American Buffalo @ OFS Arrogance is prolific in the thespian world of Oxford, in both
character and production. Though in productions of real quality
it is excusable, to find a play that is not only brilliant but
also completely removed from this ridiculous and, to a degree,
offensive snobby seriousness is refreshing and rewarding.
American Buffalo is, in a word, superlative. It is directed and
acted with aplomb, and funny when it needs to be in an unforced,
natural way. At no point is the acting strained and even the
American accents are exemplary, something that student drama
usually falters on. The play is a heist story sans heist, based in a junk shop in
Middle America. When the owner of the shop, Don, sells what he
thinks is a worthless nickel for a huge profit, he and his friend
Bobby hatch a plan to rob the man who bought it of his coin
collection. Their plans are intercepted and changed by Teach, who
convinces Don to leave dopey Bob out of the plans. The play is
really about small-town plans by smalltown minds and their
inevitable failure. Far from being depressing, the play is really
very funny and entirely compulsive. It is the acting that makes this production as good as it is,
although it does have a good basis in the award-winning script by
the legendary David Mamet. All three actors are fantastic: Mark
Grimmer is brilliant and affecting as Don, perfectly cast and
never once faltering. His reaction to Teach’s speeches about his junk shop is
particularly interesting and his underlying affection for the
simple, ex-drug addict Bobby is touching. Harry Lloyd carries the
part of Bobby so convincingly that I cannot imagine him speaking
or acting in any other way; his skill is not only in speaking but
his movement, his twitches, looks, walk. Everything is carried
with such ability that the audience cannot help but fall
hopelessly in love with the character. Michael Lesslie, as Teach,
is also wonderful and, as the others, entirely convincing. He
provides some of the most humorous moments of the play and his
involvement in his character is obvious from his ease in
encapsulating the essence of Teach. The direction is first-rate: Ben White evidently has a huge
amount of skill and imagination. This is his last production for
the team behind the play, Cookie Jar Productions; he should be
commended for an outstanding swan song. Any bad points about this
production should be left unsaid. Go! It is the best production
you will probably see this term.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Stitching challenges the selfishness which lies at the core of
its young couple. At the same time, it creates empathy which
makes its occasional moments of horror seem much more visceral.
The production, for all that it loses in cohesion by its
abridging, does gain, from its small production values, an edgy
intimacy. Moments of excruciating verbal violence are poignantly
juxtaposed with banality. Stitching toys with the audience’s perceptions and
mirrors the intrinsic futility of its protagonists’ games of
make-believe. At its heart lies an aesthetic of loss; lost
objects, lost words and lost dreams. Masculinity is seen as
tragically emotionally inarticulate; Stuart’s initial
pseudo-logicism is grotesquely echoed by the shadowgames of
power. The sympathy we are made to feel for Stuart is
particularly well created by Tom Asquith’s expression of
half bravado, half helplessness. Helen Prichard plays Abby with a
mixture of weary optimism and sadness interspersed with
selfabsorption. The “stitchings” which tie them
together are loose; they are only temporary measures which, when
faced with genuine loss, transform the initial verbal games of
the actors into self-conscious tragedy. Abby’s eventual action borders on the hyperbolically
shocking, and if the play has one fault then it is this
occasional over-seriousness which culminates in melodrama as the
symbolism of stitches is realised in an attack of mutilation upon
its piteous heroine. At the end we can still only half grasp at
the real dynamics of the relationship and it is by this ambiguity
that the play succeeds.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Transported from New York to London, this play depicts the
troubled lives of three youths of the 1980s: Warren (Ferdie
Addis) and Dennis (Angus Cameron), who are trying to get out of
debt by various means including selling cocaine, and
Warren’s love interest Jessica (Laura Palmer). The plot
revolves around the pasts and personalities of these three
characters. Information is hinted at throughout the play to explain the
characters’ motivations. While every life does not include
drug-selling and parental abuse, there are many aspects with
which the audience can empathise. The production involves the
audience by maintaining a high level of realism. The movements of
the actors display a lack of inhibition allowing the audience to
believe that they are observing a moment between people they
know. This shifts in the scene between Warren and Jessica where
the audience is made to feel less like an observer and more like
a participant. Jez Hogan’s direction, by paying great
attention to detail, has created the effect of a slice of real
life. The set is strewn with realistic signs of life such as an
unmade bed and empty bottles. Descriptions of events are cleverly used by writer Kenneth
Lonergan to convey an understanding of chilling experiences
without witnessing the events themselves, and the actors’
delivery gives a sense of feeling and dimension. The acting is
acutely polished, and the scenes between Addis and Cameron are
particularly emotive and absorbing. This gripping play, looking
into the lives of a few, is worth a look by many.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Bad Education @ Phoenix Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film on sex, religion, and
abuse is unlike anything you will see in the coming months. In a
film that took over ten years to write, bring into production and
film, the complex lines not only highlight the abuse faced by
Enrique and Ignacio, but the love that underlies it all. In
interview, Almodóvar has been keen to emphasise that this film
is not auto-biographical. However, I feel that taking into
account that he was abused by his priest as a child does bring an
added poignancy to a stunning, moving vision of love. Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho) runs and is literature
teacher at a Catholic school. Manolo becomes infatuated with
Ignacio (Nacho Pérez), who in turn has fallen in love with
Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro). The love triangle persists,
resulting in a masturbating session in the cinema between the two
boys. This culminates in the two boys being caught in the toilet
together, hiding from the prowling Manolo. Ignacio ends up
selling his body to Manolo to save his beloved Enrique. Manolo
does not keep his promise – Enrique is sent away from the
school, and Ignacio left in the indomitable hands of Manolo. Flashing forward to another decade, Enrique (Fele Martínez)
is a publisher, and Angel (Gael García Bernal) wants a job as an
actor, but also happens to bring a film with him. The script is
his account of his childhood – it seems that Enrique has not
forgotten either Ignacio whom he hasn’t seen for over
sixteen years, or Father Manolo. Twists and turns follow, subtle details that could not have
been thought of in anything less than ten years, and the true
plot of Ignacio, Manolo, and Enrique’s childhood is
revealed. The film is not only beautiful, captivating, haunting and
moving, but also hilarious. Javier Cámara steals his scenes and
is absolutely hysterical in his comedic role. Likewise, a sports
day scene involving the priests in full gowns is both hilarious
and shocking. Whilst Manolo enjoys picking his boys, we see a
gowned priest as goalie diving for a ball. This is both
hysterical and a relief from the sordid paedophilic content of
the specific scene. Almodóvar deals delicately with the issues
of abuse; there is no graphic detail, indeed little vocal either.
However, the tension can be read on the actors faces, and in that
respect, the two children playing Enrique and Ignacio, had,
perhaps the most engaging scenes in the film. Delicate, beautiful, with stunning actors, and transvestites,
this film received a standing ovation at Cannes – it will
leave you speechless.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, the old
adage goes. Or, if it appeared in the hugely influential American
politics mag The New Republic in the late 1990s and carried the
by-line Stephen Glass, don’t believe anything you read. At
all. Shattered Glass tells the story of real-life hotshot hack
Glass (Hayden Christensen), who was fired from the magazine for
making up 27 of the 41 ‘exclusive’ stories he wrote,
including, crucially, an account of ambitious internet hackers
which was picked up by Forbes online and exposed as being a
tissue of falsehoods. The bulk of the story is a quietly gripping thriller, as the
net tightens around Glass and his efforts to save his skin get
more desperate. Billy Ray’s film effectively captures the
atmosphere of paranoia and professional jealousy that pervades
such publications, and includes some impressive performances.
Peter Sarsgaard has received the lion’s share of
critics’ praise, for his reinedin portrayal of Glass’s
gruff editor Charles Lane. But it is Hayden Christensen, released
from the role of Anakin Skywalker who surprises, displaying an
acting talent hitherto unseen. Deliciously charming or incredibly
irritating, depending on your point of view, he is always ready
with smooth-tongued flattery, eyes innocently beaming behind his
spectacles. His exposure offers punters the pleasure of seeing
the slimy sycophant who is constantly making coffee and bringing
the boss bagels finally getting his comeuppance. Ray’s
portrayal of the group dynamics of the small, self-regarding
magazine is the great strength of the film. The abuse of trust
and the ease with which people will let themselves be deceived
indicate the pressure on writers in a highly competitive world to
make their work more attractive and entertaining, even if this
involves playing around with the truth. What’s missing is
any psychological insight into Glass’s fabulism. Why did he
do it? Nobody seems to know, least of all Glass. Employing a
device used in numerous recent films, the director mixes
day-to-day reality with Glass’s fantasies in a manner both
amusing and disturbing. But we are given no insight into how far Glass himself
believes this fantasy: is Glass a slicker-than-youraverage
con-man, a less charming version of Leonardo di Caprio’s
desperate people pleaser? Or is he a deeply disturbed young man
who verges on being a sociopath? There are odd paradoxes in the
liberties apparently taken in telling a ‘true’ story
about a journalist fired for taking liberties with the truth, and
for the most part Ray simply sidesteps the whole issue of fiction
versus fact by refusing to speculate on Glass’ motivation.
In this respect, Shattered Glass is dangerously similar to its
own protagonist – too slick for its own good. With Piers
Morgan still reeling from multiple counts of false reporting,
Billy Ray’s sharp, subtle account of renegade reporter
Stephen Glass seems timely.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

First things first: don’t let the title deceive you. This
may be a movie about melancholia, but it’s also an absolute
riot; hugely inventive and utterly bizarre. Filmed in grainy
black and white, it’s a nostalgiasoaked homage to the
screwball comedies and melodramas of early cinema, but with a
wicked wit and manic energy entirely its own – the sort of
film the Marx brothers might have made if they’d been on
speed. This still doesn’t do justice to the sheer insanity of
the whole enterprise though. It centres around a doubleamputee
called Lady Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) who, in the 1930s,
organises a competition to find the world’s saddest music. The winners of each round are rewarded by getting to slide
down a shoot into an enormous vat of beer to celebrate. Lady
Port-Huntley gets fitted a pair of false glass legs filled with
beer to replace her lost real ones. Oh and there’s also a
telepathic tapeworm thrown in for good measure, as well as a
nymphomaniac amnesiac and a photosensitive Serbian cellist. Sure, this may not sound like your average bundle of laughs
but it’s exactly this refreshing randomness to the humour
which, almost, manages to carry the film. Best of all are the
competition’s two ultra-camp and brilliantly irrelevant
commentators (their response to a sombre entry from Siam –
“ah, the Siamese, no one can beat them when it comes to
dignity, cats or twins”). There’s also more pointed
satire in the way the crooked American representative buys the
help of all the poorer defeated nations to put on a horribly
kitsch Broadway-style extravaganza. But ultimately the movie feels like a joke that overstays its
welcome just that little too long. The humour dries up towards
the end, leaving us characters too ridiculous to care about. If
only it could have lived up to that initial flair, it might just
have been a comic gem. Now that really issad.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Faithless
No Roots
Out 7 June Before we start, there’s something I have to share: Maxi
Jazz does something to me. And no, this review is not about to
transform into some bizarre kiss and tell story. On the contrary, Maxi Jazz used to make me feel like a very
naïve child. What I am ineffectually trying to convey is the
enigmatic experience projected by his vocals; the almost
prophetic authority of that chanting; the voice that forced the
nation into submission with the anthemic ‘Insomnia’. Indeed, Faithless have been an important British band of the
last decade, in a genre where achieving lasting relevance was
difficult. MJ’s beat driven narratives propelled and
elevated the house revolution and they even fostered the
pre-Eminen talent of a certain Dido. New album No Roots continues to do these things. Sister
Bliss’s big beats aren’t really the soundtrack to youth
culture anymore though, rather a nostalgic reminder of pills,
parties and puberty. The Faithless sound has homogenised. The
massive mainstream success of Sunday 8pm struck a commercial
chord, which the band is continuing, somewhat relentlessly, to
strike. Political consciousness still pervades the fifteen new tracks.
On recent single ‘Mass Destruction’ , Maxi Jazz recites
‘we refuse to see that people overseas, suffer just like
we’. This may be true, but radical messages need a better
vehicle than the aging late 90s production with which Faithless
insist on packaging their sound. P*Nut and Sister Bliss’s ‘Mass Destruction mix’
makes efforts to rehash the single’s bland conventionality,
and manages to raise the funk factor a smidgen. It becomes the
relative stand-out track amongst uniform lowlights. The phenomenal Horace Andy and Massive Attack collaboration of
yesteryear is poorly imitated with the addition of guest vocalist
LSK. His mellow vocals generate an easy listening, chilled reggae
vibe on tracks like ‘I Want More’ but don’t quite
hit the mark. Maxi does his stuff throughout, yet the pounding
rhythms, forced rhymes and stock repetitions, ‘Miss you
less, see you more / Love to know you better’ (x 14) just
don’t resonate anymore. His confusion is manifest: on
‘Pastoral’ he questions ‘all I need to know is
what more I have to do?’. Well, MJ, I for one recommend
nothing. Faithless have past maturity, I think its time for a
dignified retiremen.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Reviewers have described Kathryn Williams voice as
‘delicate’ and ‘ethereal’; physically she is
much more corporeal. This was just one of the anomalies that
crept up in Sunday night’s performance, in which Williams
sang mostly songs from her recent album Relations intermeshed
with tracks from her last set Old Low Light. Her songs are
beautiful, in particular the rendition of ‘Birds’ by
Neil Young, with a sense of the real emotion in what she was
singing. Perhaps she had a little too much emotion. Williams did seem
to be taking herself a little too seriously, understandable given
her lyrics. “You put your lip-gloss on, you’re dressed
up to the top of your knickers,” etc was a little hard to
take. Perhaps it is that Williams occupies such a middle of the
road market; her album Relations was Radio Two’s album of
the week and her audience comprised mainly of middle aged men and
teenage girls. Moreover, the ‘fragility’ of
William’s voice translates to weakness in a live set,
frequently drowned out by the noise of the instruments. Given that I’m a Kathryn Williams fan, it is surprising
that I am so critical, but I felt her set was overwhelmingly
disappointing. The songs that on the albums sound so beautiful
and poignant, were performed in a manner rendering the sentiment
little more than: “I’m so sad, why don’t boys like
me?” This is a pity because I’m sure Williams feels
that they do mean much more than that. Sunday night’s
performance did little to demonstrate Williams’ abilities.
If you like her music you’re better off buying one of her
albums, the live version isn’t comparable.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Ryan Adams does get around. In addition to his four solo
albums in three years, Adams is also responsible for a
tongue-incheek, punk-thrash album under the moniker The Finger,
the charmingly titled We Are Fuck You. The connection to New
Yorker Jesse Malin is that he was the other half of The Finger,
so to speak. Indeed the associations between Malin and Adams go further.
The pair have toured together with Adams producing Malin’s
debut adding guitar and backing vocals on his second album also. Comparisons between the two therefore, are inevitable and
coming off a pair of poorly received albums ( Rock N Roll and
Love is Hell), Adams can be forgiven for looking over his
shoulder. The Heat is a neat album. There’s little in the way of
sonic invention; this is simply a case of giving a tortured soul
an electric guitar and backing band and taping the results. It is
at this rock and roll simplicity that Malin excels. His voice has a sinewy elasticity that rides over some huge
Springsteen-esque riffs. Back-toback songs ‘Basement
Home’ and ‘Hotel Columbia’ are the pick of a
consistent and wide-ranging set of songs. The former is an
utterly beguiling, effortlessly simple piano ballad. The latter
is a shirt-off, chest-beating, balls-out anthem. The only bum
note is the hackneyed closer ‘God’s Lonely
People’. The title is cringing and the lyrics are worse.
Fine Art… garnered some excellent reviews, and The
Heatsuccessfully builds on a growing reputation.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004 

Before reaching for the play button on your stereo, you would
be correct in thinking you are about to listen to an understated,
‘lets-just-give-it-ago- and-see-what-happens’ album; it
promises to last a mere 33 minutes and 35 seconds. The unoriginality of the title of The Futureheads debut album
(given its name due to “complications and some more
thinking”) shouldn’t put you off. Even the fact that
the band’s name is unashamedly “more or less
nicked” from the Flaming Lips’ album ‘ Hit to
death in the Futurehead’, has not stopped critics from
boldly suggesting that the four northern lads are set to
revolutionize the pop-punk scene. The cover is a bit of a let-down, but this album is worth
giving the benefit of the doubt to. The first bars of the opening
track ‘Le Garage’ lure you in gently, and deceptively,
since there is nothing gentle either about the rest of the track
or the remaining thirteen. Its surprisingly short length is a
cunning trick, since this tantalizing opening leaves you sitting
on the edge of your seat wanting to hear a few more snippets. The musical appeal gains momentum as you delve deeper into the
album, with energetic bursts of rock and jerky, repetitive
rhythms. The lyrics are haphazard at times, but maybe that just adds to
the punk-pop effect. This is headbashing stuff, but in a pure,
unadulterated British style. And what a style it is. This is one
debut album well worth a listen.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004