tn2 Issue 7, 2014-15 by Trinity News

smoke gets in your eyes

Name: George Voronov Location: Ba Be, Vietnam

CONTENTS 04 06 07 24 26 32 34

Jumble Uppers & Downers Homegrown Photo Essay Reviews Calendar Sex

TEMPLE BARD

Jerome Mockett explores the motivations behind Ireland’s renewed interest in Shakespeare adaptations.

CITIZEN ARTIST

Art Editor Stephen Moloney visits artist Robert Ballagh’s studio to talk pop art, politics and “our pictures”.

ABOUT GRIME EDITORIAL TEAM Meadhbh McGrath Matthew Mulligan Lola Boorman Alice Wilson Stephen Moloney Hannah Harte Olen Bajarias Megan Burns Rebecca Alter Ross McDonnell Daniel Scott Kathleen Girvan Kerry Brennan Eoin Moore Nicholas Kenny Elizabeth Mohen Michael Kemp Tara Joshi Eoin Lynskey Heather Keane Matthew Malone Ciara Forristal Emma Boylan Louise Curtin

PRINTED BY Grehan Printers COVER PHOTO BY Geordie Wood

Music Editor Tara Joshi speaks to Novelist about the resurgence of grime as it breaks, once again, into the mainstream.

TALKING HEADS

Marjane Satrapi discusses her pet project, the Ryan Reynolds-starring horror-comedy The Voices, with Film Editor Rebecca Alter.

ROGER THAT

Mad Men’s resident scoundrel, John Slattery looks back on his days as an ad man as he bids goodbye to his 1960s counterpart Roger Sterling.

IT’S IN THE DETAIL

Meadhbh McGrath styles Ball-ready looks from COS, Nowhere and Topshop that play with shape, volume and texture.

COFFEE X CAKE

IN THE GAME: SOURCE 2

WORDS BY DAN SCOTT

losing its cool. This isn’t i it’much better.

LITERARY MILESTONES On the March 8, 37 years ago, in the unassuming timeslot of 10.30pm, a revolutionary radio show had its humble origin. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — a franchise that would go on to become a tremendously successful book series, an acclaimed TV show, a few very weird video games, and one not-so-great film — did well in spite of its lackluster Wednesday night debut. It was a stressful, low budget production. Notably it was the first comedy radio show to be recorded in stereo, on the insistence of the show’s creator Douglas Adams. The majority of the sound effects were generated from whatever analogue recordings could be found in the BBC archives. “It was hard to stay sane doing that,” said Adams. “Particularly when you would be doing one two-second sound effect, which would take you two days buried in the subterranean studio beneath Lower Regent Street. It was very difficult to tell at the end of those two days whether it was funny or not.” The show would continue on for a season of six episodes, to outstanding praise, solidifying Adams as one of the undisputed greats of science fiction and comedy.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

WORDS BY NICHOLAS KENNY

VIDEODROME

Just off the main stretch of Rathmines is what has been hailed as the best coffee in Dublin; Two Fifty Square is a minimalist oasis of what appears to be a converted warehouse/garage with white tiles, oak tables and light — thanks to the original asbestoscum-perplex roof. Their single estate house blend is available as a “long black” (or an americano to you and I) for €2.70, as well as the usual offerings, and filter offerings from a drip or aeropress. The house blend has a good balance in the mouth, with citrus notes and a treacly aftertaste which ensures that no sugar is required (give it a taste first, trust me). Serving an excellent lunch and brunch which is gaining fame alongside some high standard no-frills pastries and cakes, Two Fifty Square have converted trendy execs, army recruits from the nearby barracks, students and yummie mummies alike from the copious coffee chains nearby in pursuit of the perfect cup of joe. Vice does it

After months and months — or, more properly, years and years — of speculation, Valve has officially announced Source 2 Engine, the second iteration of the engine that’s powered all the studio’s games since 2004’s Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2. And, in a move that’s sounding pretty familiar after the past few days (with Epic’s announcement on March 2 that their Unreal Engine 4 would cost users nothing, bar a 5% royalty fee, and Unity Technologies’s creation of a free but stripped down option of their Unity 5 source engine), Source 2 is free to use. “We will be making Source 2 available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PC’s dominance as the premiere content authoring platform,” said Valve’s Jay Stelly in a prepared statement. “Given how important user-generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favourite games,” he continued. The official announcement brings to a close an extended period of leaks, culminating in shots of a remastered Left 4 Dead level that came out last year. Ultimately, this is great news for indie developers, as it gives them greater power and opportunity to create and innovate without a price tag preventing them from achieving their vision.

Hailed as the forerunner of the modern music video, the promotional clip for Bob Dylan’s first Top 40 hit Subterranean Homesick Blues is an iconic piece of film that has been referenced in examples of popular culture from Love Actually to the Bloodhound Gang’s Mope. The shuffling blues composition of the song and quick lyrical cadence is juxtaposed with a satisfyingly simple tableau of Bob standing in the right of the shot and with a cool deadpan stare, flipping through a series of cue cards displaying choice phrases as they are sung in accompaniment with the video. While the idea was Dylan’s, the cards were written with the help of musician friends Donovan, Bob Neuwirth and the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, with the latter two in cameo just inside the left of the shot. The words that appear are peppered with deliberate misspellings (“suckccess”) and inconsistencies with Bob’s singing (the viewer reads “twenty dollar bills” and hears “eleven”) while the singer stands nonchalantly, at points not keeping up with his own lyrics. In the background is an alley behind London’s Savoy Theatre where Dylan stayed during his 1965 UK tour and the clip originally functioned as the opening sequence of D.A. Pennebaker’s tour documentary Don’t Look Back. The song’s lyrics are charged with the energy of change and protest, on Vietnam, the struggle for Civil Rights and the people’s condition; the video itself paved the way for the now ubiquitous conjunction of song and music video — though the budget was negligible and there is not a Beats pill in sight. WORDS BY SAM MARRIOTT

NOTES ON A SCANDAL As a response to the sexual assault and homicide of the young female physiotherapist student Jyoti Singh on a New Dehli bus in 2012, director Leslee Udwin speaks out against the injustice with India’s Daughter, a documentary that explores the aftermath of the incident. While the film lends a voice to the discussion on rape and its complicated place in Indian society as a result of religion and tradition, some critics have used social media to point out its more problematic aspects, such as the political confusion evoked by Udwin’s choice to give one of the convicts airtime to ramble on and justify the group’s behavior. It is this unauthorised interview that the Indian government officially cites as unethical because it complicates the group’s appeal process. Although the government’s misogynistic institutional attitude has not changed, public perception, both in India and abroad, has. This change is reflected in protests and riots both on the streets and over Twitter and YouTube that allow the global community to engage with the ongoing process. By globalising awareness and participation, we are reminded once again that rape is not just a crime against women, but an issue for humanity. WORDS BY VANESSA CHEN

FRONT SQUARE FASHION

PUBLIC SPACE The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art, designed by Smith and Kenny architects, is situated amidst the contemporary architectural hub of the Grand Canal Docklands and was deservingly shortlisted for the RIAI Public Choice Award in 2012. Pared down, unapologetic use of open plumbing structures in the lofty ceiling of the interior add to the industrial warehouse feel of the space, with functionality becoming visual appeal in itself.

Aoife Smyth, SS BESS, Economics and Politics Jayme Sejean, amateur filmmaker Aoife, do you coordinate your outfits with Jayme? No! Definitely not! Jayme, who is your favourite filmmaker? David Lynch, I guess. Twin Peaks is my favourite, but I haven’t finished it yet; I still have a few episodes left. The mystery is still there.

WORDS BY OLEN BAJARIAS PHOTOS BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

In terms of size, the building is neat. Thin grey bricks intersecting with occasional soft, yellow lights make up the bulk of the exterior, offset by satin smooth charcoal corrugated panels. A decentred oval window above the entrance accentuates the symmetry of the illuminated Lir typeface. Deconstruction of convention marks the

aesthetic of the design. The most apparent feature being the playful cluster of green lacquered spheres of different sizes which speckle the façade; appropriate given the function of the building as an academy of dramatic arts. WORDS BY HANNAH HARTE

WVR Music Videos: On finding themselves “in Iceland one day with nothing to do and a 360 camera lying about”, Bjork and collaborator Andrew Huang decided to explore the intimate potential of virtual reality with a 360-degree music video for Vulnicura opener Stonemilker.

Flip your wig: Witness the manifest glory of Lena Dunham’s wig, the real star of her Scandal episode.

Agender: This month saw Selfridges open its gender-neutral shopping concept, allowing customers to “choose to shop and dress without limits or stereotypes” and paving the way for a gender-free fashion future.

Playing with dolls: Diablo Cody (the writer beyond Juno, Jennifer’s Body and Young Adult) has been hired to pen the script for the as-yet-untitled Barbie film. A producer on the film explained, “Diablo’s unconventionality is just what Barbie needs,” and promised “a legitimately contemporary tone”. We predict a wildly rebloggable postfeminist masterpiece.

BLUE STEEL TAKEOVER: It’s a walkoff ! To launch the Zoolander sequel, Valentino took things to the next level by featuring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in character to close their AW15 show.

Sex selfie sticks: Thanks to its FaceTime compatibility, the Svakom Gaga Vibrator Camera allows you to “see a woman’s orgasm from the inside”. What a time to be alive!

Chola Victorian: Givenchy’s AW15 show reeked of Columbusing. Riccardo Tisci, we love you, but please stop. Man buns: Behold Shia LaBeouf ’s horrifying, glorious rat tail.

Post-Oscar slump: Julianne Moore’s shoulderpads star as a campy dragon-witch in the disastrous-looking fantasy adventure film Seventh Son, while in CSI: Cyber, Patricia Arquette plays a special agent who had her secrets stolen “back at the beginning of the internet”, and now spends her time chasing Uber murderers and instructing her team to “find the computers and get into them”. These women deserve better!

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

Steven Sharpe is a Galway-based singer-songwriter who cultivates a witty, unapologetic style that is difficult to describe. He’s quite forthcoming about his eclectic batch of influences, citing “Nina Simone, Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson” as “the holy trinity of artists, for me”. While acknowledging that much of his music is about “being gay and shit”, and he remarks on how he “never really heard that growing up”. Instantly recognisable as jangly, guy-with-a-guitar-folk-pop, there’s an immediacy to his songwriting that exudes a confidence and authority beyond the trappings of the genre, something “stomping, fabulous, flamboyant”. The tags on his bandcamp page are an aptly laconic summation of this style, some of which include “acoustic”, “gay”, “phat”, “gay rights”, “gay lefts” and “class”. Growing up in rural Tipperary, Sharpe found that “if you’re not really good at academics, or football, you’re not really good at anything. So I grew up with this feeling of being worthless, but then I turned out to be fucking gay, which is also the worst thing you can be in Tipperary in an all-boys school”. Upon going to college he discovered that “there’s more to life than being upset all the time”. This spurred him into picking up a guitar and writing songs that dealt candidly with the intricate spectrum of emotions generated by his upbringing, an experience he

HOM EGR OWN found “fulfilling, both spiritually and emotionally”; though he also quips that “this is the only thing I’m good at”. Many of his songs create narratives about being young and LGBTQ in a country still explicitly hostile to such a lifestyle. So, to what extent are these tales drawn from his own life experiences, and to what extent are they fictionalised? “They’re slightly fictionalised, but most, if not all of them come directly from personal experiences.” Secret Love is a silky, intimate love song that has its creative roots in a clandestine relationship Sharpe once had. Work is a vibrant, playful tune that draws inspiration from an eventful night had in a gay club. It’s this motif of storytelling, the sense of being addressed, that lead many of his songs to resist conventional archetypes. His lyrics are oftentimes confessional, but he maintains that “I kind of tweak them slightly to make them more interesting. Either that or I just mesh stories together.” In a beat he can shift from the micro to the macro, such as on Uganda, a hushed

confrontation of the stark realities of modern LGBTQ culture: “Back of the closet, that’s where it should stay, out of sight and out of the way, I heard that you can murder them these days.” Sharpe notes how “opening up a newspaper or turning on the TV” leads him to be “constantly reminded that there are entire governments and huge organisations of people that are just out to stop the gay rights movement, to persecute you and to make you feel like you’re an abomination... and that happens all the time, it never goes away”. More than anything, Sharpe’s eyes are set on the future. He’s recording an album with his band, the superb Broke Straight Boys, and has several festival dates lined up for the summer. His parting words are an affirmation of the incredibly fertile Galway music scene: “Bitches of Dublin, what’s happening in Galway at the moment, it’s not happening anywhere else in Ireland. Where else but Galway could you have a flamboyant singer-songwriter go up and sing about how much he fucking hates his ex-boyfriend? That’s why Galway’s fucking awesome.” Steven Sharpe and the Broke Straight Boys play the Workman’s Club on Friday May 29, with support from My Fellow Sponges. WORDS BY EOIN LYNSKEY

WHat ISH

efore the 1970s the Abbey Theatre didn’t do Shakespeare. He was regarded as a “foreign playwright”, not to be touched. The fact that the last performance was commissioned by Yeats in 1936 illustrates just how stubborn Ireland’s National Theatre was on the Shakespeare question.

And yet, one evening earlier this month, the curtain rose on Felix Mendelssohn’s orchestral adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the National Concert Hall, while across the Liffey, Gavin Quinn’s production of the same play (pictured) was underway at the Abbey. What these simultaneous performances point to is a remoulding of the Bard in Irish arts, particularly in Irish theatre, with new motives and a whole new look to boot. Under Fiach Mac Conghail alone, who was appointed director of the Abbey in 2005, A Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and King Lear have all been shown. Alongside Quinn’s productions, Wayne Jordan’s Romeo and Juliet will open at the Gate later this month. Jordan’s Twelfth Night last year brought Shakespeare to the Abbey in a daring 21st-century adaptation. His production explored the homoerotic undertones of Shakespeare’s script, thus engaging with a central question in Irish society ahead of this year’s referendum on marriage equality. The back of the stage marked with the words “What You Will” seemed to directly question the audience’s political decision and their role in Ireland’s future. Those three words also drew attention to the production as being a fresh look at Shakespeare by placing the play’s alternative title at centre stage. With some licence, Jordan played on Shakespeare’s famous line “If music be the food of love,” by interweaving a contemporary score by Tom Lane with music from The Prodigy booming from two enormous, centrally placed speakers. In these productions, a new generation are seen to be staking their claim on the stage of the National Theatre using age-old texts, conversing with today’s Ireland through Shakespeare. Mark O’Rowe, meanwhile, has adapted Richard II, Henry IV (both parts), and Henry V for more traditional performances by Druid Theatre Company this year. O’Rowe’s scripts place particular emphasis on Ireland as a colony in the background of England’s most famous histories. Perhaps with one eye on the upcoming anniversary of Easter 1916, O’Rowe’s choice of Shakespeare to convey Ireland’s historical struggle raises all sorts of neo-colonial questions. It also wrestles with Oscar Wilde’s famous assessment of being “Irish by race but condemned to use the language of Shakespeare.” De-familiarisation is at the heart of this string of adaptations. A stripping of our cosy and highly familiar relationship with Shakespeare as an overdone artist can be incredibly powerful. The extent that we engage with his plays is not limited to the humanity that moves us, and modern directors have looked to Shakespeare for a plethora of political answers. What Quinn and

NatION?

PHOTOS BY ROS KAVANAGH

“Extracted from their historical context, Shakespeare’s plays grant a stable platform for modern discussion in the knowledge that their plots will neither become outmoded or outdated.”

Jordan’s productions, in particular, suggest is an engagement with Shakespeare in order to directly address contemporary Irish politics and culture in a way that hasn’t been seen so clear in Ireland for decades. But can an Elizabethan English writer really inform 21stcentury Irish concerns? Gavin Quinn certainly believes so. Set in a retirement home, his adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is unlike any you have ever seen. Facing the elderly healthcare debate present in Ireland head-on, it is brave, wholly original, and at times gauche. It reeks of the current moment, it is burlesque, colourful, outrageous. Aedín Cosgrove — Quinn’s partner in Pan Pan Theatre — has designed the set to resemble both a nursing home and an art gallery. In making Eugeus, Hermia’s father in the original, become her son, Quinn examines pertinent questions that face contemporary families and relationships in light of an ageing population. In Quinn’s world, the Athenian court becomes a care home. Instead of a King, Theseus is its director as regal robes are replaced with white coats. The once young lovers hobble with zimmer-frames and crutches. Magical potions are converted into medicinal drugs. Music from Johnny Cash twangs on the PA system, and later Darude’s Sandstorm is blared out. As a measure of how radically different this production is to traditional approaches, lead actress Áine Ní Mhuirí admitted in an interview last month that she texted the director to ask if he hadn’t made a mistake in casting her, a senior actress known for her extensive theatre work, as the young lover Hermia. In a play that pivots

around deception and chaos, Quinn’s adaptation is at its most astute when playing on Shakespeare’s dreams and disorder as a metaphor for memory, loss and confusion. Puck’s final soliloquy emphasises the sense of disorientation that dominates the piece: “You have but slumber’d here, While these visions did appear.” As a director, Quinn is of course very familiar with radically deconstructing classic texts. Playing the Dane (2010) put rehearsals for Hamlet on stage, Macbeth 7 (2004) envisaged the play being read in a classroom, whilst Everyone is King Lear in His Own Home (2012) was set in the main actor’s Dublin apartment. These last two Shakespeare productions however look suitably traditional in comparison with Pan Pan’s Playboy of the Western World (2006) which was set in Beijing, entirely in Mandarin. At the heart of Quinn’s manifesto seems to be a commitment to engaging with the 21st-century condition, exploring concepts as disparate as the mundanity of middleclass existence to globalisation. The daring approaches these directors showcase use our acquaintance with the Bard to their advantage. This familiarity enables creative risks in costume and staging. Rather than leaning on a body of work, these productions are using these plays as a foundation for innovative thought in the knowledge that their plots will neither become outmoded or outdated. Or, as Yeats would have it; “Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages, And all the drop scenes drop at once, Upon a hundred thousand stages, It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.” WORDS BY JEROME MOCKETT

Mise Éire Ballagh’s upbringing did its best to dissuade him from art, “my mother was a conservative, middle class person, who would have been skeptical of the arts. Her innate conservatism was bolstered by the fact that one of my cousins, a very good artist, committed suicide. I was only a teenager at the time but this confirmed for her the kind of unsuitability of the artistic professions and that temperament.” Ultimately Ballagh was forbidden from studying art. However, time spent studying architecture had a lasting impact. Or, more accurately, it was having Robin Walker as his tutor, “We were so in awe of Robin [...] who had just come back from working with Mies van der Rohe [...] who was flushed with enthusiasm for what we now call Classic Modernism.” Walker was one of Ireland’s visionary architects, having also worked alongside Le Corbusier before becoming a founding partner of Scott Tallon Walker, responsible for work like Busáras and translating International Modernism to an Irish context.

Although Ballagh dropped out, Walker’s impression remained, “the important thing for me, because I didn’t practice as an architect, were the attitudes to design and problem solving that Robin introduced, and all those Miesian principles. As a consequence, I am not a spontaneous artist.” As seen in his studio, Ballagh’s pieces are built up from working drawings and tracing paper, an approach echoing his architectural foundation — his finished works have a clarity suggestive of the meticulousness of an architect. Ballagh also attended the ROSC exhibition of 1967, exposing him to the work of American pop artists like Robert Indiana. “I had never seen that kind of work up close — it was so big and so clean. When I looked at it I said, ‘I could do this’”. This pop influence, coupled with an architectural precision, paved the way for Ballagh to arrive at his relatively large scale bold, graphic style. Although, it’s only now that Ballagh says “I’m making the kind of art that I always wanted to but couldn’t make.” Portraiture recurs throughout Ballagh’s oeuvre. Far from a staid genre, he claims it remains important. Perhaps a consequence of being self taught, Ballagh was immediately free of the canonical constraints of portraiture, allowing him to play with it and its traditional format; interpreting the genre in his own distinct way. His portraits often contain elements which physically project into the viewer’s space, breaking that barrier between canvas and reality. Despite his own often novel approach to portraiture, he was unimpressed with what he saw at the recent Hennessy Portrait Prize in the National Gallery, stating quite resolutely that he didn’t like it at all. Of the video interpretations he says, “I have no objection, but it has nothing to do with portraiture as far as I’m concerned. I think the general public would be mystified.” This seems to feed Ballagh’s wider perception of contemporary art. On art’s agency for enacting tangible change he says, “the visual arts have a very narrow influence and unfortunately because of that [...] the kind of conceptual approach that has been very dominant for years has been quite alienating for the general public.” Ballagh, wondering aloud, asks how many people who have won the Turner Prize actually make painted pictures,

Ballagh designed

“I’m in the business

revealing a tension between Ballagh the radicalist and Ballagh the traditionalist. As if to say it’s okay to push boundaries in art, but just not too far, perhaps Ballagh has lost sight of the ground he himself broke as a young artist. “However mad the pictures were, people can understand pictures — they might not like them, they might not get them, but they can understand them. If you think of art in a broader sense I think it can be influential, be it drama, literature or cinema.” But this takes time: “The influence of art has always been like water dripping on a stone — it’s not hugely impactful at the moment. It’s a slow and very gradual thing.” Although maintaining that the bulk of his work is not overtly political, suggesting that “political art with a capital P can turn people off ”, Ballagh the man is utterly so. Artist and critic Brian O’Doherty put it succinctly saying “Robert Ballagh’s art is not a political art but it is an art that is made by a very political person.” His practice has often been directly influenced by politics from campaigns to free the Birmingham Six to Medical Aid for Gaza. It was the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 which led Ballagh to produce one of his only installation pieces that same year, his response coming about “because the occasion demanded it. I really felt I had to do something, and that’s very rarely happened to me.” This art of commemoration and remembrance is nothing new to Ballagh, having previously helmed the 75th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Talk turns to next year’s centenary. On his vision for a post-Centenary Ireland, Ballagh struggles, “We’ve ended up in a very difficult position. We’ve sleepwalked into a profoundly undemocratic situation [...] and we don’t seem to have the leadership.” On this note, the topic of the government’s support of the arts arises and Ballagh does not hold back, “Ireland has always been bad in this regard. But this particular government has been the worst government for the arts in the history of the state. I believe that to be true.” Cutbacks, reduced opening hours and controversies like last year’s IMMA appointment are microcosmic, he says, of the “abusive [...] callous disregard for the arts. It’s bleak.” Ballagh recalls from his childhood that when visiting the National Gallery, his father would say that he was going to visit “my pictures, our pictures”. Today, however, he worries that such an outlook is

under threat, “I shiver when I hear talk about charging people in to see their own pictures.” That the arts are already “hopelessly underfunded to begin with”, to impose cutbacks “is like putting a starving man on a diet.” Even when talking about his infamous portrait of Charlie Haughey, Ballagh muses, “an unusual thing was that he actually liked artists. I get the impression that most of the present crowd don’t like us at all.” Regardless, Ballagh remains optimistic, “One must always hope. We’ve been fortunate in this country, in spite of everything, to have produced so many wonderful, talented artists, even in the darkest times. This is the irony, artists flower or don’t flower irrespective of funding. You can’t grant-aid a great writer or painter into existence — great art will happen or not happen.”

WORDS AND PHOTO BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

RHYME and REASON Acclaimed MC and producer Novelist discusses the ins and outs of grime as a genre and a way of life.

urreally, last month saw Drake gushing on his Instagram over oldschool underground grime DVDs and the “#legend” that is Wiley. Meanwhile, Kanye West brought a huge contingent of UK grime artists on stage for two of his recent London performances; including the Brits. It seemed that innovatively boisterous, brash, bravado-filled genre — made popular by artists like Dizzee Rascal and collective Boy Better Know — had gone a bit quiet in the past couple years, but it’s recently become apparent that grime is very much alive and well. Can this resurgence in global interest really be considered as a renaissance of the scene itself? One of the artists who joined Kanye’s performance was rising MC and producer Novelist. At 18 years old, Novelist is part of the first generation to actually grow up in the scene. To him, the idea that grime was ever considered dead is laughable. “People say like ‘it’s a resurrection of grime rah rah rah’, but we’ve always had the music around us, and the music’s the music, regardless of what year you came,” he explains, brimming with enthusiasm over the phone. “It’s more of a culture than a genre, d’you know what I mean? The way we live is grimey!” The young MC is ultimately unconvinced by the “new wave” label: “It could be dismissive of a lot of people who aren’t in this ‘new wave’ — MCs who are still doing their thing. I just like being involved in the whole thing to be honest.” There is an endearing sense of sincerity and a mature diplomacy palpable from his tone, which arguably comes into stark contrast with the aggressive reputation that is often — perhaps unfairly — associated with grime. The music itself can be pretty intense at times, and in the past several British politicians have spoken out against the violence they felt the scene was encouraging. While there is absolutely a stereotype apparent here, it is not as though the reality of Novelist’s upbringing in his South London home of Lewisham has been

without its rough past: “Bare mad things have happened you know? Some of my boys got killed last year, I’ve been stabbed [...] but I think it just defines who you are as a person — it makes you think in different ways, and it can make you or break you.”

with collaborator and producer Mumdance, allowing the MC to work with none other than Jamie xx on a track. The XL signing led to the fantastic 1Sec EP released earlier this year, and Novelist’s inclusion on the BBC Sound of 2015 longlist.

But just because Lewisham can be rough at times, does not mean he hasn’t loved growing up there. “Lewisham’s a bit like a GTA map,” he says with a laugh. “You’ve got the bad side and the good side, like anywhere really. But I’ve always loved it.” He goes on to talk about the positive upbringing he got from his mum and his uncle, whom he can talk to about everything: “I’m not misled by my people at home, so I don’t really find myself influenced by the foolishness that goes on.” The acknowledgement of said “foolishness” takes us back to that idea of violence in the scene, but for Novelist the intensely charged beats of grime aren’t about encouraging that behaviour. Instead, he sees the music as a commentary on their reality: “If you wanna write about something that people can relate to, you may as well talk about your circumstances and what’s going on,” he says, before quickly clarifying, “I’m not talking about glorifying anything, but literally just saying what’s happening, where you’re from, who you are as a person [...] I talk about my area, and where I’m from, because then it’s like a glass lens into a story.”

The purported “death” of grime some years ago arguably came in the mainstream crossover of artists like Dizzee, but Novelist isn’t inclined to join the backlash. “He wasn’t saying he was making grime music when he was working with Calvin Harris etc — he’s chosen to do that for his career,” he says thoughtfully. “So people felt that way about it because he is a representative of grime, but I think you should do everything in life with a good balance. If he was to be doing those types of tunes, but still be releasing grime tunes for the core fans then I don’t think people would’ve had a problem with it. Someone like Wiley, for example, has loads of pop hits, but then he’ll release like twenty-three grime tunes and mix up the whole game sickly! It’s about balance.”

And for Novelist, grime has always been his story. Starting professionally around age 13, he reckons he was probably six years old when he first tried MCing. “All the older boys would’ve been MCing so I’ve always been around it,” he explains. “When I was younger, my uncle always had all the latest grime DVDs [the scene is known for its culture of clash DVDs in which MCs go head to head in freestyling], so I always just had a clear vision of what was going on, and I said to myself when I was young ‘I want to be an MC’.” People outside of the grime world have been taking special interest in the young rapper, not least in his role as a founding member of Lewisham creative collective The Square. Already big on the UK underground through his appearances on pirate radio, Novelist was nominated for Best Grime Act at the 2014 MOBO awards before being snapped up by XL Recordings

That balance is crucial, and it seems like this next generation of artists have it down. “It’s what the first grime MCs done, but with structure,” Novelist says of current grime culture. “The first lot of MCs to come through were just doing their thing, having fun — it was a bit more trial and error, and there wasn’t an industry for them because it was a new, fresh thing and people were only just starting to understand it as a sound and a genre. Now the guys my age, we see where different generations have gone wrong and what they’ve done right and now we can kind of capitalise on that.” The likes of Wiley, Skepta, JME and even Dizzee are still innovating at the top, but it’s the precocious, cheeky fresh faces like Stormzy, Elijah & Skilliam, Ghetts and, of course, Novelist coming in and keeping the scene healthy. It’s not that grime right now is a resurrection but, rather, an ongoing evolution from what came before — it’s not a “new wave” so much as the next generation coming in. And Novelist, with his affable nature, impressive flow and assured bars, seems the perfect person to lead this generation. WORDS BY TARA JOSHI PHOTOS BY MARCO GREY OF WOTDOYOUCALL.IT

THE

COMEDY OF TERRORS

Ahead of the release of The Voices, Film Editor Rebecca Alter speaks to its director, Marjane Satrapi, about crossing genre boundaries, painting, and sympathising with a serial killer. 14

he Voices is the sort of movie that will be a cult staple for film buffs for years to come, passed between friends like a box of blood-filled donuts. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a cheerily macabre curio about a bathtub factory worker named Jerry, played by Ryan Reynolds, whose pets speak to him, question his morality, and ultimately convince him to kill people (or at least, the cat does while the dog disapproves). Jerry is aware, at some level, that his own mental state is to blame for these occurrences, and as the film progresses it proves to be a master balancing act between dark comedy and genuine pathos. tn2 spoke to its director, Marjane Satrapi, who drives this potentially messy story with a sure eye, masterful wit and challenging moral outlook. The Voices is her fourth film, and it proves a rare and wide artistic range. Discussing what first attracted her to the screenplay, written by Michael R. Perry, Satrapi elaborated on the visual inventiveness

and freedom that such a concept allowed, in addition to her initial reactions to the characters themselves: “It’s very difficult to give a genre to this movie, because you can say it’s a comedy, and it’s a horror movie, and it’s a drama, and it’s a thriller, all at the same time. It’s cross-genre. Also, I was struck by why I had so much empathy and so much sympathy for a serial killer, because you never like a serial killer. But this guy [Jerry], I really like him because I know he’s not bad, not taken by a compulsion, going out and hunting people… and then I loved the cat [Mr. Whiskers]. I always loved marginal characters, the characters who aren’t really [fully integrated] into society […] All of these reasons made [The Voices] very attractive to me, but it was also getting to create the ‘fantastic world of Jerry’, that was not described [in the screenplay]. What was this fantastic world of Jerry? It was like a big playground in which I could just do whatever I wanted.” “Playground” is the perfect word for the world that Satrapi builds in The Voices, through Jerry’s eyes. She uses fluttering butterflies to signify attraction, reanimates decapitated heads in pin-up girl makeup and lighting, and paints a small-town industrial cement-scape in peppy hot pink. “You call it cartoonish, but I think it’s beautiful,” she explains. “I like bright colours very much, and again, it’s this ‘fantastic world of Jerry’. You can describe it as being fantastic, but at the same time you forget [the setting is] a bathtub factory. Bathtubs [evoke] shower gel, and the smell of flowers, so it’s not inappropriate that it would all be pink. If you [made it all] white, for example, then it would be medical… Each colour has a code. So by using pink, it could be seen as this fantastic world but maybe, maybe, in real life it looks like that too.” Satrapi, of course, is most well-known for penning and directing the graphic novel and film adaptation Persepolis, and an attention to the visually dynamic, and the vibrancy of a single well laid-out frame, shines through in The Voices. Satrapi elaborated on her background in fine arts, and how it influenced her filmmaking: “My background is in painting, I was a painter before doing everything else, so I have a very specific relationship with colours. For example, there are colours that I hate: I hate purple, I hate beige [...] I can’t say ‘this is just another shot in a sequence’. I just don’t see it like that. I see each shot of each scene like a painting. The composition has to be perfect, the colour has to be perfect, the symmetry has to be perfect. Coming from the classic art world, these are things that are much more important for me… You can see it (not that I want to compare myself with these movie directors) in, for example, the work of Fellini, or Fritz Lang, or Almodovar. All of these people are painters. They have a specific relationship with framing, for example, coming from classic arts. The plasticity of the thing, the look of the thing, is extremely important to me.” The film’s look very effectively complements its wide array of tonal shifts, from creepy to campy to heartbreaking. Satrapi explained how she found a balance between these tones and themes: “The life of this guy is really sad [...] until finally he has a job. He tries to be an outstanding member of his community, and everything goes to hell because of an accident. So yes, it’s a very sad story, but at the same time in all sad stories you have some comedy. And how do you balance it? By working, working, working until equilibrium is established. [...] It’s important to show the background [of Jerry], also. It’s an extremely surrealistic film, but it’s based in an extremely realistic story.” From German Jerry to homesick Brit Fiona (Gemma Arteron) to the cat with a Scottish brogue, The Voices is something of a transnational film, full of outsiders who seem trapped, stuck, in this middle-ofnowhere American town. “Yes, exactly, they’re stuck there. And you know, they’re human beings, and a psycho can come from any country, any continent, any city. You tend to forget that human beings’ reactions are the same everywhere, and we’re not so different. Therefore, the actors come from all over the world. It’s an American

“I see each shot of each scene like a painting. The composition has to be perfect, the colour has to be perfect, the symmetry has to be perfect.” movie but the only American actor that we actually have is Anna Kendrick. Gemma Arteron is English, and Ryan is Canadian, and Jacki Weaver is Australian, and we have lots of German cast members and lots of British cast members…but I think the story speaks to everywhere. [...] You have to admit, though, that you have a good number of serial killers in America. You don’t see as many anywhere else. I don’t know why, but…there’s quite a number of them.” From these outsiders’ perspectives, the film’s nondescript American setting turns downright creepy. Satrapi clarified: “But you know, a small town is always creepy. It is. A small town is a place in which behind each curtain you have somebody watching you…This is exactly the mentality of a small town, that if by any chance you stick your finger in your nose, the next day everybody knows about it. In the big city, it’s not like that. You can be completely anonymous.” Far from the deeply-felt coming-of-age tale of Persepolis, The Voices suggests an almost scary versatility from Marjane Satrapi, as she delves into disturbing small-town politics from the perspective of Milton, USA’s most lovable serial killer. The ethics behind Satrapi’s representation of troubled Jerry, and of mental illness in particular, are something viewers will wrestle with long after the film ends. This moral ambiguity is a common thread through all of her work, and it seems to prompt exactly the reactions that Satrapi hopes for: “I like when I come out of a cinema and I think to myself, ‘What did I just see? What film was that?’ Then I’m really satisfied. If I know what I have seen, it’s like a McDonald’s menu: you know what you get.” WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER

Goodbye to all that

With the final seven episodes set to air in April, John Slattery talks to tn2 Editor Meadhbh McGrath about the joy of playing Roger Sterling, saying goodbye to Mad Men and his upcoming role in Wet Hot American Summer.

on that little town.”

PHOTO BY PAUL MAFFI

With the final episodes of Mad Men set to air in a few weeks’ time, Slattery recollects his initial casting. “I read for the part of Don Draper,” he explains. “I got the script, and I wasn’t sure they hadn’t made a mistake, so I called back and said, ‘Are you sure that’s the part they want me to read for?’ and they said ‘Yeah, that’s it!’ So I did my homework, went in and read, and they were very serious. [...] They told me they had cast that part, and they wanted me to play a different part, which was Roger. Roger wasn’t that evident in the pilot — there were a couple of scenes, they were good scenes, but it was pretty much all potential. Matt Weiner, recognising that, said, ‘I promise you this will be a good part,’ and it was, and it is.”

or the last seven years, John Slattery has been entertaining viewers as the charming, insouciant Roger Sterling on Mad Men. Creator Matthew Weiner has built an astonishingly dense, thoughtful world, which he has fully realised with a stellar cast of complex characters. AMC’s ad agency drama is one of the most acclaimed series of all time, and Slattery’s Roger, a womanising, hard-drinking, acid-dropping executive, is one of the most beloved characters on the show. As tn2 speaks to Slattery on the phone from New York, it has just started snowing,

and he is walking through it. “But other than those things,” he observes, “my day is going along swimmingly.” Slattery was born and raised in Boston, part of a large Irish Catholic family. He has Irish heritage on “both sides of my family — my mother’s a Mulhern, my father’s a Slattery, so yeah, [our heritage reaches back] about five generations.” He’s visited Ireland several times: “I love it. We rented a house in Clifden [Connemara] a couple of years ago for my parents’ 60th anniversary. Twenty one of us came over, and we wreaked havoc

Before Roger, Slattery’s career had been ticking along nicely for two decades, including a supporting role in Desperate Housewives and a memorable guest appearance on Sex and the City as a politician with an unusual fetish. When Mad Men came along in 2007, Slattery found himself presented with the role that would define his career. Roger is best known for his quickfire wit, but he also stirs a lot of emotion, particularly in his scenes with sometimepartner Joan (Christina Hendricks). When asked about the balance of humour and drama, Slattery notes, “I think that’s ideal, that’s the kind of character I wish I could play all the time — someone sophisticated enough to get both sides, to be able to recognise the weight of some situations and the ridiculousness of others.” Although Roger initially spent the majority of his time strolling from office to office, ogling the female employees and delivering fantastically sardonic one-liners, in the later seasons he has become a more complicated character. As the show moved closer to the 1970s, Weiner explored Roger’s existential dissatisfaction, undergoing a crisis of masculinity in the face of changing social norms. Slattery observes, “I think it’s a tribute to the writing — there aren’t a lot of characters on television grappling with those kind of social, emotional, existential issues, as informed by all that they’ve gone through. That’s what’s fun about that character, and the challenge of it — to remember where he was from, where he started out ten years earlier, dealing with issues of the early sixties, and then weirdly experimenting as the decade went on, trying to find his relevance, and his interest, and stay interested and stay alive.”

Although the question of masculinity becomes fraught in Mad Men’s later seasons, both Roger and Don Draper are seen as fantasy figures by a lot of men. When asked what it is about this particular time period that appeals so much to modern viewers, Slattery suggests, “I think there was less regulation on what one could say and do, and I think that’s what at least part of the sixties and the seventies was all about — getting at a lot of that rigour and regulation, questioning authority, questioning the government, questioning the sexual mores that were set up post-World War II, and the conservatism. I think that these characters are ones that people can live through vicariously because of that.” The brilliant rapport between Slattery and Jon Hamm is one of the strongest elements of the show. “[Those scenes with Jon] are always the highlight for me, they are always great. We work really well together, and we’re good friends — we were from the minute we met, really. From the first day, the very first scene I did was with him, on the first day of shooting,” Slattery recalls. “When you work with someone as talented as he is and as subtle as he is, the good thing about that character is, he plays his cards very close to the vest, and it isn’t an easy thing to perform. It’s probably easier to play someone who is a lot more obvious. I admire him for that, and it’s a lot of fun to work off of, because it keeps you alive, working with someone who is working on that level. And he’s got a great sense of humour! Those scenes are always a lot of fun.” Seven seasons in, Slattery still finds plenty to savour in his character, and when asked about his favourite Roger moment, he explains, “I actually think that emotionally, the shows that are coming up are really the culmination of this whole thing, as they should be. The scenes we did [...] were really wonderfully written and directed, and I think those might be the highlight, and I can’t really tell you a lot about those, but because of the satisfaction of playing a character that’s so well-established — all of those characters are so well-established — you don’t have to worry about ‘Is anyone gonna know where I’m coming from? Is anyone gonna understand what I mean by a look, or a gesture, or a particular line reading?’ You just have to play the moment, and all the groundwork that’s been done for seven years plays into everything.” Saying goodbye to the show was predictably “sad and emotional”, as Slattery describes, “We had been kind of inching up on it, [...] people had their last days of shooting in the weeks winding down, so then the final day was [the last in] a long line of goodbyes. There was a big party and a late night. It was

“That’s the kind of character I wish I could play all the time — someone sophisticated enough to get both sides, to be able to recognise the weight of some situations and the ridiculousness of others.” heavier than I thought it was going to be. I knew it would be sad, but I wasn’t quite sure what it would feel like. Everybody was pretty deeply affected by it, I think.” Since he finished filming, Slattery has kept busy. After appearing in the fourth series of Arrested Development, he is returning to Netflix this summer in the star-studded Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, the prequel to David Wain and Michael Showalter’s cult 2001 comedy. “It was kinda crazy in that everyone that was in the original has remained very busy, so [...] we were trying to accommodate everyone’s schedule — you know, Amy [Poehler] and Bradley [Cooper] and Paul [Rudd], those are the people I worked with, and they were all over the place. I love David Wain, and Michael Showalter, and I had never worked with those guys before and it was a lot of fun.” Last year, Slattery directed God’s Pocket, starring Christina Hendricks and

the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and is currently planning his next directing project: “I have a story that I like that I’m trying to work out the legal end of. As far as acting, I did a movie called Spotlight that was written and directed by Tom McCarthy, about the Boston Globe uncovering the scandal with abusive priests in the Catholic church. It’s a great story. I’ve just been looking around, trying to figure out what’s next, waiting til I stumble across something that gets me excited.” The final episodes of Mad Men start on April 9 on Sky Atlantic. All 8 episodes of Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp will be available on Netflix from July 17.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

The Shape Of Things.

Photos by Benedict Shegog Models: Josh Durham Okafor, Colm Summers, Tara Joshi, Carys Wright. Make-up by Niamh Geraghty Styling by Meadhbh McGrath Layout by Alice Wilson Clothes from Nowhere, COS, Topshop. Thanks to Brian Teeling and Rebecca MacNamee

Previous: Jacket, Craig Green. Shirt, Craig Green. Trousers, Matthew Miller. This page: Suit, CMMN SWDN. Poloneck, stylist’s own. Opposite: Dress, Topshop. Earrings, model’s own.

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Opposite: Top and skirt, COS. This page: Lilac dress, translucent shirt dress, Shoes, COS. 23

Name: Jennifer Morabito Location: Venice 25

EVIEWS

TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY Kendrick Lamar While the city might have made him, it seems that Kendrick Lamar has outgrown his native Compton. To Pimp A Butterfly is a war cry, an attempt to rally against the faults of American society; in particular its treatment of the black community in the wake of Ferguson. It’s a brave album, even more so than his previous full-length effort good kid, M.A.A.D city. While that record saw Lamar lament the state of black America, Lamar is now ready to tackle the problems that he perceives head-on. He does this in a fantastically daring way by casting his gaze over the canon of black music, flitting between everything from spaced-out jazz (For Free?) to mutant funk (King Kunta). Lamar recently declared himself a “writer” as opposed to a rapper and, indeed, the wordplay throughout is witty and intelligent — for example, Kendrick refers simultaneously to the chains of slavery and the gold chains of gangster culture into a single object of entrapment. Lamar doesn’t hesitate in attacking gang culture, lambasting it in the vitriolic album highlight The Blacker The Berry. This track is matched only in ambition by Mortal Man, a monolithic track that summons up the ghosts of Mandela and Tupac to aid Lamar’s cause. The first single from the album, i, received a mixed reaction when it came out a few months ago. It was a departure from Lamar’s sound on GKMC, and there was uncertainty as to the song’s message, with its refrain of “I love myself ”. However, it makes sense in the context of the album. Lamar, having assumed the voice of the black community itself, forgets his missives and draws the album to a close on a note of empowerment. Lamar obviously intends for this album to be a classic. The title itself when read in conjunction with the album cover (depicting a group of black men standing over the corpse of a judge outside the White House) alludes to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and it’s not a stretch to imagine this album someday being viewed in the same regard that we now hold that text in; as a radical and thoroughly important commentary on the racial and social tensions that continue to cut through American culture. WORDS BY FINNAN TOBIN

FROOT Marina and the Diamonds Marina Lambrini Diamandis’ third album marks a soft reboot for the Welsh singersongwriter, better known by her stage name Marina and the Diamonds. She has found a middle ground between her previous records, The Family Jewels (2010) and Electra Heart (2013). Combining the disparate strands of her indie-pop debut, and synth and electro inspired sophomore LP, Froot is the result. This introspective album is a real move forward from Electra Heart which was overcrowded with collaborations and whose popularity revolved to a large extent around its lead single, the UK number one: Primadonna. On Froot it feels like coherence has been valued above the presence of big singles, which is as admirable as it is rare in pop music. While the album is above all bright and fun, it is impossible to ignore the meaning of tracks like I’m a Ruin and Solitaire, where Diamandis comments on the fleeting and fickle nature of fame. But there is an underlying strength to all the tracks. In Solitaire she sings; “Cut like a jewel / yet I repair myself when you’re not there”. All the songs are written by Diamondis and the lyrics are accordingly intriguing, her soprano clear as a bell throughout. Songs like Blue and the Ashes to Ashes-esque Gold are electro-pop gems, and the first track, Happy, is refreshing in its simplicity. For Electra Heart, Diamandis was playing a character, an amalgamation and exaggeration of all things “quirky” and the focus was very much on the general image. But what makes Froot better is that the spotlight is well and truly back on the music as Diamandis presents us with this mature and honest, yet wonderfully poppy album. WORDS BY JOSH KENNY

MOMMY Xavier Dolan In his fifth feature film, Cannes’ favourite enfant terrible Xavier Dolan drives a beat-up sedan to the edge of taste, finds it in a drab suburb, and high-gears it over a cliff. The titular mommy is Die (Anne Dorval), a woman who must try to raise her troubled teenage son Steve (AntoineOlivier Pilon) after one particularly violent incident gets him booted from his youth residential facility. She struggles financially and emotionally to keep the two of them afloat, and to keep Steve’s aggression in check, for her sake and his own. They are soon joined by meek tutor Kyla (Suzanne Clement) from across the street. Die and Steve bring out both a ferocity and joyfulness in the haunted housewife, and all three primary performances — smouldering with pain and love — are phenomenal. The avenues of friendship Dolan and his players explore through this

threesome are deeply felt, particularly in demonstrating a vital bond between two women in their mid-40s. Dolan is obsessed with signifiers of ill-taste, his camera and soundtrack lingering on telltale shibboleths, from rhinestone-studded jeans to the mother of schmaltz, Celine Dion. It would all come across as classist bullying if Dolan didn’t allow for these pop artifacts to open up avenues to transcendence, particularly in a 4-minute sequence set

to “Wonderwall” — a cliche, reclaimed — where the film’s claustrophobic 1:1 ratio is physically pushed open by Steve to reveal to us a brief glimpse at a universe with possibilities for real happiness. It cannot last, though, and Mommy is as emotionally challenging as any film this year. Bring your earmuffs if you can’t handle Lana Del Rey, shouting, or Quebecois swearing. Tabarnak!

WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER

THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA Isao Takahata Isao Takahata’s final film continues with his break from Studio Ghibli conventions, both in animation style and emotional focus. For The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the director of Grave of the Fireflies and Pom Poko has chosen to tell the story of a strange miniature girl found inside a shoot of bamboo by a bamboo cutter. Bringing the girl home to his wife, he believes that the heavens want her to be raised as a princess. As Kaguya grows up at an inhumanly exponential rate, her parents become convinced that the happiness of the princess will only be fulfilled once she assumes the role of a noblewoman, as they eventually relocate from their home on a lush mountain to the concrete solitude of the city. The animation in the film is made up of watercolours and smudges of charcoal,

which give the impression that we’re seeing the story as it was originally presented in Japanese folklore. Though this may seem minimalist, nothing could be further than the truth. While Princess Kaguya herself is drawn with the most detail, minor characters all burst forth with individual personalities and quirks like her father’s blushing cheeks or her lady-in-waiting’s cat-like smile. The few action sequences are almost a stop motion affair, with violent streaks of paint zigzagging across the frame and textures haphazardly filled-in, jolting the audience to attention.

Takahata relishes the slow pace of his creation, lingering on single silent frames of facial expressions and the repetition of visual jokes and cues. This pacing — coupled with a long runtime — might turn off some viewers, but we are rewarded with a deep connection with Kaguya and her parents as they navigate the twists and turns of another extraordinary female Ghibli character’s life.

WORDS BY MATTHEW MULLLIGAN

THE BURIED GIANT Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in ten years, The Buried Giant, adds an entirely new dimension to the fantasy genre he adopts. Ishiguro takes us through Iron Age Britain with an immediacy that gives a book about ogres, dragons and Arthurian Knights the feeling of historical fiction. The story’s overarching concern is memory and forgetfulness and its implications for a society that has lost its fixed centre. The novel sees an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off on a quest to find their barely remembered son in a far-off village. On their travels they meet a warrior whose mission intertwines with their own, and their attempts to retrace a hidden past become impacted by the dangers of a world in flux and anxiety-filled. The Buried Giant naturally draws comparisons with the extensive tradition of Arthurian Romance, both popular and specialised. Indeed, the senile and paranoid old knight comes as a welcome nod to Arthurian parody. Amidst the fascinating allusions to a contemporary society that values selective forgetfulness over confronting a troubled past, The Buried Giant is laced with soft humour and moments of intense humanity, all communicated through a deceptively intricate narrative. Though it remains a book with a straightforward narrative at its heart, it seems as if this simplicity has come with a great deal of hard work on the part of the author. Ishiguro trusts in timeless structures of storytelling to give further poignancy to a story about empathy and respect. What’s more is the masterful treatment of such values without any hint of moral didacticism. The title of this truly effective novel seems to argue that what we choose to bury, big or small, will continue to haunt us — it shows us how the act of forgetting is not the end. WORDS BY BARRY O’SEANAIN

SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER Sara Baume

Spill Simmer Falter Wither, the debut novel from Sara Baume, is a masterpiece of language, a demonstration of the heights that words are able to reach when guided by a master hand. The narrator Ray addresses the reader through his bloodthirsty, bedraggled, newly adopted mongrel One Eye, who becomes the first companion he has known in his fifty-seven years, apart from the distant father who kept him separated from human love and company. As Ray and One Eye become intimately entwined, One Eye becomes the focal point of a life which until this point totally lacked love or purpose. As a result, Ray’s loyalty towards One Eye builds with incredible intensity. When local authorities threaten to take him away after an incident in which another dog is left wounded, Ray and One Eye go on the run. Baume’s skill for withholding and providing information is pitch perfect. The use of second-person narrative draws the reader intimately to the breast of the narrator while endowing them with the heightened senses of a canine, as filtered through Ray’s human perspective. Here, Baume flexes some muscle with her ability to defamiliarize contemporary Ireland through adept, jolting descriptions and wordplay. Her portrayal of man, his thoughts and actions and bodily functions, achieves a level of grotesqueness rarely approached so unflinchingly. This is a beautifully jarring novel recommended for fans of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, as well as fans of gorgeously-wrought words in general. WORDS BY ELIZABETH MOHEN

AFTER THE CRASH Michel Bussi

The name Michel Bussi may not be familiar to you, but the former geography professor is one of France’s bestselling and most decorated authors. After the Crash, first published in 2012, sold more than 700,000 copies in France alone, and has now been translated to English for the first time by Sam Taylor. In 1980, an airplane traveling from Istanbul to Paris crashes in the Jura Mountains, leaving 168 passengers dead, and one miraculous survivor, a three-month-old baby girl. But there were two baby girls on the flight — Lyse-Rose de Carville, the heir to a great fortune, and Emilie Vitral, whose family operate a food truck by the seafront. As the crash took place before the introduction of DNA testing, there is no way to prove the identity of the child. The two families become ensnared in a nasty legal battle, and a private detective, Crédule Grand-Duc, is hired to solve the case. Much of the novel is given over to Grand-Duc’s private journal, in which he outlines the details of his eighteen year-long investigation. As he is about to commit suicide, Grand-Duc uncovers the truth... and is promptly murdered. The Millennium trilogy proved that readers have an appetite for translated works, and French crime writing has finally escaped from the shadow cast by Stieg Larsson to experience a surge in popularity. Readers will be pleased to find such an original voice in Bussi’s novel, as he borrows elements from old-fashioned clue-puzzle mysteries to provide a breathtakingly suspenseful thriller. The truth is buried under a shoal of seemingly endless red herrings and intriguing subplots. We encounter “Lylie”, the girl at the centre of the mystery, only through descriptions by other characters, a device perhaps suitable for a woman unsure of her identity, but omitting her perspective seems like a missed opportunity. Unfortunately, the resolution doesn’t quite match the pace Bussi has maintained throughout, but the journey there is never anything less than extraordinary. WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

KURAUDO

185 Townsend Street

Following Kuraudo’s opening three weeks ago, my two dining partners and I had hopes of discovering a great bento box just five minutes from campus, but it wasn’t to be. In the face of the tacky décor and uncomfortable seating, we were reassured by the friendly and attentive staff. Two of us ordered the bento boxes, consisting of two specials, two sushi pieces, boiled rice, three vegetable spring rolls, and miso soup, which for €8.99 was seemingly excellent value. The specials vary daily, ours being Kuro Kosho beef (we, too, were clueless) and fried chicken salad. My third dining partner ordered the Kuraudo Cha Han; a rice dish with prawns and chicken, also served with miso soup and priced at €7.99. While a steady stream of lunch takeaways were ordered, almost all from the nearby Irish Times building, our food arrived well presented and our

hopes were still high. Unfortunately, the beef – in what can only be described as a stew – was overcooked and very chewy, while the vegetables were practically raw, and the potato chunks appeared to have been cooked from frozen. The fried chicken pieces were alarmingly slimy, served with a strong garlic dressing and green leaves. The miso soup had a very floral scent that was off-putting. The boiled rice and spring rolls were the high point. As for the rice dish, it was their first day ever serving it, and there was a

malfunction with the portion size (only two prawns) that was diligently rectified with two free spring rolls. Be warned though, they only accept cash, and you might want to go across the road for the Longstone carvery when you leave hungry.

WORDS BY KERRY BRENNAN ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE WILSON

BLOODLINE Netflix

Billed by Netflix as the latest series by the creators of Damages, a show synonymous with its pretzel-like narrative twists, Bloodline is a riveting familial drama, which unlike its predecessor, is full of measured suspense and carefully unfurled reveals. Set in the Florida Keys, the series focuses on the Rayburn family, a WASPish, Kennedy-esque clan whose seemingly idyllic existence is disrupted by the return of their prodigal son Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) for his parents Robert (Sam Shepard) and Sally’s (Sissy Spacek) wedding anniversary. Feelings are mixed as to Danny’s return, particularly amongst his siblings John (Kyle Chandler), the golden boy of the family and local sheriff, Meg (Linda Cardellini), a commitment-phobic and career-driven lawyer and Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz), the hot-headed younger son. Whilst Danny is clearly ear-marked as the black sheep of the family, both through the voiceover and well-worn tropes of drug-use, alcoholism and general tardiness, the series hints at, and indeed exposes, the

murkier depths of the family’s problems both as a whole and on an individual level. A “problem” alluded to from the past simmers nicely underneath the surface of all familial actions, whether it be the politics of a seating plan or the return of Danny to the family’s hotel business, ultimately culminating in the death of one of the family members which is implied through the medium of flash forwards and John’s recurring statement that “We’re not bad people. But we did a bad thing.” The series is full of paradigmatic shifts in perspective that effectively destabilises our assumption about the characters and their motivations, and indeed, collusion in the fateful deed. The stellar cast gives

gravitas to the characters and their seemingly trivial individual situations and rescues the series from descending into melodrama with regards to the grittier aspects of the plot. Whilst the show is aimed at those eager to binge-watch, with its final moment cliffhangers and show-but-don’t tell exposition, the series at times feels overly ambitious in its design, creating the appearance of mystery and noir without providing the necessary ingredients into which audiences can sink their teeth. All 13 episodes of Bloodline can be viewed on Netflix. WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

BETTER CALL SAUL Netflix

“It’s showtime!” Spin-offs have no right to be this good. When AMC announced they had ordered a series about “criminal” lawyer Saul Goodman, many were skeptical. Described by Bob Odenkirk (Goodman) as “85% drama and 15% comedy” the show fast establishes itself as quirky yet serious, that succeeds in separating itself from its progenitor, and one that proves us skeptics wrong. We join Saul six years prior to the events of Breaking Bad. Living with his brother (who suffers from electromagnetic sensitivity) he is near bankruptcy, working from the back room of a nail salon and taking any criminal defense case he can. He is willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. From there we are invited to follow his criminal efforts as he attempts to find a way out from the hole he himself has dug.

The show was always going to be make

or break depending on Odenkirk’s performance, and it is evident in the first scene that he is as stellar as ever. While not a character study to the extent of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul aims to show again the rise and fall of an enigmatic anti-hero. Intelligent, fashionable, and slimy, Goodman is a persuasive and alluring figure who immediately demands our attention. But why should we give it to him? Because the writing is terrific, because the storytelling is thoughtful and intelligent, because the cinematography is darkly beautiful, and because the

principle actors (particularly Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks) have already in just a few episodes given award-worthy performances. The most recent episode is on-par with some of Breaking Bad’s best, and, this early in the series, that bodes well for its future. Better Call Saul is a sharp and mature show, hilarious yet thoughtful, and it deserves your attention. Better Call Saul can be seen on Netflix with new episodes added every Tuesday.

WORDS BY ALEX BALL

HOTLINE MIAMI 2:WRONG NUMBER PC

Dennaton Games’ Hotline Miami was a massive hit out of nowhere. Its killer soundtrack, its frantic, hyperviolent gameplay, and its trippy, nauseating, pulsating aesthetic formed a unique addition to the independent games scene, and people loved it. The eagerly anticipated sequel, Wrong Number, faces the difficult prospect of following up on a surprise hit, aiming to recapture what was great about the first game without limiting itself to that original vision. Sadly, the result fails to satisfy. The gameplay is mechanically identical, the main departure being an increased emphasis on guns over the bats and steel pipes of the original. The first game’s charm was the appeal of throwing yourself into a room full of

thugs and bashing your way out of it, a single misstep meaning instant, brutal demise. Thanks to the additional guns in Wrong Number — well over half the bad guys have them — you’ll find yourself regularly sniped by offscreen enemies, meaning a large amount of game time is spent cowering around corners, in direct opposition to the chaotic, hyperaggressive fun that the first game was all about. This means that the game’s aesthetic, with its slasher-flick gore, horrifying psychadelic plot (or lack thereof ), and its 80s-inspired electronic soundtrack

— which, for the record, is awesome nonetheless — is directly at odds with its gameplay, creating a disjointed experience. There are stretches which recapture the pace and excitement of the original, but that flow is jarringly cut short at the weaker sections, marring the game as a whole. Reviewed on PC. Also available on PS3, PS4, and PS Vita.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

RESONATE Gallery of Photography

We all might think we know what to expect from fashion photography. But away from the highly commercial, glossy shoots that dominate the mainstream media, there is scope for fashion photography to speak to its viewers a little more deeply. Aisling Farinella and Darragh Shanahan — curators of Resonate, The Gallery of Photography’s latest exhibition — asked 23 Irish photographers to pick a single image from their entire body of work. The images have appeared in publications such as Oyster and W magazine. At a talk given by Farinella and contributor Linda Brownlee she explained that they felt it important for the photographers to pick the images themselves, as the commercial aspect of fashion photography often meant that the photographer’s favourite images are rarely the ones a magazine will use. Competing interests and the many people involved in a shoot inevitably means that the photographer has less control than with other types of photography.

This exhibition asks us to take a longer, more considered look at fashion photography. Without the interests of designers, advertisements, stylists and editors to contend with, these images are free to speak for themselves, and the result is intimate and often startling. The collection of pictures is eclectic, featuring different aesthetics, and moving from one to another produces a variety of reactions. Some photos are haunting, some are stark, others are dramatic. Stylised images sit beside ones which look wholly natural. The variety of photographs is not only thought-provoking, but also

demonstrates the expansive nature of this genre of photography, the many guises it can take. It gives viewers a chance to explore these images beyond the page of a magazine, makes them more than something to glance at or flick past. A wonderful showcase of Irish talent as well as an intriguing new look at fashion photography, this exhibition is well worth the short trip to Meeting House Square. Until March 29, Gallery of Photography, Admission Free.

WORDS BY MEGAN BURNS

In Force Majeure (April 10), a piercingly observed Swedish drama from director Ruben Ostlund, an idyllic family’s ski vacation takes a turn for the icy after a controlled avalanche gone-wrong tests the father’s commitment to his brood. Crisis of masculinity ensues. We can’t wait for Pitch Perfect 2 (May 15), the follow-up to 2012’s a cappella romp. The Bellas are back with Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson reprising their roles on the team, and everything from the oneliners to musical numbers are sure to be a goofy, quotable delight. We have our fingers crossed Entourage (June 19) is going to be the male version of Sex and the City 2: glitzy, overblown, and deliciously terrible. This adaptation of the HBO bro-fest features Haley Joel Osment as a scheming Texan named “Travis McCredle”, so we think our odds are good. Here’s hoping Inside Out (July

FILM

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

April 2-4, The Convention Centre Dublin.

Video games are works of multimedia, with user interaction, video, and audio coming together to form a cohesive artistic whole. The last of these is probably the most commonly undervalued, which is what makes the Dublin International Games Music Festival, or the iDIG Music Festival, such a refreshing prospect. Directed by Eimear Noone, world-renowned composer of games and film, iDIG is a celebration of music in video games. The three day festival features talks and masterclasses from some of the biggest names in the industry, including Russell Brower, lead composer of World of Warcraft, Grammy-winner Christopher Tin, and Eimear Noone herself. The festival culminates in a performance from Tommy Tallarico’s Video Games Live, the world’s largest orchestral video game music concert series.

GAMES

Ireland is blessed with quality music festivals, probably due to our urgent need to squeeze in as much fun as possible over the too short summer. The festival season opens with Forbidden Fruit and Life Festival competing for the same weekend in May. FF has made the choice difficult this year by shifting the vibe towards dance and hip-hop acts (must see: Run The Jewels, Jamie xx, Kelela), genres which were Life’s traditional domain; though Nas performing Illmatic at the latter still provides strong contention. Longitude crowns the midsummer with a killer third iteration: a superbly hip selection of the indie, pop and edm zeitgeist. The perfect place to catch some acts on the cusp of breakthrough (Young Fathers, Years and Years) and some who have already made it (Alt-J, Caribou), with the comfy expectation of your own bed that evening. If you yearn for a largerscale wellies and sunglasses affair, Electric Picnic is of course the nation’s best and only choice. The eclectic, somethingfor-everyone line-up has some serious

MUSIC Since 2009, Live Collision has been invading Dublin’s cityscape, offering theatre that seeks to break the artistaudience barrier. Assuming a curatorial model of theatre and live art, the pieces performed in the festival are as much for the artists as they are for the audience members. Last year’s lineup included a performance outside Central Bank — which saw actors sitting around a kitchen table exploring the concept of time limits — which was perfectly emblematic of Live Collision’s unique and unconventional attempt to enmesh the cultural artistic and political landscapes into one cohesive performance. This year’s festival (April 29-May 2) promises to expand on this idea, as Live Collision continues to redefine the way artists engage not only with their own work, but also with those who consume it.

THEATRE

WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER

24) — which grabbed our anticipation from the start with its intriguing, trippy working title “The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside The Mind” — is a return to form for the studio. Honourary Phil member (LOL) Amy Poehler voices the emotion Joy, because of course she does. Straight Outta Compton (August 14), the long-awaited NWA biopic, sadly does not feature Ice Cube playing Ice Cube (as he’s most likely tied up filming a third Are We There Yet?), but it’s sure to be a must-see for even the most casual music fans. Expect gritty drama and a knockout soundtrack.

WORDS BY SARAH LENNON GALAVAN

As term comes to close and three months of languid summer stretch out ahead, the prospect of binge watching some of this year’s best television will surely get you through the pesky exam period. In April, the second half of Mad Men’s long drawn out finale, subtitled “The End of an Era”, promises to close the curtain on the 1960s milieu the show has painstakingly recreated, hopefully without subjecting us to a final scene of aged and 80s Don Draper. Game of Thrones, whose steadfast progress through the books must surely be detrimentally affecting the health of George RR Martin, returns for its fifth season in April as Ayra and Daenerys increasingly come into their own. Veep, the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-helmed political comedy, has quietly become a critical darling across the Atlantic and, with its fourth season premiering in April, it might be time to give Selina Meyer your vote. On Netflix, the eight-episode prequel series to Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp will premiere in July, with an impressive cast including Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, and new additions Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm. Although it currently has no concrete release date, True Detective, now starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams, is rumoured to be hitting screens this summer — expect a California setting, better realised female characters and a desperate attempt to recreate Cary Fukunaga’s directorial style.

WORDS BY LEO BOYLE

international talent this year including Florence+The Machine, Future Islands, Jon Hopkins and the newly reformed Ride, along with a variety of alternative activity zones to chill out over the three-day riot. Body and Soul was originally one of these side shows before becoming it’s own thing with an emphasis on being a capitalised Experience. Its unique, playful atmosphere draws an alternative crowd delighted by the focus on interactive performance, supported by dreamy acts like Ásgeir and Mmoths. Those on a budget can depend on Knockanstockan and Castlepalooza to provide serious value for money. The big names do not have a monopoly on excessive revelry and the wealth of smalltown fests, fleadhs and fairs dotted round the country have some real gems waiting to be discovered throughout the warm-ish months ahead.

WORDS BY JAMIE TUOHY

Now in its twelfth year, the annual Dublin Gay Theatre Festival (May 4-17) is both a celebration and affirmation of “the contribution of gay people to the theatre, past and present”. Spanning the course of nearly two weeks, the festival attempts to create an intercultural dialogue by documenting LGBT issues on a national, mainstream stage. Taking place only days before the Marriage Equality Referendum on May 22, this year’s Dublin Gay Theatre Festival will undoubtedly stage some its most topical and poignant work to date.

Returning to Project Arts Centre this May, Dublin Dance Festival (May 20-30) — directed by Julia Carruthers — boasts an impressive line-up that combines storytelling, performance art and choreography. Event highlights include a discussion with playwright and dramaturg, Gavin Kostick, entitled Shaping Time, wherein he will examine how playwrights construct time for their audience. Eva MeyerKeller’s Death is Certain is another piece that questions society’s thirst for the performative aspects of death. Using cherries as her protagonists, Meyer-Keller maims and decapitates them in a performance that promises to be both “darkly comical yet unnervingly brutal”.

WHERE THE WILD TWINKS ARE hile watching the finale of Channel 4’s Cucumber — a new gay drama filled with sex-addled blonde boys having threesomes and being pursued by put-upon older men — I had a potentially devastating realisation. In the world of the show, I’d be relegated to the pile of undesired oldies, practically cast aside by the type of characters who, as a rule, don’t fuck guys who’ve passed their twenty-first birthday. Was I no longer a twink?

When I was younger I definitely thought I was, and I knew I wanted to be one. Images of romanticised lost youth, carefree sex and great hairstyles filled up my browser history as I tried to mould myself into an ideal skinny, tanned, and clean shaven boy. Nowadays I don’t think I feel a desire to be considered a twink, even getting annoyed when friends infer that I am only attracted to such men. I do however still want to be desired, and for a long time in my mind being described as a twink was synonymous with that. I recently felt a sense of loss when I was told that I didn’t fit the definition anymore, that “it’s more for teens” and cool hip Twitter boys.

absorbed, vapid, submissive and unintelligent. “I hate the people who use it, I don’t think it’s a good identity,” said one of my friends. “When someone tells someone they’re a twink they’re just trying to create a masculine identity by juxtaposition.” This othering can be seen everyday on grindr, with headless toned torsos constantly purporting that they’re “masc4masc” and not into twinks. This weird dichotomy of both dislike for younger looking guys and a desire to create a persona for themselves can result in older or muscular men objectifying younger or skinnier ones, creating the twink stereotype in doing so.

“It seems impossible to

talk about gay men without using shorthands like bear, power bottom or new favourites otter and twunk.”

The term itself can mean a lot of things to different people, and growing up for me it meant young, fresh and sexy. On the other hand, Bravo host Andy Cohen was infamously roundly criticised by some sections of the gay internet for describing One Direction as twinks. He later clarified somewhat, saying that by using the term he meant that they looked attractive and apologised for any offense caused. The word is one of many in the gay community used to denote a man’s look, personality and physique. These categorisations have been around for a long time, playing into an obsession of classifying absolutely everything and making it seem impossible to talk about gay men without using shorthands like bear, power bottom or new favourites otter and twunk (for those not in the know, an otter is like a hairy twink while a twunk has the youthful face of a twink but the ripped gym bunny body of a hunk). These words were born from the highlighting of differences between people, which isn’t something bad in itself, but for many young men the problems start when other qualities are attributed to the word. When you’re a young man and find yourself thrust into the middle of a culture that tells you that these words are essential and that your discomfort with them is meaningless, its easy to feel hapless in the face of other aggressive interactions, whether that be getting felt up in a club or just everyday body shaming language.

Another friend believes that there’s an element of protesting too much when it comes to distain for twinks. “It’s often older men whose masculinity is very important to their identity and who act like they have power over younger-looking guys. I think this comes from the fact that they are still very stuck inside the gender binary and do not consider them ‘as much of a man’ as they are.” Some porn plays with this, and can treat younger guys in an aggressive way, almost punishing them for not reaching supposed conventional forms of masculinity. Terms like “hatefucking” and sites like “Terrorised Twinks” denote a violence exclusively targeted towards younger men reminiscent of sexual violence at times displayed in straight porn against women. There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to younger men who display particular attributes you find desirable, and lots of friends I talked to particularly emphasised that they preferred men with no chest hair and a physical smoothness. Once you ascribe certain roles and prejudices towards a whole swathe of people, don’t be surprised if they aren’t too impressed with your clumsy, patronising advances and choose instead to get with boys who’d fuck them be they a “twink” or not.

Removing any notions of conventional attractiveness from the equation, the word for some also carries reference of being self

WORDS BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN ILLUSTRATION BY GRAHAM HAUGHT

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