Venue magazine 974

FREE TAKE ONE!

// THE BIG ISSUE // VENUE BECOMES A VENDOR FOR THE DAY // REGINALD D HUNTER // ‘THE VOICE’ OF COMEDY COMES TO BRISTOL

Plus: BRISTOL & bATH'S MAGAZINE

www.venue.co.uk nO.974 // november 2011 // FREE

// GOING DARK // VENUE’S THEATREMAKERS OF THE YEAR GO ASTRONOMICAL // JAMES BLAKE // THE ALL-CONQUERING, SPING-TINGLING ACE OF BASS

Bath Film Fest Aardman’s Christmas blockbuster Encounters Film Fest Plus 14 new film reviews FREE 40 PAGE

Xmas Gift Guide

film music clubs theatre ART BOOKS CULTURE Cover 974_Final.indd 2

10/31/2011 11:54:31 AM

p2.indd 1

10/24/2011 9:28:09 PM

Contents

Contact

editor@venue.co.uk @venueeditor

Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings

p.14 Screen Time Good job the weather’s packed up, as both Bristol’s Encounters Film Festival and Bath’s Film Fest kick off this month whilst Aardman’s homegrown ‘Arthur Christmas’ opens nationwide. Best get the jumbo-sized popcorn in, then.

p.20 Sound&Fury Ask anyone what they thought of Venue’s Play of the Year for 2010, the troubling, claustrophobic submarine drama ‘Kursk’, and you’ll be met with a stream of superlatives.

We eye up their next similarly far-reaching adventure, ‘Going Dark’, written by local playwright Hattie Naylor.

p.24 “Big Issue, mate?”

Venue takes to the streets to experience life alongside one of the UK’s homeless magazine vendors.

Features

Regulars // inbox //

p.9 “I ran away from home for Adam Ant.” And now he’s back, discovers Venue’s Melissa Blease

p.4 Letters, opinion, comment, nonsense…

p.23 “Oh, I’ve had some women…” Georgia-hailing stand-up Reginald D Hunter takes to the road

p.6 Lovely messages from lovely you lot

p.28 Buying houses in 2011: the truth

p.32 It’s news, Jim, but not as you know it

// i saw you //

// newshound //

// Film //

// Comedy //

p.37 Mini movie magic: Encounters returns to Bristol

p.70 Unequivocal Edinburgh hits The Pajama Men

// Music // p.47 Earth Music Bristol… James Blake… Mireille Mathlener

// Clubs // p.61 Bristol’s bass supremo Joker on new album and tour

// Performance // p.65 Clockwork Orange… theatre aces Filter… The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets

Get every issue of venue delivered early

to your door for just £2.99/month direct debit or £37.50/year Phone 0117 934 3741 or email s.butler@bepp.co.uk to set it up. venuemagazine

Contents 974.indd 3

// ART // p.72 Museums, galleries, exhibitions and installations

// BOOKS // p.76 Local lit treats and charts

// Days Out // p.78 Cooking with children

// skills // p.81 Workshops, courses, jobs and stuff

// gay // p.85 Local LGBT events and news

november 2011 // 3

10/24/2011 5:26:36 PM

Inbox Dogday afternoon // We were really amazed to open your latest Venue to find a picture of our old dog wearing her Doggles on the In Pictures page [Bristol & Bath in Pictures, Issue 973]. Her name was Jelly (it was nearly Guinness so could have been worse) and she sadly died last year. She was a rescue Staffy from the Bristol Dogs Home. We had her for over 10 years and she was probably between 13 and 16 when she died. The Doggles were not a fashion statement, although she did look pretty cool. She had developed a problem with bright sunlight and the Doggles were a suggestion from the vet, which, amazingly enough, worked! She was a wonderful soft lump and we got much more from her than she got from us. We would

Issue 974 FILM SPECIAL (Cover pic: Rachel Weisz in 'The Deep Blue Sea')

4 // november 2011

Letters 974.indd 4

Letter of the month

encourage anybody wanting a dog to visit a rescue centre and see what they have. There are so many great dogs which deserve a second chance, and if you are very lucky you might get another Jelly.

John and Carol Budd, by email Here’s to you, Jelly. And to you, John and Carol – thanks for getting in touch. Let us know your address and we’ll despatch the Venue dachshund with a £10 Waterstone’s voucher for you. Meanwhile, if any of our readers are seeking canine companionship, may we point their paws towards Bristol Cats and Dogs Home (www. rspca-bristol.org.uk) or Bath Cats and Dogs Home (www. bathcatsanddogshome.org.uk)?

Famously good

By George!

// Great article on famous people from Bristol [The Famous Forty, issue 972], though it would have been nice to have a useful code to go with the other pictures like in the Venue one. Trying to find WG Grace in the original was like playing Where’s Wally. I especially enjoyed Venue’s own version of the painting – anything that includes Darth Vader, Godfrey from ‘Dad’s Army’ and Emperor Haile Selassie in the same picture is pure genius. Some of the links were a bit tenuous though – surely Patrick Stewart is a son of Huddersfield? And would we want to claim Lord Archer as our own? Also, there were one or two notable omissions. What about BBC3’s Russell Howard, for instance?

He’s 10 times funnier than Justin Lee Collins.

Tess Tickall, by email

// Top work on the Venue version of the ‘people who made Bristol famous’ painting [The Famous Forty, issue 972].

But where was red-trousered philanthropist George Ferguson? He gave us Bristol Beer Factory, The Tobacco factory, Paintworks and the famous yellow vessels of the Ferry Boat Company… I’m surprised he didn’t invent the Suspension Bridge too. Or did he?

Rupa Patel, Eastville Er, he was in Simon Gurr’s new version of the picture, whose unveiling was the whole point of the feature. We mentioned Ferguson’s presence in it on p.31.

Please do pay attention, Rupa.

Venue Magazine Bristol Office Bristol News & Media, Temple Way, Bristol, BS99 7HE Tel 0117 942 8491 (12 lines) Fax 0117 934 3566 Bath Office Bath News & Media, Floor 2, Westpoint, James West St, Bath, BA1 1UN Tel 01225 429801

Fax 01225 447602 Email (Editorial): editor@ venue.co.uk / (Advertising): ads@venue.co.uk / (Classified ads): classified@venue.co.uk Website www.venue.co.uk Twitter @venueeditor Group Editor Dave Higgitt Editor-at-large Joe Spurgeon

Caf-fiend // I recently convinced a few coffee-loving friends of mine to join me on a trip to find

Associate Editor Mike White Studio Manager Cath Evans Design Team Sarah Clark, Sarah Malone Production Charis Munday Sub-Editors Tom Phillips, Jo Renshaw Advertising Manager Becky Davis Bristol Advertising Adam Burrows, Ben Wright, Bex

the best coffee in Bristol and thought I should share our results so you can support local too. After an online hunt we decided on Two Day Roasters, Extract, Baristas, Chandos, Bubalu and a finish at Coffee #1.

Unfortunately Two Day Roasters was closed due to a holiday and we ended up at the coffee stall outside St Nick’s.

This was the cheapest coffee we drank all day and the service was really quick, but we all thought the coffee was a little flat in flavour. Still, a nice place to sit and people watch.

Next was Extract on College Green. I was quite looking forward to this and it didn’t disappoint me – it turns out everyone has a different taste and feel for coffee though, and whilst I really liked the aftertaste, there was a slight rumbling of uncertainty from

Baddiley Bath Advertising Nejla Unal Distribution and Subscriptions Simon Butler Publication Co-ordinators Emma Gorton, Ruth Wood Art Steve Wright Books Joe Spurgeon Classical Paul Riley Clubs Adam Burrows Comedy Steve Wright

Days Out Anna Britten Dance Steve Wright Events Mike White Film Robin Askew Jazz Tony Benjamin Lesbian & Gay Darryl Bullock News Eugene Byrne Rock Leah Pritchard Roots Leah Pritchard Skills Anna Britten Sport Simon Fry Theatre Steve Wright

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 4:05:13 PM

editor@venue.co.uk Each Letter of the Month receives a £10 voucher to spend in any Waterstone’s store nationwide.

www.joeberger.co.uk

the others. But it was still considerably better than any of the big-chain coffees and nobody disputed that.

So we headed on to Baristas.

Two espressos is enough to get anyone chatting – this third one was a bit of a trial. Not because of the coffee, which was excellent, but rather that three coffees is quite a lot.

Actually this coffee is very good, and we found out a little too late that if we had had the espresso at the counter and gone, it would have only been 50p. If you are going past here on a Saturday (offer is only on a Saturday), you would actually be evil if you didn’t take advantage of this. Evil.

After a lunch stop we headed to Bubalu, which wiped the floor with the competition. This was the first place which offered a choice of bean to try, which was brilliant. When the two beans jumped to three beans we were all excited. It is quite hard to compare the coffee as it seemed to be brewed differently to the others. It was a more intense hit which was initially such a contrast to the others; it came as a little bit of a shock. But the flavours bounced through, each bean providing a different experience, and when the lovely manager brought more coffees over for us to try, we all decided that this was just head and shoulders above the others in terms of flavour.

We couldn’t stop there

venuemagazine

Letters 974.indd 5

though – but it left Coffee#1 with an impossible task. I think we’d all sampled coffee here before and it may have just been the day – after all those other fine examples – but it didn’t fare too well on the taste. I understand that the smoothies were magical though and I know their beans have tasted better on other occasions.

If you go for one coffee in Bristol, please go to Bubalu. It is excellent. If you are over the other side of town, try Baristas and Extract. Go now.

James Friedlander-Boss, by email

Want not waste not // The Tories have found £250million down the back of the sofa to spend on reinstating weekly bin collections. What a backward thing to do – wasting public money to encourage laziness and waste. They should be encouraging householders

to reduce waste and recycle more, yet weekly bin collections do the opposite. Weekly bin collections are also completely unnecessary. I live in a family of six, and our wheelie bin is rarely more than half-full come collection day. Why? Because we recycle. The biggest contributor to our weekly waste pile is always plastic, which we bag up and walk down to the recycling centre (our nearest is Stapleton Road, but they’re all over the city). It takes about 10 minutes. And it means we never fill our bin, even in a fortnight, and certainly not in a week. Any household that fill a bin with waste every week ought to be ashamed of themselves! They ought to be so embarrassed they keep quiet about it, not whinge about it to the government. And wasting £250m on rubbish collections when teachers and nurses are being sacked? Lunacy.

Jess Roberts, Greenbank

// SEVERN BORE // Opinion. If you like that sort of thing... // One advantage of the present system of local government is that it allows un-charismatic individuals to rise to prominence. There are plenty of colourless but capable councillors doing an excellent job out there.

If we switch over to having directly elected mayors with executive powers, many would find it hard to get elected. Of course there are plenty of councillors of all parties who could cut it, as well as certain business people, community leaders, worthy individuals and complete chancers.

If, as seems likely, we have a referendum on it next May, I’m voting against elected mayors.

Nobody will miss Peter Hammond, say, but it would mean capable, but un-charismatic and un-photogenic candidates will find it much harder to get elected.

Elected mayors will take power from councillors, reducing them to rubber stamps who’ll do precious little except deal with constituents’ problems. Like anyone would be happy to be phoned at 11pm by some mad old bat complaining about the street lighting. So we’ll end up inducing people to stand for council by increasing their allowances, adding to the costs of local government.

An individual is also easier for central government to threaten, blackmail, bribe or otherwise persuade to do its bidding. This is a Tory proposal; it has nowt to do with democracy and everything to do with central power and doing the bidding of the Tories’ big business friends.

It’ll all end in ruin if we end up with what in Evening Post shorthand is “Bristol’s Boris”.

But that’s just my opinion. Bristol Festival of Ideas is having a big powwow at Watershed on 2 December on the subject, with a high-powered roster of speakers, including Lord Adonis and Ken Livingstone (pictured). Half the tickets are free for Bristol residents wanting to contribute to the debate. Booking details at: tinyurl.com/5uy3uaw

november 2011 // 5

10/24/2011 6:03:35 PM

ISawYou

To submit an I Saw You email isawyou@venue.co.uk web www.venue.co.uk/isawyou

// Reach out to someone //

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous lovely gorgeous red haired lovely gorgeous man working at the Bristol bike project. Lovely.

I

I Saw You - loads of you in La Grotta saying goodbye to a fat lady. Good Luck Gorts xx xx xx xx xx I Saw You...securing your bicycle outside of the Merchants News on Prince's St on Friday 21st around 10 am - you made me smile in an otherwise smile free week - same time same place next week?

I Saw You in Nando’s with that ginger bloke off the telly, SHAAAA…TING!!!

I Saw You from across the office.... you beautiful smile fills the room with joy. I hear your laugh and wish I could hear your jokes. one day I hope to build up the courage to ask you for a drink...

I Saw You BO in the most divine green coat (what a find!) and hand stitched sheep skin gloves x I Saw You in La Rocca on Sat night 15th Oct, we got on really well but then we lost each other at the end of the night. I think you were a teacher, blonde hair with a fringe. Would be great to get in contact.

I Saw You 13 years ago. My best friend and now we're married. Here's to Vegas baby!

Happy Anniversary, 1 year and counting! All my love for ever, 'Bama xxx I Saw You lot desperately trying to make babies just to annoy the boss!

I Saw You: James at the Harbouside bar on Friday 14th October. I'm the blonde that spoke to you at the bar.

We were both out with work

6 // november 2011

I Saw You 974.indd 6

mates. I left you to go and find my friends who were sat outside saying that I'd come back to find you later, but when I returned you had gone. If you read this get in touch, it would be good to see you again.

I Saw You BH cooking us a roast dinner while we all felt dire, I owe you one jamaican jelly <3 I Saw You slowly, seductively, undressing me with your greasy engine oil fingers… I love it, do it again! LBS xxx I Saw You - working in the Bank kitchen, you look so familiar.... did you used to work in gregs?

I Saw You… Where on earth did you get that massive member that you tentatively stroke me with? xxx I Saw You well I wish I had seen you so I could say a big thankyou for returning my

I saw you on easyJet flight from Bristol to Glasgow 18/10/11.

You were the beautiful cabin crew girl and I was the passenger you told you wanted to kiss. So wish I'd got ur name and number. Get in touch x

I saw you

handbag after I left it in the shopping trolley at Westbury Park Waitrose last Saturday.

Everything was in tact including the £20 cashback!

May good karma come your way!

is because my gaydar does not work. The truth is, I fancy

I Saw You Messy blondhaired guy behind the bar at the Raven in Bath. You are a god-like creature, and I am in AWE! Thanks for being in the world.

I Saw You - You were the Irish lady (from Blackrock?) with friends at Blaise cafe. We chatted briefly about my dogs and Naas. It would be great to carry the conversation on some time.

I Saw You - creature with the leather trousers at motion, you looked like a precious salamander, all my love BM xxx I Saw You in the black castle Bristol. About seven o clock October the seventh, was watching/playing darts with a few guys and saw you eating Italian chicken with and older lady. Thought you were beautiful and didn't ask you out and am gutted. I was wearing a white jumper, you a black top black skirt, blond!

I Saw You Yo! After my band played The Lanes on Saturday, I went back to yours in Stokes Croft. You put on In Utero which I thought was sexy.

Anyway, I left in a hurry in the morning due to an apocalyptic headache. I am sure I missed my boat, and kicking myself. Thanks for giving my hat back.

I Saw You again, for the umpteenth time, gorgeous man at the Better Food Company in St. Werburgh's. And yet again, I have not had the courage to tell you how I feel about you, as I cannot tell if you are gay/ bi (and therefore possibly biddable) or straight (and therefore not biddable) – this

I Saw You Alex, I saw you turn away and allow me to choose a lock of lush, intoxicating red.

Snip. What a sparkling gift.

I Saw You... delivering your frozen goods in your lorry and getting so angry in a traffic jam....I love it when your blood boils...Px I Saw You Brislington sainsburys lady (Rosie ???), how i miss you, I stuff my face with merba chocolate cookies till I go blind in memory of you, your still gorgeous wherever you are xxx I Saw You JLE, CA, YS, IH, BB, DP, OC... hold tight each and every one of you from saturday! x I Saw You JB... well we actually haven't seen you for ages. We miss having bets in work, commenting on online news stories and the endless chats about celebs and food. Drink soon!

I Saw You chasing a unicorn that never existed...

For more i saw you – plus I’m Sore At You – see: www.venue.co.uk/isawyou venuemagazine

10/26/2011 10:19:53 AM

RICHARD HERRING Tue 1 & Wed 2 Nov

venuemagazine

p7.indd 35

JOHN ROBINS Fri 11 & Sat 12 Nov

HAL CRUTTENDEN Fri 18 & Sat 19 Nov

DANIEL SLOSS Thurs 24 Nov

MATT GREEN Fri 25 & Sat 26 Nov

NOVEMber 2011 // 7

10/26/2011 11:57:00 AM

Bristol & Bath in pictures

Are you a photographer? // Pro, semi-pro, amateur… if you have a Bristol or Bath-related pic and want to show if off, email it to editor@venue.co.uk and the top three will get posted up here.

this mont winner!h's

‘Children Splashing in Millennium Square’ – Francis Harvey (top) A classic, hazy Bristolian image taken in the mid-noughties with an almost Super 8 nostalgic fuzz.

‘Clifton in the Fog’ – Matthew Gore (right) It might be one of the most photographed constructions in Bristol, but Matthew Gore still manages to extract new life from Brunel’s bridge in this timeless picture in the mist. Ffi: www.pierphotos.co.uk

‘Back of Freemantle Square’ – Ian Watkins (left) “I must’ve walked past here for three years before I got a day with a nice blue sky,” says Ian. Worth the wait, we reckon. Wonderfully, precisely composed. Ffi: www.flickr. com/i_y_e_r_s This month’s prize (CDs or downloads up to a value of £50) is kindly provided by AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) who publish thousands of comedy, drama and factual programmes in both CD and downloadable format. Ffi: www.audiogo.co.uk

8 // november 2011

I Saw You 974.indd 8

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 4:30:53 PM

And another thing...

Adam Ant changed my life, says Melissa Blease.

“Uniquely captivating, brazenly audacious and apparently totally unafraid of ridicule, he’ll always be Prince Charming to me.” venuemagazine

Another Thing 974.indd 9

whole new musical concept was born. At around the same time, clothes designer (and Malc’s then-beloved) Vivienne Westwood gave Adam a brand new dressing-up box. She dragged Adam out of bondage and into lavish costumes that blended 18th-century fop regalia with North American Indian and pirate-inspired flourishes.

Already a massive fan of the original romantics (I’m talking Shelley, Keats and Coleridge here), that was a look that I could understand.

On 24 May 1980, I paid a sweet transvestite a fiver to help me bunk on a fan club coach trip to Manchester to see my hero strut his stuff. The following day I was one of around 20 adamant Adam fans hiding in various loos on a British Rail train to Birmingham before we crawled through service corridors backstage at the Top Rank club to be in his company again. Acknowledging that a dodgy precedent was being set, my dad forbade me from following the rest of the tour. And so it came to pass that, when a fleet of police vans arrived at the Sheffield gig a few days later (hitchhiked – made it!), I was convinced that they’d come for me.

Six months later, the Ants Invasion tour invaded my home town. By that time, it was a case of stand and deliver! The Kings of the Wild Frontier had gone mainstream, and I was forced to share my personal Prince Charming with the world. But hey, I could handle it. I was notso-sweet 16... but I still hadn’t been kissed, not by Adam or anybody else.

Despite an infatuation that drove me to beg, steal or borrow my way into Adam’s limelight, it wasn’t lust that motivated my ‘go get him’ thrust. While

More punk than pantomime? The ever flamboyant Adam Ant then, and as he is today (inset)

PIC: HANNAH DOMAGALA

S

ummer 1979: John Wayne dies, McDonald’s sell their first Happy Meal in the UK and a song about rabbits dominates the airwaves.

Meanwhile, an exhilaratingly gaudy, brazenly flamboyant role model was about to change my life forever.

To a geeky, plump kid, Adam Ant symbolised escapism. As the tumultuous hormonal storms of adolescence blighted my path across the bridge between childhood and the brave new world beyond, he represented the wild nobility of which he sang. More accessible than David Bowie, not as whimsical as Marc Bolan and less challenging than the New York Dolls, here at last was a pin-up that I could relate to.

At the very start, Adam and the Ants were more punk than pantomime, but in Adam I saw a diamond sparkling in the rough. That diamond eventually attracted the attention of the now-legendary impresario Malcolm McLaren, who introduced the Ants to the Burundi drums of Africa: qua qua diddly qua qua! A

he was indeed indisputably beautiful, Adam represented something far more significant than the possibility of a tumble in the New Romantic heyday.

He was the ultimate fabulous Frankenstein: androgynous angel, smutty slut and camp pantomime dame in equal measure – a heady melange indeed. But what girl wants to smudge their lipstick on a boy prettier than herself? And anyway, seedy sex was, to me at least, a distinctly underclass pastime. Goody two shoes? In one way, yes. But despite such an absurdly snooty philosophy, the surprisingly straight-laced ethos at the heart of a movement that was fast becoming a fully formed subculture gave me the confidence to believe that I could be whatever wonderful creature I chose to turn myself into without wasting my time on having my fragile ego battered by broken promises made by dull inadequates. For any teenage girl (and indeed, adult woman),

that’s not a bad principle... but it certainly wasn’t Germaine Greer who waved that magic wand of enlightenment over my carefully coiffeured, jet black pompadour wig.

Decades have passed since Stuart Goddard (oh come on, you didn’t think he was really called Adam Ant, did you?) and I grew up and grew apart, but he never quite left my field of vision. Like many of his peers, he’s endured an eclectic career mapped out by a turbulent journey across many peaks and troughs. But at the very start of that epic adventure, Adam Ant was the icon that this former Cinderella used as a blueprint to turn herself into the somebody else that she eventually became. Uniquely captivating, brazenly audacious and apparently totally unafraid of ridicule, he’ll always be Prince Charming to me.

ADAM ANT PLAYS THE 02 ACADEMY BRISTOL ON FRI 11 NOV. FFI: 0844 477 2000, WWW.TICKETWEB.CO.UK

november 2011 // 9

10/25/2011 3:34:36 PM

November // OUR FAVOURITE

Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings

TEN THINGS THIS MONTH...//

Music Colourmusic

1.

// Music for punching the air to: Oklahoma’s unabashed triumphalists (“Polyphonic Spree meets Flaming Lips”) are worth watching just on the off-chance of hearing 2009’s feelgood fanfare ‘Yes!’ Their live shows have something of a reputation for unlikely themes and fancy dress, their sound a heady mix of gospel, psych-funk and kaleidoscopic celebration. Rockin’ like a rainbow.

COLOURMUSIC BRIGHTEN UP THE LOUISIANA, BRISTOL ON TUE 22 NOV. SEE WWW. THELOUISIANA.NET FOR DETAILS.

Film The Future

2.

Event/Film The August Riots

3.

// Inventive and eccentric as ever, actor/director Miranda July’s new film follows a mid-thirties couple as they adopt a dying cat and decide to live their lives as if they also had only 30 days left. But this is no bucket list cliché ride; it’s a rich, dark and moving look at how we cope with the inexorable passing of time.

// A night that aims to examine this summer’s civil unrest employing “hard research and the voices of participants” to look at what really happened, who was involved, and how they did what they did, along with a discussion of the media’s sometimes questionable reportage of events and a screening of the topical documentary ‘Rebellion in Tottenham 2011’.

THE FUTURE OPENS ON FRI 4 NOV. SEE WWW.VENUE.CO.UK FOR SCREENING DETAILS.

THE AUGUST RIOTS THE CUBE, BRISTOL, MON 7 NOV. SEE WWW.CUBECINEMA. COM FFI.

10 // november 2011

Recommended 974.indd 10

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 5:41:35 PM

Comedy The Pajama Men

5.

// The masters of nightwear-clad tomfoolery make a welcome return to Venueland with ‘The Middle of No One’, a frantic comedy thriller “about love, alien abduction, the pressure cooker of solitude and the spirit of adventure”. And yes, we know that’s not how you spell ‘pyjama’.

THE PAJAMA MEN PRANCE INTO KOMEDIA, BATH ON WED 30 NOV. SEE WWW.KOMEDIA.CO.UK/BATH FOR MORE.

4.

Music Turbowolf

// Tight of jean, wild of ’tache, Bristol’s hippest thrash trio make a triumphant homecoming three days before their blistering, adrenaline-soaked debut album hits the shops. Howl!

TURBOWOLF BITE THE CROFT, BRISTOL ON TUE 8 NOV. SEE WWW. THE-CROFT.COM FOR DETAILS.

Event The Stokes Croft Masquerade Ball

6.

// Not so long ago, scampering down Stokes Croft with a mask on would’ve got you a smack from a jumpy riot cop. Not so tonight (we hope) as the artspace wunderkinder at The Motorcycle Showroom unite with the Compass Film Festival for a night of masked-up merrymaking in a once-abandoned bike showroom. Expect illusions, circus mischief, buxom burlesquers, bands and beats – as well as a special live silent film rescoring by the mysterious Minima ensemble. Fancy dress essential.

THE STOKES CROFT MASQUERADE BALL THE MOTORCYCLE SHOWROOM, STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL, FRI 25-SUN 27 NOV.

8.

Art The Bath Art Affair // It’s all about celebrating Bath as a city of art, basically, and with that goal in mind, 30 or so galleries and art spaces across the fair city unite for a 10-day orgy of talks, events and exhibitions.

THE BATH ART AFFAIR IS AT GALLERIES ACROSS BATH, FRI 11-SUN 20 NOV. FFI: WWW. BATHGALLERIESGROUP.COM

venuemagazine

Recommended 974.indd 11

Performance Going Dark

7.

// Total darkness, immersive surround sound and spectacular lighting: ‘Going Dark’ is a one-man show devised by Sound&Fury.

Using the company’s innovative theatre vocabulary, it reawakens our wonder at the cosmos and reveals how one man’s vision becomes illuminated by darkness.

GOING DARK TURNS OUT THE LIGHTS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC FROM TUE 15-SAT 19 NOV. SEE WWW. BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK FOR DETAILS.

Event 9.

Fireworks!

Music Lanterns on the Lake

// Whoosh! Bang! Ooh! Aah! Plenty of opportunities for big bangs this bonfire night – the traditional show on The Downs this year moves to Canford Park (Sat 5), there’s a free family firework party at the Trinity Centre (Sun 6), and a giant display at King George V playing fields in Downend (Fri 11). For those that like a little less bang for their buck, head to Bristol Zoo for their annual Bangless Bonfire Nights (Fri 4 and Sat 5). For details of all these and more, check the Venue website.

// Slow burning, heart-on-sleeve acoustic finery from Newcastle; sleepy but sweetly sinister.

LANTERNS ON THE LAKE PLAY THE COOLER, BRISTOL ON WED 23 NOV. SEE WWW. WWW.CLUBCOOLER.COM FOR DETAILS.

10.

FIREWORKS WILL BE A-FIZ ZIN’ AND A-POPPIN’ ALL OVER VENUELAND THIS MONTH. CHECK WWW.VENUE.CO.UK FOR DETAILS.

november 2011 // 11

10/24/2011 5:44:05 PM

p

t

hip

in b ew

s

d

be e ... er

ng

o xt

The Interview Chris Collier How a roomful of pub junk became Bristol’s smallest performance space: Mike White talks to Wardrobe Theatre’s Chris Collier.

The Wardrobe Theatre was born from a party. There are three main people behind it – me, a chap called Jesse Jones and a girl called Jesse Meadows. Jesse Jones is really good friends with Jules, who runs the White Bear pub on St Michael’s Hill. There was an upstairs room, floor to ceiling with junk, and one New Year’s Eve he cleared it out and had a New Year’s Eve party in there.

Jesse was a bit drunk, and said to Jules: “There’s so much potential in this room, I could turn it into a theatre if you want.” Jules was like, “Yeah right, whatever.” But when Jesse sobered up, he remembered what he’d said and thought, “I’m actually totally up for this.”

So we cleared the whole space out again and redecorated it. The pub paid for materials. We got a big

“We want a cult following… We want it to seep into people’s consciousness.” chris collier, Wardrobe Theatre 12 // november 2011

The Interview 974.indd 12

gang of friends to help out. There was Harriet de Winton – who’s designed for the Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory shows – she came and made the place look beautiful.

My illustrator friend Ben Goodman did all the design for us. And there was this great team of people who were all happy to chip in a few hours to make something special.

The important thing is to provide a space where new work can be put on without cost to the company doing it. We have a complete box office split, so it works in everyone’s favour to get people in – so the company can cover their own costs, we can pay our minimal rental on the space, and the pub can cover their running costs. We’re all working on a voluntary basis – the focus is on supporting new work being made.

It’s not as small as an actual wardrobe, more the size of an open-plan kitchen. That’s still pretty small as theatres go – our capacity’s 50 at a push, 35-40 in comfort. We initially opened in May for a six-week trial, to see whether we could actually run a theatre ourselves, and from the pub’s point of view whether it brought in punters. We were approached by the comedy promoter Mark Olver, who’s associated with a lot of big-name comedians – he wanted to put on three weeks of pre-Edinburgh comedy in the Wardrobe. That was an absolute godsend, because he got us full houses every night.

Low points? April was a real lastminute rush – realising just how much work we had to do to get it all ready. We’d decided to strip out the carpets and sand the floor, and that was possibly the worst thing I’ve ever done with a couple of days of my life. It got emotional.

Inside Bristol's pretty little performance box, The Wardrobe Theatre

Highlights? During Mark Olver’s brilliant run there were secret Russell Howard gigs, two nights in a row. It was leaked on Twitter and hundreds of people flocked to the pub. It was ridiculous, but incredibly good for us in terms of people knowing about the place.

And of course our opening night when we first launched in May: the place was absolutely rammed, we had a full evening of music and performance. It all worked. That was quite emotional too, but in a much better way.

We want a cult following – especially for our improvised soap opera ‘Closer Each Day’. There’s nothing like it in Bristol. It’s genuinely hilarious, this storyline that evolves every week as the characters develop in completely unpredictable ways. It’s so much fun.

We want to do more events that take over the whole pub, working in lots of performance things around the space. Jules is keen on getting Howard Marks in to do a talk in mid-December. We’re also planning a Christmas show, something different from all the family-friendly things that go on. It’ll be an adult adaptation of ‘Home Alone’. The film’s 25 years

old now, so most people who saw it first time around are now in their late 20s and 30s. Hopefully they’re ready for a darker retelling of the story... We’re also going to do a big New Year’s Eve night – the anniversary of when it all began – taking over the whole pub and filling it with performance, all with an unexpected theme. But we’re keeping it secret for now.

Looking to the future, we just need to make sure we get people in. We’re not worrying about getting paid, despite the long hours. It’s just about doing something different. We’ve planned our autumn programme so that we have slots for regular things – every other Tuesday is the improvised soap opera, every other Wednesday is poetry night, every other Thursday is comedy.

We want it to seep into people’s consciousness, so that we can build a following. People will say to their mates: “I went to this funny/brilliant/weird new thing the other day, and it’s every other week – come along to the next one, and – pass it on, pass it on!”

WARDROBE THEATRE ABOVE THE WHITE BEAR, ST MICHAELS HILL, BRISTOL, BS2 8BS. FFI: WWW. THEWARDROBETHEATRE.COM

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 5:16:34 PM

p13.indd 1

10/26/2011 12:48:45 PM

PIC: RICHARD CANON

pick of th Decidedly odd symbolically rich Aussie outback drama?

That’ll be Julie Bertucelli’s ‘The Tree’ then

14 // november 2011

Bath Film Fest Feature 974.indd 14

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 3:29:08 PM

the flicks W As Bath Film Festival comes of age, Robin Askew chooses the best of this year’s crop. ith guests as diverse as Ken Loach, activist and broadcaster Darcus Howe, ‘Wuthering Heights’ screenwriter Olivia Hetreed and, er, former Spice Girls popstrel Mel C, the 21st Bath Film Festival promises to be the best yet. Running from 10-19 Nov at venues that include the Little Theatre cinema, Komedia, Chapel Arts and even Bath City FC, the festival boasts an impressive mix of previews and special events. There are also revived classics (‘Cutter’s Way’, ‘Whisky Galore!’, ‘Silent Running’) and screenings of many excellent films that didn’t make it to Bath on initial release. These include Uruguayan spooker ‘The Silent House’, ace Brit-horror ‘Kill List’, French sexual identity drama ‘Tomboy’, locally made documentary ‘Marathon Boy’ and the supremely creepy ‘Sleeping Beauty’. You can find full listings at www.venue.co.uk and more information at bathfilmfestival.org.uk. Here, in strictly chronological order, is our selection of highlights.

The British Guide to Showing Off Thur 10, Komedia, 7.45pm

Director Jes Benstock and flamboyant star Andrew Logan will be present to launch the festival in suitable style with a Q&A after this preview screening. See review in Film section.

Borzage Shorts

Sat 12, Chapel Arts, 8pm

Continuing the festival’s ‘Sounds to Silents’ strand, which finds innovative ways of presenting silent cinema, this event features three early works by Frank Borzage, who’s probably best known for the Oscar-winning 1932 version of ‘A Farewell to Arms’. They’re accompanied by a live score of old-timey country music by Kate Lissauer.

Another Earth

Sun 13, Little Theatre, 8.30pm

about stiff upper lippery and repressed passions in 50s England. Rachel Weisz stars in Davies’s first drama since ‘The House of Mirth’ more than a decade ago. This is another preview. The film opens on 25 Nov.

Coriolanus (Pictured below) Sat 12, Little Theatre, 6.30pm

For his directorial debut, Ralph Fiennes teams up with screenwriter du jour John Logan (who’s writing the next Bond movie) for a contemporary reworking of the Bard’s tragedy, shot in Belgrade. Fiennes bags himself the titular lead role. The rest of the cast includes Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Gerard Butler, James Nesbitt, the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain and, er, Jon Snow (stretching himself by playing a TV newsreader). This is an exclusive preview of the film, which opens nationwide in January.

William Mapother (yup, he’s Tom Cruise’s cousin) stars in this intriguing low-budget indie ‘parallel worlds’ science fiction flick.

When a duplicate earth, inevitably dubbed ‘Earth 2’, pops up in the sky, this inevitably causes all kinds of problems – not least for a young student and an accomplished composer whose paths cross in a tragic accident. See it first at BFF before the film opens next month.

The Tree

Sun 13, Rondo Theatre, 8.50pm The regional premiere of this decidedly odd Australian outback drama in which a little girl confides in her mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) that her dead dad speaks to her through the leaves of the tree he crashed his car into when he perished.

Expect heavy-duty – and, indeed, heavyhanded – symbolism in French director Julie Bertucelli’s adaptation of a novel entitled ‘Our Father who Art in the Tree’ (no, really).

Ken Loach Retrospective

Attenberg

This year, festival patron Ken Loach introduces and talks about a selection of his controversial and rarely seen early work.

A regional premiere and easily the weirdest film to be shown at the festival. It’s a deadpan Greek comedy about a virginal 23-year-old part-time cabbie who emulates the behaviour of animals she watches in the wildlife documentaries of David Attenborough (hence the title). As you do. An annoying load of old bollocks or “hypnotically weird and elegantly strange” (The Guardian), according to taste. Director Athina Rachel Tsangari produced last year’s excellent ‘Dogtooth’.

Fri 11, Little Theatre, 6pm

The Deep Blue Sea (Pictured above right) Fri 11, Little Theatre, 9pm

Disappointingly, there’s no Samuel L Jackson or genetically engineered killer sharks in this new one from revered director and decidedly acquired taste Terence Davies – an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s stage play

venuemagazine

Bath Film Fest Feature 974.indd 15

Mon 14, Little Theatre, 9pm

november 2011 // 15

10/26/2011 3:30:48 PM

16 // NOVEMber 2011

p16.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:47:26 PM

Best of the fest (from left to right): Andrea Arnold’s ‘Wuthering Heights’; the flamboyant ‘The British Guide to Showing Off’; and pretty-as-a-picture Carey Mulligan in ‘Shame’

As Bath Film Robin Askew

Festival comes of age, chooses the best of this year’s crop. several years to control the use of child road trip across America. With a bus full of LSD, sundry members of the Grateful Dead and Neal Cassady (aka Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’), Kesey set off to turn on America, as chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’. The film’s been pieced together using 16mm footage shot by the wasted crew themselves.

Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Pictured below) Thur 17, Little Theatre, 8.40pm

Activist and broadcaster Darcus Howe will be present for a Q&A after this Bath premiere. See review on p.43.

Black Pond (Pictured above) Tue 15, Little Theatre, 6.40pm

An exclusive BFF screening of this hugely acclaimed micro-budget feature with plenty of local connections. It’s co-directed by Will Sharpe, who used to be down here a lot when he was in ‘Casualty’, and the sound is by Bristol-based BAFTA nominee Paul Cowgill.

But the main reason why it’s attracted so much attention is because it marks the return to the screen of ‘The Thick of It’ star (and Bristol University graduate) Chris Langham after serving a jail sentence for downloading child pornography. The story? It’s about an ordinary British family and their Japanese friend who are accused of murder when a stranger dies at their dinner table. Will and co-director Tom Kingsley will be present to introduce their film.

Bash Street

Tue 15, Komedia, 8pm Local premiere of this new drama about life in an English town, which was shot in Chippenham on a budget of just £7,000. Locally based Con O’Neill (Joe Meek in ‘Telstar’) stars alongside 100 local people. O’Neill and Mel C, who wrote the title song, will be present for a Q&A.

Magic Trip

Tue 15, Little Theatre, 9.00 A real treat for sixtiesologists, this new documentary from Alex Gibney, director of the excellent ‘Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson’, charts the progress of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters’ 1964

venuemagazine

Bath Film Fest Feature 974.indd 17

labour in the mining industry.

Shame (Pictured below) Fri 18, Little Theatre, 9pm (Repeat screening without Q&A: Sat 19, 6.30pm) Producer Iain Canning will be present for a Q&A after this preview of the new one from ‘Hunger’ director Steve McQueen.

Once again, McQueen works with Michael Fassbender, who stars opposite Carey Mulligan as a sex addict and his estranged sibling who get up to all kinds of dysfunctional naughtiness in New York.

It’s co-scripted by Abi Morgan, who wrote the upcoming Thatcher biopic ‘The Iron Lady’, and is something of a must-see for connoisseurs of copious full-frontal nudity.

It opens nationwide in January.

Wuthering Heights

Fri 18, Little Theatre, 6pm Olivia Hetreed, who wrote the screenplay for Andrea Arnold’s bold new adaptation of the Emily Brontë classic, will be present for a Q&A after this festival screening. See review on p.43.

Blood in the Mobile

Fri 18, Chapel Arts, 6.30pm Exploring the link between your mobile phone and civil war in Africa. Tenacious Danish director Frank Poulsen reveals how minerals mined in war-torn African nations are found in almost every mobile phone in the world. He then goes after executives of Nokia, which is responsible for one in three mobile phone sales. This screening is introduced by Karrie Hayes, who’s been working in the Congo for

Snowtown

Sat 19, Little Theatre, 1.30pm Another exclusive preview. See review on p.42.

Tabloid

Sat 19, Chapel Arts, 7.30pm Local premiere of this hugely entertaining new true crime documentary from veteran film-maker Errol Morris. See review on p.44.

BATH FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 1019 NOV. SEE HTTP://BATHFILMFESTIVAL. ORG.UK/ FFI.

november 2011 // 17

10/26/2011 4:43:05 PM

PIC: RICHARD CANON

“Loveable idiots are a very British, very Aardman kind of thing.” sarah smith, aardman

Christmas Cracker

18 // november 2011

Arthur Christmas Feature 974.indd 18

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 5:14:22 PM

Aardman’s latest caper ‘Arthur Christmas’ hits cinema screens this month.

Robin Askew is our man in a red cape and white bushy beard.

I

t’s an unusually balmy early October morning in central London. Outside, people are still wearing T-shirts and shorts. In the foyer of the Empire Leicester Square, however, Christmas has come early. Literally.

Hordes of kids are wearing balloon antlers, writing letters to Santa and being entertained by carol singers.

Seasonal pop of the ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ and ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ variety, which torments shop workers from November onwards, is being pumped out on a loop. We’re all here for the first screening anywhere of Bristol-based Aardman Animations’ ‘Arthur Christmas’. It’s been five years since the unhappy experience of their last feature film, ‘Flushed Away’, which concluded the studio’s relationship with US giant DreamWorks.

This is the first fruit of their new alliance with Sony. It’s also the directorial debut of Aardman’s creative director, Sarah Smith, who joined the company during the split with DreamWorks in 2006. No pressure then. Immediately after the screening, which gets a rousing round of applause, she scurries off to complete the unfinished end credits sequence.

A week later, she finds time to talk about the project that has swallowed four years of her life (“20 hours a day, six to seven days a week”). Interestingly, her background – and that of co-writer/long-term collaborator Peter Baynham – is in much more adult comedy. She’s written, directed and/or produced the likes of ‘The League of Gentlemen’, ‘Nighty Night’ and Chris Morris’s ‘Brass Eye’. He’s best known for writing ‘I’m Alan Partridge’ and the Borat and Bruno films for Sacha Baron Cohen. ‘Arthur Christmas’ is a family-friendly 3D CGI fable about the logistics of delivering presents to every child in the world in one night, and the dysfunctional Santa family who just about make it happen.

‘Arthur Christmas’ is refreshingly free of knowing movie in-jokes. But you did chuck in a ‘Wrong Trousers’ reference, didn’t you?

We did. That’s the only thing in the movie. An animator pitched me that joke. And I thought, you know what? I love that piece of animation. It’s one of my favourite things in animation ever. And it seemed like a funny joke to repeat the idea.

There’s also no romance and no villain, which is unusual for animation.

It’s just our own personal taste. I really don’t buy romance very much. I think it’s one of the things kids are least interested in, frankly. So I never quite understand the love story element. I don’t know quite who it’s for or why it’s considered a required thing. In terms of not having a villain, that’s part of the fundamental idea of the movie. What we were trying to say is that what is wrong with the world today is not that there are evil people; it’s the pernicious thing of people not quite getting it. The failure to realise what’s important or what’s really valuable. It’s not an actively evil thing, but leads to a terrible kind of slow falling apart of everything that matters.

venuemagazine

Arthur Christmas Feature 974.indd 19

Were there any cultural sensitivities involved?

We did research Christmas round the world, so at the beginning when you see all the presents being delivered there are different customs and habits represented. But there are all sorts of problems with it. Somebody actually put their hand up in one screening and said “But in Germany (or wherever it was), we celebrate on the fifth of December.” And we all went, “Shit! It doesn’t work. We can’t deal with that!” Early on, we thought about the idea of using time zones, so the mission would be moving with the hours of darkness around the world. But you have to simplify a bit. I also think the sad truth is that although there are different customs in different countries, the British and American version of what Christmas is – Victorian Santa in a snowy landscape – is kind of what’s being adopted around the world.

is complicated, and this is a particularly overambitious thing. Nick Park said to me it’s like running a marathon, but it’s a sprint. And it really is like that. Endurance is the key. I also had a baby in the middle of it…

There’s an extraordinary piece of product placement for the Co-Op. How did that come about?

It was absolutely not at all product placement!

I was passionate that where the little girl lives should properly look like England. We have seen England in other animated movies and it looks like a completely American version of England. I had a European design team and the first images they drew of Trelew, the village in Cornwall, were like Italian hilltop towns. So in the end I sent the design team down to Cornwall to take pictures. What came out of it is fantastic and gorgeous and authentic.

And of course, the local shop in your average village is a Co-Op.

After ‘Flushed Away’, Aardman co-founder Peter Lord told Venue that he would never again make a film in the US. But you’ve just done that. Presumably things are very different with Sony.

It is different. Pete and Dave [co-founder Dave Sproxton] were nervous about the idea of us doing it there because you’re kind of putting your movie into the dragon’s den. But they also knew that I was fairly feisty and would fight all comers. You’re very close to the studio’s influence, I suppose. But there were various things that helped us. ‘Flushed Away’, almost from the very beginning, was done in America. All the creative development was done there as well. We did ours in Bristol. So I had the protection of all of that time in the UK to work the movie out and stand it on its feet. I had a year where virtually nobody saw anything, which is a fantastic luxury. When we showed Sony what we had, they were delighted and excited. So by the time we moved to LA six months later, we had won a lot of their confidence.

Mrs Santa is usually a rather passive and redundant figure in Santa movies. But you gave her a key role. Was this a blow for feminism?

Yeah, absolutely. Our idea about Mrs Santa is that she’s in one of those rather awkward roles, like the wife of a president or the spouse of a monarch, where it’s not really your job to get involved in the business or politics of it. And yet, very often, those women are actually one step ahead of all of the men and waiting for them all to come to their senses. That’s what Mrs Santa does.

Who’s your favourite character? Personally, I’d have enjoyed seeing more of Bill Nighy’s crotchety Grandsanta.

I love Grandsanta too. I feel very tenderly towards Arthur, because he is properly an idiot. He’s totally passionate and sincere. But Grandsanta, I guess, is the character we have most fun with. He’s my grandmother, really. And I love Bill Nighy’s performance.

You could almost make a Grandsanta movie.

We have thought about that. The prequel is basically Grandsanta in wartime.

Were you at all daunted at taking on such a vast enterprise as your first feature?

Absolutely. Every single day. It’s massively complicated. Animation itself is complicated, CG

‘Arthur Christmas’ was prepped in Bristol but made in LA. Does that mean we can’t make these films here?

To be honest, nobody had made a CG movie with such a sophisticated look in the UK. All of the CG films that have been made here have been on lower budgets. Sony had this pipeline sitting in LA and they were really keen for us to look at that.

The idea of doing it in Bristol is very attractive, but there are several issues. One is recruiting people from around the world – because there are a handful who are at the top of their game – and getting them to move their lives to Bristol.

When you joined Aardman, was it your intention to broaden the look and style of the studio’s output?

That was my instinct when I went there. A lot of what people think of as Aardman is really Nick [Park]. And no company can live off one person’s work. But within the company, there are an awful lot of other styles of work that people aren’t so familiar with. It felt to me that what identifies the company is not the Nick Park stop-frame style but a common sensibility and a tone. And you could pursue that in all sorts of different ways in movies and have a much more eclectic range.

‘Pirates’ [Peter Lord’s feature, due for release next March] looks like an Aardman stop-frame movie, but in comedy terms it’s quite different from what Nick does. ‘Arthur Christmas’ is very different from anything Aardman has done, and yet at the heart of it are comedy underdogs. And loveable idiots are a very British, very Aardman kind of thing.

‘ARTHUR CHRISTMAS’ OPENS ON 11 NOV. SEE PAGE 40 FOR REVIEW.

november 2011 // 19

10/24/2011 5:15:36 PM

PIC: RICHARD CANON

The heart of darkness Bristol Old Vic welcomes back homegrown theatrical provocateurs Sound&Fury this month with a cosmological adventure bigger than you could possibly imagine. Joe Spurgeon meets co-director Mark Espiner and writer Hattie Naylor.

20 // november 2011

Sound&Fury Feature 974.indd 20

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 5:20:49 PM

A

sk anyone lucky enough to have caught last year’s majestic ‘Kursk’ – our official Play of the Year awardwinner, no less – and you’ll be met with a long stream of breathless superlatives.

Opening at Bristol Old Vic, the submarine-set thriller took its audiences to within inches of the action, conjuring the cramped, low-lit tension and tedium of life aboard a Cold War submarine where drama – both acute, human micro-tragedy and larger-scale diplomatic disaster – unfolded with a potent, multisensory punch, all set against the beguiling, all-pervasive presence of the great ocean.

The brains behind it all were Sound&Fury, who have since toured ‘Kursk’ around the world and who are, at the time of writing, just back from performing at the Sydney Opera House. Happily, the Sound&Fury team have deep-rooted local connections – each of the three directors (Dan Jones, Mark Espiner and Tom Espiner) grew up here and launched their theatrical inquisition from the city, as Jones remembered when we handed over the gong in 2010: “We all consider Bristol our starting point and home turf. Theatre [in Bristol] is so increasingly vibrant; the field richer than ever with great ideas, artists and companies. It’s humbling and very exciting to think that we caught your eye at such a busy and exciting time.”

S&F’s visceral approach to performance has been long gestated, the stories they favour often exploring the “sound space” of theatre, creating meticulously representative worlds and occasionally immersing audiences in total darkness.

“We like to use total darkness as part of our aesthetic,” says S&F’s Mark Espiner.

“Sense deprivation – particularly sight deprivation – opens the imaginative mind up to a different kind of storytelling; if you take away the visual sense, suddenly you’re reliant upon what you can hear. It gives us an incredible freedom; suddenly we can transport audiences anywhere through sound – to sitting on a beach, to the top of the highest building, to floating in the middle of the sea.”

Such a magic carpet ride was key to the claustrophobia of ‘Kursk’, and far-reaching new show ‘Going Dark’ is similarly, arguably more, wrapped up in what – and how – humans use their senses to perceive, as Espiner explains.

“In ‘Going Dark’, which is the story of a man going blind, the periods of total blackout – and we are aiming for total blackout, with no green exit lights or anything – are very important, as it places the focus on what you then see and the importance of light in our world, and where that light comes from. Our primary sense is sight, though there are many other ways of perceiving or understanding the world, and that’s the

venuemagazine

Sound&Fury Feature 974.indd 21

subtextual metaphor running through the show. The show’s told through one character, a brilliant planetarium presenter called Max, who’s very passionate about his work and cosmology and astronomy. Along the way he meets various people but he has a very close relationship, which is obvious and apparent, with his son, and the story of his progressive blindness is intimately connected to his role as a father. It’s a story about fathers and sons as well as where we come from.”

The genesis of ‘Going Dark’ and a shared lifelong pull towards life’s eternal questions – those of existence, time, space – have been an itch S&F have longed to scratch since first exposing themselves to landmark thinkers like Carl Sagan, whose ‘Cosmos’ TV series dared to ask the most profound and troubling of questions. Having then been introduced to eminent professor John Hull’s autobiographical book ‘Touching The Rock’, which detailed the psychological, physical and spiritual changes he underwent whilst losing his sight, the twin seeds of ‘Going Dark’ were sown.

“It’s a very simple idea concerning an astronomer who’s having to deal with a crisis, which takes him – and you – to a darker place,” says writer Hattie Naylor (whose ‘Ben Hur’ and ‘The Nutcracker’ adaptations wowed Theatre Royal Bath audiences, as did her extraordinary tale of destitution and survival on the streets of Moscow, ‘Ivan and the Dogs’). “And the crisis forces him into an examination of his own

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being too ambitious.”

Hattie Naylor, writer, ‘Going Dark’

Eye contact: Sound&Fury's latest show will see its audience submerged in total darkness

consciousness. What is happening to him is so devastating that he’s forced to readdress many things, not just his relationship to his son, but upwards, to the sky, too.

“The Big Bang is probably accepted by most people as the most reasonable explanation of why we’re here, but when you look at when and why that happened, the fact that we’re here at all is very, very remarkable. You can look at that two ways and think ‘Wow, I’m here, what luck,’ or you can think ‘There must be a god or something that got me here because it’s so unlikely that we should exist.’ You can therefore think that what we do and what we think is materialistic and totally pointless, or you can see it as a miracle that we’re here and it’s fantastic and wonderful. I don’t know which way I come down. Does the cosmos have a tendency to produce life or not?”

Pause for breath.

“When you start to explore these things and ask ‘Why am I here?’, ‘How am I here?’, you end up in a sea of ‘Woah!’ You can’t explain these things and you can’t explain consciousness, so everything we are aware of – culture, love, war, whatever – might not be true. That pushes me into some sort of belief in something that I can’t really name, rather than a nihilistic viewpoint, and I hope the play, to a degree, looks at that. It has no answers, but it at least lays those questions out. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with being too ambitious. We’ve all been encouraged in one way or another at one time or another to not ask those big questions, but it’s really exciting to try to take an emotional story and relate that to something as big as the questions we’re asking. It’s amazingly brave and ambitious to do that.”

Dizzying in scope as it may seem, the team are watchful, thankfully, of letting their story disappear into its own existential black hole.

“Yes, it’s certainly sombre, but it’s very beautiful. The theme, in a way, is wonder out of chaos,” says Naylor. “But it will sound and look stunning – the actor, John Mackay, is extraordinary too. I can’t believe it won’t be gorgeous.”

“The keynote is that it’s curious and questioning,” adds Espiner, “and leads the audience to a place where they might not have been before and makes them curious.

And I hope it’s hopeful too.

“The universe is as complex and as troubling as the human mind. We’re aiming for a new way of storytelling, creating a world using sound in which to fully immerse an audience, and in a way which is fulfilling, and not just immersive for immersive’s sake, which then becomes shallow because of that.

Theatre has a unique opportunity to let its audience have a profound experience and I love it because of that.”

GOING DARK IS AT THE BRISTOL OLD VIC FROM 15-19 NOV. TO BOOK, CALL 0117 987 7877 OR VISIT WWW.BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK. FFI: WWW.VENUE. CO.UK

november 2011 // 21

10/24/2011 5:21:05 PM

22 // NOVEMber 2011

p22.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:01:09 PM

Bounty Hunter A flowering TV career, another top-selling tour, a bunch of Perrier nominations and THAT voice. Joe Spurgeon meets the coolest cat in comedy, Reginald D Hunter.

Y

ou have to learn how people communicate. In some areas of Britain, people are constantly ribbing you, and f*cking with you, and insulting you. That means they like you. The other night, I was having a cigarette and this woman comes up and says: ‘I don’t think you’re very funny. I don’t think you’re very good looking and I don’t see why everyone’s going on about your voice.’ And then she says ‘Wanna drink?’ Oh, I see, this is British love…”

Knee-deep into the first leg of his UK tour, RADA-trained Reginald D Hunter, he of the canyon-deep, butterscotch baritone, succulent Southern drawl and hang-loose on-stage prowl, is becoming somewhat adept at breaking down the British psyche. He should be, mind, having been here for some 15-odd years since relocating – originally to act – from a broken home in

venuemagazine

Reginald D Hunter Feature 974.indd 23

Albany, Georgia. Hunter only took up comedy for a bet in a Birmingham boozer and now, with several successful Edinburghs (and three Perrier award nominations) behind him, he’s playing to the biggest venues and TV audiences of his career.

Feeling at home yet?

“I still feel like an outsider here, but then, I felt like an outsider growing up in the States. In a weird way, being an outsider here at least makes sense. In the States, I couldn’t understand why I felt outside everything. I tried really hard to fit in, it just didn’t work. But here I’m just hanging onto that vibe – hey, it’s all new to me. I’m more relaxed about being an outsider.”

In fact, this notion of the curious stranger still informs Hunter’s comedy, which, coupled with an evidently well-tuned intellect and that boombox voice, gives him an attractively exotic air.

“I’ve had some women – and some men – make comment about the voice; it’s not an unusual compliment. I’ve had to teach myself to just go ‘thank you’ because whatever everyone else’s hearing, it doesn’t sound different to me.

And I just like talking to people. I don’t mean that in some hokey, bakin’ cookies weird *ss kinda way, but the thing with British people – and there are infinite varieties – is that someone’s always gonna say something you ain’t never heard before.

It keeps life interesting. I always try to engage people during my shows, and if we get cookin’ on that and it’s better than my jokes, then bump! We go with it!”

The audience patter, a key part of Hunter’s on-stage weaponry, is supplemented by a considered study of his new homeland’s peculiarities: a penchant to slip the n-word into his show titles (‘Pride & Prejudice… & Niggas’, ‘Trophy Nigga’ etc) gently prods at sensitive Brit sensibilities, alongside other family-friendly tea-time topics: urinating on prostitutes, habitual masturbation and explosive diarrhoea.

Shock tactics?

“I am perpetually astounded why anyone is shocked by what I say. Sometimes, I might mention menstruation and, guaranteed, there’ll be at least three women in the audience that go ‘ooo!’

If they didn’t have vaginas, I could understand the shock, but they do, they tend to them every day.

If I do a joke about drugs, and it could be really funny, someone will still come up to me and say ‘didn’t like the drugs joke, my best friend’s sister was a drug addict and I just don’t think it’s funny.’

[Laughs.] All right buddy, I will never. Make a drugs joke. Again.” [Laughs again.]

Whatever the stage talk, in conversation, Hunter is clearly a dedicated student of his art, quick to poke our own leanings towards self-examination (“British people are constantly analysing”) yet capable of some pretty astute deconstruction himself.

“I am perpetually astounded why anyone is shocked by what I say.” reginald d hunter “Easy as it would be to get pissed off driving around Britain all the time, you can’t let that get to you. One period of your life might be peaceful, one tumultuous. It’s easy to be funny when everything’s goin’ good, when everybody loves you and you’re getting good sex, good food. The challenge is to do it when you’ve got a cold, or you don’t like the promoter you’re dealing with. If I do 100 gigs, I’m lucky if for 40 of them I’m feeling great. But you can’t do it just when you feel like it. You have to notice yourself, figure out which habits are good and which ones don’t help.

“The bad part of that is that, if you’re not careful, you can become extraordinarily self-interested.

It’s the risk of giving yourself to your work: your scan is inward, you notice less in the world. Yes, be mindful, but know when to say ‘mind, shut up’.”

REGINALD D HUNTER: SOMETIMES EVEN THE DEVIL TELLS THE TRUTH IS AT THE COLSTON HALL ON THUR 3 NOV (THEN TOURING TO CORNWALL, PLYMOUTH, SWINDON AND NATIONWIDE). FFI: WWW.REGINALDDHUNTER.CO.UK

november 2011 // 23

10/24/2011 5:03:16 PM

PIC: RICHARD CANON

The Big Issue has been helping homeless people for more than two decades. Mike White goes out on the street to find out what it’s like being one of the magazine’s hardy vendors. Pics: Robert Skilton

PIC CREDIT: ROBERT SKILTON, ROBERTSKILTON@HOTMAIL.COM

P

eople look at you differently when there’s a Big Issue in your hand. With some, there’s a friendly hello and an encouraging smile. With others, it’s a swift aversion of the eyes, a thousandyard stare or a scowl of open disapproval. Mostly, the unfriendly ones are simply a bit embarrassed. They don’t want to buy a magazine but they feel they should, so they’re ashamed. Thus we see all the awkward avoidance techniques – the pretend phone call, the sudden swerve to the other pavement, the exaggerated checking of a wristwatch.

For over 20 years, The Big Issue has been offering homeless and vulnerably housed people the opportunity to earn themselves a legitimate income. The organisation is divided into two parts: ‘the Company’, which produces and distributes the magazine to street vendors; and ‘the Foundation’, a registered charity which exists to help those vendors gain control of their lives by addressing the issues which have contributed to their homelessness. The magazine (read by over 670,000 people a week) thus supports the Foundation, which in turn supports over 2,900 homeless and vulnerably-housed people across the country.

But what’s it actually like on the frontline?

There, on the pavement, in the rain, trying to flog the mag and earn a crust? To find out, I’m spending a shift with Martin, a smiling, self-effacing man of 38. The word ‘WIZZ’ is tattooed across the fingers of one hand, a giant ganja leaf on the other. We meet at The Big Issue’s bustling Bristol office on Stokes Croft at coffee o’clock in the morning. Commuters hurry past outside; peg-legged pigeons squabble over last night’s chips. Inside, vendors wait to collect their day’s stock (they buy the magazines for £1, sell them for £2). Friendly volunteers help organise pitches and paperwork. The

24 // november 2011

Big Issue Feature 974.indd 24

walls are papered with information – maps, helpline numbers and fact sheets: where to get counselling, medical help, free food.

Behind the counter is the effervescent Rachel Purvis, senior sales and outreach worker. “The job title doesn’t really cover it,” she says. “I’m responsible for helping vendors find pitches, making sure that they adhere to the code of conduct, that they know how to sell the magazine. Also the badging up and assessments – every new vendor has to go through an induction process, which lets us identify any needs they have, and direct them towards the best people to help them meet those needs and set them on the road to getting out of homelessness. The code of conduct is a list of dos and don’ts to make sure that the vendor’s clear about what we can offer them, and what they can and can’t do whilst selling The Big Issue.

Sometimes it is difficult – there are disputes over pitches, some people try to beg with the magazine. You’ve probably seen some of them wandering around, unbadged, with one magazine, saying ‘it’s my last issue, can I keep it’. That’s totally not allowed. But we can usually smooth things out so everyone’s happy.”

Martin’s been through a lot – a lifetime of alcohol and drug abuse, occasionally funded by crime – but is a ready source of jokes and

“Of course not everyone wants one – there’d never be enough if they did. But it’s not buying it or not that matters – it’s how you go about it.” martin, big issue seller

anecdotes, and more than happy to delegate a few hours’ selling duties to me. He offers me a few tips. Smile. But not too much or you look mad. Make eye contact as early as you can, but don’t stare (see above). Stand right on the corner, at the pavement’s edge, facing towards the buildings – that way you can simultaneously face people coming from two directions. Then he leaves me to it, retreating to a nearby window sill to roll a fag and check Facebook on his smartphone.

Like a lot of Big Issue sellers, Martin is not what most of us would call homeless. He was sleeping rough when he first came to The Big Issue, but with their help he now has a flat and a small but regular income. As we cycle slowly up from Stokes Croft to Martin’s pitch in Clifton village, he tells me about his chequered past.

“I grew up in Plymouth, in a family that was full of alcohol. I don’t blame my life on anyone, but I suppose it was a natural thing for me to go that way. I did a lot of drinking and crime, and that led me into drugs. I tried to get away from it, moving to Cardiff first, then back to Plymouth. I had a habit, I was doing robberies – shops and that – and kept getting into trouble. I asked to be put into prison but they said ‘no, we’re going to put you back out, you can sort yourself out’. So that’s when I came to Bristol. As soon as I got off the bus I saw someone selling The Big Issue and I thought ‘I could do that’. Things have got better since then. I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the streets here, but I’ve never done any crime in Bristol. I’ve been here six or seven years now, and I haven’t been in trouble for all that time.

“For a long while I was sleeping rough.

I’d use night shelters when I could, but they’ve only got a certain number of beds and it’s first come first served, so I often ended up sleeping in car parks, on benches, down by the docks near Welsh Back. I’ve been everywhere. I remember being down in the Bear Pit one night when a guy froze to death

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 2:50:32 PM

there. Another bloke burned to death – he was in some bushes, with a bit of tarpaulin over.

Nobody knows how it happened.

Shakes you up, stuff like that.

“Trying to get off heroin addiction is extra difficult when you work the streets. On city centre pitches, people kept asking me where

they could score, offering to share some if I’d take them to a dealer. It’s terrible if you’re trying to avoid drugs – someone reminding you it’s there, offering you some for free. I’d always say no. Then five minutes later I’d crack and start running after them.

I tried a course of cold-turkey with the Salvation Army. I was supposed to be in there for two weeks. I did my two weeks and I was going to leave, but they talked me into staying for another weekend, and that weekend a guy

came in there who was climbing the walls going ‘I need drugs, I need drugs’. He broke his window, climbed out and got some and I took it with him. I was straight back to where I started.

“There used to be a night shelter

Mag men: armed with a fistful of Big Issues Mike and Martin take to the streets

venuemagazine

Big Issue Feature 974.indd 25

november 2011 // 25

10/26/2011 2:50:57 PM

p26.indd 1

10/24/2011 9:30:24 PM

down in St Judes and they helped me onto [the heroin substitute) methadone, through the Smart programme. Now I’ve moved from methadone to Subutex. With methadone you can still use heroin, but with Subutex, if you use heroin it’s supposed to make you really ill, so it’s easier to wean yourself off it. They also introduced me to a woman in the Salvation Army, who got me into a programme called Places for People, who help resettle homeless people. That got me into a flat, which I was able to stay in for two years. After that, I went onto the bidding program with the council to get a flat, which I finally managed a few months ago – my own one-bedroom flat in Greenbank, up by the cemetery. It’s been really good for my mental health, having my own space, a quiet street, a bit of community.

“I’m starting a scheme called Pathways to Employment, looking at all my strengths and building on them, helping me write a CV, so that hopefully I can find a part-time job somewhere. I’ve been selling The Big Issue for seven years now, and they’ve helped me so much. It’s shown me another way of living.”

As we arrive

at the

pitch, a steady drizzle sets in.

“That’s no good,” says Martin.

“Cliftonites are solar powered.” On a really good day, he might sell 40 or 50

venuemagazine

Big Issue Feature 974.indd 27

magazines. So you can make a living out of it – that’s the whole point. Vendors are selfemployed – they pay National Insurance and income tax same as everyone else. That said, yesterday (a wet Tuesday in October) Martin only sold three – though this was mainly because the shift to Subutex was making him feel sick.

I ask Martin if he’s still using drugs. He holds my eye. “I’m really trying not to.”

When Martin was on his pitch outside the Coop on Princess Victoria Street a while ago, a bloke asked him to watch his bike, saying he’d forgotten his lock. When he came out of the shop again, the man’s coat was bulging with stolen goods. The security guard came after him, saw Martin with the bike and had him up as an accessory to the crime. “How could I know he was going to do that? I’d never even seen him before.” Nonetheless, Martin lost his pitch.

Now he’s back, on the other side of the street, just outside a bank. “The number of people who leave their money hanging out of the cash point,” he says. “I grab it and run after them and they always look scared, then like they can’t believe that I’d returned it.”

Mags in hand, I wait on the kerb, smiling expectantly at passers-by. “Big Issue, sir? Big Issue, madam?” Two electricians completely blank me; as do a succession of smirking, permatanned students in boating shoes and Barbour jackets. And then, half an hour in, our luck begins to change. Our first customer’s a young woman who carefully counts out the exact change. “Anything with Ewan McGregor on it gets my vote!” she laughs. “Women in their 30s are the best customers,” says Martin. Soon, the mags are shifting more steadily – the bulk of them to Martin’s regulars – tweedy gents and little old ladies, mostly.

A man in an £80k Porsche looks physically pained as he realizes he’s parked beside us. “Good morning,” we call.

He jangles his keys hurriedly in the air, in lieu of an actual greeting. Money doesn’t buy manners, it seems. A van pulls up, delivering saffron and truffles to the deli across the road. The driver clocks us and locks his door nervously.

The drizzle becomes rain and the crowds thin out. The blank looks and aloof disdain begin to wear us down. We started out with 10 copies; by 11.30 we’ve sold eight. The last two take another hour to shift – one to a twinkly-eyed middle-aged woman with bike panniers, the last to a well-heeled businessman who apologizes in a booming baritone for not having time to chat. Bless him.

From a vendor’s perspective, a friendly ‘hello’, even a simple ‘no thanks’ brings huge warmth. Sure, it’s best if you buy a magazine, but most people don’t, and Martin’s sanguine about that. “Of course not everyone wants one – there’d never be enough if they did. But it’s not buying it or not that matters – it’s how you go about it.”

So next time you spot one of those bright Big Issue bibs in the street, go on, give ’em a smile.

FFI: WWW.BIGISSUE.COM

november 2011 // 27

10/26/2011 2:52:24 PM

PIC: RICHARD CANON

Gimme shelter A growing population, spiralling house prices and a shortage of affordable accommodation add up to a market that can’t meet the demand for housing in the South West. Eugene Byrne reports.

B

ristol is facing a major housing shortage, thanks to a perfect storm of financial, economic and planning problems. The shortage is likely to last for several years before it starts to get any better.

The problems the city faces are, on the surface, similar to those that many other places are going to have to deal with in years to come. But there are differences. On the one hand, Bristol’s economic problems are not as severe as those of most other cities. The downside, however, is that its population is growing faster than that of most other places. The population problem is, of course, a sign of economic success.

The economy is in the doldrums, the

28 // november 2011

News Feature 974.indd 28

housing market is in bad shape. Between 2007 and now, something like half the estate agents in Britain went out of business, or decided to do something

“It’s becoming clear that we have a totally dysfunctional housing market in the South West.”

Jenny allen, national housing federation

worthwhile with their lives instead.

House prices are stagnating, and lenders are wary. Back in the day you could get a 100% mortgage quite easily, but nowadays the norm is closer to 75%, meaning that first-time buyers need a much larger deposit. While prices might not be as high as they used to be, you’ll have a hard time finding a half-decent basic place in Bristol for much less than £150k. If you had to slap down a 25% deposit on that, that’s thirty seven and a half grand.

At the same time, there simply aren’t enough new houses being built. Again, this is partly a result of the economic downturn and the problems developers and builders are having in raising finance or in being able to sell the properties they build.

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 4:43:24 PM

One of the first actions of the Coalition government on coming to power was taken by Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles, who tore up Labour’s Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs), which placed house-building targets on local councils around the country. The RSSs were no big deal in Bristol, which always maintained that the 26,000 new homes it was supposed to have – and still hopes to have – by 2030 can mostly be built on brownfield sites in the city. But in neighbouring authorities, especially North Somerset and Bath & North East Somerset, the RSSs were detested by local NIMBYs who feared their pleasant villages and rural areas would be plastered in new houses, some of them on green belt land.

There is virtually no likelihood of the green belt around Bristol being built on anytime soon. Many will say this is a good thing. But it doesn’t solve the housing shortage.

Meanwhile, the Coalition have proved themselves true friends of Middle England in other ways. The shortage of housing and difficulty in getting mortgages means more people are renting. Those people who bought places to rent out during the “buy-to-let” boom of a few years ago are now quite happy.

Private sector rents are rising.

Average rents in the private sector in the South West region are forecast to increase by 18.9% over the next five years, fuelled by high demand and a shortage of properties. Oxford Economics, in a report for the National Housing Federation (NHF), which represents England’s housing associations, predict that average rents in the South West will rise from £448 a month in 2011 to £533 in 2016.

The amount of private rented housing in Bristol is probably equal to the amount of social housing. The last time this happened was in 1918, when sizeable proportions of the city’s population lived in slums.

Meanwhile, the government wants to reduce the housing benefit bill. One of the biggest worries is an obscure change so that claimants under the age of 35 will be assumed to be sharing rented accommodation. If they’re not, they’ll have to find the extra money to make up the benefit shortfall. A lot won’t be

venuemagazine

News Feature 974.indd 29

able to do this and there will be less and less accommodation for the poorest, and private sector landlords are less likely to want to take on tenants on benefits.

You’re going to get more bedsits and shared homes – houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), in the jargon – and some of those houses are going to have tenants with seriously chaotic lives.

The NHF’s South West Manager, Jenny Allen, told Venue: “It’s clear that the welfare reform agenda is going to leave many people on low incomes feeling even more squeezed. There are specific issues of concern to us, such as the move to reduce the level of housing benefit paid for people of working age who are deemed to under-occupy their homes.

This could lead to people falling behind on their rent and potentially losing their home. Housing associations are committed to assisting their tenants with any difficulties they might have and many have financial inclusion and advice services. However, given that this squeeze is going to be felt across the private and social rented sectors, I think there will unfortunately be a rise in homelessness. I don’t have any idea of likely numbers.”

At the same time, Bristol’s population is growing hugely, and in less than 20 years might have increased by a third (see panel).

Bristol City Council’s housing register, which bands applicants according to how urgent their needs are and seeks to house them, has over 15,000 names. While about a quarter of these are already housed and are requesting a transfer, it’s still a rise of 3,000 on three years ago. Once the new benefit rules kick in, officials expect the numbers to grow, and the numbers of people who are actually homeless will almost certainly rise as well.

Cllr Anthony Negus (LD, Cotham), Cabinet Member for Housing, Property Services and Regeneration at Bristol City Council, says there’s only so much that the council can do. “We have made provision for 26,000 new homes over the planning period and would expect production of both market and social housing to return to higher levels once market conditions improve. Funding of social housing will depend on government decisions on the public finances.”

The problems we now face have much

Bristol's population explosion

// Bristol’s population steadily declined from the 1950s before stabilising in the 1990s. It has been growing since then. The UK population has increased by an estimated 5.3% since 2001, but Bristol’s population has increased by more than double that, around 13%.

There are now about 440,000 people living in Bristol. If the trend of the last 10 years continues, there’ll be another 133,000 by 2028.

This growth of 30% would be one of the highest in the UK. This is just within the boundaries of Bristol City Council. The wider built-up area – sometimes called Greater Bristol, or the Bristol Urban Area – has a population of 630,000. Three quarters of the population growth in the last 10 years has been within the city council area.

The population rise has been caused by a high rate of migration, coupled with an increasing birth-rate. Large numbers of people, both white British and ethnic minority, have moved here in recent years. After white Britons, the two largest incomer groups have been Poles and Somalis.

The birth-rate has been rising because some ethnic minority groups tend to have larger families, but also because more and more women over 30, who have put off childbirth for economic or career reasons, are now choosing to have them.

There were 6,230 live births in Bristol in 2009. Some 321 of these were to mothers who had been born in Somalia. Some 192 were to mothers born in Poland. Around 28% of reception year children in Bristol’s primary schools are from a black, minority or other ethnic group.

While the population is increasing, the size of households in Bristol is getting smaller.

Currently, 38% of all households in Bristol are one-person households, 37% comprise of a couple with no other adult (but might have children), 7% are couples with one or more other adults, 8% are lone parent households and the remaining 10% are multi-person (e.g. student shared houses). Some 23% of all households in Bristol include dependent children. By 2028, about 43% of all households in the city will comprise a single person.

The highest concentrations of lone-parent families are found in the local authority housing areas of Bristol (e.g. Southmead, Lockleaze, Hartcliffe) where up to 20% of all households are lone-parent households. The lowest percentages of lone-parent families are in the affluent suburbs of north west Bristol.

november 2011 // 29

10/25/2011 4:43:37 PM

Twilight Talks Join us for a series of FREE evening talks. Book now to reserve your place.

TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 6 pm to 7 pm Ways of supporting and developing achievement in Bristol schools

Speakers Dr Ruth Deakin Crick ‘Developing learning power in Bristol schools’; Professor Rosamund Sutherland ‘Supporting transitions across Bristol schools’ Venue Graduate School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol, BS8 1JA Admission free, but booking required by visiting web: survey.bris.ac.uk/red/festival1nov2011

THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER 6 pm to 7 pm The Big Society in Bristol

Speaker Professor Alex Marsh, School for Policy Studies Venue Tobacco Factory (in the Green Room), Raleigh Road, BS3 1TF Admission free, but booking required by visiting web: survey.bris.ac.uk/red/festival3nov2011 The University of Bristol is hosting this event, and the event on 1 November, as part of the Economic and Social Research Council Festival of Social Science 2011.

THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER 6 pm to 7.30 pm Italy at 150: the Nation and its identities

This event explores the diverse ways in which Italy and Italians have been made and remade since the birth of the nationstate 150 years ago.

Speakers Dr Ruth Glynn, Dr Charles Burdett and Dr Catherine O’Rawe, Department of Italian Venue Watershed, 1 Canon’s Road, Harbourside, BS1 5TX Admission free, but booking is required by contacting Diane Thorne; tel +44 (0)117 33 18318, email: diane.thorne@bristol.ac.uk

Further information from tel: +44 (0)117 33 18313 email: cpe-info@bristol.ac.uk

bristol.ac.uk/twilight-talks 30 // NOVEMber 2011

p30.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:03:50 PM

older roots, he says: specifically the Thatcher government’s introduction of ‘Right to Buy’ in the 1980s, which enabled council tenants to buy their homes, often for bargain prices. “We do not have enough homes in this city. Both Labour and Conservative governments have not managed to build enough to cover those lost from social housing under ‘Right To Buy’. House-building is a fast stimulus to a dormant economy and solves problems at one end while taking people off benefit at the other. But building is not enough. The homes need to be taken up, either by buyers who need access to funds, or a sustainable and dynamic affordable housing model.”

The council is sitting on a lot of land all over the place, and hopes to make more of it available to build on. It also gives small amounts of money in capital subsidies to social housing organisations to help them build. It’s also looking at loosening up the current regulations which demand that a certain percentage of new private developments are “affordable” homes.

Currently developers are supposed to make 30% of a development affordable in outlying parts of town, and 40% in the middle of town. They might ease up on these for a while to get various developments moving again.

Bristol is also making a lot of noise about bringing empty properties back into use. Empty houses and flats all over the place are rarely owned by landlords; more usually they’re empty because the owner has died, or gone into a care home, and the rest of the family aren’t sure what to do about it. Sometimes places are empty for completely inexplicable reasons. The council will step in and try to persuade the owner to rent it out, offering loans or rent guarantees to help.

This works fine with a place that’s been empty for six months or less and which is therefore in reasonable condition.

For places that have been empty longer, there are more drastic measures, such as compulsory purchase orders. Under the slogan ‘No Use Empty’ the council continues to remind owners of the advantages of bringing properties onto the market. “We cannot be certain exactly what the effect will be as so many factors are at play. However, we increased by 50

venuemagazine

News Feature 974.indd 31

the number of empties brought into use in 2010/11, over the target of 400, and we are hoping for similar delivery in 2011/12 with our enhanced No Use Empty campaign,” says Cllr Negus.

“It is very difficult to predict what the relaxation of the planning rules will deliver, but crucially it sends a signal to the market that we are willing to flex when conditions are difficult. It has been welcomed by at least one developer already. We are also looking at other measures, such as release of council land to housing associations and mortgage assistance to help increase supply and stimulate the market.”

In the meantime, things are going to get bumpy. Jenny Allen of the NHF: “Home ownership has been moving out of the reach of average and lower income earners for some time, but now – with further price rises expected in the next five years and private sector rents set to increase significantly too – it’s becoming clear that we have a totally dysfunctional housing market in the South West. With waiting lists already topping 148,000 [throughout the region] and housebuilding at its lowest level in 90 years we’re facing a major crisis.”

Houses: we all need one...

Failure to launch?

// More and more young adults are nowadays supposed to be living with their parents longer, or returning to the nest after finishing university because they can’t afford a place of their own. Often they’re in the homes of parents who, 20 or 30 years ago got out of the family home at the first opportunity, and wouldn’t have dreamed of returning. Steve Norwood, 49, divorced and something in local government, lives in Bristol with daughter Bryony, 22, a trainee nurse, and James, 24, a fine art graduate who currently works in a supermarket.

If you’re a teenager, or the parent of secondary school-age children, this is what your home life might look like in 10 years’ time.

“I’d have been surprised if they weren’t still living with me. I’ve single-parented the little darlings since they were knee high so they’re used to my levels of cooking and hygiene (low).

“Theoretically, they’re supposed to pay me 20% of their income, but in reality this barely covers food, let alone bills. My daughter often simply declares she can’t afford to pay this month, usually because she’s spent it all on going out. We argue, but obviously I’m not going to evict her.

“My daughter and her fiancé live in a large back room which has an en suite, so they’re fairly well self-contained apart from use of the kitchen. He’s a builder, and they did up the back room at their own cost in lieu of rent. They plan to stay for at least a couple of years. My son could probably afford to rent elsewhere, but I think he likes living at home, and it saves him a load of money.

“There are some strains, as with any group of people living together. My daughter is disgustingly messy, and on the rare occasions she cooks, the squalid mess is enough to ruin any appetite. Another problem – with both of them – is they leave lights, TVs, radios switched on all the f*cking time. My daughter often adjusts the thermostat so the house is boiling hot all bl**dy night because she felt slightly chilly 10 minutes before going to bed.

“My daughter and her bloke will probably eventually buy a cheap dump of a house and do it up. My son will probably end up living with his girlfriend. They certainly won’t be with me when they’re 40 because I will either be dead or drooling in an old people’s home.

november 2011 // 31

10/25/2011 4:43:55 PM

Newshound GoING UP

THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF LAST MONTH...(and some other stuff) //

FA’s mismatched pants scandal

T

he referee may have been right on a technicality but I cannot believe that when that rule was made, the intended consequence was that 16- and 17-year-olds should have to change their shorts in public at the side of a pitch. That cannot be the right thing to be done at this level.” That was Bath City FC chair Manda Rigby speaking at the end of September after the club’s youth academy team lost 6-0 to Newport County. Bath’s loss was largely as a result of a controversial referee decision over underpants.

FA rules state that underwear must be the same colour as players’ shorts (who knew?).

When one of City’s team of 16- and 17-year-olds was injured, the referee noticed white cycling shorts poking out from underneath his (red) shorts and ordered him to change.

The ref also noticed another Bath player not wearing red undies and asked him to leave the field as well. One was ordered to remove the underwear below his cycling shorts – after the referee also took exception to their

// FACT BITES // BRISTOL’S RUBBISH COLLECTIONS AND RECYCLING ARE ALL CHANGING IN THE NEW YEAR. YOU’LL BE GETTING A LEAFLET.

Not impressed: Bath City FC chair Manda Rigby

colour – and had to return wearing nothing under his shorts. Both players had to change on the sidelines in front of the 149-strong crowd at Spytty Park.

But as they were about to come back onto the field, County scored.

In the ensuing protests the player who changed his underwear and a substitute (look, it’s complicated) were all sent off. City youth manager Billy Clark was also sent off when he challenged the decision.

January 2012

When Bristol city council starts bringing in various changes to rubbish collection and recycling.

240 Litres

Capacity of most Bristolians’ wheelie bins.

Enough to take four or so big black bin bags (BBBBs).

180 Litres

What you can get into the new bins that’ll replace them. Enough for three BBBBs. So you’ll recycle more. Hopefully.

Three BBBBs

The amount you’ll be allowed to leave out for collection if you live in a flat and don’t have a bin.

32 // november 2011

Newshound 974.indd 32

City officials conceded that the team’s defeat was not all down to the underwear issue. The Football Association told the BBC that during the match, three players were sent off for foul and abusive language and two for second yellow cards.

Ms Rigby said she had tried to talk to the referee after the game, but that he had locked himself in his room.

The English and Welsh FAs are believed to be investigating the matter.

Green

Colour of new recycling box coming in for plastics. But only certain types of plastic, mind.

£96 million

Cost of council’s new recycling contract with private firm May Gurney. Cheaper than the last one, but you’ll recycle more. Hopefully.

Rising inflation unemployment shrivelling paypackets and soaring food prices

Science!... The long-delayed Bristol & Bath Science Park at Emersons Green was formally opened at the end of September.

The park is intended to bring together scientific and technical boffinry from the universities with the private sector to create profitable new businesses. The hope is that one day it’ll be home to 6,000 high-earning spods turning out useful stuff in medicine, IT, aerospace and more.

The opening ceremony included the unveiling of three glass sculptures by local artist Luke Jerram.

See s-park.co.uk Pushy parents...

The Bristol Free School, one of the taxpayerfunded independent schools being pioneered

by Michael Gove, has announced that it will be based permanently in Brentry. When the school was first mooted, principally by parents in the affluent suburbs, they wanted it to be in the leafy glades and Victorian buildings of the former St Ursula’s private school in Westbury-on-Trym. The Free School focuses on a “traditional” curriculum and many parents doubtless hoped to get a private school type of education in a private school building all at taxpayers’ expense.

Now if the free school produces excellent results from some old office buildings in the middle of Southmead, it’ll be all the more impressive, won’t it?

GOING DOWN

Other things that’ll probably cut down on our domestic rubbish a fair bit.

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 10:11:55 AM

email editor@venue.co.uk web www.venue.co.uk

Say what?

Hi, dear, I’m home...

Working on the computer?

Yes! I’ve had this brilliant idea for a computer game called Evil Weapons Conglomerate.

How does it work?

You start off as this defence company which is privatised by the British government and must make as much profit as possible. You do this by selling arms, sometimes to dodgy regimes. You get extra points for selling overpriced and completely inappropriate weapons systems to impoverished African countries.

old aerospace industry, an industry which is still doing OK, even in these terrible economic times. I mean, what part of “you can’t have an aerospace industry without a f*cking runway” would even a politician not understand?

It’s only a game. Nothing so absurd could possibly happen in real life.

So back in your game, what happens to the airport?

You sell it for housing. You get the public relations pond-life in to give the roads names like Concorde Avenue, Blenheim Ha-ha! Evil!

Crescent and Concorde Way. Then you own a lovely big Then, as the aerospace industry airfield in North Bristol that’s declines because there’s no not a busy international airport, runway, and people get made so you tell everyone it’s losing redundant, you can repossess money and that it must be the houses. sold. Even though it did make a profit in the last year! You also Nasty. persuade the local Tory MP that Oh, it gets better. See, in the there really is no alternative. meantime you buy up the local robotics industry, and Ha! Sell Filton airfield? The build repo-bots – repossession heart of Bristol’s centuryrobots to take back the houses

venuemagazine

Newshound 974.indd 33

and everything in them. These robots can clear out a house in minutes, and auction its contents online while they’re doing it. It means you don’t have to give jobs to humans.

So what about when all these angry workers join the Occupy Bristol camp on College Green?

College Green? You just buy it, then sell it to a Russian oligarch or just give it to some Saudi prince as a birthday present.

How does the game end?

Either you’re living in your island lair with lots of henchmen pointing nuclear weapons at the world’s capitals, or you sell your company, which by 2030 comprises the whole of the British defence industry, to the Chinese government.

Nope, sorry, but that’s the most ridiculous, unbelievable scheme you’ve ever come up with.

Indeed. By the way, see www. savefiltonairfield.org

//Round

these parts // You probably walk past it every day...

No. 25 The White Tree // At the northern end of the Downs there’s a road junction known as White Tree Roundabout. Close to the roundabout, to the north west, is a tree, whose trunk is painted white. That’ll be the White Tree, then.

There’s been a white tree here since the 1860s, probably earlier, and nobody’s exactly sure why.

There are theories, though. The very poshlooking St Monica’s old folks’ home nearby was built in the 1920s on the site of a local mansion called Cote House. In the 1840s a man named George Ames lived here and he had a tutor come up some evenings to teach his children German. There being no street lighting up here, he was said to have had a tree-trunk coated with lime-wash to guide the man up on winter evenings. It was also suggested that it was painted by another man who lived nearby to show his dinnerguests where to turn off to find his house.

Another, later inhabitant of Cote House was also said to have painted the tree white on account of his coachman, who liked a drink or two. The tree was to guide the wretched flunky home when he was p*ssed.

In any event, maintaining the whiteness of the tree seems to have become a traditional responsibility of Cote House by the late 1800s, with the head gardener going at it with a bucket of whitewash once a year.

The original was felled in 1951, long after Cote House was gone, to make way for the roundabout. It was replaced, but this one died of Dutch Elm Disease in the early 1970s.

The current one, a lime, was paid for by a local church pensioners’ group and planted on 28 January 1974. It’s looked after by the council’s Downs Rangers team.

november 2011 // 33

10/26/2011 10:12:20 AM

clstickets.co.uk A Spectacular night of Queen with the Bohemians

Friday 11th November Indoor Christmas Market

Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th November

New Years Eve Party

Featuring Bobby Paul as Elton John, plus disco and as much as you can eat buffet

Saturday 31st December

Bath Cider Festival

Friday 10th & Saturday 11th February Roller Skating - All Ages

Over16â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s every monday 7.30-10pm under 11â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s every tuesday 4.30-7pm family skating every monday 4.30-7pm bristol cider festival 27th & 28th january For tickets: www.clstickets.co.uk or 01225 330 304

34 // NOVEMber 2011

p34.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:04:50 PM

WEB FLUFF BRISTOL SURGEON PEELS A GRAPE USING LATEST TECH tinyurl.com/6foceuz

NEW SCIENCE MAGAZINE SITE FROM BRISTOL UNI www.experimentationonline.co.uk/

HEARTWARMING LITTLE FILM FOR BRISTOL CYCLISTS tinyurl.com/5u8kxxg

NEW SITE AIMS TO “COLLABORATIVELY ARCHIVE THE WORLD’S BUILT ENVIRONMENT” openbuildings.com

“DIARY OF A BENEFIT SCROUNGER” – WOMAN WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS BLOGS diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/

// The mists of time // So what was Venue going on about in November 2001?

Well, we’d finally stopped complaining that nobody was going on a Space Odyssey. Ten years ago we were now talking about stuff like this... // Bristol band Kosheen were going to be the next big thing and were due to play the Academy as support to Faithless. Singer Sian Evans told Venue she’d gone from living on bags of rice on the side of a Welsh mountain to almost-stardom, but some of the press had exaggerated things slightly. “I haven’t been in a f*cking limo! I don’t know

venuemagazine

Newshound 974.indd 35

Newshound

The News, Digested

Occupy Bristol… Gorilla auction… BBC shakeup… Crime… Cleese… // As Venue went to press, the Occupy Bristol camp was still in place on College Green, with activists saying they intended to stay there until Christmas and possibly beyond.

Bristol City Council and the Cathedral authorities were voicing concern over the use of the area for public events and landing emergency helicopters. The camp is one of a number in a worldwide protest movement against the global political and economic system. For more, see occupybristoluk.wordpress.com follow #occupybristoluk on Twitter. There is also a Facebook page at tinyurl. com/6fvggy2

appeal which is raising money for the cardiology unit at Bristol Children’s Hospital. The most popular of the 61 gorillas to be auctioned was dressed like Isambard Kingdom Brunel and raised £23,000.

// The auction of the lifesized gorilla statues which were placed in locations all over Bristol this summer raised over £427,000 for charity. The gorillas were to mark the 175th anniversary of Bristol Zoo’s opening, and the money raised at auction went towards conservation projects helping gorillas in the wild, and towards Wallace & Gromit’s grand

// The BBC is to move its factual TV programmemaking from Birmingham to Bristol as part of a wider reorganisation. Programmes ranging from ‘Hairy Bikers’ through to ‘Countryfile’ will now be based in Bristol. The BBC’s controller of factual production Tom Archer said: “Bristol is the largest centre of documentary and factual in-house television production outside London and is, of course, home to the jewel in the BBC’s television crown, the Natural History Unit. A world-class independent production and post-production centre has grown up around it.” At the same time, however, cuts at the BBC have reduced the amount of local programming, and the corporation is likely to move

where they got that from. People have been ringing me and saying ‘where’s this limo then?’”... Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, inventor of dub and all-round off-the-wall geezer, was interviewed before coming to Bristol. He said: “God is black. The black record plastic can prove that to you. Look at the sun when it casts a shadow. That’s the Spirit. The Spirit is black.”... News: “The Bristolian, a photocopied newsletter which generally circulates in east Bristol and which is plainly the work of anarchist troublemakers and soapdodgers with no respect for the laws of defamation is now available online.” Say, whatever happened to the Bristolian?... We had a letter from Cllr Richard Eddy (Con, Bishopsworth) who had recently been in hot water for his PC-baiting antic of claiming a golliwog was

Bristol City Council Conservative group’s new mascot. “P.S.,” he ended: “I won’t be going on my equalities course until I’ve completed the ‘assertiveness training’ to confront those scary militant lesbian trainers.” What a card!... Another letter: “In the toy shop close to where I work they’re selling a ‘Harry Potter (TM) torch’ which - get this! - ‘glows in the dark’! Well of course it glows in the dark. It’s a f*cking torch!”... Oh yes, the first Harry Potter movie had just come out... Everyone had the newfangled internet by now, but that didn’t stop Venue’s special “online” supplement telling everyone how to use Google and having an office show-down between Google and the Yellow Pages. Oh, but there’s more to it than this. The local papers were uploading archived

out of its Whiteladies Road premises for a cheaper site in the coming years. // Government figures show Bristol’s secondary school exam results are continuing to improve, with 77% of GCSE entrants now passing five or more at grades A*-C, compared with just 47% five years ago. // Students and young people living in shared houses and bedsits are three times more likely to be burgled than other residents of Bristol, according to a campaign run by the Safer Bristol partnership this autumn. House burglaries often peak at this time of year, and there’s advice on domestic security at www. bristolneighbours.com // Actor and comedian John Cleese is to switch on Bath’s annual Christmas Lights on Thursday 17 November.

The former Python now lives in Bath with his partner Jennifer Wade. The pair will press the button on stage at the bottom of Milsom Street at 6.30pm. The evening’s programme of entertainment, featuring local talent, starts at 5pm.

stories from previous years. “A friend and I recently went back to mine from the pub,” wrote our correspondent, “and spent a delightful time looking to see if any of our former schoolmates from our Alma Mater in darkest Somerset had been in the papers. One had won an accountancy prize, and a kid I’d particularly hated was in the bankruptcy courts. The kid who’d bullied me in the first year had died in a mysterious farm accident, and a former PE teacher had been sent down for groping boys. Absolutely bloody priceless!”

november 2011 // 35

10/26/2011 10:12:48 AM

p36.indd 1

10/26/2011 12:05:32 PM

Film

sponsored

Short cuts This year’s Encounters has everything from Bruce Robinson to dancing genitalia. What more could you want from a short film festival? asks Robin Askew.

P

op quiz! Where might you find ‘Withnail and I’ director Bruce Robinson, ‘Ren and Stimpy’ creator John Kricfalusi, a new local film starring Keynsham’s very own Bill Bailey, a vintage movie bus, a pop-up cinema, and, erm, a crooning penis backed by a quartet of gyrating vaginas?

There’s only one correct answer and that’s the 17th annual, internationally renowned Encounters short film festival, which takes place across Bristol from 16-20 November. The live action screenings are mostly at the Watershed, animation can be found at the Arnolfini, and The Cube cinema joins in with its own idiosyncratic event. With hundreds of films from around the globe being screened, your best bet is

probably to start by taking a punt

on one of the many British and international programmes, which are always filled with gems. We can’t possibly mention everything here, but let’s take a look at the festival highlights, beginning with those big-name guests.

With the troubled ‘The Rum Diary’ finally about to hit cinemas, Bruce Robinson should have plenty to talk about in his career retrospective, including his struggle with alcoholism and that semi-autobiographical cult classic ‘Withnail and I’. Animator John Kricfalusi discusses his favourite animation in this year’s Desert Island Flicks. Francine Stock, presenter of Radio 4’s ‘The Film Programme’, talks about our relationship with film in an event organised with the Festival of Ideas. And Turner Prize-nominated artist and director of ‘Nowhere Boy’ Sam Taylor-Wood leads this year’s BAFTA masterclass. Special events include a collaboration between John ‘JJ’ Garden of the Scissor Sisters (and son of Goodie Graeme) and the Birdman of Alkijazz, Tony Orrell, who’ll be presenting a live score to four experimental shorts at the Arnolfini.

There are familiar faces on screen too, including Peter Mullan in ‘Long Distance Information’, directed by former Jesus and Mary Chain bassist Douglas Hart; Matthew Holness of Garth Marenghi fame who directs and stars in ‘A Gun for George’; and Michael Fassbender in ‘Pitch Black Heist’. Mark Benton, Kathy Burke and Tamsin Greig can be heard in Francesca Adams’s animation ‘Bertie Crisp’, while Bill Nighy provides the voice of ‘The Man with the Stolen Heart’.

That Bill Bailey film? It’s called ‘Car Park Babylon’, co-directed by Bailey and Joe Magee, with the great arena-filling comedian as a man trapped in a car park on Christmas Eve. You’ll find this in the Best of South West programme, which also includes ‘Ella’ by Screen International’s Star of Tomorrow Dan Gitsham; veteran local filmmaker Paul Dudbridge’s ‘Maria’, in which a prostitute goes back to school only to find that her first teacher is a very familiar figure; and Stuart Napier’s domestic drama ‘Little White Lies’.

For younger punters, Fresh Flix runs throughout November

by

and has been programmed in collaboration with Encounters.

This includes a screenwriting masterclass with BAFTA winner Tony Marchant and model animation workshops for children (7+) with Aardman’s Jim Parkyn.

In addition, there are screenings of kid-friendly shorts plus two film premieres: French animation ‘A Cat in Paris’ and ‘Red Dog’ – an adaptation of the bestseller about a scrappy stray by ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ author Louis de Bernieres.

Away from the Watershed and Arnolfini, The Cube joins in with the ‘Magical Misery Tour’ by People Like Us – aka audio-visual artist Vicki Bennett, who creates deliciously perverse collages, drawn mostly from horror movies.

There’s also a ‘pop-up cinema’ at the Showroom (21 College Green, bottom of Park Street) from Mon 14-Sun 20, open 10am-6pm, showcasing talent from across the city. Admission to this is free. You also don’t have to pay to get into the vintage movie bus, which will be parked up outside M Shed and screening archive shorts on the weekend of Sat 19 and Sun 20.

ENCOUNTERS RUNS FROM NOV 16-20.

SEE WWW.ENCOUNTERS-FESTIVAL. ORG.UK/ AND WWW.VENUE.CO.UK FOR FULL LISTINGS.

Clockwise from left: the Encounters vintage movie bus; the star-voiced 'Bertie Crisp'; the South West-conceived 'Ella'; 'Withnail...' director Bruce Robinson and 'A Gun for George'

“Your best bet is probably to start by taking a punt on one of the many British and international programmes.” venuemagazine

Film Feature 974.indd 37

november 2011 // 37

10/26/2011 10:14:46 AM

Film

sponsored

by

// THE MONTH AHEAD // The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (TBC) // (Dir: Bill Condon) There’s no reason why anyone who isn’t a girl aged 15 or under should be remotely interested in this. But every single one of them will be going to see it, making the latest Twilight flick the biggest hit of the month. Should you be interested, boring Bella has finally decided to marry the big-haired vampire rather than the bare-chested wolfboy.

But sex comes at a price in this ghastly saga – even leg-overs in wedlock – and she promptly finds herself up the spout with a mutant sprog that’s growing at a prodigious rate. Will she explode or will Mr Big-Hair grant her wish to become an immortal vampire? Because the distributors have decided to milk this Harry Potter-style, you’ll have to wait a whole year (16 Nov, 2012) to find out how it all ends. Twi-Hards (no, really – that’s what they’re called) may also be interested to know that many cinemas will be having a ‘Twi-athlon’ of all the previous films on Thur 17, culminating in the first screening of this new one just after midnight.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 IS OUT ON 18 NOV

The Rum Diary (15) // (Dir: Bruce Robinson, 120 mins) It’s been in the works for so long that even the late Hunter S Thompson got tired of all the procrastination, writing a letter to the then producer back in 2001 despairing of what he memorably described as a “waterhead fuckaround”. Ten years on, this troubled adaptation of Thompson’s first novel, with Johnny Depp in the lead role, finally crawls into cinemas. It’s directed by unprolific Bruce (‘Withnail and I’) Robinson, who’s the star guest at this month’s Encounters film festival.

THE RUM DIARY IS OUT ON 11 NOV

Wuthering Heights (15) // (Dir: Andrea Arnold, 129 mins) ‘Red Road’ and ‘Fish Tank’ director Andrea Arnold was never going to deliver a cosy, sanitised costume drama. Indeed, her sweary, earthy, verité-style arthouse adaptation of the Emily Brontë classic has already provoked walk-outs among the posh bonnet ‘n’ corset brigade at festival screenings. In keeping with Bronte’s own description, Arnold sought but failed to find a Romany actor to play Heathcliff, casting instead James Howson – the first black thesp to play the role. Kaya Scodelario of ‘Skins’ fame plays Catherine.

// (Dir: Andrew Niccol, 109 mins) Andrew Niccol, director of ‘S1m0ne’ and writer of ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘Gattaca’, ventures into ‘Logan’s Run’ territory with this dystopian fable set in a world where nobody gets any older than 25. The catch is that once they reach this age, they’re genetically programmed to perish after one more year. Only by buying more time can they stay alive. Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS OUT ON 11 NOV

IN TIME IS OUT ON 4 NOV

38 // November 2011

Film Month Ahead 974.indd 38

In Time (12A)

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 3:58:08 PM

'Immortals 3D' - might be a load of old guff, but with Tarsem Singh at the helm, at least it'll look good

OCTOBER 28 // Anonymous (12A) (Dir: Roland Emmerich, 130 mins) Expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth among academics as respected Shakespearean scholar Roland (‘Godzilla’, 10,000BC’, ‘2012’) Emmerich turns his attention to who actually bashed out the Bard’s work. Still, it’s got quite a cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave (as Queen Elizabeth I), Rafe Spall, Joely Richardson and David Thewlis // Demons Never Die (15) (Dir: Arjun Rose, 93 mins) Urban hipster hack ‘n’ slash horror in which a bunch of people from ‘Hollyoaks’ and the like form an improbable suicide pact but then find themselves offed one-by-one by a rotter in a mask before they can kill themselves. // The Help (12A) See review on page 41. // Miss Bala (15) See review on page 42. // Ghostbusters (12A) (pictured, right) (Dir: Ivan Reitman, 105 mins) Who ya gonna call… when the latest crop of Halloween flicks are looking rather crappy? Why Ivan Reitman, of course, for a revival of the biggest comedy of the 80s. It’s still great fun, with a wonderfully deadpan Bill Murray. But the BBFC have just raised the certificate from ‘PG’ to ‘12A’. We’re not sure exactly what’s made the film marginally more offensive to the censors’ finely tuned sensibilities than it was nearly 30 years ago, as their reasoning hadn’t been made public

// STILL

SHOWING //

//Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (12A) See review on page 41. // Contagion (12A) See review on page 41. // Dolphin Tale 3D (U) (Dir: Charles Martin Smith, 112 mins) Anodyne child/injured aquatic beast bonding flick. // Footloose (12A) (Dir: Craig Brewer, 113 mins) Squares vs Kids hoofing remake, which has failed to drum up much business. // The Inbetweeners Movie (15) (Dir: Ben Palmer, 97 mins) The unexpected hit of the summer,

venuemagazine

Film Month Ahead 974.indd 39

as we went to press. Expect to see ‘Ghostbusters’ locally at the Cinema De Lux and Vue Cribbs Causeway cinemas. // The Ides of March (15) See review on page 44. // Sket (15) (Dir: Nirpal Bhogal, 83 mins) The latest release from UK urban indie drama specialists Revolver, who gave us ‘Anuvahood’.

It’s another inner-city gangland flick. Ashley Walters stars, as usual. // The Adventures of Tintin (PG) See review on page 40.

NOVEMBER 4

Fancy a film this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings

romantic comedy centred on two working-class New York couples, which owes an obvious debt to Paddy Chayefsky’s ‘Marty’.

Hoffman reprises the role he played off-Broadway: a socially awkward, overweight limo driver who affects an unusual woolly hat and shirt ‘n’ tie combo. // Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (12A) (Dir: Wayne Wang, 104 mins) Wayne Wang attempts to repeat the success of ‘The Joy Luck Club’ with another multigeneration chick flick. This one intertwines the experiences of two modern-day Chinese women with those of their 19th-century ancestors. // Straw Dogs (18) (Dir: Rod Lurie, 110 mins) This month’s utterly pointless remake transposes Sam Peckinpah’s controversial 1971 film from Cornwall to Mississippi.

Apparently, director Rod Lurie was also eager to make it all rather less bleak. You can groan now. // Weekend (18) See review on page 42.

It’s directed by Tarsem Singh – he of the magnificent ‘The Fall’.

So even if it does turn out to be guff, it’s bound to look ravishing.

The story? Nasty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, stop sniggering at the back) has declared war on humanity and laid waste to Rome in search of a maguffin that has the power to unleash the scary Titans.

Only humble peasant Theseus (Henry Cavill) can stop him. // Tabloid (15) See review on page 44. // Trespass (15) See review on page 44.

// Machine Gun Preacher (15) (Dir: Marc Forster, 129 mins) ‘Kite Runner’ director Marc Foster helms yet another of those ‘inspirational’ true stories. This one stars Gerard Butler as a drug-dealing biker who finds Gawd and sets out to build an orphanage in war-torn East Africa. // Tower Heist (TBC) (Dir: Brett Ratner) Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller – a comic dream team, apparently – star in a topical action-comedy about a bunch of Ordinary Joes deciding to take revenge on the billionaire Wall Street swindler (Alan Alda) who made off with their pensions. // The Future (12A) (Dir: Miranda July, 91 mins) See review on page 43. // Jack Goes Boating (15) (Dir: Philip Seymour Hoffman, 91 mins) Postponed from earlier in the year, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s confident directorial debut is a slow-burning, unconventional, somewhat self-consciously quirky

NOVEMBER 11 // Arthur Christmas (PG) See feature on pages 18-19 and review on page 40. // The Awakening (15) See review on page 43. // Immortals 3D (TBC) (Dir: Tarsem Singh) On the surface, this looks like a lot of old guff in the ‘Clash of the Titans’ mould, with that “’From the producers of ‘300’” tag threatening much high preposterousness. But wait!

// Justice (15) (Dir: Roger Donaldson, 105 mins) November’s second Nicolas Cage ‘wronged man’ flick – yes, they sure do spoil us – casts him as a humble schoolteacher whose wife, January Jones, is raped and brutally beaten. He’s then approached by Guy Pearce, who offers to slay the scumbag responsible. Little does he anticipate that Pearce’s vigilante group now expects him to return the favour. // Snowtown (TBC) See review on page 42. // The British Guide to Showing Off (15) See review on page 43.

now finally beginning to wane with nearly £45m in the kitty.

Depressingly, this means a gazillion me-too projects are now being greenlit. HHHHH // Jane Eyre (PG) (Dir: Cary Fukanaga, 121 mins) A fresh, visually impressive adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë classic from the director of ‘Sin Nombre’, with excellent performances by Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender and Judi Dench. HHHHH // Johnny English Reborn (PG) (Dir: Oliver Parker, 101 mins) Rowan Atkinson pulls his rubber face again in a feeble spy spoof sequel and is rewarded with another chart topper.

No accounting for taste. // The Lion King 3D (U) (Dir: Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 89 mins)

Uncle Walt milks another £6m from his 1994 hit with a 3D makeover.

Rather worryingly, it’s doing much better than most new releases.

HHHHH // Midnight in Paris (12A) (Dir: Woody Allen, 94 mins) The Woodster gets whimsical and playful again, enjoying his biggest box office hit in years. HHHHH // Monte Carlo (PG) (Dir: Thomas Bezucha, 109 mins) Tweenie hymn to unmerited fame and fortune, whose unlikely plot has Selena Gomez posing as a snooty English heiress.

HHHHH // Paranormal Activity 3 (15) (Dir: Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, 84 mins) The directors of ‘Catfish’ take over for the third instalment of surveillance cam spookery.

// Real Steel (12A) (Dir: Shawn levy, 127 mins) Robot smackdown and gooey father/son bonding from the Disney stable. // The Three Musketeers 3D (12A) (Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson, 110 mins) The Dumas classic gets a frantic 3D steampunk makeover that’ll have you yearning for the 1973 Richard Lester version. // Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (15) Gary Oldman is George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson’s downbeat yet brilliant adaptation of the John le Carré Cold War spy classic. HHHHH // We Need to Talk About Kevin (15) (Dir: Lynne Ramsay, 112 mins) Tilda Swinton stars in the arthouse ‘The Omen’, freely adapted by Lynne Ramsay from Lionel Shriver’s epistolary novel. HHHHH

NOVEMBER 18

november 2011 // 39

10/25/2011 3:59:31 PM

Film

sponsored

// REVIEWS //

by

The peeping tom’s new disguise worked a treat

Review

Arthur Christmas (PG) UK/USA 2011 Dir: Sarah Smith Starring (voices): James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Ashley Jensen, Imelda Staunton // A step up from the unhappy experience that was Aardman’s previous foray into CGI, ‘Flushed Away’, ‘Arthur Christmas’ is the first fruit of the great Bristol animation studio’s new alliance with Sony.

There are only traces here of what one might describe as the distinctive Aardmanesque style pioneered

by Peter Lord and Nick Park. But astonishing as it might seem, ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ wasn’t a huge success internationally and the Aardfolk know they need the

broadest possible appeal to secure a global hit. The good news is that (a) it’s one of the least mawkish Christmas movies ever made, and (b) it’s genuinely funny and inventive with a great voice cast.

The story kicks off with a precocious little girl from Cornwall writing to Santa at the North Pole fretting that she can’t find his grotto on Google Earth and that exponential global population growth means he couldn’t possibly visit every child on Christmas Eve. Except, of course, that he can, thanks to an army of elves and a giant high-tech craft called the S1, which helps them reach one household every 18.14 seconds. The military-style operation is overseen

by bumbling Santa’s (Broadbent) son and heir Steve (Laurie): a soulless, preening management type who contends that “Christmas isn’t a time for emotion” and dismisses his father as no more than “a fatty in a suit”. Steve craves his inheritance, but it’s his brother, geeky Christmas nerd Arthur (McAvoy), who has to save the day when a child is missed out. In this, he’s assisted by perky elf Bryony (Jensen) and the film’s real star, crotchety old Grandsanta (Nighy), who never tires of pointing out that things were better in his day.

Although the film labours in the shadow of Pixar, which isn’t helped by the fact that vainglorious Steve looks a little like Mr. Incredible

while Arthur resembles Linguini from ‘Ratatouille’, its depiction of the dysfunctional Santa clan means we’re spared most of the family values guff that lesser animations trade in. The globe-trotting story zips along with plenty of blinkand-you’ll-miss-it funny business in the margins (watch out for the giant tube of ‘Chimney Lube’ in the corner of Grandsanta’s lair), including several nods in the direction of Wallace and Gromit. It’s also the first children’s animation to namecheck the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.arthurchristmas. com/ Opens: November 11

Review The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (PG)

USA 2011 107 mins Dir: Steven Spielberg Starring: Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Andy Serkis // The purists, the nostalgics, and - worst of all - the nostalgic purists have all got their knives in early. So with expectations duly lowered, it’s a moderate pleasure to report that the Spielberg/Peter Jackson (producing) Tintin is… okay-ish. The good? A terrific, Saul Bass-ish opening credits sequence, making a promise that is never fulfilled, and several splendid animated set-pieces: Tintin’s Chaplinesque attempt to retrieve a set of keys from a cabin full of dozing cutthroats, who slide back and forth as their ship bobs up and down on the waves; Captain Haddock’s in-flight refuelling of a single prop plane using only the alcoholic fumes from his breath; a typically Spielbergian climactic chase sequence, and so

40 // november 2011

Film Reviews 974.indd 40

on. The bad? That bloody ‘motion capture’ process, which still looks unsettling and fake when applied to human characters. Compare, if you will, Andy Serkis’s brilliantly nuanced performance as Caesar in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ with his comparatively inexpressive Haddock. And this is the best character. They could have hired just about anyone as bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson; it’s only by consulting the credits that you’ll learn they’re played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost Still, all our favourite nonsweary exclamations (“Great snakes!” “Blistering barnacles!”

“Thundering typhoons!”) are here, and there are sly references to other adventures (‘Cigars of the Pharaoh’, etc), while the main story by the Brit scripting dream team of Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish cheekily

lifts bits from the likes of ‘The Crab with the Golden Claws’ as Jamie Bell’s bland boy reporter and his faithful hound Snowy embark on a globe-trotting adventure that brings them into contact with bibulous seafarer Haddock for the first time, while Daniel Craig gets the villain role.

As one might expect, the whole thing proceeds at a pace more suited to a child experiencing terminal sugar rush than a connoisseur gently turning the pages of a dog-eared Herge

hardback, soaking up all that subtlety and wit. But - hey! what did you expect? And there are compensations in the form of some terrific flourishes by the animators charged with helping Spielberg spend his $130m budget, such as rough seas morphing into desert dunes, even if the sequel set-up at the end seems a tad presumptuous. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.tintin.com/ Opens: October 28

“Thank god - we won’t have to use Snowy for sexual gratification anymore!”

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 3:24:48 PM

Film

www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99

Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings

Review Contagion (12A) USA 2011 106 mins Dir: Steven Soderbergh Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Ehle // Steven Soderbergh fashions an old-skool, multi-character all-star disaster movie that begins with the death - and agreeably grisly autopsy - of Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s centred on what is arguably the most likely cause of mankind’s demise: a global pandemic spreading rapidly through increasingly mobile and dense populations. We’ve been here before, of course; not least with diddy Dustin Hoffman suiting up to save California in ‘Outbreak’. But

Soderbergh’s chief innovation is to explore the impact of the internet on a swiftly evolving situation. While it’s about time that film-makers lifted the blogging/twittering rock to take a critical look at those unappealing bugs scuttling about in the darkness - ‘The Anti-Social Network’, if you will - you’d hope they’d find someone a little less one-dimensional than a mad-eyed, self-aggrandising Jude Law in 9/11 ‘truther’ mode, plausibly filling the information vacuum with selfserving conspiracy theory bullshit and finding himself elevated by the dinosaur media to the status of respected commentator purely because he has 12 million credulous

‘unique visitors’.

Anyhoo, this is pretty gripping stuff with all your favourite genre staples, from the onscreen calendar of doom and scary mortality projections to the maverick boffin working on a vaccine, oily politicians attempting to damp down the panic (“It’s the biggest shopping weekend of the year!”), hawkish Homeland Security types eager to blame an enemy, and loads of portentous dialogue (“Should I call someone?”

“Call everyone!”). Sticking firmly to formula, Soderbergh focuses on individual human stories as quarantines and social disorder ensue. But there are some clever satirical touches too. Law’s character

Jude spotted members of the alien lizard Bilderberg freemason conspiracy

pursues an MMR-style anti-vaccine agenda while promoting a bogus homoeopathic remedy, and the vaccine distribution method is, literally, a 21st century lottery.

(Robin Askew)HHHHH Website contagionmovie. warnerbros.com/index.html Now showing

Review Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (12A) “Afro of the Year? Me?”

Sweden 2011 96 mins Dir: Goran Hugo Olsson // A necessarily rather scrappy documentary whose natural home is on TV rather than in the cinema, ‘Black Power Mixtape’ is compiled from footage that reportedly languished in a cellar at the Swedish

television archives for nearly three decades. Quite why Swedish TV was seemingly so obsessed with the US black power movement remains a mystery, but the broadcasters’ reverential and largely uncritical approach so infuriated the American government that they temporarily cut off diplomatic relations in 1972.

Director Goran Olsson presents the material in chronological chapters, with voiceover contributions from modern commentators and, occasionally, the surviving activists themselves, exploring how the struggle against racism has changed over the intervening years. Despite the claims

made on its behalf, much of the footage isn’t particularly interesting - with two exceptions. There’s some great early film of the charismatic Stokely Carmichael, who playfully grabs the microphone to interview his elderly mum, Mabel. Later, the Swedes bagged exclusive footage of Angela Davis behind bars in California State Prison.

An opening caption is careful to point out that this is no definitive account of the movement, but there’s a worrying lack of serious analysis.

Controversial and fiery Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is given a particularly easy ride.

Amusingly, he seems just as

exercised by the humble porker (“the filthy swine… that ugly creature!”) as he is by whitey (“a race of devils”). The film is, however, a treat for connoisseurs of 70s tonsorial fashions, from Davis’s amazing afro to the white lawyers’ beards and extravagant comb-overs. Watch out too for an amusing sequence where Swedish tourists are taken on a guided bus ride through the wilds of Harlem like nervous punters driving through the lion enclosure at a safari park. (Robin Askew) HHHHH

maid, she alights on the idea of recording the experiences of these black women who spend their lives raising white children. This brings her into conflict with eminently hissable, Stepford-esque, racist town queen bee Bryce Dallas Howard, whose proposed Home Health Sanitation Initiative would make it compulsory for households to build separate bathrooms for their domestic negroes on the grounds that “they carry different diseases”.

You don’t need satnav to find your way to the end credits from here. The fearful maids who have to be coaxed into participating run the usual gamut of stereotypes from stoic and noble (Viola Davis) to large and sassy (Octavia Spencer, Queen Latifah presumably being unavailable).

At least there’s a bit of humour to leaven all the leaden platitudes and sermons, though Howard’s crowdpleasing scatological come-uppance is milked for a full 30 minutes, potentially launching a new genre: the inspirational grossout. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website thehelpmovie.com/us/ Opens: October 28

Website www.story.se/films/themixtape96/ Now showing

Review The Help (12A) USA 2011 146 mins Dir: Tate Taylor Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain // Adapted from the inevitably Oprah-approved bestseller by Kathryn Stockett, this sprawling, mushy epic set against the backdrop of the sixties civil rights movement in Mississippi is yet another entry in the undistinguished genre of movies revealing how black folks achieved liberation only through the intervention of well-meaning whitey.

That’s Spike Lee revolving beneath the topsoil in his career graveyard as Tate Taylor’s politically timid crowd-

venuemagazine

Film Reviews 974.indd 41

pleaser makes everyone who isn’t actively a member of the Klan feel good about themselves.

Perky Emma Stone plays the liberal figure who returns home from college with her head full of dangerous new-fangled ideas about pursuing a career as a journalist rather than bagging a man and becoming a housewife. After landing a crappy job on the local rag and tussling with her evasive parents over what became of the family’s

“Quick - hide: it’s patronising whitey again!”

november 2011 // 41

10/24/2011 7:18:44 PM

Film

sponsored

Review Miss Bala (15) Mexico 2011 113 mins Subtitles Dir: Gerardo Naranjo Starring: Stephanie Sigman, James Russo, Noe Hernandez // In the ever-expanding cinema of attractive young Latino women sucked into the international drugs trade, this new film from Gerardo Naranjo, Mexican director of ‘I’m Gonna Explode’, stands tall alongside ‘Maria Full of Grace’.

Dirt-poor 23-year-old Laura (Sigman) lives with her dad and little brother in the border town of Tijuana, Baja California. With her pal Suzu, she decides to enter the local Miss Baja beauty contest (the title’s no misprint but a play on words that translates as ‘Miss Bullet’, in case you’re wondering).

But when she follows Suzu to what appears to be Mexico’s grimmest nightclub, which has all the appeal of a works canteen crossed with a multistorey car park, a bunch of heavily armed gangsters burst in and open fire. Miraculously, Laura survives and approaches a traffic cop in the hope that he’ll help her find out what happened to Suzu. Surprise! He’s as bent as virtually everyone else in Mexico as a result of the corrupting influence of the drugs trade, and promptly delivers her into the gnarly hands of limping, leering Mr Big, Lino (Hernandez), who’s engaged in a violent war with the DEA. Inspired by a real story and casting a genuine former model in the lead

by

She always got maximum points in the ‘Diving for Cover’ round

role, this marks a major step forward for Naranjo, who stages some thrilling set-pieces - including a street shoot-out that’s textbook Michael Mann - without losing sight of the story’s human and political dimensions. Noe Hernandez’s Lino manages to be ruthless and menacing without resorting to Mexploitation scenery-chewing, while the debuting Stephanie Sigman

is remarkably convincing as the trapped, exploited and helpless Laura, who is clearly intended as a proxy for ordinary Mexican people caught in the crossfire of increasingly violent drug gang warfare. (Robin Askew) HHHHH

Russell (Cullen) makes his excuses and leaves, ostensibly to go home and get a bit of kip. On an impulse, he visits a local gay bar instead, eventually winding up in bed with art gallery worker Glen (New). The following morning, Glen insists on tape recording Russell’s thoughts on what he wanted from the encounter for some kind of nebulous ‘project’.

He’s rather more opinionated and aggressive than the laidback Russell, who seems to compartmentalise his life, but nonetheless a real connection is made and this deepens over the course of the weekend.

The full stop is a tad contrived, but mercifully not the one you might

fear. Writer/director Andrew Haigh often appears to plonk the duo in real environments, shooting their exchanges unobtrusively from a distance as unwitting punters go about their business. His perceptive dialogue adds to the sense of realism, notably Glen’s musing on how we present ourselves in the early stages of a relationship. And you’ve got to applaud a film that sets up and then takes the piss out of its own cheesy Richard Curtis moment. (Robin Askew) HHHHH

convincing performance as the bigoted, manipulative, occasionally charming psycho who homes in on and grooms impressionable waifs and strays until they’re inescapably drawn in to his world of torture and murder. Brilliant early scenes show him whipping up an anti-paedo lynch mob mentality among the local boozers’n’losers, who little suspect that this is not just selfrighteous bravado. Lucas Pittaway gives a strong performance as Jamie, but you may be forgiven for not being entirely convinced by his transformation, which isn’t helped by a needlessly convoluted narrative.

First-time director Justin Kurzel grew

up in the area where the murders took place and skilfully walks the tightrope between depicting the gruesome events exploitatively and sanitising them, though sensitive dog lovers should perhaps be warned that ‘Snowtown’ achieves ‘Tyrannosaur’ levels of offscreen pooch abuse.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH

Website www.missbala.com/ Opens: October 28

Review Weekend (18)

“So when do they announce the winner of the stubble-growing contest?”

UK 2011 97 mins Dir: Andrew Haigh Starring: Tom Cullen, Chris New // Imagine that Richard Linklater had set ‘Before Sunrise’ amid the

tower blocks of Nottingham rather than the canals of Venice. And that instead of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, he’d cast a pair of horny, stubbly gay chaps. And rather than having no sex in the course of one night, they enjoy lots of sweaty man sex, plus all sorts of drugs, over two hedonistic nights. That’s ‘Weekend’ in a nutshell: a believable and naturalistic brief homosexual encounter, which, rather refreshingly, isn’t concerned with familiar gay movie guff about ‘coming out’ trauma but addresses instead universal themes of love, sex and identity.

After partying with his straight mates, twentysomething lifeguard

Website www.weekend-film.com/ Opens: November 4

Review Snowtown (18) Australia 2011 120 mins Dir: Justin Kurzel Starring: Daniel Henshall, Lucas Pittaway, Louise Harris // Rather like last year’s ‘Animal Kingdom’, ‘Snowtown’ puts on screen a true story set in an Australian underclass milieu that’s far removed from the familiar touristy images presented by the likes of Baz Luhrmann. In fact, this might just rank as the most bleak and squalid drama yet to emerge from Down Under, being based on the career of Australia’s most notorious serial killer.

The setting is detritus-strewn Snowtown, a grim northern suburb

42 // november 2011

Film Reviews 974.indd 42

of Adelaide, in the mid-1990s. Things aren’t going well for church-going, poverty-stricken, chain-smoking single mother Elizabeth Harvey (Harris), not least because her latest boyfriend is a kiddy-fiddler who’s been abusing her youngest sons.

The focus is on 16-year-old Jamie (Pittaway), who yearns for escape from this hopeless life. One morning, bearded, chummy John Bunting (Henshall) appears at the breakfast table. He quickly becomes a mentor and surrogate father figure to Jamie, but… you know where this is going right?

The only professional actor in the cast, Henshall gives a thoroughly

Website www.snowtownthemovie.com/ Opens: November 18 “I could murder my barber!”

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 7:21:07 PM

F

www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99

Review The Future (12A) USA 2011 91 mins Dir: Miranda July Starring: Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky, Isabella Acres // An old geezer proudly recites his bawdy limerick about Santa.

A nightshirt takes on a life of its own and starts crawling about. An earnest little girl buries herself up to her neck in the back lawn. A man manages to stop time and engage in an existential conversation with the moon. His girlfriend has random sex with a bloke whose phone number she finds on the back of a drawing.

Oh, and the whole thing’s narrated in squeaky-cutesy style by a cat

with an injured paw, voiced by the director herself.

The prospect of a film directed by a performance artist is so heart-sinking that it came as an enormous relief when Miranda July’s debut ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’ turned out not to be a feast of whimsy and pretentiousness but an eccentrically transgressive exploration of loneliness. Alas, her relentlessly quirky follow-up seems hell-bent on confirming all the prejudices she previously overturned. It centres on a borderline-insufferable thirtysomething couple sharing a cramped LA flat. Highly-strung

Review The Awakening (15) UK 2011 107 mins Dir: Nick Murphy Starring: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton // It’ll never happen in real life, but there’s nothing more satisfying in a well-crafted ghost story than the rationalist debunker being confounded by a supernatural entity.

And there’s no better setting for these things than the immediate post-WWI era. That’s partly because we don’t have to put up with endless CCTV footage but mainly because, as writer Stephen Volk (creator of the Bristol-set TV series ‘Afterlife’) clearly recognises, this was a golden age of charlatanry, cashing in on

the millions whose lives had been devastated by the Great War and 1918 influenza pandemic. ‘The Awakening’ isn’t without its faults, mostly in the rather overblown third act, but benefits from an excellent cast, a spooky setting, and characters whose actions are rooted in genuine trauma. Anyone who enjoyed such slowburning haunted house flicks as ‘The Orphanage’, ‘The Others’ and ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ should dive right in.

Rebecca Hall excels as Florence Cathcart, a strident, educated atheist and author of ‘Seeing Through Ghosts’, who specialises in exposing fraudulent mediums at considerable

For film listings and more reviews visit venue.co.uk/film Sophie (July) teaches dance to little girls, while slackerish Jason (Linklater) runs a computer helpline.

Both seem wedded to their laptops rather than each other, the only thing they have in common being a haircut. But when they decide to adopt a sickly cat from an animal shelter, which will be available for collection when its treatment is completed in 30 days, this induces some kind of mutual anxiety about where the drifting duo’s lives are going. It’s a promising theme, but the film then proceeds to drown in its own self-conscious kookiness, leaving us wondering what self-

“Don’t talk, just tweet.”

respecting animal charity would ever entrust a cat to such a drippy pair of flakes. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website thefuturethefuture.com/ Opens November 4

“Damn these dim energy-saving lightbulbs!”

cost to her own grief-stricken psyche.

Summoned to a remote, imposing Cumbrian boys’ boarding school in 1921 by war-wounded teacher Robert Mallory (West, fresh from playing his namesake Fred), Florence swiftly rumbles the kid responsible for a ‘ghost’ that caused the death of a fellow pupil. But before she can leave, she encounters an apparition that she cannot explain. With term ending, she has the run of the place with Mallory and adoring matron

Maud (Staunton). The big twist takes some swallowing and will be a tad familiar to genre enthusiasts. But by then director Nick Murphy has put in the necessary groundwork to persuade most of us to suspend disbelief, serving up a terrifically chilling dolls house sequence along the way. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/film/ the_awakening Opens: November 11

Review The British Guide to Showing Off (15)

“No, really: everybody will be wearing this next year!”

UK 2011 97 mins Dir: Jes Benstock // If you’ve a high tolerance of exceedingly camp middle-aged men and retina-burning primary colours, this is the outsider (performance) art documentary for you. Never knowingly under-dressed, sculptor and ‘living legend’ Andrew Logan

venuemagazine

Film Reviews 974.indd 43

has been the organiser of the unruly Alternative Miss World contest since 1972. Jes Benstock’s suitably exuberant film intersperses the pageant’s colourful history with preparations for the 2009 event, peppered with Gilliam-esque cut-out animations. Along the way, there are archive footage walk-ons for all the usual suspects (Derek Jarman, Divine, etc) and interviews with the likes of Brian Eno and Grayson Perry, plus plenty of outrageous reminiscence (“There were blow-jobs everywhere!”).

Sixty-six year-old Logan won his first fancy dress contest on Coronation Day and recalls dropping acid at Oxford in the sixties,

which probably explains a lot.

Billed as a celebration of personal transformation, his Alternative Miss World has always appealed to outsiders and the in-crowd alike, embracing glam, punk and, latterly, the millennial misfit/freak boom.

The contest was won by men until 1985, when the prize was awarded to a robot. Although endless footage of chaps dressed as giant phalluswielding meringues and the like can get a bit tiresome, Benstock leavens it with some terrific anecdotes (Logan’s encounter with the young Tony Blair, the obese contestant who broke the catwalk, etc) and accounts of the pageant’s endearingly

shambolic organisation. Perhaps most interesting is how it has responded to outside events, being banned from Chislehurst Caves in 1986 in a ludicrous AIDS scare and later putting a defiant two fingers up to Clause 28. The contest’s growing international reputation means that contestants now flock from as far afield as Russia and Nigeria, where they are still shamefully denied the basic human right to parade around in preposterous costumes. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www. britishguidetoshowingoff.com/ Opens: November 20

november 2011 // 43

10/24/2011 7:21:26 PM

Film

sponsored

by

Review Tabloid (15) USA 2010 87 mins Dir: Errol Morris // Best known for heavy-duty documentaries such as the Oscar-winning ‘The Fog of War’, Errol Morris kicks back and has some fun with the notorious real-life case of the manacled Mormon. Back in 1977, former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney travelled to the UK to kidnap a young Mormon named Kirk Anderson. She then took him to an isolated Devon cottage, handcuffed him to the bed and allegedly forced him to become her sex slave for three days. Making inventive use of funny archive footage and sly

animations, Morris explores what became the perfect story in the circulation war between the Mirror and Express, as well as some of the wackier tenets of Mormon faith. Did you know they believe black people bear the mark of Cain, they wear magical underpants to ward off Satan, and eventually get to become gods with their own planets and everything?

Anderson declined to take part in Morris’s hugely enjoyable film, but the now matronly McKinney is happy to talk about how she fell for this handsome young man, who’s described by droll Express hack Peter Tory as flabby

and shuffling. The Express took deliciously unreliable McKinney’s side in the saga, while Tory’s rival at the Mirror, photographer Kent Gavin, uncovered damning evidence of her past as an escort specialising in bondage. The rather plausible suggestion is that Anderson was not an entirely passive participant in his ‘rape’ (“That’s like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter,” smirks McKinney). “Did you resist all seven times?” he was asked in court. Morris too has a great line in incredulous questioning (“You ripped off his magic underwear and burnt it?”). So is McKinney, as Tory suggests, “barking mad”?

Fido wondered why he needed so many leads and restraints

security system, the masked, gunwielding bad guys simply bluff their way in by pretending to be cops.

They seem unusually well-informed and have designs on the contents of Nic’s hidden safe. To complicate matters further, Nicole recognises the youngest villain (Gigandet), with whom some illicit hanky-panky may have occurred. As the clock ticks down towards the arbitrary deadline the robbers have set themselves, daft backstories and shoals of red herring emerge, while members of the family fail to flee when given ample opportunity to do so. Still, it’s almost worth seeing for the moment when slumming Oscar-winner Nicolas

“OK, OK – I won’t make any more films!”

Don’t form a judgement until you hear the coda about her cloned pit bull. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website tabloidmovie.com/ Opens November 11

Review Trespass (15) USA 2011 91 mins Dir: Joel Schumacher Starring: Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Cam Gigandet, Ben Mendelsohn, Liana Liberato // After a couple of films that sank without trace (‘Blood Creek’) or weren’t even released in the UK (‘Twelve’), Joel Schumacher returns to the single location thriller territory of ‘Phone Booth’ with this 80s-style yuppie home invasion flick.

Alas, most of the advance publicity hinged on star Nic Cage’s disruption of filming when he announced that he wanted to switch roles from good guy to bad guy. The main problem, however, is the increasingly

preposterous contrivance required to sustain the premise for 90 minutes. This despite the fact that Schumacher attempts to distract our attention with flashbacks, a new twist every 10 minutes, and an awful lot of shouting. That said, Cage is particularly good at shouting and seems to have accommodated his artistic vision by playing a good guy with a bad guy streak.

The B-movie set-up casts Cage as a workaholic diamond dealer, Nicole Kidman as his neglected spouse and Liana Liberato as their rebellious teen daughter. Since the family resides in a mansion protected by an ultra-high-tech

Cage bellows at fellow slumming Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman: “Your filthy lust invited them in!” (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website www.trespass-the-movie. com/ Opens November 11

Review The Ides of March (15) "I think we can be candid here. Nobody's listening."

USA 2011 101 mins Dir: George Clooney Starring: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei // Politicians and their campaign teams are duplicitous, scheming,

44 // november 2011

Film Reviews 974.indd 44

back-stabbing bastards, entirely bereft of morals or conscience, and anyone who enters their orbit with the slightest of hint of idealism is either chewed up and spat out or winds up as cynical and manipulative as the most vile practitioners of this darkest of arts.

Who’d have thunk it, huh? It’s safe to say that George Clooney isn’t exactly breaking new ground with this venture into ‘The Best Man’/’Primary Colors’ territory. But after the misfire of ‘Leatherheads’, ‘The Ides of March’ sees him back on form as director with a prime example of what swiveleyed right-wing American bloggers would describe, with lips so curled as

to cause permanent disfigurement, as a “Hollywood liberal movie”, reeking of the disillusion that swiftly sets in after the election of any Democrat president.

It’s all perfectly cast, with Clooney himself playing the handsome, soundbitey, Clintonesquely flawed governor of Pennsylvania, who’s engaged in a closely fought Ohio Primary. Philip Seymour Hoffman is his loyal, hard-nosed campaign manager, while Paul Giamatti is on excellent weaselly form as Hoffman’s opposite number in the rival camp.

But the real star here is Ryan Gosling (he can do action, he can do indie relationship misery, he can do

serious drama… is there anything he can’t do?) as Clooney’s young, ambitious, talented press agent, who becomes a pawn in a bigger political game.

An interest in US politics helps but is not essential, and those craving thrill-packed rollercoaster rides should seek their jollies elsewhere.

Anyone else with an exceedingly low opinion of the way in which ‘democratic’ politics is conducted should find plenty to savour in this sour (im)morality tale. (Robin Askew) HHHHH Website idesofmarch-movie.com/ Opens: October 28

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 3:30:00 PM

Film

www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99

For film listings and more reviews visit venue.co.uk/film

CINecisms Human Centipede … Black Country Communion …

Showing off … fetish night

I

t’s official: the ‘secret film’ at the inaugural Bristol FrightFest is indeed Tom Six’s recently unbanned, if heavily cut The Human Centipede 2 (pictured).

Five films in total will be screened in the Watershed’s all-nighter on Nov 4-5, with additional shorts programmed by Encounters.

Sated gorehounds can also book a “bloody cooked breakfest” (with more pleasant vegetarian option) to be served at 7am … Given the endless Saws and Paranormal Activities unleashed at this time of year, it’s no wonder that cinemas are looking to the past for Halloween treats. Bath’s Little Theatre has a Halloween/Carrie late-night double bill on Oct 29, while on Halloween itself, Oct 31,

the Cineworld revives The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Clevedon’s everclassy Curzon serves up Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu, with a live score by Minima… Top live music choice this month is ace supergroup Black Country Communion, featuring Jason Bonham (Led Zep), bluesrock titan Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater). Their ‘Live Over Europe’ show beams in to the Vue Cribbs Causeway on Nov 1 … Cult Japanese anime flick Redline comes to the Little Theatre for one night only on Nov 4 … Those with bulging dressing-up boxes will be delighted to learn of the ‘dress-up

BOX OFFICE

bUMS ON SEATS

venuemagazine

Film Box Office DVDs Cinecism 974.indd 45

Takings for the weekend of October 21-23

1

Paranormal Activity 3

£3,405,036 (new release)

2

Johnny English Reborn

6

The Three Musketeers

£585,506 (£2,609,714, 2 weeks)

7

We Need to Talk About Kevin

£2,052,062 (£12,906,637, 2 weeks)

£492,297 (new release)

3

8

Contagion

£1,477,055 (new release)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

£394,605 (£13,120,786, 6 weeks) Chart copyright Screen International

// Just like its predecessor, Paranormal Activity 3 (pictured) wasn’t shown to the press. And just like its predecessor, the film topped the box office charts on both sides of the Atlantic in the weekend before Halloween. This one also took much the same as ‘Paranormal Activity 2’. Same time next year for ‘Paranormal Activity 4’, then? Rowan Atkinson and his mirthless rubber-faced antics dropped to second place as Johnny English Reborn held off Steven Soderbergh’s pleasingly old-fashioned global pandemic flick, Contagion. As Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy starts to fade, the chattering classes are trooping en masse to see glum arthouse evil kid flick We Need To Talk About Kevin. In the battle for the pocket money pound, Disney’s reissued 3D version of The Lion King has now hauled in more loot than such modern animations as ‘Hop’. But it ain’t all good news for 3D, as the frantic new The Three Musketeers is struggling to find an audience.

preview’ of The British Guide to Showing Off (see review, page 43) at the Watershed on Nov 6 … Anyone in need of a good spanking should head to The Cube on Nov 20 for the Captain Zip Fetish Film Night.

Among the treats promised are “Miss Alexia teaching correct use of a whip” and “private play in fetish dungeons” … But perhaps the oddest cinema event of the month is Leonardo Live. Yep, it’s the opening of the big ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan’ exhibition at the National Gallery, broadcast live to cinemas on Nov 8 so you don’t have to haul ass to London and queue for hours.

4

The Lion King

£1,356,217 (£8,237,223, 3 weeks)

5

Real Steel

£842,597 (£2,887,193, 2 weeks)

9

Dolphin Tale

£364,921 (£1,008,971, 2 weeks))

10

Footloose

£270,794 (£1,068,225, 2 weeks)

// DVDs // Bridesmaids (15) // Ignore the off-putting title: this was the funniest comedy of the summer, offering Kirsten Wiig the star-making role she’s so richly deserved while demonstrating that a chick flick can deliver a food poisoning scene every bit as graphic as the grossout genre. It’s a raunchy comedy in the ‘Hangover’ mould in which the mostly vile male characters are completely sidelined in favour of a strong female cast. Refreshingly, the boring groom doesn’t even get a subplot. Out: Nov 14 HHHHH

ALSO RELEASED // Rare Exports (15) HHHHH The only Christmas film ever to feature copious full-frontal male nudity, this delicious Finnish flick’s Santa is the predatory folk demon who’s more concerned with punishing bad children than he is with rewarding good ones. Out: Nov 7 … A Separation (PG) HHHHH Divorce Iranian style in an engrossing, skilfully acted character study. Out: Nov 21 … X-Men: First Class (12) HHHHH Enjoyable prequel which hijacks WWII to add gravitas to its superhero origin tale. Out: Oct 31 … The Princess of Montpensier (15) HHHHH Handsomely staged 16th century epic from septuagenarian Bertrand Tavernier, setting an engrossing love story against the backdrop of the wars of religion. Out: Oct 31 … Bad Teacher (15) HHHHH Raunchy-ish comedy with Cameron Diaz as the misbehaving pedagogue who’s never really naughty enough, leaving Lucy Punch to steal every scene she’s in. Out: Oct 31 … The Tree of Life (12) HHHHH Terrence Malik gets cosmic - and not a little religious - on our asses with his audience-dividing mind-bender. Out: Oct 31 … Horrible Bosses (15) HHHHH Boss-murdering comedy worth seeing chiefly for Jennifer Aniston’s sexually aggressive dentist. Out: Nov 21 … Beautiful Lies (12) HHHHH ‘Priceless’ director Pierre Salvadori and star Audrey Tautou team up again for a frothy, enjoyable romcom about a hairdresser who attempts to set up her lonely mother with a man. Out: Nov 7.

november 2011 // 45

10/26/2011 9:51:16 AM

p46.indd 1

10/26/2011 12:06:22 PM

Music

For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music

I’ll be your Mireille Mireille Mathlener launches second album ‘Borrowed Land’ this month. Julian Owen goes Dutch.

I

t was in 2006, 10 years after arriving in the UK from her native Netherlands, that Mireille Mathlener took her courage in her hands. After a musical apprenticeship spent bending to the whim of others, it was time for “not having to rely on anybody else, not worry about having other people’s approval”.

You’ll understand why. Too shy to perform live, she’d recorded demos with her partner at the time, co-owner of a studio, but “it never really ended up sounding how we wanted, so it kind of fell apart.” The death of her ex’s business associate didn’t help.

Ambition undimmed, she carried on recording, and contributed backing vocals to “a band called Fabulator that did songs for the free CDs that come with the Daily Star”. Until, that is, the band’s mainstay died.

Thus, with death striking her musical house like a black-hooded metronome, the decision to get a place of her own in the form of a solo career. The first album was a simple affair, songs about relationships largely rendered in

a manner familiar to attendees at the live shows that see Mireille on guitar with 12-string backing from husband Richard Craine.

The second, ‘Borrowed Land’, is altogether a leap forward, a full band sound captured with customarily sharp detail by the denizens of Toybox Studios. “I can’t read music, so had to explain in words or feelings what I wanted, and Ali [Chant] has really helped me produce what I’d imagined it would sound like.”

In places heavy like Led Zep (specifically, ‘Misty Mountain Hop’), elsewhere employing spacey Morricone twang ’n’ roll (see album highlight, ‘Philomena O’Grady’), the predominant sound sources influence from the same place as her vowel-weighted phrasing: early years PJ Harvey (with a healthy side order of lip-curled poppery a la Chrissie Hynde).

The songs have evolved too, less about self, more about walking in other people’s shoes.

“It’s challenging, but fun – you go to sides of your personality that you wouldn’t necessarily be in normal life. Mireille isn’t a jilted voyeur looking through the window at another woman, or a

Super Trooper: a windswept Mathlener on top of Bristol's majestic hill (pic: marksimmonsphotography.com)

bit puritan and mourning the loss of a friend. You go to the darker side of yourself.” Consequently, the words and music prove the very antithesis of mellow drama, bold and big chorusing, protagonists “running as a child” or “watching from the shadows” or enquiring “Oh Anna, did you feel the pain when the sun came through your window?” Songs, in short, that demand to be sung while hitching up skirts to run in crazed romantic fervour and abandon across wild moors. Or possibly closer to home: Mark Simmons' splendidly in-keeping cover pic, straight from the Anton Corbijn school of black and white moodsome windsweepery, was shot on Troopers Hill.

It’s a rocking step closer to the Stones, Pretty Things, Kinks, the English acts that meant Mireille “dreamt of staying here when I was a teenager”. Studying at Bath Spa uni afforded her the opportunity to begin a decade living in the city. Five years ago she moved to Bristol, home to the venue – the Chelsea in Easton – where she met Richard. He was running an open mic night, a venture the pair jointly took first to the Robin Hood on St Michael’s

Hill and, currently, the Somerville in Bishopston. “You meet a lot of people, learn about yourself having to accommodate lots of different... characters.”

Handy for a role-playing songwriter, then. Venue wonders whether her outsider status also helps, or whether – after 15 years – that perspective has begun to fade. Quite the opposite. “I’m Dutch, that’s what I am, and I realise that more the older I get.

When I moved here I wanted to get away from the place where I grew up and having people looking over your shoulder. It was a release. Now I miss certain food, ice skating on the lake, or seasonal things like [winter holiday] Sinterklaas at the end of November. I also miss sitting in a square eating and drinking without drunk and disorderly behaviour.”

And on the positive side of the ledger? “Britain’s very diverse.

There’s more eccentricity here, and you can see that in the people.”

To a degree, travel is in the blood. Hence the album title.

“My ancestors come from western Austria, Mathlener literally translates as ‘Those of the borrowed land’.” For the foreseeable, though, she’s happy to restrict herself to journeys of the mind, destination: a place apparently reached by latercoming musical loves Neil Young and Aimee Mann. “They seem to do what they want to do, are true to themselves. It’s something to aspire to.”

MIREILLE MATHLENER LAUNCHES ‘BORROWED LAND’ AT THE FOLK HOUSE, BRISTOL ON FRI 4 NOV. FFI: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ MIREILLEMATHLENER.

venuemagazine

Music Feature 1 974.indd 47

november 2011 // 47

10/24/2011 5:24:37 PM

k

Music // THE MONTH AHEAD // ROCK Wild Beasts

1.

JAZZ Gretchen Parlato

// Unjustifiably absent from the Mercury Prize shortlist this year, these Kendal art poppers have undoubtedly found their niche with latest album ‘Smother’. The sometimes taxing hyperliteracy of early releases has evaporated and a new common thread has surfaced – a sultry sheen that pervades every aspect of their pulsing, lust-inducing jams.

2.

// Self-confessed ‘Valley Girl’ Gretchen Parlato’s very much the next big thing in jazz singing. With recording credits from Lionel Loueke, Terence Blanchard and Esperanza Spalding behind her, it’s the young American’s own music that’s getting critics drooling, with latest album ‘The Lost And Found’ showcasing her soulful delivery and impeccable musicality.

WILD BEASTS PLAY THE ANSON ROOMS, BRISTOL ON SAT 19 NOV.

CLASSICAL Mozartfest

ld

GRETCHEN PARLATO PASSES THROUGH ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL ON THUR 17 NOV.

// 20th birthday Bath Mozartfest is blowing out the candles with a typically pukka line-up which sends The Cardinall’s Musick on a ‘Mozart Pilgrimage’, tempts Alfred Brendel to muse on musical humour, dishes up groaning platters of top-drawer chamber music, and ends with Mark Elder’s Halle sending a postcard from Dvorak’s New World. Bath blossoms.

MOZARTFEST COLONISES BATH FROM FRI 11- SAT 19 NOV.

3.

ROCK Rock for Cancer Research

4.

5.

ROOTS William Elliott Whitmore

// Cancer research charity Abreast host an eclectic fundraiser, including music from folk songstress Katey Brooks, 80s heartthrob Chesney Hawkes, Phil King, Susy Thomas (pictured) and ‘Extras’ star Tish Potter.

// It’s not surprising to find that Whitmore was raised on a horse farm on the banks of the Mississippi; only these origins could breed the sincerity found in his gravelly, quieting Americana.

Equal parts foot stomping and beard stroking.

ROCK FOR CANCER RESEARCH IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL ON SUN 27 NOV.

WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE PLAYS ST BONAVENTURE’S, BRISTOL ON TUE 15 NOV.

48 // october 2011

Music Month Ahead 974.indd 48

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 7:02:00 PM

6.

ROCK Dutch Uncles // Repeat it enough and, much like Pearl Jam, the name loses most of the creepy associations. It’s fortunate, because there is nothing Dutch, nor indeed uncle-y, about them. Displaced Scandinavian guitar pop with a dash of distinctly British mid-noughties post-punk revival.

DUTCH UNCLES PLAY THE COOLER, BRISTOL ON SUN 27 NOV.

8.

// Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan is well-known for her appearances on Damien Rice’s ‘O’ and ‘9’, but with recent selfreleased ‘Passenger’ shooting straight to number one in the Irish charts, it’s clear she’s making a name for herself with her delicate, youthful folk songs.

7.

LISA HANNIGAN PLAYS ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL ON SUN 27 NOV.

JAZZ Tim Kliphuis/Dave Newton Trio // Probably the greatest exponent of the Hot Club swing violin, Dutchman Tim Kliphuis’s (pictured) collaboration with pianist/ composer David Newton has proved a meeting of like minds. Their regular jazz-meets-classical duo is a wow, and this threesome with veteran UK bass legend (and sometime Grappelli foil) Len Skeat will be the real deal.

TIM KLIPHUIS/DAVE NEWTON TRIO PLAY AT CHAPEL ARTS, BATH ON THUR 24 NOV.

ROCK Opeth

ROOTS Lisa Hannigan

9.

CLASSICAL WNO

// John Caird, director of WNO’s new ‘Don Giovanni’ describes the piece as “Mozart’s dark masterpiece, a complex study in sexual obsession and the exercise of power”. Lightening the mood is Rossini’s frothy ‘Barber of Seville’, while the highlight of the season has to be a revival of Katie Mitchell’s searing production of Janacek’s ‘Katya Kabanova’.

Unmissable!

WNO IS AT BRISTOL HIPPODROME FROM TUE 8-SAT 12 NOV.

10.

// The biggest band you’ve never heard of, Stockholm’s Albert Hallpacking Opeth moved from death metal to prog rock in three easy steps, acquiring a massive audience in the process. Ace, boundarypushing new album ‘Heritage’ (Roadrunner) even incorporates jazzfusion with guest percussionist Alex Acuna, formerly of Weather Report. It also propelled Opeth into the US top 20 for the first time.

OPETH PLAY THE O2 ACADEMY, BRISTOL ON TUE 8 NOV.

venuemagazine

Music Month Ahead 974.indd 49

october 2011 // 49

10/24/2011 7:02:57 PM

estivals • Weddings • Cor-

ents include:

Chill Bar, uncil, Paintworks, val,

Sound : Lighting : Staging Hire : Sales : Installations : Repairs Parties • Festivals • Weddings • Corporate tel 0845 224 5967 || 07812 111 646 web www.bes-systems.co.uk email info@b-e-s.co.uk

ry,

50 // NOVEMber 2011

p50.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:09:41 PM

Music Down to Earth

For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music

Paul Riley gets friendly with Edward Cowie to discuss the world’s first festival of music (and more) inspired by the natural world.

T

en minutes into a conversation with Edward Cowie, you find your hand heading nervously northwards to see whether an ear might need sewing back on. The unstoppable torrent of ideas and enthusiasm suggests an intellectual metabolism on overdrive. But then he’s got form. To the roll call of day jobs including composer, painter, author, scientist and academic, he’s just added another: festival director. For one action-packed week, Edward Cowie and Bristol are taking a walk on the wild side.

Nothing new for either, of course.

Zoo to the BBC Natural History Unit, Wildscreen to a recent gorilla fetish, Bristol’s been saying “wild thing I think I love you” for quite some time; for Cowie, his inspiration as both composer and artist has always come from the natural world, which he regards as “the ultimate laboratory of experience, a fabulous region of possibility”. “My own music,” he confesses, “isn’t rooted in other people’s notes, but in the behaviour of the natural world, its rich forms and symmetries. The idea for a festival like Earth Music Bristol

“I want to seed new talent and visions, spawn unexpected collaborations.”

Edward Cowie, Earth Music Bristol venuemagazine

Music Feature 2 974.indd 51

has been in my head for decades, but it was coming to St George’s for my piano piece ‘Rutherford’s Lights’ that got the ball rolling. The director of St George’s Suzanne Rolt felt we should go with it, Roger Wright, head of Radio 3, was keen, and with a whole range of people believing in the project, the thing snowballed, creating a unique marriage between Radios 3 and 4, and collaborations right across the city, film and exhibition, talks and a live feed from Slimbridge.”

The creative endorsement of the BBC has been crucial, Rolt suggests: “I’m really excited that Roger Wright has chosen to put it on down here, and invest teams from London for daily live broadcasts over five days. It’s the sort of blanket support usually reserved for something like the Proms, and it’s not just the concerts. They’ve commissioned the likes of Richard Mabey and Helen Dunmore to write and record a week’s worth of The Essay on Radio 3 and Radio 4’s Afternoon Story live during the festival. St George’s is open from 10am every day and I’m hoping that people will come in for the exhibition, maybe stay for a talk or hang on for a concert. There are just so many entry points in what the festival has to offer.”

But it starts with the music, of course, and even there the ‘entry points’ run the gamut of popularwith-a-twist to the adroitly arcane.

“Once I’d plotted the symphony orchestra concert,” says Cowie, “I’d got the ocean theme, and from water I moved to birds, so those are the two main strands.”

From the big guns of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the symphony Vaughan Williams fashioned out of his film music for ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ to a rather more-ish programme of English

Wild at heart: the Earth Music Ensemble

chamber music, from Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Elias Quartet to the BBC Singers (including a new piece by Cowie himself) and Messiaen pianist par excellence Peter Hill, there’s an enlightening eclecticism abroad. “I narrowed the works’ list down to about a thousand,” laughs Cowie, with no hint of exaggeration.

And if ‘The Four Seasons’ raises a crowd-pleasing curtain, period instrument flautist Stephen Preston adds some piquant Vivaldi to the pot before returning later in the week for something very different: a lunchtime concert of improvisation based on his own birdsong-derived theory of ecosonics. The night before, the BBC Concert Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth offers an atmospheric line-up which sets Vaughan Williams’s ‘Lark Ascending’ alongside Milhaud’s jazz-suffused ‘La Creation du Monde’ and Bartok’s magical ‘Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste’. With melting

Delius, Honneger, and Ravel, it’s a concert Rolt likes to see as “a sort of tasting menu, an ideal introduction to classical music for people who are maybe interested in the ideas of the festival but are not sure where to start musically.”

In the brochure’s ‘welcome’, Cowie is described as ‘Founder, Artistic Director’. That suggests a festival with legs and not just a one-off. “For sure,” he bats back.

“I’m already feeling my way towards the double theme of ‘space and place’ for March 2013. Some people say it’s a rough, tough time to make things happen, but I’m the kind of guy who refuses to sit down and give in. There’s no other festival like this; there’s great fertility for growth. I want to seed new talent and visions, spawn unexpected collaborations. Watch this space.”

EARTH MUSIC BRISTOL RUNS (MAINLY) AT ST GEORGE’S FROM 18-26 NOV. FFI: WWW.STGEORGESBRISTOL. CO.UK

november 2011 // 51

10/24/2011 5:27:50 PM

Hire Our Photo Booth For Your Christmas Party Get in touch through our website

www.itsyourbooth.com

or email us: enquiries@itsyourbooth.com

52 // NOVEMber 2011

p52.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:14:58 PM

Music

Got a gig to list?

Upload it to us at venue.co.uk/ submit-a-listing

// don't miss // St. Vincent

// ROCK Annie Clark brings ‘Strange Mercy’ to town. Expect poignantly vulnerable suburban narratives atop art rock synths, 70s Eno weirdness, Robert Fripp brake-grind guitar squeals and r’n’b slow jam beats.

ST. VINCENT FRI 11 NOV, FLEECE, BRISTOL

Guillemots

the big gig

James Blake Beer-wobbling bass and bruised emotion: Mike White falls for the electro-soul wunderkind. // We all end up a bit like our dads, and James Blake’s no exception. He’s been making waves of late with his melancholy mash of crisp electro and doe-eyed soul; his old man (the guitarist and singer James Litherland) once slid down the greasy banister of the avant garde too, genre blurring between improv jazz and prog rock with cult 60s fusioneers Colosseum.

James Jr began his career in the tangled world of experimental electronica, sculpting complex, bassheavy compositions. Latterly – most notably on his Mercury-nominated eponymous debut – he’s crossed over into more accessible, vocal-led territory, revealing a blue, boyish voice that’s (perhaps unsurprisingly) like a younger version of his dad’s – witness ‘The Wilhelm Scream’, Blake’s reworking of his dad’s song ‘Where to Turn’. The mix of tender, heart-on-sleeve singing with warped samplery, silence as punctuation, stark handclaps and subbass makes for a cerebral electro-soul hybrid that surely shares some DNA with early Jamie Lidell.

venuemagazine

Music Big Gig 974.indd 53

The current tour’s fresh lure is six-track EP ‘Enough Thunder’ (released 10 Oct), with four self-penned, self-produced new tracks alongside Blake’s porcelain reworking of Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case of You’ and a collaboration with campfire heartbreakers Bon Iver. But the real reason for catching him live is because it’s the only way of really experiencing the full majesty of those ghostly vocals and tectonic sub-bass. In the grassy bowl of Green Man Festival’s amphitheatre this year, your correspondent sat assuaging a hangover with a midafternoon pint. 55 seconds into Blake’s cover of Feist’s ‘Limit to Your Love’ the beer began to ripple like that cup of water in ‘Jurassic Park’ when T-Rex approaches. Then the very air started to vibrate, the bass wobble going chest deep. The song itself is tremulous piano soul, but delivered live, Blake’s electronic muscle renders it a shuddering, fully physical experience.

JAMES BLAKE PLAYS THE ANSON ROOMS, BRISTOL ON TUE 29 NOV. SEE UBU.TICKETABC. COM/EVENTS/JAMES-BLAKE/ FOR TICKETS.

// ROCK Guillemots’ aspirations to write international radio hits are thwarted by their noise rock, jazz and world music roots.

Disappointing for the band, perhaps, but a treat for those who get to watch this battle play out into euphoric, if not a little eccentric, pop anthems.

GUILLEMOTS FRI 4 NOV, TRINITY CENTRE, BRISTOL

Gillian Welch

// ROOTS Welch and musical partner David Rawlings return to the UK for the first time in almost a decade. Past experience dictates it will be a similar stretch before they next grace our shores; unmissable for Americana fans.

GILLIAN WELCH TUE 15 NOV, HIPPODROME, BRISTOL

Tubular Bells

// JAZZ/ROCK Latest starstudded collaboration between Adrian Portishead, Will Goldfrapp and Charles Everywhere (and others) brings Mike Oldfield’s prog multitracker back to life.

TUBULAR BELLS FRI 4 NOV, ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL

BSO/Karabits

// CLASSICAL After their dazzlingly surefooted Prokoviev at the beginning of the season, Karabits and the BSO come back ‘Hungary’ for more. Brahms’s fiery, paprika-flecked Violin Concerto partners Bartok’s showcase Concerto for Orchestra. Hot stuff.

THE BSO THUR 10 NOV, COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL

november 2011 // 53

10/24/2011 6:46:20 PM

54 // NOVEMber 2011

p54.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:16:56 PM

Reviews

www.fenn.it

// ALBUMS, SINGLES, EPs, downloads// FeNN

THE GROOVE FARM

‘Faces and Places’ (LP, Coda Productions)

‘I Know It’s Only Indie Pop… But I Like It’ (LP, Big Pink Cake)

// FeNN is the latest identity of Bradfordon-Avon-based electronica producer Jon Turner and, as such, he’s released a steady supply of music over the last three years or so. This largely ambient instrumental compilation covers all the postdance angles from Wobble-y (‘Hands’) to Moby (‘Lost In A Moment’), with Kraftwerk-y (‘Not Monday’) and dubby (‘What’s Your Name?’) thrown in. The latter track has some well-picked synth patches but on the whole the album’s strength is also its weakness: immaculately picked sounds all in the proper places and perfectly mixed, it can slip by rather too easily. (Tony Benjamin) HHHHH

// From ’86 to ’90, The Groove Farm inhabited the same fertile Bristol indie scene as The Flatmates, The Chesterfields and the cut-above Brilliant Corners.

As this compilation shows, TGF’s stock-in-trade was the jangly, three-minute thrashalong, looking backwards to punk (speed, DIY feel, aggrieved/outsider voice) while anticipating 90s indie’s texture, introspection and baggier tempos. ‘Surfin’ Into Your Heart’ (stompalong bass, anxious treble vocals) is pure Buzzcocks, while ‘Silly Phase’ (skittering fretwork, lolloping indie drums) recalls The Wedding Present. Too many of ‘IKIOIP’s 23 songs gust by in a blur and ‘Huh! Quite nice, that’ melodies, but there’s enough to underline TGF’s place as a footnote in Bristol pop culture. (Steve Wright) HHHHH www.bigpinkcake.co.uk

FOLLOW THE SUN

‘The Evening Light’ (EP/selfreleased) // Pushed just beyond ambient loveliness by gentle marches (see opener ‘Waves’) and faux-epic ride patterns (‘All Thats Gone’ [sic]), yet lacking the post-rock dynamics to lift it from watery vapidness, the problem with ‘The Evening Light’ is that it is caught fatally between two constitutions, consistently failing to commit itself fully enough to rouse any semblance of spirit. For all its pleasantness, it lacks the lustre to induce the blissful resignation of the dream pop it so reveres and, whilst there are hints of euphoria, it’s a nervous toe in the water compared to the total emersion these pieces would benefit limitlessly from.

(Leah Pritchard) HHHHH www. myspace.com/followthesunband

venuemagazine

Music CDs 974.indd 55

RAE

‘Era’ (LP, Dawn Chorus) // Bristol four-piece Rae have found a rich musical seam to mine here. Over a free-jazz backdrop and echoes of soul, blues and rasping, string-led folk, Leonie Evans’s vocals skitter up and down the register between soulful growl and ingénue tinkle, channelling bits from Björk, Piaf and Holliday. Evans’s bandmates understand how to complement her mercurial vocals, giving them space to breathe; switching nervelessly and judiciously from languorous, dying-swan mode to a funky, bass/ sax canter. ‘Era’’s irrepressible whimsy – imagine Amélie scatting with Ornette Coleman – may be too much for some ears: choke back a few prejudices, though, and you’ll find yourself wanting more of this. (Steve Wright) HHHHH www.raemusic.co.uk

TURBOWOLF

‘Turbowolf’ (LP, Hassle Records) // Chris Georgiadis: looks like a hunger-striking Zappa, sounds like Alice Cooper after too many Haribo. All shredded howls and skinny-jeaned high-kicks, he fronts Bristol’s hippest thrash foursome with a convincing mix of insouciance and insanity. Once upon a time, Venue featured the mighty ’Wolf on a covermount CD, and they’ve never looked back. Now they’re signed to heavy heads Hassle, surfing a tsunami of hype. Does their debut deliver?

In a word, yes. Thrash is the scaffold to which this twitching mass is roped, but its jerky limbs kick at punk, psych, even the odd sludgy churn of doom. It’s frighteningly overpowered, lean and howling mad – much like, er, a turbo wolf. (Mike White) HHHHH www.myspace.com/ turbowolfband

THE HIT UPS

‘Unforgivable’/‘66 Sexy’ (Free download, self-released) // The Hit Ups: ‘parties, death, girls, drinks, werewolves, disco, mistakes, trainwrecks, skulls...’ They’re the self-styled ghosts of dancefloor partycore – plenty heavy but light on their feet, lustily fusing spooky electronic stabs with jagged riffin’ heft. Rap-rock is all too often a pile of sh*t, but frontman Josh Hughes-Games keeps it on the right side of wrong, wringing out just enough pathos amid the party howl. ‘66Sexy’ is a sinister booty-call, a howl of lust at a taken woman; ‘Unforgivable’ brings a jauntier disco lunge that – like everything THU do – makes most sense from the sweaty mess of a moshpit. (Mike White) HHHHH myspace.com/thehitups

www. venue .co.uk

november 2011 // 55

10/26/2011 4:47:43 PM

? e r e h w y n a e u n e Can’t find V Once it’s gone, it’s

gone.

hout fail?

sue wit is y r e v e n o s d n a h tting your

ge Want to guarantee9 per month (by Direct Debit)

2.9 Subscribe for just £ 117 934 3741 0 ll ca r o s b u /s k .u Log onto venue.co f each month. o g in n in eg b e th t a In outlets r stockists Visit venue.co.uk fo

562011 // NOVEMber 20111 subs ad.indd

p56.indd 34

venuemagazine 10/24/2011 7:53:49 PM

10/26/2011 12:19:20 PM

Music

For more reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music The Pierces: moodsome, Disneyfied late-60s West Coast hippiedom

Live review

The Pierces/Marcus Foster

PICS: ELLEN DOHERTY; WWW.DUCHESSPHOTOGRAPHIC.COM

Anson Rooms, Bristol (Thur 20 Oct)

// Hadn’t heard Marcus Foster’s ‘Nameless Path’, but knew reviews called it “close to the ground occupied by Van Morrison’s masterful ‘Astral Weeks’”. On this evidence, that’d be the lesser-heard Impressively Throaty But Hardly Subtle Blues Hollerer version.

Sashaying as they step, centre-parted hair and long dresses in mirrored flow, to a baretreed, moonlit backdrop, on walk Alabama siblings Allison and Catherine Pierce. It’s moodsome, Disneyfied late-60s West Coast hippiedom, even before they break into the Mamas & Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’’. With different words. But magnificent nonetheless.

Sweet Dixie Dean, it’s no overstatement to declare the soul-raising harmonies to be on a par with their aural forebears. NB For the sake of record we should note there are four men playing backing instruments but, given they insist on repeatedly pulling sessioneer overbite sex faces, we’ll let them be.

Truth be told, there’s barely a distinctive

venuemagazine

Music Lives 974.indd 57

song all night. Frankly, floating up here atop the choruses, such niceties matter not: theirs is a music like utterly moreish, supraquality processed cheese – imagine Dairylea making Roquefort triangles. And, good crikey, when they do ally their voices to a thoroughbred pop tune, all heaven breaks loose. ‘Glorious’ indeed.

It has – belatedly – become hip to appreciate the artfully smooth, rarely matched sheen of mid-70s vintage Fleetwood Mac. Approximately zero of these late-coming trendsters are in the crowd tonight, rather leaving Venue feeling like Judith Iscariot in ‘Life of Brian’: “It’s happening, [insert absent names here]! That sound is actually happening!” An encore acapella version of Simon and Garfunkel ‘Kathy’s Song’ (“we’ve sung this since I was four and she was six”) proves they’re built from the voice out, not production in. Dream a little dream of them soon. (Julian Owen)

november 2011 // 57

10/26/2011 4:08:45 PM

p58.indd 1

10/26/2011 12:22:50 PM

LIVE REVIEW English Touring For more Opera reviews and Bath Theatre Royal extra (Mon pics, 17, Tue see18 Oct)

LIVE REVIEW Enablers

venue.co.uk/music

The Cube, Bristol (Sat 15 Oct) // There’s a surge of energy as Enablers open their encore with ‘Career-Minded Individual’, the third track on 2011’s ‘Blown Realms & Stalled Explosions’. The guitars are slinky, a lethargic sweetness that ambles over the sludgy groove – think Life Without Buildings soundtracking a Scorsese thriller.

Pete Simonelli’s poetry slips in and out of the audible realm; whilst submerged, its timbre has the charm and allure of a Bukowski reading; when it breaches the surface, albeit momentarily, it details and navigates the quotidian with impeccable colour. The previously seated audience have descended on the stage during the interlude – there’s a girl whipping her

hair as if watching a metal show, others have shut their eyes and are swaying sedately. The guy biting his lip as if only to stop his smile spreading too wide is the one Venue most relates to because, despite the all-too-serious connotations of beat poetry atop soaring guitar soundscapes, there’s a forceful eroticism to the performance.

It could come from Simonelli’s hyper-flexible interpretive dance, but it’s most likely the band’s staunch confidence, which also underpins their humour, such as Simonelli’s request of “Heckle!? Heckle! Heckle!” It’s a peerless performance, and mature, yet inspiring of the sort of unconditional enthusiasm reserved for teenage infatuation.

(Leah Pritchard)

LIVE REVIEW Laura Marling

Bristol Cathedral (Tue 25 Oct) // Bristol Cathedral is quite a venue: spotlit columns vaulting to the heavens, a stage backed by an intricate chancel screen. Beyond it, inky darkness.

The congregation’s quiet, tightpacked and squirmingly polite, a mix of self-conscious young things and slightly smug couples their parents’ age.

The Leisure Society are in full swing, their folksy fireside harmonising aglow with optimism.

Entwined voices, flute and acoustic strum fill the space with warmth and a boyish bonhomie. They’re best when a snippet of sinister lyric escapes the thrum; the set’s unlikely highpoint an echoing cover of Erasure’s ‘A Little Respect’, coiling to a close with a weep of violin.

A bell rings as Marling and Co arrive – but not an ominous tolling, more a school bell’s clang. She’s selfvenuemagazine deprecating to a fault, the intersong

Music Lives 974.indd 59

chat all nervous stop-starts and nonsequitur. But when she sings – and sing she does, flooding the ancient stones with sound – her confidence is unmistakable. The set dips in and out of all three albums to date, with plenty of last month’s ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’. The bass drum’s boom rolls across the age-smoothed floor, Marling’s voice curling in arches above. Her seven-strong band layer in multi-instrumentalist wonders and radiant choral polyphony.

It’s faultless, shifting unfazed from joyous shanty to simmering menace. And yet, with songcraft this skilled and an acoustic this responsive, such riches seem over-ornament. Midset, Marling’s left to solo awhile. The wintry, nostalgic ‘Goodbye England’ and parasomniac quiver of ‘Night Terror’ reveal a power hitherto smothered. Later, the band return to finish the set, and that intimate, intricate majesty is engulfed again in the busy tapestry of their skill. It’s beautiful nonetheless – but a gilded lily. (Mike White)

// Something borrowed, something blue... English Touring Opera’s autumn tour was heavy on the old, yet it had something new up its sleeve too: a side order of sacred soliloquies at select venues en route. But, like a superstitious bride, the season had bagged the full foursome with a borrowed Fairy Queen (originally conceived for the Armonico Consort), and an eyecatching ‘blue thought in a blue shade’ – James Conway’s seriously stylish production of Handel’s Flavio.

Tom Guthrie’s take on the Purcell promised much what with aerialists, dancers and puppets, all egging a typically elegant design by the late Roger Butlin. The trouble, however, started with the concept which relocated the action to Bedlam

and tried to hitch it to a woolly idea that disintegrated every time a singer exhaled another set of words that had little bearing on the matter in hand.

There were brilliant touches such as the ‘Plaint’ hauntingly sung beside a stripped hospital bed, its erstwhile occupant presumably no more; and the fluidity of the dance grew powerfully out of the music.

James Conway however showed that less is more, trusting in Handel to fill the big blue box of Joanna Parker’s minimalist set with everything necessary.

Conducted by Jonathan Peter Kenny whose arms thrashed about like a swimmer trying to evade a tsunami, the musical values were high too, Paula Sides’ Emilia the Queen of ETO’s all-too-short Bath time. (Paul Riley)

LIVE REVIEW The Duval Project

The Bell, Bath (Mon 10 Oct) // “There are some people that, when they tell you they have a new project, you simply book them in.” Thus Bell honchissimo Steve Henwood explaining how this lot got only their third ever gig on the pub’s hotly contested stage. And it’s immediately apparent that his trust is amply rewarded, as The Duval Project fires on all five cylinders to produce their thumping brand of contemporary jazz funk.

Mainman Gary Alesbrook squares his flugelhorn up to the mic in a combative stance, braced against the thuggish precision of drummer Danny Cox’s unusual three-snare kit. Richie Blake’s impeccably funky bass locks things effortlessly, Andy Nowak scratches up a keyboard ghost

of Herbie Hancock, and Ruth Hammond takes her tenor sax from Dexter Gordon to Dick Heckstall-Smith in microseconds.

The tunes are all Gary’s originals with the exception of Leon Russell’s ‘This Masquerade’ and that’s the only weak link in the set, Cox’s fearsome drumming too much at odds with Alesbrook’s smooth trumpet. This isn’t a ballads band, anyway, and it works best when given its pedal-to-the-metal head, roaring from Earth, Wind & Fire grandeur to sharper Miles On The Corner cool. It’s a retro style, perhaps, but sounds as fresh as anything, not least because of the seismic angularity of that drumming and a unanimous commitment to the music. If they’re this good after only three gigs, then pretty soon they’ll be amazing. (Tony Benjamin)

november 2011 // 59

10/26/2011 4:37:33 PM

mark simmons photography

mUsiC || doCUmentary || natUraL WeddinGs t: 07778 063 699 w: www.marksimmonsphotography.com

60 // NOVEMber 2011

venuemagazine mark simmons v908.indd 1

p60.indd 34

19/02/2010 14:49:18

10/26/2011 12:38:09 PM

Clubs Vision on

For more news, reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/clubs

Joker’s much-anticipated debut album arrives this month. Adam Burrows gives the globe-trotting, genre-defying producer a call.

J

oker’s always been a wildcard. Ever since 2007’s ‘Gully Brook Lane’ G-funked its way into DJs’ record boxes, the Bristol producer has been so tricky to pin down that people have resorted to words like ‘wonky’, ‘crunkstep’ and – most famously – ‘purple’ to describe him. He’s become one of the most respected producers in the dubstep scene without ever really being a member of it and despite pushing a sound that favours hooks and arrangements over bass and space.

“I don’t really deal with genres,” he says. “All that kind of p*sses me off.”

As usual, Joker – aka 22-yearold Liam McLean – is a long way from home. Venue finds him hungover in Japan, touring ahead of the release of his debut album ‘The Vision’. His next gig is “Tokyo, or Osaka – I couldn’t tell you which”, and his last was in Australia. Is he enjoying himself?

“It depends,” he says. “I DJ every week anyway, but when I go away for two weeks it feels like a long time. On Tuesday I’m back in the UK for a few days, and then I’m off to America.”

As a child and teenager he also moved around, although admittedly within a much smaller area. “I’ve always been moving. I never really grew up anywhere. As a kid I lived in Easton twice, Speedwell, Lockleaze, St George…”

“I feel like I'm slacking.” joker venuemagazine

Clubs Feature 974.indd 61

When asked if Bristol has influenced his music, he replies: “It’s helped me keep from getting blocked. If you live in London, there’s a lot of stuff going on, so it’s hard to concentrate.” His main influences came from further afield, though. “The tunes I grew up listening to were mostly from London and America,” he says.

“The only local music I knew when I started was friends like Gemmy and Guido, and obviously Roni Size and the Full Cycle thing.”

He grew up listening to “grime, R&B, hip-hop, dance music”, and his formative influences were “obvious people like The Neptunes and Timbaland, plus game producers – people who made music for computer games.”

Ah yes, the Megadrive Connection. It’s been there in his synth sounds and melodies from the start, not to mention those pitch-shifted game samples on ‘Snake Eater’ and ‘Retro Racer’ – but just how deep the influence goes is clear from ‘Level 6’, the homage to 16-bit gaming in the middle of the new album. “I think everyone can relate to that in some way,” he says. “I mean who didn’t play Sonic as a kid?”

Joker’s first big break came at the age of 17, when ‘Gully Brook Lane’ was picked up by grime and dubstep don Plastician. “I saw him in a club and asked him for his email address or MSN, and it started from there. He’d be playing for MCs like Skepta, and obviously everyone loves Skepta, so when people heard him on one of my tunes – yeah, I loved it.” His career took off straight away, as a series of stunning tracks from ‘Stuck in the System’ to ‘Purple City’ and ‘Psychedelic Runway’ saw him hailed as one of the UK’s most imaginative young producers.

2009’s ‘Digidesign’, in particular,

was unavoidable in the clubs, and its easy, futuristic melodicism saw it sneaking onto the playlists of music fans who’d never been to a grime or dubstep dance. Equal parts sci-fi movie theme and underground bass banger, it was clearly the work of an artist who refused to be pigeonholed.

‘The Vision’ drops in the UK on 7 November, and it’s an impressive showcase of Joker’s range. Radio-friendly dance-pop, quirkily melodic instrumentals and heavyweight club tunes are all there in force – filtered through a virtual reality urban aesthetic that couldn’t have come from the mind of anyone else. “I guess I had a vision when I was making it,” he says of the album’s title, “which didn’t pan out exactly how I wanted it to. It’s a vision of something that only got half done.”

It includes more vocal collaborations than we’ve heard from Joker before, including

powerful, emotive turns from Bristol rapper Buggsy (‘Lost’) and R&B singer William Cartwright (‘On My Mind’) that he cites as favourites. “I’ve always worked with singers and MCs,” he says.

“I’ve got two mixtapes that nobody’s ever really heard – 35 to 40 tracks with vocalists on them. I’ve been doing it for ages.”

Strong as the album is, Joker is modest about his achievements so far. When asked which of his productions he’s proud of, he answers: “I don’t have one yet. I still feel like I’m slacking. I’m far, far away from being happy.” If ‘The Vision’ is the sound of a man who thinks he’s still has a long way to go, how good is he going to be when he gets there?

‘THE VISION’ IS RELEASED ON 7 NOV ON 4AD RECORDS. JOKER PLAYS BLOC AT MOTION, BRISTOL ON FRIDAY 25 NOV. FFI: WWW.4AD.COM/ARTISTS/ JOKER

november 2011 // 61

10/25/2011 4:49:17 PM

Clubs // THE MONTH AHEAD // PERCOLATE DJ Spinn & DJ Rashad

1.

MORPH Craig Richards

// First outing for a new night of urban dance music, and who better to kick things off than Chicago juke and footwork pioneers Spinn and Rashad (pictured)? Their sound is a gritty, frantically paced blend of b-boy electro and house, with necksnapping snares, propulsive sub-bass, rampaging toms, vinyl spinbacks and insanely chopped ’n’ screwed samples, and their mix for FACT magazine has been a Venue clubs desk favourite ever since it dropped at the end of last year. Support comes from Monkey Steak and Brother Wetlands, playing everything from juke and ghettotech to bashment and booty bass, and if you fancy trying those tricky looking footwork moves for yourself, the night's kicking off with a dance class from 9pm.

PERCOLATE THE CROFT, BRISTOL, THUR 3 NOV. FFI: WWW.THE-CROFT.COM

NEBULA Total Science

3.

DRUM DISCIPLES & JUNGLE CLONE Bong Ra & Tenor Fly // There’s nowhere like The Black Swan for extreme raving, and with Bong Ra (pictured) leading the charge, this night isn’t likely to go any other way. The Utrecht-based DJ and producer has a long association with Bristol, with some of his earliest releases coming out on ace local label Death$ucker, and his potent mix of grinding industrial riffage and hyperspeed breakbeats is sure to pull a crowd.

Also on the bill are veteran reggae/jungle/hiphop MC Tenor Fly, and a Swanload of tear-out talent including Serial Killaz, Run Tings Cru and Wicked Squad. Expect fireworks.

DRUM DISCIPLES & JUNGLE CLONE THE BLACK SWAN, BRISTOL, SAT 5 NOV. FFI: WWW. DRUMDISCIPLES.CO.UK 62 // october 2011

Clubs Month Ahead 974.indd 62

// Nebula celebrate their first birthday with a classy booking, as veteran drum & bassers Total Science drop by for a twohour set. With 20 years in the production game, the duo have turned their hands to just about every permutation of the genre, from Q-Project’s first generation anthem ‘Champion Sound’ to the headwrecking filth of ‘Defcom 69’ and back again. The night is hosted by MC and singer Riya, their collaborator on 2010’s mellow ‘Redlines’, while Unity, Link, OH91 and Keyed Up provide support.

NEBULA TB2, BRISTOL, FRI 11 NOV. FFI: WWW.TB2.CO.UK

4.

2.

// Fabric’s musical director and Saturday night resident, Craig Richards has been one of the most influential people in British house and techno for more than a decade.

Although he’s known principally as a proponent of tech-house and Berlinstyle dub-techno, his unpredictable sets reveal broad tastes, taking in anything from dark disco to breakbeat and deep electronica. Main room support comes from LMB and Mortal, and there’s dubstep and drum & bass for variety in room two.

MORPH TB2, BRISTOL, FRI 4 NOV. FFI: WWW.TB2.CO.UK

5.

RUN 012 Rusko, Grooverider, Scratch Perverts and more… / / Run’s quarterly blow-outs at Motion are always packed with huge names, and this one is definitely no exception. Drum & bass superstars Andy C and Grooverider, dirty-riffing dubstepper Rusko (pictured) and turntablist tag team Scratch Perverts are battling for attention at the top of the bill, while supports include deep drum & bass duo Spectrasoul, plus local boys Interface, D*Minds and Mensah.

RUN 012 MOTION, BRISTOL, FRI 11 NOV. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 5:04:13 PM

// Touching the Freud //

FIELD DAY NIGHT Erol Alkan, Hudson Mohawke and more… // This spin-off from East London’s Field Day festival might just be the most eclectic line-up in town this month. If electro mashup king Erol Alkan, US chillwaver Washed Out and versatile, hyper-talented electronicist Jon Hopkins don’t grab you, then there’s a good chance that Fatima’s (pictured) fractured R&B funk, or the genre-gobbling bass transmissions of Hudson Mohawke and Boddika will do the trick instead. Achingly fashionable as it undoubtedly is, there’s enough quality on this bill to keep the most curmudgeonly of clubbers in Bez-like spirits.

6.

FIELD DAY NIGHT MOTION, BRISTOL, SAT 12 NOV. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLINMOTION.COM

BLOC Luke Vibert and more…

8.

7.

// For breadth and quality, Bloc is the dance weekender to beat, and this one-off session at Motion is as strong as you’d expect. The special guest is the masterful Luke Vibert (pictured), whose versatility when it comes to genres – acid techno, trip-hop and jungle to name but three – is matched only by the variety of names he’s recorded under.

Elsewhere on the bill there’s deep electronica from James Holden and Nathan Fake, while our very own Joker (see feature on p.61) heads up a mighty Subloaded showcase featuring sublime Dutch masters 2562 and Martyn.

BLOC MOTION, BRISTOL, FRI 25 NOV. FFI.BRISTOLINMOTION.COM

9.

THE ACADEMY DJ Shadow // DJ Shadow’s early releases took instrumental hip-hop to a new level of sophistication, and the ‘Endtroducing’ album remains a touchstone of modern music. While his recorded output since then has been variable, his live shows are always compelling – as new and classic material is reinterpreted and combined with startling visuals for a truly immersive experience.

“The man’s a genius,” said the Venue reviewer lucky enough to catch him at this year’s Glastonbury.

DJ SHADOW 02 ACADEMY, BRISTOL, MON 28 NOV. FFI: WWW. O2ACADEMYBRISTOL.CO.UK

DAS IST Alex Smoke & Alexander Robotnick // Glasgow’s Alex Smoke (pictured) makes ornate and emotional music that borrows from classic Detroit and vintage Warp and ends up somewhere unique and unsettling. Alexander Robotnik, meanwhile, was a pioneer of electro, synth-pop and italo-disco two decades before his triumphant return as a deep house-referencing, Ableton-toting dancefloor slayer. An inspired pairing of two true mavericks of European electronica.

// On Sat 19 Nov it will be almost exactly five years since Therapy Sessions last rolled into the Black Swan. Since then the venue has been refurbished, shut down and reopened, while Therapy Sessions has grown into a malignant juggernaut carrying its virulent cargo to far-flung corners of the globe as its main protagonists have relocated from England to the US. While much has changed, much remains the same. The venerable old bird of Easton has kept its bedraggled charm, bonfire evercrackling at the end of the garden, and Therapy and its affiliate labels continue to peddle the dark and intense side of drum & bass that it has championed since its inception.

Tech Itch (Mark Caro) and Dylan (Hilsley) are the veterans on this line-up and the pick of the bunch in the main room. Mark’s collaboration with Bristol’s Decoder, with whom he shared a studio, label and the Tech Itch moniker, was particularly responsible for pioneering a dark, dense and experimental sound in the late 90s and beyond. It is his more recent collaboration with Hilsley – Therapy Sessions’ founding member – that has more influence over the current scowling face of drum & bass, though. Audio’s ‘To the Edge of Reason’ was the second full-length album released on their combined Tech Freak label, and his style of hard, twisted, techy dancefloor stomp is a sound that is sure to be heavily represented in Therapy’s eagerly anticipated return to Bristol this month.

The now well-established Bristol drum & bass promoters Agro take the lead on organisational duties, as is only fitting for an event of this style.

They share the psychiatrist’s couch with Amen-loving collective Jungle Syndicate, who host a second-room line-up featuring, among others, the tough jungle styles of another longtime Dylan collaborator, B-Key. All in all, it’s set to be a fitting return for a well-travelled and much-missed black sheep. (Ben Wright) THERAPY SESSIONS THE BLACK SWAN, BRISTOL, SAT 19 NOV. The Black Swan welcomes back an old friend this month

DAS IST TB2, BRISTOL, SAT 26 NOV. FFI: WWW.TB2.CO.UK

venuemagazine

Clubs Month Ahead 974.indd 63

october 2011 // 63

10/25/2011 5:04:31 PM

64 // NOVEMber 2011

p64.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:40:20 PM

Performance

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART

Animal magic Award-winning company 1927 are bringing the follow-up to their critically drooled-over debut to Bristol Old Vic. Steve Wright takes to the streets.

A

fter the totally unexpected success of our first show we were given some very wise advice from a dear friend: ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’.” Suzanne Andrade is a performance artist and director of 1927, the young London company who made such huge waves with their debut production. 2007’s ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, a collection of gothic and nightmarish short stories staged using a mix of live action, animation, film and music, bore a visual imprint of German Expressionist cinema, silent comedy and Russian Constructivist design – and promptly scooped up a bagful of awards.

It’s no great surprise, then, that although the company’s second show moves on in terms of scope, staging one longer tale instead of a series of vignettes, it has kept the debut’s trademark visual style. ‘The Animals and Children Took to the Streets’ is set in the squalid, ‘feared and loathed’ east-end suburbs of some nameless city. The Bayou

“We’ve made a unique 1927 world, where anything can happen…” suzanne andrade, 1927 venuemagazine

Performance Feature 974.indd 65

Mansions is a sprawling, stinking tenement block, where curtaintwitchers and Peeping Toms live side by side, and the wolf is always at the door. The kids are running riot, plotting revolution and even kidnapping the City Mayor’s cat – but not for long.

The Mayor resolves to quash this juvenile rebellion fast. A sinister black ice-cream van transports the Bayou’s wayward youth to a fearsome sweetfactory-cum-prison camp, where Granny’s Gumdrops (sugarcoated hard drugs) transform them into brain-dead model citizens. Then there’s the liberal Agnes Eaves, who believes that the Bayou kids can be redeemed by “love, encouragement and collage” – but will her Art Club ever take off? And what about her daughter Evie, who’s being threatened by the looming shadow nannies?

Once again mixing live music, performance and storytelling with film and animation, 1927’s twisted tale visits BOV after sell-out, acclaimed seasons in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Perth and Paris. “A jaw-droppingly clever and gloriously subversive parable of social mobility, revolution and its suppression,” enthused The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner, “a world so complete it feels as if you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.”

As it was with 1927’s debut, the look of the show is crucial.

Animator Paul Barritt has used angled projection screens to create flickering cityscapes; Bayou Mansions itself is a warren of corridors and elevator shafts, its walls crawling with cartoon cockroaches. Andrade and her co-stars stare whitefaced, like silent-era movie stars, from windows that open within

the screens: at other times they come downstage to wander among animations, silhouettes and paper characters.

Watch an excerpt of the show on 1927’s website and you’ll find echoes of Tim Burton, Roald Dahl, Fritz Lang (1927 named themselves in honour of the year of Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ and of Hitchcock’s directorial debut, ‘The Fog’), Heath Robinson, Futurist art, German Expressionist cinema and even Buster Keaton. The show also calls to mind Bristol’s veteran film/theatre alchemists Forkbeard Fantasy. Suzanne: “We have kept all the elements of our debut show that made it so popular with audiences around the world – the live piano score, the dark humour, heightened style of acting, and most importantly the interplay between actors and animation.”

As Suzanne reveals, the first few months of trying to conceive the show – and to follow their spectacular debut – were a test of patience. “There was a lot of time spent wading around in the quagmire of bad ideas, in

an attempt to take 1927 in an entirely different direction, the pressure of creating our second show weighing heavy. But when we put some work in front of an audience, things became a little clearer. They made it quite apparent that what they wanted was not an entirely different show, but a development of everything we established in our debut.

“It’s taken us a while to take our wise friend’s advice on board, but in doing so we have created a charming, creepy and otherworldly little show that feels like a graphic novel brought to life. The characters are original and sympathetic, the environment is utterly absorbing, and the animated cockroaches are truly spellbinding! Most importantly we’ve made a unique 1927 world, where anything can happen…”

THE ANIMALS AND CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS IS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC FROM 8-12 NOV. FFI: WWW.19-27.CO.UK AND WWW. BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK

'The Animals and Children Took to the Streets': a world where anything can happen

november 2011 // 65

10/26/2011 9:57:47 AM

Performance

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART

// THE MONTH AHEAD //

1.

PERFORMANCE POETRY Seasoned // Dramatised performance of poems by Edson Burton, Bristolbased bard and a master at conveying the varied, often troubled experiences of exile and emigration. Andy Burden directs this lyrical exploration of the African Diaspora, both historical and contemporary, and of just how life feels in modern, ‘multicultural’ Britain.

SEASONED IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 1-SUN 13 NOV. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

2.

ONE-MAN SHOWS Steven Berkoff’s One Man

3.

DANCE At Swim Two Boys // Dip a toe in the water with Earthfall, the stalwart Cardiff-based contemporary dance troupe, as they head out on tour again with their 2004-6 hit show. Adapted from Jamie O’Neill’s novel and staged entirely in water, ‘At Swim Two Boys’ follows the developing love affair between two young men against the backdrop of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising.

“Disturbingly brilliant hi-octane physical dance theatre,” praised Time Out. AT SWIM TWO BOYS IS AT BATH SPA UNIVERSITY THEATRE FROM FRI 18-SAT 19 NOV. FFI: WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

4.

THEATRE La Casa de Bernarda Alba

// Journey to humanity’s dark heart as Steven Berkoff, one of our greatest and most defiantly individual actors, performs these two short one-man plays. Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘TellTale Heart’ is a fearsome tale of dementia and murderous compulsion; Berkoff’s own ‘Dog’ is a far more comic affair, a day in the life of a footie hooligan and his pit bull terrier, Roy, with the versatile thespian playing both man and man’s best friend.

STEVEN BERKOFF’S ONE MAN IS AT THEATRE ROYAL BATH FROM SUN 13-TUE 15 NOV. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK

// Classic theatre in an atmospheric Bristol church (Mk I): Stroud’s bold and explorative Red Dog Theatre colonise this Georgian church next to the Fleece music venue with their version of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poetic, tragic tale of passion, jealousy, boredom and the stifling restrictions of early 20th-century rural Spain. A play full of fireworks and seething with tension, performed in a close-knit, atmospheric space… should be one to savour.

6.

COMEDY THEATRE Grimm and Grimmer

LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA IS AT THE CHURCH OF ST THOMAS THE MARTYR, OFF VICTORIA ST, BRISTOL FROM TUE 1-5 SAT NOV. FFI: WWW.REDDOG.ORG.UK

THEATRE Timon of Athens

5.

// Classic theatre in an atmospheric Bristol church (Mk II): fledgling outfit Gentleman Jack Theatre stage an 80-minute, Northern Soul-soundtracked version of one of Shakespeare’s least-performed plays, in the dimly lit crypt of Southville’s St Paul’s. ‘Timon’ centres on a wealthy Athenian lord who slowly learns who his real friends are, and features, GJT assure us, “riots, looting and a Greek debt crisis”. Hang on a minute…

66 // october 2011

Performance Month Ahead 974.indd 66

TIMON OF ATHENS WILL BE STAGED AT ST PAUL’S CHURCH, SOUTHVILLE, BRISTOL FROM TUE 1-SAT 5 NOV. TICKETS: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

// Bristol’s ace comic troupe Gonzo Moose (remember their superb, mock-Kafka ‘You Don’t Need To Know That’, or the schlocky comedy horror of ‘Is That a Bolt In Your Neck’?) return with another cock-eyed literary homage. Fiction and reality blur as brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and their beloved sister Lotte, travelling deepest Bavaria in search of fairy tales, find themselves trapped in a twisted fantasy world of their own making.

GRIMM AND GRIMMER IS AT THE RONDO THEATRE, BATH ON WED 16 NOV. FFI: WWW.RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 6:56:41 PM

DANCE The Lessening of Difference

7.

// Rising UK choreographer Ben Wright and his company bgroup present their new dance piece, a collaboration with author David Charles Manners (‘In The Shadow of Crows’) that explores intimacy and our need to belong and be loved.

BGROUP PERFORM THE LESSENING OF DIFFERENCE AT ICIA, UNIVERSITY OF BATH, ON SAT 12 NOV. FFI: WWW. BATH.AC.UK/ICIA

PIC: MARK SIMMONS

PIC: CHRIS NASH

Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings

DANCE Dancing the Knife

8.

// Dance theatre piece by dancer/choreographer Medea Mahdavi, merging dance, words, music and film to explore life on the edge. Scripted by poet and TS Eliot Award winner Philip Gross, ‘Dancing the Knife’ explores the life of a recently arrived immigrant. Our heroine meets bureaucrats, street performers and an auctioneer, while struggling to make a new home in a strange city. Ben Waghorn and Pete Judge’s soundtrack is inspired by Iranian rhythms and tunes.

DANCING THE KNIFE IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 15-SAT 19 NOV. FFI: WWW.TOBACOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

THEATRE The Three Musketeers

10.

9.

NEW WRITING Digits // The Tob Fac’s impressive fostering of new writing continues with this premiere of Tamsin Walker’s black comedy about friendship, desperation and eavesdropping – a finalist in the TF’s recent ScriptSpace competition. This for the princely sum of £5 – pre-show lunch included!

// Bristol’s prolific, consistently rewarding am-drammers Ship & Castle return with Tom Phillips’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling novel of loyalty, honour, camaraderie and super swordsmanship. Nowt to do with the new film version, mind. Expect a big-cast, fast-moving, immersive production, a la S&C’s Battle of Britain triumph ‘The Few’ (pictured). Plus much sword-fighting and (ulp) several ruckuses involving nuns.

DIGITS IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL FROM THUR 17-SAT 19 NOV, 1.15PM. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

THE THREE MUSKETEERS IS AT NEWMAN HALL, BRISTOL FROM TUE 8-SAT 12 NOV. TICKETS: 0117 956 1695 OR SHIPANDCASTLETICKETS@YAHOO.CO.UK

11.

THEATRE A Midsummer Night’s Dream // Head into the bewildering Athenian forests with Filter, the brilliantly inventive theatre troupe who treat each play less as a piece of text than as the basis for an evening of careening physical inventiveness and musical virtuosity. Filter’s ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Tobacco Factory was a joyous riot, culminating in a conga around the audience, and we’ve no doubt that their ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ will follow suit.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL FROM MON 21-SAT 26 NOV. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

venuemagazine

Performance Month Ahead 974.indd 67

STORYTELLING & SONG The Golden Apples

12.

// Storytelling duo Fire Springs and Bath chamber choir The Chandos Singers get together to bring to life some of Russia’s most atmospheric folk tales. Journey into the dark forests of the imagination where Ivan, the Tsar’s youngest son, must ride with the wolf to save his life and win the princess of his dreams. Friday’s performance, meanwhile, includes a comedy-opera loosely based on Chekhov’s short story ‘The Bear’.

THE GOLDEN APPLES IS AT THE RONDO THEATRE, BATH FROM THUR 17-SAT 19 NOV. FFI: WWW.RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK

october 2011 // 67

10/24/2011 6:57:27 PM

Performance

PREVIEW A Clockwork Orange

PICS: Nick Spratling

THEATRE // This union between the hugely physical, restlessly risk-taking Volcano Theatre and Anthony Burgess’s landmark novel about bored, violent urban yoof seems a well-suited match indeed. “There have been many adaptations of ‘A Clockwork

PREVIEW

The Surprise of Love 68 // NOVEMEBER 2011

Performance Previews 974.indd 68

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART

Orange’, but our exuberant, often outrageous brand of theatre is such an appealing match for the novel that it’s a surprise it’s taken this long for it to happen,” acknowledges Volcano’s director Paul Davies. “We’ve tried to match the novel’s textual daring with our own brand of theatrical effrontery.

And if we share one thing with the ‘droogs’ in the novel it is a penchant for smashing things up.”

Burgess’s inventive, disturbing novel paints a portrait of teenagers escaping boredom through uninhibited pleasure in violence

and destruction; of a populace in fear of these feral youth; and of a draconian state response to social disorder that is at least as worrying as the disorder itself.

What to expect, then, from Volcano – themselves long-time masters of explosive, unflinching, issuetackling theatre? “Our starting point was that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a problem – a cultural phenomenon that has taken on a life beyond the pages and that is controversial, contested, and perhaps misunderstood,” Davies reflects. “We’ve gone back to the original, uncut novel and its internal questions and peculiar textures, but at the same time we’ve kept a critical eye on what has become of it since.”

Indeed. Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film, Davies goes on, is part of the problem (and less of an influence on Volcano’s staging than the book).

“Burgess held the film responsible for the fact that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ refuses to be erased from the world’s memory, though he considered it not one of his best works and would have happily let it slip away.”

Volcano’s five-strong cast share the role of Alex, rendering his vivid Nadsat slang in contrasting tones ranging from warm Glaswegian through sonorous Sarf London to husky Noo Yoik. Gudny

Sigurdar’s costumes, meanwhile, are colour-coded uniforms that track the novel’s fascination with different kinds of conformity and transgression. “For all its innovation and brilliance, Burgess’s novel is an affirmation of a moral principle that is simple in its rightness and yet troubling in its consequences – that it is better to be a real ‘living organism, oozing with juice and sweetness’ and yet capable of evil, than to be a mechanism without choice, capable only of good.

Kubrick’s film is a different animal – daring yet dated, shocking yet quaint and kitschy, meticulous in its cinematic method yet cavalier with a lot of the novel’s preoccupations.”

Will Volcano’s version manage to retain any of the book and film’s power to shock? “It’s difficult to say – those looking to be outraged are probably too busy combing the Daily Mail for further evidence of the depravity of modern youth to go to the theatre. But our ‘Clockwork Orange’ will certainly attempt to capture something of that ‘organism lovely with colour and juice’ – the human being endowed with free will that Burgess celebrated.”

THEATRE// The Ustinov rounds off the first season of Laurence Boswell’s new regime of European classics with a new translation of this 1722 comedy – thought by many to be his best – by French novelist/dramatist Pierre de Marivaux.

The beautiful Marquise has been left a widow tragically young; the handsome Chevalier has been deserted by the love of his life, who has taken holy orders. Both have sworn never to lose their hearts again – but neither have reckoned with love’s insidious power, and both tie themselves in knots of denial, causing simple situations to escalate into ridiculously destructive misunderstandings.

Marivaux was 18th-century France’s most significant playwright: known to his contemporaries as ‘the doctor of the human heart’, he wrote many comedies for Paris’s Comédie-Française. Mike Alfred’s

new translation will be the first British outing for ‘The Surprise’: the play completes the repertory trilogy that begins Boswell’s reign, running alongside Calderon’s ‘The Phoenix of Madrid’ (clearsighted direction and firm and solid acting… the nine-strong cast bring the characters to bold and vivid life without dropping into caricature, aided by the intimate setting) and Goethe’s ‘Iphigenia’.

“It’s a comedy, but – like all decent comedies – it’s born from serious soil,” muses Boswell, who once again directs. “It plays with the theme of how little we know ourselves. Here, the central guy has recently lost the woman of his dreams to another man and is heartbroken. The leading lady, meanwhile, is a widow of six months. The two meet and discuss their heartbreak, which of course is very genuine – but they’re also slightly in love with their suffering. Their servants then meet each other and go, ‘Hey,

I fancy you, but we’ll never get together unless we sort these two out’. So how do these servants, with their wisdom, wit and resourcefulness, get these two complex, sad people to overcome their grief, lack of self-knowledge and pretentiousness?”

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL, MON 14-THUR 17 NOV. FFI: HTTP:// TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

THE SURPRISE OF LOVE IS AT THE USTINOV STUDIO FROM WED 9 NOV-THUR 22 DEC. FFI: WWW. THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK/USTINOV

PLUS:

We’ve got a pair of tickets to the National Press Night (Thur 22 Nov, 7pm), complete with free programme, signed by the company; copies of all three scripts from the Ustinov season, signed by the translators; and free interval drinks. To be in with a chance of winning, just email s.wright@venue.co.uk with the subject ‘Marivaudage’ by Thur 15 Nov. venuemagazine

10/25/2011 4:57:56 PM

PICS: PHIL POTT

Performance

PREVIEW

Avant-garders @ Arnolfini LIVE ART / PERFORMACE // November kicks off with a nicelooking double bill of envelopepushing performance art at Arnolfini, from two names you’ll know well from the scene…

First up, ’fini regulars Reckless Sleepers present ‘Schrödinger’, their touring show that builds on Erwin Schrödinger’s famous hypothetical box in which a cat might exist as both living and dead at the same time (this philosophical conceit has, until now, comprehensively bemused

the Theatre Desk – but a quick look at this film bit.ly.ribwLp has gone a long away to clearing it up). Twelve years ago, the Sleepers built Schrödinger’s box, and now they are climbing back inside.

Explains RS artistic director Mole Wetherell: “On stage is a box with hatches and doors. It can be the box where the cat is locked up, or an experimental chamber.

The chamber is populated by a group of experimenters and artists, trying to conduct research into immeasurable theories. Schrödinger is about thought experiments, cats, René Magritte, love, time, mathematics, observations, truth lies and alcohol. In the piece, the impossible becomes probable: truth and illusion are

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART inseparable. Laws are made, bent then broken. It’s a visually mesmerizing performance that sways between question and answer, chaos and order, what we can measure and what we can’t.”

A week after come Forced Entertainment, whose ‘Spectacular’ so beguiled Arnolfini audiences back in 2008. Their latest ‘Void Story’ is performed in the manner of a radio play, with the cast sat at tables, doing the requisite voices and adding in sound effects for gunshots, rain and bad phone-lines. It “follows a beleaguered pair of protagonists on a rollercoaster ride through the decimated remains of contemporary culture,” explains FE’s Tim Etchells. “Navigating one terrible cityscape after another, mugged, shot at and bitten by insects, pursued through subterranean tunnel systems, stowed away in refrigerated transport, shacked up in haunted hotels and lost in wildernesses, backstreets and bewildering funfairs, our determined duo travel to the centre of a night so intense that there are no stars to be seen.”

SCHRÖDINGER (3-4 NOV) AND VOID STORY (11-12 NOV) ARE BOTH PERFORMED AT ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW.ARNOLFINI. ORG.UK

PREVIEW Hard Times

THEATRE // The creative team and annual clutch of budding thesps at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School have always excelled at the big-cast musical adaptation – think last year’s dark, seamy and uproarious adaptation of Joseph Moncure March’s ‘The Wild Party’, for instance, or – far more wholesome but every inch as magical – their musical adaptation of JB Priestley’s ‘The Good Companions’. So we’ve high hopes for this new musical adaptation (by Malcolm McKee, directed by Sue Wilson – the same team behind The Wild Party’) of Charles Dickens’s vast panoramic sweep of Victorian urban life and industrial

venuemagazine

Performance Previews 974.indd 69

relations.

‘Hard Times’ is chock full of vivid Dickensian characters – Gradgrind, Bounderby, Mr M’Choakumchild, Sissy Jupe and the tumblers and jugglers of Mr Sleary’s circus. Against the fire-belching satanic mills of Coketown, expect an exhilarating staging of Dickens’s sensational tale of industrial strife, betrayal

and changing fortunes. After the show on the last five nights, meanwhile, BOVTS will present ‘What The Dickens’, their devised musical revue in honour of the great man’s bicentenary.

HARD TIMES IS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL FROM 3-12 NOV. FFI: WWW.OLDVIC.AC.UK AND WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

// NEWS // New Bristol theatre…

The Mummers are coming… // This year has already brought two attractive (and very bijou) new additions to Bristol’s theatre landscape – step forward Kingsdown’s Wardrobe Theatre and the Little Black Box, Chandos Road.

And there’s one more arrival on its way before the year is out. The brand new, 400seater Bierkeller Theatre is taking over the former home of, you guessed it, the Bristol Bierkeller: currently mid-refurb, it will open with a Christmas show, before programming a winter season “aimed at adults and addressing mature personal and public issues”. More soon – meantime keep an eye on www.bierkellertheatre. com… Congrats to Bath’s Next Stage, who plan to add a new rehearsal space to their Mission Theatre home in the centre of town. The company have recently acquired the long-term lease of the adjoining Old Bakery, and are now launching Space-Mission, an appeal to raise £50,000 to convert the dilapidated structure into rehearsal and dressing rooms for the theatre. Bath’s Andrew Brownsword Charitable Foundation has pledged to offer matched funding, meaning that NS’s actual target is £25,000.

This autumn sees a raft of fundraising events, and donations are invited from friends and supporters. Ffi: www. missiontheatre.co.uk...

Meantime, Next Stage continue their adventurous programme with a week’s run for Tom Stoppard’s brilliant, complex relationship, truth and illusion drama The Real Thing from 22-26 Nov… Want to see the streets of Bath peopled by folk plays and street theatre folk? Your luck’s in, as the first Bath International Mummer Unconvention takes place from 17-20 Nov. Street performances, workshops, talks, masterclasses and more: see http:// bit.ly/oSlckS ffi... Last but not least, after a run at the egg last month, Tim Crouch brings his solo show i, Malvolio (pictured) to Bristol Old Vic Studio this month (2226 Nov). It’s the latest in this brilliant series of Shakespeare dissections by the sometime Bristol-based actor, who takes a prominent (but not starring) character from one of Will’s plays and places him centre stage. See our review at http:// bit.ly/oXy8Dk. NB Perfs Tue-Thur & Sat 7.30pm, plus Fri 10pm – that one contains more adult content – and matinees on Thur & Sat at 2.30pm. Ages 11+. Ffi: www.

NOVEMBER 2011 // 69 timcrouchtheatre.co.uk

10/25/2011 4:58:17 PM

Comedy

w w w. t he c o me dy b ox .c o.u k

// THE MONTH AHEAD // KOMEDIA The Pajama Men

1.

// Nightwear-favouring sketch duo tour the country after a triumphant Edinburgh Fringe, with brand new show ‘In The Middle of No One’, a “fast-paced comedy thriller about love, alien abduction, the pressure cooker of solitude and the spirit of adventure”.

Not seen ’em yet? Do so: their taut physical comedy, all quicksilver character changes, plot twists, knowing allusions and eyebrowarching bemusement with each other, is a brilliant pleasure to watch.

THE PAJAMA MEN PLAY KOMEDIA, BATH ON WED 30 NOV. FFI: WWW.KOMEDIA.CO.UK

THE COMEDY BOX Richard Herring

2.

// Surely the funniest man ever to come out of Cheddar (and you can draw the radius quite a bit bigger than that, for our money), Herring returns to a city, and a stage, he can practically call his second home. Latest show ‘What Is Love, Anyway?’ borrows a Howard Jones lyric and takes an honest and unflinching look at modern love and its discontents. Expect much waspish humour and amiable, bedsit-land self-deprecation.

RICHARD HERRING IS AT THE COMEDY BOX, BRISTOL ON TUE 1-WED 2 NOV. FFI: WWW.THECOMEDYBOX.CO.UK

KOMEDIA Chris Addison LEFTBANK Noah’s Lark Comedy

3.

// Brand new monthly comedy club, featuring a regular compere, a number of open spots and a headline slot from a circuit comic (this month: Matthew Crosby (pictured), one third of the brilliant sketch troupe Pappy’s).

NOAH’S LARK COMEDY BEGINS AT LEFTBANK, STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL ON SUN 20 NOV. FFI: NOAHSLARKCOMEDY@GMAIL.COM

70 // november 2011

Comedy Month Ahead 974.indd 70

4.

// Work-in-progress show (and those can often be the best, with their organic, we’re-creatingthis-together buzz) by the very winsome and very brainy Double Perrier nominee and star of TV comedies ‘The Thick of It’ and ‘Lab Rats’.

Expect a beguiling mix of whimsical stand-up and smart-arse daftness.

CHRIS ADDISON PLAYS KOMEDIA ON SUN 13 NOV. FFI: WWW.KOMEDIA.CO.UK

6.

THE COMEDY BOX Hal Cruttenden

5.

// Engaging, straight-down-the-middle comic whom we last caught supporting Rob Brydon on tour. Cruttenden pokes copious fun at his own middle-class obsessions and blind spots: but there’s some smart social commentary, too, in amongst all the engagingly befuddled observation.

HAL CRUTTENDEN PLAYS THE COMEDY BOX, BRISTOL ON FRI 18SAT 19 NOV. FFI: WWW.THECOMEDYBOX.CO.UK

RIPROAR COMEDY Mitch Benn // New Bristol comedy venue, brought to you by the former Team Jesters and housed in a modern auditorium just off College Green, gets into gear for its first full month with a set from the gifted Scottish comic and musical parodist, from whom you should expect a medley of skewed musical classics, delivered with bluster and confidence.

MITCH BENN AND OTHERS PLAY RIPROAR COMEDY, BRISTOL ON SAT 5 NOV. FFI: WWW.RIPROARCOMEDY.CO.UK

venuemagazine

10/24/2011 5:18:39 PM

TRINITY Stand Out Comedy Tour TOBACCO FACTORY Shappi Khorsandi

// Comedians Zoe Lyons (pictured), Jen Brister and Suzi Ruffell head out on tour this month – “possibly the first all-lesbian comedy tour ever to travel the UK in the aim of quashing the ‘lesbians aren’t funny’ myth”. Who said they weren’t? Ah well, should be worth a look: Lyons and Brister are both decent comediennes with forceful, persuasive delivery styles, while newcomer Ruffell is attracting interest across the circuit.

7.

// When the Iranian-born, London-dwelling SK headlined Bristol Comedy Garden this summer, we were drawn in by her easy-going, honest musings about single mumhood, middle-class neuroses and the peculiar social obstacles thrown in the path of a secular, hedonistic, metropolitan Anglo-Iranian. Her language and delivery tread a nice line between streetspeak and R4/Guardian worthy. She’ll go down well in worthy-but-urban BS3, we reckon….

THE STAND OUT COMEDY TOUR VISITS TRINITY, BRISTOL ON FRI 25 NOV. FFI: HTTP://3CA.ORG.UK/EVENTS

9.

SHAPPI KHORSANDI PLAYS THE TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL ON MON 28 NOV. FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

COMEDY CAVERN Robert White

8.

// To our eyes this month’s most intriguing draw at Bath’s Comedy Cavern, White is summed up thus by chortle.co.uk: “the hyperactive energy, partly fuelled by his Asperger’s Syndrome autism, creates a uniquely compelling delivery.

It’s like listening to the Goon Show on fast-forward, as snippets of puns, stories and musical bursts from his primitive keyboard smash into each other in a babbling cascade of odd humour.” White’s supporting Dan Evans, a comic in the Harry Hill mould – silly and playful, albeit a tad more low-key and conversational than the vast-shirted one.

ROBERT WHITE AND DAN EVANS PLAY THE COMEDY CAVERN, BATH ON SUN 20 NOV. FFI: WWW.COMEDYCAVERN.CO.UK

KOMEDIA Frisky and Mannish

10.

// Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones to their mums, this duo ply their own brand of ‘twisted pop cabaret’, in which they mess about with famous popular ditties to high comedic effect. Expect an unholy alliance between Lily Allen and Noel Coward – and to hear The Bangles’ ‘Eternal Flame’ rethought as a cry for help from a psychotic stalker.

FRISKY AND MANNISH PLAY KOMEDIA, BATH ON THUR 24 NOV. FFI: WWW. KOMEDIA.CO.UK

venuemagazine

Comedy Month Ahead 974.indd 71

november 2011 // 71

10/25/2011 4:55:07 PM

Art

Wild visions It’s back! The Wildife Photographer of the Year exhibition returns to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery this month, displaying the past year’s finest images of our impossibly varied natural world.

Here’s a small selection to whet the appetite…

4. Boy meets nature Over a few warm August evenings, satin moths flutter at the windows of Alex Badyaev’s cabin in the Montana wilderness. In turn, they are irresistible lures for the neighbourhood long-legged myotis bats. “It took a couple of summers before I figured out how to photograph the scene without overpowering the warm glow from the window lamp,” says Alex. “By the time I’d mastered the technical side, my 13-month-old son Victor’s love of bat-watching completed the tableau.”

Pic: Alexander Badyaev/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

1. Heavenly light show A major peak of solar activity in March triggered spectacular auroras over Jökulsárlón, Iceland’s largest glacier lake. “Auroras are highly dynamic, and the lights move very quickly,” Stephane Vetter explains.

“So you need long exposures to smooth out their beautiful draperies.” He waited for four hours in the bitter cold and 25mph winds for the light show to begin. “The aurora stretched all the way from the south west to the north east and up to the zenith, draping itself right over the Milky Way.” Using long exposures, he created a series of eight photographs that he could then assemble into a single image to recreate the magical scene.

Pic: Stephane Vetter/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

2. Racket-tail in the rain Czech Petr Simon spent two weeks at a lodge in Ecuador tracking hummingbirds, obsessed with getting the quintessential image. His holy grail was the booted racket-tail – tiny, quick and a real challenge to photograph. “Each day, I watched the birds feeding, getting to know their routines – which bird feeders and flowers they visited and when.

Muted light gave the best results, and this shot of a male booted racket-tail feeding at a bromeliad was taken in the late afternoon. I used flashes to highlight the bird’s dazzling plumage and a fast shutter speed to slow its rapid wing-beat.

The soft rain added a sparkling touch.”

Pic: Petr Simon/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

3. The salmon jam Thomas Peschak wedged himself into a crevice under fast-flowing water at the base of a waterfall in Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. Hundreds of pink salmon were backing up in the pool, waiting for the right moment to leap up the waterfall and continue their journey upriver to their spawning grounds. Thomas waited for over two hours, until the salmon were bunched up sufficiently to fill the frame. Salmon are an integral part of the temperate rainforest ecosystem, returning to spawn and die where they were born.

Not only do they feed seals, bears and wolves, but their discarded remains also fertilize the trees of the surrounding forest.

Pic: Thomas P Peschak/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

72 // november 2011

Art Feature 974.indd 72

5. making an impression Brit Andy Rouse caught the moment when Akarevuro, a young male mountain gorilla, charged at him in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. “It had taken a couple of hours’ trekking to reach the gorilla band, which is led by Akarevuro’s father, Kwitonda.

The group was very chilled: Akarevuro was hanging out with some females in a clearing.” With hormones raging, the young ape suddenly rushed towards the group of humans.

“Dense vegetation prevented us from moving back. Akarevuro stopped a few metres away from us, squatted on all fours and remained like that for several minutes to make his point.” Andy sat still, avoided eye contact and waited for the moment to pass. “He was simply out to impress one of the receptive females. And it worked – a little later, we saw him mating.”

Pic: Andy Rouse/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

THE VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR (OWNED BY THE NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE AND BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE) EXHIBITION IS AT BRISTOL MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY FROM SAT 19 NOV-SUN 11 MAR. FFI: WWW.NHM.AC.UK/WILDPHOTO

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 3:56:26 PM

// THE MONTH AHEAD // CHARITY AUCTION Six by Eight

Got an event to list?

Submit it to us at venue.co.uk/ submit-a-listing

1.

// Throw your hat into the ring for your chance to win one of 350 unique, 6” x 8” signed artworks from an impressive roster of artists (established and emerging) and, ulp, slebrities. Gert famous folk contributing include Kim Cattrall, David Cameron (?), Alan Rickman and Jezza Irons.

Top-drawer local artists, meanwhile, include Tom White, Anthony Garratt, Dawn Sidoli and Laura Cramer. Proceeds go to Hop Skip & Jump, a Kingswood centre for special needs children.

SIX BY EIGHT IS AT THE BRISTOL GALLERY FROM FRI 11-SUN 13 NOV. FFI: WWW.SIXBYEIGHT.CO.UK

2.

GROUP SHOW Connect One // Local group Artists Connect, whose members include well-known local artists Rebecca Howard, Lisa Malyon, Angie Kenber and Graham Williams, get together to exhibit paintings, illustration and photography that respond to the environments around them, both natural and urban.

CONNECT ONE IS AT THE CREATE CENTRE, BRISTOL FROM THUR 10-MON 28 NOV. FFI: WWW.ARTISTS-CONNECT.CO.UK

3.

WORLD-CLASS ANIMATION Animation Art Auction

4.

TWO FINE SOLO SHOWS Mungo Powney/ Becky Buchanan

// Pedigree online art auction, conceived

by Nick Park and Aardman chums to raise funds for the Wallace & Gromit Grand Appeal at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

Artwork by four-times Oscar winner Park joins sketches and memorabilia by Ray Harryhausen (‘Jason & The Argonauts’), John Lasseter (‘Toy Story’), Pete Docter (‘UP’, pictured) and Roger Rabbit Animation Director Richard Williams.

// Very good-looking double-header, this, at Bath’s consistently beguiling Edgar Modern gallery. Powney, whose richly textured and colour-soaked paintings depict nudes, interiors and the rhythms of rural France, is followed by a collection of beautiful, colour-soaked still lifes and abstracts

by Buchanan, whose paintings (‘Last Night of the Proms’, pictured) “reflect the myriad visual experiences to which we are constantly exposed.” Open your eyes, people….

THE ANIMATION ART AUCTION WILL BE HOSTED ON EBAY.CO.UK FROM TUE 1- THUR 10 NOV. FFI: WWW.GRANDAPPEAL.ORG.UK/ AUCTION

MUNGO POWNEY (FRI 4-WED 16 NOV) AND BECKY BUCHANAN (THUR 17 NOV-SAT 3 DEC) EXHIBIT AT EDGAR MODERN, BATH. FFI: WWW.EDGARMODERN.COM

venuemagazine

Art Month Ahead 974.indd 73

FRENCH CONNECTIONS L’Alliance

5.

// Bath Contemporary gives over its walls to the work of renowned Scottish artist Michael G Clark, whose serene landscapes and portraits bear echoes of Cézanne and Degas. Mixing scenes from Paris and rural France (‘Market Day in Tuilette’, pictured), moody Scottish skyscapes and images of Bath life, Clark’s paintings celebrate life’s everyday pleasures and the sense of place that every scene can convey.

MICHAEL G. CLARK’S L’ALLIANCE IS AT BATH CONTEMPORARY FROM SAT 12-SUN 27 NOV. FFI: WWW.BATHCONTEMPORARY.COM october 2011 // 73

10/24/2011 5:48:08 PM

Art preview

PIC: MAX MCCLURE

RWA 159 Autumn Exhibition

Some of the many artworks at RWA awaiting consideration

// The raft of artworks submitted to the Royal West of England Academy’s vast annual open exhibition is always impressive: for 2011’s, though, entries reached record levels. RWA’s biggest exhibition of the year is an alwaysappetising mix of sculpture, photography, architecture, painting and printmaking from both professional and amateur artists. For sheer quantity of art (typically over 500 pieces – nearer 600 this year), it can’t be matched, but the quality hitrate is always high too.

This year, over 2,000 works were submitted to a panel of selectors that included, alongside the usual RWA Academicians, composer and musician Will Gregory (Goldfrapp et al). And, for the first time, much of the selection process has taken place online, with the panel making preliminary selections from home before inviting (hundreds of) short-listed artists into the RWA to present their works in person. Highlights of this year’s show include a new piece by land artist, Academician and long-time Bristol resident Richard Long. ‘Fingerprints on Driftwood’ uses wood from the River Severn, white Cornish china clay and River Avon mud.

74 // november 2011

Art Feature 2 974.indd 74

THE 159 AUTUMN EXHIBITION IS AT THE ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY FROM 30 OCT-31 DEC. FFI: WWW.RWA.ORG.UK

// New directions // // The atmospheric old Golden Guinea boozer in Redcliffe, Bristol becomes a street art lover’s haven this autumn, with ‘Eastwest’, a group show featuring work by Bristol street artists. Expect an eclectic range of graffiti and illustration, by Bristol names past and present including Cheo, Jody, Lokey and Soker. Showing till end Dec: see www. osnap.co.uk ffi.

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 4:59:47 PM

venuemagazine

p75.indd 35

NOVEMber 2011 // 75

10/24/2011 9:35:20 PM

ike, da

nd .

ons

st as

ok’s t up os

le d

plot. pth en e

tes

Books

Storm the barricades with these rabble-rousing tomes chosen by the radical anti-heroes at Bristol booksellers Foyles for Guy Fawkes Night.

REVIEW

Misha Glenny: ‘Dark Market – Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You’

‘Remember, Remember (the Fifth of November)’ – Judy Parkinson (Michael O’Mara Books, £5.99) HISTORY Little slices of history featuring radical characters from the Roman invasion through to the Gunpowder Plot and the Second World War.

(£20, Bodley Head) // Sitting very snugly alongside ‘McMafia’ (£8.99, Vintage), his illuminating look at the impact and influence of organised crime, Misha Glenny turns his attention to the major boom industry of cybercrime.

‘McMafia’, shortlisted for the Bristol Festival of Ideas Book Prize in 2009, demonstrated Glenny’s forensic approach to journalism. The detail and research were astounding and that’s the case here, too.

Glenny trawls the globe and meets many of those involved in one of the 21st century’s biggest growth industries. He uncovers a mindblowingly global network of fraudsters, hackers, scammers, money launderers, chancers and hugely powerful criminal organisations. The action moves at enormous speed, internet speed if you like, zapping across the globe from the US to Eastern Europe to the UK to Asia and Canada and on and on, circumnavigating the planet in what seems like a matter of seconds.

He focuses much of his attention on the dramatic rise of the website Dark Market and the FBI agent, Keith Mularski, who managed to infiltrate it and bring about its demise. Dark Market was set up to trade in stolen identities, bank account details and credit cards. At its peak it was estimated that it had over 2,000 fully registered users.

Investigators were and still are, to a certain extent, learning on the job, and Dark Market’s fall took years of meticulous, painstaking toil.

What is, perhaps, most alarming about Glenny’s revelations is that the cyberfelons remain, to a large extent, way ahead of the game in terms of developing their fraudulent techniques and hiding beneath layer upon layer of protection – it’s almost as though those at the heart of the fraudulent activity don’t exist.

The interviews Glenny conducts with the imprisoned hackers are perhaps the book’s greatest strength.

None fit any kind of stereotype apart from being incredibly bright up top.

And as for motivation, money seems

76 // november 2011

books Feature 974.indd 76

to be one of many factors; peer group kudos and other motivations are just as significant.

Again like ‘McMafia’, it’s somewhat of an undertaking trying to complete the whole book. And although Glenny performs heroics in making it read like a turbo-charged thriller much of the time, the scores of characters and locations involved in the 300 pages may drive some readers to note-taking so that they don’t, as it were, lose the plot. There is also the odd feeling here and there that he’s teetering on the edge of his depth when describing the finer intricacies of software development and the IT world – then again, that’s at the heart of what he’s describing and most of us are completely in the dark.

Overall, this is an astoundingly eye-opening piece of trailblazing journalism and confirms Glenny’s position as one of the leading chroniclers of how the world operates right now. (Joe Melia) MISHA GLENNY WILL BE APPEARING AT A BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF IDEAS EVENT DISCUSSING CYBERCRIME ON 2 NOVEMBER AT WATERSHED. THE EVENT STARTS AT 7.30PM. SEE WWW. IDEASFESTIVAL.CO.UK FFI. Misha Glenny delivers another slice of trailblazing journalism

‘Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter’ – Carmen Aguirre (Portobello, £12.99) MEMOIR A political coming-ofage story in which Aguirre recalls her experiences growing up with the Chilean underground resistance movement.

THANKS ONCE AGAIN, TO THE FABULOUS FOYLES, 6 QUAKERS FRIARS, CABOT CIRCUS, BRISTOL, BS1 3BU, 0117 376 3975, WWW.FOYLES.CO.UK

ns e h to

// top ten // All lit up

‘The People’s Manifesto’ – Mark Thomas (Ebury Press, £4.99) HUMOUR Pocketsized polemic based on Thomas asking his audiences for their ideas for improving the country – from ‘MPs should not be paid wages but loans, like students’ to ‘There should be separate lanes for pedestrians based on the speeds they walk at’.

‘Radical Gardening’ – George McKay (Frances Lincoln, £12.99) GARDENING A history of politics, idealism and rebellion, revealing the long countercultural tradition associated with gardening. Wellchosen full-colour images are dotted through this fascinating alternative history.

‘The Paper Bag Princess’ – Robert Munsch (Annick Press, £5.95) CHILDREN’S This princess is a real rebel. A dragon steals her prince away but when she finally arrives, all bedraggled, to rescue him, the prince tells her to clean herself up! That’s one prince who may not be rescued, after all.

‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ – Peter Carey (Faber, £8.99) FICTION A rollicking tale of the great Australian antihero – bushranger Ned Kelly. It’s a fast-paced and deeply humanising rewriting of history that does justice to a man who started life on the back foot.

‘Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry’ – BS Johnson (Macmillan, £8.99) FICTION All Christie Malry wants is sex and money.

To understand more about the latter, he enrols on an accounting course, learns about the double-entry bookkeeping system and decides to apply it to his own life: all accounts are to be paid in full. This sets him to avenging himself on the world. A brilliant novel from a visionary author, full of pitch black humour and brilliant meta-fictional flourishes.

‘Lucian Freud’ – William Feaver (Rizzola, £65) ART With the passing of Lucian Freud, the art world has lost a distinctive radical.

His work has a furious concentrated intensity.

This book is the finest available on this unique artist.

‘Degas and the Nude’ – Shackelford & Rey (Thames and Hudson, £42) ART Degas’s work explored the limits of convention, and in his later work his intense slashes of pure colour redefine the depiction of the body. The reproductions in this volume are of the highest quality.

‘V For Vendetta’ – Alan Moore and David Lloyd (Titan Publishing, £16.99) GRAPHIC NOVEL The setting is a dystopian alternative Britain ruled under the iron fist of the totalitarian Norsefire party. Our hero is known only as V, wears a mask depicting a certain 17thcentury gunpowder plotter and has decided that enough is enough. Alan Moore’s multi-layered tale not only inspired a film but also the attitudes and disguises of protesters across the globe.

venuemagazine

10/25/2011 5:24:14 PM

DaysOut

family fun and trips away

Child's play She’s the go-to chef for sleb mums from Sarah Beeny to Donna Air, and has even caught the eye of Raymond Blanc… Fiona Faulkner talks to Rachel Nott about her new book that aims to get kids excited about good food.

F

iona Faulkner is a new kind of children’s food guru. Mother of three young children, she’s been through many of the table tantrums that a lot of parents will have torn their hair out over. But rather than resorting to chips and fish fingers every night to keep the peace, her strategy has been to give some of the most troublesome foods a PR overhaul, while also getting kids involved in the preparation and cooking of her all-ages-pleasing recipes so they can engage with the food on their plates. Fiona lives in Somerset and runs cookingwith-kids workshops in schools, and privately via her business Toddler Chef. Her first cookbook ‘25 Foods Kids Hate (and How to Get Them Eating 24)’ has recently been published by New Holland Publishers, priced £12.99.

What’s the story behind Toddler Chef?

Basically my son was a bit of a picky eater – and I couldn’t find any books or information to help me.

So I tinkered about in the kitchen and came up with recipes as well as various techniques that worked wonders and transformed his eating habits. I then began to pass this all on to friends and relatives – and soon afterwards decided to encapsulate the recipes, experience and hard-won knowledge into classes for parents and kids.

What types of families are you appealing to?

Anyone really who wants to get their kids not only cooking – but

venuemagazine

Family & Days Out 974.indd 77

also really excited about good healthy food and developing positive eating habits for life.

I’m not preachy [she says, with a handful of secret Kettle Chips…] and fully understand the pressures of modern life – so I like to talk to parents as a real mum as opposed to some kind of celebrity chef.

How does your approach differ from other cooking-for-kids titles?

Because effectively mine is a cooking with (as opposed to for) kids cookbook; that’s a central part of my ethos. I also take each ingredient in turn (e.g. broccoli; peppers; meat; fish…) and get creative with these specific foods as my starting point – thinking about not only how a child would like to eat these things – but how to ‘PR’ the ensuing recipes too. With kids, it’s all about the marketing (they tend to eat with their eyes and ears – so if they don’t like the look or sound of something, you’re snookered).

Do you think kids are getting fussier about food?

I don’t think they’re necessarily getting fussier – but I do feel it’s easier for kids to eat the wrong kinds of things because there’s so much junk out there, along with convenience foods. I worry that this desensitizes kids’ (and adults’) tastebuds – plus they become over-familiar with a limited set of dinners (apparently Brits cook the same five or so dinners on a loop).

Having said that, it’s very tough, especially for working parents, to try and cook from scratch every night. As a working mum I fully understand the pressures of modern-day life. This is why I refer

to my Spinach Pesto (for example) as a hero recipe – it can be made in less than five minutes, with no nasty additives.

over-eat (if they are genuinely not hungry) but also asking them to ignore the vital ‘I’m full’ signals from their brain.

Give us your five top tips for calm and happy family mealtimes

FFI: VISIT FIONA’S WEBSITE WWW. FIONAFAULKNER.CO.UK OR FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER @FIONA_FAULKNER

Don’t bribe with dessert I base this on an interesting theory called the ‘over-justification hypothesis’. The premise here is that kids enjoy something less if they realise they are being rewarded for eating it!

Persevere Research suggests a child needs to see a new food on average 20 times before they’ll want to try it.

Do it Italian By offering big serving dishes of different foods. Mum/dad gets to pick what goes in, for example, five dishes – but they must help themselves to at least three of these. Or let them decide on one of the dishes and help you cook it?

Author, mum and food crusader Fiona Faulkner

Offer realistic portion sizes Remember: little tummies only need little portions! On the subject of size, do also chop veg and meat etc right down to small cubes/chunks. I’ve found this really does help.

Don’t fall into the ‘eat every last scrap’ trap By forcing kids to eat ‘every last scrap’ you are encouraging them to not only

november 2011 // 77

10/24/2011 5:38:52 PM

U

Roast

Purveyors of the finest hog and lamb roasts for weddings, parties, festivals and corporate hospitality

All enquiries to: info@therollingroast.co.uk

www.therollingroast.co.uk 78 // NOVEMber 2011

p78.indd 34

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:42:39 PM

www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99

For loads of days out ideas, see venue.co.uk/daysout

Ready, steady, cook!

Fiona’s recipes sound and look good, but do they work? Rachel Nott introduces two-year-old Theo to the wonderful world of cooking.

A

s mother of a maddeningly fussy two-year-old, I could hardly type my credit card details quick enough into Amazon, after reading an inspiring article on Fiona Faulkner in The Sunday Times over the summer.

Not only did she come across as thoroughly nice and normal – the sort of person you’d happily confess all your worst traits to without fear of withering or bewildered looks – but also included were a couple of recipes which actually looked like food I would happily eat myself.

There’s something so overwhelmingly satisfying about getting an illogically fussy child to enjoy something you’ve cooked that also happens to contain some decent nutrition. During my son’s fussiest patch – starting when he was around 18 months – he would only happily munch on a limited range of sausages, ham, cheese, tinned tuna, sweetcorn, peas, breadsticks, cake, crisps, Weetabix and Innocent Smoothies. I still can’t bear to think of the amount of untouched food that ended up in the recycling bin during this time. But remarkably Theo seems to have turned a corner over the past couple of months and is more willing to try some new and more interesting tastes and textures (including Fiona’s shepherd’s pie with baked beans – try it, it’s already reached weekly supper status in our house).

So I decided to do a little

venuemagazine

Family & Days Out 974.indd 79

experiment and for the first time involved him in some “cooking”, in the very loosest term, taking two of the simplest recipes from Fiona’s book. Here’s how we got on…

Butternut & Banana Smoothie Pure genius, this one. Fiona advises that, rather than run the risk of cutting your whole hand off while peeling an unyielding raw butternut, you roast the whole thing first until you can easily stick a knife through it.

The skin practically falls off when it’s done and mashing is a doddle. Theo seems to enjoy this bit – destruction is one of his key hobbies – so the poor butternut gets a pretty punishing pummeling. Next it’s the banana’s turn – but perhaps he’s used all his energy on the butternut as his cutting is a little half-hearted. Together with some pineapple chunks, fresh orange juice and yogurt, everything goes into the blender for a good whiz around.

The verdict? He’s a smoothie addict so I’ve got a good feeling about this one. He has a few sips through the straw but then discovers he can make pretty patterns on the table with it.

Still, he’s willingly drunk something that doesn’t come out of a carton, plus gets to indulge his artistic side. It’s win win.

give him a wooden spoon and a fork so he can let all that toddler energy out and whip that cream cheese to oblivion! He sort of stabs at it, then decides to paint my arm with a snowy, pea-studded landscape.

The verdict? He has a tiny taste and pulls a grimace, maybe as lime is a new and quite sharp taste.

But he doesn’t spit it out, which is usually what he does with food he doesn’t like, and continues stabbing at the mixture. Fiona suggests her homemade tortilla chips or vegetable crudités to go with the dip. As I’ve never had any success with raw veg apart from cherry tomatoes, I cop out and offer him a humble breadstick.

Theo enjoys dipping the breadstick in the mixture and licking it off a few times before spotting his new rocket and abandoning the whole operation.

I reckon it’s a grower…

Theo (below) and Rachel (above right) get creative in the kitchen

Emily’s Pea and Lime Dip Peas have pretty much always found favour with Theo so I choose this one as it’s a good variation on a theme.

I also like the fact there are only four ingredients – peas, lime juice, cream cheese and parmesan – and it’s a nice, messy recipe which I’m hoping he’ll love. The ingredients all go into a bowl and I get my hands into the cool, gloopy mixture to show Theo what I want him to do.

Clearly more decorous than I thought, he looks dubiously into the bowl, so I

november 2011 // 79

10/24/2011 5:39:36 PM

George Cottage Record Street Ruthin, North Wales

an introductory Folio reader offer of £240.00 for a three night weekend, from 5.00pm on Friday to 5.00pm Monday – sleeping two small families or two couples – www.georgecottagemitcheldean.co.uk

* What large house in The Forest of Dean, 45 minutes from Bristol, is George Cottage situated?

an introductory Folio reader offer of £300.00 for a three night weekend, from 5.00pm on Friday to 5.00pm Monday – sleeping two families or three couples – www.recordstruthin.co.uk

* From which period in history are most of the beautiful half timbered and timber framed properties in Ruthin, North Wales?

a bargain Folio reader offer of £1,600.00 for a 2 night weekend (£400.00 off ), from 5.00pm on Friday to 5.00pm Sunday – sleeping up to 25 ● a mid-week break for a family or families with pre-school children, during term time, from £250 ● a mid-week break for a family or families in school holidays or half terms, from £300 www.millendmitcheldean.co.uk

* What is the name of the markings found carved on the wooden structure of the medieval part of the property, which carpenters used 600 years ago? * answer question to claim reader offer

p80.indd 1

10/26/2011 12:44:43 PM

Skills

COURSES, WORKSHOPS, JOBS AND STUFF

Just not working Been made redundant or love someone who has? Anna Britten seeks advice for the newly jobless from West country-based life coach Cathy Summers.

S

o it’s all over bar the shouting.

You’ve just been called into the boss’s office and been given what they’ll try to package as a restructuring/economic necessity/chance for a fresh start – and you’ll be unable to see as anything but the elbow.

A big, sharp elbow moving swiftly through the air into your jaw.

Feel like sobbing? Go ahead. “The news may have an emotional impact on you,” says life coach Cathy Summers, “regardless of how mature, uptogether, balanced, sensible, senior, intelligent, capable etc you are. It’s likely that you will feel shock, tearfulness, denial, anger, confusion, feel out of control, fear or panic at this stage. This is normal. Research has shown that the emotional rollercoaster people experience during redundancy is akin to feelings experienced by people who have been bereaved. It’s

“Redundancy can be a great opportunity to take stock of where you are in your life ”

easy to see why – it’s about loss and grief.”

Or maybe you’re more inclined to punch the air and yell defiant cuss words?

Having worked with hundreds of people facing redundancy (and experienced it herself), Cathy urges restraint. “If redundancy is happy news for you, that’s fantastic, but do remember that your colleagues may be feeling differently!

Also bear in mind that it’s not uncommon for redundancy announcements to be handled in an unintentionally clumsy fashion. It can also be very difficult for the person giving you the news, especially if they are young or inexperienced. So if you’re tempted to give them a piece of your mind – think twice. You may regret it later.

When you’re given the news, do your best to get a written copy of whatever you have been told, so that you can read it properly after the initial shock has worn off and make sense of it. “Look after yourself whilst you’re struggling to take in the news. Gather a

support network around you.

If a couple of glasses of wine and a good cry is what you need, go ahead. If it helps, have a rant and rave. But don’t do it on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re looking for another job, going freelance or starting a business, then your reputation is your best marketing tool.

As we all know, reputations can be won and lost on social media.”

Once the shock has worn off, Cathy recommends getting as much relevant information as possible. For example, is there a consultancy period before redundancies are decided?

Is there an opportunity for you to suggest alternatives to redundancy? What are the timescales? Who in HR can you talk to about your rights?

And what support is available to help you cope with the new situation?

“You need a campaign plan.

Think ‘whole life’ not just your job or career path. Redundancy can be a great opportunity to take stock of where you are in your life and where you want

to be in the next chapter of your life.”

Your HR department is not your only option. The government’s Next Step initiative (nextstep.direct.gov. uk) provides information and advice to support adults in making appropriate decisions on a full range of learning and work opportunities.

Certain councils and ➞

"Shock, tearfulness, denial, anger, confusion, panic..." Ah, the fun of being made redundant. Fret not - this is (a) normal, and (b) there's plenty you can do about it

Life coach Cathy Summers venuemagazine

Skills 974.indd 81

SEPTEMBER 2011 // 81

10/25/2011 4:53:38 PM

uk

BRISTOL & BATH'S MAGAZINE

www.theunfoldinghead.co.uk

Coming Soon... theunfoldinghead@hotmail.co.uk

www.venue.co.uk Parking filler.indd 1

82 // NOVEMber 2011

p82.indd 34

28/02/2011 16:43:36

venuemagazine

10/26/2011 12:46:25 PM

Got an event to list?

Submit it to us at venue.co.uk/ submit-a-listing If you've lost your job, keep positive and avoid slipping into "victim" thinking, says life coach Cathy Summers (inset)

// Skills news // Zumba truce… acting in French…

Downs gone by…

colleges also offer free career advice sessions, the latter also offering relevant courses such as City of Bristol College’s ‘Response To Redundancy’ one-day workshop. Feel the time is right to strike out on your own? Business Link in the South West (www.businesslink. gov.uk/south_west.html) provides information, advice and support for starting, running and growing a business. Their service is impartial, providing practical

Your seven-point redundancy plan “Set yourself tasks and goals within a timeframe,” says Cathy. “So that you know you are moving forward. If you don’t have a plan, it’s all too easy to go round and round in circles. Imagine this is a work project. How would you plan it?

You’d probably draw up a stepby-step approach, set goals, milestones, deadlines, write a ‘to do’ list of tasks, find people who can help you etc. So do the same with your own campaign plan.”

venuemagazine

Skills 974.indd 83

solutions to customers and they offer an independent solution to individual business needs.

And finally, beware of slipping into ‘victim’ thinking.

“Ironically,” says Cathy, “well-meaning friends can sometimes pour fuel onto the fire when you’re having a ‘poor me’ moment. It’s a downward spiral and it robs you of your ‘get up and go’ and confidence.

Moreover, a negative and bitter person is not an attractive

proposition to a future employer either. It happens to us all every now and again, but other people can usually spot it a mile off, so ask your friends, family and colleagues to do you a favour and alert you if they notice it creeping into your conversation.”

CATHY SUMMERS INSPIRED 4 LIFE COACHING. FFI: 07702 806203 OR WWW. INSPIRED4LIFECOACHING.CO.UK

// Love to perform? Got a GCSE in French? A few places remain on French Through Drama, a 10-week course run by Theatre VO and the Alliance Française starting Tue 8 Nov at 8 pm at the Comedy Box in Southville and costing £160.

Go Depardieu it up! Ffi: 0781 659 0609 or www.theatre-vo.com

1 Immediate practicalities – review your finances. Are you OK for now or do you need to take any early, preventative action?

2 Deciding what to do with your life/career. Reflect on what you have enjoyed doing, skills and talents you have enjoyed using, in or out of work, what you know you are good at, what other people tell you that you are good at.

3 Explore options for using (or upgrading) your skills, talents, knowledge, expertise to achieve your goals.

4 Set a timeframe for making decisions.

// Zumba is one of the fastest growing fitness crazes in the UK, with over 350 instructors in the Bristol area alone. Behind the bumping, grinding, kungfu fighting dance workout fun, however, there’s intense rivalry between them and even – gasp!

– professional skulduggery. Well aware that not everyone’s sharing the ‘Zumba love’ like they oughta, instructor Natasha Lecshinski has set up Zumba In The Nightclub at Bristol’s Syndicate every Friday night. Zumba instructors within a 25-mile radius of the BS postcode are invited to teach together and take a share of the profits. Ffi: www.zumbainthenightclub.com and www.zumba.com

5 Network widely. Tell people what you are looking for (be as specific as you can) and ask them to put you in touch with people who can give you advice or further contacts.

6 Get your CV up to date.

7 Plan how you are going to sustain yourself on your journey.

// Travel back in time on the Downs not once but twice this month with two Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project events with art historian and Merchant Venturer Francis Greenacre. The Downs Through The Ages, an evening talk on Tue 8 Nov, uses ancient images to reveal the area’s changing use and appearance from Roman roads to World War I tanks. Then on Sat 26 Nov, illustrated morning walk Postcard Promenade On The Downs will compare the current views with those from days gone by. Ffi: 0117 903 0609.

SEPTEMBER 2011 // 83

10/25/2011 4:53:55 PM

Classifieds

t: 0117 942 8491 // b.davis@venue.co.uk

music TUITION

HOMES, GARDENS & GREEN BUSINESS

Classified enquires:

Guitar Tuition (Classical - Flamenco - Electric) Relaxed informal lessons - music awareness / theory / technique - work towards grades or simple arrangements - good rates - can travel to you.

35 yrs experience / working musician David 07980 369776 davidmguitar@gmail.com www.myspace.com/davidmguitar

OPTION 3

full colour

£50 +VAT

Box w43 x h30mm

www.venue.co. uk

HEALTH & WELL BEING

VAN HIRE

MAN WITH

VAN DELIVERY & REMOVALS ESTABLISHED 1995 Call Kosta on

H: 0117 9553782 M: 07970 590807

PAINLESS REMOVALS Est. 1978 100% Reliable, Efficient and Professional. Fully Covered.

Steve 0117 941 2689 07977 889747

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy For positive changes today

Stephanie Betschart HPD SFBT(Hyp) MNCH(lic)

HOMES, GARDENS & GREEN BUSINESS

Free Initial Consultation:

07731 784 254 Clinics in Clifton, Bishopston & Windmill Hill

KEITH HALL GARDENS

www.stephanie-hypnotherapy.co.uk

Domestic and Commercial Gardening Fencing, Hedge cutting, planting, turfing and Tree work.

Lawns, pruning and clearance.

Decking, Pergolas, Ponds and Wooden Structures.

OPTION 4

full colour

For your free estimate Please call 0117 9024765 | 07817 971 568

84 // november 2011

974 Classifieds.indd 84

re l a t e

Why not start with yourself and then help one or two others. Become a volunteer Relate counsellor and work with adults and children experiencing relationship difficulties.

• You will need to be available for 6 to 8 hours per week.

• Counselling experience is helpful but not necessary.

• Join us at Relate in supporting the most difficult

challenge going – relationships!

• We work in Bristol, Bath and Weston-s-Mare.

• Telephone 0117 9428444

HAIRDRESSER

Small w43 x h20mm

All aspects of Garden Design and Gardening Garden Design, Planting Plans, Plant Sourcing & Installation, Garden Maintenance, Gardening Consultation and advice.

Enquiries contact Louise Palmer (t) 01179 668991 / (m) 07761117393 (e) Lou_palmer21@hotmail.com

£25 +VAT

Thinking about changing the world?

Using environmentally friendly products

Established Hair Salon lease for sale in prime city centre location ffi: ads@venue.co.uk

Tel us on 07805632527 venuemagazine

10/26/2011 3:31:12 PM

Centre of attention

Bristol could finally be getting its own LGBT centre, says Darryl W Bullock.

A

t various times over the last couple of decades there have been attempts to establish an LGBT centre in Bristol, one which could bring many of the city’s gay and gay-friendly groups, businesses and services under one roof. It’s been almost 30 years since Bristol had anything similar, and a recent survey found that only 6% of respondents were against the idea of a new LGBT centre.

Bristol has more than 250 community facilities, yet not one of these is dedicated to the burgeoning LGBT populace. Now it seems something is happening: a new initiative is looking at the feasibility of establishing a Community Enterprise Centre (CEC) in Old Market specifically for LGBT people. Modelled on similar centres in Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester, the vision is for a fully-accessible venue with a café; rooms for workshops, classes and meetings; a performance space for film screenings, theatre, dance, fashion shows, music and poetry as well as a gallery. The group behind the project is also keen to see an educational use for the centre, providing training to combat homophobia (a recent government survey revealed that 65% of LGB secondary school pupils experience homophobic bullying at school) and partnering with universities involved in LGBT research.

Berkeley Wilde, a spokesperson for CEC, tells Venue: “The centre will give LGBT communities a voice throughout the region. We aim to train teachers, youth workers, police officers and social workers to effectively challenge homophobia and heterosexism.

We aim to ensure every LGBT child matters throughout the education

venuemagazine

Gay 974.indd 85

system and across young people’s services. We aim to build on the work already done with the University of Bristol on projects like ‘Secret Loves, Hidden Lives’ and continue to improve the lives of adults with learning difficulties who are LGBT or questioning their sexual or gender identity. We aim to develop, among other specialist projects, an LGBT domestic violence and abuse project, and will work with other equalities communities on campaigns to combat the rise in hate crime.

“It was an idea I had from working with the Safer Bristol Partnership.

I’d put it on the back burner because the recession hit and there seemed to be so little money available, but even with the cuts in funding there are pockets of money out there if you can access them. Our main driver at the moment is income generation, to get the funding to make the centre happen, so any and all LGBT groups who want to access and use the centre can do so on an accessible sliding scale, which will include free use of space to groups with little or no funding.

IF YOU’D LIKE TO GET INVOLVED IN THIS EXCITING PROJECT EMAIL BERKELEY. WILDE@DIVERSITYTRUST.ORG.UK

➜

EVENTS NOT TO MISS IN NOVEMBER Nov 5 // Wonky’s 8th Birthday Party Basement 45, Frogmore St, Bristol BS1 5NA, 10.30pm4am, free entry before 11.30/£5 after/NUS £4. Ffi: www. clubwonky.com • Bristol’s long running night (pictured below) for homos who hate hard house celebrates its eighth birthday with a 90s-themed disco, with Wonky regulars including Bernie, Nat 3D and Lloydi plus guest DJs Dirty Pop (Cardiff) and Max DMC.

Nov 5 // Primal’s Second Birthday Bash Bristol Bear Bar, 2 West St, Bristol BS2 0BH. Ffi: www.clubprimal. co.uk • The members-only club night for guys into the fetish scene is on the move, and to celebrate they’re throwing a free party at the BBB. No dress code this evening: show your membership card at the bar and your first drink will cost you £2.

Nov 8 // Quiz Night Mandalyn’s (pictured below), 13 Fountain Buildings, Lansdown Hill, Bath BA1 5DX. Ffi: 01225 425403 or www.mandalyns. com • Fun quiz every Tuesday night, with host Rusty Nail.

Nov 10 // Come to Daddy Old Castle Green, 46 Gloucester Lane, Old Market, Bristol BS2 0DU, 10pm-4am. Ffi: www. cometodaddyclub.co.uk • Come to Daddy, the UK’s premier travelling men-only night, returns. A men-only space for bears, cubs and the men who like ’em to socialise.

Nov 12 // Lesbian and Children Network Ffi: 07813 754291 or rachely@talktalk.net • An afternoon of roller skating in Patchway, starting at 2.30pm.

Nov 13 // Living Springs Metropolitan Community Church United Reformed Church Halls, Grove St, Bath BA2 6PJ, 6pm • Gay church, open to all: recognition and blessing of relationships offered. A special service to mark Remembrance Sunday.

Nov 18 // GEAR Club O, 7 Lawrence Hill, Bristol BS5 0BY, 9pm-2am, £10 (membership free but required for entry). Ffi: www. gearbristol.co.uk • Gear is Bristol’s monthly club night for gay men into rubber, work wear, leather and sports kit.

Newcomers always welcome: changing rooms and safe coat check provided.

Nov 19 // Bristol Posse The Ship, Lower Park Row, Bristol BS1 5BJ, from 3pm. Ffi: 07891 950550 or info@bristolposse. co.uk • Casual monthly gettogether for members of the LGB community. Drop by for a pint (or something nonalcoholic) and a chat, go on for a meal if you’re hungry or carry on into the night pubbing or clubbing. Everyone welcome.

Nov 21 // CycleOut Bristol: Dykes on Bikes Meet by King William Statue, Queen Sq, Bristol, 6pm, returning by 9pm.

Ffi: 07813 754291 or rachely@ talktalk.net • CycleOut Bristol’s programme of short evening rides exclusively for women.

All are welcome: don’t forget to bring your lights!

Nov 26 // Liberty Toto’s Bar, 125 Redcliffe St, Bristol BS1 6HU, 9pm-2am, £6 otd/£5 before 11pm or from liberty.bristol@ live.co.uk Ffi: libertybristol. co.uk • Bristol’s only regular women-only club night, with all-female bar staff, performers and promoters. Tonight with DJ Kacey behind the decks.

AUGUST 2011 // 85

HUNGRY FOR MORE? Flip the page for Venue & Folio’s food & drink mini-mag, Eating Out West

Lesbian&Gay

// THE MONTH AHEAD //

➜

10/25/2011 4:38:09 PM