The event issue 161 25 02 2004

nt looks at obias Wolff Literature's Most Photogenic Man. Page&

02

In

IS .. .

Slag

Concrete Editor-in-Chief Jim Whalley Event Editor Nathan "Starvin' Marvin" ' Dixon

y mother repeatedly told m e that if I didn 't have anything nice to say then I shouldn't s ay anything a t a ll. A fin e edict , and one I try to a bide by as much as is socially pos sible. But there seems to b e more and m ore p e ople whinging, griping and moaning ab out things they d islike nowadays, a n d the s tupidest a spect of the whole situation is tha t othe r p e op le take note. [At this juncture I would like to a ffirm that I fully understand the irony of writing an anti-rant rant.]

The Jap anese p ress diffe rs from the We stern pre ss quite significantly, but m ost p e rtinently they refuse to give any m ention whatsoeve r of films , b o oks , music or game s that they dislike. Why bothe r wasting column inches on a poor review when that space can be donated to p ublicising something alto g ether more worthy? If, as the saying maintains, there is no s uch thing as bad publicity why do we continually b ring to the forefront of public consciousness something that simply doe s not d e se rve to exist, let alone take a promine nt place in the nation's newspapers or magazines?

Take the re c ent Ben Affleck-Je nnifer Lop e z vehicle Gigli as an example - no doubt you are aware of the basic p remise, the notab le cameos an d horrendous reviews. Jonathon Ross waxe d p ractically lyrical on its lack of merit, but the irony is that by eve n m e ntioning that a film as execrable as this exists , the curiosity of at least a few m asochis tic

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Assistant Editor Richard Simm Arts Editors Katharine Clemow & Edward Mooney Film Editor Philip Sainty Music Editors Sarah Edwardes & Matt Sargeson TV Editors Tim Barker & Kate Bryant Event Chief Photographer Colin Griffiths Contributors (in order of appearance):

Ben Patashnik • Jame s Banks • Adam O 'Brien • Joel Turner • Daisy BowieSell • Eastern Youth • Joe Espiner • Dario Salzman • Suzanne Rodger • Dan Chandler • Dominic Chessum • Ben Millar • Rob Lavine • Jonathan Perlmutter • Richie }ones • Alistair Lawrence • Chris Lee • Georgina Smorgasbord (?)

The Event is published fortnightly by Concrete:

Po st: PO Box 4 10 , Norwich , N R4 7TB

01 603 250558 Fox: 01603 506822 Tel:

E-moil : su.concrete@ueo .oc .uk Pri nted by : Shormon & Co .

Sigh.

N.D.

~ CKY

fools will b e pique d and more tickets will be sold than if the film had remained the hidden abomination it apparently d eserve s to b e. If no one had spoke n of it at all due to the fact that it was plain rubbish there would have been no publicity (when was the last time you saw a fi lm poster totally devoid of hyperbolic quotes?), no word-o f-mouth because no one had seen it and no d escending into infamy as 'Gigli' surely has. Just think , if the New Musical Elitist had never b rought the Kings Of Le on to our atte ntion they'd still be playing to an audie nce of cousins in Hicksville USA - now doesn't a world with out them sound fantastic? I'd b uy that for a dollar.

Why rant ab out thin g s tha t aren't worth the spit tle flying fro m your e nrag ed lips? What is the point? Why not extol the virtues of some thing far more d eserving of your time? I don 't talk about how rubbish I think the new Maroon 5 album is; ins tead I me ntion how e xc ite d I am by the p rosp ect o f No C omply recording their d ebut album, or how m uch I can't wait to see more new material fro m Five Knuckle . Po sitivity isn't a disease and it's a hell of a lot m ore in te resting talking to someone who is genuinely enthusiastic about a p arti cular film that they love instead of a stereotypically negative b ore who can't st op going on about how eve rything sucks.

True , there is a lot of crap around - b ut there's a univers e of am azing things out th e re waiting to b e bigge d up , and d eservedly so.

Que stion: What d oes CKY stand for?

(Answe rs to su.concre te .ue a .ac .uk)

~ Tickets ~

3 pairs of tickets from the union for the crazine ss that will b e CKY on Tue sday 16th March at the LCR. They 're the ones who starte d the whol e le t's jump off I run d own I shave I melt I shoot stuff - jackass type ente rtainme nt. They ~ also provide the soundtrack to said show.

err

Corner! it 's stuff, for free . All you need to do is answer a couple of easy questions. Questions in seminars are much harder and what are they going to get you, Eh? Nothing, that's what.

Maybe a job at Tesco.

Get Lost In Space To celebrate the re le ase of Se ason 1 of the hit 1960s TV show Lost in Space on 23rd Feb ruary. Th e Event and Twe n tieth Century Fox Home Entertainment gives you the chance to win one of two DVD b ox sets of this 'Swiss Family Robinson in space' .

To ente r, simply state what you would take with you if you were soon to b e lost in space and why you would take it. (Hint: We're looking for funny h ere people , n ot functional) Entr ies to su.concre te@ue a.ac .uk.

I

Help me, I need Plasma

~

Literature Condensed A Bl uffer's Guide.

We 've all been there .. . it's five minutes before the seminar b egins and we h ave n't read a single bloody word of the b ook for that week. Wouldn't it be han dy to h ave a quick, easily digestible guide to the Weste rn World 's greatest literary work s with which to bluff one's way through an othe rwise redfaced couple of hours? Ye s it would, don't argue.

This week. .. Albert Camus' Th e Ou tsider

(Mersault] Nah. Ahh! the Sun ... BANG (shoots Arab).

(The French Pe ople ] Chop eez 'ed off, non?

[Meursault] I've ha d b etter days .

[Pretty Girl] I love you.

[Meursault] Mum 's dead .. .oh we ll.

(Meursault] Hmmm?

(Neighbour] My girlfriend 's a b it of a slapp e r .

[Meursault] Shit happe ns

[Priest] Want th e divine comfort and salvation of an all loving omnipotent God?

[Neighbour] Want to write her some hate-mail?

[Meursault] No, ta.

(Meursault] Nothing better to do

(Meursualt] It 's a funny old game this life lark ... still, nice day for an e xecution.

(Neighbour] Chee rs. Fancy a spot of lunch?

[Meursa ult] I could eat.

[Assorte d Arabs] Let's have a fig ht?

Then you shall have it, thanks to Lynx with the release of their latest fra gr ance. Ok, not blood plasma but one of those retro trains parent sphe res with lig htning insid e that goe s to

~ ·~. _

your finger wh en you touch it ... woo, ahh . For a chance to win this useless but amusing p iece of tat, answer the foll owing question:

~ &iz"o,_

d(,/:,;j"

What is the name of th e latest Lynx varient?

(Hint- see p icture) Answers to uealynx@hotmail.com

[Readers] Wow that wa s good I'm (a) off to buy a bere t, smoke filterless cigarettes and feign intelligence or (b) kill myse lf (dele te a s appropriate).

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN 25.02.04

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Features 03

that many bands, I don't think that we're amazing looking."

It's a strange dilemma for a front man and band that already feel they have enough to contend with by being one of the few 'real bands' to be able to score hits in the Top 40. On a recent CD:UK appearance, !an (sitting alongside podgy, rotating wide boy Sean Paul) was quick to point out a slew of

"I've got nothing against Busted. I'm sure they're nice guys; their songs are quality pop songs"

he Lost Prophets' recent headlining show at the UEA LCR proved to be home to some of the most sickeningly youthful behaviour ever to be experienced by anyone over the age of 20. Pimpled adolescents and jailbait schoolgirls litter and pout around tour buses, hours before getting any (gig) action while chicks in short skirts flutter eyelashes and flash ankles at a pool-playing Jamie Oliver (the pseudo-chef-named Prophets' DD as he chills in the Hive, totally ignoring the support bands. Aye, the Prophets are hotties one and all, in a purely visual way for some and an intensely aural way for others. Sneer at their position at the top of the nu-metal boy band tiering system all you like, but the sight of an LCR flooded with as many mini-moshers and day-trippers as Norwich could muster stands as a testament to the quality of many of the raucous sound bites stuffed in the Lost Prophets' back catalogue.

They shimmy between allegations of selling out, being style-conscious fashion bitches and, well, general musical weakness with a journeyman's insouciance, safe in the reality of a growing fan base that love 's debut album The Fake Sound Of Progress, knows every word and counts down every beat. It's a feverish relationship

ring on all previous nights of the sell out tour and expected on all of the (also sold out) impending dates. Even by simply wearing a baseball cap and peering down from the LCR green room at the stewing queues , the very idea that I might just be someone in the band attracted waves , wolf whistles and

"I don't think we're different to that many bands, I don't think that we're amazing looking." smiles from countless , shamefully underage hotties. Maybe I'm just buff.

Even with this shitstorm of lusty adulation raging in and outside of the LCR, lead singer Ian Watkins is perfectly at ease, a thin guy with sharp looks and clothes personalised with stars of fat black marker and badges for cool NYC hardcore bands pinned onto his denim lapels.

"It is getting to be a pain in the ass at the moment," sighs Watkins with a nervous laugh on the topic of girls girls girls. "At first we were like 'yeahhh' y'know, just being guys but... I think the only way to change that is longevity, the longer you stick around, still doing your own thing. I don't think we're different to

Busted's bigger failings , attacks more diverted towards their instruments than their laughable potato-like heads.

"It was the highest profile TV we've ever done, prime time Saturday morning," fires Watkins, his Welsh brogue taking a media savvy tone, "the whole Busted thing was - I've got nothing against Busted. I'm sure they're nice guys; their songs are quality pop songs.

My problem is they don't write those songs - but they claim they do. They might even play their instruments, they might be a wicked band but it's when they claim authenticity and it's so obviously not true - that just gets my goat y'know."

On further discussion, similar themes of authenticity and 'keeping it real' are recounted with the more measured approach of a band just about to hit the big time; as much as !an may dismiss them, the chiselled good looks are hard to ignore. But so they believe are the tunes , and keeping that to the fore is Watkins' guiding inspiration.

"We've played in the hardcore scene and punk scene and the elitism in that scene just . . .I had enough of it.

Which is why we started Lost Prophets we're totally anti-elitist. There are kids who need that elitism because they need to feel part of something, they enjoy being part of the clique. We feel confident enough in ourselves that we don't need a scene or that insular elitism to protect us. We are who we are and I want as many people as possible to like us. That's why we do teen magazines and we don't give a tuck. We've done little bits in just I 7, we're not gonna say 'no'. That's just more people that we can corrupt and get into the music. If we didn't do it those column inches would just be filled up with some tucking boy band. It's all a way in; Faith No More opened doors for me - they were a band in teen and metal magazines and they bridged the gap. You need bands that'll bridge - some [people] will cross it and some won't, but if at least at one person gets into metal and the alternative scene from us being in teen magazines then we've done something."

Tough words and tougher actions on the road for the last two years in support of Fake Sound have resulted in the group's second album, Start Something.

It's a brighter record with a fuller sound courtesy of rock producer of choice Eric Valentine ("The Queens of the Stone

Age album he did was the main inspiration because just the sound of that album, it's so big and so raw,") already with two hit singles under its' belt in the form of Burn, Burn and recent 'five thumbs up' hit Last Train Home. For the newer material Watkins found that a freer recording schedule than previously enjoyed allowed him to mine the rich seam of melody to be found in the more tuneful giants of the past and present.

Like Cave In, right Ian? "Cave In, they've got great melodies," agrees Watkins with a submissive and respectful wink, " they realise you shouldn't be embarrassed about a good melody, 'cos a good melody is timeless. Like the Beatles and all these bands that are legendary, it's because of melody. It's not because they were like super tucking heavy or they had the best riffs - if they had good riffs it was usually tied in with amazing hooks and melody. So many bands nowadays are all about 'Look at my riffs' 'Look how loud I can scream', 'Look how fast I can drum' . And that's cool, but you've got to temper it with a song structure, something that grabs you - otherwise it's mindless." an might have done well to mention this sound and sage-like advice to support acts The Bronx (hotly-tipped) and Avenged Sevenfold (every hardcore teen's wet dream). Melody for both bands seemed an abhorrent concept, but they sure could make some noise. And when you're a sweaty teen, that's what music's all about, that and cool t-shirts. Despite being boringly mindless and playing the wrong type of venue , the supports are lapped up by the kids and the stage is set for the Lost Prophets.

They arrive to some TV theme tune and promptly explode with all the sonic tact of a compound fracture , kicking the set off with the kinetic We Still Kill The Old Way, the opening track to Start Something. It's a set full of classic tunes of emo-angst and cold -bladed fury, And She 7bld Me 7b Leave, Burn, Burn , The Fake Sound Of Progress, all instant crowd pleasers, and the whole place erupts into a sea of jerked elbows and jiggling doll parts as Shinobivsdragonninja is pimped out with gay abandon.

Other new tracks from the album lack some charisma and the audience notably lulls - my mind goes back to a statement Watkins made with some pride that "The first album, we didn't really know how to write songs y'know, we didn't know what we were doing and about choruses and stuff, it was just riff after riff." Is this what's missing in the new material? The spontaneous fire of being young, good looking and broke perhaps replaced with the Chinese burn of being young, good looking and on a major label?!

The Event stands aghast. Watkins?

He loves it: "That's what we've always wanted to do. Obviously we've all grown up loving and listening to metal and punk, but we also love pop music and we wanted to capture that thick anthemic vibe of a wicked pop song, but have it in with the harder stuff. I'm not one for humble ideals. I wanna take it as far as I can."

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Road is a known for its mixture of drinking, dancing and kebab hurling. Well never fear, there is now a haven for those of you who want a plush alternative. Optic is a shiny and clean gem, slapped bang in the middle of club-land. You've probably already skipped past, unaware of what's lurking inside, or assuming it's full of student hating trendys, but there's no need to feel scared anymore. While most think

that Optic is only for those over 25 and who have a wallet full of cash, this isn't entirely true anymore as most of the strict door policies have been removed

"Optic want to relaunch the live music sce ne in Norwich" - Optic is opening its doors wider, in an attempt to appeal to the sacred student market.

Inside big comfy sofas are adorned

with warm lighting; the bar isn't bad either with a massive selection of premium drinks - in many ways it's like an in-the-city Union Bar. They also offer free entry on Monday to Thursday and a wide range of student friendly deals on the drinks like 'buy one get one free' and they even give larger shots .

Everyone can now sit back and chill in the city during the day, or use it as a stop off point when on your way to or between clubs at night.

"Optic is opening its doors wider, in an attempt to appeal to the sacred student market" Moreover, there is a genuine feeling that they want to offer something different to all who live in Norwich.

Optic want to re-launch the live music scene in Norwich. The club is going to start hosting a lo cal band night on Thursdays and this is where you come in. In order to get the night rocking,

Optic need your feedback. If your in a band, or know someone who is, get them to send their demo tape to Optic, and your band could soon be playing in this swish and modern setting. On the night you will even be able to play your demos if you bring them along.

Every type of music is going to be welcome on the night. It doesn't even matter if this is going to be your first gig or your fiftieth, everyone is allowed to join in the fun. The night sounds as if it could be huge and it certainly sounds appealing to those who want to expose their band in the wild. It's certainly an optimistic thing to do which could rock Thursday nights right down to the Riversid e. o, if you want to make Thursday nights yours, send in your dusty demo today!

Demos can b e sent to Astra Young, Optic, 50 Prince of Wales Road, Norwich, NRl ILL, or go down there and check the place out for yourself, if you feel the need to free yourself for a couple of hours from your grotty student dig s.

S

Features 05

ilmin '

orwich

Cinefi e no.40

Seconds

Two UEA Graduates have put their visionary heads together In a bid to further the reputation of Norwich, Adam O'Brien went to talk one of the festival's organisers.

fesses

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lesser known European productions, he end of May will see and prospective filmmakers who strugedition to gle to find an arena to showcase their everexpanding arts scene; work. a festival showcasing both award-winning European short films and those of Britishbased students. 'Filminima; Norwich European and Student Fihn Festival', the brainchild of two former UEA students, looks set to provide both filmmakers and film enthusiasts with an event rich in diversity and energy.

Festival Director, Greg Vamvakas, ~!11>1......... has gone about _.llh~ designing the Despite, or perhaps because of, the event in a way that promislogistical difficulties involved in es great designing a festival like this (having to things. After receive films via national embassies has not proved an easy task), Vamva.kas undergoing extensive speaks with great excitement about esearch what he freely admits to being a huge into other experiment. "The idea was to actually British short film festivals and trying to get films that had some local represenestablish trends and patterns in their tation and see how the British market programming, he has tried not to emuwould respond to that. Since we're not late them, rather to programme films concerned with profit, let's at least do which he feels they appear to be ignorsomething that's interesting in terms of ing. "It seemed to me that international content." GregVamva.kas may be a little festivals in Britain represent countries disappointed by the lack of diversity in of big production capacity; Japan, UK, British cinemas at the moment, but he is France, Italy. Smaller countries where not a man on a crusade. Rather than the film industry is controlled ..________.., being preoccupied with a 1 by the state were not represupposed lack of internasented very much."Vamvakas tional cinema like so many and Claire Waffel (eocineastes, he has taken the founder) thus began contactdebate one step further by ing the relevant networks in examining prejudices and those countries suffering from inconsistencies within forunder-representation. They eign language film distriare now looking to invite prize bution. "Why is there so winning films from, amongst othmuch from France?" he asks, ers, Sarajevo Film Festival, more out of intrigue than anger.

Motovun Film Festival (Croatia), Born and educated in Arsenals (Latvia), Milcrokino Fest Athens, Vamva.kus went on to study (Serbia) and Ljubljana International Philosophy and Politics here at UEA and is hoping to go on to do his MA Fihn Festival. here. Clare WaHel, who was born These established pieces will in Germany and graduated in provide the backbone of the festival, supporting the subMedia and French, is now studying for a Masters in missions from UK students. By adopting this approach, the Photography at the London festival will represent two School of Printing. Not only have neither studied film, but Vamva.kus conoverlooked aspects of the industry:

that

his primary passion outside of study actually and

up any kind of music festival.

He makes no pretence about his removal from the world of film. "This detachment really allows me to take the organisational side more seriously."

WaHel has worked in a number of film festivals throughout Europe, and their mix of passion and practicality seems to be serving them well. Despite putting so much time and effort into the project, Vamva.kus is keen to bring in more experienced personnel to judge and programme the films, despite it being perhaps the most important and exciting part of the whole process.

The team behind Fihninima may be practical and focused, but by no means is this to suggest that they lack ambi-

"The idea was to actually get films that had some local representation and see how the British market would respond to that. Since we're not concerned with profit, let's at least do something that's interesting in terms of content."

DJRECfORS

tion. Not only are they constructing a festival out of two vastly different areas of film (European prize-winners and national student amateurs), but the festival period will involve more than just screenings. As well as the standard film festival package of parties and live music, a number of workshops are being planned covering a variety of filrnma.king topics, including practical guidance for fundraising and 'realising a script' (to be headed by a visiting MA student from Bristol University.) art-house cinemas across the country tackle the problems of dwindling udiences, the expansion f Norwich's Cinema City is no coincidence. This is a city's whose film culture is clearly enriching itself; the outstanding success of the FAN animation festival is perhaps the most recent example of this, and is an event that the Filminima team were both impressed and inspired by. The venture is a risk, but there seems like no better time to take it. Vamva.kus concludes with a typical mix of modesty and confidence "It's an unknown quantity, but we're happy with that." Watch this space.

Anyone interested in submitting a ll1m (deadline Man::IJ Stb), .olanteering tbeir senices or simply 'I/IIUJJing to lind out mo.re about l'Uminima should visit tbe -b.siteima.co.uk- or emaH greg@tllmbU-

A

--tilmin-

Seconds?

No thanks I'm on a diet.

Ha Ha, funny. No Seconds is a film by John Frankenheimer, the concluding part of his paranoia trilogy that follows Seven Days in May and the more prominent Manchurian Candidate. However, the relative obscurity of this film is not a signal that it's inadequate.

Seconds is an exploration of what would happen should someone have a second chance to live their life, this time as one would have wanted it. It follows Arthur Hamilton played by John Randolph; a character who isn't totally unhappy but suffering the malaise of a man entering his winter years having led a decidedly 'normal' existence - a bank manager, wife and kids, suburban living. One night he's contacted by a supposedly dead friend telling him about a mysterious organisation who will fake his death and give plastic surgery to make him appear young and good looking and psychologically test him to find out what his aspirations are and set him up in the required life style. In short, they provide the ultimate solution to a mid-life crisis. John Randolph's Arthur becomes Rock Hudson's Tony, set up in a California beach house as a talented painter.

Roc:k Hudson - I loved hbn in The Scorpion King. . No, Rock Hudson the staple leading man in poor 1960s Romantic Comedies and although his acting performances and the films he starred in were usually not much better than those of his namesake, Seconds is an exception on both levels. Once you've taken the feasibility of the plot premise with a pinch of salt, the film turns out to be not only extremely intriguing in the questions it addresses, but atmospheric and suspense filled as the protagonists new life turns sour.

What's interesting is that he is not the passive victim of circwnstances at the hand of the organization with its evil machinations but he realises his choice has led him to a completely artificial existence, that the malaise he was suffering 'pre-op' was very much a case of the 'grass is always greener' and that his old life wasn't actually that bad after all. The cinematography provides a visual impression of the story of a man going mad from his perspective. Moreover, Hudson's acting is top notch as Arthur I Tony goes from disorientated to hilarity to paranoia to near insanity. Most especially, the final scene is one of the most harrowing in film history; in part because of the skilful way it is shot, but also due to Hudson's talent that was rarely, if ever, seen again.

So what's the name of this orgcmization again?

Haven't you been listening? The point is to live a dream life that is nonetheless conceited is worse than the drudgery of your own. That if you get a second chance you'll just want a third, then a forth, fifth - hence, Seconds.

Richard S1mm

ma.co.uk

25.02.04

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06 Features ................................................................. .

'n' Edward Moone uses a popular parlour game to uncover the real extent of Norwich's contribution to the arts ten famous

Qean-Claude van Damme) then really go for it - King Leopold, rapacious advocate of the colonisation of the Congo, Maurice Maeterlinck, an early symbolist dramatist and Nobel Prize winner in 1911, and perhaps one of the most influential people ever to have lived, Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), who literally decided the shape of our world.

The same game played with Norfolk, is perhaps even easier - give it a try when the conversation lulls next time you're at the LCR. However what started as an attempt at a paean to Norfolk's artistic heritage soon drew to a grinding halt, enveloped in silence.

The only Norfolk artist (defined widely as anyone engaging in creative activity, from poetry to shoe design) to have achieved

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any sort of international renown is probably Lady Julian (1342 - cl416) .

Her cell off King Street attracts international pilgrimages, enthusiasts of her mystical brand of mediaeval spirituality. However England's reformation ended interest in her wacky Catholic writings, though the Oxford movement, of the nineteenth century, did provoke a new attenuated, awareness in The Revelations of Divine Love. The book is now available in Penguin Classics.

"Urban, urbane art consumers have rarely condescended to explore the output of rural minds."

Using the bookselling website as evidence is a good, if lazy, indicator of how well thought of these people are.

Amelia Opie (1769 - 1853) wrote a number of novels and collections of poetry. Short of rooting around a musty bookshop's bargain basement for long out of print editions, only one novel is available to buy today: Adeline Mowbray (1 802). Her fictional rendering of the life of Mary Wollestonecraft, Enjoys its in-print status more because of the fame of the latter than of the former. Aside from her written works Opie has left us a house on Castle Meadow and a street named after her; as well as a bizarre statue, raising wraithlike from the roof of the Sugar Hut which some have blamed for the high incidence rate of appearances of the virgin Mary to impressionable Norfolk schoolgirls.

The vagaries of fame defy sense! Who decides what or who is considered worthy of praise and study is only glancingly linked to any notion o f 'good' art .

Even then ' good ' is a highly problematic evaluation method and risks being exclusive and heel-draggingly c o nservative. Sadly though, the workings of corporate capitalism mean that the people of Norfolk are unable to decide for themselves about Opie's works.

Avoiding this black hole of fame , glamo ur and value jud g ements has b een very difficult for we clo dhoppers. It would be an interesting task, though sadly futile, to investigate ju st how many local thinkers and writers, painters and musicians remains co mpletely anonymous to their twenty-first century descendants. Urb an, urbane art consumers have rarely c o ndescended to explore the output of rural minds.

What is surprising however is that, until the industrial revo lutio n, No rfolk was one of the most populated areas in the c ountry, after London, and Norwich was the country's second city. With this

urban wealth and sheer weight of bodies why was Norfolk unable to convert creative ideas - those that gave rise to Julian, the carvings in the Cathedral, to the intricate flint and brickwork - into concrete artistic achievement? autionary word here. It is lear that Norfolk and Norwich have produced ountless artists, well ersed in rural craft as well as words and pictures, but who remain un-named. The very modern demand for a name, an author, has led to this article. Even the few people who have names are hidden and overlooked. ln the early nineteenth century, however, a group of painters chafing at the influence of fashionable London set over the national arts scene. Feeling overlooked and un-appreciated they set up what would now be called a collective . Weekly meetings were organised at the house of John Crome in Norwich to discuss the ory and issues relating to art , and take time to try out new te chniques, e specially in landscape painting. The meetings grew and became popular enough to form the basis for a series of annual exhibitions from 1805-33, the first series of its kind outside London. This Norwich School, desp1te the demise of the exhibitions with the d eath of the originators, carried on working together in Norwich until the 1880s. Works are now disp layed in the Castle Museum and a few have been known to appear in London.

What of the twe ntieth c entury? What of now? A cursory interne! search, and a

A

glance at flyers and posters, shows that there are hundreds of painters and writers meeting J"e9Ularly in Norwich and the county. The chances of any of the art work produced in these ateliers achieving an audience beyond the immediate circle are slim. Is this because the art produced is not good?

Or maybe the producers are not beautiful enough, or reachable on a one-day, zones 1~ Underground travel pass?

Perhaps this is not a Norfolk illness. As with so many other issues in the UK, London has far too big an influence, an invidious one some might say. Young minds, fired with creative imagination, find little to stimulate them in the county and find themselves fo:ddnq out for a ticket to the capital. There is , it appears, little space beyond work in either the financial o r agricultural sectors- a situation that has been remarkably stable, especially since the foundation of Norwich Union in 1769. Until very recently, the Union boasted that it could emp loy every o ne of Norfolk's school-leavers, and, scarily, did.

So, Norfo lk does ind eed have an arts heritag e. It just takes a bit of searching for. And, artistic creation and residence in the county are not mutually exclusive, despite the common image of Norfolk stupidity. It is time for a louder celebration of local talent to dispel the image that talent and creativity happen somewhere else. Too long has No rwich been, rightly or wrongly, considered a one-horse town. With Opie, Crome and Julian behind us, there is more fo r school-leavers to look forward to than insurance.

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Features 07

•

1n Should back catalogues be allowed to rest in peace with the artist? Not when the record company smells the sweet scent of cash, says Joel Turner, as he casts an eye over the otherworldly business of marketing the dead. body purchase these 'new' additions to xcuse my rhetoric, but isn't the fascina- Tupac's already bloated discography?

This music does have an alluze and tion with "unearthing" a dead mystique quite diffezent from material person's work a bit produced within the artist's lifetime. m o r b i d ? Dead artists capture our imagination in Increasingly, dead a way the living never manage. Just look artists are having at the unsolved mystery surrounding their estates exploited for all they are Tupac's death, or Elvis dying on the toiworth, and this isn't the same aesthetic let whilst forcing a deep-fried peanut zelationship as when an artist's work butter sandwich out (he had no problem only grows to be appzeciated after their getting them in). But more than that, death - this is unbridled and cynical consumerism.

The most notable example of this exploitation from the 1990s is Tupac Shalrur, a fairly vacuous gangster rapper whose popularity (and productivity) increased astronomically after his untimely demise. The hip-hop community tunied Tupac from a platinum-selling artist into a Messianic figuze, a transformation his zecord company weze moze than happy to facilitate. It doesn't need pointing out that death does not represent the most productive creative their lives gain a fictional integrity, with state, but despite this, 'Tupac' has man- a beginning, middle and a dramatic aged to zelease seventeen albums since . ending. Whether a wistful troubadour his death in 1996, considerably moze like Jeff Buckley or a chronically depressed, angst-ridden heroin addict than the four released in his lifetime.

Suzely some questions have to be like Kurt Cobain, their stories play out posed: Who buys these albums, and on record and in reality - and their where do the zecord companies get the deaths provide the ultimate authentication: they really meant it. material from?

But I seriously doubt that Kurt Answering the latter is simple.

Tupac zecorded prolifically throughout Cobain's last wishes were "Shit ... I hope his career, producing enough material Courtney squabbles in court for years to become complacent. He was prone to and then releases the dog-ends and outleaving tapes in other people's cars and takes of my career." The debate surhouses, and these generated the bulk of rounding Cobain's journals and the bootleg mix-tapes available along- Nirvana's unzeleased work continued side his 'official' posthumous releases. for several months last year, and ended This combination of carelessness and with his journals being published and productivity suggests that Tupac only the release of a Nirvana Greatest Hits found certain of his zecordings repre- album.

I don't think anyone can doubt the sented him as an artist and weze worthy of finalised studio albums. In short, as commercial viability of those release with any successful artist, Tupac exer- decisions. The statistics speak for themcised a process of quality control The selves. Last year Elvis was, for the third real question, and one that has so far year running, the highest earning dead eluded an answer, is why would any- celebrity with his estate accumulating

"I seriously doubt that Kurt Cohain's last wishes were 'Shit ...

I hope Courtney squabbles in court for years and then releases the dog-ends and outtakes of my career.'"

$40 million. Tupac earned $12 million and Bob Marley a humble $9 million.

Huge amounts, which - to the hardened cynic - must soften the blow of their respective families' loss. his trend for posthumous business is ostensibly a modern phenomenon. The magazine that compiles these figuzes- Fortune -has only done so for the preceding three years.

T

"lt doesn't need pointing out that death does not represent the most productive creative state, hut despite this 'Tupac' has managed to release seventeen albums since his death in 1996" Although other notable celebrities feature in their list, the predominant (former) occupation amongst those in the table is musician. Great works of art undoubtedly transcend time, but without reinforcement a product's marketability deteriorates. This reinforcement usually comes in the form of remastering or re-packaging. Elvis's Thirty No. 1 Hits album has gained 9 million worldwide sales in the last year - a number enviable to m<;>st living musicians.

Another key marketing tool is the tantalising addition of previously unreleased songs to an album, making it

particularly tempting for fans and completists. Jeff Buckley's unfinished album Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk accumulated a second CD consisting wholly of poorly rendered four-track compositions. It is with such fanatical fervour that record companies unearth original recordings: the promise of just one new track is sufficient for cash registers to ring in unison throughout the world.

However, them is a curzent thzeat to this cycle of repackaging. The development and subsequent mass popularity of peer-to-peer file sharing over the internet has significantly zeduced the record companies' ability to zelease albums on the promise of one or two new tracks. Why buy a zecord containing songs you already possess, when you can download those elusive unreleased tracks for free? The record companies continue to answer this question with litigious efficiency.

By its very nature, recycling old tat is a limited pursuit, but whilst we fans continue to hanker for new material from our crypt idols (I can feel a reality TV show coming on ... ), the record companies can only comply. Perhaps the anti-capitalist gaze we exact on profiteering multinationals should, at least initially, be turned upon ourselves in accepting that we are their market.

Maybe we should accept that the attention we give to dead people is essentially morbid. After all, the cult of celebrity will assume any form with a potential to make money - unless we decide to resist. And personally, I like my music alive. ¡

08 eature

olff at the Door ts Wednesday the fourth of February, a normal day, lectures , being a student, you know the rest.

Suddenly there 's a puff of smoke and a whirl of the magic Concrete wand and I'm sitting watching Tobias Wolff talking to an audience, waiting to interview him.

Quick as that. Bear in mind this would be my first ever interview, and Tobias Wolff is an intimidating good writer.

A good idea to start off on an amusing note, therefore; Wolff went to a school called "Concrete". "Thankgod", I think, "some common ground".

"I don't know if you are actually aware of this, but our newspaper is called Concrete."

Tobias: "Yes Yes! Jon was telling me.

I feel right at home now [laughs]."

"The ve ry fact of being in a workshop with smart passionate writers - it is tremendously helpful b ecause we all need commu nity."

"Trying to escape, but we caught up with you . .. " Wolff is a polite, intelligent and charming man who asked the audience if he could take his coat off to read a section of his n ew novel Old School- an interesting medium between rnernoir and fiction. The book is based on Tobias ' experiences at a school that saw the visit of many prominent writers , he explores a young writer's initial attempts at the profession.

Although primarily a short story writer, Tobias Wolff has won many prestigious awards for both his short stories and his several novels. One novel, This Boys Life, was adapted to film. When queried upon the cinematic version, which gave Leonardo DiCaprio his first major role , he asked me if he could speak off the record. Let us just say he is 'a great admirer of director Michael Caton-Jones' work'. Writing a novel about a child's experiences of abuse would be hard to write as fiction, so writing from first-hand experience was probably almost impossible. It is not surprising, therefore, that he found it hard to part with This Boys Life and give it up to a director's ruthless hands. He finds it difficult to compare This Boys Life and Old School, and although his newest novel is based in truth, it should not be categorised as a rnernoir. Its foundation is within his memory but through that he is able to elaborate upon the events to his liking. â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘lolff is a professor of Literature at St a n f o r d University and used to be head of the creative writing course taught there. His short stories are beautifully constructed; momentary glances into people lives.

When I asked him about his anthology Back in the World , which was published in 1985 , he says of the stories collected therein: "They don't come to any particular conclusion but they come to a sense of spiritual completeness in your understanding of this person, as much as you are able to. So I like that , the

25.02.04

pote ntial that the story has to open someone up for a moment. It 's a different way of conducting business than in a novel for sure." He sees the stories in his anthology as being mainly about "people who would ordinarily be thought of as ordinary, shown in a certain light of circumstance that brings out their essence in sorneway. You feel you 've gotten right to the spirit of somebody. I think that's what short stories do best."

Perhaps that's why Tobias Wolff is considered such a great short story writer; his stories detail the everyday as a glimpse into something profound and beautiful. However, as I have never felt completely comfortable with shorter fiction, I ask him whether it isn't just the structure of short stories which make them fragmentary?

"No, there are different ways of constructing short stories, I mean if you look at Tolstoy 's short stories his conclusions tend to have tremendous finality. Chekhov on the other hand, Chekhov will draw enough of an arc so that you can intuit the circle, instead of drawing the whole circle the way Tolstoy does. I'm more comfortable

However, despite being a tutor, he does not believe writing can be taught. He tries to help his students "become better editors of their own work, which is a gift you keep. It isn't just something you keep on one piece, but you learn things about reading your own work. You learn habits of mind of detachment and objectivity and coolness that you can keep and that becomes valuable to you as a writer later."

Does Tobias find it strange to have become the "writer" instead of the student? No, not really. To bias Wolff seems to love the energy and enthusiasm his students have in his classes. "The very fact of being in a workshop with smart passionate writers - it is tremendously helpful because we all need community, the world at large doesn't care a whole lot whether you write or not, but in a workshop you have people who do care." His understanding of young writers sterns from his own experiences as a beginner. From the snippet he read of Old School it is clear he remembers exactly the feeling of reverence himself and his peers had for established writers. Even down to the humorous details of imitation of their language ; although he admits as young men "it was a matter of tone and diction , attitude that comes out of it, I mean we were self conscious, we were doing it to make each other laugh, as a kind of parody.

But at the same time there was a tremendous kind of homage built into that."

"I don't want to be coy and I don't cheat the reader but I trust the reader to have some imagination to be able to think beyond the story." with [Chekhov's] model of writing."

Luckily he is one of those writers who actually trust their reader. He leaves the ending up to them so they may do what they like with it."! don't want to be coy and I don't cheat the reader but I trust the reader to have some imagination to be able to think beyond the story."

So how did he hear about UEA? He mixes with the greats ; an admirer of Malcolrn Bradbury, a friend of !an McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. The UEA Creative Writing MA is of course famous amongst, well, creative write rs .

Now, b eing on the other side of it, he doesn 't seem at all aware of the fact that h e has switched places, his humble and down-to-earth d e meanour is one which makes you feel right at home.

Surely he must recognise that people think of him as awe-inspiring; as he once did to those writers who visited his school, and yet it seems not to affect him. All in all , a very wise and interesting start to the 2004 literary festival , with a writer who seems keen not only to be bringing his own superb work into the world, but, even more constructively, that of others as well.

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Porn In The USA Following the bare-breasted antics of a certain pair of primo-pop stars America is in

up-roar,~

uperbowl 38 could have been remembered for a lot of things. An unusually gripping game was played on February 1st 2004, in a sport not known for it's closeness. A 240 million-strong audience from around the world watched the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers play it right to the wire, with the Patriots winning 32-29. For the second time in three years, Adam Vinatieri kicked a late field goal to give the Patriots the advantage, and Tom Brady was named Super Bowl MVP (Most Valuable Player) after throwing for 354 yards and three touchdowns. But no-one has really talked about Mr Vinatieri or Mr Brady in the last three weeks. This is because the antics of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, and in particular the brief glimpse of the former's right breast, have transpired to shock and awe the American populace. Being used to moral panics ourselves, us Brits could identify with the fun of being swept up in mass hysteria. But over a breast? Even that was going a little too far for the discerning panic-monger.

Now, it is difficult to tell what the reaction in the rest of the world was like (living in America means that all other countries fade into insignificance) but both the media, and the public's, reaction in the US has been close to bedlam. Never mind the fact that the screen-time of the mammary was less than a second, or that the nipple (what is agreed to be the most offensive part of a breast) was covered.

Also, the fact that the whole moment was less titillating (snigger) than nearly all music videos, adverts, or, well, anything, seemed inconsequential. The standard puritanical response of: "Won't somebody think of the children?" Has been yelled from the rooftops. All the little Dwaynes and Britneys must have been traumatized when the 4-hour spectacle of grown men kicking the shit out of each other was interrupted by a peek at a teat.

Poor little mites.

Bill O'Reilly, the notoriously rightwing news reporter, and his news team (who are currently trying to ban the harmless rapper Ludacris from the airwaves), said of the debacle, "it's hard to imagine a more controversial event taking place." To which a more sensible reporter responded "What? Janet Jackson isn't even the most controversial member of her FAMILY''.

The USA's sticky race relations hasn't helped improve the situation. An unattributed scholar at Berkeley, one of America's finest universities, stated that the situation was both typical and highly reminiscent of the rape of black slaves by white men, as Justin "Trousersnake" Timberlake is a Southern man, and his disrobing of the "black" Ms Jackson was swift and brutal. It's always good to see scholars debating the worthy issues, isn't it? What an idiot.

The effect on television practices were immediate. The public was assured that the Grammy's would have a six-second delay between the event and the broadcast, just in case anyone else decided to get " fresh" and pop out of their clothing. Even unrelated TV programs

reports on the fall-out ...

couldn't escape the censor's red pen.

Noah Wyle, an actor on the very popular ER series, reported that a scene from the latest instalment of the hospital drama had to be cut. Why? Because it showed in "graphic detail" an 80 yearold woman being defibrilated on a Gurney, and, you've guessed it, her chest was aposed. And we all know how arousing artificial heart resuscitation is, especially on geriatrics.

There was also another reason why the yanks got themselves in a bit of a tizzy. Not only was there Ms Jackson's dirty pillows to contend with, but there

"What if the streaker were a terrorist?" "But where would he hide his weapon?" was also a streaker at the Superbowl game. The following night on the Fox Network's daily sport's show, a semihysterical woman phoned in to scream "How could it happen? What if the streaker were a terrorist?" Which leads to the obvious question: "But where would he hide his weapon?" The sociologists among us might conclude that the whole issue is about America wanting control and safety in this post-911 world. This conformity and blandness has seeped into the entertainment industry, meaning that the occasional edgy publicity stunt (the Britney-

Madonna-Xtina kiss, The Dixie Chicks slagging off George Bush, etc.) are greeted with indignant, unwarranted outrage. This, coupled with increasingly draconian stances of smoking, drugs, and drinking, has led to the alliance of the political and entertainment world in an effort to make issues for public consumption as sexless and mediocre as possible. thers , however, might simply summate that the fuss over Ms Jackson is because America doesn't have enough exposure to breasts. It's hard to imagine a similar reaction in Britain, where we get a serving of toplessness with breakfast, courtesy of Zoe, 22, from Bournemouth, or some other Page 3 Stunnah. America has a fairly strict policy on nudity and swearing, with none to be seen or heard on any standard TV channels, or in magazines (apart from in porn mags, and other "outsider" products, of course). The closest a standard baseball-<:ap wearing yank gets to nudity is the sluttish attire of Paris Hilton, so this DEF-CON 3 breast attack has been a baptism of fire for many.

For example, the singer and actress Lena Home was so affronted by the flash that she now wants somebody other than the previously-agreed Jackson to play her in an up-<:oming Biopic of her life. The incident has also

0

proved the impetus for the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC) to increase the fine for broadcasting "indecent" material tenfold, from $27,500 to $275,000. And the FCC chairman, Michael Powell, commented that the matter of fining Timberlake and Jackson was still an "open question".

Terri Carlin, a 47-year-<>ld Knoxville woman, started a class-action lawsuit, suing for billions of dollars, stating that the "sexually explicit conduct" of the half-time performers "injured thousands of Americans", and that the lawsuit "was not a bid for attention or cash, but reflected her strong convictions". The lawsuit was dropped after less than a week. In general, it seems that the worst of it is over.

Soon after the event, Justin made an official apology for any wrongdoing on his part, and tha"t he had no forewarning about the underhand and sneaky boob aposure perpetrated. And, a few days ago, Janet Jackson apologised "to anyone offended" (we are still waiting for her to apologise for being a shit musician, though.) In fact, the pre-recorded tape released was strangely similar to the one released by her brother a decade ago (to deny allegations of him, you know, fiddling with little boys}, and it seems likely that the whole ordeal will help, not hinder, Ms Jackson's otherwise lacklustre career as of late.

Could that have been what it was all about in the first place?

12 WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN

lt's ... B/aggery Corner! 2

I

SEE IT FIRST WITH 'GET IT 1st' Now pay attention skanksters. Read all of the following, follow instructions and you win ONE MONTH'S FREE SUPPLY OF CHOCOLATE. Seriously, you fat munters; if you do nothing else all year, enter this now and chow down.

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SEE IT FIRST WITH 'GET IT 1st'! xclusive preview of new comedy m ovie coming to a screen near you! Get It 1st, the on-pack promotion running on some of the nation's favourite confectionery brand s , MARS, SNICKERS, MALTESERS, TWIX, BOUNTY and SKITTLES, has te amed up with Twentieth Century Fox to give UEA s tudents the chance to see a free , exclusive scree ning of the hilarious new comedy The Girl Next Door, before it g oes on gene ral re lease.

The movie follows the antics of 18yr old Matthew (Emile Hirsch) wh ose shelte re d existenc e b egins to spin out of control whe n he falls for hi s neighbour, the seemin gly innocent Danielle (Elisha C uthbe rt), who just happens to be a one time porn star! Re sult.

The Girl Next Door will b e showing in con -

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junction with th e film society at Lecture Theatre I on Tuesday 9th March . Th ere will be plenty of Get it 1st chocolate and prizes for all on the night. Look out for the Get it 1st crews on cam p us from 23 Febru ary wh o will b e handing out invitations. These can b e exchanged for preview tickets at your film society office but get there as soon as you can as tickets are available on a first

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come firs t serve basis only Get It 1st is running on packs of MARS, SNICKERS, MALTESERS, TWIX, BOUNTY and SKITTLES until April. You can win m oney-can't-buy p rizes including the chance to g o to LA film p remieres , New York fashion shows and state of the art Sony p roducts. You can also collect credits to get fre e Odeon cinema tickets, look out for the instructions on p ack.

What's m ore, you can log on to www.ge tit l st. com the first stop for up-to-the minut e gossip from th e likes of Ashley Cole , DJ Jam es Hyman and Lis a Mafi a p lus m ore exclusives from the world of entertainment, technology, gaming, fashion and music .

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win one month's supply of MARS , SNICKERS , BOUNTY, MALTESERS, TWIX and SKITTLES by answering the following question: What is th e name the film that Gel it 1st will be screening on campus?

No, that is not a tr ick question. It is re ally tha t simple. Yes, it ha s already b een m e ntioned in the article. No, we 're not stupid. We 're trying to make it as e a sy a s pos sible for you to repay Ge t it 1st's generosity by ac tually ente ring their fantastic compe tition. If none of you re psond the n we will neve r run a compe tition again as you lazy monkeys cle arly do not appreciate the e ffort we put in to arranging the m . Enter this one or a dmit you're all a bunch of apathetic knob -socks that don 't d e se rve the promotional atte ntion that's regularly lavished on you.

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Brick.

I test the weight and consider a pane.

You do not deserve this.

I have been selfish.

Your big smile ghosts across and the longer I leave it The more brutally heavy the brick becomes.

It arcs closer, taking its time.

I will it to bounce, But I think it might break.

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•

Film 13

he writer of the original navel, Andre Dubas m, received hundreds of screenplay offers, which either shows that this is a riveting story, or that the movie moguls are still too lazy to write something original. However, the fact that l\e cameos in the film points to the fact that he was happy with the adaptation.

Nominated for a number of Oscars, including Best Actor, expectations were high. Obviously, the Academy isn't right all the time with it's choices, but a watchable film is not too much to ask for. House of Sand and Ebg is a masterpiece of cinematography with, surprisingly, a fair amount of sand and fog throughout. The two leads, Jennifer Connelly (she of Labyrinth fame) and

Sir Ben Kingsley (the psychopath from Sezy Beas() give emotionally tense performances throughout.

The basic premise isn't promising: girl loses house because she fails to pay rent; man buys house, then has to contend with her shouting obscenities to prospective buyers. Added to this relatively bare plot, the film clocks up two and a half hours - not quite Lord of the Rings, but not far off. Director Vadim Perelman manages to keep the story interesting because it isn't as simple as it appears in the trailer. The details might spoil the film but, basically, you spend the entire time switching sides as each new piece of information comes to light. The big bad Americans are a bit mean to the immigrants, but this cliched moral message is muddied with the slightly sinister character of Colonel Behrani, who has mysteriously fied from Iran, taking his whole family with him.

The underlying message of the film is that they are all good people who have made bad choices or, at least,

unwise decisions. This is a highly unpredictable film for exactly this reason - you don't know whose side you should be on because you don't know who's going to win. It's uncomfortably racist in parts and deals with controversial issues such as drug addiction (a first for Connelly, then) depression and adultery. Sometimes the pace is too slow, especially in the first half, horrifically twenty minutes seems like two hours. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it maintains the interest. This is not a film for the faint-hearted - be prepared for a depressing tale of obsession and the frustration of a problem which would be solved if the characters simply got together to have a proper chat.

However, it doesn't preach at all so you feel that you've been shown a strange part in life, a window where out of the ordinary things happen. The cyclical ending intensifies this, in that the first shot is the last shot. Praise should also go to the supporting cast, who all give superb performances. See

this if you like thoughtful, beautiful films which invite you to think about the choices we have in life. If you'd rather see the latest in the Scary Movie franchise or Cheaper By the Dozen then it

The plot canters around the Bakers moving to "the big city," so Tom can coach his college football team. This is coupled with the fact that his wife (Hunt) has to go on a two week book tour leaving the gangly incompetent Martin to look after the brood by himself. Here, the movie managed to tear a few good laughs from the throat. The household degenerates into utter chaos, Martin brings his football team home not only to practice but to babysit as well. Ashton Kuchar, who plays Hank, Nora's boyfriend (Piper Perabo) is terrorized by her younger siblings.

Also, Wayne Knight makes a nice cameo as the chandelier repairman who keeps getting knocked off the ladder.

One the funniest aspects in the movie is inadvertent: as a hard-talking football coach, the extravagant and A· lame . remake : that .~ relieSI.too ; much · on ·! nasally Martin is more out more of conten than Mike Tyson teaching a ballet man, who class. In the navel, the father is actually fails to convince as a footbad:coaching an efficiency expert. Why the filmmakers chose to make this change is baffather of twelve. . (~"f~:.:· . fiing. You half-expect the players to ·";....:

mutiny against him: how could they not see the parallels between their coach and the nerd whose pants they filled with shaving cream in High School?

Once the plot reaches crisis (one of the children runs away because his frog died and everyone is too busy to be sympathetic) the mad libs began again. Prompting a refiection on movies that are genuinely moving: American

movie terrible because it doesn't really aspire to be good, at least not in any sort of artistic sense. What it aspires to be is suitable for a PG rating and still manage to be entertaining to an adult audience. It does manage to accomplish this ... at times.

Dario SulDnan

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Beautifully Cfc:un•u PUUfo'UU.IUII UILII an enthralling narrative that snakes through some strong material producing an ethically challenging story.

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here's something about watching a PG rated family film that is oddly similar to playing mad libs.

The plot, specifically the confiicts within the plot, are so watered down that you might find yourself silently adding expletives to character's lines and occasionally killing off some of them, in order to give it a bit of spice. Cheaper by the Dozen, based on the navel co-authored by Frank and Ernestine Gilbrethe is the story of the Bakers; a family in which the parents (Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt) are blessed with the bounteous loins that manage to produce 12 children. Other than this they are typical suburban WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Imagine if they had been Catholic.

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probably isn't for you.

SIUalUie Rodger

Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption.

Reality, that's what's needed, or some depiction of it containing a greater degree of ambivalence.

What this all boils down to is that when we are sickened by something averly sentimental, we are sickened as much by our inability to disconnect ourselves from it as we are at the clumsiness of its manipulation. When the entire family hugged on the fifty yard line, the only sound heard was that of teeth grinding in discomfort, as though it was something humiliating. It was nothing less than a molestation: trapped and forced to experience certain sensations against my will.

The thing is you can't really call this

25.02.04

14 DVD/VHS

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th Sean Connery appearing in roughly one film per two years, one would think he has the time, or at least would take an interest, in choosing quality work. But alas, we are subjected to The Avengers, one of - if not the worst film of the decade, and now... this? It's not a bad motion picture, but then again, it's hardly an Academy Award Winner.

Believability isn't this film's strongest trait. it wavers on the verge of a recommendation, it really does; it should be. But there was a particular scene involving a car chase through the streets of Venice (streets that, like the film critic Roger Ebert stated, do not even exist) that literally insults the

ollowing the largest ever viewer campaign, pioneered by the 'FOXhunters', to get a program reinstated, Family Guy has now got the green light from FOX to produce another series. lt 's hard to conceive of any possible objections; unless of course you are one of the myriad cultures that have been targeted by the sharp, sometimes venomous , wit of the program's creator and writer, Seth Macfarlane.

So cunning is the approach of Family Guy, however, that no one e scapes. Some of the jokes can be outstandingly subtle (a reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray, fo r example) to the point where a critical companion may prove useful, rather than a huge

F

25.02.04

average person's intelligence. At least, what little intelligence they may have.

Ok, so this is fantasy, comic book adaptation, but it really should display some confidence in the knowledge of the audience.

Keep in mind that the year is 1899.

Automobiles have hardly been invented. Yet, we are shown one zipping around at 100 miles per hour, through streets that never - and don't - exist; past guards who can't seem to be able to shoot a cat off a flea's back at two yards, and through pillars and windy little crevices and who knows what else. And all the while this vehicle is being driven by a young American who we are led to believe are twenty-four years old. Even the staunchest imagist would complain about the level of believability. Even those who cite Commando as a film brimming with artistic merit would be aghast.

Ah, yes, there is a plot behind this mess, but not a very smart one at all.

Sean Connery plays Allan

waste of some lonely individual's time.

The comfortable, almost relaxed, style of the series - or perhaps the huge naivete of the average viewer - has secured a prime time slot for the show, despite some sharp-breath-taking subject matter.

While comparisons with The Simpsons are unavoidable, Family Guy has more bite, occupying the middle ground between Homer & Co. and South Park. Peter is the archetypal overweight father, who has a habit of overvocalising his irreverent, but logical, stupidity: "If I'm a child Lois, then you 're a paedophile; and I'll be damned if I'm gonna stand here and be lectured by a pervert" ;While Lois is the long-suffering wife wh o stabilises the family and courts a temper that puts Bruce Banne r to s hame. The two teenagers, C hris & Meg, each have differing reactions to social marginalisation; the former frustrated by her looks while the latter is just simply bizarre.

The baby of the family, and closet

Quartermain. With the intended audience of this film obviously being little kids and rednecks living in their parents' basement in Louisiana with fourth grade educations (you know who you are) . Perhaps the filmmakers thought that they could dupe everyone into believing that Allan Quartermain is responsible in part for the creation of the quarter. Well, for the heck of it, let's just say he is - we can't screw up facts any more than they already are!

Quartermain is like the father of Indiana Jones (oh, wait , didn't Connery play that part already?) He's a legendary adventurer responsible for renowned events around the world; so esteemed are these events that they warrant no kind of detail whatsoever.

An emissary from England mentions he is the role model for all little boys and the focus of all their stories. Perhaps he meant to say the laughing stock. Who knows?

visual effects, but the rest of the film is anything but extraordinary. And I really felt cheated when I realized that Mr. Hyde was a big Hulk who could change back and forth voluntarily, just like the former rather than being the darker, more disfigured character Stevenson envisioned. Some day they should get a good modern remake of the book with just enough visual effects to make him look terrifying but still somewhat human. In the meantime, the director of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Stephen Norrington, may

soon be receiving a phone call from StanLee. Dan Chandler

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen boasts some extraordinary

homosexual, Stewie, is intent on murdering his Mother (as he reveals on one of the featurettes: "It's not that I want to kill Lois; it 's just that I don't want her to be alive ... any longer) and Brian is the incredibly intelligent, but thoroughly alcoholic, Dog. The greater variety of Staple characters means there's more material to play with and the ideas aren't as tired as the Groening board.

The decision to restore is also due, in part, to the enormous success of the DVD sales. This is the first time a company has allowed the economics of the home video market to influence a decision regarding the possible success of a terrestrial program. It is this succe ss that also p rompted the d e cision to put all 50 episodes produced so far into one box set, along with a host of extra features to satiate any expectation for the new series.

In addition to all fifty episodes, there are a couple of featurettes that reveal the extent to which the cast are involved in the writing process. Alex

Borstein (Lois) reveals her extensive contributions, including the performance of just about every female voice.

Macfarlane reveals that many of the episodes involved bargaining with the censors, exchanging certain words in return for keeping a certain subject, or phrase. There are a number of -largely superfluous - trailers and 14 episode commentaries that prove the cast and crew can be just as humorous off camera. All in all, if you 're going to own any Family Guy it might as well be this box set, it will keep you amused for hours; days; weeks; years ...

Pbilip Sainty

l

Arts 15

Opera Review The Tempest Thomas Ades set himself a mammoth task in traDsforming Shakespeare's The Tempest into an opera. Judging by the rapturous applause with which it was received, the youngest person eve.r to be commissioned by the Royal Opera House has sw::ceeded in creating a spellbinding and enthralling piece of work.

Ades has created a modern day masterpiece. It Oows almost perfectly and the music is as enchanting as Shakespeare's plot. With a strong cast and Tom Cairns's production skills the audience cannot but be left in wonderment and admiration.

Simon Keenlysi.de is powerful as Prospero and Cyndia Sieden brings the magic of Ariel to life; her skittish, often high-pitch, lines emphasise the distinction between the worlds of men and spirits perfectly. Sadly, lan Bostridge was ill the night I attended but Christopher Lemmings gave an admirclble performance as Caliban.

Christine Rice and Toby Spence were believable as the two lovers, although they lacked intensity,

and although good, the comic foils of Lawrence Zazzo and Stephen Richardson failed to provideadequate contrast at times; though this fault seems more directorial rather than that of the performers.

The set is a truly marvellous creation: simplistic and yet at the same time highly effective and evocative. The centrepiece, a versatile mechanical platform, is a work- of art in its own right. Imperceptibly morphing to create various landscapes, it effectively brought to life every setting needed from beach to cave. Neon lighting is used to great effect to evoke the spirit world and this neon theme is successfully continued into the costume of Ariel who glows half green while remaining half black, thus effectively representing the two worlds she inhabits.

With Ades conducting his own work for its debut run, the full force of his creation is immediately clear. Both the orchestra and the chorus do him proud and there is certainly no hint that final rehearsals were a race against time as Ades rushed to make final changes to his work.

Though relatively young, Ades professionalism, perfectionism and innate musical ability shine through. This piece reveals his musical coming of age and is sure to be performed repeatedly around the world.

Domillic Chessam

I

Theatre Review Huis Clos One set comprised of three pairs of chairs covered in different coloured cloths: red, green, blue, and three characters none of which you'd want to spend an evening with alone, all of them dead. Hell? Well apparently. Jean-Paul Sartre 11n0te Huis Clos in 1944 and it deals with the idea that are doomed to need the affirmation of those around us and they will forever let us down.

It is important to point out that while the prodnction was put on in the Drama Studio it was performed by the Sacre Theatre Company and directed by Ralph Yarrow. Furthermore, it is in the original French so it can only be appreciated fully by those who are Ouent but it is still enjoyable if you have a less advanced grasp of the language: The fact that it is still possible to appreciate the character complexities and the jokes (most of them wry rather than laugh-out-loud this is Sartre after all) as well as the essence of the concept says a lot for both the play and this production of it.

The simplicity of set and complexity of premise made good characterisation of Joseph, IDes and Estelle vital; and it was the intricate

portrayal of these deeply Oawed, image conscious 'absents' that made the play a success.

Claudine Tourniaire's bird-like, nerve-ridden Estelle was parti~ly impressive. She was the last of the characters to enter the room we later discover to be hell and her obsession with sitting on a seat which doesn't clash with her blue dress and the other characters' efforts to accommodate her illustrates the vices and attitudes which got them there in the first place. As the play progresses the extent of these perversions of personality becomes clear and monstrous acts from each of their pasta are declared. lnes' story of destroying her friend's marriage and the ensuing suicides of husband and wife was perhaps the most shocking. However, the sense of claustrophobia caused by reliving one's actions could have been made clearer in a more restricted performance space, possibly one limited to within the area created by the chairs. This said, the way the characters filled the space with constant, but fitting, movement made it visually interesting and the absence of any boundaries besides the surrounding doors through which the characters entered gave the appropriate feel of timelessness and placelessness probably found in an eternal prison of ones own making.

Comedy Review Banana Splitz Comedy Night Funny thing, comedy. UEA 's Banana Split comedy nights really do elaborate the differences between established and up-and-coming comedians on the comedy circuit. Take MC Marcus Birdman, compare on the evening of Monday 16th Febuary. His use of repeatedly average material from venue to venue has ensured his place slap bang on the middle'ish plinth on the most average scale of average.

Birdman is one of those comics who identifies with the tried and tested method, which is why he will never be one of the greats, although his opening line of, "What! You're looking at me like I've just rode into a Bar Mitzvah on a pig", was received with great applause.

On the other hand was the East Anglian, Andrew Bird; young, fresh and eager to establish himself with the big boys. Once you were able to overlook his slightly deformed face and start to comprehend his material through his various speech impediments, he was actually quite funny. More of an anecdotal comic, he acts as liv-

ing proof that if you deliver with enthusiasm, and you genuinely want to establish yourself as a fine comedian through making your audiences laugh, you can do.

Lastly was the cult Canadian Comedy genius that is Sean Collins, arguably one of the most established and funniest men on the circuit when he puts the effort in, there are few me11 the planet who could top his whit. Sadly this tL Collins decided not to put in the effort. slouched around on the stage talking to us ill he were hosting an informal dinner party, a. opposed to being paid to deliver comedy material to a paying audience. Collins has lived comedy for over a decade so even a casual lecture from him on sex, drugs, (accompanied by a near live drug deal with a pot smoking member of the audience) and prison life is funnier than most comedians rehearsed material, but is only a minuscule display of how funny he actually is.

This seems to be a common trait with headline acts, as those who saw 'Danny Bhoy' last month will adhere to. So, Adam Bloom, if you are reading this, please do not follow suit next month.

BeaMillar

Katbarine Clemow

..

Theatre Preview Once in a Lifetime Choosing a 'classy whacky American comedy' for a second year assessed piece of drama is a departure from the rather serious material that's usually deemed best at showing off what drama students can do. The decision was made to suit the particular 'comic genius' of the group of which John Hyde, who's directing, seems so proud and he's clearly keen to share it with as many people as he can squeeze into the UEA Studio.

Once in a Lifetime was first performed in 1930 on Broadway at a time when the first 'talkie ' movies were coming alongside classic musicals such as Singin' in the Rain and screwball-comedies like Bringing up Baby and The Thin Man. The fast-paced, brightly coloured glamour of the films of the time is there in spades in stage productions of this kind.

Hyde sees this aspect of the production as another opportunity for the performers to display their talents by providing the taxing techni-

cal support vital to the show themselves while each cast member gets to work as part of a sizeable ensemble; something even the most successful actors in the year will be fortunate to do once they leave university. Whilst the chance to work as a 'whole' will give the 24 players the arena in which to demonstrate their wide range of abilities, those lucky enough to see the show will be treated to the kind of bold, brassy entertainment not often brought to the Studio.

Hyde assures me that the simple, fun narrative and the infectious enthusiasm of the performers will guarantee an enjoyable evening for all. He's unwilling to give away too much of the plot but says that it's the story of two men and a woman who, as a failed vaudeville act and with just pennies in their pockets, head for Hollywood to try their luck and 'see what becomes of them ... ' There is likely to be pressure on tickets due to the wide ranging appeal of Once in a Lifetime the show that sealed the collaboration of Moss Hart and George S. Kaubnan and propelled them into the spotlight so be sure to look out for stalls at the Hive or drop into the Box Office.

Katharine Clemow

c

Courtney Love American Sweetheart Courtney Love, once famously proclaimed by Kurt Cobain to be the 'Best fuck in the world', is now more likely to be listed as just another one of America's fuck-ups; the drugs, the fights , the court cases, the custody of Frances Bean .. .it all reads like a XXX Jerry Springer show. Nevertheless an American Sweetheart she is, her public demolition and subsequent humiliation oozing rock 'n roll charm, much like this , her first solo album since flipping the bud to AufDer Maur et al and ending the unholy uruon that was Hole.

Many will expect this album to be slut - and who can blame the m? Few will kow-tow to 1ts' demands to be taken as a punk statement of balls out fenurusm , wluch strikes as a darned shame cons1denng the lengths Love has gone to vocally out-do the Distillers' Brody Dalle. Love's collaborators in this effort lend her n o favours either - many tracks were eo-writte n with former Non Blonde Lmd a Perry, the s ame w e all h ave to 'thapk' for revitalising Pink's p laye d out career, and traces of h er mind lessly optimistic p op-trash hooks rear their heads with a sluteating grin all over the place. Still, With tlus m mind, there's still enough Love snot strung around to make this a gnarle d work of rock triump halism.

Starting with a brackish uppercut, lea d single Mono is a mission statement that gets better with every listen, and, as already witnessed , a prime radio slow-b urner; " This is the part

day/ Did you miss me?' spits Love, as 1f she'd just knocked over Madonna's birthday cake, buzzmg out of her mmd on Qualludes. But julian I'm A LitUe Bit Older Than You is a bleary eyed ''You were slut in bed anyway" to Strokes frontman Jules Casablancas, rapped up in a Dear John of sheer pogoing brilliance ("1 came, I went, I craved, Oh no I faked ill He's still tied to the bed/ Adorable, affordable" - yowzers JC!). The rock' is reinforced with similarly vitr10lic outbursts on All The Drugs, l'/1 Do Anything and Zeplm Song, all lyrical smut and all fizzing and poppmg with more energy than one might expect from a growingly disparate Courtney Love.

The slower numbers generally fail to ke ep to tlus lugh quality of melody while the guitars aren't turne d up to 11 , and when Courtne y croons " This life is never fair/ The ang els that you n eed are never there," on Hold Onto Me , h e r fracture d-jaw-whore voice makes her so und more confused than insp ired . Still, this, Sunset Strip and N ever Gonna Be The Same carry the album along well e n oug h between the admittedly guilty highlights of slut rock taken to the Nth d e gree.

Much like C o urtney, American Sweetheart IS a diamond in the rough, not the polish ed turd some m ay h ave it written off as .

If Live Through This was written by Cobain, Celebri ty Skin by Corgan, the n this one at le asts feels like Love - one might alost say .. .it's a Love gun!

of the book not returned/ Where I'm gonna come and save the

M a tt Sargeson

The latest entry in the Late Night Thles series of albums, this one's been compiled by acoustic balladeers Turin

of quality. Settling down to write this review of the sequel, on the day after Valentine's day, it is clear that this is an album that worlcs equally well for lovers and those with broken hearts.

Brakes. Worryingly, the booklet says that these albums are based on 1970's Top of the Pops easy listening LPs. It also suggests that this one represents a new strand of the blues, where "bruised melancholia" and "simply beautiful songs" are focused on. Folk then, in other words or, more accurately, yuppie folk. The actual album is much like the band themselves: tasteful, inoffensive, but rarely interesting.

While there is the odd cracking track, like Smog's Cold Blooded Old Times or Les Barons (the obligatory world music choice), most of it ends up blending into each other, which is probably the point. Basically, this is music for business professionals and (I'm sorry, it can't be avoided) students to get stoned to. Music quality is beside the point because it's aimed at people who want a hip background soundtrack instead of something they'd actually have to listen to. Special mention must also be made of the Brakes' cover of Moonlight Mile, where they render one of the greatest Rolling Stones songs utterly lifeless.

Maybe in the future they should just stick to doing their own songs boringly.

That is, until this record by liars came/comes oul liars' last album was mental punk funk with songs about picking berries. The music was in the vein of the mighty Gang of Four with staccato guitar lines, rubber thumbed bass playing and drums that go "doosh, doosh, doosh, doosh".

1n the time between They Threw Us In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On 1bp (the last album) being released and this one, liars have read Harry Potter, bought

The music is much the same as before, a mellifluous combination of Soul, Jazz and Lounge music, rendered with a loving deftness of touch which brings vibrancy to musical forms that can all too easily be rendered staid or worthy in the wrong hands. There was simply no need to move on. Rather, when it falls can be seen as a refinement and consolidation of what has gone before, with a detectable narrowing of the instrumental palette which helps to bring Zero 7 into focus, combating criticisms of anonymity which have been levelled against them in the past.

It is rare for new music to grab jOur attention with its serenity: exciting music is usually fast and loud. When It Rl11s is exactly what you want from a downbeat album, being relaxing but still utterly compelling, from the anaesthetic groove of opening Wann Sound, through the perfectly judged harmonies of Over Our Heads, before being brought to rest with the gently Dub-infused Morning Song. A real gem. ]onatban Perbnutter

a Norah }ones album and probably taken a whole bunch of Ketamine. This is the sound of the Liars going coffee table ... but wait! Nay! Do not dismiss this album as complete arse because, to some, it may sound like Tortoise without the bassoons and flugelhoms. And to others it'll sound like a bunch of art students deep throating themselves. The guitar manages not to sound like guitar which is pretty smart and the drums are very quiet and go ''pitter patter pitter patter - clang''.

And that's about it. I've listened to the album loads and I don't know if it's any good yet. Might be good. Might be bolloclc!. I don't know.

Richie "Sleepaver" ]ones

blance to his unpretentious former glories than anything contained on Blazing Arrow. The beats are kept simple and looser than that fresher you pulled at the first LCR of the year. ln keeping with that theme, there's no preachy tone or moralising diatribes to be heard, and as a result his caramel-thick flaw is left to flaw over what sounds like a funky afternoon at Speaker's Corner.

Guest appearances are thankfully kept to a minimum, too, making this sound all the more like a 'proper' solo outing. Whereas Blazing Arrow featured everyone from Gil-Scot Heron to former Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha, this time around only relative-unknown Vursatyl from Quannum-labelmates The Lifesavas crops up on both Way Of The light and Real MCs to bolster Gab's star~. uplifting verses with his contrasting tenacity.

From its title you might have expected yet more cartoonish space-age rap that fails to blast off. What we have instead might be too mellow to class as out of this world, but it is nonetheless pretty stellar.

Many of jOU may be familiar with Fabric, one of London's premier nightclubs, but less of you may be familiar with their C.D. compilations. After successfully producing records that span every genre imaginable, it was almost inevitable that a hip-hop instalment was on the horizon. And for this first introduction, Fabric has made an inspired choice in their selection ofDJ Spinbad

th Dimensional ocketshlps Going Up

Rob La'lline

Putting this on the CD player, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was Terry Collier played too fast, or Stevie Wonder p layed too slaw.ln fact its the second album by top studio boffs, Zero 7, who were responsible for the surprise hit of 2001, Simple Things, an album notable for the fact that it is the only 21st birthday present that I haven't either broken or used up. This, then, is a true mark

Ahoy fashionistas and indie kids!

Hear Ye! There's something missing in your life isn't there? The rest of us have no qualms about listening to Dido, Katie Mellua and that cock end who dismembered 1ÂŁNe Cats on the Brits by playing the p iano like a wanker when we want something jazzy and hip for our church coffee mornings. Which is all very nice, but there hasn't really been a coffee table quasi-jazz record made by the indie kids, for indie kids.

Sometimes it really is question of keeping it real The Gift Of Gab, erstwhile vocalist of underground hip-hop duo Blackalicious, has stripped down his sound since the commen:ial failure and critical indifference that greeted Bl azing Arrow, the 'Licious's only foray as supposed major label contenders that overegged their positive, Afro...<:entric message a couple of years back.

4th Dimensional... shows him back on his original independent label, Quannum (previously home of DJ Shadow), bearing a much greater resem-

The New York resident is a man almost synonymous with the hip-hop scene during the eighties and this is reflected in a record that proves to be a veritable history of hip-hop. Spinbad effortlessly blends old school classics

and new school grooves while maintaining an up-tempo vibe that sees the likes of Grandmaster f1ash fused with Nas and Run D.M.C. mixed with Eric Band Rakim.

It is however Spinbad's use of remDe5 blended with his awn inimitable scratching style that means this mix never misses a beat, and records lilre The Message sound as relevant and current today as they ever did.

This style of mixing classic and contemporary is not a recenr creation but it worlcs, and will undoubtedly keep on worlcing. H this is only the first instalment then we must ask., what took you so long?!

CbrisLee

There aren't many bands around right now doing the 'three-piece' thing, and even fewer doing it as confidently as Cxackout. With ten tracks of prime indie pop, Oh No! is the soond of a band with time to waste and enough melodic nous to make any Pop Idol contestant break down and weep. Out Of Our Minds is a chirpy sing-a-long that veers dangerously close to Clint Boon territory while FreaJcin' All Night is an assured exercise in law-key guitar pop. demonstrating Crackout's ability to slip UJ1der -your skin and take up residence in your frontal lobe, in a good way.

Even the str:ipped--down Robots Have Feelings has a quirlty charm about itself, with its simple melodies and crashing choruses that bounces off each other and gentle introduction of a nicely understatedsynth.

Oh No! is han:lly tbe most revolutionary of albmns, but its' simple, poppy p leasures should be sampled. The musical equivalent of sherbet damn nice, but a bit insubstantial and shouldn't be mistaken for hard drugs.

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Single Choice

Live Reviews

The Jeevas

Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

Back in the days when Kula Shaker were still pretending to be from a hippy commune in the Himalayas, it was probably fair to assume that their floppy-fringed singer Crispian Mills wouldn't be the first to revive his flagging post-Britpop career with a triumphant return to the charts. After all, how many Grateful Dead revivals can the world take? More than you might expect, as it turns out, because - joy of joys! - Crispy is back with new(ish) band The Jeevas.

Have You Ever Seen the Rain, from the trio's second album, arrives with nary a whiff of incense in noseshot. In fact, the strategically-placed eastern influences that overwhelmed Kula Shaker's records have all but diappeared, and in their place is some good old fashioned rock 'n' roll. Have You Ever... twangs and jangles with the laid-back mellown--~e ?f The Charlatans doing Dylan, complete with harmonica break and convincing seventies face-fuzz. It's authentic and inoffensive, but suffers from the overriding sense that something more vital is going on elsewhere. The Jeevas pay gentle homage to a decade of radiofriendly rock, while ignoring the scores of whirling punk kids and flamboyant glam rockers who are holding an infinitely more exciting knees-up JUSt round the corner.

"I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?," they ask. Yes I have. It's cold, wet and slightly disappointing. A bit like your single.

Sarah Edwardes

The Vines -Ride When grunge died, some people just couldn't let it go. Some changed to Britpop - one man simply created a band called The Vines and went on to copy his idols' stage antics, word for word, smash for grab. Hell, he even wrote Nirvana their long lost single! Ride comes from the same face-smashing vortex that Mr Craig Nicholls created as a side project to his McDonalds lunch break.

Another catchy two minute radio pop song that is sure to fire up those who listen to Jo Whiley while proudly brandishing their "I Love Craig" tshirts. A solid tune, good enough for any moshwannabe. ]ames Banks

Haven: Jelly

Haven - Wouldn't Change a Thing The new single from Haven says that they "wouldn't change a thing," but there is a lot that could be changed if they wanted to make a decent song. It has been put together using the same jelly mould that Starsailor have been throwing out into the public for a while now. The song would sound good on a car commercial soundtrack, advertsing the next family friendly five-door hatchback. You can almost imagine the car accelerating away into the distance ... probably hoping that they can't hear the song anymore!

.Amen Bleed1ng

What's going on? Have Starsailor been taken over by the spirit of Northern Soul? Has someone led James Walsh to the dancefloor and taught him how to boogie-woogie all night long? Ah no, it was just the introduction. Thirty seconds in and Four to the Floor sounds exactly like every other Starsailor single: epic in a limited kind of way, rousing like a luke-warm shower and generally insipid enough to force poor jaded reviewers to overuse the word 'nice.' Nice chorus. Nice drum break. Nice piano bit that sounds like the sample out of 2Pac's California Love. Just plain 'nice'.

Like an embarrassing facial blemish that refuses to disappear, Casey "No really, I am relevant" Chaos and his merry band of sub-Wildhearts imitators are back with this featureless load of rubbish. Meathead one-fingered riffs and Chaos's unspectacular growl fail to distinguish this predictable angstfeat from anything spewing from Middle America's bowel during the late 90s. With none of the urgency or anger of Amen's earlier material, California's Bleeding is a shoddy attempt to return to the notoriety that Chaos previously enjoyed. Go away now, please.

Sarah Edwardes

Ben Patashnik

With the possible exception of the grinning gits off Pop Idol, there's not enough evil in the charts nowadays. Especially if The Barbs are any indication as to how the modern Satan-worshipping professional likes their music. "I want some young folks to shout 'God bless evi/r in a Hole meets mid-90s irritators Bis kind of way, while playing a riff of killer powerchords and doing their best to wake up the entire neighbourhood with their infernal noisemaking. The scamps! Ooh, and make sure the drums creak under the sheer force of rock that is upon them. Cheers."

Face-melting stuff indeed.

Sarah Edwardes

Cypress Bill- What's Your Number

Gluecifer- Losing End

showing why nice guys often finish last. Of course, this being hip-hop, they still end up banging in the back of his Benz at the end of the night. This may sample the awesome Guns of Brixton but everything about it, from the crappy cartoon cover, to the goofy lyrics, suggest that they've turned into the hip-hop Offspring, and Offspring suck, dude.

Thought hip-shaking, footstamping alt country died the last time Ryan Adams fell off the stage? Think again boyo, because with Losing End Gluecifer are trying to assert themselves as the new kings of the genre. And true, it is a fairly enjoyable slab of jangly riffs and memorable hooks, but it keeps threatening to dissolve into Rhinestone Cowboy just before the chorus and frankly, that scares me. Far, far better than anything Kings Of Leon have ever done, and totally devoid of anything that has ever been deemed "cool" so chances are that this will disappear without trace even though it's inoffensive enough to be quite good.

RobLavine

Ben Patashnik

Remember when Cypress Hill used to rap about smoking drugs and shooting people?

Well, now they've reached maturity. "/ would like to get to know you, can we have a conversation, girl give me a chance," whines Sen Dog,

T

cernible dance area, Courtney Pine's Devotion manages to dispel any notion that there may be a tour surrounding the single event.

They are truly devoted musicians, many of them bringing their skills to various community schemes, which results in a performance that is acutely aware of the audience having a good time. All the solos displayed some kind of absolutely astounding bit of musical capability. But, then, this is Jazz; or so we are told.

Fact is, the blending of styles by this band is so lucid that it is hard to conceive why anyone wouldn't enjoy seeing them. When a musician manages to meld Redemption Song or the theme form the Flake adverts into some manic scale-scaling piece of jazzfunk-Caribbean-whatever, you realise you are watching something entirely different. The audience tells a similar story. Old school jazz fiends nodded approvingly or screwed their faces in bemusement at the extent to which the members of Devotion have mastered their instruments; while others, evidently under some kind of chemical influence, attempted to dance but then got distracted by a colourful poster.

So to pigeonhole this experience as simply watching a jazz band would be false. The range of different moods, from mellow close-your-eyes-and-drift through to booty shaking dance your feet off, is breathtaking. Alright, so the average metal head isn't going to be impressed, but they generally aren't impressed by anything that doesn't ruminate in some way on the notion of suicide. If there's one thing you're going to do in life, go and see Courtney Pine; even if it's for no other reason than, when he tells you "we're just warming up", he means it.

Philip Sainty

Jamelia- Thank You

]ames Banks

The Barbs The Importance of Being Evil

California's

StarsaUor - Four to the 17oor

here's nothing worse than a gig where the audience stands static, as if they're watching marionettes. It's worse when the band is putting absolutely everything they've got into the performance. While this may seem a trite observation, there are few gigs nowadays when you get to truly appreciate the intensity and the enjoyment of the people playing. Rarer still is the notion that the performers are actually playing for that night, and not just going through the motions of the tour track listing.

Depite the loss of a smokey venue with circular _ _ _ _...,_.. tables and a clearly dis-

Listening to Thank You feels a bit like watching one of those well-meaning kids' TV shows with a message about 'issues' crammed incongruously into its otherwise light-hearted plotline. Jamelia's new single though it might not sound like it from the not-quite-Beyonce verses and big swooning clubfriendly chorus - is a song about Domestic Violence. 'For every last bruise you gave me I For every time I sat in tears,' she trills, as a dance beat slinks sultrily in the background. It's a slightly disconcerting mix, but if a message of empowerment is most potent when it is unexpected, you can't fault her motives.

Georgina Smorgasbord

Jamella: Incongruous

Anyone present at Po Na Na's this Thursday night was in fine company. The DJ's were wild, the crowd that much wilder - a 'mad for it' collective of bass and breaks heads tearing up the smallish dancefloor and boogalooing between drink stacked pillars.

After some ace support from in-house Twisted Skunk DJ's (including a crazy mash-up of the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight and the Beasties' lntergalagtic) the Stanton Warrior's took to the decks and mini-synth and proceeded to whip up a storm of old an new house and breaks classics.

Though Po Na Na's usually trades off it's warm-up Monday nights for students, with a dedicated crowd of clubbers filling the space the venue was transformed into a microcosm of Human 7Tclffic-styled euphoria and bodes well for future nights featuring the likes of Krafty Kuts and DJ Yoda.

The Stanton Warriors' kept the pace high through the night, only allowing for the occasional cooling lull before caving in the roof with intermittent and frequent bursts of leg crazy action. It made me feel fresh and gave the hit needed- hopefully concurrent special nights at Po Na Na's will hold the same promise if this is what they've got in store. Check 'em out.

MattlJew Sargeson

---------, 25.02.04

18 TV/Games

MiSS ThiS: Mad About Alice, Friday 8.30pm BBC 1

Best of the Rest

Sometimes there are TV programmes that are doomed from the start - that resemble car crashes from the minute of their inception. Ideas like giving Ulrika Jonsson an hour-long comedy showcase or making an American version of One Foot In The Grave with Bill Cosby as the star. Mad About A!ice belongs firmly in this company. Since the success of My Family in the early Friday night slot, the BBC has been searching for more main-

01 Family Business Wednesday. 9pm B C

stream family comedies to repeat the trick, and so settled for an innocuous sitcom where a divorced couple who still love each other bicker for half an hour while their kid, eo-workers and new boy/girlfriends hang out in the background.

It's not original, but it could have at least been okay.

Unfortunately, where this really fell down was when they started casting the thing. Expecting Amanda Holden and Jarnie Theakston to be not only funny, but also a convincing couple was always going to be a long shot, and the lack of chemistry between them is embarrassing.

Considering this is meant to be a vehicle chiefly for her, Holden in particular is terrible.

Incapable of doing comedy or even connecting with what she's saying, she makes Theakston, who can't even present TV programmes properly, look good in comparison.

John Cordon Sinclair meanwhile overacts horribly as one of Holden's loser workmates who's in love with her.

To make things worse, the writing's awful.

The comic situations the characters end up in are uniformly unpromising, e.g. trying to get their kid into a good school, or bickering about Theakston's Sunday football team, while the jokes range from the unfunny to the antiquated and the plain nonsensical. The writer, Paul Waite, was best known before this as the creator of Sam's Game, a dire twenty-something sitcom which provided Davina McCall with a vehicle for her own terrible acting, and which was quickly cancelled. Holden's performances may be bad but expecting her to make a character that does nothing but whine and nag for the entire show likeable would probably be beyond the range of most actresses, let alone someone whose comedic experience consists of a couple of episodes of Smack the Pony. If this was on ITV; they probably would have panicked and pulled the plug by now but if My Hero is anything to go by, it's going to be a while before Mad About Alice suffers the same fate.

RobLavine

1

Drama revolving around builder, Marky (Jarnie Forman), and his family as they deal with the strange disappearence of eldest son James, and various other trials and tribulations. From Tony Grounds the writer of Births, Marriages and Deaths this is sure to be worth watching.

02 Rick Stein's Food Heroes ....,rursda]. (').30_tJn, B Of course none of the dishes profiled by Rick and Chalky (Rick 's canine pal) could be whipped up by your average fairweather chef.

That doesn't â&#x20AC;˘ .__ _....J mean however, that its not fun to sit back and relax while Rick does all the work, scouring the country for the very finest culinary delights. Even if you're not fond of the dishes, it's a beautiful profile of the UK for any foodie.

03 Bewitched Weekdays , 8:30am Channel 4 no ter way to up than a classic

oodles of bizarre 60's US suburban charm.

The world would be a better place if we could all just wiggle our noses and levitate the furniture.

Kate Bryant

ames:

Britain's Best Sitcoms: Only Fools and Horses, Saturday 28th February Only fools and Horses is 'The Daddy' of the top ten! I don't see anyone being able to say anything different. It might not be the best written, the most relevant , the most consistently funny or witty (surely this title has to go to Blackadder).

However, it is the architypal British comedy that we seem to have completely embraced as a nation. It has got to the point where David Jason is practically a Saint in the eyes of the British public, and though there is nothing wrong with it there isn 't anything in the top ten that can beat it for all round appeal. It is universally loved in all sectors of society because it is not trying to anything other than make people laugh and at times be very touching and this it does magnificently well as anyone would agree. The characters are

easy going, nice and fun series to some out on British TV; and long may it 's epeisodes be re-run.

TimBarker

The Vicar Of Dibley, Saturday 13th March The Vicar of Dibley is funny and well-written, with a talented cast. Dawn French is radiant as Vicar Geraldine Granger, and deserves to have a mention in any discussion of great contemporary comedy. This appears to be the view of the minority, however. We're all too ready to damn what we view to be watered down, incredibly non-offensive, oh-so British, character-based comedy but I cannot help but think we're missing out on some quality viewing. The Vicar of Dibley panders to the epitome of what is thought to be classic British comedy. Toilet humour, physical gags, and catch-phrases reign supreme. As a nation we seem largely ashamed of this, and as a result our newest sitcoms take serious measures to avoid anything that would make the British public laugh, just look at Mad About Alice.

Currently, our viewing is saturated with US sitcoms, glamorous big-shots trading witty retorts and sipping espressos. The Vicar of Dibley does

not play by these rules. It may be the most recent of the top ten, yet stylistically it's no more modern than The Good Life or Open All Hours.

It's on safe ground, and we all feel cheated that something so retrogressive has experienced such popularity.

However, derivative as it may be, The Vicar of Dibiey is not simple. As much as it pains me to say so, Richard Curtis has done a good job. One of the most significant British writers for some time, Curtis is responsible for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and all the other awful films that followed it with Hugh Grant as the romantic lead.

The Vicar of Dibley is the work of a writer who is acutely aware of the rules of sitcom, with a teaslurping, antiques road-show watching view of British life that seems to have served him well on both the big and small screens.

The Vicar of Dibley isn't going to win this competition, but this isn't a huge disappointment

as worthy as the show may be, it isn't the best sitcom on this list. Yes, there are plenty of laughs to be had, but that's all really. The show isn't thought-provoking, and no matter how well it is performed it will never revolutionise tv comedy.

It 's good, in fact it's very good, but greatness requires a few more risks to be taken.

Kate Bryant

player actually being onscreen in different ways.

There is no controller involved; the Eye Toy camera plugs straight into your PS2, perches on top of your telly like something out of Batteries Not Included and everything from !hereon in is done by the erratic jiggling of body parts.

You'll be forgiven for not rushing out and buying one straight away, admittedly the Eye Toy has "fad" written all over it. Most of us avoided the easily resisted temptation to go out and buy a Dance Mat, realising that such games were best left to 12-year-olds in arcades. Anything designed to

radically change the way we use our consoles for years to come seems destined to failure, so why waste good beer money? Especially when its 4ft wide, luminous, and requires you to jump around like a monkey on hot coals to operate it. The Eye Toy on the other hand seems to know its place in life. It has resigned itself to the realm of the toy, the fun but slightly short lived add-on that you can show off at parties but would never play on your own.

The i-Toy, PS2 The Eye Toy (ÂŁ39.99 PS2) is the latest bit of superfluous kit you can acquire to jazz up your gaming experience. With very little in common with anything previously seen on the shelves, the Eye Toy relies on our most narcissistic tendencies. The main idea being that through the use of a clever little camera, you can see yourself onscreen as you take part in a motion sensitive game of your choice.

You can watch your pixelised reflection do anything from cleaning windows to slapping kung-fu dwarves armed with nunchucks. In fact , the range of mini-games you get with the Eye Toy is impressive and each uses the concept of the

25.02.04

so well known now that they are probably the most well known names in the country next to the Queen. If a poll was done for anyone over the age of about fifteen then I doubt that there would be more than a percent of the total people who didn't recognise the names 'Del Boy' and 'Rodney ' or the surname 'Trotter,' and most of all who would not recognise this put down "You plonker Rodney! " It may have gone on too long, though the millions who watch even the re-runs would disagree with me, but it is undeniably the top dog of the top ten British sitcoms and though others might have their favourites I doubt there are many people who would begrudge it for winning the best sitcom title, and they must be jaded people indeed, as Only Fools is one of the most

Kate Bryant

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