like those BBC cowboys? Well, so you might have thought. Last year alone seventy people were k illed in a series

"The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents blames TV for a 27% rise in injuries sustained in the home- and it's those pesky DIY shows such as BBC

of bizarre domestic ace idents.

There is, though, a much more worrying and equal ly devastat ing effect to health fostered by our bel oved telev ision that our caring friends in the padded offices of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents have failed to cotton on to . Yes, the acute hypochondria that dayt ime te levision induces.

Just look at This Morning for crying out loud .

"We're having an open surgery with Britain's favourite GP Or Chri s Steele today " coos Judy , " No problem is to small, we 'll be waiting for your call. " " Right then, I'm feeling a little bit off colour today but I can't be arsed to drag myself down to t he surgery " th inks some unsuspecting lazy ill person. The next thing they know t hey are speak ing live to t he nat ion and that upset stomach miraculously turn s into an ulcer. " In fact" says the benevolent Or Chris "better be on the safe side and get yourself checked out for stomach cancer." Oh my God. I'm dying!

And that 's just the tip of the iceberg . A few day s later we can see the mole-like Or Raj Persaud telling some poor soul that just because they wash their hands a little too often they ought to take the first bus down to the psychiatric ward of

the local hospital: " Run my ch il d, before yo u harm yourse lf or someone else!" he cries. it's not just the unfortunate ca ller who suffers though, it 's the viewers at home. Let's face it if your watch ing This Morning your likely to be either a student, unemployed or ret ired and probably not in the best of health. Therefore, hearing of the nation's ail ments, sensational ised or otherwise, is not likely to instil confidence in t he person sitting in their living room feeling a bit rubbish.

If this wasn 't bad enough the king and queen of daytime television are more than happy to see their viewers drift into an unwelcome cycle of binge scoffing and crash diet ing.

Tuesday 11.30am: " Now we 're going to show all you fat bloaters out the re how to shed a few pounds so that you are actually presentable to the outside world," chuck les Richard.

Tuesday 11.45am: The ghastly pair are now in the kitchen with some port ly chef. " I'm hungry after watch ing that," says Judy, " ti me for a nice desert ". Cue self induced vomiting.

So come on people, don 't be afrai d to put up th at shelf or fit t hat water feature . it 's Richard and Judy we should be worried about ... or am I just being paranoid? Oh dear, I'm off to wash my hands.

Nick Henegan

ive T lking What 's the worst thing TV has ever encouraged you to do?

After watching Scrapmates me and my housemates decided to raid the local tip and use some cunning paint effects to spruce up some of the furniture ' with potential ' . Unfortunately we got a bit carried away and used scuffle glaze etc on all of our landlord's furniture. Now our house Is full of rotting, wood-worm ridden crap and we've lost our deposit.

Charlotte Cottom (LAW 3) I know it's not tv , but after watching American Pie I went to McDonalds and bought an apple pie to test the theory. I know it sounds unfeasable, but I'd been down the pub beforehand and my mates bet me that I wouldn 't do it. The scars are still healng ... and the pie didn't taste good either.

Dave Lach SOC 2 After watching Channel 5 I taped me and my girlfriend having sex. My mum found the tape.

Nick Grace SYS 3

..., People:

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Wednesday, January 17, 2001

Editor-in-Chief · James Goffln • Editor · Steve Colllns • Arts Editor · Jlm Whalley • Film Editor · Merek Cooper • Assistant Film Editor · Astrid Goldsmith Music Editor· Elin Jones • Assistant Music Editor · Anthony Lovell • TV/ Game Editor · Markland St arkie • Assistant TVj Game Editor· Kathryn Hinchliff Listings Editor · Katherine Everitt • DTP · Elin Jones · Adam Chapman · Steve Colllns · Nick Henegan · Markland Starkle · Merek Cooper · Jim Whalley • Thanks to · All of the above and below • God of the fortnight · All of the above and below Contributors · Joss Stacey-Waddy · Slmon Thornhlll · Kleran McSweeney · Gemma O'Donnell · Nick Henegan · Matt Reed · Emma ???? · Peter Clarke · Charlotte Ronalds • THANKS to all Eventees, please come and write again all who have been away, and good luck to everyone in the exams ...

___·eveiit ___-=---======---------3 "Hang on a . ute ,,, m1n •••..

A sobering collection of famous last words ...

"Go away. I'm all right."

H. G. Wells, novelist, 1946 "What's this?"

Erm , a heart attack? Leonard Bernstein, 1990 "That guy's got to stop . ... He'll see us. "

He didn 't. James Dean spots an oncoming car in 1955.

"Goodnlght my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow. "

He didn't, either. Noel Coward in 1973 "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. "

Oscar Wilde, writer, November 30, 1900 "Friends applaud, the comedy Is over. "

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1827 "Do you know where I can get any shlt?"

American comedian and drug addict Lenny Bruce, 1966

Those frisky denizens of the Met bar are procreating like rabbits nowadays- but now you can save them the trouble and ...

celeb!

Clone you Following the recent cloning of Andl , the first ever GM primate, The Event 's crack team of cuttingedge geneticists have turned their attentions to the sordid world of celebrity.

In an effort to rid the nation's newsstands of grim pic t ures of pop stars ramming their tongues , down each other's throats, our intrepi d boffins have finally managed to devise a way of mixing and matching all the bits and bobs which go up to make the rich and famous. And in a desperate last-minute attempt to stop the deviant Chris Evans from siring the barely-18 starlet Bil lie Piper with his aged ginger seed, we thought we'd let you, t he public, clone a sprog for t hem, before they actually have sex and show us the polaroids.

Just cut out each of the features pictured here, stick· them all together and voila! -your very own celebrity to use as you will.

Just don't blame us for he consequences ...

Craig David's skimpy bea_ rd!

Billie's funny · shaped moUth!

lt may look like a crotchless thong, but little D's imacculately crafted chinstrap is a masterpiece of bumfluff management. Its intricate contours seem to say, "Yes, I have a man's hormones. but I know how to keep t hem in check'. Many a sensitive garage classic has passed throug h the immaculately-crafted ·o· of thi s downy ladyaser, and now you ,..• •~~~ t oo can possess it, stroke it, love it.

Yes. you've seen thi s twisted, toothsome grimace gurni ng at you from yo ur televi si on screen many a time, most recently clamping itself to Chris Evans' aged, rusty visage t o t he horror of a nation. But now you can own it, and bright en up your celeb clone with its hamster-like gurn. Honey 2 the Bill

Uam'sbamet

n' bumers!

"Even In the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six. "

Meticulous genetic trickery has enabled us to accurately Liam·s elegant tra-from-Porridge' replete with 'burns!

Leo To/stoy gives his last maths lesson, 1910 "Moose ... Indian ... "

Writer Henry David Thoreau, 1862

Ah, such a cheeky, lovable chap with his NHS specs and rapscallionly mein! But these cold, squinty old pissholes may wel l be last t hi ng that our finest young popstrel saw before her chastity was subsumed in the flames of the ginger menace. Go on, look closer if you dare.

1bat bit in Daniella Westbrooke's nose!! perineum, found down the back of her mum's sofa the other day. We soon hope to clone several 60ft tall versions of the nosebag-hoovering sweetheart, for a special epi sode of Giant Eastenders due at Easter.

"On the contrary. "

Playwright Henrik lbsen, 1906, in answer to a nurse's remark that he was feeling better.

"Kill me, or else you are a murderer!"

Cyberspace Oddity: amihotornot.com

Er, right, Franz. Kafka's last croaks, 1924 "Who Is lt?"

Erm, it's the sheriff. Billy the Kid, 1881.

"My God. What's happened?"

Princess Di, 1997 "I am about to-or I am going to-die; either expression Is used."

Grammatician Luther Burbank, 1926 "Never felt better."

Theodore Dreiser, 1945 "Write ... write .. . pencil . . . paper."

German poet Heinrich Heine, 1856 "Leave the shower curtain on the Inside of the tub."

Professional to the end, millionaire hotelier Conrad Hi/ton, 1979

Were you lonely this Christmas? Did your mistletoe advances once again go unheeded by all except your Gran? Just a lonely yuletide in front of the telly pulling your own cracker and stuffing your own turkey? Well, have you ever considered that you might be UGLY? lt 's a tragic fact that many of the truly minging denizens of this world lflanage to go their whole lives without acknowledging the true depth of their muntitude. Yes, such are the nuances of social etiquette and polite courtesy that, when confronted with facial incompetence, most people would rather snigger to themselves than comment upon someone's looks to their hideous, distorted faces. Therefore, those among us that are genuinely hanging will never realise it, and may even believe themselves to be a bit of alright.

But not any more. For now there is a foolproof, definitive means of testing whether or not you really are all that . www.amlhotomot.com boasts a gallery of visages. from t he really rather dashing to t he ineffably hideous,

with each picture submitted by the model themselves (or their vindictive friends and family). Visitors rate the lovelies on a scale of one to ten, and after judging each contestant you get to find out what everybody else thought of them, and therefore just how desperately low your standards really are.

But best of all, you too can submit you r own- or your mate's- portrait before the ruthless judgement of the general public! OK, so its kind of worrying to think that bored office lackeys the world over might be dismissing your visog with a hasty mouse click and a peremptory cry of "Munter!", but just think: you can fina lly fi nd out just how attractive you really are!

No more need for 30 watt bulbs and layers of slap! You can fi nall y rest, safe . in the knowledge of just how aesthetically acceptable the rest of the world considers you to be. So go on, t ry it, you handsome devil you.

Steve Co/1/ns

''That's obvious."

John F Kennedy, 1963. The Texas governer 's wife, travelling with him, had just commented, "Mr. President, you can 't say that Dallas doesn't love you ... " "Turn me. I am roasted on one side."

Saint Lawrence, Roman martyr, gives his last request from the pyre.

"Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not?

Yeah."

60s acid g uru Timothy Leary drops out, 1996

WinWinWinWinWinWinWinWin!!WinWinWinWinWinWinWinWin!!WinWinWinWinWinWinWinWin!!

B aggery

rner!

R~mmage

your greedy paws in my sack of mystery. Please. Alternatively, you could put a postcard with the answers in the Concrete box in The Hive. Spoilsport.

"Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"

IP.J Ill V 11~ ~

~~. wE.}U~ :'\~ORLING l

Kart Marx, 1883 "I did not get my Spaghetti-Os. I got spaghetti. want the press to know this."

t::awaros \.

Murderer Thomas J Grasso before execution, 1995 ''Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here."

't

Nostradamus gets it right at last, 1566 "I'm tired. I'm going back to bed."

George Reeves, the first 'Superman', 1959 "Wait a second."

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson Pompadour, Marquise d'Etoiles, 1764

Hitman on PC

NME/Waterboys tickets

Perfecto CDs

Fancy guerrotting an unsuspecting bystander?

Shooting people dead from a cowardly distance?

BeUer answer this teaser to win this game before you go outside, then: Q: Do you feel lucky, punk?

We 've got three pairs of tickets for the NME Carling tour (JJ72, Amen, Alfie, Starsailor) in the LCR on Wednesday 31, and three pairs of tickets for the Waterboys, also in the LCR, Friday 2: Q: What colour did the moon go during the

A whole bag full of the finest melodies from the Perfecto label: 10 COs including Skip Raiders, Dope Smugglaz Allstars, N-fluence, Aida, Stella Brown . Big Ron, Ubik, Lovechild, and Timo Maas: Q: How many Perfecto COs are In my bag?

eclipse?

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

4

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Terrorvision rock. Terrorvision bounce. Terrorvision make big shouty guitar songs about booze and discos. Kieren McSweeny and Tom Christenson caught up with UEA regulars Terrorvision to discuss football, biking and furry underpants ... are your influences?

Erm ... Everyth ing influes you, doesn't it? robably Elton John, ause of me mum ... and Carpenters. Then again 've got to remember Black Sabbath are very influent ial too, but a lot of bands say that and do the same thing which I think sucks. We're also influenced by the likes of Boyzone and Westl ife.

They influence you not to play that kind of shit!

W

e arrive outside the Waterfront at

7pm and except fo r t he sound test that is going on in the main ve nue. it is dist urbingly quiet. Ten minutes later, we bump into the tour manager and discover that the band left to dine at Yates nearly two hours ago and no one has heard from them since. Half an hour drifts by and we are advised to come back after the g ig.

As it turns out the wa1t was worthwhile. The gig is excellent with old classics like Discotheque Wreck and Oblivion blending effortlessly with the catchy pop v1be of Tequila. After the show we go to the dressing room and are joined by a very happy and mildly p1ssed Toni with a can of Stella in his hand and big grin on his face ...

Why the name Terrorvision? lt stands out in magazines. lt 's quite a long word.

When you can't be arsed to read the rev iews you can sk ip to it. it's like a fish in tile water, your eyes just glide to it.

What was it like to play the big day out?

We played the big day out dressed in white like Evil Ken ieval when everyone else had dressed in black. lt was like a heavy metal uniform, but we got the wrong end of the stick , and came on shouting, 'Are we Kenieval, yes we fucking are!'

We saw all these Marilyn Manson fans wearing white makeup with died black ha ir going mental because they'd had enough of being black all day .

Why are you playing the Waterfront this time around then instead of the LCR? At the Waterfront the fans are only two foot away from your face. You know they can t hrow stuff at you if they think you're shit. You can also see people flagging if you've rocked t hem too hard througl1 the first half of the set and st1ck in a bal lad or squirt them with the water pistol.

On the web site it says you've been sky diving, F1 carting and mountain biking.

Which was your favourite and what have you got

r eremy, t he Levellers 4-stringer assigned to this interview, is missing . No, he's not already gett ing the drinks in in The Hive.

Nor is he sti ll chatting-up a groupie. or any other activity deemed rock and roll for that matter. His tour manager politely informs me that he's looking for books on medieval saints. But this really is typ ical Levellers; as a band, they don't real ly fit into any pop or rock stereotypes .

They've managed to remain together for over decade , yet you still get the usual 15 year olds going mad at the front. They sell out massive tours, and yet they've never had and probably never will reach any real commerc ial success despite thefr huge fan base. The press hates them but, as their God-like reception at the LC R proved, a lot of people don't hold that opinion.

Eight albums down the line, it seems as if they'll never sell out, and never stop making music and , most of all . never fit in.

Fast-forward 3 hours, and we are sitting in their backstage area in Union House. In one corner Simon (v iolin) sits play ing computer games, whilst in another front-man Mark Chadwick sends text messages from his mobile phone. Jeremy seems very muc h more relaxed than his on-stage persona, and answers quickly and intelligent ly. He gives the constant impression that he feels he has the best job in the world. and really is at home on tou r.

The latest album, Hello Pig, is a more matu re, slower album fi ll ed with swirl1ng ce llos and dark lyrics, along with the usual Levellers folk sound .

The fans have give n mixed reactions, but why have the band made this change to their sound?

"The album before was a sort of singles best of, so we thought that it would be a good opportunity to put a ful l stop on that part of the band and do

J

something different ... we JUSt did what we wanted basically ... On the reactions of their fans to the new album, Jeremy answers realistically, admi tt ing that "at first they hated it , it was too different, but it did grow on many."

12 years is a long time for any band, so why have the Levellers (to the press's disgust) managed to stay together for so long? "We split our money equally so we don't argue about that kind of stuff. but maybe it 's just because the band is so much bigger than the sum of its parts". Communal pay cheques aside, how long does he think that they'll keep on making this noise? "Until we either get bored with it or people lose interest in us, .. he answers.

For a band who's biggest hit ( Beautiful Day), contains the lines "it was then we planned the revolution/To make things better for all time" as

"We have people working for us doing human rights stuff ... In a way ·we are doing more but singing about it less." well as .. Wealth redistribution/ Became the new solution", the ir more recent work definitely seems to be less political. Has age and experience changed their lefty views? "The difference is now we have the money to realise some of our dreams. We have people working for us doing human rights stuff amongst others. In a way we are doing more but singing about it less."

A few years back. certain member of the Levellers

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

coming up next?

Mounta in bik ing's my favou ri te. I like coming off the top of a dirt track in the middle of a moor somewhere. touching the ground maybe three times in half a mile wh1le holding on for dear life.

I've got so many broken bones fro m cycling it scares me . it 's my greatest fear, dying in lycra.

Com ing from Bradford. if you were to crash-your bike and knock yourself out, the first person to come along would nick your bike while the sec ond would stand there wondering why you were lying there in your cycling gear. it 's also the ying to me yang. Jumping around on stage you're surrounded by speakers, people, noise and wa lls but out there you're on your own .

Is the five-a-side football team still going?

The soccer six? We recently played at Chelsea ground, Stafford Bridge. Leigh wrote ' Leeds united kick your Southern arse· on the wa ll. We 've played people like Robin Williams and Peter Beardsley (ex England footballer), Shutty saved a penalty by Peter Beardsley. We've also played Simply Red. Mick Hucknell took my legs out from me and I landed on my arse!

What about the rumours that you have played Iron Maiden?

No. we never played Maiden, Shutty once ca lled Bruce Dickinson a sword fencing f-. he sa id,'Enguarde you sword fenc mg bastard!· and fell over a chair because he was drunk!

What do you t hink about Nu-Metal?

You look at them singing and rapping about the streets when they're all a bunch of rich kids anyway. The biggest problem t hey've had in their lives is their daddy buying them a BMW mstead of a Mere when they went to school.

So, that said, what do you think of Manowar?

I like the furry underpants. I've always got them on under my jeans on stage.

Why did you release a remix of Tequila instead of the original?

Because we knew it would get to number two and Zoe Ball was doing the job of a whole record label for us. She rang up EM I and asked if they wou ld release it. If she hadn't, they wouldn't have looked half as ridiculous when they dropped us after having a number two single. Now , the only rock bands that get into t l1e charts are token rock bands, but rock music isn't a token gesture.

I don't listen to a record that was written 16 years ago to get inspiration, I play a gig and get inspiration from that. We released a remix of Tequila because we've all had a drink of tequila.

We don't wr ite about dungeons and dragons.

What's your favourite stage outfit?

I don't really care for outfits. We dressed up as undertakers once. I was wearing a white suit that was very expensive but tl1at didn't bother me.

Skidding on your knees in an ex pensive suit is no different from sk idding on your knees in jeans. I once sk idded on my knees in a pair of rubber pants and got stuck to the stage. I fel l on to ground and my pants fell down showmg me arse to the audience.

Wh at's the wei rdest fan request you've had?

I don 't know. We 've had some n1ce gifts and letters. I re member we got one from a girl, her dad had some kind of d1sease and she'd taken him 111 a wheelchair to see us and Def Leppard. She sa1d it was the last time she saw her dad smile. She felt really happy about it and that was brilliant.

Despite a dedicated fan-base t he Levellers have yet to achieve commercial success. Simon Thornhill met up with them to find out why ... sent a gift (in the form of. well, shit) to a national music magazine from our own Waterfront venue .

With the member in question being the dreadlocked bassist sitting in front of me, it seems only appropriate to raise the issue of the Levellers' relationship with the press. Maybe it's because they don't consider the large 'travel ler ' element (as in dog on string) of the Levellers· fan base to be a valid enough readership to care about offending. Jeremy believes they're just misunderstood, saying ··w hen we were first out they were concentrating on something else and j ust missed us by the time they cottoned on they just had the wrong impression of what we were about." Yes, but what about the present? Select said of the new album that it was the first time "great" and ·'the Levellers" coul d be put together.

The Guardian admits it's their best album ever. Is this a new start in press relations? Jeremy seems unsure, and acts as if he doesn't really care whether a blossomi relationshi with the NM E

may be looming. But to be fair, the Level lers have got th is far without the press. so why should he really care?

If they don't care about the press, what about the charts? The Levellers sell out large venues all over the country and in Europe , yet chart success has always evaded them. Jeremy seems genu inely unsure why. He suggests that it may just be because they have such a large fan base, some of whom see Levellers gigs as a social event as much as a music concert, say ing " We 've always toured. and always had a good relationship with our fans" But really, it seems like he j ust doesn't know.

Maybe a band as unfashionable as the folky, political and, (as many would suggest) unwashed. five piece in question should count their blessings with eight top 20 singles over the years, and stick to their live reputation. So how do the Levellers feel they fit in? "We don't," he says blu

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Del by hip hop Every Wednesday evening, Norwich-bred masters of funk-jau hip hoppery Def Tex bump'n'grind the collective booty of Mojo's. Mark/and Starkie met them for a more sedate tipple ••.

They're mates with Badly Drawn Boy and influenced by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Elbow must be worth a listen •.• When did you form?

Guy Garvey (vocals): "When we were 15 about 10 years ago. Mark and Craig (Potter, guitar and keyboards) are brothers, and Richard Jupp and Pete Turner (drums and bass) practically are.

They all went to the same primary and secondary schools, and I met them when I went to sixth form college. I was in Mark's art class."

You were unsigned for eight of those years. What kept you going? "lt just sounded good. If you decide you want a career in music, it's never going to be for the money, because it's so thin on the ground.

You 've got to do it for the love of the thing. I could be having a really shit day , at whatever shit job I had, and the music would sort me out .'"

Did you ever think of giving up?

"I 've no doubt we 've all considered it from t ime to time, but no-one's ever considered it enough to actually do it . Never been a punch thrown either. Plenty of incredibly heated arguments, but no punches. Most of us are pussies, you see!"

"I think the worst review we ever had was 'Easy Listening'. That was really insulting."

Who have you toured with?

"The last tour we did was with Doves. Just before them it was Grandaddy ."

Any strange fan requests?

"Yeah, I had a guy on the internet asking me to play the chords to one of our tunes. I'm one of the shittest guitarists who ever walked God's earth! The only reason I play guitar is because Mark has only got two arms! I was dead chuffed! " First album ever bought?

"Probably a Santana album . No, A Trick Of The Tale, by Genesis. There was a right load of old shite in prog. rock, but there were some lovely moments too. " Who are Elbow's main Influences?

"We all love the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Talk Talk, Tom Waites. " How do you react to bad reviews?

"If you respond, then you say 'well, what you wrote hurts' . I think the worst review we ever had was in 'Easy Listening'. That was really insulting. If it did get personal, I would ignore it. I would never react publicly. " You 're a friend of Damon Gough aka Badly Drawn Boy. Tell us more.

"We're drinking buddies. I'll see him in town and sit down and have a pint w ith him. But I've only known him since the fuss started surrounding him. But we 've been drinking in the same pubs for years."

Anthony Love/1

ednesday night at Mojo's.

Superfly (the club's regular funk and hip-hop night) is in full swing and as usual the place is packed with the many of the same stoodents who tomorrow night will most probably be seen fumbling around the damp corners of the LCR in a haze of Smirnoff Ice and S Club 7. But tonight everybody is looking slightly cooler as they converse with one another against a back drop of A Tribe Called Quest 's Can I Kick it?. The pace picks up, however, when a couple of guys step up and start laying down some rhymes over a small band consist ing of a guitar, a bass, some drums and a DJ . The crowd is grooving, the atmosphere is charged, the club is, er, jumpin ' jumpin '. DefT ex are in their element.

Several weeks later three members of DefT ex Mike (aka Chrome). Mark (aka Anthropologist) and Wayne (R-Key). their producer, are chatting around a table in a pub in the city . Damien (Sure Delight), the band's DJ , is late, but Mike and Mark (the group's two MCs) have the ability to compensate for the absence of several people, interjecting one another just as though they were performing on stage.

"Well, it 's hip-hop, but with more of a leftfield edge," explains Mark , on the subject of the DefTex sound. " it's a bit more abstract, lyrically , and beats-wise it's not really what you would hear normally on your more average , mainstream hip-hop music ... There 's more of a jazzier edge more than anything, to our music ." Mike interrupts: " it 's a mixture, really .. .like not only just jazz but influences from anything: soul , jazz, rock , funk, techno , whatever. I mean, we are a hip-hop band, but we're more than that too ... we 've got a separate live band, which most hiphop bands don't have ... and we 're basically just trying to do something different from what everyone else in this country 's trying to do, I suppose." Okay, so this might seem like one of your standard "we don 't want to be pigeonholed " kind of answers that the vast majority of bands spew out whenever questioned about their style of music, but there is one difference here, in that what Mike and Mark are saying is true .

Both the Poetic Speech Techniques EP and the Synchronised EP, which have both been released on Son Records over the last two years, sound very different to the uber-slick production style of Dr Dre and similar big shot producers dominating the hip-hop scene at the moment. Written Response (one of the tracks on the Synchronised EP), for examples, incorporates stuttered beats under jazz piano licks and dislocated bass loops, creating a sound that makes DefTex stand out similarly from the majority of their British contemporaries.

Seeing as one of the more respected hip-hop

W

.. u i U I I ' f

bands in the country is based in our fair city of Norwich, you might have thought that the hip-hop scene in Norwich is quite a healthy one .

Mike isn't so sure.

"There's not a proper hip hop following in Norwich, as such. I mean, there's people who enjoy it and like it and stuff, but there's not a proper fanbase, if you like."

Mark, however, is a bit more positive about the culture, "I think nationally it has begun to flourish again.

Back in the mid90s there was a real dead point where there was nothing really going on, compared to the mid 80s where hip hop was the norm . I mean, you could go to UEA and see De La Soul, you could see BDP and Public Enemy , and that for a lot of years that kind of thing didn't happen. " A question arises here over a possible lack of support for a hip-hop group in a city that isn 't particularly fanatical about the genre. Damien (who arrives about 15 minutes into the interview complete with apologetic greetings). sees this not as a generic problem , as such , but one relat ing to more of an age matter. " Problem is that we got into the hip hop scene over 10 years ago and a lot of the people who involved in 1t at that time - breakdancing and whatever - have, as we 've got older, moved elsewhere. So what it is now is like when you 're playing gigs, like the one we did recently, you 're playing to a crowd that are a lot younger than you are, where people roughly our age that were into it are now living in London or Cambridge ."

actually release anything with them. We had a two single deal and it fell through- it's a long story. But, y'know, to cut a long shory stort ... " "Shory start?!" Mark chuckles.

"Er, heh heh, yeah the beer's starting to affect me already. But, yeah they didn't really like what we were doing. They saw us as a gimmick , coz I was like a young kid rapping, and it didn't really happen. So off the back of that we went into a studio with the money that we'd gained and made our own stuff and put it out on Soundclash Records and that came out in 1991, and it all sort went on from there, y'know. We've had eight, maybe more, records out now so it's really been going from strength to strength."

Well, there you go then. You can stop scratching your head now .. . stop it! Anyway, enough about the DefT ex of the past, what about the DefTex of the future?

Mike: "We're working on our first album now which is hopefully due for release in March on Son Records ... " Mark: • ... with a single coming out before that on my label, MonkeyFace Records ... thought I'd get a little drop-in for that, heh heh. it's called Sing Sad Songs, featuring some of our friends from London ... "

"I was doing like jazz, street jazz stuff, and I eventually started rapping as my knees gave way."

Mike : • ... and that 's gonna be out maybe February ... " Mark: • ... January I'm looking at; end of January .. . " To watch these two guys at work, even just talking in an interview, is like watching telepathy in act1on . it's as though they were given one mind between them, but the mind didn't know which mouth to use, so it kept switching between the two to see which one it liked best.

Erm, am I making sense here? I'm not so sure. I should probably stop here now, and leave the talking to DefTex. After all, they are the experts in 'speech techniques' .

Do they feel, in a way , left behind, . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . , then?

Mark : " Nah, not at al l. We fly the flag for the hip-hop scene here now! "

PREI:I8l1l STL1BI85i

kay , maybe we should backtrack here a bit, since I am getting slightly ahead of myself here in trying to explain what DefT ex sound like now, when you 're still scratching your head over who these guys actually are and where they come from. " 1987," states Mike, matter-offactly. "Originally it was just me and Wayne, coz we're brothers, and we moved to Norwich in 1986 when I was 11 years old, and we met up with Damien, who was a DJ and we thought , y'know , "brilliant, we 've got a DJ now " .

And Wayne was doing like beatbox stuff and me rapping, and then eventually we met Mark [Mark cuts in with a loud " Hey, hey! " ] ... and the four of us kinda set up ... " As Mike pauses to take breath , Mark quickly interjects to keep the flow going, " I started out as a dancer ... I was doing like jazz, street jazz stuff, and I eventually started rapping as my knees gave way ." Mike once more takes over the conversation: "We got signed to Virgin Records, well Ten Records, which is like a subsidiary of Virgin, in 1990, but we didn 't

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under pressure, and t11ird . they are in constant need of small sums of money . Journalism 1s an honourable sort of writmg, but writmg thmgs to me is a trade, not a profession ... lt was however, something he fe ll mto m part by accident. Groomed on Priestley ·s More Essays by Modern Masters while 1n Form 1X at Sheffield Grammar - so called 1n the belief that X m1ght not sound so much like the bottom set - he tried h1s hand at the light essay, only to have his work rejected as unsuitable for the school magazme.

His defence to the master in charge- "it's 1rony" - fell on resolutely deaf ears. lt wasn't until he entered the Commons m 1964 that he began to seriously flex his pen agam, writmg, madvisably for h1s career, an article suggesting that Hugh Ga1tskill was more responsible for Labour's election v1ctory than newly incumbent PM Harold Wilson; although touted round several magazines, the article was

Get ready to .. KICK OUT THE

JAMS MUTHAF--KAAAAAAA!!'

Ahem. Ailnw tm to ·mroouce you to the origi al :H :-hair~ testffie t the _,reat g ;et

punk-metal m ;:y H~ n: ladif"S. oerrti me he C Who were the MCS? An explos1ve f1ve-piece from Detro1t , M1ch1gan who combmed garage pop w1th free-jazz experunent alism in the late Sixties. Their riotous stage presence an d c atl1artic sound was hardly t he soundtrack to the summer of love.

Why were they so important?

Alt hough large ly ignored at the t ime, the MC5 have recieved considerable retrospective critica l acc laim for developing a uniquely raw. frenzied sound that la1d the foundation for both punk and heavy met al. Thei r almost re lig ious advoca t ion for freedom of expression also est abl ished t hem as one of the earl iest prot est bands.

Rock n' roll antics galore, then?

Being t he mu sica l mouthpi ece for t he White Panthe r Party (fou nded in solidarity with the Bl ack Panthers) ensured the band got into a few scrapes. most notably with record stores that re fu sed to stock t hei r records. A full -page diatribe by the t he MC5 in a local newspaper against Michigan's largest record dealer resulted in the band bemg sacked by their label.

Any essential records?

Unfortunately, the band's two studio efforts are hampered by overproduction, but the live album 'KICk Out The Jams' captures every sweatdrenched second of t he legendary the MC 5 li ve experience. The album opens wi t h a furious call to revolution and climaxes with the the white-noise meltdown of ·starship'. lnbetween are some of the most explosive nugget s of garage pop you are likely to hear. Stil l exhilerating after t hirty years.

Influential, were they?

Indirec tly, the entire pu nk movemen t of the Seventi es. as we ll as every band since t11at has combined speed. energy and politics. Recent proteges include the agit-funk metal of Rage Against The M achine, the straight edge emo-punk of Fugazi and the passi onate hardco re of current press darl ings, AI The Drive-In. Tim Bragger

"Tony Blair is an able, honest and tough man, he just believes the wrong things." r those of you that remember, Roy Hattersley is nothing like his Spitting mage puppet. Whi lst t he eight ies last ic-lov ing sati ri sts depic t ed the t hen deputy leader of the Labour Party as a frothy mouthed loon who would cover anyone wit hin. wel l, spitting distance , with gal lons of saliva, I stayed co mpletely dry du ring my encounter. Even when he got real ly excited. And excitement is one of Hattersley's key characteristics. Whatever he talks about, and during our interview he ta lk ed about everyth mg from his upbring ing in Yorkshire to his views on New Labour, hiS passion and excitement is obvious.

Possibly his most passionate subject is his dog.

Bust er. lt may seem strange that a man best known in Britain for assisting Neil Kinnock to two successive general election defeats, is best

F

"I thought I might be Prime Minister and I desperately wanted it.

Now I know I would have been absolutely awful." k nown in America as t he writer of the bestsell ing Busters' Diaries, a life story through a dog·s eyes . Indeed, when Hattersley first discussed the idea of wnting the book. his publisher wa rned hi m off.

"My publisher t hought it was beneath my dignity and wouldn't sell. I said that Virginia Wolf wrote a book by a dog, and if it's not beneath Virginia Wolf's dignity, it's not beneath mine."

The proj ect was sparked off by Buster's ill-judged decision to attack one of the Queen 's geese in St James. which is the c losest a dog can get to committing treason. He (and his owner) was hounded by the national press and ended up in court, with only Hattersley's impassioned plead ing saving Buster being delievered to the great dog pound in the sky by the Royal Parks Act 1784 (as amended). " I wrote a piece for the Daily Mail about it, and that was the first time I env1saged Buster's language , envisioned it in writing. Walking with him, you say ' Bust er don't do that,' and you beg in t o th ink he's going to reply to you . I spend a lot of time alone with him - for example. this morning before commg up from Derbyshire, I

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

spent an hour and a half walking with him, and I said to him, ·sorry it's raining, Buster, but you've got to go,' and I imagined him replying ' Do I have t o?'

"Busier's Diary is special, its ent irely the product of emotion, it's a love story between him and me, I was so taken by Buster. I'd always had a dog as a boy , as a young man, but j oi ning th e House of Commons I couldn't have one. When I left I got one, and being with him was such a joy that I wanted to do somethmg to celebrate him . "it's a terribly pretent ious companson. but I make it. that in Robert Browning's Men and Women. there's a poem at the end. One Word More. wh1ch says he wrote all these poems because he was terribly taken With Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and I wrote Buster 's Diary because I was taken with Buster." om arguing for the redistribution of wealth o playing secretary t o a dog may seem like a strange career move. but Hattersley maintains that throughout his career he has been f1rst and foremost a wnter. in the n1neteenth century sense of the world .

"I have a rather old view of writing. which is that writing is itself a trade. it's only in modern times that people have said things like 'I'm the cycling correspondence and I only deal with a special kind of cyc les, I only deal with tandem raci ng. In the nmeteenth century people just sa1d they were writers. J B Priestley, who I don't admire as much as people say I should- they think I should admire him because he was a fat Yorkshire man wrote plays. novels, light essays. political commentaries, and essays he read on the BBC. it's a really modern idea that people th1nk they should stick to one thing.

"Wntmg IS essentially the conveying of mean ing in wr1tten form. If you're doing that about one subject you ought to be domg it about another.

The reason I did two years of tv reviews for the Daily Express- heaven help me- six col umns a week - was to prove I could do something for a tabloid newspaper, because I believe in writing in general."

Journalism in particular IS a part of Roy Hattersley's t rade which he bel ieves deserves more credit than it gets, especially within the literary community.

"Journalism is JUSt as good as any sort of wntlng but JOurnalists are di fferent in th ree ways. First, they are only interested in current events; second, they can wnte. and perhaps write best,

F

never publ ished. lt did lead, however, to an offer from the editor of the Spectator to become a regula r columnist. " He was an old-style high Tory, and he walked up to me in the House of Commons, and offered me the job. My response was 'Thou what?', which for t hose who don't know is Yorksh ire for 'I underst and t he words yo u just said bu t their natural meaning is so im probable that I can't bel ieve it is true."'

From then on. Hattersley continued to write hundreds of articles fo r magazmes and papers. regula rly contribut ing articles whilst writing and researching a total of fifteen books - with m1xed results .

"O f the books I've writte n, one book wobbled m to t he best sell ers list, and wobbled ou t , but Buster wobbled m and stayed and stayed," laments Hattersley.

He remains best known. however, for his politics. and it 's a subj ect w hich sti ll exercises his mind considerably. He's a known critic of the present Labour government's fa ilure to take forward radical socialist ideas .

"Tony Blair is an able, honest and tough man, he just believes the wrong things. My hope is t hat things get better after the next e1ect1on , but I think old Labour will never be recreated m its previous form for the si mple reason that politiCS is largely a response to class pressure. The people the old party stood for are in much small er number now then they were when I was a young man .

"The paradox in our soc ial pattern is that while there are fewer poor, the gap between rich and poor is bigger than it has ever been. Wh1le th1s government has taken 2m Cl1ildren out of poverty . the children who remain are poorer than they were 3 years ago. My increasing concern is for the res1dual poor . We are now a middle class society and that produces a middle class government."

Despite maintaining his strongly held views. he doesn't regret standing down from politics.

"From 1975 to 1983 I thought I might be Pr1me Minister and I desperately wanted it. Now I know I wou ld have been absolute ly awful." And apart from saving the cou ntry from his ru le, the move also opened up new avenues. like being interviewed by Ali G. " I did it because I was paid so much money to do it. I was asked. and we offered them a price we knew they would say no to, and they said yes ... lt looks like Roy got the last laugh.

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Ever since he started out as his dad's own dummy when still a child, Keith Harris has been a children's entertainer. But now he's trying to give his career another lift-off with a more 'adult' approach. But as Steve Col/ins found out, it has not always been a soaring success ... he inanimate corpse of Orville the Duck lies rigid against the toilet door, behind Keith Harris as he talks to me. It's staring vacantly across this small dressing room, looking tawdry and rather fed up, as if it gave up any delusions of flying a long, long time ago. Later, its owner will allow me to probe my hand around inside it, through the hole in its back, and I'll think how the antiquated simplicity of its innards (wooden pole, a couple of wires) make it seem like just like - well, just like a hollow shell really. Which, of course, it is. And it's the most depressing thing I've seen in ages.

For now, however, I'm trying to ignore it, perched so carefully there in the corner. I'm trying to focus on a duckless Keith Harris, a Keith Harris with less hair, more arms and more to explain than the one I remember from my youth. A wrinklier, more tired, more defensive model, one who has to justify his status as an entertainer an adult, 'blue' entertainer- and, more importantly, one which has to justify his jokes about gays and Asians.

"I have no problems with anybody's race or religion, or homosexuals," he says. "In our business I've been brought up with them. Some of my best friends are gay. A joke is a joke."

But a joke that a student audience will accept?

Sheffield University certainly didn't. "Bird Flops!" read the headline: appalled students walking out and heckling at the blowjobs-and-cheese'n'onion gags; boos and declamations following the

T

"I started with my fathe·r when I was nine. He used to use me as a ventriloquist's dummy. He wasn't a ventriloquist." "thankuvellymuch" Asian accents. UEA ents considered pulling the gig, so unsurprisingly he's toned it down for tonight.

"But at Sheffield we had a standing ovation, I was signing autographs for an hour afterwards, and it was one gag . A gay guy told it me anyway ; he said, "Ooh you'll like this one". And I always say 'look it's Cuddles saying it-" Keith. You cannot blame the monkey. " But they'll say that the joke's saying that homosexuals are filthy, dirty. and have no personal hygiene. It 's not at all , it's a joke. I'll do it tonight, but I'l l say it's my girlfriend.

I don't want to upset everybody.

There'll always be somebody somewhere who'll complain ... they're the sort of people that want to kill pantomime, with

dressed up as women, women pretending to be boys .. .it's tradition."

Oh, traditional homophobia. That's all right then ...

"No, of course not - but I've been to a gay clubqnly once just to lobby my MP - joke! Um ... if you ~idn't say anything about it ... y'know, where does comedy come from .. .it comes from all of us, we 've all got something funny about us ... " ~unny?

"Well, y'know Orville has a go at me about losing me hair ... so I'm laughing at myself, and I don't mind. I apologize if I have upset anybody, I'm not there to do that. And as far as the racist thing goes ... there were a few Asian people in so they bloody pissed themselves laughing."

Funny indeed. As the interview progresses Keith begins to sound tired, exasperated. He's obviously not comfortable with having to defend himself like this, defend the new 'adult' edge that is taking him from the children's parties to the abult cabaret circuit. It's a new audience, one which remembers the land-locked little neurotic frpm the glory days of the eighties, when I Wish I Cpuld Fly sold thousands of copies and got to number one. Happy days.

"This is my forty-second year in this business, which is a long, long time. I started in an act with my father when I was nine. He used to use me as a ventriloquist 's dummy. He wasn't a ventriloquist but we used to put on our act by doing that. And when my father retired, rather than get myself another partner I got myself a ventriloquist's dummy, so I became like my father as the straight man, and the dummy became me. There's this one person being two different people at the same time. Since I was a kid the theatre's always be:en my life, I've never had to know about other things."

Do you regret being 'Keith Harris and .. .' all the time?

"I can't say I regret Orville, but when he came along it did make me into a household name, but it did all of a sudden make me into a children's entertainer. So after working all these years at getting all the talent across ... all of a sudden it's K~lth Harris and Orville. I had to adapt around him ." eith Harris picks up his furry green alter-ego, and strokes his fur affectionately. I enquire tentatively if I can see what's inside him .

The duck, that is. " No! You can't look inside him!" objects Keith .

Orville agrees, taking a sudden interest in proceedings. " E¥ooahl Noooah! E'cahnt do that, can 'e'?"

"Nooo," says Keith.

"Noooah" says Orville.

OK, getting a bit scared now. Say something to the duck .

Um, you're ... you 're very big in the flesh, Orvllle.

1Ahm huuuge, " says Orville.

-furrified now. Don't look into the eyes.

"He pulls all the birds, " says Keith, smiling at me.

"All the birds!" drawls Orville, lasciviously. His pupils are ilated.

K

" says Keith . rville will not take his eyes off me.

Erm ... why does he always wear a nappy?

"He's got a twelve inch dick .''

Says Keith.

Orville's still is staring at me.

"Yes. I've got a twelve inch dick ."

Change subject change subject change subject ...

Sol Anyway, Keith ... um, what 's

in the pipeline? Orville got any dreams of going solo HAHAhmmm ... ?

"Well, at the moment we're writing a serious play, called Dummies. It 's about a guy - I play a ventriloquist for who variety has all finished, and he's down and out and he could have had his chance to do something with the [puppet] cockerel but he didn't want to be known as a.kids' thing. And a student comes in to interview him, saying variety's dead and all this.

He is a sad character, but I'm not playing Keith Harris, I'm playing the ventriloquist with a lot of things that have happened to me making the story. And hopefully I'm going to get another series, a Channel 4 late night show. But if I hadn't have done this I would have been Keith Harris the children's entertainer."

And with that Keith Harris, the adult entertainer, props up his big fluffy green bird face-first in the corner of the dressing room, and asks me to come back after the show ("for autographs") and let him know what I think . I don't .

In si

8

the

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~ht_-.i:!~·-------- event w_

As we finally say goodbye to the celebrity dross of t he year 2000, Ed Williamson casts a look over the trivialities of last year and casts a sceptical eye over what 2001 has to offer. An Essex-born monarch? lt isn't really that unlikely...

hen I was a nipper, I had visions of the year 2000 being a brave new world, a world in whtch humans would have robots to do their bidding, and we would all go to work in ca rs which hovered a foot above ground level. I did not imagi ne. in my innocence, that we would inhabit a world in which cockney student cooks and fat scouse builders would be practically canonised just because they appeared on the magical box in the corner (also known as television).

I can still remember New Year's Eve 1999 like it was yesterday. My friends and I huddled together for warmt h and companionship as the ten-second coun tdown began. A feeling of unity. of oneness, descended upon the occasion- we felt like something significant was happening, and we were a part of it. Years later, our grandchildren would surely ask us where we were when the mi llennium · began.

I turned round, giddy with the excitement and happiness that surrounded me, to find myself fac ing a bloke about my age I had never seen before.

To this day, I still believe him to be Satan himself, Machiavelli, the harbinger of all ill.

"Of course··, l1e grinned, "it's not the real mi llennium". The pedantic swine just couldn 't leave it alone . Never before had I been more tempted to take a human life .

But sadly, it was as if he had just summed up the entire coming year.

And so it al l began - a year strewn with infuriating cultural phenomena like a pestilence upon our land. Where to start? How about with the Vapid Chef, Jamie Oliver. sitting astride his scooter like the crown prince of al l hateful ephemera on his throne of Pokemon cards and Harry Potter books. it seems to have sli pped the mind of the Great British public that this lisping cret in is a student,

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nothing more , nothing less. Have we forgotten?

Th is nation hates students! Christ, even I hate the buggers, and I am one. And this dancing monkey is widely considered a feather in the BBC's cap! If t11e cl1irpy goon came anywhere near my kttchen, I'd show him the business end of a carv-

"Thank God for Posh n' Becks, t he only celebrity couple with any sense of irony or self-deprecation" ing knife- he'd have trouble saying 'pukka' with multiple stab wounds, I can tell you.

And photog raphers actual ly turned up to record him marrying his childhood sweetheart. And so to celebrity weddings- there's another one that sticks in the throat. Madonna and Guy, Michael and Cat11erine. Zoe and Fatboy, tile tabloids have been filled wtth nothing else all year. I remember my granddad saying to me when I was a boy: "Son, in this li fe, t here's onl y one special person out the re . it doesn't matter how long it takes, but you'll find them eventually, and when you do, yo u'll know yo u're go ing to spend the rest of your life with them." If only I was a celebrity, then this rule would n't apply. I can just imagine Guy Ritchie's grandfat her sitting the you ng tyke down in his 40-bed room mansion and saying, "Son, there's a spec ial lady out there for you, and she's going t o be absol utely bloody loaded. Try the Met Bar, there's hundreds of t he buggers there."

Thank God for Posh ·n· Becks, the only celebrity couple out the re with any sense of irony or selfdeprecation. Long may they reign. it was a yea r of rags to riches stories, of inst ant fame achieved by doing very little, t he enti re Big Brother cast being a case in poi nt . If I'd known

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Wednesday, January 17, 2001

just how easy it would be to achieve instant national acclaim, I would have auditioned for it, and spent the who le time wandering around naked and riding a unicyc le like the rest of them.

Wllether or not I could l1ave endured Darren's constant whinging about needing the prize money to feed his ktds while he ponced about in a £1500 Prada outfit is another matter . And Steve Redgrave- how can you fail? You row a couple of boats and suddenly you ·re at every awards ceremony going , you've been knighted in the New Year's Honours List and everyone thinks you're the best thing since the postmodern sliced bread Nigella Lawson will no doubt be soon serving up for her Knightsbridge pals on Channel Four.

Who had heard of J K Rowling th is time last year?

No-one, simply because she was just a struggling aut11or who had written a couple of books about a specky kid who hangs around with wizards. Now it's become fashionable for adults to read Harry Potter. and she's absolutely coining it in from fi lm nghts and readtngs by Stephen Fry on Radio Four (which. of co urse . she quite rightly demanded be entirely unabridged , so that Fry 's du lcet tones could do full justice to the greatest work of Western literature since James Joyce's Ulysses).

Is it just me, or has anyone else not iced that these are chi ldren 's books? Roald Dahl wrote some wonderful novels . which most of us lapped up when we were kids, but I sti ll stopped reading them when I was eight . I certainly w ill not be forcing myself to read them when I am fifty, or endlessly droning on at dinner parties about how marvellously accessible they are to an adult audience. And before you ask, no I haven 't read any of the w retched Harry Potter books, and nor do I intend to, unless I find myself having to read aloud to an infant in the near future.

So what does the year ahead hold for those of us easily irritated? In an ideal word, we would be allowed one. just one . year in which we are left in peace.

Nobody would grow goatee beards. Id iots in Kappa track suits wouldn't bump into us deliberately in the High Street.

undiSputed

King of England and rule our great natton from his Chigwell palace. 'Let them eat cake·. Queen Jules will say when the masses cry out for bread. "Nah , mate". he will chirp, "I got thts pukka buffalo mozzarell a from this geezer dahn t11e market.

Lovely jubbly! .. The works of J K Rowltng will be introduced onto the A-level syllabus, leaving Britain's school-leavers with the reading ages of eight-year-aids, and every work of contemporary fiction will be obliged by law to include at least one goblin by the year 2005. As a resu lt young people. their attention formerly held only by narcotics and rock music. will begin to spend every

"Jamie Oliver will be crowned undisputed King of England and rule our great nation from his Chigwell palace." waking hour in Games Worksllop, engaged in conversation with similarly odious, acne-ridden youths about dragons and enchanted castles. Society as we know it will crumble.

Sky TV will set up t he celebrity weddings channel, link ing viewers live by satellite link-up to the most tacky, insincere matrimonial ceremonies ever carr ied out, beg inning wit h Liam Gallagher's marriage to Natalie ( Nicole? I forget ) App let on in John Lennon's old front garden. the happy co uple clad in M anc hester City home and away kits . t he bridesmaids in combat trousers and white Adidas trainers. Th e high light of the series wil l be the union in holy matrimony of Sara Cox and the big bloke out of the Prodigy with pi ct ures beamed in live from her Radio One studio, presented as a double bill with the espousal of Steve bl oody

In si ht

9

Beautiful Creatures is the latest British film to hit cinemas but is it set to flounder alongside bigger releases? Jim .Whalley takes a look at the film's inside story to find out ... enerally there are three golden rules when deciding whether a British film is worth watching. Firstly, if the film has been funded by the lottery, avoid it.

Second, if gangsters feature strongly, run In the opposite direction. Finally, if Rhys lfans has even a cameo appearance and it isn't Notting Hill, burn the negative. Unfortunately for director Bill Eagles his first film, Beautiful Creatures, is guilty of two of these most terrible of sins. Thankfully, Creatures is free of Mr lfans' lanky Welsh presence, but it does contain at least its share of shady underworld figures and half its funding was provided by the British public's love of gambling. As a result the generally positive response the film has received from critics must have come as something of a relief to all involved.

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Each shot was sent down to producers in London who sent back criticisms before the director had even seen it.

Beautiful Creatures is the debut production for DNA films, set up by Duncan Kenworthy (Notting Hill and Four Weddings producer) and Andrew McDonald (producer of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach.) Its aim is to give previously untried talent a chance to break into the industry using a combination of lottery money and independent finance. Their contract is to make sixteen films all with budgets between four and six million pounds.

At a recent preview of Beautiful Creatures, Eagles used the after-film question and answer session to describe the positive and negative experiences he had working with the company. He described himself as a director for hire on the project, with the producers approaching him with the finished script, a very dark comedy, simply requiring him to bring it to the screen. They had been impressed by Touching Evil, a two-hour drama starring, fittingly, Robson Green that he directed for ITV. Prior to Evil his career highlight was an episode of Peak Practice, an experience he describes as "truly strange ... not least because 1 didn't want to be in Derbyshire".

He is clearly grateful to have been given such an opportunity with so limited a CV, though was less impressed by the lack of trust people had in him after filming began. As soon as each shot was in the can it was sent straight down to the producers in London, who sent back criticisms before the director had chance to see the footage for himself. When the first cut of the film was screened to executives, they didn't laugh once, offering only concerned looks. Eagles calls the situation "a great confidence booster", in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

The mutual distrust reached its peak when Eagles fell out with the writer, Simon Donald, over how the script should be interpreted. Donald was already angry about the financial decision to switch the location from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

To him the Edinburgh locations would have lent the film a new layer of subtext. Each man tried to get the other fired. Because Donald was also a producer, Eagles found himself facing a tricky dilemma. In hindsight he finds the scenario amusing, revealing "I had to ask him to sack himself" .

In fact, the picture the director paints of the shooting process is so black that it's amazing he is willing to talk about it at all. Most of the filming took place in out-door locations in winter,

in Glasgow, in the rain- hardly a fun combination.

When asked about the dog that features in Beautiful Creatures, Eagles responded that "the dog was much easier to work with than the actors". To summarise he labels the duration of principal photography •a total nightmare".

However, now that that is all in the past everyone is all smiles. Eagles insists that Donald and he are now "the best of friends" and they eagerly await the film's release at the end of January.

Perhaps thanks to the production team's experience with Four Weddings and Trainspotting, publicity is good for such a low budget film.

There should be a television campaign and the release will be on around two hundred screens.

While big Hollywood films can get four hundred screens, movies from any other country are lucky to break two hundred. Current art house hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon can only be found in eighty-eight cinemas.

Several factors indicate that Creatures could be a success, apart from its high profile producers. Its star is Rachel Wiesz, an actress who recently found fame in The Mummy and the forthcoming The Mummy Returns, only to trip slightly by appearing in The Land Girls. Although Eagles is the first to admit that his film features gangsters, they are by no means the centre of the picture.

"The script was written to correct the often peripheral role women have in noir movies".

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he plot has Wiesz and Susan Lynch as friends who accidentally kill the latter's violent boyfriend. They then take it upon themselves to hide the evidence of the crime, stumbling on to a corrupt policeman, a large amount of money and the aforementioned dog along the way. The director seems very proud to have shoehorned "wife-beating, animal cruelty, paedophilia and drug-taking" into a single eightysix minute comedy. lt is quite possible that this new angle to the genre (Eagles saw the story as "a fairy tale, a fable in a dark way") together with

Even then his first attempt, a short shot with a Super 8 camera was "truely crap" a refreshing lack of Cockney accents might connect with the British public, those that can stomach it at any rate.

Prospects are also good in America. After preview screenings went well in New York and LA, Beautiful Creatures will make an appearance at the Sundance film festival.

The first-time feature director is taking all of this in his stride, insisting that any resulting movie career will have been utterly accidental. He didn't even think about directing until he was thirty, and even then his first attempt, a short shot with a rented SuperS camera, was "truly crap".

His next project looks equally grim. Titled The Dark House, it will tell the story of an Ecommerce billionaire who, while attempting to seal a deal that will secure his second billion, is haunted by the ghosts of a 1970s cult similar to the Manson Family. They promise to deliver the money he desires in return for him murdering his wife and child... Yes, that old chestnut.

And for any one who wants to follow him into the industry his only advice is persistence. With the fi \m industry all you need to do is stick at it, and then you too can stand in the rain in Glasgow, while all around you try to get you fired.

PRICES: Mon-Fr before 6pm 1 game £3 2 Games £5 3 games £6 After 6pm & all weekend 1 game £3.75, 2 games £6 3 games £7.50 _.

PRICES ARE PER PERSON FOR CONSECUTIVE GAMES

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Wednesday, January 17, 2001

10

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Norwich is well-known in theatrical circles as the puppetry capital of Britain, yet the Puppet Theatre is one of the most underused facilities in the city. Astrid Goldsmith went along to find out more ... pproaching the Norwicll Puppet Theatre. you can see why it has not reached its deserved level of fame or popularity. Stuck out on a roundabout outside Tombland, it is housed 1n a converted chu rch . At night, the outside of the theatre has that kind of forbidding God-will-strike-ye-sinners look that converted churches tend to have, with large angry t rees bl ow ing in t he icy Norwich wind ... small children running from the cavernous interior screaming, "Don't kill me Stromboli, please spare me, .. their cries lost in the roar of traffic .. .

Sorry, been reading too much Bronte. The Puppet Theatre is actually very small, not very scary at all and, once you are inside, reall y qu ite pleasant. The foyer is whitewashed and airy, with puppets from previous productions (some dating back twenty years when the theatre was

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opened) hanging from the walls. There is no order - no careful, artful arrangement of the puppets, they just hang there, usuall y grouped w ith others from the same production . When I mentioned the blankness of the puppets on display, and the potential for amusing and striking tableaux, I was informed that Luis Boy (the director of the theatre) dislikes using the puppets as display dolls once they have fin ished performing w ith them.

"Puppets from Thumbelina sit next to several giant ostriches" This would explain the apparent carelessness when grouping some of the puppets. In one corner, puppets from Thumbelina sit next to several giant ostriches (which date back to preLuis days: apparently the previous director and his team we re obsessed wit h ostric h puppets. Lu is found dozens in cupboards when he took over).

The t11eatre space itself is tiny. which obviously .11m1ts the scale of productions staged there. In addition, there is the Octagon. a brightly lit workshop space. and the minute gallery upstairs.

The Puppet Theat re offers more than just performances: they run separate adult and ch il d puppet-making workshops: a City and Guilds adult education evening class 1n puppetry: as well as several different exhibitions in the gallery throughout the year.

I have been attending the City and Guilds course since September. lt is run by Joy , an actress and puppeteer with extensive know ledge, experience and enthusiasm for her subject . The course is spl it into three phases and lasts a year and a half. lt involves both theoretical study of basic art skills (colour, scale, tone etc.) and methods of traditional puppetry, as wel l as pract1cal application - the process of making rod puppets (think the Muppets), shadow puppets and glove or hand puppets. Not only is 1t fascinating to study one of the oldest art forms, it is also really fun to pretend you're back in playschool aga1n. plaster casting clay moulds and papier mache-ing and wrapping pieces of galvanised wire wi t h tissue paper. lt is su rprising therefore, that I am the on ly student partaking in the course . You would think that . w ith Norwich 's large artistic student population ( UEA's drama students and the Norwich School of Art and Design), an easy, fun and relatively cheap (£150 for t he whole course, which works out at about £4 a week) course

"Not only is it fascinating to study one of the oldest art forms, it is also fun to pretend you're back at playschool again." would be extremely popular. Lu is also has expressed his disappointment at the lack of relations between the puppet t heatre and UEA. owever, this is no reason for be.lievingthat puppetry is worthless and dead, even 1f UEA has chosen to ignore the Norw1ch Puppet Theatre. Some of the most exciting and progress1ve theatre 1n England comes out of or is displayed in this small performance space. For example, their recent production of til e Snow Queen. LUIS, who designed and directed the show has a most un ique vision for modern puppetry. All of the Snow Queen rod puppets had extens1ons to the1r heads: shoes nailed to the top of the head act as hats, spoons come out of caps and so on.

Joy explamed thiS as "frammg," an addit1on to frame tile puppet. to create 1ts own space w1th1n

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Wednesday, January 17, 2001

the stage. Another unusual linking of the puppets was that every puppet (apart from the reindeer and t he worm) had the same cast for the headmale or female, they al l had the face of Michealangelo's Dav1d, but painted or cut differently. In add ition, all puppets in the production incorporated the same cast of a large green stone (for instance, as the girl's torso. or as the reindeer's head). This created a fee11ng of un ity and coherence t hroughout the performance.

Just as original and unusual were the ideas behind October's one-off production of Dust. An abstract interpretation of Homer's The Odyssey.

Dust used three over-head projectors. a few white sheets, and several buckets of sand. The three ac t ors sprink led sand on the proJector screens, and, using t he main ac t or's body as a puppet and a screen to project images on. beautiful pictures were drawn in the sand. it was shadow puppetry for the 21st century, wh ich Luis described as "poetry in motion."

The Norwich Puppet Theatre starts its new season on Febru ary 3, with its usual eclectic mix.

The first performance of the year comes from tou ring company Ce;,d ri ne Belleux: The Village Without A Name. A traditional African folk tale has been reworked to incorporate music, m1 me and puppetry . and w1ll be performed in French on the 3rd, and in English on t he 10th. There is also Norw ich Pu ppet Theatre 's own Thumbelina, a visiting company's Pinnochio, and a mini Winnie the Pooh season at the end of February. Even 1f you don't catch a performance, the building Itself is well worth a visil. I guarantee 1t will be more Interesting than the Castle Museum's large collection of ornamental cats.

Norwich Puppet Theatre - 01603 629921 All Tickets £3.75 (with NUS)

~~eveiit

Ever since its inception over a decade ago the internet has been a hive of information on all things forbidden.

Whether it be pornography or terrorism it's all on t here.

So i$ it time for censorship of the web? Peter S Clarke investigates... he internet had been around for years, exchanging data between military and academic servers and email was similarly part of an academic system to allow lecturers to send messages quickly to each other (part of that paperless office thing in the 70s and 80s).

But, while I' m sure no end of anthropologist injokes and Star Trek trivia were sent alongside real work, it was not until Tim Berners-Lee created the code that became the web page, that the internet real ly took off as an entertainment source. Envisioned as a great resource for learning, the web was touted by those in the know as possibly the greatest thing ever in the history of the world - a model of a workable anarchic society; ttie world's greatest library; blah, blah, blah...

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"The internet is a definite threat t o government regulation but by its very nature it is almost impossible to control" Some of this is true: the Internet is a definite threat to censorship and governmental regulation (which is only a polite way of saying 'censorship' really). by its very nature it is almost impossible to control - Chinese web users recently used it to publish accounts of human rights violations and in the fragmented region that was formerly Yugoslavia, various anti-government web radio stations managed to operate outside the authorities sphere of influence providing the world with detailed news from areas where no reporters ever went.

Although the

potential is there for the internet to truly change the lives of an awful lot of people, at the moment it remains, even in the Western world, a mostly unused resource. That is not to say that it is not incredibly useful, just that it has a great deal more to promise, after all, whatever you're into, from .East End comedians turned soap stars (Frank Butcher's Philosophical Car Lotl). to the fortunes of Exeter City FC to Sting for Christ's sake you will be able to find a website run most likely by someone who is even more into it than yourself- they probably have a tattoo or something.

Some people of course, are fans of a different sort of entertainment. An entertainment form usually pursued solo. At night. With the curtains closed .... I mean come on! Anyone who is even an extremely casual user knows what the biggest ecommerce growth industry is, right? lt's hardly uncommon to type a completely innocent phrase into a search engine only to be confronted by loads of hits for hardcore porn websites with no connection to what we were looking for at all.

Strangely, this is an area of the web that never seems to get mentioned on Business Lunch (maybe they should, it would certainly brighten that programme up - and why not? They're certainly showing entrepreneurial spirit, opening new markets etc ...).

The problem with all of this is not so much the consenting adults who view such sites, but the parental fears that little Johnny or Katie are going to 'accidentally' find themselves on the Big and Bouncy website or on one that tells them how to make napalm in their bathtub. The obvious answer a couple of years ago was to simply not allow children access to the internet. Although this is still the best method of ensuring that kids don't find the 'dark side' of the web, parents may feel that they must net their kids online -

that if they don't they are allowing their kids to fall behind the rest of the technological 'elite'.

Although programs like Net Nanny are available which allow parents to lock off those sites that may corrupt their children, they are irregular at best. The answer would seem, to simply get rid of the offending sites. However, there is a distinct problem with this solution in that not only does this amount to censorship of the famously democratic and unregulated sprawl that is the web (which is, like, a bad thing), but that it is nearly impossible to do this since an awful lot of the offending websites are. obviously, in countries other than our own, which makes the introduction of any overriding legislation rather difficult.

Compounding this problem is the fact that the majority of web servers still reside in the United States - a country with a constitutional right to free speech.

"Is the problem that bad?

I mean, is the web as corrupt as we are路 led to believe?"

But is the problem that bad? I mean, is the web as corrupt as we are led t o believe? To investigate, I went to www .metacrawler.com , a search engine that boasts MetaSpy, a great little program which allows you to see the 10 previous web searches on Metacrawler, updated every 15 seconds. Some of the searches I saw were a bit weird, amongst which were: 'kangaroo', 'the sociopolitical effects of immigration', about twenty 'Pokemon', and 'meccano'.

Rather more disturbingly, within only a couple of minutes I saw; 'slaveryjsexslaverape/bondage' and 'child pornography'. I should point out here that these kind of searches numbered less than five in the hundreds that I saw. Although these people are responsible for giving the internet a bad image at t imes, they remain vastly outnumbered by those who do not and have never . used it for illicit purposes.

EA's Code of Conduct with regard to computers, states that the fac ilities are only to be used for the of legitimate UEA work, although it doesn't specifically ban other, nonprofitable, uses of the web. I asked several UEA students the kind of things they used the web for - Ed Williamson (EAS2) told me, " I wouldn't use it for academic purposes because I think it' s untrustworthy," while Penny Gypps (EAS1) said that she " looked up some material on Sylvia Plath for an essay and found it really useful." However, the general consensus seemed to be that if they did use the Web, which seemed relatively rare in itself, it was for looking up material for private purposes. it is worth bearing in mind that if you feel the need to look at anything dubious, the people who run the UEA network can find out - nothing you do via the university network is anonymous or secret in any way. ITCS, who run the UEA network, have the right to access the web cache that stores all recently viewed web pages and, subsequent to discovering anything about your use that contravenes the code of conduct, they can look at any information stored in your UEA disk space and that includes emails. So, you basically need

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be on your best behaviour whilst ing at the web on university time. No matter how late at night it is in the 24 hour centre; no matter how small the number of people- ITCS is watching. Anyway, masturbation in the library? That would be so not cool at all. lt would seem that although the internet grew out of the best intentions and to some extent continues in the same vein, many of the people who use it do not get as much out of it as excitably predicted in t he early '90s- the most common websites remain the novelty ones. The web's potential remains unchanged: one day it will live up to its original promises of a universal communications network and as a global repository of readily accessible k nowledge. The growth of music sharing with Napster and its clones demonstrates that we are pointing in the right direction. However, at the moment, to most people it's all just dancing hamsters.

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

According to the movies, the future is a sci-fi jamboree of flying cars and cyborgs. But unfortunately, when it actually arrives it's usually rather disappointing. Jim Whalley sorts out the visionary masterpieces from the prophetic fallacies

Blade

futile battle against SKYNET's near invincible cyborg armies. Didn't notice any of this happen?

That's because it never did. And to be honest it was never going to. Even in 1984 director James Cameron was cutting things a bit fine by predicting apocalypse before the end of the century. By the time of the sequel ·a bit fine' had become undeniably silly. How they're going to explain events in the upcoming part t hree is anyone's guess. Computers have only j ust learnt to beat us at chess. Military strategy will be a number of years away yet- though anything that sends a brick shit house wit h an Austrian accent to do its dirty work wouldn't have to be that clever.

er... der... der ... OER-OER!!!! (dumdum dum-dum dum-dum dummmm).

Welcome to 2001. The technology of space travel has now advanced to such a degree that long distance Inter-planetary journeys are now a reality.

Within the year the first manned mission to Jupiter will commence. Its aim will be to uncover the origin of two huge black obelisks, one which may have triggered the evolution of apes Into men on earth, the other discovered deep beneath the surface of the moon.

Or at least that Is what Stanley Kubrlck and Arthur C Clarke told us was going to happen In their long, tedious, pretentious, occasionally brilliant collaboration, 2001.: A Space Odyssey.

Back In 1968 lt must have seemed fairly amazing- In less than thirty-five years people would be living In orbiting space stations, leaving menial everyday tasks to Independently thinking, talking computers. Even better, the clothes they were wearing would still be In fashion In the next millennium. · Watching 2001. today Isn't quite the same revelatory experience. Basically, If the Ideas In the film looked possible at the end of the sixties, somewhere along the line someone has screwed up. Mars, never mind Jupiter, Is still a distant pipe dream and Mlr Is hardly the gracefully spinning spaceport of Kubrick's Imagination.

Still, at least even our most malicious domestic appliances don't try to kill us and, the last time I checked, Leonard Rosslt er hadn't risen to a position of political Influence. lt's all a question of weighing up the pros and cons. But with a title like 2001., the film was always going to receive t his kind of c riticism when the date finally came round. What Is more surprising Is how many other movies offer dates by which time t he circ umst ances they depict must be achieved.

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Staange.,.,. (1995) Very few people saw Strange Days when it came out, whic h is a pity because it 's quite good. Like 12 Monkeys it leaves little time for reality to catch up with its fiction, as the setting is the build-up to the millennium In Los Angeles. The celebration, when it arrives, is spookily close to how it happened. With midnight approaching

millions of people crowd the streets, desperate to have the amount of fun they were assured they were going to have. Earlier on there are other commendable aspects- the background to the film's convoluted murder plot is racial violence inflicted by the police. Ralph Fiennes' ties are terrifyingly true to life.

However, there are two inexcusable lapses in the picture's logic. First, the plot (devised by serial logic-offender James Cameron) expects us to accept that by 1999 a device will have been invented that records experiences (what a person sees, hears, feels). Second, we're meant to believe that the Los Angeles city council booked Skunk Anansie to play its c itizens into the new millennium. Yeah, right .

Accuracy: 5/ 10

Escape From New Yen (1981) Escape From New York can count itself proudly amongst the ranks of that most exclusive of genres, the intelligent action movie. According to its director John Carpenter, by 1998 the whole o' Manhattan Island will have been converted into a maximum-security prison. All the criminals in America are sent there, regardless of their crime, and left to fend for themselves. When the president's plane crash-lands inside, Kurt Russell is sent in to get him out, with only an eye-patch an:! fantastic name (Snake Pliskin) for protection.

While this scenario hasn't exactly turned out to be t rue, Manhattan is witness to a great deal of unpleasantness, and I personally wouldn't argue that Wail Street isn't overrun by crooks. Also, thil makers must be kicking themselves that their depiction of the president as a gormless, easily manipulated idiot was only three years out. Ho ho ho.

Accuracy: 7/ 10

12 Moi*8Js (1995) Someone c learly thought that 1997 was going to be a bad year for the human race. If 12 Monkeys was to be believed on its release, then mankind was a mere two years away from near total

Wednesday, January 17, 2000

destruction, following the introduction of a deadly virus.

Although these events didn't actually transpire (hurrah), they remain rather more likely than our being trounced by killer robots (boo). In his earlier masterpiece Brazil, the director Terry Giiliam refused to set the narrative in a particular time, ecting to call it "the near future". So him being so specific in allotting us less than seven hundred and thirty days has to be read as some kind of message. Certainly the AIDS epidemic in Africa is reaping havoc at present and with the existence of the Ebola virus perhaps 12 Monkeys might be possible. Now there 's a scary thought. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Accuracy: 6/ 10 (though hopefully far less)

Tan.._.,/12: dudgamant Day (1984/1991) On 29th of August 1997 SKYNET, the self-aware computer that the US government designed to independently run the nation's defence systems, t urned on its creators.

North America's entire nuclear arsenal was launched at various countries around the world, who immediately fired back.

The few humans that survived t his barrage were left to fight a seemingly

Runner (1982)

Total Recall (1990)

Accuracy: 1/ 10

Malropala (1926) Poor old Fritz Lang- when making Metropolis in the 1920s, he must have thought 2000 was a pretty good year to set his fi lm. Not only is it a nice round number, seventy-four years will have seemed ample time for politicians and scientists to catch up with his vision. Thankfully he didn't get it quite right, because Lang's 2000 would be a grim place to exist. In the titular city, citizens are forced to work underground, the victims of a fascist regime. Only the speeches of an apparently saintly child named Maria prevent them from uprising. The situation is made worse when a scientist kidnaps Maria and replaces her with his evil robotic version. The robot causes chaos from which the scientist intends to profitbut matters get out of hand. Metropolis was possibly the most expensive movie of the silent era. lt is certainly one of the least amusing.

Many of Lang's ideas were uncannily accurate.

The city, with its overbeari ng skyscrapers and endless lines of traffic could quite easily be New York. But the chances of an entire nation being led by a child ended with Macaulay Culkin's demise as a Hollywood power.

Accuracy: 3/ 10 (marked down for being Hitler's favourite fllm)

Back to the Future Part 11 (1989)

With events in Total Recall occurring in 2084 (who thinks of these dates?), most readers of this article will be lucky to live long enough to find out if any of them come true. Right now, however, society appears to be heading in the opposite direction. In the film Arnold Schwarzenegger pays to have memories of a fictional vacation to Mars implanted in his head. Today, people spend thousands on holiday in Ibiza and come back unable to remember anything about it.

In other respects it could be quite close. Director Paul Verhoeven takes the radical step of imagining a future without flying cars, an eventuality that, if we're honest, is the most likely. Apparently the scene where Arnie pulls an egg-sized tracking device from his nose is totally plausible. The second half is set on the recently colonized Mars, where inhabitants exist inside pressurized domes, again a concept within the realms of possibility. Although it wou ld be nice to think the outer shell could be strong enough to withstand gunfire.

If Blade Runner's idea of the future is what is going to take place if we continue to do things wrong, the future in Back To The Future Part 11 is what we're going to get if we're very, very good. The year is 2015, cars can fly and everywhere is clean and bright. Jackets adjust themselves to fit and automatically dry if you get wet. Microwave pizza takes seconds and actually looks palatable. Even street gangs are adorably zany. If there is a fault with this future it's that Jaws 19 is playing in cinemas. For that to happen a Jaws film would have to be released at a rate of more than one a year from now until 2015. Ugh. Perhaps that might be bearable though, if the dream of hoverboards comes true.

Every child - and adult - t hat watches the Back To The Future films wants a hoverboard (for the very few who don't know, they're essentially skateboards that float). The problem is t hat they don't exist. Hardly a year goes by without a Tomorrow's World presenter announcing that their Invention is imminent , but they have yet to materialize. Well, according to the films, there are only fourteen years left to go.

A bit of a pointless exercise this one, as Luc Besson's The Fifth Element is set in 2214, a year even the most ardent subscribers to anti-aging remedies aren't going to experience. Which is a good thing, because that's when Besson tells us an inter-galactic blob of pure evil will threaten earth with destruction. Other than that, life in the twentyt hird century will be business as usual. Tax i drivers (represented by Bruce Willis whose vest is now made of orange rubber) continue to be treated like scum and radio DJs (Chrls Tucker giving the worst performance of his dismal 'career') are going to get even more annoying. You'd imagine that two hundred years of progress would amount to more than the usual flying cars. Special word should go to Jean-Paul Galtier's costume design - two centuries later his clothes still look really stupid.

Predicted Accuracy: (hopefully) 10/ 10

Predicted accuracy: 3/ 10

Predicted accuracy: 5/ 10

1he F'dth Element (1997)

With the recent announcement of the first genetically modified monkey, suddenly Blade Runner doesn't look quite as unlikely.

The film is set in 2019. more t han enough lime for scientists to start building super-humanE (known as repllcants in the movie). Whet1er these enhanced people would then run around killing people is slightly more debatable. but if it were rain ing all the t ime, you'd get pissed off too. In fact, examining Runner more ::losely, its future Los Angeles could be c l os~ to the truth. Apart from the wrecked clim3te and replicants (Cher probably already qualif es) , traffic is reaching grid lock both on the ground and in the air and no two people seem ~o speak the same language. Many of the crumbling, leaking old buildings where the action takes place are highly reminiscent of today's student housing. Only talk of outer space mining stands out as unlikely to happen. Perhaps the filmmakers knew something we don't...

Predicted accuracy: 8/ 10

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nd

future Demolition Man (1994) Somewhere in between the nightmare future of Blade Runner and the dream future of the Back to the Future fi lms lies the fairly average Demolition Man. The film is set in 2032. Following a devistating earthquake LA has been rebuilt from scratch and renamed San Los Angeles.

Somehow the quake has caused all the negative aspects of society to collapse along w ith all the appalling architecture. San Angeles is a happy place, where the police have no idea how to deal with violence and everyone tells each other to " be well ". Also scmeone in this future has a sharp

sense of humour, because Arnold Schwarzenegger is now president of the United States. San Angeles is also incredibly boring.

Anything that is bad for you has been banned, Including fatty foods and sex. Demolition Man shows us what wi ll happen if social workers are ever g iven the power that they secretly crave.

What makes the fi lm worth mentioning at ail is that at one point, it is rumoured, the scenes set in San Angeles were going to be shot at good old UEA. With this in mind the possibilities are endless. Imagine Sly Stallone striding manfully past the library, dishing out justice to evil Wesley Snipes in the square, pausing only to complain about the lack of quality food establishments on campus. Now there's a future worth buying into.

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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Various Clubbers Guide to 2001 Although this is only the latest in a long line of dance compilations, a seemingly endless stream of 'big up' albums which pop up every week in an attempt to persuade people that listening to clubbing anthems in their darkened bedroom is as good as attending the Ministry or Cream, Tall Paul's expert mixing ensures that, as ever, the Ministry's is by far the best offering.

For those of you wondering what 2001 will be delivering in the way of crowd pleasers, look no further than this high-octane mix of house and trance which will leave you gagging to hit the hallowed dance floor at the Ministry, or Time for that matter.

Those of you who crave the cheesy hard-house favoured by your local Ritzy's will be disappointed as this is more of a progressive look at the spectrum of tracks from disco grooves (Enough is Enough) to t he

'Female American whiney singer-songwriter' a la Alanis Morisette, lisa Loebe, Sheryl Crow ... and played at UEA last year when she was supporting James at the LCR. Her debut album, May Street Project, was written in London but has definite roots in the music of her native Texas with jazz and blues forming the basis for many of the songs, Can't Lie and Always. Coming from a musical fami ly and upbringing, Shea uses a wide range of instruments and effects on the album from synthesised drum beats at the start of Blind Situation (which sound exactly like the start of Britney's Hit Me Baby ... ) to lndian-style accompaniments In Walk on Rainbows. The

heavier beats of Spaced Invader which will be released for our listening pleasure this year.

Disk two (trance) is slightly derivative and sounds like you've heard it all before, but it's ideal to stick on in the background. As with ail compilations, there are some tracks on the Guide which are obviously going to become classics, but others which leave you feeling as though they were thrown in to fill space.

Luckily though, Tall Paul's seamless mixing ties it all together with his usual panache.

Doubtless the majority of these little gems will be duplicated on future compilation albums, but if you want to be in the know in advance, the Clubbers Guide Is well worth spending your Christmas money on.

ec sm to ensure doesn't get pigeonholed?) is certainly a credit to Shea, and she pulls it off well - but it is a little disconcerting when the mood skips from the soaring violins and throaty, heart-felt lyrics of Last Time to the more funky beats of Clutch which has the edgy feel of Garbage about it .

As a debut album, the M ay Street Project is a promising start for Shea who shows herself to have a wide range of singing styles from happy-clappy gospel (Can't Lie) to the obligatory close harmony ballad as perfected by Celine Dion (again and again ...). If she can continue the success she had on tour with James she will be well on her way to a very lucrative career.

Slaphead dance guru combines with asbestosthroated diva to produce uplifting music genius. If that hasn't sold you then the Borrowers-esque video will. They're little and they live in a piano come onl Gemma O'Donnell

Also Released: Feeder Buck Rogers

Those of you who still mourn the passing of The Wildhearts will be cheered by this classy piece of genuine power pop. Whiners dominate rock at the ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ moment, son ~a rare treat to hear an optim~t~ As a hardened Britney and S Club fan I may not be the an upper class monotone. and happy tune about breaking free. Makes you Overall the actual music is confined to the usual yearn for sunshine and fast cars. most authoritative or well-informed person to be reviewing a Sludgefeast album, but any band who repetitive scratchy electric guitar riffs played over a Anthony Love// starts their album with the lyrics "Baby you f-k me manic sounding drum beat, but if that 's what floats your boat I'm sure it would plss your neighbours off up, come on, ooh, baby you f-k me up .. .look out, aa, sufficiently if played at ear-splitting volume. yeah, f-k, right baby, aagh. Christ's Harmonica" deserves to be mocked and celebrated in equal meaIf Top of the Pops' Gail Porter is to be believed (not sures in my opinion. With each of the tracks on this an idea I would endorse) , 2001 is going to be a year With more expletives than a Bernard Manning gig of rock so cast off the shackles of the LCR and sing album containing an approximate ratio of five f-ks to and even less tact Fred Durst and co are back. every one 'polite' word, the sleeve notes are very brief along: "/ wanna rock like S/udgefeast, my god we got This latest offering from the darlings of Hip-Rock (most of the lyrics are screaming and so don't take up some rockin". is much the same as the rest of their stuff, full of much space), and are most when read out in Elln Jones decent riffs but let down by some dreadful lyrics.

Maybe they should t ake their own advice and •get some better rhymes.·

Sludgefeast Rock 'n' Roll

Limp Bizkit Rollin'

Apartment 26 Hallucin

Is nu-metal becoming a bit old hat? Korn lost their crunch?

Bizkits make you feel ill?

Something fresh is certainly required, and riding the so called ·new wave of nu-metal' are Apartment 26. it's always refreshing to find that a band at the forefront of a new movement is British, and not, as is so often the case, American. With friends in high places (singer Biff is the son of legendary Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, and Fear Factory's Burton C. Bell provides guest voc als), the band

clearly have potential, and for the most part, they realise it. A complex mix of electronic trickery and tight riffing, Apartment 26 take the formula devised by their obvious forefathers Pitchshifter and smooth off the jagged edges.

Credit for this is due In the main to producer Ulrich Wild, who achieves a fine balance between the musicians without forcing the vocals down in the mix. The obvious star of the band is programmer A c Huckvale, whose imaginative performance sets new standards for bands who Involve

Nick Heneg an

Jennifer Lopez Love Don't cost a Thing

samples and electron ica behind heavy guitars. But sadly, the rest of the band are slightly behind Huckvale's talents, and too often fail to provide the truly memorable hook required. But Biff can certainly sing, and has some reasonably strong lyrics to perform, so Hallucinating is by no means a failure. it's never boring, and could certainly provide some rock club dancefloor fodder. The second album will make or break this band - otherwise true success will prove to be a mirage.

Jenny's love don't cost a thing. Really? Then how does she explain the gold laden pimping piece of arm·candy that she parades around like some kind of trophy? More playful R + B from the fat arsed beauty. That was harsh, it's actually rather good.

Gemma O'Donnell

Ash Shining Light

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the crowd Initially looking a little sparse, it ly becomes apparent that the levellers have • ::~nvt·hiru1 but a narrow fanbase. There are a huge of people present, from the old crusties who probably been following the band since they to new recruits. As ever, there are a few along by a friend' types, as well as the • .,,h,.rnhr,til" drunks who grace.every big gig. As the n event approached, the LCR was swelled to apacity. But first, we had the necessary evil of support bands, both of whom were excellent, h Watercress' set being commented on as one the best ever by a support band. Their main • tt"' "'"'"' seemed to be based on student-related and they went down really well . The second group Mushtaq were slightly stranger, but provided a fundamental message of peace, and oneness, and something to do with a ">.lt•n.•taion. hen the lights finally dimmed again the intensity ..toll;l;=.. ~•a::. amazing, and they opened with Sold England

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

from their new album Hello Pig. Half the LCR rushed forward to mash madly, with the band feeding off the energy of the crowd, and soon wildly jumping round the stage. They played a supreme range of music, balancing the highly energetic classics from Levelling the Land, with the more chilled soulful music from Hello Pig. Each member was allowed to take centre stage, with Charlie the drummer coming forward for The Boatman, and Jon the fiddler getting his starring role in Liberty. OVerall, despite predictions that the Levellers were getting a bit long In the tooth, that clearly wasn 't the case. They only played one or two songs with a strong Irish Folk influence, and they blended seamlessly into the set.

As in all concerts, there were bound to be some omissions, and it was a shame not to hear One Way, Davey, and This Garden. Nevertheless, it was good enough for some people to view as their best gig ever, and they certainly did justice to their new album. With both crowd and band obviously loving it, the Levellers won' t be hanging up their clogs any time soon .

Elfin Tim Wheeler and his motley brigade of nuclear ex-teenagers return with this storming chunk of punk-pop bluster. Melodic and fuzzy in all the right places, this is precisely the sort of stuff and it's thateven wongot them a big acclaim old key in change the firstatplace, the end. Strike a light!

Steve Co/1/ns '·

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Inspected: Film

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Directed by: Ang Lee Starring: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh and Zang Ziyi

Surprising that a martial arts film with ... whisper it now, subtitles, can actually pull In a large bulk of the British philistine viewing public, but that Is what we have here. Definitely one to catch.

In 1999, the traditional action movie lay dying, mortally wounded, a victim of far too many derivative, humourless big-name outings. The future was bleak, and inspiration was nowhere to be found. That is until The Matrix blasted its way on to our screens. The Matrix had that special x-factor, a particular zing previously lacking from all that had gone before. The fight scenes were hyper-real: when the leather clad Keanu landed a blow, his opponent took off into the air and did not stop until he ran out of set. As the audience, we stared rapt by these fresh new fight scenes.

We'd seen our silver screen heroes settle disputes with hand to hand combat before, sure, but never this gracefully. lt was as if they could fly.

Well, I'm here to shatter the illusion for you. lt was all done with wires. Do you feel cheated?

Chances are that you don't, but wait, here's another shocking revelation: the technique has been a mainstay of the kung-fu filled Hong Kong action film for years. The Matrix's supervising siblings were obviously big fans of the genre and we now have them to thank for the current vogue in Hollywood of hanging actors off wires in a shameless attempt to pep-up otherwise limp fight scenes. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon however, is a high-kicking head and shoulders above recent mock eastern adventures like Romeo Must Die or Shanghai Noon, the most noticeable mark

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of its authenticity is that it's actually in Chinese (Mandarin).

I know that for some people the very mention of subtitles, has them running into the sunset muttering somethmg about "not going to the cinema to read a bloody book. I can do that at home".

But trust me if you take this ignorant attitude towards Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you will be missing an absolute treat and you will only have youselves to blame. The sets and the backdrops are all breathtaking and during the fight scenes your mouth will swing open like a barn door in a windy storm, such is the other-worldy spectacle.

But Crouching Tiger... is more than just an action film, no simple beat-em up, it manages to also tell the story of two sets of lovers. The young aristocrats daughter and the rebel bandit, who between them, suceed in breaking the tradition of their ancient culture, and the older couple who love is strangled by the same rigid codes, the parallel is compelling. Finally, lets not forget the humour in this film. All good kung -fu movies have always had a comedy element in them, whether intentional or not. Ang Lee takes this accepted trope and uses it to his advantage, you never quite know whether you should be laughing or not. I say you should, this film is a poetic romp and a laugh riot.

Merek Cooper

Vertical Limit

Directed by: Martin Campbell Starring: Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney

Despite the fact that Chrls O'Donnell ~as only ever made one good film and that only succeeded due to the presence of AI Paclno, Vertical Limit manages to make the best out of a bad situation and still show some semblance of a pulse.

If you have any great fear of snow, or mountains, or Chris O'Donnell's acting, do yourself a favour and stay well clear of this film . Vertical Limit is full of snow and lots of screaming and dying.

Chris O'Donnell, as Peter Garrett does not die, because he is the main character and it would be cruel to kill someone so pretty. Instead, he does what he's best at: pacing, furrowing his brow, playing the hero and occasionally giving us a flash of those expensively white, straight teeth.

Peter's mission is to rescue his sister Annie (Robin Tunney, a triumph for the casting department, it would be hard to find someone who looks more like O'Donnell). Annie and her untrustworthy friend Vaughn are trapped in a cavity inside the biggest mountain in the world, buried under loads of snow. We know that Vaughn is a baddie because he's climbing K2 for money and publicity and fame (boo- realistic but dishonourable motives) whereas lovely Annie is climbing to honour the memory of her dead, mountain climbing father (hoorah! The aii-American heroine!).

Despite the fact that the rescue mission is branded 'madness' and 'impossible' by older, wiser

mountaineers, Peter and his kooky yet brave team battle ahead. Happily, there is a team member to fulfil every stereotype. There is the obligatory grizzled unconventional leader With A Past; the 'comedy' she1la-mad stoner Aussie duo; the Muslim who insists on praying on his prayer mat half way up the mountain even though they've only got 5 hours to reach the victims; and of course, the chick with blonde hair and big eyes (but hey! she can climb mountains too y'know). lt is unfortunate therefore, that Vertical Limit tries to be more than a big dumb disaster movie in the style of Twister or Cliffhanger. Instead it attempts to be a fraught drama of morals, but with snow. You know, do you sacrifice your own life for somebody that is probably going to die anyway? lt is difficult NOT to side with Vaughn on this one, and a Hollywood film that has you siding with the badd1e is not very well constructed.

However, when it sticks to being an adventure action movie, it is really very good, with lots of tension and some impressive stunts and explosions to keep the pubescent boys happy.

Astrld Goldsmith

h7

Unbreakable

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Quills

Directed by: M Knight Shymalan Starring: Bruce Willis Samuel L Jackson

Directed by: Philip Kaufman Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine

Directorial follow-up to The Sixth Sense and the vultures seem to be flocking to tear Unbreakable apart.

Eagerly awaited biopic of the Marguis de Sade fails to live up to expectations despite powerful performances from Geoffrey Rush.

M Knight Shyamalan seems to only have one recipe in his filmic cookbook, surely everyone who has seen his breakthrough effort will be familiar with the following instructions: Take one balding and confused Bruce Willis (preferably the one from Twelve Monkeys rather than Die Hard); add one annoyingly cute little boy; bathe in a gloomy half light and allow to simmer for roughly two hours. Serve with a surprising twist. This twist is perhaps the cinematic equivalent of munching down on some deliciously tasty Christmas pudding, flavoursome and satisfying until suddenly you break one of your molars on a unwanted shilling, carefully concealed by the cook (director), then spending the next two hours catatonic in casualty. M Kn1ght Shymalan seems to love to trade on these viseral shocks.

The plot of Unbreakable is more likekly to be labelled Unbeliveable by critics eager to take some air out of Shymalan's new balloon, but hey, this film is based on the world of comic books and who would dare to question the validity of those. Bruce Willis is the soul-surviver of a horrendous train crash, and as such is believed to have superhero abilities by Jackson's Elijah, a comic book enthusiast suffering from a debilitating brittle bone discease. As film progresses the two begin to from a bond as Bruce slowly begins to believe in what at first he thought was a wild theory.

Although Unbreakable has the same structure as The Sixth Sense, I did not find myself annoyed by this, and that is surely the key to enjoying this movie. If you are prepared to let some of its faults go you will leave the cinema entertained, if not you will almost certainly leave feeling slightly cheated.

On the plus side for everybody we have yet more evidence of the magic of Samuel L Jack son, who is yet agam bessed with memorable and quotable lines, with the script on his s1de he effertlessly steals the show .

A good film then, but definitely time for a new recipe, if only to avoid a critical savag1ng next time round.

The tag line of Quills boasts that there are no such thing as bad words, only bad deeds- but that's far too bold an assertion for a film that seems unsure of itself when dealing with the vexed question of censorship and nature-nurture.

A quasi-historical b10p1c on the final years of the life of Marquis de Sade, Quills is a film that you expect to deal with strong 1ssues- after all, the term sadism IS denved from the name of the main character- but director Phi lip Kaufman seems afraid to really tackle the Marquis, or the baggage that comes with him, on his own terms.

For most of the film, Geoffrey Rush's portrayal of one of history's most famous pornographers; erotic writers (depending on your bent) has the Marquis pegged as a raffish aristocrat with a razor sharp w 1t, unfairly suppressed by the prudISh arid hypocritcal establishment of Napoleonic France. There is never any real suggestion that his detention m Charenton insane asylum was anything more than unjustified- which would be tenable if de Sade hadn't been responsible for the abduction and rape of dozens of men and women.

The performance IS good- it just doesn't ring true.

Michael Caine and Kate Winslet put in pedestrian performances in supporting roles, but without any challenges to rise to, their lack of sparkle is hardly surprising, and the same is true of Joaquin Phoenix. who reprises his "I'm about to cry" methodology from Gladiator.

Quills misses the chance to engage with its subject matter, treating de Sade's violent writings as no more than seaside sauce, rendering the film's serious conclus1on out of place.

A film like th1s doesn't have to preach a message, but it does deserve a surety of touch that 1s lack1ng here. lames Goffln

Merek Cooper

January 19: Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck in

Bounce.

January 26: Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael

Douglas in the critically acclaimed Traffic.

February 2: Mel Gibson knows What Women

Want apparently.

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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it just goes to show... we can get all sniffy about British books being re-set in America but we really don't have a leg to stand on thanks to John Cusack.

Feeling cynical about the importance of love in relationships? Tl1ink t11at mak ing compilation tapes for your girl friend is t11e 21st century way of showing affection? You'll probably like High Fidelity then. But be warned: th is film will not make you feel good about yourself. lt is an antiHol lywood-val ues Hol lywood movie , which is so determined to be true to the whiney t one of the anginal novel (by Nick Hornby) that it starts w1th a messy break-up and ends up with a happy ending which leaves you feel1ng entirely unsatisfied.

To be fair. they've made a very good job of the novel. considering the recent disaster of a Hornby adaptation, Fever Pitch. Once purists have got past the initial outrage of its Americanisation, they will be forced to admit that John Cusack does actually make a fantastic Rob. the freshly dumped anti-hero. Slopping about the film in large jumpers and badly cut jeans, he is really very convincing as the self-pitying record store owner. Rob has to suffer in the company of his two useless employees. who conform to the classic sidekick types : Dick (Todd Louiso) IS the skinny. quiet, geeky Belle and Sebastian obsessive. while Barry (Jack Black) is the hugely fat. overbeanngly noisy bully. Neither of them help much with Rob's post-relationship recovery. In fact, Rob decides to mend his broken heart the unconventional way - by look1ng up all his ex-girlfriends, and finding out the truth behind why they

dumped him and where their relationships went wrong.

This is a highly entertaining way to structure what bas1cally boils down to a break-up and make-up talkie movie. However. you can't help wondering after a while how such a loser like Rob managed to get so many attractive girlfnends. Catherine Zeta Jones appears as Charlie, his most beautiful ex, while lben Hjej le as Laura (the most recent ex) is pretty in a kind of pixielike way. As 1f this wasn't enough, Lisa Bonet (she of Cosby Show and Lenny Kravitz fame) turns up half-way through as a gorgeous one night stand.

High Fidelity is generally entertaining, it even has laugh out loud moments . Most of these involve Tim Robbins as Laura's new boyfriend. lan. who is risib ly repulsive with a long grey pony tail and ethnic garments. But the feel-good factor is missing. lt makes you question the priorities of a relationship: ease and stability over love and excitement. This is somewhat depressing. as Hollywood has brought us up to believe that the words 'I love you· will sort everything out- the hero becomes noble. the girl falls head over heels for his charms, they get married , the end. But. as Laura says, love is irrelevant in thiS film .

However, music fanatics wil l be pleased to learn that High Fidelity values alphabetically ordered record col lections very highly.

Astrld Goldsmith

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Man's wife dies. Heart of wife g oes to pretty woman. Pretty woman meets man. They fall in lo ve. Full stop. (Not exactly taxing but rather sweet in the execution)

Man shoots blanks. Writes screenplay about it. Wife leaves him. Cue Ben Elton inviting all his mates round to make a film. Incestuous, smug, weak. .. but other than that it 's great.

lt IS hard to sell romantic comed1es these days.

Tl1ey have become so nd1culous. w1th all the standard ideas for bringmg a boy and a girl together used up. Film makers now turn to the absurd and the novel. until you feel that you w1ll never find true love unless you meet your paten tial partner in a p1g sty 1n a strange country. after several naturally occurring disasters. The concept of Return to Me is therefore initially most unwelcome.

Bob Rueland ( David Duchovny) seems to have it all: beautiful wife Elizabeth (Joely Richardson). swanky flat in Ch1cago. good job etc. Then El1zabeth dies in a car accident, and his life falls apart. Meanwhile. waitress Grace Briggs (Minn1e Driver) rece1ves her much needed heart transplant. from .... guess which donor? Yep, you guessed it. Hollywood could never been accused of relying on a heavy overdose of coincidence when it most suits them. So. by many strange and wonderful coincidences and hands of Fate and things lik e that. Bob and Grace get pushed together and discover they l1ave an unexplained bond ....

Return to Me is a lot better than it sounds. OK. it's far-fetched, and you can't help wondering if Bob and Grace would have had the same bond 1f she 'd had a liver transplant 1nstead of a heart one . Despite this. it is a well observed. touching and wel l acted film, as long as you can get past the f1rst 15 minutes. which are absolutely abysmal. Duchovny is surpnsingly good as the gneving Bob and has clearly managed to pul l himself out of the Don't Tell Mom tile Babysltter's Dead/ Beethoven SllliSter baddie rut.

M 1nn1e Driver, too. IS as winning as ever, and the whole film is JUSt generally NICE. Don't expect anything shockingly original. but it is heartenmg to see a romantic comedy finally done really well.

Astrld Goldsmith

For several years. whenever Ben Elton got the chance to speak h1s m1nd on televiSIOn or radio he always took the opportunity to moan about the amount of quality material he wasted while hostmg Fnday Night Live on Channel 4.

Now. perhaps as a result. every t1me he thinks of an idea . even a really lame one, 1t gets made into at least two money-spinn1ng projects .

Twice this worked reasonably well. Popcorn and Blast From The Past rece1ved good notices both as books and plays. In attempting the same trick for a third t1me, trying to make a book (it's title is Inconceivable) and a film from an 1dea too slen der to support either, it appears that Elton has fallen arse over tit.

Maybe Baby's plot 11as a happily married coup le (played by Hugh Laurie and Jolie Richardson) resorting to fertility treatment to have a child .

When the husband uses the details of their experiences to write a screenplay (for the BBCwhere does Ben get his ideas?), their relat ionsh ip falls apart. In an effort to get some laughs, Elton has cast as many of his celebrity chums as possible and clumsily spliced his old stand-up routines into the scnpt.

With the exception of some funny scenes with Rowan Atkinson, these ploys fall horribly flat.

Emma Thomson almost ru1ns the film on her own.

Laurie and Richardson are excellent as the leads, injecting warmth into a story line that isn't obviously funny, but their efforts are nowhere near enough to save the picture.

Maybe Baby isn't actually a particularly bad film.

Like so many other British films recently it just 1sn ·t very good. The overall effect 1s one of an awful, M&S jumper kind of middle-class smugness, far removed from the acerbic iconoclasm Elton has built h1s fame upon. Maybe , if Elton - who can be extremely funny concentrated on one thing at once. he could do better. Baby.

Jim Whal/ey

i t's a little known fact that Jon Bon Jovi helped America win the war by capturing one of the Nazis' Enigma machines. Erm, isn't it?

I must confess to bemg in two minds about World War 11 submarine flick U-571. One s1de of me enjoyed the film immensely. I admired the authentic look1ng period detail. was excited about the action sequences in which the sub's crew fight for survival, and felt a real sense of claust rophobia. However, the other side of me couldn't help but feel I had seen it all before.

And. unfortunately. I think I can see my latter Side's pomt.

U-571 IS the almost-true story of how an Amen can sub crew. including Matthew McConaughey and Harvey Keitel, are sent to capture one of the Naz1·s Enigma encoding machines to help Amenca ... sorry, the Allies, to win the war. This is a slightly sore point with European audiences. as U-571 was actually BritiSh sub with a British crew. Ah. how adept Hollywood is at cla1m1ng other people's glory .

However, when the device IS captured in the film's first half you know that th is means tl1ings are going to get complicated. Which they do, as the Yanks find their sub attacked and get stranded in a U-boat deep under the Atlantic.

Unlike the At lantic Ocean . however, U-571 1acks depth. Despite the big budget, the film never

really gets beyond the complexity of a lot of people bemg chucked around a watery set for a couple of hours. Every cliched line of dialogue you'd expect to hear in a submanne fl1ck IS here. as are those handy sonar sounds wl1ich conveniently tell us when bad things are about to l1appen.

If it's atmospllere you want. then t11e legendary Das Boot IS st1ll untouchable.

Similarly. 1n terms of pure human drama. the f1lm has tried, but is still found wanting. What made Hunt for Red October and Crimson T1de so strong were the rounded characters and emotional confrontations mside the water logged tm can. U-571. however. wastes McConaughey and Keitel's talents with a dull and hackneyed struggle for rank, common to every m1l1tary mov1e under the sun.

Trying to reconcile my div1ded op1n1on. I must admit that U-571 certainly manages to crank up the tension in all the right places. and delivers in its action sequences. However, in every aspect there's someone else which has done it all before . and has done it better. Much like the British recovering the Enigma in WW2, real ly.

Phi/ Colvin

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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Ins ected: Arts

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Metamorphosis Thta..

Madderm Last Tuesday the Maddermarket Theatre was host to Steven Berkoff's Metamorphosis. Based on the book by Franz Kafka and directed by Peter Beck, it portrays the life of Gregor Samsa (in this instance played superbly by Tim Ashwell) and how one day he wakes up to discover that he has metamorphosised (hence the play 's obvious title) into a giant beetle.

Immediately it can be seen that the story abandons all concepts of reality in the literal sense and so perhaps it is inevitable that in 1969, Berkoff, renowned for his inventive and often controversial physical and abstract stage work, was the man to bring the role to life . Indeed he stated that upon reading Kafka's work, "I saw him in the most marvellous exertions of the imagination working inside the desperation of the strangled soul, this frightening human being - and thereby releasing its horrors."

The role of Gregor speaks out about society, highlighting the subconscious need for the character to rebel against his Stalinist-like bosses, his ungrateful father and his expectant mother and sister. The play continues over the course of Gregor's first disdain for the situation, then his acceptance of it as he fully transmogrifies into a snarling, spitting creature. The play proved to be more montage-like than

linear, with the cast comprising of only four main protagonists who narrate upon the events, performing them and breaking free of their character constraints to indirectly address the audience and describe the consequences of such actions.

Whilst on the whole successful, in some places this proved a bit confusing as it became difficult to ascertain what was flashback and what was happening in the present.

In one instance Gregor resorted back to human form in a flashback but the audience did not know this as no change occurred to him physically, only subtle alterations to his mannerisms.

The setting was minimalist rather than naturalistic, consisting only of a frame of scaffolding and a ramp.

This allowed Ashwell and his father, played by Paul Coding, to show off their acrobatic abilities by swinging freely and clambering, as though the character were climbing the walls and sc~rrying around.

Mime and rigid dance moves were also incorporated into the performance. This, combined with all the actors having painted-on white faces, suggested that inspiration for the performance was from French clowns, enhanced by clumsy and even cpmical moves in some places.

Examples incude one scene in which the family is eating dinner and is attempting to drown out the

gnawing noises of Gregor attacking his scraps and how the father is actually just as noisy, thus exposing his somewhat beastial personality.

The play also examines how physical beauty is important to how families perceive each other. Gregor's family is disgusted by what he has become and blames him entirely for his ' illness'. The result of his 'selfish' change is that his sister can no longer go to the academy to play the violin and his father has to go out and get a job to pay off outstanding debts. lt is almost a relief for them, then, when Gregor finally dies and they can move to a smaller apartment.

While the death of Gregor can be seen as being induced by refusing to eat and having an apple lodged in his back (the result of one of his father's brutal attacks). it actually seems that Gregor dies through loneliness as he is not allowed to leave his room and none of his family can stand to look at him. This modest performance perhaps did not emphasise that as much as was necessary and some of the audience went away feeling slightly disappointed. But on the whole, what seemed to be the underlying message did get across; this being that life cannot always be seen through rose-tinted glasses.

Charlotte Ronalds

UE~ Visiting Writers

Preview: UEA's literary festival kicks off again next month, bringing with it a wealth of writing talent and, hopefully, the vast majority of The Event arts interviews. First to join us is Richard Eyre (Thursday February 1st). Eyre served for many years as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, a job which brought him into frequent contact with some of the great theatre performers, including Laurence Olivier and lan McKellen. His autobiography Utopia and Other Places descibes the friendships that developed. fan McEwan (Friday February 9th),

author of such dark, twisted novels as Amsterdam and The Cement Garden, returns to UEA. McEwan was the first pupil of Malcolm Bradbury, and his appearance serves as a tribute to his former tutor.

Fay Wetdon (Thursday February 15th), wrote the best seller Rhode

Island Blues which explores the themes of "sex and ageing, family and history, love and confinement".

She also wrote the TV drama Big

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2001 Exhibition Preview:

Womerr Former UEA student Trezza Azzopardl will be here on Tuesday February 20th to talk about her Bookel Prize short-listed debut, The Hiding Places, so turn out to suppor} local talent .

Brain Keenan (Thursday March 1st)

was hdld hostage in the Middle East together with John McCarthy.

An Evii Cradling is an account of their imprisonment, and Between Extremes continues the story of their friendship. Richard Holmes (Thursday March 8th) has written a number of acclaimed biographies, including She/fey: The Pursuit and Coleridge: Darker Reflections.

On Thursday March 15th Kate Atkfnson will talk about her novels, including Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which was voted Whitbred Book of the Year 1995. Her other works include Human Croquet and Emotidnally Weird.

The festival concludes with Davld Lodge (Tuesday March 20th) who will discuss his large canon of widely praised writings such as Changing Places, Small World and Jlm Whalley Think...

The pot must be one of the most underrated vessels of modern times. Whether surrounding a yoghurt or housing a flower or plant, pots are as essential to life at the dawn of the twenty-first century as they ever have been in the past. Yet c.ruelly they have frequently been taken for granted as purely functional items, when in fact they can be so much more.

Now, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts attempts to redress the balance with their exhibition Modern Pots (running from Tuesday January 30th until Sunday June 24th in the Special Exhibitions Gallery). For the first time all four hundred works of the Lisa Sainsbury Pot Collection will be on show to the general public. The collection began back in the 1950s when Lisa's interest was first aroused by the contemporary ceramics of Lucie Rie. Indeed, she was so taken with the pieces that, together with Sir Robert Sainsbury, she bought a large body of work by Hans Coper, a close friend of Rie's.

From these humble beginnings the collection has since grown

Modern Pots Sainsbu Centre exponentially. Today, the collection contains a vast array of pottery, many of which are pushing the boundries of what actually constitues a pot almost to breaking point. Individual pieces by Bernard Leach, a highly influential potter, can be found standing next to works by lan Godfrey, Ewen Henderson and John Ward that have been descibed as "exciting".

A long with these established artists, exhibits are also included from a number of younger potters in whom Lisa Sainsbury has continued to show interest.

While the contributions from Rie and Coper are permanent highlights at the Sainsbury Centre, several of the pieces have been taken (with permission) from Lady Sainsbury's home, so if pottery is your thing, this is definitely the time to go. A book is also available, priced ÂŁ35 from the centre 's bookstore. Never in recent memory have pots been made to look so close to being interesting. Actually interesting, however, may be an impossible dream.

Jlm Whalley

Through Peru Norwich Arts Centre January 25 If you 've ever wanted to go to the Amazon but really can't be arsed, this one man show might be the next best thing. Peter Searles wrote and performs this entertaining account of his adventures around the less inhabited parts of the world. Apparently his encounters include monks, drug smugglers, airline hostesses and prison.

The Winter Guest Maddermarket Theatre January 25- February 3 First performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse under the direction of one Alan Rickman, The Winter Guest is a beautifully written play detailing the effects of death on a small Scottish seaside town.

This production contains strong language, so best leave the young 'uns at 'ome.

The Crucible The Sewell Barn Theatre January 11-13, 17-20

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ArthurMiiiM'sclass~~ay~cievesy~an~herime~

pretation, this time by the Sewell Barn Theatre Company. According to the literature, it will be particularly relevent this time, as Miller was made a Freeman of the City of Norwich towards the end of last year. How that makes the witches any less stale isn't mentioned.

Mack & Mabel Theatre Royal January 29- February 3 This is an amateur production of the perennial favourite opera made famous by Torvill and Dean. lt celebrates the life and work of Mack Sennet , the great silent era director of Hollywood comic films. The group behind the production is the Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society , who had a great success with Me and My Girl last year.

Complied by Jlm Whalley

Wednesday, January 17th, 2001

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Essential l ""Game 01:

You're bald . You've got no name . You're mental.

And you're hired to kill people. Sounds like fun?

Well, then Danish company, 10 Interactive's newest release could be just your cu p of tea. The plot seems simple and unassuming to begin with: you wake up in a mental hospital and are instructed through the rooms by some unearthly voice with the kind of dodgy Russian accent usual ly reserved for suspicious characters in James Bond fil ms. Th is is your t raining then, and you are shown t he basic ins an d outs of weaponry th at you may need in you r missions, rang ing from garrottes to sub-machineguns to long-range ri fles. it's all pretty standard st uff, but t hen t here are more weapons you wil l find throug hout the game that you do not find here, and after all , a good assassin doesn't need fancy equipment to ach1eve h1s aims.

The game itself is arranged in a series of five primary operations plus a finale of sorts. Within these operations, the gameplay is subdivided into the actual missions you play. Between each mission, you are briefed on your objectives via an interface that represents the laptop computer that your agent carries with him. You use this interface to read up on the info for each mission; suggestions that your agency has regarding the execution of those missions; and to offer weapons and other implements you 'll need , like body armour or binoculars.

As the game moves on you find out more and more about yourself and what you are involved in (yes, the bare ode on the back of your head is there for a reason), which all helps to keep the

~. 7 ·w

Wednesday, January.17 ,. 2001

Essential Game 02:

w

Hitman: Codename 4 7 (PC CD)

plot and gameplay nice and interesting.

The controls them selves are slight ly different to most of Hit man's contemporaries and quite tricky to get to grips with, often leading to tricky situations involving running into a wall and being shot when what yo u really want to do is run around the wall t ow ards safet y. But t hen, I suppose, whenever you sit down t o pl ay a new com put er game, it's best to take the att itude th at learning is part of the experi ence of the game. Or someth ing.

The graphic s, in t he cont ext of t od ay's st andard of gam ing graphics, are very good , bu t not mi ndblowing.

The att entio n t o detail, however, is excell ent.

Leaves brush aside in a real ist ic manner; hanging drapery bill ows out of your way, even flying around more violent ly the faster you run into it; and bodies that are dragged up or down stairs bump along realistica lly (not t hat I'd actually know that or anything), w ith each limb moving independently .

One of the main drawbacks of Hitman is the fact that there is no way of saving the game during a mission. So, if you die then you have to replay the whole mission, which, if it is a long one (and there a few of those) , or, like me, you are not very good, can be very tedious. Oh, and the game itself hardly breaks boundaries in originality. But then, who needs originality when you've got weapons at your fingertips?

Overall, Hitman: Codename 47 is challenging and absorbing, and makes a great addition to the ever-increasing shoot 'em up family .

Mark/and Starkle

WWF Smackdown 2 ( Playstation)

Overtly musc ular women, cell ulite in t he face, and large men asking if yo u can smel l wh at t hey' re cooking. lt can mean only one thmg : WWF Smackdown is back in tow n and it 's oilier tha n ever. All of t he usual characters are incl uded and there's also the chance to creat e your own WWF superstar th is t ime arou nd. Add t o th is the options of creating a manager; playing a full season; and creat ing a stable of fight ers; and th is version already appears to be a more complete and absorbi ng game t han its predecessor. Of course, the most impressive aspect of anything t o do with WWF is its appearance, and this is obviously where the bulk of the money has gone. The intro sets the scene of the game with an ex pl osion of noise and a film sequence of a rea l WWF crowd being wh ipped into a frenzy. From here on in volume shou ld be cranked up to max imum and

courtesy left at the door. Whil e the handl ing may be a litt le sluggish the actual moves have been replicated near perfec t ly , so be prepared for numerous clotheslines, kic ks to the groin, and an ass being wi ped on your nose.

Just as w ith most games of this genre, the 't apping buttons quick ly and randomly ' method will get you so far, but happily the makers made it fairly simple to grasp t he more complex moves as well. The t wo-player mode is definitely worth trying, as it gives the chance t o hone you r sk ill s before taking on t he compute r. Ultimately t hi s is one for the fans as the lack of variety makes the game drag somewh at . That said it can be a lot of fun, and all t hose who didn't pre-orde r t heir PS2's ca n tak e co mfort in t he fact t hat this is one of the best beat'e m ups around.

Matt Reed

Do you find yourself singing the theme-tune to Red Dwarf in the bath-tub? Could you sketch the shape of a Narn Starcruiser? Do you know what Aeon Flux is? If so, then Sadgeezer.com could be the best friend you've ever had . Or maybe the only friend you've ever had.

Sadgeezer.com is a site dedicated to cult sci-fi shows ranging from the well -known and loved by, er, hundreds, such as Baby/on 5 and the Hitch Hiker 's Guide To The Galaxy, to lesser known shows, including Lexx - a German/ Canadian effort that, from the pictures on the site, looks slightly less mhibited on the whole clothes issue than your average se i-fi show.

Each of the shows looked at by the Sadgeezer team has several different sections, focussing on different aspects of the programme.

These include episode guides , cast information, facts about the different cultures and races that appear on the show (yes, people, this is serious stuff here) and even a purity test for the hardcore fanatic.

What the site real ly centres itself around, however, is the forums created to allow like-minded people (and when I refer to 'people' what I really mean is, y'know, those kids who walked around school with notes saying "I'm a geek who needs a good beating. Please help." st uck t o their back) to chat to each other about whatever stuff they want to chat about.

As long it involves sci-fi.

Ooh, and you can even browse the site wearing your very own Sadg~ezer.com teeshirt , drinking tea out of your very own Sadgeezer.com mug, having bought them in the extensive merchandise section.

You might think that Sadgeezer.com, and sci-fi in general, is just cool enough to waste your precious t ime on ... I certainly thoug ht so.

But that was before I found out that my personal hero, Tracy "porn" Lords, was starring in sci-fi ya rn, First Wave. Now it seems that being sad has never been coo ler.

Mark/and Starkle

19

Essential TV 01:

C4 Thursda

This week sees the pilot episode of the West Wing starring Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe. This is the introductory chapter to the multi Emmy award-winning drama created and written by 路 Aaron Sorkin of A Few Good Men fame . lt concerns itself with the frenzied staff of the White House, who must cope with global crises and impending war on an administerial basis.

Think Spin City with electric windows, air conditioning and power steering, minus canned laughter, and minus that bespectacled guy who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. lt is basically a behind the scenes glimpse at the inner workings of the Oval Office. Martin Sheen plays President Josiah Bartlet, who is more than equipped to lead the most powerful nation in the world, but still needs lessons on how to ride a bike. Bartlet is a direct descendant from one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence, however his country-lawyer charisma seems to masquerade his obvious devotion to his country. Sheen himself is no stranger to political scandal having recently fou[ld himself front page material for ca lling George W Bush a "white knuckle drunk" You'd have to agree with him really, its like calling the sun "hot " . In fact, there are many who would agree that Sheeri himself could do a better job than that Texas jackass, his method acting on set led him to actually believe that he was the president. I wonder if he knows who the leader of Pakistan is? John Spencer is the professorial Leo McGarry, Bartlets loyal chief of staff, however his fierce dedication to his leader doesn't detract from the fact that he treats him like a bit of an idiot . lt is McGarry's job to both encourage and threaten his employees like Sam Seaborn who is bought to life

Essential Radio:

West Wing Januar 18 at 9.00 m

by Rob (she's over 16, officer, honest!) Lowe.

Seaborn is a pure political animal with an eye for the ladies, who keeps the Press Secretary C.J. Clegg very busy with his seedy sexual antics.

Tonight's episode invites us to meet the president and his merry band of political employees. While trying to deal with Cuban refugees attempting to flee to Florida in the middle of a hurricane, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman says a bad, bad thing on national television. Don 't worry Josh , it can 't be worse than anything we've heard before. As if this wasn't problem enough for our hero Bartlet, Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn has a liaison with a woman who he later discovers is a call girl, and embarrasses himself in front of Chief of Staff Leo McGarrys daughter.

You begin to wooder why he chose these people in the first place. Politicians, they're humans after all. I'll be intrigued to see how they develop the drama in later episodes, but I'm not going to argue with nine Emmys. Personally I think that this should pave way for more political dramas; imagine, if you can, a docu-soap in the office of newly inaugurated president George W Bush. We could learn alongside him as he struggles to make vast political decisions like whether to wear the red cowboy boots or the black, or whether to eat piua or steak for his breakfast.

We could travel to such far-flung places as Africa where he is confused by their native tongue and enquires as to why the locals are "so goddamn skinny " . Then the piece de resistance: a meeting with Saddam Hussein over a gentlemanly game of Russian Roulade. The power! The tantrums! The comedy! Let 's get in quick before Channel 5: I hear they're not fussy.

Gemma O'Donne/1

Lamacq Live: Almost Famous Radio 1 Monda 22 at 8.0qpm

Almost Famous is a four hour, one off special nspired by the release of Cameron Crowe's film of the same name. Whilst the film takes a look at American rock journalism thirty years ago, this programme investigates the contemporary world of British music journalists. lt is presented by Radio 1 DJ, Steve Lamacq, well qualified for the job as he is himself still a writer for NME. Amongst t he people involved are Mary Anne Hobbs and James Brown, both former music journalists. Garry Bushell better known as a Sun columnist is also featured, as he reveals the roc;k and roll lifestyle of writing for Sounds.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll are elements frequently mentioned by the journalists as they describe the ups and downs of making it to the top.

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As music publications such as Melody Maker and Select have recently gone into decline or disappeared altogether, current editors discuss the future of music journalism. Steve also interviews musicians, including Dave Grohl, of Foo Fighters fame, to hear about their encounters with the British music press.

Also on Monday, on Radio 4 at 9.45pm, is Book of the Week. lt is of particular interest this week -as it features Lorna Sage's award winning memoirs Bad Blood.

Lorna Sage, who sadly died last week and was a senior English lecturer at UEA , tells the story of her strange upbringing, her adulterous vicar grandfather and her pregnancy at sixteen . Bad Blood is read by Maureen 0' Brien and abridged

by Doreen Estall.

Kathryn Hlnchllff

Essential Soaps As if there aren't enough soaps on television at the moment, 2001 sees the return of the apparently much loved Crossroads. Amongst the cast are two ex Hollyoaks members, James Mckenzie Robinson who played Joe and Toby Sawyer who played Baz. Coronation Street's Maureen Holdsworth will also feature. These soap stalwarts will be joined by two of the original members of the cast, Tony Adams and Kathy Staff, aka Nora Batty . Crossroads' plan to get back into the soap market is that it claims that it will inject humour back into the world of soaps. Not an easy task, if Coronation Street's similar attempts are anything to go by. As for the state of affairs in current soap-world, Susan's twelveyear secret in Coronation Street, doesn't remain secret for much longer now that Deidre's got hold of it. She tells Dev about Susan keeping

Essential TV 02:

Mike Baldwins' baby and Dev obviously tells Mike. Deidre leaves her job in protest . Know doubt she will soon be back to continue lusting over Dev. Get a grip women. Also in Coronation Street the dispute at the Rover's comes to a head when Linda decides to bring her extremely individual management techniques to running the bar.

In Eastenders, Pauline decides to go to court for custody of baby Chloe. Sonia realises that she can't have Chloe living in the square without being able to look after her and so she attempts to get Chloe back herself. The court case will be shown on the February 1. Also coming up, Ashley finds out what a rogue his father Nick Cotton is, when he asks him to set Mark's house on fire, 路 with Mark in it . Will he or won't he?

..

Kathryn Hlnchllff

Vids C4 Thursday Januar 18 at 2.10am

Stef and Nige return with a sixth series of their funny (that's funny 'ha ha', and funny 'weeeiird') video review show, complete with more nakedness, more goo, and more videos (like, duh). Woohoo! No longer will I have to watch the ,~il shows used to fill in void left by Vids' departure ~ at the end of last year. Programmes like the 'exciting' and 'voyeuristic ' , SPY TV, which basically spends the ent ire time looking at clubbers pulling each other using night-vision cameras (Ooh. Scandalous.). Or Disinfo Nation, which is basically a US version of Eurotrash, but without the irony.

"Hang on a minute! " I hear you cry . "What ~:;:::::111 exactly is this wondrously hilarious programme of which you speak?" Well, my lucky little friends, I shall tell you . Vids is a homegrown , DIY stlylee show, in an Adam and Joe Show type way .. . except that, instead of making films (albeit in a slightly amateurish way). Vids reviews them . The camera-work is wonky; the lighting rivals Von Trier's best Dogme efforts; and the sets are, well, usually non-existent since they mostly just invade other people's property .

So, if you've always thought that Barry Norman's

Film Review (yes, I know Jonathan Ross presents it now, but, whether he likes it or not , Barry Norman is still the face of the show) needs more swearing and less Jonathan Ross, then Vids is the review show for you.

But, to be honest it's not Stef Gardiner and Nigel Buckland's concise and intelligent reviewing skills that make the show so appealling, rather the silly, immature, and slightly disturbing things that happen in between the reviews. Like poisoning each other with suspicious cups of tea, and depicting God as a four-way arse. We 're talking entertainment of the highest brow here.

The Vids team have been keeping rather quiet of specific content of the new series so far , probably due to the fact that they haven't written and recorded very much yet. In fact, they have kindly set up a nice little forum on the web where you can request videos to be reviewed by the guys and things (http:/ ;www.spamjavelin.co.uk).

Unfortunately, though, this looks set to be the last series of the show (due to wranglings between the production people and Channel 4) so savour it while you still can. If you're awake, that is.

Markland Starlde

Wednesday, January.17, 2001

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eve

Eventhorizon: Film ~-~-

The essential guide to what's on in Norwich over the coming fortnight

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Fll9A= Essential Film; Unbreakable Campus Film Me, Myself and lrene

Thursday 18th January - 8.30pm This recent Jim Carrey film comes from the people who brought you Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary. Carrey plays a traffic cop ca lled Charlie who cracks up under the pressure of work to reveal his crazy alter ego Hank. Renee Zelwegger plays his slightly confused but nonet heless patient girlfriend. You can expect the cringeworthy jokes and usual facia l contortions from Carrey. Good for those who aren't too PC. Memento

Friday 19th January - 8.30pm This year's (or now last year's) answer to Seven and just as tense and ingenious. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) suffers from a rare memory disorder, so that everything he expenences is always new and fresh.

Th1s makes it very difficult when sotv1ng the case of who raped and murdered h1s wife_ The story IS told from Shelby's confused perspective creatmg a heightened sense of suspension to great effect.

that attack his senses. Can our heroes understand this crazy world enough in order to predict his next moves? Fast and loud this film will keep you on the edge of your seats .

Tuesday 23rd January - 8.30pm 'The one that made Tarantino famous· .

Starring Harvey Keitel and a cameo role from Tarantlno himself 1n a robbery-attempt-gone-slightly-wrong scenario. The men involved have guarded 1dent1t1es with the names Mr. Wh1te. Blue, P1nk , etc. but as the story evolves and friendship and trust begm to creep in a few secrets are let out in some touching scenes (don't be fooled into thinking this is a soft movie however). Excellent script dialogue and soundtrack make this a brilliant movie, if you don't mind a bit of mindless violence here and there .

....

Showing at:

Cinema City -Wednesday 17th January

Tuesday 30th January - 8.30pm Rid ley Scott's bri lli ant sci-fi fi lm starring Harrison Ford as a licensed-t okill policeman, brought out of ret irement to track down and 'ret ire' five renegade replicants - genetically created superhumans 'More Human than Human' as the Tyre ll co rporation's tag line goes. A dark and gloomy vision of the future that also has a very retro feel. Ford is excellent and Rutger Hauer gives the performance of his career. So many memorable scenes combined with a beautiful brooding score from Vangelis.

and Thursday 18th at 5.45pm

City Film Almost Famous

A musician wannabe in the 1970s goes on the road and ends up expenencmg life changes that he really didn't expect.

UCI Beautiful Creatures

British gangster film starring Rachel Weisz (from The Mummy).

Showing at:

UCI Bedazzled

Liz Hurley as a devil temptress (down boys), with a somewhat tw1sted sense of humour. grants seven wishes to Elliot (Brendan Fraser). He decides that getting the woman he wants is worth selling his soul but doesn't realise that he may not get exactly what he had in mind. Qu1te funny if you like lighthearted schmultz .

Sn atch

Showing at:

Thursday 25th January - 8.30pm Guy R1tchie's follow up to Lock, Stock .. is another London based gangster film with a convoluted plot and fast and funny dialogue. There's no point in even attempting to sum up the various plot threads. Brad Pitt stars as the unintelligible travelling bare knuckle boxer who can't follow simple orders like 'don't punch'. it's interesting to see Mike Reid out of Albert Square and now as a Wheeler Dealer type. The role suits him quite well. Definitely a ·must see' movie.

Ster Century Billy Elliot

A wee Northern boy finds himself getting into ballet despite the turmoil his local community, not least the rest of llis family is going through. He pursues his dream however and there's not a dry eye in the whole of the auditorium by the time the credits go up.

Showing at:

UC I Ster Century Black and White

The Cell

Friday 26th January - 8.30pm Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn try to track down a serial killer. But this is no ordinary SK movie as we see the world through tile eyes of the murderer we learn that his world is one of madness. hal lucinations and symboliSm

The winner of this year's Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Fest1val, as Samira Makhmalbaf produces yet another exquisitely shot Iranian film.

Blade Runner: Directors Cut

Showing at: Reservoir Dogs

Blackboards

Not for those of you who look at all the grey areas in between, this film may go over your head a bit.

Showing at:

Cinema City - Tuesday 30th January at 2.30pm and 8.15pm, Wednesday 31st at 8.15pm

Bless the Child

The most scary-ass movie so far in 2001. Satanic c ults. dodgy paranormally gifted chi ldren and Kim Bassinger. I don't th ink I can take any more. This movie comes with a 'wi ll send shivers down your spine· guarantee.

There's that spine-tingly spooky feeling in the air again, you can feel it. Bruce Willis is back on the scene in another supernatural thriller from the makers of The Sixth Sense, directed by Shyamalan. He's back and his performance is just as impeccably good. David Dunn (Willis) has his life set but he doesn't feel quite right with it. He's married to a beautiful woman and has a lovely son but he feels as if he's just drift ing through life waiting for something to happen. Not quite comfortab le as a husband and fat her, he is also not happy in his job as a football stadium security guard. His desire for 'something to happen' is answered when events take an unexpected and bizarre turn. He survives a horrific train crash that leaves all the other tra in passengers dead. Why is he the sole survivor and how is it possible that he walked away from the train crash wi t hout a single scratch? Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) is on the scene to help him find out in wha t un folds as a jaw dropping t hri ller .

Showing at:

UCI Bounce

Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck get back together (only on screen) in this slushy romantic comedy and bounce around a bit together.

Showing at:

UCI Cast Away

Tom Hanks is stranded after plane cras11 and washed up on an uninhabited beach. With no modern comforts will he make a textbook survival or Will it be like a scene from Shipwrecked?

Showing at:

UCI Charlie 's Angels

The best chick fl ick this year. In fact it explodes right out of the ·chick flick· genre and creates its own. new ·super chick fl1ck' category. Cameron Diaz, Lucy L1u and Drew Barrymore make a sassy and sexy trio. Beware of the blatant phone advertising scenes though.

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century

Greer ... in another dimension perhaps.

Showing at

Showing at:

UCI

Ster Century UCI

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The Family Man

This is a good one that is relativley undiscovered. Set in mythical china. if you like tales of warriors and fantastic Kung Fu then you'll find this magical Reviewed on page 15.

Nicholas Cage wakes up one day w1th a family when he's really not that type of bloke. What will he do? How will he cope? Do we really care?

Chicken Run

Yet another one that has held on to our screens even though it is now out on video. Wallace and Gromit style characters hilariously try to escape fro a chicken farm before the evil Mrs. Tweeny turns than all into chicken pies. If you haven't seen it yet then. where have you been?

Showing at:

Ster Century Chuck and Buck

Is this fi lm JUSt about vomit and money? You'll have to watch to find out.

Showing at:

Cinema City- Friday 26th January at 8.15pm, Saturday 27th and Monday 29th at 5.45pm Coyote Ugly

Lots of ladies who wear very few clothes to work in a bar and learn selffulfilment through serving drunken men. Wntten and directed by Germaine

Showing at:

UC I Cinema City - Friday 26th January 5.45pm, Saturday 27th January, Monday at 8.15, Sunday 28th January at 7 .30pm, Tuesday 30th and Wednesday 31st at 5.45pm

Showing at:

UCI Ster Century The Fllntstones: Viva Rock Vegas

Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty bring us some prehistoric laughs from the city of lights and money. Cheesy but cheerful.

Dancer In the Dark

Showing at:

I wonder if we'll get to see much dancing then if this is all done in the dark .. . or am I missing something here?

UCI Ster Century

Showing at

The Grinch

Cinema City - Saturday 20th January at 2.30pm, Sunday 21st at 7.30pm and Wednesday 24th at 2.30pm

Jim Carrey's latest face pulling and crazy antics can now be seen in a green-faced-monster-at-Christmas type film. lt doesn't matter that it's now January, you can relive all the present opening and delicious dmners of the festive season.

Dinosaur

A D1sney film. with talking dinosaurs.

Cute. What more needs to be said!

Use our searchable listings database at

==--------:::==~=--=~- wWw. concrete-on Iine. co. uk Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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Eventhorizon: Film

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K Film Chart nasty woman with a mad hai r, and a dress sense to match, who wants to GET them. Will cuteness prevail over evil?

Showing at: UCI Ster Century

01 Unbreakable 02 Meet The Parents 03 102 Dalmatians 04 The Grinch 05 The Family Man 06 Charlie's Angels 07 Pokemon 2000 08 The Sixth Day 09 Bring lt On 10 Billy Elliot "11

Showing at: UC I Ster Century Hlmalaya All the other mountains in this range have been knocked down and there's now just the one left st anding ... ahhhh.

Showing at: Cinema City -Saturday 27th January and Wednesday 31st at 2.30pm at 2.30pm In the Mood for Love Get in the mood for love too and take your schmoozing partner by the hand down to see this romantic film.

Showing at: Ci nema City - Saturday 20th January and Monday 22nd at 8.15pm, Tuesday 23rd at 2.30pm and 8.15pm, Wednesday 24th at 5.45pm and Thursday 25th at 8.15pm Little Nlcky Harvey Kaitel is Satan and Adam Sandler is hrs son. What can I say, you really have to see it for yourself.

Showing at:

.u

Pay lt Forward Schoolteacher ( Kevin Spacey) challenges his pupils to change the world.

A young boy with an alcoholic mum (Helen Hunt) comes up wrth the idea of dorng three favours for someone and then they do the same. The result is general love and harmony all round.

Showing at: UCI :11

Ster Century Meet the Parents This fi lm makes, what is for some, the very ultimate of unpleasant social requirements a great comedy. And it must be quite good because its from the directors of Austin Powers. Ben Stiller attempts to get along with De Niro's character who, as a cat loving ex -CIA officer, bombards him with a paranoid, obst reperous, psychological warfare.

Showl"' at: UC I Ster Century Merlin: The Return Rik Mayal as a wacky wizard: good for the 7-!:1 age group but not for the rest of human civilisation. Most of the buget went on spooky effects. so don't turn up for the exquisite script or sublime plot 'cos you won't find it.

Showing at: UCI 102 Dalmatians Lots of sweet ickle doggies and a big

Pl.tch Black Set on another planet, this films shows us what it's like to experience a very long solar eclipse. The directors obviously think its an rmportant enough subject. You know , the kind of 'need to know' stuff that helps us through life.

Showing at: Ster Century Pokemon: The Movie 2000 This one is a bit dated isn't it? I mean 2000 is, like, so last year. These infamous Japanese cartoon characters seem to get everywhere. Don't go and see this movie, you' ll encourage the world takeover.

Showing at: UCI Ster Century Quills A tale about the Marqurs de Sade (a notorious obscene French wnter) and his final days. Starring Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Kale Winslet and Mrcheal Came. Rev iewed on page 15.

Showing at:

UC I Red Planet This one is all about Mars, and Val Kilmer provmg, once again, that he really rs crap.

Showing at: Ster Century Stuart Little Yup the little mouse guy is still on a screen somewhere in Norwich. If you fancy the kind of film you used to watch as a krd then this one will serve well.

Showing at: Ster Century The Sixth Day Conspiracy theorist s un ite! Arnold Sc hwarzenegger plays a helicopter pilot who survives a near fatal crash only to discover that he has been replaced by a clone wRich is highly illegal. Surely enough after pleanty of action and thrills we uncover a clone conspiracy.

Showing at: UCI Ster Century Tit us Gorey, Shakespearian, Antony Hopki ns film.

Showing at: UC I Suzhou River Water, water everywhere, in this film.

Showing at: Cmema City - Friday 19th January at 8.15pm, Saturday 20th and Monday 22nd at 5.45pm , Sunday 21st at 5.00pm Traffic Soderbergh drrects the latest movie

about drugs. This looks at all the different wierd and wonderful effects it has on people . Starring newly weds Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, also Dennis Quaid .

Showing at: UCI Unbreakable See Essential Film Showing at: UCI Ster Century Urban Legend: The Anal Cut Sequel to the teen horror flick brought out a couple of years ago. Crap.

Showing at: UCI Ster Century Vertical Limit Excellent action movie! Three people are trapped following a landslide on top of a snowy mountain, and a rescue att empt is possible suicide. A rich guy turns up and offers anyone who goes a quarter of a millron dollars each, and six hopefuls set off. Exciting and very 'cool' (get it).

Showing at: UCI The Way of the Gun The normal way of t he gun that is for use in general maiming and krlling is obviously up for question here.

Showing at: Cinema City - Tuesday 23rd January at 5.45pm, Wednesday 24th at 8 .15pm , Thursday 25th at 2.30pm and 8 .15pm.

What Lies Beneath Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford rn this passable attempt at Hitchcockian horror. Remember to take your prllows to hrde behrnd all you scaredy cats out

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Unthank Road

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

. there.

Showing at : UC I Ster Century The Winter Guest A frosty Fnday n1gl1t fea ture fo r fa nati cal followers of f1lm. (I try and be funn y. somet 1mes 1t works) .

Showing at : Cinema City - Sunday 28th January at 5 .00pm Woman on Top Romant 1c comedy st arr ing Penelope Cruz . Nothmg to do with sexual posi ti ons.

Showing at: UCI

Clubs Wednesdays Superfly: January 17/ 24 Moj os it's underground. it's dark. And yet it's surprisingly homely . Mojos offers us a cool mi x of funk. drum & bass, and R n B for a chilled out Wednesday eve. £3 Flockin ' Sheep: January 17/ 24 Ikon Throngs of people try1 ng to find the bar t he dancefl oor and a few stray mates (not nece ssaril y in that order). All under the con fusion of loud music, dar lig ht mg and inebriation. Follow the crowd . Just fo llow the crowd dude.

WeRK: Janu ary 1 7 / 2 4 Manhattans Weekly programme of g rooves brought t o you by res1dent DJ Shaun Johnson.

G1ve 1t up for t11e main man .

Reverb: January 17/ 24 Po Na Na Funk and soul for al l you funky soul sters out there . £1 after 9pm DJ Jam: January 17/ 24 Hys Enough of the strawberry j am JOkes. I will spare you t h1 s tim e. Come here tonight for a cool m1x of t unes and dances and maybe a bit of lurve .

Thursdays

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Spank: January 18/ 25 Time No c heesy pop to be fo und anyw here in Time to nig ht , it's all serious st uff.

Basic requirements for this evening are a leather catsuit , one whip and somethmg with lots of studs on. Baby 011 optional. £1 b4 11pm ( NUS) Gasworkz: January 18/ 25 Kafe Da Isotonic gives us deep. funky and upl ift ing house downst airs. as a pre-c lu b warm up to Time. Entry is free and there' s a free shot of vod ka with every drink bought between 8-9pm.

The LCR disco: January 18/ 25 UEA All respec t able people st ay well away from the kind of debauched drunk enness t hat charactenses t he LCR on a Thursday evening. Probabl y goes to ex pl a1n1 ng w hy the pl ac e is pack ed every week . £ 3/ £ 3 .50 on the door Charty Handbaggy: January 18/ 25 The Loft Popular gay n1ght m t he centre of town Come on darlmg. get out your handbag so we have somet hing to dance around it really IS t he only way to strut your stuff to chart mus1c m such a stnpy

bu ilding as this.

DJ Twister: January 18/ 25 Joe Al an·s Arguably t he hippest pl ace on Pnnce of Wales Road - it ' s the smal l bar opposite Liquid/ The Concept. Th1s 1ce cream DJ brmgs you upl iftmg house mus1c fo r your pleasure.

70 's Night: January 18/ 25 Hys If you need a f1x of Retro mu s1c, flares and Austin Powers talk of a Thursday night then th is is the onl y pl ac e to get it so get those platform shoes down there quick! £2 (NUS) Value for Money: January 18/ 25 Liqui d " A great night had by all" . That' s what you tell everyone anyway, you can't actually remember what happened.

Best not to think about it , live in denial. £2 b4 11pm, £3 after ( NUS)

Bassment: January 18/ 25 Moj os Drink , dance , have fun , go home and come back next week to do it all again. Nice .

Fridays Empower: January 19/ 26 Fat Pauly's Ok, I've never been t o thi s one c an someone please let me know what this night is like . Desc ripti ons on a post c ard to the Concrete offic e and t he best on e w1ll be print ed. Can you get a bet t er ince ntive than th at? I don't th ink so. £3 Dreamscape: January 1 9 The Waterfront All-n1ghter till 4am, featunng the rat pack. £ 10/ £8 (advance) Hytimes: January 19/ 26 Hys DJ Rob M ac in da house . ( Hi s coat isn't stol en, the t itle is a bit mislea ding. it' s j ust his name) . £3 Hot: January 19/ 26 Ikon The bouncers on the door, like many found outside Norwich clubs, are the top graduates from Bouncer-school they 'ain't taking no shit from no one.

They 'll hold you in a st aring contest wi t h the ir steel y gaze till t he morni ng if need be, and that' s j ust when you've innocentl y tri ed t o enter t he build ing.

Sheesh. £4 it's the Business: January 19/ 26 Li quid Lava, lava everywhere and loads of alcohol in sight. £2 b4 11pm, £3 after Elegance: January 19/ 26 Moj os A slinky R n' B evening in t he centre of town. Alcohol, music and beautiful people , you can 't ask for much more .

Unless you 're into a different kind of thmg m wh ich case why are you reading ·c lubs '? Look at another section .

The Kitchen: January 26 The Waterfront 'Madame Friction' is here tonight. .. oh yes? £10/ £9 (advanc e) Parkside: January 19/ 26 Po Na Na "And we al l go hand 1n hand. hand m hand to-oo Parks1de" . The Moroccanst yle souk bar has got it gomg on w1th those big cu shions.

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

Marvel: January 19/ 26 The Loft Festivi ti es in the zeb ra st riped house fun are open t o all ton ight for an even ing of hip-h op, fu nk and soul.

Now Th at 's What I Call The 90s: Jan uary 19 LCR lnnovatively titl ed n1 ght of mu sic from the end of the last mi llenenium ... ium . £3.50 Pams House: January 26 LCR UEA won 't leave us high and dry on a Saturday night. Ton ight 'Pam·s House· features Jeremy Healey.

Wooooh, this evening we have power!

Lets go mad and drink the _place dry and t hen eat kebabs and chips. £7 .95 (NUS)

Essential gig:

T!'t~

The f1rst maJor g ig of Jan uary 2001 hit s us in the fo rm of t he muc h anticipated annual NM E Carlmg Tour . The head lmers for th1s years show are JJ72. They're bright, young, hopeful, and generally-ve ry-inspinng for-us people . This ln sh t no are releasing t he1 r next si ng le Alg eria on the Janu ary 24, the B-side of wh ich is their vers1on of the Pet Shop Boys · 1987 hit it's a Sin. Amen . wi t h wild fron t man Casey Chaos. are set to st un us w1th the ir monst rous hardcore blend of American rock . Watc h out for fly ing fists and bit s of st age debris sail ing over you heads as this may wel l happen. Chaos actual ly knocked hi msel f out cold during some c razy stage ant ics at in gig in Europe recent ly. I ask is our little LCR ready for such a mani ac performer? By the way. the ir album is ca lled We Have Come on Your Parents ... be very . very afraid . Alfie are a ·sound' (sorry) , band from Manc hester and have supported the l1 kes of Badly Drawn Boy and Em brac e w 1th t heir md ie tunes. Bro ught in t o buffer Amen and stop everyone getting too worked up, yet st il l havi ng a good t1 me . Starsalior are a Verve-1sh type band and are c omi ng on a trea t considering they are only 19 years old. They are tipped as ·the next best thing·. All in all a nig ht where yo u should have brought your tickets already .

Saturdays Satisfaction: January 20/ 27 Hys If you can 't get a bit of satisfaction on a Saturday night aft er a hard week ·s slog in the lecture room then it's a very sad stat e of affairs indeed . £4 b4 11pm. £5 aft er Meltdown: January 20/ 27 The Waterfront One of the best n1ghts in t own , featuring indie c lassics that totall y rock ! Rah . On t he 20th t he 'General Zods' are pl aying in another room . giving us some disco tunes if you're t hat way inclined. On the 27th this even ing inc ludes 'Wraith ' wi th a goth ic vibe. £ 3 (NUS) Saturday Rewind : January 20/ 27 Mojos Th1ngs go very , very fast here t onight. There 's a guy m the corner with a huge remote control to speed thmgs up a b1 t. and that's the reason you feel dizzy the next morning.

Not hing to do w1th the alcohol.

Superst ar DJ 's: January 20 LCR Faith present s Superst ar DJ's, does that mean we get famou s people doing a bit of DJ ing in the LCR? Du h. NO. £7.50 (NUS) Club Retro: January 27 LCR Wick edy wi c kedy waaaahhh . Retro is back in town knoc king out three, yes th ree, dec ades of top tunes from the gl it zy , disco era of yore. £3.50

Sundays Sunday Service: January 21/ 28 Manhattans Not real ly a lot of choice on a Sunday night , but that 's because of the whole annoying 'M onday ' thing the next day.

Warni ng , despite t he title you shoul dn't go here if you' re religious and expec t ing a different ty pe of evening .

Mondays Flockin ' Sheep: January 22/ 29 Ikon The sheep are bac k again and so are the bounce rs. Respec t t o the bald heads and big black overc oat s. and yes I have my ID. £2 b4 11pm Funky Jam Carwash: January 22/ 29 Liquid Kick it up big sty lee on t his popular Monday night ou t. For maximum enjoyment . make sure you avo1d all drunk and ravmg knobheads.

Underground Bands : January 22/ 29 Mojos

Low-fi 1ndie nig ht unt il 2am. If yo u ta ke you r music seriou sly and don' t want t o look like a drunken twat on the pull then thi s is the pl ace for you ( I k now I sai d t hat last tim e but it's true ) .

Play: January 22/ 29 Po Na Na Cham club/ bar g ives you and the locals a c hance t o horse around for a bit.

Tuesdays Student Night: January 23/ 30 Liquid Typical student night only for st udents, no NUS, no entry I'm afraid. You'll be one up over the bouncers as you flick your UEA card past the ir enquiring noses. Not a Norfolk accent in earshot for the whole night among the lava lamps tonight . £1 b4 11pm Funk Friction: January 23/ 30 Owens Cafe Bar Not real ly a club but it had the whole atmosphere thing going on. There 's music and alcohol and lots of other peopl e your age (and a but younger usuall y) and you can 't reall y ask for more th an that.

Slinky: January 23/ 30 Hys Th e place with see-through floors and no st ai rs for slinkys t o go down. Poor show.

Salsa: January 23/ 30 Po Na Na A very funky 1dea for a night out because here they act ually teach you how to dance so you don·t have to worry 1f you have two left feet. Plus.

even 1f you don't want to learn how to salsa, it's a great opport un1ty to smirk at those who th ink they can. Lessons start at 7pm for beginners and end at 9pm . £3 ( NUS) Life: January 23/ 30 Tim e Nightclubs are certainly th e plac es t o see a few memorable things that you will remember in your life. You may even be involved in some of them if you are lucky. £ 1 (NUS)

Gigs Agent Orange: Wednesday January 17 Boswel ls Hi p venue in the heart of Tombland bring us a fruity sou nding music night .

Just Blues: Thursday January 18 Boswel ls A sexy blues night is just t he thing to get slowly pissed to of a quiet Thursday. away from the madness t hat is t he LCR. Racoon : Thursday January 18 - 8pm Norw ich Arts Centre Americ an smgerjsongw riter t ype-st uff.

Harmonious sounds w1th a mandolin, fiddle and more. £2 .50 ( NUS) Cry Wolfe: Friday January 19 Boswells Mi nd all the vom itmg, drunken louts that stagger out of Ikon when you leave after a night of l1ve mus1c here.

Night Train : Saturday January 20

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Eventhorizon: Gigs/Theatre/Mise

5 Directory

If you would li~e to be part of the country's most successful student newspaper then we want you.

Writing for Concrete offers you invaluable experience in the media, as well as something rather impressive to put on your CV. So, if you want to write, photograph, draw or proof read as well as possibly get onto the editorial team then there's no time like the present.

Meetings take pl~ce every Monday at 1pm in Room 1.33 in Union House Boswells Another night in which to schmooze with your girlfriend/ boyfriend to tunes that aren't coming out of a machine.

Goldblade & Semtex: Saturday January 20 - 8.30pm Norwich Arts Centre Blistering, uncompromising, unrestrained hardcore punk rock 'n' roll mayhem . Expect a hot and sweaty night . £5 advance In House DJ: Monday January 22 Boswells The out house DJ doesn 't get many gigs.

The Webb Brothers: Monday January 22 - 8.30pm Norwich Arts Centre Sons of songwriter Jimmy Webb (Wic hit a Lineman), t hese guys are t ipped as t he nex t big thi ng. £6 advance Jam: Tuesday 23 Boswells More live music.

The Emma Hall Big Band: Wednesday January 24 Boswells We 're not sure here if the 'big' describes the size of the band or perhaps Emma herself, either way it's live and it's good.

Kate and Mary-Jane: Wednesday 24 January - Spm Norwich Arts Centre A Norwich-based folk duo play a very nice guitar and a blue violin. Go along and experience something different for a change. £2.50 Wlllem: Thursday January 25 Boswells Bit of an enigma of a title for a band or solo musician. Curiouser and curiouser.

Kent Duchalne: Friday January 26 Spm Norwich Arts Centre Blues in a 'ferociously powerful style'.

Exciting . £5 (NUS) The Roosters: Friday 26 January Boswells And now for our final act , it's the men who like to get up at dawn and have taken much inspiration from the hit movie 'Chic ken Run ' ... it 's the Roosters. (applause)

Sure Shot: Saturday 27 January - Spm Norwi dh Art s Centre A Welsh trio of musicians present cutting edge hip hop. In fact it 's so up to date no-one knows what it is yet . £6 advance Scratch the Cat: Saturday January 27 Boswells Live music in the centre of Tombland .

In House DJ: Monday January 29 Boswells A more rocki ng night in this jazz venue. Down a few pint s and join in t he fuf\ .

Theatre Dick Whlttlngton and His Cat: Saturday December 23 • Saturday January 27 Theatre Royal - various showing times Hailed as East Anglia 's biggest and best traditional pantomime it 's still goi ng ~t ro ng until t he end of t he month . Starri ng Paul Shane, Faith Brown, Rikki Jay, Lucy Ground and Grant Neal. £3-£13 The Winter Guest: Thursday January 25 ..Saturday February 3 Maddermarket Theatre Originally performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1995, directed

by Alan Rickman this new adaptation retells the acclaimed story of a family who are al l touched in their own individual ways by the invisible presence of death .

Mack and Mabel : Monday January 29Saturday February 3 Theatre Royal - 7.30pm, and a matinee on sat 3rd at 2 .30pm A wonderfully moving musical, celebrating the life and work of Mack

Mise Sennet, the great Hollywood comic director of silent films . Performed by the Norfolk and Norw ich Operatic Soc iety . Guaranteed to be a blast. £3-£13.50 John Otway: Friday January 19 8.30pm Norw ich Arts Centre Described as ·a unique performer and human being ' . His performances are

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alcohol fuelled and combine pathos and danger. Sounds interesting . £6 (NUS)

ABC Taxis All Star Taxis Beeline Taxis Bettacar Taxis Five Star Taxis Loyal Taxis Cinema City Fat Pauly's Liquid Maddermarket Mojo's Playhouse Po Na Na's Ster Century Theatre Royal The Loft The Waterfront Time UCI UEA Union Ents

Window Show featuring the large-scale sculptural ceramics of Suffolk-based potter, Jonathan Keep.

And a great time was had by all.

Acoustic Showcase: Saturday January 20 - 1pm Norwich Arts Centre Self explanatory night (from the title) , featuring John Sayer, Neil Young, lan Collins, Malcom Fry and Frances Tye. If you them then it 's even more exc iting !

Free Entry

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Ustings were written and compiled by Katherine EveriH and Adam Chapman.

All details were COITect at the time of going to press.

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Use our searchable listings database at

www.concrete-on Ii ne.co. u k

Book Club: Wednesday January 24 - 11am12.30pm (daytime actlv- , . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , lty) Norwich Arts Centre All you need to go along to th is is an enthusiasm for reading.

You w ill be part of a discussion group, lead by Lisa D'Onofrio, looking street 'nfluenced sportswear lhip op and designer doth' ng at novels, poetry and short stories.

Brill iant way to chat about your favourite reads and hear what other people have to say . £1.50

2

'Through Peru', presented by Hey Gringo: Thursday January 25 8pm Norwich Arts Centre Comedy storytell ing (seated) of t rue Iife tales of exploration through the Amazon , the Andes and Prisons? £5 ( NUS)

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Voice Workshop: Saturday January 2710am-12.30pm Norwich Arts Centre If you don't like your voice, you want to make it sexy or even if you want to add an annoying tone to keep people you don 't like away, then this is the plac e for you.

Session lead by Sian Croose. £5 (NUS) Jonathan Keep SCVA Window Shows up to February 2001 Elizabeth Fry Building You last chance to catch this season's

PERRY ELUS

FUS

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AMERICA

14 St Benedicts Street, Norwich Tel: o16o3 6ut8o

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

UNION FILMS

.

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JANUARY Thursday 18 Me, Myself and lrene

Friday 19 M ement o let ticket

JANUARY

Fri 19

Faith presents... Superstar Featuring Lisa Pin-Up

DJs £7 .SO Fri 19

In the Hive, trading starts 8.30pm till late. ~· Bar prices rise and fall like a Stock Exchange '

Pam's House

Now that's what I call 90s £3.50

Blade Runner Director's Cut

Featuring Barry White t ribute & cheap cocktails

Garage Nation · Sat 17 Ret ro Active

FEBRUARY

£3.50

Sat 27 Club Retro

Frid a y 26 Tuesday 30

£ 7.95 Fri 16

Featuring Jeremy Healy

Snatch The Cell

Tue 13 Soul Train Valentine's Lurve Groove Party

f~w&

Wed 24 Chiii 'Em Out Jazz Cafe Fri 26

Thursday 25

The best f rom everyone's favourit e decade

Tue 23 Bar Footsie

Featuring Ainsley Burrows

Reservo ir Dogs

Featuring Buffalo Souljah, Bob Marley tribute band and DJs

The best from everyone's favou rite decade

Sat 20

Tuesday 23

100% Reggae

Now that's w hat I call 90s £3.50 Fri 9

Thursday 2 Billy Elliot

Friday 3

Tue 30

Wonder Boys

Tue sday 6 Blues Broth ers

Thursday 8 The Hollow Man

Friday 9 What Lies Beneath

Tuesday 13 Pretty Woman

Thurday 15 Bedazzled

Friday 16 Dinosaur

Tuesday 20

Rock, Nu-metal, grunge

Fri 16 Hallelujah

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£9

Hardhouse 'n' tra nce featuring Angnelli & Nelson, plus Funky drum 'n' bass featuring Jay (EZ Rollers) and D..J Ziko, from The

Romeo Must Die

Thursday 22 Pitch Black

Friday 23 Road Trip

Tuesday 27 Tra inspotting

and pop techno, t rance hard house

MARCH Friday 2

Fri 23 One

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Fri 2 Sat 3

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou

80s Night Plus Jimmy's 60s & 70s Disco

Tuesday 6

Meltdown

Grease

', £3 .,_

lndie and pop piUsJn Bag hits from Ma.lll~heste,r

Thursday 8 Little Nicky

Wed 7 eXper·

Friday 9

Eclectic p DJ sets

Fri 9

Rumble

£~~- Sat 24 M~ltdown r~,.

Old skool allnighter, with •JUng 1e an d drum ,n, b ass from Mickey Finn, Kenny Nen, Nicky Blackmarket, Dimension + MC Fearless, & MCs 'Dangerous' Lee, Infinity, Contagious Plus UK Garage from Stanton Warriors, Bomb Squad (Lex & G), Natralist

Sat 10 Meltdown

Harry, He's Here To Help

Lux

"

. £3

dte and pop plus Wratth metal and rock

Tuesday 13 Yellow Submar ine

Thursday 15 Coyote Ugly

Friday 16 er £10 Michelle Shocked £11 1§tiff Little Fingers £11 £3

lndie and pop plus Rawkus

Live show s are approx 7.30-11 pm, minimum age 14. Clubs are 10pm to 2, 4 or 6am, minimum age 18.

The Sixth Day

Tuesday 20 Space Cowboys

Wedne sday 21 Meet The Parents

Thursday 22 Hamlet