Fun for all the family is a phrase used far too often when describing animated films. Shrek, The Incredibles, Kung Fu Panda; these are films which blend the colourful characters and simple plots with the more intelligent jokes and references which appease both children and adults. With Igor, however, ‘fun for all the family’ is not a gross exaggeration; it’s a bare-faced lie.

The film, set in the magical world of Malaria (a place named after a disease? Hilarious. How about Gonorrhea?) is the classic ‘unleash your true potential’ tale about Igor, the assistant of a mad scientist, who decides that he’d like to do the inventing for once.

Accompanied by his re-animated buddies, he creates Eva, a female Frankenstein’s monster, but is surprised to discover that she lacks the evil gene. There’s bonding, singing and defiance against convention, and yet there’s something severely lacking in this mediocre film.

Firstly, the visuals. There’s more than a hint of The Corpse Bride about this, but it lacks those little touches which made Burton’s vision so unique. The actual quality of animation, meanwhile, is simply average.

Even the voices behind the characters seem to lack the passion vital to a children’s film, with John Cusack’s Igor awkward beyond words and a catalogue of stars such as John Cleese and Steve Buscemi failing to impress. Ironically, it is Molly Shannon’s role as the reanimated corpse which brings life to what is otherwise a dreary and dull, if well-meaning, way to spend ninety minutes.

I would rather subject children to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre than this feeble attempt at family friendly.

17 October

1 Star

In his preface to Le Balcon, Jean Genet states that the artist and poet has no responsibility to find a solution to the problem of evil; in fact, he should embrace it. The clientele circulating in the hallway of La Maison de Culture in Bourges, an Oxford-sized French town, clearly feel such moral detachment. In fact, Genet would be delighted.

The people of Bourges are referred to by their compatriots as the Bourgeois for a good reason. Longchamp bags, pearls, Barbour jackets and pashminas fill the mezzanine area of the theatre’s bar. Sound familiar? Glasses clink as the Bourgeois ascend the staircase, wishing their fellow theatre-goers a good evening, the parents of their son or daughter’s classmates at one of the lycee prives surrounding the Maison de la Culture.

Andre Malraux opened the theatre, cinema and lecture hall in the late fifties; since then, the place has thrived upon the various cultural pretensions of the Bourgeois – a retrospective of Godard just ended, and next week a professor from the Ecole Normale Superieure is coming to talk about Marivaux.

As I wind my way towards the bar area, I glimpse an American friend in earnest conversation with a man whom I later discover, thanks to the innumerable amount of Bourgeois who nod and offer him drinks, to be the philosophy teacher of a lycee prive – the deadline for references to Louis le Grand is undoubtedly imminent.

Most of the Bourgeois have taken their seats; those in the upper circle peer over into the stalls, their eyes darting in search of other parents, their neighbour with the country house in Provence, the Parisian banker who hasn’t been seen in this commuter town since Credit Lyonnais had to ask Papa for a larger allowance every month.

Le Balcon commences, runs its course and finishes. Nothing Genet would object to, as such – but this in itself he would probably find objectionable. Irma, the Mistress of the Brothel, was well played; the Chief of Police didn’t quite grasp what his role entailed.

No matter though, because how many people inside the theatre were actually following what went on? And such is the state of the theatre – not only here in Bourges, but also in Paris, in London, in New York.

Genet would no doubt agree. Upon asking his reaction not to the play, but to its audience, he would have looked me in the eye and recited an adapted version of the concluding lines of his aforementioned Preface: ‘Of course, all that I have just written does not concern an intelligent theatre-goer; he knows what he’s come to see. Mais les autres?’

Mia Matsumiya builds robots. They do cool things for 30, 40 seconds; they twitch, malfunction; then they die. She calls them ‘tragibots’.

She also makes music. The creation is a similarly painstaking process, interweaving neoclassical form with structural rigidity and melodic freedom, then casting it all in terms of the guitars and vocals more familiar to doom or sludge-metal connoisseurs. We call it ‘post-metal’.

This is a genre which, though rooted amongst hardcore and metal musicians looking to express themselves beyond the verse-chorus-verse straitjacket, is now just as much home to jazz, psychedelic and even classically-trained artists. They simply want to turn up the amps and scream a bit. For each band tagged with the name, a distinct musical heritage is apparent. There are raw, fire-and-brimstone blues behind Oxbow’s The Narcotic Story, while Isis… well, Isis seem to have rather a penchant for bears. Enraged ones, specifically.
All of which might sound horribly pretentious, an accusation sometimes difficult to dismiss. Red Sparowes’ At the Soundless Dawn, an instrumental concept album about the Maoist Great Leap Forward featuring 208 words of track title, probably deserves to be so branded.

But to focus on the self-indulgence is to get caught up on the ‘post-‘; and forget that the music is still very much metal. Oxbow’s ‘Eugene Robinson’ can turn a room of lethargic, undernourished indie geeks into a convincing reinterpretation of a Hieronymous Bosch image with nothing more than his tortuous howling, while thrusting his bemuscled form at the audience. He often adds to the aura by involving the mic stand in illicit, aggressive and possibly quite painful relations.

There are more accessible styles; 15-minute orchestral-rock compositions are never going to make good football chants. This is music that demands, seizes and finally rewards, your complete attention.

The juxtaposition of power chords and piccolos might seem a perplexing one, but if you can stomach that thought and open up your mind a little bit, you will find that the music is immensely rewarding. Who, after all, doesn’t want to live the dream, and one day relish the prospect of having a tormented soul thrust his grief, and his groin, in your face, to an accompaniment of violins.

I chose a card at random as the deck flashed across my eyes. Then the bearded magician opposite attempted to read my mind. ‘Is it the king of spades?’ He asked confidently. ‘Not quite,’ I replied, ‘it was the four of hearts.’ His crestfallen gawp made me wonder: would it be alright on the night?

Fresh from touring cabaret lounges at the Edinburgh Fringe, Rob Hemmens and Rhys Jones are indulging themselves in the mystery and whimsy of high Victoriana with a new show of theatrical magic which strikes the right balance between kitsch and entertainment.

The eponymous tricks are of the classic variety: time-tested sleights of hand that rely heavily on audience participation. Playing cards, cups and balls, metal rings: expect nothing particularly new or innovative.

Nevertheless, they are well executed and entertaining. What began with three sugar cubes hiding under tea cups rapidly transformed into an afternoon tea run amok, cakes and sugar cubes vanishing and reappearing with consummate ease.

Other tricks have a darker, vaguely macabre edge that hints at magic’s dalliance with occultism, such as when both magicians insert nails into their noses. The comic touches were frequently nuanced and skilful, but on occasion felt uncomfortably heavy-handed and forced, as if the magic couldn’t speak for itself.

Dressed in silky cravats and waistcoats, Hemmens and Jones are a likeable pair and evidently obsessed with their smart little set-pieces. The oddly endearing magical geekiness, however, comes at the expense of the theatricality and showmanship so vital in holding the show together between tricks. An audience might leave well informed about the history of Victorian magic, but they might not leave so well entertained.

That said, the show itself is solidly pleasing if not inspiring, and its intimate nature is perfectly suited to the close confines of the Burton Taylor. Like Jonathan Creek, both Hemmens and Jones have a background as theatre technicians that should blend any trilling violins and crimson lighting appropriately with the wizardry on display.

See this, if only to remind yourself how far a hobby can take you, and as a heartening change to the upcoming gamut of melancholy morbidity likely to dominate the Burton Taylor’s schedules for the rest of the term.

Tuesday – Saturday 2nd Week
Burton Taylor Studio

3 Stars