I do not know enough about opera to say whether Isabella Cheevers, lead soprano in Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement, is extraordinary or merely excellent. I know enough about theatre, though, to say this of her co-stars: bad acting looks even worse when set to music.

Additionally, I know enough about Oxford venues to wish that director and eminent thesp Max Hoehn had found anywhere – and I do mean anywhere – other than the Moser to stage this one-act comic opera. The technical explanation for such a small venue is that ‘young voices don’t carry’.

Well, if the audience can even hear the singers above Benedict Lewis-Smith’s excellent chamber orchestra, it will only be because countertenor Joe Bolger (who plays comic Cockney Mrs Kneebone with a kind of horrid friskiness) has no conception of the dynamics outlined in Berkeley’s 1950s score. His voice is extraordinary, but his performance much too self-satisfied. Casting the counter-tenor in a female role is the one interesting decision Hoehn has made.

The plot revolves around the visit of Grand Duchess (Cathy Bell) and her son (William Blake) to impoverished aristocrats George Coltart and Taya Smith. Smith, and Coltart in particular, both seem to think that opening eyes and mouth very wide constitutes acting. Blake has the tendency to move like a small, angry penguin, but sings divinely, in nice comic style. As an errand boy, Edmund Hastings gives the funniest performance, but unfortunately has only eight lines.

Isabella Cheevers doesn’t have a lot of voice (there are problems with aspiration and she’s a little weak above high F), but the voice she does have is outstanding. Combined with a welcome naturalness in her acting, she more than redeems the piece. Of the three stars which follow, one is for her, one for Berkeley’s witty, adventurous and allusive score, and one for the ambition of the director-conductor team.

You could do worse than see A Dinner Engagement: it has inspired me to see more opera. Just not this one.

Two stars

I am currently playing Otto in Through the Leaves, a remarkable play about the relationship between a tripe butcher and a heavy drinking factory worker set in 1970s West Germany, written by that country’s most frequently performed living playwright. It is the most enjoyable, moving and funny play that I’ve been in, and I’m writing this because I want people to come who’ve never heard of Franz Xaver Kroetz.

Kroetz was born in Munich in 1946. In the ‘60s he attended drama school, and worked as a banana cutter, a truck driver, and an orderly in a mental hospital to support himself. In the ‘70s he became an active member of the German Communist Party, and in 1971 attained celebrity when productions of two of his plays were disrupted by neo-fascists, causing the German police to place guards around the theatre. His 1970s plays depict men and women reduced to silence by their social condition, and are remarkable for their unflinching realism.

Approaching Kroetz is difficult; his style might be Beckettian, his silences Pinteresque – but that doesn’t say very much at all. Playwriting is, of course, a literary activity, but being a playwright is also about making, about labour and scaffolding: there’s a lot of grafting involved that isn’t primarily literary, but has more to do with making the play work.

Reading plays comparatively is like assessing houses solely on their HIPS report: does it have cavity wall insulation? Does it have loft insulation? You can ask of a play: does it have meaningful silences?, or, is there a sink on stage? All you will get is a series of ticked boxes – but you can’t tell from them whether you’re dealing with a tower block or the Palace of Versailles.

What attracted me about Kroetz was not the undoubted literary achievement of his plays, but the root cause behind them. Through the Leaves was written at a time when German communism had extended, in a few extreme cases, into terrorism: the Red Army Faction, formerly known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, were at large in Germany and committing violent murders in the name of freedom, and Kroetz, like many of his communist contemporaries, became a target for neo-fascist groups.

He would leave the communist party in 1980, having drawn disapproval for his unheroic characters; but at this time, he was an avowedly political playwright, whose plays depicted the faults and weaknesses of a society he wanted to reform. His work is arresting and fascinating as a result of the passions that motivated it and the ideas behind it. Kroetz’s profile in England should be much higher: his plays deserve wider recognition for their passionate and moving intensity.

Tears For Fears’ 1995 album, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending, could have been made for Donnie Darko. Its lilting melodies and bittersweet poetry are no less poignant than Mad World and no less nostalgic than Head Over Heels.

It is clear that Tears For Fears’ music in Donnie Darko had a massive impact on their career. Their previous release had been a best-of in 2001, with the last new work released in 1995. Curt Smith had left the band in 1990 and Roland Orzabal officially retired in 1996.

Basically, TFF was dead, and fans grieved. After Gary Jules released the single of Mad World, however, their old albums began flying off the shelf and they reunited to release an album, following it with a triumphant world tour.

Donnie Darko was riding the tip of the crest of a wave of 1980’s revival. Suddenly, enough time had passed for the 80’s to be cool again and TFF specifically were highlighted. They did not need the film to make them into a success, unlike Jules, they were already a success.

Donnie Darko merely reminded the public of the wonder and beauty of the best of a past era, complete with nostalgic images. Finally, there was more than one TFF song used, ‘Head Over Heels’ featuring in one of the most important sequences of the film.

So, the conclusion is clear. The career of Tears For Fears was thankfullly resurrected by the influence of the film: both are examples of popular culture reachimg the sublime.

It’s not often a kids’ movie makes an interesting point, but this time Pixar wasn’t afraid to step up to the mark and offend. In ninety minutes it cut us down to size, highlighting our selfishness, greed and apathy.

The film begins on earth, wholly deserted save for a little robot garbage collector named Wall-E and a planet-load of rubbish. He spends the first half hour of the film sifting through various relics of humanity which have now been left to rust.

One of the film’s many saving graces is its lack of celebrity; there are no Zach Efron or Lindsay Lohan voice-overs. Instead, the animated AI give themselves personalities through a mixture of cutesy anthropomorphism and endless repetitions of their names, hence ‘Waaaaallll-Eeee’.

The adventure continues, leaving behind the desert landscapes of our post-apocalyptic world for the endless beauty of outer space where WALL-E finds true love, makes a whole host of robot friends (such as BRL-A, a faulty mobile umbrella robot which has trouble keeping itself closed) and encourages the humans to return to earth.

It’s here social satire reaches its height, with the humans having spent so long in their robot-run, luxury spaceship that they have become too fat to move. Instead they lounge around in mobile deck chairs constantly watching television and eating fast food – not much has changed. The scene in which the spaceship tips to one side sending hundreds of obese, ball shaped people rolling across the floor is simply hilarious.

So WALL-E manages to successfully break the mould, simultaneously being visually stunning, a social satire and a heartfelt, funny children’s movie. This is more than just a film for all the family; this is a film for all of humanity. It’s high time we got up off our fat arses and did something with our lives before we reduce our planet to dust and expect someone or something else to pick up the pieces.

Four stars

George Street Odeon this week should be thick with leather jackets, cult t-shirts and weedy teenagers; Mark Wahlberg’s Max Payne is coming to town. We already know it’ll probably be the worst film you will see this winter: avoid it.

However, this is just one of many game-to-film casualties. Others include the shocking Resident Evil trilogy, the even worse House of the Dead, Alone in the dark and Hitman. Quite why the film industry continues to allow such rubbish to be made is beyond me, but pre-pubescent teenage boys will pay top dollar to see meaningless violence and female nudity.

This trend is inexplicably consistent. Most films have had more than respectable budgets behind them. What’s more, they’ve had the support of some solid talent; Angelina Jolie found success with her turn as Lara; Milla Jovovich nailed the lead role in Resident Evil. Olga Kurylenko came to Quantum of Solace after roles in Hitman and Max Payne. Doom carried that mindless genre of space-horror to its natural conclusion. So why the scepticism?

Films of games are a new challenge compared to adapting books, or even comics, because narrative is not the main principle of a game. It’s not strictly accurate to describe games as interactive movies: the movies they might have been rarely would be good ones. Indeed, Max Payne was effectively a satirical montage of action movie clichés; it’s right there in the title!

The reason we loved it as teenagers was that the experience was fresh and exciting, not because it read like a novel. Max Payne is a movie, based on a game, which was a game based on bad movies. It’s going to get messy.

Resident Evil is the only game adaptation so far to succeed, partially because of its decision to completely trash anything that remained of the original plotline. A couple of telling references were all that was needed to keep the fans happy.

The rest was all about making a damn entertaining zombie movie. Of course, Milla Jovovich completely naked may have boosted sales somewhat. Whereas, a fully clad Mark Wahlberg fighting demons as well as crackheads isn’t going to cut it.

So why will the next video game movie be terrible? I quote Uwe Boll, vilified director of House of the Dead: ‘Let’s be realistic, House of the Dead is a brainless shooter, where you shoot zombies into pieces. So what are you expecting from the movie, Schindler’s List?’. A little extreme?

Probably. But the point stands. Games are good story-telling, not good stories. So save your £6. Buy a book or something.