★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

The observation that any production of Bouncers is in danger of performing an artefact is well-rehearsed. In 1987, John Godber was already aware that his play was aging, and stressed the importance that companies approaching the play should “keep it alive for today”. It is not a play about going out in the eighties; it is a play about going out.

Bridging a three decade chasm in clubbing culture in this way is not an easy undertaking, and the performance staged by Poor Players Productions at the Burton Taylor studio this week visibly strained under the thirty year weight.

The play begins promisingly, with the four performers at their most dynamic in the first ten minutes, palpably enthusiastic, diving in and out of characters with a noticeable absence of assistance from costumes or lighting changes. The occasional lampshading is also refreshing; the first mention of “bouncers” is met with a collective shout of “eponymous!”, and the actors are eager to expose the pretence of the playworld, drawing awkward attention to important speeches and their sudden (sometimes confusing) changes in character.

The versatility of the cast, however, was limited, and the play quickly began to sag with the number of increasing exhausted caricatures. Chris Connell and Tommy Jolowicz in particular had difficulty adapting their physicality from one role to the next; and when we met the bouncers themselves, crossed arms and gruff voices did not suffice to distinguish them as authentic characters. Indeed, their scenes were among the weakest; the rapid pace required to maintain their Beckettian smalltalk was consistently lacking, and when a lengthy speech by Lucky Eric, the wise old owl of the foursome, offered an opportunity for pathos, it was delivered in an unpersuasive monotone.

Admittedly, Godber’s text suffers from the same trait as Eric’s speeches; the night in Bouncers is doomed from the start, and as such there is little dramatic tension to bear a company through the long hour of the play. Directors James Watt and Adam Leonard do little to remedy this, though, so that any small revelations (such as the reason for Eric’s nickname) are reduced to inconsequential throwaway remarks. Without a tangible narrative, Bouncers often feels more like a themed sketch show than a story about a sober occupation. The decision to leave the stage so conspicuously bare only adds to this effect, and leaves the actors with a difficult job of holding their audience’s attention unaided, in which they do not always succeed.

The Poor Players’ production is an odd mix of nostalgia — maintaining references to ‘blue videos’ and ‘discotheques’ — and up-to-date commentary (allusions to Thatcher are abandoned, and Primark is substituted for C&A). What results is a play that is occasionally funny, but ultimately unconvincing as a satire of nightlife, whether in the eighties or present-day.

★★★★☆
Four Stars

The welcome to the Parish of Cummerbund-upon-Tweed came not, as one might expect, in the auditorium, but way before then, as soon as you entered the theatre. For there the cast were, handing out programmes ostensibly doubling as church newsletters and giving the audience a warm, albeit slightly disconcerting, welcome.

Indeed, it was this sort of interaction with the audience that went on to characterise the rest of the show: the first scene required the audience to act as the congregation in a church, whilst the second required them to act as a footy team at half time, training exercises and all.

Perhaps most impressive of all, the four actors, or should I say parishioners of Cummerbund-upon-Tweed, managed to sustain this determined obliteration of the fourth wall throughout the performance and did so in increasingly innovative ways. A particular highlight was one poor audience member being chosen to engaged in a Morris-dancing lesson on stage. Not only did he have to imitate some rather dubious moves, but, best of all, his “performance” was immediately replayed to the audience, in a clever twist on modern sporting practices.

Yet, this interactive approach was not just reserved for the comedic peaks of the show but suffused it at every point, whether it be Tom Dowling passing around a clipboard to gather signatures for a petition or Jack Chisnall distributing bourbons at his scarily on point neighbourhood alliance session. Attention to detail goes a long way in comedy and the parishioners, true to reputation, hit it on the head.

As one might expect from such a parochially titled show, the Revue’s other forte in this production was biting, or at least relatively biting, social satire. Little England was thrown up in all its pernickety, small-minded glory in segments ranging from a church service to a traffic warden offloading her woes.

The satire came even before the performers arrived on stage in the form of the programme-cum-church newsletter. A hit-and-miss affair, with a rather unconvincing spoof on home furniture adverts (the advert in question selling “Acorn wall-mounted old ladies”), it did convey devastatingly well the inanity of these publications, and the upcoming events they publicise within.

In the show itself, apologetic parents, bags for life, software updates, societal attitudes towards tramps and the neighbourhood alliance were all targets which various cast members hit with laser-like precision. In that sense it was a bit like Hot Fuzz, but funnier, on the stage and without the creepiness.

As with all comedy, especially that produced by students, there were bits that fell flat. Some of the monologues, such as the one about being a male dinner lady (i.e. a dinner man), whilst admittedly having a relatively amusing premise, significantly overstayed their welcome on the stage. There was the now clichéd segment of two of the actors seeming to be having sex but actually doing something much more inane, such as changing a light bulb.

One of the great mistakes that any comedian can make is being seen to enjoy their own jokes and there were, at times, moments when the actors could not repress a smirk at their own wit. Moreover, none of the comedy was painfully funny but rather gently amusing. All that aside, I came away very impressed. This was on the whole an innovative, satirical performance, which was compellingly professional given that it was put on by a group of students.

★★★☆☆

Three Stars

“I see myself as a student… Why wouldn’t I reach out to other producers, or learn the way that others craft their sounds?” Adam Bainbridge (AKA Kindness)’s words speak volumes of his sophomore album; Otherness is a work of varied performers as well as influences. Unfortunately, the quality of the tracks is equally varied.

Stylistically, the album’s cover art is a strong indication of the reminiscent, semi-ironic pop music that it accompanies. In fact, the overall sound of Otherness is not far from that of 2013’s Cupid Deluxe by Blood Orange (Devonté Hynes). No surprise, then, that the two singer-songwriter- producers have worked closely over the last few years.

‘World Restart’, the record’s opening song, is in many ways the highlight. The refrain of the chorus and the driving bassline provide something instant to hold on to, while wonky horn parts, thick harmony, and highly interesting production assure that the track is no disposable lead-single. ‘I’ll Be Back’ further contributes to the great promise shown by the first half of Otherness. A cheesy yet stunning piano part joins Bainbridge’s catchy vocal melodies over a driving house beat to create a blend that appeals as much to the heart as it does to the feet. Robyn’s vocals on ‘Who Do You Love?’ are a refreshing change and the inclusion of further guest vocalists — including Kelela, Manifest and Dev Hynes (surprise) — assure that the listener is not totally pissed off by Bainbridge’s nasal tone and tiresome melisma by the end of the album.

Six tracks in, Otherness sounds like an album that should rectify the disappointment that was Kindness’ debut World, You Need A Change Of Mind. The artist’s ability to write a strong pop song, sample other records smoothly (note the drum track of ‘This Is Not About Us’ that sounds suspiciously like that of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’) and produce records in a polished manner shine through.

What a shame that what follows in the final four tracks is so underwhelming.

‘Geneva’: a slow, unchanging song that can be credited solely with containing quite a nice synth sound, begins what can only be described as a self-indulgent end period in the album. Suddenly the lyrics appear to demonstrate a failed search for profundity on Bainbridge’s part; as the singer whines “I’ve been searching,” it is hard not to think that something was never found. In all fairness, ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’ does contain a section of around fifty seconds that might constitute the makings of a good song, but even here the listener is presented with nothing new. ‘It’ll Be OK’ is also dull, but thankfully includes a fairly enjoyable saxophone solo to finish the record.

That Otherness falls short of an excellent album should not completely turn off potential listeners. The first six tracks amount to an impressive work, and they do make the record an improvement on World, You Need A Change of Mind. Yet, the album as a whole fails to live up to its potential, or to reach the standard set by Blood Orange’s Cupid Deluxe.

The characters in Joanna Hogg’s films remind me an uncomfortable amount of my parents’ friends, especially those who are getting divorced. Known for the ultra-natural performances given by her actors, often non-professional, and for her acute observation of the minutiae and subtleties of middle-class life, Hogg has a reputation as one of the finest independent directors around. Yesterday, the she spoke at Oriel in a question-and-answer session hosted by OBA. I turned up at the Harris Lecture Theatre wondering what light would be shed on her methods, inspiration, ambitions and mindset. Here’s what I observed.

Hogg begins on the subject of the naturalistic acting that characterises her films. Some of her dialogue is written, with the extent changing from scene to scene. The nuances come through naturally, she says. Whilst the idea of a writer writing the dialogue and the actors expressing it sounds completely natural and perhaps obvious, there’s undeniably something about the unnervingly realistic performances offered in her films that sets them apart from the norm. She puts the haphazard nature of sticking to a script (or not) down to the fact that she uses a lot of non-professional actors in her films. Working with them, she says, can make it hard to follow a script in the traditional sense. Either way, “certain lines filter through”. The most important points of a scene remain with or without a script.

The very process of casting these non-actors is both painstaking and also instinctive. Hogg believes, though, that it’s necessary to “de-performance” professional actors, and that in some cases non-actors give something extra, or perhaps avoid something unwanted – the recognisable qualities of a famous face on-screen. That, she says, was a motivation in casting two unknowns in Exhibition, her most recent film.

She speaks with the same accent as her characters, and one wonders quite how much they might be based on people she knows, especially when she has cast friends in the past, such as Viv Albertine in Archipelago, a decision she says “changed things” between them somewhat, without elaborating.

Despite a penchant for non-professionals, she has collaborated frequently with Tom Hiddleston. When asked what this consistency brings, her response is immediate. “He’s the exception to the rule. I haven’t run out of characters for him to play.” She refers to his other, more mainstream roles as “industrial” but expresses admiration for his ability to combine with non-actors, saying that rather than performing his role, he reacts to others.

Hogg began as a photographer. How might this affect her working dynamic with a director of photography? She laughs, and reveals that despite offering the DP with whom she worked on 2008’s Unrelated the same position on her follow-up feature, Archipelago, he turned her down. The camera is incredibly still in much of Hogg’s work, lingering and observing in silence (none of her films contain any non-diegetic music); the DP was often at a loose end, wanting against the director’s will to move things round. “He had nothing to do,” explains Hogg.

Why employ such a consciously still camera, then? It is suggested that it makes the film less judgmental of its subject. Hogg offers a more practical explanation: the Sony Z1 she used to shoot Unrelated was of too poor quality to move around for scenes. “It’s just very ugly!” she jokes.

Low-budget production has become a hallmark of Hogg’s work. She explains that it allows for experimentation, as does a small crew. A crew of 30-plus on a major feature makes it difficult for a director to change her mind. When one can reshoot, change the dialogue or re-frame a shot at will, “it becomes this more-alive thing”. When asked whether she prefers to allow the action of her films to take place in the mind of the viewers, Hogg’s response is “I’m not unique in that way”, though she agrees it’s probably true. Mainstream cinema, she notes, is predictable in terms of its narrative. “As a viewer, I like it when I’m given space to use my imagination.” After working on TV dramas for years (an experience she refers to again as “industrial” in the most negative sense of the word), she is wary of how it patronises the audience. Large amounts of money and funding, like crew size, worry her because of the potential lack of creative freedom they can entail.

During the Q&A there are numerous clips shown from Hogg’s films. Every one is received with a mixture of quiet laughter and uncomfortable shifting. It raises the question of what genre she might fall into, and perhaps points to something wider: that naturalism is harder to categorize than stylisation. When asked about the possibility that her films come under a poetic realist umbrella, Hogg is keen not to be pinned down. Her shots, especially the apparently “poetic” ones, are not necessarily conceived that way in advance. She elaborates: “One’s striving for some type of poetry, but I don’t know what that means. A lot of the process is getting rid of things.” If there are poetic shots, she puts that down to interpretation by the viewer. Likewise, when her films are compared to Chekov in structure, she is careful not to commit to agreeing.

Hogg is articulate and thoughtful. She has just re-read Anna Karenina and names her influences variously as Derek Jarman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Kraftwerk. She is in the middle of running a two-year retrospective of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. She clearly doesn’t want to be shackled to any single label or slave to other people’s visions, whether on account of their money or their involvement in the production process. She is perhaps non-committal in her answers, if only on account of valuing subtlety over cinematic buzzwords. A director who doesn’t like actors to perform, doesn’t want to promote her films, who prefers the editing process to shooting, who doesn’t want a larger team or more money — Joanna Hogg is unlike any other you’ll find working in the British film industry at the moment.

There is a quiet revolution taking place in cinematic experience. No longer does seeing a movie involve buying a ticket, sitting in a dark room for an hour and a half with your popcorn, then going home. Across the UK, screenings are being staged which combine cinema with live acting and drama – a phenomenon known as immersive cinema. I sat down with Edd Elliott, co-founder of Oxford-based Hacked Off Films and Exeter College alumnus, who told me about Hacked Off’s upcoming Sin City screening, the trials of staging an immersive event, and why we should all be excited about the upcoming year of Oxford cinema.

Edd begins by outlining the concept of immersive cinema for me.

“I’ve been describing this for about three years and I still haven’t come up with a succinct description. Effectively, it’s the creation of the world of the film around the audience, so instead of sitting in a dusty cinema, in a dark room, watching something on a screen, the idea is that everything around you is taken from the film which you’re watching. In the past we did Harry Potter in an Oxford dining hall and we had actors going round trying to make you feel like you were a character in the film.”

A combination of numerous influences and artforms, then? Edd agrees. “The weird thing about immersive cinema is that there’s no rulebook. It’s really, really wide and almost anything is allowed as long as it comes from the ideas of the film.”

Edd tells me that “pretty much all” of the actors working with Hacked Off come from Oxford’s student body. He himself founded the company whilst studying at Exeter. “I founded this with my friend Owen Donovan in 2012, towards the end of our first year, but originally we just started doing short film screenings. The first immersive screening was during Michelmas of our second year. Since then we’ve done four more projects and it’s pretty much ongoing.”

The “ongoing” project is an immersive screening of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, live at Cellar and the Purple Turtle on Sunday 2^nd November. Why was it that film they were attracted to, specifically?

“Sin City was something we’ve wanted to do for ages and ages. When you start making these things you start to see films and think: “That is so easy to do and would be so great,” and Sin City has always struck us as something that would be so easy. We first had the idea about a year ago but just couldn’t find a venue that would allow us to do it. A lot of this stuff does come down to venues and you’re very much restricted by where you can put your stuff in.”

They seem like good places to do it, with the alleyway and the cavernous area underground; very much in keeping with the film. Edd nods. “We couldn’t really think of anywhere else that would be able to do it in Oxford and that could do it well, so it was there or nothing.”

Does he find that more stylised films lend themselves to an immersive experience? Past Hacked Off immersive screenings have included Black Swan, Harry Potter and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which all seem to be films with their own aesthetic. I suggest that there is a specific mood that an event can capture.

“Cult films tend to do well. If you look at Secret Cinema, most of those are cult films and they bill them as that. Some films you rule out as impossible, like 2001: A Space Odyssey; obviously you’re never going to be able to do that.”

Did they consider it?

He laughs. “No, we’ve never even come close! For a long time we were worried that we were picking films that were based around educational establishments — Harry Potter, Ferris Bueller, to some extent Black Swan. We’ve been trying to break that mould.”

Nonetheless, even doable films present their own issues, Edd tells me.

“One of the weird things about immersive cinema in comparison to, say, putting on a play, is that with a play once you’ve secured the space it is, to some extent, a blank canvas. You can do whatever you want to do. That’s just not the case with immersive cinema. You’re constantly working within the boundaries which are being set by the money you have, the screening licenses, what the venues will and won’t allow you to do.

“We’ve had some pretty extreme cases. With Ferris Bueller, we did it in the English Faculty and we thought we’d booked out the whole of the ground floor area of three or four rooms. Then on the day we showed up we were told that there was an open day the next day and that we could only have one of the rooms, which was pretty extreme. That was intense, but we managed to change it round and make it work.”

I suggest that if there was going to be one thing that would encourage people to come to Oxford it would be going to a Ferris Bueller-themed open day.

“I think they were a little bit worried when they saw us bringing in all these balloons, confetti and glitter and stuff.” He pauses. “They were really worried!”

Following the screening of the film itself, Hacked Off has organised a club night at The Cellar in association with Deep Cover. I wonder aloud whether along with the film element and the stage element the club night continues the theme.

“We’re hoping that most of the audience will stick around for the club night. It’ll continue the theme; there will be some plot points within the night, so it’s worth sticking around. We wanted to do a club night after one of our films for a very long time now but this is the first one. We’re so lucky that Deep Cover and Simon Devenport agreed to do it because we wanted that from the beginning.”

I mention that the Facebook event and the event description online and is somewhat cryptic in terms of what’s been hinted at. Can Edd give us any more hints as to what to expect?

“Broad hints. We’re deliberately trying to keep some stuff back.” He considers this for a moment. “I think the way this will be different to events we’ve done in the past is that a lot of those events, possibly with the exception of the first one, the Harry Potter one, is that a lot of them have been fairly linear, meaning all the audience do the same thing, go through the same progression. With this, the whole space will be open and people can just wander around and see what there is. There’ll be loads and loads of things happening in different places: there’ll be gangsters, there’ll be dancers, there’ll be characters from the film. There’ll be lots going on and I think the best suggestion I can give is just to explore as much as you can.”

Despite the fact that Sin City hasn’t gone ahead yet, I ask whether Edd has any idea what could be next. Does he have any plans?

“Possibly too many plans! Hacked Off Films is a little bit up in the air but there will be a film festival next year – not next academic year but next term – which I’m very much involved in organising. There will be an immersive event.

“We’re hoping as well – and this is something that I’m definitely pushing – to branch out in a new area which is going to flip the whole of Hacked Off Films on its head. So far we’ve been making events from films whereas now we’re gonna try a completely new thing: making films out of events, where people come to an event then we make it into a film which everyone’s a part of. Exactly how that’s gonna work we’re still working out but we’ve got some really, really interesting ideas about this.”

So you generate the content of the film through the event and see what you can make afterwards?

“Pretty much. In fact, I’m just going to say this because at the moment it’s horribly cryptic: we have this great idea of doing a spoof of Summer Eights where it’s called the Great Oxford Pedalo Race, where everyone comes down to where the rowing is and there’s an obstacle course for pedalos. It’s like Summer Eights, and we’ll have barbeques and everybody drinking but we’ll film it as if it’s a Formula One-type thing with pit lanes, as a spoof. That’s the sort of thing we want to do.”

Flipping immersive cinema on its head?

“Yeah, so people will be able to see themselves in the film. We’d like to see how that works out, but we haven’t planned the technicalities yet.”

I confess that I have one personal question about the Sin City screening. I really liked Sin City a lot, and there’s one storyline that sticks in my mind specifically: that of the Yellow Bastard. Will the film’s most infamous character will be making an appearance?

“He will be making an appearance. In fact, he’s a pretty prominent part of our marketing because we’re gonna be sending the Yellow Man out into the Oxford club nights of Wednesday and Thursday and people have to take photos with him, post it on the wall and they get free tickets.”

It sounds terrifying and really cool. So if I see a bald, disfigured man painted lurid yellow and carrying a large knife wandering around Bridge or Cellar this Thursday, I shouldn’t be alarmed?

“Yeah!”

Satisfied that my personal favourite aspect of the film will be done justice, we wrap things up as Edd adds a final point: “There’s a common misconception that to come to these events you have to have seen the film – that’s not the case. I’d be really interested to see what people who hadn’t seen the film made of the event. We’ve got a couple of people coming down who I know haven’t seen the film. It’d be interesting to see what that’s like and to see what they made of it. Even if you haven’t seen the film, please do come down.”

Sin City will be screened in an immersive performance by Hacked Off Films at Cellar and the Purple Turtle at 7pm on Sunday 2^nd November.

★★★☆☆
Three Stars

“History is violent,” Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt) explains to a nervous recruit after forcing him to execute an unarmed S.S. Officer. Norman (Logan Lerman) is a recent transfer into Wardaddy’s notoriously effective five-man tank unit, and the timid typist has been summoned to fill the role of machine-gunner. His first official order is to scrub the remains of his predecessor’s face off his new seat.

So begins David Ayer’s Fury, a viscerally unsettling but familiar World War II drama.

Although the Germans have begun their retreat by April 1945, the war is far from over. The men of the aptly named ‘Fury’ tank, represented by Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal demand their new gunner grow up — and quickly. They are a family forged in the crucible of some of the goriest battles of the European theater and their concern for Norman’s naïveté is not unfounded. Fury deals mostly with Norman’s maturation and the development of an espirit de corps amongst the Fury tank operators within the broader context of the Allies final push towards Berlin.

Stylistically, the film represents an innovative approach to the cinematic World War II sub-genre. Here tank warfare becomes the primary vehicle through which psychological drama unfolds, and this new vision of warfare is one of unyielding claustrophobia. Considerable time is spent in tight frames inside the tank as the men advance into Germany after being tasked with various assignments of regrettable simplicity. For for all its visual authenticity, its calculated depth of field and commendable photography, Fury’s stylistic innovations are hindered by the lamentable infusion of all-too-prominent action-thriller conventions. Anachronistic Twenty-first century idiomatic expressions and an utter failure to explore the Nazi opponents — who come off, like they have in so many films prior, as nothing more than machines in a soulless, nebulous horde — detract from an otherwise technically sound movie.

Despite these deficiencies there is an artistry evidenced from the desolate opening frame through the film’s thought-provoking closing shot, and while Fury fails to answer some of its own elemental questions with any conviction, it’s bold in aspiring to investigate war through a theological lens. The title suggests a possible allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and for just over two hours the movie challenges the implicit agnosticism in the idea that man’s struggle “signifies nothing”, a readily drawn conclusion in attempting to understand war. Its fundamentally Christian veins champion transcendence through sacrifice, yet it is not a film preoccupied solely with conversion — though it may appear so at times. The final shot is hauntingly beautiful, but of greater significance, it is thematically revealing.

It’s impossible not to compare any new filmic WWII iteration to Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998). As the benchmark against which all recent visions are critically scrutinized, Ayer’s Fury falls short. He hasn’t destabilized the genre like he did with Training Day (2001) or even End of Watch (2012), but regardless he’s crafted a film worth seeing.