Opening Up London
Free ISSUE 7: JAN-MAR 2013
THE
REBEL ISSUE
PROTEST IN POP M.I.A NEVER SURRENDERS AN A-Z OF ACTIVISM REBELS WITH A CAUSE CAITLIN MORAN WHY FEMINISM MATTERS
REVIEWS BLOGS GAMING STREET ART STYLE DEBATE
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CONTENTS Editor’s Letter
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Issue 7 JAN-MAR 2013
Features
Editor’s Letter:
he List T Top 10 events 6 The Big Question Caitlin Moran talks feminism 8 The Mission Yes we really can 14 Cover Star: M.I.A. Inside the mind of a musical maverick 18 Style Study Low-slung trousers 20 Photo-story Rebel Bingo and more 50 Inside Job How to be a dating coach
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rotesting has evolved. It’s no longer just about placards and marching, but mobilising people through social media, creating visual stunts and videos that go viral. In this activism special we turn the idea of rebelling on its head, and bring to you the Rebel With a Cause issue. It’s James Dean joins Greenpeace! Pick a cause, any cause, we’ve got them all covered in our A to Z (p8). We’ve even got pieces from fair-trade guru Safia Minney, MBE and an anti-BP protestor who invades the RSC’s stage with Reclaim Shakespeare. If you want to rebel without a cause (and not break the law) go to our photo-story (p20). Alternative events range from rebel bingo to free running. When it came to picking a rebellious cover star, M.I.A. was the obvious choice. She’s not afraid to speak her mind. As she releases her long-awaited fourth album, Mathangi, read about her own brand of musical protest (p14). There’s plenty of cultural delights to look forward to, too. My top three picks would be: Tarantino’s Django Unchained (p31), Roy Lichtenstein (p38) and The Book of Mormon (p36). What are yours? Kohinoor
Reviews 26 30 35 38 43 45 47 49
usic: rebel where art thou? M Film: teachings of Tarantino Stage: The Book of Mormon Art: Roy Lichtenstein Gadgets: Lara Croft returns Fitness: fun ways to keep fit Travel: tips for cheap trips Blogs: making a difference
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: —Kohinoor Sahota EDITORIAL CONSULTANT: —Dominic Wells ART DIRECTION: —Bb/Teasdale EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: —Emily Newsome FILM EDITOR: —Neil Clarke STAGE EDITOR: —Millie Milliken
ART EDITOR: — Philippa Douglas GADGETS EDITOR: —Emma Boyes CONTRIBUTORS: — Christian Adofo, Adam Bloodworth, Richard Howlett, Mohammed Idle, Stephanie Keller, Safia Minney, Edward Moore, Dante PowellFarquharson, Costas Sarkas, Neil Simpson, Vaskar Szen Kayastha
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and win tickets to Fuerzabruta Save on a Thai tour Free driving lesson
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The List
5:/ Mime Jan 10-27 London International Mime Festival, now in its 35th year, is no longer just about mute painted faces, but instead 1:/ celebrates all aspects of physical theatre. Performers gather from as far afield as Fashion Australia, China and Russia. There are Feb 15-19
Start practising those air kisses as designers showcase their new autumn and winter collections. Big names include Stella McCartney and Paul Smith, and, for the fun factor, Vivienne Westwood and Manish Arora (left). Don’t forget the Central Saint Martins fashion show, which launched Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.
2:/ Shard
3:/ Awards
The Shard has towered above London since last July, and now so can you. The tallest building in Western Europe is opening to visitors – but at a suitably lofty price. £24.95 buys you a view nearly twice as high as any in the capital.
The transatlantic awards season is upon us with the Grammys (Feb 10) and Brits (Feb 20), BAFTAs (Feb 10) and Oscars (Feb 24). Get ready for a whole lot of talk about best dressed and worst dressed, with some trophies tacked on at the end.
q From Feb 1
15 shows: the must-sees in puppetry and animation include the theatre clown, Wolfe Bowart; in circus skills the festival brings back last year’s hit the Gandini Jugglers; and of the illusionists, Aurélien has been a highlight since 2002.
6:/ Holi Mar 27
Feb
4:/ Drink Mar 17
Trafalgar Square plays host to the annual St Patrick’s Day festival and parade from noon. It commemorates the saint who gave Ireland its shamrock symbol, which you’ll see plenty of on pints of Guinness throughout the city as revellers search for the craic (good times) at the bottom of a glass.
Hindus celebrate the end of winter with Holi, the festival of colours. The highlight is a big, explosive, colourful powder fight. The annual celebration at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham is open to all and includes dhol drummers, bhangra dancers, street theatre and food stalls. There are also plans to do a giant new open-air celebration in London, for details visit http://tinyurl.com/c24um34.
The LisT
8:/ Valentine Feb 14
7:/ Chinese p Feb 10
Chinatown and Trafalgar Square get spruced up to celebrate the Year of the Snake. Expect lion dancing, acrobats, fireworks and dim sum. Last year 300,000 people flocked to the West End, making it the biggest celebration of the new year outside of Asia.
The one time of year that singletons hate and couples lurve. Here’s your starters for ten: listen to the Philharmonia Orchestra play romantic classics at the Royal Festival Hall; go to The Last Tuesday Society’s masked ball (Feb 16); put stars in their eyes at the Royal Observatory Greenwich with a nighttime telescope viewing and Champagne; or just take in a romantic movie, such as the one-day-only re-release of Moulin Rouge and preview of Romeo & Juliet, or the less slushy Knocked Up sequel This Is 40.
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9:/ Pancake Feb 12
Flipping hell, who thought pancake day could be this much fun? The Great Spitalfields Pancake Race is like the egg and spoon race, but with a sugar rush. You run, you flip, and, well, eat. You can cheer or take part in a fancy-dress team of four. The fun starts at 12.30pm at the Old Truman Brewery and raises money for London’s Air Ambulance. Register in advance at www.alternativearts.co.uk.
10:/ Jessie J t Mar 9-10
This may be her first stadium tour (the 02 Arena marks just two of 16 nights), but Jessie J’s had plenty of practice playing to a crowd: the Olympics closing ceremony was watched by a billion people worldwide.
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The BIG QUESTION
Q: A:
Do we still need feminism? Columnist — Caitlin Moran ‘No! I’m not into civil rights! That Martin Luther King is too shouty. He just needs to chill out, to be honest.’
With International Women’s Day on March 8, 2010’s PPA Columnist of the Year explains why we shouldn’t be ashamed of the F-word.
But then, I do understand why women started to reject the word ‘feminism’. It ended up being involved in so many bafflingly inappropriate contexts that – if you weren’t actually aware of the core aims of feminism, and were trying to work it out simply from the surrounding conversation – you’d presume it was some spectacularly unappealing combination of misandry, misery and hypocrisy, which stood for ugly clothes, constant anger and, let’s face it, no f***ing.
Say it. SAY IT! SAY IT NOW! Because if you can’t, you’re basically bending over, saying, ‘Kick my arse and take my vote, please, the patriarchy.’ And do not think you shouldn’t be standing on that chair, shouting ‘I AM A FEMINIST!’ if you are a boy. A male feminist is one of the most glorious end-products of evolution. A male feminist should ABSOLUTELY be on the chair – so we ladies may all toast you, in champagne, before coveting your body wildly. And maybe get you to change that light bulb, while you’re up there. We cannot do it ourselves. There is a big spider’s web on the fitting. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying only 29 per cent of American women would describe themselves as feminist – and only 42 per cent of British women – I think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? Vogue, by Madonna? Jeans? Did all the good stuff GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you
Caitlin Moran (above) believes even men should be feminists: 'A male feminist is one of the most glorious end-products of evolution.'
just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY? Because for all that people have tried to abuse it and disown it, ‘feminism’ is still the word we need. No other word will do. And let’s face it, there has been no other word, save ‘Girl Power’ – which makes you sound like you’re into some branch of Scientology owned by Geri Halliwell. That ‘Girl Power’ has been the sole rival to the word ‘feminism’ in the last 50 years is a cause for much sorrow on behalf of the women. After all, P. Diddy has had four different names, and he’s just one man. We need the only word we have ever had to describe ‘making the world equal for men and women’. Women’s reluctance to use it sends out a really bad signal. Imagine if, in the 1960s, it had become fashionable for black people to say they ‘weren’t into’ civil rights.
The purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right ‘types’ of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long – this belief that ‘we’ wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that hire cleaners, birds that stay at home with their kids, birds that have pink Mini Metros with ‘Powered by Fairy Dust!’ bumper stickers, birds in burkas, or birds that like to pretend, in their heads, that they’re married to Zach Braff from Scrubs, and that you sometimes have sex in an ambulance while the rest of the cast watch and, latterly, clap. You know what? Feminism will have all of you. What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.∂ Caitlin Moran is a columnist for The Times. This is an edited extract from How to Be a Woman, Ebury Press, £7.99. Moranthology is out now in hardback, £18.99, and in paperback from May 9
Gareth Iwan Jones
It really is important you say these words out loud. ‘I AM A FEMINIST.’ For preference, I would like you to stand on a chair, and shout ‘I AM A FEMINIST’ – but this is simply because I believe everything is more exciting if you stand on a chair to do it. If you feel you cannot say it – not even standing on the ground – I would be alarmed. It’s probably one of the most important things a woman will ever say: the equal of ‘I love you’, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ or ‘No! I’ve changed my mind! Do NOT cut me a fringe!’
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LEARN GRAPHIC DESIGN
The Mission REBELS WITH A CAUSE
The A-Z of rebels with
oycotts There were calls recently B for a KFC boycott after Greenpeace raised awareness of rainforest materials being used in packaging (above), as
well as on Starbucks and Amazon for tax avoidance. Boycotting is not just about consumer activism. Iran won an Oscar last year for Best Foreign Language film, but this year they are staying away due to the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims. Another famous example is the Olympics: the USA boycotted Moscow in 1980, and in 1984 the USSR reciprocated in Los Angeles. The most successful was of South Africa, which hastened the end of Apartheid.
omic Relief In 1985, when Ethiopia was C in the midst of a famine,
filmmaker Richard Curtis and fundraiser Jane Tewson launched Comic Relief. The aim? To make the public laugh whilst raising money for people in need in Africa and the UK. The charity has become a British institution with red noses, charity singles and crazy comedy sketches. The next event is on March 15 and Jessie J is rumoured to be doing a hair-raising stunt: shaving all her locks off.
@ Greenpeace
A
rt activism In our age of social media, visual equals viral. Liberate Tate protested BP’s sponsorship (see also ‘O’ for oil) by pouring petrol over a naked body in the gallery (above). Banksy inspired a generation of illegal street artists to express rage through humour. In China, Ai Weiwei has been imprisoned for his art; Anish Kapoor and friends recently released their take on Psy’s Gangnam Style in support of Weiwei.
The Mission REBELS WITH A CAUSE
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E
co-friendly
People Tree founder Safia Minney, MBE, on why the only way is ethics People Tree is a pioneering, fair-trade, sustainable fashion brand. We aim to benefit farmers and artisans as much as possible with fair-trade prices, technical training and marketing access. Our products are environmentally friendly, using organic cotton, hand weaving and eco-friendly dyes. People Tree builds long-term relationships with producers. It is really exciting to see that craft skills can sit alongside designer wear. We benefit wider communities, and 30% more goes to producers compared to other retailers. So this can, for example, fund kids in schools until 17 rather than leaving at 12 to work.
a cause
We should be putting pressure on fast fashion to pay people properly, and for environmental legislation to be enforced. Rivers are polluted with dyes and communities don’t have a voice. This fast fashion race is extremely dangerous to the environment and to health.
Amy Scaife
isability The Paralympics were D the most successful ever: 11.2 million people watched the opening ceremony, and disabled athletes Oscar
Pistorius and Ellie Simmonds became household names. Yet a fifth of the 11 million Britons with disabilities still experience difficulty accessing transport, and many experience discrimination such as unfair treatment at work and hate crime. DPAC and Black Triangle campaign for equality, and against the government cuts to the disability allowance.
E
co-friendly See box, above
We worked with Emma Watson, after Harry Potter, on a clothing line. She was very involved in the design, and went out to meet producers in Bangladesh. She’s amazing! At the moment we are working with interesting
designers, most recently Peter Jensen. People Tree’s clothes compete well on price with other brands. To cashstrapped students who want to be ethical: buy a welldesigned investment piece, not an expensive brand for the sake of it. Be imaginative: visit second-hand shops and markets, swap clothes. Think about working for companies involved in social change. At People Tree we have brilliant volunteers and interns who organise fashion shows. Anyone can help by telling friends about sustainable fashion, or retweeting campaigns we run. People Tree’s achievements were recognised when I was awarded an MBE in 2009. I didn’t meet the Queen, it was Prince Charles. He wasn’t wearing one of People Tree’s organic cotton shirts, which was a shame! www.peopletree.co.uk
lashmobs Who doesn’t love a F flashmob? The word made its
way into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004 as an ‘unusual and pointless act’. Just as the ad industry used it as a tool for selling mobile phones – think T-Mobile – activists use it as a tool to raise awareness. On World AIDS Day, for example, dancers ‘spontaneously’ strutted their stuff in Belfast Central Station. Find one to join at www.flashmob.co.uk.
ender ‘Feminism’ has become a G dirty word: the F-word, if you will. Yet, as Caitlin Moran argues on p6, it’s ripe for reclaiming. Inequality is still a
u
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The Mission REBELS WITH A CAUSE
K
nife crime
Got a beef? Fixers can help you air it, say Dante Powell-Farquharson and Mohammed Idle Our small youth group told us about Fixers. Fixers is part of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, and helps young people campaign about issues that matter to them, making films, songs and music videos. It’s really easy to get into. So far more than 5,500 Fixers have started over 600 different projects. As long as you have an idea, they can help. So after chatting with Fixers, we came up with the story we wanted to tell and the script. Fixers provided the funding, the expertise, crew and equipment to make our short film called Breaking the Cycle. We wanted to show that not all gangs are cool, that they are not as glamorous as teenagers think. There is a comical
u live issue: from Freshers’ Week
parties themed ‘Pimps & Ho’s’ or ‘Geeks & Sluts’, to the lack of women in the House of Commons and on the boards of major companies. On the streets of London women are speaking up, in the near-naked protests of Slutwalk (www. slutmeansspeakup.org.uk), and Reclaim the Night marches. omelessness Across London, H homelessness rose by 27.4%
last year. House prices are driven up by bankers and rich buyers from abroad; squatting was made illegal last September; the Government has capped housing benefit;
element to the film: not so much making fun of gang members, but making fun of what it could turn out to be. The video depicts a rival gang, and rather than beating each other up, they start dancing. We’ve got our own experiences of gangs. It’s easier when the viewer knows that someone is saying it from the right place – if it’s from another person not of that background, people question, ‘how do I know it can work for me?’ Nearly 4,000 people got stabbed in London last year. We show the alternatives to gangs: projects people can get involved in, such as sports and instruments. It’s to break the cycle, for people to make the right decision. Now we want to do workshops and go into schools and show it. The whole experience has been really positive. We don’t know a lot of organisations that would go out of their way to help other people. Others might take an idea and push it themselves. Fixers don’t push it. It’s an extremely different approach. We would definitely recommend Fixers to anyone with an issue, aged 16-25. Anybody. People think they won’t be heard. But with Fixers, yes you can! www.fixers.org.uk
tuition fees will knock young people further down the housing ladder. You can make a difference: even buying The Big Issue will help. Contact www.shelter.org.uk or www. crisis.org.uk; www.centrepoint. org.uk deals specifically with 16-25 year olds. llness You might not think of Imental health problems as an
illness, yet they are just as serious as physical ailments – in the case of depression, it can be fatal – and they affect one in four people. Charities like Time to Change are determined to put an end to mental health discrimination.
ulian Assange With the publication of J 251,000 American diplomatic
cables on WikiLeaks, former hacker-activist Julian Assange became Public Enemy No 1. Politicians and talk show hosts called for him to be murdered. Credit card companies united in a boycott on the site: Assange estimates it has cost him $30 million in donations. At the time of writing he is still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, avoiding extradition to Sweden to face rape charges which he claims are politically motivated. Free information, evidently, has a price. Crime See box, left Knife ove ‘Make love not war’ was the L defining slogan of ’60s radicalism. It challenged the Vietnam War by sticking flowers in the bayonets of soldiers, caused Yoko Ono and John Lennon to lie in for a week in a ‘Bed Peace’, and continued the doctrine of
non-violent civil disobedience espoused by Gandhi in India. See box, right Music
uclear ‘I made one great N mistake in my life – when I
signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made,’ said Albert Einstein after the USA dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in 1945. Today eight countries have a nuclear capability, including South Korea, Pakistan and, it is believed, Israel. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament want a ban on weapons in Britain and abroad.
The Mission REBELS WITH A CAUSE
M
usic:
Protest playlist
Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964). The great all-purpose protest anthem. Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1970). Much copied song by arguably the forefather of rap. Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the UK (1977). Punk at its snarliest: ‘Don’t know what I want/But I know how to get it.’ NWA: F*** Tha Police (1988). Before largely descending into a bragging contest, hip-hop was a powerful expression of injustice. Rage Against The Machine: Killing in the Name (1992). This repeated F-you to authority got a second wind in 2009 when it beat The X-Factor to the Christmas No 1. M.I.A.: Born Free (2010). The video showed a bunch of ginger kids being rounded up and executed – a powerful statement against the illogic of discrimination. See also Music, p26
OilSee box, right ETA Kim Kardashian is just P one of many celebrities who
@ PETA
have come under (flour-bomb) attack by the group for wearing fur. Famous PETA ‘I’d rather go naked than wear fur’ models include Kelly Brook, Eva Mendes and even Kim’s
sister, Khloé Kardashian. They also campaign against animal abuse, experimentation and consumption.
for going back on his promise to not increase tuition fees. It won him little sympathy, but did make him a YouTube star. The Poke’s auto-tune remix racked up two million views, with the catchy refrain: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’
ueer rights Homosexuality was Q illegal until 1967, and even
then the age of consent was set at 21, instead of 16 as for straight men. It was only in 2001 that the ages were made the same; and only in 2007 that it became illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. The issue of samesex marriage divides the Church, and homophobia persists in ‘queer-bashings’. The current ad campaign by pressure group Stonewall is simple and direct: ‘Some people are gay. Get over it.’
uition fees In 2004 universities were T able to charge up to £3,000 a
year for tuition fees, and in 2010 this tripled to £9,000 a year. In an attempt to win back supporters, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, apologised
afe sex Every year over 400,000 S new STI (sexually transmitted
infection) diagnoses are made in England. Young people aged 16-25 are in the greatest risk group. The government has campaigned against the rise in STIs with hefty TV advertising showing disease-labelled underwear. Clearly the message isn’t getting through: condoms are not just about birth control, but also infection control. Women have a right to insist on their use.
See box on p12 Uprising for Vendetta Wearing V for Vendetta masks V and using the slogan ‘We are the 99%’ to refer to income inequality and wealth distribution, the Occupy protesters were determined to outstay their welcome. Partly
prepared. Plus the stage is a sacred space that they would be reluctant to invade. We did our twominute set – ‘BT is the harlot’s cheek, beautified with sponsoring art’ – and it went well. We got some claps.
acism In the 1980s black British R footballers would have monkey
chants and bananas thrown at them. Just last year Chelsea captain John Terry and Liverpool striker Luis Suárez were suspended for using racial slurs on the pitch. Has much changed? Well, anti-racism groups, Show Racism the Card and Kick It Out, hope so, and continue to campaign against grassroots and institutional racism in the FA.
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O
il
Richard Howlett, founder of Reclaim Shakespeare, takes protest a stage further At the beginning of 2012 we discovered that the World Shakespeare Festival was being sponsored by BP, and we were outraged. Their Tar Sands oil extraction project in Canada has been called the most environmentally damaging in the world. We were inspired by Liberate Tate (see ‘A’), a group that uses live art to make their point. I’d done a degree in Drama, so decided to use the language of Shakespeare and the medium of a play. The first time, at the RSC Stratford, was pretty terrifying. We had some fears that security would stop us, but we thought the ushers wouldn’t be
Afterwards the RSC director said he would allow such peaceful protests. We’ve done it several times since in different venues, though ushers have tried to stop it, usually under a health and safety guise. At Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal, one of the actors supported us against the ushers; another one was Tweeting excitedly about our protest from the wings just before he went on! Our grand finale was a flashmob in November at the British Museum, because of their BP-sponsored exhibition on Shakespeare. We got 200 people chanting ‘double, double, oil is trouble; tar sands burn as greenwash bubbles’! The BP/ RSC sponsorship hasn’t been renewed; I’d like to think that’s a victory for us. We’re looking at other ways to carry on. For anyone who’d like to get involved, watch our website. We’ll also be running a workshop for activists of the future. www.bp-or-not-bp.org
u
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The Mission REBELS WITH A CAUSE
u inspired by the Arab Spring, the
over outside Marks & Spencer. Teenagers run around with big cardboard boxes and bigger grins. A girl with a blue scarf covering her face strides into traffic as though she owns the road. But stranger things happen in Brixton.
first event was Occupy Wall Street in New York during September 2011. The movement rapidly spread all over the world. There was an attempt to occupy the London Stock Exchange and over 3,000 protesters, including a masked Julian Assange, massed outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, and 250 eventually camped outside. orld Wide Web You may think W censorship is a thing of the
past, but books as harmless as Harry Potter have been banned from library shelves in America. Internet censorship is a growing concern as the UK foreign secretary, William Hague, says: ‘nothing can be more fatal or self-defeating than the heavy hand of state control on the Internet’. In China the firewall, commonly called ‘The Great Wall’, stops people from connecting onto Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. In Russia there is a blacklist on sites, which includes any containing footage of Pussy Riot’s protest.
U
prising
Dominic Wells recalls the Brixton Riots of 7/8/11 You don’t notice at first that you’re heading through the centre of a riot. A man falls
-rated The objectification of X women, whether it be
sexualised magazine covers or pornography, is a, ahem, hot topic. The Sun’s editor, Dominic
Then you see the smashed windows, overturned bins. It’s a riot all right, and not a copper in sight. The strange thing about this riot, in this part of London, is that it clearly wasn’t, for most participants, a reaction against the police shooting of Mark Duggan; it wasn’t a political demonstration. It was a bit of a laugh. Perhaps a chance, too, to grab some of those status symbols – trainers, a big TV – with which people are barraged in adverts but can’t afford. There was a carnival
Mohan, calls page 3 an ‘innocuous British institution’, but the supporters of No More Page 3 want ‘news not boobs’. 60,000 people have signed the petition, and the group even created a Lego-inspired page 3 model, modesty intact, in order to stop the children’s toy company advertising. Similar groups are Stop Porn Culture, Object and ECPAT UK. outh unemployment Y One in five people between
18-25 are unemployed in the UK; for black youths it is one in two. Unemployment has a negative impact on the mental health of young people: 48% suffer from panic attacks,
atmosphere; at no time did you feel unsafe walking the streets. Then the rain came, and with it the police. In 1848, the Year of Revolution, when governments toppled across Europe, half a million Chartists gathered in London ready to take on Parliament… but it rained so instead they went home. And so it proved in 2011. The huddled groups of hooded youths plotting on the back streets got wet, tired. It was no fun anymore. They went home. The authorities are still unpicking the lessons of the riots. So too should the disaffected young. If anyone has the energy or will to rise up, let it be for a cause. There are more than enough to choose from in these pages.
depression and insomnia. The Prince’s Trust help unemployed under-30s start a business (for example The Book) as well as enter employment and training. ombies When it comes to Z attention-grabbing stunts,
Greenpeace are the masters. They’ve sent a man dressed as a polar bear around the world; dunked KFC’s Colonel Saunders (see ‘B’); and best of all, sent a gang of zombies to storm government offices in the Philippines to protest the contamination of water by toxic chemicals. ∂ Compiled by Emily Newsome, Kohinoor Sahota and Dominic Wells
@ Greenpeace
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Cover Star MIA
‘People being reactionary to what I do is really on them, not on me’
Cover Star MIA
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M.I.A. grew up in a civil war, and is more likely to hang out with Julian Assange than Madonna. Dominic Wells on a true rock rebel
T
en years on from her debut, M.I.A. is still one music’s last great rebels. Even motherhood doesn’t slow her down. She performed at the 2009 Grammys in a see-through dress on her duedate, hoping it would draw attention to the plight of oppressed Tamil people in Sri Lanka. More recently, at the 2012 Superbowl watched by over 100 million Americans, you thought at first that she’d sold out: she literally played cheerleader to Madonna in her vast half-time spectacle. And then, during Give Me All Your Luvin’, she raised her middle finger to the camera. Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’
at the 2004 Superbowl was instantly eclipsed: this was a seemingly deliberate act of cultural terrorism, giving all of America the finger. Madonna reacted: ‘I wasn’t happy about it. I understand it’s punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity, it seemed negative. It’s such a teenager, irrelevant thing to do.’ So why did she do it? M.I.A. won’t explain or apologise, except to say that ‘People being reactionary to what I do is really on them, not on me. The media freaking out is always going to happen. It’s cultural. If I stick a middle finger up in England, it’s not shocking there.’
Cover Star MIA
She has a point: it’s 36 years since the Sex Pistols hit the headlines with a stream of expletives on live TV. And the offending digit was raised as Madonna, Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. sang ‘I’m-a say this once, I don’t give a shhh…’ Her finger was just emphasising the word that they couldn’t utter on air. The school of strife M.I.A. – real name Maya Arulpragasam – is used to being misunderstood. It doesn’t help that Maya is considerably less articulate in conversation than in her art, her speech peppered with ‘sort of ’, ‘like’, ‘that sort of thing’, and ‘you know’, her hand gestures standing in for argument. But even her most obvious artistic statements are apparently too subtle for some. The video to Born Free, made with her own money and without record company approval, featured a group of ginger kids being rounded up, taken to a minefield, and made to run. She is clearly exposing the horror and illogicality of any discrimination – black, Tamil, gay. Even so, she was attacked for being ‘gingerist’ by literal-minded critics. To Maya, such horrors are very real. Her adopted name of M.I.A. stands for ‘Missing In Action’, and she grew up in a country at civil war: Sri Lanka was torn between the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group who fought for an independent Tamil state, and the authorities who met violence with more violence. ‘I’ve seen Sri Lankan monks killing people and children,’ Maya said in 2008. ‘How do you allow it to go on? I went to British, Christian, and Hindu schools. The army would come down to [our] Tamil convent, put guns through holes in the windows and shoot. We were trained to dive under the table or run next door to English schools that wouldn’t get shot.’ Her mostly absent father worked for Tamil independence organisations; her seamstress mother is still denied a US visa by association. And yet Maya’s own politicisation came late. After her family fled to England, when Maya was ten, they lived in a council estate in Mitcham where the chief pastime for local youths was to yell ‘Paki’ at her. She became a rootless, disaffected teen. An ex-convict youth worker ‘saved’ her: slamming her against a wall and telling her not to waste her life. She then talked her way into Central St Martins College, threatening the tutor that if he didn’t let her in, she’d have to turn to drugs or prostitution. He agreed: not just because of the blackmail but, he said, because art colleges need rebels.
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Courting controversy: M.I.A.’s nine-minute music video, Born Free (2010), had ginger kids rounded up and shot; and Bad Girls (2012) highlighted Saudi women being forbidden to drive
There she made friends with Justine Frischmann of Britpop band Elastica, and directed some videos for them; she wrote a screenplay which never found a taker; became disillusioned with the posturing of her fellow art students who ‘missed the whole point of art representing society’. On a trip back to Jaffna, Sri Lanka, to make a documentary about Tamil youth, she reconnected with her roots, and found her cause. Her first solo show, in 2001, mixed Tamil political street art with images of Western consumerism. It was a sellout (Jude Law bought several works) and got her nominated for the Alternative Turner Prize. Inspired by her musical friends, she started recording songs with the same mix of politics and collage. She’d connected strongly with hiphop as a teen, and with punk while at art college. She’s a sample queen, throwing together world music with hip-hop, or mixing up a Clash riff to the percussion of cash registers and gunshots on her breakout hit, Paper Planes, which featured on the soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire. Going Gaga over Julian Assange Success has brought its own pressures. Is it possible to ‘keep it real’ when, a few years after releasing an illegal mixtape called Piracy Funds Terrorism, you find yourself performing on the Grammys with those same stars you illegally sampled? Or when the father of your son (with whom Maya has recently split up) is the heir to the vast Seagram fortune? The New York Times evidently thought not, peppering a profile of her in 2010 with sly digs such as: ‘“I kind of want to be an outsider,” [Maya] said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry’. Maya responded by putting the female journalist’s phone number on the internet. In fact Maya does walk the talk. She has donated hundreds of thousands in concert fees to various charities. She is a vocal supporter of Julian Assange, especially after WikiLeaks revealed that she had been right about the activities of the Sri Lankan government. She Tweeted an invitation to Lady Gaga in October: ‘If ur at harrods today, come visit Assange at the Ecuador embassy across the st.
im there. Ill bring TEA and CAKE.’ Surreally, Lady Gaga did actually rock up, despite Maya having publicly dissed her in the past, prompting a further Tweet: ‘MY MIND IS SERIOUSLY BLOWN!’ And of course Maya has been a tireless and outspoken champion of the Tamil people. Those critics who suggest that she exaggerates their plight – she has used the word ‘genocide’ – were silenced in 2011 by a 195-page United Nations report. It details how, in the Sri Lankan forces’ final push to crush the Tamil Tigers in 2009, they herded Tamil civilians into supposed No Fire Zones, and then deliberately shelled them. The report estimates that 40,000 civilians were killed. New art, new album Her support has not been without cost. Maya has complained of her phone being bugged and emails hacked; she has such difficulty with her US visas that her advisers suggested she get married. ‘I’m not going to lose my integrity for that s***,’ she has said. ‘If they’re gonna kick me out it’s going to be a fight, and it’s an important fight to have.’ Maya’s not going anywhere. She is still mixing music and art, publishing a glossy book in November on her album artwork, and exhibiting an architectural piece at the new Biennale in Kerala that she says will inspire the stage set for her next tour. And, more than a year after the single Bad Girls whetted our appetites with its astonishing video of women stunt-driving cars on two wheels, her longdelayed fourth album is finally due. Far from turning her back on world music in pursuit of sales, Maya says it will be like ‘Paul Simon on acid’, and overseen by a raft of top producers, such as Madonna’s collaborator William Orbit, ‘who don’t act like fame whore colonisers’. The album will be called Mathangi, after Maya’s full birth name. It’s a name, she only recently discovered, that she shares with a Hindu deity: Matangi is the goddess of outcasts, and her ‘Mudra’, or spiritual gesture, is in her middle finger. Take that, America. ∂ The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is in Kerala, India, until March 13. Mathangi is out this spring
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Style Study LOW-SLUNG TROUSERS
Prisoners, protesters and even princes have worn low-slung trousers, says Neil Simpson
F
orget about girls being bootylicious. As a result of low-slung trousers, men’s bums have been out and proud. Impractical as the style may be – the US police love it because it makes criminals so much easier to chase – it has become the uniform of inner-city rebellion, a permanent mooning of The Man. Over the last two decades it has permeated through society, evolving across varying degrees of gravitational pull: wide-legged jeans worn extremely low, regular-fit trousers left to slouch enough to show a waistband, skinny jeans purposely pulled down tightly to cover half your arse. It’s even spread to the Arab world. The Libyan revolutionaries, the vast majority of whom were young men, were known as ‘Low-slung trouser protesters’.
Low-riding trousers still have the power to cause controversy: last year a member of Green Day was ordered off a Southwest Airlines flight because his trousers were too low; in May 2010, UK authorities attempted to impose an ASBO on an 18-year-old to save the public from being ‘able to see [his] underwear’; and if you pack only your saggiest trousers for a trip to Louisiana, you could end up in jail for six months. Even Obama weighed in: ‘Brothers should pull up their pants,’ he declared. ‘Come on. Some people might not want to see your underwear. I’m one of them.’ In spite of this, wearing your trousers too low is always preferable to high, as Simon Cowell found to his cost. Fashion’s a stickler for detail. By far the most compelling aspect to the whole saggy saga is how it all began. The loudest voice will tell you it originated in the US, two decades ago, among jailbirds paying tribute to inmates in solitary confinement; all potentially lethal belts were removed at the door. Or more simply, inmates were given standard-issue trousers that were
just too big. From here the style was adopted, in a show of solidarity, by friends on the outside. A trawl through internet forums will give you less sane, more entertaining explanations: it started in prison, where men’s friskiness begins to get the better of them (if you’re going to advertise, display the goods); or by younger brothers, because the bigger your older brothers are, the saggier your hand-me-downs will be, and the more stupid the bullies would be to pick on you. This gets my vote. In her book Dress Codes, anthropologist Ruth P. Rubinstein highlights a 1993 New York Times report which named baggy trousers as a fad in New York and New Jersey high schools, in a trend for ‘styles of clothing pervasive among rap artists […] appearing in the collections of Karl Lagerfeld, Charlotte Neuville and Isaac Mizrahi’. Rubenstein also mentions the theory of bagginess allowing ‘an individual to carry or transport implements of selfprotection, such as guns, clubs or knives’.
Style Study LOW-SLUNG TROUSERS
Music and fashion are nearly always found nestled together (cheek to cheek) and the low-slung style rode the wave of rap music in the early 1990s. In her book 100 Years of Menswear, Cally Blackman explains how ‘break dancers and rappers brought a new musical genre – hip hop – to the fore’, and the sportswear and loose-fitting clothes they wore became instantly cool. In 1992, teen rap sensations Kriss Kross released their album Totally Krossed Out which sold 4 million copies in the US, with cover art displaying the boys in their very baggiest, saggiest trousers. Then again, Kriss Kross did also wear their clothes backwards; their jeans may have drooped because fastening a belt from behind was too fiddly. Saggy style eventually ballooned into a baggy behemoth of fashion, helped along by Mark ‘Marky Mark’ Wahlberg’s gratuitous display of underpants waistband for Calvin Klein in the early ’90s, and countless
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permanent sexual invitation, one rappers such as LL Cool J and Lil’ reason why they arouse such shock Wayne, all keen to reveal which and fascination. brand they trust to cup the junk. By the time Zac Efron climbed on the Clearly, the style has a knack for bandwagon at the beach, with board outraging the establishment. Add to shorts a metre south of his belly this its murky roots in prison culture button, Kriss Kross were rolling and the fact that this is around (backwards) one fashion that in their sartorial ‘Brothers should doesn’t cost more graves. pull up their pants’ (although you’ll wear out your pants quicker) These days, even - Barack Obama and it’s no wonder the Prince Harry (yes, look took off. royalty) is prone to pushing his hands down inside his There are signs that the trend is now pockets to lower that waistband. If slightly in decline. Some argue that his gran tells him off he pacifies her the recession has caused people to by citing McQueen, whose label buckle up in the hunt for jobs. In a helped out rather a lot on Kate’s big society that mostly accepts low-cut day. In 1996, Alexander McQueen tops on women, however, don’t unveiled the ‘bumster’ trouser cut, which aimed to squeeze buttocks out expect the look that rolled a thousand eyes to disappear anytime into the air where they jiggled on the soon.Ω waistband, celebrating a different kind of cleavage. In this light, low-slung trousers can be seen as a
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Photo-story RebeLS WITHOUT A CAUSE
REBEL REVEL
Protests with a twist – have a riotous time at one of these fab four events
Photo-story RebeLS WITHOUT A CAUSE
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Rockaoke q
Let out your inner Sid Vicious and sing the night away. Conventional karaoke is all shook up as you climb on stage and lead a three-piece band. There are over 200 songs to choose from and a friendly crowd cheering everyone on. First and third Fri of each month at AAA, W8 5NP; last Fri at Star of Kings, N1 0AX; Jan 23 then every last Wed at Madame Jojo's, W1F 0SE. www.rockaoke.co.uk
Underground Rebel Bingo p
s s
If you thought bingo was just for your nan, think again. Underground Rebel Bingo has a cult following as far as Madrid and Beijing, and is hush, hush: locations are revealed the day before each event, and the MC weaves a complicated backstory about the authorities trying to shut them down. There are kitsch prizes, scantily-clad presenters, naughty number calling, a dance floor to boogie on, and luminous bingo pens to draw on each other’s, er, faces. Secret location, March tbc, www.rebelbingo.com
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Photo-story RebeLS WITHOUT A CAUSE
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Parkour
Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s a free runner! Free running, otherwise known as parkour, has popped up in a Madonna concert and James Bond movie. Free runners mix gymnastics and athletics to navigate through the urban landscape. As Parkour Generations recently opened the first purpose-built outdoor parkour facility in London, there’s never been a better time to jump into action. Westminster Academy, 255 Harrow Road, W2, beginner classes every Tues, £8, www.parkourgenerations.com
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Photo-story RebeLS WITHOUT A CAUSE
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Street Art Tour
With work produced in public spaces, often illegally and with strong political messages, street artists are the rebels of the art world. Vandalog, a specialist street-art blog that has been going for four years, offer two-hour tours. Kicking off at Old Steet, it showcases London’s finest street artists, including Banksy and Stik. Reservation only, Sat from 2pm, £10, www.blog.vandalog.com/londonstreet-art-tour
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Music
Shock around the clock
Where have all the rebels gone? Dominic Wells looks for the musical mavericks
Music and rebellion go together like a hammer and sickle. Hence the rage against Simon Cowell’s machine, and the keenness of today’s stars to brand themselves rebels. Rihanna, Katy Perry and Jessie J have all done so in interviews; Rihanna even has a perfume called Rebl’ Fleur, er that’s rebel flower. But are they? Really? Rihanna is rebelling, seemingly, against clothing; Katy Perry is rebelling against her Christian roots through the medium of bra-propelled whipped cream and fireworks; Jessie J rebelled, she once said, by having a girlfriend, though she is weary of the subject now, while her rebellion against the industry, Price Tag, ironically made her a mint. Today’s cutting-edge music will always be tomorrow’s lift muzak. The blues was invented, so it is said, after Robert Johnson learned it from the Devil at a crossroads. Jazz was the product of reefer madness and – gasp! – black people. Rock ‘n’ roll was full of coded words for sex, starting with the word ‘rock’ itself. Elvis Presley, before he became a bloated, rhinestone-jumpsuited Vegas monkey-forhire, was so shockingly sexual that television producers could only film him from the waist up. Folk was the punk rock of the ’60s: an angry blast
of rebellion against poverty and injustice. Rock music, as invented by the Beatles, was the result of experimentation with mind-altering drugs and alternative religions; John Lennon was considered a dangerous subversive and monitored by the FBI. Glam rock brought a more fluid sexuality into people’s homes, more ‘lock up your sons’ than daughters. Heavy metal came with long hair, tight trousers and cacophony as standard. Reggae stood up for one love.
Grunge made an antihero and, eventually, martyr of Kurt Cobain. Britpop… actually, I’m not sure Britpop rebelled against anything, except for Liam Gallagher against his older brother Noel. And it’s from here, arguably, that the rebellion rot set in. This was the first time that parents who grew up post-Beatles would, on hearing their teenagers’ music, start to sing along. The generation gap has closed, and with it music’s power to shock.
‘The Sex Pistols were artificially kept off No1 so as not to embarrass the nation’
Punk introduced anarchy to the UK: the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen, released in the Silver Jubilee year, was artificially kept off the No1 slot so as not to embarrass the nation. The New Romantics effectively reinvented Glam Rock with synthesizers: the only reason Middle America embraced Boy George is they had no idea he was a man. At a time when white male artists dominated MTV, Madonna was a one-woman rebellion, and rap and hip-hop articulated howls of rage from the ghetto. The ecstasy-fuelled Acid House movement bred illegal raves, and was deemed dangerous enough to be legislated against. The nihilism of
It’s a different story abroad, where Pussy Riot can be exiled to the Gulags. And of course there are still rebels in the mainstream. M.I.A., currently exhibiting at the new Biennale in Kerala and working on a new album, literally raised her middle finger to America during the Superbowl. Lady Gaga elevates non-conformity to an art form. But your parents will still be humming along. It’s in the nature of teenagers to rebel against their parents, but perhaps music, for the first time in 80 years, can no longer provide the soundtrack.
Reviews MUSIC
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The Gig That Changed My Life
The Video Hot Chip: Don’t Deny Your Heart Hot Chip takes aim at the serious topic of homosexuality in football, and scores, says Neil Simpson
Swimming upstream against the tide of music video convention, Don’t Deny Your Heart is refreshing in its aspiration to convey something more than the brand of the artist: the concept centres on a football video game, albeit in a fantasy world where your players develop independent thought. It opens with the band playing a console on their tour bus, but soon they can only sit back and puzzle as onscreen two opposing players square up to each other and a multitude of footballs rain down on the pitch, spilling forth from a large disembodied mouth floating in the sky. The two players have opposite ethnicities, evoking
recent football racism headlines, until shoving turns to kissing. The ensuing pixel-tastic snogathon is wildly unexpected and it’s little wonder: the fundamental ingredients of the video are football, computer games and subsequently lad culture, where homosexuality doesn’t exist (unless Tiffany and Jackie share a bath in Zoo magazine). In reality of course, it does exist; the subject is still too taboo to mention. The first and only openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu, killed himself in 1998. Past pop videos such as Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful have bravely depicted homosexual kissing, but pop has always
occupied an altogether more forward-thinking territory; hip-hop artist Frank Ocean caused a cultural rumble this year by singing about being in love with a man on debut album Channel ORANGE. For an emerging artist in a frequently homophobic genre this was a huge risk, but there was no evident backlash. Only time will tell if Ocean’s career has been handicapped, but it seems as though historically hyper-macho institutions are gradually finding room for homosexuality. You could argue that Don’t Deny Your Heart mocks gay men by taking the video to such an outrageous finale: the steaming sex pile-up in the closing seconds has been lifted from South Park’s annals of silliness. The video goes after laughs rather than love, but it is still a revelation to see gay men and football together and the track’s title remains a poignant one. Hopefully the Premier League is paying attention.
Rudimental Rudimental Release: Feb 28
Feel The Love defined the summer of 2012; their second single Not Giving In was similarly anthemic. Rudimental just make you happy to have functioning ears, so let’s embrace this London quartet’s debut album. Expect an uplifting collection of happy D’n’B to warm up the winter months. (EM)
Foals Holy Fire
Release: Feb 11
Foals’ third album retains their smooth, euphoric techno sound. Singles Inhaler and My Number
incorporate new fresh melodies and old indie style, good for both chilling out and dancing to. Foals present their new album in a tour starting in February, and reaching the Royal Albert Hall on March 28: a matinee show has been added as the evening show sold out fast. (EN)
Jamie West, 2009’s Busker of the Year and founder of the Protest music nights, on Solomon Burke I was meant to see Solomon Burke, the soul singer, at the Indig02, but I got an email saying they’d moved it to the smaller Jazz Café and the price had gone up. I emailed the manager and said I was a massive fan but it was just too expensive for me, and he kindly gave me and my girlfriend a ticket and said we could meet Solomon after. Now Solomon was 70 and a big guy, 25 stone when he died just a couple of months later, and he was in a wheelchair: they had made this ramp leading up to the stage. The band got up, started playing this dark, brooding, powerful song called Flesh and Blood, then the crowd started to part, and Solomon was wheeled through, his head down. It was so dramatic and tense – how would he be? They got him up on to his throne (he always sat on a throne), and he started to sing. You could tell right away he was amazing. He just opened up, it was epic. Song after song he went through my favourites: Diamond In Your Mind, That’s How I Got To Memphis, Up To The Mountain. Some artists as they get older, their voices deteriorate, but he was at the pinnacle of his talent, the best singer I’ve seen, and I’ve seen thousands. After, we went to his room and started telling him how great the show was, but he just cut us off and started singing a happy birthday song to my girlfriend. So quietly, no tricks, no effects, nothing. It was a magic moment. One thing I learned from that night is there is a tendency now to think that to be a great star you need lights, a backing track, maybe autotune, and to have charisma you need to change outfits so many times. But to see someone so charismatic in just his face, his gestures, his voice, that was so inspirational to me. Protest is on Jan 25, from £5. www.protestnight.co.uk
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Reviews MUSIC
Atoms for Peace Amok
Nightlife Zonk Disco, Jan 18, Bussey Building, SE15 4ST, free This unpretentious bi-monthly club serves up cheesy dancefloor fillers alongside cutting-edge tracks, and best of all it’s free. Stanton Sessions, Jan 19, Cable, SE1 2EL, from £11 The break-beat pioneers bring their choice of special guests to Cable’s terrific space under the arches. A second room is hosted by Supatronix. Egg, every Tues and Thur-Sat, 200 York Way, N7 9AX, from £8 Egg is a mind-bending superclub with a huge garden in the trackless wastes behind King’s Cross. Students can sign up for special deals. Dan Deacon, Feb 13, Village Underground, EC2A 3PQ, £11 These shows get hundreds of people involved in mass coordinated movement. It’s amazing to see, particularly in Village Underground, an old Victorian warehouse underneath four painted roof-top Tube carriages.
Release: Feb 18
Toro y Moi Anything in Return Release: Jan 22
Toro y Moi is a half-Filipino, half-African-American musician who mixes an array of genres such as R&B, alternative and electrogroove. The use of bass guitar with futuristic sounds could be compared to artists such as Flying Lotus, but Toro y Moi produces his own original sound using an assortment of instruments. His single So Many Details takes an urban tone that engages the listener whilst allowing them to explore the abundance of instrumental sounds. There’s just one chance to catch this highly creative Graphic Design graduate live in London: at Village Underground on January 22. (EN)
Mix Radiohead, REM and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers together and, bizarrely, you get the noodly and electronic Default, the debut single off Amok. The restless brain of Thom Yorke leads the supergroup, composed of the same four musicians with whom he recorded and toured The Eraser back in 2009. There’s Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on guitar and synth; the Chillies’ Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary on bass; former REM drummer Joey Waronker; and percussionist Mauro Refosco, formerly affiliated to the Chillies and Brian Eno. Exciting times for ’90s kids. (EM)
Gabrielle Aplin Please Don’t Say You Love Me EP Release: Feb 12
Gabrielle’s EP Please Don’t Say You Love Me stays true to her previous tapestry of dulcet, soothing notes in the EP Home. She may be too twee for some, particularly after her cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love was overplayed on the John Lewis Christmas advert. But if you open yourself up to her touching voice and simple, serene melodies, you’re in for a treat. Gabrielle is on tour in March, reaching Camden’s KOKO on the 20th. (EN)
Reviews MUSIC
Bastille Bad Blood Release: Mar 4
South London indie quartet Bastille have enjoyed positive press since debut single Flaws was released in June 2011, and by December of that year their NME-friendly sound was enough to land them a record deal with EMI. After a year of single releases, radio appearances and touring, all building the hype,
in March they’ll release longawaited debut album Bad Blood. Expect a strong collection of simple but effective indie pop. Equally exciting is their 16-date tour beginning in Liverpool on February 28 and ending at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on March 28. They’re a seriously impressive live band, note-perfect every night, so with vocalist Dan Smith leading the crowd in their sing-along-friendly anthems it should be fun. (EM)
More Music Alt J
Shepherd’s Bush Jan 18
Their debut album An Awesome Wave, recorded while the foursome were at Leeds university, was an uncontroversial winner of the 2012 Mercury Prize. This gig is a followed by a ten-date UK tour in May. Bloc Party
Earl’s Court Feb 22
After a two-year hiatus, in 2011 Bloc Party came back stronger than ever, releasing their fourth album, cannily entitled Four, in 2012. The post-punk indie rockers’ comeback gig at KOKO last summer showed a new confidence when playing live, so expect a blinding night.
a stand-up comic, voice-over artist and film props guy as well as MC. Now signed to Mercury in the US, his recent songs sound like a concerted attempt to crack the American market. Four Tet
Heaven Feb 28
The prolific remixer Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, showcases his own half a dozen albums. Heavily influenced by jazz as well as electronica, he’s been getting into more of a house vibe of late, so a banging evening of dancefloor fillers is guaranteed. Jessie Ware
Shepherd’s Bush Mar 13
Feb 23
The MOBO and Mercury nominated south Londoner heads out west to showcase her beautiful and sophisticated debut album Devotion.
Elliott Gleave, known by his initials as Example (EG, geddit?) has been
Music previews by Edward Moore and Emily Newsome
Example + Benga
Earl’s Court
WE’RE BRINGING THE SUNSHINE TO THE CITY THIS JANUARY WITH THE LAUNCH OF FLORIDITA’S RUM SHACK. Forget the January Detox, bring on the January Retox. At Floridita the party continues right into 2013! Prepare to be transported to the heat of the beach and back again, right here in the heart of London’s Soho. • sultry live music • • tasty street food • • colourful rum cocktails •
Come bask in the glow of our Rum Shack Lounge with one of our new signature sharing cocktails or book out the area for your own private beach party. Please visit our website at www.floriditalondon.com for more information. 100 WARDOUR STREET | LONDON | W1F 0TN 020 7314 4000 | info@floriditalondon.com
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Film
Karma chameleons
Cloud Atlas reaches for the stars, finds Dominic Wells
We may only just have begun 2013, but it’s safe to say no other film this year will screw quite as much with your brain as Cloud Atlas, by the makers of The Matrix. It’s an art movie that cost $100 million to make; a costume drama that starts in the 19th century and ends 500 years later as a dystopian sci-fi epic; a blockbuster informed by Derrida and deconstruction. It ambitiously interweaves six narratives across six time periods, linked by the notion that reincarnation dooms people to repeat the actions and relationships of their past. Most attention-grabbing of all is the cast, which includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon. It’s not so much their combined star wattage that makes you sit up, as the fact that each takes several roles within the film, swapping ages, genders and even race along with the time zone. Without wanting to spoil all the surprises, yes that is Hugh Grant as a war-painted cannibal chief, and Halle Berry
gob-smackingly unrecognisable as an elderly Asian doctor. Sometimes this degenerates into a game of ‘spot the actor’: on set, the stars sometimes didn’t even recognise each other. But it’s mostly a thrill to see a terrific cast get stuck into one of the greatest challenges of their careers. All were committed: the film is one of the biggestbudgeted independent movies ever, and a sizeable chunk of the funding fell out at the very last minute. The stars were told by their agents to walk. Led by Tom Hanks, they stood by the project. In the end, the film-makers put up their own houses and various other assets to secure the missing millions.
Racer in 2008 was pure bubble-gum, they were making up for it with their complex private lives, as Larry Wachowski changed sex to become Lana Wachowski. That’s why this tale of genderbending reincarnation was personal enough to grip them throughout the many years since Natalie Portman first gave them the book. Lana Wachowski told the AV Club website recently, ‘My brother had the sweetest line ever: “Of course I believe in reincarnation—look at my sister.” We, in our own lives, reincarnate as well. We have new lives. I’m sure there are people in your life who would see this version of you, as opposed to 20 years ago, and would say, “Wow, you’ve changed.”’
‘The stars were told to walk. Tom Hanks stood by the project’
It was a characteristically bold move from the Wachowski siblings. In 1999, with The Matrix, they blew the multiplex-going public’s heads clean off. V for Vendetta, which they scripted, became the emblem of the Occupy movement. And if Speed
Whether or not you follow the half-baked mysticism or even the plot, Cloud Atlas is for the most part a masterclass in acting, and most definitely a masterclass in the art of make-up. If this sprawling, confusing, infuriating, often wonderful film wins any Oscar at all, it must surely be for that. Cloud Atlas opens on Feb 22
Reviews Film
1
Q Tips
What Neil Clarke has learned from Quentin Tarantino
A new Tarantino film is always an event (just ignore Death Proof). With Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson starring in the blaxploitation-cum-spaghetti western Django Unchained, here’s a look at his (mostly) magnificent seven films so far: 1. It’s not about the money, money, money By Hollywood standards Reservoir Dogs had a pitiful budget, just $30,000, and it was going to be made with a group of Tarantino’s friends. Then Harvey Keitel offered to act and produce. The budget rose to $1.5 million, though cost-saving measures were still employed: Mr Blonde’s Cadillac belonged to Michael Madsen, and the iconic
suits were donated by a designer who was fond of crime movies. By contrast Inglourious Basterds had an astronomical budget of $70 million, and took over $320 million. 2. Just say yes Michael Madsen’s still kicking himself for passing up Pulp Fiction’s Vincent. John Travolta took the part at a cut-price rate and clawed back a career. Kevin Costner and Warren Beatty were considered for the titular adversary of Kill Bill, both of whom could have done with a hit. Conversely, David Carradine didn’t exactly capitalise on his casting, following it with such eminent films as Epic Movie and Crank 2, before meeting an ignominious end in a hotel closet.
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3. Music maketh the movie Tarantino’s anything-goes approach to music was first made notorious in Reservoir Dogs by the happy ear-slicing dance to Stuck in the Middle With You (above), and is well illustrated by the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol. 1. It includes tracks by Isaac Hayes and Nancy Sinatra, and re-appropriates scores to earlier films as disparate as Twisted Nerve, All About Lily Chou-Chou, seminal Japanese exploitation movie Lady Snowblood, as well as elements from the theme of ’60s/’70s wheelchaircop series Ironside. There’s even has a samurai duel in a snowy garden scored by a flamenco-disco cover of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. 4. Samuel L. Jackson is the epitome of cool One of those frequently made assertions that rests largely on his collaborations with Tarantino.
Les Misérables Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried
Starting in the Tarantino-scripted True Romance and his star-making Jheri-curled turn in Pulp Fiction, it continues through Jackie Brown, a cameo in Kill Bill Vol. 2 and narration in Inglourious Basterds, before reuniting in Django. Jackson seems unable to turn down roles, having been in over a hundred films. That’s a lot of Kangol hats. But for every Pulp Fiction there’s several Phantom Menaces or xXxs. 5. A jumpsuit can look good Especially when it’s borrowed from Bruce Lee. Tarantino has quite the eye for an iconically-styled character, from Uma Thurman’s all-yellow ensemble or her Louise Brooks-style bob in Pulp Fiction, to Reservoir Dogs’ matching suits or, er, Jamie Foxx’s green corduroy-clad gunslinging avenger in Django. Django Unchained opens on Jan 18
Festivals LOCO London, Jan 24-27, BFI Southbank and various venues The second year of the comedy festival features an animation about gay Python Graham Chapman; and premieres of rom-com I Give it a Year and gross-fest Movie 43.
Release: Jan 11
Musical theatre is without doubt a divisive genre, being all too often at once earnest and inherently ludicrous – but, if phony showboating and picturesque poverty-porn floats your boat, you’re in for a treat with this all-star adaptation of the stage behemoth. The cast comprises Hollywood beefcake in the form of Jackman and Crowe going head to head; arguably still-rising starlets Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, and Eddie Redmayne providing the eye-candy; and grotesquerie and comic relief courtesy of Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.
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BFI Future Film Festival, Feb TBA, BFI Southbank Future Film helps 16-25s learn about film-making. Find out what they’ve been up to.
Vocals were ‘revolutionarily’ recorded live on set to capture more accurately the coruscatingly raw emotions on show. Which is all very nice in theory, but slightly invalidated by the big set-pieces displaying all the realistic veracity of Tron.
Top British production company Working Title must have their fingers crossed to the point of vessel constriction that director Tom Hooper can pull off another King’s Speech-sized success. At least Russell Crowe singing has got to be good for a laugh. (NC)
Birds Eye View Festival, Mar 8, Apr 3-10, BFI Southbank The annual International Women’s Day Gala is followed in April by a celebration of Arab women filmmakers. 27th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, Mar 14-24, BFI Southbank The best in global lesbian and gay cinema. Full programme announced in mid-February.
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Reviews FILM
What Richard Did Jack Reynor, Róisín Murphy Release: Jan 11
Neil Clarke, Film Editor Favourite rebellious film: It’s got to be If..., Lindsay Anderson’s satirical and hallucinatory tale of publicschool insurrection. Top rebellious actor: The never less than deranged Klaus Kinski. From firing at Aguirre extras with a rifle, to his one-man Jesus Christ Saviour show, Kinski doesn’t conform to Hollywood standards. Organisations you support: Subscribing to the mailing lists of organisations such as 38Degrees.org.uk or AllOut.org brings such issues as the environment, political reform, NHS, child poverty and gay rights to your inbox.
Gangster Squad Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone Release: Jan 11
This star-studded tale of 1940s LA crime looks like it’s positioning itself as a modern-day action thriller with the added twist of double-breasted suits and fedora hats. Everything in the trailer – from the Jay Z track to the multiple explosions – shoots straight for the multiplex crowd. Yet the casting suggests something
This is 40 Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel Release: Feb 14
This might have a Valentine’s Day release date but there’s nothing very romantic about Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s married couple in Judd Apatow’s ‘sort-of ’ follow-up to his comedy hit Knocked Up. You might remember Pete and Debbie
from that film – they were the couple who constantly bickered with venomous glee. Apatow now puts them centre stage in what seems to be a generally fun look at what it means to turn 40 in today’s youth-obsessed culture. He’s also thrown in breakout stars like Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’ Dowd from Bridesmaids. Hopefully they will provide more for us to sink our teeth into than just a succession of gross-out scenes about middle-aged wobbly bits. (CS)
Already drawing comparison with other studies of the repercussions of violence, such as Gus Van Sant’s Elephant or Larry Clark’s Bully, Lenny Abrahamson’s third film starkly investigates the disintegration of a promising student’s life after he is involved in a fatal brawl. Adapted from the novel Bad Day in Blackrock – which controversially echoed the real-life case of 18-year-old Brian Murphy, who in 2000 was beaten to death by a group of students from some of Ireland’s most prestigious schools – this is a story which in other hands could verge into overwrought melodrama. Advance word suggests a firmer, more understated control of the material. Jack Reynor (the titular Richard) has already been poached by Spielberg for an upcoming sperm-donor project (a film, that is), while Abrahamson himself has snagged man of the moment/ century, Michael Fassbender, for his next project. Oh, and Róisín Murphy of Moloko is in it. (NC)
a little more complex: it includes Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte and the always entertaining Sean Penn as a particularly menacing crime kingpin Mickey Cohen, as well as Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone falling into bed again for the second time after Crazy, Stupid, Love. It’s all based on a true story about the Los Angeles police force’s efforts to keep the East Coast mafia out of LA and it’s helmed by Ruben Fleischer who gave us the hugely entertaining Zombieland back in 2009. (CS)
Lincoln Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn Release: Jan 25
There’s something about a big prestige Spielberg biopic with Oscar bait stamped all over it that turns my stomach ever so slightly. However, there’s also something about Daniel Day-Lewis that would make us stand in line to see him even if he was in the new Danny
Dyer film. He’ll undoubtedly be seated in the front row come Oscar night for his, by all accounts, impressive transformation into US president Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg’s big-budget chronicle of the abolition of slavery. Expect plenty of hands slammed down on tables and lengthy speeches dressed in maudlin John Williams strings, interspersed with the odd moment of Spielberg grandeur that sweeps in to win you over just when you’re about to start protesting at the earnestness of it all. (CS)
Reviews Film
Movie 43 All-star cast
Release: Jan 25
From the starry cast, including Halle Berry, Kieran Culkin, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Hugh Jackman, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet, you’d think ‘warm-hearted comedy’. You’d be so, so wrong. Go and watch the red band trailer. Those two minutes and 29 seconds of wall-to-wall coprophilia, HPV, parental hazing, and mangled penises will put you straight.
Portmanteau films are questionable, let alone when they are helmed by a plethora of comedy directors bent on wilful tastelessness, and populated by a veritable constellation of B-list stars (Gerard Butler as a leprechaun, anyone?). Any film that comprises segments by such luminaries as the directors of Addicted to Love, AIDS: We Did It!, Drillbit Taylor, Dr. Dolittle 2, Let’s Go to Prison, and Rush Hours 1-3, must surely have hordes of people falling over themselves in their rush to the nearest multiplex. (NC) Film previews by Neil Clarke and Costas Sarkas
More Film May I Kill U? Release: Jan 11
A psychopathic-vigilante-cycle-cop black comedy; could be fun. By all accounts this low-budget UK number overcomes its limitations with a witty and well-written script. Almost a twisted British Kick-Ass, it seems there’s potential for this Kevin Bishop vehicle to be a hit. Zero Dark Thirty Release: Jan 25
Spoiler alert! In the end, Osama bin Laden dies. The main challenge facing Katherine Bigelow in making a film about the world’s biggest manhunt is that everyone knows the ending. It’s a credit to her skill (she won an Oscar for Hurt Locker) that the film still has audiences on the edge of their seats for its whole three-hour duration. Warm Bodies Release: Feb 8
So, Shaun of the Dead kickstarted the zombie rom-com, but one where
the protagonist (Nicholas Hoult) is himself undead, smacks of off-the-cuff pitch-meeting desperation: Zombieland meets Twilight. Stoker Release: Mar 1
Even celebrated directors’ English-language debuts can often be hamstrung by studio-imposed constraints; it’s hard to tell whether Park Chan-wook’s psychological thriller has retained Oldboy or Thirst’s blend of baroque production design and brutal violence. Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska star. Jadoo Release: Mar 8
This English-language story in which feuding brothers literally tear the family recipe book in half to create rival restaurants derives from writer-director Amit Gupta’s experiences of his family’s restaurant in Leicester. Actress and chef Madhur Jaffrey also stars.
6th BFI
FUTURE
FILM FESTIVAL 16 - 18 February
Building future filmmakers BFI Southbank Waterloo London SE1
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bfi.org.uk/futurefilm
#FFF
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Port by Simon Stephens
The Book special offer Get fantastic stalls seats for just £20. Use promo code PORT20 when booking online or by phone. Valid for performances from 22 January – 7 February. Offer subject to availability.
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Stage ‘In ancient amphitheatres political satire shared the same space as political endeavour’
Westminster goes to the West End Millie Milliken looks at the link between theatre and politics Politician and gay activist Harvey Milk once said that ‘Politics is theatre’ – which goes some way to explain the enduring relationship between the two. In the ancient amphitheatres, political satire shared the same space as political endeavour. Shakespeare’s tragedies, such as Macbeth, presented the downfalls of power-lusting leaders, while Moliere’s scandalous political satire Tartuffe (1664) was banned for presenting the hypocrisy of those in power. Political theatre has admirably endured, for instance in the 20th century’s new feminist movement presenting plays such as RUR (in which machines replace the working class). And as well as issues surrounding 9/11 dominating 21st century theatre, the last decade saw Lucy Prebble’s Enron, arguably its most talked about production, take centre stage. This season is particularly political, with a mix of serious and light-hearted plays fighting for audiences. Anders Lustgarten’s If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep explodes the ethos of austerity, exploring our current government’s politics. In reaction to David Cameron’s January 2012 statement on free enterprise and morality, this ‘without décor’ production is a startlingly
political opening to Dominic Cooke’s final season at the Royal Court: a stripping bare of frills. Deptford, 1982 is the setting of promising playwright Arinze Kene’s God’s Property (main image). In a London restless with spiralling unemployment and inner city-riots, two mixedraced brothers are unexpectedly reunited. But, with the news that Chima is wanted for murder, Onochie has to decide whether to side with the community for which he has rejected his race, or a brother he doesn’t really know, making this an intriguing exploration of identity and loyalty. James Graham’s This House (top right) is a behind-the-scenes portrayal of one of the most frighteningly hostile eras of British politics. Britain in 1974 was in dire economic crisis, with the threat of a hung parliament, culminating in fist fights in bars and a staggering number of politicians’ deaths. Set in Westminster’s engine rooms, the play shows us those who rolled up their sleeves and bent the archaic rules to control those who fought above them. Directed by Jeremy Herrin, This House is a refreshingly humorous and surprisingly touching glimpse into the political underworld.
If you’re straining under the weight, Money: The Game Show (above) is a welcome relief, proving politics can be fun (who knew?). In this excitingly interactive production by Clare Duffy, Casino and Queenie invite the audience to play along with £10,000 of real coins, encouraging them to bet in a variety of high-stakes games, showing how the world’s economy came so close to catastrophic collapse. This daredevil production also makes us question our most basic relationship with money with exhilarating force. But aside from entertainment, is there a purpose to political theatre? Even political playwright Dennis Kelly recently stated that it’s ‘a complete waste of f***ing time’. I disagree. The theatre in politics may not be obvious to everyone; but political theatre has a catalytic power, and asks difficult questions. How you answer is up to you. If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep plays at the Royal Court Theatre, Feb 15-Mar 9, www.royalcourttheatre.com, SW1W 8AS. God’s Property plays at Soho Theatre, Feb 26-Mar 2, www.sohotheatre. com, W1D 3NE. This House plays at the National Theatre until February, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk, SE1 9PX. Money: The Game Show plays at Bush Theatre, www.bushtheatre.co.uk, W12 8LJ
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Reviews STAGE
One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show
The Tricycle Theatre, NW6 7JR, Jan 16-Feb 9, £14-£22 (£10 early-bird). www.tricycle.co.uk
Missionary positions
Adam Bloodworth on the religious romp, The Book of Mormon
Shocking and subversive theatre returns to the West End as the duo behind South Park unite with the man behind foul-mouthed muppet musical Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is a bombastic critique of Mormonism, a religion started in the 19th century in which the faithful wear sacred underwear. The show takes the obvious satiricial pot-shots at the faith, but with a surprising dollop of compassion towards its followers. Embracing and at the same time subverting the traditions of musical theatre, it tells the story of two Mormon missionaries in Uganda. For many locals religion is an irrelevancy, as residents’ social concerns are more pressing: famine, warfare and sexual health issues. Of course, the brilliance lies in the fact that the audience know all of this already. The show’s creators are poking fun at a wider naivety; at an Apple-Pie-Americana which
Comedy Free and Funny Thursday & Sunday, Camden Head, every Thurs & Sun, free Are you a budding performer or just want to ’ave a laugh? Join one of the five-minute slots onstage between upcoming and established acts. Email 5minutesofcomedy@gmail.com and bring loud friends. What Would Beyoncé Do?!, Luisa Omielan, Soho Theatre, Jan 17-26, from £10 Who runs the world? Perhaps not Luisa Omielan (right), but she is running the comic scene with her successful stand-up show that played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. Luisa jokes, sings and dances her way through a comparison of her life against the singer’s.
must cast its net of righteousness across the ragged terrains of Africa. Masses of anarchical yet thoughtful ‘what ifs’ decorate these themes, as Hitler and the devil are seen in, ahem, a union of sorts, and dance routines involve the upping of the middle finger in the direction of His Holiness himself. This is not a musical you would expect to become the toast of Broadway, but the stats speak for themselves. Winning nine Tony Awards including Best Musical, The Book of Mormon is sure to satisfy a modern audience’s pang for contentious debate by means of a less than subtle romp. But they’ll have to get in quick: top Broadway tickets have changed hands for over $400 each, a figure arguably as shocking as the play itself.
Presented as a live television recording, complete with canned applause, recording gear and soundtrack, this is a cross between a restoration comedy and The Cosby Show. Performed by Eclipse Theatre Company and written by Black Arts pioneer and ‘lost’ playwright Don Evans, the play is set in 1970s Philadelphia and sees Reverend Avery Harrison and his most respectable middle-class black family clinging to their position in their community. His comfortable, Christian life is further shaken when his niece Beverly and her radical ideas arrive from the rural South.
A comment on class and gender, this hilarious and outrageous play brings to light how hard we try to hide who we really are. Directed by the award-winning Dawn Walton, it stars comedienne Jocelyn Esien, of 3 Non Blondes fame, the first and so far only black woman to have her own TV comedy show in the UK.
Purple Heart
Wild Card
Gate Theatre, W11 3ED, Feb 28-April 6, £10-£20. www. gatetheatre.co.uk
The Book of Mormon opens at the Prince of Wales Theatre, W1D 6AS on Feb 5, www.bookofmormonlondon.com Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Bloomsbury Theatre Jan 21, 22 from £12 Sci-curious? Watch one of two highly entertaining shows that combine science and comedy. You learn, you laugh, and there’s time for questions at the end. Alan Davies, Life is Pain, Hammersmith Apollo, Feb 16, 17, from £25 It’s the guy off the Abbey National ads, ahem, we mean QI and Jonathan Creek. After a 12-year hiatus from touring, he returns to stand-up in order to take a nostalgic look back at his life.
The finale of the ‘Aftermath’ season, Purple Heart is a moving meditation on love, loss and grief, and punctuated with sharp wit. The play, a UK premiere of a major early work by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris, is set in 1972’s American Midwest and follows the struggle of Carla as she raises her son after her husband’s death in Vietnam. Whilst trying to avoid the sympathy of her local community, Carla’s life changes when a mysterious soldier arrives on her doorstep. New artistic director, Christopher Haydon, made his mark with the season ‘Resist!’, featuring plays of rebellion and revolution. This season, which includes Trojan Women and Gruesome Playground Injuries (Jan 22-Feb 16), continues the theme by focussing on the aftermath.
Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, EC1R 4TN, Jan 17-March 14, £15. www.sadlerswells.com
This exciting new initiative gives young artists the chance to present whatever work they want. First up are the eight dance artists behind online magazine BELLYFLOP, who present eight works over the two nights, as well as a late bar show. Next is Dan Canham who presents his award-winning solo 30 Cecil Street (Feb 17). There will also be a lecture from performance artist Augusto Corrieri, and dancing before and after the main show from Pig Dyke Molly – a Morris troupe with a twist. Finally, there will be a mixed show (Mar 14) by Ivan Blackstock (below), who has won respect within the hip-hop dance scene as the founder and choreographer of BirdGang Dance Company.
Reviews stage STAGE
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Feast
Young Vic, SE1 8LZ, Jan 25-Feb 23, £10-£30. www. youngvic.org
This epic production, part of World Stages London, celebrates diversity. Directed by Rufus Norris, it brings together five awardwinning playwrights from five ethnic backgrounds, including Gbolahan Obisesan and Rotimi Babatunde. We follow the Yoruba culture, tradition and religion and their struggle from slavery to survival. This powerful journey is seen through the eyes of three sisters, who travel all the way from 1700 Nigeria to Cuba, USA and modern London, and brought to life by dance and live music. Stage previews by Millie Milliken
Fuel Presents
RING
11 - 28 March Battersea Arts Centre
Stage Editor: Millie Milliken Favourite rebellious playwright: Sarah Kane. Her very style was rebellious: she often didn’t attribute lines to particular characters, or give them any stage or acting direction, leaving it in the hands of the actors. Top rebellious play: Faust by Punchdrunk. The production spread over a deserted Wapping estate, and really broke the mould, rebelling against the traditional theatre experience. Causes I support: So many creative people have suffered from mental illness and their art is a reflection of their illness. It is still a stigmatised subject and I hope this can be diluted.
An immersive audio thriller in complete darkness From director David Rosenberg (Shunt) and writer Glen Neath (Romcom by Rotozaza).
‘You become the beating heart of this exciting and disconcerting piece’ What’s On Stage
More Stage Port National Theatre Jan 22-Mar 24
Written by Simon Stephens, with music by Badly Drawn Boy and direction by Tony Award winning Marianne Elliot, Port celebrates the human spirit. Having grown up in the deprived suburbs of Manchester, and despite a political climate that pushes her into the margins, Rachel courageously opts for a better life. In the Beginning was the End Somerset House Jan 28-Mar 30
Site-specific group dreamthinkspeak take over the underground passages of King’s College and Somerset House in this apocalyptic show. Trelawny of the Wells Donmar Warehouse Feb 15-April 13
Pimero’s love letter to the theatre tells the story of Rose, an actress who gives up fame to be with
aristocratic Arthur, which shocks his dreary, snobbish family to the core. This marks the stage debut of Joe Wright, the film director behind Atonement and Anna Karenina. Turn of the Screw Almeida Theatre Feb 18-Mar 16
Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s adaptation of Henry James is produced with Hammer Theatre of Horror, the first theatrical venture by the British horror film studio. With designs by Peter McKintosh, and Laurence Belcher and Gemma Jones starring, this is a collectively impressive production. Three Birds Bush Theatre Mar 20-Apr 20
Janice Okoh’s award-winning dark comedy follows three youngsters left home alone in east London. The strange and rebellious behaviour of two of the siblings leaves all three fighting to keep their secrets safe.
‘Spine-chilling’ The Herald
Tickets £12 full, £8 Students www.bac.org.uk | 020 7223 2223 Battersea Arts Centre, London SW11 5TN
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Art Whaam! 1963, Tate. All images © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Philippa Douglas finds Roy Lichtenstein’s graphics still novel ‘I pressed the fire control… and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky… WHAAM!’ It’s rare to find words written on a painting, let alone words like these, but Roy Lichtenstein’s appropriation of comic-book style has made WHAAM one of Tate Modern’s most popular works. And now, in a collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern is staging the first retrospective of the pop artist in 20 years: choosing from among 2,000 paintings and sculptures and 3,000 drawings, they are presenting 125 definitive works from all periods of his career.
This comic-book style was applied to a wide range of found images and repeated endlessly, creating many surprising variations on the same motif. While Lichtenstein’s definitive 1960s pop art is seen as some of his greatest work, with Drowning Girl (‘I don’t care! I’d rather sink… than call Brad for help!’) becoming one of his best-known pictures, this retrospective aims to show there was much more to his art.
‘Lichtenstein juxtaposes the sexual war fought by women with the fictitious war machinery for the male world’
At Roy Lichtenstein’s last Tate exhibition, in 1968, there were queues round the block to see his work. 45 years on, the mix of commercial images with fine art is still compelling, and the work still feels innovative and new. Another sell-out show is practically guaranteed. Tate Modern, SE1 9TG, Feb 21-May 27. From £12.20. www.tate.org.uk
Masterpiece 1962, Private Collection
Although Lichtenstein didn’t invent pop art, he is recognised as one of the movement’s leading lights. His thick black contours and signature benday dots could not be mistaken for any other artist’s. This high-impact style makes the trivial look striking and clichéd emotions take on the appearance of real human drama. He also neatly juxtaposes the sexual war fought by women with the fictitious war machinery for the male world. By using single frames from DC serials and reproducing them on a huge scale with their original context removed, the war paintings take on the same cool detachment from their real-life subject as the romance paintings (right) do from love.
Lichtenstein’s versatility can be seen in his experimentation with various styles, frequently referencing art history; he appropriates Picasso nudes, Matisse still lifes and Chinese landscapes. Visitors may also be surprised to learn that Lichtenstein’s famous comic book style could not be further from the Abstract Expressionist vein of painting he started out in.
Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But… 1964, Collection Simonyi
Spotted trick
Reviews ART
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Costume ch-ch-changes Dominic Wells on why the V&A are going gaga for Bowie
David Bowie Is, V&A, SW7 2RL, Mar 23-Jul 28. From £9. www.vam. ac.uk
qThe Bride and the Bachelors
Barbican Gallery, EC2Y 8DS, Feb 14-Jun 9. From £7. www. barbican.org.uk
Light Show
Hayward Gallery, SE1 8XX, Jan 30-Apr 28. From £8. www. southbankcentre.co.uk
Fountain, 1950 © Succession Marcel Duchamp, 2012, ADAGP/Paris, DACS/London
copied by Kate Moss on the cover of Vogue. He then went to the other end of the spectrum, crooning soul music as a rakish figure in suit and fedora called the Thin White Duke. When punk came along, a movement he had helped inspire, he holed up in Berlin making minimalist, instrumental music. He was a leader, not a follower. The V&A’s title, David Bowie Is (rather than ‘was’), emphasises that his legacy endures. Bowie’s musical influence is beyond doubt, and he is certainly the strangest rock star ever to sell 140 million albums. But most of all, his achievement was one of personal style: to encourage people to express themselves, sending insecure teenagers the message that it was okay to be different. In that, as well as in the clothes, the character-creation, the love of drama, he is the direct Godfather to Lady Gaga.
This illuminating exhibition explores the nature of light and how it can affect the viewer’s perceptions. Bringing together works from the 1960s through to contemporary artists, Light Show features the work of over 20 artists including Olafur Eliasson, Jenny Holzer, Anthony McCall and François Morellet, and the displays range from Dan Flavin’s minimal neon constructions to rare works re-created for the gallery. With many interactive exhibits, this sensory exhibition encourages visitors to experience light in all forms, whether it be shadows or luminous colour.
Duchamp was the man who scandalised Paris in 1917 by submitting a urinal to an exhibition as art. Without him, there would be no Young British Artists, but before them he influenced a generation of Americans. The Barbican Gallery looks at his legacy through the work of choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage as well as visual artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Over 90 pieces will be displayed, with live dance events performed at the gallery.
Philippa Douglas, Art Editor
Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901 Courtauld Gallery, WC2R 0RN, Feb 14-May 26. £6, free to UK students. www.courtauld. ac.uk
1901 was Picasso’s breakthrough year as an artist. The paintings on display at the Courtauld Gallery, many anticipating his ‘blue period’, show the creative development that led to him becoming one of the greatest artists of the 20th century: fired up by the suicide of his best friend, he was so driven that he was producing up to three canvases a day.
Favourite rebellious artist: The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of feminist artists in gorilla masks who protest against sexism within the fine art establishment. Favourite rebellious artwork: Banksy’s work on the Israel/Palestine West Bank barrier. Causes you support: Help for Heroes, because of the support they provide for British troops and their families. Most rebellious thing you’ve done: Probably skipping school. I’m not much of a rebel.
Seated Harlequin, 1901 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
David Batchelor, Magic Hour, 2004/07
When David Bowie first hit the charts in 1969 with Space Oddity, he looked like a creature from another planet. Thin, with spiky red hair, he had a penchant for jumpsuits, boots, kimonos, and outlandish stage gear by cutting-edge Japanese designers. Flamboyantly camp and avowedly bisexual (he later confessed he did it to shock, and that he was a ‘closet heterosexual’ all along), he invented Glam Rock. Four decades on, the V&A are staging the first major retrospective of this style icon and musical maverick, bringing together 300 photos, sketches, artworks, handwritten lyrics and especially those bodysuits. Bowie’s other alter-egos, which are on display, include 1972’s Ziggy Stardust, with a giant red circle on his forehead – adopted by 2000AD comic as the design for their alien Editor, Tharg The Mighty. It was one of many reinventions. He killed off Ziggy and became Aladdin Sane, the zigzag stripe across his face later
Nocturnal Trips
/RAE
25 Jan - 16 Feb 2013
Private view: 24 Jan 6-9pm RSVP
32 Paul Street Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday London EC2A 4LB 12-6 or by app 020 7613 1550
info@signalgallery.com www.signalgallery.com
Picture taken in Chicago 2012
RAE is a New York based street artist who Signal are introducing to the London Art Scene.
Get career confidence with the UK’s most widely-used graduate recruitment website, featuring HUNDREDS of internships, placements, graduate jobs and schemes plus all the advice you need to get them. www.milkround.com
Reviews ART
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More Art
uRoyal College of Art: Secret Sale Dyson Building, SW11 4AS, Mar 14-23. Free. www.rca.ac. uk
London Art Fair
Secret Sale is a fundraiser for the college’s Fine Art programme, and is a rare chance to pick up an original artwork for just £45. The works exhibited are all postcards, by a combination of lesser-known and famous artists. The twist is that they are signed on the back, so the artist’s identity is not revealed until after the purchase in the final one-day sale.
This will be the 25th edition of the London Art Fair, providing visitors with a great atmosphere in which to enjoy artworks by over 1,000 different artists from 100 galleries from abroad and across the UK.
Business Design Centre Jan 16-20
Manet: Portraying Life
Royal Academy of Arts
Juergen Teller, Kate Moss, No.12, Gloucestershire, 2010
tJuergen Teller: Woo
ICA, SW1Y 5AH, Jan 23-Mar 17. Free. www.ica.org.uk
Artist and fashion photographer Juergen Teller is the subject of a major exhibition, showcasing work from the early ’90s through to more recent projects. With little difference between his personal and commercial images, Kate Moss, Vivienne Westwood and Lily Cole are all captured in Teller’s overexposed style.
Jan 26-Apr 14
Manet was not well received by critics during his lifetime. The artworks on display span Manet’s career showing his commitment to painting scenes of modern life. Highlights include Music in the Tuileries Gardens and Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets. Man Ray: Portraits
National Portrait Gallery Feb 7-May 27
More than 150 portraits by Man Ray, now recognised as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, are on display, many of which have not been shown in the UK before. The portraits show early experiments with colour as well as ‘Rayographs’ and the innovative solarisation technique. Looking at the View
Tate Britain
Feb 12-Jun 2
Featuring artists such as William Townsend and Tracey Emin, this exhibition considers similarities in how artists have framed the landscape over the past 300 years. Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos
Serpentine Gallery Feb 13-Apr 7
uFramed While Shepard Fairey was in London for the Sound & Vision exhibition in October, the American artist created this huge mural on Ebor Street in Shoreditch. Based on a series
of prints in collaboration with original Sex Pistols graphic artist Jamie Reid, it took several helpers and a cherry picker two days to complete.
Image from blog.vandalog. com
Throwing out the notion of categories, German artist Rosemarie Trockel presents her work alongside pieces from other artists to whom she feels a connection. Never to be defined by one style, the displays vary from ceramics and installations through to knit paintings. Art previews by Philippa Douglas
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Game season
Now you can play all year, says Emma Boyes Usually the video gaming industry moves on an annual cycle in which nothing much happens until you hit the last three months and everything goes crazy. This year, fortunately, it looks like we’ve got a slew of great titles being released throughout the year. The biggest release of 2013 will no doubt be Rock Star Games’ Grand Theft Auto V for PS3 and 360, currently without an official release date beyond ‘spring’. This, the 15th game in the series, is set in the fictional city of Los Santos (based on LA) and will feature not one but three protagonists. Perhaps a close second will be the rebooting of Tomb Raider, due March 5 on PC, PS3 and 360. It seems to be popular to exhume old gaming characters at the moment – so far we’ve seen ageing granddads like Duke Nukem and Bionic Commando coming back from the dead, and now Lara Croft is set to join them. The new game is a prequel of sorts that shows how Lara became the bad-ass adventuress we saw in later games. But have gamers had enough of Lara? We’ll soon find out. The two games I’m personally looking forward to in the first quarter of 2013 aren’t so high profile. The first is Lightning Returns, due for release on March 19 for PS3 and 360 from Square Enix. This is the third instalment of the story that
started in Final Fantasy XIII, which wasn’t a critical hit though I enjoyed it. Interestingly, it will play for a set amount of time – 13 days – but the actions you take may cause you to ‘lose’ or ‘gain’ playing time. The second is Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut from Access Games on the PS3. It, too, got poor reviews when it first came out, but quickly became one of my favourite games: to me it falls into ‘so bad it’s good’ territory rather than the ‘simply awful’ pile. To give you some idea of the game’s brilliant insanity, you play an FBI agent’s imaginary friend, Zach, as he investigates a gruesome murder in a small US town called Greenville. Agent York can read the future in his coffee and likes to tell serial killer anecdotes at dinner parties. Other characters include a man in a wheelchair who wears a gas mask and prefers to speak only in rhyming couplets via his valet. Some of the quests you’ll undertake include helping a woman get home before her pot gets cold and stacking shelves in a grocery store. I’m holding out hope that the Director’s Cut, which boasts ‘improved features and new content’, will be even barmier than the original. Other great titles to look out for in the first quarter of 2013 include DmC (Jan 15), Aliens Colonial Marines (Feb 12), BioShock Infinite (Feb 26) and Metro Last Light (Mar 1).
HowDo is somewhere between an educational and a completely bonkers app. A little like Yahoo! Answers, you ask HowDo a question, and if there isn’t one already, an expert someone somewhere will answer it for you. For example, you can find out how to dry wet socks really fast, or calm down before public speaking. What’s unique about HowDo is that it only uses sound and pictures to give you your answers. According to research you have to read something eight times before you learn it, but learning through visual and audio cues is much faster. Currently available for free on iPhone, an Android version will also be coming soon.
iRobot Roomba Ah, the new year. The time of all kinds of pointless resolutions about being fitter, healthier and more productive. Was one of yours to keep your living space tidier? Never fear, the iRobot Roomba is here! Simply plug this little fella into the wall and he’ll go around vacuuming your flat for you. Starting at £250 from www.iRobot.com, it’s an expensive way to avoid doing the housework. NB: he won’t pick up empty beer cans or do the washing up, though. Sorry. Maybe next year they’ll invent something that does? Here’s hoping.
A big shout-out to www. personalprojector.co.uk for securing us a ViewSonic Pro8450W for The Book’s first anniversary party. It was powerful enough to beam up our covers, even when the lights were on. Personalprojector.co.uk also do a range of pocket and micro projectors. We love Pico Genie’s iPhone case with extended battery, speaker and projector built in.
Emma Boyes Gadgets Editor Favourite rebellious video game character: Rinoa Heartily in Final Fantasy VIII. She’s the daughter of military commander Fury Caraway, but that doesn’t stop her forming rebel organisation the Forest Owls to protest against her father’s regime. Go girl! Top rebellious game: It would have to be Saints Row The Third. Being in a gang has never been so hilarious! Causes you support: Kiva is an international organisation that lends money to people in the developing world so they can start or grow their own businesses. You help by making micro-loans of $25 a time at www.kiva.org.
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Fitness enhances the core muscles and improves endurance, especially in defence when players are required to cover wide areas of the pitch. ABH Ultimate, Hyde Park, Sunday 2pm, free
Free running
Fun Direction
Exercise doesn’t have to be a treadmill. Christian Adofo shows you fun ways to keep fit
Bollywood dancing
Whether you secretly fancy your chances as a film extra or just love to wiggle your waist in front of the mirror, Bollywood dancing burns calories by the shed-load whilst also putting a smile on your face. Rhythmic Bhangra basslines are the soundtrack to the cardiovascular classes. You’ll engage the arm and leg muscles, toning up the calves and thighs that improve body posture. Bollywood Dance London, Pineapple Dance Studios, 7 Langley Street, WC2H 9JA, Tues 7-8pm, £11 (£7 members)
Ice skating
Skating legends Torvill and Dean, Will Farrell’s Blades of Glory comedy and Robbie Williams’ She’s The One video all have one thing in common: manoeuvring gracefully on the ice. The sport prides itself on improving dynamic balance for the body, and skating at speed while avoiding sharp corners aids coordination and rapid reflexes. Take a group of friends or a date to have fun while getting fit. Lee Valley Ice Centre, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, E10 7QL, Thurs 8-8.30pm,
£60 for six half-hour group lessons which involve skate hire and free entry to the public session
Bowling
Often viewed as simply a social activity, bowling is actually a subtle way of keeping your arm and leg muscles lean. The swinging movement generated by throwing a bowling ball is an anaerobic type of exercise, similar to walking with dumbbells. It also engages your joints, tendons and ligaments, helping to build muscle growth and increase flexibility. Just try not to eat the obligatory burger or fries on offer afterwards. All Star Lanes, Old Truman Brewery, 95 Brick Lane, E1 6QL, Mon-Thurs 4pm-12midnight, Fri 12noon-1am, Sat 11am-1am, Sun 11am-12midnight. £6.75pp per game before 6pm, £8.75 after
Ultimate frisbee
Flinging a plastic disc around and doing your best UFO landing impression takes you back to being a kid, and is one of the reasons Ultimate Frisbee is so much fun. As the fastest growing sport in the country, it has become increasingly competitive. The fast-moving pace
Let London be your playground. Keeping fit with your feet on the ground can be boring; free running, also known as parkour, lets you embrace the urban outdoors in a fun and inventive way. There is an obvious risk attached to leaping off buildings and over balconies, but if you’re sensible about your route the health benefits can be enormous. It’s a full-body workout that engages your core muscles, reduces back pain and helps to build an athletic upper torso. (See parkour in action on p22.) Parkour Generations, Westminster Academy, 255 Harrow Road, W2, beginners’ academy every Tue, 8pm,£8
Circus skills
Once upon a time circus skills were the preserve of performers, trained from an early age, whose acts would be regarded as death defying. (Krusty the Clown squirting water from a flower whilst riding a unicycle doesn’t
count.) Whether you want to bolster your repertoire of party tricks or learn how to swing like Spiderman, there has been a growth in classes that teach circus skills for beginners. Categories include: acrobatic for tumbling skills, aerial for the flying trapeze and equilibristic for tight-rope walking. If you’re feeling a bit on the Humpty Dumpty side, it will slim you down and improve your core stability and balance. For those who are really serious, Circus Space gives professional training. Adult Acrobalance, Jacksons Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA, Sun 4-6pm, £15 per session or £156 per term
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Travel communities can network and open their doors to like-minded people with no accommodation costs. Accepting hospitality from strangers is, however, not risk-free. Ensure you join its Facebook page and read reviews and experiences from past users prior to making any arrangement. www.couchsurfing.org
Go for broke
Flat swapping
Travelling the world needn’t cost the earth, says Vaskar Szen Kayastha
Car share
Camping
No one loves camping as much as the Brits. We practically invented it... sort of. And now a new generation has rediscovered it, making use of new high-tech, lightweight, incredibly cheap tents to give you that festival vibe wherever you travel. Pitch Up provides a myriad of options from around the UK such as remote locations, student groups or campfires. Or if you prefer a European setting, try Eurocampings. It offers a similar search feature to hundreds of ACSI (Official Euro Camp Gurus) approved sites in nearly 30 different countries. The excitement is, as they say, ‘in tents’. www.pitchup.com, www.eurocampings. co.uk/en/europe
Get a vroom with a view. Car pooling is the modern, safer alternative to hitch-hiking, allowing you to share a vehicle with others travelling in the same direction. By combining multiple journeys into one, you pay only a fraction of the travel costs, as well as meeting some lively people along the way. Go Car Share shows journeys between major universities in the UK as well as festivals and events. If you prefer to hire a car for a while, sites such as WhipCar (over-21s only) allow owners to offer their unused cars. Insurance and driver checks are dealt with by Whipcar so you can enjoy the ride. www.gocarshare.com, www.whipcar. com
Interrail
With the advent of cheap flights from the likes of Ryanair or EasyJet, rail travel is usually no longer the cheap option. Interrail is the exception. If you are planning multiple trips, an Interrail pass allows you
maximum flexibility for minimal outlay. The slightly misleading Interrail Global Pass actually covers only Europe. You can have the run of 30 countries for just £145 (for under-25s) for any five days’ travel within a ten-day period, or £213 for ten days’ travel within a 22-day period. Pass-holders also get discounts on hotels, attractions and more. www.interrailnet.com
Couch surfing
‘I have always relied on the kindness of strangers,’ wrote Tennessee Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire. Half a century later, this has become the reality for a new generation of travellers. Casey Fenton had the idea when he emailed 1,500 students at the University of Iceland and received over 50 offers to stay for free. On his return flight home to Boston, Fenton developed the ideas to share his experience with others, and couch surfing was born. With over a million active users, Couch Surfing brands itself as a hospitality network where global
If you’re flat broke, try a flat swap. Like Couch Surfing it’s free, but you swap your home with the person in the other country you’re visiting. Flats and Friends is ideal for students looking to exchange a basic one-bedroom flat to focus more on exploring the city, while Home For Swap is a little more upmarket with larger homes, and locations based in the heart of major cities in Europe, Australia and North America. Don’t have a home to swap? Try house-sitting at Mind My House or Housesitter. www.flatsandfriends.com, www. homeforswap.com, www.mindmyhouse. com or www.housesitter.co.uk
Youth hostels
Youth hostels are a dirt-cheap way of getting a roof over your head. You can save even more money by sharing a dorm, or in some cases agreeing to help out on chores. Hostels are less formal than hotels, and have large common areas in which to socialise with fellow adventurers. Generator Hostels (Dublin hostel above) offers attractive rates to coincide with festivals and events in European cities while Hostel World is one of the largest sites, even offering mobile apps to search on the go. www.generatorhostels.com, www. hostelworld.com
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Blogs Everyday Sexism
NeverSeconds
neverseconds.blogspot.com
everydaysexism.com
www.order-order.com
Behind the Blog The man who blows up politics
Paul Staines, 45, is the man behind Guido Fawkes’ blog, which is ‘written from the perspective of the only honest man to enter parliament with honest intention. The intention being to blow it up with gunpowder.’ It’s one of the only blogs to break news stories, not merely report on them. You often feature in media lists of the most powerful figures in politics. How long did it take to get recognition? Overnight success took about four years. I started in 2004, very underground and low circulation. Revealing John Prescott’s mistress in 2006 was big, but our first story really to make front-page news was about Cabinet Minister Peter Hain’s campaign funding, which led to his resignation in 2008. How do you keep readers? We like to have a laugh, like publishing pictures of MP Chris Bryant in his underwear. But we also have more complex articles on banking or whatever. You also run a consultancy in online media. What are your tips for bloggers? If you can’t blog every single day, consider getting a partner. Without that you will never build up a big audience. Don’t write commentary. Interesting as you may be to your
friends in the pub, no one else cares about your views on the geopolitical situation in Iran or whatever. Keep it short. No more than a few hundred words. My key rule is don’t be too enigmatic and clever in your headline: it will go out on Twitter, be seen on mobile phones; if people aren’t sure what it’s about, they won’t click. Lord McAlpine prosecuted Tweeters and bloggers after being falsely named online as a paedophile. Have you ever been prosecuted for libel? Not successfully, though I have a drawer full of legal threats. I have a very intimate understanding of the world of defamation. When we broke the Prescott mistress story, I was grilled by Jeremy Paxman who said: ‘But you don’t have evidence to substantiate this.’ I said, ‘You don’t have evidence that I don’t have evidence.’ I wasn’t just repeating rumours, I had more information than we let on. And the future? I’ve achieved everything I wanted. If you’d told me years ago that I’d be on casual terms with top politicians, that Michael Gove or someone would be trying to buttonhole me in a restaurant, I’d have called you a liar! Interview: Dominic Wells
Everyday Sexism is ‘by ordinary women, in ordinary places’. Not quite a blog, instead a lively, regularly updated message board with the most recent entries at the top. The experiences of sexism vary: there’s personal stories, overheard conversations and even news headlines. Some are funny, some disturbing – take the girl who got sacked for not sleeping with her boss. The makers also have a weekly column in the Independent and Huffington Post where the most eye-opening stories get quoted. If you want to get something off your, er, chest, it’s easy. Just write the entry and hit submit. You can also be anonymous.
Malala’s blog
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Most bloggers risk only trolls. Pakistani schoolgirl Malala risked her life. Her blog on the difficulties of going to school when the Taliban oppose educating women led, last summer, to her being shot in the head and spine. The resulting outcry both within Pakistan and abroad may lead to change, and there was a call in 2012 for her to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala’s blog was originally published by the BBC under the pseudonym Gul Makai, meaning ‘corn flower’. Her real name means ‘grief-stricken’.
NeverSeconds proves blogging can make a difference. Set up in April 2012 by nine-year-old Martha Payne, the site shows pictures of her school dinners that are rated with a health-meter and hair count. After the school dinner ladies feared losing their jobs, she was asked to stop. The school soon relented after it received an outpouring of international support. The site has now grown into a buffet of pictures displaying school dinners from around the world, produced a spin-off book, and generated over £125,000 for Mary’s Meals which funds dinners for children in poverty. Reviews by Emily Newsome
Tweets You wouldn’t expect a 74-year-old to be a top Tweeter, but former Deputy PM and self-styled ‘CyberWarrior’ John Prescott (often joined by son David) is known as one of the funniest and most fearless in Westminster. He doesn’t stop at politics either. @JohnPrescott Well that’s our next Eurovision entry sorted! #Rylanddixpoints #xfactor Lawyer Polly Higgins is campaigning to make ‘ecocide’ an International Crime Against Peace, like genocide. She first made her case before the United Nations in 2010. @PollyHiggins 2 takes on life: we are all fallen angels vs risen apes. 1 = hope vs insight. 2 = evolution vs revolution. Q is, which is which?
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Inside Job dating coach
Dating Coach —HAYLEY QUINN
Hayley Quinn, 25, lives in Vauxhall, South London. She studied English at UCL, and is now one of London’s most sought after dating coaches. She specialises in the arts of conversation, persuasion and seduction. How did you start as a dating coach? Part accident, part hatred. At 18 I moved to London to study, and fell in love with a boy who was older than me. I thought it was monogamous, but he went to Las Vegas and had an orgy with three women. I became an angry feminist. I was sending ‘There is no subversive tweets to main ‘players’ saying I enjoyed their work, and typical day: eventually got offered a job as a blogger, and then a ghost-writer this week I for a pick-up artist in New York. took a guy After that I had my own ideas and started my own business. It was a to Torture complete 180. I now realise this Garden’ business can do a lot of good. Describe a typical day. I help people be happier and lead their lives the way they want to. It’s very therapeutic, not very Carrie Bradshaw. There is no typical day: this week I took a guy to Torture Garden to explore social boundaries, did two talks and made videos. It’s very long hours, I usually start at 8.30am and finish at 9pm or 10pm. You need the passion to do it. Last week I was in Amsterdam, and next week I’m in Athens. What is the toughest part of your job? It can be tiring. You have to give one hundred per cent working one to one with people. You have to be focussed and dedicated to them. You continuously talk to strangers, too. What do you love most about your job? When you make a change in clients’ lives and they can enjoy life again. As for superficial perks, I can travel anywhere in the world because of the community I’ve created. Others include magazine interviews, internet
celebrity status to get you into cool places, and people coming up to you for a picture. Tell us about a successful case. The most satisfying thing is when someone can now make eye contact and chat with someone when they never used to. When you give someone that gift, it’s amazing. One couple are engaged, and I still chat to them about their relationship. The self-help industry is growing. Do you have any advice for people wanting to go into a similar profession? Distinguish yourself, become a master of social media, be used to public speaking and socialising. Know who you are, too. I’m a huge believer in getting rid of the books and getting out there. Look to people you admire and work for them. Any tips for Valentine’s Day? If you’re in a relationship try sharing an experience rather than a gift: even just a walk around London with a bottle of wine. If you’re a single man, give compliments not expecting any in return. It sounds corny, but take a rose to someone and compliment them. If you’re a woman sit by yourself, no earphones and make yourself approachable. If there is a guy you’re attracted to, open the conversation. Encourage him to be a man. www.hayleyquinn.com Interview: Emily Newsome
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