If The Gaslight Anthem sound like Bruce Springsteen, there’s probably a good reason for that. They are a blue-collar band hailing from New Jersey, playing muscular rock and roll songs about how good things were in some more innocent time, and the need to break free. It’s practically genetic.

However, whenever comparisons are drawn between a young act and an established master (or ‘Boss’) of the genre, expectations are automatically raised, meaning that whatever the newcomer pulls out of the bag has to be something particularly special. The Gaslight Anthem have managed this in the past. Their second album, The ‘59 Sound, was on hard rotation on my hifi for a good few months. Their particular skill lies in taking a kind of music that you’ve definitely heard before and making it seem vital and relevant in a way that many Springsteen-aping bands fail to do.

It’s a shame, then, that their newest album, Handwritten, fails to live up to this promise.

It’s not a bad album, not by any measure. The same factors that made The ’59 Sound such a joy are still present. The band have lost none of their energy, none of their verve and wit, and none of their usual lyrical themes. The music still sounds like it used to. But, in some ways, that’s part of the problem with the new album.

There’s a sense that we’ve heard these songs before, on The ’59 Sound. The style has barely changed at all, which leaves the listener in something of a quandary. It’s by no means definite that new is always better, that trying out new styles and elements in music is the way for a band to go. In some cases, it’s nice to know what you’re getting. But it’d be a real shame to see The Gaslight Anthem become another band that releases the same album ten times in a row, especially after their third album, American Slang.

American Slang showcased a different side to the band, a side that was appealing, more melodic, more polished and professional than that which came through on their first two albums. If The Gaslight Anthem had carried on in that vein, there is a chance that they could have been a truly big name, a world-conquering rock band. Unfortunately, for all its charm, Handwritten is nowhere near the record it would need to be for that ambition to be realised.

THREE STARS

Channel Orange is an ‘important’ album for a few reasons. The first is that is the first fully-formed solo release by Frank Ocean, the current flavour of the month for the majority of the music press. The second reason is that Frank Ocean recently posted an open letter on Tumblr that exposed his unrequited feelings for someone in his past. That person happened to be male.

I’m sure we all know how violently homophobic many popular hip-hop/R&B stars have been in the past, and how that has leant a certain intolerant air to the whole genre. Whether or not Frank Ocean is accepted by the wider R&B community, it’s rather edifying that he has released an album genre to so much critical acclaim. Of course, this won’t be the cure for homophobia in hip-hop. This won’t stop various high profile ambassadors for the genre using terms relating to the LGBTQ community as a catch-all term for lameness. It won’t stop the hate and it won’t stop the abuse, but it’s a start. If audiences really take to Frank Ocean, and the hip-hop establishment allows him a place at the top table, that’s a step in the right direction.

There’s no reason why that shouldn’t happen. There’s always the chance that an artist under so much scrutiny (in both professional and personal capacities) will disappoint. Ocean has managed to put together a debut album that is exceedingly professional, yet distinctive. His voice is his greatest asset – the falsetto on tracks such as ‘Thinkin Bout You’ is pure and unforced (and therefore, nowhere near as annoying as falsetto can often be). His chilled-out tracks convey a sense of ennui that is often overlooked in favour of more flashy fare. Although there are missteps, (a track entitled ‘Forrest Gump’ is never a good idea to begin with, and it doesn’t sound much better than the title suggests), these are in the minority.

Frank Ocean is one to watch. Not just because of what his success means, but because of his precocious talent and potential.

FIVE STARS

Behind the blank facade of one of the mysterious houses on St Giles, through a long garden dotted with apple trees and soaked by an unfavourable summer, in a small wood panelled hall with cushioned pews sat a dozen friendly faces. This was the meeting house of the Society of Friends, the Quakers, and the stage for a series of short plays and improvisations with no discernible theme.

Almost Random Theatre is the nascent creation of Chris Sivewright, formed in May this year, and Lighter Days is only their second performance. It showed. There was not really any cohesion to the whole event, so one of the actresses played some Einaudi on a piano, then improvisation was introduced, followed by plays of various (short) lengths running the thematic gamut from dance to dementia. In total there were eight actors and eight writers, some much better than others.

The first playlet was a twenty-minute piece about paedophilia and was probably the high point of the evening. An old man sat bent in a garden chair, an old woman watering her roses and talking to the audience. She clutched a Thermos and had a ‘nana’ smile – gentle, authoritative and kind. Slowly the story is revealed of the husband’s arrest and trial, of the woman’s ostracism by friends, neighbours and even her own family. It is an unsettling piece that effectively, and quite intelligently, questions society’s blind attitudes – rationality vs base instinct: our sympathies do not lie with the accused but how are we to treat the woman who sticks by him? “I think I could have coped with murder, fraud,” she says, “but this is the worst offence in the book.” Writer Doc Anderson-Bloomfield cleverly animated the backstory with two actors on stage reminiscing, allowing us to know a whole cast – the daughter, the neighbours, the judge – all of whom had only really been hinted at. Mary Stuck and Richard Ward, playing the wife and the husband, alleviated any fears that the evening was going to be back-patting am dram; unfortunately, they played their hand too early.

An odd but, thankfully, very short, very wooden piece about a Jewish girl dancing at her father’s grave followed. “Oh, why are you dancing?” the audience is assumed to have asked the girl, so that she explains everything to us. In fact, we don’t really care. It was colloquialism combined with bad poetry. A date in a restaurant, a man who is addicted to books, a walk through the woods: these three slightly limp offerings provided a moment of reflection on the nature of such short plays. It is difficult, but not impossible, to write plays this short. Situation is important – probably the most important thing because the play must be instantly engaging. There is very little time for in-depth characterisation or for plot, so situation and dialogue have to shine.

Lorna Pearson’s ‘Walking On Ice’ presented a series of cryptic exchanges between a frightening old woman and a frightening old man on a sea of ice. There were hints of something supernatural, there were mythic elements and there was an enigmatic script – offering another striking shift in tone. There were very few props throughout the evening, which placed reliance on the ability of the actors. Often they succeeded in setting the respective and starkly differing tones of each play, sometimes this was not helped by a lady with a very easy sense of humour and a very loud laugh like some kind of professional claque – although, unfortunately, exploding in a sonorous and ruddy mess at all the wrong points.

There were many moments during this three-hour marathon, surrounded by the friends and contributors of Almost Random Theatre, when I thought ‘this is bad’. There were many moments of mediocrity and sub-mediocrity, of battiness, of misplaced laughter and misspoken lines; but eight actors and eight writers had the chance, on a grey and grizzled Thursday night, to sit with kind, welcoming, friendly people and to showcase the products of their enthusiasm and to have fun. A new theatre group and wholly new writing inevitably offers a mixed bag. This is not theatre to watch, yet; it is theatre to be a part of, to enjoy, to get involved in. It is amateur, of course it is, but these are the roots whence spring the mighty tree from which the boards of every professional theatre are cut. Trite, but true. 

THREE STARS

The high standard of Oxford student productions raises expectations of fledgling theatre companies to a level that may appear unrealistic to those outside the bubble, but the reality of such an endeavour can involve risks, difficulties, and inevitable mistakes. Unfortunately, Dark Days, the opening collection of sketches in Almost Random Theatre’s (est. May 2012) three-night run painfully demonstrated such setbacks, despite appearing at first sight to offer an impressive medley of talented, experienced actors and writers.

There were instances of compelling, thought-provoking writing, as well as examples of enjoyable and intelligent acting – the problem was that these two vital ingredients of good theatre largely failed to coincide. The interesting scripts were poorly rendered, while the engaging actors were wasted on dull writing. For example, the first sketch, The Intricate Workings of a Sherbet Lemon, was impossible to enjoy due to Kyran Pritchard’s I’m-doing-my-acting-voice, while Steve Walker’s poignant and convincing performance in Confessions of an Addict was incongruous with the bad jokes included in his speech about why he’d joined Readers Anonymous. This lacklustre combination resulted in an evening which failed to make an impression; no sketch was totally catastrophic but none was particularly entertaining.

The closest any piece got to contradicting that verdict was Wolf, written and performed by Gwilym Scourfield. It greatly exceeded expectations because the concept, an account of the story of Little Red Riding Hood from the perspective of the baddie, has been set as creative writing homework for Key Stage Three students throughout the country. I was therefore preparing for something tired and littered with clichés, but was pleasantly surprised by Scourfield’s lively, amusing monologue. He managed to weave contemporary references and clever puns together with appeals to age-old truths and stereotypes while remaining unexpectedly original. His acting was skilful, but was tragically let down by the fact that the whole monologue was read off a script, a factor which frustratingly ruined what was easily the best piece of the evening.

Perhaps this gaping flaw can be seen to represent what was wrong with the evening as a whole, in terms of a lack of thoroughness, which would have enhanced the whole theatrical presentation. For if the better actors were working with the better-written pieces (and the remainder done away with), and if the awkward musical interruptions and atrociously staged slap were edited out, the performances could have been impressive.

Overall, this young theatre company displayed some promise on which it should have capitalised much more. The company is clearly still attempting to forge an identity, and one way in which they would be well advised to progress in this respect would be to abandon completely their jarring ‘improvised comedy’ attempts and focus solely on drama. With time the company will hopefully improve drastically on what it currently has to offer, which the audience tangibly found underwhelming.

TWO STARS

[This article contains plot details from The Dark Knight Rises. The film is worth seeing, so avoid if you don’t want spoilers.]

‘Take control’ Bane roars to the crowd at the Gotham Rogues stadium (played by the real life Pittsburgh Steelers ground and fans). Take control. The Dark Knight Rises is a film about precisely that: anarchy and control, the two opposing forces that govern human existence. In a week that has seen tragic events taking place in Denver, it is worth looking at the moral maze that exists within the fabric of the latest Batman movie, a film that marks a seminal moment in the politicization of the blockbuster.

The ‘rise’ motif is as crucial to the characters of The Dark Knight Rises as it would be to a group of ED sufferers. It is in the title, it is chanted, it is said. Broken Bruce Wayne has to rise from his grief to become Batman again, Gotham has to rise from the ashes of anarchy to become a cohesive city, Catwoman has to rise from common thief to hero, Gordon has to rise from idealist to soldier. It means, above all, social mobility- the rich and powerful fall, so that the little man can rise. Or so, at first glance, it seems.

It is important that the film is not entirely decontextualized. There’s a reason why Christopher Nolan choose to shoot the film’s climactic clash between police and rebels on Wall Street (even though that’s not supposed to be part of Gotham’s geography). The global financial crisis has turned bankers and their bonuses into villains that hold the same public status as war criminals and dictators. The currency of their crimes is, however, just that: currency. Money is at the heart of this film, as it has always been in the Batman franchise. Bruce Wayne is, after all, a billionaire who runs a company that, amongst other things, deals arms. Bruce Wayne is corporate; his moniker bedecks his company (Wayne Enterprises) in precisely the same manner as the great capitalist superhero, Tony Stark (Stark Industries).

On the face of it, the agenda seems quite liberal. ‘Did you think that you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us?’ whispers Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman. Wayne and the Gotham elite are certainly shown to be ‘living large’ in their ostentatious parties (that Wayne himself openly criticises) but he is, after all, being given this piece of moral advice by a professional thief. The ‘Occupy’ movement, which has been widely referenced in relation to the movie, would describe the bankers and corporations as thieves and cast them in the role of the villain. Indeed, one of the most important villains in the film is John Daggett, a relentlessly corrupt businessman trying to take control of Wayne Enterprises. He is a thief and Nolan is unflinching in his condemnation. Catwoman is a thief but she is also the heroine of this tale, which poses the question: is it the victim of theft that decides whether it’s a crime or not? Is it morally justifiable to steal from the wealthy (she steals the family heirloom of an orphan- cold, no?), but not morally justifiable to commit large-scale corporate crime that could affect the poor?

Even Bane, a man who is seen repeatedly cracking the skulls of bystanders, is treated in a more favourable light that Daggett. The Batman series has put a lot of focus (particularly in The Dark Knight) on the fact that Batman refuses to kill his victims, an admirable moral sentiment. So why doesn’t Bane’s violence have more of an impact? Where’s the staunch condemnation of his actions? He is repeatedly referred to as ‘the mercenary’ (as is Liam Neeson’s Ra’s as Ghul) raising immediately the subject of money- he is the villain of the story so long as the audience thinks that he is acting simply for a sack of cash. As soon as Nolan reveals, however, that he is not the film’s primary villain and that his motivation is love, rather than money, our sympathies shift; we pity the monster, he becomes the antihero. Are we supposed to forget all the people that he killed? Are we supposed to forget that, in an earlier scene, he has crippled the stock exchange and devalued currency in the same way as the corporations that the film is demonising?

But is the film really demonising the capitalist ideology? Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a number of roles in the film but his most important one is as a moral barometer. Batman is obsessed with vigilante justice, Bane is an anarchist, Catwoman is a thief but John Blake is an honest cop and, what’s better, he’s an orphan. Wayne Enterprises used to support his boy’s home but has since stopped its donation. Why? Well, as Alfred tells us, a company needs to make profit before it can give something to charity. Oh. So suddenly the machinery of capitalism is not quite so bad, in fact it’s the only thing in the city that can ensure that orphans are properly housed, above and beyond the role that government plays. Small government, big business, gets the job done, right? Not sounding very liberal now.

But, perhaps, it’s just that the film is anti-anarchy, of any sorts. But, rather than simply restoring democracy (or, indeed, remotely focusing on that part of society), the film champions the resurgence of a police state, governed by unelected officials. By the end of the film the audience is expected to cheer at a scene where the police officers are shown standing with truncheons pointed at criminals’ heads. We are expected to be excited by the knowledge that order has been restored. And who restored order? A billionaire, using weapons he has been privately developing. The NRA might be interested in holding up the Batcave as a symbol of how to successfully defend your home.

It’s left, therefore, to Catwoman to provide us with a liberal moral agenda (supposing we’ve all got over the fact that she’s a thief and killer). Yes, some wealthy people, like Daggett, deserve their comeuppance, but not for simply being rich. He buys Bane’s loyalty and is betrayed as a result, because money cannot motivate someone like Bane. Talia al Ghul earns Bane’s loyalty and he is willing to die for her. Thus, the film’s most important liberal message is taught to us by characters who spend most of the movie plotting a holocaust of Gotham’s 12 million inhabitants. Put that in your ‘Occupy’ pipe.

The Dark Knight Rises is a film that does not offer any real world ‘hope’. Yes, Batman is a symbol- ‘Anyone could be Batman’ says Bruce Waye- but it’s crucial to the story that he’s a billionaire. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s honest cop can (and, perhaps, will) bulk up and fight crime but, without the money, he can’t afford a flying tank. Corporations might’ve brought Gotham to its knees but, according to Nolan’s dystopic vision of the future of a technology driven society, they will also provide it with charity, energy and, most significantly, save it from being blown to pieces by an atomic bomb.

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