â˜…★★☆☆

 Three Stars

My first impression of The Ordinary Boys had been their sickly (and irritatingly misspelt, which I’m sure is ironic but annoys me anyway) pop love song ‘I Luv You’ released on their 2007 album. Enough to put me off them for a while, I’ve largely ignored their output, until giving them a second chance with their new eponymous album. Expecting bland pop, imagine my surprise when more than decent indie rock reminiscent of late Blink-182 blared out of my speakers.

Even the dubious-sounding ‘Four Letter Word’ isn’t the icky mess the title may suggest, rather beginning with a soundbite from the 1982 coming-of-age drama Fast Times at Ridgemont High and leading into a classy rock song that wouldn’t sound out of place between The Strokes and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Some of the songs lack the rough and ready touch that made 90s rock so irresistible; the edges of ‘Panic Attack’ are too rounded to be believable. The song writing might not be pushing any boundaries or breaking new ground, but it feels familiar and comfortable. It’s a refreshing, if not innovative, break from the seemingly constant need of artists today to be doing something different and individual. Sometimes you want a comfy old sweatshirt rather than a fancy new dress.

It was a relatively small but eager crowd that gathered in the Bullingdon to watch the opening night of The Japanese House’s 10-date UK tour, which also happened to be the group’s first ever live show. After a handful of hyped singles, a fantastic debut EP, and feteing from all the buzz-building outlets anyone could hope for, the pressure was on to deliver.

There was an air of hushed anticipation as the crowd waited for the set to get underway. A sense of mystery has hung around The Japanese House since their debut single, ‘Still’, appeared online back in March of this year. That ethereal sounding track, with its distorted vocals and haunting, confessional lyrics, felt determinedly enigmatic and anonymous. The fact that their visual identity mostly comprised photographs of desolate seascapes that they took themselves only helped fuel the curiosity. Whose voice was that? What gender were they? Waiting there in the Bullingdon, one half expected to witness a Sia-like stunt, with a reclusive performer taking to the stage shrouded in a veil. Thankfully, that never transpired. It turns out the project is masterminded by Amber Bain, a diminutive, unassuming woman who appeared on stage drowning under an oversized grey cable jumper. According to her friends, who peppered the audience, this show was a nerve-wracking prospect for the singer, though you wouldn’t know it, as she delivered a fascinating 40-minute set that moved around between tracks from her previously released EP, Pools To Bathe In, and an upcoming release.

Beneath a sea of mostly blue and purple lights, she gave a deliberately pared-down but well thought through performance, with the music’s captivating harmonies swelling around her low, husky singing voice. Turning her slightly recessive stage presence into a virtue, she replaced cultivated mystery with the real thing.

 The crowd leaned in as she guided them through the layers of astral melodies that rose and crashed in and out of the music. It was a hypnotic show that enthralled, absorbed and beguiled.

 After a bit of brief chat between songs, and without an encore, she and her band left the stage, but she happily stayed to sign records and pose for photos. It was a charming end to a mesmerising set.

As the crowd dispersed in a zen daze, you got the sense that this was the last time you’d get to see The Japanese House at such an intimate venue.

Moore’s Law has become a common and oft-repeated adage in the technology world: that every two years computer circuitry will halve in size and double in power. The prescience and veracity of this statement, originally made in 1975 (revised from a 1965 prediction of it doubling each year) has proved staggering, and helped encourage research and development that has plunged the world into the digital age, and revolutionised the way we access and respond to culture. Who knew that beyond measures of megahertz and kilobytes lay a different form of power – one to radically alter the landscape of culture and human experience. As a result of this, culture has seeped ever more inescapably into every day lives, finding new forms and means of distribution to saturate our existence with content, images, and brands. With these reality-altering chips pouring out of Silicon Valley, one has to wonder when this valley has become the whole world. 

Newsnight should always be an uncomfortable experience for someone, but since Jeremy Paxman left the show last year, that someone has all too frequently been his replacement, Evan Davis. In Paxman’s era the show was gladiatorial; we watched it as much for the schadenfreude of seeing his tongue tied victims squirm as we did to be informed. There were of course critics who thought that Paxman’s aggression derailed reasoned discussion, but they were missing the point of Newsnight, a show which always will be more fraught than other debate programs no matter who presents it. Newsnight always will be the most nerve-wracking show on TV for a politician to be invited onto, because it is on every weeknight, meaning that guests can be interrogated on issues their spin doctors have had almost no time to address. Paxman was exactly the right man for this format.

The typical interviewer’s reflex action is to begin with a rather long and cushy introduction, telling the interviewee about themselves, praising their hard work and their successful career. But Paxman knew this kind of introduction wastes time and gives the interviewee the upper hand; he knew the value of concision. He began his grilling of Ed Miliband, one of the cruellest of his career, by asking the would-be Prime Minister “Is Britain full?” This question was brilliant because even though its meaning was perfectly clear, its terseness took Miliband aback, provoking his asinine response, “As in immigration?” by which time the debate was essentially lost before it had begun.

Evan Davis, by contrast, has a talent for stumbling around in search of an opening gambit for minutes before actually beginning his belated, half-hearted attack. Take his interview with Russell Brand for instance – he began it by pointing at Brand’s new book and saying: “It’s a very interesting book and there’s a lot in it and we’ve got a lot to talk about, haven’t we?” While Davis was spending too long saying nothing Brand was already cutting across him, and this was how the next fifteen painful minutes continued. What was especially shocking to any fan of Paxman’s was the bodily contact Brand made with Davis – can you imagine anyone patting Paxman’s thigh mid question?

But Davis can also hammer at a point when he wants to – it’s just unfortunate that the point rarely happens to be the right one. In his appalling interview with Stephen Fry for instance, he persisted in comparing Fry’s destructive, but only self-destructive, cocaine habit to Jimmy Savile’s monstrous crimes. Fry had the look of a high school politics teacher enduring the ramblings of the largest ego in his class.

Oscar Wilde’s definition of a gentleman – someone who is only rude when he means to be – is also an essential quality in the interviewer. There are few faster ways of destroying your public and personal credibility than accidentally insulting your interviewee, but this is what Davis managed to do about once every minute in his interview with Fry. At one point he even asked him to admit he’s not a very good actor. The result of all of which is, Newsnight is still brimming with schadenfreude, but it’s no longer the guests we’re laughing at.

The mixed-to-very-negative response generated by the first few episodes of Scream Queens, a torrent of colourful insults from critics and couch potatoes alike, is difficult to ignore. These dissenters are not some vocal minority, nor can we claim that they are somehow ‘not in on the joke’ – one of the show’s great pleasures is indeed its own cast’s lack of behind-the-curtain self awareness, so don’t expect a series peppered with eye-winking trivia and college kids doubling as horror encyclopaedias. Scream, this ain’t.

Nor is the response a knee–jerk reaction to Scream Queens’ premise or involvements, much as a new Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story) show about student sororities, big bad bitches and a masked killer on campus might sound groan-worthy. No, as more episodes roll in and the critical tide refuses to turn, that rationalization falls apart just the same. Yet with no easy escape from the criticism, I find myself filled with complete certainty that I am right, they are wrong, and Scream Queens is the best new series to come along in months.

Though Murphy’s attachment has likely spurned more than a few potential viewers, I find little of his other shows’ DNA on offer here. As far removed from American Horror Story’s po-faced spook-driven storytelling as it is Glee’s preachy moral guardianship, Scream Queens is a dark campus comedy following the members and pledges of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority at Wallace University, led by class-A mean girl Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), as she goes toe-to-toe with wily Dean Cathy Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a killer donning a Red Devil costume who seems to be exclusively targeting members of KKT. Very 80s, then.

The show’s unstoppable, manic energy is its greatest and its most dangerous asset. The script fires off joke after joke at such pace that it hardly matters if they miss the target; your attention will already have been diverted elsewhere. This is the same approach that kept The LEGO Movie afloat (and made it a wild success) last year, though in that instance they wisely opted for a 100-minute runtime, rather than Scream Queens’ eventual 600.

At this early stage, it’s anyone’s guess whether Murphy and co. can keep it up. The speed hasn’t dragged over the first three episodes, and yet to get through twelve more without faltering seems wishful thinking — the spell hasn’t broken yet, though, and it’s worth the investment in a show which has been such a complete joy to watch, week-on-week.

I can’t say I’m generally someone who harbours guilty pleasures, and I’d be loathe to tag Scream Queens as such. The college murder mystery setting does not make it trashy, and the seemingly shallow, bitchy characters do not make it even slightly vapid or unworthy. I watch the series for its witty, snappy script and dynamite cast, not because it’s a decent way to fill an hour. And I hope that Scream Queens can, against the odds perhaps, continue this superb run through the rest of its first season.