'I am not my body, I am me'

Rock n roll by Tom Stoppard at the Duke of York’s theatre, St Martin’s Lane on 31st October 2006

So another year passes into a gin induced coma and time continues to travel at invidious speeds. I wish I could go back and tell me younger self to hurry up, to catch up to make the most of glowing skin and romantic opportunities but unfortunately no, I’m stuck with what I’ve got... However, there is still gin and merriment and friendships new and old to kindle/rekindle. All is not lost.

At the Duke of York’s my old favourite Rufus Sewell (I’d call my eldest born son after him but I’m afraid he’d get the sh*t kicked out of him on trips home to Wales), is holding court with a sensitive and measured (ooh, get her!) performance as Jan, an East European, good-looking, reluctant hero of the communist era in what is now the Czech Republic. An artist of the John Lennon ‘simple messages are good’ ‘give peace a chance’ variety, he struggles to come to terms with the oppressiveness of the state he’s living in. He doesn’t want to be a dissident or a leader but that exactly what occurs as he clings to his love of rock n roll to makes sense of the world, especially his beloved Plastic people of the universe who are censored to the point where they can’t play anymore and their fans are all arrested as deviants/enemies of the state.

Sewell is perfect in the part and there are other good actors in the play including Sinead Cusack, playing two parts- mother and daughter, across the generations. In the first of her roles, Eleanor, she argues with her husband about consciousness and the mind/body connection. Dying from cancer she battles bravely against an aggressive and debilitating enemy. One that’s destroying her body piece by piece but cannot diminish her spirit and her lust for life; she defiantly sticks two fingers up to the disease as she warns her student Lenka, ‘not to try and shag her husband until she’s dead’. Great stuff. In the second of her roles, Esme, she plays an under-achieving ‘flower child’ who struggles in her own battle against feelings of futility and worthlessness in face of her parents’ and daughter’s genius. In both parts Cusack is extremely effective.

The musical interludes that punctuate the drama are well placed if not a bit startling at first, and the sleeve notes add even more texture to the experience. Overall the play is complex and weighty without being unwieldy. It helps if you know something of the political era its set in before you go, but human relationships are at its core and that’s what sustains it. The set is simple but effective with Jan’s small apartment with its dusty shelves of vinyl and the house of Eleanor and her family with its familial comings and goings create a sense of harmony and intimacy with the audience. These people live in recognisable surroundings, even thought there lives are played out on an international stage.

Yes it was a great play and a great birthday treat. Serious issues, serious history, seriously good music. Thanks vodkaslut, Bulmersbabe, real ale boy, whiskeydiva, redwineaddict, and all the others for your support and encouragement throughout the year.

Let historical fact wait

Marie Antoinette at the Barbican cinema, 20 October 2006

A war seems to have been raging about the merits of this one in the western press: is it all superficial hogwash, girlie outlandish folly…a moral and artistic-free zone, a profane, sickly-sweet confection- a classic case of a director with too much money and not enough sense? Well maybe.

However, it’s not without its assets. The film is great Friday night fare- not substantial enough to fill you up for the entire weekend, but a good way to wind down and rid your mind of workplace horrors and calamities. Certainly I would say that Jonathan Ross’ castigations on Film 2006 were a bit over the top- ‘not as clever as it thinks it is’ I think he said; or something like that. Well maybe. But I did quite like the Bow Wow Wow ‘I like candy’ video montage which he railed against on his show. If you’ve been jilted in love, the first thing you do (if you’re a girl) is reach for the credit card, gather your mates around you, and go buy shoes…What’s unrealistic about that?

It has got a very modern, 21st century sensibility, and the main subject seemed to me, not to be the titular Marie Antoinette, but rather the three Cs: confectionary, consumerism and celebrity (did she really say ‘Let them eat cake’; answer: does anybody care?). I do generally like to sympathise with my heroines more its true, or at least understand them better through the course of the film, but at the end of this I was looking forward to seeing them all have their heads chopped off (purely on the basis that if you get to live a life of luxury for that long, then it seems only fair that you should have a taste of hardship at the end of it). So by that measure, it did let me down a bit.

But overall I think that Jonathan Ross needs to open his mind to the feminine perspective a bit more- after all, this is a man who thinks that Adam Sandler is a comic genius; enough said. In my view Sofia Coppola is a genuinely gifted director who tried to do something a bit different with her dry and crusty material (although the BBC did a much better job of transforming the idea of historical drama with their Casanova). Did she totally succeed? Maybe she did and maybe she didn't, but one thing's for sure and that's that the film is absolutely beautiful to look at and captures the sumptuosness of the eighteenth century French court if nothing else.

I must confess I do have one major niggle with the film however: if Marie Antoinette (as played by at best size 8 Kirsten Dunst) was really eating that much cake SO consistently for SO many years (and this is important); wouldn’t she be fatter?

The end is nigh! You heard it here first

Children of Men at the Stratford Picture House, 7 October 2006

So, well, it’s not for the faint-hearted, let’s start there. It’s not exactly Star Trek either- which is good or bad depending on your level of geekiness. What it is you could call a dystopian drama of sterility and collective self-destruction set in the year 2027; a society without dirty nappies, but also without hope for the future. Which is better? Um, it’s a hard one to fathom.

There’s a lot of dirt and grime in this movie- all the gangsters and terrorists look like nineties eco-warriors- Indeed Robin of Sherwood would not look out of place. Tribal living is on the resurgence (flagellators, repenters, all kinds of medieval-sounding factions) and a reactionary (obviously Conservative) government are sticking refugees in cages at tube stations to scare the natives into submission. Middle aged childless women hoard china bulldogs and a cloyingly sentimental type of ‘Britishness’ is rampant amidst the chaos.

So where lays the hope? In the old Croupier himself, Clive ‘was too good for that James Bond shit’ Owen of course. Theo, the reluctant saviour who’s just had enough of the whole damn thing and enjoys hanging out with his old hippy pal, Michael Caine, who’s lives in an idyllic rural retreat (as near to idyllic as imaginable when the world’s gone to pot) with his invalid wife; growing cannibis (“Strawberry cough"), for the refugees in Bexhill on Sea, polishing the memorabilia of his photo-journalistic heyday, and philosophising about the relationship between free will and chance.

I won’t give too much away about the plot because about half an hour the movie heads off in a brave and unexpected direction; I have too much respect for the film to even hint at what happens (if you know anything about salvation stories though you'll guess there's a baby involved). Needless to say, this is a great film- not a great mood-enhancer, but food for thought definitely. I loved the details- the stuff about Britishness I’ve already mentioned, but also the billboard that reads ‘Last one out, turn out the lights’. Love that grim humour.

Oh and dramatically it’s really gripping- the portrayal of Bexhill on Sea as a kind of besieged Sarajevo/Warsaw ghetto, all gun shells and routine killings by the roadside, is powerful and hard-hitting, and there’s one scene inside the camp which involves the inability of three of the main characters to get a door open for what seems like an absolute aeon…well, it'll drive you crazy if you let it.

Basically this is a film you should see for the sake of your soul…yes, it's depressing, but there’s lots of action in it too, and the teeniest tiniest glimmer of hope breaking through the primordial fog at its heart-rendering termination.

9.5/10. GSG. (would have been 10/10 except that Michael Caine’s woolly cardigan was a bit too Last of the Summer Wine for me).

I am young and I am hot!

Maximo Park at the Brixton Academy, 6th October 2006.

Not me but the dynamic and frenetic Paul Smith who has increased hugely in stature and ahem, stage presence, since myself and vodkaslut saw him last at the teeny weenie Infinity club in Mayfair, back in early 2005 (two for one vodka shots and a late licence, it was fabulous). I really shouldn’t have left it this long between Maximo gigs, and I’m not sure how it happened as I always loved them big time, but here I am and ready to make up for lost time with added enthusiasm and dynamism of my own (the gin is flowing).

On the first occasion we saw them, Maximo Park were still on the up and up, still striking slightly pretentious poses, combing their hair over awkwardly (Paul Smith), and being generally viewed as a passing oddity. Being from ‘up north’ they were part of the new influx of Britpop/indie adventurers making their way south with a hop, a skip and a jerky, angular guitar riff forward. Unlike The Futureheads though, who we saw them support at the Astoria, Maximo seemed rather more cerebral, Bohemian, if not a bit foppish. The songs were oddball narratives with pedantic lyrics- ‘I’ll do graffiti/If you sing to me in French’ (Graffiti)...'I sleep with my hands across my chest/And dream of you with someone else' (Going Missing); The book-reading affectation (revived nostalgically at the Brixton Academy) confirmed the Daniel Day-Lewis predilections of the lead singer, and seemed oh so chic and sophisticated.

Back to the Brixton Academy in 2006 and the old fashioned intellectualism is still in evidence, but no longer seems in any way effete or marginal. ‘These songs mean a lot to us and we’re so glad you came to hear them tonight’, the elegantly suited and booted Mr Smith reassures the audience. With his white ‘Chinatown’ outfit and his fedora hat, he looks like a young Jack Nicholson or Humphrey Bogart, blended with a small spattering of Jarvis Cocker type geekiness. The band are HUGE in every way possible, and the crowd go stir-crazy when it comes to Apply Some Pressure with its rousing, messianic message ‘What happens when you lose everything/You just start again/Start all over again’. I’ve found inspiration in those words many times since I first heard them. And as for Paul Smith, he seems taller than when I first saw him…taller and broader. Or maybe that’s because the stage is just a wee bit bigger.

Give the boy a pat on the back. He’s done good.

Shiny happy mixed-up folks

Little Miss Sunshine at Odean Covent Garden, 4th October 2006

Cheer up. Life's not so bad. Well, families suck, life's a bitch and love's an endless disappointment. But hey, there's beauty pageants to be sabotaged (come on, they deserve it- children should NOT be wearing fake tan and dressing like Thai prostitutes) and crappy vehicles to be vandalised, and bodies to be illegally transported... fun fun fun. Pull yourself together, abandon the hot water bottle and comfy slippers, and go see this sanguine, winter-melancholy- defying, mood-boosting rollercoaster type movie. Don't expect fireworks or moral affirmation, or pyrotechnics of any shape or form, but if the idea of a family of (somtime slightly hackneyed but overall well-played) eccentrics doing their best to pull together and make the best of a bad job, makes you chortle; then go for it, and be utterly satisfied.

Oh and I definately went to school with Dwayne- the quintessential disaffectted long-fringe wearing teenage boy, buth then everyone over thirty will probably think that. And Olive is so so cute. I havn't seen such a quirky looking little girl in a movie since 'Wellcome to the Dollhouse', although that was of course a much darker movie (you definately shouldn't see it if you're looking for something similar to LMS).

Overall the movie lives up to its name, and is excellent as an early winter palliative. 8/10.

GSG.