When Coleridge described All’s Well That Ends Well as “not an agreeable story, but still full of love”, he captured perfectly the generic instability the play presents. The play teeters on a delicate knife-edge between disgust and delight as Shakespeare portrays Helena’s passionate love for Bertram, and the desperate lengths to which she will go to win his heart. When the King of France falls terminally ill, Helena promises to cure him if she can marry any Lord of her choice – she succeeds and chooses the reluctant and unwilling Bertram. After they are married, he leaves for war, preferring the risk of death to an unhappy matrimony. This violent clash of love and hatred has ensured that this black comedy has always remained one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays.

But the production for the Magdalen Garden Show does not shy away from the challenge. Instead, the characters’ disturbing drive for self-gratification becomes the commanding force behind the play.
Much credit for this achievement must go to Roseanna Frascona, the actress playing Helena. Although small in stature, her performance controls the stage, as she manages to switch from fragile vulnerability to cunning flirtatiousness with apparent ease. As we witness her genuine grief at her unrequited love, we begin not only to understand the reasons for her lies, but also to support and enjoy them.

There are strong performances elsewhere in the cast. Samantha Losey is wonderfully eloquent and astute as the Countess of Roussillon, revelling in the power her position of authority over Helena affords her. The moments of dialogue between these equally dominant and scheming is particularly sharp and incisive. James Kingston, as the King of Paris, is marvellously resigned and retrospect, as he appears to live not in the present, but in his wealth of memories.

Directing All’s Well That Ends Well was always going to be an ambitious task but Rafaella Marcus does a superb job. She manages to capture deftly both the tension and the humour that underlies Shakespeare’s text. The setting of the President’s Garden at Magdalen promises to provide an elegant and extravagant backdrop for a play that so often aims at courtly romance, before deflating any sense of grandeur through its web of lies and deception.

Perhaps, the play has not always received the popularity and acclaim that it deserves but this production is a perfect opportunity for Oxford students to recognise one of the hidden gems lurking within Shakespeare’s cannon. We can only hope that the President of Magdalen is not quite as conniving and duplicitous as the characters that will come to occupy his garden next week.

four stars out of five

Centre stage at the 02 academy stand two metal desks overflowing with cables, effects boards and keyboards. Even an old film editing unit, a relic from Hollywood, makes it into the set up for Holy Fuck, a band that are accurately described on their website as ‘a chaotic live celebration of lo-fi noise and weirdo casio-driven rock’. A room full of fans wait in anticipation with the knowledge that tonight’s set will be a unique performance, a new musical creation of the moment.

The reason for this is that the band has an incredibly flexible model for their performances. Keyboardist Brian Borcherdt tells me that to be a good performer you need to ‘take full advantage of the fact it is live’ and to take opportunities ‘where you can do something random, fun and new’.

With Holy Fuck there are no pre-recorded loops or determined structures that you might find with other electronica bands, and the guys insist that the laptops hanging around are purely for emailing and never make it on stage. This lack of restriction means that you know what they play on the night is going to be original. It will be a synthesis of how they are feeling at the time and the audience’s response, of the things that have worked on the tour so far and some fresh experimentation. The familiar criticism of bands simply recreating their latest album certainly does not apply in this case.

As the band begins to play it is clear how they have managed to carve out such a good reputation as a live act over the past few years. The experimental and volatile mix of effects and synths from Brian Borchedt and Graham Walsh sit on top of a gutsy rhythm section of funky basslines and relentless drumming that give the performance a sense of urgency which is infectious. The band is under no illusion that it might not be to everyone’s taste. Brian admits, ‘its not vocal music, its not really pop music but it still has a dance-ical element to it’. That ‘dance-ical’ element is what makes it accessible to a wider audience than just hardcore electronica fans.

Holy Fuck go to a lot of effort to try to recreate the impression of a live show on their CDs, which comprise entirely of live performances from tours or recorded from single performances in the studio. ‘[Recording is about] trying to get as close to the essence of what we’re doing as we can’ explains Brian. ‘It’s all in relationship to one another’s part so recording together is really the only way to achieve that result and cohesiveness’. Despite their best attempts the recorded tracks never quite seem to capture the true genius of their live show, not because the various elements don’t come together any less well, but because, as with any band, you can never capture the atmosphere and energy of a packed venue.

Perhaps there’s even something deterministic in it. A CD will always be the same, whereas with Holy Fuck’s live show the sense of the unknown makes for the feeling that the audience are not only witnessing artistic creation, but are an active influence on it. With this kind of experiential content it is no wonder that they continue to increase their international reputation – they were hailed by NME as one of the top three performances of Glastonbury last year.

Although a focus on live performance seems to be the way the music industry is moving in face of decreasing CD sales, Holy Fuck don’t seem to notice that they could be a perfect example of a band set up to succeed in this changing environment. ‘There can be a lot of motives for getting out on the road and into the studio’ Brian tells me, ‘but one of the most important ones is that you have to enjoy it and we enjoy it so much that we’re not really focusing too much on the commercial side of it’.
Holy Fuck will be releasing their new album this autumn and it promises not only to be a great record, but also hopefully to provide material for their next tour and another chance to witness an incredible live act responsible for some true artistic innovation.

I got rather excited at the prospect of interviewing The Sunshine Underground in their dressing room. Optimistically envisioning that it would be a pristine white room covered with light-framed mirrors, I am rather surprised to be ushered into a room at the top of a narrow staircase that could only be described as bearing a striking resemblance to a college’s JCR kitchen. There is a metal sink built into a tabletop surface that is close to falling off the wall with a small fridge underneath it. There is a little table and a couple of frayed sofas on which the band sit.

Nevertheless, the Sunshine Underground are cheery and are making use of the facilities by stockpiling the fridge full of beer. Knowing relatively little about the band, I set out to discover exactly who they are and what they’re about.

Perhaps impertinently, I begin by asking them whether they are aware of a band called Underground Sunshine who hit the US charts in the sixties with a cover of Beatles hit ‘Birthday’; ‘No!’ is the emphatic reply that this is greeted with from singer/guitarist Craig Wellington and drummer Matthew Gwilt. They then explain that their name comes from a Chemical Brothers song. ‘We met Ed from the Chemical Brothers once actually. We asked him if he minded us being named after one of their songs and the only comment that he made was that in the sixties there was a band called Sunshine Underground.’ A mystery solved, it would seem.

We chat about how the band got together (‘We went to college together and started to play; we’re old friends’) and Matt and Craig struggle to remember how long they’ve been focusing all of their efforts on the band: ‘We’ve been seriously doing the band full-time for about five years I suppose. When we started touring… when we got a deal… it’s been about four and a half… Four, no, four and a half? It’s been a while.’

I wonder whether, in all that time, the band have carved themselves a niche amongst the throngs of other Indie bands that occupy the charts at the moment. ‘We just do what we want to do; I don’t know if that makes us different’ Matt declares. Craig agrees: ‘Well, we don’t really listen to the stereotypical Indie kind of bands out there at the moment; that jingle jangle guitar. We’re pretty anti-Indie.’

‘I just don’t like those bands that like to think of themselves as The Libertines. I do love The Libertines but it’s not what we do.’ The band’s unique selling point? ‘We’ve got quite a strong dance element to our music that we’ve developed since we first started to tour and I think that sets us apart from the bog standard Indie band. People tend more to dance at our gigs than mosh.’ I can’t say that I picked up this dance aspect in the band’s songs that I have heard and I was left still scratching my head slighting during that evening’s gig.

I ask the guys about the new album. After learning that, although finished, the record is yet to be named, Matt and Craig tell me that they expect the christening of the album to come about in the same way as that of their 2006 release Raise the Alarm. ‘It was only called that because our manager called me up and… it was always a contender and he was like, seriously, it’s got to go out now. We asked him if we had a couple of days to think about it and he said no it’s got to be today and so we said… Raise the Alarm?’ That’ll probably happen again at some point in August.’

With the band disappearing off the radar for a couple of years following their sophomore effort, I wondered how the writing and recording process went for this album. ‘We were writing for so long, for about two years on and off, writing this album and trying to get it right and by the time we were ready to go into the studio and do it, it was like a weight off really.’ Craig tells me. Matt seems to find the whole thing slightly more intense: ‘Kind of,’ he mused, ‘but at the same time we only had three weeks allocated to do it in and so the pressure was on to do it well’.

The band are clearly very proud of how they made use of the demos that they recorded on a four-track when in a cottage in Scotland where they’d gone to write songs. ‘We ended up actually putting quite a lot of the original demo back into the song because they were right, weren’t they!’ Matt exclaimed. He went on to explain that recreating this sound was one of the most difficult parts of the recording process: ‘we ended up co-producing the album in the end because the demos ended up being the sound of the album we were trying quite a lot of the time in the recording and mixing to get back to the original sound of the demo.’

They tell me how they always felt that they were going to go down the route of producing or co-producing the album themselves and talk about how there are still some songs on the first album which they’re not entirely happy with because they took too much advice off other people, thinking that they’d know more than the band themselves. ‘You trust people to do it for you and then you get it back and think… is that any good? You’re just as well to do it yourself.’

Sensing that the band could talk about all of this for some time, I change the topic somewhat by asking the band about why they have a blog rather than a website; I wonder whether they think it important for musicians to have this sort of communication with their fans alongside the music that they produce. ‘I don’t see why there’s a need for a website as such – with a blog you can do an everyday update. Like now we’re adding a tour diary to it, which might be more difficult on a website. It is just easier for us to update it really.’

I ask their thoughts on Twitter which, as far as I am aware, is a condensed and intensified blog of sorts. They seem to be very wary of Twitter, finding it odd enough when fans add them on Facebook: ‘I had fans sending me messages saying how sorry they were when I broke up with my girlfriend!’ Daley Smith, the band’s bassist, laughed.

I’m interested to know whether, alongside the heavy recording and touring schedule, the lads have time for any hobbies. The answers surprise me. They range from dog-owning to jogging to tending to vegetables. Concerned, I ask who looks after the vegetables and the dog when the band are on tour. I’m reassured that both have extended family who tend to them.

The only advice that The Sunshine Underground had for Cherwell readers was to ‘listen to more Sunshine Underground. Apparently it helps you focus’. The band’s (inescapably) Indie offerings are enjoyable in the main, and are indeed worth checking out if you want some music to play when revising that won’t distract you too much. Nice lads, nice music.

Children have a great potential to disturb. The horror film stereotype of the emaciated, creepy little girl is testament to how potently agitating it can be to place the young into violent settings in which their innocence has no place.

Philip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney extrapolates this unease into an adult world, imagining the existence of two adults, alone for ten years, who cannot escape the mentality and the rituals of their childhood. Presley and Haley, played by Sam Caird and Charlotte Norris, are sinister from the outset, their gleeful gorging and flights of fancy counterbalanced by their shrill and intensely physical confrontations.

The cast are, without fail, excellent at portraying this surreal world. Sam Caird’s Presley is particularly shocking. His sickeningly evocative description of the fate of one pet was – if it’s possible to describe something so hideous as such – a high point, and Will McCallum’s bullying Cosmo Disney combines a mastery of playground politics with deep-seated insecurity and terrifying irrationality.

The agonizing, physical fear Charlotte Norris’ Haley exudes gives her intense vulnerability, which is masterfully exploited. They all convey a deeply unsettling juxtaposition between the grotesqueness of their reality and the simplicity of their mindset. They seem to immerse themselves into their roles, with their lisping tones and childish syllabic stress emulating the language of a child perfectly without losing sight of the tone. They manage to avoid sounding like an irritating couple trying to be cute, instead using the infantile language to add to the intensity.

This is a play that refuses to allow the audience even the tiniest glimmer of comfort. Even in the calm, sunny setting of this short preview, there was a disquieting sense of voyeurism. Moments of fleeting calm are overwhelmed by a portentous, palpable sense of unease, which repeatedly climaxes in the characters’ hysterically violent dramatic monologues. Their memories are incredibly vivid and invariably disturbing, frequently teetering on the fine line between innocence and callous sadism.

This is not a play that will be easy to forget. If you can cope with such immersive intensity, don’t miss it.

Four stars

The degeneration of culture after the First World War is tackled in this newly translated version of Italian drama. Unfortunately, the dilapidated set-design reflects more on the chaotic acting rather than the state of post-war Germany.

The lines are too often delivered in waves of feverish squabbles, while actors gesticulate randomly. This makes the production a melee of sights and sounds that never quite reach coherence. The plot revolves around a woman who has lost her identity. Frances Rose, who plays the schizophrenic belle Lucia, most certainly looks the part, but sadly of her two characters, neither is played convincingly. She wavers annoyingly from neurotic cabaret star to petty debutant, and although one should feel sympathy for this amnesiac heroine, one loses the will to do so.

However, Lucia/Elma’s twitterings are occasionally drowned out by her co-star Jonathan Sims’s cries for attention. At least his lines are delivered with passion, he is shouting to get the lines heard and to provoke a reaction rather than to convey emotion. At one point he draws a gun, adding yet more hysteria and confusion to an already bewildering scene.

There is enthusiasm in the actors which is a redeeming feature of any dramatic spectacle. The estranged husband (Laurence Ridgway) is in a constant state of dismay, but his over-enthused responses tend to verge on the ridiculous.

The mysterious character of Boffi, played by Joseph Robertson, outshines the rest of the cast, which in this case is more of a relief than an achievement. Regrettably, Boffi is often caught up in the hurricane of exchanges between the heroine and her two male protagonists, and therefore the depth he manages to portray goes ignored.

This complicated plot, topped off with the appearance of an invalid impostor in the final stages of the play, looks more like a restrained circus than theatre.

Two stars

As you desire me is on in 4th Week at the OFS Studio, 19.30, Tuesday-Saturday

The previous filmic incarnation of Dan Brown’s series of novels, The Da Vinci Code was met by intense criticism from the Christian section of the cinema-going audience. Those concerned that this new film may result in all Catholics renouncing their faith can set these fears aside. The film takes a few featherweight jabs at the Roman institution, but for every one thrown there is a parrying response; generally a forced piece of dialogue espousing the virtues of religion, which allows the film to rest firmly on the comfortable cushion of middle-ground.

Rather than viewing this as a criticism, the production team should be applauded for their intelligent decision to skirt over the debate, as it removes the tedious dialogue that made The Da Vinci Code so laborious. Instead, the director uses roughly the same themes to construct a ludicrous web of conspiracy that amounts to good clean summer blockbuster fun. The incredible architecture provides nice eye candy (made more impressive given that some are replica sets were made in America) and the action sequences are thoroughly gripping. The director continuously toys with the audience’s expectations and just about maintains sufficient dramatic tension throughout, with deft camerawork and an overblown soundtrack.

Rather than forcing it upon the audience, the thinking is left up to world expert symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), who is called in to investigate a threat from the elusive underground Illuminati organisation, which has kidnapped four cardinals and threatens to kill one on every hour, culminating with the detonation of a bomb composed of antimatter hidden somewhere in the city. Along with his suitably attractive physicist sidekick Vittoria Vetra, it is up to the professor to solve some clues embedded within the history of the Catholic church in order to save the cardinals and avert the explosion in a race against time.

If the premise sounds somewhat cheesy, that’s because it is. The detective elements are clinical and repetitive: Langdon will look stumped momentarily before discovering a vital clue by dumb luck, spout some historical jargon with an air of gravitas and then rush off to the next location to repeat the pattern five or six more times.
Aside from this main gripe and the vacuous dialogue, the film on the whole is enjoyable. If you are looking for layered character development and a deep philosophical treatise on religion, look elsewhere. If you want to disengage your brain and see money drip off a screen for two hours, there are worse ways to do so.

Three stars

In a movie industry that is rather lacking in intellectual heavyweights, this directorial debut by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation) is a veritable breath of fresh air. The ambition of Synecdoche, New York is irrefutably something to be admired, but, like the film’s central character, Kaufman may have bitten off more than he can chew.

The action centres around theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), whose life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local theatre is looking bleak. His prospects soon change though, when he receives an unlimited grant to produce a piece of work on anything he chooses. This is his chance to make his mark and finally produce a piece of honest and relevant work that he will be proud to leave behind. As he focuses on his project and the constructed lives within it, Caden’s own life veers wildly off the tracks. Faced with a daughter growing up under questionable guidance in Berlin, a difficult decision in choosing the correct lover, and a deteriorating health situation, Caden immerses himself in the new project. It soon becomes difficult to see the difference between the reality of his own life and the fictional lives of his created characters.

Employing the same dream-like logic that can be found in Being John Malkovich, Kaufman asks his audience to accept certain happenings without question, allowing for some serious metaphors and striking visual concepts. The innocent observer soon finds themselves investigating meaning into almost every occurrence. At one point, Caden’s true love interest Hazel (Samantha Morton) buys a house that happens to be on fire, and which continues to burn throughout the film, eventually killing her in her old age. Let the debate over what the true meanings actually are begin.

Synecdoche, New York is undoubtedly messy, and I must stress again the somewhat ironic connection between the film’s writer and its main protagonist. Both seem to be attempting to create a masterpiece that will resonate with every audience member on a personal level. Unfortunately, this film never quite gets there. It leaps from topic to topic, year to year, loaded with possible parallels and potentialities. There are so many things going on that it ultimately damages the film. It is too slippery to grasp fully, and its message is largely lost amongst the cramming in of set design, side notes, visual tricks, subtext, deadpan jokes, and voice-over.

Having said this, the film is held together by the fact that no matter how outlandish its style and story gets, the behaviour and emotions of the characters are always palpably real. This is combined with stellar performances from all of the supporting cast. Hoffman, though, truly shines. Synecdoche, New York is definitely a film that needs to be seen more than once. So many aspects are open to interpretation: you could watch it with a friend and both come out of the cinema having seen two completely different films. Ultimately though, this is where enjoyment of the film can be found- when you make a connection, it’s yours.

Three stars