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Staircase 22: 1st Week, Part 1

By
James Harding And Selena Wisnom
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Meet Ralph, the wannabe union hack with no social decorum. Sarah, the budding journalist with ruthless tendencies. Kati is the aspiring drama queen – and possibly the most high maintenance girlfriend in all of England. Paul wants to get a first in Classics but can never figure out what his tutor wants – while his tute partner is an aristocrat with a dark secret. And of course, Eleanor, the one who doesn’t really know what she’s doing there.

Staircase 22 is the new Oxford soap opera podcast brought to you by Cherwell. The series follows the lives of six freshers at fictional Judas college, as they adapt to the trials and absurdities of Oxford life.

Method or Madness?

By
Anna Hextall
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There are many different schools of performance that come under the umbrella term of method acting. The case studies may be impressive and highly entertaining, but they shed light on bizarre extremes and question the worthiness of the self-confessed ‘method actor’.
Stella Adler’s take is focused upon the actor conjuring up emotions solely from the scene, excluding personal memory. Marlon Brando and Robert de Niro are amongst her most legendary students. In preparation for New York New York, de Niro learned to play the saxophone to ‘virtuoso standard’. Due to his dedication to training for Raging Bull, he was estimated to be amongst the top ten middleweights in the world. During the months leading up to the filming of Taxi Driver, he worked twelve hour shifts as a cabbie.
Daniel Day-Lewis has his own very personal vision of method acting which became evident in his portrayal of the severely paralyzed Christy Brown in My Left Foot. He refused to leave his wheelchair between scenes, regularly asking to be carried over technical equipment and wires. His sustained hunched position in his wheelchair caused him some discomfort too, earning him two broken ribs. His role in The Name of the Father as Gerry Conlon required substantial weight loss. He maintained his Northern Irish accent on and off set, demanded that crew throw coldwater at him and verbally abuse him, and even spent time in a solitary prison cell.
The pinnacle of intensity struck him when starring in Hamlet in the National Theatre. Day-Lewis had an uncontrollable fit of terror during the first scene with his father’s ghost; he sobbed hysterically and refused to go back on stage.
Physically, Christian Bale has pushed himself to the limit in many roles of various extremes. For American Psycho, he studied the book avidly and refused to socialise during the filming period. He spent months tanning and working out to achieve an Olympian physique. The Machinist saw him lose 63lb in order to play the emaciated Trevor Reznik, before the director and doctor forced him to stop. He also studied insomnia at great length, and deprived himself from sleep for prolonged periods.
Forest Whitaker’s role as Idi Amin brought a new extent of research that lead to his greatest success to date. He spent time in Uganda reading books about Amin, watching footage, meeting his relatives, his friends and even his victims.
Adrien Brody attracted attention in The Pianist. Having sold his apartment and car to replicate his character’s loss of everything at the hands of the Nazis, he withdrew for months, learning to play Chopin on the piano. In his role as Jack Starks in The Jacket, Brody spent hours on end in a ‘sensory deprivation chamber’ to prepare for scenes in a morgue drawer. Between filming he insisted on being locked in the drawer, kept the straight jacket on when possible and refused to speak to anyone on set.
Recalling Daniel Day-Lewis’ traumatic appearance on stage, I cannot help thinking that method acting is somewhat lost on film, not to mention being unpractical and rather self-indulgent. On stage it makes more sense, as the direct dynamic of performance savours more of the intensity that can be lost through a camera lens. Lawrence Olivier famously questioned the nature of this practise regarding co-star Dustin Hoffman, who had refused to sleep and wash prior to the filming of Marathon Man. On regarding Hoffman’s state, Olivier commented casually, ‘why don’t you just act, dear boy, it’s a lot easier’. I could not agree more.

New Testament to an Old Star

By
Orlando Bird
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Ten seconds into the fourth piece of his improvised solo concert at the Royal Festival Hall last year, American pianist Keith Jarrett stopped playing and delivered a curt lecture about the evils of coughing in the concert hall. So devoted was his audience, however, that his reproach garnered a thunderous applause. Immediately after, Jarrett returned to the piano and began the piece exactly where he’d left off, as if he’d already completed the whole thing in his head. He went on to give what was described as a ‘never-to-be-repeated, pulsing rock band of a concert’.
It was his first performance in London for 18 years, and it filled the Festival Hall. Jarrett is one of the very few jazz musicians in the world who don’t need to plug their CDs at the end of a gig. One critic likened his return to that of a prophet – and amongst his acolytes were students, families and film stars (well, I recognised Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill). A stark contrast, certainly, with the grey-heads, Boden shirts and tasselled deck-shoes that dominate so many jazz clubs. And now we have a recording of the long-awaited event. Testament, a 3-CD production, brings Jarrett’s Festival Hall concert together with one given five days earlier in Paris.
After working with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis, Jarrett astonished audiences in the 1970s with a series of unique solo improvisations in which one piece could last for an hour or so. The most famous of these musical high-wire acts is the Koln Concert, which has gone on to sell nearly four million copies.
In the early-90s, however, the format of Jarrett’s concerts started to change. In place of the ‘epic journeys into the unknown’, as he describes them, he offered his audiences a series of vignettes reflecting the remarkable breadth of his style, which ranges from blues to bebop to baroque. The effect, in some recordings, can be a little disjointing. But what is striking about Testament is that, even though it crosses many genres, Jarrett’s playing remains unmistakable.
The tone of the Paris concert is darker, with Jarrett’s early classical training coming to the fore. It kicks off with a brooding, often atonal, improvisation, followed by a forceful ten-minute vamp in C-sharp. The London concert begins in a similar way, but its pace quickens with the scurrying bebop scales of ‘Part II’. Then the musical language is simplified. ‘Part III’ is an insouciant blend of gospel and Americana – two of Jarrett’s most enduring influences. This is what many in the audience at the Festival Hall had been waiting for – and Jarrett clearly enjoyed himself in his notoriously eccentric way. He played a good deal of the piece standing up, gyrating and singing along. Every now and then, in the recording, we hear a trademark nasal yelp (there’s a video floating about on YouTube with the title, ‘Keith Jarrett IS Cartman’).
‘Part III & VI’ of the Paris and London concerts, respectively, are beautiful examples of the shimmering, ethereal inventions that have in recent years become one of Jarrett’s hallmarks. There is, in fact, a good deal of music in both concerts that sounds as if it comes from the experimental end of 20th century classical repertoire. But in the Festival Hall concert, Jarrett’s new and old selves come together. ‘Part VII’, a highlight, achieves the drive and the refinement Jarrett sought by shortening his improvisations, but evokes the spacious, emotive gospel tones of his earliest work.
The lengthy essay in the album sleeve makes it clear this is an important album for Jarrett, now in his mid-60s. It vindicates his new approach to improvisation, but is also a triumphant testament to his innovations over the last 30 years.

Noah and the Whale

By
Philippa Hibbs
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Charlie Fink looks exhausted. He walks across the empty Academy to greet me, a somewhat forced smile on his face. I follow him to the interview area, hoping that the events of the past couple of days aren’t taking their toll on him too much. ‘It’ll just be me’ he says, pulling two chairs out into the small, grey corridor where the interview is to take place. Here, jovial technicians will pass us, whistling, throughout the interview.
Fink is subdued and very still. He’s been travelling the country, having just embarked on a tour that will soon take the band to the US. But it’s not just tiredness that’s bothering Fink today. On 29th September the band’s entire trailer of equipment was stolen from a car park in Manchester, where they were playing a gig at the Club Academy. For Fink and his band mates, it was a devastating blow.

‘It’s a hard thing to explain, because there are some bands whose equipment is transient, and you have one guitar the same as another. But our stuff is very specific and very unique. Its stuff that you spend years and years cultivating. You won’t find another version exactly the same, so it’s like starting at the beginning again.’ Fink pauses, his hand almost relentlessly clutching at his hair.

This is clearly something he’s had to explain repeatedly over the last two days. The same sentiments appeared in a BBC online news article, just hours after the theft. Fink insisted that the monetary value of the stolen instruments was nothing compared to their sentimental value. On a website, this may seem like an empty, rehearsed statement. The vacant expression on Fink’s face, however, confirms the truth of the claim.

For many bands this would’ve been an irritating inconvenience, solved by the quick, expensive acquisition of hired instruments. For these boys, it’s a bereavement.
Despite all this, the band is determined to continue their tour using borrowed instruments. The Oxford gig will, in fact, be their first show without their own. This must surely be unsettling, and Fink is clearly preoccupied. He’s trying to remain philosophical about the whole thing, though.

‘It’s one of those things where it’s just going to be different and you can’t think about it being better or worse. You’ve just got to try and make it the best it can be’.
A number of so-called ‘fans’ of Noah and the Whale really know them only as the purveyors of pop-folk hit ‘5 years time’, 2008’s ‘song of the summer’, to which they owe a lot of their fame and success. It often causes bitterness when a song grows bigger than the band that wrote it. Radiohead’s relationship with ‘Creep’ has been famously turbulent. What was it like for Fink, having such a big hit so early on?
‘I guess I kind of enjoyed it a little bit – but not really. It’s one of those things that’s hard to understand, but I don’t think there’s any point being regretful or resentful because we’re in a position now where we can afford to do things we couldn’t do, and [have] the opportunity to play to a wider audience. But it was frightening, I guess, and surprising. I guess you have to try and enjoy things but it wasn’t where we saw ourselves being and I don’t think we’ll be there again.’

Their earlier sound was mostly bouncy, though undeniably intelligent, pop-folk. Laura Marling and Emmy the Great, both remarkable artists in their own right, joined the band for the first album to provide backing vocals, allowing for some fantastic harmonising.

During the making of the first album, Marling and Fink began a relationship, which ended last year. Many critics have been linking the inspiration for the latest album, The First Days of Spring, to their painful break-up. It is, after all, an incredibly raw, emotional album, chronicling the journey through the darkness of heartache; despair, the fumbled mistakes made whilst trying to move on, and finally the elation at the realisation that everything will eventually be alright. In view of this, it is rather difficult not to view the album as a confessional, autobiographical work.

I’m careful not to ask Fink directly about his past relationship. After a week that has included the theft of your most prized possessions and repeated interviews around that subject, who then wants to be prompted to reminisce about heartache? But Fink is well aware about the speculation over his personal life, and does have his worries about the impact it’ll have on how people view the album.

‘A lot of people speculate. A lot of people have written a lot of things but I never discuss it. Artists are people who make things,’ he explains, ‘they’re not necessarily people of action. What’s important is the artefact that is made. Also, people project onto music, and it’s important they do that. It’s important that people have their own reading of it, that they find themselves in it.’

Whilst the tabloidesque speculation about Fink and Marling’s break up is proving a focus of interest for the new album, there is something else remarkable about it; that it is, actually, a remarkably accomplished album. It shows a maturity, skill and musical ambition that can move one to the point of tears. Noah and the Whale negotiate simple melodies, soaring orchestral arrangements, a song that features a full choir, and pull it all together to make something heartbreaking, uplifting and thoroughly impressive. It’s a marked progression from their first album. The First Days of Spring works more as a full piece, with strands of repeated melodies and lyrics threading through the album. ‘Blue Skies’, the climax of the album, pulls together the threads. I mention this to Fink, who states that it was very much a planned move.

‘We wanted to make something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The way music is listened to now – people dissect albums and play what they like. We were trying to make something that was a full piece from beginning to end. You listen to the whole thing, and you take something better from it.’
This can create difficulties for a live show, where songs that work better in sequence have to be pulled out of context and presented individually. Moreover, it’s hard to present such deep and subtle work to live audiences who may still be expecting the same easy pop as promised by ‘5 years time’.
The band started to introduce portions of the new album live over the festival period, unsure as to how the new, more complex material would be received. ‘It’s a hard album to introduce at a festival. I mean, it’s not really festival music, but, you know, people have been listening to it. However, it makes it more rewarding. You come and do these shows because you have an audience that really cares.’
As Charlie Fink shows me back out into the main room of the O2 Academy and ushers in the next interviewer, he seems to be on auto-pilot. There are clearly more pressing issues on his mind.

Join the debate: Is university worth £10,000?

By
Dhatri Navanayagam
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Cherwell Comment editor Dhatri Navanayagam asked students in Oxford if they thought their degree was really worth £10,000.

Students set a challenge for Oxford’s leaders

By
Cherwell News Team
-

A newly-formed group of Oxford students are calling upon the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and the five Pro-Vice-Chancellors to all cut their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 in their personal capacity.

The group is part of 10:10 campaign, which is pushing the climate change agenda by asking for an ambitious but achievable 10% reduction in carbon emissions in 2010. Rather than focusing on distant long-term targets, 10:10 calls on individuals, institutions and businesses to take action now.

Dan Vockins, 10:10’s Campaign Manager,spoke at the 10:10 Oxhub event last Wednesday. He said he hoped that Oxford would follow the example set by other Universities who have already signed up. He said, “It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of a huge problem like climate change, but by uniting everyone behind immediate, effective and achievable action, 10:10 enables all of us to make a meaningful difference.”

Will McCallum, a student at Wadham commented, “While we will be putting this through the University’s standard governance system, it would take almost a year for it to work its way though. That is why we’re calling on the University’s representatives to take personal action to build the momentum to make the changes that are needed today.”

Jake Leeper, President of the Oxford Hub said, “With the Cabinet, Shadow-Cabinet, 150 other MPs as well as Oxford City Council all signed up, I think that it’s important that the leaders of our university also commit to act now. Oxford students have a great record of achieving change and pushing the University forward on important issues. 10:10 is a mainstream campaign, and with groups like Microsoft, B&Q and Pret a Manger, as well as the NUS pledging their support, the University’s key members shouldn’t be slow to act.”

 

News Roundup: 1st Week

By
Archive
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Cherwell news editors Izzy Boggild-Jones and Nicky Henderson talk censorship, JCR presidents and restaurant hygiene.

News Roundup: 1st Week

By
Izzy Boggild-Jones And Nicky Henderson
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Cherwell news editors Izzy Boggild-Jones and Nicky Henderson talk censorship, JCR president’s and restaurant hygiene.

Time to think again

By
Cherwell Editorial
-

When there is near universal opposition of opinion to your actions, it is time to reconsider what you are doing.

It can only be hoped that Queen’s SCR are willing to do so. They should listen to the thirty JCR presidents who, in a statement issued to Cherwell, have condemned the decision to force Queen’s JCR President Nathan Roberts from his position.

In their statement, the JCR presidents make the case that “it is the undeniable right of people to choose their representatives through their own democratic process. For the SCR to summarily dismiss the legitimate choice is neither free nor fair.” In this case, Cherwell agrees. His dismissal clearly implies that the acceptable pool of candidates for JCR president at Queen’s must now be diminished to those who will go on to get at least a 2:1 in prelims. That can only be seen as an intolerable violation of free and open JCR elections.

There are restricted instances when it might be appropriate for an SCR to intervene in the affairs of a JCR. However, this was not one of them. Why exactly has he been dismissed? Because he had failed his exams? Because he was involved in grossly inappropriate behaviour? No, because he got a 2:2 in Prelims. Hundreds of students get a result equivalent to a 2:2 in prelims and mods every year.

Cherwell will hazard a guess and suggest the other members of Queen’s JCR who received that kind of mark are not currently chained to their desks in the library, having been compelled to drop all extra curricular activity.

It is well known that prelims results are by no means indicative of finals results. This is probably why they aren’t even graded as finals degrees are. If a 2:2 standard is sufficient to earn you a degree from Oxford, it should also be sufficient to proceed into your second year unmolested by the SCR.

It might be argued that, despite clearly passing prelims, Mr Roberts was not ‘living up to his potential’, or that his academic results would suggest he was not capable of effectively carrying out his duties as JCR president. The latter point is without question a matter for the JCR to decide, and at any rate seems total unfounded given that he had managed perfectly well during Trinity. The former, Cherwell would argue, is a matter for him to decide, and not the SCR.

The fact of the matter is that the actions of Queen’s SCR constitute not just an unacceptable interference in the dealings of the college’s JCR, but an unjustifiable intrusion into the freedom of Mr. Roberts himself. It is something that every student should take note of, because it betrays an attitude that seemingly views University life solely in terms of exam results.

There is more to being at Oxford than trying to get a first. When we arrived, we didn’t sign a form agreeing to get the best degree possible, to the exclusion of all other activity. Some people choose to do that, and it is a perfectly acceptable path of action. Others do not, and that should be celebrated. That Queen’s SCR apparently believes that they have the right to decide what any student’s priorities should be while at University is an example of the most intolerable, arbitrary and frustrating nannying, and should be roundly condemned as it has been.

It is a virtue of our autonomy as students that we can choose how much time we put into our degree. If Nathan Roberts wants to split his time, for a year, between his work and the JCR, and make up for it later on, who are the SCR to tell him he can’t?

The irony is that of all the people receiving a 2:2 at prelims or mods, they have picked on an individual who was so clearly and obviously contributing to the University. Only an SCR that sees a successful career at Oxford entirely in terms of exam success would be blinkered enough to miss it.

Queen’s SCR have fundamentally damaged the democratic process at their college, earned the disapproval of virtually every JCR in Oxford, and have, ultimately, unjustifiably tampered with the freedom of one of their students. It can only be hoped that they are not too stubborn to reconsider.

 

Local anger at student eateries

By
Lara Adamson
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Residents Associations in Oxford have claimed that students are keeping restaurants with poor health and safety records from going out of business by providing them with patronage. La Croissanterie, The Mission and Jamal’s are some of the restaurants that have received poor health and safety records.

Oxford City Council has been using the Scores on the Doors national public information service to publish the results of environmental inspection reports since June. The website uses a star-rating system to indicate the extent to which premises comply with food safety regulations.

Stephanie Jenkins, a member of one of Oxford residents’ associations said, “It’s a great pity that students don’t appear to be consulting the Scores on the Doors website, as they are keeping alive some dubious establishments which have received a pretty damning report from the city council.”

Businesses given a no-star rating show “almost total non compliance with obligations and poor management track record” whilst a five-star rating indicates an establishment with an “excellent record of compliance” and “high standards”.

Restaurants receiving between 2 and 5 stars are given a certificate to display on their premises.

La Croissanterie on George Street, which received no stars, said that students make up 25-30% of their clientele. When asked about their health and safety rating, a staff member commented, “I have no idea, I can’t answer that…but it doesn’t seem right to me.”

Café Opium, also on George Street, was another restaurant to receive no stars. Eddie Song, restaurant manager, estimated that in term time 60-70% of their clientele were students and said, “we get good feedback from customers”. In response to inquiries about their last health and safety report, he added, “on the website they gave us zero stars because of structural problems which I think is unfair.”
In May, Oisi Master Sushi bar on St Clement’s was closed down after two incidences of food poisoning were traced to the restaurant.

Policy procedure published by the Oxfordshire Better Regulation Group, which oversees implementation of the new ratings system, states that scores may not always be accurate as premises are not checked or rated between visits, even if they have been refurbished.

According to one council Environmental Inspection officer, “Inspections only represent a keyhole in time, one hour every 18 months and we don’t see what happens in between. The application of stars is based on inspections we could have carried out 18 months or 3 years ago , at which point we didn’t know they were going to be translated into scores on the doors.”

However, premises which have a very poor safety record are usually visited more frequently than those with a strong record of compliance, with even a one-star rating bringing a business “almost up to prosecution stage”.

Inspection officers use “experience” and a range of criteria to determine standards of cleanliness and how well the business is managed, including whether appropriate food safety systems are in place, food storage and the position of wash hand basins.

Jamal’s on Walton Street is another popular student restaurant that has been the subject of a damning council report. The tandoori, which is a regular haunt for students on socials and crew dates, has a no-star rating.

Leon Upton, a student at Pembroke commented, “Most people don’t really care about the food or the hygiene when going to Jamal’s or other curry houses…you go there because you’re allowed to bring your own booze and be noisy without getting kicked out.”

Ali Hydar, manager of Jamal’s, confirmed the popularity of his restaurant within the student community, commenting that during term time 70% of their trade comes from students. He described Jamal’s as “a traditional Indian restaurant which has been going for 22 years, loved by students and the local people of Jericho”. When asked about health and safety he said, “They did the rating before they inspected it….at the moment we’re a 3-star but it’s not on the website yet. We’ll be inspected in January and we have a letter saying we’re a 3-star.”

Another restaurant which has been a hit with students, but has a low rating, is The Mission on St Michael’s Street. The Mexican burrito bar qualified for a 2-star rating at the last inspection.

Stefan Cabrol, restaurant manager, said, “That rating was given when we had only just opened. Everything has been changed since and we are waiting for a new inspection now.” He added, “We have just opened up a new shop. Our success is the result of hard work and our customers obviously know that.”

When asked if the two-star rating would affect his perception of the restaurant, a Pembroke student dining in The Mission said, “It wouldn’t affect me coming back again, I like the food.”

It’s not all bad news for Oxford students, however, as fast food junkies among us will be pleased to hear that McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King all received exemplary 5-star ratings.

Twelve of Oxford’s colleges also benefit from the highest rating on the website, including Christ Church, where one 3rd year commented, “Christ Church upholds high standards, I would expect nothing less.”

Charlotte Gibney, Food and Housing officer at Hertford College, which received a 4-star rating said, “Students often have budgetary constraints to adhere to, and thus may choose to eat out in cheaper establishments. However high food and hygiene standards should be expected from any public eatery and people shouldn’t be afraid to kick up a fuss, no matter how much the meal costs.”

However, one 3rd year at Somerville commented, “It’s idealistic to expect high health and safety standards every time. A low rating would affect my view of a place, undoubtedly, but not for places like take-aways or kebab vans where I don’t expect the same standards as if I was eating out somewhere more formal.”

City councillor, John Tanner, encourages students to check the Scores on the Doors website and be more aware of where they’re dining. “Fortunately, from cosmopolitan Cowley Road to Oxford Castle and lots more, we have some excellent places to eat [but] we want tourists, students and residents to check the Scores on the Doors before they choose where to eat.”

www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk

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