Third week is shaping up to be Shakespeare week, or more specifically, Shakespeare comedy week. An experimental take on Much Ado incorporating shopping trolleys and hat stands has already attracted rave reviews from this paper, and we have high hopes for All’s Well that Ends Well, the first of Trinity term’s garden plays, to be acted out on a Magdalen lawn in the summery evening air. So what of Mary Franklin’s production of Twelfth Night which, by the sounds of its director’s spiel, will occupy ground somewhere between the graceful traditionalism of Rafaella Marcus’s All’s Well and the chaos of Much Ado?

In Twelfth Night, we are told, there are two lives that not only are devoted to love but suitably ‘stultified’ by it. Here we have, Illyria: ‘a land paralyzed, set in slow motion, transfixed by dust’. Going by very select scenes I was shown at the preview, this intriguing premise is not followed up. I saw no evidence of dust nor of paralysis – unless you count the paralysed look on the actors’ faces when yet another line was forgotten or entry was mistimed. Facebook excites me with the promise of a radical production combining sexual languor and underlying homoeroticism, excessive drunkenness and madness. But as for the ‘radical production’ bit: if Franklin thinks that putting Orsino, Sir Toby et. al in expensive suits and chopping the script up bit is radical then she is sadly mistaken.

Tom Woodward is suitably melodramatic in the role of Orsino – at times enjoyable, he is the show’s most decent performer. Agnes Meath-Baker, on the other hand, whom this reviewer enjoyed so much in Black Comedy, is disappointing as our transvestite heroine. She clearly possesses talent, though not for impersonating men. She also seems visibly affected by the presence of Woodward, constantly trying to overdo his well-honed preening peacock act with ever more gratuitous displays of emotion.

Among the other characters whom I saw, Jacob Follini-Press is competent and entertaining, yet captured nothing of Sir Andrew’s oblivious stupidity, preferring rather to endow his character with a certain hedonistic foppishness more appropriate, in fact, for the character of Sir Toby.

Do not get me wrong. There is nothing that is awfully bad about this production; but there isn’t much good either, and my main concern upon leaving the preview was the lack of organisation. For unexplained reasons I was not treated to Malvolio or Maria or Olivia, and only caught a glimpse of the actress playing Feste. A preview that consisted of scenes chopped up inexplicably, stumbled lines and one character reading directly from his script certainly did not allay my fears that this is a disorganised troupe of undoubtedly able actors who will have to put in a lot of hard work in order to make this play worth paying seven pounds for.

two stars out of five 

Twelfth Night is on at the OFS studio, Tuesday-Saturday of 3rd Week, 19.30

Kids are great right? Cherubic mini-people. Their greatest concern – making the tortuous decision to that eternal question: Hannah Montana or High School Musical? Bless their little hearts, etc. Or not. Thank god we have cinematic evidence to expose the vile demonic truth – kids are fucking scary. Personally, kids scare the shit out of me even without the added bonus of being the spawn of Satan, so Damian in Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976) seriously begs the question: why have a kid if it could end up hanging all your domestic staff? That film is one of the most effective methods of contraception I’ve come across. Try it.

The finest in the that-kid’s-so-scary-I-don’t-even-want-to-see-another-kid-let-alone-have-one brand, however, is surely found in Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002). You go through the miserable, longwinded process of adoption and all you get at the end of it is Samara: the most truly horrifying horror-child ever created. You’d have thought a child standing still and not saying anything for a few hours would be a positive thing, but oh no. One controversial, but valuable tip this film will teach you: if you see a child stuck down a well DO NOT HELP IT OUT.

Similarly terrifying is The Sound of Music (1965). The thought of losing several perfectly good curtains just so your kids can have play clothes to cycle around Austria in is enough to force my womb into a perpetual strike, and it should be enough for yours too.

Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy (2003) provides convincing evidence that having kids = emotional pain/self disgust. Do you want even the slightest risk of someone to locking you in a room for 15 years, then hypnotising you into committing incest with your own daughter? Thought not.

Finally, Chris Columbus’ Home Alone (1990): if Macauley Culkin had never been born, sure, his family home would have been subject to some heavy theft while they were on holiday, but you tell me how his parents are going to get shavingfoam/blood/tar/chicken feathers/crushed pieces of toy cars out of the carpet?

Enough said.

Coraline is meant for children, but this darkly beautiful twisted fairytale is sure to appeal to audiences of all ages. Henry Selick (director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach) once again triumphs in the world of stop motion animation. Coraline bemoans her boring existence, feeling ignored by her parents in their new home. Upon discovering a tiny secret door she discovers there is more to the house, and steps into a happier reflection of her own world, complete with her apparently charming “other mother”. Attention is lavished on her, and rather than irritations her neighbours become entertainment. All is not as it seems in the other world though, and Coraline has more than herself to save.

The film is Selick’s first venture into the world of 3D, now apparently a prerequisite for children’s films. While the majority simply use this gimmick to disguise woeful plotlines, Coraline really works in 3D. Rather than being poked in the eye, the audience is drawn into the scene: every frame is beautifully illuminated, with a depth that inevitably leaves the audience enchanted. From a magic garden with a thousand flowers slowly unfurling and lighting up, reminiscent of Disney’s Fantasia, to a circus full of jumping mice, the scenery is stunning. As in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Selick carefully employs the use of colour, leaving the real world as plain as possible to make the Other world all the more sumptuous.

The plot manages to wear its traditional “be careful what you wish for” morality well, even if it is a little over-reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland at times – complete with Cheshire Cat. There’s enough action and intrigue to keep everyone involved though. The twists might not be ground-breaking, but done this well they still grab your attention.

Clever characterisation, particularly that of supporting characters Mr Bobinsky, the retired Russian acrobat upstairs, and Misses Spink and Forcible, rotund retired actresses downstairs, will keep even adults entertained. . Spink and Forcible (French and Saunders) are exceptionally well cast, exuding energy and vitality. Much like Shrek the script manages subtle nods to grown-up humour, while not alienating its core audience – no small achievement. Coraline excels as a protagonist too, a fully developed character rather than a moping Disney brat, with a distinct attitude and some impressive brains.

Adults might wonder if the film is too scary for children – it had me gasping at times – but the little ones leave enthralled, not afraid. The film manages to blend the terrifying and the surreal to sublime effect: a children’s classic in the making. A perfect fairytale, Coraline dazzles in every sense.

With the new Star Trek movie being a Casino Royale-style re-launch of the

series, as die-hard ‘trekkies’, the Oxford Star Trek Society had our

reservations about the upcoming film. With the franchise having stalled in

recent years, many attempts have been made to inject new life into it (with

novels, computer games, and of course the last series), all with limited

degrees of success. The latter, Star Trek:Enterprise, was widely criticised for its

frequent and unnecessary breaking of the established canon, resulting in

its premature termination after four seasons. Star Trek is such a long

running show, that it is only natural for its keenest fans to expect to be

rewarded with a seamless continuity in return for their investment and

viewership. Thus, when JJ Abrams announced his intention to create a ‘new’

Star Trek canon (with changes justified by the alternate timeline generated

by the movie’s sinister villain, Nero), I expected to be disappointed.

Delightfully, however, I was wrong.

The movie was very easy to get into: the back story is built up in a smooth

manner for the new viewer, with a  pleasant number of unobtrusive nods to

the previous incarnations of Trek to suit long-time fans: it was nice to see

Uhura’s earpiece, for example, being almost unchanged amidst the gorgeous

new bridge set. Engineering was a mild disappointment, the familiar warp

core being replaced by a vast factory-like set of pipes and machinery, yet

the rest of the sets remained reasonably true to form, the ‘i-enterprise’

(as someone termed it) offering a more believable bridge between the gritty

technology of Star Trek: Enterprise and the later shows than the unique style of the

original series. The new USS Enterprise is a thing of beauty, and the

graphics in the movie really do her credit: long gone are the wooden, planar

ship movements of old, the effects screaming graceful action all the way

through. The music too, reminiscent of the classical pieces of the previous

movies, is excellently composed and sets the mood well.

One main critique would be the underdevelopment of some of the characters.

Scotty, McCoy and Chekov feel redundant, present only to complete the

original bridge crew set, and the villain of the piece is so little fleshed

out that his inevitable defeat feels almost irrelevant, and rather rushed,

at the end of movie. Perhaps, however, this is because of the core essence

of Trek, which has always been essentially about personal issues, rather

than the futuristic setting: Abrams has captured this well in the growing

trust between Kirk and Spock, while the frequent action scenes keep the plot

from getting too slow.

In the end, my only issue with this new show and its continuity was not that

it exists, but that such a wonderful film couldn’t fit exactly with the

canon I know and love: it seems only a shame the movie could not have been

written in such a way to make that possible. I look forward to there being

many sequels. This is a must-see, for old fans and for new.

I don’t understand this play, and I don’t think you will either. For starters it’s actually a ‘quick script splicing job’ of two plays (The Servant’s Ball and Blitzkrieg) by Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera. Marechera, who died in 1987 after an eventful life – which included getting sent down from New College – apparently wrote about colonialism and corruption and all sorts of things self-styled theatre activists climax over.
The promo http://www.marecheracelebration.org/SBBK.html isn’t much help in understanding the production, being filled with more chunky polysyllabic goodness than an essay of a lit student on a verbal enema. It’s amazing that in all those words, there’s barely anything on the plot. This is probably because, as far as I could tell, there isn’t one. The fact that the audience’s attention is constantly ping-ponged from one scene in one play to another scene in another play probably makes things worse.
Having said that, I rather enjoyed it. I say ‘rather’ because the Servant’s Ball bits were playful while the direction for Blitzkrieg frothed with the kind of morbid angst I left behind in my teens, thank-you-very-much. The cast played off one another well and each gave their stock characters remarkably unpretentious performances (maybe they didn’t understand the play either) in cutely naff and quirky costumes. Special credit goes to Priyanka Mantha and Sophie Lewis, although the latter distorted the upbeat group dynamics somewhat with a heavier, more serious stage presence.
The real sparkle, however, lay in the directors’ use of sounds. Mixed with the lines and actors’ voices were live musical accompaniment, singing, choral speech, wallas, rhymes, all making for a lively aural ensemble. In one witty word-game the actors looked like they were really having fun, which made it all the more enjoyable to watch.
Less enjoyable was the dancing. I’m not sure how many of the cast had diplomas in interpretative dance, but here’s a tip: if you can’t do it, don’t. The average audience member (i.e. me) is unlikely to decipher Postcolonial Subversion of the Hegemonic Neo-colonial Socioeconomic Matrix from what looks very much like A Plain Old Mess. The blocking in general was very disordered, with characters showing little reason for their movements and occasionally walking through imaginary walls.
Ultimately, there’s a lot of promise here which could go either way. Here’s hoping that they up the energy, up the lights, sounds and fun, because ultimately fun, for the sake of nothing but itself, is the most subversive thing of all.

three stars

The Servant’s Ball Blitzkrieg will be playing at the Wadham Moser Theatre, Monday-Friday 3rd Week, 19.30. Tickets cost £7(£5)