Scene 237

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TV HALLOWEEN PARTY PUNCH-UP

FILM TOP 5 FRIGHTENING FILMS BOOKS GRUESOME GOOSEBUMPS

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A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS

THIS_ISSUE

When life gives you pumpkins, celebrate Halloween! That’s what we’re doing here at Scene, and it’s what you should be doing at home. So curl up in your dark candlelit room, take out all the chocolate you got from trick-or-treating despite being ten years too old for that, and creep through our newest, most Halloweeny issue yet.

Zoinks! We’re covering a lot here. There are pumpkins, bats, horror films, TV Halloween specials, and naturally, an unhealthy dose of necrophilic literature. What more could you want from a special Halloween issue? An inordinately spooky front page? Jinkies, gang, we’ve even got that!

MUSIC

FEATURE: Suomi Reggae (p3) INTERVIEW: Gary Numan (p5)

FILM

FEATURE: What makes a good horror film (p6) REVIEWS: The Fifth Estate, Machete Kills, Filth, Romeo & Juliet (p7)

FEATURE

Scene Cryptic Crossword

A History of Fear (pp8-9)

TV

FEATURE: Strictly Domination (p10) VERSUS: Community v. How I Met Your Mother (p11)

BOOKS

FEATURE: End Of A Booker Era (p12) INTERVIEW: Emily Murdoch (p13)

TECH

REVIEW: Grand Theft Auto V (p14) FEATURE: Google Chromecast (p14)

STAGE

FEATURE: Unbeatable Fear-tre (p15) PREVIEW: Drama this term (p15)

SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW: Leslie Clio (p 16)

Across 1.

Rapper looking left on his moral compass (5,4) 4.

Rhymes with “shallow lean” (9) 5.

Brittle metal is a perfect remedy for a broken foot (10) 8.

A Renault turned German singer (6,4) 10.

A McCapital bar brawl over in TV (6, 5) 11.

Technological pill popping (7) 12.

Booker Prize Winner misspells fabric (6)

Down 2.

3.

6.

7.

9.

Jack Nicholson will force you to see the light (3,8) York’s very own spooky castle (7,4) Campus wildlife inspires scary books (10) Activist is unhappy with only four estates (7) Spirit of townspeople makes great TV show (9)

SCENE TEAM Scene Editors Karl Tomusk Angus Quinn

Music Editors

Film Editors

TV Editors

Books Editors

Tech Editor

Stage Editors

Milo Boyd Meri Aho

Alex Radford Tim Douglas

Rachel Seymour Katie Thomas

Rebekah Boyle Samuel Bowell

Barto Joly de Lotbiniere Philip Mourdjis

Isla Van Tricht Nadine Garbett

Deputy TV

Deputy Books

Deputy Tech

Deputy Stage

Deputy Music Maddy Crammond Antonio Pinheiro

Deputy Film

Hannah Chambre Fred Asquith

Helena Horton Katie Thomas

George Norman Bethan Forrest

Scene Front Page Photo Credit: Thomas Shutt

Martin Waugh Phillip Watson

Charlie Benson Yuxing Xu

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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT

Music SUOMI REGGAE

BY MERI AHO

B

ob Marley, the Rastafarians, the holy herb, dreadlocks, Jamaica. This is what usually comes to our minds when someone mentions the word ‘reggae’.

But after the success of the aforementioned ‘Tuff Gong’ which basically led to the spreading of reggae to every corner of the world, reggae music has manifested itself in a variety of countries; suprisingly, one of these countries is Finland.

“I’m a peace-loving guy and I do appreciate His Majesty’s work and words of wisdom, but I am not a Rastafarian. But Rasta has helped me to find a lot of new perspectives to history, spirituality and humanity,” says Jukka Poika (translation: Jukka Son), perhaps Finland’s most-loved musician at the moment. Hooked on reggae from the age

Kanye: Offensive egotist or musical mastermind?

BY ELISABETH DAVIES

P

ersonally, I’ve never really been able to work out what Kanye is all about. I guess that’s the point though. All I can really be certain about is that I love the sound of his hip-hop, soulful, sometimes whiney music, but I disagree profusely with the content of a lot of his lyrics and what they appear to symbolise. The controversial nature of Kanye’s new album is nothing new.

From the first minute of Yeezus (which is a rather interesting choice of title…) Kanye is boasting about wanting to “get this b*tch shaking like Parkinsons,” which seems to be a portent for a certain ‘un-PC’ tone which pervades the rest of the album.

At points during Yeezus, Kanye appears almost heroic, telling the powers that be to “fuck you and your Hampton house”, criticising the rich and powerful and using ‘Black Skinhead’ to hit out at aversion

of sixteen after receiving a Max Romeo & the Upsetters cassette tape from his friend, Poika had the fifth best-selling album in the Finnish charts in 2012 and is currently starring in a reality TV show with six other musicians.

Indeed, the land of a thousand lakes, minus 25-degree dark winters, alcohol and heavy metal, has in the past few years fallen increasingly in love with reggae. Relying on offbeat rhythms and mellow harmonies, Finnish reggae could be described as rich in sound, easy-going, upbeat, and in Jukka Poika’s case, poppish. There are also more contemporary artists such as Puppa J and Lord Est, who makes mainly dancehall music, but ‘mainstream reggae’ is quite careful in incorporating dub and ragga elements into their music.

But Finnish reggae can be cool. Whereas roots reggae artists often sang about their faith, experiences and poverty in Jamaica, the artists born and raised in Finland have been able to find themes from their country.

For example, one of Jukka Poika’s chart hits ‘Älä Tyri Nyt’ encourages a depressed young adult living in a small town surrounded by forest to not give up and to wait

for better times; one day he can leave the town and start his life in the city - something that is common in a country where more than 70% of the land is covered by forest.

Raappana, a slightly more melancholic artist, provides another great example of mixing reggae music and local experiences in ‘Soronoo’, a song which includes lyrics that can be very roughly translated as the following: “I’m feeling cold/ It’s cold and slippery/sodden wood and a broken sauna/the fire is dying/this wintery nation is

surprisingly gutsy/one goes to work, it’s dark/one leaves work to go home, it’s even darker/have to be quick and go inside to drink rum, honey and lime.” However Poika also stresses the importance of thinking positively and coping with life even though it sometimes seems difficult, a sentiment present in most of his songs.

His music does not concentrate solely on the hard life in Finland, but rather on the more prominent and universal themes appreciating or examining love and life.

Poika says that his inspiration comes from “love, nature, human action, things happening around me, humour, absurdity, the state of the world and mystery in its different forms”, and this is what his and reggae’s popularity in Finland just might be based on.

The poetic and optimistic lyrics of themes familiar to everyone combined with relaxed rhythms and laid-back attitudes appeals particularly to the somewhat stiff and melancholic people of Finland. It brings the Finnish mainstream music scene something exotic and fresh, acting as a counterforce to the excess seriousness and greyness in life.

to interracial relations. Yet just a few songs earlier in ‘I Am A God’, we find him up on his pedestal rejecting all criticism he has ever received and raving about himself in no uncertain terms as to say he is the best in the biz and wants his croissants ASAP. Whatever Kanye’s intentions are, for me his seemingly justified rant in ‘Black Skinhead’ is only dampened by excessively aggressive use of lyrics such as “fuck up your whore after noon shit.” I mean – seriously?!

For me, someone who can create such intricate and innovative music should be able to create lyrics with a little more weight. But then again I guess that’s part of Kayne’s

‘charm’.

I find more hope in ‘Blood On The Leaves’. The Nina Simone sample Kanye is using comes from her cover of Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’, which highlights the USA’s horrific racist lynching past. Using this sample and rapping over it about materialism, drugs and groupies is interesting to say the least. Whether intentionally or not, Kanye creates a brilliant contrast between the height of political, racial comment and the trivial nature of the music industry and society today.

I would like to think that Kanye is also being clever with his misogynistic lyrics and shockingly sexually assaulting content, but somehow I get the feeling that’s not what he’s aiming for. In a cultural generation where watching aggressive porn is seemingly the norm, is it completely justifiable that Kanye boasts about putting “my fist in her like a civil rights sign” as if this woman is a kind of trophy?

Again, Kanye’s apparent attitude towards sex and women is nothing new in Yeezus. In fact, his borderline sexism is nothing new for the entire commercial hip -hop, new wave music industry.

His constant use of “pussy” and other degrading lyrics is not only tiresome but unfortunately presents us with the impression that the use of such words is completely acceptable. While Kanye stating that all he “needs is sweet and sour sauce” when involved in sexual relations with an Asian woman may seem slightly comedic, witty even, for some reason I’m not 100% sure that women of Asian decent would particularly agree. But of course this is all defensible by saying ‘Oh – that’s just Kanye, that’s just the way he is’.

It seems to me that Kanye raps in relation to whatever he feels in that moment, which possibly makes his music more ‘real’, but are we seriously meant to take his play on words: “Yeezus” for example, as something ‘real’ and relatable? People might say Kanye can say whatever he wants, he’s controversial, he’s just expressing himself.

Agree or disagree, I’m sure Kanye will always be hailed as a musical genius and people will use his lyrics in a way which aren’t relevant to their own lives.

But when expression becomes offensive it’s not just about the artist, it’s about how their fans use their music and lyrics.

(Fibbers, 4.10.13)

(Fibbers, 2.10.13)

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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT

Reviews EDITORS’ CHOICE

LONDON GRAMMAR

IF YOU WAIT

BY ANTONIO PINHEIRO

B

uilding up a live reputation and gaining internet attention after posting ‘Hey Now’ online, London Grammar’s debut album came hot on the heels of Mercury Prize winner speculation, surprising critics when it didn’t even make the shortlist. Perhaps this is because for all its skeletal beauty and warm atmosphere, London Grammar all too often rely on tired ideas.

Lead single ‘Strong’ showed a lot of potential, with vocalist Hannah Reid’s soaring vocals clashing with an understated reverberated guitar, creating contrast between peace and emotional unrest. The haunting refrain: “Man seem so strong/Yeah man speaks so long/Man never been so wrong” speaks for women everywhere who are disappointed in men. ‘Elsewhere Stay Awake’

utilises a 90’s style hip-hop beat for nostalgic effect to recall the innocence of youth.

Hannah Reid’s voice has been compared to Florence Welch and Lana Del Rey, and it’s true that her vocal register is similar to the former, and her delivery is a bit like the latter. She certainly sounds more human than these artists, and when she sings ‘Darling Are You Gonna Leave Me’ you don’t feel like you’re being emotionally manipulated.

What London Grammar do share in common with these artists is the tendency for the tone of the music to always feel the same.

They rely on melancholy piano chords, subdued guitar and slick trip-hop style drum programming for almost the entirety of the album. Eventually it does become a chore to listen to and it makes the album feel a lot longer than its relatively brief 43 minutes.

It isn’t as if these are new ideas either.

They take the same musical blueprint as The XX and bedroom pop everywhere, and replace the mystery with earnestness.

‘Nightcall’ is like Portishead if Beth Gibbons was a less interesting person, especially when the generic drum loop kicks in. Not every album has to consist of new ideas, but it’s frustrating when the ideas are usually watered down versions of superior artists.

‘Help Me Lose My Mind’, the collaboration with Disclosure, and a bonus track on If You Wait is better than anything here, too.

Credit where credit is due, though. The vocal manipulation in the outro of ‘Metal & Dust’ is jarring in a good way, especially when combined with the film score strings and pulsating rhythm. And ‘Strong’ is still one of the best songs to reach the UK Top 40 this year, proving that the public can do it right at times. There is no shortage of loveliness on If You Wait and if you desire the aural equivalent of a deligtful cup of tea, then you could certainly do a lot worse.

With an average age of 23, London Grammar still have a long time to develop and grow as artists.

LIVE: GLASS CAVES

BY LOUISE ESSEX

I

t’s not often one sees a strong crowd forming at the early stages of a gig. Yet, this Friday evening at Fibbers was a striking exception that saw a tremendous crowd rallying from the offset to delight in the sounds of Pontefract five-piece Glass Caves, and their supporting acts, H.A.M and Siblings.

Opening the night to the packed venue was H.A.M, whose funky riffs immediately dissipated any tension in the room. They delighted our ears with chilled, swaying fusions of high ringing guitar and melodious improvisation. The band revealed a new track which was well-received and the final crescendo had heads in a spin. Their later set took us to a more atmospheric place, and was a nice surprise. The final song mixed screeching guitar and hammering drums for a powerful finale, and it was safe to say that the crowd was well and truly warmed up.

Siblings then kicked off and it was straight into warm-hearted indie – a delight of sweet harmonising and chords.

Opening with ‘Fools’, they immediately

set the good vibes going and the crowd responded with general swaying: we were like palm trees on a summer’s beach. Everyone, young and old, grooved to the sounds of what felt like a mix of Vampire Weekend and Dog is Dead. The band’s dreamy vocals were particularly showcased during the stripped-down sections, where their tight harmonies resonated off the walls. We streamed through their colourful set; from ‘Norway’ to ‘Colours’, it was impossible not to be touched by the infectious splendour of loose, fuzzy riffs and mellifluous vocals.

It was now time for the main meal, and after a suspenseful wait, the crowd erupted as Glass Caves took to the stage – and everything became far, far hairier. The band dived head-first into their energetic altrock, feeding the crowd with a pounding, chesty bass. The band oozed talent with ‘I Knew It’, a gem of a song which spills into an irresistible chorus. Bulldozing through the set, we were treated to ‘Safety Man’ and its fiery finale – a fusion of undulating guitar melodies and hammering drums.

By midway, it became obvious that Glass

t’s been over 20 years since Pearl Jam released their monumental debut Ten and followed it up with the almost equally impressive Vs. and Vitalogy. Now in their late 40s, the alt-rock legends have understandably slowed down, mellowed out, and grown up. Where Ten was a surprisingly personal anthem for the young and confused, Lightning Bolt is those same people looking back on life with a bit more experience and understanding.

Over the past few years, a lot of Pearl Jam’s catalogue has become stale, and at times this album suffers from the same problem other bands who have been around for a few decades face. Like any recent Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Lightning Bolt has songs that are so typical of the band’s sound that anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Pearl Jam could guess what the entire song sounds like ten seconds in.

‘Lightning Bolt’ and ‘Swallowed Whole’ are the most obvious examples: they are standard rock songs that are entirely forgettable and could have appeared on practically any Pearl Jam album.

When the band moves away from its well-established brand of post-grunge rock, things do get a bit more interesting.

The first single, ‘Mind Your Manners’ is a solid punk-influenced song that is reminiscent of their 1994 single ‘Spin the Black

Circle’ while ‘Pendulum’ is a dark haunting soundscape mixed with sparse vocals that wouldn’t be out of place in the bonfire scene of a western. It’s hard to fault Pearl Jam’s musicianship, even when they stray towards rehashed pop-rock songs, and lead guitarist Mike McCready especially leaves his mark on the album whenever he reaches back to his roots and actually plays a solo, as he does on ‘Sirens’ and ‘Let the Record Play.’

Where the album really shines, though, is with Eddie Vedder’s lyrics and vocals. Of course, this has been the case with every single Pearl Jam album from the beginning. Over two decades after the debut that established Vedder as the most poetic lyricist of the grunge movement, he is still as personal as he was back then. ‘My Father’s Son’ finds him struggling with his identity as the son of a man he barely knew, crying in anger, “Now father you’re dead and gone and I’m finally free to be me.” Meanwhile, ‘Mind Your Manners’, ‘Sirens’, and ‘Lightning Bolt’ deal with the nature of life, religious doubt, and hypocrisy. Lightning Bolt often sounds like Vedder’s personal diary, but it’s an existential kind of diary that asks questions and doesn’t leave you feeling dirty for invading someone’s privacy.

Vedder’s vocals are, similarly, often the highlight of any given song. ‘Sirens’ itself is a fairly typical mellow rock song and wouldn’t make the cut on the album if it weren’t for the soulful baritone vocals that only get better when Vedder goes into his falsetto. It’s not as powerful as classics like ‘Black’ but it’s clear his voice is as strong as ever. ‘Future Days,’ the final song on the album, is a simple acoustic love song that works because of the vocals. Eddie Vedder could write a song about punching koalas in the face and still make it sound heartfelt and personal.

Very few people would claim Pearl Jam have ever been able to recreate the intensity and experimentation of their first three albums, and although it doesn’t quite get there, Lightning Bolt is by no means a disappointment. There are no songs on the album that are terrible; some of them are, admittedly, forgettable and add nothing to Pearl Jam’s reputation, but there is enough new interesting material here for any fan of Pearl Jam, old or new. It’s not Ten, but 22 years on, of course it won’t be.

Caves had gone a little too hard, and technical difficulties loomed over us for a short moment. Before long, however, the sounds were back, and a renewed energy stormed the crowd. The growling bass proved too much for some, with a few resorting to fingers as earplugs. Yet, the band rattled on, doling out endless tunes. ‘This Road’ was a personal favourite and seemed popular with the crowd, with everyone now moving about in loose jigs. The set rolled out into many crashing crescendos until the boys found themselves before a booing crowd after the words, “this is our last song.”

‘Eboracum’ was our finishing treat.

Chants of “We want more!” quickly filled

the room and the band returned with ‘Match’, the grand finale ringing in our ears long after the band made their exit.

With ears screaming, the crowd was, perhaps, glad for a break. Glass Caves certainly didn’t allow any such rest, with no real ‘come down’ songs. A more rounded set might have been nice, but no one was complaining, and all exited with the lasting buzz the local lads had given us. The performance was all kick and all punch.

I don’t doubt that they would rock a Glastonbury stage with the same electricity as they brought to Fibbers. These boys are certainly set for much bigger things. See you at Glasto, Glass Caves.

PEARL JAM Lightning Bolt

BY KARL TOMUSK

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MUSIC FILM FEATURE TV BOOKS TECH STAGE SPOTLIGHT

INTERVIEW

GARY NUMAN

BY WILL MCCURDY

G

ary Numan was a huge pioneer of electronic music and his singles ‘Are Friends Electric’ and ‘Cars’ were huge hits on both sides of the Atlantic. Steering electronic music away from Kraftweck-style experimentalism towards stronger pop structures and mainstream popularity, Numan paved the way for bands like Nine Inch Nails in fusing electronic sounds with the analogue to make brilliantly daring music. All the while he retained an extremely dark literary edge, influenced by his wider reading of classic sci-fi and literature. Instead of resting on his laurels, Numan pushed forward musically, creating progressively darker and less commercial albums.

I begin our interview by asking him what he thinks of contemporary electronic music. Although pleased by its popularity, Numan appears to have mixed opinions about some aspects of the scene. “It seems to have developed its own nostalgia. It was such a forward thinking genre in the first place”. As such, he finds the trend of newer artists using vintage equipment rather odd.

“I remember that old gear and I couldn’t wait for something better to come along.”

On the subject of new and affordable technology, he is generally a fan. “If everyone can now afford quality equipment then you have the potential for more good music to come along”. It’s true; nowadays anyone has the time and money to create great music. However, Numan points out, great music is not always the case. “You may have to wade through a greater amount of rubbish to find it but that’s all part of the fun, part of the journey.” The musical landscape now is much bigger and wider ranging than the one Numan grew up in. When I ask him what current bands he is a fan of he recommends Officers, an electro band who, rather than copying Numan, take his ideas and de-

velop them in a very modern way.

Our conversation moves on to influences and I ask Numan in what way literature, particularly sci-fi and the beatnik author William Burroughs, has had upon his music. “Sci-fi was a big part of it in the very early days, mainly on the first three albums made in 1978 and 1979. But it’s played very little part in the music since then. I do read constantly, though, so it’s true to say that I’m often influenced by the things I read.”

Numan’s latest album Splinter was mainly drawn from his own personal experiences of the preceding four years. “I began to suffer with depression, which got worse until I was put on medication.”

I asked him what he feels about the state of Britain today compared to when he was young and if it is in any way affecting the quality of its music. “Unfortunately, I have no idea how the current state of Britain might be affecting the music being made.

I would need to be a sensitive soul for that kind of observation and understanding and I am anything but that.” Recently having moved to LA, Numan seems to feel that he has lost his understanding for what the Britain of today is all about. “I was back there recently and it doesn’t feel at all like the place I grew up in. But, that was also part of the reason for leaving. It feels less and less like the England I knew as a child.”

On the subject of whether his dark music is the reflection of a tortured inner soul, he is pretty open. “I’m plagued by worries to be honest. I seem to be born to worry but, having said that, I do consider myself a happy man. I will never write a song like ‘Shiny Happy People’, for example. But, the music does not leave you with a down experience.

Rather, like a good horror film or thriller it leaves you excited and entertained despite the somewhat heavy nature of the content.

Splinter certainly reflects a different man

than the one I was in 1979, and a man with some serious problems sadly. Luckily that’s all behind me now and I seem to have come through it stronger than ever.”

I ask him if he feels there’s any truth in the line by Sick Boy from Trainspotting: “Well, at one time, you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever: all walks of life; George Best, for example, had it, lost it; David Bowie; Lou Reed …”

“They bland out into mediocrity and don’t seem to either notice or care. It does seem as if they just run out of ideas but keep going anyway.” Numan ambitiously hopes he shall not give in to the same temptations. “It’s rather annoying to see people widely touted as ‘legendary’ doing nothing ‘legendary’ at all, but just drifting blandly through the latter stages of their careers, a pale shadow of the glory they once were. I’m positive that will never happen to me.” He takes pride in the fact that in his own career he has strongly resisted this general tendency to devolve into mediocrity: “My music has been getting progressively heavier and less commercial, less middle of the road, for the last twenty years, and I wasn’t exactly middle of the road to start with.”

In short, Gary Numan is something of an oddity in 2013. An old legend in a futuristic forward looking genre, whose bleak, experimental sci-fi inspired songs bring a sense of nostalgia for a time thirty years ago; whose current output pushes forward a genre that increasingly looks backwards for inspiration and material. He’s managed to influence a generation of musicians and create a large, ever-changing body of work that stands by itself, filled with both maturity and sophistication and a keen eye for musicality. Numan seems unique and conflicted in many ways, and will hopefully remain a fixture on the UK music scene for quite some time.

“It’s rather annoying to see people widely touted as ‘legendary’ doing nothing ‘legendary’ at all, but just drifting blandly through the latter stages of their careers, a pale shadow of the glory they once were. I’m positive that will never happen to me.”

LIFE IN MUSIC 1 Richard Beet, 3rd year Leeds Music College student, talks about his band Blue Laurel

T

he band started bit by bit with George and Matty writing a few song ideas together; then we met Will de Vries at the beginning of 2012 and before long George showed him a few ideas and that’s how de Vries ended up on bass. I my-

self didn’t join the band until a couple of months after this, mostly because I had a keyboard! I think once all four of us were together it became apparent that there was something there that was worth exploring.

We’re just curious to see what we can do with what we have and I think so far it’s been a very interesting journey. When I started music college I figured I’d end up as a freelance recording engineer or something; I had no idea I’d be in an alt-rock band! As well as providing backing vocals, my role in the band is as lead flutist. I remember quitting it when I was 15 because I was a teen-bopper and wanted to be incredibly cool. It wasn’t until a couple of years

ago that I realised that I needed to be able to play an instrument to understand music - to directly interact with sound. It sounds a bit abstract, but I’m not quite clever enough to express it better.

A large part of progressing as a band is getting people’s attention. It’s a difficult subject as it inherently grinds against the ideal artistic way of thinking - that good art should simply stand on its own and reach people by itself. Instead, artists have to bring what they have to the audience, whether that’s via recordings, the internet or face-to-face networking. It’s boring and frustrating but it’s worth it - you have to believe in your music enough so that you

can interact confidently and professionally with the environment that you find yourself in. That way, whoever you are showing your music to will share your belief in the music, too. After all, you have spent time and money and stress and sleep on something you cherish, so why not tell other people about it?

We have just finished recording our debut two-track EP, a sort of alt-rock fusion somewhat similar to Tame Impala, which we recorded inside a wonderful church in Armley. We have just gigged The Brudenell in Leeds and are loooking forward to future gigs in Manchester, Leeds and further afield.

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6 MUSIC

FILM

FEATURE

TV

BOOKS

TECH

STAGE SPOTLIGHT

FIL Jason kills in space!!

Jason kills by a lake in 3D! Jason kills on holiday Jason kills

in Manhattan!

...again

Jason kills by a lake!

2002

Jason Voorhees career-o-graph

Jason kills Freddy, Freddy

Jason kills on holiday in hell!

2004

2006

kills Jason!

2012

2010

What makes a good horror film Alex Radford runs through what actually makes horror films as scary as they are

A

lien is an exceptional horror film, but it should not be. If you step back and examine what Alien is, in terms of story and narrative, you find a cheesy Bmovie. A cast of unsuspecting squidgy humans come across a desolate alien

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spaceship, within which they find a horrifying mix of slime-covered, goo-filled black latex and an animatronic, which finds its way onto their ship. The humans cannot escape, and so, slowly one by one, they are murdered.

Switch out the ship for a decrepit mansion with a spooky past, the alien for a ghost, set it in the 1950s and you can see that, essentially, the film is just the old haunted routine at heart. Yet, it is an amazingly terrifying film Peel back the layers that any good horror film has and take a good long look at the core of their story and narrative, and what you often find is rarely scary and mostly just silly. The Exorcist still stands as a horror classic, yet it is simply the story of a man in a dress engaging in a metaphorical and occasionally literal pissing contest (well, vomit to be more precise) with the devil, who incidentally has decided that the best possible vessel of destruction he could use is a little girl.

So given this, it is a fair question to ask what makes this film so frightening, aside from the fact that tying a young girl down to a bed and locking her in a room with a priest is quite a scary concept already.

A lot must certainly be said for excellent acting, well-written scripts, creating sets, character designs that set the right tone, and soundtracks that set the appropriate atmosphere. However, I will not pretend to be able to write an exhaustive account of these elements, because I will run out of room on this page and patience from you. But one thing can be said without, I hope, doing either: that is that good horror is fundamentally about the slow but complete loss of control. For example, Alien, to borrow an example from above, starts with the characters largely in control of their environment, their ship Nostromo. As the film progresses they are thrust into a hostile world with a monster that forces them back to their ship, their original point of safety. They then have this taken away from them as they are slowly killed off one by one, steadily diminishing their ability to deal with the danger that increasingly comes to encapsulate them.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, another horror classic, effectively does the same thing. Arguably the scariest scene in the movie, the dinner table scene near the end, is so because we have just spent

close to an hour and a half watching the now main protagonist have every chance of escape and salvation be brutally ripped from her. After all her friends are steadily butchered with chainsaws, hammers, and meat hooks, she is beaten and broken and trapped in Leather Face’s dinning room.

Thus, she is left in a situation where she will almost certainly face a very nasty, bone-crunching, blood-spattered end.

For whatever reason, we, as humans, seem to find the idea of losing complete control to be genuinely terrifying. Losing control of our lives is uncomfortable. It is the exploitation of this fear that arguably makes great horror films as scary as they are.

Classic Halloween Horrors With Halloween fast approaching, Thom Shutt looks at the top five horror classics that everyone should see at least once before they die...

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Visceral in a way that modern murder porn like The Human Centipede could never muster, Tobe Hoopers micro budget classic relies on masterful suggestion rather than gratuitous gore. Unnerving from the start, the set up is textbook: innocent kids stumble upon creepy farm, kids get chased, kids are attacked by guy in mask. It’s probably the most uncomplicated, yet most horrifying horror movie ever made.

Alien (1979)

It’s not what you see; it’s what you think you see. Working on the simple idea that the frightened human mind can invent more horrifying imagery than anything he can put on screen, Ridley Scott crafts a tense atmosphere around a plot where little actually happens. Aboard the commercial spaceship Nostromo, the crew answers a distress signal from a nearby planet and pick up an accidental guest....

The Thing (1982)

Psycho (1960)

Jaw-dropping visual effects aside, John Carpenter wins so epically here due to a finely tuned use of character and location. While the premise may sound simple (12 men stuck in an Arctic station while a shape shifting alien picks them off one by one), it’s the paranoia and suspicion that shreds the nerves, with the characters having no idea if they’re truly who (or what) they say they are.

Achingly innovative, Psycho is the proto-slasher. Without Psycho, there’d be no Halloween, no Friday the Thirteenth, and no Scream. It’s that simple. While the shower scene is legendary (and rightly so), such brutal bloodshed was groundbreaking at the time, packing 87 cuts into a frenzied 45 seconds, Hitchcock created perhaps the most iconic and perfectly timed shock in cinema history, and that’s just the beginning of it.

The Shining (1980) Much as he did for sci-fi almost two decades earlier with 2001, Stanley Kubrick re-defines the horror genre with The Shining. Starring Jack Nicholson in career best form as a writer working as a caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in the Colorado mountains over winter.

As his sanity unravels, his relationship with his son and wife comes under strain, and things take a very dark and unsettling turn.

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The Fifth Estate

REVIEWS I

went to see The Fifth Estate for two reasons the first being that I have a soft spot for Benedict Cumberbatch, and the second being that I wanted to see how such a controversial topic would be tackled on screen. On both counts I was disappointed; the film seems overly cautious not to get deeply entwined in the political situation, and Cumberbatch is practically unrecognisable.

The costume department does a fabulous job with Cumberbatch, using a wig, false teeth and contact lenses so effectively that Cumberbatch could actually be Julian Assange. Not only does Cumberbatch look the part, he powerfully inhabits it too - pinning down every idiosyncratic mannerism that Assange showed the world. He has the drawling voice, the self-righteous smugness, and the unnerving edge created by a mixture of arrogance and genius. Daniel Bruhl’s characterisation of Assange’s second-in-command Berg is also commendable, capturing his docility and blind faith in a manner that makes him sympathetic. The cast is full of talented actors - Peter Capaldi, David Thewlis and Dan Stevens all make an appearance. But despite the prestigious cast, the film manages to fall slightly flat.

The Fifth Estate tackles a world “on the verge of a major international crisis”, looking

Romeo and Juliet

I

love Shakespeare. I love Romeo and Juliet. I’m fine with the standard rom-com from time to time. These elements can be successfully combined and brilliantly updated for modern audiences (see the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet). However, this latest offering was a bit more like a car crash. The film seems oddly caught between the sixteenth century and today, half Twilight romance and half Shakespearian poetry.

These two things should not mix. EVER. The use of some of the original manuscript jarred with the complete detachment from it in other parts of the film, and it wasn’t exactly helped by the rush the actors were in to get their lines out, to the extent that I could barely understand some of it. Steinfield as Juliet came across as disappointingly simpering, while Booth as Romeo spent the majority of the time pouting and pulling stupid faces. Their relationship with each other struck me as unrealistic.

The chemistry between them didn’t quite work, with the several kissing scenes feeling inauthentic. Problematic seeing as Romeo and Juliet’s overriding theme is true love. The real trouble was that they seemed far too young and unconvincing to be willing to sacrifice their lives for each other. The setting was traditionalist and atmospheric, which I liked, but other elements of the film were not - leading to a grating of the modern and the old. Every single sentiment was accompanied by emotive music, in case anyone hadn’t worked out how they were supposed to feel. Maybe if you’ve just ended a relationship, you might enjoy it. However, for anyone who likes Shakespeare, this is one of the rare occasions where the 90’s actually do it better.

Madeleine Crammond

at the Wikileaks revelation of corporate crime and government secrets - thus you couldn’t be blamed for assuming that it would be a highly dramatic thriller. You would, in fact, be mistaken. Too much screen time is spent on the personal betrayal of Berg by Assange, so the focus is rarely on the actual political fallout, thus the actual work of Wikileaks is brushed upon and then glossed over, giving the audience no room to make a moral judgement of the controversial organisation. The unfortunate effect of this is that The Fifth Estate fails to capture the edge of intense drama that the real situation held.

Possibly the greatest fault of The Fifth Estate is the apparent inability of the writer, singer and director Condon to pinpoint exactly what it is about. Two different angles clash together in one film - the film could be about Assange and his motivations, but then again, it could also be about the power Wikileaks held, and the continuing debate over political security and privacy. Unfortunately, being a two hour film, it is not structurally feasible for both angles to be fully explored and as a result each angle is only half explored. This creates a highly insubstantial air as relevant information is not expanded upon - we are given only fragments of Assange’s turbulent yet relevant childhood, and we see

only flickers of the revolutionary work done by Wikileaks.

The film should have been a springboard for discussion, an ethical representation of whistleblowers and a considered debate looking at both the corruptions of power, and the need for global security. However, it feels as if many of the topics that should have been tackled (especially the scale of the work done by Wikileaks) were given too little screen time, meaning that the controversial topic is approached too cautiously to captivate.

Despite hosting a talented cast, Cordon’s film is one that leaves the viewer feeling disappointed due to a lack of dynamic energy, clear direction, relevant information and actual controversy.

Carla Tromans

Machete Kills

Filth

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ames McAvoy is Bruce Robertson, an amoral, racist, sexist, sociopathic policeman in line for promotion and enlisted to solve a brutal murder.

From the get go, Filth was always going to suffer from comparisons with Trainspotting, the definitive Irvine Welsh screen adaptation, and credit to writer-director Jon S Baird; he’s delivered a delightfully weird and hallucinogenic film that comes fairly close to living up to hopes. Possessed with more than its share of visual invention and dark humour, Filth revels in its seedy subject matter, painting a picture of group of flawed, broken people.

However, it suffers from being tonally uneven and it fails to deliver the proper emotion where it counts. The mismatch of out and out zany humour with the darker threads ends up robbing the latter much of its impact. A barely hinted at subplot regarding Robertson’s absent family isn’t given the attention it deserves, robbing a late plot twist of its true emotional value.

Which isn’t to say the film is a failure.

Far from it in fact. The film shines in its more out and out bonkers elements, taking darkly comic delight in the transgressions and ineptitude of its central troop.

A good script gives the strong cast plenty to chew on, with Eddie Marson standing out as the abused best mate.

McAvoy, however, is the linchpin of the whole affair. He invests Bruce, a bit of a prat, with plenty of charm. He swims in a sea of alcohol and coke abuse, deviant sex and mental illness. It’s a tough role, and it’s impressive that McAvoy manages to humanise him.

Not quite an era-defining classic then, but thanks to a career best performance from McAvoy, it’s no write off either.

Thomas Shutt

T

he predecessor to this film, Machete, was in every possible way odd but brilliant. Essentially an expensive joke, it was a feature length film spun out from a fake trailer of the same name. It revelled in the inherent silliness of its genre, providing a extremely entertaining throw back to exploitation cinema.

The sequel unfortunately is just not as good. The story certainly matches the first film in terms of ridiculousness, Danny Trejo returns a machete and is recruited by the president of the United States to kill a drug lord-turned-revolutionary who is threatening the USA with a missile attack if they do not invade Mexico and get rid of the drug cartels. As time goes on he is pulled into a conspiracy involving a USA arms dealer who has built a space ark for a new human race and is abducting Mexicans for slave labour, among other things… no really, this is the film’s story.

Despite this ludicrous story the film starts to drag an hour in. The film feels like it squandered too many opportunities, especially towards the end. The one redeeming note is the superb execution of the action sequences.This is particularly noteworthy with celebrity casting; both Antonio Banderas and Lady Gaga do barely anything, except perhaps give the movie the chance to scream “LOOK WHO IT IS!”. That being said, Mel Gibson is great as the arms dealer, apparently channelling Ayn Rand via Darth Vader.

How much you enjoy Machete Kills will be based on how much you yearn for grind house cinema. If you want a fourty minute schlock-filled silly blast, then enjoy. Just don’t have your expectations set much higher.

Alex Radford

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alloween when you’re younger is comical. It’s possibly the most child-orientated holiday after Christmas. The opportunity to dress up as your favourite TV, film, or book character and, therefore, be them for a night, is something we all jump at and grab eagerly with both hands.

Beyond the outfits though there’s a conscious evolution of Halloween that happens as you’re growing up and it’s reflected more obviously in the arts and how they target people, than perhaps anywhere else. Everyone cashes in on the horror genre and Halloween, but the methods of aggregating their output and the way we react to and engage with them varies depending on how old we are.

Unless you’ve been a very naughty little boy or girl, scary films are pushed out of the way because they’ll give you nightmares, you’ll wet the bed and in general cause a lot of ball ache for your parents. Likewise, you can’t watch truly scary television. You aren’t going to see someone get beheaded on True Blood or be listening to the Psycho soundtrack while you’re doing your homework. Instead, everything is altogether more lighthearted.

In the 1960s, a solution was found to open up horror to children, and that was the addition of comedy. It crystallised with a group of four teenagers and a partic-

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ularly loveable canine spending their unrealistically huge amount of free time being chased around by villains dressed up as monsters.

Scooby Doo, Where Are You? might technically be a procedural, since it definitely has the whole villainof-the-week thing down to a tee. But the addition of the horror element has forever put it in the spooky genre, and the series has truly become iconic as an example of how to market ghost-hunting on television for children. Terrifying as the Creeper, Mr Hyde, the Gator Ghoul, and the Tar Monster were, you were never really spooked watching Scooby-Doo because of the loveable buffoonery of the Great Dane and

Scooby-Doo has evolved through umpteen incarnations it has never forgotten that as well as providing spooks and ghouls, the Great Dane at the heart of it all benefits from comedy. The horrific puns of the titles are still the same, the monsters are still ridiculous and there’s still the iconic rebuke from the villains: ‘I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!’ Scooby-Doo is always on television at Halloween because it not only delivers spookiness, but also a healthy dose of comedy that makes it accessible and entertaining for everyone. While you might get a nightmare from the capers of Mystery Inc., you’re also just as likely to

Scooby-Doo is always on television at Halloween because it not only delivers spookiness, but also a healthy dose of comedy that makes it accessible and entertaining for everyone.

Shaggy.

At every point where terror threatens to grab hold of you, Daphne does something inordinately stupid, Fred’s goldbergian plans fall apart or Velma loses her glasses and laments the fact she’s no longer bespectacled before finding them, and herself, face-to-face with the monster. Likewise, as

end up giggling at Scooby-Doo stealing Shaggy’s sandwich or Daphne proving how generally useless she is to the entire gang by getting kidnapped again.

Indeed, the Scooby-Doo franchise kickstarted comedic takes on horror for children, and not just in numerous successive attempts by Hannah-Barbera to create ScoobyDoo-Two. It’s very little surprise that the likes of Josie And The Pussycats, Speedbuggy, and Goober and the Ghost-Chasers quickly rolled off the Hanna-Barbera production line in the 1970s. That well-known teen pastime of ghost-hunting was born.

Ghosts and the occult at large weren’t just an American phenomenon, though, and the format has been successful fodder for British children’s programmes. The comedy element too, has been strongly pushed forward. Whether you look to CBBC’s Mona The Vampire, or CITV’s The Worst Witch, traditional horror subject matter becomes comedic to soften the blow of both shows. It’s true that later incarnations of Scooby Doo, such as The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo did take a decidedly scarier and more mature tone, but that was as much to do with the audience who first watched the show in 1969 growing up as it was to do with an overall decision to change the approach to horror in children’s television.

Most soundtracks from children’s horror also reflect a desire to emphasise the comedy of ghosts or monsters rather than their potential to scare. The songs that are

often played at Halloween parties from the land of soundtrack don’t exactly inspire fear, at least from the younger generations.

The Casper the Friendly Ghost soundtrack is a stand out example, and the titular theme song rams home the message of the objective of children’s horror: “though grown-ups might look at him with fright, children all love him so.” Indeed you’d struggle to find a theme song that really deliberately sets out to scare the child… about the ghosts anyway.

G o o s e bumps’s theme tried to be scarier, but instead is more than a little amusing, especially the saucily whispered title and distinctly dodgy 90s special effects. Far more chilling, though, is the theme from CBBC’s The Ghost Hunter. True it only really features another whispery voice going “Ghost Hunter”, but the tension of the music intensifies the terror.

That music sent me diving for the remote to change the channel before Jean Marsh came on screen on the trail of a ghost for her vacuum.

With age comes change, though.

As mentioned, television becomes more mature, whether in cartoon or in the proliferation of teen shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which began to introduce bloodiness on television while drawing on the reserve of one of the stock monsters. Nowadays, the horror genre has been subverted by a mystical attraction to horror – largely caused by the Twilight series of books, which suddenly prompted a vogue for monsters being sexy. Twilight may have kicked the whole thing off with the towering romantic heights of protagonists Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, but it spawned a myriad of copycat literature which covers all kind of occult oddities.

Overnight, supernatural was sexy.

It even brought some failed series out of hibernation, like The Vam-

pire Diaries and made the books a hot property again.

Suddenly, we weren’t afraid of vampires; we wanted to sleep with them. And the werewolf, the witch and pretty much every other monster except for zombies…discounting that terrible film Warm Bodies.

The humour is still there. Teen Wolf especially makes light of the supernatural quirks of its existence, constantly poking fun at itself and

Suddenly, we were pires; we wanted to the terrible situation of the characters, and the overt sexualisation of horror for teenagers just about fills the hole that used to be filled by the genuine presence of horror when we were children.

Comedy isn’t extinguished in arts in horror altogether. Notably in film, both the Final Destination and Scary Movie series have been able to deliver genuine horror and terror but with comedy underlying the piece. It does mean you go through the full emotional spectrum of laughing hysterically before whimpering for your life because you switched off the light, thinking it

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would make an atmosphere and are now too terrified to move and switch it back on to yank you back into the real world. The deaths in Final Destination especially are at once horrific and humorous. There’s the particularly hilarious scene from Final Destination 3 when two Californ-I-A girls are burnt alive on tanning beds. It’s a very morbid humour to laugh at it, but the ridiculous nature of their death (a slush

en’t afraid of vamsleep with them. puppy short-circuits one of the beds causing a fire…or something like that), makes it hilarious and something you can laugh at rather than scream about. In general Final Destination’s strongest point is the massively over-the-top nature of the deaths of the cast of each of the films. It makes them fantastic entertainment, not only because you’re gripped by the fact death is inevitably going to catch up to these people after they first escaped it, but also seeing how ridiculous and hilarious the next death scene will be. The Scary Movie series might be altogether more success-

ful at comedy than horror, but it’s undeniable that there are at least moments where those of a sensitive composition, such as myself, jump or suddenly remember they desperately need the loo and leave the room and wait until the scary part has passed and you can return in the safety of the knowledge that you won’t need the loo again until things get scary.

Horror only becomes acceptably scary once you’re older. Before this there’s a mischievous rush inside you if you somehow manage to smuggle a 12 or even a 15-rated film past your parents and get it into the DVD player. It just becomes a film you’re watching instead of excitedly prefixing it as a ‘scary’ movie.

You sit down with strawberry laces and suddenly the films have become genuinely scary. Or at least that’s what you think at the time.

Often the gateway is animalbased horror; there’s always the classic Jaws, with the iconic theme song before the plastic Great White drifts into the shot. Nonetheless, there can also be diversity. Lake Placid was one of those films that at first I could only watch part of the way through before chickening out. Horror’s often at its most effective when the rubbish monster is kept out of shot. Deep Blue Sea was also a classic Blockbuster rental, and the horror was added by the stupidity of the whole thing.

Instead of staying on the nice surface bit, everyone goes underwater where the genetically engineered sharks are kept and everything can flood and release the giant, intelligent sharks. Still to this day I can’t sit through Eight-Legged Freaks and, specifically, the spider scene where they’re crawling over a girl without wincing. It’s one of those strategic toilet break moments.

In fact Eight-Legged Freaks, more than the others, benefits from its use of a mundane, ordinary animal. Though the spiders involved are admittedly exotic, everyone

collectively shudders at the appearance of the eight-legged fiend since you’re more likely to run into one than, say, a Great-White sexually caressing the Ouse (no ideastealing YSTV!). This combination of the ominous, unseen threat and the ability to shout at the television is exactly what horror comes to be about once you learn to appreciate being scared.

It’s the hopelessness of the situation, but also the notion of being

reach a threshold where horror takes away any pretense of trying to scare you overtly and, instead, tries to mess with your head.

There’s a reason Halloween is always celebrated in the dark: there’s a sense of dread from the unknown, and horror films realised a long time ago that less is more. The less you show the more disturbing things are.

Psychological horror, therefore, makes no attempts at making you

In that way, shock affects you for a short time, but psychological terror will marry you and refuse to accept that divorce is a reality in our modern society. taken out of your comfort zone.

You’re sat on your sofa or in a cinema with overpriced popcorn and an eye-wateringly expensive drink, but you’re still panicked, as if a giant shark or crocodile is going to burst out of the screen. Animal horror is among the most terrifying sub-genres and satisfying scares because it is so bestial. Nobody cares about science telling us that sharks are actually very clever, intelligent animals – you care about the fact it has loads of teeth and might bite you. It involves abandoning your common sense in favour of giving over to the adrenaline of fear and throwing yourself head-long into the jaws of whatever adversary you’re confronted by.

Of course, at one point you will

jump out of your seat. On the contrary, everything that is and isn’t on screen slowly eats away at the viewer. So it’s not a case of being momentarily shocked at a scary face; it’s the feeling that everything is wrong. Everything on screen and in your living room could be out to get you, but you don’t know yet. There might be someone behind the sofa; maybe you heard something creak in the kitchen; maybe your family is being slaughtered in silence upstairs.

Let’s take the obvious classic, Psycho, and look at what makes it a terrifying experience. Everyone constantly talks about the shower scene where Norman Bates brutally murders Marion Crane, and of course it’s iconic. But taken on

its own, it’s not actually very scary.

Shocking, yes, but not scary. However, in context the film, and that specific scene, are terrifying. It’s during the build up to the scene where you know that she’s being watched, that she’s not safe, that you start to feel disconcerted. And that lasts throughout the entire movie, to the very last shot. That shot of Norman Bates at the very end is disturbing despite not being very shocking because the viewer knows the character and knows that there isn’t any closure. The character is still out there: that disturbing human being hasn’t shocked us, he’s wormed his way into our brains and hasn’t let go despite the film coming to an end.

In that way, shock affects you for a short time, but psychological terror will marry you and refuse to accept that divorce is a reality in our modern society. It’s that clingy ex who probably should have moved out a week ago but their toothbrush refuses to leave your bathroom.

And so Halloween and horror overlap with each other. Scaring people is an art that spans every spectrum of terror, from comedy to Jack Nicholson roaming around hotel corridors with an axe. This Halloween, treat yourself to a marathon of scary TV and films, starting from the innocent classics that marked our childhoods to the gruesome unadulterated gore-fests and disturbing explorations of Hannibal Lecter and his ilk. While you’re at it, invite your friends, maybe go trick-or-treating, and revel in the spirit of Halloween. Alfred Hitchcock would definitely be proud.

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TELEVISION STRICTLY DOMINATION

Has Strictly Come Dancing taken over the world? DORIS XU investigates...

Are you crazy about dancing? Do you find yourself watching Strictly Come Dancing every Saturday night? The dance show - and now worldwide sensation was first broadcast in the UK in 2004. Since then there have been ten series, with the eleventh beginning on September 27th this year.

It seems that since the release of Strictly Come Dancing in the UK, the dancing sensation has spread all over the world.

With versions of the show produced in over forty countries, the franchise is licensed by BBC Worldwide and earns around £60 million per year in revenue.

One such country to use this format is China, where several dance shows have been created in recent years. The most important of them is the Chinese version of Strictly Come Dancing called Wu Dong Qi Ji. The title roughly translates as “dancing can bring miracles.”

The Chinese version began

in 2007, three years after Strictly debuted in the UK. Produced jointly by two networks – TVB and Hunan TV – the format is similar to the original English version, only each network supplies ten celebrities, giving twenty couples dancing in the competition at the start.

Aside from this, the essence of the show remains the same. This is largely due to the fact that the BBC has the right to access details on stage design, lighting, music and any other artistic or creative elements of the show at any time. They can also assign an expert from the BBC to make sure that the Chinese version is in keeping with the original vision of Strictly Come Dancing.

Yet whilst the basic

structure of the show is the same, there are still some notable differences between the two.

Firstly, the presenters’ hosting style is very different in the Chinese and UK versions.

Whilst Tess Daly and Bruce Forsyth tend to riff off each other and involve the audience in the show, the Chinese presenters come across as a lot more stiff in their delivery, as their lines have been written in advance. Secondly, the large number of adverts within the Chinese version is often distracting and frustratingly, the dances themselves can often be shortened by adverts or split up into short sections that mean you don’t even get to see the whole

dance.

Also, the Chinese version of the show has a strong charitable element, where each surviving couple can donate ten thousand RMB (equivalent to roughly one thousand pounds) each week to poverty-stricken areas in China to help children complete their education.

Whilst the two versions may differ in a number of ways, one thing is certain: both shows are extremely successful in their respective countries.

The success of both shows, despite their differences, could be due to the vastly different cultures in which they are produced – and arguably explains the success of the Strictly format worldwide. Rather than selling the British version to other countries and simply dubbing over it, the idea of Strictly has been sold, allowing other countries to put their own spin on it, ensuring that it appeals to their own audience.

HALLOWEEN NOT-SO SPECIAL?

SWEET! Revenge has returned with a bang for its third season with a camp, soapy drama and brooding stares a plenty. We love it.

There’s enough action in Arrow to set our hearts pounding out of our chests. And that’s before Stephen Amell takes his top off.

Honesty’s never the best policy when lies cause so much entertainment. Pretty Little Liars remains an engrossing drama.

KATIE THOMAS looks at the demise of the Halloween special...

If you’re planning on spending the majority of the Halloween period in front of the television, I can imagine your prospects are reasonably low.

You might be lucky to come across the odd classic horror film to distract you from the likes of the X-Factor live show, featuring endless renditions of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and Nicole Scherzinger donning devil horns. We can’t really expect much more from the soaps that usually feature the cast attending a Halloween party in costume, the plot occasionally thickening to expose a spooky yet uninteresting twist.

This brings us to the issue of whether there have been any memorable Halloween TV specials to grace our screens over the past few years. Looking back at the 90s, we could rely on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and re-runs of The Addams Family for great TV when approaching the Halloween season. So what has the 21st century brought us in comparison?

Let’s start with the Friends episode - ‘The One With The Halloween Party’ that aired in 2001

and is no stranger to our screens each year as it comes to the end of October. Yes, it features a costumed Halloween party but at the same time provides humour, familiarity and Ross dressed as an Earth satellite - in this respect you can’t go wrong.

Although ‘The One With The Halloween Party’ works with the theme well, it doesn’t really stand out from the other e p i s o d e s, but still delivers in a way that only Friends can.

Channel 4 gave us a Come Dine With Me Halloween Special which featured a

number of recipes with questionable Halloween pun names (‘Prawn of the Dead’ being one of them) and four separate dinner opportunities for Z-list celebrities to dress up in costumes.

The slight friction between the guests allowed for good television and the odd voiceover comment from Dave Lamb kept the show going, all in all an averagely enjoyable Halloween special.

Last year witnessed the Halloween two part special Derren Brown: Apocalpyse that featured the set up of an unsuspecting individual to believe a meteor shower hitting earth had caused the end of the world. Although undoubt-

edly entertaining to watch him battle through zombie wasteland in Brown’s attempt to prove the victim’s capability as a decent and responsible human being, the whole ordeal was certainly far-fetched.

However, with each episode pulling in 4.5 million viewers, it’s clear the show certainly grabbed the public’s attention and evoked endless debate and conversation in regard to its legitimacy. Derren Brown: Apocalpyse entertained us, scared us (at times) and made us talk - therefore proving itself as a memorable Halloween special.

It’s likely the illustionist will be returning to our screens soon for more trickery.

The noughties has also witnessed Halloween TV specials from Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory and many more. And generally, television during Halloween is in a word, undemanding.

You’ll probably find yourself watching something slightly predictable and repetitive and not in the least scary. But you might as well put your feet up and enjoy it for what it is.

Downton has gotten so dull. We’re hoping another Turkish diplomat will show up to spice things up.

Hollyoaks has reached the stage in its tragic circle of life where they’ve run out of believable plots.

Whoever told ITV to start imitating The Voice needs shooting.

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HOSTING HALLOWEEN

COMMUNITY and HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER compete to host the best Halloween Party...

1. ABBA’s greatest hits on repeat with Dean Pelton’s voice memos throughout. [WIN] 2. Britta excels herself in this episode with an amazing T-Rex costume. [WIN] 3. Shirley and Chang getting together in the bathroom whilst hiding from their zombie classmates was unexpected but brilliant. [WIN] 4. Jeff wearing a $6000 designer suit and carrying a football, as David Beckham. The classic example of a guy making the bare minimum of effort for a Halloween costume.

5. The library is turned into a ‘li-scary’ for the party, but who really wants to go to a party at their school?

In ‘Epidemiology’, party food turns everyone into zombies with spooktacular consequences

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1. ‘Danger Zone’ from Top Gun and a barbershop quartet called The Shagarats.

2. Lily dressed as a parrot (complete with headdress and beak) is a highlight.

3. Barney’s many, many attempts to hook up with a girl while wearing a Hawaiian costume prove frustratingly fruitless.

4. Ted wearing his Hanging Chad costume for the fifth year running so that the Slutty Pumpkin, a girl he met once before, might recognise him.

[WIN] 5. The roof above Ted’s flat and the bar is seen a lot during the show but is still an impressive venue for a party. [WIN]

RESULT: COMMUNITY 3-2 HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER. A close call but Community wins the title of ‘Best Halloween Party’ (even if no-one can remember what happened).

‘Slutty Pumpkin’ focuses on Ted’s attempts to find the girl he met four Halloweens ago.

LOVE/HATE

MADDY CRAMMOND and WILL McCURDY defend their stance on London Irish...

Fast-paced, at times farcical and very, very funny, London Irish is one of those programmes that can immediately lighten your mood. It’s like a blend of The Hangover and Friends, except much more up-to-date, boasting fast-flowing humour and filthy language, topped off by the rat-tat-tat tempo of the Irish accent.

If you want half an hour of unpretentious good fun, I couldn’t recommend it more.

Part of its charm lies in its zany characters; four Irish twenty-somethings attempting survival in the City of London. Packy is dryly sarcastic, Niamh and Conor are hilariously dim, while Bronagh is so viciously witty that I can’t help but admire her. The script is well-written, with punchy observations about everything from sex, God and terrorism to homosexuality.

Derry-born writer Lisa McGee confronts serious issues with a fresh attitude – yes, it’s naughty and not 100% politically correct, but in my opinion meeting fear and misunderstanding with humour is the best way to actually normalise these matters.

London Irish taps into the funny side of the disastrous – the characters discuss death in the pub while enjoying a pint (“I wouldn’t mind being run over by an ice-cream van”). The sitcom parallels the subtle humour of everyday life to a comic extreme, including the kind of wicked one-liners that we all wish we had come up with. It’s rude, it’s fun, and it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. One of my favourite moments is when Niamh comments on a Halloween outfit: ‘That is one seriously shite costume.’ Let’s face it; we’ll all find ourselves quoting the show at one point or another.

Maddy Crammond

London Irish spends most of its short run time perpetuating just about every Irish stereotype known to man, in the most banal and obvious of ways. Rather than satirising the Northern Irish people, their unique language and culture, it goes for shock value, purely for the sake of it. I would be completely fine with this, on the condition that it was funny – which it simply is not.

I’m not annoyed by the fact that they stereotype Irish people as hard drinkers or excessive swearers, as that may actually have some basis in fact, but that they do not actually manage to make good use of these stereotypes to make entertaining television.

The characters have no real unique identity and fit into generic categories: the nice one, the stupid one, another stupid one. The plot lines are generic even by sitcom standards. It seems to rely on uninspired stock story lines - take the example of a man crawling out of a pub window to avoid a fight.

Lisa McGee’s script has the potential for some great comedy, however the amateurish production, the mediocre acting and a seemingly shoestring budget keep it firmly in the arena of a ridiculous YSTV drama.

I can’t help but feel there is degree of cynicism in the whole thing, that merely showing generally unpleasant and not overly intelligent Irish people going about their business, should be exotic and shocking enough to amuse English audiences. To quote a far superior Irish sitcom, Father Ted, “Down with this sort of thing”.

Will McCurdy

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BOOKS WHAT’S ON MY KINDLE...

HELENA HORTON @HelenasHead

Necrophilia Variations Supervert It has really beautiful prose. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was supposed to be erotica, but I got more tuned into the weird Halloweeny vibe than turned on.

It’s all about exploring death and the beauty of emptiness, and, as a recovering emo, I appreciated it.

Favourite quote: “You can’t kiss death without death kissing you back”

American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis

Man booker prize 2013: “End of a booker era”

A

fter months of commotion and speculation, this year’s Man Booker Prize culminated in the presentation of what is widely regarded as the UK’s most prestigious literary award to one of six shortlisted authors.

To sentimental overtures, the process of screening a longlist, selecting a shortlist and finally nominating a winner was concluded with the customary exchange of double-cheekkissing at London’s Guildhall, where Eleanor Catton was announced as the winner of the 2013 award. The prize was awarded for Catton’s second novel, The Luminaries, a masterfully structured mystery set against the goldfields of 19th century New Zealand. The chairman of the judging panel, Robert Macfarlane, described the book as a “dazzling work, luminous, vast” and “a novel of astonishing control.”

Amongst the other shortlisted writers was former Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri for her historical novel, The Low-

This is one of my favourite books in the world. It’s a better book than the film about the crazy, psychotic nature of 1980s hyper capitalism. It starts off with a very detailed description of the protagonist’s beauty regime, but keep reading and might be against the badger cull and the you’ll get to hear bedroom tax - and think it is both saddenabout a rat nibbling ing and hilarious that Owen Paterson reits way through a brie-smeared vagina. cently remarked that the reason they hadn’t able to murder enough badgers was Crow Halloweeny. Kind of. been because “the badgers moved the goalposts”.

But despite this, I believe that cleverer poTed Hughes litical poetry has been written than the seemThis is a poetry an- ing hash job recently penned by everyone’s thology, not techni- favourite GCSE syllabus poet, and our escally a novel, but I teemed Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

Writing in The Guardian, a newspaper read it in its entirety after reading a few whose readers regard her as some sort of poems from it and saint and are the sort who are all outraged loving them. It’s very at the prospect of the ‘nasty Tories’ shooting dark and disturbing, bullets into the heads of our furry woodland exploring the mind of friends, there’s little doubt that the readers the disillusioned and will lap up Duffy’s anti-Tory rhetoric.

The poem is based on the line that the probably mentally ill Hughes. Look out “badgers have moved the goalposts” and for barbed comments gives 22 spurious reasons for the bedroom about Plath and lots tax, all based on animals from the British of reference to dis- countryside. For example, “The Hares are memberment.

Hor- losing the plot”, which is presumably supposed to mirror the spurious reasons and rifically beautiful.

land, which portrays the ideological divergence of two brothers in 1960s Bengal. Threetime shortlisted Booker veteran, Colm Toibin, was recognised this year for his novella The Testament of Mary. Also in the shortlist were Noviolet Bulawayo’s account of the lives of Zimbabwean urchins, We Need New Names, Jim Crace’s unsettling narrative detailing the disintegration of an agrarian community, Harvest; and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, which focuses on the lives of two distinctly different women linked by the serendipitous discovery of a diary.

At 28, Catton is the youngest recipient of the coveted accolade, and, at an epic 848 pages, The Luminaries is also the longest work ever to win. Runner-up Jhumpa Lahiri was also responsible for a new Booker record, albeit it in a much less esteemed catergory, for the lowest stakes ever placed on a shortlisted author: the paltry sum of £24. only

Yet, these were not the records established

during the 2013 competition. Significantly, the conclusion of this year’s competition marked “the end of a Booker era”, according to Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Booker 2013 was the final year in which, under the established entry criteria, only works by authors living and writing in the Commowealth,the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe were eligible for nomination to the longlist. From the 2014 event onwards, all authors writing in English, on the condition that they are published in the UK, will be eligible for consideration.

Of course, with publishing firms currently limited to only two entries each, the trans-Atlantic threat of Usonian penmen competing with British and Commonwealth writers has expectedly met with disapproval and controversy. Moreover, with the judges reading lists at 151 titles this year, they’re unlikely to greatly increase the number of submissions to accommodate the swell of newly eligible titles.

It remains to be seen whether this significant alteration to the character of the Booker will establish a truly international prize, the Booker International having gone to American authors in the last two years of its conferral. As the novelist and former Booker finalist Linda Grant has portentously stated, before there were “two career-changing prizes, the Booker and the Pulitzer”. British and Commonwealth authors will now face “more competition for a career-changing prize, whereas U.S. authors will have a new prize”.

Samuel Bowell

Carol Ann duffy: attack on the bedroom tax

I

the scapegoating that she thinks the Coalition uses to justify their actions. The pun at the end “but only the Bustards have broken the bank” is unoriginal and cringeworthy enough to fit right in with the titles on York Vision’s news stories.

Duffy’s poetry is often marketed as poetry for people who don’t like poetry- it’s accessible and lacks subtlety and finesse - and this poem, with its clunky pun, rushed rhythm and obvious idea, is no exception. It’ll be popular because the concept (i.e the Tories are mean and nasty) is popular among her audience, but the poem does not come close to greatness.

All in all, it seems like a piece of writing that, given time and a few newspapers, a schoolchild could have come up with. I suppose that it is a bit cheeky for a Poet Laureate to write something against our current government, but if it is angry revolution we are looking for, we are definitely not going to find it in a few lazy lines about cuddly woodland creatures .

Helena Horton

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Getting

GOOSEBUMPS

#halloweenreads

emily murdoch: THE INTERVIEW

No tricks, just tweets

Morenike Adebayo interviews medieval historian, author and York graduate Emily Murdoch

Ben Bason @benjamesbason Falling Man by Don Delillo. Dissertation text!

What three words would you use to describe Conquests?

Accurate historical romance.

What book are you reading at the moment?

I’ve got a couple on the go at the moment: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodson Burnett, No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Blood and Roses by Helen Castor.

Any tips on how to get through the dreaded writers’ block?

I

t was the series that both captivated and terrified a generation. Gateway prose to the horror genre for many, Goosebumps benefited both from the breathless simplicity of its writing style and the genuine terror of the series. It takes healthy inspiration from real life horror stories, with the basis of characters such as the terrifying dummies in children’s stories like Pinocchio, which makes the characters all the more chilling.

Goosebumps benefitted not only from its inherently spooky writing, but also from the isolated setting of its writing. While this ranged wildly from boarding schools to blissfully ignorant suburbia, the focus was always on an isolated location and, more often than not, upon a new arrival in town or a trip somewhere else. This gave the books an unsettling character before the paranormal had even become invovled. This combination heightened the the feeling of a lack of control and, at the same time, commanded your attention, making it impossible to leave the book in case something earth-shattering happened on the next page.

The books were award-winning and justifiably so. Abandoning the comedy of the successive reincarnations of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Goosebumps made use of real horror and didn’t treat us as children. It was the thing that you loved to read to be a bit naughty and mischevious. That alone makes it a spooktacular series indeed.

Watch The Jeremy Kyle Show. Sounds strange, but if you want to understand people and their relationships, motivations, hurts and grievances, that is the best place to find them. Writers’ block isn’t usually the inability to write, but the feeling that you have nothing interesting to say. I can guarantee you that you can create a blood feud through four generations through at least one episode!

Zena Jarjis @zenajarjis Definitely Edgar Allan Poe #halloweenreads

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Don’t be afraid of taking the slightly unusual route. I sent my manuscript off to several mainstream publishers, but a year later, they still said that they loved it. I stumbled across a smaller publishing house, emailed them my first three chapters on Monday morning, and was offered a contract by Wednesday. The most important thing is to get your name out there. Once you’ve done that, start introducing yourself to people as a writer. It’ll do no end of good to your confidence and make you the most interesting person in the room!

Hussein Kesvani @HKesvani Jeremy Clarkson: The Biography #halloweenreads

To learn more about Emily and her writing, visit:

Tweet us

@yorkvisionbooks

www.emilyekmurdoch.com or tweet her @emilyekmurdoch

FANCY A FRIGHT? TOM DAVIES REVIEWS TWO SPOOKY READS TOM DAVIES

@tomdavies111

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Of all the things you can say about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you can’t make any accusation of false advertising. It’s precisely what it claims to be, which is Pride and Prejudice with zombies. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It retains the kind of period, comedy of manners sense of humour of the original, with the added surrealist bent that there are, well, zombies now.

It’s certainly good for a chuckle, and it’s essentially still the same great story that we had incessantly rammed down all of our throats at school; only this time, outside of an English classroom, with zombies.

Needful Things Needful Things is something of a magnum opus of King’s in my opinion. The effortless way he builds an ever encroaching sense of dread into what initially seems such a humdrum series of events creates an understated level of horror, which manages to be so much creepier than having a stock boogeyman jump out from behind a bush. This is particularly true when plastered against the backdrop of the complex, scheming politics of the New England town of Castle Rock, which King satirizes with some apparent glee.

The plot is rather simple. A new store opens in Castle Rock, the eponymous ‘Needful Things’.

Its proprietor, Leland Gaunt, is a kindly looking, rather charming old man in his 50s or 60s who possesses a series of specialist items to fulfill the wildest dreams and desires of the town’s residents – for a price, of course.

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Technology

Top tech tweet of the week:

15 Oct Nobel Prize @Nobelprize_org 2013 #NobelPrize in Physics:François Englert & Peter W. Higgs for the theory of how particles acquire mass

GTA V Review With a world record revenue of $1 billion in the first three days of its release, it’s fair to say that most console gamers across the world already own the entertainment juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto V. Perfect (10/10 or equivalent) reviews from the most influential games review websites and magazines such as IGN, Edge and Famitsu demonstrates that an enviable critical response has matched the game’s staggering consumer response. UK publisher Rockstar Games seem to pull off this feat time and time again.

GTA’s success lies in its scope.

Whereas its biggest sales rival Call of Duty is released on an annual basis, satisfying gamers just enough until next year, Rockstar aims to overwhelm players in the amount of content a single game provides, even if that means taking intervals of up to five years.

The playable area one can explore is bigger than the past three installments in the franchise combined. There are over 70 missions to complete, and for the first time there are three playable main characters. Not forgetting the multiplayer component, which is a whole game in which you can create your own fourth character, rob jewellery stores and street race with your friends online.

One of the main attractions of the game is the ability to immerse yourself in a new world, and few do it better than GTA. Players can delight in the detail, whether it’s guessing which in-game cars are

Google Chromecast Streaming media from the internet to your TV is currently only available through the following ways: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Apple TV, a Roku box or through Smart TVs. Google has now come up with a cheaper and simpler alternative with the Chromecast.

The device is currently on sale in the US for only $35, a fraction of the price of an Apple TV. It hasn’t officially been launched in the UK yet but the corresponding Chromecast app went live on the UK Google Play Store last week.

based on their real-life counterparts, exploring every inch of the map or matching the landmarks of the fictional city of Los Santos with those of Los Angeles (which gametrailers.com actually did in a 3

This is truly a game for the social media generation minute video entitled ‘GTA V - Virtual Tour’).

You could perhaps argue that the game is critique on the ‘Californication’ of pop culture that has developed over the past two decades, as evident in the bikini-clad women and South Central gangstas that adorned advertisement posters in the run up to the release date. Few people, however, could help enjoy riding a jet ski like an idiot along the waters of ‘Vespucci’ Beach (Real-life Venice Beach), or even

rolling down the street conducting drive-by shootings to such West Coast classics as N.W.A.’s ‘Appetite for Destruction’ and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s ‘Still D.R.E.’ Despite being set in the US, the game still retains a British idiosyncratic and self-referential sense of humour as you would expect. For example Trevor, one of the trio, has a side-mission to collect grisly souvenirs from celebrities for an eccentric British couple and Michael has to blow up an arrogant Mark Zuckerberg-type character in the middle of his keynote speech, using his own smartphone to do so. This is truly a game for the social media generation.

GTA V is an essential purchase for anybody with an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It is simply the crowning achievement of what arguably has been the most fruitful of console generations in the past 15 years.

BARTO JOLY DE LOTBINIERE

“The device is currently on sale in the US for only $35...”

The ‘dongle’ uses the HDMI port of an HD TV and operates via WiFi connectivity.

The viewer sends media across through any device that can run the app, irrespective of its make.

By selling the device cheap and making the app accessible, Google is doing everything in its power to expand its user base as much as possible.

TV shows recently became available through the Play Store, selling at £1.89 per episode in standard definition.

The Chromecast device should be available in the UK before Christmas where it will have to compete with a whole host of other ‘smart’ devices for TVs, but on price and accessibility it is very likely to do well.

BARTO JOLY DE LOTBINIERE

Tablets Takedown!

Product series

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX

Apple iPad 4

Google Nexus 10

Microsoft Surface 2

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Release Date

November 13th 2013

Available now

Available now

October 22nd 2013

Avaliable now

Price (£)

199 - 409

399 - 739

319 or 389

359 - 439

350

Screen Size (inches)

7 or 8.9

9.7

10

10.6

10.1

Internal Storage (GB)

16, 32 or 64

16, 32, 64 or 128

16 or 32

32 or 64

16, 32 or 64

Why you should

Amazon’s Kindle and LOVEFiLM services

Apple’s Retina Display and App Store

Screen resolution beats Retina Display

Microsoft Office

Split screen app viewing and the ‘S pen’

Why you shouldn’t

Cannot access the Google play store

iPad buying addiction!

No 3G/4G and no SD card Microsoft’s App Store slot ranks beneath competitors

Struggles to match the iPad

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Unbeatable Fear-tre T

error is one of the strongest primal reactions that any creature is born with. That feeling of utter alertness and an expectance of a immediate threat to your safety is all-consuming when presented with danger, and very rightly so. But, as a notoriously ridiculous species, when faced with such terror, we often do what we’re rather infamous for: we decidedly laugh in the face of this sensible reaction.

In fact, a vast portion of us seem to enjoy throwing a massive middle finger up at evolution and our most basic survival instincts by deliberately seeking it out. The most obvious examples of this would be things such as rollercoasters, bungee jumps and skydives; all artificial activities designed to provide that addictive rush of adrenaline craved by many. However, these things are little more than outlets that cannot provide possibly the most affecting and genuine category of fear: that of complete and immersive psychological terror.

The key to this particular type of fear lies within one simple thing: reality. In order for our brains to register something as being scary, it has to be real enough to inspire a truly genuine, instinctive reaction. For that, there is one resource that works without fail. Theatre. Thorough and contrived acting is an undeniably, uniquely human trait, and it is through this medium that we can almost trick our brains into thinking that we’re truly in danger.

Seeing other people in horrific situations flips a certain primal switch in our brain, born of the desire to keep each other, but mainly oneself, safe. So-called “horror mazes”, for example, make use of this to the extreme. There’s nothing quite like trying to convince yourself that there’s not really anything to be afraid of when a bloodied, zombified little girl leaps around a corner and shrieks in your face!

During York Theatre Royal’s TakeOver Festival this October, a (rather topically) main focus has been on horror within the theatre. An all-female production of Titus Andronicus recieved rave reviews as Shakespeare’s “bloodiest

foray into Roman society”, and The Night of the Berghast was labelled as “horrifically disconcerting”.

On reflection, it does strike a chord as being incredibly odd how these reviews are considered as praising a performance, as opposed to being negative. A real-life “bloody foray” or something that is “horrifically disconcerting” would probably be something that sane people actively avoid in their day to day lives.

As something that is being shown to an audience sitting in the comfort and safety of a theatre seat, where one can even get up, walk around and get an ice cream, it takes a very meticulous, particular kind of expression to successfully imbue that sense of genuinely deep-rooted fear into an audience. In other words, when horror is done in a theatre environment, it needs to be done damn well, and the TakeOver festival was an undeniable success story in terms of this goal.

Successes in the genre are almost always down to the acting abilities of each cast. If a performer isn’t convincing at conveying the sense of danger and terror, an audience will ultimately fail to relate to the attempt at all. However, there can be and often are more drastic measures taken; The Night of the Berghast, for example was a play that was performed not on a single stage, but across many sets spanning the entirety of York Brewery, with the audience surrounding each of the scenes from various positions. This tactic was chosen to rid the audience of any sense of the ‘safety’ of spectating by effectively bringing them as close as possible to immersing them within the play itself.

Ultimately, it all comes down to just that: immersion. Whether it be through the ex-

www.yorkvision.co.uk

Born in a Barn T

A look at some of Dramasoc’s most successful alumni and their creative birthplace:

The Drama Barn

he Drama Barn, home to York University’s Drama Society, may not (despite its flagrantly purple doors) appear to be anything particularly special. However, this converted barn, now black box theatre, has been the birthing and nurturing ground of a plethora of successful theatre talent for decades. Simon Stephens, perhaps the Barn’s most recognised alumnus, said (in his recent interview at the TFTV department), “I still think the Drama Barn is still the most important building in the United Kingdom” and he also argued that, “Most things I learned about theatre aesthetic I learnt in the Drama Barn”.

Indeed, the Barn has been the playground of many people who have gone on to great things in the world of theatre. Big name former Barn frequenters include Antony Horowitz, Nick Payne, Chris Bush (all of whom had their first plays performed in the barn), and Sean Holmes (director, and, recently, Artistic Director of Lyric Hammersmith). Others include the founders of York University-formed Belt Up Theatre company (Jethro Compton, Dominic Allen, Alexander Wright and James Wilkes), named “Edinburgh Fringe Royalty” due to their successful sell-out shows and who have now all gone on to pursue individual successes. Compton, for example, formed his own company (Jethro Compton Ltd) which enjoyed great triumphs at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and at the Southwark Playhouse in London. Hufton, an associate artist of Belt Up and a theatre director, also began his journey within the hallowed walls of the Barn. The success continues as the most recent Drama Barn graduates have gone on to Mountview, Central, LAMDA and RADA drama schools (and that was only last year!).

So what is it that is so significant and valuable about the Drama Barn theatre itself ? It could be that the blank canvas the space presents offers itself up to be transformed

Photos: Mihaela Bodlovic

traordinary acting abilities of people present before you on stage, or through actually being within the scene itself, it is only the medium of theatre that truly comes closest to fully accomplishing that bizarre human desire to fear. Once the doors slam shut and you’re trapped in the auditorium, for that period of time, you give yourself over fully to that loss of control; it’s truly electrifying. More than any other medium you can lose yourself in the moment and give yourself over for totally for an hour or two to the prospect of danger and exhiliration. For the truest experience of that exciting danger without the rather undesirable reality and side effects, theatre is clearly in a class of its own.

Nadine Garbett

into almost anything the human mind can conceive. Perhaps it is the cluttered and characterful backstage area where costumes and props that have accumulated over the years jostle for position, and the walls (even in the toilet) are emblazoned with a plethora of signatures, posters and murals of plays and players past, all of which pay tribute to the rich theatrical tapestry that is the Barn’s history. Most likely though, it is the nature of putting on a successful play in the Barn (which requires a lot of DIY, ingenuity and hard work) which cultivates, through diligence and creativity, the kind of people and experiences which can lead to success in the world of theatre outside its walls.

Whatever the reason, be sure to get your taste of the Barn during your time at York, whether that is involvement in a production or as an audience member, and see for yourself what it is about that little black box which inspires theatre practitioners for years after they’ve graduated.

To see what’s on and how you can get involved in the Drama Barn’s magic visit: www.yorkdramasoc.com Isla Van Tricht

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S P O T L I GH T : L e s l i e C l i o “I

haven’t spoken to my ex-boyfriend since we ended it and I doubt we’ll speak again. But it would be interesting to know what he thinks about the album, whether he would know it was about him.”

26 year singer-songwriter old Leslie Clio is tipped to be the ‘next big thing’ on the soul scene, and it’s not difficult to see why her critically acclaimed album is currently plastered all over the London Tube stations. Her fashion sense is as unique and striking as her music, and has been recognised by the writers at VICE and Topshop.

She met her producer, Nikolai Pothoff, by chance and since then they’ve worked closely together to create her sound, described as ‘a mixture between Paloma Faith and Lily Allen’. “I wrote my album with my producer and I had the ideas, he added the sounds. I write the lyrics and the melodies and have the vision. It’s like he’s the daddy and I’m the mummy.”

“He was a boyfriend of a friend of mine, I’d been in Berlin for nine months and I’d tried out stuff with other people, but it wasn’t quite right. I was sleeping over at her house, he was making breakfast in the morning and she’d send him some demos of mine and he loved it, so he invited me to his studio, and that’s how it all started. We work so well together.”

Clio met Potthoff nine months after she moved to Berlin, with a bagful of ideas and sample tapes, and she gushed about how much she loves to live in the vibrant Capital.

“Of course I love to live here. I grew up in Hamburg so Berlin is the only city to go to. I was in NYC for two months to check out the music scene, but Berlin is close and I had no money so I chose to live there instead. I love it because there’s lots of musicians and I bike everywhere, it’s still cheap and not posh or pretentious. It’s small enough to feel comfortable and at home, you can walk round a corner and bump into a friend, but it’s still big enough to get lost in and have an adventure.”

The German singer-songwriter writes exclusively in English. She had a lot to say about artists who don’t speak English as their first language. “I don’t do it for my career.

“I was in NYC for two months, to check out the music scene, but Berlin is close and I had no money so I chose to live there instead. I love it because there’s lots of musicians and I bike everywhere, it’s still cheap and not posh or pretentious.”

When I write, I feel it in English. All of the music I listen to is English! I read a lot of English poetry too. Some of my friends sing in German, some in English, it depends. If you don’t feel comfortable singing in English, you sing in German! Simple. There’s no pressure.”

Although she admitted that she doesn’t listen to much German music, her sound has a lot of different influences, with sounds of twee clinky piano contrasted with pithy lyrics reminiscent of Adele and Lily Allen, and patches of World and Jazz influences.

“I love Cher, Blondie, a lot of African music - my mother always played African choir music around the house when I was growing up. I listen to a lot of swing, like the Andrews Sisters and this developed into soul, like I sing, like Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Of course, I’m 26 years old so I also love Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child!” Clio has loved music and to perform since she was young, and plays the guitar and piano herself. “There was this child star in the 60s who I was obsessed with when I was little. I’ve been in choirs since first grade and I used to always draw people on stage in Arts and Crafts. I’ve always been very interested in music.”

chats to Helena Horton

The interview was conducted in one of her tour venues in Frankfurt, and as she was busy with her soundcheck, Clio reminisced about her recent tour with Joss Stone. “I was really moved because Joss Stone asked me to support her early on in my career. I love her music and it happened so fast! She’s a soul singer, like me”.

Her album is all about her ex-boyfriend, and specifically about heartbreak. The music is peppered with references to the relationship and filled with a mixture of upbeat ‘girl

“I was really moved because Joss Stone asked me to support her early on in my career. I love her music!” power’-esque songs such as lead single ‘I Couldn’t Care Less’ and heartrending ballads like ‘Sister Sun Brother Moon’.

“Every song on my record except ‘I Couldn’t Care Less’ is about heartbreak. This song is the only one which is not about a boy and a girl. It’s about not letting little troubles like messing up your fingernails, or spilling coffee down yourself before an interview, or putting too much salt in your soup bother me. It’s about rising above.”

On her ex, she was very frank and honest about how the heartbreak made her feel. Clio had a ‘messy’ breakup and hasn’t spoken to her ex-boyfriend since she wrote the album. She found the notion of him listening to it and know-

ing that it was about him funny and said; “Every feeling you have was felt because of a certain person. I haven’t spoken to my ex-boyfriend since we ended it and I doubt we’ll speak again, but it would be interesting to know what he thinks about the album, whether he would know it was about him.”

The video for ‘I Couldn’t Care Less’ echoes the happy-golucky theme, and is an eclectic mix of different, seemingly random and unrelated small videos of things going wrong and Leslie skipping about ecstatically. When asked if the video was as fun to shoot as it was to watch, Clio replied; “Of course it was fun. I had all these ideas and pictures already collected. I am very lucky to have had the perfect production team and they’re my best friends still. They shot it exactly the way I told them to.”

Her fashion sense has been commended by big brands such as Topshop, which is why it’s surprising - and rare for a young female star - that she doesn’t have a stylist, not even for her music videos or album cover shoots. She has a unique, fresh and preppy sense of style, but admitted to not thinking or caring much about fashion. “When I get asked if I want a stylist, I say no, I’ll do it myself. I have my own style. I don’t look on fashion blogs or anything. I wear what I want and what’s comfortable. I love Grace Kelly but I don’t dress or look anything like her.” Touring is a hectic process - the interview was squeezed in between showering and soundchecks - and Clio spoke about the massive high that performing gives you and the slump which follows.

To conclude the interview, she spoke about how she relaxes after a show. “A can of beer. No bottles. You get lots of adrenaline and it exhausts you, after performing. The kick leaves and you just want to drink beer and then go to bed.”