LONDON CITY NIGHTS

Friday, December 2, 2016

Review: 'Chi-Raq', directed by Spike Lee

Friday, December 2, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Chi Raq is a mess. A loud, energised, angry, colourful, adventurous and usually pretty goddamn cool mess. It's one of those movies that makes you wonder how they got the budget to pull this off, but are thankful that someone stumped up the cash. After all,  a contemporary Chicago gangland reimagining of Aristophanes' 411BC play Lysistrata, reworked as a fourth-wall bustin', satirical sex comedy, quasi-musical with dialogue in loose rhyming verse is a high concept to scale.

But Spike Lee is definitely the man for the job, Chi Raq positively trembles with the amount of enthusiasm, sincerity and unalloyed self belief that he pours into just about every frame. 

Chi-Raq opens to Nick Cannon's Pray 4 My City, printing the lyrics in block capitals on the the screen. We learn that more Americans have been shot to death in Chicago than were in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cannon's song, delivered with coolly straightforward anger, explains what it's like living in urban wartime: "This is an emergency / Police sirens, everyday / People dyin', everyday / Mamas cryin', everyday".

Lee quickly sketches  up in the Trojans v Spartans gang war: the opposing sides locked into a retaliatory spiral of death. Someone gets shot at a concert, causing a house to get burnt down, causing machine gun fire to crackle through the city streets, causing.. well you get the picture. It'd be a tragedy if it were just young men gunning each other down, but the situation comes to a head when a young girl is senselessly killed by a stray bullet.

Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), the girlfriend of gang leader Chi Raq (Nick Cannon) decides to take action. Inspired by the true story of Liberian peace activist (and Nobel Prize Winner) Leymah Gbowee, she corrals Chicago's women and commits them to a sex strike, chanting "no peace, no pussy!" or, as the men put it, "these hoes have shut down the penis power grid!". 

That kicks off the film's descent into hot-blooded lunacy, which begins with the women taking control of the National Guard building (via a Porky's style kinky ruse), propelling their strike to a global feminist movement that concludes with a pay-per-view 'first to cum' showdown between the equally horny Lysistrata and Chi-Raq ("This is better than the Superbowl!").

You can say one thing about Lee - he's rarely dull. This is film-making with a bad case of ADD, Chi-Raq sometimes feeling like ten overlapping music videos are running concurrently. Still, the badass gangsta scenes are firmly lodged in caricature; the rival gangs looking like they've strolled out of The Warriors, and, though Lee peppers the film with shots of Chicago graffiti, the film lacks the powerful sense of time and place that (among other things) makes Do The Right Thing an all-time classic.

But Chi-Raq steamrollers its way through most of this stuff with a pure hearted, righteous indignation about the state of the world. Lee wants us all to know in the most direct terms, the precise, abhorrent nature of the way African-American urban communities are fucked over by the police, the government, gun manufacturers, druglords, gangsters, materialistic culture, substandard housing, lack of healthcare and lack of jobs. Lee sprinkles these didactic speeches throughout the film - be it through the snazzily suited narrator figure of Dolmedes (Samuel L Jackson munching his way through the scenery), Angela Basset's bruised yet noble Miss Helen or the feminist revolutionary awakening of Lysistrata herself.

Though Chi-Raq is sprawling, overlong at two hours and with a lot of quasi jokes that fall flat (many feeling like they're improvised on set), it's like few other films you'll see in cinemas. Lee wears his heart on his sleeve - using Chi-Raq as an imaginative and impassioned plea for sanity, justice and humanity. 

★★★★

Chi-Raq is in UK cinemas now. 

Friday, November 18, 2016

Review: 'The Residents' in New Cross Gate, 17th November 2016

Friday, November 18, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

In the long run we're all ghosts. Vast swathes of London housing dates back about a hundred years: bricks and mortar that have borne witness to everything from V2 bombs to flower children. If you live in an old house you find yourself wondering about those who trod these floorboards in years gone by, imagining what kinds of drama might have taken place within the walls you now reside. And one day, future Londoners living in your house will imagine you.

Teatro Vivo's The Residents saves us the trouble of imagining, placing us inside a room in a house (the location shifts every week) and spinning a ghost story that spans centuries. The conceit is that we're there to view the property, our group shown about by Debbie Korley's enthusiastic estate agent. But before too long the radio is emitting distorted screeches, the lights are flickering on and off and someone.. no, something is scuttling around the skirting boards.

Soon the former inhabitants of the building make an appearance, all played by Kas Darley and Mark Stevenson. These range from a Ukrainian woman fleeing the war and dealing with a grumpy elderly builder, a primly buttoned up Edwardian couple and a mournful looking pregnant woman. Director Sophie Austin gradually weaves these vignettes, together with the estate agent framing device and some VO from local residents, into a pointed political comment on property as 'homes' and the importance of local community.

First and foremost, despite its haunted house trappings, The Residents isn't particularly scary. You're not going to jump out of your seat in surprise or feel a burning sense of dread. That's largely down to the simple fact that the ghosts are all too human and empathetic - less vengeful spirits seeking justice and more echoes of the past only able to passively affect the present. Similarly, the spooky sound effects are maybe a teeny bit Hammer Horror.

But while not scary, it is interesting . I enjoy playing detective in theatre, and assembling the big picture from the morsels the show doles out is satisfying. You begin to pick up on the connections between each era and the way that the neighbourhood has evolved around them. The flip side of this that it's  frustrating when you can't figure something out. One mini-story revolves around a wife's dark secret, as far as I can tell we're never explicitly told what it is. Also, a side explanation of two black holes colliding to cause the phenomenon we're seeing is entirely unnecessary.

Where the show unambiguously succeeds is in its stance on the current housing crisis. The housing market is a linchpin of the economy, with houses increasing viewed as an investment or business opportunity rather than as homes to live. This commodification has accelerated enormously over the last twenty years, with overseas buyers, buy-to-let and unscrupulous landlords sending prices skyrocketing way beyond the reach of the average Londoner.

The Residents calmly and straightforwardly railing against the idea of the property market in favour of homes and local continuity. After all, if a neighbourhood is composed of isolated, transient strangers then who has the impetus to make long term improvements and build community relations?

This is absolutely a show with its heart in the right place - politically it hits the nail right on the head. But as a piece of drama it falls a bit short, its knotted narrative of past residents never quite unravelling into coherence. It's a shame, the idea of a show gliding between different properties and telling their stories as it goes is a potent one, but in this instance a bit more storytelling discipline would go a long way.

★★★


The Residents runs until 3rd December. Tickets here.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Review: 'Lake Bodom' (2016) directed by Taneili Mustonon [LFF 2016]

Thursday, October 20, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

"When four attractive teenagers go camping in the woods on the exact spot where four attractive teenagers were brutally murdered forty years ago, what the hell do they expect to happen? Lake Bodom, by Taneili Mustonon, shows us that the answer is… well, pretty much what you’d expect.

Setting it apart from the pack is that this backstory is ripped from reality. The Lake Bodom murders are one of Finland’s great unsolved mysteries: four teenagers sleeping soundly in their tents really were brutally murdered in 1960.

The killer introduced himself to his victims by plunging a knife through their canvas tent. Two hours later, three of the teenagers were mutilated beyond recognition and the sole survivor was staggering away with a concussion, a broken jaw and facial fractures. In a creepy detail the survivor reported glowing red eyes pursuing him as he ran through the dark forest. The killer promptly vanished, and he/she/it was never caught…"

Read the rest at We Got This Covered.

★★

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Review: 'Sweet Dreams' (2016) directed by Marco Bellocchio [LFF 2016]

Thursday, October 13, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

"Marco Bellocchio is superhumanly prolific; a member of a very small group of directors who turn out a film about every year. Granted, they range in quality, but he’s undergoing a personal renaissance, with his most highly regarded work coming in the last decade and a half. Those film, Good Morning Night, Vincere and Dormant Beauty, are loaded with a rock-solid sense of time and place, coupled with an emotional heft that largely avoids sentimentality.

His latest is Sweet Dreams, an adaptation of journalist Massimo Gramellini’s autobiographical novel Sweet dreams, little one. The book and film are an extensive meditation on grief, loss and mourning – following the life of Massimo from childhood to middle age as he struggles with his mother’s suicide."

★★★

Read the rest at We Got This Covered

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Review: 'Christine' (2016) directed by Antonio Campos [LFF 2016]

Sunday, October 9, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

"Fictionalising a real-life suicide is an tricky job, primarily because the person whose tale you’re telling isn’t around to give their side of the story. On top of that, you’re making a drama with an unavoidable downer ending, you have to deal with understandably suspicious family members and friends of the deceased and, well, you’re being a bit of a vulture.

Antonio Campos’ Christine gracefully sidesteps these obstacles, presenting us with a sensitive, compelling and fantastically performed drama about a woman pushed over the edge. That woman is Christine Chubbuck, who killed herself while delivering a live news report. While her name might not be immediately familiar, the legend of the news reporter who committed suicide on air certainly is."

Read the full review at We Got This Covered.

★★★★

Saturday, March 26, 2016

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' (2016) directed by Zack Snyder

Saturday, March 26, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

I've always gone to bat for Zack Snyder, often despite my misgivings. Sure, 300 was queasily fascistic, but it was visual dynamite. Watchman was flawed, yet studded with nuggets of brilliance, the Dr Manhattan origin sequence alone making the whole affair worthwhile. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt on Sucker Punch - sure it looked like a creepy fetishistic wet dream, but it's really a commentary on action film sexism..... right? 

So it was with Man of Steel. It's by no means a great film but there's enough interesting stuff going on in there that you felt he was on the cusp of an artistic breakthrough. And now, with millions of dollars of studio money behind him and two of the biggest cultural icons of the 20th century meeting for the first time on screen, I figured Batman v Superman was going to be that breakthrough.

Christ almighty. What the hell was I thinking? Zack Snyder is a fucking hack.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a misjudged calamity of a film with ideas embarrassingly far above its station. Boiled down, it's trying to do two things. The first is to launch the DC equivalent of Marvel's cinematic universe. So we get shoehorned in cameos from characters we know (and care) nothing about, together with ominous rumblings of the 'real' bad guy to come. The second is a high-minded philosophical exploration of the relationship between man and god, via examining the psychological effects of the 9/11.

This is all told by a convoluted story pieced together from, among others, clandestine CIA gun-running to African warlords, people smuggling, high-level Washington political machinations, and Frankenstein-like genetic meddling. The aim of this incomprehensible narrative is, as the title of the film suggests, to get Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) into a scrap.

Simmering away in the background is a barmier than usual Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), a personality free Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), the perpetually concerned looking Lois Lane ( Amy Adams) and a smattering of supporting talent (Lawrence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Holly Hunter), all of whom desperately try to salvage some semblence of character from a script that has none.

The film lumbers from set piece to set piece, tosses in half-baked moral queries, constantly spouts cringeworthy dialogue and has some serious performance deficits, mainly from Cavill's charmless Superman. But I think the core problem, the thing that makes the film so astonishingly unbearable, is a surreal lack of humanity.

Batman and Superman are essentially reduced to embodiments of philosophical posturing draining humanity from a film that already looks glossily CG sterilised. On top of that, Snyder is utterly self-serious about superheroes. Sure, they can be used to convey complex, mature ideas - but you need a dose of self-awareness that they're essentially there to amuse children. Even Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, despite its reputation for maturity, still recognised the basic ludicrousness of it's core concept.

So Batman v Superman has a comical lack of self-awareness of how ridiculous it is, perhaps best demonstrated so than in a pivotal scene where Superman portentously strides through the US Capitol building in Washington to deliver evidence to a Senate Hearing. Serious looking man in suits turn in slow motion to regard coolly regard Superman's presence, as if a man in a skin-tight primary coloured jumpsuit and cape just fits smoothly into The West Wing like it's no big deal.

This certitude that superheroes are serious business for serious grown-ups poisons every part of the film. Batman now sadistically stabs, shoots and brands criminals while rescuing/terrifying a prison cell of sex-trafficked women, Superman sports a constant miserable glower and spends his time joylessly floating around looking like he wishes he was anywhere else. The rest embody a low-level misery; Irons' Alfred clearly not giving a shit anymore, Fishburne's Perry Mason fruitlessly watches his newspaper go down the tubes and Lois sitting naked in her bathtub traumatised by guilt.

The nadir is the treatment doled out to Superman's Mum. She's kidnapped by Lex Luthor, who taunts Superman by scattering torture porn polaroids of her at his feet. These show a terrified, gagged woman with 'WITCH' scrawled on her forehead, shot in sickly pale snuff film lighting. It's tone deaf - and powerfully unfun.

No film has an obligation to be 'fun', but perhaps a summer superhero blockbuster should be, at minimum, enjoyable. The film isn't even an interesting fuckup; theoretically a superhero film with a stick shoved this far up it's ass should be interesting if only in its peculiarity. Yet, the predominant emotion experienced here is boredom - boredom with the lumbering narrative, the dull as dishwater characters and the ominous sense that they're setting us up for countless more servings of this tripe.

It's perhaps appropriate that the film ends on a vague promise of nihilistic horror to come. Just before the climax, Wonder Woman opens her laptop and stops the narrative in order for us to watch three teaser-trailers for The Flash, Cyborg and (god help us) Aquaman. This isn't even the most blatant sequel hook in the film - that comes when, apropos of nothing, a man rips a hole in space and time to yell confusing gibberish about the sequel at aperplexed Batman.

I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but Batman v Superman made me appreciate the dull competence of the Marvel films. Sure they're content with averageness, but at least they achieve that with broad professionalism. And, mercifully, at least there we're spared ridiculous intellectual pretensions that mercilessly eradicate any pleasure from the simple concept of strongman in silly costumes doing outrageous things.

What's that Zack Snyder? You're currently developing an adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead? Of course you are. 

★

Saturday, February 27, 2016

'Eggs' at Vault Festival, 26th February 2016

Saturday, February 27, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Eggs is aptly named. We open on an argument that vegetarians should eat eggs, one is obsessed with their conception as an IVF baby, egg props dot the scenery - even the costumes are color coordinated in yolky yellows and creamy albumen whites.

It's a distinctive motif for a distinctive show. Written by Florence Keith-Roach (co-starring with Amani Zardoe) we follow the gently differing life trajectories of two university friends in their late twenties. It's an age-old split; one immersing themselves in boho studenty arrested development and the other deciding on a life of classical domesticity is the route for them.

This relationship is explored through a chronologically scattered series of scenes. At first they appear a bit disconnected, functioning as mere skeleton for a series of comedy sketches. But as we get to know the two, we understand the fault lines in their relationship and how it informs their interactions. Crucially, by the time we've rolled into the final scenes, we care.

There's a big ol' pile of stuff to praise here, and right at the top is Keith-Roach's straight-up magnificent writing. From scene one you can practically sniff the talent, and the audience perceptibly loosens up as we collectively realise we're in safe hands. Funniest parts are an examination of what it's like to have nits as an adult, a description of what it's like to go out with a pair of love eggs jammed in your knickers and a downright hilarious recounting of guilty drunken mutual masturbation.

While the show has a firm grasp on easygoing farce, it also demonstrates bravery in going to dark places. There's precious few other shows in which one of the leads would graphically fantasise about violently murdering a pregnant woman and her foetus, and maintain audience sympathy. Then to cap that off with a top-class punchline? Out-standing.

Underneath the good times is a sober and sincere examination of contemporary femininity. These women are being tugged in a hundred different directions at once; told that they've got be Barbie doll hairless to get a man, whilst simultaneously shamed for acceding to misogynistic beauty standards. They're expected to be nurturing, responsible mothers and also a demon in the sheets. Assertive in the workplace yet maintain a submissive feminine aura. All this bubbles away in a dramatic cauldron, Keith-Roach eventually zeroing in on fertility and the womb in an effort to decode the mystery: hence Eggs. 

Of course, a script this good is inert without the performances to match, so it's fortunate that Keith-Roach and Zardoe have the chops to do it justice. Both women are insanely charismatic and an absolute pleasure to watch. Keith-Roach has an excellent line in oblivious eccentricity, that gradually grows more and more tinged with pathos. Zardoe plays straight-woman, yet successfully conveys the goofier moments with aplomb. 

Both women match this with a knack for physical comedy. Attention to detail shines throughout, visible in the contrast between two women's body language as they stretch after exercise and during a late MDMA themed night out. 

The Vault Festival can sometimes be a bit hit and miss (though it's a consistently lovely place to be), but shows like this make the whole endeavour worthwhile. Everything, from the performances, the writing, the costuming - even the lighting and environmental effects - are ace. Eggs is an all round class act and an easy show to recommend.

★★★★

'Eggs' is at Vault Festival until 6th March 2016. Tickets here.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

'Creed' (2015) directed by Ryan Coogler

Thursday, January 7, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

There are few more satisfying pleasures than watching an underdog prove their worth. This is the bedrock on which the Rocky franchise is built: from the iconic original's good-natured meat packer, right through his subsequent battles against brain damage, Mr T, Soviet super-science, shady accounting practises (a bit of a low for the series) and, in 2006's Rocky Balboa, old age.

The theme has often extended behind the scenes. Rocky faced intense scepticism from studio heads, preferring to cast Robert Redford in the lead role rather than an unknown Stallone. Similarly, Rocky Balboa was a comeback film: partly fuelled by perverse curiosity at whether a 60 year old could credibly lead a boxing film.

Writer/director Ryan Coogler's Creed has its own hurdles to clear. It's essentially Rocky VII and you'd be hard-pressed to name many other franchises that haven't run out of steam by their seventh instalment. It also has to function as an instalment in a 40 year story and as a very soft reboot, reinvigorating a now pretty damn familiar sports movie narrative.

Miraculously, Creed succeeds beyond all expectations. Michael B. Jordan stars as Adonis Creed, illegitimate son of perennial series rival/friend Apollo Creed, who was killed in the ring at the outset of Rocky IV. The first beats of the plot appear to be easing us into a well-worn groove; introducing us to young Adonis as he brawls in juvie. He's subsequently adopted by Apollo Creed's widow Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashād).

We next meet him in some back-alley sleaze bar in Tijuana, climbing into a grimy boxing ring where he furiously and effortlessly demolishes some nameless mook. Just when we think we know where this is going, smash cut to a suited and booted Adonis behind his desk at a buttoned down finance corporation, restlessly flexing his bruised hands. 

Having Adonis begin the film swaddled in the cosy trappings of the upper/middle class is a bold move; the character having to prove himself as much to the audience as to the fictional boxing world. Soon he's off on a voyage of personal growth that quickly leads him to Philadelphia, where he tracks down an aged Rocky Balboa and slowly convinces him to train him. Along the way he becomes romantically entangled with musician Bianca (Tessa Thompson).

From then on it's your usual tangle of personal setbacks, runs around the Philadelphia, emotional breakthroughs and, best of all, training montages set to pumping music. Though the focus has shifted to a new generation of boxers, practically every narrative development in Creed echoes the series' storied past.

Elevating all this from sports movie of the week is that Ryan Coogler directs the fuck out of it. Clearly realising he's onto a winner, the film is packed with cinematic delights both bombastic and subtle. Most obviously striking are several balletic one shots sprinkled through the narrative. These tend to emphasise moving between environments; from a dressing room to crowded boxing ring, off the street and into a grimy gym and so on. So far, so Scorsese, right?

All this comes to a head roughly mid-way through the film in a bravura single-shot boxing match that's probably the best cinematic representation of the sport ever. This is our hero's chance to prove he's got the right stuff, his first 'proper' professional fight. Coogler's camera dances around the ring at eye-level with the fighters, swooping around to emphasise the geography of the ring, the way a fighter moves and, exhilaratingly, a smidge of what it feels like to have a very determined, very  muscled men coming at you with the intention of punching you very hard in the face.

It's a resolutely unglamourous depiction of boxing, underlining the many lines of dialogue where the characters explain that the brief satisfaction victory gives you isn't worth the brain damage, broken bones, humiliation, short career and, memorably, having to have someone wipe your arse when you're too mangled to manage it yourself.

This core fight is so good that it runs a serious risk of making the final bout a bit anticlimactic. But Coogler once again proves he knows his shit, pulling out a fresh bag of expressionistic cinematic tricks, making the thunking body blows and ringing knockout punches echoes of the film's emotional whomp.

This is ably aided by Coogler's own script and uniformly excellent performances. Stallone in particular is better than he's been in years, turning in a downright moving, naturalistic portrayal of an old punchbag shouldering his fair share of regrets. Rocky is recognisably Rocky, after all these years.

But it's Michael B. Jordan who bears the full dramatic burden. Adonis Creed is a that rare thing in Hollywood: a fully developed black male protagonist. Jordan knocks the role out of the park, managing the tricky task of making the character's love of violence neatly congruent with his intelligence and sensitivity.

It's just an all-round excellent movie, in which everyone is bringing their A game. It succeeds as a Rocky movie, it succeeds as a sports movie and, importantly, it blindingly succeeds as a movie in its own right. Frankly, if you're watching one of the blisteringly edited and scored training montages and don't want to jump out of your seat and start running marathons you may have something wrong with you. It's a dynamite experience.

★★★★

Creed is released on 15 January.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

'The Godling' at the Etcetera Theatre, 9th December 2015

Thursday, December 10, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

The Godling is about an insane couple who keep a caged pregnant woman. She is incubating a baby entirely covered in eyes who the captors hope will usher in a new era for the freak show. Also on stage: a suicidal/tortured ladyclown and a buttoned-down psychopath sadist. Among other delights there's wild sex, mutilation and a self-inflicted coathanger based abortion.

Running for a brief 50-ish minutes, the show merrily skips between disturbing vignettes and ideas: for example, we spend a couple of minutes discussing using bodily functions as a way to mark time. You detect a joy in getting away with subject material like this, the show depicting the captivity and torture of a pregnant woman with such immoral glee that it goes  beyond disturbing and, perversely, wraps back around into pitch-black humour.

The staging is bisected, one half devoted to the sinister duo and their eyeball-baby-messiah caper, the other to the increasingly pathetic misery of a clown. This proves to be a gap across time, and the narrative promptly ties itself up in confusing chronological knots. To put it simply, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Charitably, you can say that The Godling is less about narrative and more about atmosphere. More honestly, I suspect that all the psycho-circus window dressing is there to disguise that the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes. As I left I had no idea who any of these characters were, why they had kidnapped a pregnant woman, what the hell a 'godling' is, what's made this clown so damn depressed - even what plane of reality this is supposed to be taking place on.

I could forgive all that if the core aesthetic was novel or powerfully communicated. But it isn't. Frankly, the creepy/scary psycho clown thing is a bit 1990s, making this a bit like a Marilyn Manson music video that's been forced to raid Poundland for props. If the show had gone all out with set and costume design then maybe it'd have found something new, but a mattress, a couple of balloons, a rickety wooden cage and cheapo Halloween costumes do not add up to a startling descent into the darkest recesses of the human psyche.

That said, it wasn't boring. I appreciate a show that doesn't drag its heels, and The Godling zips through its nonsense plot with admirable economy. There's a rate of one weird thing happening about every 3 minutes so it's at least easy to eke out some enjoyment anticipating each unlikely development.

I don't really blame the cast for any of this: they gamely chew up the scenery as they mime butt-fucking, writhe in pain or spike their arms with knitting needles. Everyone understands that subtlety isn't going to wash in this show.  Philip North in particular blares out his lines with gusto, having correctly realised that in the absence of character or plot, it's time to crank up the hamminess factor. Maria Alexe chases the same ideal and partially succeeds - though never quite looks at ease in an ill-fitting corset.

But The Godling (or at least this production of it) just doesn't work, comprehensively bungling whatever it's trying to communicate thematically or even narratively. The best I can say is that it's a mildly diverting exercise in shock, but the kind of shock that's couched in the sensibility of a 14 year old goth. 

But at least it's not boring and doesn't fanny about. Thank god for small mercies.

★★

The Godling is at the Etcetera Theatre until 20 December. Tickets here.

Friday, November 27, 2015

'In Search of England' at Theatre N16, 25th November 2015

Friday, November 27, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Neil D'Arcy Jones' In Search of England is an ambitious piece of writing. It attempts to define a symbolic iconography of England, travel from one to the other, fit in a love story, a handful of mini-monologues, an understanding of England's relationship with violent revolution and, finally, to divine all of our relationship with England's storied past. 

All this adds up to a smartly psychological probe into what it means to 'be' English.

Our protagonist is George (Matthew John Wright) who has recently returned to England after years travelling around the world. He returns clutching a copy of H.V. Morton's classic travelogue In Search of England, determined to understand his own nationality. As the show puts it: "He was born English, his parents are English. But he's not sure whether he is any more."

This process consists of apparently aimlessly rambling up and down the country, taking on odd jobs and meeting strangers. Yet there's something else rumbling away in the background. In the first scene a detective interviews him about some suspicious acquaintances and gradually we come to sense the presence of some shadowy conspiracy that George may well be a part of - with explosive consequences.

In Search of England is an undeniably handsome production. The set consists of pages from Morton's book and various lithographs of English life dangling from the ceiling on strings. On the floor are various antique maps of urban and rural environments. The set sandwiches the action between concrete poles of meaning - anchoring it to the real world.

It's performatively impressive too. Wright's George is a mysterious stranger role leavened with an anger that we don't quite understand until the closing scenes, making a protagonist we're never sure whether to sympathise with. Playing the rest of the characters are the wonderfully chameleonic Sarah Lambie and Thomas Witcomb, who variously embody a 2nd gen Polish greasy spoon worker, a depressed homeless man, a creepy Colchester tour guide, lovelorn nurses and a confused Australian trying his best to understand Morrissey.

It's in these little character sketches that the show really shines. Witcomb in particular marks the high point of the night in a brief monologue explaining how a character ended up on the streets, working from a foundation of numbed bluntness and gradually humanising the character. Right the way through the production he switches gears with impressive speed, affecting working class directness and effete pretension at a moment's notice. 

But though In Search of England is peppered with individually impressive moments, it eventually bites off more than it can chew. It revels a little too much in its own mystery - setting up complex schemes involving furtively park meetings and transferred mix-tapes that (at least as far as I could tell) don't seem to go anywhere in particular. Not exactly helping is some mild chronological scene jumbling - the show begins with a police interview, then flashes back to earlier events. Eventually we're watching flashbacks within flashbacks - which makes divining what the plot actually is a bit of headscratcher.

Perhaps all that is a symptom of the short run-time, but I sense In Search of England would benefit from having more time to explain itself. Questions asked in the first act aren't answered in the final act, and the shadowy organisation that's eventually revealed to have been running the whole thing proves to be as omnipotent as it is unexplained - a lethal combination.

I detected a note of similarity between the work of Mike Bartlett to this - especially his Earthquakes in London - which similarly gets to grips with some essential Englishness. But where Bartlett isn't afraid to lay his cards on the table (not matter how barmy they might be), playwright Neil D'Arcy Jones seems a teensy bit afraid of going full bonkers with his narrative, instead hiding behind being cryptic.

That said, for all those flaws I really enjoyed myself. I'm a huge fan of these psychological dissections of Englishness; and I detected thematic DNA from some of my favourite authors (Ackroyd, Moore, Sinclair, Self) running right through the middle of the play. In Search of England has a kernel of truth and intelligence at its core - but this production feels like a rehearsal of what it could be.

It's an entertaining, well-staged and nicely performed rehearsal - but right now it's 'merely' good. It could be excellent.

★★★

In Search of England has finished its run - but I hope it returns.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

'Man and Superfan' at Theatre N16, 25th November 2015

Thursday, November 26, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

John Lennon's murderer, Mark David Chapman is and was a pathetic creature. Even worse, he's a boring one. Amongst crazed killers his motivations are muddles, his influences misread and his justifications fake as hell. Man and Superfan, sets out to find out what was going on under his skin, asking "what was life like for Chapman before he pulled the trigger?" 

Predictably, the answer is "not much". Taking place over the course of an awkward evening at home, we meet Chapman (Pete Darwent), his wife Gloria (Heidi Goldsmith), sister Susan (Joanna Rosenfeld) and her new boyfriend (Alex Boxall). Chapman on edge, frequently 'dropping out' of conversations to give sweatily psychotic asides to the audience. Tensions rise as the new boyfriend gets under Chapman's skin, eventually nudging him towards his fateful decision to kill John Lennon.

The background to one of the most shocking murders of the 20th century should be at least morbidly interesting, but Man and Superfan isn't. Partly this is because Chapman is a straightforwardly mentally ill man with no logic to his delusions - he rails against Lennon for engaging in self publicity, then a couple of minutes later criticises him for withdrawing from limelight to raise his son. Some effort goes into Chapman's religious fetishisation of Lennon; treating his albums as holy relics, reciting Beatles trivia as prayer and condemning his "bigger than Jesus" statement. But that peters out as the play switches gears to Catcher in the Rye - ending up with a tangled pile of disconnected pop culture loose ends.

An ideal study of Chapman would bind these disparate fixations together, giving us a glimpse into the world through his eyes. It's perhaps impossible to get an audience to empathise with the man, but we can at least attempt to understand his thought processes. Man and Superfan doesn't even come close, hamstrung by both clunky writing and a two-dimensional lead performance.

There isn't much to say about Darwent's performance other than the straightforward observation that it isn't very good. The psychotic tics he imbues Chapman with are creaky cliches - adding up to a character that's not just unconvincing as a portrayal of a historical figure, but unconvincing as a human being in general. I'll grant that he's not exactly helped by having to deliver dialogue that ranges from clunky to weirdly anachronistic, but even so his performance fails to make the case that Chapman is worthy of dramatic interest.

The rest of the cast are similarly lost in the dramatic doldrums, with the brief exception of Alex Boxall who manages to dredge up some deep-buried spark of life for a couple of minutes. But nobody is served well by staging that requires everyone to sit around a dining table for 99% of the run-time, and the generally paper-thin characterisation.

Man and Superfan feels like a first draft that probably shouldn't have made it to the stage at all. As drama it's flatly played and dully blocked, as intellectual and historical exercise it's half-baked. One to skip.

★

Man and Superfan is at Theatre N16, above The Bedford Pub, Balham until 26th November. Tickets here.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

'Dude Looks Like a Lady' at the Etcetera Theatre, 18th November 2015

Thursday, November 19, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Dude Looks Like a Lady is a pleasantly unpretentious experience. Shorn of frippery and glitz, the show is 'merely' four extremely funny comedians ricocheting off one another like they're in a pinball machine. The four, Amanda Stauffer, Juliet Catton, Jessica Ashworth and Leanne Davis, work through just over an hour of absurd sketch comedy, displaying an uncanny skill in skewering gender roles in society.

A highlight comes early on in a sketch that pokes fun at both romantic comedies and creepily romantic "milady *doffs fedora*" types. A woman rides the tube, a man gets on and 'accidentally' drops his papers on the floor. As the woman bends down to help him pick them up he hits play on Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around. Their fingers touch. Their eyes lock. It's a classic 'meet-cute'! But this is real-life, where there aren't any Hugh Grants (well, okay, there's one), so his starry-eyed advances become more Lars von Trier than Richard Curtis.

The group have identified a rich seam of comedy and they're determined to mine it for all its worth. I'm not going to list all my favourites - I don't want to spoil the punchlines - the best of which zoom in unexpectedly from leftfield. They broadly share territory with current feminist comedy kingpin Amy Schumer (and draw from the same tradition as Smack the Pony) - highlighting incongruities in male/female relationships, poking fun inwards as well as outwards.

This self deprecating streak results in a pleasingly conspiratorial relationship with the audience. The Etcetera Theatre is a small venue, yet was filled with a good natured, optimistic crowd who were obviously fans of the group. This easy relationship between audience and performer resulted in a lovely communal atmosphere, even extending to the brief moments of audience participation. 

Generally the reaction to seeing comedians scan the front row for a target is soul-consuming dread. Everyone averts their eyes as if they're suddenly antelopes in front of a lion. Not here. As they pepper random audience members with questions, there's no cruelty or malice. The guy sitting next to me even gets given a pint of beer for participating! Honestly, I've been to a boatload of comedy gigs and never have I seen the performers supplying the front row with free booze.

But, as with practically all sketch shows, there are a couple of sketches that either run on a bit long or simply don't work that well. A repeating sketch in which a police officer mishears words isn't funny the first time (the gag: her boss says "badge" and she hears "vag") and is even less funnier the third - even with a semi-predictable twist. Less egregiously there's a couple of sketches that inch into self-indulgence and could use a bit of a trim. There's also a scrappiness to the proceedings that, if you're feeling charitable, you can write off as contributing to the personable friendliness of the show, but could just as easily be an indicator that a smidge bit more polish is needed.

Even so, I can't deny I had a good time. If a comedy show makes me chuckle three or four times I'll mark it a success, and Dude Looks Like a Lady wrung countless head-thrown-back guffaws from me. These four have the enviable combination of writing and performance skills, bound up in an irresistibly infectious good-time chemistry. 

★★★

Dude Looks Like a Lady returns in Feb 2016. Dates here.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

'Europe is Kaput. Long live Europe!' at the South Bank Centre, 16th November 2015

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

The Paris atrocity has drawn many worms from the mud. Stomping over the backs of murdered civilians come the nationalists, racists, authoritarians and warmongers. Hurrying to meet violence with violence, they're quick to demonise Muslims of all stripes, blame refugees and explain that, beyond all doubt, the best solution to ISIS is to drop thousands of high-explosive bombs on an already beleaguered Syria. 

Naturally these events dominated the discussion between philosopher Slavoj Žižek and former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. The evening was chaired by Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat and featured a surprise appearance by Julian Assange, appearing via videolink from the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Both Žižek and Varoufakis are fearless speakers - their arguments laid down on firm ideological bedrock. Both are quick to mourn the deaths and decry the perpetrators as "ISIS thugs", but they come with a passionate critique of mawkish sentimentalism and knee-jerk reacionts. Achingly public displays of grief - like overlaying the French flag on your Facebook pictures - is merely a trite display of vanity, an effort to prove the veracity of your liberal empathy.

Varoufakis explains how he was asked to observe a minute's silence in memory of the 129 murdered in Paris. Of course, a moment's quiet remembrance for them is appropriate, but where's the silent remembrance for the bombings in Beirut two days before that claimed 43 lives, or the suicide blasts in Baghdad that killed 26? Both men criticise a Western insularity that's assembled from race, religion, class and economics.

Žižek refers to this as Europe's glass "cupola". He argues that the Western perspective on world events is almost completely insulated. We're aware of third-world atrocities yet we experience them at extreme distance, tempered by the gloss of media interpretation. Atrocities, chaos and societal collapse are something that happens to other (usually non-white) people - who subconsciously dismiss them as the 'other'. Events like Paris shatter the cupola, rudely awakening us as to what it's like to live under the shadow of the suicide bomber and the masked gunman. 

Theoretically attacks like these should encourage an empathy with those in wartorn countries. If even the briefest taste of carnage repels us to this degree, then logically we should redouble our efforts into ensuring that violence ends - whether in Beirut or Paris. Depressingly the opposite happens. All too easily the media whip up a xenophobic panic, and soon even the most milquetoast liberal thinks paranoid thoughts when they see a man with brown-skin carrying a large bag on public transport.

In one of the most cogent points of the evening, Žižek identifies the cruel irony in the blame and suspicion that was immediately heaped upon Syrian refugees. These are people who have lost almost everything to the violent theocratic fascism of ISIS, choosing to flee, often with just the clothes on their back, across oceans and along lonely rain-swept roads in the hope of finding a safe haven in Europe. They arrive and instantly the very thing they were escaping overtakes them.

Varoufakis' and Žižek's arguments are layered with internationalist universalism. At one point the argument that we should care about the Syrian refugees because "they're just like us" is bashed to smithereens by the simple retort: "Well what if they weren't like us? Would that make it okay not to care?"

Inevitably we crawl towards the thorniest issue for the modern left - what the hell do we do about this? When faced with bombs and guns its instinctive to reach for our own weapons, vowing to enact bloody retribution on those behind this. Yet, as Varoufakis explains, this is precisely what ISIS want: the organisation arises from and thrives in the chaos of military campaigns - even Tony Blair admits that the failed invasion of Iraq provided the perfect incubation chamber them.

Even if impersonal destruction from the sky didn't directly fuel their propaganda its military effectiveness is questionable at best. ISIS are a mobile force disseminated over a wide area and firmly embedded into civilian populations - how are we eliminate them from a mile up without also killing the very people we're ostensibly trying to liberate? This then feeds into their propaganda of Muslim nations being persecuted by the cruel West.

Their answer is to identify the European traditions that most strongly define us: socialism, feminism, free thought, free press and democracy and then ally ourselves with those fighting for that in their countries . This is the one area in the night where the rhetoric got a little flaky - it's all too easy to say all this - putting into practice is different kettle of fish. Personally, I don't know what the hell should be done about ISIS, but recent history teaches us that sending tens of thousands of pounds of high explosive raining down on the Middle East is going to achieve precisely fuck all.

Paris wasn't the only topic under discussion; the rangy three hour discussion encompassed European monetary policy, Israel/Palestine, TTIP, the rise of high-tech liberalism in Silicon Valley and the origins of the European Union. All three men: Varoufakis, Žižek and Assange made novel, intelligent points about contemporary Europe that help clear the mind of the gunk that accumulates after time spent inadvertently absorbing the opinions of vast corporate conglomerates.

A hell of an enjoyable night - and a much needed one.