Jan Morris’s retrospective collection of vignettes opens with an encounter with a man on a bench in New York which perfectly distils the tenor of her writing. It embodies an eye for the beauty in apparently unremarkable scenes, a warm sympathy for others, tempered with just a touch of the old-school anthropologist’s detachment: the stranger is consistently ‘the black man’. Morris has a predilection for verbal grandeur, offset by a self-consciousness which punctures any threat of pretension; she enlivens the prosaic with literary allusion and, most characteristically of all, good humour – ‘Be not afeared’, she says, ‘the isle is full of noises’. ‘Bugs, too’, responds the man.

This scene launches a series of ‘brief encounters’, animating the human beings who populate the places she has visited. Taking its name from the cry ‘Contact!’ which launches a spitfire, or the image of electrical contacts, this collection expresses the energising and ‘inspiriting’ effects of human contact. It consists mostly of short independent passages, each with a title ranging from the faintly cryptic – ‘Breath of the woods’ – to the more matter-of-fact – ‘Costa del Sol, 1960s’ – sometimes lifted verbatim from previous publications, otherwise re-remembered and shaped to fit the format. Its subjects are by turns demotic and elite, from Aborigine activists to Yves Saint Laurent and Harry Truman. She leads us from Istanbul to Slovenia by way of a Manhattan McDonalds or a flasher in Athens, taking in portraits at times funny, at others haunting, like the unhappy man in Kanpur who touches objects in the street without a word, ‘apparently to strict unwritten rules’.

Morris has always had an eye for people and a tendency to pepper her accounts of places with insights into those who inhabit them. Her descriptions often have the slight air of a social taxonomist or ethnographer, and her anthropocentric approach brings this aspect of her writing to the fore. The term ‘Negro’ stands out, as does the description of Ethiopians as ‘beautiful lithe-limbed animals’.

There is nothing objectionable in her sentiments, but the reader may occasionally feel a little uncomfortable, as one might with an awkward great-aunt. At times her prose reads like the field notes for Frazer’s The Golden Bough, recording the curious characteristics of the world’s tribes, national, ethnic and social, and their rituals. Morris has seen more of humanity than most, though, and has taken more time to experience its variety. The warmth of her regard for her subjects often comes through.

The fragmented nature of the recollections, and the absence of any narrative cohesion, suggest that this is a book best experienced a little at a time. When read in sustained bursts it can feel like sitting at dinner with a well-read and well-travelled raconteuse: the sheer flurry of anecdotal variety can leave you with diegetic indigestion. The book moves between portraits of individuals with well-chosen details – like a playwright’s spare notes on his characters – suggestive snapshots, and overheard conversations.

Like memories which come unbidden, there is something at once sentimentally satisfying and frustratingly hollow about these portraits: each is a witness to something that is past, its wider context apparently irrecoverable; detached, staccato. Eichmann appears in the dock, but so incidentally that he is immersed in the pool of common humanity, such is the brevity of these vignettes. The collection ends with moments of human intimacy: a shared complicity in winking at a cab driver in Alexandria, and a personal memory of holding hands with her partner as their child dies. The reader, too, feels incomplete: there’s no closure here. All the images it gives us resonate, yet few other portraits are as intimate as this last one. Ironically, this recollection is set at home, and as a counterpoint it reminds us of the transience innate in any human contact.

I’ve often wondered what Michelangelo’s reaction would be if he were plucked from 16th century Milan, and deposited in, say, the Tate Modern. I can’t help but feel that he’d be a little disappointed at what he saw. He must have known that art would develop and change – yet I don’t think he would have predicted the path that the art world has taken in recent years. In the last few decades alone, we have had pickled sharks and unmade beds, people in bear costumes and sheds that are actually boats that are actually sheds.

And now we reach the latest manifestation of this never-ending mutation: Michael Landy’s Art Bin. Essentially, it is a skip. A very large and transparent skip, yes, but a skip nonetheless. As the name suggests, this skip is designed for a particular type of rubbish – unwanted artworks. A ‘monument to collective failure’, Art Bin has already swallowed works by big-name artists such as Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, and Landy is running a scheme through which we, the members of the public, can apply to have our artworks disposed of. After six weeks, the contents are to be crushed and turned to landfill (or ‘Landyfill’ as the artist has termed it).

Landy is no stranger to such acts of destruction; in 2001 he famously catalogued and then destroyed all of his personal possessions with an industrial shredder. Break Down was celebrated by some as a protest against consumerism, but was criticised by many as a waste: surely it would have been better to give his belongings to charity? Others merely dismissed it all as a stunt. But not only did he destroy his clothes, his passport, his photographs and even his car, he also wrecked hundreds of artworks (a few of which had been gifts from other artists), which was condemned by some in the art world. Landy is by no means the first to carry out artistic destruction – Robert Rauschenberg once erased a drawing by the Dutch abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning – he is simply the first to take it to such an extreme.

As in Break Down, Landy tries to use Art Bin to question the concept of ownership of an artwork. If a piece is sold or given away, whom does it belong to? Of course, legally it belongs to the purchaser or recipient. But does the artist retain any rights pertaining to what happens to the work? Members of the public wishing to dispose of another’s art in Landy’s skip need to confirm they have the express permission of its creator before it will be accepted, which does somewhat quash the debate. But can we go further, and ask whether art should even be destroyed at all? Obviously, only a small fraction of artworks are actually masterpieces, but all art is a creative celebration of the world around us – is it not wrong to destroy any part of it?

Landy wrote in The Guardian that he was ‘interested in failure’ and that it was ‘all about value’. This is one of the major problems I have with the piece. How can an artwork ever be a creative failure? Of course, it can fail in the eyes of its creator, but a piece will always have some value, however small and difficult to find. In terms of artistic merit, there are countless works in galleries around the world that I would have been ashamed to produce as a toddler, yet others celebrate them. It takes only one person to view an artwork, and it is worth something. Or, in the case of Art Bin, it just takes Landy to view it, and it can be worthless in a moment. And that is the strange thing. He judges what ends up in the skip – he is the self-termed ‘bin monitor’. So the contents of Landy’s creation are based on his opinion of failure, rather than on the opinions of others.

But can we even call Art Bin a creation? Surely it is the opposite of creation; the whole concept behind it is centered on destruction and its own existence is meaningless without the dropping, smashing and eventual crushing of the work of others. Can we even call it art? Perhaps it is something else. Anti-art? Call me old-fashioned, but there needs to be some aesthetic appeal to something for it to be referred to as ‘art’. That doesn’t mean that I only consider paintings and sculptures to be art – in fact the ‘readymade’ work Bicycle Wheel, by the pioneer of conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp, is a favourite of mine. It possesses an innate beauty and poise, with the wheel balanced gracefully on the stool. A large skip, on the other hand, holds no such attraction.

Art Bin projects a question mark onto the state of the art world today. What is the value of art? Like most contemporary artworks, it sets out to be novel and outrageous and, for a brief while, it has commanded the attention of the media. But is this enough?

The Imps are all about improvisation and this latest show is no exception. If you’ve been to anything they’ve done before, you’ve seen how they work the same word or idea in many unexpected ways.

This show continues with their trademark audience involvement and improvisation. Here they use just five performers and the energy level felt muted; of course that could be due to the grey Thursday evening, but it was disappointing.

The other consequence of the small cast was that the characters could be confused easily as roles changed raidly. The lack of props makes the characterisation all the more important and, although in some cases this was handled well, greater consistency was needed.

Details aside, the acting was quite impressive and the cast seemed to be enjoying themselves. The second half revisits the first half’s scenarios with an ambitious twist, yet this wasn’t really pulled off well. The idea of setting the first half’s scenarios in the past is a good idea but was not always convincingly executed. The choice of time period relies on the audience.

There were some good moments when the actors managed to include a few references to the World Wars or other topical details, but even these were not that funny. Transforming a scene set at a bus stop in the first half, to one at a tram stop in the second is clever but not in itself humorous.

The concept is probably too ambitious because it demands that the actors know the appropriate vocabulary and social customs for whichever time period the audience choose and that they must convey this without props or costume.
The idea is an ingenious one, but I’m sceptical about whether even the Imps at their best could do this and I don’t think they were at their best during the preview. Despite this, it is still a fun way to spend an hour or so, and it will be interesting to see how the show changes when it is on next week.

two stars

IMPerium is at the BT Studio, 23-27 Feb, 19.00

The day is May 5th. The year is unspecified. The cast and crew of Anton Chekhov’s infamous Three Sisters invite you to a small provincial town in Russia (conveniently located in the Hertford College Bop cellar) for Tara Isabella Burton’s rendition of the play.

The piece, performed in a promenade style where the audience is invited to sit, stand and walk around the living room set, deals with the frustrations and aspirations of the Russian Prozorov family, who are dissatisfied with the state of their current lives.

Olga (Flo Oakley), Masha (Cassie Barraclough), and Irina (Ali Walsh), the three sisters, distinctly unique in their respective character approaches, each give the performance an authentic believability that carries the play.

The brave attempt to incorporate spectators directly into the piece challenges the audience to see an overall picture of the piece as it progresses. ‘Dynamic performing’ is taken to a new level as the acting is not limited to one section of the ‘stage’ at a time, but involves continuous action throughout the duration of the play.

Keeping the audience continually involved, however, at times impedes on the focus on any ongoing dialogue as there is a lack of specific focus.

The ensemble struggles to find a rhythm throughout parts of the play, and there is a slight lack of energy and flow within the group as a whole. Yet there are notable highlights, including several touching and mesmerizing monologues. One is almost compelled to lean over and console Masha as she passionately declares her love for Vershinin (Huw Smith-Jones) to the other two sisters in Act Three.

Anything but conventional, one will inevitably be drawn into the play. If not on a mental plane, then at least physically.

three stars

Three Sisters is at the Hertford Bop Cellar, 23-27 Feb, 7.30pm

The impressive and imposing setting of Merton’s Gothic chapel gives this production of Milton’s 1671 tragic drama the weight and atmosphere it deserves.

The play combines a model of Greek tragedy with a Hebrew setting. Taking its inspiration from the Book of Judges, it follows the struggles of the Biblical hero Samson and his attempt to come to terms with his loss of strength and betrayal. The play begins with the protagonist reduced to a blinded captive and unfolds as he is visited by three important figures.

The play is staged as a promenade performance in which various scenes are performed in different parts of the chapel. The audience follows the action around and is herded between scenes by the chorus. This approach gives the play a dynamism which it otherwise lacks.

As the play progresses the action moves from the outer chapel into the main chapel itself. This mirrors Samson’s own character development and emphasises a sense of inevitable tragic progression. The performance is thus rendered visually varied and innovative. The choice of space really does carry the production and adds a heavy solemnity to the action. The staging has been carefully planned to maximise the space available and does so very successfully. With a large audience, however, it could be awkward and huddled. I was put off slightly at the thought of standing for fifty minutes in the cold chapel and having to fight for a view.

The acoustics of the chapel were, on the whole, excellent at maximising the actor’s deliveries. Lines however needed to be delivered more clearly and slowly at times due to the echo. The production uses liturgical chants to aid the movement between scenes, contributing further to the sombre feel of the performance. Music also helps to smooth the transition between scenes and builds on an already great atmosphere.

Bevil Luck’s Samson successfully combined the portrayal of an anguished and broken man with the more self-assured elements of his character, andJames Lowe’s sneering and superior Harapha was very enjoyable to watch. His performance made good use of space and movement. However, I would like to have seen more physicality from the performance as a whole. The longer speeches at times lacked variation in tone and pace. The chorus has a perhaps unavoidably problematic role as observers of the action but unfortunately I felt that they only added to this static feel.

Overall the use of the chapel’s stunning visual backdrop was enough to overcome these more problematic elements. In this way they have succeeded in creating a deeply atmospheric and emotionally engaging production.

three stars

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

Heligoland is the Massive Attack album that fans have had to wait seven years for. And albums that take this long are, as many of us know firsthand, almost inevitably disappointing because only an absolute masterpiece can satisfy a seven-year-old appetite.

It’s not quite a masterpiece but it is still an undeniably wonderful album. It manages to intensify the narcotizing sound that many have come to expect from the Bristol group. In fact, it achieves the epic task of being the most hypnotic of the Massive Attack albums.

The band has also gathered a truly impressive list of featuring artists including Damon Albarn, Guy Garvey of Elbow and Martina Topley-Bird. There’s always the worry that roping in so many big names will turn an album into an exercise in sycophancy. But thankfully this isn’t a problem for this album. Instead, the big names are clearly there to serve and fit the Massive Attack sound which is unswervingly maintained throughout the course of the album.

The main problem with the record is that there aren’t really any great standalone tracks. Of course, Horace Andy lends his ever mysterious voice to ‘Girl I Love You’ and Guy Garvey’s vocals on ‘Flat of the Blade’ are great but both of these tracks seem best heard when listened to within the context of the rest of the album.

Whilst the album is composed of consistently strong tracks, there aren’t really any obvious hits and there are almost certainly no tracks that reach the glorious heights of certain previous singles. As such, this is an album best heard in its entirety so a listener can appreciate what is an elegantly constructed album full of tracks which totally work beside each other. And Massive Attack fans will enjoy the obvious care which went into the completion of this album, even if it took seven years to get right.

London’s Trail are the sort of band you might have liked as a pre-teen, but probably didn’t because even then you realised that they weren’t very good. The ten tracks that make up the album are epically over-produced, riff-driven, hook-heavy, stadium-rock ballads that might one day, a long time ago, have had the potential to attract attention. But those days have been long forgotten.

Nowadays, to write songs like these is to enter a musical minefield in which all the worst things about rock and pop go hand-in-hand with the suicidal error of taking yourself far too seriously (there’s something annoyingly presumptuous about naming your album To the Rest of the World). A few songs, the opening ‘Prism’ for example, begin with a glimmer of potential, and there are moments when the guitar sounds like it might morph into something interesting, but any sense of individuality is soon drowned out by the overly long and predictably structured song writing that dominates the monotonous sound of the album.

On ‘Back Home’, Trail abandon this sound in favour of a more vocally driven approach, and singer Charlie Afif’s falsetto floats pleasantly with the accompanying guitar. This could have been the album’s redeeming feature, were it not for the insertion of a totally unnecessary fifty second guitar solo and the tragic lyrical writing: ‘and if it rains then I will find my coat, and if it sails then I will get my boat’.

It is hard to pin down what each song is about, seeming to just be a series of impressive sounding words strung together that apparently make no sense whatsoever. You’d be just as well off downloading ‘Fumes’, the album’s best track, and listening to it ten times than wasting money or memory space on this album. Pleasant, but painfully unoriginal.

In 1995, Tricky was known mainly for his featuring-vocals on Massive Attack’s albums. And then he released the album which would become NME’s Record of the Year, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and subject to more critical and commercial acclaim than anyone could have anticipated.

Such unexpected levels of praise leave an album in danger of being filed under ‘overrated disappointment’. What’s truly impressive about this album is that it fully deserves the recognition it receives. Even listeners that don’t enjoy the distinctly melancholic and mysterious sound with which Tricky is associated will be able to appreciate the multi-layered complexity of every single track.

Maxinquaye is in many ways the first album to fully realise the potential of the early Bristol Sound; a sound which evolved from the bold cutting and mixing traditions of its Hip Hop predecessors. So often, attempts at genre fusion result in the creation of awkward hybrids with pretentious names and even worse songs. Maxinquaye is a prime example of the ingenuity of Trip Hop artists who were able to avoid these particular pitfalls.

In fact, it draws on and pays homage to so many genres that it shouldn’t work. But somewhere between the whispered lyrics, Public Enemy cover and Smashing Pumpkins sample, Tricky makes his own sound; an entirely coherent auditory atmosphere. And don’t confuse atmospheric with easy listening. Maxinquaye is almost aggressively languorous, immersive and hedonistic.

This album doesn’t sound like it was made 15 years ago. In fact, it doesn’t really call upon any particular era. It is instead an album that evokes some unknown place; a place that’s probably amoral, visceral and almost certainly dangerous. Listening to this album makes you wonder how Trip-Hop was ever relegated to the role of background music in ‘gritty’ melodramas and adverts. Maxinquaye deserves your full attention; it is absolutely music made for headphones.

It’s fair to say there’s a hell of a lot on offer to music lovers in Oxford. The city’s clubs (which, granted, range from the sublime to the ridiculous) are packed to the rafters on a daily basis; gig culture is thriving, with an eclectic range of acts playing in larger venues like the O2 Academy, as well as alternative gems such as The Jericho. Classical concerts ranging from the most traditional to the most contemporary hold claim to an avid following, as does the jazz scene and countless other musical institutions within our vibrant city.

But there’s a musical tradition in Oxford more powerful than all those aforementioned; it’s one that’s older, cheaper and world renowned, but rarely spoken about outside the smallest of Oxford social circles. I’m talking about Evensong. For those of you who know little about this institution, I’ll back up slightly and begin with the basics. It’s a service held in our colleges’ chapels which is strung together by choral music (if you ever wondered what our organ and choral scholars do, this is largely it). Although it’s essentially a religious service, atheists needn’t be deterred; it seems the bulk of observers (and partakers) are in it for the music, which constitutes the majority of the hour-or-so running time.

This musical wonder came about long, long before the days of Eclectric, Park End or even Radiohead for that matter. I’m talking old – sixteenth century old. Basically, Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) along with his good chum who was called something like King Henry VIII, condensed the liturgical day (which at the time was all a bit intense, and left very little time for fun and frolicks) into two, daily services – one in the morning and one in the evening (you guessed it – Evensong). Evidently, Cranmer’s efforts to shake things up a bit weren’t really appreciated at the time, and despite leaving us with one of England’s oldest musical traditions, he was burnt at the stake on Broad Street of all places. Harsh.

Whether you’re someone trained in the art of harmony and counterpoint or someone whose last musical interest was S Club Juniors, it’s hard not to be mesmerised by the aural experience that comes at precisely zero cost. Without wishing to be pretentious and hyperbolic, there’s something strangely hypnotic about listening to these choirs in the surroundings that were used for the same thing many centuries ago.

The ornate design of buildings like Christ Church Cathedral combined with light emitted solely from candles, and the expansive, ethereal acoustics add to the general sense of meditative and overwhelming beauty that the daily offering provides. So I’ve strayed into pretentious hyperbole, but you get my point.

It seems there’s a vogue for choral music at the moment, largely brought about by a (admittedly entertaining) BBC series in which a guy tried to solve the world’s problems by kick-starting a few choirs in disadvantaged areas, and another which was a truly cringeworthy X Factor style choir stand-off. Although serving some sort of purpose, these shows belie the fact that truly brilliant choirs exist ­- the sheer quality of some of those in Oxford, whose practise schedules rival the rowers’, can’t be understated. Take New College or Christ Church choir for example; as well as having an impressive CD back catalogue, people travel from far and wide just to come and see them. They pack out venues on European tours most vacations, and if all this isn’t enough, and if my research is correct, it was none other than New College Choir whose music was played on Emmerdale when Mark Wylde was shot. ‘Nuff said.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you give up your other musical vices in favour of a daily trip to your college’s chapel. However, it’s certainly worth trying at least once. There’s something about seeing this ritual up close and in person which is different to that offered by any other musical activity in Oxford. Evensong may not be your new Radiohead or Foals, but it might be an experience you remember. As far as I’m aware, you won’t get burned on the stake for going.