The Event - Issue 144 - 13 November 2002

Wednesday,November 13,2002

Je . emy Paxman ''I'm not qualified to answer that'' • • The Event TV Awards

The films that made the 80s

AI an Ayckbourn Harry Potter

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Editorial 03

Cont nts:

Event Editorial: The Glorious Revolution

Inside: I

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The Event Editorial No Celebrities for Sale. Contents and Credits

s the reality of November sinks insidiously into the skull we could all be forgiven for getting a little down. The· first round of essays is in full flow, it won't stop raining, and Jamie Oliver is back on television. However, it's not all fattongued Essex boys and cold November rain. To combat the late autumn blues The Event returns with its fifth offering for this academic year, boasting interviews with JJ72, and this week's cover star, Jeremy Pax man.

Jeremy took time out before his talk at the UEA Literary Festival to talk to us about his new book, Political Animal; he also managed to get in a few comments about UEA's absence from the glamorous world of University Challenge. Apparently rumours that UEA got banned for cheating are not true, we just haven't got off our backsides and shown the rest of the country what Norwich can do. So this is your call to arms students of UEA, this university will challenge, and we'll show Jeremy Paxman that we are not 'all stupid or something.' So anyone who wants to take on the country's brightest students should contact us at su.concrete@uea.ac.uk before the end of term.

Our centre spread this fortnight is devoted to The Event TV Awards 2002. Every year we delve deep into the mindset on the Hive bunnies and find out exactly who is TV sexiest man, and just what floats your boat during the all-important 'after Neighbours' period of the afternoon. This year's winners include The Office, Graham Norton, and T4.

We also take a look at the films that made the 80s.

Nine life affecting cinematic masterpieces that defined an epoch of sharp suits, big hair and shoulder pads. Before this golden age of film we had never gone back to the future, and Batman still had cartoon 'kapows' over the fight scenes. These are the films we grew up with and thy should be remembered fondly.

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04 Jeremy Paxman The notoriously tough interviewer extraordanaire meets up our own hard nosed hack for a bit of chinwag

05 Cinefile 06 Electric Soft Parade

The Event talks to the brothers white about their music, Japanese porn, and the Boo Radleys

Almost Famous

07 Hundred Reasons The Event met the British rockers for the econd time in as many years to find out what's been going on

08 The Films that Made the 80s

Ghostbusters, Breakfast Club, Heathers, Batman and a whole host more. The greatest decade of all time recorded the silver screen.

08 Excess Hollywood 10 Alan Ayckbourn

Britain's most profilic playwright talks to The Event about writing, directing and

11 JJ72 High-oxyegen rockers talking about religion, their sec ond album and the truth behid their name

ur other big interview this issue is with high-oxygen indie kids JJ72. The angelic trio did the talk with us after their gig at UEA last week, but in the hazy light of · dawn rather too many secrets were

Burn Out, Fade Away 12 The Event N Awards

Who is TV's sexiest man? Who is the best soap opera bitch? And will Diagnosis Murder beat Quincy to the much sought after title of 'Best Afternoon Drama?'

revealed ...

Add to all this interviews with Alan Ayckbourn, Hundred Reasons, and Electric Soft Parade, plus all the reviews and previews you need to bring you up to speed on entertainments in Norwich and beyond, including the return of the 'King of Chat,' our very own Alan. So sit back, curl up and ignore the weather outside and the chefs on TV.

Reviews: 14 Albums

Luke Wright, Editor

Bjork; The Venue; Jack Johnson; Ecoline

15 Singles Coldplay; A; Radio Four; Ladytron; Rainbrow Theme Tune; Nu

16 Film Pictures: (Above, in descending order) Jeremy Pax man; JJ72; the Heathers from Heathers; Alan Partridge

Credits:

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets; Rabbit Proof Fence; Curse of the Jade Scorpion; Birthday Girl; Peral Harbour (Ultimate Edition)

19 Arts Dave German preview; DivSiFy preview; 1984; Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman

Editor-In-Chief · Katle Hind • Editor · Luke Wrlght • Editorial Assistant · Toby Lewls • Arts Editor · Kathryn Hlnchllff • Film Editor · Jlm Whalley • Assistant Film Editor · Phll Colvln • Music Editor · Mischa Pearlman • Assistant Music Editor · Clalre Burwell • TV & Radio Editors · Brltt Juste and Joe Mlnlhane • Picture Editor · Ed Webb-lngall • Listings compiled by Toby Lewls and Matt Sargeson • Text· Emma Ap-Thomas ·Ally Barnard · Gavln Bates· Gary Budden · Clare Butler · Rhlannon Davls · Nathan Dlxon · Sarah Edwardes · Christian Floyd · Jon Last · Ed Purkls · Matt Sargeson · Ryan J. Stephens · Tom Sutton · Joel Turner · Claudla Webb • Proof reading · ~hrlstlna Alien · Chloe Fisher · Alpa Patel

21 N/Radio

Essential Soaps; Streets Paved with Gold; I'm A/an Partridge; Sex Tips for Girls

Listings: 22 Listings

The Event is published fortnightly by Concrete: Post: PO Box 41 0, Norwich, NR4 ?TB Tel: 01603 250558 · Fax: 01603 506822 · E-mail: su.concrete@uea.ac.uk Printed by: Archant Newspapers. St Andrew's Business Par~. Norwich

Simply what's going on, and what's not. Plus all the numbers you need

24 Livewire I Directory Wednesday, November 13. 2002

the event

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Are You AI tupid Text: Kath ryn Hinchliff Photos: LucyJohnston

Author and N presenter Jeremy Paxman came to UEA last week to talk about his new book Political Animal. The Event caught up with the University Challenge frontman to find out why he thinks we might al be a little thick ... ou know someone big has arrived when you turn up to do an interview and there 's a crowd of personal assistants, photographers and other publications all tryi ng to do t he same thing. Jeremy Paxman is big in every respect.

Tall and thick set. his physical presence fills the small office. He sits with an air of cultivated intimidation. which his booming voice accentuates. Already nervous after being told that photographers from UEA 's prospectus would be taking pictures of me cond ucting the interview, I tried to rec reat e his own co nfident, take no pri soners st yle of question ing with litt le success, largely because of Paxman·s confident, take no prisoners st yle of answering. An obviously intell igent man, he gives the impression he dislikes any lack of intelligence in others. especially people he is fo rced to talk to. On mentioning University Challenge, Paxman immediately launched into a funny but frightening tirade: "We haven't had a team frem UEA have we? Not for years. When was the last one?" he said relatively calmly before leaning forward. pointing his finger directly at me and shouting. "Are you all stupid or something?" Giggling nervously (anyone would) I managed to say, "Yes". He held no stock in the rumour that has been ci rc ling around UEA fo r as long as I can reme mber, that UEA we re banned from Unive rsity Challenge for c heati ng and ot her variations on the same t heme: " Th ey are not banned. They are not banned but t hey are sadly absent. I demand that you get yourselves organized and get a t eam together for the next series. lt will be recruiting in the spring.

So get organized." When Jeremy Pax man te lls you to do something, you do it. So, anyone interested in getting a team together, (stupid people need not apply) please see me.

"I don't have a cl ue what happens at UEA. They are certainly apathetic about University Challenge."

Pax man is here for UEA 's International Literary Festival to promote his latest book. Political Animal. Coming four years after the success of The English, it seeks to uncover the United Kingdom 's political system and provide answers to such mysteries as why seemingly normal chi ldren grow into politicians. You would think that Pax man. renowned throughout the political world as an aggressive, ruth less searcher for truth , would find it difficult to get politicians to talk to him for a book. a view he is quick to correct. "One thing politicians are not shy about is talking, and particularly talking about themselves. So I didn 't find it very difficult. There were some who wouldn 't talk ; Margaret Thatcher wouldn't talk to me. A couple of others wouldn't - Richard Body - a rather idiosyncratic MP -

the event

Conservative again - also wouldn 't talk to me. Alan Milburn- the Health Secretary - I spent months waiting to get in to see him , that never came off. But by and large the vast majority- dozens and dozens of others - did. " Years of having his questions avoided and being lied to hasn't yet caused Paxman to feel disenchanted with the political system. He still manages to treat politic ians on an individual basis. " I respect the job they do. I do think that it matters. I think politics mat te rs and I t hi nk t hat it matt ers that we have good peopl e going into poli t ics. As regards individuals, we ll frankly I respec t som e more than I respec t others but I think all of us ought to be cog ni za nt of t he fact th at a society like ou rs depends on having some peopl e who are prepared to put t hemselves up for election and then to do what most of us avoid doing, whic h is t aking decisions." I wondered if he had ever considered taking on the co untry himself. he must know more about politics than the majority of politicians. " Not really. There were times in my li fe when it crossed my mind . I would be lying if I said ot herwise. The diffic ulty for me is that I wou ld find it almost impossible to buy the w hole party line. the party discipline. Keep quiet when you ought to speak out, to declare belief in t hings you don't bel ieve in, which is part of the deal. Ou r system depends on part ies being in opposition to one another and it doesn't al low t hat much freedom to be an individ ual."

Somehow I don't t hink I co uld ever see Jeremy Pax man sitting meek ly in t he House of Com mons agreeing with his party leader; he has obviously made the rig ht career choice. here is a famo us Newsnight clip of Paxman interrogating Michael Howard. He asks him the same question eighteen times and eac h time Howard refuses to give a straight answer. After years of interviewing selfobsessed, slimy politi cians, Paxman must get annoyed by these people. " Annoyed is a very strong word to use. Does it fru strate me? Ye s it does . Does it irritate me? Occasionally it irritates me , yeah. I don't understand why if somebody doesn 't know the answer to a question they don't just say ' I don't know'. I don 't understand why somebody , if they've forgotten something, doesn't just say they 've forgotten it. " lt is obviously a rule that Pax man lives by- if he doesn't know the answer to a question he exasperatingly says 'I don't know· in a 'why would you ask me such a ridi c ulous question?' sort of way .

I asked him whether he agrees with Angus Deayton's recent sack ing on the grounds that once you are in the news you can't really comment on it. "I don 't think that was entirely the grounds of his sacking. I thought that the argument was that this was a programme whose stock in trade was making mockery of other people's peccadilloes and Angus ' s own position had become untenable because so much attention was devoted to his own. Whi ch I think is slightl y different. Sorry what was the question? I don't agree with it or disagree with it. I was pretty astonished to read what he's supposed to have been paid that's more than most of us get in a year ... Have hi s own pol itical views ever interfered with his ability to present an issue

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Wednesday. November 13, 2002

"One thing politicians are not shy about is talking, and particularly ta lkin g about themselves " objective ly? " Wel l I wo uld be bound t o say no, wou ldn 't I? That' s for others t o j udge. I wo uld cert ainly hope not . My personal prejudice about t his is as follows : t hat of course I have politi c al views , everybody does. but bec au se nobody has ever voted for me it wou ld be totally illegit imate for me to inflict my political views on the public. When confronted with a set of beliefs or an institution, I just ask 'why is it like this? ' So that innate curiosi t y is a defense against inflict ing one ' s prejudices.

But I think it would be totally illegitimate to inflict them anyway. I don 't have any interest in telling people what I think about something.·· Back to University Challenge, Bamber Gascoigne famously used to research all the questions so he wou ld k now every answer and a related fact or anecdote to go w it h it. Somehow I doubt Jeremy Pax man has the time t o devote hours t o researc h, but perh aps he knows al l t he answers anyw ay? With a t wink le in hi s eyes t hat appears from time to ti me he asks, " Doesn't everybody? " I inform him that sadly I will not be a feature on any futu re UEA team. " I will say two things about that; One - it 's like flees on fly paper, know ledge sticks to you as you get older. Two - it 's a great deal easier to take part in a quiz when you have the answers written down on a ca rd in front of you ."

Paxman has been dealing with obnoxious know-it-all students for the past eight years. yet he is, in his own words , one of the few members of society that likes the student population , " I like their enthusiasm. I like what they know and what they want to know." And probably, in my case. what they don 't know.

His worst moment on University Challenge was one of the first shows he presented. "There was a team from the University of North London and they were up against a team from New College Oxford . The team from New College Oxford comprised four blokes, tw o of whom were robed scholars. The university of North London comprised four women. one of whom was a feminist stand-up comic who'd changed her name by deed poll to Viv Ac ious so the poor announcer had to say "North London Acio us" . I looked at these four blokes and these four women and I thought this is going to be tricky. There·s going to be a lot of phallocentric questions or something. As it happened, amazingly , the University of North London got the first starter question right and their bonuses were on the United Nations.

The first part was 'How many permanent members are there in the UN security council ' . Well they were so politically co rrect they really had no way of making a decision so they talked it out and answered something li ke 45. So I said no as far as I'm aware you're thinking of the total membership of the UN securi·

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Cinefile:

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The Killer

I think that name rings a bell. lt should do. John Woo's The Killer is a benchmark in action cinema and has been imitated by just about every action movie ever since. lt was made in 1989 and released over here in 1993 to huge critical acclaim.

Oh, I've heard of that John Woo geezer. Didn't he direct Mission: Impossible 2?

Yeah, but his American movies like Hard Target, Broken Arrow and Windtall<ers haven't really lived up to the standard of his earlier Hong Kong flicks, apart from the superlative FacejOff. The Killer is the ultimate John Woo film, combining his usual themes of loyalty, friendship and vengeance with a touching storyline and incorporating all the classic Woo trademarks: Double handed gunplay, the occasional burst of slo-mo to accentuate a particularly violent or significant moment, characters throwing weapons to each other, doves flying around, mirrors and reflection revealing danger, huge explosions and body counts.

Bllmey. So what Is lt actually about? I'm cuesslng there's some killing, clone by someone who kills.

Very sharp. Chow Yun-Fat (off of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) is Jeff, an expert hitman who accidentally blinds a waitress, Jenny, in an especially violent job on a crime lord.

Haunted by guilt, Jeff visits the club where she sings every .night and they become involved, the young girl oblivious to his real identity. Meanwhile. maverick cop Inspector Li is tracking down Jeff. Our hero has to do the standard 'one last job' so that he can get a cornea transplant for Jenny.

But things don't go according to plan, and soon the triad he works for are after him too. When Li catches up with Jeff and realises he's really an okay sort of bloke who just wants to save his bird'~ eyesight, they team up together to take on the bigger threat of Jeff's former bosses.

nlrs a great deal easier to take part in a quiz when you have the answers written down on a card in front of you." ty council not the permanent members and the total membership is fifteen and I looked down at the next question and it was 'what is the total membership of the UN security council?'

At which point I said, 'I've made a complete mess of this, we'll stop the recording and give you three more bonus questions. • Then the Oxford team said you can't do that, so I said 'well what do you mean I can't do it' and they said, 'well they've already. failed to get one bonus question right so they should only be offered two' so I said 'Look the audience are never going to understand that, I've got to offer them three.' 'Well, we're not willing to accept that'. So I said, 'I'd really appreciate it if you would, there's only ten points on the board, there's 28

minutes to go, I really wouldn't worry about it. lt is only a game after all.' 'We're not accepting it.' At which point the producer came in my ear and said, "Remind them Of rule nine" Rule nine is the rules are whatever we say they are. I said I'm very sorry I have to remind you of rule nine, if you don't like it you can go and we'll get the reserve team in. At which point, with very bad grace, they conceded. And we played the rest of the game and they duly slaughtered the women from North London. The North London team left and they could not have been nicer, they were so thrilled at being on and taking part and the Oxford team went on to do very well and they got as far as either the semi finals or the final. But they knew they were marked men from then on. Everybody hated them. • Time is running out, the other journalists are knocking on the door and Pax man is quickly tiring of my never-ending list of questions. He answers one about UEA student apathy with "I don't have a clue what happens here. I'm not competent to answer that. They are certainly apathetic here about University Challenge.· And the 'any plans for the future?' with, "I'll probably get the sack. I've no idea. Do you have something specific?" I manage to sneak in one final question, "How do you feel about being the interviewee as oppose to the interviewer for a change?" ·can't you see me shaking?"

Why are you getting so excited? Surely one action film Is the same as another, I love Jean Claude Van Damme's Double Impact, why should I bother with some foreign rubbish?

Oh you naive soul. The Killer is held in most quarters as the greatest action film ever made; it manages the near-impossible task of having characters that you care about and a plot that you get involved in, therefore the gunfights have an edge to them and serve to move the story along rather than just to satisfy the bloodlust of the viewer.

But they do that too, right?

Oh yes. The climatic shoot-out in an abandoned church sees Jeff and Li standing back to back fighting off over fifty oncoming triads members, jumping about and sliding all over the place, unloading a duffle bag's worth of weapons into their adversaries. The final body count is certainly into three figures. Refreshingly un-American in plot and style, and with flair and substance in equal measures, the phrase 'must-see' doesn't do justice to The Killer. You've seen The Matrix?

You've played Max Payne? Neither would have existed without The Killer and John Woo. One word: masterpiece.

Jon Last

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

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F a m o us Lookin

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The Brothers ESP: Text: Toby Lewis

Electric? Soft? Or just a parade? After their recent trip to Norwich The Event caught up w ith Alex and Tom White to see if their music lived up to their name ...

Ireland's Meloton look set to be the new Coldploy.

The Event went backstage with the Dublin five-piece to find out if they hove the staying power What is your line-up?

Three guitars. bass and drums, and four vocals.

How and where did you form?

We all went to school [in Dublin] together. basically, and it was the four of us and I used to sing, and we kinda went " I'm shit" so we got Luke in as the singer. and he started to move in on the song-writing and stuff like that. That was in about 1997.

Your influences are ve ry varied, aren't they?

They are very varied. yeah. We all listen to a lot of different stuff. I mean, Luke will listen to classical or jau, and we'd have our different, more contemporary interests or whatev· er, anything from the Poli ce to Oasis or something.

So how do you combine those interests when you 're writing songs?

Well. Luke might come in with the chords to a song or somethi ng , and songs will just grow from something.

Someone will go, "Oh, Jesus , how about this or that?"

Basical ly. it's very democratic, and the songs just grow from one idea, really, but with everyone having their input.

And everyone has to be happy with a song .

You released your last EP, Still Water, over the internet for free. Why was that? it's kinda giving something back to the people who have given us so much support on the website. it's also a good starting point for us in Eng land. because the last EP didn't sell very well. We didn't 11ave very much exposure and no· one knew who we were. so this will give us a lot more exposure, because people li ke free stuff, and go, "Oh Jesus , they're not bad," and then. hopefully, they'll buy the next single and tell their friends about us.

Touring with JJ72 must help too, because they 're pretty big...

Yeah . Generally. people who like tile m would probabl y like us. it 's a decent crowd. And the tour's been brilliant. We 've been playing to nearly full houses every time and the reac · tions have been great. The crowds couldn't have been bet· ter.

What ' s the most important thing to you at the moment, in terms of your music, at this stage of your career?

I guess . as a band , we just want to reach as many people as possible and be successful. but without being ... we want to kind of be a little less mainstream than other bands that have made it. but still reach a lot of people. I suppose I cou ld say that, if that answers your question in any way. I don't know!

For more information on Melaton, and to get a copy of their new EP go to www .melatonmusic.com Mischa Pear/man

the event

he Electric Soft Parade opened their perfor· mance with a cover of Always on My Mind that was uni~piring to say the least. They did nothing to interpret the song beyond karaoke (though it did allow various members of the crowd to indulge in a beer hall sing along). Its banality sums up what was saddening about their performance. For they clearly have the musical ability to treat the audience to some stomping rock but they often get lost in that generic quagmire of uninspiring late 90's lndy pop ballads. The end of their set was vigorous· ly epic but had come too late. For by that stage we had been bored rigid by their tedio us plodding melodic ea rl y songs, th at made me concentrate on the pain in my back and distanced me well before t he sudden shocking explosion of sound at t he end .

The band is centred on two brothers, Alex and To m Whi te.

The fo rmer plays gu itar and is vocalist, whilst the latter writes the music and is the drummer, though they display their varied musical abil ity by cons istently swapping roles.

Tom , who I chatt ed with, was very amiable but sometimes vacant . Thi s is possibly becau se he is a l1 eavy stone r. For instance , at one point during the interview he began blankly st aring at the wall , although for the majority of the conversa· tion he was ve ry exci t able and ex pressive. Th eir successful single, Silent to the Dark, is va st ly improved li ve wi th it s, " rh yt hmi c guitar, rea lly str aight dru mming and a one note bass with synths on top." it's self-indu lgent ly long, around 10 minutes, but an enjoyable psychedelic journey that is sad ly being phased out of th eir live set as an "e nd of an era piece ."

Their new album sounds promi sing, for "the heavier parts of what we do have become heavi er and t he lighter parts of it have become more withdrawn and down tempo."

"In Japan you turn on the TV and there is a lot of porn and all the pubic hair is pixellated" - Tom White When he entered his trailer he began to describe vividly his previous interview er, a schoolgirl from a fanzine website: "She in sisted on stopping her minidisk after every question and making every new answer a separate track. She thought I was Alex for the first ten minutes and then started asking me questions about Psychid, our support bands new EP . She freaked me. That's Norw ich isn't it?" Th is interview had c lear· ly disturbed him visibly, for he went on to describe how sh.e had done him a drawing in c lass and when asked the changes that rock and roll success had brought, he held it up, claim· ing, "You get worrying pictures of light bulbs on notebook paper. " Describing the unwelcome attention of groupies he

finds he generally "gets girls coming up about my drumming and telling me how erotic it is. Comments I try to ignore as much as possible. remaining loyal to my girlfriend."

He was impressed at my new heights of musical geekery (the credit for this should actually go to my flatmate Lawrence). lt was apparently the first time an interviewer had spotted one of their more dreamy psyc hedelic songs. Red Balloon for Me, was a reference to an obscure Boo Radleys lyric on the song Bullfrog Green , from their self-destructive album C'mon Kids: "No-one got it, because no-one knows C'mon Kids at all.

Though it's one of Alex ' s favourite albums. " This bodes well for their future ex perimentalism, for C 'man Kids is a bizarre 90's mix of the Beatles and Captain Beefheart. Another music influence of theirs is Ash. Both bands were extremely yo ung at their breakthrough, for Tom is 18 and Alex is 20. and their indie pop guitar sound is com parable. He praised the attitude of his youthful indie-pop predecessors, "they are not aloof rock stars and I think that's the way I'd like peopl e to percei ve us. We're just making records and trying to have as much fun as possible ."

11e band has recently toured Australia and Japan and Tom was very ent husiastic about hi s time overseas: " Au strali a is the most beaut iful place . Up unti l a few weeks ago it was polit ically pretty sound . Bali scared the shit out of me, I saw Au st rali a as the last fort ress.'' Thi s description has a ce rtain eerie accuracy when compared t o their immigration pol icy. Hi s views of Japan were somewhat voyeuristic: " it 's an odd place. They fill up halls wi th Japanese people and teac h them footba ll ch ants. lt mimi cs the west in many ways. You turn on the TV and there is a lot of porn and all the pubic hair is pi xe ll ated ...

Sadly. despit e his c hatty friendliness . it was one of the worst gig experiences I have had in recent memory. The ve ry weak support bands. Athlete and Psychid, had exacerbated my impatience before they pl ayed a note in anger. At hlete play lilting guitar pop rock tunes with a slight knowing edge to their lyri cs. My one memory of them is the phrase.

"Everybody wants to be in a rock band" repeated over and over and over again. Althou gh pleasant for one song. after five I wanted to run out of the venue . Psychid play slightl y second-rate art rock, but have a good visual presence with a st range looking bald front man with a nasally voice .

Incidentally, they received a vitriolic review in last issue of Concrete for their EP. However. Electric Soft Parade are not a band that need to worry about their recent critica l response. They were Q magazine's best debut artists and placed on the Mercury music prize shortlist and gain glowing reviews . This isn't bad going for a psychede lic indie rock outfi t that plough that hazy sum· mer sound we've supposedly all grown sick of. Perhaps their bu rgeoning success can be measured in the expo nential inc re ase in the size of their trailers. For when they last came to Norwich and played the Arts Centre they were horrifically cramped but now they live on tour in relative comfort with a huge cult video collection and a leather couch.

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Wednesday, November 13, 2002

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Hundred Questions:

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Text: Matt Sargeson

Hundred Reasons came here last year to play at the Waterfront. This year they came back to play the LCR. The Event met them once again to ask about their next album and. their growing fame part from the kinky perks given off by my irregularly misfiring motor-neurones, there was a general feeling of insouciance about the proceedings thus far, and upon greeting Messrs.

Colin Doran and Paul Townsend (being lead singer and guitarist respectively of emo-rockers Hundred Reasons), the deflated air of the much vaulted backstage scene only reaffirmed its heinous role as an out and out bummer; these were tired men, sacrificing their youth nightly to the malevolent rock Gods, guitar-toting lads left like Spartan babies upon the altar of met all Questions in hand, dictaphone whirring along in its mechanical contentment, I set about my task, fearing that at any moment my taut nerves would give me away; the metaphorical shilling would be found at the bottom of my beer glass and I would be dragged away to sea, never to see my loved ones again. Sweet Jesus, I thought , this is getting serious ...

"Not really , because I don 't do heroin' ", muses Doran, breaking me from my paranoid daydream , smiling beneath his monocled left eye as he scoffs at my comparisons of his overnight fame with the recently resurrected Kurt Cobain's. " From reading stuff he didn't seem like he was happy about being in a commercial band, • pipes up the cuddly Paul Townsend looking up from the fun of his Dan Dare colouring book , "And I think once he could see what it was like he wanted to become underground again, and I can see why in some ways ... but obviously he was a manic depressive and a heroin addict, so maybe that can just push you over the edge. " The underground is a place Hundred Reasons have left a long time ago, scaling the mainstream aided by the oddest of footings and plinths; their first three EPs whipped up enough publ ic support to get singles I 'I/ Find You and Silver in!o the top 40, with capacity crowds turning up all across the nation to see the group before debut album Ideas Above Our Station was even released.

However, fame is yet to provoke such likewise suicidal responses.

"I only really notice it when I go to a gig," states Townsend, washing his rusks down with a warm glass of milk, "When you're watchil)g a band and people come up to you and say ' hi,' but generally my life' s the same as it was. I live in a flat in London with my mates and some weekends I 'll visit my parents and my friends from the town I grew up in.· ·

that 's great . And because it's at the UEA we 've got more production stuff into the show."

My mind wandered to images of Spinal Tap beautifications, facades of fibreglass , mighty stone-henge replicas .

"We couldn 't get them in the door, we actually got the life size ones and couldn 't get them in ," replied Doran, undoubtedly lying through his teeth , which shine like fools gold.

However, enhanced stage productions have always been the refuge of the bored musician; Tommy Lee used to fly his drum kit over the crowds in Motley Crue's dying days. After playing the same small pool of material for so long, I wondered if boredom was perhaps setting in. "We've had 5 or 6 weeks off to be honest, • shrugged the enormously haired frontman, "We've been writing new songs and haven't played live for a wh ile so for me personally it's still as fresh as the day we wrote it .• "We 've got some new songs that we'll be playing tonight and throughout the tour too,· concurs Townsend, "We 're quite proud of it and we want to play it in front of a crowd and see if they like it.· Before the live hiatus though, HR had been working a heavy schedule, braving their toils like so many labouring Russian farm-hands: "We did a load of festivals, about 25, at the same time as Falter came out and we've been extremely busy ," sighs Townsend, and I

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"And then we got back in the studio and started writing ... we 're roughly half the way through the next album. We ' re just going to keep writing until we feel that we 've got a good album, but right now we've got a good half dozen tracks that we ' re happy with. lt should be out in the first half of next year." mong the festivals HR attended in that hectic summer were the Fuji Rock in Japan which the emo-lite minstrels are mysteriously tightlipped about ("lt wasn 't shit, put it that way,· was Doran' s detailed summary of his Nihon travels) and, closer to home, the Reading and Leeds Carling weekend. " lt was a different th ing in Japan because it was odd to see that people knew · us and wanted to see us out there, • remarks Doran.

"We weren 't expecting it . But then Reading was really important to us because we all live near there, and we'd been there together before, it meant a lot to us in that respect too. They're different things but it was awesome, we had a great crowd and a nice day. " Me too Colin, me too, though was it that same fateful day in a field in Reading that their spell was broken for me? HR are often quoted, as they were this day as having a

A

"We want to do it punk - get a van with some amps and just drive round."

This may sound like a hum-drum way of life, not what we expect from our 21st century rock stars, but Townsend certainly prefers it to life pre-CD:UK performances: "When we first started out we couldn't afford to eat to the point where we were collapsing onstage ... our other guitarist and our drummer were just twigs of people . Now we can, we can afford to pay the rent and afford to go out and have a drink ."

No further proof was needed of their success than the fact that last time HR played Norw ich they were at the teeny tiny Waterfront , and tonight they play the arenaaping LCR .

"I 'm really pleased," enthuses Doran, "I mean , it ' s more people coming to see us and

"wide range of influences," but sometimes it can be hard to appreciate as their devotion to raucous riffage spirals into the noisier realms of blandness, where Hell Is For Heroes are often seen, sipping a Special Brew in the corner. They may have a future eye on the US ( "We want to do it punk ," coos Townsend, "Get a van with some amps in the back and just drive around," ), but with upcoming bands such as Thursday and the recently revitalised Glassjaw blistering the skin of America with their heady mix of uncompromising ingenuity and aggression, Hundred Reasons w ill have to fight tooth and nail up a steep slope to gain credulity as anything but England 's noisiest rock journeymen.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

the 8¥ nf

08

Excess Hollywood A quick look at the least uninteresting news emanating from LA. Particularly for international viewers, the choice of who wi ll be hosting The Oscars is of vital importanc e.

Staying awake through 4 and a half hours of celebrities telling each other of how absolutely marvellous eac h other are is difficult enough at primetime. When , as it does fc;n us, the ceremony runs between 2 and 6am, having a c harismatic presenter t o hold the who le sorry shambles together is essential to making it thro ugh to the end.

Therefore, t he announcement th at, after a one year break ( during which Whoopi Go ldberg hosted the worst Oscars in livi ng memory }, Steve Marti n is returning for hi s second sti nt , should be met with cheers of joy from the dozen people in Brita in who bother to stay up. Last time around, Martin underc ut the usual tone of self co ngratu lation with a barrage of (relatively) risky humour, including the classic, " maybe Hollywood movies are too violent: I took a 9-year-old kid to see Gladiator, and he cried through the entire film . Now, maybe that 's because he didn 't know w ho I was ... " The actorj comed ianj write r com mented that he 's delighted to be back for another year, " because fear and nausea always makes me lose weight ".

This fortnight ' s award for 'Most Stupid Concept for an Upcoming Act ion Movie' goes to Doug Liman ' s proposed Mr and Mrs Sm ith . The premise has a bored married couple discovering that they are enemy assassins who have been hired to kill each other. Has Liman (who, unti l th is year's Bourne Identity , was in the business of mak ing small, smart movies like Swingers and Go) not seen True Lies? Or Prizzi 's Honour, for that matter? True Lies was already a remake of La Totale!; how many more times does this moronic plot have to be filmed before someone, anyone , poi nts out what a horrible idea it is? There's no word, as of yet. regarding whi c h of the intended " A-list st ars " have been lured into making t his no doubt ca llosal im pending success.

Jim Whalley

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The Films That With E.T. now out on DVD and a special edition of the Back to the Future movies imminent, The Event presents its guide to the ten (give or take the odd trilogy) most important films of that wonderful decode we call the 80s. l.The Back to the Future Trilogy.

The eternally youthful Mic hael J. Fox plays accidental hero M arty Mcfly in a trilogy of films with a story-line from Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale that mu st amount to a history professor 's worst nig ht mare. A delinquent student careers ineptiy round in a fashi onable car/ tim e mach ine creat ed by quintessent ial mad sc ienti st Christopher Ll oyd (Doe Brown). Perhaps no film instilled more disappointment in the millennium (or embarrassment in the writers - second maybe in both cases to 2001: A Space Odyssey) than th e second in this trilogy.

Mi ll ions of muddy-headed reve ll ers awoke on th e morning of (depending on the party) January 2nd and rea lised that STILL we haven't perfected the technology for mass-produced hovercars . Time is running out, they are soon to be over-due; as are automatically adjustable self-drying coats , self-tying trainers and proper hover-boards. The deadline is 2015.

The convoluted plot, movi ng between 1885, 1985 and 2015, proves a right headache for all those tedio us film-goers, and friends of film goers, who insist on exegesis of theo ries concerning space and time in re lation to how the fi lm contradicts them; physics students, main ly. it 's the Flux Capacitor, ok?

The film was made at a stage of more optimism about the prospective achievements of future science, alright? Suspend disbelief and enjoy all three, bac k to bac k if you can.

Nathan Dlxon

4.E.T. A heart-wprming tale of an unlikel y friendsh ip between a boy and a walking bicycle seat. By the t ime of E. T. , Steven Spielberg had already made three of the biggest hits of all time with Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark . Whereas most would consider that enough to ca ll it a day, the bearded purveyor of movies for your inner child decided to top them all , combi ning al iens with feel-good family drama.

In retrospect , after fifteen years of Hollywood doggedly refining its successful formula, E. T. doesn't seem that impressive, ce rtai nly not to the extent that it co uld attract un precedented numbers to watc h it on cinema (as its recent medioc re rere lease proved). Like Gone with the Wind and Titanic, Spielberg captured the mood of a generation, and reaped the financial rewards. The young cast are still impressive, and the climactic bike chase will always stir long-suppressed desires for a BMX, but the whole affair has a strangely calculated feel that makes some of the more straight-faced emoting difficult to take. And also., did E.T . himself have to be qu ite so nice?

The shark in Jaws was happy to k ill people. as were the dinosaur in Jurassic Park; why should sewage-shaped aliens be any different?

JW

5. Ghostbusters

2.Batman For an industry, and a society, obsessed with money , Batman (rele ased in 1989) was a fitti ng end to a wildly successfu l dec ade . Tim Burton's $50 mi ll ion production was the first film to make more than $30 million in it ' s opening weekend ; it set a new record (ten days) for grossing $100 million domestically; by the end of the year it had outpaced its nearest rival , Indiana Jones and tile Last Crusade, to top the box office by a clear $52 million .

And the n there was the merchandising. Did anyone escape the late 1980s w ithout owni ng someth ing (t-shirt , act ion figure, shower curtain, etc.) with the metall ic bat logo emblazoned across it? Once all the figures were in, Batman earned Warner Brothers over one billion dollars.

The deafening ring of the c ash registe rs almost drowned out the movie. But not quite. Though it pissed off the fans.

Burton , producer Jon Peters and production designer Anton Furst, with more than a little help from a brooding Mic hael Keaton and a super-nuts Jac k Ni c hol son ("ever danced with the Devi l in the pale moonlight? " ). fashioned a dark and troubled take on the ch aracter that was ten years ahead of its tim e. Spiderman, X-Men and Blade are just imitations.

Jim Wha/ley

3.The Breakfast Club In the 80s it wasn' t enough to rebel - yo u had to rebel with really big hair and an innovative style of jacket that encapsulated your personality . The Brea kfast Club is a study of what happens when five high sc hool pupil s who all understood that rule are forced together for a day-long detention.

The actual quality of The Breakfast Club isn't really parti c ularly relevant ( although it has weathered time rather well). What matters is that , together with St . Elmo 's Fire, it introduced the world to The Brat Pack , a group of 20-somethi ng stars, inc luding Em il io Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore. Rob Lowe , Andrew McCarthy , Judd Nelson, M oil y Ringwa ld and Anthony Michaei-Hall . who only seemed to act in teams and collectively possessed a prodigi ous talent for squandering fame.

Breakfast Club won inc lusion over St. Elmo 's Fire by being written and directed by 'Mr. 80s ', John Hughes (also re spon sible for Trains, Planes and Aut omobiles, National Lampoon's Vacation and Ferris Bueller 's Day Off) and the presence of Molly Ringwald, possibly the most 80s woman to ever live.

That she didn 't die at the stroke of midnight. December 31, 1989, was a shock to just about everyone.

The film also inc ludes what maybe the first recorded instance of the insult " eat my shorts " , an important moment in hi story if ever t here was one.

JW

We dnesday, Novem ber 13, 2002

This film provides a lesson for all university faculty staff everywhere : if funding to your university is cut and you are thrownoff can]Pus because your methods are 'sloppy '. sim ply help set-up a paranormal invest igation/ex termin ation com pany with a couple of your eccentri c professor friends and save the world from an impending apocalypse conveniently kicking-off in your own back-yard.

Despite what the denizens of the c rappy world of film spin-off cartoon series wou ld have one believe: THIS is the REAL ghost-busters ·- a wonderfu lly tongue in cheek movie from Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ram is, from before t hey both mysteriously lost the ability to be fu nny . Directed by lvan Reitman , it also provides a vehicle for another of the Saturday Night Live comedy set - Bill Murray, perfectly cast as the wry Peter Venkmann .

With fine 'hammy' smaller supporting roles from Rick Moranis (Louis Tully ) Anni Potts (Janine Melnitz) and William Athertori (Waiter Peck) and a more straight turn from Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett ) t hi s film still provides a witty and fantast ical couple of hours entertainment . Some of the special effects - . state of the art at the t ime - have definitely aged a little, but the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man is still as demonically cute as always and the armchair scene remains relatively chilling . But these days the 'terro r-dogs' look more like murderous turds; although perhaps t hat is te rrifying . Overall , t hi s was one of the most plucky, enj oyably absurd films to co me out of a decade associated with kitsch and excess.

NO

6.Heathers A brilliant and very bizarre portrayal of teenage angst and social hierarchy that encapsulates the mood (and unfortunately) the fashion of the 80s perfectly .

Although this exceptional piece of dark ly comic teen cinema on ly made a mi llion doll ars at the US box office. it very quickly became a cult c lassic, an d also catapu lted Christ ian Sl at er to stardom . Slater's port rayal of Jason Dean, Westerberg 's new bad boy , really brought the old rebellious teenager into a modern climate as a product of the negative aspects of 80s yuppie culture.

The geni us and originality behind t his fi lm lies in the wonderfully dark humour and irreve rence towards death which steers it clear from being a taut t hriller. Heathers plays interest ingly on t he effects of mass culture on tee n society and parental fear, and some of the observations of stereotypes surrounding backwater suburban towns are truly hilarious.

The film is rife with the com petitive amorality which was so abundant in the 80s (Wall Street etc.). and the garishly bright outfits bring back wa rm nostalgic memories of the fee li ng of that era, as we ll as a few hazy images of Prince videos.

Christian Floyd

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Made the 80s

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7.The Indiana Jones Trilogy "Mum, Dad, I want to be ... an archaeologist! " How many illfated excursions to universities must this film franchise have inspired? How many disillusioned students left academia distinctly disgruntled, having found their archeological degree course had more to do with pottery, beards, woolly-jumpers, toothbrushes and trowels than cool leather jackets, whips, hats, mysterious maps and shooting at Nazis. Harrison Ford almost glows with cheeky, rugged charisma in these culturally irreverent, cheesy but 'ripping good' yarns spun by Spielberg, Lucas, Kaufman and Huyck . 'lndy,' the eponymous cowboy archaeologist, gallivants around the globe shooting, looting, whipping and chasing his way through a variety of dubious quests for, among other things, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. All this to arguably one of the best theme tunes provided from Hollywood maestro John Williams (pipe down Star Wars fans). A typically exuberant eighties action/adventure movie with enjoyable ironic twists (the best being the gun vs. sword gag - take that Errol Flynn!) Another string to the Spielberg bow in the decade that saw him steadily rising to preeminence in the Hollywood film industry.

NO

8.Rambo (First Blood)/ Rocky (4) Both of these films share the same premise of individualism, the one-man-against-all-odds theme that was so common in the

muscled up action hero films of the 80s. · Rambo made such an impact on its contemporary society that President Reagan used references to the film in many of his speeches. First Blood was rather subdued in comparison to the later sequels and focused more on survival though his knowledge of nature and tactics than somehow being able to dodge a hail of gunfire large enough decimate a heard of grazing buffalo.

Both films focus on how nature, will-power, and biceps the size of cartoon hams can win over technology and a seemingly superior enemy, (Rocky, training in Siberia using nature, contrasted with Drago using hi-tech equipment and steroids to make him stronger).

Out of the two Rocky sequels made in the 80s it is possibly #4 that holds the most significance to the decade. Not only is the film centred around the whole East vs. West conflict and has an overtly commercial feel, but the soundtrack defined a generation.

The 1980s were dominated by the Stallone and the Schwarzenegger action-heroes, and rightfully so, because as far as enjoyable escapism goes, we are looking at a golden age of cinema.

CF

9.Top Gun Unequivocally one of, if not the definitive film of the 80s. Failing to reach the top ten box office grossers of the 1980s, Top Gun still managed to rack up a cool $130 million by the end of the year, making it the highest earner of 1986.

No other film managed to hit the pulse of 80s American culture so well, to the extent that, in the subsequent years, applications for the Navy sky-rocketed and, according to a poll by the

World Almanac and Book of Facts, in American schools students named Tom Cruise as the person they most admired.

Top Gun is constructed with the same winning formula as most BruckheimerjSimpson productions; if you swap the planes for cars, Top Gun and Days of Thunder are more or less the same film. However, Top Gun ultimately surpasses its twin with its feel good, 'cocky' simplicity, and unequalled hardware - a dog fighting flight school of F14s is the ultimate boys with toys fantasy.

The films sings with the dominant Reaganite trope and culture of the 80s, being the best of the best, military heroism, and an ideal lifestyle born out of competition and self achievement at the cost of others; "there are no points for second place.· Its high octane soundtrack and winning performances cements Top Gun's place as one of the most watchable films of the era.

CF

lO.You Tell Us What have we missed? Are you livid that Dirty Dancing isn't included? Should The Goonies have knocked out Indiana Jones?

Have we committed almost unmentionable crimes by not including artier fare such as Cinema Paradiso? What about Raging Bull or Blade Runner? Send your strongly held opinions, or just mild grievances to: su.concrete@uea.ac.uk

Pictures: (clockwise from top left) Back to the Future; Raider's

of the Lost Ark; Ghostbusters; Heathers; E. T.; The Breakfast Club; Batman; Top Gun; Rambo

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

the event

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10

ourn Playwright: Text: Clare Butler

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s I apprehensively await Alan Ayckbo urn, I rehearse my knowledge of this dauntingly successful playwright; at 63, he has w ritten the equ1valent of a play a year for his entire life: 62 to date. His successes inc lude a variety of styles: the futuristic Comic Pot ential, the dark Small Family Business and t he extraordinary House and Garden performed simultaneously in two theatres with actors run ning between. As Artistic Director of his customised theatre, The Stephen Jose ph in Scarboroug h, Ayckbourn directs his own w ork, whi c h is t ran slated into 30 languages and only out-perform ed by Shakespeare's worldwide. Pinter was onc e quot ed as having said: 'what he has given to theatre is immeasurable . I t ake my hat off t o him' . I should be quoted as havi ng said : ' I thi nk I'm goi ng t o be sick !' Oh . and I st il l have pin k streak s in my hair from t he weekend. Panic. panic . panic: th is is not good, Bridget, not good at all.

" I'm completely not closed-off to other interpretations, but sometimes it's like someone drawing a moust ache on your baby you th ink: ' what are you doin g to my little child w ho's so pretty and perfect?'"

He arrives. all affability 1n a dauling purple shirt and I feel better already. Although thiS IS probably h1s thousandth interv1ew, he seems to enjoy chatting about his life and work and g ives every impression of authenticity. He is as at home in front of me as he is with the entirety of LTl wl1ich is packed out for the university Literary Festival. Regaling the audience with anecdotes about the unseen side of theatre he brings the house down w ith one concerning an I ago who. whilst having his head dunked in water b) a furious Othello. improv1sed. shouting "shampoo and set. short back and s1des! .. to which the audience was oblivious. content to be experienc1ng 'high art·.

I'm fascina t ed as he gets comfortable and begins to talk.

University "seemed an obstruction" to Ayckbourn. Instead, his French master gave him an Introduction to Sir Donald Wolfit whom he joined as an assistant stage-manager. Soon enough Ayc kbourn was acting under his " mentor" at Scarboroug ll , director Stephen Joseph. his writing gain1ng confidence. He ex pl ai ns he was ·caught in the crossfire" between t he "well made" school of dra111atists. the Chekovs and th e lbsens, and t he kitchen sink school the Noel Cowards and the Terrence Rat tiga ns. I was a bit of each: sort of fro m the wel l-made ki t chen sc hool of drama!"

So how do his numerous plays make it ou t of t he ki t c hen and on t o the stage as, he says. "nine t enths of the ye ar I 'm a direct or not a writer"? In w hat many of us would regard as a nightmare scenario. Ayckbo urn wi llingl y hurl s himself into a two four week writ ing fren zy, oft en annou nc ing the title before the wo rk is co mpleted . He famously t akes few notes, and most of the se are c haracter names. t hink Carla Pepperbloom . Marmion Cedilla, Lester Trainsmith. and yo u c an see why. Next, it's into the study and onto his numerous computers: one for when he ' s " pretend ing to th1n k". one uncon nected to any others (he 's paranoid about vi ruses), and his laptop . Comic Potential reflects bot h Ayc kbourn ·s ph obia of techn ol ogy and hi s enthrallment by it. Here , "actoids" have repl ac ed humans in daytime soaps.

Suddenly one malfunctions. accident ally developi ng t he c apaci ty t o love and laugh and causing a yo ung wr iter t o fall madly in love wit h her.

Unl ik e Pinter w ho once told hi m t o "mi nd my own ruc king bu siness" reg arding hi s characte r in The Birthday Party, Ayck bourn is spellbound by the absolute intricacies of t he human condition. Hi s ch aracters. often derived _from t he "muc h misunderstood" Midd le Class. are realistica ll y compl ex and it's day to day life t hat interest s him: "I li ke t he idea of 'w hat ifs'- what if I'd had coffee instead of tea. The idea that tiny things have profound consequences intrigues me. I'm interested in most things on the human scale and don't wnte about world events except in relat ion to t he c haracters ...

event

Different perspectives mesmerize him and he has coi ned t he phrase: "we are all w alk-on parts in oth er peo pl e's live s" . This is inherent to House and Garden, whi ch is ingenious and t ric ky to stage by any stretc h of the imagination. "lt w as 37 seco nds between theatre s in Sc arborough so when it we nt to London I wrote about a minute and a half of leeway" he ex plains , "it was important that actors kept the line s tight otherwise that 37 seco nds became 15. I c an say it now without jinxi ng it bec ause it 's over: no-one w as ever off in either theat re." Ay c kbourn rehearses and prem ieres all of his plays in hi s Scarborough theatre converted from an old Odeon. He modestl y suggests that t he guaranteed stage ex plai ns his suc cess : I believe you AIan, thousands wouldn't. This year for the first tim e the enti re Scarborough cast is going to London with Damsels in Distress.

Th is, he cites as a particu lar trium ph: " it ' s great for a reg ional com pany. I 'm really thrill ed about t hat. ·· Despite Pint er' s initial harsh retort. Ayckbourn·s dialogue is influenced by his style. although. " it look s more naturalistic but the punctuation ' s generally crap " he explains, "mostly full -stops and broken passages like poetic lines; but dialogue reflects inner mood , inner conflict. inner fee ling s so it ' s important that actors don't paraphrase." He maintains t hat "play s are meant to be sung " and compla ins that many modern wri t ers c reate " radio plays". ignoring t he need f or a balance between verbal and visual co ntent. He also assert s tl1at good drama involves " a tension wh ich is both sad and funn y. You have to make t he audience laugh for c haracte rs at t he beg inning so t hey can c ry for them at t he end. '' Ayc kbourn has been widely recognised for his talent s wi t h a host of aw ards, a CBE and a kn ighthood -for Servi ces To Theat re. But w hich one means the most? "Th e Evening St andard used to have Best Comedy and Best Play.

Comedies are always separat e beings from plays; they ought t o be the same. Just Between Ourselves w on Best Play and I was rather proud of th at. " Ay c kbourn does not deal in st oc k genres

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

for fear of being " done under the Trade Descriptions Act " and because , he says, " occasionally you can get the whole chocolate box out - hard and soft centres" . yc kbourn· s di rec tio n of his ow n work affords him the luxury of absolute contro l over at least the first performance of te xt. Inevitably, one day this will change and he will have to relinqui sh jurisdict ion. Of course.

Ayc kbourn ·s plays are al ready adapted and performed worldw ide but he tends not to go " unless somebody I know and trust says: 'this I t hink you 'll like .· I 'm not completely closed-off to other interpretations, but sometimes it's like someone drawing a moustac he on your baby you think: 'what are you doing to my little child who 's so pretty and perfect?"' But he's not a control freak and accepts that , especially in t ranslat ion, th ings have to c hange: "I hold my breath. If the audience are getting something from it I j ust have to sm ile ...

After more than 40 years in the business, the essence of theatre as " live art " still enthuses Ayc kbourn : " it should change eac h night , depending on who 's percei ving it. Wit h t heatre. you're on human terms and human scale. it's intimat e: you 're full~ aware of other audience members - that 's part of the experience. If you like. it 's an assert ion of common humanity.

That may seem rather grand , but I think it ' s very important, otherw ise al l we talk about is used cars don't we?" it ' s all about involvement for Ayckbourn : " I parti cularly like plays where you get the pleasure of saying: 'that c haracter 's lying , she's rea lly in love with him .' lt g ives the audienc e a role to interpret and detect. it 's more exci ting to say: 'come inside and explore , see wh at you can discove r.' When there's still a glow in t he auditorium after the audience has left. That 's when a good play has happened ".

A

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Burn Out, Fade Away

Formula 72:

Text: Mischa Pearlman

Back after two years with a new album and. a UK tour, JJ72 talk to The Event about their deepest secret. Or do they?

whatever happened to ...

Jawbreaker?

•

Who? here do you draw the line between journalistic Integrity and a good story?. This Is the question that was perpetually on my mind after Tuesday, November 6, when JJ72 came to Norwich to play the LCR as part of their lengthy British tour. lt looked, to begin with, like the interview wasn't even going to happen - the band were late in arriving and the press people were unobtainable. Time was running out. Then, as these things have a habit of doing, things just came together, and I found myself in the small, ridiculously hot, downstairs dressing room of the LCR having a brief ten minute chat with drummer Fergal Matthewsjust 45.minutes or so before the doors to the venue opened. The first question was one I knew he wouldn't answer, because they never have, at least not officially -what does JJ72 actually mean? "lt doesn't mean anything. Well, it means something to us because it's our band's name. Say you have a child and you give the child a name, and then the child becomes its own name. Do you know what I mean? Like, my name's Fergal and I am Fergal. When I was born it didn't really mean anything, but then, after a while, you start associating that with that.• So it means absolutely nothing? There' s no meaning behind it whatsoever? ·we change our minds so much, there's no point in putting any meaning to something we do, really, because it'll change. Not the tunes, obviously, but the name.·

\\ We 've gon·e through good and bad times between the three of us."

Fast forward, then, some five or so· hours, to the aftershow party. The concert over, the free beer and champagne that was distributed amongst fans and band eagerly consumed, and well, tongues begin to loosen. Cue Mark Greaney, singer and frontman, explaining, allegedly for the first time ever, and to the alarm of Fergal, who overhears, what the band name actually means, what the JJ and the 72 stand for and represent. Yes, of course, he could be telling lies, but the explanation seemed too earnest, too well-thought out and too personal to be a fabrication. lt is impossible to know, but I'd say there was a 99% chance that he was telling the truth.

That is where the dilemma originates. Should that revelation, told in top, albeit drunken, secrecy, be printed in a newspaper?

Sure, it'd be a fantastic story, but one which, all things considered, would be absolutely immoral to print. Whether or not it would have a significant effect on the band or not isn't important, nor is the fact that it may make more people read the paper (imagine the sensationalist headlines now- "Shock horror! JJ72 exclusively reveal the origins of their name!")- what matters is the fact they don' t want it revealed, and that there is an aspect of trust and respect, on my part, which shouldn't be broken. Besides which, when it all comes down to it, it' s the music that 's important, not the name.

So, then, back to the small, stuffy changing room. lt's been two

years since the release of JJ72's eponymous debut album. What have they been up to in the meantime?

"Well, we toured all over here, Europe, America, Japan, and that was basically the two years. Then we went back into the studio to record the second album, and here it is."

How has the band changed in that time?

"We've gone through gocOd and bad times between the three of us, but I think we're a stronger band. We play stronger. We're more of a unit now, it's not as Mark-based as it was earlier. The first album's quite singer-songwriter with a band behind that, but now it's more of an inclusive unit.· So the band are happy with the new album, then? · we really love it,· enthuses Fergal. "I think it' s like a book with chapters, you can't just have a piece of it. I don't like choosing singles from it because it doesn't do it justice in any way. it's like a book you should read, and a single's just an extract." · This is certainly true. Entitled I To Sky, and released last month, the new album works and reads like a book, with much recurring imagery. scattered throughout its twelve songs, linking them all together. And, though the album was entirely written by Greaney and is dominated by his trademark, high-pitched vocals, the album does sound like a different JJ72, one that is working together, enjoying what they' re doing as a band. lt is, interestingly, also dominated by religious imagery - both in terms of the lyrics and the artwork - which adds to the cohesion. Have JJ72 found God, then? Is religion and Christianity important to the band?

"Religion, yes. Christianity no. I don't think we'd like to stick to one religion. We'd never like to do that. But it's religious in a grandiose way, the dreamy, fantasy world that religion is all about.• Certainly, there is no preaching or proselytising on the album instead, the religious aspects seem to be more about a feeling, a state of mind, than anything else. The final track of the album, Oiche Mhaith, sums that sentiment up very well. "lt' s a soothing way of saying goodnight in Irish."

Why an Irish title? " it's just something that you say in Ireland. And I suppose we wanted to show our lrishness a bit more, and where we're from, because, I suppose, it does matter. Where you're from and where you grow up does affect you."

Fergal's affinity with his home country is very much in evidence.

There are, he says, no plans for the band to leave Ireland, and he describes Lakota, the Irish label they' re signed to, as "just real people. They're not like a record company. They tuck up and they make mistakes but at the end of the day they're real people you can actually talk to. They're not the richest or most efficient record company in the world, in fact, they 're not really a record company. They' re just friends really, who guide us through it.· That seems to be the over-riding sentiment of the band as a whole. Fast-forwc;~rd again to the aftershow party to find Fergal, Mark and bassist Hilary mingling, though perhaps rather awkwardly at first. with a roomful of lucky faos, talking with them signing album sleeves and setlists, telling secrets.

And secrets, well, they're secrets aren't they? On record, Fergal described the NME as a "cult-fuelled masturbation session," though all the while admitting, because of its monopoly, that JJ72 - and every other band- still need their help. That's printable. Off record, Mark revealed the meaning behind the band's name. That's not printable, and thet' s where this article ends.

Massively influential emoj punkj post-hardcore trio, comprising of Chris Bauermeister (bass), Adam Pfahler {drums) and underground legend Slake Schwarzenbach (vocals/guitar).

Formed in 1988 in Los Angeles after relocating from New York University, the band picked the name Jawbreaker one night after seeing it written on a band-name brainstorming sheet, although apparently none of them could remember writing it down.

What?

After releasing a number of demos and one EP, Jawbreaker's first album, Unfun, appeared in 1990, immediately displaying the band' s talent for melody-infused posthardcore punk, with Slake's gritty, emotional vocals and lyrics laying down an entire blueprint for courtless bands afterwards. In 1991 they relocated to San Francisco, with the release of the more experimental, brooding album Bivouac. In 1992, on a European tour, Slake's rasping vocal style caught up with him, and he had to have throat surgery. This ordeal partly inspired Jawbreaker's indisputable classic, 1993's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, produced by Steve Albini. The album deals with issues of selling out, {the band were being criticised by the punk community at the time for diversifying their sound), Slake's illness, and-, obviously, love gone wrong. lt is a perfect mix of raw emotion, simple three chord songs, post-hardcore intricacy and lyrics that read like pure poetry and to this day remains one of the most affecting and essential alternative albums ever made. In 1994, Jawbreaker caused a major uproar in the underground community by signing to major label Geffen records. The resulting album was 1995's Dear You, a marked stylistic change from their previous output. Its crystal clear production put off many fans, but the songwriting was as potent as ever. The band split the following year.

Why? Jawbreaker were everything that a punk band should be raw, emotional, energetic, sometimes aggresSive, sometimes heartbreaking. Songs such as Do You Still Hate Me?, Ache or Chesterfield King, for example, put to shame any of the so called 'emo' bands that are currently in fashion. They proved punk music doesn'•t have to be stupid; it can be Intelligent, profound and vitally important. Listen to this band and you'll never look at Blink 182 the same way again.

So where are they now?

Slake Schwarzenbach returned in 1998 with a new band, Jets To Brazil, which also contains members of Texas Is The Reason, Hand?Ome and Lifetime. They have released three albums, the latest of which, Perfecting Loneliness, came out last month. Chris Bauermeister went back to college and got married (how punk!). Adam·Pfahler now plays drums for the band J Church and also runs his own record label, Eight Ball, which has posthumously released a Jawbreaker live album from 1996 and, more recently, a compilation, entitled Etc., of demos, b-sides and compilation tracks from 1988-95. Both are equally as essential as all their other records.

Gary Sudden

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

the event

12

13

The Event TV Awards 2002: Text: Em m a Ap-Thomas

The time.of year has.come for The Event to search the murky depths of the Hive for your opinions about the wonder that is television. Here is a little·insight into what UEA students think is the best. . . n previous years the mighty king of soap opera, Eastenders, has wiped the floor with every other nominee in the Best Soap category, but this year· it seems that our mates down in Albert Square are just not coming up with the goods. With a sterling 43% of the vot e, the Ramsey Street cast have stolen away Eastenders' victory. So what does Neighbours have this year that Eastenders doesn't? To be quite honest I'm not really sure. But I imagine it has something to do with t he gorgeous Scully girls, spanky Stuart and Drew (Grr... ), whilst Robbie and Sonia were the proud winners of the Ugliest Soap Star awards, you shallow lot: Admittedly, the Neighbours scriptwriters have been busy little beavers this year, with that naughty little Flick stealing away her sister's perfect man, Susan Kennedy losing her memory, and Dee and Toadie getting it on, there hasn't been a moment where we've been thinking - "hmm, didn't I see this exact same episode yesterday ... • Despite some crackin' storylines, such as Little Mo coshing Trev over the head with an iron. and the w hole Phil, Lisa, Mark and a baby fiasco, Eastenders has had a tendency of late to overdo the decent storylines until they aren't interesting anymore. Wit h the exception of the Halloween party pyrotechnics, East enders tias proved a little less fluid in its progression than in past times and can be incredibly erratic in rounding off storylines. Maybe I'm just looking for problems here, but UEA students are anything but consistent. lt seems t hat you all think Trevor deserves the Best Villan award whilst Darcy only ·gets 15% of the vote. Admittedly, Neighbours has never really been that good at villains, just look at Darren. The sunny disposition of ttle Australian writers seems to be more accommodating towards the notion of reformation than that of the miserable English lot behind Eastenders.

There's never a moment in the Square when everyone is happy, and it seems you kids like a nice happy ending. Good old Darcy never really enj oyed being a bastard. lt was more of an insecurity thing. But that Trevor... what an evil sod. Not content with ·thumping and raping Litt le Mo he went on to charge her with assault. And when she finally settled down with Billy Mitchell he tried to kill her. Neighbours very rarely (ok- never) tackles such shocking subjects in such a graphic way and for this reason Eastenders will always be a superior example of soap opera. With Neighbours we know that everything is going to work out eventually, and the "saved by the bell" type morals that run deep through the heart of Ramsey Street are j ust the kind of thing that makes us want to go and do some reading (after Doctors and Quincy of course). Unsurprisingly, the Scullys have proved more popular with Concrete readers than the Slaters, probably because there is far less shouting and a lot more acting coming out of the -scully home. However, a whop-

ping 41% of the Best Soap Bitch vote went to Kat, w ith Flick Scully coming in a close second with 32%. This is quite amusing because despite Kat's big mouth and crap clothes she has a heart of gold (bless her) yet Flick STOLE HER SISTER'S FI ANCE! Think about it...

As always, Hol/yoaks is re:ognised as infinitely inferi or to Eastenders and Neighbours. lzzy is UEA's sexiest female (there's no accounting for taste) whilst Gary Lucy did alright with 25% for Sexiest Male. Personally, I think that Hollyoaks is a pile of pants compared to last year. Jodi and Nick should be given more storylines and I'm fed up of hearing the same whin· ing voices every day. it's got to the point where watching it makes me want to put my head through the television just to drown out the sound of Mandy's voice. (Note that Mandy only got 10% for Best Bitch. She deserved so much more) And why does the only ginger (i.e not blond), overweight female have to be obsessed wit h her weight?

"Neighbours has never really been that good at villains, just look at Darren."

Poor old Corrie and Brookie aren't doing so well are they? Not a vote in sight for the Northerners. I firmly believe that Brookside is scheduled to be watched only by people who go out of their way to do so. it's hard to miss Neighbours, and Eastenders has an omnibus on Sundays that it's difficult to not.watch if you are in your pyjamas in front of the telly. But when is Brookside on?

Moving swiftly on to the comedy category for a fine recognition of British comedy above American. The c ringe-worthy David Brent and his pet plonker 3areth are voted far more amusing than even the indestructible and over-paid "Friends". Whilst Matt le Blanc is everyone's Sexiest Male then we've all sat in front of the TV on a Monday night hiding our faces in pains of embarrassment. The Office is like late night Channel 5, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Everyone's worked in a place like Wernham-Hogg and everyone dreads that they will again. it's funny now ·while we're students. The last episode of season two was aired last Monday on BBC 2. but don't worry, the show's executive producer. Jon Plowman, has hinted t hat rumours of it's demise may not be true. We can at least tlang out for a one-off special. Still keeping up high standards, the last two episodes of Friends season 8 will be aired on channel 4 over the next two weeks. Being an honest sort of person, I have

And the winner is

I

I

to point out that the most recent Friends has been nowhere nepr as good as the triple Emmy Award winning Will and Grace.

Contentious point I realise , but this is a programme that is vastly undervalued and is made absolutely compelling viewing by t he fabulous Sean Hayes, who plays Jack "Oh my god he's got so gay he looped back round to straight" McFarland. The slickest BritGom around, Coupling, is hanging in there w ith 14% of the vote whilst the grotesque League of Gentlemen sneaks in just above with 16%. I'm saddened that My Family wasn't included in this category since it has come t o be one of the only sit-com shows I absolutely can't miss... bygones. At least I got to mention it.

.

V

Graham Norton is back for another season on Channel 4 and the break doesn't seem t o have done him any harm. 44% of you consider the cheeky chapPY Best Presenter. Who else could get away with making people bounce through central London on a space hopper whilst Dennis Hopper (get it?) tells them they have to keep above 30 bounces a minute or they'll explode?

Ant and Dec's little speeding incident doesn't appear to have damaged their popularity either. Their counterpart, C~t Deeley, however. isn't faring so well without her men, probably due to the job she's got on Fame Academy asking all those questions every week to quasi-celebrities. Poor old Cat is probably hoping she isn't going to end up presenting CBBC With those divs who've just come out of drama school. The same goes for the delightful Davina McCall. Why is she presenting a show that considers Geri Halliwell of all people a decent judge of singers?

Despite Brian Dowling being the ieast popular of the presenters, SM:TV has managed to sweep into second place.behind T4 for the Best Morning TV award. Does anyone else want to strangle June Sarpong the minute she opens her mouth? Thankfully T4 is also presented by hunky Bolton monkey Vernon Kaye (who got 17% of the Sexiest Male vote) and has the best selection of· popular mash to sooth our poor hung-over brains and salt starved systems in the early hours of the morning. Who says students don't get out of bed before 12? I've watched Happy Days every morning since the start of term! This Morning has never really recovered from losing Richard and Judy but wi:th the recent media circus surrounding John Leslie, the lovely Philip Schofield, who has nothing but gophers in his closet, is making his break into morning television, so who knows? Maybe things will start to lo.ok up for Fern.

1n the Game Show category_ there are no surprises, the mighty Chris Tarrant remains King of Questions alongside Queen Ann Robinson. Countdown is remarkably popular, whilst no one real· ly cares about The National Lottery Jet Set, probably because

Best Soap Bitch: 41% Kat 32% Flick Laura 15% Mandy 10% Trisha 2%

Best Presenter: Graham Norton Ant and Dec Cat Deeley Brian Dowling Davina McCall

Best Soap Family: The Scullys The Slaters The Hunters The Mitchells The Platts

Best Comedy: The Orfice 35% Friends 24% League of Gentlemen16% Coupling 14% Will and Grace 11%

Best Morning Show: T4 33% 28% SM:TV Rise 18% This Morning 15% The Saturday Show 1()0/o

the event

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

"Brookside is scheduled to be watched only by people who go out of their way to do so."

This is a debate that can be heard raging every so often in various darkened corners of the Union Bar and the Hive. Which 2pm BBC1 drama is the ruler? I always put my foot firmly in the Dick van Dyke camp; I 've forgiven him for that mockney accent in Mary Poppins and moved on. Normally Angela Lansbury is Dick's main contender, although it recently occurred to me that I've only seen one Murder, She Wrote where the killer wasn 't female ... anyway, Jack Klugman fans have won this time, but we' ll get you next year!

Time to round off quickly with a homage to television.

Television is great. Eastenders teaches us that someone is always worse off than us, Diagnosis Murder teaches us nothing, but is a marvellous form of entertainment whilst snacking, The

Office ridicules the life we're all afraid we're going to have, and between them Chris Tarfant and Ann Robinson have taught us more general knowledge than is healthy. it's only TV ...but I like it.

Photos: The Good; The bad; The Ugly; and Davina

I

Best Soap: 43% Neighbours 36% East enders Hollyoaks 22% 0% Emmerdale Coronation Street 0%

52% 25% 13% 10% 0%

it's cheesy and naff. Your favourite reality TV show, Big Brother 3, is also an unsurprising choice; for anyone who missed it (or cares) Lee proposed to Sophie last week on RI:SE (classy bloke that Lee) and she said yes. With so many reality TV shows around; Model Behaviour, Eden, Shipwrecked, Paradise Island · to name a few that got missed out • it's very hard to get away from the types of celebrities who j ust wouldn 't have made it without these shows. Luckily the sods only have a shelf life of a couple of weeks which means that people with real talent managed to prevail.

Meanwhile you terrible Quincy lovers have silenced us Diagnosis Murder addicts with your love for powers of logical deduct ion.

44% 39% 10% 2% 5%

Best Game Show: ... Millionaire 15 to 1 Countdown The Weakest Unk National Lottery Sexiest Male: Matt Le Blanc Gary Lucy Blai·r McDonahue Vernon Kaye Jack Ryder

21% 21% 19% 2%

Ugliest Male: Robbie Toady Matt (Hollyoaks) Marlon Matthew Wright

36% 25% 19% 17% 3%

Sexiest Female: lzzy from Hollyoaks 44% Sactl Micrelle <?ellcr 31% 17% Cat Deeley Davina McCall 8% Tess Daly 0%

31>/o

59% 15% 13% 8% 5%

Ugliest Female: Sonia Fizz Lisa Dingle Janine Chloe Best Villain: Trevor Darcy Mandy Scott Anderson .

Richard

32% 24% 20% 16% 8%

Best Reality Show: Big Brother 3 39% Popstars: The Rivals 25% Fame Academy 17% 11% Survivor 8% I 'm A Celebrity

66% 16% 11% 4% 3%

Best Afternoon Drama: 37% Quincy Diagnosis Murder 35%.

Murder, She Wrote 21% 5% Perry Mason 2% lronside

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

the event

14 Alb ums

Bjork: Greatest Hits Icelandic pixie, ethereal beauty, unaffected innocent or timeless performer?

However you perceive Bjork, her relentless assault on convention has produced a career already worthy of a Greatest Hits compilation. Her reluctance to conform to musical boundaries has prevented her being compartmentalized by an increasingly homogenised music industry. This album illustrates how her music has evolved organically, not through artificial, corporate pressures. Her diverse collaborations and varied influences create spectacular fusions; she thinks nothing of combining electronica and classical arrangements.

Although conceptual, her music is not contrived due to her seemingly intuitive musical nature. The way her sound transcends time, cultural barriers and musical genres has created a vast and appreciative fan base. Intriguingly, her fans voted for the contents of this CD on her website, a step which has ignored some of her more commercial tracks. Her biggest hit, lt's Oh So Quiet, is not included, reflecting Bjork's own commercial indifference and her fans' acknowledgement and preference to the artist's more obscure work.· The track listing flows like a symphony - not chronologically ordered, each track resembles a movement. lt is truly beautiful, meaningful music, each track a ballad of emotion, be it love or human nature. lt is impossible to sirr gle out one track, as each is worthy of its place on the album. As a collective, they create an aura of beauty that is unmistakably Bjork. If forced to select one song which personifies her as an artist, it would be Yoga. lt uses samples of volcanic sounds combined with a full symphony orchestra and her haunting, trademark vocals, and demonstrates her understanding of music as a medium for communication. As well as sound, image plays an important part in Bjork's work. The combination of music and video creates a perfect realisation of her abstract compositions, making the Greatest Hits DVD an inviting prospect.

Born Bjork Gudmundsdottir in Reykjavik in 1965, at a time when Iceland was still a country in search of its own identity, trying to compound the relentless march of westernisation and its own unique cultural heritage, Bjork's careerlong search for identity and belonging mirrors that national struggle.

Bjork had a very musical upbringing. Aged five she began studies at music school. where over a ten-year period she studied the flute and piano. An evi· dently talented youngster, she released her first album at age eleven. As a teenager, she sang in many punk bands and revelled in the eccentric ("our heroes in Iceland weren't the Cilia Blacks and the Eurythmics, but t he chemistry experimentalist...or the guy who was really into making synthesizers out of old televisions") and creative atmosphere of an emerging Iceland. Her real breakthrough came in the forming of The Sugarcubes. Their formation gave Bjork international recognition and produced some memorable singles, p,articularly Birthday and Deus. But Bjork always maintained an individual agenda, and with a head full of possibilities and, more importantly, songs, she moved to London in 1992. Her Debut album was released in 1993 to critical acclaim and she has subsequently released three more studio albums, Post, Homogenic and Vespertine, all of which contribute to the Greatest Hits. Pure genius.

A/ex Woodward and Joel Tumer

9/10

The Venue:

Jack Johnson:

Econoline:

Mmhm!

Brushfire Fairytales

Music Is Stupid

With The Strokes/Vines/Hives pillaging the seventies for inspiration, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to 'rework' the music of the sixties in the name of retro-chic. So it comes as no surprise that The Venue's debut album sounds like the sixties' entire· musical output blended together into an indistinguishable mass of jangly psychedelic pop. "You must have seen this scene a million times before,· croons Jonas Thorell on The Same Way As Hi:> Bus Does, and he's right.

Mmhml is a conceit of styling: playing upon the inescapable appeal of nostalgia, it is I Love The Sixties in music form. Halfremembered choruses jostle for space with infectious, familiar riffs and faux-Beatles lyrics, causing a persistent feeling of deja vu that irritates over the course of the record. However, any artempt to truly dislike this album is undermined by the delightful, pin-point accurate pastiche of Love Monster, which sug- · gests that The Venue are at least not without a sense of humour.

While the melodies sparkle with occasionally irresistible charm, there is nevertheless an underlying bleakness to the proceedings. Mmhml is for the most part so wilfully uninventive t hat the songs never even gain a glimpse of a life of their own. Repeat list ens may reveal What 's In His Head? to be The Hollies' Through Any Window updated for the therapy generation, and Instant Pleasure as millennia! hedonism with a Small Faces tune, but both are merely triumphs of plagiarism and impossible to enjoy on their own merits.

Perhaps the temptation is to take The Venue too seriously.

Taken out of context, their cheerful, catchy melodies and honeysweet harmonies would make the darkest of winter days seem a little brighter. Meanwhile, back in 2002, I feel like I've been beaten around the head with a Best Anthems of the Sixties CD. Music should define its own era: by refusing to recognise the existence of the last thirty years, The Venue render themselves utterly pointless.

When I was first given this album to review I wasn't one hundred percent cert"ain about it because I thought it looked like an album of French rap. Which wouldn 't have been good. What I actually found I had, in fact, was a rather lovely slice of west coast pop. Jack Johnson is the son of a famous Hawaiian surfer called Jeff and this is his (Jack's) first album to come out in England. lt has already sold a million copies in America and only last month Jack performed a sold out gig at the Borderline in London.

Brushfire Fairytales begins with the sweet Inaudible Melodies, which contains the hook: "Slow down everyone, you're moving · too fast. • That's all the album really wants you to do - it is shameless, chilled out, feel good pop. I loved it!

I am, I have to admit, actually a complete sucker for albums like this - I love sweet vocals, I love acoustic guitar licks, I love funky bass lines and I love the occasional harmony, and Jack Johnson has all of them in spades. He even sounds a bit like the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis, which is a bonus.

Each song has a Scar Tissue-esque feel to it and a good few of them are crying out to be used in an American teen fl ick. And I mean that in a good way.

Flake is the sort of song that everyone should put on as soon as they get out of bed to make them feel better after a heavy nightout (or in). lt. also features a guest appearance from Ben Harper, who is apparently good mates with old Jack Sure, you could probably say some of the album verges on becoming background music, but I challenge any other background music to be as optimistic , relax ing and as well meaning as Brushfire Fairytales! With the days getting shorter and the shitty weather knocking over trees in Costessey and killing innocent toddlers; don't we all need a summer album? I'll answer {hat quest ion for you: yes we dol

On first listen, Econoline's debut album, the interestingly-titled Music is Stupid, was thoroughly average. Until, that is, the last four songs. Then, what to that point had sounded like an uncorr vincing barrage of noisy guitars, intricate picking and very American-soundlng, rather Get Up Kids-esque, shoutyjwhiny vocals, suddenly came alive an'c! became, well, quite brilliant.

Which is weird. What is weirder is that, in the context of those last four songs the preceding six songs made sense. On second listen, they sounded great. Which all goes to show that, perhaps, it isn't music that's stupid, but the people who listen to it , and, perhaps even more so, those who write about it.

Because, after all, one person's Beatles is another person's Stones, what one person loves another person hates, et, etc.

You get the point.

That said, this album is definitely worth a listen if you attribute the terms 'American', 'emo' and 'core' to your musical tastes.

Even though Econoline are British, it is clear that their songs are rooted in bands from across the Atlantic, and Music is Stupid sounds like a melting pot of different US bands - Karate, Planes Mistaken for Stars, Samiam and the afore-mentioned Get Up Kids. Indeed, the intra to Full Tar sounds as if it was lifted directly from the latter's debut album, Four M inute Mile, which, casting aside the relative immorality of plagiarism, can only be a good thing. Still, perhaps if their influences were a little explicit, this album would have sounded even better.

Music is Stupid is, however; a grower, and gets slightly ·better with each listen. EmV is the personal highlight, with the powerful, anger-ridden Buddy Bradley coming a close second. All the while moving and emotive, this album slinks between quiet and loud, tender and raw , good and brilliant. lt is an album of introspection, regret and bittersweet memories, and if you're in the right mood, it's absolutely great. I like it, you may not, but it's certainly worth hearing.

Sarah Edwardes

4/10 the event

Tom Sutton

8/10 Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Mischa Peartman

7/10

Singles 15

Coldplay: The Scientist lt's been a good year for Coldplay. They were recently nominated for four MTV awards and picked up a Grammy earlier in the year for Best Alternative Album for their debut Parachutes. Their latest single, The Scientist, is described as 'an anthem for the broken hearted.' Anthem is a bit strong, and it is more upbeat that most heartfelt ballads, but I see what they meant.

The track starts with some soothing piano and straight away Chris Martin's amiable vocals set in. He recorded it in one take late at night in Liverpool and you can hear the strain in his voice- it almost cracks at points, but this only adds to the effect. 路The beginning is quite plaintive, but the tune gets beefed up a bit on the second verse when the other band members kick in. lt is quite a slow, easy listening song with a resonance of heartache. The lyrics are not particularly inspiring, but they are not cringe-worthy either, and suit Chris Martin's voice. To end the song Martin repeatedly sings 'ooh', yet makes it sound infinitely more profound. lt may not catch your attention with one listen, but The Scientist grows on you.

Taken from their No 1 album, A Rush of Blood To The Head, it is another track that is distinctively Coldplay. lt contains all the elements that make the band good, yet also means they can sound samey. All in all a good track, and Coldplay fans will love it.

Vanessa Beresford

Pictures (clockwise from top): Coldplay; Rainbow; Ladytron

A:

Something's Going On

Growing up in Great Yarmouth you can build sand castles, play bingo, or hang around in the arcades. Thankfully, A instead chose to become a band. Without any of the angst that may have built up living in a seaside resort, A have grown into a band that vibrate energy, enthusiasm and fun. Their latest offering, Something's Going On, is no exception, following on from where the distinctly catchy Starbucks left off. lt is three minutes of pure punk rock, bursting with loud guitars and yet another infectious chorus.

Lead singer Jason Perry enthuses that its mid-eight is " up there with Summer Of '69 by Bryan Adams." While A still have some way to go before they attain such classic status, they are certainly making a good start- Something's Going On, with its uplifting energy, is another A classic. lt may be wet and windy at the seaside but it's certainly shining in the land of A.

Rainbow:

lt' s a Rainbow

Sadly, the first thought that came into my head when I heard this 路song' was number one . Yes, I know it may sound silly. You may think how can a combination of a homosexual hippo and a very odd zip-up creation beat off the likes of West life and Madonna to the top spot. but unfortunately it s,eems highly likely.

The tune evily captures sad, old remin iscing twenty-somethings such as myself by playing the original Rainbow theme tune. But just seconds later it turns into an Ibiza classic.

George, Zippy and George's singing debut, coupled with the voice of a young house singer is bound to drive you crazy 路 just as the words in the song suggest. But it will probably also drive you to HMV to buy a copy. Your time starts now.

Katie Hind

Gavin Bates

Ladytron:

Seventeen

This is the undeniably catchy new single from Ladytron and as I've never heard anything by the band before, the joy of no expectations strikes. The opening few seconds sound like Blur's Parklife but it moves beyond this to become a strange synthesis of Air and the Sneaker P1mps' debut album. The bizarre result is something that sounds like The Pet Shop Boys, but in a good way. Though the lyrics are shallow, the vocals are excellently raspy and the melody is catchy enough to not grate too much. The band are sa1d to be interested in defying genres and this has a nice ~ ix of guitar pop, acid jazz, and synth-pop. Unfortunately the b-s1de remixes st'1ck too closely to the original and sound almost identical to it. I enjoy good electro-pop, but when it's done badly it sounds temble. This straddles the line carefully. I'm sure fans will love it, but 1t's certainly a mixed bag .

Ryan J Stephens

Nu:

Disco Hurts

lt would be easy, if not expected, to condemn this record without further thought, in alliance with current dim views of music deemed "pre-produced processed pap." However, let us give the double A-si de a spin before making any hasty judgments.

The opener, Stronger is a typical Sugababes ditty - powerful electronic drums and bass, soothing vocals -a tune that runs as smoothly as the well-oiled commercial industry that powers it.

The girls (Heidi, Keisha and Mutya) declare in Angels ... , that they have "dirty faces in the morning" -a submission that makes us realise that perhaps the~ are not permanently polished puppets after all. This track is more upbeat than Stronger and the semi-rapped verse followed by lovely harmonised chorus is the high point of this package.

The single is released on 11th November 路 a day for us all to reflect and remember fallen heroes.

But probably few will commit this effort to memory.

Mischa Pear/man

Jennifer Lopez:

Jenny from the Block

Drooling slightly, the first thing my other half said when I told him I was reviewing J. Lo's new single was: "do I get to meet her?" I could therefore easily be accused of suffering from a severe case of sour grapes when I say that this single is slowly but surely doing my head in. Featuring L.O .X rappers Jadakiss and Styles, it kicks off surprisingly promisingly with a rap session, interrupted quickly by the rhythmical chorus. At first listen , it sounds rather pleasant but then goes on and on with the same beat, the same chorus, and the same lyrics, as if J. Lo and Epic records are in cahoots together to drive everyone into the murky depths of insanity.

The single is a first taste of Lopez's new album This Is Me? Then. which will be released on November 25. All I can say is: Take cover ...

Brltt Juste

Wednesday. Novmber 13, 2002

16 Film

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Directed by Chris C olumbus Starring: Daniel Radc liffe, Rupert Grint Emma Watson

lt doesn t seem liKe two m1nures s1nce tne last one does it? WelL you'd better get used to them - there are still another five to go.

The eagerly awaited sequel to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has received so much publicity that the odds on it living up to the hype were slim to none. However, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets more than achieves t his, far surpassing the first film in every way.

As the characters and setting have already been established, it is possible for the film to spend more time on a plot which, although containing more cuts from the book 's original story than Philosopher's Stone did, flows far better than its predecessor. There being no need to introduce the setting also means that there is screen time for more of Row ling's magical accessories than in the first film . Scenes such as those at the Weasley 's house- where washing up brushes are cleaning the dishes, knitting needles are making a scarf and a Grandfather clock tells not the time, but where each member of the Weasley household is - are touches that make the Harry Potter books so distinctive, but which were often absent from the first film .

The magic of such scenes are not let down by the special effects. In fact, the replacement of Sony as the special effects c ompany with ILM has resulted in an improvement in all areas of visual trickery- an important factor for a film where so much of the script has to be created digitally . Especially impressive were the Quidditch matches, which have become slicker than in the first film , and the character of Dobby the house elf. From the trailers, Dobby looked as if he would be a low point of the film , not.look ing sweet enough to provoke pity, as he does in the book . However, as well as being convincingly inserted into the scenes he shared with real actors, once seen in full scenes, rather than t railer c lips, he comes across as just as pitiful as in the book .

the event

As well as the speci al effects having improved, Tom Felton (Malfoy) , one of the weaker actors in the first film, has learnt to be, rather than act , menacing since the filming of Philosopher 's Stone, and his deepened voice lends conviction to threats that previously just sounded funny. Actors who were impressive in the first film have also improved. In parti cular Rupert Grint has enhanced his portrayal of Ron to the extent that despite the film 's title, it is he who is its star, developing the character of Ron to make him more humourous and thus provide light relief from some of the film's more frightening scenes - an important point when consictered that this is essentially a children 's film.

The script allows characters such as Mrs. Weasley , played by Julie Waiters. who in the first film did not get much time on screen . to develop more and the film benefits as a result . The introduct ion of Mr Weasley allowed for humourous quarrelling to take place between him and his wife on the subject of their chi ldren 's behaviour as well as adding more background to one of the film's main characters, Ron. The casting of Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart was spot on. He embodies Row ling 's charact er perfectly and is responsible for many of the film 's amusing scenes.

Chamber of Secrets maintains a good balance between humourous scenes and those whi ch are more frightening. As well as through Ron and Lockhart , light relief is also supplied by Mandrakes (plants w ith screaming babies for roots) and Cornish pixies. Both of these, as well as sc arier characters, such as the giant spiders in the dark forest and the basilisk, are further ex amples of ILM's superb spec ial effec t s, and it is partly due to their real istic appearance that they ac hieve either laughter or fright in the audi ence.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

From the opening scene to the closing credits, this film is amazingly good and practically faultless . Go see it.

Rhiannon Davis

9/10

Film 17

Rabbit Proof Fence: Directed by Phillip Noyce Starring: Everlyn SampL Tiani Sansbury, Laura Monaghan arilt to o:ntain a ral±ri.t plag.E, tre fa-re in this Cl.lriru5 title vas alro tre navigaticral QUire far M:>lly Craig arrl a..o ot:rer girls in :tEr Al:xriginal fanily Wx> will<a:i aver a..o t:h:usarrl kilorretres to firrl lure. 'Ireir escape fron W M:>ore River SettlE!TEnt, a goverment canp set up to relocate mixed raq!

Al:nriginals to v.hite fCITlilies, is d:xllrmtfrl in this pJSSima.te picb.lre fran Digey. G:nt:=..ers:ial in its li\Pt--lettir:g 01 hlsb:alia's d:u:k liLtl~ se:reL, cre of ll!JI first a::n:::errn vas ~tiEr evmts w::uld l::e p:Jrtrayej l::elievably or se1tirreltally, ~ a prd:Jlen rut sayirg roth:in;J atwt it.

R>litical cirara is alW¥3 Cllbitirus, arrl v.I-B1 it involves chi.ldre-1, rrelcdrara arrl a tale of enoticral arrl ];hysical =vival, tre little gold CEcar lT\3rl cries 'o...n rre! lDve rre ! ' at tre rrak ers of t:I"E9= fillTs . t1;r cynical (I a:init it) prd:Jlen is this: s.d1 ' t:lu..g-Jt~' fiJrrs are oftEn USEd to gain p.Jblicity rattEr tlB1 effa::t. With this in mirrl, dEl Ral:bi t Pr=f Fence achieve l:oth? ~- 'll"E p:>int of this film is to qB1 eyes arrl min:is, rot to sirrply pro..de an enoticral reactim. 'lhis asp;ct of hlstralia's history vas, to rre, l..artJ=ly unJ<ru..n prior to h:mirg of tiE film, as I'm s.n:e it is to rrany. 'Ire effa::ts of a Cel=atic g::M!IDrrent's p:>licies of etlnic int:Egratim (or clens:irg) are told with a gre3.t script, rold actir:g arrl l:re3.thtL!kirg vi.9..als. 'll"E rnly actor rerognisable rere is KalrEth Braregh. He plays tiE lT\3rl Wx> rrere tre assimilatim p:>licies, Ori.ef Protector ?f Al:xriginies A.O. Nsville . \tfitt v-.e see in him is h:w sirrply hlre3u:::rats can PJSh a P'!1 arrl c:h3rge lives. Resp::nsibility far thirgs lille lll3I1:iGges, cloth:irg arrl tre relocatim of dri.1dre1 to o:q:hanages, foster lures arrl boardirrJ sclxols m:IY not srurrl like rnrll, rut v.h;n v-.e see arrl ffi3r of tiE effects, rrelity hits lure. M3ny of tre childre-1 v.h:> l::el~ed to tre 'stolm generatiro' v-.ere al::usErl, as v-.ell as tre strain of los:irg treir h:rres arrl cn::ESS to treir OJlture.

M:Jlly, :tEr sister Grace arrl crusin Drisy cEfy this idntity alter:irg pro:>:SS, arrl v.h:lt follcws is tre tellirg of treir ~e-re of this !pic jo..xrrey. 'll"Eir OJlture is lley to treir s..n:vival as v-.e see th:m li~ off tre larrl m tre Wf¥ to furl treir rroth&s . .9.rll En:X:U'lters are jo~ with ot:tErs of tre anp3SSimate, ~ arrl arrirus variety, erp::>...erirg tre film al~ with treir omfi<Hlt perfoiJl"EII"'Ce5 arrl the s~ !:iD~ of ,

to us' harsh l.arJ:isccpes .

It is goxl to see a diia::tar of 1-bllyw:x::d blo:::kb.Jsters bJm to a film a differmt reture, a-xi far t::h:e= inte.re;;tej, this is rot to l::e missed. W:lrlc:W:i.c:E, irrligErn~S ~les still ruffer as th:y cb :i1 Ral::bit Pr=f Fence . Similar p:c:grars still exist all OJer tre <Evelcp:irg v.arld, arrl alt:lu..g-J this is a goxl step, mrl1 still IC£rl3 to te d:re if all OJltllres are trffitro with Eq..Blity. I tq:e

of

this film cbes

cre:~te r&J

cm. e.e-1 if it d:esl't, will chttlessly

it

attib.des to.ards tre issues oove:-e::l, tiE c:a:m- runim.ticns it

still~

:re:Ei~ .

Ed Purkfs

8/10

Curse of the Jade Scorpion: Directed by: Woody Alien Starring: Woody Alien, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd ~ are a..o sdn:Jls of th:u;;Jht to explain W:x:x:1y Allm ' s d3:a::e lcrg slurp at tiE I:XJx-office. 'll"E first is that, m..; v-.ell into his 60s, Allm sirrply im't tre cre:~tive farcE he are vas.

A nnter of critics h:M= l::eB1 qHl!y h:stile to his :re:Hlt proja::ts, f:irrlirg fiJrrs s.rll as Mighty l>P=dite arrl c:elEl:rity ID te, at test, imitaticrs of his e:rrly w:n:k arrl, at WJI:St, witless vastes of tirre. otrers \\Ulld argue, ~. that tre prcblen is rot with tre altrur's art, rut with tre autrur hirrself. !e-Jelaticns into Allm's private-life~ left rrany of his tamercasual fans unable to SEparate tre lffil1 fron his rrovies, ch:x:JS:irg inste:rl to v.esh treir h3rds of l:oth.

As is usually tiE case, tre truth lies ~ l::etv-.em tre tw:l extrares. 'Ire CUrse of tre Ja<:E Scnrpim w:n' L te join:irg

Manhattan arrl Amie Hall as a classic of its kird, b.rt at tre sare tirre it is funny arrl mtertain:irg, pro;id:irg a far rrare agree:lble Wf¥ to kill a w.ple of h::urs than tre rrajority of rant relffiSes . CErtainly, iL d:es rot cB3erve tiE ~:irg trffitrrent it has l::eB1 give1 ty its distrib.ltar, I:irEmWJrks, Wx> h:M= W3itfrl aver a ya3r to brirg i to LH< ciraras (lcr-q ffXUJh far Allm to write, sh:x>t arrl rel63Se arotl"Er ntJVie, Holl~ ~.in trelE).

Ch::e cgain, AllB1 stars as tre le:rl in his ew1 script, l.II""l:Er his ew1 directirn.

He plays CW Brig;JS, a 1940s :insurarr:e claim; investigator, W'D is in::B1sErl v.I-B1 his rival - v.orse, his ferrele rival - lletty Am Fit2x;lerald (Hele-1 1-iJnt) is prmotfrl atarl of ·him. Bri\:W arrl 'Fitz' cb rot get m, treir w:xlci.nJ relatia-Brip

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, 7.~ edtalt z,

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37, St.

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treir rrarried arployer (can ~ ~ Aykroyd, another caredian 1-av:irg t:rOJble at tre l:xJx office, t:Ju..g-J far th= sinple reason that he stq;:ped rrak:irg goxl filrrs) . 'll"E situatim c:Eteriorates follo.¥irg an office J;Brty WEr-e th= prir are IM:=tize::l (us:irg a ja<:E scorpim) , as a 92ries of ll!JISteri cus b.rrglaries are anmitted at v.ealthy lures that Briggs tElpa:i to searre. 'll"E gimnick, revealed to tre" au::lie-re, if rot tre chrrac ters, at tre rutret, is trat Brig;JS has l::eB1 b.rrgl:irg tre h:uses v.hi le 1.Irrl& hyp-Dsis, le:rli.n;;J to cmJS:irg si tuatirns WEr-e, as investigator, he is m tre trail of hirrEclf cm. l:::ec:cnri.ng increasin;Jly ccn -

Stua 01603 626246

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mtlusiastic

cema:i at tre dira::tim tre evidin:e is p:>int:irg.

O::i:lly, cx:nsi<Ering Alle-1 plays exactly tiE sare role he alW¥3 has, tells similar ~lire gags, arrl rrakes tiE sare dJbiOJS cast:irg cB::isicrs far his ferrele eo-stars (fe.v =lid claim with a straight fa:e th:tt Ch:lrlize 'll"Erm vas picked far artistic TIBs::rn), 'Ire CUrse of t:he•Ja<:E Scnrpirn d:es less to evcke its director's past filrrs than it d:es t:h::se of cirara' s ottEr gre3.t a:mic cynic, Billy WilcEr. Mrl1 of tre office l:ant.er will te pleasantly faniliar to vie.-.ers of The Apartrrent arrl Sate Like It ltt, WTI.le tiE 40s OO:x:n:- is reninisca1t of D::lli>le Imamity.

H3rdly r:Bcluticrary stuff, rut it is diffiallt to th:ir* of artJH:director of Alla1 ' s stature Wx> can p:~y h::m:lge to a prec:Ecessar's style with such e3se arrl dmm - led< at tre rress !'Pielterg rrere t:.ryirg to cb f(J.Jbrlck with N..

Wedr~esday, November 13, 2002

Jfm Whal/ey

the event

(

18 Video/DVD

Birt day Gir

â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘

Directed by Jez Butterworth Starring: Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin

As Nicole Kidman steps into St. Albans complete with trashy outfit and Russian accent, the audience is left pondering one single question: Birthday Girl - why?

.,..

Now although I'm one for versatility, I'm wondering whether Nicole Kidman might have taken a wrong turn in her internal quest to become Meryl Streep. You see, two years ago everyone's favourite non-vertically challenged Aussie did her career double favours with a high kicking, corset wearing performance in Moulin Rouge followed up by a spine chilling, ca rdigan wearing stint in The Others. But now, having convinced the world she's the queen of all genres, she seems to want to convince us she's the queen of all genres within the same film. Hence her appearance in low budget Brit flick Birthday Girl. A dramatic, romantic, comedy thriller .. . With a heart, of course.

Kidman appears as a Russian mail order bride ordered by lonely bank worker Ben Chaplin to keep him warm on those long, cold St. Albans nights. Unfortunately, like so many catalogue products, the promised English speaking domestic worker Chaplin thinks he'll be getting turns out to be non-English speaking and devoid of any household skills. Except, as it transpires, a willingness for kinky sex . Not surprisingly, Chaplin's initial doubts about his linguistically challenged partner are soon removed. Until, that is, two Russians claming to be Kidman's cousins arrive on Chaplin's doorstep and soon begin to make themselves at home. Here things take a turn for the tired and familiar, so before you can say "There's something fishy about those strange Russian men¡ things take a turn for the worst and the rather violent.

The problem with Birthday Girl is pretty much what the distributors found when they tried to sell it: it doesn 't have any idea what sort of film it is. Packaged as dark thriller on the other side of the Atlantic and (bizarrely) as a romantic comedy here in limey, it has the requisite requirements of both these genres but neither the skill nor wit to gel them together. The idea of a dark thriller with Chaplin trying to communicate with a mute Kidman would have been intriguing. But rather than travel this more difficult route, Birthday Girl cops out with Kidman revealing that, actually, she understood English all along . Thus making redundant the film's entire first hour and sucking most of the joy along with it . it's rather like having Helen Keller turn ing around one day and telling her teacher that she'd rather she

stopped splashing water all over her hand and let her go inside and watch television.

Which is a shame. as Chaplin and Kidman do make a refreshingly non perfect looking couple. And there is something rather charming about a love story expressed with everything but words. More charming, anyway, than Chaplin being beaten up and shot at by cliche Russian mobsters. But I digress. For what it is, Birthday Girl is well acted and features some interesting, if often drab, direction from newcomer Jez Butterworth. Furthermore, I'm fully supportive of any British movie which tempts a mainstream Hollywood actress to take time out of her high flying career

Pearl Harbor: Directed by Michael Bay Starring: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsole

The Film Lost Horizon, The Magnificent Ambersons, Greed: these would be director's cuts worth watching .

The release of a slightly re-edited Pearl Harbor is not. The last time anybody checked, the only

person eager to see another version of Michael Bay's epic , other than Bay and Bay 's mother, won 't be allowed to because his doctors don 't want him excited .

Rather than attempt to improve on his movie's failings in plot, acting and tone , Bay has used the opportunity to revisit the $180 million explosion to add one decapitat ion , a couple of new shots of general destruction, some entrails, and a few dozen racist remarks by our gung-ho heroes for , y'know, 'realism ' . None of it helps Pearl Harbor attain even a semblance of dramat ic ten si on, though 1t does, if it's possible, make the film even funnier . With its c ry st al c lear picture and flaw less Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, this DVD allows you to experience every terrible line and anguished grimace exactly as they were originally intended. Laugh as Ben Affleck attempt s t o convey the trauma of dyslexia; giggle as Josh Hartnett tries for the 30th time to make his eyebrows touch his immaculate hairl ine; guffaw when Dan 'big-as-a-battleship' Aykroyd tells his superiors in no uncertain terms how they should do their job. Every scene is a comic gem .

Indeed Pearl Harbor's future, if it has a future , may be as an intense , beautifully presented, threehour drinking game : slow motion American flag? One shot of Jack Daniels. Japanese soldier solemnly pondering the wrongs of war? One shot of saki. Ewan Bremner or Kate Beckinsale's accent slipping? One pint of the watery ale the England-set section of the film insists is served in every English pub. By the time you finally get to see which third of the tragic love-triangle doesn't make the final credits you'll be trashed beyond caring. Not that you'd be that bothered if you were stone-cold sober.

The Extras

The packaging c alls this the 'ultimate edition ' of Pearl Harbor, and the sheer number of features make it hard to argue . Split over three disks there are, apparently , over 12 hours of supplemental material , ranging from teaser and theatrical trailers, to commentaries, to hour-long documentaries on various aspects of the attack's history. Though it means watching the film twice again (better plan another trip to Threshers). it is the commentaries that provide the clearest insight into The Minds That Made The Motion Picture . Recorded together, Hartnett and Affleck have fun with the obvious repressed homosexuality of their characters; their track is marred only by the producer's decision to occasionally edit in the odd comment from Alec Baldwin , who has nothing of interest to say. Michael Bay, recorded with his former film-school tutor (presumably to massage his colossal ego). proves once again why he's is the most terrifying man in Hollywood , revealing that when spectators refused to move out of the way of a planned explosion, he set it off anyway to t each them a lesson.

Vi ewed in their ent1rety , the features offer the most detailed documentation so far available on DVD of the process behind a maj or film . it 's just a pity th at fil m turned out t o be Pearl Harbor.

Jim Whalley

4;1n the V - nt Wednesday, November 13, 2002

and work on t his si de of the Atlant ic . Just not this one.

Phi/ Colvln

4/JG

Arts 19

Theatre Preview:

Dove Gorman

Norwich Playhouse

The only way to get anything higher than Dave Gorman's concepts would be to place his extensive side-burns one on top of the other and use them as a bushy ladder. Gorman gained national fame with his BBC2 show , The Dave Gorman Collection, searching the globe for 54 people who shared his name. More recently, he launched into a 40 day experiment to test ti'ie accuracy of astrology . On November Thursday 21 and Friday 22 he once again sets out to stretch simple ideas to breaking point and beyond with a brace of shows at the Norwich Playhouse .

First, on Thursday, we have Dave Gorman's Better World. In March 1999, Gorman sent an anonymous letter to 2000 newspapers saying, "I am writing to yeu because I believe your readers may be able to help me.

"With the millennium approaching I have decided that I would like to make the world a better place. The only thing is, I'm not sure of the best way to go about it . I would be delighted to receive sincere suggestions from your readers.

"I have time , energy and commitment, but what action can one man take to best improve the world in which we live? " When the responces began rolling in, Gorman started to carry out people's requests, making sure to get enough photographs, and get into enough hilarious scrapes, to fashion a slide-based comedy routine . Viewers of his television series will recognise the format : Dave makes a mildly humorous comment, then gets the big laugh by revealing the ludicrous extremes he actually went to.

Friday 's show , Dave Gorman 's Reasons to be Cheerful (clearly the man doesn't want his name forgotten), is equally illustrationbased , as Gorman deconstructs lan Dury's song line by line, again with the aid of visual prompts. Though the method of presentation sounds restrictive , it 's a style Gorman has developed over a number of years in the comedy business, and he is able to fit it around his ideas. rather than the other way around.

Though the comedian seems to have burst onto the scene relat ively recently, Gorman has been work ing regularly on stage and in television since his debut at The Comedy Zone at the Edinburgh Festival in 1995. In 1996 he supported Simon Day's national tour, and contributed as a writer to the Mrs Merton Show. Jennifer Saunder's personally requested he make a cameo appearance in Absolutely Fabulous, and he also managed to find his way into Steve Coogan 's 24 Hour Party People. Whether he'll have much of an acting career in future probably depends on finding roles that require innovative facial hair- costume drama could be worth a shot . But whatever he does, he's sure to be back with the sl ides to tell us all about it.

I -

Jlm Whalley

Theatre Preview:

Books Re-Viewed: Book Review:

Diversify UEA Drama Society

Political Animal Jeremy Poxman

1984 George Orwell Written with World War Two still looming in the background, 1984 is a direct literary response to the fears of fascism and oppression caused by the Nazis, taken to their most extreme in a science fiction prophecy. Winston, the central protagonist, is isolated in a world which is regulated by violently rigid orthodox structures and controls. At the head of this is the ominous Big Brother, whose face watches over everything . Outside his gaze, and that of The Party . there is no freedom . Even truth is controlled and the past is manipulated as propaganda.

At first glance, 1984 appears to be a political and philosophical warning which could be read as Orwell's own manifesto, but it is so much more than that . The story is tensely gripping, and it is impossible not to get dragged into this horrific world. The frustration and anxiety of Winston bleeds into the mind, leaving the reader with a real sense of fear. Those who want a happy fairy tale ending to settle them snugly into bed at night should look elsewhere. This is cruel , brutal realism at its best ; real dark, dooming prophecy.

What makes this novel even more enjoyable is Orwell's wonderful style. Unlike the pretentiousness of Postmodernism, he writes intelligently without alienating the reader. 1984 is clever because Orwell genuinely is a genius. not because he aspires to be one.

His prophecy may seem far from reality路 now , even further from that of 1984, but we may be closer to this world than we realise. In our consumer lives with our reliance on giant powerful corporations, we are constantly watched and manipulated , letting endless propaganda and the unknown into our homes through the internet and digital TV. This could be mere paranoia or maybe Big Brother really is watching us!

Political Animal is Jeremy Pax man 's fifth book and comes two years after his highly successful The English.

Pax man's books take an inaccessible topic and attempt to give them an interesting and humorous slant. In this case, it is the world of politics and, more specifically politicians. .!_.

The reader is introduced to hundreds of MPs both past and present, and given an insight into why some people are born to lead and others are born to be led. Given Jeremy Paxman路s frustrating job of trying to get the truth out of evasive politicians, you might expect him to take a negative view of this strange world but in fact he accepts that we need politicians and he admires the job they do. One minute they are sorting out Mrs Wilson 's drain problems, the next they are asking questions in the House - it can 't be an easy transition to make. lt took fours years of research and his whole career of political interrogation for Pax man to write this book , and his work has paid off. lt is a highly entertaining portrait of what makes someone go into a career where they are likely to be rev iled by the press and public and have a very limited chance of long term or even short term success. His humorous anecdotes, suc h as John Prescott reporting his father to the police for kissing another woman (he was a magistrate), and that same family coming sec ond in a national competition to find the most normal English family (surely any family that would enter a competition like that would be disqual ified immediately), enliven what could have been a dry subject . He includes interesting revelations about the makeup of politicians, such as the fact that a significant number lost their fathers in their formative years and that the majority of MPs come from politically orientated backgrounds. The overall effect is a well-written , engaging guide to the sleazy underworld of politics. Jeremy Paxman Is Interviewed on page 4.

Running from Sunday 10th until Friday 15th of November the UEA Drama Society presents the highly anticipated DiverSiFy 2002.

Following the huge success of last years DiverSiFy festival, we are offered a selection of short plays written by our own UEA students, as well as a production of the farcical Black Comedy by Peter Shatter, plus various sketches and improvisations. The festival includes appearances from UEA 's Music Society choirs, and the p~rfor颅 mance poets Aisle16 fresh from their success at the Edinburgh fringe fest ival. During the six nights of DiverSiFy 2002 over fifty members of the Drama Society will be displaying their talents in nine separate productions. The programme of events is as follows: Tuesday 12th- Wednesday 13th November: Give You A Toffee, How To Talk To Adam, Welcome To Paradise Monday 11th/Thursday 14th November: Aisle16 (pictured), Everybody Else 's Girl, Thou Art A Fishmonger, Looking For Jim Morrison Tuesday 12th/Frlday 15th November: Music Society Showcase.

Devisify, Fag, Black Comedy The festival gives the members of the Drama Society a chance to perform on stage in the UEA Drama Studio, which they may not have had an opportunity to do so before, particularly for the new first year members. The productions also give the opportunity for UEA students to present some of their own writing.

The President of the Drama Society Menna Bevan reports that rehearsals for DiverSify 2002 are going extremely well, stating that " lt is our first production of the year and the talent, enthusiasm and hard work of the writers, directors and actors involved means the audiences can expect to see some fantastic pieces of drama ".

The week long festival looks set to reveal some new up and coming talents within the drama world of UEA, so make sure you get your tickets now .

Gavln Bates

Kathryn Hlnchllff

Claudla Webb

TH E POLITICAL

ANIMAL

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

the event

20 TV/Radio

Essential Soaps:

.

There' ll be quivering lips aplenty in Eastenders thi s week when Phil returns , Lou ise in tow . After c onvinci ng Peggy that Li sa' s never coming bac k to get Louise (doesn' t sound dodgy at all. .. ), Phil's back terrorising Sonia into pursing her lips.

Meanwhile the I an; Janinej Laura saga c ontinues with Laura doing 路a damn fine impression of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

By the end of t he week, she 's blac k mail ing Janine. Albert Square 's favourite 'ent ertainer of gentlemen', (or was it bl onde bombshell?). is bac~ on the game. We c an only hope she 'll have a better wardrobe this t ime though. But it 's not all doom and gloom. With the Beale 's ar~uing there will be no more of Laura ' s pat hetic attempts of getting I an in the mood with al l her feather boas and underwear t hat , quite fran kly, shouldn 't be seen before the wate rshed . Young Steven is also doing a very good act as demon child when he t ell s I an he hates hi m. Don 't we all?

In soaps, when there are moments of reve lation, extreme cl arity and general wonderfulness you c an be sure th at one of t he part ies will either die or be tragic ally maimed, soon t o be appearing in a panto near you. This week it 's one of those t imes in Neighbours. Just when you thought Drew , Libby and their crim inally unattract ive baby (Winston Churc hill on a REALLY bad day), would be settli ng into domestic bl iss in the outback , a pesky horse exc ellently demonstrates the problems w ith Drew 's riding hat . No more c areful ly groomed hair or ex pressions of surprise, and no more Drew ! Wh at w ill t he garage do wit hout him?

Meanwhile the wrinkly luu rrvee triangle c ontinues with Harold begging Rosie to stay in Erinsborough , and Lou suspecting his motives. Ram sey Street's answer to the girl w ith stage fright in Coyote Ugly, Nina, is discovered singing by Connor, who then gets her to sing for him . Nina t hen begins to take quite a shine to the cheeky , illiterate chappy , but what ' ll happen if Michelle finds out ?

In Holly oaks the general debacle of Tony's love life c ontinues.

To kee p Julie and lzzy happy for his tv debut, he asks t hem both to marry him. Never t hought he had t hat much lead in his penci l! Naturally all goes pear-shaped and is captu red on c amera. The plot th ickens ...

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Charlotte Mann

Essential TV:

Essential Radio Streets Paved With Gold

November Laughs and Great Britons

Miss This: More Sex Tips for Girls

Radio 2, Wed November 13, 2. l Opm

Times Vary

Channel 4, Tue November 19, 10.35pm

Another of Radio 2 's documentaries, this one seems to have it all - famous faces, famous songs, and most importantly where it all kic ked off.

Wednesday's documentary sees Nick Barraclough take a stroll down London's Denmark Street, one of the most famous musical streets in the world.

For those of you who haven't brushed up on your music lore recently and need reminding, Denmark Street has been forever associated with music: The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix recorded tracks in Denmark Street basements, and less fortu nately, Elton John was deemed to write "Your Song " on the rooftops.

Nicknamed London 's Tin Pan Alley in the twent ies, musicians have flocked to that priceless corner of Soho, but it wasn't until the music-crazed sixties that Denmark Street's reput ation was etc hed into t he archives when recording studi os we re set up there. In 1963, Regent Sounds Studio was established at 4 Denmark Street where The Rolling Stones recorded t heir first album alongside the likes of the Kinks and ELP. Bob Marley bought his very first guitar and Lou Reed used to whi le away his days on Denmark Street. while David Bowie was to be found residing in a camper van parked outside his studios.

More recently, Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Eric Clapton and Beatles producer George Martin have been frequent visitors to the street whose impact on the contemporary music scene is widely regarded as far greater than the more populist Abbey Road .

Streets Paved With Gold looks to be a treat that no self-respecting music fan should miss; after all Denmark Street is the home of London 's music community, and their shared enthusiasm for music past and present. Or should I say, obsession?

Don 't forget t o st ay t uned to BBC Radio 2 from 7pm on Th ursday 14 November to hop on your good foot and do the charity thing as Radio 2 launches its 24 Hour Music Marathon to raise money for Children in Need. Get your readies out!

Ally Bamard

Anyone planning to give their funnybones a rest after The Office will be disappointed this fortnight as Norwich's most famous fictional inhabitant , Alan Partridge , has returned to BBC2 (Mondays, 10pm) . /'m A/an Partridge_ finds the hapless broadcaster living in a caravan with his new girlfriend, but hoping that an appearance at the Norwich Bravery Awards will be his ticket to join the city's social elite. From mobile home to mansion, it certainly sounds like the perfect recipe to make you laugh. If your sense of humour is more sinister, one third of The League of Gentlemen can be found alongside half of sketc h-show duo Armstrong and Miller in tic (BBC2, Mondays, 9.30pm) , a dark , new sitcom about a junior doctor coping with the institutional madness of the NHS. Sounds like something we can all relate to ...

For those wit h a more refined t aste in laughs, C4 's ex perimental series Comedy Lab (Thursdays, 11.30pm) cont inues with contributions from Phoenix Nights creator Peter Kay and Perrier, Newcomer-winning performance artists Noble and Silver. Expect the humour to be hit-and-miss, but with more than enough flashes of inspiration to sustain a half-hour programme .

When you have st opped laughing change channel to the BBC as their public service duties provide some more quick-fire education this week . The Great Britons series concludes with t he announcement of The Greatest of Them All ( BBC2, Sun 24, 9pm). Was Diana more important than Darwin? The opinion of the nation wil l be revealed in this top-ten countdown. If that sounds like too much history and not enough prizes, then try t he M TV Europe Music Awards on C4 (Fri 15, 10.30pm). Hosted by P Diddy, and featuring Coldplay and Robbie Williams among others, this annual ceremony promises plenty of bizarre outfits, overblown performances and hopefully a little bit of co ntroversy along the way . Or for a tempting evening of kitsch and backbiting, ITV's Grease: After They Were Famous Special (Tues 19, 9pm) follows the cast of the hit seventies musical down the slippery slope to anonymity.

Sarah Edwardes

Sigh . I have reached sex satuation. Not the real thing, mind you, but the kind of sex that is constantly thrust in my face whenever I turn on the telly: fake sex . Sex simulated by actors, or even worse , educational sex , as is the case with More Sex Tips for Girls. The press into reads as follows : "This week ' s episode explores orgasms as Californian 'sex pert ' (where do you get that degree?) Lou Paget teaches inquisitive couples how to find women ' s hidden pleasure zones.路 I 'm not prudish or anything but there seems to be an oversupply of "activities between the sheets " on our screens these days, and I do draw the line at watching Kerry and Kev , Lori and Jon go in search of the women 's A and U spots. Surely , there 's a reason these pleasure zones are hidden in the first place.

Human beings do not come instruct ions, batteries and a 'How to Do lt For Dummies' guide , if that's the sort of thing you are looking for then I reccommend Sin Sins Love Store in the city centre. Besides, it takes all the fun and mystery out of looking for them if the answer is handed to you on a silver plate right there in your lounge while you're enjoying your PG Tips. And since when do men ask for directions anyway? I mean , can you imagine a romantic evening ending with: "Go straight ahead. dear, and when you reach the corner , turn left . And c aution: thoroughfare is slippery when wet... To which he replies: I know where I am going, I don:.t need help, I'm not lost, we WILL get there in time. Somehow , I don 't think it would work. lt is g reat of course , that we , in this day and age , can confront these issues head on (excuse the pun) but somehow sex has become a little bit too complicated. Do we really need a "sex pert " to tell us how to have a good time?

Sex on television is, simply, overrated. lt is boring to watc h, it would be so much more exciting to take part in. So on Tuesday evening, turn off your telly , get the map out and start exploring instead ...

Britt Juste

the event

Wedne sday, November 13, 2002

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Web 21

Essential Web 0 1: Who would have guessed that online reading could be so stimulating? With this website devoted to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, you can honour your pledge to academia and discover some thought-provoking entertainment. The creators are known as the Drool Fan Fie writers. These Austen supporters are more than mere fans of English literature. Following the BBC and A&E production of the Pride and Prejudice mini-series in 1995, a wave of Firth- and Austen-lovers swept across the Internet and a large population cultivated around this site. Whilst it uses the characters "created by a genius of another age,路 it features original stories exploding with sexual tension and descriptions.

Austen's clever craft serves as inspiration to these followers and not to mention Colin Firth-admirers. The site is not meant to be porn but only mature viewers are encouraged to enter. lt promises that the activities and descriptions will not surpass decency-this is not a place for X-rated scenes! Imagination is power! Readers are also invited to write their own opinions of the stories and the site. Like most authors, the group welcomes compliments. The organizers have noticeably taken great pride in these adaptations of Austen's novels. Many of the situations and scenarios between the characters are moved to various locations and time periods, but the much-adored qualities of

http:/ /droolfic.tripod.com Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and the others are preserved. Viewers should enter the site by clicking on "stories in date order.路 My personal recommendations include 0 Captain, My Captain!, There's Always a First Time for Everything, and He is Lively Enough in Other Places. In He is Lively Enough in Other Places, Elizabeth politely asks to "freshen up" after touring Pemberley and unexpectedly, opens the door to find Mr. Darcy stark naked in the bathtub. Her embarrassment is considerably less than her pleasure in the accidental encounter. Believe this writer, the bathroom steam doesn't stop there. Read on! Read on!

Though the sexually-charged scenes thrust viewers further into the Drool Fan Fie's site, it's not particularly attractive. The fonts, the background graphics, and its overall presentation are quite simple, but the comments introducing many of the stories and the dialogues are very effective in grabbing one's attention.

In my opinion, the site is best enjoyed when read aloud to others. The humorous scenes and expressions had many of my friends blushing and shouting with laughter. You're sure to please a crowd and with this website, in more ways than one.

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Nlcole Ouellette

Essential Web Round-up: www.martlnnewell.co.uk First of all I recommend you take a look at the Martin Newel! website. Martin is something of a cult figure in both music and poetry circles. In the 1980s he pioneered the bedroom rock music movement, recording a series of albums without a mainstream producer.

In recent years he has turned his creative muse to poetry, and is now The Independent's poet laureate. His site is packed full of poems, articles, pictures, sounds, and is constantly being updated. www.cybersplke.com/clame In a similar vein is the web home of punk poet master John Cooper Clarke. This is similarly packed with goodies. The only problem being the webmaster's lack of new developments. Shame.

John Cooper Clarke

Martin Newel!

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT IN SALES AND MARKETING Are you a competitive and highly self motivated team player, looking to progress as quickly as your talents and personality will let you?

If you answered Yes to this question, then a graduate career with Enterprise Rent-A-Car could be just what you are looking for. We are looking to recruit highly energetic, sales orientated individuals who are willing to work hard, and have the same commitment to customer service that Enterprise has established over the years. We are looking for the Managers of our future. We offer a fast track into Management working for a privately held, multi-billion pound corporation; our need is to find individuals capable of continuing our phenomenal growth in the UK, repeating the success stories of North America and .Canada. Your job will be to learn all aspects of our business from the ground floor up, dealing with all functions of running your own small business in the decentralised structure we operate. One of the great things about Enterprise is that its up to you how quickly you get to the top.

If you are a graduate, who thinks t11ey can make the most of these opportunities, please send your CV with a covering letter to: Miss ]oss Rutherford, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, HR Dept U71, Beechwood House, Depot Road, Newmarket, Suffolk, CBB OAL. Email jruthetjord@erac.com

Recruiting for locations across the East England area. www. erac. com.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

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Midweek Madness! . _.l

Film:

Music:

Campus

Monday - Thursday from Spm - close

ALL PI TS ALLBOmES ALL ALCO POPS

NO EXClUSJONS!

AL £1.75 TRIPLE VODKA + REDBUL ..;. £3.99 4 BOfflES FOR £5 (SU.ECTED I!.ANGE

'f)

All films start at 8.30 pm and are shown in Lec t ure Th eatre One unless otherwise stated.

Tickets £2. 75 Oh Brother Where Art Thou Tue 12/ 11 Frivolous Coen Brothers 1920's adaptation of Homer.

Mon 15:45 18:30 21:00 Orange County Fri-Thu 14:15 16:45 19:00 21:15 23:15 Rabbit Proof Fence Fri-Mon 13:15 15:30 17:45 20:15

Austin Powers 3 Thu 14/ 11 Sh agging , swinging, stumbling

Red Dragon Fri-Wed 21:15

Murder By Numbers Friday 15/11

Scooby-Doo Sat-Sun 11:00

Read My Lips Tue 19/ 11

Signs M on-Wed 15:15 18:00 20:30

Monster's Ball Thu 21/11 Halle Berry wins oscar for realist sex

The Thing Tue 16:30 19:00 21 :30

XMAS '02 PARTY BOOKINGS NOW BEING

1 Fatmtr Ann Norwich, NR1 .l/X "l J: 0160l 7 6:SS12

Behind the Sun Tue 26/11 Beautiful Brazil

C ity UC I

XXX (Triple X) Fri-Thu 12:30 15:15 18:00 20:45

From 22!11 Die Another Day Anita and Me

Fro m 13!11

From 29/ll

28 Days Later Fri·Mon 15:45 18:45 21:15 23:50

The Santa Clause 2 The Quiet American 8 Women The War Bride

Changing Lanes Fri-Sun 20:45 Mon 16:15 18:30 20:45 Donnie Darko Fri·Thu 18:45 21:30 24:00 Schizophrenic depressive sees eight foot rabbit of the apocalypse in one of the b·e st films of the year.

Cinema City All or Nothing 12-14/ 11 A Night at the Opera; A Day at the Races 13/ 11 Marx Brother' s double bill

AKA 15-21/ 11

Halloween: Resurrection Fri 23:45 Sat 23:45 Mon 17:00 19:15 21:30 Harry Potter And The Chambe ..

Fri-Sun 14:00 14:30 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:30 23:00

K-19 Mon-Wed 15:00 18:00 21:00

FREE ROOM HIRE OFFERED rro ALL STU DENTS, WHATEVER THE OCCASION, FROM BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS THROUGH TO SOCIETY OR SPORT CLUB SOCIALS!!

Lilo & Stitch Sat-Sun 12:15 14:15 16:15 Mon-Wed 16:15 Thu-Fri 14:15 16:15 Mr Deeds Fri-Sun 14:15 16:45 19:00 21:15 Mon 16:45 19:00 21:15 My Big Fat Greek Wedding Fri-Sun 18:30

Morvern Callar 15-28/ 11 Acclaimed ecstasy driven youth movie from Lynne Ramsay director of Rat catcher

Ster Century From 8!11 Changing Lanes Halloween: Resurrection Harry Potter ...

Lilo & Stitch Mr Deeds My Big Fat Greek Wedding My Little Eye Orange County Red Dragon Road to Perdition Scooby Doo Signs Stuart Little 2 xXx

Gigs Waterfront Ninja Tune Russian Percussion Tour Feat. DJ Vadlm and Mr.Thing Tue 19/11 Ninja tune rolls into town with Bolshevi c big beat s and the finest Communi st cuts £8 (£7 NUS) [ Spunge ] .

Wed 20/11 The ever-touring kitchen-sink ska-punk heroes return to get us _kicking pidgeons once again £8 The Damned Mon 25 /11 Ageing punk-troubadours bring out the camper side of Norwich's punk crowd £12

LCR Phatfish Wed 13/ 11 Rooted in t he acid-jazz scene. their Christian fa ith and fine song writing has secured a path to success £9 Toploader Fri 15/11 Win e-bar pop c hooses to du mp all over the LCR for (thankfully) one night only £17.50 Australian Pink Floyd Sun 17/ 11 One of the finest tribute ac t s around ; the definitive recreation of the music of Pink Floyd £13.50 (£10 NUS) The Levellers Sat 23/11 The original hippie folk rockers r(lake a welcome return after playing the Waterfont earlier in the year £15

No rwich Arts Centre Grand Drive; The Vessels Man 18 / 11 As influenced by Mem phis Soul as they are the more dust ie r side of Ameri ca na £6 Cosmic Rough Riders Monday 25 / 11 The Cosmics return with their popular brand of sunny West coast rock £7 She-Haw Tuesday 26 /11 Be Good Tanyas style female alt. country duo from Philadelphia £6

Ferryboat Wom bat Wombat Friday 15/ 11 More extreme noise and local ta lent from ch ris t-t , Sw earing at M otorists and State Opinion . An intimate setting for the beautiful peopl e.

Clubs Wednesdays Superfly Lock Stock Funk and Hip-Hop _ £3 Jitterbug I Jam Po Na Na Funky drum ·n· bass & house Free b4 10 pm , £2 after Classic Hits Ikon 10 pm until 2 am £2 b4 11 pm

Thursdays

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Peter Green's Splinter Group Sun 24/11 A double headline of two classic performers with their respective quality bands £17.50

Isotonic Kafe Da Progressive trance & house Free

Gary Moore Tue 26/11 The c lassic blues guitarist with a history vta Skid Row , Thtn Lizzy and Colosseum £20

The Underground Last thursday of every month From 10 pm £3

The LCR disco LCR £3

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Arts: LTl Thomas Keneally Thu 14/11 £3 Harold Plnter Mon 18/11 £3

UEA, Hive Jazz Cafe Men 25/11 Girls and Boys Comercial Pop and Chart Time £2 b4 11.00 £3 after Charty Handbaggy The Loft Gay night Ministry of Cheese Liquid 9.30 pm until 2.00 am £2 students Rebel Lion Bank Thu 7/11 £4 The great reggae night

Fridays Delirium The Concept House, garage and R&B Charts and Dance Liquid 9.30 until 2.00 £2 students Chart Hits & Classic Anthems Ikon 9.30 til 2.00 £4 b411 pm Marvel I Gas Station The Loft Hip hop & funk £3 b4 11 pm, £4 after Skool Rules Disco Waterfront Classic Pop Hits 18th October

£4.50 or £3 in uniform

Saturdays Now That's What I Call the 90s UEA/LCR 19th October 9.30 pm • 1.30 am £4 adv

Norwich Playhouse Norfolk County Youth Brass Band Sun 17/11 A magical tour of music to suit all tastes

£7

Saturday Rewind Bar Metro Chart, dance, garage

This is MODERN Tue 19/11 Satire of contemprary dance £9

Sundays

Dave Gorman Thu 21/11 and Fri 22/11 Over two days, Dave German presents his unique and award-winning one man shows, 'Better World' and 'Reasons to be Cheerful' £12

Sunday Service Manhattans £2.50 Hot2Trot Liquid 9.30 pm until 2.00 am £2 students

Mondays Loaded LockStock 10pm until 2am £2.50 students 1 £3

Tuesdays

Ladles of Swing Sat 23/11 Featuring three of the hottest female jazz vocalists around £12

Theatre Royal Glydebourne Touring Opera Tue-Sat 12-16/11 The Tempest Mon-Sat 18-23/11

Life Time 9pm until 2am £1 students

Chicago Mon 25/11

Photos: (Clockwise from top left corner) Harold Pinter, 0 Brother Where Art Thou, , Toploader, Stitch, Monster's Ball, The Tempest

C(Ohe East Anglia's largest restaurant with 112 covers + 10% discount with student ID + Parties for every occasion, with up to 50 seated in one room ( 166 seats total) + Hallal food available

Call NOW for Reservations or Takeaways

45 Magdalen Street, Norwich

+ No smoking area available + Fully air conditioned Open: 12 noon - 2:30pm +Fully licensed bar + Vegetarian food 6pm -late + Facilities for the disabled

Tel 762836 I 762845

www.thecurryguide.co.uk

Final ·l'nfo: 1SSOAIP

Se edule:

Mo nday 8-10 : Fresh OJ 10-1 2: Armed & Dangerous 12-2 : Magtcal Mystery Tour 2-4: Vantshmg Potnt 4-6: Far From Home & Far From Talented 6-8: B."E.A.T.S. 8-10: Daydream Nation 10-1 2: Drop tha Bomb! 1 Hip Hop Trax

Thursday 8-10: Trans-Atlantic Express 1 0-12: Tastl 1 2-2: The Undecided 2-4: The Vanessa B Show 4-6: Mark Boutros 6-8 : The Reverends' Revtval 8-10: Rebel Lion Roots 10-12: The Funk Connection

Tuesd a y

Friday

8-10 : Sound Advice 10-1 2: That Show 12-2: " Look. a SqUirrel!"

2-3 : After Lunch With MISS Nickt 3-4 : Cu lture Shock I S.E.E.D. 4-5: Matt Brow n 5-6: Kill an Hour 6-8 : Dancing Roun<;t the Bard rs of the Curfew 8-9: Contemporary Mustc Soc iety 9-1 0: Evenmg Please 10-12: We the Funky Foo

8-10: Where the Wild Things Are 1 0-12: Illegally Blonde 1 2-2: Essential Selection 2-4 : Simonson & Nickelback 4-6: You Don 't Know You're Born 6-8 : SKILL and Superfly 8-10 : Progressive Minds 10-12: Rebel Soldier

Saturday 9-11: The Hook 11-1 : Alternative Session

Wednesday 8-10 : Eastern Exposure 10-12: The Grapevine 12-2: The Tom & Joe Show 2-4: Frontier Psychiatry 4-6 : Mad Man Dan & His Musical Monkeys 6-8: The Mental lnsti ute 8-9: The Untltl ed Show 9-10 : Sports Report 10-12: T wtth the Vtcar

1-3 : No More Barbi e P* rn 3-5: The Groove Bus

Useful Nu bers· Canary Cue C lub Cinema City Ikon Liquid Madderma rket The a tre The Light Bar Lock Stock Norwich Arts Centre Norwich Playhouse Po Na No's Ster Ce ntury Theatre Royal The Loft The Waterfront Tourist Information Time UEA Stud io UCI UEA Union Ents

01603 627478 01603 622047 01603 621541 01603 611113 01603 620917 01603 622533 0 1603 629060 01603 660352 01603 598598 01603 619961 01603 221900 01603 630000 01603 623559 01603 632717 0 1603 666071 0870 6078463 01603 592272 0870 0102030 01603 508050

5-7: Sports Frenzy 7-9: Underground Session 9-12: TSN I Digital Nightmares

Sunday 9-11: Think!

11-1 : Soundtrack to the Revolution 1-3: Sunday Review 3-5: The Incident Room 5-7 : SBN Chart Show 7-9: Livewire Chart Show

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JOBIIJ8TG (lt8 IL'Il 'I'IIU.UY .... N0Y>

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