Joshua Randall’s production of the kitsch, darkly comic musical Little Shop of Horrors gave of the overwhelming impression of being under rehearsed.  The cast clearly had the potential to produce an excellent show but were let down by technical hitches. The sound especially caused difficulties; the orchestra frequently drowned out the singers and the microphones failed to amplify the soloists or indeed provide the right levels for the harmonies, resulting in many lines being completely lost. The set was flimsy and caused problems as part of it fell down at the beginning of the second act.

What a shame, as the production was exceptionally well cast with a selection of very talented singers; in particular Rhiannon Drake, Freya Smith and Sarah Anson as the three ‘dream girls’.  Indeed the singing in general was of a superb quality, shown in particular through the competently approached harmonies in some of the trickier chorus numbers, like ‘Downtown’.  The supporting cast carried the production; particularly memorable was Jarred Wiehe’s ‘Mushnik’ in his original, comically flamboyant, characterisation of the aggressive florist. 

A large plant was the best part of the set design and certainly deserves commendation.  This effectively-designed contraption was controlled and vocalised by Jack Haynes and Lydia Lewis, who delivered their lines in perfect unison while working the plant-puppet-esque contraption at the same time. It provided a great central focus for the action.

The production is fun but shabby around the edges. Once minor errors, such as line slips and technical hitches, are ironed out, it has the potential to be very good and will hopefully improve as the run progresses.

3 stars

Pay a visit to the Little Shop of Horrors (Pembroke College) any time before the 27th February, as long as that time is 7.30pm

Ed White’s decision to take on a play not meant for performance may seem like madness but the final success of this promenade-style production in the Merton College Chapel shows it can be done.

Bevil Luck plays Samson with skill and sympathy, connecting well with the audience despite the fact he is blindfolded for most of the play. From his very first speech, yards away from the huddled audience, Luck was able to expose the vulnerability of a defeated hero without the embellishments of stage, set, props and other performers. Tim Smith-Laing was also particularly strong as Manoa, although the change between his first words to Samson and his compassion for him in the rest of the play was perhaps a little sudden.

Victoria Princewill’s Dalila was at times surprisingly sympathetic, given the powerful condemnation she receives from Samson. Her movements could feel a little forced in the scene when she visited Samson but this was due more to the questionable direction than wooden acting. Using the chorus as a shifting wall between the estranged couple was a good idea, but in practice didn’t quite work – it occasionally damaged visibility and was a little distracting.

This was a pity since the rest of the staging proved highly effective. The different areas of the chapel provided ‘sets’ in themselves and were well-selected at every point. The scene with Harapha (James Lowe) on the balcony was particularly well done – it gave the impression of his gigantic height but also allowed Samson to spend most of his time between the supporting pillars, suggesting captivity but also foreshadowing the means of his eventual victory.

The atmospheric use of the chapel, perhaps the strongest area of the production, was added to by well-judged use of lighting and sound. As the audience walked with the actors, we were drawn in and out of light and shadows, making us feel deeply involved in Samson’s despair. As with any promenade production, there was a tendency to feel a little shepherded but music aided what could have been rather awkward transitions.

This production is powerful because it is unlike anything else you could go to see on the Oxford stage this week. The choice of play is ambitious, the setting inspired and the execution strong. Ed White’s direction brings Milton’s words to life with great success, displaying great sensitivity to the text itself.

4 stars

Samson Agonistes is in the Merton College Chapel, 24-27 Feb, 8.15pm

Despite being advertised as a good old knees-up, full of ‘cheeky frolics’, the Oxford Revue’s latest offering got off to a slow start, with early sketches falling a bit flat. However, towards the end things improved; the material was a lot funnier and the audience had had time to warm up. I was disappointed that the show ended just as the Revue seemed to have  got the right atmosphere going; it was this shaky beginning that prevented the show from being an overall success.

The performers themselves were excellent and made the best of the material they had. The company as a whole were full of energy and threw themselves wholeheartedly into each situation and set of characters they portrayed. Sophie Klimt’s performance was a great comic turn throughout and her musical number was a particular highlight. Ollie Mann played a succession of camp characters amusingly and with great relish.

The sketches themselves were, with some exceptions, a let down. The comedy was fairly predictable and I felt that some more surprises could have given the humour a much needed kick-start. There were some witty lines but these were too thin on the ground and unoriginal. The caricatures were too familiar and the juxtaposition between carry-on style innuendo and more ‘gritty’ sexual jokes wasn’t always a success. The funnier moments came from the unexpected, and there just wasn’t enough of this. The continuous stream of jokes about ‘broken-Britain’ and the ‘nanny-state’ were funny in their mockery of Daily Mail readers, but were repetitive and not laugh-out-loud.

I also felt that the potential of the Brighton theme was not fully exploited. Looking at the promotional material I was expecting a bawdy old fashioned music-hall approach, but many of the sketches were only loosely related to this. A few more songs might have helped mix things up and remind the audience how the show fitted together as a whole.

Despite these problems the show was still enjoyable, fun and frothy. While some gags were weak, the Revue never lost the energy of the performance. Things jogged along smoothly and there was never a point where the audience seemed bored. It was an entertaining and enthusiastic performance but it certainly didn’t send me laughing my way home.

two stars

The Oxford Revue continue their run at the BT studio, 24-27 February, 9.30 pm

Student filmmaking, it’s fair to say, has its share of stigmas. Some of them have probably been earned, but the modest (at best) production values of amateur movie-making needn’t preclude invention, ingenuity and commitment. As long as these three factors are in ample supply there is no reason why student films can’t conceivably shame their professional counterparts.

Nor is such an achievement unprecedented. It might be hard to believe this if you’ve ever witnessed firsthand the joyful chaos that tends to descend on budding amateur film-sets, but some of the most widely-acclaimed pictures of the last thirty years had their origins on humble campuses. Eraserhead, a deeply haunting and technically accomplished cult favourite, was made intermittently by David Lynch and a group of like-minded individuals from 1971 to 1976 while the future auteur was enrolled on a Masters course in Fine Arts. Shot on sets assembled cheaply from plywood and with a cast of family, friends, and (legend has it) one unborn calf foetus, the enduring respect that it commands from film buffs and serious critics alike is testament to what the enthusiasm of student filmmakers can achieve.  

  Less fêted, perhaps, but no less impressive in terms of ambition, was the first feature-length production of the Oxford University Film Foundation, Privileged, in the early eighties. Following the sexual escapades and drunken misadventures of a group of student partygoers, it not only proved that determined students could make a little go a long way, but launched the careers of some of modern cinema’s biggest names after it was bought for theatrical release. Director, then-student Michael Hoffman went on to lead major studio pictures, including this month’s The Last Station, (reviewed in Film) while it was the world’s first exposure to Hugh Grant who has since become a household name for being impossibly British in numerous wildly profitable romantic comedies.

  Given the kudos that Privileged brought to student filmmaking, it is perhaps surprising that although our university has produced myriad stars of stage and screen, novelists, playwrights and politicians, the percentage of alumni that successfully forge a career behind the camera is small. There are impressive exceptions of course: Ken Loach, an undergraduate in Law, went on to make his name synonymous with social realist cinema in such bleak yet compassionate masterpieces as Kes, regularly cited by critics as one of the greatest British films ever made. Former English undergraduate Michael Winterbottom, meanwhile, is known as one of modern cinema’s most versatile and innovative directors, having brought unsimulated sex to mainstream films in 9 Songs and experimenting with form in A Cock and Bull Story, a meta-comedy about the making of an adaptation of The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy. Even Michael Winner, now better known in pop culture for his long-running appearances in excruciating advertisements, was once the director behind exploitation movies like the Death Wish series. But for the most part Oxford has appeared short on filmmaking talent.

  This is quite possibly a result of the relative lack of any available communities of filmmakers in the university, in comparison to the wealth of dramatic and musical productions frequently put into motion. If filmmaking received the representation that its fellow art-forms enjoy in Oxford life, it is more than likely that a greater number of students would direct their creative energies into distinguishing themselves via moving pictures.     

  This is certainly the belief of Misha Kaletsky, current president of the Oxford University Film Foundation, and his fellow committee members. After a brief period of inactivity, the foundation was revived in Michaelmas of 2009 by Kaletsky, who is keen to see the foundation’s presence grow within the university.

He wants it to not only provide resources and networking opportunities for budding filmmakers in Oxford, but also lectures by heavyweight figures who can share their years of experience in an often impenetrable industry with those who are still wet behind the ears.  

  The centrepiece of the foundation’s calendar in Hilary term, however, is the first annual Oxford University Film Festival. The main event is film cuppers, when shorts by Oxford students will be judged by a panel of industry professionals, and the top eight will receive a special screening at the Phoenix Picturehouse, before an overall winner is announced at an awards ceremony. However, the festival also promises to offer something for those who want to take a less hands-on approach to film, including talks by illustrious names like actress Natasha McElhone of The Truman Show, and Margy Kinmonth, whose series Naked Hollywood won the BAFTA for Best Documentary.

  But aside from this imminent celebration of student movie-making, the OUFF also have plans to emulate its founders and produce another large-scale film. ‘We will be starting next term on a project of our own, based on the winner of our screenwriting competition, which closes at the end of term’, Kaletsky has said. ‘This should be finished before the end of the year, when we’ll once again focus on making the film festival even bigger and better.’ As far as we know, Hugh Grant has no plans to reprise his role as supporting actor.

  With interest and activity in student movies once more on the rise, then, it may not be long before Oxford has a filmmaking community to rival its theatrical counterpart. And if some of the most ambitious and brilliant minds in the country decide to realise their artistic visions through a camera lens, it’s always possible that more talents to equal such luminaries as Michael Winterbottom and Ken Loach might emerge from amongst them.

One of the most reliable rules of film-viewing has always been to avoid directors with only one name, from McG to Pitof. However, The Fall may be the exception that proves the rule. It is the definition of a vanity project, and, as Roger Ebert points out, ‘you can only admire the man vain enough to make it’. That man is Tarsem, an Indian-born director who has written, directed and financed an unfairly ignored gem.

It begins in an early 20th century Los Angeles hospital, where a paralysed stuntman, Roy (Lee Pace) weaves a surreal fantasy tale for a fellow patient, six year old Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), in a plot reminiscent of The Princess Bride. However, this is not such a light-hearted film, and the motive behind Roy’s skilful storytelling is soon revealed to be far darker.

Of the little coverage the film received, critics largely concentrated on its breath-taking visuals, yet failed to note that, amazingly, the film contains absolutely no CGI, instead employing locations in twenty-four different countries and a gruelling four-year shoot. Yet while its beauty is extraordinary – Tarsem happily calls it ‘a visual wank’ – The Fall contains so much more. It is unashamedly sentimental about story telling and a celebration of the transformative power of art.

Vital to the film’s success is the performance of Catinca Untaru, a young Romanian girl with no previous acting experience. Indeed, the film would not have been made had the right actress not been found, and production was fast-tracked as soon as Untaru was discovered. Her naturalism and innocence is extraordinary, both of which stem from a semi-improvised script and an unsteady grasp of the English language.

The Fall is one of a handful of films that can truly be referred to as ‘visual poetry’, though such a hackneyed term hardly does it justice, and fails to take note of its emotional power. It is a film at once joyous and sinister, a fantastical and truly original celebration of the powers of story telling and cinema. Close in tone and quality to the better-known Pan’s Labyrinth, the film should be regarded as a worthy companion to Del Toro’s masterpiece. Tarsem has single-handedly produced a film of staggering beauty and wild ambition, and his plaudits are long overdue.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. As this famous Tolstoy quotation faded out of the opening scene of The Last Station, I got the feeling my hopes were raised too high. The premise of the film, you see, is very good; it charts the last year of the life of Leo Tolstoy (Plummer), who, having embraced a spiritual and ascetic way of life, is regarded by many Russians as virtually a saint. In his private life, however, he is very old, very ill and constantly fighting with his wife and muse of forty-eight years, the Countess Sofya (Mirren), over the rights to his life’s work. We see the shakiness of these last days of their marriage through the eyes of Tolstoy’s fresh-faced and admiring new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (McAvoy), who learns a lot about life, and of course love, from the great man.

Although Plummer and Mirren are both nominated for Oscars for their performances, I felt that director Michael Hoffman did not make full use of either actor, or indeed of Tolstoy’s story, owing at least in part to the fact that the script is certainly not a work of literary genius. You can tell that McAvoy was struggling a little with what he had been given; on Valentin’s first meeting with Tolstoy, he supposedly becomes overwhelmed with emotion, although it took me a while to work this out, as he looks more like a hayfever sufferer who’s been hit in the face with a six-kilo daffodil. This is a fairly accurate simile, in fact, as Valentin sneezes whenever he is nervous, an emotion-conveying shortcut that I found intensely annoying.

The sneezey, over-earnest Valentin improves slightly as he becomes more worldly, and gives up his excruciatingly well-guarded virginity to his new girlfriend Masha (Condon). This is supposed to be the blossoming-young-love story that offsets the souring love between Tolstoy and the Countess, but it is very poorly executed; Masha swings between keen and reticent for no apparent reason, and when she finally packs up and goes to Moscow, Valentin doesn’t seem too bothered about it.

Mirren, however, is wonderful, as she works her way around the house destroying every breakable object. Perhaps another criticism of the script is that Sofya is painted as extremely childish and spoilt for a woman who, in actual fact, gave birth to thirteen children and wrote out War and Peace six times for her husband. I’m not sure which of the two sounds more painful.
The attention to detail isn’t great; some scenes were cut off too early, and accents slipped in places. Also, look out for one of Tolstoy’s apparently more smug sons, who appears in one scene and one scene only. Of Leo and Sofya’s thirteen children, it is only he and the painfully dull Sasha (Duff) whom we get to see.

Aside from the constant fighting, the film has a rather cosy feel, afforded by the fact that it looks as if it is set in a National Trust-owned manor house. The only real nod to Russian culture is the obsessive tea drinking.

It is about love, and adequate enough, so I think that The Last Station will become a prime fodder for the BBC’s daytime schedules on Easter Mondays for many years to come, but I probably won’t watch it when it does.

2 stars