Books: sex, drugs ‘n’ bankrolls Stage: the tragedy of excess TV: TV binge eaters
Music: fade out, don’t burn Film: most expensive films Tech: addicted to the screen
SCENE
EXCESS
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In this issue
A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Hello again! We hope you enjoyed the previous issue of Scene, and now we’re back again with another copy, ready for the end of term. This issue iof Scene is all about excess, so we’re looking at watching excessive amounts of TV on Netflix, the excessive lifestyles of literary characters and the tragedy of excess in theatre and drama. In the feature this time, Milo argues that excess is a bad thing in the arts, whilst Rachel argues that you can never have too much of a good thing.
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MUSIC
See you next issue, and next term!
Why 2014 Still Needs Excess (p4) Interview: Reel Big Fish (p5)
FILM
Hollywood Remakes (p6) Review: Dallas Buyers Club (p7)
FEATURES
WHAT’S ON: FILM
10 12
Size doesn’t Matter/Bigger is Better (p8-9)
TV
DRAMASOC
Endgame - 28 February/1/2 March / Drama Barn Evolve - 6/7/9 March / Drama Barn
Just One More Episode... (p10) Editorial Recommendations (p11)
STAGE
BOOKS
G & S Soc: Iolanthe - 27/28 February/1 March / Central Hall
MUSIC
Sex, Drugs and Bankrolls (p12) Favourite 4: Books of Excess (p13)
The Goldfield Ensemble - 26 February / 7:30pm / Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall University Choir & University Symphony Orchestra - 5 March / 7:00pm / Central Hall The Chimera Ensemble - 7 March / 7:30pm / Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall St John Passion - 12 March / 7:30pm / Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall The 24 - 14 March / 7:30pm / Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
TECH
Is Our Use of Technology Excessive?(p14) Budget Laptop Buyers Guide (p14)
STAGE
Frozen at York Student Cinema - 27 February / 7:30pm / P/X/001 Le Weekend at York Student Cinema - 7 March / 7:30pm / P/X/001 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at York Student Cinema - 3/6/7 March / 7:30pm / P/X/001
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OTHER
Preview: Unisex (p15) The Tragedy of Excess (p15)
Remembering Charlemagne in 2014 - 27 February / 6:15pm / Berrick Saul Building Exhibition Fight Night 2014 - 9 March / 5:00pm / Roger Kirk Centre
SPOTLIGHT Vance Joy (p16)
SCENE TEAM Scene Editors Rachel Seymour Milo Boyd
Music Editors
Film Editors
TV Editors
Books Editors
Tech Editor
Stage Editors
Will McCurdy Mairead Kearins
Alex Radford Tim Douglas
Zena Jarjis Katie Thomas
Rebekah Boyle Lilith King Taylor
Will Addy Costas Mourselas
Charlie Benson Nadine Garbett
Deputy Music
Deputy Film
Deputy TV
Deputy Books
Deputy Tech
Deputy Stage
James Scott Katie Molloy
Joosoo Yi Samuel Bowell
Martin Waugh Phillip Watson
Steven Rowan Jeram George Norman
Louisa Hann Meri Aho
Zoe Bennell Matt Durrant
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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT
Music Fade out. Don’t burn BY WILL MCCURDY
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ome of music’s greatest figures have been associated with excess. Musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Keith Richards were infamous for their massive drug use and wild lifestyles. However, two out those three people are dead and one of them looks like a used condom. There is a pretty obvious lesson there; you’re meant to learn from failure and not imitate it. Yes, great bands used drugs, and they made great music. But you’ve got no objective way of telling of they wouldn’t have made better music if they had healthy diets and yoga routines. It’s easy for armchair music critics to talk about how LSD inspired bands like The Beatles but for anyone who’s actually tried LSD, they realise that they probably spent more time looking at their hands than com-
Live Review:
George Ezra BY KATRINA NORTHERN
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am back at The Duchess for the second night in a week, praying that Bristolian George Ezra will make being battered by 40mph winds worth it. Having subtly slipped my way to the front I listen as the opening act, Hartlepool-born Dan Cook, fills the room with rhythm, soul and bluesy licks. With his warm Northern accent he charms the audience and the pain of the journey is forgotten. At only 19 years old, George Ezra has a depth of tone comparable to Johnny Cash, with a rich and deep velvety vibration to his vocal. He names his influences as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (The Guardian’s Caroline Sullivan believes he could have
posing classic pop songs. As cool as dying young looks on a rock CV, I guarantee that anyone of those musicians, if they had a choice, would rather be alive and washed up, doing butter adverts and playing in Fibbers, than dead. Those musicians were good in spite of being walking drug stores, rather than because of it. Bach prayed three times a day and made all his music for the glory of God – and he was alright. People are bored. Exciting things might happen occasionally, but it’s temporary. It’s easy to see why those who lived fast and died young become idolized. It does seem to be that it is in fact only the good that die young, with figures like Cliff Richard being seemingly immortal. It’s a seductive ideal. But dying young is an inherently silly thing to do, something that not only hurts you but your family and fans. None of those people ever intended to die or become drug addicts. As a musician in the public eye you have a responsibility not only to yourself but to the public at large; in oversimplified comic book terms, with great power comes great responsibility. We need to cut the public association with greatness and being an irresponsi-
been “teleported from Greenwich Village circa 1962”.) He is one of the new darlings of Radio 1 and placed fifth in the Sound of 2014 selected by music critics (Haim, CHVRCHES and Laura Mvula were among those touted for success in 2013). His new EP is going to be called Cassy O and it is this title track that gets everyone moving. It’s up-tempo and relentless, particularly in the chorus with a kind of manual vocal reverb on the ‘O’. A little ironically, it is filled with meditations on time moving too quickly (“Well I got my tracing paper / So that I could trace my clock / And the bastard face kept changing / And the hands, they wouldn’t stop”). Despite being a solo act with a guitar, Ezra hasn’t fallen into the trap of the melancholy folk song; instead his songs swing between a kind of ravenous delight in fury and uptempo escapist storytelling. As he performs he fixes the crowd with a deep, intense gaze and it never once wavers, there is something curiously but attractively unnerving about it. In between songs he chats away happily, giving shout-outs to his sister on the merchandise stand and his tour manager and marvelling that for the first time he has two guitars.
ble twat. Justin Bieber drinks too much and then drives under the influence. That doesn’t make him a musical genius. It makes him very naughty boy. But it’s not the ‘60s. Excess isn’t radical anymore. It’s institutionalised. It’s the norm. We live a world with more stimuli than our ancestors could possibly have imagined. Everything becomes pumped up and over exaggerated. It’s the natural reaction. In 1969 ‘Streets of London’ was one of the year’s bestselling singles. It didn’t have any big choruses, any guitar solos; it was essentially just a normal looking man with a guitar playing what was essentially a very good song. No meat dresses, wrecking balls or whipped cream necessary. In fact before the MTV era, when music and visuals became irrevocably linked, it was not common for relatively plain looking acts to have hit songs, purely on the basis of being a good song. Although artists like David Bowie constantly changed their images, he changed his music in tandem, coming up with fresh and creative albums to match his fresh new images. A lot of artists in the current music scene aren’t really offering anything other than the same old stuff with an
edgy haircut. Contrary to popular belief, not all publicity is good publicity. Flamboyant images not only help promote a band or artist, but can only draw attention away from their music. Most allegations against artists such as Pete Doherty consist not of attacks against his music or of its quality but instead that he is a “druggy stupid, hat wearing tosser”. People judge on basis of image and there’s almost nothing that anyone can do about it. Mae West famously said that “Too much of something can be a very good thing”. What I’m saying is that it can also be a very bad thing. I’m not saying I hate excess. I may well enjoy sex, drugs and violence more than anyone currently at this university. However, I also love music, and sometimes one has to be sacrificed for the sake of the other. Music should inherently be about music. I mean, having a persona is fine, but we have to remember that moderation is a virtue, and just because people are musicians, it does not mean they are exempt from this fact. In the modern age, actually focusing on making great music may be the most rebellious act possible.
George explains that he shut himself away in the studio from mid-November to January and forgot how to communicate with humans but, on the plus side, now has an album’s worth of material, which he hopes to release this year. The songs themselves were born under the most different of circumstances – many were written during a nomadic train trip around Europe. He wrote one of his most famous tracks, ‘Budapest’, while lamenting that he never made it to Budapest. It has a softly staccato acoustic rhythm and sounds
like a breezy love song to summer travels (“for you / you / I’d leave it all”). “I thought about changing the name of this song so as not to cause any offense”, George jokes as the mother of all storms rages outside and he tunes up for ‘Did You Hear the Rain?’. This song epitomises his whole performance-character. “Oh did I send a shiver / Down your spine? / Well I do it all the time / It’s a little trick of mine”, he sings with a sly smile, “Lord I’m spreading like disease / Lord, I’m all up in your mind / Oh Lucifer’s inside”. The song feels like a dark seduction, with steady, earthy guitar riffs and a wolf-howl falsetto at the end of each chorus. Ezra certainly showcases his talent, in ‘Leaving it Up to You’ he takes on a chorus that he’d originally recorded with three girls while casually engineering the murder of a love rival in ‘Drawing Board’. It’s easy to forget how young and freshfaced he is. If anything the set is over too quickly, but isn’t it great when you’ve been on your feet for two hours to be left wanting more? As we all shuffle out of the door, knowing we’ve witnessed something unique, we look to the sky; it’s stopped raining.
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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT
Reviews EDITORS’ CHOICE
KATY B
LITLLE RED
BY PHILP WATSON
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fter her Mercury Award nomination in 2011 for hit debut album On A Mission, things had gone quiet for Katy B in terms of new material, despite her music’s continued popularity during this silent period. However, almost without warning, Katy has returned with sophomore album Little Red which eschews the dub/drum and bass sound that, in vogue at the time, brought her initial mainstream success, in favour of an infectious electronic-pop sound sure to have clubbers frothing at the mouth. Little Red, however, sets itself apart from the swathes of generic electronica that fill the airwaves at present thanks to its willingness to wholeheartedly embrace different musical styles while placing a fresh slant on the genres that distinguished 2011’s On A Mission. The album’s first single ‘5 AM’ crept in under the radar and climbed to number 14 in the single charts last November, which
Why 2014 needs Excess BY Mairead Kearins
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mong the dullness of our often mundane lives, there is now and again an odd glimmer of brightness and creativity that brings excitement to our otherwise palid existences. It makes us open our eyes and look at the theatricality that is lacking in everyday society. Conversation is fired far more by discussions of wrecking balls and nipple slips rather than what time your essays due in. Excess brings a sense of drama we actually like having in our lives. Google statistics of 2013 show that the most searched musician of last year was Miley Cyrus. It is clear to say that 2013 was Miley’s year. It was also the year that the new edgier Miley twerked, grinded on Robin Thicke with a giant foam finger and licked sledgehammers. If it wasn’t for all of these excessities there is a chance that Mi-
seems bizarre as it has all the elements of a top-10 chart smash; it’s catchy hooks and hypnotic bassline make it a contemporary clubber’s wet dream. Indeed, Little Red seems to be heavily club-influenced; songs like ‘5 AM’ and lead single ‘Crying For No Reason’, which are distinctly more pop-focused, are juxtaposed terrifically with the more experimental genre-bending songs like ‘All My Lovin’ and ‘I Like You’, and as such the album has wide-ranging appeal to both mainstream and alternative club scenes. Unable to accept the death of dubstep, Katy B can’t help but underline songs like ‘Tumbling Down’ with the genre’s footstomping fundamentals, but manages to keep things fresh with her effortless vocals and, let’s face it, all-pervading sense of cool.; a sense of cool that is only intensified by her attendance at Brit School and her 1976 German Eurovision entering father. The influence of house is also felt heavily, most notably in ‘Everything’ which, for all its dependence on a genre grounded in monotony, manages to set itself apart as both refreshing and immersive. Every song in Little Red is carefully crafted and controlled which, paradoxically, is what makes essentially each track perfect for such a range of club scenes, which is not to say it is an album reliant on listeners out of mind and body on drugs and alcohol. It is not an album you can ‘be in the mood for’, because there is no singular mood that can be ascribed to it. What makes Katy B so meteorically popular is her ability to gauge the musical zeitgeist at the time and make an album exemplary of this; and this is exactly what Little Red does. While it may not be an album to stand the test of time in the present moment this is irrelevant; as it is it is an album that showcases the best of the here and now and it makes no bones about it.
ley wouldn’t have been the most searched musician on Google. Although some of the things she did last year were eyebrow-raising, they were only shocking because we were so used to seeing her as a Disney Channel prodigy. If anything, her use of excess is the reason behind her success more so than her singing voice. More people were talking about her music videos for ‘We Can’t Stop’ and ‘Wrecking Ball’ due to them being wacky and outrageous with the use of sexual themes and nudity than the actual music. Whether or not this sits well with you, these music videos caused the songs to be massive hits and now she is more successful than she ever was. Excess is just anything that goes against the norm on an extreme level and unsurprisingly it is the extreme rather than the everyday that makes headlines. When Miley twerked on Robin Thicke at the MTV Video Music Awards it was the only thing people could talk about. Who won what was barely relevant then and most definitely isn’t now. The moments that are remembered are the Madonna/Britney/Christina kisses and the Lady Gaga mid stage bleedings; not who won Video of the Year. Grandeous shock
n 25th February, Major Lazer (a.k.a. the renowned producer Diplo’s side project in collaboration with Jillionaire and Walshy Fire) will be releasing new material following the mixed success of 2013’s Free The Universe. For those expecting the vast array of collaborations with renowned musical talent that Major Lazer’s albums are typically comprised of, the new EP entitled Apocalypse Soon will certainly not disappoint, as such musical greats as Sean Paul, Pharrell Williams, Machel Montano and Mr. Fox, have all been brought in to add diversity and spice to the eccentric and variable tracks. Major Lazer has always, I feel, been a somewhat underappreciated presence in the world of contemporary music, perhaps due to their innovative mix of various musical cultures and scenes, bringing together the familiar sounds of European EDM with Caribbean club music and various other
more rocky and poppy sounds depending on particular collaborators and producers on a given individual track. It is for this reason that Apocalypse Soon is a diverse, eccentric and dynamic listening experience, as the collaborators all bring their own subtle musical idiosyncrasies to the record. Much has changed since the days of ‘Get Free’ and ‘Pon de Floor’, as the intense and frenetic sounds from their earlier work is back, but with a more clean cut and ‘produced’ feel. The first track on the album, ‘Aerosol Can’, featuring the inimitable Pharrell Williams, is a stripped down, beatheavy wonder. Williams’ rapping is an almost mesmerizing experience in its repetitive and impressive speedy rhythm, and, although not necessarily being the catchiest or most dance oriented when compared to other tracks on the album, or even when compared to the rest of Major Lazer’s discography, it is an exciting and promising start to the record. The most intense and variable track on Apocalypse Soon appears to me to be ‘Sound Bang’, four minutes of Caribbean music provided by Machel Montano mixed with intense and erratic bouts of EDM. It is a pleasingly strange experience, and it is this that makes it so appealing. The best track on the record, I would argue, is the intensely danceable ‘Lose Yourself ’, featuring Columbian producer Moska and dance music twosome RDX. It seems to be harking back to the sounds of ‘Pon de Floor’, one of Major Lazer’s better known and most lauded tracks. It may not be as experimental or transgressive as some of the others, but it will be sure to get people buying the EP and talking about Major Lazer again. Overall, Apocalypse Soon is a good set of material, and lays the groundwork for excitement and anticipation when a longerlength record is finally released.
tactics or an ingenious manipulation of our rabid media culture, the fact that we’re still talking goes along way to validate these kinds of acts. Queen of excess Lady Gaga is ever causing outrage through her excessive statement costume and performance pieces. Whether it’s wearing a meat dress during her ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ speech or emerging from an egg-like vessel to symbolise that she was ‘Born This Way’, she knows how to make an entrance and a dramatic statement simultaneously. Gaga continues this theme of excess in concert and did so magnificantly when I got to see ‘Born This Way.’ She provided a stellar performance amongst a set of massive props which thematically echoed her songs. Dressed in a black almost cyborg-like outfit, she entered the stage on a giant mechanical horse singing ‘Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)’. For the titular track, she simulated giving birth before emerging from the spread legs of a giant inflatable body. If this were any other musician, they would be deemed insane, but it’s part of her image. It’s what she is loved for. If she was another run of the mill musician, she wouldn’t be who she is. I am
not saying her stripped down performances aren’t good. Personally, I think they’re stunning and her performance of hidden track ‘Princess Die’ and tribute to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ actually had me in tears. But she isn’t known for that. I am not criticising balladeers like Adele or love song obsessives like Taylor Swift, but it is rare that they would do a performance as crazy, hilarious and thought-provoking as Lady Gaga. Originator of dramatic excess David Bowie is known for his sense of theatricality beginning with Ziggy Stardust and his constant changing caricatures and musical style is part of why he is one of the world’s greatest musicians. He made sure he stood out in the music industry and his use of androgyny made people sit up and take notice. In the midst of such an iconic music decade, Bowie and his fellow glam rock artists achieved major success and their excessity glamorized what was already a fabulous musical era. Excessivity stands the test of time as David Bowie proves and is loved and feared simultaneously. As American sex symbol Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”.
MAJOR LAZER APOCALYPSE SOON BY LOUISA HANN
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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT
INTERVIEW BY WILL MCCURDY
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eel Big Fish with their high energy fusion of Ska and Punk rock have been entertaining audiences all around the world for almost twenty years. Though they might have gone in and out of mainstream popularity, they have retained their dedicated cult following and continue to sell-out tours and festivals year after year, playing to the same crowds of rebellious teens as they did in the late nineties. Fortunately, success has not gone to their heads; they’ve never taken themselves as seriously as other bands of their ilk, rocking side burns and floral shirts well into their forties and playing with the same energy and enthusiasm that first helped make their name. On the other hand, one should not be under the illusion that the Californian six piece don’t take what they’re doing very, very seriously: “We have a lot of fun on stage and goof around, and we do make fun music which a lot of time has humour in it, but I wouldn’t say that we don’t take ourselves seriously. We’re all professional musicians and we take great pride in writing good songs. We always want to put on the best live performance we can and entertain our fans and giving them a great show and great records to listen to. In a way, we take ourselves and what we do very seriously.” Having dedicated twenty years of their lives to goofing around, and playing wacky punk rock, their dedication seems pretty appropriate. “I am a total weirdo; I don’t do anything besides music. I have no hobbies, no other interests, and I don’t do anything
Reel Big Fish else but listen to music and write music and play music”, says frontman Aaron Bennett, showing his completely obvious dedication to the craft. Nowhere is this dedication more evident than when speaking about the sometimes forgotten, always irresistably energetic Ska. “I just loved the horns and the bouncy rhythms that make your body move and jump. And with Ska-punk a lot of the stuff I first fell in love with was just so joyous and fun, and sometimes so silly and funny I really liked that. But even the old, more soulful stuff I love too: so I don’t know, I just love Ska in its many forms and I really don’t know why, it just hits me in the right spot.” But it’s not just Ska that fills the places in their musical heritage with the band citing hard rock bands such as Poison, AC/DC, Led Zepplin and Van Halen alongside hard core acts like Rancid among their many influences. As much as these stars haven’t faded, Reel Big Fish are adamant that they’re as big as they ever were, underplaying their brief foray into the American musical mainstream, “I think some people have this idea that we were “once famous” and now our “popularity has waned” but that’s just not the way it happened at all. In the USA we had a moderately successful single on the radio in 1997 and then were in a movie in 1998 that helped us to get to a certain level there. But we’re still at that level. Still playing the same sized venues now as we did in the 90’s and in some areas even bigger ones because we constantly tour and play colleges and festivals. These days, we get more and more new fans all the time so you
could say that we’re more popular now than we ever were. In fact, more people know of our band than ever. Their increased age is another issue that leaves them completely unfazed, “As far as growing up and growing older, it’s not much different now than it’s ever been, I still get up on stage and have the time of my life up there every night. I love making people dance and sing and I really feel the same as I ever have, especially on stage.” I get a very strong sense of a band that is moving forward, rather than a nostalgia act, “We continue to play new countries and go to new places all the time and get new fans.” Their best known hit ‘Sell Out’ is a song that, despite it being on repeat for the last 17 years, is one they have a very healthy relationship with: “I’m very glad I wrote ‘Sell Out.’ That song helped us get our music out to a whole lot of people all over the world and that is something we definitely wanted to do; share our music with as many people as possible. Also it was funny having a big hit on major radio and MTV promoted by a major label called ‘Sell Out’. But I wouldn’t say we are only known for that song, our songs ‘Beer’ and our cover of ‘Take on Me’ from the movie Basketball are far more popular and remembered than ‘Sell Out’. Those songs and that movie have made our band much more well-known and gotten our music to more people around the world.” In an ever changing music industry, with major labels floundering, Reel Big Fish are in an excellent position: “For us, we’ve kind of always been on the outside of that; we never really sold a lot of records so we never saw much money, if any from record
sales. All the money we’ve made has always come from the concert tickets our fans buy and the T-shirts, that’s what we survive on. So as far as music piracy, I have the same attitude about that as I had in the 90’s about the fact that all the money that came in from our record sales went straight to the record label.” Regardless of such cynicism, on the industry as a whole they feel hopeful. “I think the music business will continue to evolve as it has the last 15 years, especially the major labels will continue to find new, creative ways to make money off of their artists as they always have.” But obviously for a band like this money doesn’t really seem to be a motivator, “As long as our music is out there, being listened to and enjoyed by people then I’m happy. “ Reel Big Fish are a band doing what they love for an audience that very much loves what they’re doing. In a scene that is filled with here today and gone tomorrow acts Reel Big Fish are reassuring sign of longevity, and a confirmation that bands can do what they want and succeed without having to pander to current trends. I ask them the reason they have maintained such a loyal fan base over all these years: “I’d like to think we have such a loyal, fanatical cult following because we’re such a good band that has amazing songs and is extremely entertaining to see play live over and over again. But it could just be the subliminal messages in our music that turns people into RBF loving zombies.” They seem well aware of the reasons for their own success, and so am I. After all, if you’re fundamental enough in music to have your own acronym, you’re doing pretty well.
“As far as growing up and growing older, it’s not much different now than it’s ever been. I still get up on stage and have the time of my life up there every night”
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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT
FIL Kick-Ass
Con Air Family Man
National Treasure Outcast World Trade Center
City of Angels
Nicolas Cage career-o-graph
2002
2004
2006
2010
The Excess of Hollywood Film Remakes
2012
Charlie Benson and Callum Dziedzic remain unconvinced by the persistence of movie re-
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lmost everything we see these days is a remake, basically - a quote which, fresh from the lips of a flatmate who overheard our debate on the subject of film remakes, is a slight exaggeration. However, it does well to epitomise the excessiveness with which Hollywood recycles old ideas for new profit. The origins of this trend can be traced back to The Great Train Robbery. First produced in 1903, it is considered to be a masterpiece by both historians and critics alike, for its innovative editing and (at the time) sophisticated special effects. Despite this, it was re-shot only seven months after its initial creation, ushering in the first ever remake in motion picture history. So, when we fast forward from 1904 to the present day, remakes are now big Hollywood business, but why is there such an obsession with this continual renovation? And when will they learn to leave well enough alone? Johnny Depp’s vast following was utilised by Tim Burton to ensure success for his re-
makes, alongside his tapping into the fame of the original films - reviving old classics for new audiences. Not only do Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland contribute to the excessive number of old movie remakes, but the films themselves are more excessive than their original counterparts. If we compare the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with the 2005 version, it is overtly clear that the remake had a much more substantial budget. This allowed for the realisation of Burton’s larger than life vision through the use of elaborate set design, unrealistically
increased saturation and intense CGI. In some instances the remake can become merely a modern day carbon copy of its original. Take Psycho for example, Hitchcock’s renowned masterpiece first produced in 1960 was later imitated, word for word and shot for shot, by Gus Van Sant in 1998. The latter offers a prime example of how the remake can become superfluous and excessive. Yes, Van Sant wanted to pay homage to Hitchcock’s work, but doing little more than shooting in colour and replacing the actors with contemporary equivalents did nothing for the film or its legacy.
Let’s not shy away from the fact that, whilst remakes may be lazy and unimaginative, they are efficient. They are important in Hollywood because of their ease of production and the subsequent ability they have to funnel money from audiences into the pockets of studio executives. Now, that may sound cynical, but remakes do at least allow studios to use this profit to take larger risks on more original projects. And, of course, this does happen. Box-office and award season sensation, Gravity, demonstrates this with an entirely new approach to the sci-fi genre, showing that not everything you’re looking forward to seeing at the cinema is a remake. But with even beloved classics such as Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty being reimagined into the forthcoming Maleficent, and plans for a retelling of Cinderella set for 2015, the abundance of remakes doesn’t look set to subside any time soon. Looks like we’ve been there, done that, and are going to continue doing it all over again for the foreseeable future.
Matt Durrant looks at 5 of the most expensive films of all time:
Harry Potter
How could we include a film list without mentioning Harry Potter? More specifically, the Half-Blood Prince. Yes, the sixth instalment featuring our favourite witches and wizards blew its budget more dramatically than Avada Kedavra blew Dumbledore off the tower. Next time you watch it, sit back and relax and enjoy the picture that cost $256 million.
Tangled
Tangled. The floating lanterns say it all really. There are good songs, talking horses (what Disney movie would be complete without a talking animal?) plus special effects, CGI and enough colours to cover a canvas on Big Ben. All in all, it came to a total cost of $274 million. Yeah, you did read that right.
Spider-man 3
After researching the CGI needed for Spiderman 3, it is no surprise that this actionpacked blockbuster directed by Sam Raimi made it into the top 5. It sees a struggle between Tony Maguire and his black spidey counterpart, who crashes like a meteor on the Earth. It also has the villain Sandman. Just for this villain, there were more visual effects shots than days in a year. Actually make that 2 ½ years. Was it worth it at $286 million? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Titanic Pirates of the Caribbean
Titanic. Ah, Titanic. That tear-jerking, jaw-dropping, doomed romance played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio. Basically, it’s a ship hitting an iceberg. Which is tragic. Just like the budget required to make it. $286 million. I’m sure they could have done it with half of the money. Still, it’s one of the most successful films of all time and the 2nd highest grossing film ever. You can’t mess with that. By far the most expensive film ever made has to be Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Costing more than $300 million, this singly outswept the entire budget for Lord of the Rings. And that is no easy feat. I find this surprising when films such as Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Man of Steel require special effects beyond belief. But the pirate battle to end all battles on the high seas, and an underwater journey to the end of the world wasn’t likely to be cheap. Ticket sales? $1 billion.
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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT
REVIEWS Dallas Buyers Club D
ALLAS BUYERS CLUB is ultimately the story of one man finding redemption against the odds. Based on a true story, it follows Ron Woodroof (played by Matthew McConaughey), a homophobic electrician, as he fights to prolong his life after he is diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live. So far, it seems a fairly conventional story, perfect for Oscars season, when films about the AIDS crisis always seem to get a nod in their direction. The film itself is told in a fairly conventional way, beginning by showing Woodroof in his element – at a rodeo, placing bets and sleeping with copious women. His life is quickly thrown into turmoil as an accident at work sends him to hospital where he is diagnosed with HIV and given a month to live. After a brief period of denial, he heads to Mexico to find treatment not licensed by the FDA in America and ends up forming the ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ to give medi-
cine to other sufferers of the disease. During this time he also forms a friendship with Rayon, a transsexual (played by Jared Leto), and his doctor Eve (Jennifer Gar ner) and ultimately learns how to be a more accepting person. With a plot like this, this film could all too easily end up being just another saccharine tale of redemption and fighting in the face of adversity. Yet, it is under the careful direction of Canadian director JeanMarc Vallée that this film manages
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takes on the physical and mental challenges that his role in Dallas Buyers Club demands with gusto, putting his all into the task and bringing a subtle charm to the character of Woodroof. Leto’s abilities as an actor should be praised too – despite criticism from the trans community for casting a cisgender male as a transsexual, Leto’s brilliant portrayal of softly-spoken Rayon serves as a contrast to the hardness of Woodroof, and is outstanding in its own right. Whilst it is practically guaranteed to succeed at this year’s Oscars, it seems to me that Dallas Buyers Club will be remembered and celebrated long after the awards ceremony, for its stellar cast and fantastic directing. Despite the snub from the British Academy, Leto is tipped for Oscar glory, and McConaughey’s acting career will surely only go from strength to strength after this career-changing performance. With this film, Vallée has taken a topic that, whilst many may shy away from, others would be tempted to create an emotional, almost cheesy film from - and turned it into a work of art that will stand the test of time. Rachel Seymour
An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty
Robocop LEX MURPHY (Joel Kinnaman ) is a cop - a bloody good one at that - but unfortunately he gets blown up and what’s left of him is encased in metal. Lo, he becomes Robocop: a cybernetic force of good who kicks ass and eats bad guys for breakfast. Therein lies the basic premise of both the original and new Robocop, and in the case of Paul Verhoevens schlocky Eighties classic, a razor sharp rumination on themes as varied as political corruption, authoritarianism and human nature; chock-full of satire, wonderfully gory action and, most importantly, oodles of fun. Although this new reimagining does touch base with all the above, it never quite comes close to mathching it in any meaningful way, let alone surpassing it. But, after a spree of awful and pointless remakes recently (Total Recall, anyone?), Robocop is actually, when all is said and done, not bad at all. Much like the central character himself, Robocop (2014) is a well put together, glossy bit of kit; but ultimately you have to question how much free will director José Padilha actually had in its genesis, and how much of its DNA was imposed by the suited bods in the office upstairs. Narratively it’s smart and snappy and it can’t be denied that much thought has clearly gone into the story, which deviates from the original in some new and interesting ways. Likewise, it looks great, with top level effects and shiny cinematography making it consistently entertaining to watch. However, tonally it veers
to take what could easily be an over-the-top, over-played and over-acted film and imbue it with a highly welcome sense of dryness and stoicism. Scenes that a lesser director might be tempted to make highly emotive, Vallée underplays, allowing the nuanced acting and emotive script to shine through. It is through this that small moments throughout the film become so emotionally charged. When Woodroof and his companion Rayon are in the supermarket and meet one of Ron’s old (homophobic) friends, the look in Rayon’s eyes when Ron stands up for him is both beautiful and telling. Moments like this in any other film may be passed by, but in Dallas Buyers Club, they are all the viewer has. Matthew McConaughey has been highly praised for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, and rightly so. Having already won the Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor, and hotly tipped to take home an Oscar too, his role in this film is a far cry from his days as Hollywood’s go-to man for romantic comedies like How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and The Wedding Planner. McConaughey
wildly and that’s where the main problems appear. Specifically, it often seems like the filmmakers couldn’t decide what they wanted the film to be, so they just crammed all the ideas in there for good measure: one minute it’s soft and mournful, next it’s all whizz bang spectacle, then a bit of hamhanded political satire for luck. Although it’s hard to fault the intent, the sometimes sharp philosophical musings just don’t sit well with the loud, often forgettable action and are often undermined by it. Likewise, the strange decision to use the original theme music is very distracting and feels like it’s trying to remind you of the original, rather than give the new film something of its own. That being said, Padilha has assembled a great cast here and they all make a good effort with the material they’re given. A particular tip of the hat must go to Michael Keaton as the dodgy CEO with the lion’s share of the decent lines, and his partner, Gary Oldman, who shares most of the screen time with Keaton as the good-egg Doctor. Both light up the screen, and it’s easy to imagine that the film would be half of what it is without their efforts. Likewise, Samuel L. Jackson is a pleasure to watch in his small role, hamming it up as a Rush Limbaugh-like political commentator. So it’s a fairly entertaining movie then, mostly elevated by some good performances and slick gloss, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that it could have been so much more if only they’d just let it be a little more... human.
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WENT INTO this film believing myself to be about to witness an interesting and thought-provoking semi-animated, art-house dissection of a relationship. It even has Jay Z down as a producer, which I thought could only bode well. How wrong I was. What I instead got was one and half hours of arrogant, self- indulgent ‘interesting’ camera shots with so little emotional depth that it made Mean Girls look like The Seventh Seal. Before the opening credits had even finished rolling I had lost interest and by a minute in I had a headache due to all the edgy, shaky camera work. Terence Nance, (director, writer, actor and subject) may have successfully experimented with standard narrative structure and content, but failed to create a piece which was remotely engaging, or indeed anything which was not therefore to inflate what already seems to be an overly large ego. Despite premiering at Sundance Festival two years ago, An Oversimplification of her Beauty has taken the past two years to trickle down into British cinemas. The film loosely tells the story of Terence Nance’s attempt to turn a platonic relationship into a romantic one. After meeting and becoming attached to a girl who does not reciprocate his feelings he makes a short film about the two of them, and then shows her it. Then he makes an even longer film about what happened after he showed her said film. The first film in question is entitled How Would You Feel and is intercut with the main feature,
which reaches into his past failed relationships, presumably to bulk out what is a very stretched tale. The film makes an interesting attempt to use different narrative devices including animation, and semidocumentary footage to tell its story, clearly attempting at something bold. In many ways, the film is very revealing - its realist documentary style aspects portray the reality of the situation, whilst at the same time being juxtaposed with the inner fantasy of its animation. It is certainly true that the animation at times looked very nice, despite confusion about what it was depicting. Overall the continual changing of styles, and indeed story, meant that there was never enough focus in one area to become attached to. It merely left me confused and disinterested. The long, dreamlike animated sequences are used only as another chance for Nance to shove his inner turmoil down our throats. In the realist sections, the only screen time given to actual human interaction with the girl in question, free from the droning voice of the narrator, is a Q and A conducted by, you guessed it, Terence Nance himself. This film could have been trying to say something real, but whatever that was, it was never made clear to me. In the end it was a pretentious, self-indulgent mirage of a film. Just naming a list of ‘emotions’ in their semantic form will not make me feel them, and despite the very long list, they failed to read out the one which summed up how I felt while watching this film; bored. Zoe Bennell
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urrounded by the pastel dusted throng of the Mumbai sprawl and heavily sarcastic quote marks, “The Greenest of All Buildings” has recently been unveiled. At 27 stories high, covering 398,000 square feet and costing $1 billion, The Antilla is by most accounts the biggest and most expensive family home ever built. The obtuse, iron-girder clad building boasts a health club, ballroom and 50 seater cinema in a parade of excess unrivalled beyond the pages of A Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Ignoring the aesthetic qualities of the 568 foot tower, qualities that amount to little more than aggressively rectangular, it is an unquestionable marvel. By taking the notion that bigger is better to its logical extreme, the Ambani family have sent a quiver of adoration through anyone who has ever played Sim City, planned an extension or looked disconcertedly below their midriff. The problem with the project is not a lack of content or sense of wonderment, but the inevitable unease that accompanies them. Whether this unease stems from a climate change wary mind, a culture passingly concerned with wealth inequality or just sheer jealously, appreciating the Antilla in an unmoderated way is near impossible. The same holds true for Olympic opening ceremonies, space exploration and River Seven hydro-electric blueprints- they’re cool, but a fuck lot of fish are going to die. Even if having an ethical code isn’t your thing, displays of excess can still be turn off. In 2009 Skinners’ School Year 10 went on a trip to St Petersburg. In between thinking going to strip clubs was cool, making friends with a lazy eyed boy called Petr and smoking cheap Russian cigs, we went to the Hermitage. Founded by Katherine the Great, everything about the 18th century art gallery is immense. It’s the biggest depository of paintings in the world, has over 3 million items in its permanent collection and is the proud owner of the biggest cannon ever built- built but disappointingly not fired. Considering how most of us could barely sit through an episode of the Culture Show, our enthusiasm for the world’s biggest and therefore most time consuming museum may have been a little misguided. Such enthusiasm was as good as non-existent 20 minutes into our 4 hour sejourn having already seen the world’s first, second and third biggest vases. Putting aside the lack of curatory narrative apparent in a floor plan that started with the first, the message we took away from the Hermitage is that you can have too much of a good thing. For those who don’t have enough time to regularly wash bad tastes out of their mouth or lack the peripheral vision necessary to take in the 4 million square foot Andoscape ‘The Stockman’, the physically and financially small may be the answer. For one, the underplayed-at-first-glance present the opportunity for a far more engaging experience than the overwhelmingly-in-your-face. This is nowhere more apparent than in the work of photographer and sculptor Slinkachu. Starting his ‘Little People Project’ in 2006, Slinkachu adds a dash of unexpected colour and humour to London streets on a miniature scale. The works consist of self-painted model railway people interacting with the physical, often grim landscapes as Slinkachu finds them. Whether this is a skateboarder riding a peeled satsuma skin or an unhappy superhero resting on the lip of a can of Carlsberg, the compositions are beguiling both in their ingenuity and unexpected presence. Hauling yourself through the motions of the daily grind, it
MILO BOYD and RACHEL SEYMOUR is not hard to understand the life affirming moment spotting a Slinkachu original most supply- an unobtrusive touch of joy in an otherwise drained environment. It is not merely the frame breaking element of surprise that renders small artworks a valid alternative to the bold and brash. There’s something intimate and personal about spotting one of Slinkachu’s creations. Gone is the art gallery shoulder rubbing, collective tilting of the head and in its place arrives a midstreet, self-conscious free crane downwards. Such is its reduced scale, interacting with these clever little creatures is necessarily a one man show. In such situations interaction is the operative word. For every 1000 people that walk past oblivious ten will spot the work; of these ten, maybe one will engage. Unlike the spatially dominating other end of the scale, simply viewing a Slinkachu is an achievement in itself. As well as holding true for Slinkachu’s contemporaries Pablo Delgado and Marcus Crocker, the formula of the less the content the more potential for return applies to music. Despite distancing himself from the minimalist music movement and instead opting for the descriptor ‘music with repetitive structure’, Phillip Glass is recognised as an innovator of aural sparsity. Equipped with a classical education and taking inspiration from Mozart and Bach, Glass takes reduction to its limit with pieces like ‘Strung Out’ and ‘Music in the Shape of a Square’; the latter piece hinting at the visceral manner by which the music can almost physically fill a space. For Glass such a space was a Soho loft gallery he occupied throughout the ‘70s with former student and far out minimalist giant Steve Reich. Although works in the vein of Reich’s clapping music are unlikely to make an appearance on the chart show, once the initial fury of unresolved crescendos abates and a fair amount of loosening up is achieved the rhythmic pulse of minimalism becomes irresistible. The silence that lies at the heart of this genre is one that has the potential to speaks volumes. Sandwiched between an episode of Skins and Clearisil adverts, The XX shone a spotlight onto their first album with 30 seconds of complete silence and an unwavering white cross. In the ocean of noise swollen by the horn laden, painfully incessant Inception soundtrack, the deep space tranquillity of 2001: A Space Odyssey harnesses the same power as The XX’s unexpected statement. There is nothing quite as terrifying as a man cast adrift, floating helplessly against a backdrop of inky blackness and silence only punctuated by his frantic, shallow breaths. Although music is clearly an integral part of the movie experience and has the power to emotionally sway the audience, this does not mean chucking a wad of Danny Elfman over a lingering shot of Ryan Gosling’s smug fucking face counts as good film making. It is this which lies at the heart of the lessis-more mantra. The bold and brash certainly have the power to impress but all too often are employed to divert attention away from a lack of quality. This beame startingly apparent with the recent re-rise of 3D cinema, it’s broad critical panning and the success of quiet, underplayed masterpieces like The Artist. There is simply nowhere to hide once colour, sound and explosion count are stripped away and as a result merit is far easier to determine. Add this to the rewarding challenge of embracing the small and minimalist and you have strong case against the excessive. Milo Boyd
Antilia, Mumbai
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R lend a discerning eye to cultural excess Notre Paris
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he saying goes: you can never have too much of a good thing. And in the case of the arts, I think this is absolutely true. Excess has always been an integral part of art and culture – just look at the grandiose scale of York Minster or even the epic nature of the Lord of the Rings films. There is something amazing and awe-inspiring about a vision created on such a large scale, and it is testament to the power of man that such monumental works of art can be made. Films have always been a source of escapism. The very act of going to the cinema is a way of getting away from the dreary nature of your everyday existence and living vicariously through another person for a couple of hours – whether they are a hobbit traversing Middle Earth, or simply a girl looking at a boy and asking him to love her. No matter what sort of film you end up watching, the process is always the same: you enter a darkened room and completely submit to the emotions and feelings of a character on screen, essentially living in a fantasy until the credits roll. In many ways, the more excessively different a film is to everyday life, the more easily you are able to feel a sense of escapism. Baz Luhrmann’s films, from Moulin Rouge! to Romeo + Juliet, can be considered in many ways as highly stylised works of art. In fact, they are arguably so stylised and over-the-top that all the time you are watching them you cannot help but be aware of the fact that you are watching a work of fiction. However, Luhrmann has always been adamant that this awareness of what you are watching as a constructed reality doesn’t detract from the pleasure of viewing his work, as films in general are simply the dreams of those watching and creating the film, projected onto a cinema screen. Moulin Rouge!, which is the third film in Luhrmann’s ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’, can be seen as epitomizing this notion of ‘projected dreams’. The main character, Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) travels from London to Paris in 1899 in order to pursue his dream of becoming a writer and learning all about the bohemian ideals of ‘freedom, beauty, truth and love’. In doing so, he falls in love with the beautiful and unattainable courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) who is terminally ill with tuberculosis. The first half of the film is filled with riotous comedy, epic sets and loud music, all of which combine together to give the viewer an intense sense of excess (in the best way possible). In the second half of the film, the same level of excess can be seen throughout, but now it is tinged with sadness as Christian realises his life is about to fall apart. Even the owner of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler (brilliantly portrayed by Jim Broadbent) succumbs to the perils of excessive excess by the end of the film, as his beloved club has fallen to ruin after being converted into a theatre. Yet whilst the fate of the characters within Moulin Rouge! may seem to warn against a life of excess, the film itself harks back to a tradition which one would be hard pressed to describe as anything other than excessive – the opera. Opera can not only be classified as excessive due to the over-the-top nature of most of the performances and the sheer length of many of the productions, but also due to opera’s status as an art form traditionally reserved for the upper classes and those who have excessive amounts of money. Luhrmann’s film can be seen as an adaptation of La Traviata, Verdi’s celebrated opera, and the director himself has stated that he drew inspiration for the film from the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. These links between Luhrmann’s film and the tradition of excess within theatre are
what cements his distinct filmic style as one that characterises the nature of cinema and escapist fantasy in general. But it is not just cinema that is capable of creating a feeling of escapism – architecture throughout history has sought to create a sense of wonderment and awe, particularly when creating a building that is designed to stand the test of time (typically this means either a cathedral or a grand family home). When standing in front of a building such as the Notre Dame in Paris, you would be hard pressed to describe the building as anything other than excessive. It is well known as one of the largest church buildings on the world, and its application of French Gothic architectural elements only heighten the feeling of excess. The whole structure is designed to give a sense of the sublime – the feeling you get when you are confronted by a structure that reminds you of your own mortality and insignificance. In nature, this is usually felt when you come into contact with a huge waterfall or a mountain; in architecture, this effect is usually achieved through the creation of epic structures such as the Notre Dame. It is important to remember when confronted with epic architecture like the Notre Dame, or even York Minster, the sheer amount of time and money that went into creating a structure such as this. Whilst it may be excessive in the sense that whilst buildings like this were being created for outrageous sums of money, hundreds of thousands of peasants were likely starving to death, there is also something admirable about the person who commissioned the cathedral to be built knowing that it will never be finished within his lifetime, or even his children’s lifetimes. The Notre Dame took over 150 years to be fully completed, yet it is still seen today as an icon of Paris, with many tourists flocking to see it each year. In a way, architecture such as this is designed to be seen as the legacy of those who commissioned and created it (and in many ways, it is). Whilst it is clear that works of art constructed on a grand scale are admirable and worthy of praise, it is also possible to criticise them for being excessive displays of wealth and power in a time when the disparity between the richest and poorest members of society is only widening. Clearly, when architectural structures such as the Notre Dame were being constructed in the middle ages, they were designed to be seen as a homage to God and his infinite power. Nowadays, buildings like the Antilia in Mumbai (the most expensive private home in the world) are designed simply as a show of wealth, rather than for a larger purpose. It is particularly horrific when considering the fact that this $1 billion home overlooks the sprawling slums of Mumbai, literally rubbing their wealth in the faces of people who have nothing. This, however, I would argue is not art on any level, it is merely a grotesque waste of money, time and resources. Art should benefit the wider community on some level, whether that is in a museum, in the cinema or just by walking down the street. Whether you agree with me about the nature of art or not, it is fair to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a little excess in art, whether it is creating a visual spectacular in the form of an epic film, or a giant cathedral that inspires awe whenever you see the scale of it. If you’ve ever left a cinema screening wishing that you could live in a world as full of glitz and glamour as the one on screen, then you agree (at least partially) that bigger is normally better, at least in the case of art and culture. Rachel Seymour
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TELEVISION THE NEXT EPISODE REALITY NO ZENA JARJIS looks at the effect of binge-watching on our viewing experience... With 1.5 million people in the UK subscribing to Netflix and even more subscribing to LoveFilm, the way we watch television is undoubtedly changing. The ability to record live TV and to catch up on online platforms like SkyGo and 4OD mean that shows are rarely watched in real time, and we can watch these shows in excess, always just a click away from finding out the outcome of a cliffhanger. As we are moving away from traditional viewing, is a culture of binge-watching emerging? Binge-watching is a relatively new phenomenon. The term made it onto the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2013 Words Of The Year list, where it was described as having recently “come into its own with the advent of on-demand viewing and online streaming”. Although people have been marathoning shows since the 1990s, when DVD box sets became popular, its recent rise in popularity can be attributed to shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. For onlineexclusive shows like these, entire seasons are made available all in one go, meaning that there is nothing stopping you from
watching episode after episode. Tech Radar warns that marathoning could turn us into “a bunch of spoilt Veruca Salts”, and that it is “lessening our appreciation and dumbing down our cultural and emotional responses”. Watching in excess changes the experience of TV completely. End-of-episode cliffhangers are rendered meaningless without an agonising week-long wait before the next episode. Without the wait, marathons of serialised shows feel more like watching a long film than a television series. Television viewers have always been impatient, and online platforms like Netflix just allow us to have the instant gratification we’ve always wanted. When it comes to serialised dramas, the days of tense cliffhangers are probably behind us. Shows like House of Cards are designed to leave us wanting more, and now we can finally have more. However, not all shows lend them-
selves to binge-watching. Netflix does mean that we are losing the suspense of serialised shows like Breaking Bad, but the experience of watching sitcoms or reality TV shows hasn’t really changed at all. No one watches shows like The Office or Arrested Development for suspensefilled plot lines; most viewers are just in it for the laughs. Our experience of drama shows has changed, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but shows designed for more casual viewing have been unaffected by our culture of binge-watching.
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST Spoiler alert! ZENA JARJIS and KATIE THOMAS look at the most excessive TV deaths...
Freddie- Skins The finale of season four of Skins shocked us with the death of Freddie McClair, who is brutally beaten by love interest Effy’s counselor John Foster. A favoured character of the show, viewers were left reeling after Freddie is attacked with a baseball bat. Blood splattering against a window told us we wouldn’t be seeing Freddie again.
Edie- Desperate Housewives Desperate Housewives has had its fair share of ridiculous deaths, but Edie Britts is particularly memorable. After swerving whilst driving to avoid hitting another character, she crashes into a utility pole - a puddle of water below the pole is electrified by the leakage, Edie is electrocuted and that’s the last we ever see of her.
Michael- Prison Break When his convoluted plan to break his wife, Sarah, out of prison goes wrong, Michael realises that the only way to escape is to create a power surge, and to create the surge, Michael has to die. His final heroic action sees him blow himself up as Sarah flees the prison. But a twist ending reveals the true reason for Michael’s sacrifice: a brain tumour meant that he would only have a few weeks to live anyway.
Nikki & Paulo- Lost When the producers of Lost realised that viewers hated Nikki and Paulo, they were quick to axe the couple. Nikki and Paulo are bitten by spiders whose venom causes paralysis. The other characters, not realising the effect of the spiders’ venom, mistake this paralysis for death. Nikki and Paulo are buried alive, completely aware of what is happening to them but unable to do anything about it.
Vision counts down the four most tenuous reality shows to grace our screens...
1. The Nightclub Toilet The mysterious world of the nightclub toilet is not something we feel the need to witness on television.
2. Up All Night: The Minicab Office
The events that take place in a minicab office on a Friday night do not make for riveting viewing.
3. The Fried Chicken Shop There’s only so much that can happen in a fried chicken shop...
4. The Littlest Groom
Everything about this is wrong. How can grooms below a certain height be a good premise for a television show?
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TWEET US: @YORKVISIONTV
ZENA JARJIS and KATIE THOMAS look at the best shows on TV right now...
The Bridge
Catch the first season of the Scandinavian crime drama on Netflix. If you’re able to keep up with the subtitles you’ll constantly be on the edge of your seat. Investigator Saga Noren and detective Martin Rhode make an endearing and likeable pair and each episode is packed with unexpected twists. You wil be frequently suprised and never able to predict what will happen next...
The Restaurant Man
A must see for everyone, the new season involves restaurant connoisseur Russell Norman sharing his expertise with first time restauranteurs. It’s really quite interesting to follow the individuals’ journey into the extremely competative restaurant field with Russell as their guide - with 50/50 odds of failure, how will they succeed?
Looking
The first season of American comedy-drama Looking is currently airing on Sky Atlantic. The show follows a group of gay men living in San Francisco and has received critical acclaim for its sensitive portrayal and defiance of stereotypes. Looking is funny, moving, and perfect for anyone still mourning Entourage and Sex and the City.
House of Cards
Season two of Netflix’s addictive political drama is now available to watch online. The first season saw Kevin Spacey’s character, Francis, scheme with his wife to get revenge after he isn’t appointed Secretary of State. The second season is expected to be just as tense and gripping as the first as should not be missed.
LOVE OR HATE?
KATIE THOMAS & ALEX RADFORD evaluate the TV series SUN, SEX & SUSPICIOUS PARENTS...
We know what to expect by now: teenagers off on their first mates holiday, excited for a booze filled adventure in a tacky foreign nightspot and unknown to them, they’re closely followed by their parents. What follows are the alcohol induced escapades of a group of ‘lads’ on a night out, which usually results in a weeping mother, shocked by the side of her son never seen before and a tight lipped yet secretly smug father, when forced to comment muttering “I was the same at his age”. The nature of the show is a little monotonous, but it at least makes for an entertaining hour of television. There’s certainly comedic value in the teens actions and although we’re maybe laughing for the wrong reasons, it’s amusing to see how ‘ladies man Steve’ or ‘lightweight Hannah’ attempt to live up to their nicknames. Another particularly entertaining trait to the programme is watching the holiday goers attempt to ‘pull’. In a more recent episode, we saw a group of Sussex boys doing everything in their power when away in Thailand to ‘bang some sluts’ and were, instead, met by continuous rejection. I couldn’t help but feel smug witnessing their defeat after the boys had spent the initial twenty minutes of the show bragging about their unfailing talents with women. Watching drunken youths making fools of themselves under the watchful eyes of their parents is always going to make a good TV show and with holiday locations varying from the French Alps to Thailand, the premise of the show is unlikely to become stale. Katie Thomas
Reality TV in all its supreme triteness only becomes really good when it either embraces its inherent vapidity or elevates itself above that and becomes genuinely uplifting. The former is exemplified by the amassing train wreck that is Jerry Springer while the latter by the heart-warming Educating Yorkshire. Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, however, attempts to do both these things and ultimately fails to do either very well. Each episode opens with various scenes of alcohol sodden teenagers enjoying the carnal escapades that the party islands have to offer. Then we are presented with a set of introductory videos designed to get us to mentally categorise the various teens on screen in to some negative reality TV stereotype, including the bitchy one, the slutty one, the stupid one and the innocent one. So far so appropriately vacuous: the basic building blocks of good crap reality TV have been laid. The show then performs a U-turn and proceeds to try and turn itself into a touching expose of the relationship between parent and child. It becomes blatantly apparent when the show presents parents cooing over the moral worth of their child as he drunkenly holds the head of his friend back to prevent him from choking on the various fluids he is spewing, seemingly from every orifice, is supposed to be an example of emotionally riveting television. Reality TV of this sort only really entertains if they revel in their disastrously nihilistic nature and Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents attempt to transcend this simply falls flat. Alex Radford
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BOOKS Sex, Drugs ‘n’ Bankrolls
WHAT’S ON MY KINDLE...
STEPHEN HARPER @ActuallySHarper
AMERICA UNCHAINED (Dave Gorman)
America Unchained follows Dave Gorman’s attempt to travel from Coast to Coast America without giving any money to “The Man”. Gorman’s storytelling is infectious and the reader becomes incredibly invested in the adventure, with myself feeling genuinely scared for events that had happened years ago. Gorman’s book is full of witty footnotes, annotations and disclaimers that keep the reader entertained, and a beautiful selection of colour photos help add to the visualisation of his wonderful journey. Warning, don’t read if you love “The Man”.
A LONG TIME SLEEPING (Michael Sinclair)
Michael Sinclair’s historical what-if paints a scary vision of ‘70s Britain. It follows the life of our charming protagonist, a London based Diplomat, as he uncovers threads that point to a terrible plot. A mixture of Nazis who escaped Allied Justice, those on Hitler’s ‘White-list’, and a notebook of high ranking British officials who the Nazis would collaborate upon invasions, are trying to get one of their own elected into the most powerful room – The Oval Office.
THE IMMORTALS (Paul Stewart / Chris Riddell) Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell were responsible for most of the fiction of my childhood. Their trilogy of trilogies follows the life of a Father, a Son and a Grandson in an evolving world full of magic and wonder, The Edge. The Immortals is set many years after the death of the Grandson in a world that is very different. The Edge is going through its own industrial revolution, and events we lived through via the original trilogies are misremembered much to the readers chagrin. If you had any experience of the Edge Chronicles as a child, this epic forms the perfect closure for your wondering mind.
Maddi Howell discusses the indulgence of dipping into Jordan Belfort’s autobiography...
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o discussion of excess would be complete without recourse to that den of capitalist consumption, Wall Street. You are introduced through gateway stockbroker highs into his wanton world. There are references to gold Rolexes, the sale of Microsoft stocks, Absolut martinis... but before long, Belfort leads you onto the hard stuff of excess – to cocaine and hookers, helicopters and vast estates, scams and infidelity. When money is cheap, anything goes. There is a distinct conflict between Belfort’s claim to present us with a ‘cautionary tale’ for his kids and his gratuitous glamorising of the Wall Street boardroom. There are moments when Belfort’s infantlike characterisations of himself are frankly hilarious. His anecdotes are comic to the point of audible sniggering. After crashing his helicopter at his estate whilst drugged up on Quaaludes (following a deviant tryst with a hooker named Venice involving a candle) - he is actually surprised to be admonished by his beautiful wife Nadine, as she throws water over him and his thousand-dollar white Chinese silk bedding. His only infant-like fixation, laughably, is to
coerce her back into bed with him for a quick round of make-up sex. Nadine’s sarcasm hits the mark. ‘Let me hear another lie from the man who lies for a living’, she snarls. And yet even then, he seems to get away with it and simply has his maid put the timer on the
sauna and offer to fetch him more drugs. It seems that no matter his excess and nihilistic abandon, Belfort is immune and free from recompense. Before it crashed down around him, Belfort could probably make a thousand
dollars a minute and spend it just as fast. Through this colloquially written memoir, he has made a more than decent living just by bragging about it (and subsequently having himself played on the big screen by DiCaprio). According to Rolling Stone, “you actually feel for the guy”. It’s certainly true that you enter his world of unbridled hedonism through a voice which Belfort professes “helped me corrupt other people – and manipulate them”. But, ultimately, I cannot empathise with his excesses, not without bargaining with some form of moral restraint. For me, the book itself is a giant brag-fest of a selfish man’s exploits. It reeks of Russell Brand-like egocentrism and is reminiscent of Irvine Welsh’s lewd central character in Filth, Ray Lennox. His story smacks of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, the magician who bargained away his soul for mere tricks in a greedy quest for power. Belfort’s success, and his idolization by fellow students at York, is concerning as they graduate with plans to head to the City or make their fortunes in 2014. The eighties are long gone. But this is not to say that it’s not a rollicking good read...
What a Character!
Our very own Angus Quinn gives us his favourite characters of excess...
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f you’re looking for literary excess, Confessions of a Shopaholic’s Becky Bloomwood probably epitomises it. She’s so excessive that she puts herself in perpetual financial peril because she can’t stop shopping. She buys things for the sake of it. It’s not even a case of wanting something: she just does it because it’s there. The most frustrating thing is that she does it in every single book in the Shopaholic series and while you might argue it wouldn’t be true to the name if she wasn’t buying anything, it’d be nice to see some character progression. Instead Becky spends her time maxing out all her credit cards before realising she’s financially fucked up and scrambles to get herself out of the predicament. Guilty of altogether more sinister excess
is Game Of Thrones’ Joffrey Baratheon. The boy’s personality is odious and that’s only exaggerated by the glee with which he greets every gruesome execution and death committed in his name. He takes a particular sadistic pride in his torturing of Sansa Stark throughout her time at Court in King’s Landing. Never has there been such a character in all of literature with such astonishing lack of redeeming qualities. The fact he’s a terrible King only exaggerates how horrific a char-
acter he is. If I were actually sympathetic to him, I’d call him excessively horrible but it’s so easy to hate him that you don’t really care about his lack of positive personality traits. And as for excessively negligent? Look no further than Albus Dumbledore. I know he’s great and lovely and whatever else, but really he’s the worst tactician you’ve ever met. (SPOILER ALERT!) Instead of sitting Harry down and telling him literally everything he’d need to know to kill Voldemort, he decided instead that he’d drink something that was likely poisoned and then let Snape kill him. It may have proved Snape’s loyalty but it robbed everyone of strategic leadership and basically made everything in The Deathly Hallows a million times harder for Harry. For shame Dumbledore, for shame.
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BOOKS Favourite 4: Books of Excess #LitObsession P. D. James? George R. R. Martin? Lee Child? Which writer’s work do you own an excessive amount of?
LILITH KING TAYLOR @KingLilith ZOE BENELL @zbennell
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othing quite beats a novel full of indulgence, parties and drama; if it’s done well. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is in many ways the epitome of excess, and is one of the first novels that springs to mind when you think of glitz and glamour. So if you loved the 1920’s extravagance of Jay Gatsby’s suave soirées, then you’re bound to love these too… What Gatsby did for New York, Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies did the same for London, as an excessive romp filled with the similar tales of drunken parties, car races and intrigue. It was adapted by Stephen Fry for screen as Bright Young Things and embodies the image of wild and frivolous youth. Set slightly later than Gatsby, the threat of war lies just around the corner, which gives the novel the uncanny tone that it’s all about to come crashing down. With a protagonist as passive and deadpan to rival any to come from the mind of Fitzgerald, Vile Bodies is everything you could wish for from a classic British black comedy. Isherwood’s Goodbye To Berlin is set in a similar moment, just before the advent of war. Instead of waiting it out, Isherwood flings himself and the reader into pre-war
avies Tom D s111 avie @tomd Terry
Berlin, to be a part of the last hoorah as Hitler slowly takes over. As the inspiration behind the hit musical Cabaret, the tales of excess and sexual debauchery have entertained people all over the world. The contrast between the hedonistic lifestyle on one hand, and the incoming tyranny beating down their doors on the other, makes for a truly tragic tale. When thinking of stories of debauchery and misdeed, it would be a farce to neglect the only novel published by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When artist Basil Hallward becomes infatuated with a handsome and young Dorian Gray, he proceeds to paint his portrait. Basil’s friend Lord Henry Wotton projects a world view where beauty takes precedence over all else, and Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul in order to ensure his portrait ages instead of himself. A life of immorality, sin and mischief proceeds, with only the painting to remind him of the damage he is doing to his tattered
soul. The novel was seen as thoroughly indecent and was met with outrage, resulting in heavy censorship and editing. If that’s not a novel of excessive narcissism, vanity, extravagance and sin, then I don’t know what is. Now, for something a little less glamorous and a bit (or much) more troubling. Our final pick of a novel of excess is Bret Easton Ellis’ bleak, bitter and frankly disturbing American Psycho. The protagonist is Patrick Bateman, a handsome, intelligent young man and the personification of the American dream. Dripping in designer suits and dining at New York’s finest restaurants, Bateman is living a highly enviable life of luxury on the outside, but a gruesome life of psychotic, cold-blooded murder behind closed doors. American Psycho is a painfully controlled depiction of life on Wall Street from the mind of a psychopath, and truly shows you that a life of excess does not necessarily equate to a life of happiness at all.
New Release: Boxer Handsome TOM DAVIES
@tomdavies111
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’ll be straight with you all. I like my literature like I like my milk; warm and comforting. Now that’s not to say that I don’t find some pretty strange things comforting – A Song of Ice and Fire, for example – but in the end I still prefer my escapism to be into a place which feels better than the world I inhabit, and not the reverse. Boxer Handsome is quite the opposite, then, of my comfort zone. It’s relentlessly gritty, bombarding you with ever more bleak tableaus one after the other until you long for a good colouring book or perhaps a few re-reads of The Very Hungry Caterpillar just to feel clean again. It’s violent, coarse and hard hitting. The books reads like it’s subject matter, landing blow after blow with every page you turn. Whitwham seems to take some glee in the raw descriptiveness of the more unsettling elements of the story. It’s a book which doesn’t know what sugar coating means, which, I’d imagine, is probably deliberately designed to invoke such respons-
es from suburban softies such as myself. The book tells the story of a young boxer, Bobby, whose big fight with a rival gypsy boy becomes a grudge match after he scars him in a street fight with a broken bottle at the book’s outset. The two fight over a girl; the daughter of the gypsy patriarch who has long been at odds with Bobby’s family and the neighbourhood’s non-gypsy Irish community. All of that, however, seems to be largely irrelevant compared to the message which appears to run throughout the book. Whitwham, it seems, seeks to paint a wider picture of themes such as urban decay and community relations in working class London. She shows the world around Bobby as in widespread decline, almost everyone over the age of 30 featured is an alcoholic or otherwise a shadow of what they once were, back in the good old days, back in the boxing days. The book is not what it would initially appear then, which when I offered to review
it I’d assumed would be a kind of romanticised, Guy Ritchie-esque look at the heyday of the East End boxing scene. In fact, it only becomes apparent some way into the book that we aren’t in the 1960s, and that the book is set in the present day, which is important, because it slowly begins to change the perspective as the plot progresses. This isn’t some sort of rose-tinted look back at all; although it still tries its best to put the past on a pedestal. It’s a story of lost community, of how the working class London institution of boxing, seen as a force for good in troubled neighbourhoods has declined with the values it espoused. Bobby is in many ways a relic of the past living in a present where young men such as he no longer follow the codes and edicts that the boxing used to instil a world filled with poverty, anger and austerity. As far as East-End boxing goes, Boxer Handsome seems both an ode, and an obituary. Well, maybe anyway. As I say, I think I’ll stick to Game of Thrones.
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Technology
Top tech tweet of the month: Cnet @Cnet
Feb 16
Woman jailed for not returning VHS of JLo movie 9 years ago cnet. co/1frddqd
Is our use of technology excessive? Budget laptop buyers’ guide
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s the world becomes increasingly connected, one of the chief concerns voiced by a growing number of cynics is that we’ve become far too dependent on the Internet, our devices and technology in general. While we usually laugh these critics off, calling them old-fashioned or behind the times, we rarely stop to truly assess how much merit their claims have. An adverse side effect of using technology is how it is making it increasingly difficult for people to concentrate on what they’re doing. Tapping or clicking a device results in an immediate form of gratification that is absent from books, magazines and newspapers. We want our information and we want it now and unfortunately this doesn’t translate well to reading. Reaching for my phone to check my Facebook or read the news has become second nature to me in a way in which older forms of procrastination like daydreaming never could. While you may abstain from using social networks, your virtual profile (or its absence) will be noticed. This essentially means that when people send you messages or invite you to events, your inactivity is seen as indifference and in some cases, hostility. This phenomenon is what sucks you into this virtual environment against your will. While there are unfortunate side effects to our addiction to technology, we like to think that the utility gained from having access to such a wealth of infor-
mation far outweighs the utility lost. However, when it comes to news and the ways that we accumulate information about the world around us, I can’t help but wonder how useful all this information truly is. I would argue that the knowledge you accumulate about the world around you by reading newspapers such as the FT or the New York Times in an hour is about as useful as the wealth of information you can accumulate from Twitter and Pulse (a Newsfeed app) throughout the day. After a certain point you’re no longer improving your understanding of the world around you; rather you’re soaking in a higher form of gossip. Our obsession with technology has evolved into a cult of information in which we race to stay current and ahead of the times. Did you see what happened to x? Did you hear what y said? Questions like these dominate conversations and further fuel this cult of information. This phenomenon combined with the instant gratification of modern devices makes our minds restless and unable to wind down to appreciate the slower pace of the printed word. We need to slow down and filter our sources well. Quality is far more important than quantity in the information age. We have to make sure that our lives do not revolve around social networks. Lets appreciate devices for what they are but not forget the pleasure of getting lost in a good book. Costas Mourselas
My first recommendation is the Lenovo ThinkPad edge e540 starting at £449.55 from Lenovo’s site. This laptop has a fourth generation i3-4000m dual core processor, the latest Intel hd4600 graphics, a top of the range fast 7200rpm hard drive with 500gb of storage space, a disk drive and a decent 1366x768 matt display. The 7200 rpm hard drive is the real draw here, guaranteeing fast data retrieval that will make your system responsive, smooth and enjoyable to use. The sound system is quite loud and the intel graphics will allow for a smooth movie watching experience. A real all rounder at a low price, the e540 comes highly recommended.
My second recommendation is the Acer Aspire E1-570 at £379.99 from PC World. This laptop has a third generation i33217U processor, 8gb or RAM, a large 1tb hard drive (5400rpm), a disk drive, intel hd 4000 graphics and a below average 1366x768 LED display. This pc is quite a bit slower than the e540 on all counts, the sound system isn’t going to blow you away and the display has worse viewing angles, making it harder for more people to enjoy a movie with you. However, if you have lots of music, movies and games, the terabyte hard drive will be a godsend and the price tag is definitely far more agreeable than the e540. My third recommendation is the Lenovo Flex 14 inch touchscreen ultrabook at £500 from PC World. This laptop has an i3-4010U, 4GB of RAM, a 500 gb hard drive (5400 rpm) as well as an 8gb caching SSD, a 1366x768 touch screen, a whopping 8 hours of battery life and intel hd 4400 graphics. This ultrabook features an 8gb caching SSD which will speed up boot times and load applications and folders very quickly. The flex also has a touch screen that can be flipped by 300 degrees, allowing you to take full advantage of Windows 8’s touch friendly interface. While pricier than my other two recommendations, if you can stomach the cost, this laptop will make for a very portable life companion. Costas Mourselas
Next-gen? Yeah, maybe next time...
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ave you ever been asked “Have you seen this?” or “Have you heard that?”and feel that little bit dumb or ‘out of the loop’ for having not done so? It pains me when I know I haven’t seen Life of Pi or read Harry Potter past the fourth book, because I feel uncultured, even though I like to think I’m a pretty well-rounded individual. In the great console war, I chose my side long ago on Christmas day. Since then, I’ve been dedicated to Sony’s innovative exclusives and mainstream titles, from the original, clunky Playstation to the hightech prowess of the Playstation 3. I made it my mission to delve into as many different genres as I could, from shouting “JAAASOOON” in crowded shopping
malls in Heavy Rain to pummelling thugs and battling throat cancer in inFamous. Yet, all it took was a “You’ve never played Mega Man?” to make me realise that this exclusivity was excluding myself away from the excess of culture that exists across consoles. Certainly, you can’t play every game that’s ever been created, nor would you want to. However, you can only remain so versatile within such a restricted domain. One of my friends is a self-confessed Nintendo fanboy (admittedly, not something many people confess), who would constantly inform me of the latest game that “was much better than your AAA rubbish”. Usually, I would roll my eyes at him. Now, I’m willing to invest in a part
of culture that just hasn’t existed in my life at all. Whether that be Nintendo or the simple ‘indie’ developer, there’s still a vast amount of content that is yet to be explored. So why the need to move onto next-gen? From a developer’s point of view, it’s ‘moving with the times’ as technology advances, products need creating and, let’s face it, the wages aren’t going to pay themselves. For the consumer, are you really unsatisfied with your current console and need to move on? Has the absence of touch-pad controls and speech recognition made you break down crying in the middle of GAME? I didn’t think so. Adrian Horan
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Preview:Unisex
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hen asked about the inspiration for Unisex, Director Tess Humphrey told Vision: “I came up with Unisex because I was having a lot of whispered conversations with friends who needed advice or a sympathetic ear about sex, but felt like they couldn’t talk to anyone because they were worried about gossip and being judged. It seemed bizarre that something as universal and interesting as sex was something so many people felt like they couldn’t talk about.” The upcoming production is scripted entirely of sexual experiences, opinions and anecdotes submitted by anonymous authors: “We’ve got everything from a guy dancing naked to Baby Got Back, to a girl being raped when she was 6”. So, walking into one of the rehearsals for the show was understandably daunting, and you can definitely expect some uncomfortable moments in the play itself – these courageous and self-proclaimed “completely una-
bashed” actors will not be holding back. I was particularly concerned, after very specific mentioning of a diamanté whip, golden syrup and 5 metres of black nylon rope (incidentally, they don’t appear to all feature in the same scene), that the show is highly liable to opening itself up to criticism of it as sleaze. It really isn’t. What immediately struck me was the abundance of kindness, empathy and tact with which these issues are being treated – particularly those hardest to discuss: “We’ve had a lot of submissions about rape. I expected this, but I wasn’t prepared for them to make up about a third of entries, and for all of them to be so harrowingly similar. We had to choreograph how to tell them very carefully, because I felt like we had to tell everyone’s story, but in a way that made them all powerful – I like what we’ve done, I hope the authors think we do them justice.” Ultimately, Tess and her cast have been provided the script and are pretty rigidly sticking to it – using almost every submission received and keeping as close to the original words as possible. This presented
some very interesting challenges in rehearsal, prompting discussion between actors to establish empathy with these anonymous characters. They have nothing to go on in each instance but the recollection of a singular, isolated sexual experience – a large (yet not really at all surprising) proportion of which involve Willow. Unisex promises to capture a whole spectrum of emotions pertaining to sex and relationships, to fearlessly confront you with them and leave you reeling. This show deals with the anxiety, shame, pleasure and excitement of sex – our apparent fascination with and desperation for it. You should buy a ticket: “Because, the cast are fantastic, they are unbelievably talented and lovely to work with; we work hard to make everyone’s stories as empathetic and natural as we can. Unisex is a unique opportunity to see things people want to share, and the ability for strangers’ experiences to strike a chord in you is quite shocking. I think people will come away feeling shocked and uplifted, and I hope that for everyone who was kind enough to send us material, they feel validated by how we use it.” Unisex will be playing at Dixon Theatre, Wentworth on Tuesday and Wednesday Week 10, 7.30pm. Tickets are £5, available at Vanbrugh stalls and on the door.
Check out our online previews! The Illusion
“In this exploration of the close ties between love and loathing, bleakness and comedy, and magic and theatre, anything, it seems, could happen”
Iolanthe
Charlie Benson
The Tragedy of Excess
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he notion of ‘excess’ is in itself a strange one. Who is it that defines what is indeed, ‘too much’? In real life it is easy enough to say that excess is what goes beyond the bounds of acceptability and/or reason, but these two factors tend to have little to no place within drama. Drama, as with all literature, opens up the restrictions of imagination in order to allow the exploration of anything and everything. For there to be excess, there needs to be some sort of boundary… some sort of a limit to action that apparently exists with inherency in any given society. This boundary, through theatre, can be pushed and even erased. Through its enhanced relatability, the theatre in particular opens up an opportunity to explore what lies beyond those bounds of ‘excess’ with which we have become societally familiar. Take the character of Macbeth, for example. A man contented with his own lot and success in life is pushed beyond his accepted role into a bloodbath of a game of thrones. In this case, literary freedom shows this exploration of excess to be, politically, a horribly dangerous move that ends in tragedy… a theme common to Shakespeare, and likely politically motivated in the first place. Similarly, Arthur Miller’s Willy Lo-
man in Death of a Salesman falls victim to the temptations of excess. In his case, it is that of an excess of ambition. Where this case differs from that of Macbeth, however, is that the breaking of boundaries stems from an arguably noble cause; that of wanting to better the futures of his children. Regardless, he too ends up falling victim to tragic consequences of going beyond what it was his right to attempt. Where then, do you ask, is the exemplary character for whom going beyond their expecta-
tions ends well? I would argue that there cannot ever be such a character, or there would not be the necessity for them to be explored and made an example of through literature. For noble and heroic efforts to be able to transcend expectations, I would argue that they have to end tragically in order to be convincingly poignant. Whether this is to warn against the dangers of excess, or to celebrate human courage and endeavour with a suitably ‘heroic’ end, however, would be up to the political and societal persuasions of the playwright. There is definitely something more inspiring and captivating about watching someone rise or fall in their efforts to break into excess that only theatre can truly capture. The faux ‘reality’ of theatre invests us into the life of the transcendental human venturing into the world of ‘excess’, allowing us to personally experience a playwright’s support or condemnation of an ambitious persuasion.
Nadine Garbett
“This humor is wrapped up with physical comedy, brilliant acting and beautiful singing to make one package of a show, not to be missed”
“Tartuffe holds a number of central dichotomies; a husband versus his family, religious hypocrisy versus religious extremism and outward appearances versus inward reality, to name a few”
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SPOTLIGHT
SPOT L I G H T: VA N C E J OY The Australian hearthrob and weaver of dreams talks to Milo Boyd...
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sually I’ll just walk around and type ideas and words that I’ve got from books or wherever on my iPhone. I guess it’s like making a puzzle or sticking things together. It never starts as a finished thing. You just have to keep polishing it up.” Whilst underplayed, this description of his writing process helps direct attention towards the unobtrusive brilliance of Vance Joy. Admittedly only 5 released tracks into his career, each one is a tidy assimilation of what makes a good acoustically driven record. The puzzle is made up of small gems of passing interest, like girls who wear socks to bed, scenic snapshots of genres, and cowboys who quit their jobs and head to New York City. If done poorly such moments of wonder translate as self indulgent and lacking cohesion. If done well as in the case of lead single ‘Riptide’ and unabashed love song ‘Emmylou’, an enchanting yet slightly incomprehensible narrative is formed. The polishing on the other hand refers to the neat, chorus heavy end product and the overall effect of bringing ukulele, high tempo drums and a layered, wailing singing voice together. At points Vance Joy, a solo artist behind the writing desk and on stage until recently, emerges more as an outfit in the vein of Australian contemporaries and shoegazing champions Tame Impala. Although yet to release the heavily anticipated debut album, Joy is currently midway through his second tour of the UK. “My first time was a solo tour but this is my first time with a band. It’s good. On your own if you don’t have a good book or some TV shows to watch it can be a boring but when you’ve got a bit of company things are livened up. Every time I come to Britain I appreciate London a bit more. I mean the tube is so effective. We’ve got the shittest train system in Melbourne so the idea of just jumping on and off is incredible.” The thing that first jumps out when talking to Joy is his sense of humour. Whilst the British
like to think themselves champions of the deadpan and offbeat, the title is fiercely contested by Australia. Although sincere in his answers and generally quite nice in between, a touch of off-beat cynicism sneaks in. On the topic of the atmosphere on tour this is apparent. “Sometimes touring does feel like work. The interviews, the talking to the managers, the promo. That bit feels like a job. But when you get to the venue and you’re hanging out with the guys, eating some crisps and sitting in some fucking cool university building it’s pretty great. I feel the more remote you are the less it feels like work. In the big cities you have to do all the meetings and meet up with the team. But if you’re in the middle of fucking no where there’s no one to bother you. I went to this really cool place called Boise in Idaho that’s nestled in the mountains. Had a nice stay there. Managed to get to the zoo.”
“When you get to the venue and you’re hanging out with the guys, eating some crisps and sitting in some fucking cool university building it’s pretty great” The second thing that jumps out is his foul mouth; a foul mouth Joy fully embraces. “I think swearwords are a perfectly good way to express yourself so if one fitted into a song I would use it. I wouldn’t use it as a shortcut though. I tried before and it is hard to make it sound not lazy and genuine. I’ve found it can be good to break down a wall between you and an audience. Australians definitely swear a lot. There’s some kind of cultural thing going on there. But then again every culture has a way of swearing and making it sound good. It’s a great thing.” Despite the cultural relativity of swearing, a genre that is championed by the “incredibly versatile” fuck, Joy’s live shows seem to translate well with tours in Europe and America coming soon. “I like the idea of people getting my music without understanding the lyrics. People pay money to come so I guess on
some level they get it. If they came just for the tunes that’d be a buzz.” Having evolved a solo sound into a full outfit in much the same way as Villagers’ Connor O’Brien, lyric free appreciation of Vance Joy’s songs is not beyond imagination. Regardless, it’s his way with words and quiet habit of turning a phrase that first draws you in. This is most apparent in ‘Riptide’, a song that races you through emotionally heavy metaphors quicker than you can fully gather the meaning behind a magician’s assistant in a dream. The film adaptation of these 3 minutes of far out wonder is, against the odds of putting a face to a jumbled up name, pitch perfect. “The guy who made the video for ‘Riptide’ sent me a one sentence pitch. He said he wanted to make a literal film clip based on the lyrics of the song. There’s no narrative that connects them all and I wanted the film to reflect that.”
Whether or not it does is down to your interpretation of the song and where you stand with regards to something that resembles a visual interpretation of Sesame Street shot in Cine-film. What’s not down to opinion is how thought through the video is and how at odds such attention is in comparison to Noel Gallagher and his recent directors commentary of Oasis’ video singles; commentary that included the line “I soon grew out of the video thing. Realised it was a load of bollocks.”
“A good melody is a narrative and a story without the words” “I heard about that. I dunno. I think it’s an explosive thing to say. As if anything artistic is a waste of time. If you are unfortunate enough to have a shit film-clip then you might have that opinion. I’ve been lucky that I’ve had good experiences. Low key, low budget but squeezed every little bit out of it. On that scale it’s amazing and really rewarding. But if it’s a big film clip and you rock up and they tell you to give them more energy in your eyes or hold a fucking dove whilst you’re singing, I would despise the whole experience.” Nearing the end of our time together and with defenses lowered by his charm, I ask a personal question. In October I underwent a messy breakup; a break-up which resulted in broken hearts, large cross channel phone bills and curiously, a recording of ‘Riptide’, fresh from the mouth of my bitch ex-girlfriend. What does such an out of place gesture mean? “Fuck. I honestly don’t know. The thing is different people attach their own meanings to songs. I heard a thing the other day. Someone said that a good melody is a narrative and a story without the words. A melody is putting you in a place imaginatively and a different place overtime. That said, I’ve no idea what your friend was doing there.”