Fuse issue 57

Fuse.

The Great Gatsby Where do games go next?

The Staves They Go To Die

SHORT FUSE

Sparks.

Rest in peace, SOYO Live

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OYO wasn’t only good for cheap and tasty cocktails, you know. Last week we said a sad farewell to SOYO Live, a weekly evening dedicated to the newest and best live Sheffield music. Since it began the venue has played host to a myriad of local talent, including Hey Sholay, the Cartels, and more recently Blessa and Laurel Canyons.

In addition to its weekly event, SOYO is also a busy and in demand Tramlines stage, again featuring up-and-coming acts.

Last year, hundreds of bands were crammed in from midday ‘til the early hours. What SOYO has done for bands in Sheffield is beyond exhausting to think about.

Without SOYO Live, the city’s music scene probably won’t

Editorial

plummet into ruin. However its loss will still be felt amongst the thousands of eager gig-goers throughout Sheffield who profit from free and regular live music.

There are several amazing free or cheap venues still out there (check out The Riverside) and not all cities have two free music festivals to hand.

It’s fantastic to be living in a city that cherishes its music scene – old and new – and makes sure, year after year, that it remains accessible to everyone. SOYO Live will be missed, but its championing of local music can be found in all the live venues, bars, and most importantly, audiences throughout the city. We raise our cocktails to you, SOYO. Rachel Smith

This one time, I dressed up as Pippi Longstocking

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n World Book Day when I was 11 years old, I donned a pinafore, pencilled black freckles onto my cheeks and sprayed my hair with orange dye.

Teachers stopped me to congratulate me on my stripy socks and stuffed monkey. The kids wanted to know why I had chosen to dress as a lanky ginger with an animal fetish. I was supposed to be Pippi Longstocking.

I devoured books in handfuls like Skittles all through school,

sometimes two novels a week if I had the time and the shelf space.

This continued in a whirlwind of Austen, Shakespeare and Hosseini up until the last summer before university. In one of our rare Indian summers, I had the time to lie in the grass and read dusty second hand books like the bohemian goddess I secretly wanted to be.

Since coming to university however, the most time I have spent staring at a page was during fresher’s week when the campus map was all but glued to every-

one’s fingertips.

Previously book-loving friends are similarly without protagonist guidance. Is it that a vaguely adult life now means there’s simply no time for reading?

World Book Day last week has brought up the question – why don’t students read? It’s certainly not lack of passion. Oxfam is full of students sifting through Pratchett and Orwell novels.

For me, it’s a lack of time. With lectures, seminars, articles, shorthand, nights out and days spent trying to work the price of a new

leather jacket into my budget, when I get into bed it’s all I can do to remember to set my alarm before falling into a deep, dream-filled sleep of Corp flashbacks and Marks and Spencer’s food.

Back home, our house is groaning under the strain of books. It’s not an adult issue it seems, but a student one. The solution? Less alcohol and more nights in.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to catch on.

Who thinks bunnies are cute?

And who thinks it’s weird that one of the Fuse editors’ dads once told them that their cat had eaten the Easter bunny - at Easter?

Yeah, we thought it was weird too. But we still love Easter, and the fact that we get three weeks off from university.

Post-holiday, we’ve got our AGM coming up. April 9 - put it in your diaries.

If you’re thinking about running for an editorial position, we’re happy to answer any and all questions you have about how much fun it is to work on Forge Press.

For example, you could end up interviewing folk-rock sisters the Staves, which our Music girls have done this issue.

You could be taking a look at something like Games’ feature, on the social revolution of mainstream gaming.

Or maybe you want to cover something potentially life changing, like Screen have. If you like the Arts, maybe you’d like to take a look at The Great Gatsby ballet?

Basically, working on Fuse, and Forge Press in general, is really fun. Of course, it’s fun to read as well, so do that too.

Arnold Bennett Coral Williamson

Eve Betts

Apparently we keep spelling his name wrong, but the front cover this issue was designed by the amazing Manuel Fuentes.

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ight, show of hands; who enjoyed Avengers Assemble? And The Dark Knight Rises? From the box office numbers and rave critical reviews, I’m guessing the answer to both of those is ‘a lot of you’.

So, of course, the big guys at Marvel and DC have decided to give the people what they want: more superhero films.

But is that really the best idea?

Yes, those two films were huge hits, but that was as much because of the excellent direction, strong scripts and fantastic casts as the people’s desire to see people with superpowers (or not) punching things really hard.

In fact, their dominance actually highlights the problem with over-saturating the market: who even remembers that last year also brought us the underrated The Amazing Spiderman and the jaw-dropping Dredd 3D?

Fuse.

Thursday March 14 2013

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s another fucking superhero movie

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This year alone will see the Superman reboot Man of Steel, Hugh Jackman’s fifth outing as everyone’s favourite angry Canadian in The Wolverine, and sequels to Iron Man and Thor.

The year after will bring yet more sequels, while 2015 will be the year of the big teams.

After the phenomenal success of Avengers Assemble, it is unsurprising that a sequel is on the way, or that DC are looking to jump on that bandwagon with their own supergroup, The Justice League.

Unsurprising, but possibly misguided; whatever they make will unavoidably be compared with Marvel’s first offering, and while their focus on the creation of a cinematic universe over many years meant it felt right and natural to have Tony Stark and Steve Rogers hanging out together in New York, how Christian Bale’s Dark Knight will fit into the world

of Henry Cavill’s Superman is still up for debate.

Then there’s Marvel’s decision to make a franchise out of another superteam: Guardians of the Galaxy. Er, who?

What the studios need to realise is it’s about quality not quantity. Avengers Assemble and Dark Knight Rises were not big hits because people were desperate to see anything and everything with superheroes in it.

If they keep pushing one franchise after another on us (becoming increasingly more obscure and niche as time goes on), they risk putting cinema goers off to such a degree that they decide to hang up their cape and tights for good.

Ellen Jurczak

Q&A.

SHORT FUSE

NIGHT MOVES Coral Williamson caught up with Night Moves, who are currently on tour in the US with Django Django

The three of you worked together in the past. What made you get together again and form Night Moves?

We felt we had yet to make something we were really proud of and something that reflected our musical tastes and talents.

And what got you into music in the first place?

Friends in grade school, dads, and Neil Young.

What kind of themes can people expect to hear in your album Colored Emotions?

Family, friendship, youth, regret, loss, desire, fear, religion, hate, love, etc. There are many,

a broad pallet of emotions colours the record.

You gave away your album as a free download before signing with Domino – what made you decide to do that?

We didn't think we were going to make money off the record and we basically wanted as many people to hear it as possible. Not having a price tag let more folks hear it that otherwise would not have.

What made you work with producer Thom Monahan for the re-release?

We really had no idea who we could work with, as the idea of a producer/engineer

was a new concept for us. Kris at Domino thought that Thom would be a good fit, we trusted him and Thom ended up being a really great. Thom also worked with a number of folks we dig (Beachwood Sparks, Devendra Banhart, GG Allen, Neal Casal).

Are you excited to see how people respond to the album outside of the US? Yes, very much so! We have had the record for a while here in the states and we are eager to share it with those abroad.

We hope to one day tour overseas.

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Friday April 12: Pulp Fiction: 7.30pm

Q Saturday April 6, 8am ‘til 8:30pm, meet at the Glossop Road entrance to Bar One, tickets for the trip are £18 (only includes travel)

uentin Tarantino’s legground-breaking film is a must see for any film-lover.

With an all star cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction’s blending of styles sees three intertwining stories play out.

Violent shootings, a dance-off, a religious revelation, and discussions about French names for fast food can be found in one of the most influential films ever.

This simply has to be seen on the big screen.

Tickets: £2.50

Available from the SU box office

Saturday April 13: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: 3.30pm, 7.30pm

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inally, after years of waiting, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy Peter Jackson invites us back to Middle Earth for another of J.R.R Tolkien’s fantasy tales. The Hobbit: An Unexpectedly Long Journey stars Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, as he makes his journey with Gandalf and a band of dwarves, to reclaim the dwarf’s homeland from Smaug the dragon. An Unexpected Journey marks the beginning of an epic trilogy.

Sunday April 14: A Good Day to Die Hard: 3.30pm, 7.30pm

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he first Die Hard was released 25 years ago, and Bruce Willis is back for the fifth rip-roaring instalment of the series.

This time, John McClane travels to Russia to help his son, Jack, who is apparently in trouble with the Russian police.

Upon discovering that Jack is in fact a CIA operative, father and son must fight together. The predictability doesn’t make it any less fun, with superb action rooted in the traditionally excellent Die Hard dialogue.

Fuse.

xford, a city consumed by its 39 separate colleges, all of which combine to make the famous university.

A city littered with rising towers and church spires, lined with cobbles and thatches, and people of great privilege.

It’s a city built and raised on brain power, with the country’s cleverest flocking to its quaint walls, with 600-year-old buildings, and countless museums, galleries, quiet parks, and boat trips. How exciting!?

It’s a good thing, then, that the trip gives you lots of time to explore, and the coach journey is only three hours long(approximately).

Bring a bottle of water.

through in the past. Every show thus far has had a great turnout and response, we can't wait to see what Canada and the rest of the tour holds.

Can we expect some UK dates sometime soon?

We are still waiting to release the record. We would love to travel to the UK. Dates pending.

Finally – what have you been enjoying in 2013 so far?

The video for Rihanna’s ‘Stay’.

Also, the new Le1f record.

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors box set reissue.

Thursday March 14 2013

GIAG: Film Unit Oxford

You’ve also got ‘Country Queen’ coming out soon. Can you tell us more about the video for it?

We wanted to make a video that was creepy, yet warm, something that evoked a foggy memory. We also wanted that Olivia Newton John, Xanaduesque touch. We mainly wanted to exhibit our golden lady mic stand, she is in a number of shots in the video.

How’s touring with Django Django going?

It is going really well, it has been a lot of fun playing rooms we have never played before in cities that we've toured

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GAMES

Feature. THE NEXT GENERATION

GAMING: from obscure to everywhere

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Thursday March 14 2013

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ideogames have always been the dark horse of the entertainment industry. Their genesis was in their obscurity; the impetus behind their creation was effectively a gimmick - a technical experiment with early computer technology that was repeated and built upon for the simple reason that it was fun.

This prototype has been and gone, with the games industry of today generating more net income then any other branch of entertainment that has ever existed. The games industry, as of 2008, has generated more money since its first conception in the 1970s than the music industry has in its entirety. Impressive, considering the latter had a head start spanning millennia.

The games industry is blessed in that it has always been inherently linked with the self-perpetuating nature of technological innovation. The games that we are playing today, at least from a technical standpoint, dwarf what was available 10 years ago.

It is, and will continue to be, the only entertainment medium that can guarantee this progression in the future. It’s an exciting prospect to know that whatever we are going to be playing in the next few years, it’s probably going to look beautiful, play like a lucid dream and engage the player to the extent to which they clutch their chest with overdramatic anguish.

This begs the question of ‘what exactly are we going to be playing in the future?’ How is the

medium that we have all come to know and love going to change?

If the last few years have been anything to go by, the future is looking decidedly bright – perhaps not such a good thing, for those accustomed to playing in the dark. Games are no longer the desperate afterthought of social activities, formerly reputed as the ‘rainy day’ activity of choice. If anything, games are set to become more social then ever.

Seemingly a conscious decision by most developers, the integration of social media within games looks set to be the overarching theme for next generation consoles. Anyone who had the fortune (or misfortune, relative to your persuasion on filling or emptying a glass) of watching the unveiling of the PlayStation 4 a few weeks ago, will have already had a taste of what is to come. The addition of a ‘share’ button to the well-known DualShock controller, coupled with an increased emphasis on player interactions by Sony, sets the tone beautifully for what is to come in the future.

It’s not just Sony who would appear to be heralding the social revolution of games. Recently, when talking about the next generation Xbox, indie developer Jonathon Blow hinted that “It’s not strictly about games”.

At the other end of the spectrum are developer giants, Bungie – the studio behind the Halo franchise. Bungie recently unveiled their new intellectual property: Destiny. This new franchise is set to be the flagship title for both

the PlayStation 4 and next-generation Xbox, with the announcement of cross-platform play being left tantalisingly ambiguous for now.

A truly ambitious project, set to span 10 years, Destiny will see players rebuilding a gargantuan game-world, encompassing an entire galaxy. Nerdgasms aside, Destiny will connect players not just in-game but out-game as well, via social networking sites and mobile phone apps. The principle is that players will never really be away from the world they build.

It may be the case that gamers will not welcome this increased emphasis on social integration with games. Does anyone really want the next iteration of Tomb Raider to feature game play mechanics more frequently seen in Farmville? The prospect is as daunting as it is exciting.

In all seriousness, it is still too early to pass judgment whether the social revolution of the games industry is a good thing. Many will move begrudgingly into the new paradigm. Some might even call for a return to the industry’s roots, with actual game play innovation taking precedent.

Many more will accept that this new paradigm and traditional innovation are the same thing, allow themselves a nonchalant shrug and continue to play in the industry that we have all come to love.

Andrew Smith

Feature.

MUSIC

THE STAVES Camilla Staveley-Taylor from the Staves gets to play the ukelele all day, hang out with her sisters, and call it a job

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my best friends and it’s wicked to have them around.”

With the band about to embark on a UK tour, including a show at Sheffield’s very own Leadmill, Camilla recalls how much fun the sisters all have together on tour.

“It kind of feels like a school trip.

You’re trapped in a van together and you have silly private jokes together, you tumble out at service stations to buy crisps, go to different places and drink loads of booze!”

But there is a reason for touring, apart from all the fun they have.

“Touring keeps you on your toes,” says Camilla. “You never know what each audience or venue is going to be like; it’s constantly varying. You have to adapt all the time, so it is a really healthy, fun thing to do.”

“My sisters are my best friends, it’s wicked to have them around” The girls grew up surrounded by music, so it wasn’t a long shot that they would turn it into a career.

“We listened to shit loads of the Beatles, Joni Mithchell, Neil Young... all Americana and ‘60s English pop and rock. Mum and dad would sing along and harmonise, in the car or at home.”

But it wasn’t just music that Camilla feels influenced her. “I just always associated music with a good time,” she says. “When we had friends round, we’d have kitchen parties, the gui-

tars would come out and we’d all sing songs we loved. I always thought doing this as a job would be bloody great!”

It seems that the band started out as most bands do, playing open mic nights and gigs at the local pub and “without any master plan”, says Camilla.

Before the band came about, Camilla studied art at college before deciding that university wasn’t for her.

“I’d like to think I would still be doing something creative like graphic design or illustration. I would hate to be stuck in an office job that I didn’t like.”

By the sounds of it, an office job is far from the life the girls lead. They’ve been confirmed for End of the Road festival this year. “It’s a beautiful place, surrounded by woodland and they rig up all these fairy lights, it’s really lovely,” and also another slot at this year’s SXSW. Festivals are an important part of any band’s schedule and it seems no different for the Staves.

“You never know what the turn out’s going to be or if you’re clashing with someone else who other people wanted to see more,” Camilla says.

But she goes on to describe her favourite festival experience so far, at the Cambridge Folk festival last year.

“The tents were absolutely rammed, which we weren’t expecting. Then it started pissing down with rain when we started playing and it was very dramatic. It was a really nice vibe to play to.”

The conversation moves to the trio’s collaboration with Aardman Animations for the video of the ‘Winter Trees’ single. If you haven’t listened to the Staves before, you should definitely check out the video, because it is brilliant.

Camilla says that it’s always something they wanted to do, and after seeing another animated video, by a band called Flogging Molly, they decided to do it.

“Working with Aardman Animations was amazing” “We got in touch with Carney and Saul, who worked in conjuction with Aardman and they came up with the concept and made the video. It’s just amazing! It was quite an honour to work with them.”

Before the end of the interview, I ask Camilla about what’s next for the band. With a busy UK tour and a US one to follow, “which will be an adventure” Camilla says, it seems like they never have time to stop.

“We tour so much and though it is really fun, we haven’t yet perfected the art of writing on the road yet. Sometimes you just need a bit of time to be creative in that sort of way. I think a healthy dose of touring and writing is what we need, definitely.”

With Dead, Born and Grown, doing as well as it has, it will definitely be exciting to see what the Staveley-Taylor sisters come up with next.

Amelia Heathman The Staves will play the Leadmill on May 2

Thursday March 14 2013

oming from Watford, Hertfordshire, the Staves are a delectable folk-rock trio who have received some serious attention for their debut album, Dead, Born and Grown.

To give you an idea of how cool the Staves are, 2012 included: the release of their debut, US support slots for the Civil Wars and Bon Iver and a performance at the indie mecca of music festivals, Texas’ SXSW. You’d think all this attention would give you an inflated head but Camilla, the band’s ukulele player, is far from conceited.

She says, “We’re really happy with what people have said about the album. Especially after the long recording process, you’re not sure what anyone else is going to think of it. Apparently Café Nero enjoy playing it too!”

The album is scheduled for a US release later in March and despite all the attention, the band are still a little nervous about what the reacton will be.

“I guess we’ll see if we have a good fan base in America when the album comes out. We’ve had a great reception when we’ve toured with Bon Iver and the Civil Wars, they’ve got some good listening audiences. Hopefully, it won’t be disappointing.”

The Staves, if you don’t know, are three sisters, Emily, Jessica and Camilla. This seems to make their work that little bit easier. “There’s a closeness there which we don’t have to work at.

But we do quarrel all the time!” laughs Camilla.

“I couldn’t imagine not working with my sisters now, it would be really difficult. Without sounding cheesy, they are

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Thursday March 14 2013

SCREEN

Interview. JONATHAN SMITH

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Phil Bayles talks to an epidemiologist turned filmmaker about a new approach to raising awareness of TB and HIV in South Africa

SCREEN

“People are not numbers.

They are, as last I checked, people”

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But all the experience in the world doesn’t help a film get financial backing, and Jonathan had to rely very heavily on crowdsourcing and websites like Kickstarter to make They Go To Die a reality.

“The original version of the film, which was my gradu-

“Knowing something is different to feeling something” “You have to have the numbers, you have to have the data to prove your point. If these four men were the only people affected by this, the film wouldn’t have any weight.

“But mining is responsible for 760,000 cases of TB in the general population; if I tell you it’s 750,000 your brain can’t process the difference between those two numbers.

But in fact that’s 10,000 individuals, who go home to a family. It sounds kind of bleeding heart when I say this, but that’s a lot of people in what looks like a slight fluctuation in the numbers.

In a way, he continues, what happens in They Go To Die is the exact opposite of most documentaries. Rather than taking a small sample and blowing it up to huge proportions, the goal here is to take one of the largest issues currently affecting South Africans and shrink it down to the size of four families.

Hearing Jonathan speak it seems incredible that this approach isn’t tackled more often, but he tells me that the victims of epidemics like those in Africa are in fact used as guinea pigs, valued for their susceptibility, with no aim of actually fixing the problem.

“People say ‘Oh, if we need a good cohort study we can go here’. One of my colleagues actually said something like that; I said something about my film and he said ‘That would be a good cohort study’. It just enraged me.”

Eventually Jonathan managed to get support from likeminded people in his field, but at the ground level things were slightly more difficult. It took over a year for Jonathan to find four miners, working through miner’s unions, who were willing to have Jonathan live with them and their families for a few months.

But once that obstacle was overcome, actually interacting with the families on a daily basis was surprisingly easy.

“It was almost like a novelty to them, they really enjoyed it. The kids thought it was great, I let them play with the camera and they loved it.

“I didn’t try to ‘be like them’ and they didn’t try to ‘be like me’, we were just two completely different cultures living together. We learned a lot from each other and it was a good experience. But I think if I’d gone in there in a different [more scientific] way it wouldn’t have been the same.”

As a scientist, Jonathan is very familiar with the Hawthorne Paradox – the idea that observing something

changes its nature. But it also changes the thing doing the observing, and although he is understandably reluctant to share his intimate experiences it’s obvious that Jonathan has been deeply affected by his time in Africa.

“There was a phase, right afterwards, where it was very difficult for me to return and start speaking to people about it. There is a very emotional thing I went through, but more importantly it made me realise that I speak to people who work in TB, but don’t deal with it on a daily basis. Knowing something is different to feeling something.

“I wasn’t thinking ‘This is sad, these men are sick’. I thought, ‘I go fishing with my father, and this son’s father is too sick to be able to spend time with him.’ That bond, and the way the disease affected it, was what I really learned about.”

The crux of what Jonathan says seems to be the importance of reminding ourselves of the potential for hope, rather than reminding ourselves that things are bad and that disease exists. And as we look at the monumental leaps we’re making right now in the field of HIV (look at the baby in Mississippi who was recently all but cured) Jonathan now has the scientific precedent to back up that theoretical hope.

“Nowadays it’s less of a biological battle and more of an ideological one,“ he explains. “15 years ago with TB and 30 years ago with HIV, we had no idea what we were fighting. We know what it is now, and now the barriers to fighting the epidemic are really put there by us, by our political and economic infrastructures and a general lack of will to help people that we don’t see on a daily basis.”

“I go fishing with my father, and this son’s father is too sick to spend time with him” As we wrap up our interview, I try to think of the best way to sum up They Go To Die. It certainly doesn’t sound like a conventional documentary in the vein of How to Survive a Plague or Searching for Sugar Man. But Jonathan beats me to the punch.

“Since I’m not a filmmaker, the point of [the film] isn’t necessarily to make a film. Like any research project, the point of a film like this is to use it as one tool in a set of tools to advance the issue. I couldn’t get 100 people to come and hear about some numbers that I generated from research, but this is a way to do that.”

To that effect, Jonathan has actually created a nonprofit organisation called Visual Epidemiology, with the aim of creating a Centre of Visual Epidemiology to translate academic research into something which society at large can understand.

As Jonathan puts it, “People listen to stories. They don’t listen to lectures at Yale.”

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“Nowadays the battle is less biological and more ideological”

ate thesis, had no funding at all,” he says. “I had to get a part-time job – to get experience I worked as a cameraman for the Yale hockey games! I worked there for a couple of months and saved about $2,000.”

I ask Jonathan whether it was difficult to balance the scientific knowledge of the diseases that he possesses with the personal stories of the families that he followed, but in fact he thinks that having both gives the film more of an impact.

Thursday March 14 2013

hen I first meet Jonathan Smith in a crowded Coffee Revolution on an unusually cold March afternoon, it’s very obvious that he’s not like most documentary makers.

For one thing, filmmakers aren’t usually so self-deprecating about their work – “I know [the publicists] would tell me I shouldn’t say this,” he laughs, “but it isn’t very good!” And for another, most filmmakers don’t have a master’s degree from Yale University.

Jonathan is an epidemiologist, a scientist who studies the causes and patterns of certain diseases. He specialises in research into the spread of tuberculosis and HIV amongst gold miners in sub-Saharan Africa, and in an unconventional decision has decided to share his findings, not in a report, but in the form of a documentary entitled They Go To Die – so called because when miners contract TB or HIV they are immediately sent home with no medical support and little hope of survival.

Over the course of the film, Jonathan travels to Africa to spend a few months with four miners who have contracted TB in the course of their work. He sees first-hand the impact the disease has on the day-to-day lives of their families and loved ones.

As Jonathan tells me, the decision to pick up a camera came from a desire to get across the fact that the something had to be done in order to handle a problem which was, in his words, the “bread and butter” of epidemiology.

“It’s an obvious public health problem. It’s not just that [the miners] get sick there, it’s that they get sick and then they go home and then they spread the disease. So I began to design some research projects, and the more I looked into it, the more I realised that I was sitting on 100 years of data and research. My sword and shield were already there.

“One of the largest problems is that [miners] leave, and then they go out of sight and out of mind. The disease affects them once they’re gone and nobody really sees it. So I thought: ‘How can I combat that issue?’ And one of the best ways to do that, with modern technology, is through filmmaking.”

Of course, it wasn’t just a case of picking up a camera and shooting. Jonathan tells me he took quite a few filmmakers out to lunch in order to get a grasp on the basics like sound recording and editing.

Having said that, he does have some links to the world of film; many of the people who took part in the celebrated documentary How to Survive a Plague, which looked at the history of the AIDS epidemic in the US, were school friends of Jonathan’s.

To learn more about Jonathan Smith or about They Go To Die, go to theygotodie.com

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ARTS

Feature. THE GREAT GATSBY Elsa Vulliamy takes us back to the Jazz Era with the Northern Ballet production of The Great Gatsby

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Fuse.

Thursday March 14 2013

ne of the most famous novels of the 1920s is undoubtedly F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

It tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a soldier who met the alluring Daisy Buchanan while fighting in the First World War. Since then, Gatsby has done everything he can (including some very questionable illegal activity) in order to become wealthy enough to win her back.

Gatsby is not entirely accepted into affluent society, as he does not come from a rich background. Daisy, on the other hand, is married to the respectable Tom Buchanan.

Throughout the novel, we see Gatsby’s struggle as he pines for his lost love.

We are also introduced to the underlying problems of the American class system whilst being immersed in the glamour and excitement of the Roaring Twenties. Almost a century later, it remains timeless.

Fitzgerald’s underlying criticism of capitalist America, as well as Gatsby’s desperate longing for the girl he can never have, still tug at the heart strings of the modern audience. Not only does the book remain a constant best seller, it has also gained its own kind of cult following.

Since it was written, The Great Gatsby has been adapted numerous times in theatre, opera, film, and dance.

It has been interpreted in many different ways, from the faithful early film adaptations including an Academy Award winning 1974 film adapted by Francis Ford Coppola all the way through the more daring interpretations such as Gatz - an eight-hour play put on in London’s West end in which Gatsby is re-enacted while the same man reads the book word for word. It seems that, whatever form it takes, the public can’t get enough of all things Gatsby.

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“The rise of surrealism and art deco, jazz and dance” Yet another adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel by the Northern Ballet opened on Tuesday 12 March at Sheffield’s Lyceum theatre.

Northern Ballet produce and tour more full-length productions than any other ballet company in the UK. They stage dramatic adaptations of popular classics that a wide range of people are likely to be familiar with in order to attract those who may not previously have shown an interest in going to see ballet. The company say “Creating new full length ballets is a mission of Northern Ballet’s and furthers the Company’s efforts to bring new audiences to dance”.

The ballet is choreographed and directed by artistic director of the company David Nixon, OBE who is well known for his previous full length ballet adaptations with Northern

Ballet, retelling classics such as Dracula, Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast through ballet.

Nixon claims to have been a Gatsby enthusiast since high school, and says he has always wanted to revisit the book. He says “Producing The Great Gatsby shows we tap into current trends, creating work audiences have an interest in at present”.

The novel is set in 1922, during what Fitzgerald himself first called ‘Jazz Age’. This J a z z Age, also

known as the ‘Roaring Twe n t i e s ’ was a time of economic prosperity.

Culture flourished in the big wealthy cities with the rise of surrealism and art deco, jazz and dance got more and more popular as people embraced post-war patriotism.

Now they had the time and money to spare on grand parties and soirees which seemed to largely ignore the official ban on alcohol at the time.

It appeared to people at the time, as they celebrated the end of the war, that the American Dream could finally be coming true.

The Great Gatsby immortalises the era.

Fitzgerald captures perfectly the naive carefree atmosphere of post-war America as our storyteller, Nick Carroway, attends Gatsby’s lavish, decadent parties which take place in his ‘Hotel De Ville’ style house and rides in his rich cream-coloured car.

As David Nixon puts it “The twenties are a captivating time in recent history and fill our imaginations with elaborate parties... It

was a moment when men and women... grabbed at freedom and liberation.”

However, the novel also captures the darker side of the twenties, as well as that of social life in general. Despite the wealth he has acquired, Gatsby is not once portrayed as truly happy. He is often solitary and lonely, constantly pining over Daisy, whom he cares for far more than his money.

With co-direction from Patricia Doyle and

joined on stage very early on by a group of shifty looking gangsters, adding a suspicious edge to his character from the outset.

The costume design, also by Nixon, contributed greatly to the excellence of the production, effectively contributing to the characterisation.

Daisy was dressed in a flowing light blue dress, while Jordan Baker, the feisty golfer, was the only woman who wore trousers. Myr-

“It was a moment when men and women grabbed at freedom and liberation.” tle’s materialistic inclination was portrayed through her sparkly sequined dresses, which contrasted with the grubby garage clothes of her husband Wilson.

Gatsby’s costumes were equally compelling - Nixon chose to alternate between black and white suits, putting across the two contrasting sides of his character, while focusing on his wealth.

Despite the high standards of Gatsby adaptations that it had to live up to, the production told the story brilliantly through skilful dance, a talented orchestra, and outstanding choreography combined with perfectly attuned sets and costumes.

Fitzgerald’s complex characterisation was wonderfully portrayed and the story was told as it was meant to be. Perfectly combining dark critique of society with enough glamour and excitement to keep the audience entertained, this production would please even those most faithful to the original.

Although the production itself is only spending four nights in Sheffield, it seems safe to say that we have not seen the end of Gatsby.

A new film, written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, is set to be released in May of this year, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby himself. As Baz Luhrmann himself observed, the subtle critique of the class system in America and the materialism of the twenties that Fitzgerald presents in Gatsby seems to be getting more rather than less relevant as time goes on, proving Fitzgerald’s novel to be a genuine classic.

Thursday March 14 2013

Fuse.

Jerome Kaplan, Nixon has created a remarkable retelling of the story.

Before the show h a d opened, he said “The story has everything for the makings of a great ballet: a love triangle, decadence, desperation and heartbreak.”

Nixon’s retelling of Gatsby is outstanding: the result of wonderful choreography, effective costume design and brilliant casting.

Daisy Buchanan’s naive charm is perfectly put across through the delicate flourishes and pirouettes of Martha Leebolt while her threatening, brawny husband lurks behind her accompanied by timpani from the orchestra. Gatsby himself, naturally, is solitary through much of the play. However, he is

ARTS

The Great Gatsby

9

GAMES

Reviews.

Tomb Raider

Xbox 360/PS3/PC 9/10

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rystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider franchise has remained pretty much the same since Legend in 2006. Lara Croft, over-sexualised British brunette finds herself on a quest through ancient ruins and deep caverns in search of mythical artefacts. Tomb Raider is based on Lara’s first ever adventure. We see a new voice actress and model, on a journey of discovery and learning. As the game unfolds, Lara slowly evolves into the snarky, confident character we know and love.

The main difference is the almost complete lack of tombs.

Instead, they are hidden, optional tasks, earning you a relic for your troubles. This may seem strange, considering the franchise’s past, and indeed the title of the game, but it works.

Tomb Raider sees you travel across the island of Yamatai, off the coast of Japan. A strange storm blows all trespassers on to the island’s rocks, stranding them there. But the island is far from uninhabited. We’ve become acustomed to bats, bears and even zombies in past titles. Now, we’re faced mainly with fanatic humans, worshipping the legendary sun queen, Himiko.

From Lara’s shocking first kill, to upgrading her weapons, this game is a complete remake, and worth all the hype it’s received.

The scenery is absolutely stunning, even without any HD capability. Rock walls are formed realistically and the snowy mountain passes gleam in the sun.

You have to hunt for food to survive, ditching the stupid search for health packs, which were often harder to find than the hidden relics. Focusing mainly on the multiple uses of her bow (one of four upgradable weapons), silent kills and napalm bolts enable the player to adapt and kill in many ways. Each ‘level’ morphs seamlessly into the next, and whilst the game path is relatively linear, each area has multiple routes to choose from.

If it’s solid, Lara can grab it.

This makes accidental deaths less common, although post-death load times are swift and autosave points are regular. The game doesn’t like giving away its camera control; however this is rarely a problem, as certain cave passages, or isolated ship masts, are best admired from the angles the game gives you.

Jumps, weapon control and even Lara’s shivers are all extremely realistic. As you advance, Lara will get wet, covered in blood, cut and bruised; and the best thing about this is how each affliction stays put. Lara jumps at shadows in caves, and holds her breath as you aim a crucial arrow at the man you’ve waited two minutes to finally turn around and stand on the edge of a cliff.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence Xbox 360/PS3/PC 8/10

Cult Corner.

Bioshock

Xbox 360/PS3/PC

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ithout question, BioShock was one of the finest games this console generation has seen. It is set in the enormous utopia-turned-nightmare city of Rapture, a grand feat of engineering where humanity’s brightest citizens live in comfort, free from oppression.

Oh, and if that doesn’t sound impressive enough, Rapture was built underwater, at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Fuse.

Thursday March 14 2013

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ans of Metal Gear rejoice - this spin-off may be a change in direction for the acclaimed franchise, but this is a deliriously entertaining action game, forged with razorsharp gameplay and adrenalinefueled action sequences.

As far as reincarnations go, however, this is not a

10

However, the city discovered ADAM, a variant of stem cell found in deep sea slugs that allowed users to alter their genetic code and give themselves superpowers known as ‘Plasmids’. By the time the player arrives Rapture’s denizens (called ‘Splicers’, following their abuse of ADAM) have erupted in civil war over possession of the precious substance.

The game is frequently called the ‘spiritual successor’ to the System Shock series from the 1990s, a first-person game set in the distant future aboard a cyberpunk spaceship. While the series certainly lends some of its survival horror and role-playing elements to BioShock, the latter

There’s no HUD, meaning you can concentrate in battle with ease.

The game’s constantly spiced up with interactive cut-scenes, environmental chase scenes inviting a fantastic soundtrack, one-on-40 melee battles and stealthy search and destroy missions, just as you remember and expect from a Tomb Raider title.

If you don’t buy this game, you’re seriously missing out. The visuals are beautiful, upgrades are simplistic and fun to work through, and the real-life survival aspect is wonderful. A hero is born; this is the story of Lara’s beginning.

Will Ross

The once derided protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden, was considerably revamped for the aforementioned fourth instalment; his personal transformation offered redemption via some of the most unforgettable fight sequences in gaming history, prophesising the rise of this complex anti-hero.

Rising brandishes an addictive combat system. In particular, the free slicing ‘blade mode’, which

offers 360-degree control of your weapon as you accurately mutilate waves of enemies in bullet-time - a violent but incredibly satisfying and inventive experience.

Most memorable, though, are the blistering boss fights which are, in the truest sense of the word, awesome. By integrating breathtaking set-pieces charged with an impressive heavy metal soundtrack, you can almost feel the electricity emanating from Raiden’s blade, rendering these battles nothing short of epic.

As the bridge to the next generation of consoles is rapidly being built, Rising also provides some of the more visually stunning graphics seen on the current platforms, as sparks fly and buildings fall. Despite certain environments appearing lacklustre and unvaried, most players won’t have the time to notice

between mastering the intricate combat techniques and performing a cross-sectional analysis of every object possible.

Like Raiden, the game propels forward at the speed of light (to the detriment of the camera, occasionally) offering a brief 4-6 hours of story, but this is an imperfect game for perfectionists - the combat ranks, collectibles and VR missions suggest plenty of replay value.

The popularity of this title will naturally be indebted to the Metal Gear name, which may bear a certain inevitability of disappointment for fans of the stealth-based series. However, this Metal Gear is wired with the familiar components of philosophy and in-jokes, and an edgy combat system, making this a cut above the usual hack and slash game.

Graham Wardle

is unique amongst games in its ability to inspire fear, humour and surprise - and frequently within the space of a few minutes. The antagonist, ruthless philanthropist Andrew Ryan, embodied themes of Objectivism and gave us a villain whose power was truly something to be

feared. After all, who could forget that twist?

2K Boston (now Irrational Games) crafted a dark and twisting narrative that pitted you against the drug-addled insanity of the Splicers (and of course the legendary Big Daddies), within a fabulous art deco-styled world.

Whether you set enemies on fire with your bare hands or impaled them with a harpoon; whether you smothered them with hornets or bludgeoned them with a wrench, BioShock was endlessly innovative in its gameplay.

Where other shooters drearily file you through a level to the next objective, it stood apart by allowing the player to improvise their battles and experience of

Rapture.

The result of these features was a game that blended nail biting survival horror with unadulterated action, inside a game world like nothing else you’ve ever seen. And it did all this without detracting from the smart and darkly humorous storytelling, remaining above all things fun to play.

Sam Walker

total re-imagining. The story is every bit as convoluted as one would expect from Hideo Kojima, flaunting the customary gratuitous cutscenes and lengths of overwrought dialogue.

“A deliriously entertaining action game”

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WHAT THE BUTLER SAW University Drama Studio 7/10

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orget about what the butler saw in SuTCo’s latest production; what the audience saw was pretty great.

Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw takes place in a mental institution, in which the lines between sanity and insanity, reason and nonsense, and doctor and patient, all become totally blurred.

It combines manic farce with physical slapstick and cheeky innuendo, to produce cutting social critique.

Director David Jeffery writes “the play is still as relevant to modern day society as it was when first performed in 1969.

“Dealing with topics that are still taboos today...Orton shocks the audience into reflection and leads them to question the society in which they live.”

However, many of the themes, such as homosexuality, adultery, promiscuity and the problems of Freudian psychoanalysis, seem rather dated.

When the play was first staged in 1969, there were cries of outrage from the audience.

THE Daughter-in-law Crucible Theatre 6/10

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“It combines manic farce with physical slapstick, producing a cutting social critique”

thetic despair of secretarytur ned-madwoman-tur nedyoung deviant male, Geraldine Barclay.

Despite the occasional fumbling of words, the performance of Becky Danks also deserves praise, her tone of voice perfectly captures the comic irony of psychiatrist Dr Rance’s ceaselessly mania.

At times, the subtle Wildean humour was lost, as lines such as: “You can’t be rational in an irrational world, it’s not rational”

were a little rushed.

Regardless, the overall pace of the entire production was judged brilliantly.

The actors grew into their roles, and not too much was given straight away.

Instead, the performance crescendoed gradually, allowing the frenzied climax ultimate comic impact.

Though not mind-blowingly transgressive as it would have been to a mid-twentieth century audience, SuTCo’s production of

What the Butler Saw was certainly good for a few laughs.

THE MOUSETRAP

new guesthouse, only for it to snow so heavily that the guests become stuck inside the house along with a murderer who is on the run.

The tension during scenes in which the inspector questioned each guest was evoked excellently, and was hugely enjoyable.

However, The Mousetrap’s overall concept has been parodied and played upon so much since its inception.

From its 1950s stately home location, to the individual quirks of the stock characters, the formula might seem a little tired to younger members of the audience.

The play continued to be riddled with clichés throughout, including a plot twist regarding who had committed the crime that was entirely obvious to the audience from very early on in the play.

Despite being a lengthy production, the play nevertheless kept its audience entertained, as it was full of suspense, dramatic acting, and featured a stunning set.

This made it genuinely entertaining to watch, and it certainly seemed a lot shorter than its two and a half hour running time.

Aside from the overused feel to the plot, this is a fun night out for any fans of murder mystery stories.

However, be expected to sigh as the killer is revealed; it’s not exactly a shock, and actually seems rather cheap for such a good overall performance.

Lisa Lee

The desperate agitation of Dr Prentice, the deviant doctor who tangles himself in a web of lies, is portrayed very humorously by Doug Dunn.

Fiona Primrose’s comic timing along with her amusingly exaggerated facial expressions perfectly conveyed the naïve simplicity of her character.

Later on, she also captured brilliantly the increasingly paSimon Daw use skilled direction and set design to show us naturalist theatre at its strongest.

The most intriguing moments of the play are the prolonged mid-scene silences, while the actors continue to cook, wash or smoke.

The rotating set that alternates between Mrs Gascoyne’s and Minnie’s fully equipped kitchens facilitates this method of theatre.

The alternating set also encompasses one of the main themes of the play; the conflicting roles of mother and wife.

With an excellent performance from Lynda Baron as Mrs Gascoyne and an equally consistent performance from Claire Price, Philip McGinley and Andrew Hawley as the younger generation, The Daughter-In-Law is above all about relationships and their many complications.

Therefore, although written in 1912, the overriding themes of The Daughter In Law are still relevant to a modern audience.

The actors portray the different relationships both believably and realistically. However, sometimes a little more drama and a little less realism might have made for a better night at the theatre.

Lizzie Hyland

Read more reviews online at Forge Today

DOT COM

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or a show that’s been playing in the West End almost as long as the queen has been on the throne, it’s hard to know where to begin when critiquing this production.

Sheffield Lyceum’s The Mousetrap seems to be pretty much what you would expect from a ‘whodunnit’ murder mystery, to the extent that it often verges on clichéd.

During the course of the play, someone is murdered, an inspector arrives, and there is great speculation until finally the murderer is unveiled. Nothing too surprising there.

The intricacies of the story itself are also straightforward; Mr and Mrs Ralston welcome their first set of visitors to their

Matthew Till

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Fuse.

More reviews online

Lyceum Theatre 5/10

Thursday March 14 2013

he Daughter-In-Law at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre is comfortably consistent in its production and timeless in its content.

With a touch more melodrama, it would be unmissable.

Performed around two castiron kitchen ranges and set during the firing up of the National Coal Strike, D.H Lawrence’s story envelops the Crucible’s auditorium in the heat of 1912 Nottinghamshire working class life.

“It is neither a comedy nor a tragedy – just ordinary,” wrote Lawrence to his editor, and this is the perfect description for the genre of this production.

With intermittent laughter from the audience and tears from the leading lady, the production is focused neither on humour nor calamity, but on the way life works.

The play is based around a mother, Mrs Gascoyne, and her dislike of her ‘hoity-toity’ new daughter-in-law, Minnie.

When Mrs Gascoyne discovers a neighbour’s daughter is pregnant with her son’s illegitimate child, she sees it as a way to break up the newlyweds.

With the help of the charming Joe Gascoyne, Minnie’s brotherin-law, and without the help of her husband, Luther, the dramatic situation is kept under control.

However, different problems are revealed to be holding back the couple, problems that even Mrs Gascoyne did not expect.

The naturalistic style of theatre reflects the ordinary lives of the characters, and is made to seem authentic through the consistent use of the Nottinghamshire dialect.

In addition to this impressive use of dialect, Paul Miller and

However, the cosmopolitan twenty-first century audience at the University’s Drama Studio were not shocked, but lightly amused at best.

Having said this, countless times, the audience was reduced to hearty laughter.

ARTS

Reviews.

11

MUSIC

Reviews. RELEASES

Every Weekend Surface Noise Records 4/10

W

ith many bands, a new album means a chance to experiment, change and put together a collection where every song brings something new to the album as a whole.

The new release from Hadouken!, Every Weekend, rarely changes from their trademark techno, rave sound. There is a bit more rap on this album than before and their style is now more dubstep than drum and bass. If you liked Hadouken! before, then you will like this album, but if you aren’t already a fan then don’t expect much from this release.

The opening track, ‘The Vortex’ has a synthy intro, with the

stornoway

Tales From Terra Firma 4AD 8/10

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oncept albums are perhaps considered rare these days, especially those that tackle themes like birth, death, marriage and coming of age, but this is just what Oxford quartet Stornoway have chosen to do on their new release. Tales from Terra Firma is an album centred in part around “discovering what it is to be human,” according to frontman Brian Briggs.

Central to the band’s collective persona, Tales from Terra Firma makes it clear that Briggs and Stornoway are still helplessly consumed by their desire

The Messenger Warner Bros. Records 5/10

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or many of his followers, Johnny Marr’s debut solo album may feel a tad belated. For years we’ve all been wondering ‘How Soon Is Now?’ in hopes of an independent effort from Marr akin to that of his fabled former bandmate, Morrissey.

In a fashion rather opposite to that of his fellow Mancunian band member, Morrisey, since the disintegration of the Smiths, Marr has up until now chosen to define himself as one of British music’s most furious collaborators.

Having worked with such names as the The, the Cribs and Modest Mouse, and having contributed to works such as Hanz Zimmer’s soundtrack to Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Marr has

Fuse.

Thursday March 14 2013

Johnny Marr

12

Hadouken!

for adventure.

Listening to the album as it broodily progresses and develops, it is hard to believe that it was recorded in a garage. The fact that most of the songs were initially written in a campervan is perhaps more plausible considering the overwhelming charm and peculiarity of Tales from Terra Firma.

Throughout the record, an eclectic mix of instruments including traditional guitar, bass and drums, alongside autoharps and thumb piano are arranged meticulously. These details help build an album that succeeds in forming a complex yet comforting and familiar atmosphere into which the listener can truly immerse themselves.

Ominous melancholy melodies that long to be played over

crashing waves and sweeping winds are complemented by well thought-out lyrics, sang excellently in Brigg’s own inimitable fashion. The intelligent lyrics seem to suggest a far greater maturity than that which was offered in their debut Beachcomber’s Windowsill, adding to the slightly darker, more serious tone of the album.

All in all, whilst offering some fantastic instrumental surprises throughout, most notable in the form of a stunning clarinet intro to ‘The Great Procrastinator’, Tales from Terra Firma represents the work of a band refreshingly true to themselves. They are passionate, but unafraid to mature and develop the way in which they write and play.

successfully woven his own characteristic sharp, jangly fretwork into pieces across the musical spectrum.

This self-produced album is of unquestionable technical excellence. Marr again demonstrates his widely celebrated skill as a guitarist, but disappointingly from the outset it plays with a frustrating lack of originality and vision.

The Messenger is made up of bland, disengaging lyrics sang in lacklustre, mediocre tones, excruciatingly dissimilar from those that had traditionally accompanied Marr during his time with the Smiths. It makes for an album that is full of largely indistinguishable tracks that result in a regrettably forgettable experience.

Faint glimpses of the traditional Marr can be unearthed in upbeat, alluring melodies, commendable on tracks such as ‘The Crack Up’ and ‘New Town

Velocity’. The album makes the refreshingly clear statement that Marr is not explicitly attempting to recreate the tone or mantra of any previous work.

The Messenger, although certainly not unpleasant is uninspiring. It is not entirely absent of the energetic dynamism normally to be expected of Marr, but neglects to form any distinct charisma that would identify him as a discernible stand-out solo artist.

The release marks a significant personal milestone for Marr as part of a career that many would already argue to be of iconic status. In his capacity as a musician, Marr is widely credited with having co-defined British pop culture during his early career.

Unfortunately, this painfully overdue and greatly anticipated solo endeavour does not deliver.

Dale Callaghan

Dale Callaghan

beat picking up as the lyrics, “Each and every weekend/ We spend it like the whole world’s ending” are repeated over and over. It’s not exactly rocket science; it’s just the structure of every commercialised dubstep track on the market today.

It is true that the band have never claimed to be rocket scientists, and within their genre, Every Weekend is not bad. ‘Levitate’, the backing track to the Youtube smash ‘People Are Awesome 2013’, has a nice ethereal synth to open it, and the pre chorus amps the tension up enough for the explosive drop to be the release ravers will need.

In a different way, ‘Bad Signal’ shows off their lyrical skills, as the song focuses on a social media theme which connects well to their target audience.

Unfortunately, there is only one word that sums up Every Weekend overall: repetitive.

Now Playing

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ith the abundance of new releases each week it can be difficult to sift through the shit in search of the gold, so Fuse has handpicked some of the musical highlights for you.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back and Karen O has new blonde hair too. ‘Sacrilege’ is the first track off their fourth studio album Mosquito and so far, we like what we hear. The electronic style they displayed on their last album, It’s Blitz!, is definitely still there, but the overall effect is much more chilled and the gospel choir that features towards the end is a nice touch.

We are so pleased that they are back and Karen O’s vocals are more striking than ever.

We are loving Parquet Courts’ scatty indie-punk sound and their new track ‘Smart Aleck Kid’ is the most fast-paced and crazy yet. At just over a minute long, the song structure is unusual and abrupt and the vocals are mostly yelled, but we just love it. Their refreshing style is certainly gaining them some

Every song is just so similar to the one before, and indeed tracks on previous albums. The drops are average, but the fact is they are always there and in some songs, like ‘Stop Time’, they do not work at all.

‘Daylight’ shows a glimpse of hope, as the riff in the opening section shows a different aspect to Hadouken!, but then this is lost under a dubstep drop that really shouldn’t be there at all. Sometimes bands experiment and it does not work, but Hadouken! have really stagnated, and really need a game changer if they wish to keep people raving ‘every weekend’.

Lewis Colson

Follow us on Twitter @ForgePressMusic attention of late, and if you like this track you should listen to the A-side ‘Borrowed Time’ which is also brilliant.

MS MR have caught our attention recently with their original, fuzzy soul-pop sound. We recommend that you listen to ‘Hurricane’ as the blend of stunning female vocals, dark electronic beats and haunting melody just works, and it’s what makes MS MR one of the most exciting new artists at the moment. Their new album, Second Hand Rapture, is out May 14 and we can’t wait.

Punk-rock favourites Alkaline Trio have announced that their ninth studio album My Shame Is True will be released on April 1 and from what we’ve heard so far, it sounds like the band are sticking to their roots and doing what they do best. ‘The Torture Doctor’ is a fun, catchy punk track which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on their 2005 release Crimson. The retro video for the track is also worth a watch but the mild surgery scenes are not for the faint-hearted.

LW & AH

Eliza and the bear Friday March 1 The Bowery

E The Joy Formdiable: mikekatzif/Flickr

The Joy Formdiable Saturday March 2 The Leadmill

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aving spent the last couple of years working the US and landing gigs with Muse, Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney, it’s been a while since the Joy Formidable have brought their fuzzy, riffy indie out on a proper UK tour.

In that time the Welsh trio have done much to improve their standing and they’ve released a new album,Wolf’s Law. Their fellow Welsh countrymen Denuo start brightly, swaying effortlessly from loud to quiet with thoughtful soft rock, but slide into a lull when frontman Tom Mason stops pulling smart, melodious lines from his electric guitar and starts tiresomely massaging an acoustic.

Kill It Kid, meanwhile, are a little more boisterous. The four-

piece hail from Bath but strap on their best Nashville accents for the occasion, ticking off all the southern rock boxes and doing so with a bit of swagger.

The brother and sister vocal duo are impressively versatile but the bluesy tunes, while equally varied and confidently delivered, are largely unremarkable.

The stage is well-set with lights and video projections when the Joy Formidable arrive but the real show, as always, is the three of them.

They’ve never been able to conceal how happy they are to be on stage and Ritzy Bryan grins from ear to ear, looking the crowd in the eye and revelling in the interaction as they run through the bouncy, chunky riffing of ‘Cholla’, the capricious ‘Austere’ and infectious, optimistic new single ‘This Ladder Is Ours’.

The show exploits the sensory overload of extended outro jams.

Every song is squeezed for all the distortion and reverb it’s worth, but many of the night’s highlights are in the quieter moments: acoustic number ‘Silent Treatment’ and the melancholy ‘Wolf’s Law’ are the pick of the new songs.

Still, they hold onto the momentum of the heavier stuff and the set builds right to the end.

The balance is fine between quiet and very, very loud tonight.

It’s taken a degree of evolution in the band’s sets to pull it off.

And much like ‘Whirring’, which has transformed from a promising early single into a gargantuan, barnstorming closer complete with bangs, crashes and double bass drums, the Joy Formidable have very quickly turned themselves into a triumphant headliner, the finished article.

Duncan Geddes

liza and the Bear head north from their London origins, touring their new singles ‘Upon the North’ and ‘The Southern Wild’, released early last week.

The gig’s already bound to be worth the trip; with support from local minimalist band Low Duo at the cosy venue of the Bowery on a buzzing Friday night, it is pretty much guaranteed to be packed.

However, as Low Duo take to the stage, it’s clear the Friday night crowd are going to be more of a hindrance than a help; the two brothers charming folk sound is drowned out by the preoccupied and already tipsy crowd, who limply clap the band as their short set comes to an end.

Eliza and the Bear must have taken heed of this and decided to turn up the amp; powerful ‘Upon the North’ cuts through conversation and restores the night to more of a gig feel.

This is a five-piece band that

Luls

Friday March 8 The Bowery

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hat can you say about Luls’ gig at the Bowery seeing as it only lasted 10

Post War Years: emmaswann/Flickr

Post War Years

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DOT COM

Nicky Crane

amp and mic stop working, leaving guitar and drums to plod on to the end before the group apologise and laugh it off as the worst possible start.

At the second attempt they nail it, but the crowd’s enthusiasm has understandably abated.

Second track ‘Young’ displays Luls’ more atmospheric side while still maintaining the shouty chorus that has hooked so many followers.

The sound issues persist slightly but things reach a head in ‘Swing Low’.

With the bass and mic intermittently cutting out, the song peters out until bassist Adam smashes his instrument and storms out of the bar.

Guitarist Shaun stays put and apologises, before putting to bed a disastrous set.

Luls may be destined for NME flavour of the month fame alongside the current Birmingham bands but this gig wouldn’t have won over any fans in Sheffield.

Henry Wilkinson

Fuse.

ith three bands for zero entrance fee, it’s going to be pretty difficult for this gig to disappoint.

Bungalows and Bears start the night with local band Puzzles, who give us a taste of the electronic-infused night ahead.

The second band Duologue take everyone by suprise.

Equipped with striking vocals, a keyboard, an electric violin and a sequencer, their sound mixes, taking on a plethora of different genres.

The serene falsetto and violin contrasted with a heavy guitar and electronic sampling at times slips into the brilliance of a Radiohead sound.

It isn’t perfect though; a few technical hiccups and instrument malfunctions, along with the messy dubstep sampling, breaks

ing into a generic electro sound.

It’s a little disappointing not to hear the band recall any of the tracks from their first album The Greats and the Happenings, which would’ve almost guaranteed some movement from the audience.

The gig never reached past the foot-tapping stage, but Post War Years aren’t one to give up easy, giving a full 50 minute set of spotless rhythms and pure energy.

In the bands own words: “Thank you Sheffield. That was ‘fabulagos’”. Get it?

Nicky Crane

does folk the way it’s meant to be; a blasting trumpet, sweet piano and smooth, impeccable twee guitars.

Their style is very Arcade Fireesque, creating energetic songs that sync and flow perfectly, with catchy rhythms that’d get anyone on their feet.

Unfortunately, this still wasn’t enough to enrapture the crowd; the Bowery slowly emptied, filtering out those who were genuinely interested in the band.

At this point it would be easy for these guys to feel deflated, but Eliza and the Bear stuck it out with surprising enthusiasm, churning out an impressive, although short, set that didn’t get the attention it deserved.

When the band admit they’ve only got one song left, the remaining audience groan with disappointment, demanding more, in which the band coyly replies, “We’re a bit sparse on songs.

We don’t have anything else!”.

They still happily oblige though, leaving everyone thinking that with a bit more material, these guys could go all the way.

Thursday March 14 2013

Thursday March 7 Bungalows & Bears

up an otherwise seamless flow.

Their new album Song & Dance is one to watch this year.

It’s a bit later than anticipated, but Post War Years finally announce their arrival. The band consists of four young, charming (and handsome) lads, decked out in blazers and skinny jeans, coyly grinning to the amassing crowd who push forward in eagerness.

It’s refreshing to see a band who clearly adore the music they make, as they delve energetically into ‘Galapagos’, a fastpaced single, heavy with magnificently crafted layers from the trio of synthesisers.

For the rest of the night, Post War Years show off their expertly complied new album, likewise called Galapagos, which they released early last week.

Such tracks as ‘Glass House’ and ‘Be Someone’ are clearly better live, but it’s still frustratingly clear that the band’s new album falls a little flat, with songs that lack the trance-inducing harmonies the crowd yearns for, fall-

minutes?

It looks to be a good night ahead with support band Blossomer opening to a full bar, but sadly it doesn’t last.

Blossomer’s debut Sheffield show impress the crowd which seem larger and more receptive than usual for many support acts.

Their striking sound is due to their brooding guitarscapes, minimal electronic percussion and strong vocals.

Luls’ opening track ‘Never Let It Go’ starts well, displaying the band’s characteristic anthemic vocals, chugging power chords and hard hitting drums.

It’s a good start for the headline act, who are midway through their first headline tour after support slots with the likes of Crystal Castles and Peace.

Half-way through the bass

Reviews.

MUSIC

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Reviews.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Dir: Sam Raimi 7/10

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ay no attention to that man behind the curtain. For Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful is good, but definitely not great.

This is a yellow brick road paved with good intentions, but it suffers from several potholes which highlight the fact that this is ultimately a film made solely for munchkins.

Akin to the beloved 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the film begins in black-and-white Kansas, which is sure to pique the nostalgia of long-term Oz fans.

Oz (James Franco) is Oscar Diggs, a struggling magician in a travelling circus, who for all his sleight-of-hand and cheap parlour tricks is soon revealed to be nothing but a fraud.

Like Dorothy, Oz is swiftly swept away by a tornado into the magical land of Oz, and thus begins his transformative journey from con artist to wonderful wizard.

Many have thought him to be miscast, but from the moment the curtains rise Franco is enchanting, displaying boundless charm as the eponymous protagonist, waltzing from scene to scene with a hypnotising on-screen presence.

Mila Kunis, too, gives a wicked performance as Theodora, the soon-to-be Wicked Witch of the West who vacillates between heartbroken sister and vengeful antagonist.

Cult Corner.

Jeux d’enfants Dir: Yann Samuell 2003

Fuse.

Thursday March 14 2013

Y

ann Samuell’s Jeux d’enfants is undoubtedly one of France’s finest cinematic masterpieces.

Set in Belgium, the film tells the love story of best friends Sophie (Marion Cotillard) and Julien (Guillaume Canet).

The pair grow up as childhood friends. In their youth, they devise a game which involves carrying out outrageous dares when in possession of a small tin box. After the dare is completed, the tin is passed on to the other person.

As their friendship matures however, the trivial game comes to hide something that the pair are both unwilling to acknowledge – that they are in fact truly meant for one another.

Samuell keeps the soppy romance element to a minimum, which is what makes Jeux d’enfants a great love story.

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Hell hath no fury like a witch scorned, and Kunis provides a fiery, bewitching spectacle. Zach Braff also deserves merit for his amusing turn as Finlay the flying monkey, suitably injecting doses of intelligent humour into the script.

The real magic of Oz lies in the film’s gorgeous aesthetics, with a transition to colour every bit as impressive as the original, which was notable for its special effects at the time.

“Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful is good, but definitely not great”

It really is a testament to how far technology has advanced in the past century. The impressive CGI creates a vast palette of vibrant colours: fluorescent emerald harmonising with layers of deep ruby and sapphire.

The 3D is also utilised tastefully, adding further depth to the spectrum of rich textures.

Art director Robert Stromberg’s influence is apparent, as the film bears a particular kinship to his previous endeavour, Alice in Wonderland.

Unfortunately Oz suffers from the same pitfalls as Tim Burton’s film, with the visuals mirroring one of Oz’s parlour tricks smoke and mirrors hiding a thin, simplistic story.

The best thing about the film is undoubtedly the acting. Cotillard and Canet, a couple offscreen as well as on, work incredibly well together and have terrific chemistry. Samuell makes the best of their acting skills by tracking Sophie and Julien’s love from their late teen years to old age.

The film also carries with it some great moments of humour.

Even when the pair are not with each other, the short scenes and use of voice over narration provide viewers with some great one-liners.

Samuell’s brilliant manipulation of narrative provides us with two endings to the film, which leave viewers pleasantly surprised while adhering to some of the conventions of your average romcom. The camera work also mixes things up a bit with interjections of documentary style footage of Sophie and Julien.

The proof of the pudding is very much in the eating, and Jeux d’enfants will not disappoint.

Mariyah Mandhu

Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams are further A-list illusions, familiar eye candy masquerading as otherwise predictably boring characters.

Still, there’s no place like home. Despite lacking the charm of The Wizard of Oz, this remains an entertaining, albeit unnecessary, prequel with a circus of solid performances and picturesque visuals which kids are bound to enjoy.

Graham Wardle

Small Screen. parks and recreation BBC Four Wednesday, 10pm

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or those of you not in the know, BBC Four’s new comedy Parks and Recreation has been around stateside for nearly four years.

In fact, over there it’s already on its fifth season, which makes it all the more confusing that it has only just been picked up in the UK. But what a show the BBC have got themselves now.

Focusing on the quirky-yetwarm employees of the Parks and Recreation department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, the show is a mockumentary in the same vein as The Office. It follows the daily tests and trials of Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), a mid-level bureaucrat whose delusions of grandeur are

the driving force behind the main plot for the first season.

Anne Perkins (Rashida Jones), a resident of Pawnee, is not too happy about the huge pit behind her house into which her boyfriend fell and broke both of his legs, so Leslie promises to do something about it and build a park in its place.

“What a show the BBC have got themselves” Her determination to follow through with her promise results in her boss, Ron Swanson, magnificently portrayed by Nick Offerman, to compare her to a “little dog with a chew toy”; just one of the many excellent lines delivered by the staunch libertarian whose dream is “to have

the park system privatised and run entirely for profit by corporations.”

Although the first two episodes are good, altogether the first season isn’t that great. Treat it more as an extended introduction, as it’s in the second season when the characters really mature.

These subtle changes take Parks and Recreation from being an okay sitcom with a few good lines to one of the best to come out of America in the past 20 years.

David Ewing

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DOT COM

Robot & Frank Dir: Jake Schreier 8/10

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charming yet bittersweet indie film, Robot & Frank looks at the emotional strain caused by dementia and family relationships in old age, in a future of robots and state of the art technology.

Frank Langella plays Frank, an ageing cat burglar suffering from dementia in a near futuristic America. His son Hunter (James Marsden) becomes tired of the long commute to his father’s home, and so buys him a domestic robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) to help improve his mental and physical health.

Though initially sceptical about being left alone with the robot, Frank grows fond of his new helper when he finds out it was not programmed to understand the difference between legal and illegal activities and starts planning to restart his career.

The first heist at the local library shows him attempting to steal a rare book to win the heart of librarian Jennifer (Susan Sarandon). However,

amount of sciency stuff, but it’s toned down and feels like a part of a story rather than the whole story. Even so, at times the mood approaches clinical.

But where Contagion suffered from an overly big, disconnected and underdeveloped cast of characters and lack of narrative direction, Side Effects is much more focused and characterdriven making it more emotionally engaging and enjoyable.

It’s a slow-burning film, but rather than fizzling out it gets better as it goes, with an unpredictable plot resulting in a surprisingly enjoyable thriller.

The flawed characters feel believable (if not particularly memorable) with strong performances all round, and the leisurely pace of the film’s beginning creates a strong groundwork for what follows.

Mara deserves a special mention for her range and versatility in portraying the extremely changeable Emily, with enough restraint to keep her grounded in reality.

This smartly written, carefully wrought and tense thriller is a welcome gold nugget in the mudslide of post awards season cinematic garbage.

It may not be ground-breaking, but this enjoyable, intriguing and all-round strong film is well worth a look.

Parker has a bad and simplistic storyline, but if anything the level of filmmaking here is even worse. There are so many inconsistencies in the filming that it is hard to believe this film was designed to be a box office hit.

With guns changing colour and

Alex Chafey

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Lewis Colson

Fuse.

Jonathan’s life to crumble around him, he begins to realise the experimental drug may be a symptom of a greater conspiracy.

Side Effects benefits from the taut, focused direction of the reliable Steven Sodebergh, who has reportedly said this is his last film before he hangs up his clapperboard. The hazy yellow pallet captures and reflects the tone of the film, with the unobtrusive music creating the perfect backdrop for the drama.

Stylistically it’s similar to Sodebergh’s 2011 virus outbreak disaster movie Contagion, with a calm, realistic and measured approach.

That being said, it begins to push the boundaries of believability towards the end, but makes up for this with a big injection of dramatic adrenaline.

Like Contagion there is a fair

“Parker has a bad and simplistic storyline, but the filmmaking is even worse”

wounds moving and even disappearing from people’s bodies between different camera angles, it feels as though this film was made in a rush. Every car Parker drives is stolen and they all miraculously start without the need for a key or hot-wiring.

However the worst error in the film has to be that in a dialogue between Rodgers and her mother, the audio and video are out of sync for a good 10 seconds, which is simply unforgivable.

Parker’s only redeeming feature is the action sequences, and there are not actually that many of them compared to other Statham movies.

‘I’ll make sure you regret it’, what an appropriate line for anyone who pays to see Parker.

Thursday March 14 2013

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Rhiannon Pickin

t’s been about five months since we last saw Jason Statham ‘acting’ in The Expendables 2, so it must be time for another bloodbath involving a tenuous storyline, an undeveloped love interest, bad acting and more dead bodies than dialogue.

Parker makes its intentions blindingly clear in the first 10 minutes, with its eponymous character (Jason Statham) repeating his only rule over and over again: ‘If you say you’ll do something and you don’t, I’ll make sure you regret it.’

Whilst this appears to be quite a cool (albeit clichéd) character trait for an action hero, the

I

s its title suggests, Side Effects is a film about, get this, the side effects of a new experimental anti-depressant drug.

Jonathan (Jude Law) is a psychiatrist with a penchant for prescriptions, so when he is approached to help out in a drug trial, he’s quick to put forward long-term depression patient Emily (Rooney Mara).

Following her husband’s (Channing Tatum) release from prison and a failed suicide attempt, she starts to take the drug, whose side effects, it emerges, go far beyond her own body.

As Emily’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic causing

Christopher Ford’s script encapsulates the tension created

by Frank’s mental condition very well, particularly by playing it against its polar opposite in Frank’s robot - a machine with a perfect memory but with no emotional capabilities.

The film beautifully demonstrates the bonds we could theoretically have with artificial intelligence whilst also highlighting the loneliness some people feel in their old age.

cluded here in the plot only for the sake of some boring sexual tension with Statham’s character.

Dir: Taylor Hackford 2/10

Dir: Steven Soderbergh 8/10

“Frank Langella is near perfect”

Some characters that do not understand Frank’s illness are not portrayed in a good light, with the film not taking into account the fact that some people unintentionally misunderstand mental illness. It’s easy to root for Frank and his thieving of the contractor’s jewellery from his house, because for most of the film Jake’s character is unbelievably annoying.

So far Robot & Frank has been critically praised and has won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, which will hopefully encourage director Jake Schreier to take on bigger projects in the future. This is a fantastic, hardhitting debut film.

reliance of the plot on this rule makes it feel as though it was the only idea behind the entire film.

The story centres around Parker being betrayed by a group of men with whom he has committed a robbery, and his quest to make sure (quelle surprise) that they regret it.

Along the way he encounters mob villains, hitmen and sickeningly pathetic flashbacks about his girlfriend which would add depth to his character if the acting in them didn’t look like it was straight out of a primary school play.

The rest of the plot comes in the form of Leslie Rodgers (Jennifer Lopez) , a real estate agent in Palm Beach with mounting bills, an ex-husband and an annoying, almost stalker-like admirer in whom she has no interest.

She serves no real purpose, in-

Parker

Side Effects

some evidence he leaves at the crime scene causes Jake (Jeremy Strong), the library’s young new owner, to become wary of Frank, whose next heist proves to be too dangerous for him.

The brilliant Frank Langella is near perfect as an angry, confused man who still sees himself as mentally and physically able.

His character often makes a lot of scenes upsetting as he repeatedly forgets his own children’s names, or places he used to go.

James Marsden also gives his best performance to date, as the film explores the difficulties Frank’s children face due to his illness and the loneliness that comes with it.

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“5 mins ago it was snowing on top of my house, now I can see a clear blue sky from my window. go home weather, you are drunk”

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