Those who have had the pleasure of seeing either of Matt Fuller’s previous plays will not be disappointed by his latest work, Peterson. This new tale of innocence and complicity charts the relationship between the elderly Abel Peterson and the villagers who live in the shadow of the hill on which his house ominously perches. Isolated by more than  just location, the distance between the characters grows even as a young girl, Wendy, tries to breach it. Meanwhile, down in the village the rumour mill grows ever louder and old suspicions reawaken.

Fuller says that Peterson represents his desire to return to character-based drama, and indeed all four of the characters are convincingly developed whilst retaining enough stock characteristics to justify the phrase ‘modern fairytale’. Thomas Olver manages to elicit sympathy as Peterson without ever quite gaining the audience’s trust and the sweetness of his scenes with Wendy (Caitlin McMillan) establishes an uneasy equilibrium. His obsession with a certain female news presenter causes him to gaze compulsively and eerily at the television screen whenever she appears, and the script combines with Olver’s expressions to emphasise the unsettling naivety of his behaviour and his past. Tension is heightened further by the conversational monologues of the villagers (Fen Greatley and Lizhi Howard), which intrude upon the scenes with Abel and Wendy and gradually reveal the dark secrets of Abel’s past.

This conversational style that Fuller has developed gently insinuates and the audience are allowed to form their own opinions of Abel based on his own words and the words of others. The viewer watches and judges the old man alongside the villagers and – despite the description of the play as a ‘fable’ – no character is immediately and simply set apart as the piece’s villain. This compromise between the morally grey in human nature and the stark presentation of oral literature allows for not only flexibility but the promise of suspense as each scene reveals more of each characters’ attitudes and actions.

Amusing and heartfelt, this play explores community from the inside and exposes the baser parts of human nature which judge on appearance and without mercy. The cast unite to examine the way gossip spreads and the effects of mistrust which has turned the perfectly ordinary villagers against their one time friend. Despite the strong focus on character, Fuller says there are also some surprises in store. Although it does not set out to shock, Peterson will certainly have tongues wagging.               

4 STARS

‘There wasn’t too much of a dynamic change actually, it was really more of a displacement after Ty left,’ Battles guitarist Dave Konopka’s voice crackled on the other end of a dodgy phone line as we settled down to our interview. Konopka was surprisingly willing to talk about the departure of his colleague and friend, Tyondai Braxton, a subject that I approached warily. The closest Battles ever got to a traditional front-man, Braxton announced he would be leaving the band midway through recording their follow up to 2007’s math-rock behemoth Mirrored.

There was a sense that feelings still run deep over their parting, however, as Konopka paused on a number of occasions to catch himself before delving too deeply into past events. ‘The chemistry just wasn’t there that was on  Mirrored. We started writing the album with Ty on it and the songs just weren’t good,’ Konopka told me, describing the frustrating process of recording new material as tensions began to develop between Braxton and the rest of the band. Comfortable only to talk in vague terms about what must have been an emotionally draining process, Konopka later likened it to ‘trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.’

Rather than contributing to the band’s downward spiral, Tyondai’s departure gave Battles a fresh perspective and only served to fuel their perpetual drive to forge new creative paths, returning to the studio to start their sophomore record again from scratch. ‘To go into a campaign with Ty’s parts on the album would’ve been like building a castle on sand,’ Konopka explained the band’s motivation behind scrapping the work they had already done towards Mirrored’s successor, ‘it was important for us to rewrite the album and start representing ourselves as a three piece.’ 

That is not to say that the band had a well formed vision for the direction that they should take however. ‘It turned into more of a survival mode, trying to figure out where we were with the material we had,’ Konopka conceded as we discussed the somewhat rudderless state that Battles had found themselves in, ‘it took us a really long time to figure out how we were going to proceed as a three piece and move on.’

The end result is, of course, this year’s Gloss Drop, a goofy sweet-shop of an album that couldn’t betray less of Battles’ situation during its production, a ‘dark and depressing’ period in Konopka’s own words. ‘I think we were living vicariously through the upbeat sound of the songs, through seeing light at the end of the tunnel,’ he laughed as he went on to explain that the band had wanted the sound of the album to be ‘indicative of the summer of 2011, not something that represented where [they] were in 2010.’ Indeed, from its opening moments Gloss Drop is at once restless and hyperactive, packed with the humour and improvisational abandon of a group of musicians that sound like they’re having the time of their lives. Faced with such inner turmoil, Battles’ coping mechanism was to create the most unpretentiously visceral music of their career and Gloss Drop stands as a testament to the unfailing power of music to nourish and reconcile both its listeners and its creators.

Of the technical hurdles facing the band following the loss of Braxton perhaps the most difficult to overcome was the resulting lack of a confident vocalist. Although Tyondai’s abstract, processed yelps that pepper Mirrored could hardly be described as lead vocals, his charisma, and not to mention his towering stage presence, provided Battles’ often abstruse music with a much needed focal point and personality. 

Battles chose to fill this void with a host of guest vocalists appearing throughout Gloss Drop. ‘It was kind of a no brainer, it was the only way we could proceed with vocals,’ Konopka recounted their decision, ‘it was too late to get another person to come into the mix and do all the vocals.’ Far from mere damage limitation however, these collaborations afforded Battles the opportunity to explore territory that had previously been out of reach: ‘with Yamantaka Eye [of Boredoms] and Matias Aguayo it was still along the lines of the way we’ve always treated vocals – using the voice as an instrument – but it was fun for us to dip our toes into more of a pop world when Gary Numan and Kazu Makino [of Blonde Redhead] came in.’

‘The songs were pretty much written when we sent out the instrumental tracks for the vocalists to demo their lines on top,’ Konopka explained the logistics of the process, ‘and even though the songs were pretty much done by the time we were giving them the tracks, we still reedited them so it would be more conducive to creating a synthesis between the vocals and the instrumentation.’ Konopka sounded positive about using this format again – ‘it’s a really nice way to collaborate with people you admire, and to get some variety’ – but was sure to emphasise that the future remains ‘unwritten’. 

In fact, he was reluctant to talk with certainty about any plans that Battles may have going forward. ‘As far as a new album, that’s not even being mentioned right now,’ he laughed, understandably wary of the sudden and drastic changes the band has experienced in the past, ‘right now we’re just focusing on playing really good shows and evolving the live set.’

Throughout our conversation, a strong emphasis was placed on this concept of ‘evolution’. Battles is a living and breathing project, constantly morphing and growing as the band reworks material at live gigs. ‘It’s not about coming out of the gates with this fully polished show,’ Konopka stressed the importance he places on creative development, ‘with everything we do we allow fans into our process, be it in the way that we play live or the way that our music evolves.’ He paused before adding, getting right to the heart of what has pushed the band through to where they are today: ‘for us, it’s the process that’s the exciting part. I think it makes for a more interesting journey.’

Battles play at the HMV Forum, London on Monday 21st November.

Ever noticed how since Manhattan, Woody Allen seems to feel obliged to begin his films with dull scene setters, showing off the city he’s filming in and not really showing off his talent at all? Any one can point their camera at the Eiffel Tower or Louvre and make viewers smile at Parisian architecture, but it’s hardly innovative filmmaking.

Fortunately, and to my delight, the critical consensus has turned out to be spot on. Despite the worryingly familiar opening, what follows is not the Allen of recent years in any respect. Midnight in Paris comes to us six months after the God-awful career-low of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, and the contrast in creativity couldn’t be any crazier. This is lovely, charming, featherlight cinema, where most of Mr. Allen’s recent efforts have only managed to be the latter. It’s easily his best film of the past decade, thus showing that, for whatever reason, an apparently stale process in which he churned out a film a year can still pay out in silver dollars, and eventually reward the patient.

The film is a return to the touch of magic and fantasy we got in Sleeper and Zelig. Owen Wilson plays a struggling writer called Gil, who seeks inspiration for his work by strolling the streets of Paris. He’s married to an pretty but unimaginative American girl with Republican parents who disapprove of his artsy inclinations, and the early jokes centre around this unfortunate setup, and exchanges with the couple’s intellectually snobbish friend who can talk about art better than Gil can.

Gil finds himself back in 1920 – his Golden Age Utopia – sharing drinks with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, getting Gertrude Stein to give feedback on his novel and flirting with Picasso’s latest mistress. It would be very easy to overdo the ‘my God, I can’t believe this is happening’ line here, but fortunately the amount it is used feels just right. Aside from the delights that just naturally attach themselves to observing the details of this situation, there’s a handful of ingenious gags we should really see coming sooner. Gil, like the Allen of old, frets constantly about death, so meeting the stoical Hemingway over wine obviously turns out to be a match made in comedic heaven. The same goes for Gil’s attempts to explain his bizarre time travelling situation to Bunuel and Dali, who calmly nod at a story that coheres with their surrealist mindset.

Having to return to the modern world in the day time, and keep the pleasures of the past for midnight, is the only drag in the film, but I suppose that’s the point. The film seems keen to stress the way every generation imagines the past as a vintage era, and fails to see the quality of the present. It’s hard to believe now, but people will, surely, look back on the 2000s and say ‘imagine living whilst those artists were at work.’ But who? Day-Lewis? the Coens? Nolan? Murakami? Who knows! Even Stein casually talks to Picasso evidently ignorant of how her name and his will turn out to be of cult, revered status in a century’s time.

And the film is also, of course, about the omnipresent Allen theme of how maybe we should not care if we are part of a meaningless universe, because as Gil puts it, at least by being  in a place like Paris we can construct our own meaning and delightful experiences regardless of the coldness of Neptune.

I must confess, if it wasn’t for a free screening I initially wouldn’t have gone to see this film. I had no prejudice against it, I just wasn’t aware of it, and as I am not a fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s books (one of which this film is based on) there wasn’t a massive draw for me. In any case, this is my rookie review: once I did  see The Rum Diary I found it both entertaining and interesting. Johnny Depp, often criticised for the over-the-top and similar nature of his roles goes for a more restrained take in this, his long term project. He plays recently arrived journalist Paul Kemp as something of a straight man against his new and absurd co-workers and the mad, corrupt world of Puerto Rico: a departure for the usually flamboyant actor, but a successful one, his performance bringing a great deal of the humour and pathos in the film.

The Rum Diary has some great comedy moments, most notably an ingenious car chase featuring Depp, a co-worker and a missing car seat that defies written explanation. Giovanni Ribisi, playing an alcoholic neo-nazi religion and crime correspondent also deserves a mention, his character delivering some of the film’s best lines. In fact, the film is a fun, albeit surreal, romp for most of its running time e unfortunately taking a turn for the worse as everyone starts taking themselves very seriously. It’s impossible to take the film’s later poignancy with a serious attitude considering the earlier mood, and in any case some of the lines the characters deliver are so heavy-handed and wooden that the effect is slightly embarrassing rather than affecting. The second half generally suffers from half-formed ideas and lazy plotting – one character leaves the country for no obvious reason, and another casts off a business partner with no real motivation given. It’s a shame, because the cast do give some great performances and the photography is fantastic, veering from lush green landscapes to brutal cockfights while consistently conveying the wonder and strangeness of Puerto Rico in every shot. In fact, Puerto Rico seems alive as any of the characters, bustling with people and looking authentically grimy – the set dressers deserve much credit for creating such a credible picture of the city in the 1960s.

This film wasn’t perfect, but was it worth seeing for free? Absolutely. Is it worth paying to see? I’d say that it probably is, on balance – it’s a lot of fun for the most part, and for any Johnny Depp fans I’d say the film was essential. He gives his most balanced performance in years, and quite frankly it’s nice to see him playing someone a bit more normal.

There is a preconception that the role of ‘actor’ is a transformative one. Adaption, disguise and variety should be second-nature to a person whose job it is to act, however personal and self-centric that process might be (I’m looking at you, Daniel Day Lewis plus disciples). However, there are those that prove time and time again that success is not correlative with difference.

At his most box-office friendly, the close resemblance between the incarnations of Will Smith – wise-cracking, action hero extraordinaire – is spine-tinglingly uniform. Running from explosions, close encounters with the supernatural and a partiality for the phrase “oh HELL no” became a checklist for Smith’s agent in selecting scripts, as well as other prerequisites. Location: THE United States of America, where the world’s fate WILL hang in the balance. Julia Roberts also has a mantra to determine her choices – her typical role as self-help guru and heroine of empowered women who turn out to need a man after all (and less hero of the universe). Type-casting is not a phenomena peculiar to Adonis-like vessels, where performances play second fiddle to bodily perfection. The low, soothing resonance of Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones has become the cinematic equivalent to auto-tune, lending wisdom and sincerity to any speech. He is like a one man epic-making machine, pulling off ridiculous explanatory material in his narration of War of the Worlds, and as God in Bruce Almighty. Samuel L Jackson, of ‘bad-ass’ fame, Cameron Diaz the goofy bombshell, Oxford alumni Hugh Grant’s stuttering Toff, and Prince Charming himself, Cary Grant, all seem fixed in the proto-type of their first, successful role.

It is then perhaps inevitable that a backlash of actors attempting to confound expectations (and usually to reinvigorate careers), seek to sample new waters. One can only sympathise. For them, filling in that ‘job description’ box on legal papers (for reasons including divorce, rehab and a dangerously over flowing bank statement) must provoke extreme existential crisis. Or at least a Hollywood-style midlife crisis. His CV stacked with explosion-dodging, Will Smith joined the swelling ranks of action heroes applying their strength and determination to their craft. Smith’s efforts in ALI and the Pursuit of Happyness were met with some praise, but more interestingly showcased another characteristic of gear-shifting roles. Rippling muscles are covered, hair greyed and dark circles allowed to show, with such drastic attempts at gritty ‘ugliness’ an oft used pointing device that shoves the gravitas of the role down the audiences’ throats. The proof is in the pudding, or rather, the Oscar, with actresses Charlize Théron and Nicole Kidman recent performers who exchanged their looks for the roles that would shift the emphasis onto their talent.

It seems slightly unfair that comedians be similarly judged for role-regurgitation, and on the whole, they seem altogether less bothered. Take the ‘frat-pack’ of Judd Apatow’s crew who frequent LA set comedies. Here the central story arch and situational distinctions are secondary to the semi-improvised frolicking that carries and characterises these films. Cynically put, there is a brand at work, but there is also a natural dimension to this trend. Actors such as Rogen and Ferrell, so closely involved with the writing process, are creating comedy in a similar vein to stand-up comics; the jokes may change but the temper and delivery is consistent with their own individual style. There is a sense that, given the intelligence and charisma of some of these performers, a wider range could be both possible and plausible. James Franco has successfully navigated a trans-genre career, acting his way from Pineapple Express to 127 hours, and the same might be proved by Rogen. His groove has so far been rooted in affability and a generous chuckle, though shades of sensitivity suggest a propensity for ‘serious’ drama. However, the necessity or desire for such a change is as yet, undetected, with Rogen currently attached to three comedies in conjunction with previous collaborators.

In terms of the ‘right decision’ as an actor, there is no route which necessitates greater popularity, or even growth as a performer. Robert De Niro’s semi-surreal comic exploits in the Meet the Parents franchise, and even more bafflingly in the dire Analyze That are living proof that groundless genre hopping does not a good idea make. In escaping the shackles of the eternally troubled criminal (of which his most brilliant, and individual performances range from Taxi Driver to The King of Comedy) De Niro has found himself in the altogether more dangerous grasp of pointless rom-coms. Apparently an upcoming film New Year’s Eve promises to deliver as few laughs as its celebrity-ridden Valentine’s Day counterpart.

So actors, beware, by all means extend your range, push your craft, just make sure to have an authorised adult with you at all times. 

I consider Antony and Cleopatra one of Shakespeare’s most underrated plays. Raging warfare on both sea and land, the tense political negotiating table, the tragic death of lovers, and the epic clash of incompatible civilisations; it has it all. Add into this mix Tara Isabella Burton’s inventive re-imagining of the play, transporting the action from Egypt and Rome, to Weimar Germany and America respectively, and there is the premise for something quite exciting in this production

 The performance is incredibly stylish. A completely black and white set provides striking food for thought, complete with chez-longue, pillows and film posters from a by-gone age. The costumes are stunning, I lost count of the number of different outfits Cleopatra got through in the space of three hours, and the use of film and radio was particularly inventive, serving to quicken the pace of a play that is, with all its to-ing and fro-ing across continents, incredibly hard to stage. Down to the last jewel-incrusted military jacket, the sublime aesthetic of the production made it stand out from so many others I have seen.

 Unfortunately however, despite this promise, the entire piece didn’t share the same attention to detail. There were numerous tech difficulties, even watching the performance on the third nigh of the run. Script in the film sections was often inaudible or muffled, lights failed to come up at right moment leaving the actors in darkness, and scene changes took too long– it seemed Burton was unnecessarily concerned with having chairs on stage for every scene in Rome.

 The quality of the acting did not live up to the director’s vision. Rob Snellgrove as Caesar was too wooden, spending most of the play unimaginatively with his hands clenched resembling nothing of a warlike figure, and I felt no sympathy for Enobarbus, whose plight was lost through Chris Johnson often muffling his lines. Nevertheless, it should be said that Catherine Haine’s Cleopatra was very well acted indeed, finding the perfect balance of sensual lover and aggressive queen, and Michael Crowe warmed up throughout the performance to eventually give a very affecting portrayal of Antony as he raced inevitably towards his tragic death. Fen Greatley as Mardian sings well and Agrippa, played by Sam Young, adds some perfectly observed movements of comedy into the world of Rome

All in all, if the production could have benefitted from some more drastic cuts and greater work on characterisation, its unmistakable sense of style, its courage, and most importantly, leading man and lady, made it well worth the visit. 

3 STARS