Student productions of musicals are often tolerable, at best, and despite the effective marketing campaign which is currently dominating Oxford, I wasn’t sure if A Little Night Music would live up to the hype. However, even cooped up in Somerville Chapel, without the large space of The Oxford Playhouse to work with, the cast give a captivating performance. Whilst many directors may settle for great actors with passable singing voices, or terrific singers who can also memorise lines, Griffith Rees has managed to find a talented cast whose vocal and acting ability is extremely impressive.

The first scene they show us is an ensemble musical number from the first act, and with the addition of the magnificent student orchestra, it is thoroughly enjoyable. The musical tells the story of the interwoven romantic lives of glamorous couples among the Swedish elite. Most prominent is the affair between the glamorous Desiree Armfeldt (Georgina Hellier) and Count Carl-Magnus (Aleksandr Cvetkovic). Hellier gives a particularly confident performance as the conniving temptress and works well with Cvetkovic, who commands the stage as the demanding and impatient Count.  The chemistry between the two makes theirs scenes engaging, especially when they are joined by Armfledt’s other lover, Fredrik Egerman, played by the amusing Richard Hill. Furthermore, all three actors find more humour in the musical than you would expect, and Hellier manages to make Armfledt’s duplicity hilarious, whilst Cvetkovic makes Carl-Magnus’ stubborn ignorance particularly entertaining.

Furthermore, there are many other commendable performances as Claire Parry’s sarcastic and dry wit, matched with her delightful singing voice makes her performance as Charlotte, Carl-Magnus’ mistreated wife, enthralling. Whilst I only saw a few scenes involving Madame Armfeldt (Natasha Heliotis) who majestically controls the romantic liaisons, that which I did see was riveting as Heliotis’ powerful stage presence, and range of facial expressions, allows her to dominate the stage, even when sat in the background. The cast are joined by the Liebeslieder, who act as a chorus, narrating the play and engendering the scene transition and the spectacular singing voices of Anjali Joseph and David Kell stand out as they resound throughout the chapel.

Of course, there are a view hitches. A couple of flat notes, and missed cues, but this does not detract from an otherwise aurally enchanting and generally entertaining performance. Rees’ vision as the director is clear, and the snippets of scenes that I saw left me wanting more. Despite the fact that they were only rehearsals, the strong performance of the cast made it clear that A Little Night Music will definitely be one of the unmissable shows of this term.   

FOUR STARS

A Little Night Music will be showing from Wednesday 14th to Saturday 17th November at the Oxford Playhouse.

Have you ever heard a laptop orchestra? However advanced your tastes, chances are this hasn’t yet formed part of your musical experience-bank.

On Friday 23^rd November, you’ll get your chance with the much-anticipated debut performance of OxLORK, the university laptop ensemble for which Dan Jeffries, Nigel McBride and Nick DiBeradino have succeeded in persuading the Music Faculty to support. This is an “orchestra” without double basses, or horns, or Chinese gongs, or piccolos. In a visually restrained performance, you’ll see some of the Music Faculty’s composition students – and some others who are principally musicologists – behind glowing apple-screens, typing, dragging with the mouse, occasionally laughing at a hidden joke.  From the audience perspective, electronic and rather ambient sounds will wash through the room, but it’s hard to tell who is doing what to create these sounds. As a member of this ensemble, I’ll provide a glimpse of what’s on our screens.

Laptop orchestras have become a growing phenomenon, especially within the context of university music; it’s a heavily funded project at the cutting edges of custom music technology and avant-garde academic composition. Not surprisingly, it’s technology-based, with the distinctive feature being pricey speakers specifically designed for this purpose – their six-faced design renders them capable of diffusing sound in many directions. The “orchestra” doesn’t actually play together at the moment but as three groups of six (we have only six speakers, since they are so expensive). One performer controls each speaker – hence the idea that it is played like an instrument, flexibly, and in real-time.
Throughout the performance, we’ll be sending each other messages, some of which are the cause of the laughter. Most of them will be concerned with matching our tempi or tone, but I won’t promise that our thoughts aren’t sometimes wandering. Pretty much anything could happen on the night, and the three sextets may develop distinct sounds as rehearsal practices diverge. As a medium, the laptop orchestra is so new that it could still take off in many possible directions, yet already not so new that it doesn’t already have recognised practices. In some ways, it’s really quite retro, just sitting round fiddling with grooves.

About this project I have been by turns enthusiastic and cynical, but I can honestly say that as rehearsal progresses, the sounds coming out of the speakers have become vastly more interesting each week. Do expect informality and weird sci-fi sounds, jumpy bass and sparkling high tones like an ill-advised night-time stroll in fairy-tale woods. Don’t expect a prompt start.

The provocateur célèbre of London FilmFestival’s new ‘Dare Gala’ was Carlos Reygadas, whose latest film, Post Tenebras Lux, is an audacious fever-like dream of domestic unease. It is so wildly ambitious that it comes with a near-irresistible temptation to view even its most unwieldy abstractions as the highest of cinematic art. And though it is shot in the squarish Academy ratio, no film this year has felt more expansive, as its immersive sound effects and haunting visuals collide with all the brutal gusto of a primal scream.

Punctuated by a series of surreal digressions, featuring a self-decapitated farmworker and a well-hung Satan (thankfully not related), the film follows an upper-class couple, Juan and Natalia on the brink of painful maturation. A dark energy pulses through the nonlinear narrative as Reygadas never shirks from presenting conflicting emotions (family bliss and marital friction, shared tenderness and unexplained violence) alongside each otherwith fiery unpredictability. This gives his semi-autobiographical musings a distinctly less redemptive tone than the otherwise structurally similar Tree of Life from last year. Vivid imagery and oblique aesthetic methods – the use of an edge-blurring, postproduction framing device called ‘tilt-shift’ – merge to create a kaleidoscopic vision that will require more than a few ibuprofens to dispel.

Forgiving a few arthouse clichés, including graphic sex and an extraneous scene of animal abuse, Reygadas has succeeded in creating a film where, in his own words, “reason will intervene as little as possible.” That said, there is a strong conservative message at its core, acknowledging the patriarchal need to protect the family unit against all odds. Juan is insulted by an employee’s overt machismo, his porn addiction is trivialised at an AA meeting and he silently watches his wife being ravished by French strangers in the ‘Duchamp Room’ of an orgiastic sauna.

Through such elliptic scenes, the film tackles the metaphysical conceit underlying much Romantic lore, the idea of the universe as a list of male possessions under threat: my wife, my kids, my house, my life. But why does Reygadas’ criticism feel so vague? Can he only rage against such things through cryptic codes for fear of angering his Mexican countrymen andclergy? Or have I been reading too many DanBrown novels? Keeping all these experiences close to hisheart and the vibration of his caméra-stylo,Post Tenebras Lux is Reygadas’ most impassioned renunciation of form for feeling, even if his central theme can be reduced to “rich people have feelings too”.

YES – Huw Fullerton

I was horrified by this news. So much so that I’m not even going to open with a clever Star Wars pun about how horrified  was. I really did not expect it at all. Like most people, I did not enjoy the prequel trilogy; they had their merits, but they really just weren’t Star Wars. And, over the years it’s been hard not to become disillusioned by the direction the franchise has taken. TV series, video games, action figures,books, backpacks, hardware. Ugh, and don’t get me started on those Dixons adverts.

To me, the renting out of iconic figures like that seemed like desecration, and so very, very crass. Creatively, there didn’t seem to be much point in propagating the franchise – it has seemed driven by profit. And that’s the tone that I read the announcement in. I have a real distaste for the culture of endless sequels, reboots and adaptations that has infected cinema in the last decade, at the expense of any originality or real merit in favour of wanton profiteering.

The announcement that Disney will have a Star Wars film out ‘every two years’ sounds like the death-rattle of creativity; you should make a film if you have a story to tell, not to fill a schedule or a profit margin. I was thoroughly disturbed by the news. But something occurred to me – was I really saying that I didn’t want more Star Wars films? I loved them as a kid, and with George Lucas’ role scaled back, who was to say that the worst excesses of the prequels wouldn’t go with him? Disney had done a good job with Pixar’s takeover and – more importantly for me – they managed to somehow not screw up The Avengers when they bought Marvel.

Perhaps we won’t really be able to judge until Episode VII comes out, but Mark Hamill said something in an interview that really only increased my uneasiness with the new films. He said that “there’s this ravenous desire on the part of the true believers to have more and more and morematerial.” I think this is completely untrue; most fans would agree the series was complete, all the loose ends tied up. There is really no need for new films; Lucas’ abdication shows that he certainly thinks that. Maybe Star Wars has become a business, and I’m sure that business is booming. But in this case, I think, less is more.

NO – Alexandra Sutton

So, Disney now own Star Wars. I can practically hear the Leia-loving sci-fi boffins of our galaxy sobbing into their cuddly Ewoks. I can certainly see their Facebook statuses: ‘We trusted you, George!’ ‘But, how will Luke operate a lightsaber and a zimmer frame at the same time?!’ Come to think of it, it all seems vaguely familiar. The fact is, Mr Lucas has been steadily whittling down his fan base ever since he (presumably) got bored one Saturday afternoon and invented a chap named Jar Jar Binks.

Surely people could see this coming? We had The Phantom Menace (to be said in hushed tones, like The Scottish Play or You-Know-Who), we had the Clone Wars, the Lego, the video games, the Jar Jar toys in cuddly, keyring and lunchbox form. In short, the franchise became a business. Of course, I am of the generation who met Anakin before we met Luke, and so I can’t qualify the emotions that the original series inspired.

The truth is, I do love Star Wars. It walks the fine line between epic and camp, and it’s plastered onto my subconscious as if Yoda himself had placed it there. What’s more, I also have a lots of respect for Pixar. There are lots of reasons to admire them as a production company, not least the genuine care they show their films. I feel safe in the knowledge that I won’t be subjected to a Toy Story 9, in which Robo-Andy sells off an antique Woody in order to fund his drug habit. But who knows, Disney have whole galaxies to play with. I for one am just excited to see small children once gain running away from Darth Vader models in the Disney Store.

Life at Oxford has a reputation for being like living in a bubble. We move from one reading list to the next, diving into the lost centuries and ideas of days gone by; but what about today?

This is exactly why reading Red is so refreshing. It’s a collection of brand new short stories, essays and poems from today’s leading writers, put together by Waterstones. It’s so up-to-date it even mentions Tesco Metro, a reference I found sadly lacking in Eliot’s novels.

In this anthology, the writers respond to the colour red (which the editor describes as the colour of “danger and passion”). The result is a work that is bursting with energy, including coverage of everything from crimson love to bloody violence to “seeing red” with rage.

It may seem strange to mix fiction with non-fiction in the same anthology, and at first this does jar. Having lost myself in David Almond’s short story, I felt almost slapped around the face with Suzanne Moore’s anti-Conservative feminist rant. I soon realised this would not be the smooth-flowing narrative of Victorian prose, but something more abstract, and something that reflected the disjointed tapestry of 2012.

At times, I wondered whether the anthology had gone far enough in reflecting the past year. It dips into our history-in-the-making whilst leaving many major events untouched. But, instead of writing a Wikipedia style entry on 2012, the writers are trying to capture the spirit of our year, using individuals to relate to it. After all, we don’t have a collective consciousness: we experience only our little corner of life.

Cecelia Ahern’s story crosses age and time barriers to relate powerful advice about the choices we make: “When you’re in the middle of it all, you don’t see it too well, it’s a spin.” And we don’t. Our society has more variety in it than ever, but we’re unable to see it all at once. We’re plunged into a similar set of themes when faced with Hanif Kureishi’s humble narrator, a self-sacrificing Pakistani woman who has escaped to Paris for a better life.

Red tries to take a step back from the world and allow us to see it more fully, breaking down these barriers. It’s a poignant anthology that everyone can relate to, and which relates everyone to each other. As Alice Oswald notes, below the skin we’re all “dressed in matching red.”

Visualized as a film, Will Self’s Umbrella is rather like a mix of Noveceto and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Umbrella is a piece of modernist fiction, and reads accordingly, but that shouldn’t frighten anybody away.

Despite being a little overwhelming with its abrupt change between narrators and from narrative into thought, it is so clearly and expertly expressed that it is a joy to read.

However, at times it feels as though the whole novel is tilting towards structural instability. The reader is submerged into a stream of consciousness: there are no chapter breaks at all, and the majority of the sentences are long, with odd pauses thrown in. However, Umbrella is no ramble. Rather it seeks to come across as far more chaotic than it is. Self is a man with a plan, and the stories of Audrey Death, a patient in an asylum and Dr. Zack Busner, her psychiatrist, interweave beautifully.

The book is a double biography spanning the course of the twentieth century: we see Audrey in childhood and as a young adult, then we have the middle and old age of Bus- ner, all in the context of Audrey’s crippling post-encephalitic condition of which Self writes expertly.

It is a stark reminder of the precariousness and fragility of human existence and perception. In his interweaving of existences, Self can showcase a century of life and change. His ability to paint the past so vividly through dialect, detail, and pop culture is amazing. He moves subtly from the Kinks’ ‘Ape-man’ to Sam Wood’s masterpiece of black and white cinema, King’s Row, and undoubtedly to many others that floated dreamily over my head.

This might be why Umbrella works. Although it doesn’t present the narrative in chronological order, it is so firmly anchored to, not a specific time, but a place: London. A strength of Self’s writing is that he breathes life into London, not just the London of our lifetime, but most fascinatingly, London when a cab was still pulled by a horse – London right on the cusp of the modern age.

There is a pleasing circularity to the composition, stressing at the same time the fact that on one level nothing ever really changes, and equally that when a place is revisited everything is different.

Finally, Umbrella makes you think, the highest praise that I can give it.

Katy Darby, English alumna of Somerville College, has recently published her debut historical novel The Unpierced Heart. Anyone with a soft spot for Jericho would be shocked to hear that before it became the go-to location for quirky cafes, yummy mummies and frequent Raymond Blanc sightings, it was a place of debauchery, its sordid backstreets home to the “lowest sort of brazen female as ever lifted her petticoats.” 

As a Somervillian who spends more time in the Jericho café than in libraries, I spoke to Katy about writing, Oxford, and why certain supermarkets aren’t inclined to display a cover featuring the word ‘whore’ on their shelves. 

On The Unpierced Heart

“I didn’t have the idea whilst at Oxford; actually it first came to me at UEA. It started as a short story, a homage to Sherlock Holmes. I had the idea of a love triangle, of love getting in the way of friendship. I enjoyed writing it and it got too long to be a short story. I got carried away.

The story starts in Worcester College then moves to Jericho. I had a friend who was researching the history of Jericho for an article. She asked me if I knew it had been the red light district. There had been dodgy bits of Jericho up until the 1950s: I think you could always get yourself a good time – I took that idea and ran with it in the novel, inventing a refuge for fallen women on Victor Street.”

Benefits of Studying English

“Huge. Doing English Literature as a degree gives you ideas and allows you to read critically. Also, a rookie error when writing prose for the first time is overwriting: I was a terrible over-writer so the Creative Writing MA at UEA was a great benefit. I saw examples of other people’s work and got feedback. I had the bad habits knocked out of me.” 

On Being A Writer

“Lots of people closet themselves and won’t tell others about their work unless they feel it’s genius, but this doesn’t help you improve. You must have a thick skin, or grow one, to become a successful writer. If you have perseverance you can be a writer; if you have talent you’ll get encouragement eventually as long as you show others your work. There’s nothing worse than a bad writer who is oversensitive. Tutorials, writing classes and writing groups teach you to handle criticism and learn from it.” 

On the Market

“Even if the market loves a particular genre, if you hate it, don’t write it. With commercial fiction, the priority is never beautiful prose, but there’s always at least one thing a commercial book will do really well, whether that’s making women horny or keeping readers hooked with a great plot. A ‘good’ book will just do more of those things well.

Many 19th century best-sellers were awful – they’re just not read any more. In the 21st century it’s different but it doesn’t mean that in 100 years today’s bestsellers will still be read. Build a career that is based not on other people’s sales figures, but on what you want to write.” 

What’s Next?

“If your first book is in a particular genre, your readers perceive you as that type of author. For Penguin to pick up my second novel it would have to be historical, it’s what’s expected. Luckily I enjoy writing it!

“There’s lots of research involved in historical fiction. To get the voices, or the incidental details like how people address each other and how many pence a mile it costs in a cab.

The new book I’m working on is based on the so-called ‘Newgate Novels’ or ‘Gallows Stories’. A Victorian housemaid is accused of murdering her mistress: she’s tried and sent to Newgate to await execution, when a journalist asks her to tell her story.

I’ll make sure not to give the new one a controversial title: the first novel was originally published as The Whores’ Asylum, but supermarkets don’t like ‘whore’, so it’s been renamed as The Unpierced Heart. Thereby hangs a tale!” 

The third album by this New Jersey band is pure unadulterated fun. 2010’s The Monitor was a punky concept album about the American Civil War, but there’s nothing like that to be found here. Local Business is full of deeply personal epics or silly riotous interludes, and it’s truly fantastic for it.

Titus Andronicus’ great talent lies in creating a bombastic sound with supercharged guitars and full on drums, with Patrick Stickles’ growly yelps on top. Likenesses to Bruce Springsteen are often thrown around, and with good merit – ‘anthemic’ doesn’t give Titus Andronicus enough credit. Take for example the live staple ‘Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter’ – the song moves with frenetic pace until we come to a two line chant repeated again and again- ‘Here it goes again! I hear you took it to another level!’ (A lyrics website informs me they repeat it 57 times).

But it doesn’t ever get boring – the band never gives you a second to relax. Perhaps even more anthemic is ‘(I Am the) Electric Man’, a song written after Stickles had an unfortunate incident in New York which resulted in 200 volts of electricity surging through his body.

It’s undoubtedly punk, but a lot more introspective and in fact poppy than we’d come to expect from the band. Arguably the most important song on the album is the mid-epic ‘My Eating Disorder’, a song about Stickles’ own lifelong troubles with food. No metaphors to be found here – “Spit it out!” he screams, “If it’s not too late to start again, open up that womb and I’ll crawl right in.”  The introspective judging continues with the next song, where Stickles repeats the same line (“I’m going insane!”) repeatedly over crashing guitars. Songs like these make Local Business more accessible and personal than their previous albums, so when the final track ‘Tried to Quit Smoking’ announces its triumphal entrance, we’ve truly been taken along a musical journey, bumps and all.