Dave’s Dilemma
I’ve lost count of how many women I’ve seen pushing empty pushchairs around Oxford recently. As one walks past, there is a noticeable transition between making eye-contact with the pusher, looking at the childless seat, and re-establishing eye-contact accompanied by some facial contortion that is meant to represent puzzlement but probably looks more like a pre-sneeze face. Other people in the street look incredulously at each other, their faces screaming ‘she does know that there’s no child, right?’ Whether the root cause of this epidemic is child theft or a surplus of pushchairs in the Oxfordshire area is unclear. But the man in the street is right to be incredulous; he knows something is missing.
“…a Faberge egg for every 5 year old”
And so it is with politics. Despite the General Election campaign starting pretty much straight after new year, something is missing: detail. Both parties are pledging to cut public spending to reduce the budget deficit after the election. Neither have identified how this will happen. Labour carries on announcing big ticket expenditure items such as aircraft carriers, super-fast rail links, and a Faberge egg for every 5 year old, whilst simultaneously presiding over one of the largest ever cuts in capital spending the UK has seen. Despite the cut actually being quite sensible (and something that the Tories would laud if they were in government), Labour can’t make political capital from it because to do so would massively annoy their grassroots and the unions (from whom an increasingly broke party receives regular lifesaving cash-infusions).
So far this year, Gordon Brown has already faced another move against his leadership. Labour Leadership Crisis is one of those phrases that over the past two years seems to come and go like phases of the moon- unfortunately for Labour, all these leadership crises manage to demonstrate is how many of the Prime Minister’s own side dislike him, but also how inept the Parliamentary Labour Party are at organising anything. The fact that the latest rebellion was entrusted to Geoff Hoon, widely remembered as Buff-Hoon when Defence Secretary, seemed to doom the coup before it began. Given a bottle of whiskey, a revolver, and instructions to blow his brains out, Hoon could probably be relied on to miss. Yet despite this, the Tories have seen their poll lead drop to hung parliament territory.
There are several reasons for this dip in Tory support. Firstly, the latest coup seems perversely to have strengthened the PM; this is reflected by a more bellicose style at Prime Minister’s Questions which has left Dave literally red-faced at times. Secondly, Cameron has scored own goals on too many occasions this year. First it was tax breaks for married couples, a policy that changed three times in one day. Then this week, Osborne’s position of cutting ‘deeper and faster’ than Labour was undermined by Cameron saying that cuts wouldn’t come in the first year of a Tory Government. The public understandably are finding it increasingly difficult to discern how the Tories will differ from Labour in office when Tory policy seemingly changes by the minute.
“there is a real chance he might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”
Cameron’s dilemma is placating the right wing of his party in a way that doesn’t undo his attempts to detoxify the Tory brand. The own goals owe as much to party considerations as they do to a lack of confidence. As much as he may want to give away free puppies on the NHS there is a significant number of his party who like nothing more than to needlessly poke said puppies with knitting needles. What we end up with then is vacillation and vagueness; whilst Dave might not have the tracksuit, middle-aged waddle, slightly dazed look, or chair bereft of its juvenile payload, scrutiny is not favouring him or his party at the moment. The public is aware that something is missing from the debate, and if Cameron doesn’t regain his touch soon, there is a real chance he might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Cherwell Fashion Guide to… Literary Loveliness
All-access backstage pass to this week’s fashion shoot, inspired by The Great Gatsby, The Edge of Love, Bridget Jones and other novels.
Review: Our Country’s Good
Our Country’s Good‘ by Timberlake Wertenbaker is set in the eighteenth century and is concerned with a collection of characters united by one feature – their desire to put on a play. Set on a convict ship, bound for Australia, officers, pick-pockets, murderers and hangmen feature in this play. The script has been edited to allow for a smaller cast of eight actors who took on multiple roles – a decision which was largely successful.
The production, directed by Charlotte Mulliner and Chloe Courtney, handled the aspects of meta-theatre particularly skillfully. The absence of flats was an acknowledgement of the play present in the script, as visible costume changes helped enforce the differentiation between the actors’ multiple characters. This is a play which depicts the performance of another play and so the production’s exposure of its own theatricality was especially powerful.
The direction provided moments of very powerful imagery, especially in the first scene when the audience is greeted by the sound of a ship at sea and the quivering body of a flogged man. This violence was used again to great effect in one of the ‘rehearsal’ scenes with the sound of the whip adding to an already tense scene. Simple lighting provided a clear change of place between the gloom of the prison and the glare of daytime Australia and also created a stark and powerful atmosphere in the opening scene.
The acting was also of a very high standard. Character changes were generally handled with ease but could have, on occasion, been a little more defined. In one unfortunate case the multitude of roles led to over-characterisation and undue emphasis on external mannerisms. But, again, the success of the production as a whole meant that we can probably forgive them. The most notable performances were those of the actors involved in the ‘rehearsal’ scenes; it takes a good actor to act acting, but, it seems, an even better one to act acting badly. Rachel Bull was particularly good as the darkly troubled Liz Morden and portrayed this complex character with skill and understanding. Alex Jeffery and Ashleigh Wheeler depicted the relationship between Midshipman Harry Brewer and Duckling Smith with sensitivity and depth. The developing intimacy between Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark and Mary Brenham, played by Rhys Bevan and Anna Maguire respectively, was treated with equal skill.
Overall, this is a production worth watching, prompting laughter as well as serious thought. The convicts’ comedy of manners is contained within a play which is substantially darker, questioning justice, perceived inferiority and the destruction caused by enforced inequality. This production captures the moods of both ‘plays’ effectively and is, as a result, an engaging and entertaining piece of theatre.
Four Stars
Writers on Track: NWF
I’m on Ebay looking for a filing cabinet that’s big enough to fit a human being in one of its drawers. Apparently I might be able to get one in Stockport. If I can collect it myself and bring it back to Oxford. The cabinet will play a crucial part in the set of The Fireflies, one of the four brand new student plays that OUDS is putting on in 7th week this term at the Burton Taylor.
Written by fresher David Shackleton, The Fireflies (which will be directed by Rimika Sollaway) is an absurdist piece about a Filer and his boy that will run in tandem with Revival (Carla Neuss), a play set in a unique bar where telling a story gets you a drink. Sounds like a beautiful system to me, that is until, one by one, the rules begin to break. Revival will be directed by Sarah Perry.
Come into the BT on the Wednesday or Friday, or for the Saturday matinee, and you can see the second pair of plays. Toffee is a play by Charlotte Geater, in which we meet a boy called Alfie whose girlfriend is missing and whose records are on repeat. It’s partner is Instead of Beauty (Richard O’Brien), a character-driven black comedy about coming of age.
These four scripts were chosen from thirty-seven entries for the festival, with four directors then selected to take charge. The journey from page to stage has already led to some exciting decisions: Sarah Perry will be giving Revival a circus twist, complete with atrapeze, having enlisted the help of SIL3NC3 illusionist Simon Kempner. This made for some unexpected questions in the auditions last week: ‘Can you juggle? What about tap dancing?’ Rimi Solloway will transform the onstage theatre technicians of The Fireflies, as specified in the script, into characters who gracefully but systematically tear apart the routine life of the Filer, and also wants to experiment with a creature that lives inside that filing cabinet.
In Instead of Beauty characters’ nationalities have changed, supported by director Abhishek Bhattacharyya’s detailed biographies, which give his actors information on their roles stretching back to early childhood. If this play, with its quick-witted but highly real interchanges between its four characters – two boys, two girls, six relationships – lies at the opposite end of the spectrum to the absurdism of The Fireflies‘ then Toffee, directed by Meg Bartlett, sits somewhere in the middle.
Even as Alfie’s friends try to comfort him and get him to carry on with his life after his girlfriend’s disappearance, they are very aware of, and keen to talk to, the spectators in front of them, and in performance the audience will become another character in the drama.
All four plays have been cast and are now in rehearsal, and the NWF promises to be one of the highlights of this term.
It also has an important role to play in terms of student drama: this is a festival that offers new writers the chance to see their work live on stage, and to develop it, as well as allowing directors and actors to play with completely fresh, untouched material. In fact, the cast of Revival have already pledged to try drinking every type of alcohol mentioned in their script – all in the name of method acting, of course.
Review: One Life Stand by Hot Chip
Hot Chip’s fourth album opens with a pounding four-to-the-floor kick drum; listeners could be fooled into thinking the follow up to 2008’s acclaimed Made In The Dark is a beat-driven techno record conceived in the underground clubs frequented by the band members as they hone their formidable DJ skills.
In typical Hot Chip fashion however, this opener, ‘Thieves in the Night’, suddenly twists and turns, introducing you to what is actually a more soulful sound – akin to Detroit’s famed soul (not techno) tradition.
Hot Chip have clearly made an effort to shape things up since their last offering: the abundance of live instruments, opposed to the normal ‘softsynth’ sound, is audible from the start. It gives the songs a refreshing jam session feel, worlds away from the more clinical sound fans are used to. This is best heard in ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ whose acoustic rhythm track and piano stabs sound like a product of The Temptations.
‘Alley Cats’, with its melancholy vocal melody and understated accompaniment, suggests the band has focused on creating heartfelt pop songs, rather than experimental masterpieces. This is seen again in the title track, a number whose quirkiness is utterly infectious; it displays the band at its best, combining raw emotion with danceability.
However, the record is not without its flaws. More attention to concision would have helped the record keep focus. There are a couple of tracks that could have been cut without too many tears. ‘I Feel Better’ goes for the retro 80s throwback vibe, with synthetic strings and auto-tuned vocals, yet it ends up feeling dated, and dare I say, tacky?
Overall, the album’s well worth a listen – it’s undeniably toe-tapping, and the choruses will stay in your head all day, whether you want them to or not!
Four Stars
Review: Odd Blood by Yeasayer
Brooklyn boys Yeasayer’s latest effort is an unashamed adventure into the much-explored land of pop. However, the kind of pop the record offers is less clear. Whether this is art-pop, synth-pop or electro-pop is open to debate; I could continue listing unnecessary and slightly pretentious labels for sub genres without finding a suitable home for Odd Blood and it’s this unorthodoxy that gives the album its charm.
The record, the band’s second, offers a dense wall of sound from the outset, utilising the most unlikely instrumental combinations throughout. The opener, ‘The Children’, is a mix of pianos and synths and trumpets and drums and guitars and vocals, creating a patchwork of sonic tapestries without sounding messy or overdone. The eccentricity of the ditty is exacerbated by the warped vocals that sound like Thom Yorke’s voice sped up and slowed down and then superimposed on top of each other. Wonderful stuff. ‘Madder Red’ exemplifies the record’s penchant for catchy hooks, with an ‘ooooh ooooh’ vocal sounding intermittently, before reverberating round your head for the following week. The sonically epic sounding drums are straight out of a Tears For Fears song with their unimaginable amount of reverb and synthy sound.
This 80s influence is a feature throughout the record that frequently borrows from the past. Yet it never falls into pastiche, and it instead it achieves the rare feat of sounding both retro and fresh simultaneously as shown in ‘ONE’, which is a contender for song of the decade so far (granted we’re only a few weeks in). African, tribal sounding drum rhythms oscillate throughout, uniting with eccentric synths and Eurhythmics style vocal lines to produce a track that’ll make you dance. A lot.
To me, the most attractive feature of Odd Blood is its optimistic feel (which delves into euphoria on the odd occasion). It’s unapologetically uplifting, and despite it occasionally being so hyper you feel you may have a seizure, it never fails to disappoint.
Interview: Dev Heynes
It’s fair to say that Devonte Hynes’ latest musical project came as a surprise to fans of his first. From bad-ass teen dance-punk in Test Icicles to cat-hugging folkie in Lightspeed Champion, you couldn’t get further removed. Now, as Lightspeed Champion, he is making a follow-up, Life Is Sweet! Nice to Mee You – has he found his calling? Especially given that he said of Test Icicles ‘We were never that keen on the music. I understand that people liked it, but we personally, er, didn’t,’ it seems plausible.
Or so I thought. ‘The only reason I said that was to shut up the person I was talking to’ he laughs. ‘People haven’t noticed that I meant the complete opposite. Everyone over-analysed us. Even when we said we weren’t gonna do it any more, people kept trying to analyse why.’ It became quickly apparent to me tha talking to this man about his ‘calling’ was entirely misplaced. Nor was it correct to place any emphasis on the decision to continue with the name Lightspeed Champion: ‘People sholdn’t pay attention to the names they’re released under – it’s distracting. A lot of people who liked the last one, won’t like this one… I don’t progress’. If lead single ‘Marlene’ is anything to go by, then you can’t say it follows on from his debut, Falling Off Lavender Bridge. A stomping riff, angular strings, anthemic chorus, Killers-style organ breakdown then an electrifying solo, with no defining genre in the song; there’s little hope of genre consistency across albums.
That’s no bad thing, but might fans get alienated? Hynes frankly isn’t too concerned about this. ‘I’m selfish’ he laughs. ‘The only reason I make music is for myself to listen to… I wanted something which was kinda ridiculous, I wanted it to be over the top’. Talking to him is certainly refreshing, and he isn’t afraid of the ridicule that may accompany being ridiculous. ‘I remember when I was really young I was reading a Beach Boys book, and Brian Wilson said that he thought laughter in music was the best thing – such a pure form of emotion’. As a former member of a band named Test Icicles, that he doesn’t take himself all that seriously shouldn’t come as a major surprise.
But along with a sense of humour, Test Icicles always had edge. As a fan, I was fascinated to hear about the events surrounding the cult band’s brief career – their live shows (‘people hated us so much… we used to end the show freestyle rapping for twenty minutes. And the feedback!’), the parties (‘it was so fucking awful – I got in a fight and got thrown down a staircase’) and the demos (it seemed I was the only person he met who had heard early demo ‘Semen On The Stepladder’, or at least, had even the slightest bit of time for it.)
But as Hynes observes, ‘I never really changed’, and his lyrics especially still have bite. See ‘pop’ song ‘Galaxy Of The Lost’, and lines like ‘When we kiss and I’m sick in your mouth’. Okay so there isn’t the threat of violence and resultant loss of limbs like ‘Dancing on Pegs’ (youtube it for a genuinely terrifying experience, and then look up the lyrics and never sleep again).
However, it seemed reasonable to ask whether this retained edge was a conscious decision, to make the transition from scary-as-hell dude to folk popster (or otherwise) more palatable. He gave two answers, and, predictably, both were unexpected. On the one hand it didn’t matter, because ‘we thought Test Icicles was like the poppiest thing in the world… It just turns out I’m wrong, all the time.’ Not that I was going to tell him he was ‘wrong’, just a band whose name is a pun on testicles is unlikely to be a chart-topper. On the other, the lyrics weren’t consciously anything in particular: ‘I spend ten minutes on lyrics. If I spent any time on it, it would come out worse.’ His compact method of songwriting has resulted in a number of EPs and official bootlegs, such as I Wrote And Recorded This In Less Than Five Hours. ‘I don’t overthink. I’m never stuck musically. It’s a curse in a way, because I produce quantity rather than quality. If I spent time on stuff it might turn out better…’ Whatever he’s doing has certainly worked to this point .
This individual style has led to conflict when people try to interfere. Animal Collective producer Ben Allen worked on the new record, and for the first time Hynes experienced this tension first hand: ‘it was pretty intense. He’s someone that’s very in to being a producer: ‘Maybe lets try it with this sound, I kinda like this part,’ and I was always ‘well, we COULD do that, or we could do what I wrote.’ It was like that every day.’
The strange thing was, Hynes didn’t come across as a the control-freak he seemed to present himself as. In fact, he came across as incredibly chilled. He summed it up himself, saying ‘I very strategically write songs, it’s all mapped out… but at the same time, I’m very easy going.’ I’ll say. And at the end of the day, he is tolerant, even of his meddlesome producer: ‘I see it as all such an experiment that I’m willing to go for a ride – even if it ends up kinda wrong.’ For not only is Hynes a music maker, he’s a music fan. And any route which might produce something totally original, he’s happy to explore.
Interview: Tom Stoppard
What would you give Tom Stoppard for Christmas? A previously undiscovered Shakespeare manuscript? Unlikely. A time machine? Obscure. Jumpers, perhaps? He’s probably got enough of these.
In fact, this year it may have been futile to search high and low for the world’s greatest present for, perhaps, the greatest contemporary British playwright. Because while you were searching for an alternative to socks and a random assortment of jellied fruits, the cast and crew of The Invention of Love trumped the most valiant of efforts.
‘It was my best Christmas present,’ says Stoppard, regarding the news that his ‘favourite play’, the play Stoppard ‘enjoyed writing more than any other’, would be coming to its place of origin, Oxford. Possibly too hard to beat, then.
Stoppard is a charming man, and incredibly modest. Our conversation begins with his mistaking me for a journalist from the Oxford Mail. He seems slightly perturbed, if not flustered. I quickly reassure him that I am not a hack fresh out of the City Journalism course, and, in fact, an amateur posing as a journalist, a writer from Cherwell. This settles him: he has, after all, interviewed for this very paper, not two years ago. That it was the only interview he granted whilst in Oxford speaks a thousand words.
Stoppard is passionate about undergraduate life; as much comes out of the play itself. Stoppard has already met the director of The Invention of Love, Roger Granville, for coffee. One might think that directing Stoppard’s favourite play, a play that is so literarily rich, so steeped in its place of origin, in the history of its characters, would be a daunting task. The Invention of Love has been described as Stoppard’s most literary play, even his most difficult play. Stoppard has only the best things to say about Granville: ‘I think what one wants most of all is that the director is somebody who just loves the play and has responded to it, and so I’m very pleased about that…. it’s not a play which is widely done, [so] I’m really thrilled that somebody’s doing it’. This is as good a write up as I’ve ever heard for a play.
The Invention of Love is a play for Oxford today. Set in 1880s Oxford, the Oxford of Wilde, an ‘Oxford in the Golden Age’, as it is referred to in the last lines of the play, The Invention of Love centres around the life and loves of A.E. Housman, a scholar and a poet, who, whilst at St. John’s, falls in love with his friend and must suffer the silence of the ‘love that has no name’ – namely, his latent homosexuality.
The play becomes part discussion of the place homosexuality had to play in the later nineteenth century, part a beautiful insight into fin-de-siècle Oxford, with characters such as Ruskin, Pater, and even Oscar Wilde forming a rich historical backdrop to what is, in Stoppard’s words, a story ‘about a man who falls in love when he’s an undergraduate, and essentially remains enthralled by an impossible unrequited love for the rest of his life’.
Why would The Invention of Love be Stoppard’s favourite play? Due to its numerous classical allusions, some reviewers have called the play ‘esoteric’; the New York Magazine rather caustically noted that ‘Stoppard has lately managed to be too clever by three quarters’. In fact, to demystify the play’s many historical and academic references, the New York production team provided the audiences with a thirty-page booklet on the political and artistic history of the late-Victorian period. In both cases, the play seems to have been misunderstood.
Stoppard picks up on this; he ‘would be sorry to think of it, or…be sorry if people thought it was a difficult play, because part of the fun is to take something which sounds difficult like Latin scholarship, and make it intelligible and interesting…I think theatre is a recreation’. The Invention of Love is first and foremost a play about the emotions, rather than the intellect: this is to suggest, as Stoppard notes, that ‘the play was widely liked not just in London, but in New York, and that wouldn’t have been so had it not been the case that the play was working as a love story, in the broadest sense’.
Oxford is the best place for a play about both Latin and love. It is also extremely pertinent that the play be put in modern Oxford; a play set over one hundred years ago still speaks great truths about the Oxford experience today. What I took from the play was an essential dichotomy between Oxford as a place of great scholarship, and a place threatened by modernization.
At the beginning of the play, one of the characters notes ‘Great reform made us into a cramming shop. The railway brings in the fools and takes them away with their tickets punched for the world outside’. Is this not precisely the experience of Oxford today? For many, it’s less about Oxford students as Classics scholars, more a question of Oxford students as potential management consultants.
If this is Tom Stoppard’s ‘most esoteric play’, this need not be taken disparagingly; on the contrary, it proposes an enjoyment of the moment we are presently occupying. It is for this reason that perhaps the best line of the play is the last one: ‘How lucky to find myself standing on this empty shore, with the indifferent waters at my feet’. Surely this is the most pertinent perspective one could possibly have about an Oxford education?
In the play, it is precisely Oxford which is the centrepiece of the action. Stoppard reflects, ‘Housman expresses sympathy for Wilde when he says you’ve lived at the wrong time, you should have lived in Megara when one could publish poetry to the boy one loved, and so on…Wilde rejects this attempt to sympathize with him; he says…on the contrary, this world, this England, at this time, where he, as it were, exhibited his values and people paid attention to him.’
The Invention of Love promises great things. That Stoppard is ‘really thrilled that somebody’s doing it’, that it made his Christmas, is but one reason. Stoppard’s favourite play, perhaps his most personal play, must be met with an embrace for the current moment – for this Oxford, at this time. From this perspective, the ‘indifferent waters’ of The Invention of Love look inviting indeed.
The Invention of Love is at the Oxford Playhouse, February 17-20.
First Night Review: Equus
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. You might say that, but did they make you go and stab a load of horses in the eye?
I know what you’re thinking, great premise for a play. Been done I’m afraid. And bloody brilliantly. There’s always a great risk when students take on a play as well-known as Equus, let alone one so challenging both technically and emotionally. But there’s little if no disappointment at the OFS this week, for this production revels in the opportunity for experiment in the script and pulls it off with great maturity.
As always, we’ve got to allow for certain restrictions in student theatre, and the set and props are basic. But this doesn’t really hold them back, and in some ways what it asks you to imagine can be much more effective than what it might have explicitly shown you. And in the end those horses heads are freaking disturbing.
Director Anna Hextall uses the space well, moving between scenes seamlessly by making simple but clever use of just a few chairs, and some tactical movement; in seconds a psychiatrist’s office becomes a beach, a stable or a cinema of disrepute. The horses in particular were very unsettling, whose actions had clearly been given a lot of thought. The discordant humming noise they emmitted and the ritual ‘placing on of heads’ each time they appeared became a little farcical towards the end, but on the whole it was fantastically creepy.
The acting was generally excellent. Edward Fortes and Joe Murphy, as child psyhiatrist Dysart and eye-stabber Alan respectively, were outstanding. It’s rare that you see performances which go so far beyond your expectations, and these two stood out as being near-professional on the night. Fortes was perfectly charming and engaged well with
the audience – his various monologues were particular highlights, coming across as both natural and genuinely heartfelt. Murphy was equally enjoyable in a role which demanded serious commitment. He moved well from agression to vulnerability, and his expressive face and voice were so watchable I only once asked myself how Harry Potter might have done it. All the other performances were also very commendable, but I couldn’t help but praise these two extensively.
After such a protruding eulogy, I feel duty-bound to add that this wasn’t a perfect production. Of course not. But to pick apart any possible faults would be to contaminate the immediate impact this play can have on its audience. It’s not all serious, mind, and is also importantly very entertaining; full of witty dialogue, black humour and diverse characters. But there’s certainly a lot more to it than that. Words like ‘powerful’ and ‘profound’ are all too easily bandied around with theatre like this, but what else can you say? It’s really…good.
And I haven’t even mentioned the nudity yet. How mature of me. Really, I don’t see what the fuss is about… It’s no skin off my penis.
But how did the audience cope? Aside from a smattering of stifled giggles, they remained surprisingly calm, even if a notable stillness took over the room. Then there was the obligatory scandalous texting and exclamations of surprise in the interval, but it ran far short of hysteria. And I heard the words ‘Daniel Radcliffe’ mentioned only three times. So all in all a good performance. Well done audience!
‘Equus ice cream’, on the other hand: horse shit.
Play: 5 Stars
Audience: 3 Stars
Equus is on at the OFS, 2-6 February
