Paris has more cinemas per square metre than any other city in the world. With this in mind when I arrived in Paris last September to begin my year abroad, I promised myself that I would go to the cinema every Sunday evening to experience the best French fare. I haven’t quite managed to keep to this resolution and go every week, but I’ve been pretty good, and have regularly been in front of ‘le grand écran’. Having loved all the films I’ve been to see, I was set thinking of how unappreciated contemporary French cinema is in the UK.

Many never dream of choosing to watch a French film over a British or American blockbuster. Most people will have heard of a few famous old films, by Truffaut and Besson, but modern French films are adept at slipping under the radar, unless they can snag the attention of a big distribution company à la The Artist.

Of course I am biased, since I study French, but I do think it is a huge shame that we shun contemporary French cinema, or that we just don’t know about it. Is it because we are seduced by the cultural resonance of older French films? It is true that they reflect the turbulences of their time and were more exciting and controversial, playing with new, subversive themes alien to a prudish society. For example, Les Valseuses, a film by Bertrand Blier, shocked audiences with its bohemian flair and its daring take on sex.

French films from the past are also well known for the way they helped cinema evolve. The Lumière brothers invented cinematography in 1895 with their film L’arrivé d’un train en gare de Ciotat. The Pathé cinemas all over France also now pay homage to the pioneering Pâthé brothers who were once in the vanguard of film production and distribution. One can definitely say that, France paved the way for modern cinema. With the birth of ‘La Nouvelle Vague’, the middle of the 20th century saw actors such as Simone Signoret and Jean Seburg shoot to fame.

French contemporary cinema has a certain grace and sensitivity that the vast majority of American films lack. For example, the recent release Elle s’en va, starring Catherine Deneuve, was both romantic and funny, yet to call it a ‘rom-com’ would be to fail to do the movie justice. You get the impression that the film is not just trying to make millions, but to actually mean something to its audience. This might be partly explained by France’s domesticallyfocused film market, where, thanks to post 1945 protectionism quotas, there must be at least one French-made film shown in cinemas for every seven international films.

The French comic genre is particularly rewarding; the film that made me laugh the most in 2013 was Intouchables, starring Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet. Not only is it hilarious and heart-warming, but it sensitively shows how the tragic life of a paralysed man turns around after his carer teaches him how to laugh.

Similarly, Le Dîner des Cons, conveys a moral message despite being fully paid-up subscriber to the genre of farce. Otherwise, the comedy Mon Pere Ce Héros, starring Gerard Depardieu, develops a nuanced theme of a father-daughter relationship to a delightful conclusion. French cinema has an ability to portray substantial and highly moving themes without necessarily binding the film into within a so-called ‘serious’ genre.

French cinema has also long been shaped by its notorious interest in sex. La Vie D’Adèle, known in English as Blue is the Warmest Colour, highlighted this, portraying the lesbian relationship between Adele and Emma with unflinching realism. Although, it risked being pretentiously ‘arty’ at times, with closeups of mucus emerging from Adele’s nose and lengthy unedited conversations, it remained compelling throughout.

If you ever have a spare few hours, and you want to dip into a different culture, watch a French film – and make sure you see it through to the end. Watching some Truffaut or Goddard is a great way to witness some of the key moments in the development of cinema. Look past the difficulty of subtitles for, often, French film is more thoughtful, funny and compelling than your typical fare.

For or better or worse, Robin Thicke’s frustratingly catchy tribute to the apparently) “Blurred Lines” of consent provided a focal point for feminist debate in 2013. Now it lends its name to the brainchild of Nick Payne and Carrie Cracknell, a piece of devised theatre that doesn’t shy away from either the big – or the small – issues.

Although the directors were denied permission to perform the titular song, the show illustrates how undeniably serious issues take place against a backdrop of the kind of chirpy, low-level misogyny peddled by Thicke et al. Whether it’s having The Crystals’ He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss), crooned with unsettling sweetness, or being forced to question the common trope of scantily clad women in sexually violent scenes, the piece never lets the audience forget that incidents of sexism do not take place in a vacuum.

Having a female actor play an arrogant male director foregrounded the domination by men of both physical space – lounging in a chair, legs akimbo – and of conversation – cutting off, patronising, and even speaking for women.
The women in the audience responded with a ripple of knowing giggles and snorts: everyone, it would seem, recognises him in a male friend or acquaintance.

Appropriately for a show that explores the paucity of nuanced dramatic roles for female actors, the cast of eight women more than demonstrate the talent that is so frequently wasted when women are cast as polarisations of purity and degeneracy. The play is incredibly funny too, with on-point satire and great
laugh out loud moments, highlighting the ridiculousness of sexism as well as its callousness. While there’s a lot to be said for short, snappy political theatre, the play takes much of its seventy minute running time building up to getting its teeth into the very meaty material it presents. Nevertheless, Blurred Lines is a great advert both for feminism and for female actors being allowed to realise their full creative potential.

An exhilarating new reprisal of Stephen Sondheim’s famous musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, comes to Keble’s O’Reilly Theatre in 5th week. And according to the sneak preview I was afforded, this is a production that shouldn’t be missed.

I expect everyone knows the terrifying urban myth of Sweeney Todd, but for those who don’t this musical recounts the gory tale of a London barber seeking revenge against a corrupt Judge. Todd returns to London after fifteen
years, having endured transportation, and finds that his wife has been raped by the very Judge who condemned him, an act which has led to her suicide. Joining forces with the local pie-maker Mrs Lovett, who would like to be more than friends, Todd seeks retribution with the steely edge of his razor.

Production company Milk & Two Sugars are going all out in their rendering of this grotesque but compelling yarn, claiming to be the first major show to use a revolving stage at the O’Reilly, whilst a live orchestra will be interpreting
Sondheim’s renowned score under the considered direction of conductor Peter Elliot. 

Luke Rollason, fresh from roles last year in successes including Rope and Judgement at Nuremberg, turns his hand to directing and has assembled an impressively well-drilled, highly musical cast with considerable depth.
In particular, the sinister and beguiling relationship between Andy Laithwaite and Helena Wilson in the lead roles of Todd and Mrs Lovett will be worth the entrance fee alone, as their excellent vocals complement the air of frustration, desire, and delusion which conjures the tension constantly permeating their dialogue.

Putting on a musical of this renown is certainly not an easy task, but on the basis of the latter stages of rehearsal, this company promise to deliver a thrill ride from start to finish, which will also ask the audience some unsettling
questions about the nature of revenge and justice.

Michael Grandage made an inspired wardrobe choice in the dark and misty January morning before his trip to Oxford. Against the velvety backdrop of the dark blue curtains of Magdalen’s Grove Auditorium, the nationally acclaimed director makes an aesthetic picture in a navy jacket, grey trousers, and dark grey hair. 

He’s here for what is described vaguely as a question-and-answer session, and I have little idea what to expect. We’re met with a beguiling smile and a plea for no technology – “will it disappoint you if we don’t have a microphone?” he asks us mournfully – and Grandage instantly sets a friendly and informal scene. As a director, that’s what he’s good at.

In order to win the trust of actors, Grandage’s first aim is always to “create a room in which there is no such thing as a silly question”. This is especially important when dealing with mixtures of famous and non-famous actors and actresses, a conundrum that Grandage frequently faces whilst working with the likes of Kenneth Branagh (Ivanov, 2008), Judi Dench (Peter and Alice, 2013) and Jude Law (Henry V, 2014).

What is it that makes great actors great? Grandage doesn’t know, or rather “can’t articulate” precisely, but he’s keen to pour cold water on the idea recently fanned into existence by Paul Roseby, that “most actors don’t need drama school”. His own marvellously soothing voice is of course all thanks to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Grandage insists that he could “barely speak” before formal training; “I was from Cornwall and had Cornish vowels, but my parents were from Yorkshire so I had Yorkshire vowels… I found a cassette of myself from the seventies and I literally couldn’t understand myself speak.” Nowadays he says “draaama school” with emphasis, drawing out the vowels and leaning towards his interviewer as though he might better convey his feelings through proximity.

With all this acting training and experience behind him, we wonder what made the young Michael Grandage decide that direct limelight wasn’t for him. After twelve “very happy” years as an actor, Grandage explains, he started to suffer terrible stage fright; acting just wasn’t what he hoped it would be. Again he “ can’ t articulate” what he wanted it to be – something to do with being “not really interested in just me and my little part”. I imagine that many actors and actress might have something to say about this image of the self-absorbed actor, but collaboration is at the forefront of Grandage’s mind.

He puts his successful run as Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse from 2002-2012 down to the result of a collective vision. He gets worried by companies who produce plays that “don’t make connections. If everyone signs up to a single vision, then the audience can say, ‘I don’t like your vision’, but at least it’s a vision”. So what was Grandage’s vision at the Donmar? I’m fairly sure he’s either thought this through before or been asked this question in another interview, because his reply is the pithy and satisfying label, “a House of Tragedy”.

Grandage talks about acting spaces intently, making links between the space available, and wider issues of access. One of the biggest differences, for Grandage, between being artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, and being Artistic Director at the Sheffield Theatres in 2000-2005, was that whilst productions put on in Sheffield already reached thousands of audience  members because of the vast numbers of seats available, the Donmar Warehouse has to grapple with international acclaim versus a 250-seat space to sell tickets to. And “people who sell tickets are usually the definition of
great actors”, notes Grandage, with the first tinge of wryness creeping into his chocolatey tones.

Access was after all “at the heart” of the launch of his new production company which ran five plays in the West End (Privates on Parade, Peter and Alice, The Cripple of Inishmaan, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Henry V) over 2013-4, with ticket prices starting at £10. “If you’re paying ten pounds for a ticket, that’s not an elitist art form”, says Grandage. The arts students in the audience doomed to financial ruin and a lifetime of beans on toast shuffle
uneasily on their seats.

Broadcasting live theatre is certainly one way of bringing art to the people, and something that Grandage took part in with King Lear (2010). The production
was a huge success and won Grandage the Tony award for Best Director. Apparently the done thing to do after such a triumph is to come home and not talk about it. Being British, “we’re all faintly embarrassed about the fact that we love winning a Tony”, summarises Grandage, as he crosses his legs, cocks his head, and gazes up at the ceiling.

Grandage only supports live broadcasting as long as it makes people come to the theatre. Encouraging flocks of people to the cinema is “rather redundant”
if they don’t also experience a live acting space. Though, as he tells the audience, a flashy set and tech crew isn’t everything. “My first experience was in a tent” , he says. We all pause to inwardly digest this statement for a beat, until with a deadpan face he clarifies, “of theatre”.

A middle-aged man stands on stage decked out in full drag queen attire with a huge grin on his face, crooning about rubber bullets. Such is the bizarre opening scene of “Ballad of the Burning Star”, the latest foray into experimental theatre from the highly acclaimed company “Theatre Ad Infinitum”.

The show tells the story of Israel – the country and the boy (Israel is a common male name in…well, Israel).  The show leaps from scene to scene with terrible contrast – an IDF raid on a Palestinian village leads into a tense night in a bomb shelter waiting for the arrival of poison gas to Ben Gurion’s independence speech after the foundation of Israel to a Jewish girl on the Kindertransport witnessing the death of her little sister. The set is essentially non-existent, meaning the show relies completely on the protagonist drag queen, backed by his guitarist/drummer ‘Camp David’ and the five ‘starlets’, who live up to their punny name by periodically forming the ‘Star of David’. Somehow, they pull it off – the 90-minute show with no intermission is gripping from start to finish.

The show is a continual balancing act. Just when it appears to be giving excessive focus to one side of the conflict, it makes a drastic U-turn and tells the perspective of the other. Just when it starts to become very serious in tone, it is interrupted by some (much-needed) comic relief in the form of the drag queen’s meta-theatrical quips. At one point, one of the starlets lies prostrate on stage, wailing at the death of her son in a bus attack during one of the Intifadas. The drag queen chides her for being melodramatic, saying: ‘Don’t over-do it! This isn’t a soap opera, it’s a serious political piece.’ While the starlets recite the history of Jewish persecution to the accompaniment of some surprisingly catchy pop music, the drag queen confides in the audience: ‘If you need the toilet, now would be a good time to go.’

It is hard to know how to react to a show, which depicts persecution, death and grief under the comical guise of cabaret and drag. Perhaps this is why the teenage boy sitting next to me in the audience couldn’t control his giggles during a scene set in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It is an emotional explosion that leaves you with little hope that the conflict-ridden state will ever be, in the words of the lead character, a ‘normal country’. 

Transforming a14th century alliterative poem into a modern stage play isn’t an easy feat. There were moments where Simon Corble’s adaptation managed to do it brilliantly. On entering the theatre, the audience’s nostrils were filled with the smell of steaming turf, which had been dug up and laid out on the stage. The crowd, with iPhones and designer trainers, found themselves sitting in an ancient glade.

The advances of the Green Knight’s unsatisfied wife Alison (Mary Clapp) were similarly brought up to date, receiving sitcom-like treatment. Duncan Cornish played a wonderfully gawky Gawain as Alison came to his bedside for ‘lessons in love’. ‘My body is all yours’, she proclaimed. ‘How incredibly kind’, parried our model English gentleman.

However, the adaptation was long on words, and short on action. Indeed Gawain’s plea to Lord Bertilak, ‘spare me more speech’, could have applied to the whole play. Gawain is a fast-paced poem, with alliteration and rhyming ‘bob and wheel’ sections pushing the narrative forward. But Corble’s adaptation hardly got off the ground in the first half, and the plot felt too densely packed into the second.

The poem’s masterfully simple story got lost, in part owing to the insistence on mock-archaic language. ‘Thees’ and ‘thys’ peppered Corble’s script, and though this did enable him to get an occasional laugh, punning, for instance, on Middle English wot, ‘to know’, and modern English ‘what’, sometimes this seemed to be at the expense of the narrative.

The audience appeared to enjoy the performance most when the tale made use of the modern vernacular, and perhaps this might be taken as a hint as to where the play should have gone. References to ‘Wowain’ the ‘handsome h Dom Kurzejaunk’ met with applause and laughter, as did slang from Bertilak (aka the Green Knight), played by Dom Kurzeja, and James Aldred as Gawain’s guide. Corble might take a leaf out of Simon Armitage’s fresh, dynamic 2007 translation of Gawain, which Armitage discussed at Keble earlier this term.

Ultimately, this was a brave attempt to juggle the authentic and the modern, but it didn’t quite succeed. However, mention must be made of Lucie Dawkins’ superbly captivating puppet animals, which in places managed to bring this production to life where so often the language struggled.