Njal’s Saga, ‘100 years of Solitude’ in Iceland – Penguin Classics 2001, translated by Robert Cook

Magical Realism? Check. Blunt sexuality? Yup. Impassive narration in translation? Absolutely. Reams of characters requiring family trees and indices? You betcha. Generational shifts? Oh yeah. Fatalism and prophecy? All the time. A cultural shift to Christianity? Check.

This may sound like 100 years of Solitude, but in fact it predates Marquez’s novel by about 700 years. This is Njal’s Saga, written anonymously in Icelandic in the late 13th Century, and it’s pretty great.

Njal’s Saga is a mixture of the awe-inspiring and the horrifying, epically spanning multiple generations and perhaps a hundred or so deaths. Newly developing Icelandic culture is caught between the need for vengeance and the desire for peace, and time and again it is the masculinity of the characters that pushes them from accepting settlements for offences to violence. This is not simply a chronicle of murders, however. Njal and Gunnar, two of the many central figures, attempt to maintain a stable society while all around them men and women call for death.

Central to Icelandic law was the idea that offences could be paid for; so killing a man could result in either outlawry, or having to pay a certain sum of money. Another option, though, was simply for the relatives of the victim to head out and retaliate. The feud between Njal and Gunnar’s families puts on display all the emotions and options surrounding family enmities, as the heads of the families struggle to keep peace while their wives and children wage war behind their backs. It is here that Njal’s Saga becomes a legal drama, as the prosecutions are more exciting than the battle-scenes. This aspect becomes even more crucial later in the Saga, when a great tragedy leads to great court-scenes between the two greatest Icelandic lawyers, Eyjolf and Thorhall.

There are hurdles to enjoying the Saga, such as the endless numbers of characters and the complicated family lines, but you can safely skip over the geneologies without missing out on the plot, and just occasionally check an index if you’re unsure which Thorgeir is currently killing which Glum. More upsettingly Njal’s Saga, like most literature of its time, is almost entirely a documentation of masculinity, and so women get bit-part roles. They can be wives, mothers and daughters, married for the profit of their male relatives, but they can also be the harshest proponents of blood-vengeance, and their urgings often lead to the deaths of their sons and brothers.

Once you’ve got the hang of it Njal’s Saga is one of the most fascinating books you’re likely to read. Throughout the Saga heroism is thoroughly explored and weighted against stability, while the legal and societal realism retains its power despite enchanted axes and singing corpses. This is a story of men killing each other, but it is by no means a straight-forward treatment. These are complex characters, no simple Vikings, and they deserve a read.

Oxford University a cappella group Out of the Blue’s take on ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira has been endorsed by the Columbian musician after it was released earlier this week.

The single, released on Tuesday in aid of Oxford children’s hospice Helen and Douglas House, also includes excerpts from the Shakira songs ‘Waka Waka’ and ‘Whenever, Wherever’. The single has so far received over 1.4 million views on YouTube.

Shakira Tweeted her approval at the single on Wednesday, after Gay Times ran a piece on it.

Hey @ootboxford, we LOVE your a capella Shak medley! ¡Nos encanta este medley que han hecho @ootboxford! http://t.co/wzNCLruDYq ShakHQ

— Shakira (@shakira) July 23, 2014

Out of the Blue member Marco Alessi told Cherwell, “The staff at Gay Times really kicked it all off for us, so we’re incredibly grateful to them, and Shakira’s tweet is crazy. Unfortunately it’s not so simple, but if 0.5% of her followers donated fifty pence we would make £65,000 for the charity!”

Alessi continued, “We chose to make a video for ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ because it’s one of the sillier, more upbeat songs from our set, and has always been a hit at Helen and Douglas House when we’ve performed it there.”

He remarked, “Although we wish children had no reason to be at Helen and Douglas House, unfortunately this is not the case and so it’s great that the prevailing atmosphere is immensely optimistic and the staff there are tireless and wonderful. Our Shakira medley definitely reflects that best.

“We chose Helen and Douglas House because the work they do is absolutely incredible. They offer free respite and end-of-life care to children and young adults with severely life-limiting illnesses, and bereavement support for their families. We visit regularly so we’ve got to know the staff and we’ve spent time with some of the families staying there and we’re constantly overwhelmed with how positive and high-spirited they all are. The work the hospice does is really extraordinary.” 

Likewise, Out of the Blue singer Ollie Nicholls commented, “We tried to be quite unexpected. You wouldn’t expect a load of Oxford boys to start becoming Latina dancers. We tried juxtaposing the location of Oxford and dress with the song.”

Ollie Nicholls added, “All the hype feels weird. When it gets so widely shared, it’s quite nerve racking, but we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive reaction. I think people are more forgiving when it’s for charity; they can overlook the fact we can’t dance. That’s something I’ve not stressed enough actually. I don’t want the fact that it’s for charity to be lost in all the hype about Shakira. The charity is Helen and Douglas house, who we’ve been supporting for over eight years.”

Out of the Blue have raised £35,000 for Helen and Douglas House since they began supporting the charity in 2006.

The single is available to download from Bandcamp.

It’s an odd phenomenon that sketches that rely so crucially on the surreal and the unexpected are now some of the most recited and referenced in the world, somewhat defeating the element of surprise that is key to much of the Pythons’s humour. Even people who have never seen a single sketch, let alone a movie, may be aware that Brian’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy, or that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. The wheel turns on, and the avant-garde becomes the mainstream, counter-culture becomes culture.

The news, then, that the five remaining members of Monty Python were reuniting for a live show was met with mixed responses. Would the Pythons still be on form? Was it all just a cynical money-making scheme? Would we be treated to The World’s Funniest Jokes, or would the whole thing be as dead as a lately demised Norwegian Blue?

The answers to these questions are, respectively, “yes,” “maybe,” and “the hilarity’s certainly not dead yet.” If you’re in the position of trying to convince a friend or a loved one of the genius of the Pythons, this show won’t change their opinion – it’s firmly rooted in the classics of the repertoire, with very little new material. Nonetheless, for confirmed fans, the show is a real treat. There’s enough of a shake-up in the sketches to keep the audience on their toes, whilst essentially giving the fans what they want: the old favourites, performed well. There’s also the welcome inclusion of Carol Cleveland – appearing in a great many Flying Circus episodes she was a large part of what made the show what it is, and she’s as amusing and glamorous as ever.

Video footage of old sketches is shown during scene and costume changes. Whilst this might seem like a bit of a cop-out, it actually provides the opportunity both to showcase classic sketches not easily replicated onstage and to pay tribute to the talents of Graham Chapman, touchingly acknowledging his absence from the line-up without letting it detract from the overall hilarity.

This is not to say that the show is perfect; some questionable choices have been made. For example, I’d be interested to know how it was decided that “I Like Chinese” (from a Monty Python album, not Flying Circus or any of the films) should be made into a full musical number backed by dancers in what was essentially yellowface. There’s a fine line between irreverent irony and perpetuating stereotypes, and I feel that on this occasion the Pythons came down on the wrong side of it. This incident had the unfortunate effect of highlighting all the areas of the show where the Pythons’ comedy has not aged well. There’s a few bits which come over as homophobic, transphobic or sexist when looked at with a contemporary eye as they now must be, forming part of an act performed in the present day rather than a television show broadcast forty years ago.

Don’t expect too much Life of Brian or Holy Grail – this is a very Flying Circus and Meaning of Life intensive selection (possibly because they can be broken down into their composite sketches and reformed more readily than the former two works). While not all aspects of the Pythons’ comedy have aged well, they are nonetheless the once and future masters of sketch comedy, and even all these years later could give the vast majority of younger performers a run for their money.

Kyra Hollis, an overworked teacher from a rougher than average state school comes home to her flat with a stack of books to mark. Over the course of a freezing night in her tiny flat, she will be visited by not one, but two, figures from her past – Tom, a wealthy self-made man and her former lover, and Edward, his teenage son. This elegantly simple set-up becomes, in the hands of writer David Hare and director Stephen Daldry, increasingly complex and compelling, and manages to challenge the pre-conceptions of its audience as well as the choices of its characters.

Leading man Bill Nighy has played the role of Tom Sergeant before, in a 1997 West End production, and it seems that if anything, he has grown into the role, his lined features and long limbs contrasting with the petite and doll-like figure of Mulligan. He represents Tom’s emotional repression perfectly –bluff arrogance breaking down just enough to earn the audience’s sympathy before the façade is hastily re-erected. A character who could have been deeply unlikeable is, in Nighy’s hands, made far less easy to categorise. The audience might not agree with Tom about much – or anything – but he charms us, and it is easy to understand why Kyra was – and is – so drawn to him.

In contrast to the experience of Nighy, Skylight is Carey Mulligan’s West End debut. From the outset she portrays Kyra with delicacy and capability, but it is in the play’s second act, when Kyra’s restraint is stripped away to reveal the tougher and less compromising emotions beneath that we see Mulligan’s undeniable talent really shine through.

Nighy and Mulligan may be the big-ticket names, but there’s also a winning performance from Matthew Beard as Tom’s son, which perfectly captures the lanky awkwardness characteristic of boys in their late teens. His anxious pretention plays perfectly against Mulligan’s amused fondness, and his manner and mannerisms echo Nighy’s in a realistically familial way.

Skylight is a love story, but like all really compelling love stories, it is so much more besides. It is an examination of the relative merits of vocation and self-interest, slumming it and social-climbing, liberalism and conservatism. The play was first performed in 1995, but, were it not for some telling details – Edward’s Walkman, the flat’s tiny gas heater – it could just as easily be taking place in the present day. It is a sign of Hare’s consummate skill as a playwright that he has penned a work which not only continues to be of immediate interest, but perhaps has become even more relevant in the seventeen years since it was last on the West End.

Performance art owes a great deal to Marine Abramović. The self-proclaimed ‘grandmother of performance art’ is both one of its inventors and most influential proponents. The Serbian 60-something began her experimentation with the medium in the 70s, with her series of ‘Rhythms’. The most famous of these was ‘Rhythm 0’ during which she laid out 72 different objects, including a feather, honey, a scalpel and a gun in the gallery and allowed the public to do anything they wished to her with the eclectic array of objects. She remained completely passive for six hours, even when members of the public undressed her, cut her hair and held the loaded gun to her neck.  It was a powerful comment on the ease with which social inhibitions and civility break down.

More recently, during the retrospective of her work in New York’s MOMA, she performed the piece ‘The Artist Is Present’. Sitting in the museum’s atrium for eight hours a day for three months, she invited the spectators to sit opposite her for a short time silently holding eye contact. Many of the museum-goers, among whom appeared James Franco, Alan Rickman and Lady Gaga, were moved to tears, to the extent that a special website was dedicated to their welling up: marinaabramovicmademecry.com. Now the matriarch of performance art has pitched up camp in London’s Serpentine Gallery, displaying her latest piece, ‘512 Hours’, specially conceived for the intimate space.   

‘512 Hours’ is completely unlike normal exhibitions. There is no admission fee and no booking, meaning you could end up at the back of a queue slinking all the way through Kensington Gardens or gain immediate entry, as I was lucky enough to. One hundred and sixty visitors are allowed in at any one time and are encouraged to spend as long as they wish in the exhibition. The public are told, rather pretentiously, to ‘leave their baggage both literally and metaphorically in order to enter the exhibition’. The public’s worldly clobber is stowed in a row of metallic lockers before they proceed into the exhibition. Not only material, but also auditory distractions are removed when one of Marina’s team of forty-five black-clad helpers hands you a pair of soundproof headphones. The only sound is that of one’s own thoughts. 

The first room, overwhelmingly white, contained nothing but an low platform upon which stood a few of Marina’s helpers, facing one another seemingly in a trance-like state. One of them cam away from the group and led me by the hand into the next room where there were row after row of chairs and desks, on each of which was a piece of paper, a pencil and a little heap of jumbled rice grains and lentils. She sat me down at one of the desks and whispered to me in soothing tones: ‘separate the lentils and rice and count them, use the paper if you need to’.

This was a Sisyphean task – I knew that as soon as I left my seat, one of the helpers would undo my laborious work and re-arrange the jumble. However, the point of this exercise was not its completion but its undertaking.  The fact that there were 823 lentils (I gave up counting the rice grains) was far less meaningful than the process of counting them. Some people, who hadn’t been led and instructed by the helper wandered through the room of people absorbed in their rice and lentil separating, trying to gage what they were doing and join in. Why do people feel such a need to be the same as everyone else, even when it means performing such a fruitless task?

When I wandered back into the centre room, a helper immediately grabbed my hand and led me onto the platform, instructing me by example to close my eyes. Holding hands with a stranger went entirely against what social conventions had ever taught me. And yet, it was liberating. In the room on the left people were pacing up and down with exaggeratedly slow steps, either by themselves or with helper-guides. Marina Abramović herself wove her way through the statue-like members of the public, placing a gentle hand on their backs, stroking their eyes shut and exchanging a jovial word.

The guides had a faint air of pretention about them, but there was nothing artificial about Marina Abramović’s movements. Her life and art co-exist in complete harmony and this is evident from her poise and gravitas. In performing her art she is merely living. Like John Cage’s ‘4.33’ or Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ (currently being exhibited at the Tate Modern), this piece is the reduction of art to its bare form, the end to art. Like its musical and visual counterparts, the performance piece’s title bears little comment on its meaning, being a mere description of its duration. By expressing so little, it expresses everything.  In most of Marina Abramović’s pieces she uses her body as both subject and object, they are physical and mental tests of her endurance. The one hour I spent in this exhibition felt like an age and it is a veritable feat of stamina that Marina Abramović will be doing it for 512.