It’s (almost) the most wonderful time of the year – or not, depending on how you feel about Jesus’ birthday, how much disposable income you’ve got, and whether you can stand to watch The Brave Little Toaster again. (We’re getting weepy just thinking about it.) Either way, here’s a Christmas present from Cherwell Music to you, you wonderful reader, with some songs for the Scrooges and some carols for the Cratchits among you. Crack open an egg-nog (it comes in cans, right?) and enjoy.

Half Man Half Biscuit – It’s Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas

A surprisingly dreamy turn from Nigel Blackwell’s notoriously sarcastic indie heroes. With its total lack of football chants or references to seventies game show hosts it’s far from a typical HMHB number, but it’s rather nice to hear them not being utterly withering about popular culture for once.

The Sonics – Don’t Believe In Christmas

…and, opposing the motion, here are The Sonics. Maybe being cynical at Christmas was less clichéd in 1965, but either way this taut garage rock stomper is Scrooginess at its wildest. It’s not as raucous as some of the best Sonics tracks, but lyrically it’s right up there: ‘Stayin’ up late at night to see Santa Claus fly – sure enough, don’t ya know, fat boy didn’t show.’

Holly Golightly – Christmas Tree On Fire

Perhaps best known outside garage circles for appearing on The White Stripes’ Elephant, Holly Golightly (it’s not a stage name) has been plugging away since the early 90s, first as part of Thee Headcoatees and later as a solo artist. Let this rather excellent pseudo-country single be a warning against the dire consequences of leaving your Christmas decorations up for too long.

Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire – Comanche (Link Wray’s Christmas)

It’s simple enough, a cover of Link Wray’s Comanche with a festive twist, but it provides a perfect pretext for the legendary (and extraordinarily prolific) Billy Childish to fuzz about on guitar with his most recent project. If you like this, have a listen to the rest of the Christmas 1979 album: with songs including ‘Poundland Christmas’ and ‘Christmas Hell’, what could possibly go wrong?

The Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)

Ignoring Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues for a minute, this is the alternative Christmas carol. There’s not much more to say about this deserved classic, except that it’s clear evidence of a childhood spent listening to the Phil Spector Christmas album – Joey Ramone’s family apparently celebrated Christmas despite being Jewish.

Shonen Knife – Space Christmas

‘Oo-oo-ultra-eccentric-super-cult-punk-pop-band-Shonen-Knife!’ is how the Japanese power-pop outfit describe themselves, which pretty much covers it. This cute festive track from 1991’s Do The Knife mini-album features razor-sharp Buzzcocks guitars, heavily-accented doo-wop vocals, and adorable (if inexplicable) lyrics about Santa Claus riding on ‘a bison sleigh’. Perfect for banishing the Advent blues.

Cocteau Twins – Frosty the Snowman

Okay, so they’ve always done their own thing, but surely a Christmas EP was a step too far? Snow (1993) features a middling-to-poor version of ‘Winter Wonderland’ on one side (seriously, once you’ve heard it you always expect them to play it in an Argos Christmas advert) but this version of Gene Autry’s classic song is sublime (and only faintly ridiculous). Perfect dream-pop for a grey winter day.

All About Eve – Last Christmas

But wait, there’s more! This lilting, drifting take on Wham’s famous Christmas Number Two is further proof that whatever you think of George Michael’s escapades of the last few years, the man knows how to write a song. All About Eve’s shoegaze-inflected version makes you wish it would just hurry up and snow so you can listen to it on repeat while drinking hot chocolate and wearing a jumper. Yeah, really.

The Raveonettes – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

The original by Darlene Love – painful, pleading, and incredibly soulful – is one of the best tracks off A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, but for some reason it hasn’t enjoyed the same fame as, say, ‘Sleigh Ride’ by The Ronettes. This Raveonettes’ version takes a different tack, translating the original Wall of Sound production into a grinding and eerily beautiful synth track, without losing any of the feeling.

Kate Bush – December Will Be Magic Again

British pop music’s very own eccentric aunt is just one of those people who seems like she really, really likes Christmas. This 1980 single goes a long way to support that assumption as it escalates from contemplative piano into full-scale glam balladry, like ‘Wuthering Heights’ but with sleigh bells. Also, she strongly hints that she used to get turned on by Bing Crosby. Brilliant and strange.

The Knife – Christmas Reindeer

A special festive version of the closing track of the Swedish synth duo’s debut album. Alright, it’s pretty much exactly the same with bells on, but, as with all Christmas presents, it’s the thought that counts. Those familiar with The Knife will be totally unsurprised to hear that ‘Reindeer’ isn’t exactly a traditional festive tune – in fact, it seems to be exploring issues of animal cruelty within Father Christmas’ annual delivery round – but it’s not every day you get to hear a song written from the perspective of a magical flying caribou.

Kurtis Blow – Christmas Rappin’

One of Christmas’s less recognised achievements was a significant role in the commercial breakthrough of rap music: Kurtis Blow jumped on the festive market with this semi-ludicrous track in 1979, paving the way for his wildly successful follow-up single ‘The Breaks’. Despite some dubious rhymes about ‘a red suited dude with a ready attitude and a sleigh full of goodies for the people on the block’, Blow’s funky disco samples and smooth old-school flow might explain the 400,000 sales ‘Christmas Rappin’’ racked up. That, plus a big dose of mindless festive fun.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Cold White Christmas

Owen Ashworth, on the other hand – or rather the subject of this typically melancholic track by his former electronic project – is not having a good Christmas. Stuck in St. Paul, Minnesota in a dead-end job (‘Second shift as a fry cook – that’s your holiday in grease’), she’s the unwitting protagonist of the saddest and most touching Christmas song since ‘Fairytale of New York’. Ashworth shut down the Casiotone project almost exactly a year ago, but his new act, Advance Base, already have a couple of depressing Christmas songs of their own. A man obsessed?

Low – Blue Christmas

In case you missed their downbeat appearance on our ‘Cover Me’ playlist, here’s another chance to hear Low living up to their name. This is a cover of an old country song, famously performed by Elvis, stripped down to a stark ballad of lost love at Yule, and best listened to over Christmas dinner for one with a big bottle of sherry.

Weezer – The First Noel

Something more traditional, sort of. Initially recorded for an iPhone app, this alt-rock take on the Cornish carol was released as part of a mini-album in 2008, alongside versions of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Silent Night’ among others. It seems, unusually, to be pretty much devoid of irony – in fact it’s all rather suspiciously heartwarming, as though they’ve turned up outside in bobble hats with a lantern and invited themselves in for hot chocolate, before trashing your house.

Phil Spector & Artists – Silent Night

One murder conviction and several disturbing bouffants later, Phil Spector’s end-credits on his (admittedly wonderful) Christmas album make for the creepiest Christmas track ever (although this Wizzard video – or this classic – make it a close contest). Especially spine-chilling is the bit where he thanks the listener ‘for letting us spend this Christmas with you’. Yes, that’s right – by buying his album, you just automatically invited him and his entire roster of artists to your Christmas party. Good luck, and merry Christmas.

BONUS TRACK: TBC Poundsystem – Losing My Sledge

And here’s an extra present at the bottom of your Oxmas stocking, although unless you’re familiar with the source material (which, to be fair, you should be) it probably won’t hit home. Best line: ‘I hear that everybody that you know is more festive than everybody that I know.’ Sadly, this track hasn’t yet started a trend for Christmas-themed LCD Soundsystem cover versions, and we’re still waiting for a version of ‘Yeah’ where all the words are ‘ho, ho, ho’. Maybe next year?

At a first glance, this production of Macbeth promised a lot. The audience were greeted with a spartan set, comprised of only the bare brickwork of the JdP Music Building and a few tattered chairs. With such an empty stage, the energy and presence of the actors was vital to draw us in.

The Witches (or Weird Sisters, a rather inexplicable alteration) delivered perfectly, their eccentricity and fidgety, gibbering conversation offering a performance far enough from the stereotype of Shakespeare’s witches to remain riveting. When Iain Stewart entered as Macbeth, I was expecting the same kind of character and presence; unfortunately, I was initially disappointed. Stewart, like much of the male cast in the first act, simply lacked energy and enthusiasm. His performance, whilst capable, was a little dry, and in the early scenes he brought nothing to the character. At this point, my hopes for the production were beginning to slip; that is, until I saw Alicia Luba as Lady Macbeth. 

Barefoot, wide eyed and wildly unkempt she threw herself around the stage with the intensity lacking in the rest of the cast. Luba clearly had a vision in mind for her Lady Macbeth – unhinged from the outset, passionate and committed to her husband. It appears that her energy was infectious – from the death of Duncan, the whole production pushed up a notch. Stewart appeared to suddenly find his voice as Macbeth, turning from an uncertain and hesitant performance to a brilliant portrayal of a tortured, guilty soul. His performance still contained flashes of mediocrity, but the inconsistency aside, in the second act onwards he realised the part with incredible passion. Watching Stewart and Luba on stage together, playing out their unique brands of madness was an absolute dream; the appearance of Banquo’s ghost was particularly exquisite, especially in its staging.

Once he had found his feet, none of the other male cast members could quite measure up to Stewart’s Macbeth. Adam Gethin-Jones’ incredibly and unusually malicious portrayal of the Porter, in what I imagine to be a (very nice) Oxford in-joke, was notable, as was Edwin Price as Macduff. He stood out mostly because his theatrical, melodramatic performance seemed a little incongruous with the rest of the cast; nevertheless, it seemed to just about work, whether it was a conscious choice of the director or not.

Special mention should be given to the technical aspects of the performance; the virtually empty stage was brought to life by exceptionally effective lighting choices, wonderfully reinforcing the post-apocalyptic setting of the play. I was initially sceptical of this futuristic version, but through the set, costume and performance (the Witches especially) it added a brilliant new aesthetic to the play that was a pleasure to watch. 

The production’s bumpy start is perhaps excusable given that this was the first night; if Luba and Stewart could transfer the electricity that makes their better scenes so enthralling to the rest of the cast and production, this could be a five star performance. Nevertheless, well worth seeing as it is – just make sure you stay until the end.

 4 STARS

Jake Lancaster and Muj Hameed rocked us in gently with a Pinteresque Pause that functioned as the overture to a symphonic performance. The successful harmony of the play was evident from the outset, with the married couple bouncing off one another beautifully. The lilting intonation of Petey’s (Luke Gormley) utterances mixed with the tempo of Meg’s (Glesni Anne Euros) slow, hunched, pottering self created a stunning geriatric atmosphere. The play’s cyclical structure makes this scene part of a spot-the-difference pair. The mutation from innocent grandpa to silent witness is reflected in Gormley’s feet positioning under the table – a pigeon toe at the opening and an assertive poker straight at the close.

Stanley’s (Rory Fazan) penetrative entrance immediately signals the next orchestral movement; the tenant’s table-slumping and caustic sobriquets – ‘succulent old washing bag’, ‘piece of old rock cake’ – contrasted with the previous gentleness of the birth of one Lady Mary Splatt.

Upon their arrival, the two strangers upped the pace again – this handsome double act galvanised the whole play. Goldberg (Will Hatcher) is the orator, the mouth; McCann (Barney White) is the agent of action, the arm that feeds him. Hatcher’s Ciceronian performance was flawless. He was chief of the bureau, and business went well – charmed the tulip, bagged the babe and kept his hands (and his suit) clean thanks to his sidekick. The vassal worked not only for his master but for the play itself, White was the megaphone that commanded the audience’s mood, and we obliged. So close was his relationship with us, that an effortless exit through the door-beads had the whole auditorium on the floor.

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Physical contact played an important role in the dance-like nature of the action. There are few instances of touch between the characters – the married couple never touch, the lodger and his landlady’s tickles are made to seem normal and when Stanley touches McCann, the Irishman erupts in an explosion of discomfort. Indeed touch is either disgusting or transgressive -either the centre of an insalubrious snog-sesh between older man and younger girl, or else we see it binding the puppeteer to its puppet.

The interrogation scene was excellently tight, suggesting invisible strings between White and Hatcher. A combination of skilful physicality and orality was key. Stage crossing and door blocking was fused with rhyming couplets; “you left her in the lurch/she was waiting at the church” to accelerate the pace and yoke the counterparts together. The scene gathered its momentum from the spinning-wheel formation and cacophonic crescendo with culminated in either Chicken or Egg.

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A play of doubles; the intangibility of identity was rendered brilliantly through character pairs. Stanley and Petey were a contrasting doublet – civilised man whose cornflakes are “lovely” versus hairy, primitive man whose cereal is ‘disgusting’. Even the staging reinforced the duality of identity; a Pinter sense that; “there is no hard distinction between what is real and what is unreal”. Indeed this duality was crafted elegantly into the set, the choice of lighting cast profile and face-on shadows. This Janus-faced backdrop added to the confrontational nature of the play, while acting as a constant reminder that even the play itself eludes a definitive identity.

5 STARS

Apples, by Richard Milward, takes Milton’s Garden of Eden in his Paradise Lost and spins it on its head. Instead of coming out of the pages of Genesis, it is set in today’s brutal world where six teenagers come across peer pressure, drugs, and sex. Adam and Eve are still there – only Eve becomes the popular girl who is chased by the virginal, naïve Adam and becomes hooked on ecstasy, her apple. However, at the same time that it brings forth the gruesome world of today’s adolescents, it captures the absurdity of growing up. Complete with a great soundtrack with only one or two false starts, Apples tells the story of teenagers faced with all the troubles and humor of facing new fears from dancing at a club to pregnancy.

The play opens with Joe Bayley as Adam who gives amiability to the character, even in his attempt to act cool under peer pressure. Lucie Cox as Eve plays her with a perfect mixture of sass and vulnerability. The stage fits Ellie Geldard as the conflicted Claire who convincingly argues with herself about keeping her baby. The audience is held in suspense as she contemplates throwing her baby over the bridge. Josh Entecott as Gary becomes the villainous, arrogant boy that the play depends on to create most of the drama, opening up the problems of rape, drugs, and carelessness. Emily Stewart as Eve’s friend Debbie performs well with excellent diction and stage presence. Overall, all the actors take to their accents with surprising credibility thanks to their voice coach Chloe Cornish.     

The simple stage works well for the complicated drama and the actors do a good job in creating the environments they find themselves in. Although Apples is rich in its drama, it could use a few more moments of comic relief, only receiving a few laughs from the audience in humorous moments. One comical moment that was memorable was when Howard Coase as Burny comes out in a butterfly costume while Adam is sitting by himself at the club, saying he’s definitely not a social butterfly. Apples in all its humour and horror, shows some truths of the growing up process and all the teenage angst that goes with it.

3 STARS

“Posh people pretending to be posh people performing for posh people,” is what Polly Marsden says in her preview of Laura Wade’s POSH at the Oxford Union Debating Chamber. The irony in this cannot be denied, especially as Wade’s political ideas shine through. The audience meets the Riot Club, a club whose original founder was called Ryott. But they don’t make mistakes.

The drama increases as the play continues. At first the Riot Club prove they’re snobs by complaining about a 10-bird bird only having 9 birds at dinner, and making fun of the host at the tavern simply because he has to work for a living. But then they call a prostitute, abuse the waitress, destroy the dining room, and worse, as their morals degenrate shockingly quickly. Yet, they call themselves the leaders of their generation, while discovering that they are simply built for “hiding in libraries.” Susanna Quirke takes a respectable risk in directing POSH, especially at a location where the play resembles some very real truths of the very Union that they make a mess of. But POSH does its job – it entertains and forces you to think hard at the same time.

Although there were some audible troubles and almost too many lines said over others, the actors really showed all the different personalities that a club might have. Everyone held their character and was believable in their portrayals. Fen Greatley as the hotheaded Alistair Ryle carried the show with superb acting and impressive stage fighting. The scene where he forces the host into a chair and throws money in his face, trying to pay him off for the destruction they’ve created, is one of the most horrifying in the play, bursting with pure emotion. Dom Ballard as Chris the host certainly gains the audience’s sympathy, saying he will refuse the money if any of them had touched his daughter. As the current President of the Riot club, Dugie Young creates his character well, with plenty of facial expressions showing us his conflictions between wanting something to put on his resume and regret at their actions throughout the night. Lloyd Houston as the drunken Toby Maitland always got laughs from the audience as he donned a judge’s wig, danced around stage with his sword, and fell asleep on the serving cart. 

The three-sided stage allows the audience to feel like part of the dinner party. The scene where they trash the dining room is exciting to watch so close to the action – feathers fly everywhere, paintings are shattered on heads, and the actors jump on the table breaking plates. The lighting design by Douglas Perkins is very effective, placing the stage in the right amount of eerie light, Sarah Chesshyre’s set design is perfect for the style of the stage and the costumes by Bronya Arciszewska and Izzy Station fit well for the “posh” atmosphere and characters.

POSH is a great evening of theatre with the hard-hitting power to make people think about their actions towards others. 

5 STARS

“Hi, I don’t want to sound petty, but please could people not take posters for plays and other events down? Posters can cost quite a lot of money to make in mass and whatever the event, people have put a lot of effort into it and it is very disheartening to come back from putting posters around Oxford and find they have been taken down.”

That was the note I wanted to put on my college’s Facebook page after coming back late at night from an intense technical rehearsal to find posters for the play I’d put round college taken down from notice boards. I stress the word ‘wanted’, as I didn’t end up posting the comment as I’m too scared; instead I sent a request to my JCR president asking him to put a note about it in the next JCR email. Oh dear, I am cringeing as I am typing this – what a prude I have become!

This week has only just started but it definitely doesn’t feel like it. Saturday involved an afternoon rehearsal of the kidnap scenes with a staff writer from the Oxford Student sitting in, so no pressure. Sunday started early in the morning with me dragging a trolley suitcase full of pancakes for an all day rehearsal to the Simpkins Lee Theatre. Early this morning a few cast members and I ( along with the lovely Philippa Baines from the film society to do the filming) filmed the protest scene, getting some confused looks from passers-by as we shouted, “No Blankers in our schools” and the lovely expression, “Blankers are Wankers!”.  Tonight consisted of a tiring technical rehearsal where I became an angry despot ranting and grunting at the actors from the lighting box: it’s most likely that the actors either hate me or are slightly afraid – either way it gets the job done.

A few weeks ago I went on a National Express coach that stopped in the middle of the dual-carriageway due to a petrol leakage, resulting in all the passengers (including me) waiting for taxis to come and drive us to the next nearest station. Nevertheless I managed to reach my destination and I guess it’s easy to draw a parallel between a toilsome journey on public transport and putting on a show. Despite the strong possibility of encountering delays, traffic jams, breakdowns- you get all the whole obstacle thread – the ultimate goal makes it all worth the bother. Well, let’s hope so anyway.

In January 1975 Keith Jarrett sat down at the Cologne Opera House’s Bösendorfer piano and spontaneously improvised a seamless stream of music that seemed to absorb everything from French impressionism to gospel. The recording, The Köln Concert, has gone on to sell 3.5 million copies, marks a classic milestone in 70s jazz and indeed has been responsible for many years for providing an accessible path for curious listeners towards more adventurous free music. Köln was the first jazz recording that I listened to, and through its production via the excellent ECM label, opened up a wealth of strange and wonderful listening for me. Whether or not they’re to your taste, most of Jarrett’s improvised solo concerts since the 70s have been landmark events within contemporary music. So where do we find Jarrett in 2011?

Bearing in mind the neutral, minimalist ECM-art covers that have adorned Jarrett recordings since Köln, the raw splashes of colour on the sleeve-art of this year’s Rio presented something of a surprise when it landed on my desk. And of course musically Rio and Köln couldn’t be further apart. Recorded live in Rio earlier in the year, this recording marks further solo concert experimentation within a particular path adopted by Jarrett over the last few years. Stemming from 2005’s Radiance, Jarrett has rejected the hour-long marathons that so distinguished his recordings since the 70s, in favour of a more compact, episodic approach.

Rio is stretched over 15 improvisational sketches, springing out in ‘Part I’ with loose, uncertain lines set over stuttering chords, before settling in ‘Part II’ into typically glowing textures, all underpinned by a kaleidoscopic harmonic sense. It is an experience that runs the full gamut of Jarrett’s sound world, from bursts of free jazz through to extended passages of impressionistic, textural play. It owes as much to the ill-documented free playing scene that Jarrett was involved in throughout clubs in Paris and New York in the 60s, as it does to his early solo concerts. Interestingly Jarrett has always named saxophonists, rather than pianists, as his inspiration. And indeed his cascading runs of notes, never once percussive, are all on display here. Moments of pure glory come with the beautiful points of emergence that Jarrett sets up, shifting from twisted melody and nervously pulsating chords in ‘Part V’ into unabashed lyricism.

Jarrett has described the unpremeditated solo performance process in the past as being a fusion of ‘spontaneous composition’ and ‘free improvisation’. It’s an approach that clearly explains much of the knowing classical references that litter his recordings from the 70s through to the 90s. And I must confess that I have not maintained complete affection for that body of work – with 1988’s Paris Concert’s descent into half an hour of crossover remaining a memorably excruciating moment. The taut variations he has worked to since 2005 has conversely allowed for freer playing – ‘letting go’ musically while also maintaining a stronger sense of structure over the whole concert. Of course I still find the idea of listening to and reviewing recordings of pure improvisation slightly problematic, given that so much of the beauty comes in the elusive music of the moment. Nevertheless, Rio is one of Jarrett’s most coherent recordings and is highly recommended listening.