Bronte, Oxford Playhouse, 24 March - 2 April

Considering the Brontë sisters’ lives were devoid of much ‘living’ as such, it is astonishing how much vitality Polly Teale extracts from the story of the family in the new run of her play Brontë, which has started at the Oxford Playhouse this week.

The play examines the rise of the three sisters, and the fall of their idolised brother Bramwell, played against a backdrop of industrial revolution and social upheaval, but set within the domestic space of their home at the Parsonage at Haworth.

The play may be set almost entirely in one room, but all life is here. Sibling rivalry, repressed passions, a desperate desire for life, but without the means. Anne says she writes to “turn life into words”, but the other two sisters find life from their words. Their soaring, intensely-felt inner lives become real through the characters they create, as fictional and real characters are mixed onstage. The play powerfully merges their novels with their lives: the passionate Bertha Rochester bubbling beneath the surface of staid Charlotte; the wild and elemental Cathy that Emily longs to be, mouthing along with her own words as she watches her creations take life in front of her.

All of the cast embody their parts perfectly. Emily is the most sympathetic sister – a free spirit who writes in order to exist, not in order to be known. Charlotte is the ambitious one, the one who recognises Emily’s talent but cannot bear to acknowledge it; who baulks at the thought that the world might think that she wrote such unhinged, uncouth subject matter. But though she is the colder, more aloof and business-like sister, her loneliness at the end is heartbreaking.

Perhaps I would have been moved anyway. The story of, and stories by, the Brontës are devastatingly powerful on their own. But the way the two are weaved together here is masterfully and beautifully done. At the end, Charlotte writes that she has finally managed to find contentment in the ordinary. This play is far from ordinary.

Original review here

Killing By The Power of The Thigh: A Study

Once in a while, a film comes along and it stays with you long after the credits have rolled.  Gandhi.  Schindler's List.  That Al Gore film about climate change that I haven't seen but I'm sure is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

And once in a while, a scene in a film comes along that stays with you long after another scene has come, and then a couple more, and then the credits have rolled.  You think about it for days afterwards.  You wonder if other films have similar scenes, and if so you want to see them, and see them now.  For me, this was that scene:

(Sorry this clip of the profound and moving Lethal Weapon is a bit long.  I personally think it's worth it, but if you don't have a whole 3 minutes 40 seconds to waste, I've chopped it straight to the good bit here).

Maybe it's because it was made in the days when Mel Gibson was cool, before his, shall we say, 'difficulties' and 'other difficulties' with the police began.  Maybe it's because the clip gives us a good look at Gary Busey's remarkable teeth (here is a facebook page dedicated to them.  This discovery has brightened my day.  Even more than the reflection of the sun glinting off Gary's teeth undoubtedly would).  But as should be obvious, the real reason this clip is so amazing is because Mel Gibson nearly KILLS SOMEONE WITH HIS THIGHS.

Killing by the thigh.  A tactic I hope to use if I ever get beaten up in the rain.  I am tempted to start jiu jitsu lessons so that I can learn (this is never going to happen).  If you want some not very sexy thrills, search for scissor hold on youtube.  Shudder.

Scissor holds tend to be done by the ladies.  I can't imagine why.  A notable example is in Goldeneye, where Famke Janssen, playing Xenia Onatopp (hmm), attacks with her thighs rather a lot.  There's a bit too much heavy breathing for me to post a link to the obvious scenes without feeling like a pervert, but here is a clip near the end where she attempts some not quite so pornographic thigh killing, and Piers Brosnan gets to say something 'hilarious' at the end.

There are occasional examples of men killing women by the power of the thigh.  This one is from the classic film Anaconda:

There is so much to love in this.  Jon Voigt's excellent unidentifiable accent.  His words of wisdom.  His face. The majestic leap to thigh killing glory.  And the way he says 'baby bird' at the end, which very much makes me hope he was thinking of this during the squeezing.

The best film that I have discovered from my investigations however, is Double Impact starring Jean Claude Van Damme.  There is a scissor hold in it, but this becomes very dull news when you learn that he plays a set of twins separated at birth, and fights himself.  Killing by the power of the thigh is very exciting, but Jean Claude Van Damme fighting Jean Claude Van Damme?  Why can I not buy this on amazon?

Sweeney Todd - Pembroke College, 8-10 March

I went into Pembroke College to see Sweeney Todd with low expectations. I was sure that a student production of Stephen Sondheim’s complex musical, the notoriously gory story of the demon barber of Fleet Street, was bound to be a fake-blood-splattered disaster. Never have I been so pleased to be so completely wrong. 

The musical tells the story of Sweeney Todd, newly returned to London after 15 years in Australia, due to transportation on false charges. After he discovers that his wife poisoned herself after being raped by the judge who wrongly transported him, he vows revenge. 

From the first scene it is clear that this is not going to be a shambling amateur production. It starts with just the piano, joined by the double bass, then solo singers build up until the full company is singing on stage, handling the intricate harmonies and rhythms with apparent ease. This powerful opening scene sets a high standard that the cast manage to maintain throughout. 

In a stellar cast, extra special mention must go to the two leads. Both hold the audience’s sympathies, despite their dark deeds. Amanda Williams plays Mrs Lovett as a savvy business woman, just as immoral, and just as cunning, as the man she foolishly, and hopelessly, loves. Mrs Lovett’s song ‘Beside the Sea’, where she imagines the couple retiring by the seaside, presumably on the money they make from their human pies, is a definite highlight. 

But star of the show, undeniably, is Liam Steward-George as Sweeney Todd. His presence on stage as the vengeance-obsessed barber is remarkable in its confidence and intensity. A very talented individual who I look forward to seeing in productions in the future. 

Clever staging means that there are no awkward set changes, clever lighting means that there is no ridiculous gore (a trap too easy to fall into with this sort of play), and all in all this is the best student production that I have seen in Oxford by far. In fact, to call it a student production is to do it a disservice, as it could hold its own against the professionals easily. Catch this razor sharp show while you can!


Original review here

The Tempest *'

The Tempest. Most of us know at least the basic story: Duke Prospero is usurped, he and his daughter get exiled from his kingdom and end up on an island; twelve years later he conjures a tempest and his enemies end up on the same island; revenge plots and personal growth ensue.

Shakespeare has been done a million times, so if there is a new film version it must be for a reason, right? They must be bringing something modern and exciting to it, right? If I were a film executive, what could I bring to a film of The Tempest that would fit in with the twenty-first century? Make Prospero a woman, Prospera. That will get us some press.

And what do the kids like? CGI! CGI is a gift to a director wanting to portray a character like Ariel, an androgynous spirit of the air. So, we’ll get the lovely Ben Whishaw, make him a little bit see through, give him some breasts for half of the film, and have him run about in the sky. And then, since that’s just a bit too subtle and we want to remind everybody how clever this computer imagery business is, when Prospera is doing her magic we’ll get some of the naffest looking graphics possible, and put Whishaw’s face on a frog, or create some dogs that are even less convincing than the awful monkeys from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and whoosh them out of the end of Prospera’s staff. And then we’ll chuck some songs in, because I don’t think the audience will have cringed enough yet.

There is some good: the Shakespeare bits, obviously. The speeches are delivered beautifully, as one would expect from the likes of Helen Mirren, Tom Conti, and Alfred Molina. Russell Brand does a good impression of Russell Brand. Miranda and Ferdinand are very pretty, though a bit wet. The costumes are pleasingly zippy…

When zippy costumes are one of the best things about a film, I think you know you’re not watching a classic. Our revels now are ended? Thank goodness. I think I’d rather have not gone to the party

Original review here