It’s Valentine’s Day in the second episode of the seventh season of Mad Men. Surprising in a show that works so hard for contemporary authenticity, tethering its characters to moments in American history (we’ve had assassinations, “I Have a Dream,” and, by my count, a moon landing is coming before too long), “A Day’s Work” depicts a yearly event that feels detached from chronological associations. The episode is insular, and the story lines, which develop and resolve themselves within its 45 minutes, parallel those that have been brewing for some time. 

A bunch of misinterpreted roses are the primary agitator of office politics. At the end of the season premiere, Peggy Olson, alone in her apartment, sank to her knees in tearful frustration, and this week fares little better. Spotting the roses on her secretary’s desk, and assuming that they have been sent from Ted Chaough, she is made to realise her error. A day that begins with it embarrassment — courtesy of Ginsberg’s cutting quip that “she has plans, look at her calendar! February 14th: masturbate gloomily.” — ends with humiliation and shame, as Ted attempts to get in contact. We are reminded of Peggy’s arc from secretary to creative copywriter in earlier seasons as, now the joint-head of creative, she uses her power to unjustly blame her secretary in the way she so stubbornly resisted as a former underling.

It is the subsequent movement of secretaries that provides most of the show’s in-office story lines, which deftly address some of the continuing tensions. It isn’t just Peggy who wants a new secretary, but when Joan attempts to move Dawn to the position at reception, Bert Cooper pointedly objects. 

Shirley and Dawn make light of their situation while making coffee, and in a perceptive moment call each other by their own names, mimicking the ignorance of the white characters that freely muddle the two. It is a great moment in an episode full of them, and demonstrates that the writing has not suffered despite AMC’s increasing curatorial presence. Dawn’s character in particular has been developed with patience over the last couple of seasons, and the sympathy she generates within the audience is finally rewarded by Joan’s decision to promote her, as a form of quiet protest. Never has the show been more heart-warming than during Dawn’s tentative smile as she sits in her new office. 

Though many things remain the same in the seventh season, the audience meets the provocations of new boss Lou Avery, who is definitely not the same as old boss Don. As Don’s pretense about still being in work is shattered by Sally’s trip to the office, the episode heads toward a tremendously assured emotional climax, where his attempts to challenge Sally about her whereabouts, but finds that he no longer has the trust and respect, or the power they bring, to extract answers from her. Kiernan Shipka’s acting is pitch-perfect, and there is something tender and disarming about her world-weary delivery that reflects on the actress’s abilities as much as it does the writing of her character. The Don Draper of season seven is forced to accept that his new status demands more listening than talking. Another Valentine’s Day passes him by, and this time it is a reminder of his diminishing future career, Mad Men’s inexorable pace is finally overtaking him. 

Despite only seeing Lungs in the very early stages of rehearsal it was clear that this is a production that is not only highly evocative, but one that has an exciting capacity for conceptual experiment as a compelling rehearsed reading.

Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs acts as a conversation through time between two lovers. The unnamed man (Leo Suter) and woman (Emma D’arcy) struggle against one another and themselves as they consider, in particular, the implications of having a child and the frightening personal and global responsibility this may involve. 

There is something painfully intimate about the presentation of the play in its honesty, in its refusal to embellish. It takes place on a completely bare stage, absent of any props or scenery, but the intensity of the heated dialogue seems to fill the space as the passionate, but disconnected, couple strive to connect. Whilst the bodily presence of Suter and D’arcy is engaging, it is very much their shifting voices that propel the performance by their constant conflict. The urgency of their fractured exchanges continually flickers between agreement and disagreement as they desperately strain for some sort of answer that always seems to be just out of reach.

The tenderness and the everyday brutalities of their relationship is striking not just because of the rawness of the script’s content, which makes them so vulnerable by exposing their deepest fears and desires, but its engagement with the audience. Director Howard Coase and producer Rebecca Roughan have placed great importance upon the collaborative nature of Lungs as a shared experience between audience and performers. This idea has informed their decision to draw the audience closer by having the seating encircling the drama as well as having an open post-performance discussion. Roughan, who also produced 12 Angry Women with a similar sentiment, sees the recognition of this relationship and the promoting of a dialogue as a vital part of the theatrical experience and something to be very much encouraged.

Considering the production’s promise, and the fact that it is also free to attend, it seems that it would be a mistake not to go along and see it for yourself. 

Going to the cinema is not always a treat. Although your experience is obviously largely dictated by the quality of the film on show, there are several other factors worth considering. Perhaps if that annoyingly chirpy 12-year-old girl would shut up you could focus on the protagonist’s affected mumble better. Perhaps if your seat was not bejewelled with used gum you could sit more comfortably. And perhaps if the large man with the unfortunately audible chewing would cease his incessant popcorn munching for just a minute, you could hear what the bad guy’s plan was. No, to avoid these irritations, and for a truly memorable experience, one must look beyond the archetypal and mundane multiplex and venture into the unknown realms of alternative cinemas.

Some alternatives offer luxury. Take The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, for example. A cinema has existed in one form or another at 191 Portobello Road since 1911 and the current venue claims to be “one of the world’s most lavish and user-friendly cinemas.” This is no hollow boast; in addition to their 65 plush leather armchairs (all with footstools and side-tables), it boasts three leather sofas, and six double beds from which to enjoy a film. Everyone gets their own cashmere blanket too. Instead of a bucket of coke and a box of popcorn the size of a telephone box, the cinema’s bar offers gourmet cinema snacks as well as booze. Tickets aren’t cheap though: £18 for a regular armchair and £30 for a double bed. 

If this still seems too conventional, The Rooftop Film Club may interest you. In the evening during the summer months, this innovative group screen a mixture of classic films and new releases on the rooftops of buildings in Shoreditch, Peckham and Kensington. Viewers sit back, listen through wireless headphones, snack on barbecued nibbles and relax as the stars appear both overhead and on screen. The only drawback to this otherwise magical experience is the classic problem with outdoor British events; should the weather take a turn for the worse, warm clothing is essential

This is less of an issue with Hot Tub Cinema, which seats viewers in inflatable hot tubs to watch movies. Established in 2012, Hot Tub Cinema developed from a party where founder Asher Charman decided to screen films onto a bed sheet hung from his window, watching them with friends from a tub in his garden. Since then, his project has expanded, now hosting evenings on rooftops across the UK. However, this may not be a wise choice for hardcore cinephiles as attention can stray slightly from the film, lost in a blur of champagne and 40-degree bubbles. Understandably, concentration is probably difficult to maintain when surrounded by half-naked 20-somethings. In hot tubs. On a roof. 

If you are somehow still concerned about the lack of adventure in your cinematic habits, then perhaps you should consider registering with Secret Cinema. Calling themselves a “community of all that love cinema, and experiencing the unknown”, Secret Cinema organises truly extraordinary ways of seeing movies. A film (which is secret) is screened in an appropriate location (which is secret), on one date every month (which is secret). All is revealed in an email sent out shortly prior to the screening, along with a compulsory dress code. Every Secret Cinema event is highly themed and audience members are very much involved in the occasion; viewers underwent Nurse Ratched-style therapy before the 2010 showing of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and in 2011, at a screening of Gillo Pontecorveo’s Battle of Algiers, filmgoers were interrogated by military personnel in abandoned underground tunnels beneath Waterloo train station. Safe to say, a strangers’ irritatingly loud mastication would have paled into unimportance on that occasion. 

This term will see two literary adaptations staged at the Keble O’Reilly, Oxford’s highest-profile student-only theatre. In an attempt to escape the method of interviewing that tells you nothing you can’t find out on a Facebook event, I met up with the directors of Lord of the Flies and Frankenstein (Dom Applewhite and Harley Viveash respectively) for an informal conversation about the nature, challenges and rewards of literary adaptation.

Luke Rollason: It’s a clichéd claim to say there’s a current ‘trend’ for literary adaptation, but it’s a convenient point for us to start on considering the huge popularity of The Curious  Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and Headlong’s adaptations. Do you think this is new ‘trend’?

Harley Viveash: One of the things I’d been reading building up to Frankenstein was a book by Mike Alfred called Then What Happens, and the thing that he claims is special about adaptations is that they offer opportunities for innovation in theatre, because these are stories that are not designed originally for the theatre. That this transition isn’t natural or easy can lead to interesting choices. Often the very personal nature of a novel is something that’s hard to communicate on stage, like a story from one person’s perspective, and exploring ideas of perspective is something we are focusing on in Frankenstein.

LR: The way modern theatre is made- as a spectacle- is highly influenced by how audiences are used to receiving stories in the cinema, and I’m wondering if you think adaptation in theatre is following a cinematic precedent for giving audiences what they know already? If books are so brilliant at telling a dense narrative, why put it on stage?

Dom Applewhite: That’s kind of to imply that, if books are the pinnacle of telling narratives then therefore they’re untouchable. The thing is with stage is it’s so immediate, perhaps even more so than film, especially for actors. And both have been adapted before, as well as having their narratives reproduced by other texts.

LR:  Do you think that’s part of what appeals to you about staging an established literary text? I mean, both are absorbed into cultural consciousness but not necessarily read…

HV: Well for me those cultural misconceptions are really important, especially as we’re updating the text. We’re not creating a world in which Frankenstein already exists, but you have to be aware in a modern world there are already these versions of Frankenstein out there- you think of Frankenstein as Boris Karloff- and I think these have to be played with and addressed as much as the book itself, as another text that goes alongside it.

DA: I think it can also get really indulgent if you ignore preconceptions that people have. For me it’s more about trying to reinterpret, not necessarily what people already think about the characters, but more general storytelling tropes- because what’s central to the book is questioning what is good or ‘civilised’ and what is evil.

LR: Talking about tropes, these are both texts which I think are very formative to our culture; we all studied them at school, and many of the more clichéd elements of both are only clichés because of these texts. What you’re playing with is not necessarily that text but more how people relate to those texts, how that text has been interacted with and interpreted.

DA: I always think no adaptation takes precedence over another- it can be the most amateur production but it contributes to the conception of what the text represents and its cultural importance, however that person interprets it.

HV: It’s not often done in Oxford, but I think the great thing with devising an adaptation from scratch is it gives a lot of different voices that as the play goes on work more and more in harmony and eventually everyone contributes to the same idea. What I hope we’ll create is a version of this story that is not a definitive version of it but it’s an alternative version, that could only come out of the circumstances of being here, at this time, with these people.

LR: To play devil’s advocate briefly, why call it ‘Frankenstein’?  Doesn’t there come a point where you’re basically writing a new play?

DA: I think it says immediately “there is more to this novel than what you think.” You’d hope that every adaptation you see explores elements you haven’t seen before of that text. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is a personal response, we should never pretend to be the definitive version, and nobody should be scared to say “well, I see it like this”.

LR: What challenges or advantages come from a text with characters already established in an audience’s mind? Is it any different from working with an established playtext?

HV: I think the difference is people’s assumptions about play characters are often based on other performances, how that character should be performed, but people are protective over novel characters because reading a book is such a personal experience. With Frankenstein’s charactersour source is less the novel but our understanding of it, using improvisation to build these characters from scratch around the story. So, one of the decisions we’ve made is that the monster doesn’t have a physical deformity but he accidentally makes himself a monster by interacting with people in a way he doesn’t realise is violent. Even when he has assimilated he acts in a very assumed way that is slightly unnerving. And that’s a distinctive decision but it’s a decision we feel fits in with the story well.

LR: Are there boundaries to what you can do to a text?

HV: As long as you address what the change does and you’re aware of that then I think it justifies it in terms of that performance, it might not be a decision that people like but that reaction in itself is a comment upon that text’s continuing reinterpretation.

(Lord of the Flies and Frankenstein are on at the Keble O’Reilly Theatre in 3^rd Week and 5^th Week respectively)

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