Seasick Steve is back with his new album ‘Man From Another Time’. He’s bringing us no surprises; he retains the same unique, personable style that can only be achieved by a man who spent the earlier half of his life living ‘rough’, and now waxes lyrical about these past life experiences, accompanied by his now well-known array of ancient, defective guitars and makeshift percussion instruments, as time-worn and knockabout as the man himself.

Steve’s latest offering treats us once again to his unique, raw style of accomplished blues guitar playing, and his simple but effective storytelling charm – his sparsely worded nuggets of wisdom and anecdotes both humorous and poignant make for a touching narrative that will engage most listeners, even if on only the most basic of humanitarian levels. Four albums in, however, the phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” springs to mind, and it’s arguable that Steve is making music in a dated style, and presenting it unfashionably. Yet, if Seasick Steve were to thrice pluck his ‘Three String Trance Wonder’ and have all of his fans simultaneously appear in the same room, it would be a diverse bunch of people. Whereas many blues records being produced today exhibit a studio gloss far from its humble route, Steve produces raw and intimate affairs, and seemingly, this still has the capacity to appeal to a wide demographic.

Many of his tracks feature his Norwegian rhythm section, The Level Devils, but it’s his solo moments that prove the most effective. Take, for example, the title track of the album, which is about finding yourself older than you ever thought you would. With just his voice and his string deficient guitar, it’s moments like these that give this album its value.

It’s not poetic genius, and the songs couldn’t be described as ‘catchy’, but that’s not what the blues are for. The blues are raw, soulful, and real; and that’s what we’re given here.

The danger with staging a whodunit is that the performance can easily end up as a crude rehashing of an episode of Poirot. Posh accents, country houses, hysterical swooning from left to right are all elements that seem now to have become prerequisites of any murder mystery.

Fortunately, though, a clever script and some imaginative directing have lifted this production of Go Back for Murder above the level of ITV Sunday night drama.

Having said that, this play does include all the classic ingredients we expect from Agatha Christie. Our expectations are repeatedly confounded as we struggle to tread a path strewn with red herrings.

What makes the play unusual, however, is that the murder is being investigated sixteen years after it was originally carried out. This allows for a sequence of flashbacks that depict retrospectively the day of the murder itself. But since these flashbacks are narrated by the various suspects, we never know whether what we are seeing is actually the truth.

The director Robert Holtom has handled adeptly the various problems that the complex temporal pattern presents. The flashbacks occur in the same space as the modern day action so that the movement between past and present never feels contrived. The regular scene changes that pervade the first half could have resulted in a lack of continuity but the directors have countered this problem by splitting the stage into four sections and lighting each one in turn.

The script requires its actors to maintain a sense of intrigue throughout, something that this cast achieves with formidable skill. Joe Robertson plays Justin Fogg with an air of bemused indifference that fits his role as investigator perfectly. Elsa Greer, played by Chloe Courtney, switches skilfully between softly spoken spite and brazen anger in an attempt to conceal her own insecurities. The only character that doesn’t quite deliver is Carla Crale, who, since we already know her to be innocent, has a rather flat and uninteresting role to play. However, Jenny Ross does her best to make the role as convincing as possible.

Whether you fancy yourself as an amateur sleuth or you simply want to witness an innovative piece of student drama, Go Back for Murder will not disappoint.

four stars

Go Back for Murder is at OFS Studio from Tuesday-Saturday of 3rd Week. Tickets £9/7

There are many painful things involved in watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus but by far the worst is the realisation that this, of all films, is to be Heath Ledger’s epitaph.

Upon finally escaping the cinema the lasting impression left on me was not the promised sense of child-like wonder but an all too adult sense of pity for Ledger, as he deserves a far better film as his swan song. The sad truth is that apart from the fascinating use of CGI there is very little to commend here: the film consists of a dark alignment of a loose plot, a lamentable script and some remarkably wooden acting, not to mention the persistence of rather ill-fitting motifs.

The film opens in a bleak 21st century London and follows the wandering troupe of the thousand year old Dr Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) on his eternal quest to open up the imaginations of the public by taking them through the Narnia-esque portal on his stage. Dr Parnassus is accompanied by Anton, a young magician and actor (Andrew Garfield), an assistant named Percy (Verne Troyer) and his ethereal daughter Valentina (Lily Cole). It soon transpires that Parnassus made a bet with the devil (Tom Waits) some years ago and as a consequence will have to surrender Valentina to him when she turns sixteen, which happens to be in three days’ time.

The devil offers Parnassus one last chance to save his daughter: the first to claim five souls wins and the battle for these souls will be waged in the fantastic world through the portal. Crossing Blackfriars Bridge after another unsuccessful night they stumble across Tony (Heath Ledger) hanging beneath them. Tony is on the run after defrauding the children’s charity he once ran. With his cheeky showmanship and sleight of hand Tony gives Parnassus’ troupe the edge in their contest with the devil.

Conceptually this does not sound too bad as a plot line. However, almost anything that could work in this film does not. The only memorable performances are given by Waits, who clearly had been waiting for this role his whole life, and, thankfully, by Ledger himself. Lily Cole, though visually ideal, suffers in the parts where she is required to speak. In fairness she is hamstrung by poor dialogue, which includes such killer lines as ‘Sweet sixteen, the age of consent’. Garfield, in his role as Anton, seemed to have given up on any pretence of trying to act his part well and instead delivered each line with febrile desperation; as if he too couldn’t wait for the film to end.

Then there was the whole host of other minor sins which made the film unwatchable: the pastiche of a Russian oligarch and his bodyguards, the scene where a row of London policemen line dance in drag in front of a sign saying ‘Join us if you love violence’ and, perhaps most unforgivably, the scene where Depp soliloquises by the riverfront as photos of Princess Di, James Dean and Rudolph Valentino float by: ‘They are forever young; they won’t grow old’.

Neither will Heath Ledger, but the sooner this film is forgotten the better he will be remembered.

one star

If you are planning to visit London anytime this term then this exhibition is a must-see. With his innovative and controversial approach to exhibition curation, David Solkin tells the story of Turner’s life, education, work and influences, placing him in the context of the art that shaped him.
Whilst Turner was a highly independent artist, forging a new genre of landscape painting, he was also deeply engaged with his artistic predecessors and contemporaries.

Indeed, Turner was constantly reacting to his artistic heritage and declared that ‘we may suffer ourselves to be too much led away by great names and to be too much subdued by their overbearing authority’. Turner would not be too much subdued – his responses to other works strike a complex balance of homage and one-upmanship. This exhibition provides an excellent insight into Turner’s methods, growth and unremitting ambition, and challenges the way we view his work.

The exhibition presents us with a series of dialogues between Turner and his influences. Turner’s presentation alongside his rival water colourist Thomas Girtin invites a fascinating critical comparison, and one which was commonly made when the two first emerged.

Girtin’s ‘Lindisfarne Castle’ is clearly referenced in Turner’s ‘Warkworth Castle’, whilst Girtin’s work is less detailed, using broad sweeping strokes, Turner is almost painfully tentative, the warm rays of sun illuminating the castle and the delicate ripples on the shore.

The pair’s rivalry was ended with Girtin’s death in 1802, but Turner continued to reference him, especially his iconic ‘The White House at Chelsea’ as shown by Turner’s ‘The Lauerzersee with the Mythens’.

four stars

Turner and the Masters is at Tate Britain until 31st January. Admission £12.50/£10.50

In this uniquely comparative exhibition, we are able to see not only the battles Turner wins but also the ones he loses. At times we see his own ambition defeat him as he attempts to rival Titian with scenes of religious figures such as his ‘The Holy Family’, in which the people are wooden and unengaging. At times, it seems that Turner had his fingers in too many pies.

Another target of his rivalry was his contemporary David Wilkie. Wilkie, painting in the style of David Teniers, was celebrated for his realism, presenting evocative and unvarnished scenes from quotidian life. A particularly charming example is ‘The Blind Fiddler’ with its touching detail of a child’s drawing pinned to the cupboard. Turner’s attempt in ‘A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price Charged to the Butcher for Shoeing his Pony’ seems by contrast as laboured and contrived as its title.

Also on display is Turner’s only royal commission from George V ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’, which was Philip James de Loutherbourg’s ‘The Glorious First of June’. The two monumental works comprise part of a larger commission commemorating the naval victories of the Hanoverian dynasty and were to be hung in the St. James palace, either side of George III’s portrait. When de Loutherbourg’s was first displayed it had been attacked for inaccuracy, however this was completely overshadowed by the controversy that Turner caused.

In response to a barrage of complaints from sailors, Turner spent eleven days making minor adjustments but this did little to calm the storm. The commission was intended to celebrate naval victories but Turner’s representation, with men suffering in the foreground and Victory’s falling mast, reminds us that the battle of Trafalgar was also a national tragedy because of Nelson’s death.

An exciting fact about this exhibition is that it reunites Turner’s ‘Helvoetsluys’ with Constable’s ‘Opening of Waterloo Bridge’, for the first time since they were exhibited together in the Royal Academy in 1832. The two were hung next to each other and in the final ‘varnishing days’ before its opening, Turner added a red buoy to his seascape to compete with Constable’s rich reds.

The incident is described by Constable’s first biographer, Charles Robert: ‘Turner stood behind [Constable], looking from the Waterloo to his own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where he was touching up another picture. And putting a round daub of red lead, somewhat bigger than a shilling on his grey sea, went away without saying a word.’ Constable famously said of the incident, ‘Turner has been here and fired a gun’.

This cut-throat competitiveness in Turner gives us a unique insight to the way in which he shaped and continually fed his own reputation, securing a place for himself among ‘the masters’.

Perhaps the most strikingly beautiful Turner of the show is his ‘Snow Storm’. The rough brush strokes play with your vision, leading it through an intricate dance with no firm resting point. Every element conspires to sweep you up in its watery vortex. Indeed, Turner reportedly told a friend of John Ruskin that he ‘wished to show what such a scene was like; I got the sailors to lash me to the mast to observe it.’

The painting itself, with its textured rhythm gives a real sense of the briny lashings of a sea storm and the deep vermilion hues descending from a dark cloud instil a theatrical violence.

The exhibition also contains Turner’s series from Venice with their marmalade skies and bustling jetties. The accompanying masterpieces by artists including Titian, Poussin, Rembrandt and Rubens are worth seeing in their own rights.
Altogether this exhibition provides a fine reconsideration of Turner’s oeuvre and is entirely worth a short trip on the Oxford Tube.

Pop art certainly lives up to its name at the current Tate exhibition, attracting a large and varied crowd of people with its display of art, media, entertainment and sex. The exhibition brings together the best in ‘pop’ art from its 1960s beginnings with Andy Warhol through to the 21st century with artists such as Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

The show succeeds in seamlessly bridging genre gaps and removing issues of categorisation, moving rapidly from video, music, paintings, sculpture, pornography, news clippings, collectable action figures, a room resembling an 80s disco and a fully functional shop… with a bit of art thrown in too.

The appeal of this exhibition for the less seasoned gallery-goer is its raw entertainment value. The show opens itself up to the same criticism as many of its lead artists – sensationalism and blatant capitalism, with displays such as Colley Fanny Tutti’s series of pornographic photographs of herself playing the role of prostitute and porno star, or Ashley Bickerton’s piece, which has a gauge valuing its current worth built in on the side. However, this is not at odds with the show as a serious curatorial endeavour. That this art is presented in rooms that resemble 80s discos more than the white cube walls of the rest of the Tate, allows it to be experienced in the way that it was created rather than through the lens of academia.

‘Pop Life’ presents an opportunity for the Tate Modern to live up to its objectives of making art accessible to a more general public, and create a platform for contemporary artists now. Rather than trying to make art accessible by having a nice restaurant, a boat to take you to the gallery and a great building, this is accessible art. In this regard, it feels like Tate has compromised somewhat.

Whilst the material on display feels like a fresh take on the pop art events of the recent past, situating Damien Hirst’s spot paintings next to a reconstruction of his performance piece from the 1992 ‘Unfair’ Art Fair, two identical spot paintings with two identical twins sitting directly beneath them, rotating with different pairs of twins in hourly slots.

The reference to Warhol’s multiple prints of the same celebrity and 1980s theories of the simulacra adorn the wall. This bringing to life of installation art and explanation with reference to the past, has a valid and useful place. But in contrast to this relevant history lesson, some of the other rooms can seem dated in their approach to a comparative history of art.

In the room dedicated to the history of Andy Warhol and the cult of the celebrity, the same material that has dominated all accounts and exhibitions of pop art since the 60s is repeated. The relevance of Warhol’s celebrity cult remains and can be seen throughout the rest of the show; it does not in my opinion need to be spelled out in the way that it is.

Warhol’s relevance puts the traditional art historical perspective back into what is otherwise an exhibition of renegade works. It casts the history book frame back over an exciting and interactive exhibition space in the manner of many recent Tate exhibitions, where curatorial concepts have seemed to dominate the bringing together of great works of art. This was the case with both the Futurism and the Constructivism exhibitions of early 2009.

The last room of the exhibition displays a Takashi Murakami music video. Kirsten Dunst in a blue wig and harijuku platforms blares out of a plasma television set; ‘I think I’m going Japanese, I think I’m going Japanese, I really think so’. Pop Life allows people to experience that art can be a shop or a video and that it is the word ‘art’ rather than the idea of a music video that is problematic.

These paradoxical concepts have always overshadowed the commentary on Pop Art. Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin’s work regularly appeared in the British tabloids throughout the 90s, with angry journalists asking the same old, tired question ‘is it art’. Pop Life doesn’t pander to these questions. Instead, it arguably shows where the value in contemporary art lies – in relevance,

entertainment and experience – and lets the viewer see it for themselves.
My lasting criticism of the show is its dependence on its curatorial past, which seems at odds with the intentions of the individual pieces in the show. For the viewer, this doesn’t need to detract from the overall experience.

The exhibition sells itself to you from the initial encounter with a human-size moulded manga girl, with Mr. Whippy like plastic milk streaming out of either breast to Keith Haring’s Pop Shop where you can buy a piece of the action in the form of children’s pin badges, t-shirts or inflatables.

When you leave the exhibition and cross Tate’s café area to the actual Tate exhibition shop, you are invited to buy postcards, posters, more Keith Haring work, as well as Tate commissioned Pop Life paraphernalia – such as an address book with the title ‘All business is good art’ on the front.

If you do proceed to the till with any such items, a glass cabinet to the left of it may catch your eye as it contains a giant ball constructed from felt flowers selling for £3,000, which of course is by Takashi Murakami himself – it doesn’t say how many of these are for sale at the official Tate shop, nor whether they offer home delivery. But the price tag firmly answers any question over whether it is art or not.

three stars

Pop Life is at Tate Modern until 17th January. Admission £12.50/£10.50