Venue Magazine 970

FREE TAKE ONE!

// TREASURE ISLAND // Jim lad! Bristol Old Vic bring Robert Louis Stevenson’s high seas spectacular home // GLASTONBURY // What the hell happened?

Plus: BRISTOL & bATH'S MAGAZINE

www.venue.co.uk nO.970 // JUly 2011 // FREE

// COMEDY FESTIVALS // Bristol gets a double dose of laughter therapy // JULIAN DAVIS // Meet the new man at the helm of St Pauls Carnival

DOCK ROCKIN' BEATS CAN THE HARBOUR FEST STILL CUT IT AT 40?

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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.24 Glastonbury 2011 Were you there? Do you care? Did you see Beyoncé? The Wombles?

BB King? Something for everyone. Oh, and the toilets. Same as ever.

Look back on Pilton’s planet-sized pop party right here, right now.

p.16 Treasure Island Jim lad! Bristol Old Vic bring Robert Louis Stevenson’s grog-swilling masterpiece home.

p.18 The Harbour Fest at 40 As Bristol comes out to play for its annual dockside rock splurge, we look back on four decades of waterside frolics

Regulars Features p.14 Meet Julian Davis – new artistic chief of the St Pauls Carnival p.22 Bristol gets two monster comedy fests! On the same weekend! A-ha-ha-ha! Etc. p.28 Debt: it sucks, yes. But what yo’ gonna do ’bout it?

// Film //

// Comedy //

p.35 Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial bow

p.67 The pick of this month’s funny stuff

// INBOX //

// Music //

p.4 Letters, opinion, guff…

p.43 Roger Daltrey, Southmead Festival, Dynamo Hum...

// I Saw You // p.7 But did you see us? Did you? Huh?

// NEWSHOUND // p.30 June eh? It was nuts, wasn’t it? Relive it all in full Technicolor nonsense vision, right here, right now

// Clubs //

// Books // p.72 Very good and very local: meet your friendly neighbourhood authors

// Performance //

// Days Out //

p.61 World Stage Festival, Peter Hall Season, Bristol Shakespeare Festival…

p.75 Our guide to summer survival

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.

Contents 970.indd 3

p.68 The peerless Jamaica Street Artists Open Studio

p.57 DJ Producer, Detectives of Perspective, DJ Food…

Get every issue of venue delivered early

venuemagazine

// Art //

// skills //

p.85 Workshops, courses, jobs and stuff

// gay // p.87 Here comes Pride Week JUly 2011 // 3

28/06/2011 18:39:21

Inbox Screen doubt // I saw a car crash on Saturday night. A hatchback rolled over a mini roundabout in St Werburghs. Nobody died.

But mere seconds after that unearthly grinding noise as the vehicle slid to a stop, a small crowd of onlookers arrived and little screens lit the night.

Everyone was phone-filming it and taking pictures. It was all over Facebook before the last passenger had even climbed free of the wreckage. People were posing in front of the wreck, taking pictures of each other.

They made jokes and Twitted them. What a strange world, I thought.

Those riots on Stokes Croft (I know, I know, old news now).

There we were, having a jolly time trying to remember what the point of it all was, as lumps of concrete crashed down and people stuck it to the man by burning publicly-owned dustbins

M-Shred // As all the hype and hoopla for the new M-Shed museum opening gets into swing, let’s ignore the noise and remind ourselves of some “inconvenient truths” which the council would rather not shout about: Fact: this museum is massively over its original £18m budget.

Taxpayers are making up most of the extra £9m needed.

Fact: it is many years overdue – it was planned to open in 2006.

Issue 970 Dock Rockin' Beats

4 // JUly 2011

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that we all have to pay to replace.

But even as the missiles flew overhead and the cops charged about like angry toddlers, smacking bystanders in the face, there were the little screens again, glowing everywhere.

People feel the need to say “I was there”, and be the first to say it. Because they’re filming all the time, they’re only half involved; half participant, half observer. Because they’re aware that they too are being filmed and photographed, they pose, or flip the bird, or do something outrageous for the benefit of the unblinking smartphone eye. So our behaviour is contrived, the event is both diluted and altered, even as it is disseminated. Such immediacy of reportage is a powerful tool, but it can also devalue a moment (as when filming replaces dancing at gigs) or exacerbate a situation (as in happy-slapping). It reminds us

Fact: the old Industrial Museum could have been refurbished for around £6m.

Fact: we, the people and taxpayers of Bristol, did not have a say on whether we actually wanted the money spent on this new museum or not. This was a council decision.

Fact: we did not have a direct choice about the uninspiring name for this, the city’s new museum.

Let’s hope it proves good and interesting (if you throw enough

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

Letter of the month

of the proximity of observer and observed, but simultaneously distances those who are really there from what is happening.

Instead of actually looking at that unforgettable sunset/guitar solo/baton charge, we look at a pixellated, 4-inch wide facsimile of it, even when the real thing is right there before us.

Ben Brevier, Barton Hill

Indeed, Ben. We look back at past civilisations and learn from them by their scratchings in stone, murals, parchments and letters. What will future archaeologists make of us, assuming they can access the millions of phone pictures and video clips that document the minutiae of modern existence? Anyway. Um. Thanks for sharing. Here’s a £10 Waterstone’s voucher.

public money at something, you usually end up with something half-decent, except in the case of NHS computer projects). But it will not genuinely be “our museum, our story” because we have not been properly involved and democratically engaged from the start. It could have, and should have, had far better cost control.

And it has had a very troubled and bumpy path to opening.

Doug Henderson, by email

thought. Democracy in local spending? Pigs might fly!

Andy Wood, Montpelier

Concordeless // If we weren’t spending so much on the revamped Industrial Museum, we would easily be able to afford a new museum for Concorde. She deserves it more!

Seems to me our priorities are wrong – shame there was never any vote on this to see what we the people (whose money it is) 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

‘I can test Bob Marley’ // hi to the editor my name is steve wilks steve d wright reviewed a track called friends now and compared it to bob marley and some acoustic reggae shit i think people who review music need to know a little about music because i am mixed race with locks it is reggae acoustic we will see if it is reggae acoustic and i can test bob marley don’t be fooled by the hype Steve Wilks by email

Tesc-over // I’m not shopping at Tesco’s any more. It’s been a quarter of a century since I moved back to Easton from foreign parts

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 Lesley Barnes Events Mike White Film Robin Askew Jazz Tony Benjamin Lesbian & Gay Darryl Bullock News Eugene Byrne Rock Julian Owen Roots Julian Owen Skills Anna Britten Sport Simon Fry Theatre Steve Wright

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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 very month that Tesco Eastville opened its doors. It was well handy for me, Easton dweller, mother of three going on four, soon to be single parent, strapped for time and cash, and there was the superstore, with everything I needed under one roof, whizz in, whizz out, all done. And so it could have gone on, not necessarily handing over all my cash, but with the petrol and all, pretty much all the household stuff and most food, not to mention the phone line, one way or another they got most of my disposable income.

But not any more. What with over a dozen mini-stores in the city centre, and the folderol in Stokes Croft, they’ve gone too far and got too greedy, and I want no more part in it. So I don’t go there any more now, and though I started off going to Sainsbury’s instead, they’re just as bad, what with their foot in the door in Blackboy Hill and all those fab little stalls in Woolies out on their ears in June, they’re not getting my pennies either. So it’s hello independent traders, the Sweet Mart, the bakers and greengrocers of Gloucester Road, Better Food, and if push comes to shove, maybe the Coop or even Lidl, but not those big buggers; I don’t like what they’re doing in the name of “the consumer”. I’m a consumer too but I’m damned if that’s what I want. I hope there are many more of us out there, because they’ll only stop growing if we stop going. So tell them, isn’t it.

Elley, by email

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Pain(t) in the arse

Tesc-ode

// Dear Stokes Croft Rioters, Whilst one can understand your position on the unwelcome arrival of Tesco’s in your neck of the woods, did some of you have to express your political rantings in bright blue and pink paint on the Railway Path for me (and others) to ride over every day?

Gloss paint isn’t entirely ecofriendly and just makes the path look vandalised. Use chalk next time, you brainless numpties.

Captain Nemo, by email

// Here is my Tesco poem.

At Tesco’s on “the Croft” Banners held aloft Honk if you’re with us Piss off, if you’re not Molotovs at eight Rioting ‘til late Bobby put the kettle on The crowds can wait Fires on the streets Videos and tweets Transmitting timely news Tesco feels the heat Now we’re looking back Who deserves the flak?

Bobbies? Squatters? Tesco shoppers?

Vodka, pills or crack?

At Tesco’s on “the Croft” No-one’s going soft Tell me, who is the winner?

Who is saint and who is not?

All the best, David Johnson, by email

APOLOGY A wee sorry’s due to the rather excellent photographer Leticia Valverdes, who won our June picture of the month competition.

Her inspired wedding dress project (a collection of married women revisiting their original wedding dresses) impressed us so much, that in our excitement, we printed her website address incorrectly. Still, gives us a chance to draw your attention to it again – and here it is. Check it out: www.leticiavalverdes.com

// SEVERN BORE // Opinion. If you like that sort of thing... // In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s this enormous sculpture/ statue-y thing currently adorning the front of the RWA in Clifton; you know, the 22ft little girl with a leg in callipers. 1970s charity collection box thing. Something to do with Damien Hirst, apparently.

You know, Britart bloke, pickled cows, diamond-studded skulls and all that.

What you’ll also know if you’re as culchered as what Severn Bore is, is there’s a monumental row going on chez the RWA which has led that august body’s president to resign.

Simon Quadrat (pictured) walked a few weeks ago protesting at the downmarket direction the RWA’s going in. He was quoted in the press saying: “It would be foolish to say that the only way of bringing people through the door is by putting on populist art. It could be a grave mistake and anything like that undermines the integrity of the art we show.”

Academy director Trystan Hawkins, on t’other hand, said: “Somebody might come and see somebody like Damien Hirst and then go and see another artists they’ve never heard of and hopefully develop a bigger understanding of the visual arts.” Mr Hawkins also said that controversy is what drives art forward, or words to that effect.

Mr Quadrat is thought to have resigned on hearing that the RWA is planning an exhibition of paintings by Jack Vettriano and was even looking to book Rolf Harris.

You can discuss this one in the pub and choose your side.

Me, I don’t know much about art, but I can tell when something is challenging and new, and when something is either just cheap sensation (Hirst) or the modern Athena-poster equivalent of the tennis player scratching her arse (Vettriano). Quadrat is right, and the RWA should grow up.

JUly 2011 // 5

28/06/2011 18:47:07

WESTON-SUPER-MARE CIDER FESTIVAL FRIDAY 29TH JULY

7.30pm - 11pm Strictly over 18

SATURDAY 30TH JULY

11am - 4pm (Children welcome for free with an adult over 18)

SATURDAY 30TH JULY

7.30pm – 11pm Strictly over 18 Ciderfestival.co.uk proudly presents its first ever cider festival in WestonSuper-Mare at the Royal Hotel. Offering over 90 different Ciders & Perrys. Live music from the Mangledwurzels, ideal band to create the perfect atmosphere to drink up thy cider and to soak up the cider hot food will be avaiable. Don’t forget you can order Scrumps online. Prices per session £7.00 Advance £8.00 Door. Tickets can also be purchased from the Hotel reception - cash only.

BRISTOLS 4TH SUMMER CIDER FESTIVAL FRIDAY 5TH AUGUST 7.30pm - 11pm SATURDAY 6TH AUGUST 11am - 4pm SATURDAY 6TH AUGUST 7.30pm - 11pm On offer will be over 100 ciders and perries including award-winning ciders from Ben Crossmans, Richs, Thatchers, Broadoak and Hecks (Somerset), Gwatkin (Herefordshire), Gwynt Y Ddraig (Wales), and Mr. Whiteheads (Hampshire) - as well as hog roast rolls and cheese platters, and a range of soft drinks for the drivers. As well as the cider and perry, the Bristol Cider Festival will offer the best in local entertainment. Somersets premier Wurzels tribute band The Mangledwurzels will be playing a full show at all three sessions, providing their own brand of Wurzels-flavoured, cider-fuelled Scrumpy & Western madness to help you drink up thy cider. The Mangledwurzels have played at all CiderFestivals.co.uk festivals across the country from Norwich to Swansea - and are guaranteed to entertain. Price per session Tickets £7.00 in advance; £8.00 on the door. Any unsold tickets will be made available on the door - but buying your tickets in advance is highly recommended as this sold out last year. Tickets on sale now. Venue: The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, Clock Tower Yard, Temple Meads, Bristol BS1 6QH

For all events please tel: 01225 330 304 email: clsbath@aol.com www.clstickets.co.uk

U

Roast

Purveyors of the finest hog and lamb roasts for weddings, parties, festivals and corporate hospitality

All enquiries to: info@therollingroast.co.uk

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29/06/2011 15:04:45

ISawYou

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

I saw you

// Reach out to someone // I Saw You In the kitchen, with the light shining off your long blondielocks and shadows showing off your perfectly ripped body. You were making me a perfect sandwich with home made bread before driving off to Tesco to get me beer and salt and shake crisps. Oh, and you've got such a pretty face and are devastatingly clever, too don't let me forget that.Oh yes.. I am of luck and very much of love.

I Saw You taking a chance & emailing me. You're great and if I was still interested in men I'd give it another go but I've stepped over to the 'dark-side' so if your feelings are still strong its best we don't meet up but all the best x I Saw You at arte gallery , hop square , have seen you before , you look like a sober minded chapp , you knew a lot about those installations , it was nice , minty...

I Saw You a beautiful letter, lost on gloucester road, and it would be awful if it never found it's intended recipient!

No names, but mentions cds, a walk in the snow and pyjamas?

If it means anything to you email and hopefully it will reach its owner!

I Saw You and you looked like you were fallin' over . It was quite amuse . Probably ' cos' you were a lot MORE than pooped . You r too bee taken lightly AHEM . Be able to get wherer you need too . As alway s deep embarressment at being thoughtless , it was nt made up to cos you tear s for sure , real and true for sure . Nothin'is ever for nothin', bee good , sift dink es .

I Saw You arranging for a rogue delivery of pizzas to be sent to me. I know it was you S! :)

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I Saw You Re: I saw you A, One of the lovliest people I have ever known, I know exes arent supposed to be friends...How do I know if it's you? Give me a clue. If it is, I love spending time with you too. You are also one of the lovliest, most intriguing people I have ever met. I hope your life is filled with the happiness you always desired. A. I Saw You - you were in market row with "friend ", we had nice moment , you looked happy , that were good , it was outside the frog moment s like...

I Saw You lovely Irish Barry in the Mac store. Gonna have to break my keyboard more often!

I Saw Your message. I would like to be in your life in some way in the future more than anything. Your words mean so much to me. Please stay in touch. Much love also...x

I saw you outside the Elephant on Saturday evening. We kidnapped your friend who kindly offered his services as James Bond...

You were the real reason we came over to chat - I wish I could have kidnapped you instead...

ESi - with the best hair-do in the whole of Bristol, man looks like he's from the kooks!

I Saw You or I think I saw you some time ago too. If you are still there, how would I get in touch?

We met a long time ago, but I rarely get the chance to say I saw you. I want you to know that I've always been a little bit in love with you x

like you but loads of what I said was about where I was at. Maybe one day if I'm ever free and if I haven't completely freaked you then we might hook up again but in the meantime I like you as a friend. No more revenge missions.... from the Foxy one

I Saw You - Have you forgotten me? I am the one you used to say you loved. I used to sleep in your arms – do you remember?

But you never write. You are perhaps mindless of me. I am not of you.

I Saw You venue magazine I'm sore at you adverts. And I'm smiling a little bit now. I know it's rather spleen venting and a bit negative but have found it therapeutic. Thank you venue xxx

I Saw You kbh, being the best boyfriend I could ever want for a year and 3/4s. I am letting you go because you've asked me to, but I still think of you every minute and hope that one day we can start again x

I Saw You quite some time ago now. I understand it's for selfprotection, but I'd love for you to be in my life in some way in the future, and want you to know that I'm still here, still thinking so many good things about you, and still always there if you need anything. Much love, as always Xx

I Saw You and I must say it has been very interesting ;) xx I Saw You in the POW. You were the very handsome dark haired man at the bar, not getting a drink. I was getting a drink with my friend. Then you came outside, had a cigarette, shook your friend's hand and left. I sent my friend after you much to his dismay, but you were gone...

I Saw You bearded man @ Alex Winson gig! Think you left early, man I wish i'd left with ya!

Hotty!! xx I Saw You too long ago my monkey tree..

Please get in touch. I know it wont be the same as it was but it can still be OK. I still want you in my life. Lets not leave it too long, I miss you xxx I Saw You W/M/S so many names! twas nice but I went a bit bonkers and should have known when to stop. I'll always

I Saw You - I was with a girl called Vick or Vix in the dance tent after Chase and Status at We The People festival! Will I find you? Mike I Saw You on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Berkeley Square. I was under my umbrella and you gave me the most lovely smile.

Saw you again in the Museum.

I know you're not available, but just wanted to say that I think you're a gorgeous man. J xx

For more i saw you – plus I’m Sore At You – see: www.venue.co.uk/isawyou JUly 2011 // 7

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ISawYou 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.

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

// bristol & bath in pictures //

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

this mont winner h's

‘The Hit-Ups’ – Alex Hughes-Games (above) // “Mayhem ensues as The Hit-Ups perform at The Croft’s Barrymore’s Pool Party one year anniversary.”

Ffi: www.flickr.com/ photos/alexhg

‘Ghost Ship’ – Gary Newman (right) // A familiar scene, perhaps, but long-time Venue fave Gary Newman has a habit of extracting something new from the old.

Ffi: www.flickr.com/ photos/bristol_bound

‘Lion-tailed Macaque’ – Thomas Barnes (left) // “A young girl observes a lion-tailed macaque at Bristol Zoo.” Ffi: www.flickr.com/ thomasbarnes

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And another thing...

Eugene Byrne has suddenly got interested in Shirehampton.

O

n the 24 June 1858, a meeting of Bristol council’s Docks Committee, the Society of Merchant Venturers and the Chamber of Commerce set in motion one of the greatest might-havebeens in the city’s history.

They agreed to look into one of those bold, visionary projects the Victorians were so good at. The proposal, which would dominate civic thinking for over 40 years, became known as ‘dockisation’.

No, wait, don’t go! You and me both, we can get rich out of this.

See, back in Victorian times, seaborne trade was still big business in Bristol. For 1,000 years its harbour, down the long, winding, tidal river Avon, had served it well. Now, though, ships were getting bigger and were having trouble getting in and out of the Floating Harbour because of the long, winding and narrow river. Brunel’s ss Great Britain had been built in Bristol, but had almost failed to get out. Occasionally, ships got stuck in the Avon, blocking all traffic for days or even weeks.

If this was the future, then the port of Bristol was finished.

You might as well turn those warehouses into museums and bars, and maybe build a

“You have to admire their big hairy, wrinkly Victorian balls for even thinking about it.”

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load of yuppy apartments with waterside views in the gaps in between. Oh, and have a Harbour Festival every year.

There were two possible solutions. One was to build another port at the mouth of the Avon, and the other was dockisation. That is, turn the entire tidal stretch of the river Avon from Bristol to the sea into an immense lake. A giant Floating Harbour that the biggest ships could enter and leave via locks where the river meets the Bristol Channel.

For decades the city kept coming back to the idea, then backing off in horror at the cost.

The last serious plan (1898) estimated £3.5 million-plus. In modern money, that’s probably not much change from a billion.

You have to admire their big hairy, wrinkly Victorian balls for even thinking about it.

Just history then. Another counterfactual like the Severn Barrage or a proper auditorium for the Colston Hall instead of a gold-plated foyer. Bristol’s historic harbour is no longer used for trade anyway, while Avonmouth – the cheapest and obviousest solution all along – is booming.

Mind you, dockising the Avon nowadays would be cheaper, with cost-effective computerised designs, more efficient machinery, and a lot of the sewerage and drainage infrastructure in place.

And it turns out that dockisation hasn’t gone away at all. Bristol 2050, a group of academics, business and community groups backed

by Business West, are due to publish a whole raft of proposals and ideas for stuff Bristol needs to do to ensure future business success by mid-century. And one of those

Shirehampton-by-the-sea - one day, you'll want to live here

proposals is... dockisation!

Only this time it’s not so’s the largest steam-driven vessels of the merchant marine will continue coming into Bristol carrying the produce of foreign lands and the colonies. It’s going to be for boating and fishing and stuff.

Business people don’t usually do history, but they can all remember the recent lessons of turning the old docks into ‘Harbourside’; folks will pay top dollar for a flat with a view of the water. If the Avon gets dockised, then the next property boom but one round these parts will be along it.

Those brown, greasy, mucky mudbanks will disappear forever beneath sparkling bluegreen waters teeming with wildlife and windsurfers.

It would also mean that our undoubtedly popular Harbour

Festival could stop being a weedy half-mile long and stretch out from Queen Square and out along the Portway as far as the M5 bridge, where them people who do acrobatty things on the big dangly ribbons can entertain us all.

So I’d start buying in Shirehampton, Sea Mills and Pill now, if I were you.

And if you’ve dug out some medieval document proving you’re the rightful owner of Shirehampton Golf Club, well, that’d be bloody strange as it says on this parchment I have just printed out that I am Lord of ye Shirehamtonne hundred and am entitled to two sheep, a hogshead of lard and a fresh virgin every Candlemas day.

There ya go. Venue’s hot investment tip for the 2030s. I’ll take your gratitude in money, thanks.

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July // OUR FAVOURITE

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

TEN THINGS THIS MONTH...// Event Pride // From its grand Cabot Circus launch on 9 July (flashmob Kelis-off, interactive art, pop-up Zumba dance) through a week of fascinating theatre, film, comedy, literature and sport, all building up to the grand finale of Pride Day (Sat 16) with Kelis (pictured) herself headlining, Pride’s glorious celebration of diversity returns bigger and better than ever.

1.

PRIDE VARIOUS VENUES IN BRISTOL, SAT 9-SUN 17 JULY. FFI: WWW.PRIDEBRISTOL.ORG

3.

Performance Treasure Island

2.

// Slap on an eye-patch and set sail for swashbuckling outdoor adventure on cobbly King Street, one-time haunt of real-life pirates. Yarrr!

TREASURE ISLAND OUTSIDE BRISTOL OLD VIC, BRISTOL, THUR 7 JUL- FRI 26 AUG. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK

12 // JUly 2011

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Performance World Stage Festival // The thunder of Brazilian drums and capoeira (see Aché Brasil, pictured), percussive African dance, the world re-coloured by a painterly queen, shadow puppetry, video… this family-friendly four-day festival of theatre, dance, spoken word and music flings the wonderful world into your lap.

WORLD STAGE FESTIVAL VARIOUS VENUES IN BRISTOL, THUR 7-SUN 10 JULY. FFI: WWW.WORLDSTAGEFESTIVAL.COM

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Books ShortStoryVille

6.

// Love a good story, but too rushed to read many books? Short stories are the answer – and here’s a one-day festival to get you hooked. The Bristol Short Story Prize’s inaugural shindig brings a slew of interviews, discussions and readings to showcase the exciting and unexpected world of fast fiction.

SHORTSTORYVILLE ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL, SAT 16 JULY. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLPRIZE.CO.UK

Theatre Hamlet

4.

5.

Event Summer Party Racenight // A flutter on the gee-gees makes the whole thing that much more exciting – plenty of chances this month on the Lansdown turf, not least the Wurzel-soundtracked Cider Festival (sophisticated Summer Party Racenight: six races to bet on, a gourmet barbecue and plentiful Pimms).

// Regicide, suicide, madness, anarchy, incest and an idiom dictionary’s worth of quotable dialogue, the Bard’s towering masterwork gets an enticing alfresco run out amongst the idyllic grounds of Wiltshire’s Lackham House with an interwar 1920s refresh courtesy of the redoubtable Shakespeare Live company. Bring a picnic and make a day of it.

SUMMER PARTY RACENIGHT BATH RACECOURSE, THUR 14 JULY. FFI: WWW.BATH-RACECOURSE.CO.UK

HAMLET IS AT LACKHAM HOUSE, WILTS (SN15 2NY) FROM TUE 5-SAT 9 JULY. FFI: WWW.SHAKESPEARELIVE.COM

Music Vivian Girls Film Incendies

8.

// Of course there is the latest boy-wizard franchise flick out this month, but hands-down best film to catch is this tangled yarn about two 20-something FrenchCanadian twins who journey into the turbulent Middle East in search of the truth about their late mother’s past. A searing indictment of religious conflict and a compelling mystery with a proper gut-punch ending.

Powerful stuff.

INCENDIES IS IN CINEMAS NOW. SEE WWW.VENUE.CO.UK FOR DETAILS.

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9.

// “Buzzing pop-brushed bombs of pleasingly noisy guitar abuse… the party-rock soundtrack of a lifetime,” said our man. As their louche new album ‘Share the Joy’ wins praise from all sides, these three jangly-sweet Brooklynite hyperbole-magnets are now hot property – when last we reviewed them they offered the crowd their left-over chips then asked for a bed for the night. Bless ‘em.

7.

Music The Spooky Men’s Chorale // Slightly weird, very funny and a towering joy for the ears, the Spooky Men sing of mysterious handshakes, beards, dreams of mastodons.

A 15-strong choir of acapella Australians, black-clad and heroically hirsute, their stated ambition is “to make women weep, small children quail, and insurance salesmen vaguely aware that somewhere, there is a whole world they’ve never experienced”.

THE SPOOKY MEN’S CHORALE ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL, MON 18 JULY. FFI: WWW. STGEORGESBRISTOL.CO.UK

VIVIAN GIRLS FLEECE, WED 20 JULY. FFI: WWW.THEFLEECE.CO.UK

Family Wild Woodland Adventure

10.

// Drag the kids away from the X-box and let them zip wire out of a tree, shoot a longbow, build a den and have a go at welly wanging. Proper playtime, in other words.

WILD WOODLAND ADVENTURE LEIGH WOODS, SUN 24 JULY. FFI: WWW.NATIONALTRUST. ORG.UK/LEIGHWOODS

JUly 2011 // 13

28/06/2011 18:53:54

The Interview Julian Davis Mike White shares a rum punch with the new Artistic Director of St Pauls Carnival.

I grew up in a little hamlet called Knowle West, but St Pauls always felt an important part of my culture, identity and heritage.

Where I lived there weren’t too many black folks or Afro-Caribbean food or music, so going over to carnival was a really important thing for me, meeting friends and family, being amongst people like myself. I looked forward to carnival more than my birthday. One of my earliest memories is my first try of jerk chicken. It was on Grosvenor Road, and my parents asked this guy for some, and he made it very hot and peppery. I remember me and my brothers and sisters all coughing and spitting and choking and my mum and dad cussing out this guy: ‘You know they’re kids, why you servin’ them it so hot?’

“The key thing about carnival is that it’s a peoplepowered event.”

Julian Davis, St Pauls Carnival 14 // JULY 2011

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I’ve been engaged in many different aspects of Bristol’s culture down the years. I first dipped my toes in in the early 90s.

There was a spate of murders within a square mile of St Pauls, which led to a huge negative media focus on the area. Living and working here, I knew that whilst there were some negative aspects, it wasn’t all negative. So I got together with a bunch of young writers, actors and dancers and put on a play called ‘Inner Sense’, saying to the wider world, take another look at us and you’ll realise that we’re a lot more creative and positive than the media makes out. I then went on to be involved with community radio – though back then it was pirate radio; community radio didn’t really exist. I saw myself as maybe a bit too ambitious for Bristol at the time, so I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London where I worked for Mohammed Al Fayed, and the MOBO and BRIT awards.

Then I had a eureka moment, realising how disconnected the scene was. So I set up my own enterprise, Uproar, and approached people like MTV Bass and Choice FM, the MOBO and Urban Music Awards, and said “Look, I’ll link all you guys together, and sell you as a package to organisations that want to tap into this audience.”

Uproar crossed the ethnic market into the mainstream market, and vice versa. It really flew, and we became a leading youth marketing agency in London. I returned to Bristol in 2007 or 2008, and in the years I’d been away, it had changed so much. Maybe it just took me to go away and come back to fully appreciate what was there, but it seemed so much more vibrant. So I started tapping into all that energy, and ended up involved with St Pauls Carnival, organising a fringe event called Carnival Unwrapped in Broadmead. My role’s just grown from there.

I want to show people the power of carnival, not just as a mechanism for bringing communities together but as a business too, an opportunity to bring a lot of money into the city. Carnival costs maybe a quarter of a million. Say 80,000 people come down on the day and spend £15 a head. That’s well over £1m before we even get onto the lead up – people getting their hair done, their nails done, buying their outfits.

We’re celebrating everything that’s great about Bristol past, present and future through the performers. We’ve had an amazing response this year – over 150 acts applied to perform. We’ll have some great past performers who’ve gone on to do huge things internationally, some of Bristol’s best new bands, and some old favourites who play every year – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We’re also going to shake things up a bit as well. We’re ramping up what we do in the kids’ area, we’ve got three full-on performance areas, and we’ve made more entertainment space available. Portland Square will be revamped with a proper performance stage full of home-grown talent, from dancing and cabaret to spoken word, with a couple of bands in between. We’ll be using City Road more to help prevent overcrowding, and the sound systems – the soundtrack to carnival – will be moved around to make more space for dancing.

The great thing about carnival is the street procession – last year we had over a thousand people taking part. The theme this year is Afro/Caribbean folklore, with a subheading of ‘what’s your folklore?’

We’ll be seeing lots of traditional Afro-Caribbean stories being retold in the procession itself, including the stilt-walking moko-jumbies.

Yeah, try going to the toilet in that, son...

We’re working with Circomedia to put on stilt-walking workshops.

We’ve been overrun with local people getting involved, which is fantastic, because the key thing about carnival is that it’s a peoplepowered event. It’s all about the people.

ST PAULS CARNIVAL IS ON SAT 2 JULY. WANT TO GET INVOLVED? EMAIL INFO@ STPAULSCARNIVAL.CO.UK OR CALL 0117 944 4176. FFI: WWW.STPAULSCARNIVAL. CO.UK

NEW! Show your support for St Pauls Carnival by making a text donation! You can make a £3 donation by texting SPC to 70303.

Donations cost £3 plus a text message at the standard rate.

St Pauls Carnival (registered charity 1136561) will receive a minimum of £2.60 from each text. Please make sure that you have the bill payer’s permission before making this donation.

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28/06/2011 16:53:50

The

Treasure

Principle

There’s piracy on the high seas this summer – well, on the cobbles of King Street anyway – as Bristol Old Vic takes to the open air for an allnew production of rollicking adventure yarn ‘Treasure Island’.

Tom Phillips swashes his buckle.

I

t’s early June and in a not-exactlytropical rehearsal room in what was, until very recently, a rundown warehouse in the docks, the cast of Bristol Old Vic’s ‘Treasure Island’, its director and dramaturg are sitting in a circle reading aloud from Robert Louis Stevenson’s original tale of maps, mutiny and, of course, buried treasure.

Musical instruments, wooden boxes and other ad hoc props lie around, while off to one side there’s something which looks like it comes from ‘Michael Bentine’s Potty Time’ (Google it if you’re under 40): a model of the multi-layered, rigging-bestrewn set for what promises to be the summer’s most spectacular piece of outdoor theatre.

“We’re in the very early stages at the moment,” says director Sally Cookson as the cast breaks for tea on what is, in fact, only their fourth day of rehearsal. Sally, you might recall, has been responsible for some of BOV’s most popular family theatre outings of recent years, including ‘Boing!’ and ‘Papa Please Get The Moon With Me’, not to mention Travelling Light’s ‘Bob, The Man On The Moon’ and the splendid ‘Ali Baba...’ at the Tobacco Factory. ‘Treasure Island’, though, is a whole new ball game after those more intimate shows.

“Being outside has influenced the whole style of performing. You can’t think of the show as being a piece of naturalistic storytelling: you have to have an epic, very physical style. And although the language of the book is very vivid and very

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beautiful – and we don’t want to lose that – ‘Treasure Island’ is an adventure story. It goes at a hundred miles an hour – like a Hollywood blockbuster – and that’s an important part of its appeal... When it comes to pirates, too, you have to offer the audience what they expect – you have to live up to the expectations created by the book.”

With only four weeks to rehearse, you might think that the script would have been written months ago. Not a bit of it. Things got underway with a research and development session back in March where Sally, music maestro Benji Bower (see panel), designer Phil Eddolls, dramaturg Mike Akers and some of the cast knocked a few ideas around, but with less than a month to go until the first preview, Sally admits that their “skeleton framework” of characters, scenes and key events “still has big holes in it”. There will be a script at some point, but the bulk of the show will emerge as rehearsals progress, with Mike Akers scribbling down dialogue and shaping scenes according to what happens day by day. “I’ve got a very talented team of actor-devisers,” says Sally. “These are strong personalities who work with ideas and are a huge part of the project. Making the show this way, though, is a very time-consuming process.

We read chapters aloud – as you saw us doing just then – and identify the main events in each scene.

It’s a slow but very rewarding way of working: creating a unique piece of entertainment for outdoors. There are still lots of unknowns – but there’s also a lot of adrenaline.”

Cast-wise, the seven-strong ensemble features

quite a few familiar faces. Howard Coggins and Craig Edwards are both well-known for their regular showings round these parts (notably, together, in ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’ at BOV); Saikat Ahmed starred as the eponymous Ali in Sally’s ‘Ali Baba’ at the Tob Fac; Zara Ramm most recently appeared in the lauded production of ‘The Nutcracker’ at the egg; while Kneehigh stalwart Tristan Sturrock’s one-man show ‘Frankenspine’ at BOV scored a four-star “exemplary stuff” rave from Venue.

Sturrock, in fact, has the plum role here: doublecrossing skulduggery-monger extraordinaire Long John Silver. Which might seem like a surprising piece of casting to anyone who’s been previously won over by Sturrock’s seemingly imperturbable amiability. “We’re telling our own version of the story and we’re trying not to look at previous images of Long John Silver, like Robert Newton’s in the 50s film,” says Sally. “Silver is the wiliest of villains but he’s also a very charming villain and I was keen to find someone who comes across like that. Yes, Tristan couldn’t be more charming – but he also has a steely power as an actor: he can switch from playing a charmer to ‘don’t mess with me’ – and that’s the essence of what that character needs.”

Joining Sturrock and the other locally sourced performers are BOV debutant Ian Harris and, in the pivotal role of Jim Hawkins, the youthful Jonny Weldon. “Jonny’s 17 and turns 18 towards the end of the run,” adds Sally. “He’ll be literally coming of age on stage, and ‘Treasure Island’ is

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“…And ju st lad, lies th beyond those th er e for all th Spyglass! Fine, fr e cobbled streets, e family.

Yarrr…” esh from the grill Jim dining

Sounds appealing // Music is an integral part of BOV’s ‘Treasure Island’ and providing it will be one of director Sally Cookson’s long-time collaborators, Benji Bower.

“There’s music all the way through, in the form of an underscore, but also with songs and live instrumentation,” he says. “As it’s an outdoor project, we’ve gone for really big instruments – like marching drums and timpani.

We’re also experimenting with a pipe organ, using reclaimed church organ pipes, installing them on the set and then feeding air through them to create crazy soundscapes.”

Don’t, though, expect too much in the way of rollicking sea shanties.

“We wanted to get away from traditional ‘pirate music’,” says Benji.

“I have written a shanty, but for the underscore I’ve taken inspiration from Bernard Hermann, who did the soundtracks for Alfred Hitchcock, while for the live ensembles there’s a more melancholy gypsy feel. I’m also slipping in a tilt to the Bristol Sound because of the book’s connections to the city – but it’s not going to be dubstep or anything. I’m just really interested in exploring what works on stage.”

very much a coming-of-age story: Jim grows from being a young boy into a man over the course of his adventures.”

One challenge for any adaptation of ‘Treasure Island’ is that the story traverses the ocean from Bristol (Silver’s pub The Spyglass was reputedly inspired by The Hole in the Wall just off Queen Square) to the eponymous booty-full isle. Which is where Phil Eddolls’s remarkable set comes in.

Spreading across the whole facade of the Old Vic, it promises to be one of the stars of the show in its own right, turning from seadog-littered inn to fully rigged ship to palm-strewn tropical island and, crucially, bringing the audience into the heart of the action. “The book takes you into an imaginary world full of danger and intrigue, and we want the audience to use their imagination with us on the story, creating that whole world,” adds Sally, as the cast return from their tea break to discuss the likely trajectory of cannonballs and work out how Silver’s mutineers might attack the island’s stockade. “The story too is full of different emotions: it draws you in and then throws you around all over the place – and we’re really trying to get that. To take the audience with us on Jim’s emotional journey so that they’re not sitting there watching just another piece of theatre.”

TREASURE ISLAND OUTSIDE BRISTOL OLD VIC, KING STREET, BRISTOL, FROM THUR 7 JULY-FRI 26 AUG, 7PM (MATS THUR & SAT 2PM), £7-£26 (CONCS, FAMILY TICKETS ETC AVAILABLE). FFI: 0117 987 7877 OR WWW.BRISTOLOLDVIC.ORG.UK

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Gong show // While ‘Treasure Island’ takes shape in Bristol, BOV artistic director Tom Morris has been taking Broadway by storm.

The New York production of ‘War Horse’ – the show he originally developed at the National Theatre Studio before transferring to the West End – opened earlier this year and picked up a mighty six Tony Awards in June – including Best Play and Best Director for Morris and co-director Marianne Elliott.

“This makes me especially proud of everything we are trying to do in Bristol, from the fantastic ensemble spirit of the Young Company to the astonishing artists who are pushing the rules of theatre making in Bristol Ferment; from the brilliant team who worked with me on ‘Swallows and Amazons’, now set to tour nationally, to the wildly gifted team currently rehearsing ‘Treasure Island’,” said Morris after the ceremony, underlining the important role publicly subsidised theatre played in getting ‘War Horse’ off the ground and enabling it to become one of Britain’s most successful theatrical exports for decades.

JUly 2011 // 17

29/06/2011 14:28:44

Dock rockin D As this year’s biggest boat party sails over the horizon, midshipman Mike White checks the charts.

That was then…

espite the corporate sponsorship and official blessing that Bristol Harbour Festival now enjoys, it all began as a protest. In the late 60s the council were scheming to fill in half the Floating Harbour and cover it with cars – an almighty Outer Circuit Road slicing down from Clifton to a huge roundabout near Coronation Road.

The plan would have severed the dock with a road over the harbour at Jacob’s Wells. The historic boatyard where ss Great Britain now resides was to be destroyed. The building that now houses the Arnolfini? Razed to the ground, along with what’s now Bordeaux Quay, and even a line of Georgian houses in Queen Square. As ships got bigger, the shallow city centre docks became redundant as an industrial asset, and all that lovely water and heritage were just getting in the way of the extra traffic-jam space that town planners seem so infatuated with.

Then, David and Goliath-style, a small

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band of determined enthusiasts set about challenging the road-building frenzy and highlighting what a valuable resource the Harbourside was. Fred Blampied, now a twinkly-eyed senior citizen, was a catalyst for the action. Meetings were called and dubious consultations undertaken, but despite fierce local opposition, the council’s plans seemed unstoppable. The battle went all the way to the House of Lords, and eventually a select committee was set up. Challenging this was beyond the finances of the protestors, so instead of lobbing firebombs at cops or setting wheelie bins alight, David and his colleagues from the Inland Waterways Association joined forces with the Cabot Cruising Club to stage a ‘rally of boats’ to highlight the folly of the council’s plans.

David was at the frontline. “At that time the V-Shed (now Bordeaux Quay) was a stolen car pound. We were given permission to use it, so we swept it out, cleaned the toilets and it was ours for the weekend”’ A ‘Dunkirk spirit’ took over, and a flotilla of small craft headed down from the Midlands to join the armada of local boats, until 90 or more were crowded around St Augustine’s Reach (the bit of water between Arnolfini and the Watershed). Dozens of local

organisations – youth groups, boat clubs and the like – set up stalls in the V-shed, and a crowd of 50,000 showed up in support. Thus the first Bristol Water Festival was born. It was packed – all those people crowded along the water’s edge without any safety barriers to stop them falling in. “It was pre-health and safety,” chuckles David, “and long before the pontoons were put in, so the boat crews had to scale up ladders like pirates to get onto the quayside.”

Despite a lack of infrastructure, the event was a huge success and gave the people of Bristol their first glimpse of the Floating Harbour bobbing with leisure craft. There was music and merriment. The harbour began to look like a place for fun or, as that first year’s programme had it, for “leisure and amenity”.

The Water Festival was laid on again in ’72 and ’73, growing bigger each time. The threat of redevelopment still hung over the docks, but a 1971 amendments to the plans included a four-year time limit to carry out the proposed works, so the Bill lapsed. By the mid-70s, Fred Blampied and his associates had very visibly demonstrated the case for retaining the docks as a resource for the public to enjoy.

They formed a venture group and raised the funds to save the cranes outside the M-Shed. “They’d been sold to a scrap merchant

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Bristol's harbourside thrums with the comings and goings of its first festival, a mere four decades ago

Harbour Festival at 40

in’treats reat in Newport and were due to be torn down, but we saved the first two nearest to Penn Street, and that shamed the council into keeping the other two.” The ss Great Britain had returned home to the boatyard where she was built, the Water Festival evolved into the Harbour Regatta, and then the Harbour Festival we know and love today. Now those cranes Fred helped to save are a much-loved landmark, the centrepiece of many a festival since: fireworks have been shot from the roofs, circus girls have dangled from the booms, and by the time you read this they’ll have played their part in the M-Shed opening. too. The valiant efforts of Fred Blampied and those who worked with him have successfully demonstrated the Harbour’s potential, the whole of Bristol’s 1800s waterway network remains as it was first constructed – and we gained a great festival into the bargain.

Water Week // To celebrate the festival’s 40th birthday this year – and to remind anyone distracted by the sheer quantity of landlubberly fun that this is a harbour festival – the organisers have prepared an extra five days of dockside fun. Water Week runs from Mon 25-Fri 29 July, bringing (deep breath) boat races, film screenings, sailing trials, sea shanties, folk music, workshops, wildlife tours, ferry trips and paper boat racing. Doffing a sou’wester to yesteryear, there’ll also be a rowing boat tug of war, as featured in the first ever festival back in ’71. Check the programme (a bargain at only £1) for full details – treats include a historic walking tour with history man Francis Greenacre, a ferry-boat safari with wildlife expert Ed Drewitt, a rare excursion up the New Cut, access to the Floating Harbour’s engineering workshops and boat rides up the Avon Gorge. Other stuff not to miss: the Shanty Night on Thur 28, sailing lessons, the hankies and bells of Bristol Morris Men and nautical street theatre outside The Cottage, The Nova Scotia venuemagazine and the Pumphouse.

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28/06/2011 19:06:49

F

This is now…

orty years ago there were a few dozen stalls, a bit of music and a flotilla of little boats. This year – as well as all the boats, of course – the festival extends along two miles of waterside, with 11 music venues, a children’s area in Castle Park, a circus stage, a dance village, markets and films and theatre.

Centrepiece of the children’s zone is the Cirque Bijou stage, promising a gigantic pirate ship stage, swashbuckling swordplay and lusty pirates swinging from the rigging – plus world-class breakdancers, trapeze, acrobatics and a raucous re-imagining of Punch and Judy. Swing into the Art Tent to make your own badges, masks and jewellery or spin your own painting on a cunningly converted art ‘trike’. Be part of a mass clay model-making project, build a green den with the kids, try hula hooping, defy gravity on the BMX track, conquer the climbing wall, learn to juggle and then flop down to be entertained by a whirl of family-friendly puppet and circus acts. Phew.

The Twinning Zone (also in Castle Park) this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of Bristol’s links with Guangzhou in China.

Alongside treats from Bristol’s other twin cities, you can sample a Bristolian take on Chinese street food and marvel at live performances inspired by Chinese culture.

Across Baldwin Street and a wiggle away is Queen Square – all leaf-dappled Georgian grandeur and grassiness. Once you’ve had your fill of fancy foods from the continental market and beer from the bar, swivel towards the Colston Hall Stage, with highlights including bhangra from Alaap (Fri, 7.20pm), afrobeat from Atongo Zimba (Sat, 6pm), reggae pensioner DJ Derek (Fri, 9.20pm) and

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Venue’s favourite bluesy-jazzer Lady Nade (Fri, 5.30pm). Elsewhere on the bill are superb rhymeslinger Dizraeli (with his impeccable live band the Small Gods, Sat, 5pm*), country-soul wonders Phantom Limb (Sun, 5pm) and bittersweet fado star Claudia Aurora (Sat, 4pm).

Head out of the square to Mud Dock for thrills including ‘The Iron Man’.

Nope, not an endurance challenge for lycra-clad masochists, but an alfresco theatrical reworking of Ted Hughes’s fable about a misunderstood metal giant who arrives mysteriously in the night.

The show’s being put on by a team of deaf and disabled performers, who’ll unfold the tale using integrated BSL, audio description and giant puppets (the Iron Man himself is as tall as a double-decker bus).

So, the main stage is in Queen Square – what’s happening in the Amphitheatre then? Let’s see now… well, there’s the Good Living Zone (not inspired by that sitcom with Richard Briers in it), with a West Country market and bar, a community garden and a ‘gert yurt’ in which skillsharing workshops and storytelling will occur. The Happy City Stage (not sponsored by Prozac) brings a truly remarkable line-up including (but far from limited to): micro Ceilidh (Sat, 3.40pm), a wind quintet playing Debussy (Sun, 11am), AngloAfrican folk (Sun, 1pm), shadow puppetry (TBC) and Japanese experi-pop incorporating ping-pong balls* (Sun, 3pm). *This is actually really great – a super-inventive one-man band called Ichi, from Nagoya. Also be sure to catch spine-tingly folk princess Rozi Plain (Sun, 2pm) and foot-stomping seven-piece showband The Carny Villains (Sat, 4pm).

If all that sounds a bit too exciting, try the mellower mix of acoustica offered on the

Cascade Steps stage, taking in jaunty Americana and dark alt country (Mireille Mathlener, Sat, 4.10pm), a 30-strong acapella choir (Gasworks Singers, Sun, 1.30pm) and smouldering folk from Venue’s Roots Artist of the Year 2010, Phil King (Sun, 3.30pm).

Like last year, Millennium Square will host the Dance Village, promising a line-up of local and national dance talent, from breakdance to Bollywood, ballet and ballroom. If you want to bust a few moves yourself, head over to the ‘dance participation stage’ and shake what ya mama gave ya.

The newly opened M-Shed will also be doing its best to impress – attractions include rides on the goodly steam tug Mayflower and a chance to imagine Bristol in the Blitz from inside

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Harbour Festival at 40

an Anderson bomb shelter.

If the weather turns nasty (or even if it doesn’t), duck into Arnolfini for a free, thought-provoking reel of visual and audio treats, starting at noon each day. Enjoy an assortment of entertainment set to stimulate the senses, from an animated movie made by and for children to a hand painted film, two spectacular live acts (TBC) and ticketed dance performances in the evening.

Wobble down the cobbles of King Street to the Art Market on Welsh Back, pausing en route for two slices of outdoor theatre from Bristol Old Vic Young Company: a journey into the caves and classrooms of your imagination in ‘The Collector’, and an adaptation of Italo Calvino’s enduring tale of “love, loss and lunar milk” ‘The Distance of the Moon’, in which a disparate band of storytellers chart their unrequited desires as they journey with boats and ladders and song across the sea to the surface of the moon. Performance times are yet to be finalised as we go to press, but we do know they’ll be throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday and they’ll be free.

Which is nice.

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Although the main daytime stages will all fall silent at 7 o’clock each night, there will be buskers serenading you and outdoor film and theatre to enjoy as well as ticketed events at selected venues across the city. You could catch rubbery-faced funnyman Lee Evans at Colston Hall, a dance double-bill at the Tobacco Factory or a buccaneering outdoor production of ‘Treasure Island’ outside the Old Vic (see feature on p.16). For those missing the late-night music line-up of years gone by, The Bristol Harbour Festival Fringe extends across venues including Thekla, Louisiana, Grain Barge, Olive Shed and Mr Wolf’s, whose programmes (still being finalised as we go to press, alas) will run right through the night, meaning you can rock around the docks and around the clock.

BRISTOL HARBOUR FESTIVAL 29-31 JULY. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLHARBOURFESTIVAL.CO.UK

*Dizraeli and the Small God’s delicious new single ‘Million Miles’ is available as a free download here: http:// dizraeli.bandcamp.com

Make History // Bristol’s history is your history, too.

To help mark the Harbour Fest’s 40th anniversary, you’re invited to share your memories from the past four decades by uploading photos, stories and videos onto the official Facebook page. For those of you with printed photos (remember them?), you can pin them up on a memory board at the festival. The collage created and digital memorabilia added will be sent to the M-Shed to become part of the Bristol Harbour Festival archive.

FFI: WWW.BRISTOLHARBOURFESTIVAL.COM WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ BRISTOLHARBOURFESIVAL WWW.TWITTER.COM/BRISTOLHARBFEST

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28/06/2011 19:09:51

Comic timing July is comedy central here in Bristol, with one established comedyfest being joined by a big, spanking new arrival. But can a congested diary really help make our city a comedy mecca? Steve Wright quizzes the promoters.

We’re in the funny: laugh your eyes out this July as (clockwise from top left) Andi Osho, Henning Wehn, Richard Herring, Stephen K Amos, Russell Howard and Ardal O’Hanlon come to town

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g

I

nitially, I was terrified. What were we going to do? We’d have to pull the whole thing, the industry would turn on us and Steve Lount would come at us and our London ways with a pitchfork!” Cass Briggs is one half of the brother-and-sister duo behind this month’s Bristol Comedy Garden. This new arrival will see a clutch of big names including Russell Howard, Ed Byrne, Ardal O’Hanlon and Stephen K Amos filing into a Big Top in Queen Square for four nights of stand-up: each night will feature four comics plus bars, food, live music and, er, some ridiculously large illuminated flowers.

So far, so good.

One small problem, though – or is it? – is that the festival has been booked into four mid-July days already occupied by the Bristol BrouHaHa. Steve Lount’s excellent, established comedyfest brings a coupla dozen circuit favourites to town to preview Edinburgh Fringe shows at Southville’s Comedy Box and Tobacco Factory. This year’s typically appetising BrouHaHa line-up includes sets from carrot-topped nihilist Andrew Lawrence, duck-voiced Deutsch deadpanner Henning Wehn, beguilingly nonplussed Yorkshireman Alun Cochrane and the perennially excellent Richard Herring.

So: one week in July, two comedy festivals.

Lucky, lucky Bristolians? Or confused, headscratching promoters? And how did this comedy logjam come about?

Pan back to 2009 (also the BrouHaHa’s first year, as it happens), when Cass and brother Will programmed the inaugural Greenwich Comedy Festival, luring Bill Bailey, Russell Howard, Rich Hall and Jo Brand to the grounds of London’s Old Royal Naval College for some alfresco stand-up.

Cass and Will, incidentally, are stepchildren of the late, great Malcolm Hardee – seminal comic, promoter, “amateur sensationalist” and much-loved mentor to comics including Paul Merton, Harry Enfield and Vic Reeves.

Oh, and a man not averse to revealing his genitals on stage and screen. (“I grew up thinking it was all fairly normal to see your stepdad get his knob out on stage,” Cass recalls.)

This year, buoyed by Greenwich’s success, Cass and Will decided to branch out. And Bristol was an obvious choice. “We’re from the West Country originally, and we’ve had many a good night out in Bristol. And we thought it would be marvellous if we could get Russell [Howard, originally from our part of the world] to do a big hometown gig too.”

The siblings canvassed Bristolians’ views on the perfect outdoor comedy venue, and Queen Square kept coming out on top.

Then it was time to reach for the diary.

“We decided on July because Edinburgh Fringe takes up August and Greenwich is in September – plus we needed as much time as possible beforehand to organise everything,” Cass explains. “We offered up some dates to Russell and 20 July was the one he could do, so we started to build the festival around that.

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“As a comedy fan, I think the two events running simultaneously is as exciting as you can get.”

Steve Lount, Bristol BrouHaHa “Everything was coming together really nicely. Then I got an irate call from our mum, who knows Steve from the industry: didn’t we know about the BrouHaHa? Why were we staging a comedy event on the same bloody dates?”

A good night’s sleep, though, brought some clarity. “Surely Bristol and the surrounding areas had enough people wanting a good time to allow both of us to survive and even prosper? Look at Edinburgh, a city of a similar size that holds one of the world’s biggest cultural events. Granted, the Fringe has been running for 65 years – but they had to start somewhere...

“I put off contacting Steve for a bit as I was genuinely scared, but after a week or so I called him up. He’d heard about the Comedy Garden on the grapevine. I explained to him that I felt together we could present a really strong comedy front in Bristol. Steve’s Comedy Box nights and the BrouHaHa have set a precedent for great comedy in Bristol and it’s always been a goal of his to develop an even bigger comedy festival in the city.

It’s now our shared dream to work together and build both of our events into something huge. It would be incredible if we could create something as diverse as the Fringe right here in Bristol.”

But does Bristol and its region have the audiences to support such a dense concentration of comedy? “Of course! You’re talking about the whole of the South West – a huge amount of people. Our ticket sales show that people are coming in from places like Plymouth, Cardiff, Warwick, Gloucester – and Bristol, of course.”

So, what’s Steve’s take on all this?

BrouHaHa’s first two years have sold well and brought some of the UK’s best fringe, circuit and emerging comics to town – so how does he feel about the new kid on the block? “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned: but I am philosophical, and to be honest I’m quite excited by the Comedy Garden,” is Lount’s measured response. “It’s not something I would’ve thought of myself, and if I had I would’ve wondered how to go about doing it. It can only be good for Bristol. You have to

look at the bigger picture.”

Would he prefer to have kept mid-July to himself, though – or does he really believe that the two festivals can make Bristol a comedy mecca? “It remains to be seen if the Comedy Garden has a positive effect on comedy in Bristol, and if BrouHaHa reaps the benefits. But, yes, of course I would’ve preferred the Comedy Garden to have chosen a different week.”

Will the two ‘fests be competing for the same audiences? “The Comedy Garden has had to programme the biggest names possible to make the event economically viable, and they have put together a terrific line-up. BrouHaHa is pitched very differently: we specialise in brand new onehour shows by Edinburgh Fringe comedians, many of them just breaking into the big time. Comedy Garden punters will be seeing so many TV names under one roof, whereas I think BrouHaHa audiences are more fascinated by the Edinburgh Fringe and the concept of the solo show. Our audiences tend to know and love the smaller names on the UK circuit. And many of them will go on to great things – John Bishop, Sarah Millican, Micky Flanagan and Rhod Gilbert all did the BrouHaHa before they were truly famous.”

So, can the two co-exist? “I hope so, because I’ve always maintained that Bristol would be a brilliant location for a city-wide festival embracing all shades of the comedy spectrum. As a comedy fan, I think the two events running simultaneously is as exciting as you can get. But as an independent promoter who has sunk a lot of money into BrouHaHa, I am naturally anxious. I just have to believe it will work. My livelihood depends on it!”

Back in the Garden, Cass likes the idea of increased collaboration. “I’m in favour of us running at the same time and collaborating more in the future. Bristol is the ideal place to start developing something really special, and Steve and I seem to be singing from the same sheet. I think we’d both be stupid not to grab hold of this opportunity and see where it takes us.”

BRISTOL COMEDY GARDEN WED 20-SAT 23 JULY, QUEEN SQUARE, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLCOMEDYGARDEN.CO.UK BRISTOL BROUHAHA FRI 15-SAT 23 JULY, COMEDY BOX AND TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL. FFI: WWW. BRISTOLBROUHAHA.COM

PLUS We’ve got a couple of tickets to Fri 22 July’s Comedy Garden night, featuring Stephen K Amos, Isy Suttie, Sean Hughes and Bristol’s very own Mark Olver. To be in with a chance of winning ’em, just email editor@venue.co.uk with the subject line ‘Bristol Comedy Garden’ by Fri 15 July.

JUly 2011 // 23

28/06/2011 19:16:30

The weather was mixed but who cares? Beyoncé got the biggest crowd ever seen at the Pyramid Stage, hip-hop showed the hoary guitar bands a thing or two and Michael Eavis sang ‘My Way’. Julian Owen sends a postcard home from Glastonbury 2011.

G

lastonbury 2011 was not an easy one to define. Blazing sunshine and hard-baked ground, lengthy dousings of rain and troublesome mud, performances from a welter of past headliners, joy and death, it was like the festival’s full history rolled into a single year. Anyone asking for “a bit of everything, please” will not have been left disappointed.

Pre-festival, all the talk was of U2, the band whose singer has done more than most to raise the profile of the Drop The Debt campaign in support of the world’s poorer countries, yet whose shifting of financial operations to the Netherlands made them partial tax exiles from a close-to-broke native Ireland. In the event, both their appearance and the accompanying protests were something of a damp squib. Paul Simon drew a greater Pyramid crowd in his lowly Sunday afternoon slot, and Art Uncut’s “U Pay Your Tax 2! balloon was torn down by security within minutes. The subsequent pinning of protestors against a fence was, to say the least, ugly.

No, if a single artist can claim 2011 as their own, it’s Beyoncé. Venue has never seen a larger Pyramid gathering. From its vantage point in the back-right corner the crowd it surveys is vast, its weight necessitating something that never happens: every last person is on their feet. It’s not only the scale

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that confirms her queenly status. As the artist herself observes: “A girl, a woman, a young lady has not headlined for 20 years. This is history for me.”

But that’s Sunday night. Let’s go back to Thursday, and a singer singing an oft-covered song with more justification than most: in the Rabbit Hole Karaoke, Michael Eavis is singing ‘My Way’. It’s a little bit muddy. A six on the mud-o-meter, we’d suggest, confirmed as Venue witnesses a girl stride across firm theatre field ground so’s her friend can snap her standing in a tiny puddle of Glastonbury’s smoothly liquefied finest. A splendid force of volunteer hands are helping nervous travellers over the smooth wooded curve of Arabella Churchill’s bridge.

Friday is the cruellest day. The site is close to dry following Thursday’s sharp early morning shower, the weekend forecast shines bright and then, at 2pm, it begins to rain. Never hard, never even anything to take shelter from, but incessant and mud renewing. Mocking rain.

Like ducks out of water, there’s something intrinsically funny about the sight of policemen in wellington boots. Immaculately uniformed, their natural air of authority is rather undermined by the pair of rubber tubes causing them to enter the world of the ungainly waddle. Truly, Glastonbury is the great leveller. Across the weekend – and Sunday morning’s discovery apart (of which more later) – Avon & Somerset’s finest reported a good festival. The number of arrests might

have been up on last year, but the number of reported crimes was down. And the force provided a ‘Dixon of Dock Green’-ish “Mind how you go” presence via their Twitter feed, @ Policeatglasto. Sample: “Can hear Rumer on the Pyramid stage up here in the Police Compound, sounds amazing. Enjoy and stay safe.”

Presumably the 140-character limit left them insufficient space to explain what they feared the easy listening purveyor might do...

In previous years, The Park’s ‘special guest’ slot has seen the site awash with rumour. Not this. Everyone knows it’s Radiohead tonight, Pulp tomorrow. The former opt for unveiling a tranche of new material, and – concluding ‘Street Spirit’ apart – leaving those hoping for a singalong disappointed. But as Mike White notes in our online band reviews, “they weren’t officially on the bill at all, so let them play their new stuff and sod the proles.”

Saturday dawns and Venue takes itself to the Green Fields because, even in years far worse than this, they remain just that. We avail ourselves of a mug of coffee from the Craft Field’s Buddhafield Café – a real, solid mug, oddly warming in itself – plant down on a bench and lose ourselves in the rhythmic back and forth of saws, surgeon-like application of chisels and aroma of freshly revealed wood on pedal-turned lathes. Like the Cajun band throwing together an impromptu set in the corner of the field, it gives the lie to those who’ll insist “Glastonbury? I caught it on the telly.” No you didn’t. Not even close. It’s as

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Glastonbury Festival 2011

accurate a gauge as watching a CCTV feed from the fountains in the centre of Bristol, declaring it “a quiet night in the city”, whilst riots rage in Park Street, Stokes Croft and St Werburghs.

The People’s Frontroom in the Croissant Neuf field looks mighty inviting with its plush, padded – padded! – upholstery. But alas, the sign behind the cordon of red tape reads ‘Closed for Drying’. Still, every cloud and all that: if we’d sat there we’d have missed The Boat Band on the Croissant Neuf stage and their utterly beauteous, Unthanks-recalling, scale-straddling harmony.

The stage’s line-up board takes the prize for Most Pointed Note Of The Weekend Award: “We would just like to point out that all these artists PAY THEIR TAXES!!” On our way back down, the Frontroom is lazily packed with loungers. The site is drying out.

You need downtime of course but, as ever, the more you move the better the weekend gets. And thank insert-your-chosen-deity-here that we didn’t miss Janelle Monáe, energising a sometimes lethargic West Holts crowd from front to back. Immaculately chosen covers alongside pointers to the future for both soul and funk – never mind an object lesson in how to sequence a set, drill a band, and stage a show – make her a vivid highlight. For viewers beyond the site too, we later learn: top trending topic on UK Twitter and the festival’s biggest post-show sales surge on Amazon, up 4,928%. A day of two halves for an act whose tour bus caught fire on the way to the fest.

Elsewhere, there’s delight and disappointment with Pulp’s greatest hits set in The Park – the

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gates are locked at a heaving 30,000 within, leaving plenty more without – and Coldplay surprise no one. Venue is off to Arcadia and faces a choice: take the favoured route up the rail line and straight into the frustration of queue central, or walk around to come in from the other side. This we do and get in without breaking stride. Meticulously kept notes revealed that we happened upon “towering Ballardian architecture”, “honeycomb corridors of delight”, “TUNES!” and “put down your pen, mister, you’re missing the point”.

On Sunday morning an eerie scene confronts breakfast seekers in the hospitality compound between the two main stages: police, ambulance, and a large square of blue and white Do Not Cross tape. Half an hour earlier, the body of Christopher Shale, chairman of David Cameron’s West Oxfordshire Conservative Association, had been discovered in a portaloo. Events take a turn for the faintly surreal as the breakfast bar DJ opts to

“A girl, a woman, a young lady has not headlined for 20 years. This is history for me.”

BeyoncÉ

float Elvis’s ‘Crying in the Chapel’ across the nearsilent tableau. As we went to press, an inquest was opened and adjourned by the East Somerset coroner at Wells town hall. It was told that there was no suspicion of foul play, and asked for futher toxicology tests after the results of a postmortem proved inconclusive.

So to Beyoncé, via Paul Simon proving he’s even more mellifluous live than he is on record, and a day of glorious unbroken sunshine. If her set was the weekend’s biggest, a couple of others may prove more important. Because as far as Glastonbury’s future is concerned, before the festival returns from its 2012 year off it should note that in 2011 hip-hop laid one mighty big calling card. Previous years’ shows from Jay Z and Snoop Dogg felt tokenistic. Wu Tang Clan on the Pyramid and Big Boi headlining West Holts did not. It’s getting serious. It should get more so, for it adds a whole new ingredient to Glastonbury’s already peerless brew. A significant section of festival attendees were left cold at the wearily predictable prospect of U2 and Coldplay headlining sets. Compare and contrast the cringe-at-the-memory moment of Bruce Springsteen throwing his mic to the crowd and the ensuing embarrassed murmur with the high voltage, to-a-person response to Wu Tang.

Everything deserves its place here – that’s the point – but the grandiose guitar bands need to shift up a little and share the floor. Glasto has always evolved, and should do so again. The call for Public Enemy to headline the Pyramid in 2013 begins here.

JUly 2011 // 25

29/06/2011 14:20:39

Venue snapper Ellen Doherty took her camera to Pilton and went a-wandering

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Glastonbury Festival 2011

Venue Photographer: Ellen Doherty, www.duchessphotographic.com; with additional thanks to Jon Kent, Simon Galloway, Ben Birchall/PA Wire, Bristol News & Media, Adam Gasson, Clare Green.

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29/06/2011 14:23:59

More and more people in Bristol are seeking help and advice about rising levels of debt, according to Bristol’s specialist debt advice charity. Eugene Byrne reports.

The thing that strikes you is the banal, everyday things. Household items that most of us take for granted take on a massive, allconsuming importance if you’re living in poverty: I am struggling to cook nutritional meals for myself and my children as the cooker I own works intermittently. Three of the four rings work, but not all the time, and often they do not get hot enough to cook anything at all.

Single mother, Bristol I really need a tumble dryer as there is no outdoor space to dry my washing as I live in a second-floor flat. My clothes do not dry well on the clothes horse I have bought and they stay damp and begin to smell.

Single father, Bristol And if you’re in debt too, your problems can become life-threatening.

Bristol Debt Advice Centre (BDAC), the city’s only specialist debt advice charity, celebrates its 21st birthday this year. It began life in the basement of a house in Redland in 1990, at the height of the last major economic downturn. Now, in 2011, and working out of a proper office in Old Market, its services are more in demand than ever.

Unlike, say, the Citizens Advice Bureau, which offers help on a wide range of issues (including expert debt advice), BDAC

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specialises solely in debt. They offer (free) advice, financial education and carry out social policy work. They also have an Energy Advice Team to help people deal with and reduce gas and electricity bills.

BDAC was approached for help by around 8,000 people last year, of whom they took on 3,000 as full casework. This means they’ll negotiate with creditors over repayment levels, and help deal with the complex form-filling involved in dealing with a wide variety of firms and agencies.

Where appropriate they’ll help with debt relief orders or bankruptcy, or with applications to various different funds and trusts for help with, say, energy bills or domestic appliances.

BDAC’s workload has increased by 23% in the last 12 months and, they say, the demographic of its clients is rising.

Virtually all their clients in the past lived in council, social or rented accommodation.

Now they’re starting to see a few people with mortgages as well.

There’s also something new about the current downturn. While about 2.5 million working-age adults in the UK are unemployed, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that over three million more are either not actively seeking work but would like to work (e.g. students) or are in part-time or casual jobs and unable to find full-time work. Which is to say, almost six million working-age Britons are underemployed (See tinyurl.

com/35fp8c7 for more). So while almost two-thirds of BDAC’s clients are living solely on benefits, around a third are either living on earned income or a combination of earnings and benefits.

A characteristic case will be someone on benefits or minimum wage, just managing

Personal debt in the UK // Britons as individuals owed £1,452 billion at the end of April 2011, up 0.8% on the previous year. We collectively owe as much money as the entire country produced in the whole of 2010. // Average household debt in the UK is £8,121 (excluding mortgages). If you include mortgages, it’s £55,854. If you add government debt as well, each household in the country owes £106,470. // One person is declared insolvent or bankrupt every minute of each working day in the UK. // The average cost of raising a child from birth to the age of 21 is £27.50 per day. // 100 properties were repossessed every day in the first three months of this year Source: Credit Action (www.creditaction.org.uk)

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Dro wning in d ebt of ter was at the end Lucy, from Bedmins r He . ck ba s ar ye e a few a 20-year marriag towards ive us ab en be d ex-husband ha and she found it her and her children the after-effects. th wi e difficult to cop

last few years “The events of the it c ati and I’ve found have been traum ce an ch a nt w I wa difficult to cope. No ts and put these even rd wa for ve mo to e lif my rn tu ing to behind me. I am try year xt ne e th in at th around and I hope ain.” to my children ag I can gain access

t dependant and los “I became alcoholer. ch tea ol ho -sc dary my job as a secon onship but this I began a new relati ive and my children also became abus against me. ce len witnessed vio ervened and I lost “Social services int th who moved in wi care of my children is ren ild ch my g sin my ex-husband. Lo st traumatic thing the hardest and mo it deal with. I found I have ever had to and gained pe co to lt cu diffi increasingly Then al health charity. help from a ment d for violence ne iso pr im s wa my partner this I went through against me. After with the help of a d an a home detox it became dry. specialist NHS un debt a huge amount of th wi “I was left am d an n ow kd ea e br after the marriag . sociation housing now in housing as ty aci ap inc ly nt rre cu My only income is care. I ity bil mo te -ra low benefit and d uggle with bills an quickly began to str the for ing chased rent... I was also be . bts de old

to get by. “The official poverty line for a single person at the moment is £124 a week,” Joanna Gooding, one of BDAC’s fundraisers, explains. “Someone on JSA is getting £67.80 a week if they’re over 25, so anyone who’s on benefits is well below the poverty line. It’s just not a sustainable way to live. It’s difficult to get access to mainstream banks, they’ll be using highinterest lenders, things like Brighthouse [a rent-to-own retailer which charges very high interest rates] where you end up paying a lot more. You’re excluded from all the things that someone with a better income level can access.”

While some people get into financial trouble through fecklessness – the credit-card fuelled shopping addiction of popular stereotype – this simply isn’t true of the great majority of cases. Most of the people that BDAC sees have been careful with the little money they have.

Joanna Gooding: “There are debttriggers, such as losing work, falling ill, or needing to pay for a big one-off item, such as the car breaking down. You get out credit for that, struggle to make the payments... People then find themselves in a cycle which can lead to depression, anxiety, stress and at the point where people come to us they’re usually at the end of their tether.”

There are odd little cultural contributions to the debts racked up by a handful of BDAC’s inner city clients.

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Debt Feature 970.indd 29

e is a single Rose, from St Georg ren with learning mother of two child s, ily lives on benefit fam e Th es. difficulti r he th wi le ub and she got into tro g a cold spell last heating bill durin winter. p using my gas “I have tried to sto e in a large liv I . ble ssi where po lps me care for my he property but this the rooms is set up children as one of er to protect my old ea as a soft play ar st ain ag ad g his he son from knockin the wall. ared my gas bill “I have always cle This time around ll. fu each quarter in and needed a my car broke down x. This had to bo ar replacement ge e vehicle I am th t ou th wi as be fixed children to my rt po unable to trans ool activities.” school and after-sch changed details have been * Names and some

“Obviously people who have emigrated or are refugees can have problems understanding how bills work, and there can be cultural differences as well. Some people like to have their curtains closed and the lights on, even in daytime, and that has implications for their electricity bill. Some like to sleep with just sheets rather than duvets, so they might have the heating on all night.”

There is, inevitably, pressure on funding.

At the moment, the bulk of BDAC’s money comes from the Legal Services Commission – it’s Legal Aid, basically – and some from other central and local government agencies as well as from energy companies and trusts and charities. Some of the government funding ends next year, so new sources and donations are welcome.

“There’s a lot of talk about increasing internet or telephone advice, which is good,” says Joanna, “but in a lot of cases it’s hard to get to the crux of someone’s problems if you’re not in a room with them. Many of our clients struggle with technology and computers.

“Most of the people we see are on a very low income and their problems are related to quite a lot of injustices that are inherent in the social system. People have come from poor backgrounds, have not had a good education, and that makes it harder to find well-paid work. All the time I see people who are desperate to improve their situation.”

Getting help There are plenty of people out there making a living out of debt. If you Google “Bristol Debt Advice Centre”, BDAC comes only fourth down the list. The first three are commercial companies. The same thing happens if you Google “Citizens Advice”.

The fact that companies which make money out of other people’s debts have paid someone to ensure they rank ahead of charitable organisations who’ll help you for free tells you all you need to know.

Bristol Debt Advice Centre 2nd Floor, 48-54 West St, St Philips, Bristol, BS2 0BL www.bdac.org.uk Twitter @BDACBristol Citizens Advice Bristol www.bristolcab.org.uk Advice West (network of independent local advice agencies) advicewest.org.uk Advice UK www.adviceuk.org.uk Face to Face Debt Advice www.fifdebtadvice.com

Consumer Credit Counselling Service www.cccs.co.uk

JUly 2011 // 29

28/06/2011 19:25:44

Newshound GoING UP

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

Jocks in the dock

P

rosecutor Julian Kesner told Gloucester Crown Court: “They were clearly drunk and many of them were tied together. What they were being asked to do on the bus by the more senior members of the clubs were acts of outraging public decency.”

The court heard how six members of the University of Gloucestershire’s football and rugby clubs were among a group of around 30 returning from an outing during freshers’ week last year, dressed as characters from ‘Top Gun’.

While on the bus, they stripped off and engaged in sex acts with one another as part of their initiation into the university’s sporting fraternity.

The incident was witnessed by some teenage girls. And indeed by the bus’s CCTV camera.

The six were arrested. While being interviewed one of them told the police: “The beauty is that next year I’ll be able to do it to a fresher.”

All were given community orders

// FACT BITES // Bristol City Council’s messy compromise/ stroke of genius re that Ashton Vale Town Green thing.

30 // July 2011

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and banned from entering all premises selling alcohol for 160 days and ordered to pay prosecution costs.

Judge Jamie Tabor QC told them: “The culture which can be said to be at the root of what took place that evening on the bus is not singular to Gloucester University.

It is to be found throughout many establishments where young men are gathered, particularly on the sporting field. You are old enough to say No.”

Gloucestershire University is starting to acquire a reputation for boorish bullying among its students (and not much of an academic reputation from what we can see). Three years ago it hit the headlines when a video leaked out of an initiation ceremony involving students lined up against a wall with Tesco carrier bags over their heads, being encouraged to drink themselves stupid by a man in a Nazi uniform.

6 to 2

3 months

42 acres

£100,000

How members of BCC’s Public Rights of Way Committee voted in favour of the split site option.

Total size of the Ashton Vale area declared a town green by an independent inspector.

BCC’s split site would declare the southern half town green, and the northern bit appropriate for building a...

30,000

Seat £92 million stadium.

Time window for local residents or anyone else to seek judicial review of BCC’s decision.

Rough cost in legal fees to council taxpayers if someone does seek a review.

2013

Year Bristol City FC hope to have their new Ashton Vale stadium open.

Filton Airfield

The price of private schooling...

You might have missed this one from a few weeks ago...

A wealthy Wiltshire businessman was so concerned that his young daughter’s local primary school was likely to close at the end of the summer term that he’s saved it.

By buying it for £1m.

Matt Hill bought the private Mill School in Potterne and has pledged to keep it open for his daughter and all staff and 65 pupils there.

Sterling against the Bristol and Bath Pound (hopefully)...

Proposals are afoot for the Bristol/Bath area to have its own local currency (we are not making this up). If the plan works, there will be printed £1, £5, £10 and £20 notes in circulation locally by next year.

The scheme’s backers, including some local charities, traders and the Bristol Credit Union, are hoping that payments in Bristol or Bath pounds can be made electronically by mobile phone.

The idea is to keep wealth in the area and ultimately insulate the local economy against the vagaries of international finance.

Madcap idealism or hard-headed pragmatism? Decide for yourself at www. bristolpound.org

GOING DOWN

Where Southville Green party councillor Tess Green suggested they should put the stadium instead.

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

Say what?

What are all these magazines?

Catalogues for cookers. We need a big one. How about an Aga? Nice! But how will we fit it into our starter home rabbit hutch in Bradley Stoke?

We’ll put it in a shed in our postage-stamp-sized back garden, and hope there’ll be some space left over for the Garden of Rest. Obvs we won’t have space for actual burials.

Wait! What? Hang on... Are you planning to turn our home into a crematorium?

What will the neighbours think?

They’re all on board. Steve the Builder hasn’t had any work in months. His white van will be our hearse. He reckons we can also offer, um, “woodland burials”.

Is this related to Steve the Builder’s numerous convictions for fly-tipping?

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them? Why not something a bit more classy?

Because most won’t have much money. As Dr Woodthorpe points out, the cost of funerals is rising, but also people will have fewer assets as they’re living longer and will have to spend it all on long-term care.

To what should I ascribe the So we must be competitive. genesis of this hare-brained Ours will be the UK’s first scheme? funeral parlour and pizza Dr Kate Woodthorpe of Bath takeaway combined. We’ll do University’s Centre for Death a delicious range of pizzas on & Society says that the Baby the upper shelf of the oven.

Boomers, the large numbers And we can offer a pizza of people born in the post-war buffet to the grieving family decades, are starting to get old and friends. Celebrate your and die. By 2030 there’ll be an granddad’s life by having a extra 100,000 people dying each pizza that’s been cooked with year, which is 17% up on the him. It’s how he would have current death-rate. The rate wanted it. is due to start rising in 2012 (that’s next year) and will peak It might URN us a bit of in 2030. money, but I have GRAVE concerns about COFFIN up But why are you offering for this rASH venture. I’ll to fly-tip people’s loved have a STIFF drink and see ones or hack them up with how I feel about it in the chainsaws before baking MOURNING. Chris the Tree Surgeon says we can borrow his chainsaw whenever a body’s too big to fit in the oven. Madge next door is an unemployed beautician and can nice up the corpses. She’ll also vajazzle them for a small additional charge.

//Round

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

No. 21 Horts // Several generations of the Hort family – mostly the women – had run successful eating houses. When they acquired their Broad Street site in 1922 it quickly became the most fashionable restaurant in Bristol. The first ever cocktails to be mixed in the city were served here, and its signature dishes were oyster soup and Dover sole.

Bessie, the last surviving Hort, sold it to Frank and Aldo Berni in 1943. The Italian-born Berni brothers were also from a catering family, mostly running cafés in Wales. Horts was their first outlet with an alcohol licence, and they renamed their whole company Horts.

In the 1950s they opened a chain of familyfriendly restaurants serving cheap but good quality food, modelled on the steak houses Frank had admired when visiting the USA. Their first outlet was the Rummer in St Nicholas Market. And hence Berni Inns. At its peak in the early 1960s the firm was opening a new restaurant every month. They especially liked turning historic pubs into Berni Inns – in Bristol these included the Llandoger Trow and the Hole in the Wall.

Frank was the quiet one, in charge of the figures, while Aldo was the extrovert, but both lived modestly. Aldo stayed in his Clifton bungalow, and gave much of his fortune to his wife Esme. When she died in 1995 she left most of her £4.5m estate to the Bristol & District branch of Animal Concern and its Holly Hedge Animal Sanctuary.

By the time the brothers died (Aldo in 1997, Frank in 2000), Berni Inns had become popular shorthand for naff – prawn cocktail starter, steak & chips main, Black Forest gateau for dessert – but they were the first to bring decentquality dining to the British masses, and it all started in Bristol.

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28/06/2011 19:26:43

WEB FLUFF 360-DEGREE (GEDDIT!?)

TOUR OF BATH UNI CAMPUS www.bath.ac.uk/ study/virtual-tour/

CAT’S REVENGE vimeo.com/23608259

EVERY ONE OF THESE PICS HAS THE MAKINGS OF A NOVEL. CHILDREN OF RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS. tinyurl.com/3pg9kqb

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//The mists of time// It was ten years ago; we all had nicer teeth, more hair and more money. But no ‘The Only Way Is Essex’, so it was obviously a rubbish time to be alive. Here’s some of what Venue was going on about back in July 2001... // Reader’s letter: “I was trooping out of the polling station on June 7 having cast my vote for Labour with no particular enthusiasm when I saw two blokes on a tandem festooned with Vote Green posters.

Something about their magnificent pedal-powered battle-bike stirred

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Newshound

The News, Digested

Council results... New mayor...

Uni fees... Free stuff... // The West of England Partnership, which brought together Bristol, Bath & North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset Councils to work together on various issues, is to be wound up.

The Partnership was particularly concerned with planning and applying for funding for local transport schemes. The move is part of the wider government shake-up of the regions and some of the Partnership’s functions will be taken over by the Local Enterprise Partnership. // A reported 15,000-plus people turned out to take a look at Bristol’s new M Shed museum over its opening weekend (17-19 June). The £27m attraction, which looks at the lives and experiences of Bristolians through the ages, opened with a series of celebrations, including an acrobatic spectacle and a “procession of the professions” on the Saturday. Professions

something in my heart. Whoever you were, gents, I salute you and apologise for not having had my conversion on the road to Damascus (well, Montpelier) 20 minutes sooner.”... The show everyone was talking about was ‘Up The Feeder, Down the ‘Mouth And Back Again’, a huge play all about Bristol’s docks, involving the Old Vic, the Industrial Museum and a cast of 50... Ashton Court Festival wasn’t at Ashton Court, but Hengrove Park because of foot & mouth disease (long story). Crowds were down, and the bus service was atrocious; a lot of the promised buses didn’t show up, and many drivers didn’t know the way to the site. “I wasn’t that surprised,” one punter told Venue.

“First can’t even get me to work on time.” Acts included The Wurzels, Mad Professor, Kosheen and Stereo

represented in the parade, which took place in pouring rain, included Venue journalists. // The Bristol Free Bus service, which runs in a circular route linking Temple Meads, the city centre and Broadmead, is now running every Saturday. Its 700-plus supporters have raised the money to start the service, but are hoping to expand it soon. Ffi: www. freebus.org.uk

of adult residents with learning difficulties was closed down late last month. The apparent abuse at the Winterbourne View home in South Gloucestershire came to light following an undercover investigation by the BBC’s ‘Panorama’ programme. Castlebeck, the firm which runs the home, said all patients have been moved to other homes.

// The care home at the centre of controversy over the alleged abuse

// Fresh impetus has been added to the campaign calling for the closure of the Hooters restaurant in Bristol by the bizarre allegations at the beginning of June that a “boob cake” was served at a birthday party for a 12-year-old. The chain, which claims it is “family-friendly” has not commented on the allegations.

If they’re true, though, you have to ask what sort of parents would take a 12-year-old to a place like that for a birthday party?

Campaigners have started a fresh petition to close the restaurant down. See: http://tinyurl. com/3bjmtvr

MCs (“indisputably the finest festival closers since Portishead”)... A new comedy called ‘The Office’ was about to start showing on BBC2 so we interviewed co-creator Stephen Merchant (he used to work for Venue, you know). Asked what the worst job he ever had was, he replied: “Answering phones in a Bristol call centre. It’s the most depressing thing imaginable. Those places are the modern equivalent of Victorian workhouses. It’s not manual labour, but they’re like black holes that suck the life out of you. One guy got fired for playing Battleships in between calls. They’re so draconian, but I did meet lots of people who’ve become characters in ‘The Office’.”... At the end of July, Venue notched up its 500th issue and bullied several local and national celebrities to send in messages of congratulation.

Right-wing Evening Post gorblimey columnist ‘Barry Beelzebub’ said: “Venue? It’s nothing but a soap-dodgers’ bible. All these lentileating, sandalwearing substanceabusing ex-hippies bunking off to go to women’s workshops on orgasms with vegetables. Why aren’t they out there working hard and paying taxes like the rest of us? Listen, matey, when Maggie is back in power (oh yes – you’d better believe it), it’s going to be confiscated by the state and handed over to those rightthinking chaps at the Evening Post.

They’ll soon knock it into shape.”

// The No to Tesco in Stokes Croft campaign group has won its bid to apply for a judicial review of Bristol City Council’s decision to give planning permission to Tesco to alter the former Jester’s Comedy Club. While a review might look at alterations to the building, it would not challenge the original decision to allow the site to used as a retail store.

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Film Keeping it reel

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

Winning an Oscar has barely affected Philip Seymour Hoffman’s career path. Here he talks to Robin Askew about his latest, low-key offering, ‘Jack Goes Boating’, which also marks his directorial debut.

I

’ve never had a dinner party that went that bad,” laughs Philip Seymour Hoffman. “I’ve definitely had nights that went that bad, though!

We all have had nights that went that bad…”

Hoffman is talking about what he describes as the “dinner party tragedy” that unfolds at the end of his directorial debut, ‘Jack Goes Boating’. The film reworks Robert Glaudini’s 2007 off-Broadway stage play of the same title, with most of the original cast - including Hoffman himself - reprising their roles.

He plays the eponymous Jack, a withdrawn New York limo driver who’s coaxed into a relationship with

“Film director is a great job. But directing myself is not something that I liked.”

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the equally shy Connie (Amy Ryan - the only member of the central quartet who didn’t appear in the original play) by his best mate Clyde (John Ortiz), who seems intent on destroying his own marriage to Lucy (Daphne Ruben-Vega).

“I think when we did the run of the show, even though it got a great reception, I was a bit lost,” admits Hoffman candidly. “There were questions I just couldn’t answer sufficiently for myself. The big one was: why does he [Jack] let Clyde do what he does? In the film, I think I buy it. I made changes in there to see how Jack would fall away from his focus. In the play it was quite abrupt, and Clyde was quite aggressive about sabotaging the evening. So the whole last half of the play was always a bit out of my grasp.

“It is the tricky part: why does he do all those things? And I kept having to talk to him [Ortiz]. It was like, don’t think too much about what your character does in that evening.

Think about what your character wants. What do they desperately, desperately want to ease the anxiety and pain in their gut? All of them are carrying this ball of something and they want someone to take it away.

And so they act accordingly. In life, when that pain is that intense, we do dumb sh*t.”

The lesson, Hoffman says, is that falling in love means the possibility of getting hurt, but we still do it anyway. “It’s not a movie about two people getting together and falling in love,” he elaborates. “It’s a movie about, ‘If I’m going to have a relationship - whether it’s platonic or not - I am ultimately saying I am willing to be hurt. Because I’m willing to give you that power.’

“Ultimately, this film, if it’s successful, is a statement on life, not on relationships. What you’re left with in that final image of Clyde is a

man who now does not know where he’s going. He’s almost Jack at the beginning of the movie. Or Jack ten years ago. He’s a man now lost in the middle of his life. That’s really what the film’s getting at. So the tone had to be quite delicate, that you would just get the information when you got it.

It’s kind of a story that has an ending at the beginning.”

The rather serious and intense if refreshingly frank Hoffman has now mercifully lost Jack’s little minidreadlocks. He’s also decided that directing a movie in which he stars is not for him, either. “Film director is a great job. But directing myself is not something that I liked. I’ve been an actor for a long time, and I like someone else out there telling me that I’m not good and challenging me and putting a good strong firm hand out there for me to take. Not doing well on any given day and knowing that I was the only one to turn to was…uncomfortable. So I had to get over that. I had to trust the writer who was there almost every day and my DP and my script supervisor. I just looked to them, and when they were like ‘I don’t know’, I had to just go away. Sometimes I just had to walk off, go in a room and do my acting work. Then come back and be the actor. That really took a shift of concentration, of focus, that’s kind

of immense. As a director, it’s a whole different thing. It ultimately worked out but, yeah, I remember those moments. I won’t do it again in that capacity.”

Back in 2005, he won the Best Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance in ‘Capote’, but Hoffman argues that whatever clout this has provided is virtually negligible given the subsequent career choices he’s made.

“I have celebrity, but I don’t have the celebrity that some people have,” he says dismissively. “This is a small movie. We were able to keep the cast, pretty much. I think the clout of the theatre company helped too. They knew that we all knew each other and that we’d work hard together and do the best we could. But I’m sure it [the Oscar] helped in some way in my life since then. Your cachet goes up because of that, but I don’t really see a vast difference in my life before and after. I think I was given more than most before I won and I still am.

I consider myself incredibly lucky.

I mean that. Out of all the actors I know, what I’ve been given is an abundance of riches. I have been able to support myself as an actor since my late 20s. And trust me, most don’t have that…”

‘Jack Goes Boating’ is released on July 8. See review on page 38.

A dreadlocked PSH goes boating with co-star Amy Ryan

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//THE MONTH AHEAD// Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (12A) // Dir: David Yates, 130 mins) Barring a major upset, this should wind up as the biggest hit of the year. It’s also the first Potter flick to be released in 3D, so Warners can wring every last drop of cash from their record-breaking franchise. You’ll recall that Harry, Hermione and the little ginger fella spent much of part one collecting Horcruxes in the hope of thwarting dastardly Voldemort. But now he’s acquired another McGuffin called the Elder Wand and plans to open up a huge can of magical whupass that threatens to destroy not only Hogwarts but also one of the cinema industry’s main revenue streams.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART II IS OUT JULY 15

Cars 2 (U) // (Dir: John Lasseter & Brad Lewis, 112 mins) Pixar sequelises its least interesting film. In 3D, obviously. This time Owen Wilson’s Lightning McQueen and his pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) embark on an adventure to Europeland to take part in a race to determine which is the world’s fastest car. They then get sucked in to the world of international espionage. Joining the voice cast are Michael Caine as British master spy Finn McMissile and Emily Mortimer as rookie field agent Holley Shiftwell.

CARS 2 IS OUT JULY 22

The Conspirator (12A)

The Tree of Life (12A) // (Dir: Terrence Malick, 139 mins) A swift UK release for unprolific Terrence Malick’s audiencedividing Cannes Palme d’Or winner. Sean Penn and Brad Pitt star in this ‘2001’-esque meditation on the meaning of life’n’stuff, which begins in the US Midwest in the 1950s and eventually whizzes off to explore the outer limits of space and time.

THE TREE OF LIFE IS OUT JULY 22

// (Dir: Robert Redford, 123 mins) Robert Redford explores a little-known chapter in the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Robin Wright plays Mary Surratt, owner of a boarding house where assassin John Wilkes Booth met his co-conspirators, including Surratt’s son. Redford draws obvious parallels between her subsequent trial in a military court and the US’s treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The top-notch supporting cast includes James McAvoy and Tom Wilkinson.

THE CONSPIRATOR IS OUT JULY 1

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

July 1

July 8

// Larry Crowne (12A) (see above) (Dir: Tom Hanks, 99 mins) Tom Hanks directs himself and Julia Roberts in a corporate downsizing romcom. He plays Larry Crowne, a popular team leader at a big corporation who finds himself struggling to keep up with the mortgage after being fired. Larry then joins forces with a bunch of the Colourful Unemployed and meets up with disaffected teacher Roberts. // Nader and Simin, A Separation (PG) See review on page 40. // Fire in Babylon (12A) See review on page 38. // Transformers: Dark of the Moon (12A) (Dir: Michael Bay, 154 mins) Third dose of loud toy advertisement action from Michael Bay. Need it be added that this instalment is in 3D? Should you be interested, the new episode has its roots in the sixties space race, during which a bloody great crashed spaceship is found on the dark side of the moon. In the present day, the rival Autobots and Decepticons attempt to unlock its secrets. Further plot details have not been made available, but we’re guessing it ends with another bloody great CGI robot smackdown.

// The Princess of Montpensier (15) (Dir: Bertrand Tavernier, 140 mins) Bertrand Tavernier’s lavish costume drama in which the eponymous 16th century posho is denied marriage to her true love by her politically ambitious father. It’s all set against the backdrop of graphically depicted warfare. // Holy Rollers (15) (Dir: Kevin Asch, 89 mins) Jesse (‘The Social Network’) Eisenberg stars in the extraordinary true story of a devout young man who gets sucked in to an Israeli drug cartel in the early nineties.

The gang’s ruse is to use Hasidic Jews to transport thousands of ecstasy tablets across national borders. They’re never stopped and searched because they’re so far removed from the standard profile of drug smugglers. // Film Socialisme (TBA) (Dir: Jean-Luc Godard) Ageing French new waver Godard serves up a “symphony in three movements”, which is either “brave”, “bewildering” and “confrontational” or another

// STILL

SHOWING // // Bad Teacher (15) See review on page 39. HHHHH // Bridesmaids (15) (Dir: Paul Feig, 125 mins) Kirsten Wiig finally gets the lead role she’s so richly deserved in this justly acclaimed, female-skewed raunchy comedy in the ‘Hangover’ mould. A rare exception to the rule that any film with the word ‘bride’ in the title is to be avoided like the plague, it also demonstrates magnificently that a chick flick can deliver a food poisoning scene every bit as graphic as the grossout genre. HHHHH // Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (U) (Dir: David Bowers, 99 mins) Another big hit with the under-10s, this enjoyable sequel continues the trials of hapless Greg Heffley (likeable Zachary Gordon), who this time finds unlikely common cause with his idiot big brother. Fussy, over-protective, wellmeaning modern PC parents are

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also the butt of much of the film’s humour. HHHHH // The Green Lantern (12A) See review on page 41. // The Hangover Part II (15) (Dir: Todd Phillips, 102 mins) (pictured below right) Not so much a sequel as a recapitulation, this big-budget follow-up to the surprise summer holiday hit of 2009 sticks so rigidly to the winning formula that the opening and closing scenes are identical, robbing it of the surprise that made the original so refreshing.

This time, however, the stag party quartet find themselves waking up in Bangkok, rather than Las Vegas, with no memory of what they’ve been up to. HHHHH // Kung Fu Panda 2 (U) (Dir: Jennifer Yuh, 90 mins) Fast becoming the new Eddie Murphy far more palatable in animated form than in the ample flesh - Jack Black returns as roly-poly kung fu panda Po for the inevitable 3D sequel to the 2008 hit. While it’s disappointing that KFP should resort to the default setting of all US kids’ movies - Dad Ishoos - there’s plenty of humour and action here to keep the target

tedious, pretentious load of old tosh, according to taste. Taking the latter view is respected US critic Roger Ebert, who remarked: “This film is an affront.

It is incoherent, maddening, deliberately opaque and heedless of the ways in which people watch movies.” // Trust (15) (Dir: David Schwimmer, 106 mins) A teenage girl is seduced by an internet predator, much to the horror of her parents (Clive Owen, Catherine Keener) in a heavyhanded cautionary tale which marks an unlikely left turn into melodrama by director David (‘Run Fatboy Run’) Schwimmer. // Jack Goes Boating (15) See feature on page 35 and review on page 38.

July 15 // Bal (PG) Dir: Semih Kaplanoglu, 105 mins) An everyday tale of rural Turkish honey-gathering folk in which stuttering six-year-old Yusuf heads off in search of his father, who disappeared after venturing further than ever before into the forest after pollution threatened his means

audience amused, and none of those tired in-jokes or pop culture references for adults. HHHHH // Pina 3D (U) (Dir: Wim Wenders, 103 mins) Back by popular demand - the film that obliges arthouse audiences to wear those funny 3D spex. Visually, it’s pretty impresseive, but be warned that you’ll learn next to nothing about its putative subject: German contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch, who croaked just two days before production was due to begin in the summer of 2009. HHHHH // Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (12A) (Dir: Rob Marshall, 137 mins) Better than ‘At World’s End’, but nowhere near as fun as the first film, the fourth Pirates flick elevates Johnny Depp to top billing for a great deal more of his running-like-a-girl and nosetwitching routines as cowardly, duplicitous, mildly camp Captain Jack. Saucy, voluptuous Penelope Cruz proves a much better foil than prim Keira Knightley, mind.

HHHHH // Senna (12A) (Dir: Asif Kapadia, 106 mins) The unexpected hit of

of making a living. It’s a dreamy, dialogue-lite winner of the Golden Bear at last year’s Berlinale. // Cell 211 (18) (Dir: Daniel Monzon, 113 mins) Multiple award-winning Spanish film telling the story of an eager young prison warder who gets swept up in a riot on his first day on the job. After prisoners take control, he has to pose as a new inmate in order to survive. // Hobo with a Shotgun (18) (Dir: Jason Eisener, 82 mins) (Pictured right) In the wake of ‘Machete’, here’s another film expanded from a fake trailer featured as part of the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez ‘Grindhouse’ double-bill.

Rutger Hauer plays a homeless vigilante who blows away crooked cops, paedo Santas and other assorted scumbags with his pumpaction shotgun. // Bobby Fischer Against the World (12A) See review on page 41. // Sawako Decides (12A) See review on page 40.

the summer, with more than two million quid in the kitty after just a couple of weeks, Asif Kapadia’s compelling, archive-only (i.e. no talking heads) portrait of the late Brazilian Formula One champ resists the hagiographic impulse to deliver warts and all. HHHHH // X: Men: First Class (12A) (Dir: Matthew Vaughn, 132 mins) Vastly superior to the dismal ‘Wolverine’, Matthew (‘Kick Ass’) Vaughn’s entertaining X-Men prequel explores the origins of the feud between the young Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) - later to become Magneto and Professor X respectively - against the backdrop of WWII and the Cuban Missile Crisis. HHHHH

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Film

Concern mounted as another English cricketer lost the use of his testicles

// REVIEWS // Review Fire In Babylon (12A) UK 2011 87 mins Dir: Stevan Riley // A considerable improvement on Stevan Riley’s Oxford University boxing flick ‘Blue Blood’, this joins the recent glut of engaging sports documentaries that do not presuppose the slightest interest in sport.

It helps that the film’s focus is on politics - specifically racial politics.

If there’s a fault, it is that Riley’s approach is so partisan and celebratory that alternative viewpoints are never heard and potentially interesting by-ways remain unexplored.

But anyone craving an uplifting blend of black power, Jamaican reggae and underdog sporting triumph is unlikely to be disappointed.

Historians, Rastafarians (including a jolly Bunny Wailer) and key sportsmen such as Viv Richards set the scene by observing that cricket was used as a tool by colonial masters in the West Indies to inculcate English aristocratic values. For players who grew up in these times, the notion of beating white opponents at their own game was loaded with political significance. But up until 1960, the West Indies team was always captained by a white man and routinely dismissed as happy-golucky “calypso cricketers”. A nadir was reached during a 1975 rout in Australia, when the black visiting team was also subjected to racist abuse. Determined to get their act

together by developing some fast bowlers of their own, the West Indies arrived in Britain the following year to find England’s team captain, Tony Greig, threatening to make them “grovel”. Just so much macho sporting knockabout, except that this was set against the febrile backdrop of civil unrest in the Caribbean, apartheid in South Africa and the National Front on the march in the UK (depressingly, the antiimmigration views in archive vox pops are couched in exactly the same terms we hear today). The suggestion that a white team planned to make their black opponents grovel in such circumstances was all that was needed to galvanise the West Indies, leading to a spectacular turnaround

in fortunes.

Riley works perhaps a little too hard to establish a link between sporting and musical triumph, though this does provide an opportunity to fill the soundtrack with plenty of pounding reggae over montages of fast bowlers inflicting eye-watering injuries on their opponents. But he soft-pedals a bit on sanctions-busting players who were handsomely rewarded for becoming ‘honorary whites’ to play in South Africa, and never presses Richards (who declined the offer) on his refusal to condemn them. (Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.fireinbabylon.com/ Opens: July 1

Review Jack Goes Boating (15) USA 2010 91 mins Dir: Philip Seymour Hoffman Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Thomas McCarthy // A low-key actors’ movie, strong on detail and character but a tad deficient in the incident department, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s confident directorial debut gives him an opportunity to reprise the role he played off-Broadway back in 2007. Written for both stage and screen by actor/director Bob

Galudini, ‘Jack Goes Boating’ is a slowburning, unconventional, somewhat self-consciously quirky romantic comedy centred on two working class New York couples, which owes an obvious debt to Paddy Chayefsky’s ‘Marty’.

Hoffman’s Jack is an overweight limo driver who affects an unusual woolly hat and shirt’n’tie combo and has his hair tied in little mini-dreadlocks in honour of his love of reggae in general and ‘Rivers of Babylon’ in particular.

So socially awkward is he that one

“…and I’d like to introduce Bob Marley’s albino brother”

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half expects a revelation about Asperger’s syndrome, though this never materialises. We learn little about Jack’s background, but his only friends in the world seem to be fellow driver Clyde (Ortiz) and his wife Lucy (Rubin-Vega), who treat him as they might a surrogate child.

Their big plan is to set him up with Connie (Ryan), who works in telesales with Lucy at pushy Dr. Bob’s (McCarthy) Brooklyn funeral parlour. But mousy Connie is just as timid as Jack and, for reasons that are never explained, seems terrified of men despite yearning for a relationship. The couple’s tentative courtship has its setbacks (“I’m not ready for penis penetration,” declares Connie after a disastrous attempt at consummation), but Jack perseveres, with the encouragement of Clyde and Lucy, learning to swim and cook so he can fulfil Connie’s simple dream of being cooked a meal and

taken boating. Alas, just as their relationship starts to bloom, Clyde and Lucy’s falls apart spectacularly as an old betrayal resurfaces.

There’s a certain Sundance indie-by-numbers feel about this, especially in its carefully contrived offbeat tone, mandatory Grizzly Bear score and predictable song choices (Fleet Foxes, Cat Power, etc), which underlines the fact that, despite their claim to artistic superiority, many independent flicks are as formulaic as the most focus-grouped, committee-scripted Hollywood blockbuster. But there’s emotional truth beneath the occasionally glacial pacing, and those with the patience to stay the course will be rewarded with a magnificent dope- and cocainefuelled Dinner Party From Hell.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.jackgoesboatingmovie. com/ Opens: July 8

venuemagazine

29/06/2011 14:11:15

Going out this month? see venue.co.uk - the new home of Venue’s what’s on listings Rather too late, she discovered that it wasn’t a cigarette lighter after all

Review Bad Teacher (15) USA 2011 92 mins Dir: Jake Kasdan Starring: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch, Phyllis Smith, John Michael Higgins

Review Incendies (15) Canada/France 2010 131 mins Subtitles Dir: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Lubna Azabal, Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Remy Girard, Abdelghafour Elaaziz // In present day Montreal, twins Jeanne (Desormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Gaudette) are summoned to the office of notary Jean Lebel (Girard) for the formal reading of their late mother’s will. Cinematic convention means they’re about to get a big surprise.

Sure enough, the will reveals Nawal Marwan’s (Azabel) desire to be buried face down, without a casket or headstone, until a terrible secret has been shared.

For this to happen, the twins must deliver two letters - one to their father and the other to their brother. A couple of complications arise immediately: they thought their father was dead and didn’t know they had a brother. Simon is rather irritated, since he always thought mum was a bit bonkers, but Jeanne is sufficiently intrigued to embark on a journey to her mother’s unnamed Middle Eastern country of origin (clearly Lebanon), where an over-stuffed closet is waiting to disgorge its many skeletons.

So skilfully adapted by Denis Villeneuve from LebaneseCanadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad’s ‘Scorched’ that you wouldn’t be aware of its stage origins, the Oscar-nominated ‘Incendies’ unfolds in the form of two parallel stories: Jeanne’s

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modern-day journey of discovery and, in flashback, Nawal’s hidden history. Raised as a Christian, pregnant Nawal’s misery commences when her Muslim lover is executed by her own brothers and she’s shunned for bringing shame upon her family.

The child is sent to an orphanage, while his mother seeks an education and becomes involved with the civil war, eventually being jailed for shooting the leader of the right-wing Christian militia. More than this it would be unfair to reveal: suffice it to say that there’s an easily guessed twist followed by a grotesque one.

Some have suggested the latter is a bit OTT, but it traces a clear lineage from Greek tragedy via ‘Titus Andronicus’.

Both a compelling mystery and a topical, searing indictment of religious conflict, the film benefits from a magnificent, empathetic central performance by Belgian actress Lubna Azabal, who helps to make sense of some of Nawal’s emotional and political journey.

Villeneuve’s assured direction spares the detail of certain horrors but is unflinching in its depiction of others, such as a Christian assault on a bus full of Muslims, which has a shocking coda. You may find yourself ahead of the ultimate revelation, but it still delivers a mighty gut-punch.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.incendies-thefilm. com/ Now showing

// There’s something rather unsatisfactory about Cameron Diaz’s misbehaving pedagogue.

Anyone who objects on principle to crude humour and nasty characters was never likely to warm to her self-centred, bitchy, potty-mouthed behaviour. But those of us who crave full-on unpleasantness aspiring to the magnificently sour ‘Bad Santa’ benchmark are likely to come away disappointed. Sure, she’s a lazy, pot-smoking, heavy metal-loving, venal drunk whose ambition is to buy herself a pair of huge plastic boobs. But, really, who hasn’t had a teacher like that? (OK, maybe not the boobs thing.) Given the ample potential for real taboo-busting badness in the classroom, director Jake Kasdan pulls his punches rather too much and the tame, semiredemptive story arc is nothing if not predictable. But at least his film delivers a reasonable quota of laughs along the way.

Having been rumbled as a gold-digger by her sugardaddy fiance, Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) is forced to return to teaching - a profession she was drawn to because of “the long summer holidays and lack of accountability”. In a neat touch, she forces her pupils to watch inspirational schoolteacher flicks

(‘Stand and Deliver’, ‘Dangerous Minds’, etc) while she drinks and nods off behind her desk. Enter dweeby, pious, bespectacled new supply teacher Scott Delacorte (Diaz’s real-life ex, Justin Timberlake), the heir to a watchmaking fortune. He’s still getting over an amply-proportioned former girlfriend, so Elizabeth naturally concludes that she can win his heart and wallet by having an expensive boob job. But cutesy, highly-strung, passiveaggressive fellow teacher Amy Squirrel (Punch) also sets her sights on Scott, while nice-guy gym teacher Russell Gettis (Segel) waits patiently in the wings with his, ahem, bulging ball sack.

Diaz enjoys a splendid dryhumping scene with Timberlake leading to a great icky payoff. She also has plenty of fun in hotpants recreating a Whitesnake video to boost her ‘Tit Fund’, much to the delight of dads at the school car wash. But at the risk of drawing the ire of the Sexism Police, one can’t help but observe that, at nearly 40, Diaz is getting just a little long-in-the-tooth for these sexpot seducer roles. What’s more, the marvellous Lucy Punch steals every scene she’s in and is surely due a Kirsten-Wiigin-’Bridesmaids’-style careermaking lead role soon. (Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.areyouabadteacher. com/ Now showing

The teacher with the biggest balls in school was asked to report to the gymnasium

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Review Nader and Simin, A Separation (PG) Sometimes their sulks could last for weeks

Iran 2011 123 mins Subtitles Dir: Asghar Farhadi Starring: Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini, Sarina Farhadi, Babak Karimi // The surprising thing about this complex, morally ambiguous Iranian drama is the universality of its themes. Now OK, only in a strict Islamic theocracy could you

have a storyline that hinges on the inability of a man to tell whether a woman wearing a sack-like chador is heavily pregnant. And there are few cultures in which a woman would feel obliged to check with the religious authorities to determine whether she would be committing a sin by changing the underwear of an elderly male Alzheimer’s sufferer who has

wet himself. But what begins as an apparently straightforward tale of divorce in modern Iran soon widens to become a meditation on class, sin, guilt, stubbornness and pride.

Nader (Moaadi) and Simin (Hatami) are a prosperous, liberal middle-class couple with a bright, educated 11-yearold daughter named Termeh (Farhadi).

Simin is seeking a legal separation because she wants to emigrate to give Termeh a better life. Nader refuses to join her, claiming he needs to look after his elderly father. After Simin moves out, Nader hires Razieh (Bayat) - a devout woman from the poor side of town - to care for the old man while he’s at work. Following an altercation, Razieh has a miscarriage; her hot-

headed, debt-ridden husband Hodjat (Hosseini) demands blood money; and a patient judge (Karimi) is charged with disentangling the facts of the case.

Director Asghar Farhadi pulls off an engrossing, skilfully acted character study, cleverly withholding certain key details and relegating others to the margins so we wind up wishing we’d paid closer attention. He also resists taking sides, allowing each flawed character their viewpoint, and ends on a cliffhanger that will provoke many a post-screening debate. (Robin Askew) HHHHH

kills Gregoire in an altercation, he has visions of his children growing up knowing that their father was a convicted murderer. So he disposes of the body, fakes his own death and assumes Gregoire’s identity, becoming more-than-usually stubbly and nervy as he hides out in rural Montenegro. Inevitably, living his dream proves to have unexpected consequences.

A few lumpy plot points aside (Paul’s border-crossing corpse disposal and identity change antics seem remarkably hassle free), this deliciously Ripley-esque yarn is anchored by a terrific performance from Duris and benefits from a pleasingly amoral ending that

Hollywood would never allow.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH

every mishap and setback with a resigned “can’t be helped”. Then she’s summoned home to take over the reins of the ailing family freshwater clam packing plant because her father (Shiga) is in hospital with terminal cirrhosis of the liver. But this means facing up to the circumstances of her departure as a teenager, as well as dealing with a randy uncle and mutinous workforce of sceptical fishwives.

An enjoyable if decidedly odd film that becomes even odder with extraneous subplots, uneven performances, and abrupt lurches of tone from pure comedy to tragedy, ‘Sawako Decides’ finds room to incorporate a ‘Made in

Dagenham’-esque workplace female empowerment theme alongside much bowel-oriented metaphor (we first meet Sawako having colonic irrigation in the hope that this will also wash away all the crapness in her life; later, everyone chows down on a giant watermelon grown on human excrement). The moral, if there is one, seems to be to accept and celebrate one’s mediocrity. Or, as Sawako’s jolly reworking of the company song has it: “Our work is tedious and boring/But we enjoy our lives/We are all very happy”.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH

website www.jodaeyenaderazsimin. com/ Opens: July 1

Review The Big Picture (15) France 2010 114 mins Subtitles Dir: Eric Lartigau Starring: Romain Duris, Marina Fois, Niels Arestrup, Catherine Deneuve, Eric Ruf // It’s tempting to describe ‘The Big Picture’ as yet another of those great French character-driven thrillers that Hollywood will be tempted to ruin. But it’s actually more complicated than that. Like ‘Tell No One’, to which it bears some comparison, the film is based on a novel by a US author, Douglas Kennedy apparently being more highly regarded in Europe than in America.

Increasingly impressive Romain Duris, last seen in the under-

rated comedy ‘Heartbreaker’, plays Parisian lawyer Paul Exben.

Outwardly happy and prosperous, he has a big house, a lovely wife named Sarah (director Eric Lartigau’s own spouse Marina Fois) and two squealing children, whom he clearly adores. But behind the facade, his life is falling apart. His business partner Anne (Deneuve) has just revealed that she has terminal cancer, throwing him offkilter. What’s more, frosty Sarah is having an affair with hunky neighbour Gregoire (Ruf). Just to rub it in, Gregoire is a globetrotting travel photographer - the career Paul would have chosen if he’d had the courage. When Paul accidentally

website www.lhommequivoulaitvivresavie-lefilm.com/ Opens: July 22

Suddenly the source of her embarrassing rash became clear

Review Sawako Decides (12A) Japan 2009 112 mins Subtitles Dir: Yuya Ishii Starring: Hikari Mitsushima, Ryo Iwamatsu, Masashi Endo, Kira Aihara, Kotaro Shiga // In her fifth year in Tokyo, country girl Sawako (Mitsushima) is on her fifth job and fifth boyfriend. She currently works as a dogsbody in a toy factory and is dating useless Sawako took safe sex very seriously indeed

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divorced designer Kenichi (Endo), whose hobby is knitting and idea of a good time is taking his infant daughter Kayoko (Aihara) to the zoo to point out how miserable all the animals are. Little wonder Sawako seeks solace in beer. Lots of beer.

Her problem is a chronic lack of self-esteem. She describes herself as a ‘sub-middling woman’ and greets

website www.kawasoko.com/ Opens: July 15

venuemagazine

28/06/2011 19:32:03

Review Bobby Fischer Against

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

the World (12A) USA 2011 96 mins Dir: Liz Garbus // The virulently anti-Semitic son of a Jewish communist, Bobby Fischer was described by friends and foes alike as pushy, self-centred, arrogant and weird. He was also a conspiracy theorist par excellence and famously described 9/11 as “wonderful news. It’s time for the f*cking US to get their heads kicked in.” Yes, it’s safe to say that Fischer’s name would be absent from most lists of sympathetic documentary subjects. But he was also a chess ‘genius’ - if we must employ that over-used term - whose ‘Match of the Century’ against Soviet champ Boris

Spassky in Iceland back in 1972 was considered so significant in Cold War terms that it bumped Watergate off the top of US TV news.

Made for HBO, Liz Garbus’s appropriately TV-sized documentary takes the traditional Rock’n’Roll Years approach, combining archive newsreel footage, contemporary music (including, brilliantly, ‘Your Move’ by Yes - one of the handful of songs to reference chess) and new interviews with surviving participants. It’s a nuts and bolts approach which works well in showing how chess fever improbably gripped the nation (even softcore dolly birds were photographed

Review Green Lantern (12A) USA 2011 114 mins Dir: Martin Campbell Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard // There are two types of comicbook adaptation. The first appeals to those with friends, normal sex lives and a cultural hinterland. It consists of a minority of superior films, including a couple of Batmans and a few of the X-Men flicks. The second appeals only to over-excited, undiscriminating nerds and consists of the likes of ‘Fantastic Four’ and, well, just about everything else.

Not to be confused with ‘The Green Hornet’ or, indeed, the big green bloke with the amazing stretchy trousers, ‘Green Lantern’ resides

firmly in the latter category.

Astonishingly written by four people and anonymously directed in relentless crap-flinging 3D by inconsistent occasional Bond-helmer Martin Campbell, this risible DC barrel-scraper takes a pick’n’mix approach to all the usual superhero guff. But it suffers from a fatal uncertainty of tone, as though all involved are keenly aware that it’s garbage but are unsure whether anyone will get upset if they make fun of it mercilessly. Ryan Reynolds plays smirky ace test pilot Hal Jordan, who’s equipped with the mandatory Dead Dad Trauma. A clunky prologue has already established the nonsense

poring over knights and rooks).

Footage of the obsessive Fischer as a clean-cut kid suggests a borderline Asperger’s personality from an early age. Much off-the-shelf genius/madness guff and halfbaked theorising about Absent Dad Trauma are used to explain his later disappearances and eccentricities.

But the film rather races through those interesting post-fame years when increasingly paranoid Fischer abandoned Christian fundamentalism to embrace the fake Protocols of Elders of Zion. Still, it’s interesting to find that so many chess grand masters go bonkers.

Particularly delicious is the story of

He finally found someone who was prepared to listen to his crazy conspiracy theories

the one who claimed to have played a game against god - and thrashed him. (Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.bobbyfischermovie.co.uk/ Opens: July 15

“I knew it would happen: this comicbook geek has been overcome by excitement!”

premise about the Green Lanterns protecting the universe from a baddie named Parallax. So it comes as no surprise when a purple man from outer space pitches up to tell Hal that he’s been chosen to become a Lantern. He’s then whisked off to - chortle! - “master his ring” in the company of a bunch of flying alien fish people so he can vanquish the intergalactic foe, like a square-

jawed US George King (Google him!).

Weirdly, Michael Clarke Duncan pops up as a character named ‘Kilowog’.

You’d have thought they might have done something about that after all the fuss over ‘Dam Busters’ remake.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH

about to make him very rich indeed.

During a celebratory evening of drinking and whoring, he spies unbelievably hot Nora (Malone) and decides he must have her. Alas, Nora is the moll of porn-addicted local bigshot Azor (Amekindra), who doesn’t take kindly to this young horndog hanging around. But this is the least of Riva’s problems, since the owner of the petrol, sharpsuited gangster Casar (Fortuna), has followed him across the border with hordes of goons, bent on exacting terrible revenge.

Director Djo Munga keeps things moving along at an impressive pace, with plenty of violence and explicit

steamy sex (including a wholly gratuitous lesbian interlude). Later plot twists are a tad far-fetched and hinge upon the traditional failure to check whether vanquished foes are properly dead. The film takes a deeply cynical view of Congolese society, which is depicted as riddled with corruption from top to bottom, including the church. Historical tensions between Angolans and their neighbours are also laid bare, with the former frequently using the N-word to denigrate the latter.

(Robin Askew) HHHHH

website www.greenlanternmovie. warnerbros.com/ Now showing

Review Viva Riva! (15) Democratic Republic of Congo/France/ Belgium 2010 98 mins Subtitles Dir: Djo Munga Starring: Patsha Bay, Manie Malone, Hoji Fortuna, Alex Herabo, Diplome Amekindra His method acting was making the cameraman very nervous indeed

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// The second Congolese flick of the year, ‘Viva Riva!’ is no uplifting liberal arthouse audience-pleaser like disabled musician doc ‘Benda Bilili’. In fact, this slick, politically aware slice of Afrosploitation has more in common with ‘City of God’ and the films that came out of Jamaica in the early 70s. The difference is that scarce petrol takes the place of drugs as the commodity everyone craves.

The eponymous Riva (Bay) is a likeable if reckless and cocky young man who’s just nipped across the border from Angola with a truckload of the petrol that’s in such short supply in Kinshasa and is

website www.vivarivamovie.com/ Opens: July 24

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28/06/2011 19:32:29

Film

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

CINecisms Pride Bristol … Digital culture … Ken Loach in town … Alfresco cinema

B

uffering (pictured), the new comedy

by Bristol-based film-making duo Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone, has, er, pride of place as the opening film at this year’s Pride Bristol festival. Christian and Darren will be present at the Watershed for a Q&A after the premiere on Sat 9.

Pride screenings take place at the ‘shed, Cube and Arnolfini cinemas until Sun 17 … Also on Sat 9, the ‘shed has a free screening of the Meryl Streep-narrated female genital mutilation documentary The Cutting Tradition, followed by a discussion. And on Fri 1, they host a St. Pauls Carnival Warm-up Night screening of Fire in Babylon (see review on page 38) with local

short Carnival Memories … The Cube’s July programme includes a Circus Season from Mon 11-Tue 19, a rare screening of Saul Bass’s killer ant flick Phase IV (Thur 7) and a welcome revival of the Ealing portmanteau classic Dead of Night (Wed 20) … Bristol-based Malawi charity Temwa presents the first in a series of Undercover Cinema screenings in Bristol on Thur 7. We’d tell you where, when and what, but it’s a secret. See www.temwa.org for booking details … Digital kulchur this month includes Henry VI Part 1, recorded at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2010, which screens at Bristol’s

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Cinema De Lux on Mon 25, and Opera De Paris: Children of Paradise at Bath’s Little Theatre on Sat 9 … Ken Loach returns to his beloved Bath City FC on Fri 15 for a screening of his Cannes awardwinning political thriller Hidden Agenda, followed by a Q&A. Tickets are £12/£10 from www.bathboxoffice.org.uk …

Finally, summer heralds those everoptimistic alfresco Cinema Under the Stars screenings. This year’s programme comprises Fantastic Mr Fox (Fri 29) and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Sat 30) in the garden of Bath’s newly reopened Holburne Museum. Gates open at 7.30pm each night with the film on screen at 9pm. Admission is £6/£4 (kids). rne.org.

BOX OFFICE

bUMS ON SEATS

Takings for the weekend of April 15-17

1

Bridesmaids

£3,445,395 (new release)

2

Kung Fu Panda 2

£1,532,459 (£11,333,985, 3 weeks)

3 Chart copyright Screen International

// You’d expect a sweltering weekend, with rival attractions Glastonbury and Wimbledon, to depress overall cinema takings. But the best comedy of the summer, Bridesmaids (pictured), helped boost the overall haul to a healthy £10m.

Once again, it seems that comedies can prove more popular summer fare than the loud blockbusters and endless comicbook adaptations Hollywood throws at us. That said, there’s no rejoicing at news that the depressingly lazy The Hangover Part II is within a hair’s breadth of claiming the summer crown from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Shores - until the final Potter turns up, that is. Kung Fu Panda 2 is the clear kiddie winner, but the surprise hit of the summer so far has been Senna. Who’d have predicted that a documentary about a dead Formula One driver, comprised entirely of archive footage, would take more at the UK box office than the likes of ‘Attack the Block’ or ‘Sucker Punch’?

// DVDs //

Green Lantern

6

X-Men: First Class

£709,787 (£13,699,384, 4 weeks)

7

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Shores £523,494 (£31,930,483, 6 weeks)

8

Senna

£1,105,089 (4,722,208, 2 weeks)

£264,484 (£2,539,970, 4 weeks)

4

9

Bad Teacher

£1,061,551 (£4,357,776, 2 weeks)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules £155,605 (£4,877,957, 5 weeks)

5

The Hangover Part II £801,784 (£31,060,096, 5 weeks)

10

Double Dhamaal

£117, 285 (new release)

Oranges and Sunshine (15) // Jim (son of Ken) Loach’s accomplished feature debut, telling the shameful true story of secret deportations of British children to Australia in the 40s and 50s. There’s a terrific lead performance by Emily Watson as social worker Margaret Humphreys, who uncovered the scandal. Out: July 25.

HHHHH

ALSO RELEASED // Animal Kingdom (15) HHHHH Veteran Australian actress Jacki Weaver was justly Oscar nominated for her extraordinary performance as a bubbly, mumsy yet steel-hearted matriarch in this gripping drama about a 80s suburban Melbourne career criminal clan. Out: July 11 … The Lincoln Lawyer (15) HHHHH Unexpectedly excellent courtroom drama starring Matthew McConaughey as a cynical wheelerdealer of a criminal defence attorney. Out: July 11 … My Dog Tulip (12) HHHHH Delightful, scatalogical animated tale of an old curmudgeon and his hound.

Out: July 11 … The Company Men (15) HHHHH Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones excel in a topical drama about recently downsized executives. Out: July 4 … The Adjustment Bureau (12) HHHHH Matt Damon stars in an expansion of Philip K. Dick’s short paranoia story, which comes over all Richard Curtis at the end. Out: July 11 …

Never Let Me Go (12) HHHHH Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield star in a handsome if somewhat ponderous slice of Merchant-Ivory sci-fi, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel.

Out: now … Unknown (12) HHHHH Enjoyably daft paranoia thriller with Liam Neeson as a boffin who wakes from a coma to find his identity’s been stolen.

Out: July 18 … Drive Angry (18) HHHHH This month’s double-bill of splendid Nic Cage silliness begins with him roaring out of Hell bent on vengeance. Out: July 4 … Season of the Witch (15) HHHHH Cage again (hairpiece status: shaggy), this time as a 14th century Crusader transporting a suspected witch to a remote monastery. Out: now.

venuemagazine

28/06/2011 19:34:01

Music

The Bristol Hum

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

Dynamo Hum rock out with the best of them.

Julian Owen can’t help joining in on the chorus.

D

ynamo Hum don’t play punk rock. Nor do they play glam rock. Come to that, they don’t play alt.rock, prog rock, postrock, pre-rock or anyoldtomdickorharry rock. They play, simply, rock. Rock in the sense that every correctly raised music lover understands it, hard, loose and shouty. Rock in the manner best exemplified by Led Zeppelin, the band they used to... sorry, hang on a sec. “We talked about whether we would mention this,” says drummer Andy Sutor. “But it’s not something we should avoid, because it made us who we are.”

Stout fellow. Yes, in a previous incarnation, the members of Dynamo Hum were a tribute band, Live Zeppelin. And they were pretty bloody good at it. Even when the wigs fell off. In fact, there’s a line of argument among Hum scholars that argues they got good when the wigs fell off.

“We played a gig at the Old Fox in Bishopston,” says guitarist Ben Johnson, “and they said ‘Great set, guys, but why are you wearing wigs? You look like idiots.’ From then on it was all about the music.”

Live Zep became the pub’s de facto house band and regularly rammed it to the rafters. Not bad for a homework assignment. As students at Access To Music, Ben, Andy and bassist Louis Hessey-Antell were playing together in a group called Naked Twister. When asked to form a covers band they were stuck with one key Zep-related challenge – where on earth do you find a

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Robert Plant? “Matt [Carter] played drums with another band,” recalls Andy, “and it wasn’t until one of the college gigs when he was playing drums and singing we realised ‘Oh, god, this guy’s got a really high voice!’ We got him in...”

The covers period, says Andy, served them well. “Some of the difficulties you have when first starting a band were already taken care of – we could concentrate on writing good songs, not worry about the playing or technical aspects.” No doubt, there’s an explosive effortlessness to their sound, first debuted in February last year. Take the whomping great blues riff on ‘Test of Faith’, for example, underpinned by assuredly Bonham-esque drumming, colossally heavy on the beat, but with all manner of subtle dibs and dabs going on around it. The bass locks tight against it and Matt’s rock god shriek bobs, weaves and soars through it all. Hmm. ‘Shriek’ doesn’t sound like a compliment, but we mean it to be – the boy can holler. All of which ingredients would be just so many diamonds scattered uselessly to the wind were they not bathed in engine oil

“I don’t feel like we’ve even got started yet. This is just waiting for the right moment...”

Matt Carter, Dynamo Hum

and wrapped glisteningly around monster hooks and choruses.

Just listen to ‘You Wanted It All’ and try stopping yourself joining Matt’s cry to “Be my wooooorld!”, the repeated plea held aloft in the air by harmonising “aaaaaaahs” from his band mates.

Make no mistake, these are tunes,

Manchester, Cardiff and London can all vouch for their live chops, but it’s Bristol’s turn next. And it should be quite a night, attests Matt. “We haven’t gigged since February because we want to sell out the Louisiana, make it the biggest gig we could do.”

To that end Bobby ‘Yes Rebels’ Anderson and Rob Jackson (“very Neil Young, but sounds like Julian Casablancas”) will play downstairs, while upstairs come Jemima Surrender (“amazing, just her and an electric guitar), Emily ‘Formerly of The Whispers’ Grist’s new band (“heavier, got a fuzzy edge – sounds amazing”), and then the band richly deserving to add a second level of meaning to the description “big noise”.

There’s pragmatic planning afoot. “If you do a music course like we did, there’s no romantic idea left,” says Louis. “You’ve just got to look at the success stories

Dynamo Hum: they rock - simple as

precision engineered and first kissmemorable.

Kill It Kid fans will find plenty to enjoy here, with the band also rightly citing John E Vistic and Mars Volta as fellow travellers. “When you say hard rock,” says Louis, “you think Guns N’ Roses, Deep Purple.

I’d say we’re trying more to be in the area of things like The Raconteurs: bluesy edges, bit of musicianship, nothing flashy.” That’s certainly the view of Matt Sampson, the Bink Bonk studio engineer Ben admits they’ve “got a lot to thank for – he helped us find our sound.” Andy explains why: “We planned for weeks how we were going to each record separately, drums to a click, and he was like ‘What do you want to do that for? You’re a live band!’ so we knocked it out, three of us in a room.”

and see how they did it, not be down in the dumps.” It helps that each band member can’t imagine playing with anyone else. “No matter how much one of us is acting like a d*ckhead at certain times,” says Ben, “we all understand that we’re a f*cking amazing band together.”

This isn’t said with any tone of boastfulness or braggadocio, but as matter of factly as if he’d observed “We’re four blokes. We breathe air and eat food.” More promisingly still, Matt adopts a similar tone as he says “I don’t feel like we’ve even got started yet. This is just waiting for the right moment...”

DYNAMO HUM PLAY THE LOUISIANA, BRISTOL ON SAT 2 JULY. FFI: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ DYNAMOHUMUK

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28/06/2011 19:35:26

Music // THE MONTH AHEAD // 2.

ROOTS Jennifer Crook // “One of those records that repeatedly delights and captivates,” quoth fRoots of the Bath folkster’s debut album ‘A Few Small Things’. And we can affirm you’ll find plenty more of the same from the launched-tonight followup ‘Merry-Go-Round’.

// One of Bristol’s lesser-sung fests, but this is a proper-job community effort and a hidden gem. Bhangra fusion aces RSVP (pictured) head up the music, supplemented by car boot sale, rugby tournament, dance stage and classes, craft workshops, cycling advice, funfair and much more.

JENNIFER CROOK PLAYS THE CHAPEL ARTS CENTRE, BATH ON THUR 7 JULY.

SOUTHMEAD FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE FROM 11AM-5PM AT GLENCOYNE SQ ON SAT 16 JULY.

JAZZ/WORLD Horace Andy & Dub Asante

// Possessed of one of reggae’s most powerfully sweet voices since his 70s beginnings in Studio One, Horace Andy has also iced the cake of many Massive Attack hits through the years and continues to set the standard with 2010’s solo album ‘Serious Times’.

ROCK Keynsham Festival

3.

// Twice the goodness this year!

Super-packed Sunday in the park as ever – including Troy ‘Son of Alton’ Ellis, Fabric and Largo Embargo – but also Keynsham Sound on the Saturday: international street theatre ’neath the clock tower, then a local young bands’ showcase in the park from 1-6pm and a silent rave at 9.30pm.

KEYNSHAM FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE ON SAT 2-SUN 3 JULY.

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HORACE ANDY & DUB ASANTE PLAY THE O2 ACADEMY BRISTOL ON SAT 9 JULY.

4.

PIC: BARRYJONESPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

ROCK Southmead Festival

1.

5.

ROOTS Weekender At The Village Pump // No regular Trowbridge Pump fest this year, of course, but – back where it all started – this is a heck of a consolation: Show of Hands’ Phil Beer (pictured), Miranda Sykes and Rex Preston, Reg Meuross, Jim Tigwell, Phil King and plenty more besides.

WEEKENDER TAKES PLACE AT THE LAMB INN, TROWBRIDGE FROM FRI 22-SUN 24 JULY.

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28/06/2011 19:36:12

6.

ROCK Hesomagari

// MUSIC NEWS//

// Wonk-pop meister SJ Esau + Zun Zun Egui’s Yoshino Shigihara = Hesomagari. Big ask to be the sum of parts that distinctly brilliant, but check out the utterly inspired beaty collages and sky-touching chants on the launched-tonight ‘Hanasu Shapes’ EP and you’ll find they’ve answered spectacularly.

HESOMAGARI PLAY THE BLUE LAGOON, BRISTOL ON FRI 8 JULY.

7.

CLASSICAL Music Theatre Wales // Hot on the heels of MarkAnthony Turnage’s head-turning ‘Anna Nicole’ at the Royal Opera, Music Theatre Wales mounts a timely revival of the piece that made his name: the Steven Berkoff-derived, Thatcher’s Britain reworking of the Oedipus myth, ‘Greek’. Fingering rock and jazz as well as the young Turnage’s firebrand modernism, nearly quarter of a century on, it’s lost none of its bite.

MUSIC THEATRE WALES PLAY THE EVERYMAN THEATRE, CHELTENHAM ON THUR 7 JULY.

JAZZ/WORLD WOMAD // It’s always good but this year looks like being a great one for WOMAD. Promising to take you “around the world in 80 hours”, it does just that, from US openers Easy Star All Stars through to Japanese closers Shunsuke Kimura× Etsuro Ono (pictured) with Taraf de Haidouks (Romania) and Baaba Maal (Senegal) just two of the must-see stopovers.

WOMAD FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE AT CHARLTON PARK, WILTS FROM THUR 28-SUN 31 JULY.

CLASSICAL Armonico Consort

ARMONICO CONSORT TAKES PLACE AT ST GEORGE’S BRISTOL ON FRI 8 JULY.

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// Emerged from the same NYC underground scene that launched the careers of Helmet, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Surgery, and formulated a more extreme, riff-rich sound than the three of them spliced together.

UNSANE PLAY THE FLEECE, BRISTOL ON WED 13 JULY.

9.

// Scripted by Kit Hesketh ‘Kit and the Widow’ Harvey, ‘Monteverdi’s Flying Circus’ soars on the back of music drawn from ‘L’Orfeo’, ‘Ulysses’ and ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ to chart the story of Monteverdi’s last years in Venice.

ROCK Unsane

10.

8.

// It’s been an excellent month for local bands garnering some highprofile national recognition. First up, there was the announcement from Weston-super-Mare’s densely rocking, spacey vocalled, shoegazeleaning Towns (pictured). Check “NME’s top 50 new bands of this year,” they chirruped. “They’ve put us in at no. 29!” Good work, chaps!

Hear why for yourself via www. townsband.co.uk And then long-time Venue faves, Bath’s wham-glam rockers Ulysses, were awarded the Guardian’s New Band of the Day slot.

Read it for yourself right about here: http://tinyurl. com/44emwlt... Feel like you should be making more of a noise with your own band?

BMF training partners Music Industry Education are hosting a seminar entitled ‘How To Break Your Band Using The Internet’ at the Colston Hall on Wed 13 July, from 7-9pm.

Spaces are limited, so be swift to book your place via http://makeitinmusic. eventbrite.com For more general info about MIE’s work, go visit www. musicindustryeducation.net... Two more rounds of congratulations: St George’s Bristol is celebrating securing a grant of £40,000 from the John Ellerman Foundation, one of just 13 applicants nationally to be awarded for “the excellence of their work”. Ffi: stgeorgesbristol.co.uk And Knowle West Media Centre received a much-needed donation of nearly £700 via an online auction for tickets to Erasure’s recent Fleece gig.

The money will be used to support the KWMC music programme, currently offering a free recording studio, music production sessions and classes in DJ-ing and songwriting to almost 200 young people. More funds are always welcome, mind, and donations can be made via www.localgiving.com/ charity/knowlewestmedia. Ffi: www. kwmc.org.

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venuemagazine

29/06/2011 10:52:20

Music

Band of brothers

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

They may not be the most prolific outfit on the planet but everything the Colman Brothers have produced so far has been worth the wait. Tony Benjamin gets fraternal.

S

o – would you call it jazz?”

Venue asks the Colman Brothers, brandishing a copy of their eponymous debut CD album.

Younger brother Andrew (trumpet) is quick to reply: “I would, yeah. Oh – hold on a minute …” He tails off momentarily, thinking it through, before ... “Yeah, I would.” Sibling Matt (trombone) is more sceptical, however. “It’s difficult because jazz means a lot of things, but essentially it’s improvisation and this isn’t.” “The record company (Wah Wah 45) call it ‘dancefloor Latin jazz’,” Andrew adds. “But I just thought it was bebop.” So that’s all clear, then.

Play the CD, however, and the truth is in there, locked in its time-warped big band sound recalling extravagantly sleazy 60s soundtracks yet punching as hard as any electronic dance beat. Cue images of black polo-necks and

“We’re trying to work out how to get the sound live without paying 30-odd musicians.”

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paisley print chiffon, beehives and Beatles suits, but stay well away from Austin Powers because this is homage, not pastiche: the Colman Brothers really love that old stuff.

And they’re not alone – their debut single, 2006’s ‘El Nino’, attracted some very favourable responses, including from legendary tastemaker Gilles Petersen: “He liked it, and when he likes something lots of people end up liking it. It found its way into a great many DJ boxes after that.” Matt grins at the memory, recalling how the New York-based Greenwood Rhythm Collective even remixed the track.

Behind the big, big sound of ‘El Nino’ lay a very homemade effort (“Just us and some Latin loops, plus Ruth Hammond playing a solo.

We made it in my spare bedroom,” says Andrew), yet it sounds both convincingly integrated and authentically aged, capturing the crackling energy of a time when Dizzy Gillespie might have nodded to Quincy Jones as they passed in a studio corridor. Matt pictures that scene: “You see photos of recording sessions with the whole band set out, trombonists here, trumpeters there and so on, and you can really hear it in the recordings. We wanted to catch that: our sound is very much a production sound.”

Encouraged by their successful debut, the brothers began (albeit unhurriedly) creating another track, fitting recording time in between other work: Matt had stints in Groove Armada, Incognito, Supergrass and Kasabian as well as hip instrumental dance outfits Herbaliser and Sidestepper, while Andrew’s early accolade as 1999 Young Jazz Musician of the Year

led to a career working with top UK jazzers like Peter King, Jacqui Dankworth, Tina May and Richard Iles as well as his own quartet. The tango-inflected and supercool ‘She Who Dares’ eventually emerged to another warm response on the 2007 dance scene, with the brazen Latin hustle of ‘Another Brother’ hitting the decks spinning a year later. At which point the admirably patient people at Wah Wah 45 records began to hint that maybe a Colman Brothers album would be a good idea…

The jump-up in their work rate coincided with new arrivals and growing family responsibilities, but they cracked down to the task.

“It helped that we know what we’re doing now, and the software’s improved over time, too,” Matt observes. “We’re musicians, really, so we’ve had to learn to do production on the side as we went along.”

The undue haste (“We made four tracks in one year!” Matt recalls, disbelievingly) was at no cost to the quality of the sound, and they even took time to branch out into vocal numbers with ‘Colman Sister’ Sara (a renowned jazz vocalist herself). She wrote and sang the stylish Portuguese song ‘Sem Amor’ while all three siblings collectively composed ‘Some Other Wonder’.

With superbly tasteful instrumental contributions by their musical mates from Bristol and Leeds, the album is a great credit to all involved and should ensure that the Colman Brothers move smoothly from DJ box to Ipod shuffle.

And now the Colman Brothers are planning to tour the music with a live band. “The record company’s keen – it’ll be good for profile – so

we’re trying to work out how to get the sound live without paying 30odd musicians,” Andrew explains.

Matt’s experience with Herbaliser has been helpful. “Their music evolves from the records for playing live – you don’t try for the exact sound, you adapt it. We think it can work as a six-piece and we pretty much know who they’d be. They don’t, as yet, but we do!” Gig offers are already coming, including a support slot with the illustrious Quantic, providing a big incentive to get their act on the road but, as ever, Matt and Andrew Colman aren’t about to be hurried: “We’re aiming at next year, really – once we’ve got an idea of what works and what doesn’t.” It’ll be worth the wait, for sure, and in the meantime there’s the album to enjoy, though Andrew remains a bit bemused about it: “We’re very happy to have reached this level of production – but who will listen to it? After all, to us it was just like bebop.” But that’s the trick the Colman Brothers have pulled off – combining catchy, swinging dance music with real jazz flourishes – so who cares what they call it? It’s all good, whatever.

COLMAN BROTHERS’ EPONYMOUS DEBUT ALBUM IS OUT NOW. FFI: WWW. COLMANBROTHERS.CO.UK

The Colman boys - more than cut the mustard

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Music

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

// don't miss // Jacques, a robin

// ROCK Tonight launching debut album ‘Statuettes’, an utterly beauteous blending of rich baritone voice, clarinet, flute, cello, French horn, plenty more, all served with a side order of musique concrete.

JACQUES, A ROBIN FRI 22 JULY, THE CUBE, BRISTOL

Sarah Jarosz

the big gig

Roger Daltrey Who? As the mod legend revisits rock opera history, Mike White suspends disbelief. // This one divided opinions slightly in Venue Towers – do we plug elderstatesman Roger ‘The Who’ Daltrey or hyper-inventive soundscapers Trans Am (sliding into The Fleece, Mon 11)? The self-styled “post-electroheavycore-ultra-rock legends” launched concept album ‘Thing’ last year, and it’s a shuddering, multi-layered, unpigeonholeable thriller. Seeing it delivered live will be a rare treat. But this here section is called the Big Gig, and Roger Daltrey certainly is big. The editor confessing he didn’t actually know who Trans Am are sorta clinched it. You could argue we should take such ignorance as an excuse to educate (the Letters page is that way) – but it was not to be. So. Here we are. Roger Daltrey: curly-topped mod veteran. He used to say he wanted to die before he got old.

But anyone who caught him with the surviving Who quotient at Glastonbury in ’07 – as your correspondent did – is likely to agree that Roger Daltrey is still very much qualified to talk ’bout his generation. And a couple of subsequent generations, too. This current tour sees him revisit The Who’s landmark ’69

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rock opera ‘Tommy’, then run through a few classic Who hits for good measure.

Shameless cash-in? Don’t be so cynical.

Daltrey himself said (though not to us, alas) it’s “a ‘Tommy’ show for today’s audience, from a different perspective”.

For anyone who’s been living under a rock for the last four decades, ‘Tommy’’s the tale of a seemingly deaf, blind and mute boy whose astonishing pinball prowess leads him to become the leader of a cult. Improbable as it may seem, the album and its subsequent film version were a runaway success. It’s packed full of chart hits – ‘Pinball Wizard’, ‘I’m Free’ and ‘See Me, Feel Me’. There were sellout stage shows with cameos from all sorts – Oliver Reed, Elton John, Ringo Starr. It’s a bit weird. But in a good way.

So, you’ve a choice of two unexpectedly great concept albums to experience.

Happily, the two are on consecutive nights. So you can do both.

TRANS AM PLAY THE FLEECE, BRISTOL ON MON 11 JULY. SEE WWW.THEFLEECE.CO.UK FFI. ROGER DALTREY PLAYS COLSTON HALL ON TUE 12 JULY. FFI: WWW.COLSTONHALL. ORG

// ROOTS Only 19 and already tipped as timeless, the Grammy nominee’s second long player, ‘Follow Me Down’, attracted help from the stand-out likes of Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Shawn Colvin and Punch Brothers. As adventurous a country work as it is beguiling.

SARAH JAROSZ MON 18 JULY, ST BONAVENTURE’S, BRISTOL

Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra

// JAZZ This lot are so good they’re banned from the BBC’s Big Band competition to give the others a chance!

Catch the burgeoning generation of Brummie jazzers en route to the limelight.

MIDLAND YOUTH JAZZ ORCHESTRA THUR 28 JULY, CHAPEL ARTS, BATH

The Duckworths

// ROCK You don’t get to be the most requested band on Glastonbury festival radio without being a bit special.

And this Bath troupe are, from the darkly barbed lyrics to the top-drawer musicianship of their twang-noir.

THE DUCKWORTHS FRI 8 JULY, RONDO THEATRE, BATH

Exultate

// CLASSICAL James MacMillan’s spine-tingling settings of Latin American texts in ‘Cantos Sagrados’ is set alongside the impeccable Englishness of Parry, Finzi and Howells in a powerful programme uniting Exultate and Redcliffe’s recently refurbed mighty organ.

EXULTATE SINGERS SAT 2 JULY, ST MARY REDCLIFFE, BRISTOL

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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

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Reviews

Thursday 7 July JENNIFER CROOK “MERRYGO-ROUND” ALBUM LAUNCH £8.00 / £10.00

// ALBUMS, SINGLES, EPs, downloads// HI FICTION SCIENCE

EDENHEIGHT

‘Hi Fiction Science’ (LP, selfreleased)

‘Peaceboy’/‘Trouble’ (Single, Breakin’ Bread Records)

// A lass with a high, folksy voice ponders aloud over slouching beats – it’s a style pretty much invented in Bristol and here conveyed into the year 2011 by adept local fivepiece Hi Fiction Science. They refuse to make music purely to pass joints around to, however.

Tempos switch from woozy to air-punchy (viz opening salvo ‘Black Flower’ and ‘Old World’) and challenging lyrics frequently pounce like chuggers. This debut album defies easy description – forgive us for resorting to “Morcheeba meets All About Eve with shades of Cocteau Twins, Blue Aeroplanes and TV On The Radio”. Look out for them. (Anna Britten)HHHHH www.myspace. com/hifictionscience

// One of Bristol’s longestestablished groove machines finally gets vinyl-y, and snappy stuff it turns out to be. From its rattling start there’s a brisk energy to the funky ‘Peaceboy’, with vocalist Elle Dee blatantly throwing herself both at the tune and the young man in question, urged on by Andrew Neil Hayes’s ripsnorting sax solo. Things get a bit moodier on ‘Trouble’, the sound more stripped and clipped for a slow-burn start. Both tracks exemplify Edenheight’s strengths – rhythmic discipline atmospherically deployed with due respect to the funk tradition in the 21st century – nicely caught in the studio. (Tony Benjamin) HHHHH www.edenheight.com

NEO RITMO

THE DIVIDED CIRCLE

C.O.I

‘Word of Mouth’ (EP, self-released) // COI are freshly reformed and, crikey, we’ve missed their pop zest.

The kind of zest writ through lead track ‘Sketch-ee’, just two minutes and out, but not before a backward circling riff and zip-beat bed down a little tale-telling in Ray Davies-patented fashion, all richly detailed minutiae and wry detachment. Though, admittedly, he wasn’t so big on the hiphop-influenced speed delivery.

‘Sleeping With Your Clothes On’ whips by with a freneticism once beloved by Arctic Monkeys before collapsing in a heavy riff heap, ‘Room Full Of Fakes’ – a rerecording from the album – doing same with an XTC-meet-Only Ones sound clash. (Julian Owen) HHHHH www.myspace.com/ conceptsof

‘The Divided Circle’ (LP, Lonely City Records)

‘Before the Devil Catches Me’ (EP, self-released)

// This epic rock foursome positively blaze with self-belief.

‘A Fraction of Forever’ unleashes heavy, distorted guitars panning left to right, a power-vocal that strides the craggy pass between Matt Bellamy and Bruce Dickinson.

Taking themselves too seriously?

Maybe, but there’s a noble NWOBHM heft to the singing, authentically noodly fretboard work and the odd inventive twist – sweetly ooh-oohing in the background of ‘Between Stars and Dreams’, shifting mood and pace for brooding/ churning stand-out ‘Frayed, So Afraid’. Confidently forged, burnished with passion and very much ready for battle. (Mike White) HHHHH www.neo-ritmo.co.uk

// Why isn't everyone talking about The Divided Circle? They should be.

A near perfect blend of indie romanticism and lush electronica, their debut album is full of imaginative guitar work, big room synths and the compelling interplay of Jon Rees and Krystian Taylor’s contrasting voices. 2010’s ‘Nowhere’ is still ravishing, and it’s in good company alongside the skyscraping ballad ‘Words’, and thrilling ‘92’, whose trance-like arpeggios and endorphin-rush drums race off into the distance like fading memories of youth.

(Adam Burrows) HHHHH www.myspace.com/lonelycity

// Cheltenhambased singersongwriter Juey has trimmed her debut six-track EP with folksy, hand-stitched details; her songs, based on traditional melodies, are about empty pockets, nature’s seasons and murder. Her voice doesn’t dawdle – gets straight to the point – and so the most engaging tracks are the ones where her pleasant timbre is augmented with slide guitar and fiddle, or where playful harmonies add extra depth. Slight imperfections and the overall sparseness make for an endearing, if occasionally muted, listen. (Kristen Grayewski) HHHHH www.myspace.com/ jueymusic

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SPECIAL LIMITED OFFER TO 50 CUSTOMERS ONLY! Buy one, bring along a friend for free. To take up this offer, you will need to reserve the 2nd place over the phone. Please call Jan Cottington on 01225 461700 and leave your name and the words Jackie Generation and your telephone number on the answermachine (if I am not there).

Friday 15 July THE PRODUCERS BLUES BAND £12 / £14 Friday 22 July ROSAFRESCA £8 / £10 Thursday 28 July MIDLAND YOUTH JAZZ ORCHESTRA £13 / £15 Saturday 6 August CARAS DEL QUERER £14 / £16 Friday 12 August STOMPIN’ DAVE AND HIS BAND, BOOGIE WOOGIE NIGHT £10.00 / £12.00 Saturday 24 September CLAIRE MARTIN & RICHARD BENNETT SING IRVING BERLIN £19 / £20 / £22.50 Friday 7 October KIKI DEE AND CARMELO LUGGERI £18.50 / £20

Chapel Arts Centre Lower Borough Walls, Bath BA1 1QR www.chapelarts.org 01225 461700 Arts Cafe - Mon - Sat 9.30 - 5.30

JUEY

‘Experience Precedes Essence’ (LP, self-released)

venuemagazine

Saturday 9 July THE JACKIE GENERATION TRIBUTE TO THE ‘70’S £12 / £15 Doors 7:30pm

EVERY MONDAY Groundswell open mic night EVERY THURSDAY Pepper your Leopard EVERY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY Top live DJ’s playing the best sounds around. Open until 3am.

EVERY SUNDAY Comedy Cavern (see comedy listings for details).

HAPPY HOUR 8-10pm HOUSE DOUBLES £4 FREE WI-FI . SKY SPORTS ON HD SCREEN POOL TABLES IN THE CELLAR BAR Food served daily from 11am-9pm.

Serving Vegetarian/Vegan foods.

20% discounts on food to students with NUS card.

Under new management.

15 George Street, Bath, BA1 2QS 01225 424 104 // www.theporter.co.uk

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Music

For more reviews and extra pics, see venue.co.uk/music Cameroonian loopmeister Muntu Valdo gets vocal; below: Siyaya greet the crowds

(Robin Askew)

Live review

WOMAD - A Wild Night of World Music

PICS: ELLEN DOHERTY; WWW.DUCHESSPHOTOGRAPHIC.COM

Bristol Zoo Gardens (Sat 11 June) // This was a great idea, and thanks to good luck with the weather, it turns out to be a fantastic evening’s fun at the Zoo, starting when the gates open and a colourful crowd of families and friends tumbles into the gardens to be greeted by Siyaya’s rippling marimba music and vigorous Zimbabwean dancing.

Their energy establishes an instant festival vibe, with lion cubs and meerkats a massive bonus and the many children crowding the playgrounds and skywalk when Gaby Young and (appropriately) Other Animals appear. Her neon-red hair competes with the lowering sun and her burlesque wit provides an easy-going welcome to settling picnickers. Down on the acoustic stage, Rua Macmillan’s genial and relaxed manner belies his dazzling musicianship.

Razor-sharp accompanists Adam Brown (bodhran) and Tia Files (guitar) are all anyone would need: tight, rhythmic and inventive, virtuosos in their own right, and the sparkling set is riveting to the end. Then it’s good to catch Biram Seck’s band as the sun sets, rippling guitars over light-touch rhythms and his plaintively

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persuasive voice perfectly set amongst them. It’s heartfelt stuff that casts a lingering spell that possibly doesn’t help Cameroonian loopmeister Muntu Valdo, whose multi-instrumental solo set has great depth of sound but somehow doesn’t engage on stage. Happily, bill-toppers Alejandro Toledo & The Magic Tombolinos pick the vibe up by the scruff of its neck and shake it into exhilarated life in a half-dozen bars. Like Gogol Bordello, this arbitrary multinational collective bring their individuality to a distinctly Balkan sound, with Argentinian Toledo’s Strummerish vocals and wailing soprano sax locked into Maurizio Pala’s accordion at the head of most tunes. Joined by Zen Hussie baritone sax-player Charlotte Ostafew for a few instrumental numbers, they’re playing to increasing mosh-mayhem at the front, while two enormous gorillas prowl through the darkness at the edge of the crowd. It’s a perfect moment, fusing WOMAD’s eclectic energy with Bristol Zoo’s gorilla theme, and bringing things to a very satisfied conclusion. (Tony Benjamin)

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LIVE REVIEW We, The People Festival Harbourside, Bristol (Sat 4-Sun 5 June)

LIVE REVIEW Bon Jovi Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol (Mon 27 June) // Remember when rock stars were badly behaved? Richie Sambora does. Fresh out of rehab for the second time, the guitarist joined squeaky-clean Jon and the other Joves well into this latest mammoth stadium trek. If JBJ seems genuinely pleased to have him back on board, that’s because Richie’s the John Prescott to his Tony Blair: a vital link to the past who connects with a constituency the frontman can no longer reach. Not that Bon Jovi need any help selling tickets. For the second time in three years, they proved the biggest draw ever to play Ashton Gate.

Veterans of the UK summer outdoor touring circuit, they now wisely employ little perspex shelters to protect them from the elements on stage. This has the rather unfortu-

nate effect of making the band look as though they’re waiting for a bus, while intrepid Jon ventures forth – all hair and teeth – to a huge cheer from the crowd, as if to hail a cab.

But you don’t get to be the world’s biggest touring act without knowing a thing or two about how to work a stadium audience. After a low-key ‘Happy Now’, Jon succeeds in getting all 25,000 punters on their feet for ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’. As ever, ‘Slippery When Wet’ and ‘New Jersey’ form the backbone of the set, providing much-needed heft when things take a turn for the pompous (‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’) and MOR (‘It’s Hard Letting You Go’). Only glorious jailbait anthem ‘Runaway’ survives from the early hair metal days. But as JBJ is eager to remind us after a minor error, they remain a genuine rock band. “All of this is real. There are no backing singers, tapes or people with turntables.”

LIVE REVIEW Tenniscoats/Rachael Dadd/I Know I Have No Collar Cafe Kino, Bristol (Wed 23 June) // Bristol’s I Know I Have No Collar begin with keys warmly humming and a bass drum’s muffled knocks as a voice in quiet sing-song informs us “I saw the geese again” then describes how the sky looks. “If you’re hurting in your heart, you can shout it in the hills” goes one, while ‘Northern Wisconsong’ [sic] tells of Kansas and mosquitoes over xylophone pings like lightning bugs and four hands at play on piano. It’s the sound of anti-heroes made good, déjà vus of awkward adolescence, optimism, Peanuts cartoons, and the legacy of K Records. Impossible to root against.

When Rachael Dadd begins on banjo, accompanied by jingle bells and Ichi on steel drum, people instinctively drop to the floor, cross-legged. Her

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voice, the definition of natural beauty, often hailed in these pages, is as breezy and graceful as ever.

Tokyo’s Tenniscoats (pictured) are a duo who specialise in minimalist ditties – from eggshell bossa nova sung in Japanese to poignant compositions eked out on melodica and acoustic guitar.

In delicate vibrato – most stunning on ‘Baibaba Bimba’ – Saya sings of life’s familiar magic in a foreign vocabulary, until, that is, she invites Rachael Dadd onstage to help close the set with The Carpenters ‘Close to You’ and we find we know the words too. (Kristen Grayewski)

// For a music festival to lose one of its big draw acts – in this case Ultramagnetic MCs – may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a whole stage of bill-broadening talent looks careless. Coupled with a ‘no pass-outs’ policy, this leads to complaints that the event might not be as punter-orientated as its name suggests, although there’s much to enjoy. Saturday’s first real spark comes from likeable Bristol grime crew Central Spillz, whose signature tune ‘What Ya Know About’ provides the weekend’s first anthem. In fact, local acts provide most of the day’s highlights – from the island sounds of DJ Derek to the rabble-rousing drum & bass of Interface – while Somerset boy Redlight moulds grime, house and dubstep into infectious new strains.

Headliners Chase & Status pull a big, enthusiastic crowd, leaving the big top almost empty for J-Wow’s Portuguese stew of house, techno and kuduro.

Gemmy’s shimmering, synth heavy grime and dubstep get Sunday off to a strong start, while a tight-as-nuts roots reggae band save Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s set from

drifting off in a pungent cloud of whimsy. He may have been past his peak for longer than many of us have been alive, but it’s always great to see a living legend. Beardyman, meanwhile, is phenomenal.

He pulls off ODB-style gutter rap, soaring abstract electronica and filthy drum & bass without sequencers or backing tracks, while a series of inspired covers – including an incredible version of Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’ – is pure crowd bait. Roots Manuva plays hard on his Jamaican influences, giving space to the reggae vocals of Ricky Ranking between booms of his own authoritative baritone, and his set is as good as British hip-hop gets.

Doom is less fortunate. He may have some of the crispest beats and rhymes in the world, but even a rap superhero can’t beat the downpour.

Appropriately, Sunday’s headliners are The Streets. Mike Skinner’s (pictured) downbeat lyrics and mood-swinging chords are nothing if not the embodiment of the Great British Weather. We all smile, we all sing, and then we all come together for a set of perfect house from Tensnake. (Adam Burrows)

LIVE REVIEW Bath International Music Festival Various venues, Bath (Wed 25 May-Sun 5 June) // Nothing like the skirl of the pipes. But hang on... Wrong city?

Wrong Festival? Edinburgh weeks away, surely? In fact, reedy ‘shock and awe’ proved an inspired curtain-up to Joanna MacGregor’s ‘Fire in the Flint’ theme. And the segue into the tender choral simplicity of James MacMillan’s ‘The Gallant Weaver’ was breathtaking – Wells Cathedral School Chamber Choir not just adept at mellifluous beguilement but, in ‘After Virtue’, muscularly incisive too. Any prizes for muscularity though went to MacGregor herself whose exhilarating account of MacMillan’s Piano Concert No 2 (the Britten Sinfonia at times incandescent) took no hostages. From the rollicking first movement to the ceilidh-fuelled finale, the Abbey suddenly became

Bath’s hottest party spot – invites subsequently reissued for an ecstatic ‘Les Noces’. Ute Lemper gilded the ‘Songs of Freedom’ strand with charisma to burn, a pretty mean jazz trumpet impersonation and a killer line about Sarkozy and premature ejaculation. ‘Rs’ rolling like a motorbike on full throttle, she vibrantly inhabited ‘Last Tango in Berlin’ with an authenticity that eluded Frances Ruffelle on the last night. Cardew Day brought Howard Skempton reminiscing like a recently enthroned bishop making his maiden speech in the Lords, but it was good to be reminded of John Tilbury’s pellucid pianism. And star of Bath 2011 was Alina Ibragimova (pictured) who stitched herself into the psyche of Bach’s solo violin Sonatas and Partitas – and dazzled. (Paul Riley)

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Clubs

Sunz out

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

Irreverent, potty-mouthed and morbid of humour – Adam Burrows Bristol rappers Bastard Sunz.

F

urious, foul-mouthed and frequently hilarious, Bastard Sunz are one of the most exciting rap crews around. DJ Rogue and producer Rola take care of the beats. B’Tol and Milestone – aka Tilla and Mylo – do the talking. They spark off each other like overgrown schoolboys, so it’s surprising to learn they’ve only known each other for a few years. Tilla “grew up in Easton mostly”, while Mylo started out in Plymouth. “Bastard Sunz came about from us both being the loudest, most upfront guys at a lot of the shows,” says Tilla. “We’re kindred spirits.”

Their 2010 album ‘Le Discoteque Martyrdom’ is a thrillingly fierce statement of independence from MCs who’ve paid their dues but aren’t afraid to highlight the scene’s failings. “It’s put a few noses out of joint,” says Tilla, “which is a thing of beauty in itself.” The most obviously controversial track is ‘Coup’ – a broadside against rappers who mistake political platitudes for insight. “It’s the tokenism of ‘conscious’ rap,” explains Tilla. “If folks are labelled as such, they tend to slide toward cliché.” It highlights “rappers who are on the dole who write about sticking it to the man, the lack of humour and self-awareness, and the ideological elitism that comes with it.”

There’s a punkish irreverence towards hip-hop convention throughout the album, and they seem largely indifferent to rap’s big hitters. Tilla cites his influences as “Fat Club, 3PM, Wildbunch, Aspects and Numskullz” – Bristol crews to a man – while on ‘Top Rank’ Mylo baldly states “Pioneers can f*ck off, my heroes are unknown.”

It’s not hard to see why they’ve ruffled a few feathers.

Then there’s the bad taste. Bastard Sunz revel in it, and when they let rip – as on ‘Murder Factory’ – there’s enough body horror and violence to make a sadist blush. They find the ‘horrorcore’ tag hilarious, though.

“Just look at the album artwork,” says Tilla. “Painting your face and wearing a wrestling mask shouldn’t be seen as mildly intimidating.”

When B’Tol and Milestone get going, it isn’t always easy to tell where the joke ends and their opinions start, which makes their less guarded moments all the more potent. Tilla fires a warning shot against greed and self-corruption on ‘The Shades’, while the raw confessional of Mylo’s ‘Crescendo’ deals with attempted suicide. There is a serious side to the group, then, albeit one that plays second fiddle to profanity, sick jokes and surreal juxtapositions. “I can’t believe some of these so-called conscious rappers are that virtuous 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Tilla. “If this is the ‘real’ that you are putting out, then you must be one Bastard Sunz: straight outta Bristol

“I can’t believe some of these so-called conscious rappers are that virtuous 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

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of the most boring, self-righteous, indignant turd-burgers known to man. Do you ever laugh if someone isn’t blowing smoke up your back passage and telling you your 768-bar tirade on the ills of mortgage rates changed their life?”

The group’s next release is ‘Le Discotheque Remixicon’. It sees Sunz cuts re-armed for the dancefloor in a variety of styles, from the slamming electro-flavoured hip-hop of Awkward to the dubstep/drum & bass crossover filth of Maldini. “Superisk has given us what could be deemed a straight hip-hop beat with his unique, bass music tinged twist,” adds Tilla.

“And Terry Hooligan has made some crazy, carnival-steeped breaks hybrid.

Everyone stepped out of their comfort zone.” What we’ve heard of it so far is seriously impressive, and they’re already in the studio working on their second album proper with Rola, their “silent mastermind”. What exactly is a discotheque martyrdom, then? “It’s what British rap has become,” says Tilla. “People who should know better, myopically lamenting their woes to an audience of their peers. We want to re-engage the dangerous element, whilst also making it a bit of fun.”

Mission accomplished.

BASTARD SUNZ PLAY LAKOTA ON 2 JULY, AND THEKLA AT BRISTOL HARBOUR FESTIVAL ON SUN 31 JULY. ‘LE DISCOTHEQUE REMIXICON’ IS RELEASED ON 14 JULY.

// NEWS // King of the ‘hill // Underground dance music and brass bands might not be the most obvious bedfellows, but George Powell of Underhill Festival doesn’t see it that way. “Last year the Balkan stuff – brass bands, belly dancing and raki shots – got people smiling. You can’t keep your feet still.” Last summer’s 500-capacity event went so well that this year it’s expanded to three stages and 60 acts, including some of electronic music’s hottest names. George is particularly excited about London electro chief Erol Alkan, “who won’t have slept for two days, and will already have played two sets in different countries”, while other highlights include bass legend Martyn (pictured), Planet Mu wonk-master Lone, and Floating Points collaborator Fatima, plus a great supporting line-up selected by top promoters like Crazylegs, Blowpop, and The Breakfast Club. The festival is “an easy drive from Bristol, and we’re doing a £6 return bus from Temple Meads,” says George, adding that they’re also “going all-out on local food”. It’s “an opportunity to see some world-class acts, and escape the city to a beautiful intimate setting for not much money.”

UNDERHILL FESTIVAL IS AT EAST KNOYLE, WILTSHIRE ON 29 & 30 JULY. FFI & TICKETS: WWW. UNDERHILLFESTIVAL.CO.UK

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Clubs // THE MONTH AHEAD // CRAZYLEGS Objekt/Kowton

1.

NEBULA Suv

// Just when you thought the dubstep/ techno crossover had run its course, along comes Objekt. The mysterious German’s debut EP came out of nowhere back in January, and its synthesis of dub pressure, vintage machine beats and cloudbusting synths resulted in two of 2011’s essential tracks. He’s joined by Kowton, whose darkly house-flavoured ‘She Don’t Jack’/‘Drunk On Sunday’ dropped on Bristol’s Idle Hands around the same time. If you remembered to grab your Venue on the day it came out, this is tonight.

4.

// From his early brush with the charts as a member of Fresh Four to Mercury Prize success with Reprazent, DJ Suv is best known for his collaborations. That said, he’s a distinctive producer in his own right, fusing Bristol’s trademark rolling drum & bass sound with melodic international flavours from flamenco to R&B. NEBULA TIMBUK2, BRISTOL, FRI 8 JULY. FFI: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/DJSUVGIGS

CRAZYLEGS TAKE FIVE CAFE, BRISTOL, FRI 1 JULY. FFI: WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/CRAZYLEGSCLUB

WE LIKE TO PARTY Cut Chemist

3.

CLUB COSMIQUE Jacques Renault

2.

// He may be at the forefront of the disco renaissance, but Brooklyn-based Renault is no straight-ahead revivalist. His sets take in the entire history of New York dance music, from the Studio 54 era through post-punk dubbiness, 80s boogie and garage, and the 90s house of Masters At Work. The city’s style bible Paper voted him their 2008 DJ of the year, and he’s been championed by Lindstrom and DFA’s James Murphy.

CLUB COSMIQUE START THE BUS, BRISTOL, SAT 9 JULY. FFI: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/JACQUESRENAULT

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CHAMPION SOUND The Official St Pauls Carnival Afterparty

// This is sure to be remembered as one of the nights of the year. Doc Scott and Goldie finally make it to Bristol following a recent cancellation, ably assisted by local drum & bass chiefs Die and Interface. Room two resurrects the spirit of Ruffneck Ting, with Nicky Blackmarket and the rarely bettered raggajunglism of Aries. Highlights of the other rooms include ace MC crews Central Spillz and Bastard Sunz (see feature on p.57), and the unparalleled roots vibrations of 2 Kings and Ray Mighty.

Huge doesn’t cover it.

// Originally of Jurassic 5, Cut Chemist is one of the world’s leading turntablists.

His collaborations with DJ Shadow are classics, and he’s pushed the creative possibilities of the DJ’s art ever since. Last year’s ‘Sound of the Police’ was a startling journey through the African diaspora with a record deck, a sampler and a loop pedal.

Now touring a new AV set, his visit to Bristol is an opportunity to see a virtuoso up close.

WE LIKE TO PARTY FIDDLERS, BRISTOL, WED 13 JULY. FFI: WWW.CUTCHEMIST.COM

5.

CARNIVAL AFTERPARTY LAKOTA, BRISTOL, SAT 2 JULY. FFI: WWW.CHAMPIONSOUND.TV

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HOSPITALITY BRISTOL London Elektricity, Fabio and more

// A decade in Perspective //

6.

Bristol’s eclectic party collective go back to where it all began.

// Hospitality returns for another liquid banquet, featuring drum & bass big hitters like London Elektricity, Netsky (pictured) and Fabio. The tunnel goes deeper, with resurgent production genius Photek and dubstep pioneer Distance.

HOSPITALITY BRISTOL MOTION, BRISTOL, FRI 15 JULY. FFI: WWW. MOTIONBRISTOL.COM

7.

SECTION 18 VS FILTH INFATUATED The DJ Producer // Anyone who likes it hard and uncompromising will eventually collide with the finessed filth of The DJ Producer.

Luke McMillan has been destroying parties since the early 90s – taking on techno, gabba, jungle and breakcore with equally devastating results. His sets are a lesson in the oneness of hardcore, from industrial stomp to faceshattering 250bpm gallop. He lives in Bath, you know.

WONDERLAND 2.0 The Official Pride Bristol Afterparty

8.

// Last year’s event packed 1,200 hedonists into the Old Firestation, and this could well be bigger. The main room has alternative, synth-pop and indie floor-fillers from Katie Dane (What a Drag) and Mutiny resident Zoe-Anne (pictured).

Downstairs it’s going to get hot as hell, with hip-hop, dubstep, R&B, dancehall and dirty disco from Dutty Girl and others, plus burlesque queen Keda Breeze.

PRIDE AFTERPARTY TRINITY, BRISTOL, SAT 16 JULY. FFI: WWW. PRIDEBRISTOL.ORG/PRIDE-NIGHT

9.

INNER CITY GRIT A Punky Reggae Tribute To Ari Up // Ari Up (pictured), who died last year aged 48, was a force of nature and a key figure in the British alternative scene with The Slits and New Age Steppers. This eclectic musical tribute features dub visionary Adrian Sherwood, industrial electronicists Viso<>Nero, and DJ sets from the surviving Slits and Bristol legend Mark Stewart.

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// Featuring three of the most talented cross-genre producers around, this is a must for underground electronica fans.

Falty DL (pictured) injects the house and garage of his native US with a cocktail of impurities from hip-hop to jungle and dubstep, while Lone filters wildly shuffled beats through the classic Warp sounds of Black Dog and Boards of Canada. Morgan Zarate – recently signed to Hyperdub – twists grime, breaks and techno into a raw future soul that does indeed sound a lot like the future. Expect to see a few Bloc Weekend veterans in the crowd.

NO NEED TO SHOUT START THE BUS, BRISTOL, SAT 16 JULY. FFI: WWW.STARTTHEBUS.TV

SECTION 18 VS FILTH INFATUATED BASEMENT 45, BRISTOL, SAT 23 JULY.

INNER CITY GRIT FIDDLERS, BRISTOL, SAT 30 JULY.

NO NEED TO SHOUT Falty DL, Lone & Morgan Zarate

10.

// “It was really a way for a group of bedroom DJs to play their records out,” says DOP’s Ross Chester. “It started as a one-off event to raise money for a charity bike ride – but people wanted more.” The Detectives of Perspective have come a long way from that 2001 session at Bristol Comedy Pub – since renamed The Croft. They’ve brought DJ Shadow, Herbaliser and Roots Manuva to town, and taken their sensory overload of turntablism, live music and video to Glastonbury, Croatia and beyond.

The heart of their nights is a shifting collective called The DOP Allstars, whose selections are famously eclectic. “It’s grounded in the hip-hop movement,” explains Ross, “which in our opinion takes in pretty much all genres of music that are sample-based.” DOP’s broad outlook and audio-visual experimentation made them natural partners for one of the world’s most progressive labels. “We’ve been digging Ninja Tune since the early Coldcut releases,” Ross recalls. “When we looked to book our first out-of-towner, DJ Food – the Ninja flag bearer – seemed the obvious choice.” Food enjoyed it so much that he approached DOP to host the label’s only residency outside London. It ran for five years.

This month, DOP return to The Croft for their 10th anniversary bash. DJ Food will be there with fellow Ninja DK (both pictured below), as will Kormac, whose “full-scale audio visual assault” blends “hip-hop and nouveau swing”. Crucially, it will feature the biggest DOP Allstars line-up so far. “We’re bringing back all of the members from over the years for the turntable tag-team event of the year – including Snafu, United States of Audio, Grandpapayellaman, Meadon, Task and DJ 4Higher.” They’re not all veterans, though.

“The freshest DOP recruits are even younger then when Snafu first joined us (we think he was about 16),” says Ross. “So with the enthusiasm of youth, I’m sure we have another few years of investigations left in us.”

DOP X IS AT THE CROFT, BRISTOL ON SAT 9 JULY.

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Performance

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART

Hall to play for Steve Wright looks forward to Peter Hall’s eighth summer season at Theatre Royal Bath.

“The productions all reflect aspects of England at war.”

Peter Hall venuemagazine

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is full up once again. Hall himself is directing Parts 1 and 2 of ‘Henry IV’, parts two and three of Shakespeare’s Plantagenet tetralogy that begins with ‘Richard II’ and ends with ‘Henry V’. Across its two parts, ‘Henry IV’ encompasses the entire panorama of 14th/15th-century English life, from the sleazy taverns of Eastcheap to the stately splendour of the royal court. But the two plays are quite different in both narrative and feel.

Part 1 divides its time between the troubled reign of Henry IV (‘Richard II’’s Bolingbroke) and the dissolute activities of his son Prince Hal, who spends his time drinking and whoring around the City of London with a group of companions including that brilliant comic creation, the fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight Sir John Falstaff. Part 2, meanwhile, focuses on Prince Hal’s slightly halting progress towards the throne, and – one of Shakespeare’s most moving and uncomfortable moments, this – his ultimate rejection of his old drinking buddy as he assumes the robes and responsibilities of State.

When Venue speaks to him, Hall is knee-deep in rehearsals of both plays. “Part 1 has taken wing very quickly, but then it’s a very clear story,” muses Hall, who’s revisiting the pairing for the first time since they formed part of his landmark 60s ‘Wars of the Roses’ cycle at the RSC. “The second play, I think, is the masterpiece, but it’s more difficult to stage. The study of Prince Hal, as he tries to balance the two sides of his character and his destiny – kingship and loyalty to his old friend – it’s as if Shakespeare has

Chekhov looking over his shoulder.

It’s a very humane play, with quite a weak storyline, but the people in the story more than redeem it. And the humour is there, but it never overshadows the humanity.”

Alongside the two Henrys in this eighth Hall season, Stephen Unwin directs ‘This Happy Breed’, Noël Coward’s rarely-staged drama which follows the ups and downs of one ordinary South London family between the wars. Father Frank returns from World War I to the new family home; their children Vi, Queenie and Reg are variously happy and unhappy in love; the 1926 General Strike divides family loyalties, as does Edward VIII’s abdication.

Completed in the months leading up to World War II and given a dress rehearsal the day before war broke out, the play finally got its first staging in 1942 with Coward himself as Frank.

THE 2011 PETER HALL SEASON BEGINS WITH ‘HENRY IV PARTS 1 & 2’ (JULY 7-AUG 13), CONTINUING WITH ‘THIS HAPPY BREED’ (JULY 19-AUG 13) AND ‘THE MADNESS OF GEORGE III’ (AUG 17-SEPT 3). FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK SEE ALSO WWW. VENUE.CO.UK FOR A LONGER INTERVIEW WITH PETER HALL.

PICS: nobby clark

P

eter Hall’s enjoyed a couple of landmark anniversaries of late. Last year was the great director’s 80th birthday, while this March saw the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the company Hall created to provide year-round performances of the Bard’s canon in his Stratford birthplace. Sadly, Theatre Royal Bath wasn’t able to mark last year’s big birthday – as it had done the previous seven summers – with a season of Hall-directed classic plays. TRB’s Main House was closed for a summer refurb: The Ustinov took on the mantle with a pair of jewels, Ford Madox Ford’s ‘The Good Soldier’ and Eugene Ionesco’s ‘The Chairs’.

Hall is back this summer, though, for an eighth summer season of hand-picked classics in Bath. Since the Theatre Royal’s first Peter Hall Company season in 2003, audiences have enjoyed some delicious menus of summer theatre: seven four-play seasons have included West End transfers for Alan Bennett’s ‘Enjoy’, Harold Pinter’s ‘Betrayal’, Noël Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit’, Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ and a brace of Bernard Shaws, as well as a US tour of Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’.

And this year, the summer diary

“It’s a gripping story of workingclass families between the wars – of men returning to civilian life to find the wives and children they left behind,” says Hall. “It’s also a wonderful evocation of a passage of time which brought the nation from post First World War optimism to a pre-Second World War sense of foreboding. It’s extraordinarily sensitive, giving a picture of what it was like to be alive at that time. And it’s very moving about family life, emotions and changes.”

This version’s directed by Stephen Unwin, who also directed 2008’s Bristol-set ‘Born in the Gardens’ starring Stephanie Cole, and David Storey’s absurdist nursing-home comedy ‘Home’ a year later, for Hall’s Bath summer seasons.

Last in the season, meanwhile, comes Alan Bennett’s meisterwerk ‘The Madness of George III’, about which we’ll reveal more next month. “The productions all reflect aspects of England at war,” Hall reflects. “But they’re also all about performers, or performances, and trying to govern your life and behaviour by a certain honesty.”

So. Eighth season, eighty-first year. What keeps you coming back, Sir Peter? Discerning audiences? The joys of Bath in summertime? “It’s quite simple: to be able to do what I want.”

Rehearsals gather momentum for 'Henry IV parts 1 & 2' (Tom Mison and Edward Harrison are pictured here whilst above: Ben Mansfield gets to grips with Wendy Morgan)

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28/06/2011 19:49:12

Performance

THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART

PIC: DANIEL SYRETT

// THE MONTH AHEAD //

1.

THEATRE The Iron Man // A Harbour Festival highlight, this, as veteran disabled-led company Graeae present an outdoor rendition of Ted Hughes’s splendidly menacing children’s tale about a vast metal man who wreaks havoc on the British countryside before saving us from an even more fearsome foe. A cast of deaf and disabled performers will operate a cast of outlandish puppets, including an Iron Man the size of a double-decker bus. Adapted by Paul Sirett, who penned Graeae’s recent Ian Dury bio-musical ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’.

THE IRON MAN WILL BE PERFORMED OUTDOORS AT BRISTOL HARBOUR FESTIVAL FROM SAT 30-SUN 31 JULY. FFI: WWW.GRAEAE.ORG

PIC: ANDY COTTON

3.

DANCE Geraldine Pilgrim: Handbag

THEATRE New Writing Double Bill

4.

// Very capable North Bristol am-drammers The Kelvin Players present two brand new short plays by local writers. ‘The Chicken Shed Reunited’ by Craig Malpass centres on a mystery connected to some decades-old school bullying, while Chris Adams’s ‘TV Times’ focuses on the strange folk who show up one night at the home of an elderly couple.

TWO NEW SHORT PLAYS KELVIN STUDIOS, BRISTOL, TUE 12-SAT 16 JULY. TICKETS: 0117 959 3636 OR WWW.KELVINPLAYERS.CO.UK

5.

THEATRE Oliver!

2.

// Midsomer Norton’s finest, Merriman Theatre, complete a bumper year (an epic and award-nominated ‘Titanic’, a UK premiere of a new ‘Christmas Carol’ and more) with their biggest production yet: a 55-strong rendition of Lionel Bart’s Dickensian musical.

It’s being staged at Writhlington School’s brand new, state-of-the-art theatre and features a mix of older actors and members of The Minimen, Merriman’s new 6-9-year-olds’ wing.

OLIVER! IS AT WRITHLINGTON SCHOOL THEATRE NR RADSTOCK ON SAT 9 & SUN 10 JULY. FFI: WWW.MERRIMANTHEATRE. COM

THEATRE The Decent Rogues // New local troupe Music is Life stage this brand new musical by Dan Lashbrook and Rob Pratt. ‘The Decent Rogues’ tells the tale of two well-respected members of Edwardian village life – who also happen to be gentlemen crooks. Shadowed by their sinister nemesis who has sworn revenge over them, the Rogues plan one final crime – with disastrous consequences.

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THE DECENT ROGUES IS AT THE RONDO THEATRE, BATH FROM WED 13-SAT 16 JULY. FFI: WWW.RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK

// As part of Arnolfini’s Summer Dance season (and during Harbour Festival weekend), director/designer/artist Geraldine Pilgrim gives us this participatory piece, a 15-minute slice of dancefloor escapism.

Said The Guardian: “A witty and wistful performance that, in a few delirious moments, makes the point that no woman needs a man when she has got her handbag in tow.”

GERALDINE PILGRIM PRESENTS HANDBAG AT ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL ON SAT 30 JULY. FFI: WWW.ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK

THEATRE Terra Nova

6.

// Hardship, obsession, loss and heroism are on the menu as adventurous non-pro troupe Ship & Castle present Ted Tally’s play.

‘Terra Nova’ recounts one of the most famous stories of ill-fated Edwardian derring-do: Robert Falcon Scott’s ‘race’ to the South Pole against Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. While Amundsen approached the 800-mile journey across the polar wastes with scientific rigour, Scott relied on the courage, resourcefulness and good old British pluck of his team. The result is well-known: Amundsen reached the pole first and Scott’s five-strong party perished on the journey back.

TERRA NOVA IS AT NEWMAN HALL, WESTBURY-ON-TRYM, BRISTOL FROM WED 27-SAT 30 JULY. FFI: WWW.VENUE.CO.UK

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

THEATRE The Ruffian on the Stair

7.

// Bristol’s Angelhair Productions (last seen round here with an utterly brilliant rendering of Moira Buffini’s ‘Blavatsky’s Tower’) return with this early black comedy by Sixties enfant terrible Joe Orton. A retired call girl and an Irish van driver-cum-contract killer are living a life of shabby respectability in a London bedsit – until a mysterious young man calls at their door with a bizarre agenda of his own. NB Aftershow discussion on Wed 13 with cast, director and actress Avril Elgar, who acted in the Royal Court's original 1967 production, just two months before Orton was murdered.

THEATRE Young Americans Festival

8.

// Plays, dance and readings from Theatre Royal Bath’s excellent Young People’s Theatre, all exploring the American Dream. Includes an adaptation of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (Thur 21-Sat 23 July), John Steinbeck’s expansive masterpiece about a family of Oklahoman sharecroppers who undertake an exhausting trek to California in search of work and prosperity. Elsewhere, TRB’s Engage programme gives us a series of one-act plays by the great Tennessee Williams (26-27 July).

YOUNG AMERICANS IS AT THE EGG AND USTINOV, BATH FROM MON 11-WED 27 JULY. FFI: WWW.THATREROYAL.ORG.UK

THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR IS AT THE ALMA TAVERN, BRISTOL FROM TUE 12-SAT 16 JULY. FFI: WWW.ALMATAVERNTHEATRE. CO.UK

THEATRE A Midsummer Night’s Dream

9.

10.

THEATRE Discombobulated // The brilliant Publick Transport (they of last year’s mock-Dickensian, fourth-wallshattering ‘Very Hard Times’) return with their latest comic creation, a roadshow created by two low-ranking airport officials eager to highlight the crucial role they play in international security.

However, their unbridled imaginations produce a hotchpotch of scenes, numbers and acts so ridiculous that they succeed only in highlighting their own stupidity.

Developed and directed by performer/ clown Aitor Basauri, last seen in Spymonkey’s brilliant ‘Moby Dick’, and performed by Mercè Ribot and PT’s brilliant Angus Barr.

DISCOMBOBULATED IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL FROM TUE 26 JULY-SAT 13 AUG. FFI: WWW.PUBLICKTRANSPORT.COM

// Radical, physical theatre troupe the faction make a quick return to the Ustinov after April’s ‘The Robbers’, with a typically high-octane take on Will’s much-loved woodland comedy of sprites and seduction, am-dram and amorousness.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IS AT THE USTINOV, BATH ON MON 4-SAT 9 JULY. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK

11.

THEATRE Bunny // New-writing troupe Nabokov return to the Ustinov with a box-fresh new work by name-towatch Jack Thorne. ‘Bunny’’s heroine is a feisty (yet self-loathing) 18-year-old who, one hot summer afternoon, gets embroiled in a whirlwind of violence, danger and fleeting intimacy in and around the faceless rat-runs of inner-city Luton.

“Electrifying,” foamed The Scotsman during the play’s 2010 Edinburgh Fringe run.

BUNNY IS AT THE USTINOV, BATH ON FRI 1-SAT 2 JULY. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK

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12.

THEATRE Pandora’s Box // New Bristol collective Lion Fire Theatre present this devised piece based on the myth of Pandora’s Box. Expect strong characters, live music, lost love and folk tales aplenty.

PANDORA’S BOX IS AT THE ALMA TAVERN, BRISTOL FROM WED 6-SAT 9 JULY. FFI: WWW. ALMATAVERNTHEATRE.CO.UK

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Performance

A new Stage

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

Steve Wright quizzes the team behind this summer’s new arrival – the poetry, dance and theatre-led World Stage Festival.

H

arbour Fest, BrisFest, Balloon Fiesta, Shakespeare Fest, Organic Food Fest, a pair of comedy jamborees…

Bristol’s summertime events calendar is hardly threadbare. A new international performing arts festival, though, has thrown itself right into the thick of our city’s teeming summer diary.

For five days early this month, the first-ever World Stage Festival (Weds 6-Sun 10) will bring theatre, poetry, music and dance from across the globe to venues across Bristol city centre, both indoors and outdoors.

So, just what is World Stage – and where’s it come from? The festival is the brainchild of one Colin Gorrie, who grew up in Bristol before leaving for Canada, where he worked as an architect and events organiser and from whence he’s recently returned.

And it’s got a markedly international feel. Highlights include New York slam poetry trio The Mayhem Poets (pictured above), who blend hip-hop, theatre, improv and stand-up into their gut-wrenching tales about NY city life, and Afro-Brazilian capoeira group Aché Brasil, who mix acrobatics, samba, breakdance and martial arts, both of whom will grace the Colston Hall at various times over the weekend.

WSF also has plenty to offer younger audiences, though. A quartet of children’s shows includes ‘Little Mysteries’ (Arnolfini, 7-10 July), in which Italian theatre

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troupe Teatro Kismet use song, mime and movement to reveal the rituals of traditional Italian bread making. ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’ (Tobacco Factory, 8-10 July), meanwhile, is a show for 8-year-olds and over in which award-winning Scottish company Puppet State adapt Jean Giono’s environmental cult classic. And very young visitors to ‘The Light Garden’ (Tobacco Factory, 6-7 July) will be treated to a cinematic camping experience from dawn to dusk, led by animated pebbles to tents before they reach a smouldering ‘campfire’ and illuminated switches to control the weather. Away from the shows, there’s plenty for kids to get stuck into, too, with workshops in Brazilian drumming, puppet making, storytelling, music, slam poetry and capoeira. And there’s free entertainment from a stage in Anchor Square, with performances every day from 11am-5pm with circus acts and street performers from Circomedia, Youth Dance and Bristol Institute of Modern Music, while local performing arts troupe The Big Act host a Flash Mob Choir on Saturday.

So far, so eclectic and appetising.

But does Bristol really need another festival? “Bristol’s festival scene is second to none,” acknowledges Becky Chapman, WSF’s festival producer. “What makes us different is that we have our sights set firmly on bringing in young and new audiences for the performing arts.

We’ve promised to make the festival affordable for children, schools and families and that means tickets to world-class shows in a major venue costing just £6.50 – half of what you’d normally expect to pay in some of these venues.

“A recent report quantified the enormous economic, social and cultural impact of the Edinburgh Festivals. England needs more investment in festivals in order to reap these rewards, and an international festival means the reach and impact has the potential to be even greater. Over the next few years, we’d like World Stage to become a place for people making shows for young audiences to see new work and meet other practitioners.” But it’s not, she stresses, a children’s festival. “It’s a festival for all audiences. We want to show that world-class performing arts is excellent and entertaining for everyone, regardless of age. You don’t have to put categories on it.”

“When I came back to live in Bristol, I looked around and saw that there wasn’t really anything with the format of the Canadian festivals I had been running,” adds Colin. “Bristol has many fabulous community-based arts festivals, but nothing that promises the best from around the world for younger audiences.” So, Colin: how would you sum up this year’s World Stage Festival? “Four days in Bristol of world-class world entertainment for everyone, wherever they live, whatever their age.”

WORLD STAGE FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE FROM 6-10 JULY AT VENUES INCLUDING THE COLSTON HALL, ARNOLFINI, TOBACCO FACTORY THEATRE AND BRISTOL OLD VIC. TICKETS ARE ON SALE AT THE RESPECTIVE VENUES. FOR FULL LISTINGS, SEE WWW.VENUE.CO.UK OR WWW.WORLDSTAGEFESTIVAL.COM

// Asylum seeking // THEATRE // This month Bristol audiences get a chance to see, all together for the first time, ‘Lullabies of Broadmoor’, the brilliant quartet of psychological comedy/melodramas by Bristol playwright Steve Hennessy. Set inside the infamous psychiatric institution, the four plays weave together closely linked stories of five of Broadmoor’s most notorious inmates of the late 19th and early 20th century with the stories of those they murdered.

The first of the quartet, ‘Venus at Broadmoor’, is set in 1870, when a string of random poisonings around Brighton result in the admission of Christiana Edmunds to Broadmoor (read our review of it at http://bit. ly/j236KJ). The last, ‘The Murder Club’, takes us forward to 1922, as two notorious murderers, meeting inside the asylum for the first time, are put in charge of an evening of entertainment at Broadmoor.

The plays are being staged at the Alma Tavern, Bristol from Tue 19Sat 23 July, in a repertoire of two double bills – which can be seen separately and in either order, although the pairing featuring ‘Venus…’ (Tue and Wed evenings, and Sat matinee) is best seen first. Book yourselves in now for four gripping, emotive and gothic tragicomedies by one of Bristol’s best and most original writers. Ffi: www.almataverntheatre.co.uk Come on in... the acers Alma Tavern host Steve Hennessy's quartet of Broadmoor plays

PLUS… WE’VE GOT TWO FESTIVAL PASS TICKETS, WORTH £30 EACH, TO GIVE AWAY, ALLOWING YOU TO CATCH FOUR DAYTIME SHOWS AND ONE EVENING SHOW. TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING, JUST EMAIL EDITOR@VENUE.CO.UK WITH THE SUBJECT LINE WORLD STAGE BY MON 4 JULY.

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preview

Bristol Shakespeare Festival THEATRE // It actually kicked off back in May, courtesy of those arch-traditionalists The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, but this is the month when the 2011

preview Ferment

THEATRE // Time for the next instalment of Bristol Old Vic’s brilliant, biannual fortnight of new writing and work-in-progress performances. Local writers and performers trying out new work at the next Ferment (20-30 July) include Sleepdogs, who wowed audiences – and our reviewer – at

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THEATRE / DANCE / LIVE ART Bristol Shakespeare Festival really kicks into action. July sees 10 Shakespeare Fest productions around town, at venues both indoor and outdoor, featuring a string of versions of Will’s canon that will range from the orthodox to the oddball.

It all gets going with a visit by new outfit GB Theatre with their faithful, classical take on ‘Romeo & Juliet’ (be quick – staged from 30 June-2 July at Blaise Castle Dairy Gardens). Hard on that show’s heels comes ‘Lear 1864 – Trail of Tears’ (6-9 & 14-15 July, Ashton Court Gardens), a new piece devised by Bath Spa University’s drama students, based on Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’. The premise: in 1864, during the American Civil War, the newly retired General Lear decides to divide his mammoth estate, which once belonging to the Navajo Nation, amongst his three daughters. This act sets in motion a tempest of truth, consequences, dispossession and hurt, which Lear must face while lost in the American wilderness.

High comedy, by contrast, will come courtesy of Oddsocks Theatre with their panto-fuelled ‘Macbeth’ (15-16 July, Blaise Dairy Gardens) and by the incomparable Illyria, who close up this year’s Shakespeare Fest with their ‘Twelfth Night’ at Bristol Zoo Gardens on 28 July.

Mayfest 2011 with their simple, miniature piece ‘Astronaut’ (“fragile and profoundly moving”, we noted); and Hot Air Baboons, the fledgling sketch troupe featuring, among others, Stewart Wright (seen in BOV’s recent ‘Swallows and Amazons’), John Nicholson (Peepolykus) and Angus Barr (Publick Transport). Elsewhere, Tom Wainwright and Sam Halmarack will show an early draft of ‘Conspiracy Theory’, their new piece first scratched at the Tobacco Factory’s Prototype new-work

Other treats include another visit from Heartbreak Productions, festival regulars and one of the country’s best touring troupes, with their ‘Taming of the Shrew’ (Ashton Court Estate, 20-21 July), and a fine-looking version of ‘Julius Caesar’ (pictured) by Bristol outfit Thrice Three Muses, from 20-23 and 27-30 July at St Werburghs’ Boiling Wells Amphitheatre. TTM have adapted Will’s epic tale of Roman power struggle, resetting it among the mythical Amazon tribes, in a society where the women are the warriors and the men domestics. The play opens at Stratford’s outdoor RSC venue The Dell before its Bristol run; it’s then going up to the Edinburgh Fringe.

A brace of indoor shows, meanwhile, includes a swift return for local all-female troupe Hecate Theatre, last seen with a “twisted retelling” of Ovid’s poem cycle ‘Metamorphoses’ in March.

Their ‘Twelfth Night’ is staged in Westbury Park’s St Alban’s Church Hall from 20-23 July.

Ticket outlets vary for each show – check www. bristolshakespeare.org.uk for a full rundown of times, prices and box office details.

BRISTOL SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL 2011 TO 28 JULY. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLSHAKESPEARE.ORG. UK

night. Ace poet Byron Vincent (pictured) will have new work to unveil, and there will also be a script-in-hand reading of ‘Thirty Two Teeth’ by Penny Gunter, a playwright on attachment at BOV via a partnership scheme with BBC Writer’s Room.

Fionn Gill of Bristol company Lost Spectacles will unveil ‘Space’, his ensemble piece about outer space, while Arnolfini Associate Artist Tom Marshman gives us a look at ‘Legs 11’, about his recent experience of having varicose veins removed. Other artists include The Mechanical Animal Corporation, Mayfest regulars and immersive-theatre kings Stand+Stare, and (in collaboration) Nightbus and Twisted Theatre. Ffi: www. bristololdvic.org.uk or follow Bristol Ferment on Twitter at www.twitter. com/bristolferment to learn more.

preview Head/Heart

THEATRE // Here’s your chance to catch two names being tipped for great things in theatreland, as new-writing outfit Box of Tricks Theatre present this double bill of short new plays exploring “love and loss in the 21st century”. The plays, which are doing a summer tour of adventurous studio theatres (step forward Bristol’s excellent Brewery), are penned, respectively, by Elinor Cook – currently under commission with the Bush Theatre – and Daniel Kanaber, nominated by online what’s on guide OffWestEnd.com as one of 2010’s most promising playwrights.

Cook’s ‘Head Music’ centres on Leah, a professional pianist finding it difficult to connect with music. When she plays, every note chimes with past regrets and thoughts of a loved one. A “comic, disordered love story”, we’re promised. Kanaber’s ‘Heart in Mouth’, meanwhile, is a tender play about teenage love: it zooms in on one hot summer’s day when, fuelled by overactive hormones and unrequited desires, everything changes for one young couple.

The performances will also feature video art from Carolina Vasquez of Cardiff’s Sherman Cymru theatre, and original music from BBC composer Isobel Waller-Bridge. Theatre for the adventurous, we suggest.

HEAD/HEART IS AT THE BREWERY, BRISTOL ON THUR 7 JULY. FFI: WWW. TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM

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Comedy // THE MONTH AHEAD //

1.

OLVER-O-rAMA! Mark Olver // You’ve plenty of chances to catch the jovial, brilliantly meandering Bristol comic this month. As well as his regular Oppo Comedy Sunday nights, breaking up soon (10 July) for the summer, the man we like to call Bristol’s Mr Comedy is also at Southville’s Brewery Theatre (4-6 July), giving Bristol audiences an advance sighting of his 2011 Edinburgh Fringe show ‘Olver: Portrait of a Serial Killer’. We saw the show at this year’s Bath Comedy Fest: “Ever had an urge to kill a clown? Olver (in serial killer persona, at least) evidently has. Comedy meets drama meets dark, brooding monologue in a show far removed from Olver’s reputation as easygoing compère.” He’s also performing the show at the Rondo (see elsewhere on the page), while he’ll be in the beguiling Somerset town of Axbridge on Mon 11 and Tue 12, alongside Sally Anne Hayward and comedy performance poet Harry the Spiv, “a 1940s wideboy lost in the 21st century”. As if all this weren’t enough, Olver will be at the Bristol Comedy Garden on Fri 22 July, and will be introducing a new acts night at Bristol Brouhaha on Sun 17. Olver-o-rama!

FFI: WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM (BREWERY)/07928 093139 (AXBRIDGE)/WWW.BRISTOLCOMEDYGARDEN.CO.UK / WWW. BRISTOLBROUHAHA.COM

RONDO Edinburgh Previews

2.

// Two tasty-looking Edinburgh double bills at Bath’s bijou and welcoming Rondo Theatre. Thursday 21 features Mark Olver’s new show ‘Portrait of A Serial Killer’ (see story above) plus a set from the laconic Jim Smallman, of whom chortle.co.uk opines: “There is something intriguing about him, and it’s not just the self-consciously bad hair and bad clothes that comprise his deliberately awkward image. His outlook is sarcastic and frustrated, which he can, now and then, focus into a perfect gag. His badtaste Pussycat Dolls is an instant classic.”

Two nights later, the Rondo welcomes the pairing of articulate metalhead transvestite Andrew O’Neill and Diane Spencer (pictured), Best Newcomer at this year’s Chortle Awards 2011, whose show ‘All Pervading Madness’ went down well at the recent Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Festivals.

THE RONDO’S EDINBURGH PREVIEWS venuemagazine ARE ON THUR 21 & SAT 23 JULY. FFI: WWW. RONDOTHEATRE.CO.UK

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KOMEDIA Krater Comedy Club

3.

4.

COMEDY CAVERN Steve Gribbin/ Iszi Lawrence // For the last of its Edinburgh previews, the Cavern welcomes veteran satirist/songwriter Steve Gribbin, who’s been taking potshots at politicians since the Thatcher and Scargill era. Cofounder of 1980s comedy/music double act Skint Video, Gribbin’s sets mix scabrous comedy songs and off-the-wall observations.

“Like a harder, more political, less troll-like Bill Bailey,” noted the Independent on Sunday approvingly. He’s joined by IL (pictured), a rising artist-cumcomic dubbed “dependable” by chortle.co.uk.

STEVE GRIBBIN AND ISZI LAWRENCE PLAY THE COMEDY CAVERN, BATH ON SUN 31 JULY. FFI: WWW.COMEDYCAVERN.CO.UK

// A string of good line-ups this month at Komedia: but let’s pick out this one featuring Loretta Maine (pictured), the sozzled, vaguely psychotic singer-songwriter and alter ego of character comedienne Pippa Evans. Expect quicksilver flips between sweet and psychotic, brilliantly bitter songs and plenty of pin-sharp between-songs banter. She’s joined by, among others, Roger Monkhouse, about whom we raved a coupla years back: “a witty, opinionated commentator… astute, original observations and incisive opinions with a fresh, clean edge.”

KRATER COMEDY CLUB FEATURING LORETTA MAINE AND ROGER MONKHOUSE, KOMEDIA, FRI 22 JULY. FFI: WWW.KOMEDIA.CO.UK

CAVERN 5. COMEDY Trevor Lock/John Robins // Tidy-looking double bill at Bath’s resurgent Comedy Cavern, featuring TL (pictured), a former regular on Lee and Herring’s ‘This Morning with Richard not Judy’ and plier of a nice brand of self-consciously errant and uncertain storytelling. He’s joined by Bristol’s very decent JR, a likeably surreal storyteller with some finely-warped insights on modern life.

TREVOR LOCK AND JOHN ROBINS PLAY BATH’S COMEDY CAVERN ON SUN 3 JULY. FFI: WWW.COMEDYCAVERN.CO.UK

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Art

GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND MORE

// THE MONTH AHEAD // PUBLIC ART WOW! Gorillas

1.

// Artists from Bristol and beyond help Bristol Zoo celebrate its 175th birthday by decorating an army of life-size gorilla sculptures, which are being distributed at locations around town throughout the summer (we’re getting one right outside our office, lucky us. Should up the intellectual calibre round here...) Over 90 mini-grillaz will also pop up all over the region, decorated by youngsters from Bristol primary schools and nurseries. The gorillas will be out across the city for 10 weeks, before a September charity auction.

SOLO SHOW 2.

Barry Lewis // Bedminster’s Grant Bradley Gallery welcomes back the Welsh ‘eco-sculptor’ nonpareil, who brings another bizarre menagerie of creatures created from waste materials scavenged from the South Wales landscapes. Expect gleaming birds with fish knives for feathers; a giant scorpion made from reclaimed metals; a dragon with abandoned car seats for jaws and fence posts for teeth: that kinda thing.

THE 60 WOW! GORILLAS WILL BE SEEN AT LOCATIONS AROUND BRISTOL FROM 4 JULY. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLZOO. ORG.UK/WOW-GORILLAS

SOLO SHOW Hannah McVicar

GROUP SHOW Artists of Fame and Promise

3.

// Beaux Arts’ grandiloquently-titled annual collation of new work by some of its bestselling regulars. Always worth catching, be you collector, connoisseur or merely curious passer-by. This year’s roster includes painting and sculpture by a dozen names, both regulars and newcomers to the Beaux Arts roster. Among them, you’ll find Andrew Crocker’s beautiful, atmospheric and whimsical landscapes (‘How Could I Forget?’ pictured) with their faint hint of strangeness or unease.

ARTISTS OF FAME AND PROMISE IS AT BEAUX ARTS, YORK ST, BATH BA1 1NG UNTIL 3 SEPT. FFI: WWW. BEAUXARTSBATH.CO.UK

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4.

// First in an ongoing series of art exhibitions at the brand new MShed (autumn will be given over to Bristol’s world-renowned photographer Martin Parr – more info soon). We begin with a set of vibrant botanical drawings

by Jamaica Street Studios resident Hannah McVicar, influenced by her childhood growing up on a local herb farm (she’s the daughter of herb expert Jekka). The show’s also the opening salvo by the new project Drawn in Bristol, which is working with MShed to showcase local illustrators.

HANNAH MCVICAR EXHIBITS AT MSHED, WAPPING RD, BRISTOL BS1 4RN FROM 4 JULY-5 AUG. FFI: HTTP://MSHED.ORG

5.

GROUP SHOW Darkness to Light

// After a short June run at The Octagon Gallery, Bath’s excellent bo.lee gallery move their latest disquieting group show back home. Some of bo.lee’s regular and very fine artists including Ione Rucquoi, Bobbie Russon, Patrick Haines, Cathy Lewis, Neil Moore and Gill Rocca explore the human desire for ritual.

Expect visually dramatic, strongly narrative, sparse and atmospheric modern painting with, often, an arresting and faintly unsettling feel.

BARRY LEWIS EXHIBITS AT GRANT BRADLEY GALLERY, BEDMINSTER PARADE, BRISTOL, BS3 4AQ FROM 9-30 JULY. FFI: WWW.GRANTBRADLEYGALLERY.CO.UK

SOLO SHOW Richard T. Walker // San Fran-based artist unleashes his splendidly-titled exhibition ‘The Speed and Eagerness of Meaning’ onto Spike’s white walls. Walker works with photography, film, text and music to record our “futile attempts at belonging within the sublime beauty and immensity of nature”, and this show will include a three-screen video installation and photographs.

RICHARD T. WALKER EXHIBITS AT SPIKE ISLAND, CUMBERLAND RD, BRISTOL, BS1 6UX FROM 9 JULY-4 SEPT. FFI: WWW.SPIKE-ISLAND.ORG. UK

6.

DARKNESS TO LIGHT IS AT THE BO.LEE GALLERY, 1 QUEEN ST, BATH BA1 1HE FROM 1-30 JULY. FFI: WWW.BO-LEE.CO.UK

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7.

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

GROUP SHOW Stanley Donwood

RETROSPECTIVE Dan Arbeid

// A fine-looking trio of artists adorn the walls of Bath Rd’s elegant hang-out Bocabar until the end of this month. Pick of them is Stanley Donwood, the darkhued artist and writer (best known as Radiohead’s bespoke album cover artist), who exhibits woodcut prints, album cover artwork and designs for last year’s official Glastonbury Festival T-shirt.

Alongside you’ll find Max Cahn’s large abstracts and atmospheric photographs

by Hazel McPherson.

// Head up the stairs to the Guild’s light, airy gallery for an exhibition of radical, totemic pottery from one of England’s most influential craftsmen. Arbeid (1928-2008) was an innovative potter whose use of handbuilding brought a radical new look to British ceramics in the 1960s.

8.

THE DAN ARBEID RETROSPECTIVE IS AT THE GUILD GALLERY, PARK ST, BRISTOL, BS1 5JY FROM 16 JULY-6 AUG. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLGUILD.CO.UK/GALLERY.HTM

GROUP SHOW Lime Tree Gallery

STANLEY DONWOOD AND OTHERS EXHIBIT AT BOCABAR, PAINTWORKS, BATH RD, BRISTOL, BS4 3EH UNTIL 31 JULY. FFI: WWW. BOCABAR.CO.UK

JOINT SHOW Forests, Meadows and Dreams

// The Summer Exhibition at Bristol’s Lime Tree Gallery is a typically beguiling and uplifting set of landscape paintings. You’ll find work by many a Lime Tree favourite including Charles Anderson DA RSW, Judith Bridgland (‘Blue Sea, Bass Rock, pictured), Alexander Robb and David Smith. Lose yourself in the nation’s loveliest landscapes, in short.

9.

// Bath Fine Art celebrates the languid days of summer with some beautiful canvases by Gloucestershire painter Sally Stafford (pictured), whose dense, intricate floral studies draw the viewer in from afar – before disintegrating into hundreds of dazzling kinetic shapes as you get close.

FORESTS, MEADOWS AND DREAMS IS AT BATH FINE ART, GAY ST, BATH, BA1 2NT FROM 2-18 JULY. FFI: WWW.BATHFINEART.COM

11.

ANATOMY IS AT ANTLERS GALLERY, 2 PARK ST, BRISTOL, BS1 5HS FROM 9-30 JULY, 11AM-7PM DAILY. FFI: WWW.ANTLERSGALLERY.COM

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THE SUMMER EXHIBITION RUNS FROM 16 JULY-14 AUG AT LIME TREE GALLERY, 84 HOTWELL RD, BRISTOL, BS8 4UB. FFI: WWW. LIMETREEGALLERY.COM

GROUP SHOW Anatomy // Wandering Bristol artspace Antlers Gallery takes up residence at the foot of Park Street for the month of July.

And it’s tying in with this month’s Pride Bristol celebrations with this corporeal group show. Seven artists explore perceptions, reactions and changing conceptions of the body – in science, literature and in our daily experience.

The roster includes Alex Korzer Robinson, a current Royal Academy Summer Show exhibitor (pictured), who’s producing two new pieces made from 1930s medical encyclopaedias.

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RETROSPECTIVE John Clow’s Snowdonia

12.

// Moody photographs of one of Britain’s last great wildernesses, by the painter, poet and photographer (1932-2009) who made Snowdonia his second home, walking, climbing and lovingly documenting its vast expanses and forbidding ascents in all weathers.

JOHN CLOW’S SNOWDONIA IS AT THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, 122 WELLS RD, BATH, BA2 3AH FROM 1-28 JULY. FFI: WWW.RPS.ORG/FENTON-HOUSE

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Art preview

Jamaica Street Open Studios ART // The artists at Bristol’s Jamaica Street Studios fling open the doors of their studios this month (22-24 July) for their annual Open Studios event. The studios house 40 artists, including fine artists, illustrators, printmakers, installation artists, photographers, textile artists, animators and filmmakers.

Names you may recognise among the current membership include Karin Krommes, who paints detailed images of aircraft parts in acrylics and oils, and experiments with resin and dead insects. Tipped by us as one of the names to watch for 2011, Krommes has exhibited at major art fairs in the US, UK and Dubai.

Elsewhere, Andrew Hood (whose work is pictured top right) creates colour-flecked and paint-strafed portraits of modern cities around the world (in this case, Bonifacio in Corsica), while Jemma Grundon’s abstract landscapes are beautiful, dreamlike and haunting. Illustrator Aaron Sewards was shortlisted for last year’s Jerwood Drawing Prize; Tom Plant, Leah Heming and Bjorn Rune Lie are flourishing children’s illustrators; and Anthony Garratt’s striking, dramatic studies of the natural landscape crop up regularly at the RWA’s Autumn Exhibition.

These and many others invite you into their studios over the weekend, to view recent pieces and current projects and chat through their working methods.

This year’s Open Studios also welcomes a few flourishing former members – the hugely popular embroidery artist Louise Gardiner and ceramicist Sophie Woodrow, for example – as well as an invited guest artist, sculptor, ceramicist and installation artist Emily Joy, as JSA's Rose Sanderson's 'Owl Moth'

part of what’s planned a growing relationship with fellow artists’ collective Stroud Valley Arts. And the Open Studios’ popular minicanvas auction returns (Sun 24, 4pm), allowing Sunday strollers and artlovers alike to bid for their own piece of JSA-produced artwork and help the studios’ ongoing funding drive.

It’s been a fertile year down on Jamaica Street, with a clutch of offsite exhibitions including The Art Box, in a vacant shop unit on Park Street before Christmas; an RWA exhibition, Inside-Out, in January; and a year-long changing exhibition on the walls of the crypt café at St George’s Bristol. But the Open Studios remain JSA’s signature annual event. “The Open Studios are very popular with both artists and public,” says JSA’s Gemma Brace. “They provide a showcase for new studio members and emerging artists, whilst also creating an opportunity for established artists to exhibit new work. It’s an exciting time for the studios, and the artists‘ enjoyment inevitably rubs off on everyone, which I think is what makes it such a special event for visitors. The public are always fascinated by what lies behind the building’s imposing facade, and the Open Studios create a chance to peek inside and explore the winding corridors and paint splattered rooms.”

JAMAICA STREET ARTISTS’ OPEN STUDIOS RUN ON FRI 22 JULY (7-10PM) AND SAT 23-SUN 24 JULY (11AM-6PM). FFI: WWW.JAMAICASTREETARTISTS.CO.UK

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Books

// top ten //

Locally born and read

Uncurl under a tree, in a hammock, on a blanket – and drift off…The bibliophiles of Bristol booksellers Foyles choose their seasonal faves.

Summer reads

Joe Melia rounds up some magma hot local authors to seek out.

Julian Baggini (above): prolific writer/philosopher who brings a great accessibility and spark to what might be far more sombre reading in less skilful hands. His latest is ‘The Ego Trick’ (Granta £14.99), a typically energetic look at humans’ sense of identity.

TM Alexander’s Tribe series (Piccadilly Press £6.99), now into its third volume, has a growing army of young fans thanks to the innate storytelling ability of its author.

Perfectly timed revelations, quirky fact files on the characters and spoton dialogue – Alexander is a master.

Mike Manson’s wry, office-based ‘romance’ set during the scorching, drought-ridden summer of 1976: ‘Where’s My Money’ (Tangent Books £9.99) is a gem of a timepiece and the success of the humour owes a lot to the wonderfully selected backdrops to the action, principally the former Nelson Street dole office in Bristol. Lots of people will be hoping that rumours of a prequel are more than idle whispers.

Chris Wakling’s dexterity as a writer is very much on show this summer with the release of two very different novels. Wakling is as accomplished at conjuring up a pacy historical crime tale, ‘The Devil’s Mask’ (Faber & Faber £12.99),

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as he is at producing a harrowing contemporary tale narrated by a sixyear-old natural history obsessive, the soon-to-be published ‘What I Did’ (John Murray £12.99).

James Wilson: Bristol-based scribe with four very well-received novels (Faber & Faber £7.99) behind him, has, also, written everything from plays to TV documentaries. Wilson’s talent lies in his ability to create often complex, layered narratives that remain consistently absorbing – no mean feat.

Ben Kane’s gritty and page-turning fictionalised Roman history sagas grow in stature with each new volume. He obviously loves his subject, which makes for grand entertainment. His latest, ‘Hannibal: Enemy of Rome’ (Preface Publishing £12.99), finds the Carthaginian main man hell bent on revenge.

Emma Newman’s self-styled post-apocalyptic fiction is about as current as it’s possible to be. A strong web-based following has given her forthcoming novel ‘20 Years Later’ (Dystopia Press £14.99) and recently published short story collection ‘From Dark Places’ (eMergent Publishing £7.99) great impetus.

Dark, yes, but coated with humanity aplenty, too.

Tania Hershman (above): one of the UK’s bona fide short story maestros lives right here in Bristol town. Her stunning debut collection ‘The White Road and Other Stories’ (Salt Publishing £7.99) never fails to be anything less than jaw-droppingly sublime as her former trade as a science journalist continues its fascinating influence on her work.

THANKS ONCE AGAIN, TO THE FABULOUS FOYLES, 6 QUAKERS FRIARS, CABOT CIRCUS, BRISTOL, BS1 3BU, 0117 376 3975, WWW.FOYLES.CO.UK

Emily Mackie: one of 2010’s most underrated and surprisingly neglected novels was Mackie’s haunting coming-of-age debut set in the Scottish Highlands, ‘And This Is True’ (Sceptre £7.99). Expect major coverage of her next publication to make up for the scant coverage of this complete gem.

Netherland – Joseph O’Neill (Fourth Estate £7.99) // Cricket in New York is a rough, almost secret game, played out in scrubby, marginal urban parks by people the city doesn’t see. A fantastic summer read even for cricket novices.

The way Joseph O’Neill writes about New York’s cricket scene with its humid summer days and larger-thanlife characters brought out an urge on a sunny day for a deck chair, a Wisden guide and a glass of Pimms.

Picasso In Paris 19001907 – Marilyn McCully (Thames & Hudson £39.95) // This book documents a vital phase in Picasso’s artistic development as we find him trying on various artistic guises – one moment Lautrec, next Gauguin – until, with the final push of El Greco’s, Cezanne’s and African sculptures, Picasso shatters the dominance of Euclidean space on Western art with the era-defining ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ in 1907.

The Summer Book – Tove Jansson (Sort of Books £8.99) // Regarded as a modern classic throughout Scandinavia, and penned by Tove Jansson, creator of children’s classic ‘The Moomins’, this beautiful story of a grandmother and granddaughter living on a remote island in Finland is full of humour and wisdom.

Bento’s Sketchbook – John Berger (Verso £14.99) // A beautiful meditative sketchbook to relish while lazing in the park.

Inspired by his imaginings of the 17th-century philosopher (Bento) Spinoza’s sketchbook, which was lost after his death, Berger blends his own charcoal and ink sketches – a badger, an old bicycle and magnolias – with philosophical reflections on the art of drawing and storytelling.

The Book of Summer: How to Stretch Out Those Halcyon Days – Josie Curran (Virgin £12.99) // Designed to remind you how to make the most of British summertime, this lovely compendium is full of outdoorsy and crafty inspiration.

Fancy making a picnic blanket board game? A retro windbreak? A mini garden zip wire? The perfect gift to yourself to ensure you embrace the summer months.

Moomin’s Splendid Summer Sticker Book (Puffin £4.99) // The entire Moomin family is preparing for a summer outing.

Picnicking, fishing, swimming and allround summer frolicking are on the go for them in this delightfully sunny sticker book, which features over 100 Moomin stickers for kids to complete the happy scenes.

Flea Market Style – Emily Chalmers, Ali Hanan and Debi Treloar (Ryland, Peters & Small £18.99) // Spend your summer hunting down those outrageously wonderful flea markets, and deck your house out in such a timeless way that you’ll never want to move. If you love to mix and match themes and designs, these ideas will give you a beautiful set of possibilities. Prepare to create brilliant shapes and moods in your house with ‘Flea Market Style’.

The Universe in the Landscape – Charles Jencks (Frances Lincoln £40) // In his work Jencks investigates the possibilities of the garden as a work of art. At times incorporating various scientific ideas through collaboration with scientists, he utilises the garden as a means of exploring the cosmos.

This book is a fascinating document of this land artist’s work.

My Cool Caravan – Hilary Walker (Pavilion £14.99) // This book is so quaint and pretty you can’t help adore it, and wish all of these caravans existed in a museum together so you could have a proper old nose.

Until that happens you’ll have to make do with ‘My (seriously) Cool Caravan’.

Blues Poems – ed. Kevin Young (Everyman’s Library £9.99) // Is your ideal summer’s day spent relaxing out in the sun, listening to the likes of Son House, Blind Willie Johnson or Muddy Waters?

This collection is the perfect accompaniment, filled with poetry influenced by the sound and feel of these great artists, plus a number of original song lyrics that stand testament to the irresistible power of this amazing, timeless music.

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DaysOut

family fun and trips away

Summer fling School’s out – fortunately, our local attractions got the memo.

Anna Britten picks some family favourites.

W

hether you’re a working or stayat-home parent, at some point this summer you’ll have to plan a family day out. A plan that doesn’t involve schlepping round JJB Sports and the Disney Store, or yet another Harbourside flat white with a stressed-out pal. You’re going to have to get out there with the kids and do original, wholesome, semi-educational things in a beautiful setting.

Don’t worry, though – Avon and Somerset is bristling with options. Here are a few of our favourites…

Animal magic unfolds at (clockwise) Slimbridge; Bristol Zoo and Puxton Park

Wing it at…

WILDFOWL & WETLANDS TRUST Slimbridge, Glos (01453 890333; www.wwt.org.uk/ visit/slimbridge) • Become a nature detective this summer, solving a mystery about what lives in Slimbridge’s dipping ponds; build a den; spy a wader; handle an amphibian; watch the otters being fed and make a Slimbridge scrapbook.

These activities are free with admission. In addition there are special events involving reptiles, bats and mammals and some open-air Shakespeare.

All this plus a dazzling array of ducks, geese and swans etc in 50 hectares of landscaped riverside.

Dig in at…

PUXTON PARK Cowslip Lane, Hewish, Westonsuper-Mare BS24 6AH (01934

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523500; www.puxton.co.uk) • Prepare to get muddy at this new-ish and rather special nature centre near Westonsuper-Mare which has received heavy investment from its farmer-owners since last summer. In recent months a new JCB ‘dig and play’ area and a new lake (grand opening Sat 9 July) have joined the existing pets’ village, brilliantly run Falconry Centre, massive soft play barn, working dairy, farm shop and kid-delighting restaurant. Needless to say there’s plenty of runningaround space too.

Go fur it…

BRISTOL ZOO GARDENS Clifton, Bristol BS8 3HA (0117 974 7300; www.bristolzoo.org. uk) • Our local zoo really comes into its own over the summer.

As well as the brilliant-sounding

Bristol’s Big Village Fete on Sat 16 July, children can also look forward to fun outings on the nearby Downs nearly every Thursday. Choose from Mammal Detectives (Thur 28 July), Dinosaur Detectives (Thur 4 Aug), Tree Tribes (Thur 11 Aug) and Busy Buzzy Bees (Thur 18 Aug). Don’t forget the delights of the zoo itself – especially Gorilla Island, Bug World, Explorer’s Creek and terrifying aerial adventure Zooropia.

Mind your manors at…

TYNTESFIELD

Wraxall, N Somerset (0870 458 4500; www.nationaltrust.org. uk/places/tyntesfield) • Frequent family activities take place at this atmospheric Gothic mansion. There’s pottery painting, minibeast safaris, an open-air production of ‘The Wind In The Willows’ to name

but three, but our attention was especially grabbed by two rather special-sounding events indeed: the all-ages Tyntesfield Sleepover on Sat 30 July, then, on Thur 4 Aug, the Family Woodland Adventure Day. This year Tyntesfield’s new Home Farm visitor centre is open for the first time too – with a restaurant, shop and exhibition space.

Experiment at…

AT-BRISTOL

Anchor Rd, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5DB (0845 3451235; www.at-bristol.org.uk/explore/ events.htm) • Plenty of extra fun laid on between Sat 23 July and Wed 31 Aug. Discover the mysteries of the brain in the brand new Boggling Brain Show, get comfortable for daily storytelling and take tiddlers into the under-fives-friendly ➜

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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

// Learn, baby, learn // Summer schools and workshops // Monkton Combe School Summer Holiday Activity Programme Flexible holiday childcare for all at this Bath private school – choose from Minis (ages 4-8), Muckers (8-14) and Pick & Mix (8-14 – choice of activities), as well as short, specialized courses in ‘Glee’style performance, rugby, lifeguarding and sports leadership. From £13.50 per half day. Ffi: 01225 721116 or www. monktoncombeschool.com

teenage daughter. Peep into the Assembly Rooms while you’re there.

13-Sun 14 Aug. Plenty of musical action to be enjoyed during the Bristol Harbour Festival (Sat 30Sun 31 July) too.

Deck someone at…

The majestic Tyntesfield in Wraxall; and above right: going underground at Clearwell Caves

Little Stars Planetarium show. That’s alongside over 170 science and technologybased interactive exhibits, of course, all worthy of mention, including the Animate-It exhibition in conjunction with Aardman, ‘All About Us’ which focuses on the human body, and – gasp! - a real human brain! Worth every penny of admission.

Work it, baby, at…

THE FASHION MUSEUM Bennett St, Bath, BA1 2QH (01225 477785; www. fashionmuseum.co.uk) • Does your brood love a swashbuckling costume drama?

This summer’s big exhibition brings together the cream of British costume design over the last 50 years. Award-winning and Oscar-nominated costumes on display include those from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘The Duchess’, ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’. Every Tuesday at 10.30am children will get the chance to create outfits for pirates, Tudor bigwigs or their favourite pop star. The permanent collection is also truly fascinating – and definitely not just for your

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BRUNEL’S SS GREAT BRITAIN

Rock out at…

Great Western Dockyard, Gas Ferry Rd, Bristol, BS1 6TY (0117 929 1843; www.ssgreatbritain. org) • Brunel’s big ol’ boat is looking fantastic these days.

Authentically recreated cabins (complete with vomit smells and a talking toilet) and living areas, where the excellent audio guides really bring the place to life. Bags of summer holiday events – Gruesome Greens: Stories From The Galley on Thur 11, Thur 18 and Thur 25 Aug and gastro re-enactment event Crimean Troop Tucker on Sat

Nr Coleford, Forest of Dean, Glos, GL16 8JR (01594 832535; www. clearwellcaves.com) • Nine thrilling underground caverns (once an iron ore mine) set in the middle of some lovely Forest of Dean countryside – plus a blacksmith’s workshop, tea room, shop and picnic area.

Stacks of summer holiday events to take place here – still tbc at time of going to print. Do tell older kids that Doctor Who himself has been a visitor (parts of the 2005 Christmas special were filmed here).

The ss Gert Britain - if you've not been for ages, you really should

CLEARWELL CAVES

// Traditional Irish Music Summer School Runs Mon 8-Fri 12 Aug, for all ages, as part of Bath Folk Festival. Learn the essentials of Irish folk or sharpen your skills in fiddle, button accordion, flute, tin whistle, guitar and singing.

From £90 for under-18s, family concs available. Ffi: info@bathfolkfestival.org or www.bathfolkfestival.org

// Film Academy Runs Wed 17-Thur 18 and Wed 24-Thur 25 Aug for ages 11-17. Supported by the Watershed and run by BAFTA-winning Bristol-based production company ShootMe. State-of-the-art equipment, professional film-maker tutors and a red carpet premiere for family and friends. £189 per person (includes lunch).

Ffi: 0117 307 9118 or www.shootme. com

// Shakespeare At The Tobacco Factory Summer School Runs Mon 25-Fri 29 July and Mon 1-Fri 5 Aug for ages 11-17. An unmissable chance to work alongside members of the nationally acclaimed SATTF company to present a devised performance to family and friends. £140 per person. Ffi: www.sattf.org.uk // Kompany Malakhi Runs Mon 15-Fri 19 Aug for ages 13+.

The urban arts dudes and the masters of physical performance and dance (see pic, above) at the Tobacco Factory Theatre present the opportunity for young people to explore the story of Swan Lake – the tutu-free version. £150 per person (concs available). Ffi: 0117 902 0345 or tobaccofactorytheatre.com/plus/ events/summer_school/

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Bush Farm Bison Centre

WEST KNOYLE, WILTS. BA12 6AE Unique working farm, see bison, elk, guancos, rheas, raccoons, prairie dogs & many other animals. Woodland gardens with picnic and play areas.

Woodland camping. Small animals farm yard. Refreshments & light meals.

9th and 10th July 17th Annual Native American Pow Wow 19th â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 21st Aug 9th Annual Bushcraft & Wilderness Skills Festival Open Wed - Sun & B.H. 10am - 5pm tel 01747 830263 email info@bisonfarm.co.uk web www.bisonfarm.co.uk

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To reach 72,000 families in your area advertise in the next issue of Primary Times.

Contact Caroline tel 0117 934 3737 email c.stretton@bepp.co.uk or Ruth tel 0117 9343730 email r.morris@venue.co.uk

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Up to Seven

handmade childrens clothes

10 The Podium, Bath BA1 5BG t: 01225 422 333

www.uptoseven.co.uk

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For a brochure and details of forthcoming courses please telephone The Clifton Practice 0117 317 9278 or simple visit our comprehensive website www.cpht.co.uk

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Skills

COURSES, WORKSHOPS, JOBS AND STUFF

Study break

Get off the sun-lounger and do something different this summer.

Anna Britten looks at the month’s most horizon-expanding adult workshops.

M

aybe you’re staycationing, maybe you’re jobseeking, or maybe you just hate sitting still during your summer annual leave. Why not learn something new this July?

There’s a course for all tastes across Bristol and Bath during July and August, with topics ranging from the esoteric to the survivalist, including many you’ve probably never thought about – carving rustic spoons, playing the mbira and sewing your own undercrackers, to name but three. So what’s eating you this summer, and what can you do about it?

My artistic yearnings are kiln me!

So you’ve tried life-drawing, had a go at watercolour and are ready for something a bit more tricksy and specialised. Or maybe you’re already a trained artist looking to expand your practice. Bath School of Art and Design (part of Bath Spa University) are inviting you to hone your creative skills at its exciting new summer school full of like-minded people with similar interests. Choose from courses in different methods of ceramics (including raku and slipcasting), digital photography, fashion/textiles and printing – our eye was caught by the two-day millinery course

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Follow your art: fancy a crack at screenprinting, etching, chicken-chasing or a whole bunch of other creative pursuits? Time to get involved...

at which you’ll make two unique titfers. We’ll await the commission from Princess Beatrice in due course… All courses take place over the week commencing 22 Aug 2011 at the Sion Hill campus surrounded by Regency splendour on the northern slopes of Bath. Ffi: 01225 875533 or www.artbathspa.com I need to follow the (poly) rhythm of my heart!

Chartwell Dutiro grew up in rural Zimbabwe and started playing the mbira (ancient instrument, consisting of at least 22 metal keys mounted on a wooden soundboard) when he was four. As an adult he’s toured the world with the legendary Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited and is now a WOMAD Foundation recommended artist, and ethnomusicologist at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London, performing and teaching in Britain and around the world including at WOMAD and Tribe Of Doris. The latest beneficiary of his rich experience is Bath’s ICIA (Institute of Contemporary

Interdisciplinary Arts) who invite you to their four-day Zimbabwean music residential (optional) course, with Chartwell Dutiro, running from Mon 11 July-Fri 15 July. Expect community singing, dance and mbira playing. Ffi: 01225 386777 or www.bath. ac.uk/icia

poultry and waterfowl-keeping course from eco community folks LILI (Low Impact Living Initiative), which takes place near Thornbury, South Glos on Sat 30 July and promises a complete introduction to keeping hens, ducks and geese. You’ll look at the different breeds available, options for

We should totally keep chickens!

Fancy saving money on eggs and waking to the gentle cluck of your feathered friends each morning?

You’ll be wanting the one-day

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// Cut out or keep? // This month’s other skills news

Let's talk about flex: Bristol City Yoga are waiting to bend you into shape

housing, handling, feeding and healthcare, ways of protecting your birds from predators, the rules and regulations of selling eggs, and how to hatch your own chicks or ducklings under a hen or in an incubator. Onsite camping available, subject to space. Ffi: 01296 714184 or lowimpact.org/index.htm Accountancy sucks – I want to retrain as a yoga teacher!

With around 14,000 jaded 30something urbanites signing up each week in Clifton village alone*, courses in how to become a yoga instructor are as big a boom industry as the stretchy pastime itself once was. If the thought of spending all day in a body-hugging jersey, listening to The Blue Nile and easing people into the Downward Dog appeals – and frankly, after a week in most workplaces right now, who can blame you? – you need to apply, and do the preparatory reading, this summer for next April’s yoga teacher training course at Bristol City Yoga. These guys offer a comprehensive, Yoga Alliancecertified level one training course to start you off (and provide a basis for specialist modules and apprenticeship options at level two leading to a diploma) consisting of 25 tuition days – incorporating a two-day new year retreat – and extensive home-study.

The course encourages participants to learn to teach using their own experience, as well as the theory and philosophy of yoga. Trainees have use of the beautiful

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Bristol City Yoga studio for the practical training, the downstairs healing room for theory sessions and the stunning Barefoot Barn in Devon for a three-day retreat to close the course. Om, om, om. Ffi: 0117 924 4414 or www. bristolcityyoga.co.uk If anyone’s going to survive the apocalypse, it’s me!

Award-winning holiday business Westley Farm in Gloucestershire is branching out into the woods to encourage more people to get active and enjoy the great outdoors. By joining in practical courses in the ancient woodlands and meadows of the farm, people will gain a closer understanding of our shared environmental heritage. If you’ve ever wondered how you’d have coped as an early settler in America (or are stockpiling survival skills when the planet goes a bit ‘The Road’), sign up for rustic furniture making (Sat 2-Sun 3 July), charcoal making (Sat 9 July) or spoon carving (Sun 10 July). Owners Julian and Hege Usborne say: “We already welcome anybody to walk the farm and have created many extra paths to make access easier for the general public, but getting intimate with nature with the help of an expert forager, for example, or having a day in the

woods with an experienced woodsman is a magical experience!” Ffi: 01285 760262 or www.westleyfarm.co.uk/ courses.htm

I hate everything in my wardrobe!

There’s a dressmaking boom going on in Bristol and Bath at the moment and two entrepreneurial fabric fans are at the heart of it.

First, vintage boutique Cox & Baloney, whose summer workshop timetable promises to endow you with basic sewing machine skills (Sat 9 July) and the ability to follow a dress-making pattern (every Thur through July). Ffi: 0117 944 3100; www.coxandbaloney. com. Second, homely Bath craft centre The Makery will have you stitching everything from curtains, purses and pincushions to tote bags, babyslings and knickers in a slew of workshops in its cute Walcot Street den.

Ffi: 01225 421175 or www. themakeryonline.co.uk * figures may not be accurate

// Voluntary sector organisations across Bristol have until Fri 29 July to respond to letters from the city council about their funding levels. The council budget last February identified the need for £240,000 savings from its £4.1 million health and adult social care services programme. 56 organisations currently receive funding for 81 services.

Every organisation has been asked to provide information on their services and are now being given an initial determination of the level of funding they are likely to receive for the remaining year.

They will have an opportunity to provide additional evidence for consideration before a final decision is made.

Says cabinet member for care and health, cllr Jon Rogers (below): “Many of these voluntary care organisations offer exceptional value for money. They clearly offer quality services that fit with council priorities and the needs of our population. We will continue to fund these organisations almost in full, with a 6% reduction for the final five months of the year.

“There are, however, other organisations that do not appear to have provided such evidence.

As part of this transparent process, such organisations face more substantial funding cuts and risk losing their funding altogether.

“I must stress that no final decisions have been made and would urge any such organisations to respond to the council letter if they believe they have additional information.

These are difficult financial times and we must spend every penny wisely.”

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Classifieds www.undercover-rock.com

ACTIVITIES

For more pictures, videos and downloads see www.venue.co.uk HEALTH & WELL BEING Counselling

UNDERCOVER

With experienced counsellor For individuals and couples Freddi Manson DipCouns. MBACP Please phone for a chat 07792 186 720 / freddihello@hotmail.com www.freddimansonbristol.co.uk

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at the Bristol Climbing Centre

Regional Centre of Excellence The Biggest & the Best Climbing Centre in the South West • Climbing and Courses for all • St Werburgh’s Church, Mina Rd, Bristol BS2 9YT • www.undercover-rock.com

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LANGUAGES

Learn Spanish and French at Leftbank New courses for Beginners and Improvers with qualified tutors Tel: 0117 944 4433 or email: nick@leftbankcentre.co.uk 128 Cheltenham Road, Bristol, BS6 5RW www.leftbankcentre.co.uk

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Thinking about changing the world?

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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

Assessing and treating a wide range of mental health problems. For example: • depression • anxiety • trauma • OCD Clinics in various locations around Bristol.

Daytime and evening appointments available.

For more information contact Dr Matthew Simmonite (Clinical Psychologist) on 07801993966 or send enquiries to matthewsimmonite@yahoo.co.uk

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Domestic and Commercial Gardening Fencing, Hedge cutting, planting, turfing and Tree work.

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Garden Design, Planting Plans, Plant Sourcing & Installation, Garden Maintenance, Gardening Consultation and advice.

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Save money and help the environment by buying your furniture and white goods from SOFA Project, a recognised social enterprise

www.sofaproject.org.uk 48-54 West Street, Bristol BS2 0BL t: 0117 954 3567

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Pride & joy Darryl W Bullock looks forward to this year’s week-long Bristol Pride celebrations.

N

o matter how involved you are in the local gay scene, it cannot have escaped your notice that there are dozens of events taking place around Bristol as part of the city’s second annual Pride week.

The 1940s return to the Tobacco Factory on 11-12 July, with jitterbugging dancers, music from the fabulous Swing Bristol, period costume and more prior to performances of local playwright Bea Roberts’s hit play ‘The Darkling Plain’, described as “an unholy marriage of Enid Blyton and Noel Coward” by the Guardian. Across the other side of the city, Metropolis, in Stokes Croft, hosts Amy Lamé and Friends on Thursday 14. The outrageous, acerbic and devastatingly witty comedienne is supported by up-and-comers David Morgan, Rosie Wilby and Rose France.

There’s no London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival tour this year, but Pride has stepped in to fill the gap. Highlights include ‘Buffering’, the latest offering from Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone (the makers of ‘Shank’ and ‘Release’), which receives its local premiere on Saturday 9 July at the Watershed; Jonathan Harvey’s modern

The inimitable Boogaloo Stu at Bristol Pride 2010

classic ‘Beautiful Thing’, screened at the Arnolfini on Wednesday 13; and, at The Cube on Sunday 10, Pride pays its respects to the late Elizabeth Taylor by screening ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’, with cabaret, performance and live art curated by Tom Marshman.

There’s been a huge amount of fuss over the decision to charge people entry to this year’s main event, which takes place in Castle Park on Saturday 16 July, but with Kelis headlining, support from artists including Clare Maguire and Le Gateau Chocolat, local favourites Sing Out Bristol, Ruthie T, Dr Meaker and New City Sound plus civil rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, it’s sure to be a great day out.

“Last year the donations approach simply didn’t raise enough money for the event to happen again,” Amy Wilson of Pride Bristol tells Venue. “This year we have to ask people to purchase tickets, and with this in mind have put together a strong event that offers excellent value for little more than the price of a cinema ticket.

“We’re committed to getting free tickets out into the community where they’re needed most. We’re working with THT, the Brigstowe Project, Freedom Youth, Sheltered and Supported Housing, Bristol City Council, BME groups, disability groups, older persons groups and more to get free tickets out to people with restricted resources.” Anyone who finds the entry fee prohibitive should email tickets@pridebristol.org to arrange entry.

All requests must be received by 9 July.

“Pride Day 2011 will be a hugely joyous and colourful event,” adds Daryn Carter.

“We have a very strong main stage lineup; the huge rainbow Community Tent is returning with even more social, support and sporting groups in attendance, we’re improving the Youth Zone and, following feedback from last year, there’s a new Cabaret Stage, an alternative Queer Tent, street theatre and a Showcase Stage featuring music and dance from the South West and beyond. We hope to see you in the Parade.”

PRIDE WEEK RUNS FROM SAT 9-17 SUN JULY. FFI: WWW.PRIDEBRISTOL.ORG

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MONTH AHEAD // EVENTS NOT TO MISS IN JULY July 9 // Break Out: ShoutOut Pride Special 10am12midnight, 93.2fm. Ffi: www.shoutoutbristol.org. uk/breakout • ShoutOut, the radio show for the local LGBT community, takes over BCfm for a whole day of gay-themed programming.

July 10 // Pride Fitness and Rugby Day Ashley Down RFC, Bonnington Walk, Lockleaze, Bristol, BS7 9YU, free (suggested donation £2). Ffi: www.bisonsrfc.co.uk • The Bisons (below) host an afternoon of fun including a rugby open training session.

They’ll be joined by the St Mary’s Old Boys women’s team and CycleOut will be also having a bike ride from the city centre. Changing facilities are available and the bar will be open afterwards for a social and barbecue.

July 15 // GEAR/Come to Daddy Summer Spectacular Club O, 7 Lawrence Hill, Bristol, BS5 0BY, 9pm-4am, £10 (membership free but required for entry). Ffi: www. gearbristol.co.uk • Gear, the club for gay men into rubber, workwear, leather and sports kit, teams up with Come to Daddy for a summer dance and cruise party.

July 16 // ONE Basement 45, Frogmore St, Bristol, BS1 5NA, 10pm, £6. Ffi: www.facebook. com/one.bristol • Working alongside organisations including Bristol City Council, The Black Development Agency and Bristol Pride, Fundamental Productions invite LGBT people to come out and play at ONE, a new monthly club night of soulful and funky house for all of Bristol’s LGBT communities – especially those from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups.

July 16 // Wonderland Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol, BS2 0NW, 10pm-4am, £10/£8 adv. Ffi: www.pridebristol. org • The official after-party for Pride Bristol, with DJs spinning alt-pop, hip-hop, electro pop and dirty disco sounds, plus performances from Keda Breeze, Bright Light Bright Light and more.

July 16 // Psycho:Drama’s Alternative Pride Afterparty The Cavern Club (under The Crown), All Saints Lane, St Nicholas Market, Bristol, BS1 1JH, 9pm-3am, free to Pride ticketholders • The Psycho:Drama boys, fresh from the Queer Tent in Castle Park, bring you guest DJs, burlesque and a live performance from Georgia Asphalt.

July 17 // What’s So Queer About Being Queer? Wildgoose Space, 228 Mina Rd, St Werburghs, Bristol, BS2 9YP, 10.30am-4.30pm, with an informal performance for friends & family at 5.30pm, £15 waged/£10 unwaged. Ffi: queerplayback@gmail.com • Queer Playback Theatre Company are leading a workshop for LGBT people on the final day of Bristol Pride. The workshop (below) is a chance to learn skills in drama improvisation and have fun.

July 29 // Horseplay The Cavern Club (under The Crown), All Saints Lane, St Nicholas Market, Bristol, BS1 1JH, £3 before 12midnight/£4 after.

Ffi: www.facebook.com/ HorseplayBristol • Night for gay/bi guys and girls and their friendly friends. PonyM, Bronco and Jim Carna bring an edgy underground disco/ house party vibe. If it makes the dancefloor throb, they’ll JULY 2011 // 87 play it.

➜ HUNGRY FOR MORE? Flip the page for Venue & Folio’s food & drink mini-mag, Eating Out West

Lesbian&Gay

// THE

➜

29/06/2011 09:38:59