Cherwell decided to take a camera down inside a PPF protest, talking to organisations and students who were there and finding out what their motivation was for joining in this demonstration, and their hopes for a better world.
Blog Page 2131
Worcester rebels over new hustings guidelines
Worcester JCR has been forced to overhaul the format of its hustings following several complaints from college members. The new reforms have sparked a backlash among the students.
The new guidelines require an SCR member to be present at hustings after students voiced objections about last term’s hustings which saw female candidates for the position of secretary asked to drink half a bottle of wine each and perform a lap dance for the JCR President.
Other contenders were forced to “down dirty pints” in front of the attendees and to simulate sexual positions.
The observing SCR member will have to record tasks which “might contravene college standards,” whilst the JCR Secretary will record the names of the individuals making each request. The JCR President will also have to inform everyone present about the college policy on equal opportunities.
Students opposed to the rule change have set up an autonomous protest group called Worcester Students for Justice, to “make sure the SCR are clearly aware of the anger of Worcester students at the current state of affairs.” They proposed a motion at last Sunday’s JCR meeting to protest against a “dictatorial and aggressive SCR” that had “progressively destroyed” the “rights and liberties” of the Worcester JCR. The motion to campaign for a rule change was passed by a two thirds majority.
One first year stated that the SCR’s decision showed them “overstepping their mark”. She added, “I think people shouldn’t be allowed to ask questions which clearly humiliate a candidate, but it’s more a matter of judgement; a better solution would be to make sure the President did their role of vetoing inappropriate questions.”
David Barclay, Worcester’s JCR President, told the governing body that he was happy to draw up guidelines for future hustings, but requested that they “trust that we understand the importance of hustings and the terrible effects of harassment and intimidation.”
He admitted to Cherwell that some of the hustings had got “fairly rowdy” and had “alienated a minority and may have contravened equal opportunities legislation.” However, he added that many students feel “profoundly patronised” by the new move.
The controversy at Worcester has raised the question of appropriateness of hustings procedures within other JCRs. There is a concern among some that the culture surrounding hustings discourages students from running for JCR positions.
Maanas Jain, Worcester finalist, acknowledged a difficulty with hustings culture in the university. He said, “even if one member of the JCR doesn’t’t feel comfortable standing because of it, then there is something institutionally wrong with what’s happening.”
In an attempt to regulate the process, Rachel Cummings, OUSU VP Women, has produced a code of practice for hustings based upon the discussion among JCR Presidents.
The document recommends that the chair should disallow inappropriate questions at husts. It also proposes non-serious questions to be subject to a time limit. Among questions deemed inappropriate are those which include personal attacks, college gossip and sexual references. A ban on alcohol and nudity during hustings has also been suggested.
Many colleges are rethinking the structure of JCR hustings as concerns are pouring over the appropriateness of tasks to the positions.
St Peter’s has recently completed a major overhaul in the structure of hustings. JCR President Sanjay Nanwani explained that the college has “disallowed questions and tasks that may be deemed as humiliating, intimidating or unreasonable.”
However, despite the rule changes one second year student recounted, “Still, our entz rep candidate was asked by a third year ‘would you rather have sex with your dog whilst your dad watches, or with your dad whilst your dog watches?'”
Many have argued that the reason for livening up hustings is to encourage students to attend the meeting, which often suffer from a lack of interest. One Magdalen first year commented, “Our hustings are both uncontroversial and poorly attended”.
In St Anne’s college, the candidates for the JCR president have to fight to take each other’s shoes off. In last week’s St Catherine’s elections, those standing for the position of the president had to persuade staff at Oddbins to let them borrow a ladder. They then had to call the JCR President at another college to discover one controversial thing about them and about the current Catz President.
Roland Lasius, a candidate at St Catz for JCR President commented that such tasks “can play a healthy role in college politics”, yet warned that they “cannot become a merely entertainment commodity”. He said, “Good hustings would serve as the bedrock for an inviting, positive and productive JCR.”
Alex Bulfin stated that Univ JCR has sought to ensure that hustings are as “undaunting and as fun as possible”. He explained that the candidates for Bar Rep were asked to make, rather than down, cocktails for the rest of the JCR to sample.
Ruth Padel becomes first female Professor of Poetry
Ruth Padel became the first female Professor of Poetry at Oxford University after she beat her only opponent Arvind Krishna Mehrotra in last week’s election.
Padel gathered 297 votes compared to Mehrotra’s 129 with 51 spoilt ballot papers.
The election took place between 10am and 4pm last Saturday, with the results being announced in the Divinity School at 5.30pm.
Padel said she felt “stunned” and “honoured” to accept the position. She commented, “I should like to thank the University, and the people who voted for me. I feel honoured and humbled to be given this responsibility, and shall try to carry it out as well as I can. My backers based their support for me on what they felt I could offer poetry and students. Now I shall do my best to fulfill their trust.”
Many onlookers were happy to see Padel winning. Nicholas Richardson, an Oxford graduate described her as “a good poet, good scholar and interesting scholar”.
Chair of the English Faculty Dr Sally Mapstone commented, “It is tremendous that May 2009 has seen the election of the first woman Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the first woman Poet Laureate. Ruth Padel will be a dynamic and distinguished Professor, and we are very pleased to welcome her.”
However, the event was overshadowed by Derek Walcott’s sudden withdrawal from the race four days earlier after sexual smear campaign.
Padel described the situation as “terrible, because it was nothing to do with me”.
“I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I always try to act morally”, she added.
Michael Henry, an Oxford graduate, said he was “disappointed at Walcott’s exclusion”.
He added that if the election had to be postponed, it “would have been more of a contest”, as more people would have put their names up.
Eloise Stonborough, the secretary of Oxford University Poetry society added, “I am of course disappointed that Padel did not take the opportunity to withdraw from the race and allow it to be postponed. This would have cleared her name of many of the rumours which are still circulating and allowed us to proceed on fair and honourable grounds rather than setting a precedent in which underhanded tactics are allowed to decide an election, whether or not either of the candidates had anything to do with it.”
Some thought the University made the right decision. “The election shouldn’t have been postponed”, said Bill Dutton, another Oxford graduate. “These things happen in elections. Ruth Padel should have won anyway.”
A proportionally high number of ballots were spoiled. Only 477 votes were cast, fewer than around 500 people who voted in the low-key election of Christopher Ricks in 2004. Some have suggested that this is a response to Walcott’s decision to remove himself from the contest.
Professor Hermione Lee, the campaigner for Derek Walcott confirmed these suspicions. She said, “I believe that many supporters of Derek Walcott either abstained, or spoilt their ballot papers.”
Stonborough confirmed, “I believe that most of the spoilt ballots were done in protest at Walcott’s treatment and at the progress of the race after his withdrawal. I am aware of many who wished to vote who didn’t turn up at all, and obviously 51 of those who did felt that their only avenue of protest was to spoil their ballot, an action which exposes the absurdity of the university’s refusal to postpone the race and how the race was tainted.”
Many thought Mehrotra was not famous enough to compete for the post. Although well-known in South-East Asian circles, he is relatively unheard of in Europe.
Michael Henry commented, “while he is very popular in his field, his poetry is not widely known over here.”
Padel has a long association with Oxford University. She was a classics student at Lady Margaret Hall and went on to write her PhD on Greek tragedy.
She has also been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Chair of the UK Poetry Society since 2003.
The post of the Oxford Professor of Poetry is held for 5 years. It comes with a salary of £6,901 per annum. The professor is required to give three lectures yearly and to provide the Creweian Oration, a declaration of thanks to the University’s benefactors. It is the only elected academic position.
Review: Alphabetical Order
The underground world of the fleet-street archive – or ‘library’ as they call it in the business – has long been extinct, pushed aside by the files and folders, cutting and pasting, of modern day interactive interfacing. First premièred in 1975, Alphabetical Order by ex-Guardian and Observer journalist Michael Frayn offers us a touch of nostalgia with a glimpse into the bygone era of snipping and filing.
Frayn says that the library depicted is a compendium of the various other libraries he got to know during his time in the journalistic world, and the excellent stage design captures the chaos of such an environment. A maze of filing cabinets, cardboard boxes, upturned chairs, and scattered pieces of paper, desks chairs and coat hooks fills the entire space so that over the course of the two acts making up the play, you see characters run off to find corporal punishment quotes or council bi-election results, not hearing from them for large amounts of time yet still aware of their buried presence amongst clippings and containers.
The characters on stage mirror in their assorted zaniness the haphazardness of the visual setup. Lucy, played by established stage and television actress Imogen Stubbs, is an excellent and suitably dotty librarian, whose flirtatiousness and vulnerability are juggled well. The variety in character types is appropriately wide – like a newspaper with its news, culture, comment and sports sections – and characters such as the Oxford graduate commitment-phobic John (“All Saint’s College, or sum’in”) and the adorably enigmatic Arnold are brilliant to watch.
With such strong and diverse characters, the temptation to descend into caricature is ever present. And it is to the credit of the writing and the cast that this is avoided. Nestled in the comedy are poignant moments, centred on the nature of perception and performance. And through the visual spectacle of many characters on stage at one time, we are always aware of the different things going on. So, while Wally and Nora joke about the latter’s overbearing crush on “poor old Arnold”, Lucy in the corner reads out the figures of sexual assaults and murder victims. Life goes on as it has to in the office, and gradually we see the onset of cracks in the characters, cracks in the smiles as people become more and more disillusioned with this mole-like existence.
It is a shame that after the quick witted visual feast that is the opening, the play slows down somewhat in the second act; though it is true that the huge surprise waiting for you after the interval, which earned a round of applause from last night’s audience, certainly leaves a lasting impact. The humour can be hit and miss, sometimes relying rather too much on tired and clichéd jokes about pubs and marriage and other such ‘nice’ things. Yet Frayn admits himself to having written parodies of successful plays of his day, constantly mocking the theatre and its conventions, so it is hard to know whether such flatness in Alphabetical Order is disappointing writing or conceals an artistic agenda.
four stars out of five
Alphabetical Order is on at the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday 23rd May.
Udder
Plays about milk addiction are often rather dull. But this one is excellent. It opens with Gerald (Matthew Monaghan) acting out an infatuated dalliance with a carton of milk. He moves convincingly, his maniacal face absorbs and disgusts us, and the audience are hysterical.
His role is in some ways easiest from then on: after the family meet for breakfast he comes back and has nearly lost control of his language. As the play progresses he completely loses speech. However, in the opening he has fully presented his talent.
The play is one of dark absurdity, bordering on the surreal. They seem to eat nothing but cucumbers. It examines the way Gerald’s small-minded parents, Leslie (Richard Holland) and Margaret (Ed Pearce) attempt to deal with the irregularity of their son. Fully embedded in the Homeric code, they obsess about the ‘shame’.
The humour is based around a pastiche of the parochial and around the trope of the controlling family. Leslie and Margaret’s daughter Susan (Amelia Peterson) brilliantly acts the resigned and obedient foil to the, effectively, teenage rebel Gerald. The greatest reductio ad absurdam is the structured family meeting (with minutes) which is truly funny and shows how the parents care for only order and discipline, all empathy left for their daughter.
However, while the stock of wit is large, Oliver Rowse has perhaps only spotted a small body of customs and human idiosyncrasies to satirise. Jokes often hit at the same theme: the parish mentality – ‘we’d never be allowed to the village fete’, ‘no one will buy my chutney’; the fact that Leslie, just like his son, hasn’t grown up – ‘trains are a lifetime commitment’; or occasionally simple invective – ‘they’re as plain as your sister’.
This shouldn’t worry us too much. No doubt the jokes are really hitting at huge social flaws – a society which demands that a milk addict should be trampled with cows has probably gone a little wrong. Maybe I should have been looking for parallels with our own society.
But I think the best thing about this play is the ‘types’ that it generates and the brilliant way in which the actors present them. Richard Holland plays an understated patriarch, often holding his menacing words back from the brink of full anger, which would be far too histrionic. Instead of being suddenly awed, the audience becomes more and more convinced by his character continuum. Ed Pearce has imported her well-meaning Edwardian disapproval from some of her previous plays, but allows it to mutate, and thus she is, as always, convincing and engaging. The Doctor (Max Schofield) parodies that profession well, especially in his extended medical speech; Sergeant Napper (Ed Charlton-Jones) in turn offers a high-quality satire of his profession.
And both show that they have bought into this cow-trampling society. At least Leslie and Margaret haven’t done that.
four stars out of five
Interview: Ruth Padel
The doors open and the pro-Vice Chancellor sweeps in, flanked by a swishy mass of black-robed proctors. With impressive co-ordination for a bunch of academics, the procession crosses the floor of the Divinity School and sets up court at the far end. The procession is silent. The audience is silent. This is Convocation.
Only two elections merit holding Convocation: that of the Chancellor and the Professor of Poetry. Every detail has to be just right. Half-way through his first syllable, one of the proctors stops; he’s forgotten to tip his hat. Once the giggles fade he reads out the vote count, and in all of thirty seconds weeks of campaigning come to an end.
Ruth Padel is swarmed by a smiling, congratulatory buzz. When I finally catch up with her at the after-party in Holywell Manor, she looks more relieved than jubilant. ‘The last week has been a barrage of stuff, it’s been difficult to hold myself together,’ she admits, sipping a glass of red.
The controversy of the past week aside, I ask her if she already has plans for her lectures. ‘I will be thinking about science a lot. Coleridge described words in a poem as hooked atoms, and I would like to do something about words and atoms in a poem and how poems work,’ she says, a little uncertainly. ‘Those are the lectures. I don’t know yet.’
If it sounds a bit vague, that’s only to be expected: it was only after Derek Walcott dropped out of the race that Padel could be reasonably confident of winning. She has much clearer ideas of what she wants to do ‘on the ground’ though, and gets increasingly animated as she talks about them.
‘I’ve got plans to work, for instance, with Wild CRU. It’s part of the zoology department here. Professor David McDonald is a really wonderful conservationist—he’s got a lot of ideas about involving science and arts, literature and conservation, and I’d really like to go down that path too.’
It’s partly this interdisciplinary enthusiasm which earned her such strong support during the nominations, but isn’t she worried that it’ll alienate people who prefer a more traditional approach to poetry? ‘What does traditional mean?’ she retorts. ‘Tradition is a big subject. We’re all using tradition. We’re all in tradition. And you actually take the tradition forward by going away from it.’
‘The good poems that are written now are the poems about our lives and what matters to us now. You don’t want poetry that’s in a museum—it’s got to be done in the language of now, with the ideas of now, but using all the things that’ve come before.’
Unlike the professors who’ve come before, however, Padel will be the first woman on the job. In this she has something in common with Carol Ann Duffy, the nation’s new and first female Poet Laureate. Unlike Duffy though, Padel had ruled herself out from ever being nominated for the laureateship, calling it a ‘terrible job’ under constant national security.
‘Carol Ann will be fine,’ she says with a firm smile, though she admits that she personally would be afraid of not writing poems. But the professorship, she feels, is different. ‘I hope I would keep private enough. And you’re not asked to write any poems for this job.’
Still, her ambitions for the role sound taxing – rather than limiting herself to lectures, Padel is determined to ‘bring poetry’ to all the colleges in whatever way she can. ‘Part of what I do, whether it’s in university or outside, is making people realise that poetry as it is written now—and poetry in the past —is for them, whether they study English or study, I don’t know, astrophysics.’
‘Every college is different. Would they like to talk about their own poems? Would they like me to give examples of the variety of modern poetry now and how to read it? How it matters to their lives , how you can find poetry in the subject you’re reading. I would probably work through some people in each college. Maybe it would be a poetry society, maybe it would be a drinking club,’ she laughs.
‘Poetry is something that brings together, like Orpheus. Orpheus with his lyre brought stones and animals and mountains and things to him. And it should be fun.’
There’s something infectious about her enthusiasm. Padel has a warm, crackling charm, a sort of Pratchett-esque witchiness. Of course, not everyone’s thrilled by her appointment; some are still sore about the Walcott affair. But Oxford’s new Professor of Poetry is clearly determined to reach out. It only remains to be seen how the students respond.
Review: Childish Sophistication
Children and childhood have long been a source of artistic inspiration: their straightforward attitudes and way of seeing the world, uncluttered by the complicated thoughts and ideas that adulthood brings. It is this gentle simplicity that pervades the current exhibits at the Sarah Wiseman Gallery, a small art gallery in Summertown, geared more towards selling than exhibition, although it certainly doesn’t fail to showcase the works to their best.
On display here until the end of May can be found the sculpted wooden toys of Ian McKay and the silkscreen paintings of Catherine Rayner’s Creatures series. Both maintain a childlike frankness that charms and intrigues.
McKay’s wooden toys, well-crafted and mechanical (usually with handles that turn to animate the figures), are most definitely toys that are art, rather than the other way around. They often feature old-fashioned dolls or figurines at play, subverting their topics, such as The Three Graces Eating Candy Floss. It is in his work with driftwood, however, that Ian McKay’s skills as a sculptor and an artist really shine. The set is made up of small wooden ships, moved by handle, set in and around pieces of driftwood of varying size, the largest measuring some metre and a half in length and containing over twenty ships that move in sequence. The driftwood backdrops that form the structure lend them an element of desolate poignancy that contrasts nicely with the brightly coloured, childish boats.
Sarah Rayner’s silkscreen paintings, collectively titled Creatures, deal mainly with those that may be found in a rural garden, focusing on hares, rabbits and hedgehogs. At times her artistic style tends a little bit towards the static, becoming reminiscent of Beatrix Potter illustrations, but in her best works there is an energy and vitality to her creations that lend them real power. In Eva, for instance, the hare is slightly abstracted in form, but the impressionistic nature of it captures an animalistic sense of the creature.
The only letdown of the exhibition is how similar a lot of the works are. Driftwood toys are certainly interesting and strangely affecting, but the variations are mainly in size and minor details, rather than in overall appearance; two pieces may be identical save that one has a small model yacht and the other a small model liner. The same is largely true of Rayner, who sticks to much the same subjects throughout the series. Overall, it is interesting and strangely beautiful, but it’s hard to avoid the feeling that one gains as much from the window display as one does the entire exhibition.
Green Voices
In this year’s “Green League” of British Universities, Oxford University came a dismal 50th out of the 119 universities surveyed. Our appalling environmental performance is alarming when you consider how much greater our financial resources must be than, say, the Universities of Gloucestershire, Plymouth, or West England, which occupy the top three positions of this league table. Furthermore, our low ranking is highly ironic when you consider that a vast proportion of the ground-breaking climate change research currently taking place in the UK is happening in Oxford University.
I see this disparity between our research and our behaviour as a result of two main factors. Firstly, the University’s collegiate structure means that decision-making is dispersed and this makes it difficult to enact major change on a wide scale. Secondly, the fact that Oxford University is by nature a conservative institution means that it is, in many ways, fundamentally resistant to modernisation. However, when you consider that Cambridge, another traditional and collegiate institution, came 5th in the league, these arguments lose clout!
There is no longer any shadow of a doubt that climate change is happening, that it is to a great extent anthropogenic, and that we will all suffer its effects within our own lifetimes. The folk from The Age of Stupid really pack a punch when they sum up our position like this: “Our generation is the first with the knowledge, skills and technology to prevent catastrophic climate change – but the last that can do so. It is up to us to decide if we have a future or not.” (If you haven’t seen The Age of Stupid – an excellent new climate change feature film – then make sure you catch it in one of the many screenings all over Oxford in 6th week a.k.a. “Green Week”).
Oxford University needs to stop dragging its heels. A first-class institution like ours should not only be producing cutting edge research; it should also be prepared to adjust its actions and way of life in accordance with the science that it generates. Oxford University should be a trail-blazer not just in its climate change research, but also in the environmental policies and initiatives which dictate its day-to-day workings. We need to understand that tradition and prestige need not stand in the way of working towards a sustainable future, but that they can, and indeed must go hand in hand with real environmental responsibility.
Colleges have a crucial role to play in this. If the UK is to succeed in considerably cutting back greenhouse gas emissions, this challenge must be tackled at every level; impulses must come from government, industry and also from small organizations such as our colleges. Governments will only legislate adequately if they feel that there is sufficient concern among the electorate for them to do so. And the same goes for institutions. If the students do not demand it, we can be quite sure that colleges will do next to nothing to cut their emissions. The changes that we need to see over the coming years as we move toward a low-carbon future will only be achieved through peer-groups and communities working together to change mentalities and enact institutional change. This means you and your friends getting together to demand that your college comes up with a plan for responding to the threats of climate change. And then, together, we can ensure that the University claws its way up the national league table. But none of this can happen unless enough of us demand it.
Start by finding out how well your college is currently performing in OUSU`s latest “Green League” of Oxford Colleges, and make sure that your student Environment Representatives and crucial college officials such as your Domestic Bursar and the Master of your college know their ranking: 1.Linacre, 2.Balliol, 3.Madgalen, 4.Keble, 5.St John’s, 6.University, 7.Wadham, 8.Merton, 9.Corpus Christi, 10.Queen’s, 11.ChristChurch, 12.St Anne’s, 13.Teddy Hall, 14.St. Hugh’s, 15.Hertford, 16.Wolfson, 17.Oriel, 18.New, 19.Worcester, 20.LMH, 21.St. Catz, 22.St. Hilda’s, 23.Green, 24.Lincoln, 25.Jesus, 26.Brasenose, 27.St Peter’s, 28.Somerville, 29.Trinity, 30.Pembroke, 31.Mansfield, 32.Nuffield, 33.Exeter.
Linacre have done tremendous work and succeeded in becoming a “Carbon Neutral” College. Balliol’s second place ranking was based on an accumulation of green initiatives, most importantly their 2005 Energy Audit and their compilation in 2007 of a detailed Environmental Policy. Students of other colleges need to insist that their colleges undergo an Energy Audit and that they compile a comprehensive policy for responding to the recommendations of the audit. And then they need to work with staff and fellows towards implementing the measures that ensue. Without these documents, there can be no real framework within which colleges can begin to make the necessary emissions cuts.
This term Balliol launched “Balliol Unplugged”, an Energy Efficiency Campaign planned by a committee of students and staff in order to generate an energy-saving “culture” throughout college. We hope to set an example for increased environmental responsibility within the University. Make sure your college isn’t lagging too far behind. This is a race we simply cannot afford to lose.
News Roundup: Week 4
Antonia and Marta take you through the week’s news and talk over the all important Eurovision Song Contest.
Review: Awaydays
As the name suggests, Awaydays centres on football hooliganism. Those looking for unadulterated violent entertainment in a similar vein to Football Factory should look elsewhere. In fact, those looking for any entertainment at all should probably avoid this completely. This film is not fun; it is miserable. More miserable than marriage, miscarriage and Morrissey ground together in a pot of genocide.
The setting for this film is Merseyside, naturally. In the grim early years of Thatcher, The Pack travel from town to town to engage in mindless fisticuffs with fellow football fans.
Carty (Nicky Bell) longs for acceptance into the group. He finds a means of entry through Elvis (Stephen Graham) – a bohemian amongst apes – who befriends him on the basis of their mutual appreciation of good music, and the opportunity to make an emotional connection with someone of intelligence. Despite mutual artistic leanings, both have divergent interests: Carty wants nothing more than primal release through sex and violence, whilst Elvis yearns to escape that very same vacuum.
To understand these characters, the director wants you to relate to the boredom and drudgery of their environment. In this respect he succeeds, only perhaps a bit too well. The scenery is awash with dull browns and greys and the plot moves at a snail’s pace, never managing to muster up much momentum. The film stretches your patience to its maximum, to the point where the prospect of mindless violence is screamed for. But the payoff never delivers.
The fight scenes are clumsily shot, never yielding the visceral impact that is demanded. The film itself is schizophrenic in its endeavours. On the one hand it wants to drag the audience through grit and grime, but at the same time it strives desperately for stylish cult-chic.
Slow-motion moments, pensive, wide-angled river shots and trippy drug montages are used liberally and superfluously. All of which detract from what is genuinely interesting-the characters. The young leads play their roles superbly, creating wonderful chemistry and managing to portray the contradictions within themselves with complete plausibility.
The supporting cast fare just as well; Stephen Graham as the leader of The Pack dominates the screen in every scene he’s in, and Holliday Grainger as Carty’s sister plays her vulnerable character perfectly.
Despite strong performances all round, perhaps the most disappointing area of the film is the lack of understanding of the characters’ situations and their consequent behavioural patterns.
Carty for example leads a humdrum life working in administration, his intelligence and artistic talents in danger of rotting away; but he never shows any contempt for his lifestyle. He seems perfectly happy with his underachievement: he taps plentiful ass; has a sister who idolises him; and holds no financial worries. As such, his dogmatic passion to beat the shit out of strangers never sits comfortably with the audience.
By the end of the film this irritates heavily, clouding whatever message is meant to be delivered. Some scenes are deeply poignant and yet others boring and drawn out. Interesting setups fail to be mined fully for their potential.
The film gets top marks for effort, but below average for execution. It is noble in its attempts to require patience from the viewer and avoid simple gratifying conclusions. In this respect it might warrant a viewing; any semi-decent British output should be commended.
Though if you do choose to watch it, expect to want to punch it in the face afterwards.
Two Stars out of Five