Immortality? What a pretentious topic for a student play, you would think. Well, the playwright James Carragher seems to have had the same concerns, because he does anything but bombard the audience with a serious philosophical investigation. Rather, Life Sentence manages to combine comic elements with a touch of absurdity that make the potentially heavy topic suitably light-hearted for the stage.

The play starts off with Theo, the hypochondriac main character played by Nick Lyons, being diagnosed with immortality. Theo, instead of showing relief over his total immunity against all diseases, complains that he is now under pressure to achieve greatness. On the advice of his friends, he organises his own fake funeral, which obviously ends in a fiasco. Then it turns out that he will die after all, and what is more, in only a few months’ time.

Confused? The development of the plot is indeed slightly arbitrary, but that is not the point of the play. The crux of Life Sentence are its dialogues – fast-paced, witty, a real pleasure. While the long sequences of speech are certainly entertaining and captivating, the physical enactment, which sets theatre apart from other disciplines and defines its singularity, was lacking at times.

The director Jack Herlihy, well aware of the potential motionlessness on stage, did his best to bring the tableaus to life with the help of more agitated interludes, which in some cases unfortunately overshot the mark and seemed out of place. On the other hand, you could argue that a madly shouting total maniac mourner is just as absurd as the concept of a fake funeral in itself, and thus served the purpose of deriding the awe-inspiring idea of immortality well.

Still, relying almost solely on the interaction of the characters means sacrificing the individuality of the characters themselves. Unfortunately, that is precisely what happened – neither the side-characters nor the protagonists were sufficiently developed. Naturally, a vague role handicaps the actor, too. William Hislop and Charlie Daniels, playing Theo’s friends Stan and Michelle, the two main characters alongside Theo, although performing convincingly, certainly had their difficulties with that lack of profile of their characters. Nick Lyons playing Theo struggled with the same problem, but also with comparatively lower competence in acting.

And yet – however many negative points we could grub out, we need not forget that Life Sentence is a student play. Written by and acted out by students. And although there are undeniably technical flaws, the brilliant dynamic dialogues, generally solid acting and audacious choice of topic are, quite frankly, awesome, and make Life Sentence, by student standards, a success.

 FOUR STARS

This year marks the tenth anniversary of The Cribs as a band. Many of Cherwell’s readers will no doubt find this a surprisingly long time given that the Wakefield trio have been something of a staple to us throughout our teenage years. Originally formed as a three-piece in late 2001, the Jarman brothers have been the soundtrack to many an adolescent rebellion. The fact they are now ten years old as a band only serves to highlight that we are no longer rebellious teens.

“Ten is a big number; it sounds pretty daunting”, observes Gary Jarman. Although a decade is undoubtedly a long time, The Cribs remain philosophical about it in the context of their own lives. “It’s funny,” says Jarvis, “because sometimes I think it can’t have been ten years, but before this band was in my life I hadn’t travelled, I hadn’t done anything really. So in some ways I can’t believe that I’ve only been as worldly as I am for ten years. It feels about right.”

The Cribs have been prolific in their album output and released their fifth record, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull, earlier this year. However, it was their fourth album, the more polished Ignore the Ignorant, which grabbed headlines owing to the fact that they became a four-piece, adding legendary Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to their number. With his history of making pop rock, critics and fans alike presumed Marr’s influence was behind Ignore the Ignorant’s slicker sound.

This is something which the band, now without Marr, find slightly irritating. As Gary Jarman explains, “Johnny was encouraging us to be more punk because he wanted to be in a punk band. That’s why he joined us. I think that, if anything, he was trying to pull us towards that kind of stuff and I was trying to pull it in the other direction. It becomes a little bit frustrating for people to assume that we would kowtow to what someone else in the band wanted.”

After an amicable split with Marr, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull saw a return to the rawer sound of The Cribs’ pre-Marr albums and with it an almost audible sigh of relief from their more hardcore fans. Whilst the band members are slightly peeved that this is how they have been perceived, Ryan Jarman comments happily, “It seemed like people connected with this record. Almost like we were coming back.”

Now in their thirties, the question of how long The Cribs can credibly continue as an energetic punk rock band is becoming an increasingly pertinent one, as they “really can’t imagine being onstage doing it in the same way forever.” The formation of Ryan Jarman’s new band, Exclamation Pony, would suggest that the band wants to develop and vary its musical production. In Gary Jarman’s view, “Punk’s really limiting. Really incredibly limiting.”

Whilst Gary Jarman likes “the idea of the name continuing as a recording project” the end of The Cribs may happen sooner than later. Ryan Jarman reveals, “There are definitely plans to do some things next year, but as far as looking beyond that, we haven’t really done that.” If The Cribs do break up next year it will be something like the end of an era. They have matured from their early, raw rock records to producing more complex songs, just as their fans have grown from angst-fuelled teenagers into something resembling adults. Perhaps to end now would be fitting.

Every now and again a film comes along that makes you feel everything the characters feel and makes you experience every single moment with them as they experience it. Rust and Bone is very much one of those films. This sense of feeling is primarily owed to the focus in this film on the visual. From the bloodied tooth spinning ominously on the ground to the lonely image of the wheelchair- bound lead actress, this film is nothing if not emotionally demanding. The movie is actually in French, the mother-tongue of lead Marion Cotillard (Inception, The Dark Knight Rise, La Vie en Rose) and far from being an arduous subtitle-reading session the language barrier does not in any way bar enjoyment of the film, in fact it evidences the power of the visuals.

It could be said the main theme of this film is the idea that some of the most beautiful things in life are often also very dangerous. This is portrayed brilliantly through the two main characters Stephanie and Alain. At the start of the film we meet Alain who has obviously fallen on hard times with his son Sam on his shoulders, thumbing a lift. Then Stephanie is introduced looking somewhat worse for wear on a night out. The orca trainer is in love with her job but it quickly becomes clear that outside of work her life is not as fantastic as it seems. On this night out Stephanie crosses paths with Alain who has moved in with his sister and found work as a bouncer. The meeting is brief and it is the sense of reality in this film through the use of random acquaintance which makes it so believable and so powerful. This method of film-making can be compared to the ‘cold, hard facts of life’ presentation of hits like The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell, and The Wrestler, directed by the mighty Darren Aronofsky.

The main event is the horror of the accident suffered by Stephanie whilst leading an orca show. This leaves her waking up in a hospital bed only to discover her legs have been amputated. This is the point where Cotillard comes into her Oscar-winning own showing her true acting credentials to deliver what is arguably the best dramatic scene of the film. This is not to overlook Schoenaerts (Bullhead, Black Book) who plays the angry, complicated and struggling Alain with so much depth of character the scenes involving the two are incredibly intense. Young actor Armand Verdure is also important to mention as his turn as Sam is extremely promising with his character leading to yet another amazingly dramatic scene at a frozen lake which is jaw-droppingly tense.

What director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped) has done is raise the movie-making bar. It is not often a film of such depth (of characters and emotion), reality and visual effect sweeps across our cinema screens. This movie definitely puts its audience through the emotional-ringer but it’s well worth it. Prepare to alternate between staring wide-eyed and hanging on to the edge of your seat as despite the emotional rollercoaster, Rust and Bone will leave you speechless.