THE SMOKE Issue I

the smoke

ISSUE 1 16 SEPTEMBER - 4 OCTOBER

LONDON’S BEST ARTS AND CULTURE: CURATED

INSIDE:

SOUTHBANK SKATEPARK BRAINCHILD FESTIVAL POET EMILY HARRISON A-Z OF LONDON ART LIVE MUSIC GUIDE LONDON’S BEST SECONDHAND BOOKSHOPS WE LOVE: SPORTSWEAR

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the smoke

FROM THE EDITORS W e’ll be honest: we didn’t plan for this. To be editors-in-chief, that is. Rena applied to be Music Editor, Emma for Fashion—and then, one rainy afternoon in a tiny cafe, the newlyelected London Student Editor asked us if we wanted to take on the entire arts and culture supplement.

We remember being freshers. Even though both of us had visited London plenty of times, to live in this city as a student was new, wonderful and dizzying: is it a day wasted if I stay in my room watching a film? Should I pay £14 for an advance ticket at Fabric?

Even now, two years later, London continues to at once elude and captivate us. We are relentlessly surprised by – and ultimately drawn to – the astounding quantity and quality of arts and culture on offer.

So, we said yes. But it wasn’t going to be simple. Play, London Student’s original arts and culture section, had been using a design that was about five years old and it showed; it called for a rebranding. A magazine on such a fast-paced, energetic city has to be current and dynamic. We wiped the slate clean, and started anew from our only premise: we’re in

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love with this city. We want to lend a hand to students looking to become besotted, and to give a voice to those who fell head over heels a long time ago.

The Smoke is something of a happy accident, one that we hope you enjoy. This is the very first issue, and it’s full of experiments.

Partake in them: turn to page 17 if you fancy an exploration that ends in coming home with bags of lovely, dusty books. Take our word for it and follow our guide to a Big Night Out, lest your precious Friday evening meet a damp, dissatisfying end. Stay up all night in the Prince Charles Cinema watching a Scorsese marathon, and then knock back a Dishoom chai to get through the day.

We want to thank you for picking up this issue. Consider joining our team, whether as a writer, photographer, artist, or designer— it’s the creative and passionate people that make London what it is.

And so, whether you’re a wide-eyed fresher or a seasoned student, we have one final thing to add: welcome home.

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TIRED OF LONDON, TIRED OF LIFE

EDITORS

Emma Hope Allwood Rena Minegishi thesmoke@london-student.net

SUB EDITOR Anna Tomlinson

DESIGNER

Emma Hope Allwood

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MUSIC EDITOR

Katherine Rodgers music@london-student.net

ARTS EDITORS

Costanza Beltrami Liza Weber arts@london-student.net

FILM EDITOR

Flora Neville screen@london-student.net

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FASHION EDITOR

Emma Hope Allwood fashion@london-student.net

TRAVEL EDITOR

Your name here. We’re hiring! email thesmoke@london-student.net

FOOD EDITOR

Bryony Bowie food@london-student.net

THEATRE EDITOR

Sarah Fortescue theatre@london-student.net

BOOKS EDITOR

Elizabeth Metcalfe books@london-student.net

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4. FEATURES: Fighting for History: the campaign to save the Southbank Undercroft 5. FEATURES: The Eye: Marina Blake & Brainchild festival 6. MUSIC: London Calling: Live music guide; a sensational playlist 7. MUSIC: Live & album reviews, feat. Björk, David Lynch and more 8. ARTS: A-Z of London art - arranged by tube station 9. ARTS: Reflections on the Venice Biennale and Laura Knight at the National Gallery 10. FILM: Fill your week with discounted cinema; Love Marilyn review 11. FILM: Nicolas Winding Refn curates films online with Curzon; Nothing But a Man review 12. FASHION: Trends and an exhibition in the world’s fashion capital 13. FASHION: Urban Olympics: get inspired by vintage sportswear 14. FASHION: Urban Olympics 15. FASHION: Urban Olympics 16. POETRY: We talk to the red-lipped, sardonic poet Emily Harrison 17. BOOKS: Best secondhand bookshops; Love & Misadventure review 18. FOOD: Great British Bake-Off’s Ruby Tandoh; a restaurant guide for fresher foodies 20. THEATRE: Top theatres on a student budget; getting into student theatre 21. LIFESTYLE: Our guide for a Big Night Out in the Smoke 22. EVENTS: The best events for the next two weeks 23. ARCHIVE: Interview with Nik Strangelove

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feature

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IMAGE EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD

FIGHTING FOR HISTORY The battle to save the Southbank Undercroft is about more than privileging retail space over skaters, writes TOM LOVE Anyone who has walked along London’s Southbank will recognise this: the skateboarders darting around under Queen Elizabeth Hall, the sounds of their boards slapping against the concrete, and the crowd gathering with excitement—it’s an integral part of the riverscape. For nearly forty years, the Undercroft has been valued as a space for socialising and skating. In fact, it is one of the oldest and most thriving skate-spots in the world: skaters flock from all over the world to skate there, and for many generations of local skaters it is a second home.

The site has suffered numerous downsizings over the years – it is already a fraction of the size of the space enjoyed by skateboarders in the seventies – but in March this year, the Southbank Centre unveiled development plans that rung its death knell. In order to fund a vast cultural project, the Centre hopes to replace this exciting hub of modern culture with retail units.

Although the promise of a Southbank walk accompanied by a brand new Topshop handbag and a warm, smooth Starbucks cappuccino may sound tempting, let’s be clear: this is very bad news. It’s certainly strange that the Southbank Centre, arguably Britain’s leading arts institution, is happy to destroy this site for a project that claims to benefit culture. As a compromise, the Centre has proposed to move the skateboarders up the river to a purpose-built skatepark under Hungerford Bridge.

But this superficial response has critical flaws. It fails to recognise that the Undercroft is cherished for anything other than its immediate sporting utility. Simon Hickman, English Heritage’s Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas, has complained that the plans show an ‘insufficient understanding of the communal value

of the Undercroft area.’ It ignores the cultural history of the space, treating the resident skateboarders not as a rooted community, but as a commodity that can be moved as though they were shops. It is the skaters who breathed life into this area in the seventies, turning a dingy, and unprofitable area into a vibrant community. It ignores the cultural history of the space, treating the resident skateboarders not as a rooted community, but as a commodity that can be moved as though they were shops. As the recent Long Live Southbank campaign has reiterated: you can’t move history.

A seemingly semantic issue reveals another flaw: the current Undercroft is what skateboarders refer to as a ‘skate-spot’, whereas the projected replacement is a ‘skatepark’. This

“

It is because the Undercroft skatespot was not built for skateboarders, but was discovered and reinterpreted by them, that it has been able to develop such personal meaning.

”

slight difference tells the discrepancy between the skaters and planners’ relationship to the space. Discovering a venue and reimagining ways to use its space as a skate-spot is the creative act that is vital to skateboarding culture. It is because the Undercroft skate-spot was not built for skateboarders, but was discovered and reinterpreted by them, that it has been able to develop

such personal meaning within the community. A purpose-built skatepark could never recreate the heritage and meaning that the Undercroft holds – it would simply be another of London’s many skateparks.

The resistance to these plans, spearheaded by the Long Live Southbank campaign, has been immense. For many months skateboarders and non-skateboarders alike have protested the Southbank Centre’s plans: organising awareness events, publishing articles, attending TV interviews, working with lawyers, receiving support from influential figures, producing merchandise for visibility, and more. At the heart of their efforts is an ongoing petition, which can be signed online or at the Undercroft. As of July, when the petition was submitted to Lambeth Council, it had already gained over 60,000 signatures – this was a strong enough response to delay any final decisions on the plans until Christmas.

This powerful collective opposition is a testament to the Undercroft’s value, both to skateboarders and to the public. Along with Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner, it is one of London’s only self-regulating, non-profiteering performance spaces. To replace this model with one of profit-driven retail would damage not only skateboarders, but also London as a whole. As many campaigners have scathingly iterated, ‘what London really needs is yet more shops.’ John Parnavelas, Professor of Neuroscience at UCL, has recently commented on this cultural/capitalist debate, writing that ‘the Southbank has become one unpleasant giant restaurant/bar whose customers are not even aware of the artistic events that take place inside the buildings of the complex’. It would be terrible to see the vibrant Undercroft lost to this kind of characterless redevelopment.

Of course, it would be unfair to

depict the Southbank Centre as an evil force hell-bent on bulldozing culture. The Undercroft issue aside, their renovation plans are brilliant.

They hope to bring a literature centre, an artist apprentice scheme, music rehearsal space and more to their Festival Wing, which are all great proposals. Yet Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, seems determined to frame the debate as one youth group selfishly denying the education of ‘150,000 to 200,000 young people,’ simply because they won’t let their heritage be demolished.

The happiness of both groups is not mutually exclusive; it is not an either/or situation. Whilst creating retail space may be the easiest way to fund their project, we must demand greater ingenuity of the Southbank Centre, especially when the cultural and emotional costs are so high. The Undercroft’s importance to skateboarding history is already reason enough to demand its preservation, but this debate has much wider implications. It is about the need to protect heritage, to resist the commercialisation of free space, and to protest against a cultural hierarchy that deems corporate-approved culture more valuable than that of the underground. The current coexistence of high and urban arts within the Southbank Centre is a shining example of the harmony in diversity that is so important to London. We must ensure it survives. / TOM LOVE / UCL / CONTRIBUTOR

IF YOU WISH TO SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN, VISIT WWW.LLSB. COM; OR BETTER YET, WANDER DOWN TO SOUTHBANK, ENJOY THE SKATEBOARDING, AND SIGN THE PETITION AT THE UNDERCROFT ITSELF.

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THE EYE: every issue, The Smoke aims to feature University of London students and their creative endeavours.

For our first issue we’re speaking to Marina Blake (above), a 20 year-old from London starting her final year studying English at UCL. In her first year at university, she founded Brainchild, a multidisciplinary arts project and festival that bring together emerging artists and progressive ideas. We talked to her about Brainchild and the pressures of juggling student life and running a festival.

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FESTIVALGOERS AT BRAINCHILD, IMAGES JEROME TOOLE & ELLEN SPENCE.

that Brainchild was a place to challenge oneself, to learn new things and work with like-minded people. I think this really helped people gain personal and creative confidence.

So, how did Brainchild get started?

It began as a mad rush in my first year at UCL. In my first term I had been consistently inspired by the creativity of those around me, both inside and outside of university. I was introduced to the thriving spoken word scene of London, particularly emanating from the Roundhouse and parts of the south east.

I also noticed a burst of more colourful sounds in the music my contemporaries were making, moving into a greater range of influences and instrumentation.

Wherever I looked, it seemed as if people had reached an age where they were really looking to develop their talents and interests and, unconsciously, I was looking for ways to string them together.

With the resources available of willing and gifted individuals in both artistic and organisational terms, plus the (albeit little) experience I’d had in events, I wondered whether we could create a festival.

But there’s got to be a lot more to putting on an entire festival than gathering together with a shared goal, right?

Yeah, whilst on one level it really is as simple as that, it does become very big very quickly, and there are a lot of risk taking and responsibility taking moments that wake you up from your dream state.

Arranging a budget for something like this is a tricky job. We were very lucky about our start-up money, because both myself and my friend Isabel Adomakoh Young were fortunate enough to have some money to invest in the project.

I think some of the biggest wake-up moments were with the licensing, though.

We soon realised the sort of time and attention that was necessary in taking care of risk assessments and district council liaison. Our licence for this year was so hard to secure that we even had to go to a hearing in Canterbury 12 days before the event was meant to begin. It hasn’t been easy to balance that stuff with university work either; I would find myself researching fire safety during revision time. But despite all the dark, anxious times, there are the resounding moments of relief and inspiration, when the right person or the right idea comes along and keeps it all afloat.

Did you have apprehensions about such an ambitious task?

At the time, it was more motivational than anything else. It was as if by thinking so big, I presented a challenge great enough to actually motivate people into making it happen. People were inspired to be active with their free time, and a little bolder with their ideas. I was very reassured by people’s overwhelming interest. Everyone wanted to contribute in some way, and that was central to what we were trying to do: we operate on the belief that everybody is naturally creative, and

Brainchild had roughly 80 acts this year when it took place in July. How did you go about finding artists?

In our first year, we really used a lot of the young musical talent that a few of us had come across whilst we were doing live music events called Frozen Thumb, in venues like 93 Feet East and Proud Camden. We were also lucky to get a lot of input from Crack in The Road, a music blog who were interested in the project.

On my course at UCL I met Bridget Minamore, who’s a brilliant spoken word artist. She was on board to do Brainchild

immediately, and curated incredible spoken word for our tent called ‘The Forum’. That tent has remained the hub for spoken word, theatre, workshops and talks at the festival. Between our first and second years, we started working the incredible community of poets, musicians, and artists who sprang from the depths of south east London. One of the bands who had played Brainchild in year one, called Southpaw, had been running an open-mic type of event called Steez, one Sunday a month in a packed little pub in Honor Oak. Artists of all experiences and all genres would share the stage, and everyone would listen. The important thing about Steez was that it was focused on artistic and personal development, and structured around getting people to collaborate.

Seeing as the actual festival is only 3 days a year, how else do you keep the community going the rest of the time?

Any exciting plans for the future?

We’re about to have our big meeting about this, actually. I expect we’ll be doing stuff in lots of university towns, organising days or commission projects that focus on developing new writing and getting people introduced to different, hands-on skills. I’m even picturing big ‘making days’, where a group of people can band together to build installations or pop-up places. With our events and the festival, we have always wanted to create an environment that was intimate and inspirational, so that all individuals would feel the walls between ‘artist’ and ‘audience’ fade, and be empowered to express and create. Wherever we can, we will be doing more of that. Our aims are also to provide a forum for sharing progressive ideas about more sustainable, improved living and a more empathetic society, so that will certainly play into the work we do in the future.

From when you first envisioned the festival to today, what has been the highlight, or one particular moment that really made you feel what you are doing is worth it?

It’s been a series of small moments.

People in the early hours of Sunday night at the end of this year’s festival, for example, taking you aside and telling you that being there has inspired them to get back into all the things that they’d not had the courage to continue with. There was another moment where our Saturday headline act United Vibrations got up and jammed with the other musicians at the festival that was particularly beautiful, and I also heard that in one of the rap battles and freestyle sessions, someone had ended up spitting with King Krule, who was a pretty big hero of theirs. That was lovely to hear. I guess it just remained rewarding each time that someone would come forward with an idea that they wanted to do, and then you’d see it manifest with your support. Whether that would be them doing a solo dance piece, building a bee-hive installation from wooden pallets or leading a choral singing workshop. People have a wealth of bright ideas and it’s been magical to provide them with confidence and opportunities.

To discover more about Brainchild, visit brainchildfestival.co.uk and search Brainchild Festival on Facebook.

INTERVIEWED BY EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD / KCL / CO-EDITOR

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music

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LONDON CALLING OUR GUIDE TO LIVE MUSIC IN LONDON Moving to London is an overwhelming experience for anyone, but it presents a particular dilemma for music fans. With dozen of gigs and events going on at any given moment in a plethora of different venues, choosing the right one is tricky. Luckily, the music team at The Smoke has chosen their triedand-tested favourites, so you can avoid rubbish nights out and go straight to the good stuff. Without further ado…

THE SHACKLEWELL ARMS / 71 SHACKLEWELL LANE, LONDON, E8 2EB

THE LEXINGTON / 96 PENTONVILLE ROAD, LONDON, N1 9JB

In the once-grim surroundings of Dalston, the rundown Shacklewell Arms has been resurrected as a live music oasis. It’s the surrogate home of excellent musical collective Eat Your Own Ears, and features consistently brilliant folk and experimental pop, as well as a relentlessly stylish audience.

This is the place where most of Upset the Rhythm’s lo-fi darlings and US buzzbands have made their debut, and with the venue’s superb Americana decor and extensive bourbon selection, you can see why. There are club nights on Saturdays playing a mix of indie classics, and the Hangover Lounge on Sundays offers a mellow mix of reggae and soul.

PLASTIC PEOPLE / 149 CURTAIN ROAD, LONDON, EC2A 3QE

UNION CHAPEL / COMPTON AVENUE, LONDON, N1 2XD

Plastic People dedicates itself to creating a clubbing environment that’s as pleasant as possible. The club has a relatively small capacity of just 200, and yet maintains a dark, spacious environment inside with plenty of room to dance, or, if you’d prefer, to simply stand back and soak up the music without fear of being barged into.

THE OLD BLUE LAST / 38 GREAT EASTERN STREET, EC2A 3ES

It was once a brothel, but has been bought by VICE and transformed into East London’s coolest music pub... No, come back! It isn’t as douchey as it sounds! Nestled in the heart of Shoreditch, The Old Blue Last provides a reliable stream of the coolest up-and-coming rock in London – usually for free, or at very student-friendly prices. Just drink beforehand, or be prepared to squander your entire student loan on cider.

This Grade I-listed Islington chapel has seen its fair share of musical miracles. As well as being a gorgeous, balcony-laden feat of Victorian architecture, Union Chapel has crystal clear acoustics, guaranteed to lift any gig from the prosaic to the dizzyingly cinematic.

RONNIE SCOTT’S / 47 FRITH STREET, LONDON, W1D 4HT

The legendary Ronnie Scott’s is where jazz fans go to heaven: a mood-lit room with a live band, where people in dashing formalwear bring you incredible cocktails.

Try to get to The Late Late Show, which runs until 3am most nights and has a great vibe. Best of all, student admission is only £5 - a bargain for the classiest night out you’ll have in London.

BY NEELIYA DE SILVA / RUBY CLYDE / GEORGE MCVICAR / KATHERINE RODGERS

ANTI-FREEZE THE FRESHER’S ICE WITH THESE TERMINALLY DANCEABLE NUMBERS!

1. Zero - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2. Cannonball - The Breeders 3. Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliott 4. 212 - Azealia Banks 5. Debaser - Pixies 6. Fuckin’ Problems - A$AP Rocky, Drake, 2 Chainz, Kendrick Lamar 7. Get Free - Major Lazer, Amber of Dirty Projectors 8. Stereo - Pavement 9. Tightrope - Janelle Monae ft. Big Boi 10. Say My Name - Destiny’s Child

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BJORK ALEXANDRA PALACE, 3.9.13 The light slowly gathered to illuminate Graduale Nobili, the Icelandic female choir, who silenced everyone in the venue with entrancing dissonances.

Alongside them onstage were gravity harps, hangs, gameleste, an organ, iPads, synths and laptops; and above them, six TVs projecting Biophilia footage. A moment of silence, and Björk appeared, kicking off the last show of the Biophilia tour with a numbingly intense performance of “Thunderbolt”. She continued with other favourites from the album: “Crystalline” had the audience screaming and dancing, before the haunting “Dark Matter” brought goosebumps.

While this last setlist was a generous display of Biophilia, it also paid

homage to Björk’s two-decades-long solo career: it included every album, all of the selected songs arranged for the tour aesthetic. The highlight was Post’s “Possibly Maybe”: the usually delicate, gorgeously sentimental piece was transformed by Manu Delago’s expressive tabla-like hang playing, interlaced with the electrifying Tesla coil buzzing out abrasive riffs, elevating Björk’s vocals to an unprecedented emotional level.

Having spent years listening to her discography and bootlegs, I thought I knew Björk’s voice inside out, but no: her live voice is better, flawless in comparison to her recordings.

Watching her live, I realised that although her voice projects such an impression of untamed ferocity, she

has total control of her instrument, down to every meticulous detail.

The show was being filmed for DVD release, which caused Björk to repeat three songs (“Sonnets”, “Cosmogony” and “Sacrifice”) for a perfect take. “Will it drive you crazy if we did that one again?”, she shyly asked after the first “Sacrifice”, and the crowd screamed an ecstatic no, because when Björk wants to do a retake for you, it’s not a nuisance, but a precious treat. In the end, she extended the set to twentythree songs. The sharpsichord rang out the first notes again, and we were ready for her to continue singing forever. / RENA MINEGISHI / KCL / CO-EDITOR

IMAGE: SAGA SIG / BJORK.COM

angel olsen

DAVID BYRNE AND ST. VINCENT THE ROUNDHOUSE 27.8.13 In the history of unlikely musical pairings, David Byrne and Annie Clark are high up on the list. She is the fashionable indie ingenue who has barely dented her thirties, and he is the Talking Heads rock legend who is advancing comfortably into his sixties. It’s impossible to imagine how they met, let alone managed to record an album together.

This incongruity is presented wonderfully in the live show. Elements of an old-fashioned, Springsteen-esque rock and roll show (the lively backing band, the crowd-pleasing reduxes of Byrne classics ‘Burning Down The House’ and ‘Lazy’) are combined with experimental, art-pop trimmings (like the glacial, choral breakdown of ‘The Party’,

which sounds distinctly Vespertine-era Björk) to create a show which is both familiar and strange – but mostly, massively good fun.

Every detail is beautifully constructed: from the horn section’s rambunctious congo line to David Byrne’s robotic dance breakdown and the lighting, which projects Annie’s delicate stature onto the screen behind her, like a ballerina in a music box.

But perhaps the most intriguing element of the show is the delicate communion between Byrne and Clark’s voices – his a flamboyant deadpan, and hers a capricious croon. And like most things in the show, they shouldn’t work together, but they do, and it’s completely beautiful. / KATHERINE RODGERS / UCL / MUSIC EDITOR

WASHED OUT

BUSH HALL 29.8.13 Angel Olsen grins sweetly, drawling ‘transhumanism is bullshit. Our bodies are slowly breaking down,’ in a flat, April Ludgate-esque deadpan. Not the cheeriest of stage banter, but morbidly fitting.

On first listen, her songs are pretty scraps of countyish filigree, but belie a darkness and dread, orbiting a sense of loss – whether it’s the ‘childlike mind’ Angel mourns on ‘Lonely Universe’, or the sense of reality which ‘disappears, as something else becomes real’ on the yearning ‘Tiniest Seed’. Make no mistake, Angel Olsen is the darkest of folk, redolent of Moon Pix-era Cat Power,

Julia Holter

ALBUM REVIEWS

PARACOSM

LOUD CITY SONG

(SUB POP)

Although it’s been nearly four years since the dreamy Feel It All Around, Washed Out has become something of a byword for a particular brand of hypnagogic pop. But Paracosm has an air of sophistication quite at odds to the hazy adolescence of his previous releases – it’s brimming with interesting stylistic choices, such as intricate psychedelic interludes and some bravely executed ballad moments. They shimmer with lashings of glossy production, akin to the grandiose pop of Deerhunter or Panda Bear. But as exciting as this all is, Washed Out’s familiar jams and grooves still fare better than the shiny new choruses.

All the same, it’s a satisfying artistic leap for a songwriter whose creativity is still continuing to flourish. / GEORGE MCVICAR / QUEEN MARY

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and Nina Nastasia’s Gothic Americana.

But Angel Olsen has a secret weapon – a full-blooded, throaty howl, which is half heartbroken cabaret singer, half punk snarl.

It lends essential weight to some of Angel’s lighter songs, like the fey ‘Acrobat’ – in which Angel’s sentimental pleas (‘I want to be a bit like you, I hope you don’t mind’) are interrupted by a soulful yowl. Whenever this happens, the entire crowd at Bush Hall palpably bristles. Angel Olsen’s light strumming may be folk by name, but by nature, she packs an emotional sucker punch. / KATHERINE RODGERS / UCL / MUSIC EDITOR

(DOMINO)

LA singer and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter returns with her third record, an introspective exploration of a cacophonous cityscape. Loud City Song begins on an ominous note, Holter’s haunting voice resonating with horns full of reverb. This unease deftly increases throughout the record – highlights include the gauzy ‘Maxims I’, where she whispers of agoraphobia. Eventually, the city gives way to the country on the narcotic pastoral-pop of ‘Into The Green Wild’, then fleeing into the shimmeringly cinematic ‘Hello Stranger’ – a strings-laden reverie on love and loss. Loud City Song may be founded on anxiety, but Holter rises above the chaos of the city to craft a record of rare meditative sublimity. / NEELIYA DE SILVA / UCL / CONTRIBUTOR

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/ CONTRIBUTOR

DAVID LYNCH

FUCK BUTTONS

SLOW FOCUS

THE BIG DREAM

(ATP RECORDS)

While Fuck Buttons became the critics’ darlings with their subtle, intelligent electronic sound, their third album is markedly more expansive. With brighter synths, bigger drums, and busier arrangements, they’ve managed to scale their sound to 11.

However, this comes at the expense of some of their subtler elements – in particular, the intricate beats which initally won them so much acclaim. Slow Focus works best when it is stripped back – ‘Prince’s Prize’ is an obvious highlight, favouring melody over sheer volume. While there’s plenty here to keep fans engaged, Fuck Button’s more intriguing elements have been swathed under layers of noise. / GEORGE MCVICAR / QUEEN MARY / CONTRIBUTOR

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(SACRED BONES RECORDS)

David Lynch is not just a filmmaker. On his debut Crazy Clown Time (did you make some assumptions based on that title? Take them and run with them, you’ve got the right idea) Lynch has shown a skill for creating dense, unnerving soundscapes that are laden with bass, beats and reverb. The Big Dream is something of a departure: the thumping ‘Star Dream Girl’ moves Lynch’s music into the territory of Americana, while tracks like ‘A Cold Wind Blowing’ have a 50s ballad feel. But this is not at the cost of Lynch’s trademark terror – Lynch’s voice is a constantly disturbing element, heavily processed until it is nightmarishly tinny. But Lynch’s singular voice lends his newfound blues a much-needed edge, retaining his darkness and complexity. / RUBY CLYDE / UCL / CONTRIBUTOR

7/10

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arts

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AZ y

OF LONDON ART

Art is everywhere in London – even in Tube stations – so there’s no excuse not to explore. Whether you’re new to the city or just fancy an adventure, use our A-Z of London art (helpfully arranged by station) to find a gallery or exhibition near you.

ALDGATE

Raven Row

What’s on: Reflections from Damaged Life. An Exhibition on Psychedelia When: 26th September - 15th December.

An attempt to define the influence of drug culture on art, without concentrating on the hippies.

ALDGATE EAST Whitechapel Gallery

What’s on: The Bloomberg Commission (Spazio di Luce by Giuseppe Penone) When: Until 26 October Only one month left to rest beneath this golden tree’s shadow.

What’s On: Artists Film International: Einat Amir, Ana Gallardo, Marinella Senatore, Nasan Tur and Katarina Zdjelar When: Until 13 October

ANGEL Cubitt Gallery

What’s On: Jef Geys When: Until 13 October Based in a small Dutch town, this artist uses local media to promote the centrality of peripheries.

BAKER STREET A&D Gallery

What’s On: Robert Rauschenberg: Dante’s Inferno When: Until 28 September The vertigo of medieval hell reaches London via photographic transfer.

BARBICAN Barbican Centre – The Curve

What’s On: Ayse Erkmen: Intervals When: 24 September - 5 January After being Song Dong’s childhood home and The Rain Room, the Curve becomes a theatre with flying backdrops.

BERMONDSEY White Cube

What’s On: Bye Bye Brazil When: Until 29 September Sarah Morris’s interpretation of present-day Brazil, its changes and challenges.

BETHNAL GREEN

Wilkinson Gallery

What’s On: Phoebe Unwin: The Presence of People and Shapes When: Until 13 October People are friends and things cosy in Unwin’s poetic and colourful works.

BLACKFRIARS

Tate Modern

What’s On: Meschac Gaba: Museum of Contemporary African Art

When: Until 22 September The African artist Meschac Gaba creates his own museum, against Western institutions: ‘I needed a space for my work, because this did not exist.’

What’s On: Word. Sound. Power.

When: Until 3 November An exhibition about voice – from rap to poetry, from singular to collective.

BOND STREET

Ben Brown Fine Arts

What’s On: Claude and Francçois-Xavier Lalanne When: Until 21 September Step into the house of an eccentric zoologist, with a rhino as desk and a gorilla as strongbox...

BOROUGH The Drawing Room

What’s On: Marking Language When: 10 October - 14 December The written word as subject for the sketched world.

BRIXTON

Photofusion

What’s On: Edgar Martins: The Time Machine When: Until 27 September An eerie survey of hydro-electricity-generating plants.

CAMDEN TOWN

43 Inverness Street

What’s On: I Like What You Do When: Until 28 September A conundrum: ‘Are we friends because I like your work, or do I like your work because we are friends?’

CHALK FARM

Zabludowicz Collection

What’s On: Andy Holden, Maximum Irony!

Maximum Sincerity 1999-2003: Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS When: 26 September - 15 December This exhibition explores the legacy of M!MS, an art movement based on ‘the willingness to be lied to and the will to believe’ – with irony.

CHANCERY LANE Laura Bartlett Gallery:

What’s On: Allison Katz When: 28 September - 3 November Elegance and wit – in Technicolor.

CHARING CROSS

National Gallery

What’s On: Michael Landis: Saints Alive When: Until 24 November A contemporary take on the hallowed dramas of the Christian martyrs.

British Council

What’s On: Jeremy Deller: It’s a Kind of English Magic: Notes from the Venice Biennale When: Until 21 September Deller creates a poetic world of fantasy to reveal the inequalities of British society.

ELEPHANT AND CASTLE Morley College Galleries – Landing Galleries

What’s On: Reflective Dialogues When: Until 10 October Students and tutors create portraits of each other.

FARRINGDON Tintype Contemporary Art

What’s On: Jo Addison: Not Trees and People When: 18 September - 26 October The familiar becomes strange, yet remains immediately recognizable – an unsettling experience.

FINCHLEY ROAD

Camden Arts Centre

What’s On: Jockum Nordström: All I Have Learned and Forgotten Again When: Until 29 September Nordström uses the pencil as a child would do and adults cannot but feel a bitter nostalgia.

What’s On: Emma Hart: Dirty Looks When: Until 29 September Libido & the call centre. A sensory overload.

GOODGE STREET

Fred London

What’s On: Greg Rook: On the Prospect of Establishing a Pantisocracy When: Until 26 October Inspired by two 1975 BBC series, The Good Life and Survivors, Greg Rook explores ‘futurology as assessable now.’

GREAT PORTLAND STREET

Rose Issa Projects

What’s On: The Seven Valleys When: Until 5 October Seven contemporary Arab artists map the mystical journey that birds and humans must undertake.

GREEN PARK

David Zwirner Gallery

What’s On: Philip-Lorca di Corcia, East of Eden When: September 25 - November 16 The Book of Genesis helps di Corcia to portray the end of the Bush era and the collapse of Western confidence.

GREENWICH

National Maritime Museum

What’s On: Yinka Shonibare MBE at Greenwich When: 18 September - 23 February Yinka Shonibare explores trade and empire in a new site-specific commission.

Anna Boghiguian and Goshka Macuga respond to Tagore’s work, demonstrating its continuing importance.

MARBLE ARCH

ICA Offsite exhibition at the Old Selfridges Hotel

What’s On: A Journey Through London Subculture: 1980s to Now When: Until 20 October Right above Selfridges Food Hall, a ‘cavernous industrial raw space’ links punks to YBAs.

OVAL

South London Gallery

What’s On: Oscar Murillo: if i was to draw a line, this journey started approximately 400km north of the equator When: 20 September - 1 December Murillo’s first solo show is accompanied by a lottery, with individually screen-printed tickets on sale for £2500 each.

MILE END

Chisenhale Gallery

What’s On: Nick Relph: Tomorrow There is No Recording When: 20 September - 10 November Handcrafted textiles offer insights on art and society.

MOORGATE

HIGHBURY AND ISLINGTON James Freeman Art Gallery

Bloomberg Space

HIGH STREET KENSINGTON Royal College of Art

DRAF (David Roberts Art Foundation)

HOLBORN Sir John Soane Museum

ICA

What’s On: On Paper When: Until 5 October Eight young artists focus on paper, the unsung hero of everyday life.

What’s On: The SustainRCA Show and Awards When: 20 September - 4 October Recent RCA Graduates reveal groundbreaking sustainable thinking.

What’s On: an amazing permanent collection, and the exhibition Northern Vision: Master Drawings from the Tchoban Foundation When: Until 28 September (exhibition); permanent collection.

Whimsical architectural drawings are displayed in a masterpiece of interior design.

HOXTON

Hang-Up

What’s On: POP: an exhibition of prints by Peter Blake When: Until 27 October A quirky collection of prints signed by the father of British pop art.

HYDE PARK CORNER

Serpentine Gallery

What’s On: 89 Plus Serpentine Gallery Marathon When: 18 - 19 October Two days of events and a multi-platform research project for the generations born after groundbreaking 1989.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE

Austrian Cultural Forum London

What’s On: Art Meets Language When: Until 15 November Artists’ criticism of contemporary art writing.

LAMBETH NORTH

Imperial War Museum:

What’s On: IWA Contemporary: Omer Fast When: Until 29 September Omar Fast’s film 5,000 Feet is the Best inaugurates the IWM’s contemporary art programme.

What’s On: Architecture of War When: Until 5 May 2014 Highlights from the permanent collection illustrate artists’ response to the impact of war.

LIVERPOOL STREET

Iniva

What’s On: Tagore’s Universal Allegories When: 19 September - 23 November

What’s On: Jimmy Merris: London When: 4 October - 8 December A film documenting a ten-day journey around London in a motor-home.

MORNINGTON CRESCENT

What’s On: Orpheus Twice When: 20 September - 14 December The fragmented relationship between an artwork and its sources.

PICCADILLY CIRCUS

What’s On: Lutz Bacher: Black Beauty When: 25 September - 17 November From coal to Shakespeare: new works by an eclectic rising star.

OLD STREET

Calvert 22

What’s On: Dear Art When: 28 September - 8 December “What is [art’s] promise, and what do we promise it in return?”, asks the Croatian collective WHW. Contemporary Art Society What’s On: John Stezaker When: 4 September - 4 October Stezaker’s collages reveal the subversive in found images.

OXFORD CIRCUS

Photographer’s Gallery

What’s On: Mass Observation: This is Your Photo When: Until 29 September Crowdsourcing ‘an anthropology of ourselves’ since 1937.

What’s On: Mark Neville: Deeds Not Words When: Until 29 September Mark Neville’s study of Corby, and of the heavy legacy of pollution from the city’s disused steel mills.

PIMLICO

Tate Britain

What’s On: Tate Britain Commission 2013: Simon Starling Phantom Ride When: Until 20 October Ghost fragments of the Tate’s history re-enter the Duveen Galleries on a phantom ride.

RUSSELL SQUARE

October Gallery

What’s On: Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga: Ituika Transformation When: Until 26 October This Kenyan artist creates wall hangings based on the Swahili principle of Jua Kali, ‘under the hot sun,’ emphasizing the casual beauty of discarded objects.

the smoke

arts SHOREDITCH HIGH STREET

Rich Mix

What’s On: Lookout Photo exhibition When: Until 28 September Since 2010, PhotoVoice has been providing free digital photography lessons to young people, enabling them to express their ideas on the most controversial social issues.

What’s On: London Future: The Floating City When: Until 21 September A site-specific installation and an authored index prepare the collective consciousness of future London.

SLOANE SQUARE

Saatchi Gallery

What’s On: Paper When: Until 3 November Saatchi focuses on paper to confront an increasingly paperless world.

What’s on: New Order: British Art Today When: Until 6 October ‘It is all about Britishness and where I come from’, comments Dominic From Luton, one of the young artists on show.

SOUTHWARK

Jerwood Space:

What’s On: Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013 When: Until 28 October The winning entries of a drawing competition open to all UK-based artists, from student to established.

ST PAUL’S

Guildhall Art Gallery

What’s On: A changing display of works on loan from British Land: Photography and Goldsmith’s College When: Until 17 October (Photography); 18 October - 9 December (Goldsmith’s College).

This little-known venue was established in 1886 as ‘a Collection of Art Treasures worthy of the capital city’.

SWISS COTTAGE

Ben Uri

What’s On: Looking In: Photographic Portraits by Maud Sulter and Chan-Hyo Bae When: Until 22 September The opening act in a series of exhibitions on identity and migration.

TEMPLE

Courtauld Gallery

What’s On: Richard Serra: Drawings for the Courtauld When: 19 September - 12 January New drawings by one of the most revered living artists.

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

Lazarides Gallery

What’s On: Oliver Jeffers: Nothing To See Here When: Until 3 October Jeffers explores modern life through traditional 18th and 19th century European landscapes – surprising.

VICTORIA

Edel Assanti Gallery

What’s On: D-Construction When: 18 September - 26 October Gigantic marble chewing gum and huge bronze banana peels: tradition has married cutting-edge technologies.

WARREN STREET

Artangel - at the Odeon Site

What’s On: Daniel Silver: Dig When: Until 3 November Site-specific sculptures inspired by Freud’s passion for archaeology haunt the site of the first Odeon cinema.

WATERLOO

BFI Southbank Mediatecque

What’s On: The BFI’s film collection is at your disposal, for free.

When: permanent collection Spot all of New York’s museums in Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979) – our personal recommendation.

9

NOTES FROM THE BIENNALE

Every two years the contemporary art world congregates in Italy for the Venice Biennale, an international art exhibition established in 1895 to present the ‘most noble activities of the modern spirit without distinction of country.’ The exhibition, running until November 24th, includes pavilions constructed by countries, in which each country is given the opportunity to showcase their chosen artists and curators.

THE BRONZE LION IRISH PAVILION: RICHARD MOSSE, THE ENCLAVE While Belgium and Korea showcase their art within the Giardini Pubblici, the site that traditionally houses the pavilions built by the participating countries, the Irish pavilion can be found down a narrow alley on the edge of the Canal Grande. Visitors walking in a single file are a disbanded army falling into the ambush of Richard Mosse’s exhibition. Using Kodak Aerochrome, an infrared film usually reserved for military purposes due to its ability to detect camouflage, Mosse captured the on-going fighting in the Congo in disquieting pink-toned hues. There is a visual dissonance: blood runs in sweet, vivid pink, yet the saturation serves only to intensify the violence. For once, we cannot pretend we are not watching.

THE SILVER LION KOREAN PAVILION: KIMSOOJA, TO BREATHE: BOTTARI Kimsooja’s pavilion is a sophisticated fairground house of mirrors, a world in which you are confronted by your own reflection in all four walls, making for an altogether fearsome self-consciousness.

Hers is a biology lesson in the notion of bottari (bundle), where you are, at once, the nucleus and the membrane of her cell. Kimsooja also created a second space, an anechoic chamber, in which you find yourself absorbed in its blackness, its silence.

Following the light and reflection of the first space, the viewer finds themselves in a world of sensory deprivation. On a national stage, Kimsooja inverts – or explodes – identity.

THE GOLDEN LION BELGIAN PAVILION: BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE KREUPELHOULT, CRIPPLEWOOD Berlinde De Bruyckere’s uprooted elm tree was, so to say, ‘sculpted’ by words.

While creating the installation she was engaged in an on-going discussion with South African novelist J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize winner in Literature. The wax elmwood is bandaged like a human body, exploring themes of life and death whilst also integrating the city of Venice with iconography that alludes to Saint Sebastian.

Coetzee, acting as curator for Bruyckere, wrote in his novel Age of Iron: “we do not stare at scars, which are places where the soul has struggled to leave and been forced back, closed up, sewn in…” In her piece, Bruyckere casts weeping scabs in wax for her viewers to witness. / COSTANZA BELTRAMI / COURTAULD / ARTS EDITOR / LIZA WEBER / KCL / ARTS EDITOR

LAURA KNIGHT: PORTRAITS Outside the canvas, a standing male painter – inside, a voluptuous reclining nude. The artist and his model: a hallowed relationship of Western art. Against such an established tradition, even the smallest anomaly becomes conspicuous. Such an anomaly, Laura Knight’s Self Portrait, captivates by the virtue of its unconventionality. It was this painting that drew me to see Laura Knight: Portraits.

Self Portrait opens the exhibition.

Showing a female painting a nude, an exercise then forbidden to female arts students, the piece marks the end of Knight’s formal art training and the beginning of freer studies as graduate artist. The artist is completely dressed, following the conventional rules of self-portraiture.

In comparison, the model is naked, but not exposed: the viewer sees not voyeurism but anatomical precision.

Yet Knight’s painted self looks away from all nudity. If she broke gender barriers by studying the nude, she did so apologetically.

Throughout Knight’s career, the battle for gender equality is played out in skirmishes with unclear results.

There is a display of press cuttings that simultaneously celebrate Knight’s nomination as the first female Royal Academy member and debate the lack of recognition of

women artists. Unfortunately, the exhibition as a whole betrays the ambiguity of such debate. Walls divide the artworks into clear-cut themes: ‘ballet and theatre’, ‘circus’.

This overly neat organisation is then juxtaposed with historical events, creating an artificial chronology.

drawing might distress the prisoners.

She would hardly have repeated such thoughts in public, yet it is through them that one glimpses a fullyfledged personality. A personality of complexity and extreme sensibility— precisely what made most of her portraits so perceptive and profound.

This excessive organisational clarity prevents the exploration of greater, transversal themes. All of Knight’s work seems to be guided by an interest in the marginal and subculture.

Although a wall panel acknowledges this interest by mentioning the 1920s fascination with ‘negro culture’, wider questions remain unexplored, and there is no justification or contextualisation for the artist’s ethnographic fascination.

/ COSTANZA BELTRAMI / COURTAULD

Knight’s diary details her role as a war correspondent at the Nuremberg trials, and is the only biographical offering in the exhibition. The pages reveal her intimate battle of justified loathing and unjustified compassion.

Writing without mediation or self-censorship, Knight noted here how she almost smiled to Hess and worried that her

/ ARTS EDITOR

10

film

the smoke

]

CINEMATIC CITY [

LOVE, MARILYN DIR. LIZ GARBUS / RELEASE: DVD 28 OCTOBER 2013 Norma Jeane Mortensen had a smashing physique. Marilyn Monroe hijacked Norma’s innocent sexiness and moulded it into an instrument. She had a body like a viola, and she played it like a virtuoso. Not only this, but Monroe conducted actors, directors, husbands and politicians; her entourage soon became her orchestra. The mere mention of ‘Marilyn Monroe’ evokes soft undulating lines, big, bouncy hair and full, flushed lips. Marilyn’s look, her flagrant sexiness, was an integral part of her veneration and merited success.

A GUIDE TO LONDON’S HIDDEN GEMS FOR FILM FANATICS

Sometimes it seems as if the recent wave of boutique and luxury cinemas has priced out us poor students.

Special promotions on previews and free screenings come and go, and searching one website after another to calculate minute differences in cost can be tedious, so here are a few cheap ways to see some of the best films in the nicest cinemas, every week, this term: Mondays at the Ritzy, Brixton: This beautiful cinema in south London may seem exclusive on most days of the week - you sometimes have to wade through crowds of people sipping cocktails at the bar to reach the box office - but Mondays are altogether different. The screenings are often packed with students and Brixtonions, you get the sense that the cinema is for once trying to serve its local community, and when the curtains part in the wonderful domedroof main screen you get that odd but lovely feeling of sociability unique to the best cinema-going, the feeling of experiencing something together, even though you are sitting silently with strangers for an hour and a half in a darkened room. Only £5 for students, it is worth going a bit early for the best seats.

Tuesdays at the ICA: The Institute of Contemporary Arts’ special offer is a great way to see independent, foreign, classic, or simply obscure films at a reasonable price. It costs only £6 for students and £3 for members, so it is worth the gamble of trying something you have probably neither read nor heard much about. It’s a great little venue right in the centre of London, and perfect if you want to

have a stroll around St. James’s Park or a look at their exhibitions before the film. Just down the road from Buckingham Palace, this is real luxury on a budget.

Members’ Matinees at Prince Charles Cinema: This is another excellent, if slightly extravagant, opportunity to save cash, perhaps really handy only for slacking humanities students. If you can find a free afternoon in your timetable, pencil in these matinee screenings. With a year’s student membership only £7.50, you can get nearly half-price tickets every day and avoid the ridiculously pricey tickets for non-members.

This slightly ramshackle, oddly-arranged, proudly independent cinema is a good way to see big films you missed when they were first released, and older or odder ones not showing elsewhere. They also organise an endless stream of strange special events (it’s not the real David Bowie at the Labyrinth sing-alongs, sadly), double-bills and all night marathons.

Keep your membership card handy and conveniently forget any extra reading you might have, so you can finish your lectures at 2pm, head towards Leicester Square, and decide ‘screw it, I’m going to watch Batman.’

This is one of the many fascinating

“

It is when we question, as the film does, what the body represents that we start to understand an intriguing personality behind the carefully crafted exterior

”

Monday to Wednesday at ShortWave Cinema, Bermondsey: A great little cinema that offers good prices on off-peak days, ShortWave carefully timetables its screenings so that their single screen can cope with the nice balance of independent and mainstream films that make this such a popular destination. This cinema is no great secret, and at £7 not quite a bargain, but it is hip and welcoming, and a great place to see whatever’s currently being reviewed without braving the tedium of a massive chain.

Every day at PeckhamPlex, Peckham Rye: My favourite, this cinema prides itself on showing each of its films, to anyone, at any time, for under £5 (which means £4.99). It’s mostly blockbusters or bigger indie films, but the great and unpretentious atmosphere always wins me over, and if you keep an eye open they have some really special one-offs from time to time. / FRANK POLATCH / KCL / CONTRIBUTOR

EVE ARNOLD

As the outdoor film season draws to a close, the more authentic British experience – fastening up your trench coat, slouching towards a cinema, and wedging yourself into one of its red serge seats – comes back to the fore.

But when you drag your sticking shoes across the sugary floor of an Odeon multiplex only to find it will cost you £13.50 to see the latest Hollywood flop, or stand hunched over in the rain fingering the darkest recesses of your wallet after glimpsing the price list through the windows of Curzon, do you begin to wonder if it is really worth the trip?

Truman Capote, played by Adrien Brody, tells a story of sitting with her in a café. She makes her excuses and goes to the bathroom. Capote wishes he had brought a book, as she is known to spend a while in the powder room.

After 45 minutes, Capote goes to check she hasn’t died. She is staring at herself in the mirror, enraptured. She asks, ‘do you want to see her? Do you want to see me be her?’ Then Norma Jeane Mortensen does something, something inexplicable even to a great writer; she metamorphoses into Marilyn Monroe.

anecdotes related in Love, Marilyn, a documentary about the star that will be released in October to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of her death. The film walks the finely-drawn line between insights into the mind of Marilyn Monroe and superficial factuality. Monroe’s life is narrated through extracts from her own diaries that were only recently discovered, as well as thoughts from her friends and colleagues. The film is thorough and starting from her very humble beginnings continues chronologically up to her death. The film is frill free; there are no dramatic reenactments, or particularly harrowing moments, but it does indulge in a star-studded cast, from the brilliant Uma Thurman to the not-so-brilliant Lindsay Lohan. All the cast are dressed in monochrome and superimposed over photographs and footage, and they tell Monroe’s story in her own words.

Her body is her most prominent feature; that is almost indisputable. It is when we question, as the film does, what the body represents that we start to understand an intriguing personality behind the carefully crafted exterior.

She certainly worked and endorsed her image, and yet she says ‘if I’m gonna be a symbol of something, I’d rather have it be sex, than... Some other thing they got symbols of!’ That carefree statement was uttered just a few days before she died. The film pays a quiet respect to the woman Monroe was – the trauma she suffered as well as her great moments. It shows that nothing in Monroe’s life was necessarily as it seemed, and gives us an unobtrusive understanding that inspires a fresh appreciation for Marilyn Monroe. / FLORA NEVILLE / KCL / FILM EDITOR

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film

11

NOTHING

BUT A

MAN

Martin Luther King’s favourite film, Nothing But A Man, is set for re-release in London. A love story set in raciallysegregated 1960s Alabama, the film depicts the tensions of a culture that has rarely been represented on screen.

An unlikely romance brews when Duff (Ivan Dixon), an ungrounded railroad worker, falls in love with Josie (jazz singer Abbey Lincoln), a middleclass schoolteacher and a preacher’s daughter. Despite the opposition they face, the two marry, but face institutionalised racism at work as well as having to deal with Duff’s alcoholic father and estranged son.

Growing up as a Jew in Nazi Germany fuelled director Michael Roemer’s passion for depicting institutional oppression: he became interested in the human story of black America, especially in the economic effect of racism on families. The striking freshness of many scenes reflects the depth of research that Roemer conducted in order to make the film: travelling for three months with a documentary filmmaker through the South, they stayed with black families at the height of the civil rights movement.

We see the results in documentarystyle realist scenes: the close-ups on contorted, pock-marked faces

screeching in fervent church gatherings; the slump of a husband’s back as he sits outside all evening on the porch sapped of energy; the lifeless, small and over-crowded rooms his broken father and long-lost son inhabit; the silently suffering women who care for them; the menacing faces of the white men, snarling and watchful, who roll up to the gas station to upbraid Duff.

Nothing But A Man, lightened by a soundtrack that includes Martha and the Vandellas, The Marvelettes and Little Stevie Wonder, was critically acclaimed at the Venice and New York Film Festivals in 1964, but later sank

“

A love story set in racially-segregated 1960s Alabama, the film depicts the tensions of a culture that has rarely been represented on screen

”

into obscurity until it was re-released in the US in 1993; autumn 2013 will see the film’s first release in the UK. / AMY PRIOR / BIRKBECK / CONTRIBUTOR

CURATION FOR THE CURZON

NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S CINEMATIC SELECTIONS, AVAILABLE NOW FOR ONLINE VIEWING and shows the effect that their ‘distant voices’ have on us in the present. The second half is a saddening depiction of how the bereaved daughters have seen their lives held in place, and we see them married to men who show signs of becoming like their father. This is a definite British masterpiece.

A classic silent movie, City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin) lightens the mood of this list. Chaplin’s tramp falls in love with a blind woman who, through a series of misunderstandings, believes him to be a millionaire.

There is, as one would expect, a lot of slapstick humour and I did laugh out loud several times, proving the timeless quality of Chaplin’s movies. Without wishing to ruin the ending, it is simply beautiful and needs to be seen.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS In this unsure economic climate, Curzon Cinemas have undertaken the bold move of offering films online. They offer current releases, classics, exclusive selections from famous directors – most of them not offered by Netflix or Lovefilm. Nicolas Winding Refn, director of Drive and Bronson, is curating the current season of films.

Refn’s selection is strikingly diverse. While his own filmography is steeped in violence and crime, there is only a little of that on offer here. Here are four films that stood out from the selection.

Dealing with domestic violence in the post-war era, Distant Voices, Still Lives (dir. Terence Davies) is a difficult film to watch. It follows a family mourning the loss of the patriarch, who is revealed through flashbacks to have been abusive and a heavy drinker.

The title of the film is actually a reflection of the two halves, the first half being where we look into the past

Don’t be fooled by Lynch directing The Straight Story: this film betrays all your expectations for a Lynch film. For a start, it’s a Disney production that tells the sentimental true story of Alvin Straight, a man who journeyed across a state on a motorized lawnmower in order to reconcile with his brother. Lynch called it his ‘most experimental movie’, which of course means that everything is played straight and is therefore imbued with a warm, sentimental sincerity. Richard Farnsworth is lovably believable as Alvin Straight, and his performance in The Straight Story was a fitting end to his remarkable career. There are some beautiful landscape shots that capture the staggering scale of the journey, and the supporting cast provide worldly advices, pulling on your heartstrings.

The last film on the list, and my personal favourite, Chungking Express (dir. Wong Kar Wai) is a poignant drama set in Hong Kong that explores the feeling of loneliness, even in one the most densely populated cities on Earth. Each half of the film follows a police officer and their respective love lives. The second half is stronger than the first, as the acting is noticeably better, but this does not diminish from the piece as

a whole. The namelessness of the men – they are only referred to by their badge number – forces the audience to join in the collective abandonment that they feel.

The director shows an ability to create visually arresting set-pieces: a particular set of a takeaway has established itself as one of my all time favourite movie scenes. There is also a wonderful soundtrack that beautifully colours the film. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I liked about Chungking Express; in fact, the strength of it is that there is so much that is well done.

While the other films – A Swedish Love Story, Enter the Void, The Harder They Come and The Filth and The Fury – fell short compared to the above four, together they made an intriguing selection that offered insight into how a filmmaker watches and evaluates. It was a surprising selection, based on what I had come to expect from Refn, but it’s this unexpectedness that really makes me look forward to the next season of film curation. / CAMERON BRAY / KCL / CONTRIBUTOR

THE STRAIGHT STORY

12

fashion

the smoke

NEW TERM, NEW TRENDS Bi-annually, the phrase ‘trend guide’ can be terrifying. Unanswerable questions lurk: what to wear and how to wear it? What should you invest in, and what will be passé by next week?

Instead of sending you into the wilderness unarmed, here’s What To Buy Now. You may love it, you may hate it. But these five suggestions are easy to incorporate into any wardrobe and won’t leave you on a value pasta diet until your next student loan instalment.

Hedi Slimane’s second collection for Saint Laurent kicked off controversy with a dose of couture grunge.

Babydoll dresses, biker jackets, laid back shirts and almost-worn-out cardies – not usually considered chic – fused Parisian sex with LA cool. While Courtney and Kurt might seem like a state of mind, fret not: a touch is just enough. Throw a plaid shirt over some artfully-ripped jeans, smudge on a smoky eye and forget the hairbrush: you’re sorted. For grown-up days, swap the jeans for a smarter skirt (a little leather doesn’t hurt) and renew the shirt, buyable wherever your wallet allows. Head to the East End Thrift Store for the real deal – it’s plaid shirt central.

Wearing high shine fabrics can be tricky; sex shop connotations don’t sit well. This season, feminine proportions and vinyl shine come together to breathe life into demure, grown up separates. On the catwalk, our homegrown Jonathan Saunders and Simone Rocha put these to the test, showing last autumn’s patent minis where to go.

Topshop has a gentle pink midi skirt for Barbie fans, but if you’re not ready for that sticky leg feeling just yet, try their easy vinyl coat.

Masculine tailoring might seem to only suit off-duty models, it couldn’t be easier to mix into your wardrobe.

Flat-fronted trousers work with heels for evening and rack up extra kudos with could-be-boyfriend-borrowed brogues before dusk. Throw in some windowpane checks for good measure – everywhere on the high street, French Connection via JW Anderson – and Stella McCartney pinstripes that Zara have manipulated to a fine art. Get your fix there for every component on this look: relaxed blazer – check; trousers – check; lace-ups – check. Couldn’t be simpler. Oh, and navy, not black, FYI. While camo print might feel a bit Prince-Harry-press-conference, it suddenly looks modern. You can thank Christopher Kane. This isn’t last year’s ‘army chic’ mixed material jackets – let’s call it intelligent camouflage, with high-end fabrics. Away from the sea of winter florals – yawn – and into the open planes of multicoloured camouflage, Topshop has it covered from posh joggers to shirtdresses with a hint of jersey in between. ASOS is on hand with parkas and bright jackets, but for this trend, a little subtlety won’t go amiss. Paint it on a t-shirt with boyfriend jeans for a touch of city solider chic. Head to Whistles if you want to treat yourself to their camo edit.

Pastels have been known to bring fashion mavens to blows, their eyes stinging at the thought of baby blue post-September. Like this season’s grunge movement, a simple sprinkle to show you’ve thought it through will suffice. Take your cue from Carven, chief instigator of the winter pastel, from twinset to dressing gown coat.

Treat yourself in Topshop to a mint jumper and balance it with something shiny, or splash out Carven-style on a coat – you’ll need it anyway. No time like the present. The pink coat is this season’s sell-out: even M&S is stocking them. / ELEANOR DOUGHTY / QUEEN MARY / CONTRIBUTOR

SPIRIT OF THE 80s club to catwalk at the v&a

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Take your cue from Carven, chief instigator of the season’s winter pastel

”

Oh, the ‘80s…a time of shoulder pads and spandex, a time when Britain was clasped firmly in the clammy hands of Margaret Thatcher and yuppies.

It isn’t hard to see why, amongst the power suits and oversized mobile phones, counterculture reared its defiant (and, in this case, often heavily made-up) head. The fashion tribes of the ‘80s are celebrated this season in Club to Catwalk, a new exhibition at the V&A, which is running until the 16th of February.

Punks, New Romantics, Goths, and of course, High Camp-ers such as the likes of Leigh Bowery and Boy George who strutted their stuff at the infamous Taboo night club – it’s all here, and even dodgy knitwear gets a showcase. Club to Catwalk reveals the 1980s as a time of fashion innovation, of young designers truly pushing the boundaries across the board in unparalleled ways, but the exhibition isn’t without its controversy.

A swastika-emblazoned shirt by Vivienne Westwood features, alongside a jumper by revived cult label BOY London complete with their Nazi-inspired logo. Even fashion’s drunk uncle, John Galliano, makes an appearance. With over 80 outfits, the clothes are wide and varied, whether you like inflatable day-glo sportswear by the likes of Michiko Koshino or prefer Pam Hogg’s fetish leather. Catwalk footage, photography and a multi-screen video installation room all bring the era to life.

But a shadow hangs over the hedonism – in 1980, the first recorded case of AIDS was reported in the United States, and by the end of the decade, the disease had claimed the lives of thousands, hitting those involved in subcultures hard and effectively ending the sexual revolution that had begun in the 1960s. Items such as Katherine Hamnett’s ‘Stay Alive in 85’ slogan T-shirt bring to the fore the poignant underside of what is otherwise portrayed as a time of celebration, and, to recycle one historic phrase, remind you that these young, talented and creative individuals were ‘dancing on a volcano’. / EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD / KCL / CO-EDITOR

Beauty

Whether you’re just starting at university or returning for your final year, student life can put some very particular demands on your make-up bag. Let The Smoke help you make the transition from club to lecture (with a two-hour sleep in between) as painless as possible.

GOING OUT: Spent hours perfecting that ‘come hither’ smoky eye? Don’t let it become a faded shadow of its former glory before you’ve even finished pre-drinking— a few spritzes of Urban Decay’s All Nighter spray (£19.50, House of Fraser) will keep it flawlessly poised, even after hours of dancing.

GETTING IN: Trust us when we say this: take your makeup off before bed. Make-up wipes make the process quick and easy (and can be bought from Poundland), but a good toner is essential for waking up without that grimy feeling. Try Simple’s Kind to Skin Soothing Facial Toner (£2.99, Boots and other chemists): it uses no perfume or alcohol, so it’s only refreshing, never irritating. Also, only 3 quid? Yes please!

GETTING UP: If time is of the essence, a good dry shampoo can make all the difference between feeling ready to face that 9am lecture and spending the day in hibernation. Batiste has a good range of products that come in mini handbagsize cans for a fiver and under, but if your student loan has come in and you’re feeling spendy, BedHead’s new Oh Bee Hive dry shampoo (£12.99, Tigi) is well worth the extra cash. It smells so good, you’ll forget you definitely did not shower this morning.

/ EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD / KCL / COEDITOR

urban olympics

the smoke

13

Whatever the season, we just can’t get enough of sportswear. From comfy Nike trainers to a simple Adidas tennis dress, these pieces are easy to incorporate into any wardrobe and add the perfect dose of 90s, Sporty Spice chic. (And PS: charity & vintage shops are bursting with great items, so go and grab a bargain!)

VINTAGE BIKINI TOP & SILVER COLLAR, STYLIST’S OWN, JACKET MA-1 BY ALPHA INDUSTRIES

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MODEL, STYLE OR PHOTOGRAPH A SHOOT FOR THE SMOKE, EMAIL THESMOKE@LONDON-STUDENT.NET

CROP TEE BY TOPSHOP, TENNIS SKIRT BY ELLESSE, PLASTIC RAINCOAT, CLUTCH & SOCKS STYLIST’S OWN, SHOES BY NIKE

CROP TEE BY AMERICAN APPAREL, SKIRT BY ADIDAS, BAG BY MONKI

DRESS BY ADIDAS, COAT BY TOPSHOP BAG MODEL’S OWN SUNGLASSES BY H&M

JUMPER BY ADIDAS, SHORTS BY KAPPA

16

the smoke

poetry

EMILY

HARRISON “We are taught / sculpture and poetry are equally malleable / and neither have the right to surrender”, writes Emily Harrison in her poem “The Yielding Flesh of the Girl”. Though only 21 years old and just starting her third year of a BA in English at King’s, she’s authored Dirty White Everything, a collection of twenty-two poems, and is known in the London poetry scene for her sardonic and gripping spoken word performances. Rena Minegishi sat down with her to chat about writing, Swindon and her love of Ted Hughes.

How long have you been writing for?

I’ve been writing since I was about 7. I got my mum to buy me a notebook, and I used to write about lonely trees, graveyards, things like that. Adorable.

Adorable, but pretty dark, huh?

Very dark. Stuff from when I was about 11 was probably the worst. The lucky thing with me was that I got my teen angst out a little bit early. By the time I got to about 15 or 16, really starting to take poetry seriously, I’d already done all of the ‘I hate myself and want to die’, listening to too much Nirvana, things like that. Then I moved on to entering competitions, sending things off to magazines, and doing open mics.

anthology, not a pamphlet, and by a publisher.

Yeah, through a little independent press called 79 rat press. They’d only just started, and I know very well the guy who runs it – Dan Holloway, who books me for performances in Oxford – is very into alternative literature. And some of the stuff in my anthology is… saucy, maybe? A little bit on the edge. And I think we need more independent publishers like him who go ‘I’ve seen these unpublished people perform and write, I like them so much, I’ll publish them.’ If there were more people like that in the world, we’d be much happier…

Did open mic help develop your poetic style?

Oh, definitely. When I started, I realised that some of the things I was saying were bitterly humorous, and some of my enjambment and rhyme schemes worked well for performance. It’s become increasingly so.

It’s great that you had a welcoming, supportive entry into the open mic scene, but you must have faced a lot of obstacles until you reached this point of recognition and success.

Oh, of course. There I was, in Swindon, probably the youngest person reading poetry, I thought I was the absolute bomb. I thought I was ready for London; I moved thinking I knew everything about performance poetry. I’d won a couple of competitions, was booked to perform in festivals in Bath My mum’s a bit and Cheltenham, and my ego gothic as well... was a little inflated. Then I had I said, “Mum, no to start all over again at new wonder I turned open mics. It was like… ‘wow, out like this” London is huge. I’m not the only person doing this, I’m not the only young person doing this, there are so many people who are really good.’ It made me realise that I’ve got a lot more work to do, not as in just writing more, but the effort of putting myself out there more, applying myself to things. The amount of rejection you get Emily performing at the Barbican Young Poets is discouraging, but you just have to keep pushing forward. That goes for any creative outlet, I suppose.

Showcase 2013, photo © SARAH AINSLIE

“

”

Right. And then Dirty White Everything is an

Did you write these poems especially for this collection? Or are they collected from years of work?

Collected – I don’t actually write a lot. The anthology is a collection of works I’ve written that I am happy with – the oldest one is probably from three years ago. It was really fun putting it together. For example, I have a lot of pop culture references in there: the poems on John Lennon and Paul McCartney obviously go next to each other. Then there are poems about Swindon, which go together. Then poems about boys, and poems about little things…

Definitely. You’re clearly able to write on a diverse range of subjects from many perspectives. I heard you dislike Plath. Given your approach, I can understand your dislike – she mainly talks about herself.

There seems to be this thing where you either have to love Hughes or Plath. I don’t mind her at all, but if I’m being made to choose between Hughes and Plath, it’s pretty obvious which one I’m going to pick.

Being a young female poet, everyone assumes you love Sylvia Plath. Everyone assumes you want to be her. And some of my writing can be quite dark—

How did you get started with open mics?

I come from Swindon, and although it’s not the brilliant cultural scene of London, there are a group of very dedicated poets who bring fantastic poets from all over to read. I went to a little writers’ café, which was much less scary because there’s not a big audience, it’s more of a supportive environment. And then I thought, ‘hey, the stuff I’ve been writing kind of works for the stage!’

Dirty White Everything came out in May, and it’s your first anthology.

Yeah. Although when I was about 17-18, I self-published a little pamphlet of about 9 poems, because when you finish a reading, people say ‘where can I read your poems?’ I got my friend to do a cover, it’s nice to be able to hand it to people, it looks professional. And you can make a little bit of money off it. It’s not a living, but it’s nice to feel like you’re earning something for your hard work.

great. Obviously it would be nice to make millions, but it’s not going to happen.

I heard it sold out on the first night.

Yeah, it sold out pretty fast! There were 25 limited copies, and I obviously ran around to everyone I knew.

I’ve got very supportive friends. It was lovely!

Are there any more copies available?

There are, you can find them online by googling my name and the title. There’s also a free PDF, and I’m all about getting your work out there – I’m not going say ‘you have to buy my book!’ If people want to read my stuff, and they don’t mind reading it on a screen, that’s

—And confessional, but Plath doesn’t own that genre.

Exactly. So I kind of feel like I have to hate her, although I don’t really, just to prove that I’m not trying to be her.

And you do prefer Hughes, probably because his writing is a lot more varied in terms of subjects.

And his achievements as well. I think a writer’s work speaks for itself. And his ability to write children’s books, rework Ovid… Birthday Letters is entirely about Plath, and I don’t hate it. Obviously I’d prefer it if he’d written 66 poems about me. When I was a teenager, I really wanted boys in bands to write songs about me, but they didn’t. I said ‘stuff it,’ and started writing all these confessional poems.

And as you mentioned earlier, you got it out of your system early.

Yeah. I’was in my early teens and my mum laughed it off, saying I had a substantial imagination. My mum’s a bit gothic as well – in our house, we had a preRaphaelite picture of King George that’s just morbid.

I said, ‘Mum, no wonder I turned out like this.’

Do you constantly feel your style evolving? Do you know where you’re headed next?

Never. You do feel it does evolve, but it’s really important to know what your voice is. And for making your voice more individual, there’s nothing better than to read loads of weird stuff, get inspired by the most ridiculous things. Sometimes I’d even read an instruction manual. It’s not about the actual content, but picking out a word, a sound or an idea. Listen to what people enjoy – it makes you think about the rhyme scheme, the syntax, and it helps you branch out. It prevents you from becoming a 2D cutout of Plath, or of yourself.

That’s how you evolve, I think.

Read more of Emily’s work at www.blag-jazz.tumblr.com.

INTERVIEWED BY RENA MINEGISHI / KCL / COEDITOR

the smoke

books

17

into the wild

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SECOND-HAND BOOK SHOPPING IN LONDON ‘Second-hand books,’ notes Virginia Woolf, ‘are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.’ Often inscribed with names, dates, personal dedications and crossed-through old prices, these books are imbued with history. They are travelled and traded, passed from one pair of eyes to the next, and have then found their way to the shelves of the second hand bookshop.

For the beady-eyed student, the charm of secondhand books lies not just in their crinkled pages, but also in the faint pencil price on the flyleaf. With a total of sixty-one books on my primary reading list for this year, rummaging through old bookshops will certainly be the kindest option for my purse.

Whilst whizzing around Foyles on Charing Cross Road is perhaps the quickest option, the meagre 10% student discount means that it will be a rather costly affair. Instead, head down the street towards Trafalgar Square and take a plunge into the basement at Quinto (72 Charing Cross Road). With its monthly restocks and spectacular selection of books, which are conveniently divided into sections, it is the ideal place to pick up a bargain. Only last year, after desperately searching for T.S Eliot’s The Family Reunion, I stumbled upon a salmon pink copy in Quinto for £2.

Take a stroll further down the road and you will find Henry Pordes (58-60 Charing Cross Road), which is piled high with history, science, medicine,

photography and architecture books. The staff are chatty and helpful, and the beautiful leatherbound books near the door lull you into a dreamlike state. Next door is Any Amount of Books (56 Charing Cross Road), perhaps the best of the three.

With bargain paperbacks stacked up outside and a staggering range of books inside, you are likely to leave with bags of books.

Road and Bloomsbury areas, visit the Southbank Centre Book Market underneath Waterloo Bridge.

Books are piled on rows of tables, where many stroll along in search of a bargain. Whilst there appears to be little order to the books, the staff have an incredible knowledge of the currently available stock and will even rummage in the storage boxes at the back if you are looking for something particular.

Still, if you’re looking for specific editions or lesserknown works, the prospect of scouring the shelves is daunting. Enter Skoob (66 Brunswick Square), which is overflowing with academic titles. Descend into the underground shop and you will find 55,000 books nestled in the wooden shelves. There are psychology, philosophy, art, politics, economics and science books, as well as shelves of battered orange Penguin Classics. Whilst there isn’t a catalogue, books are shelved in sections and with a little patience you are likely to find treasure. Students get 10% off too. If all else fails there is a piano to tinkle on.

Heading north, Keith Fawkes in Hampstead (3 Flask Walk) is a real book-lovers’ feast. Past the turquoise shopfront and comic ‘Books Inside’ sign, you will find yourself squeezing through the teetering piles of books. It’s a perfect hideaway on a chilly autumn afternoon.

Just around the corner is Judd Books (82 Marchmont Street), also tempting students with a 10% discount. With two floors of academic books – the arts upstairs and history, philosophy, psychology and economics downstairs – you are likely to stumble upon a bargain. A short walk away is Oxfam Books’ flagship second-hand bookshop (12 Bloomsbury Street), which is well stocked and contains a lot of the books on the UCL and KCL reading lists that have been dropped off by previous students.

If you fancy moving away from the Charing Cross

Also worth visiting – not necessarily because of their book stock but because of the novelty – is Word on the Water, London’s only water-based second hand bookshop. Winding their way around the London canal network, Word on the Water moors at various locations for a two week period. They are often found lurking around Camden, Primrose Hill and Angel, and their location is updated on their Twitter page (@wordonthewater).

Not only are second hand books ‘wild’, as Woolf points out, but the process of finding them can be a little more than wild. Traipsing around London with dusty and well-creased books is much more exciting – and cheaper – than simply adding them to your Amazon basket. / ELIZABETH METCALFE / KCL / BOOKS EDITOR

LOVE IN THE TIME OF TUMBLR:

ONLINE FAVOURITE LANG LEAV RELEASES HER POETRY DEBUT Reading poetry about love can be tedious. But in her debut collection Love & Misadventure, Lang Leav – a young poet who has been gaining popularity on Tumblr – seizes the reader by exposing the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of a human being in love.

deeper reflections, such as on the concept of soul mates (‘…it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are’) which contrast with fleeting observations of everyday romance (‘He makes me want to brush and floss’).

The book is split into three parts that reflect the progression of a relationship: ‘Misadventure’, ‘Circus of Sorrows’ and ‘Love’. Leav takes the reader on an emotional journey from the initial excitement of a crush through to the pains of lost love and the ending of a relationship.

The poems differ in tone throughout the book from light-hearted to intense; Leav oscillates between sneaking wistful, dreamy glances at a crush and defiantly declaring her feelings. A blank page separates each poem, allowing the reader to ponder for a while in addition to making the book easily digestible.

Longer passages of prose are interspersed among the shorter poems, allowing for

Through witty wordplay and metaphors, Leav embraces the confusion that love

brings. In ‘An Impossible Task’, the speaker tries to forget it all: ‘To tying, then trying to untie, a complicated knot.’

The collection makes you privy to Leav’s innermost thoughts and daydreams. It’s strange how her thoughts can be scarily evocative of your own. The honesty of her poems – ‘I had to live it, in order to write it,’ she says – combined with her own charming illustrations give Love & Misadventure a wonderful sincerity. / MICA AHIR / UCL / CONTRIBUTOR

18

the smoke

RUBY TUESDAY On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I sit at my diningroom table drinking tea and Skyping 21-year-old Ruby Tandoh from UCL, who’s sitting on her kitchen floor blind-baking a pastry case as we laugh about our shared love for Nigel Slater and discuss all things baking.

What made you decide to apply to the Bake Off? I was already doing a little bit of baking, but then I saw the programme and realised just how little I was doing and how rubbish at it I was, and I wanted to get better.

I kind of saw it as a challenge – it was a good way to motivate myself to actually bake all the time.

What’s it like working in the Bake Off tent?

When we first started it was March, and it was absolutely freezing! Quite a few people have had a go at me about wearing a cardigan to bake – I don’t understand what the big deal is, it was freezing in there! Everyone had to dress up in their woolliest clothes, so knitwear did make a comeback.

I loved when, in bread week, Paul asked why you weren’t using a mixer, and you said you never had and weren’t going to start now!

Actually, that was kind of an eye-opener for me – quite a few of the other bakers have all these fancy ways of doing things that I hadn’t even heard of, and they were using equipment that I’ve just never even bothered to use! And I think that’s great, and obviously those bits of equipment make your life a lot easier, but I’d hate people to think that’s the only way you can bake if you can’t afford this expensive stuff.

Do you have a favourite thing to bake?

I really like bread. But not usually savoury bread – I like buns and brioche, Danish pastries and things like that which are also yeasted. I hate doing cakes, that’s why I’ve been so consistently rubbish at cakes. I just can’t be bothered with them!

FOOD EDITOR BRYONY BOWIE INTERVIEWS GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF CONTESTANT AND LONDON STUDENT RUBY TANDOH

Can you choose between Mary and Paul?

I’m reluctant to say it, but I prefer Paul, I think – but only in his baking capacity. Mary’s obviously amazing but I think her style is very different to the sort of stuff I would choose to do.

Do you have a favourite moment of the series?

Actually – in a non-malicious way – it’s usually when something goes horribly wrong. Obviously when it happens to you too, it’s horrible, but it’s still funny. I was right in front of Howard when Sue put her elbow into his muffin. Luckily that didn’t make any difference because they’re not going to judge you on a muffin that someone else ruined. She started leaning on it and she didn’t even realise; she actually accused other people until she realised it was her that’d done the damage – that was quite funny.

Do you have any advice for people at university who want to do more baking?

I think it would be: don’t go out and buy expensive cookery books. If you want to do baking on a budget, don’t buy Nigella Lawson and expect to be able to make the recipes! They’re great recipes and I love Nigella, but not everybody has prosciutto knocking about in their cupboard – it’s just not viable as a student. You just have to be a bit more resourceful – trawl the internet and find reliable recipes with the sort of ingredients you can actually get hold of more cheaply .

Do you have any plans for a future career in food?

I don’t know really! I’d really like to just have a little garden and make things quietly in the calm of my kitchen and write about the stuff that I make, but who knows?

RUBY’S BLOG CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.RUBYANDTHEKITCHEN.CO.UK

IMAGE: BBC

The Fresher-Foodie’s Guide to Eating Out in the Big Smoke London is baffling. What to do? Where to go?

You’re in the big city for half a day and suddenly you’re suffering from an identity crisis - what kind of person do you want to be? Where do you want to be seen shopping? Are you a Brick Laner or a Brixton kid?

Food poses no such philosophical conundrum.

Good food is good food and bad food, bad. One question does arise, however: where can you find the former at a price that doesn’t reduce you to a state of bankruptcy?

Wahaca (Southbank, Covent Garden, Soho, Islington, Stratford and many others!)

Mexican street food is the order of the day here, with a mouth-watering tequila menu to match – though if you’re on a budget, the latter may be something you want to save for a rowdier day.

of the waiters often attracts a queue outside, but if you’re willing to wait, you’ll be rewarded with a complimentary tumbler of hot chai tea: a perfect blend of milk, sugar and spices that serves to stave off the evening chill.

While the tea is delicious, it’s the house black daal that is the star of Dishoom’s show. Buttery in texture, rich in flavour and exceptionally homely, the black daal is one of the reasons why there’s no need to over-order here. The portion is perfect for two, and only requires a few extra sundries such as the wonderfully fresh garlic naan (cooked before your eyes in the open kitchen) and a classic raita to make a meal that totals a mere £11 - that’s £5.50 per head, and better value for money I haven’t seen.

The Wahaca Selection is a sharing platter for two that, totalling £19.95, is good value for money. It is a spicy melee of succulent pork and chicken tacos, juicy bean quesadillas and tostadas, and comforting potato taquitos - a truly exciting range of flavours for the more adventurous palate.

Polpo (Clerkenwell) My favourite restaurant in London so far, this Venetian gem is one of those ‘special occasion’ places. While £20-£30 a head is a tad pricey, it’s definitely worth going all out here; each dish sounds exceptionally delicious and it’s a place where sharing is, I think, both obligatory and beneficial.

If sharing isn’t your thing, I would highly recommend the slow-cooked pork burrito. The accompanying tang of pink pickled onions and the heat of the habanero chillies pack a great punch and it’s more than filling for a meagre £6.95.

Skip over the Cicheti section and head towards the cured pork shoulder and pickled pepper pizzette.

The pickled pepper, perhaps a tad too bitter on its own, is offset perfectly by the strong, salty, marvellously thick slices of pork and just the right amount of melted cheese.

Dishoom (Shoreditch, Covent Garden) These bustling Bombay cafés (left) are without a doubt the best Indian I’ve had to date, and as an Indian, I’d like to think this counts for something.

An assortment of fish and meat also grace what is a truly mouth-watering menu, but always check the specials board! More than once, I have left sorely regretting missing out on clams steeped in garlic, white wine and chilli, a truly glorious medley. Woe is me. / AMANDEEP BAINS / KCL / CONTRIBUTOR

The chatter of happy eaters and the attentiveness

20

theatre

the smoke

more shows, less dough Theatre Editor Sarah Fortesque gives us the low-down on how to get into London’s best shows on a student budget.

Moving to London for university is one of the most exciting and, let’s face it, expensive decisions many of us will make. One of the greatest contributors to both points is the appeal of experiencing all that the theatre capital of the world has to offer, which can come at a notoriously high price.

With tickets to top musicals totaling £70+, the choice between a fullystocked, pasta-filled cupboard, a liver rightly laced with gin after a night at the ULU bar, a lack of overdraft-induced fear or three hours watching a haunting chorus of ludicrously offensive northern accents form the Thatcher-bashing ‘Billy Elliot’ is a pretty simple one. Always choose the gin.

Luckily, a theatre addiction spanning several years and a total lack of funds has ensured that this theatre editor’s knowledge of cut-price productions is second to none. This may come as a surprise, but world-class theatre in the capital is available for the same price as a cinema ticket.

1. Corporate Sponsorship, Student Deals & Under-26’s.

Two of the city’s most popular theatres have teamed up with corporate sponsors to provide affordable theatre to the masses. PWC and the Old Vic, and Travelex and the National Theatre, have joined forces to offer theatregoers many sought-after productions for only £12. In addition, the National Theatre’s Entry Pass and the Barbican’s freeB are excellent membership schemes, offering top seats to outstanding performances for as little as £5.

How to get tickets: Note that, with the exception of the NT’s Travelex tickets, these discounts are only available to under-26’s.

Theatres operate on a first-come, first-served basis, so you’ll need to be quick. Membership schemes require registration via the theatre’s website: a process that takes two minutes, will save a fortune, and will allow you to access some of the most exciting theatre the city has to offer. Do it now.

2. Opera & Ballet Far from being entertainment reserved for the privileged few, world-class opera and ballet is now available for the cost of a couple of pints. The Royal Opera House’s Student Standby scheme offers £10 tickets to selected performances for those in full-time higher education. Even better, these tickets don’t mean a seat behind a pillar or standing for 3 hours: many are upper-price stalls tickets, usually costing around £200!

How to get tickets: You’ll need to register online at the ROH site. When tickets become available you’ll receive an e-mail notification; when you do, you need to be exceptionally fast – these sell out quicker than a Cliff Richard concert in a nursing home.

3. Returns Luckily for you, when full-price tickets to shows are sold and their purchasers can no longer attend, tickets are resold at a huge discount. So, with a little time commitment and an early morning stroll to your chosen venue, you’re likely to secure a sold-out seat for up to half its original price. Last year’s highlight was securing a £10 ticket to Macbeth with Michael Sheen – a production that had sold out long before its run, with tickets costing £40+.

How to get tickets: As a student, you’re more than likely to be in the fortunate position of having a fair bit of free time when doors open for returns for popular shows. Each theatre is different, so call to find opening times and head down and queue at around 10am, or risk it and turn up an hour before the show starts.

4. Step away from the West End Tempting as it may be to follow the crowds, 5* reviews and stars of Shaftesbury Avenue, some of London’s best theatre is a little further out. From the ground-breaking productions of the Royal Court (Sloane Square) to the outstanding new writing from the Young Vic (Waterloo), London’s most adventurous productions are easier on the wallet, with both venues offering a number of £10 tickets to students & under-26’s.

If you’re willing to explore some of London’s lesser-known theatres, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the fringe venues, or final-year showcases by leading drama schools such as RADA, Guildhall, and Central School of Speech Drama.

One of the best ways to keep updated is to browse our very own guide to What’s On in London (page 22). Keep looking and you’ll be able to keep up an affordable theatre habit as well as a gin habit to complement your studies. / SARAH FORTESCUE / CENTRAL SCHOOL OF SPEECH AND DRAMA / THEATRE EDITOR

AMATEUR THEATRICS: HOW TO GET INVOLVED WITH STUDENT THEATRE You’ve arrived in London. You may not have been involved in theatre before and may just have enjoyed watching shows. Perhaps you’ve been in a few productions at school, or maybe you’ve been performing from a young age in a youth theatre. Whatever your background, university is the perfect place to discover a passion for theatre, and provides ample opportunities to develop your repertoire of skills and refine your craft.

So where do you start? At the Freshers’ Fair, each society will be flaunting their wares and the drama societies will have sign-up sheets for their mailing lists and Facebook groups. It’s simple: sign up if you want to be involved - this way, you’ll receive regular online updates from the society with important information like audition times.

If being on stage isn’t your thing and you would rather be involved behind the scenes, you can sign up for that too.

“

enthusiastic. Even if you are given a tiny role or are the assistant to a lighting technician, try hard, because this initial effort will not go unnoticed and will pay off in the next term, as your face becomes familiar and you are given bigger parts and more responsibility.

The advantage of being in London is that you are living in what is arguably the theatrical capital of the world.

Whether you like spectacular Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, unconventional new writing or traditional classical drama, there is something for everyone here.

But don’t get complacent when term ends - during the university holidays there are many opportunities to continue to develop your passion and to gain experience outside your university’s society.

The north Londonbased National Youth Theatre is an amazing organisation that brings together young people who want to work in theatre from all over the UK. There is a two-week intake course that provides basic training, and a more intense six-week training programme called Epic Stages. If you’re lucky enough to be chosen, NYT is an invaluable experience, and gives you a real sense of how professional companies discipline actors.

The advantage of being in London is that you are living in what is arguably the theatrical capital of the world

Unfortunately, callouts for technical helpers for a show are usually much more last minute than the acting auditions, but will also be found on the Facebook group and mailing list.

It also doesn’t hurt to send the society a quick email at the start of the year letting them know your skillset and eagerness to be involved.

The only thing not to do is to be inactive or lazy. It may seem like you have a lot on your plate, but your first year is when you’ll have the most free time, so make it count. The more auditions you attend, the greater chance you have of being cast. In my first term at King’s College London, I auditioned for six shows and only achieved a small part in one. Many of the professional London drama societies would rather work with people they know and trust.

As a fresher, the most difficult task is to break through the barrier of being unknown to the society and gain the trust of the directors or committee members by being reliable and

”

Working closely with a small group over a long period of time means that the friendships you form at NYT will be lasting, and those you meet may even become your collaborators in the future.

If theatre is your craft, London is your oyster. Regardless of the subject you’re studying, the theatre scene here is unparalleled, and you can learn just as much by completely immersing yourself in it than you can from – dare I say it – a year’s worth of lectures. / HANNAH ELSY / KCL / CONTRIBUTOR

lifestyle

the smoke

BIG NIGHT OUT T

FABRIC

One of the biggest clubs in the city and with some of the best line-ups, Clerkenwell-based Fabric usually offers discounted student tickets.

It has three rooms and is a bit of a maze; the club is loud and always fun, with a range of musical styles played – everything from drum and bass to electro. Great place to just dance!

THE ROXY

Often offering cheaper entry with a student card, this Soho basement club is often packed with a young crowd – it’s known as a student destination – and is great for a weeknight out.

Tuesdays are the best night to go, with a sets usually featuring The Smiths, The Clash and The Cure, and if you join the mailing list it’s only £1 on the door.

CATFACE

Draw a cat face on your face, and entry is cheaper; add Catherine Phace on Facebook to find out about upcoming London Catface events and dates. Usually a mix of retro, hiphop, indie, and electro music - and nobody takes themselves too seriously. Well, apart from those who are missing the crudely drawn whiskers, that is.

CARAVAN

Cute little bar located near King’s Cross, with drinks costing about £4. The food is delicious and the atmosphere is intimate and cozy, as the restaurant/bar is situated in a restored Victorian grain store.

CORSICA STUDIOS

You can often get free entry to this Elephant and Castle club if you’re attending their Facebook events, and once you’re inside drinks only cost about 4 quid. Corsica Studios creates an artsy and intimate atmosphere, playing mainly electro, house and techno. The live musical acts are always daring and creative, and they host the popular Trouble Vision dubstep night.

DALSTON SUPERSTORE

A big name in the East London club scene, they often offer free entry – other nights it’s usually £5 after 10. It’s super trendy and decorated with works by young London artists, adding to the fun and cheerful vibe. Fantastic DJs who play a mix of retro pop, dance and electro.

GIVE THESE A MISS:

KOKO

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Located by Mornington Crescent tube in a former theatre, the venue is beautiful and impressive - but it can be an expensive night out, with tickets for some events costing upwards of £15, and the drinks not much cheaper.

TIGER TIGER

Situated in Leicester Square, this can be an expensive experience. It’s a large space, and includes various rooms playing different musical genres, but the venue often gets complaints about bad service and unfriendly staff. Like many clubs in the area, is usually full of ostentatious wealth. If you aren’t the type of person who Instagrams pictures of the Dom Perignon you just bought, give it a miss.

CAMDEN UNDERWORLD This basement club under the World’s End Pub on Camden High Street plays pop, metal, and rock, but DJ sets are bizarre and feature totally unknown songs. If you aren’t drunk enough, you’ll notice that it’s gloomy, grotty, and full of awkward couples getting off with each other.

The night will again be rather pricey, with live gigs usually costing up to £20, and an expensive drinks menu. They also don’t accept cards.

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events

the smoke

days and nights IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

The Nomad cinema, Hyde Park, 20 September

PIXIES & NO CEREMONY///

Roundhouse 25 September

OUR CURATED PICK OF LONDON’S BEST EVENTS OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS. JUST OPENED: TIGER

Tottenham Court Road The Danish brand has opened its first UK store, and it’s a delight.

Colourful home decorations, stationery, and even spices – you can find it all here.

CLUB TO CATWALK: LONDON FASHION IN THE 1980S V&A £5 for students.

Until 16 February 2014

LAURA KNIGHT: PORTRAITS

National Portrait Gallery £6 for students, £3.50 with the National Art Pass Until 13 October

THE FUTURE IS HERE: A NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Design Museum £7.50 for students Until 29 October

ROOFTOP FILM CLUB in Shoreditch, Peckham, Ealing Broadway and Kensington, showing a huge variety of films from Romeo and Juliet to American Psycho throughout September.

THE RITUAL SLAUGHTER OF GORGE MASTROMAS Royal Court Tickets from £10.

Until 19 October

LIOLA

National Theatre. Entry Pass tickets from £5.

Until 6 November

MILES ALDRIDGE: I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME

Somerset House £3 on Mondays, Until 29 September

LONDON FASHION WEEKEND,

Somerset House 19 - 22 September

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

JAMES BLAKE Shepherd’s Bush Empire 25-26 September

URBAN FOOD FORTNIGHT

14 - 29 September Location varies

FREE FILM FESTIVAL AT THE SCOOP, showing The Good, The

Noel Coward Theatre. Tickets from £13.00.

Until 16 November

Bad and the Ugly. First-come, firstserved.

19 September

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

VARIOUS SHOWINGS AT THE NOMAD CINEMA: Amélie

Old Vic. Tickets from £12.

Until 30 November

VICTORIANA: THE ART OF REVIVAL

at Fulham Palace on 19 September; Roman Holiday in Queen’s Park on the 22 September.

SCOOP GELATO: ‘I LOVE CHOCOLATE’

Guildhall Art Gallery. £5 for students.

Until 8 December

20 - 22 September

AMERICAN APPAREL FACTORY OUTLET SALE

SYLVIA PLATH: CURATED BY POET IN THE CITY

Truman Brewary, off Brick Lane The summer-long outlet is closing, and going out with a bang: 20% off if you spend over £50.

15 September

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE: ‘FOUND IN TRANSLATION’.

The Sheikh Zayed Theatre, LSE. Considering the dominance of novels in the English language, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith and Sandra Smith discuss translation and its challenges. 7pm. £5 for students.

16 September

FREE FILM FESTIVAL AT THE SCOOP, showing Back to the

Future. First-come, first-served.

18 September

CONCERNING FRANK KERMODE

A celebration of Kermode’s life and a discussion of his works.

Speakers include Jacqueline Rose and Michael Wood, and chair John Mullan. 7pm, London Review Bookshop. £10.00.

19 September

Hall 1, Kings Place, Marking the 50th year since Sylvia Plath’s tragically early death, the evening will combine live poetry readings by actress Juliet Stevenson with thoughtful discussions about Plath’s work. £9.50, 7pm.

23 September

ANA MENDIETA

Hayward Gallery. £8 for students, £5 with the National Art Pass.

24 September - 15 December

THE BARBICAN CURATES JOHN LE CARRÉ A Murder of Quality 24 September.

EMILIO GRECO SACRED AND PROFANE

Estorick Collection. £3.50 for students, or £2.50 with the National Art Pass 25 September – 22 December 2013

FREE FILM FESTIVAL AT THE SCOOP, showing Amour. First-

come, first-served.

25 September

OTHELLO

NT Live, cinemas across London, from £15.

26 September

REAL FOOD HARVEST FESTIVAL

Southbank Centre 27-29 September

POETRY IN THE CRYPT

St Mary’s Church Poetry readings by Maitreyabandhu (winner of the Keats-Shelley Prize), Sharon Morris and Ian Parks. There is also the opportunity for the audience to share their poems. Free coffee and cakes. £4, 7pm.

28 September

THE BARBICAN CURATES JOHN LE CARRÉ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 28 September.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

Roundhouse 29 September

NATIONAL POETRY DAY LIVE: WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Southbank Centre.

3 October

ZOLA JESUS

London Tabernacle. Zola Jesus tours the gorgeous strings rework of ‘Stridulum II’.

3 October

FABRICLIVE: FOUR TET

Four Tet plays an 8 hour set at Fabric, amidst other electro goodness.

4 October

FROM THE ARCHIVES

the smoke

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

CAMDEN ANTI-CAR PROTESTS, MAY 1995 © NIK STRANGELOVE

Every issue, the smoke aims to feature an image from London Student’s photographic archive, and talk to the person behind it. For our first issue, we’re speaking with Nik Strangelove about his front-page gracing photo, above.

FIRSTLY, WHAT DID YOU STUDY AND AT WHICH UNIVERSITY? I studied BA(Hons) Contemporary Media Practice at the University of Westminster in Harrow. Actually, I really shouldn’t have been Picture Editor for two years, as Westminster isn’t in the union! But no-one seemed to care.

It was a pretty crap course. The best thing about uni was working on London Student.

It gave me experience across the board and got me work at The Independent when I graduated.

COULD YOU GIVE US ANY BACKGROUND TO THE PHOTOGRAPH? The photo was taken in 1995. A friend rang up the office and told me to come quick –

Reclaim The Streets was was doing an anticar rally. They took over Camden, dumped and smashed up several cars. Tensions were high with the police. I remember getting a phone call from the office: they wanted to run this story for the front page, and Lewis Berman, the art director, wanted to know what format the photo would be. I was still shooting, but said it was definitely a landscape image. They were designing the front page that afternoon. However, when I got back to the office and processed the films, Lewis spotted that portrait shot and realised that they had to redesign the front page, which they then quickly did. He wanted that shot. It was the best on the roll.

YOU WERE THE PHOTO EDITOR OF LONDON STUDENT. WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING ON THE PAPER AT THE TIME? I loved working at the paper. I worked under two editors, Liz Llewellyn and then Kevin Ashton, who were both very supportive. Kevin was very ambitious and

totally redesigned the paper with Lewis Berman, making it like the Guardian with a colour supplement. I learnt a lot about shooting under pressure. We were only given one roll of Ilford HP5+ black & white film per assignment. You had to get the shot within 36 exposures – it was good training.

Nowadays, thanks to digital, you can shoot hundreds of frames. With portraits I liked the challenge of trying to get the shot within the allotted time. Many times you had only a very short time to capture something. I would normally turn up with the journalist and sit through the interview, then do the photos afterwards. It gave me time to figure out what I was going to do, and gave the sitter time to get used to us.

COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CAREER AS A PHOTOGRAPHER SINCE LEAVING UNIVERSITY? I graduated in 1995 with a 2:1. I specialised in photo-journalism, shooting a story with a homeless community in Plumstead who

I lived with for 5 weeks. I was awarded the NUS/Guardian Student Photographer of The Year in 1994, and nominated again in 1995. I did a few years as an editorial photographer shooting portraits for music magazines, and some press work for the Independent and the Evening Standard. I shot some of my own stories and tried selling them to the newspapers, but with limited success. I then left London in 2000, as it was just too expensive, and moved to Cornwall, where I’ve since concentrated on personal projects.

I’ve had several solo shows and exhibited alongside painters, and have sold work through galleries. I don’t make a living from my photography at the moment – who does nowadays? – and currently work part-time as an engineer in the glass industry. This involves a lot of global travel, which is great for my portfolio! www.nikstrangelove.com INTERVIEWED BY EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD / KCL / CO-EDITOR

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