Arts
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Postcard Show 2008 @ Surface Gallery
Opening a mere 48 hours after the volunteer-run gallery’s move to its new home at Southwell Road, near Sneinton Market, the Postcard Show has something of a haphazard, DIY feel. The exhibition’s tagline, ‘Anyone can make art, anyone can buy art’, says it all. As long as it fits on a 4” X 6” postcard, every submission is exhibited. And every submission is for sale: budding art collectors can pick up any one of the hundreds of mini-masterpieces for just £20.
Despite the seemingly constricting brief, the variety of the entries is impressive. Adorning three vast walls, the postcards range from pencil drawings, to photographs, to sparkly 3D fairies with jingle bells for feet. Witty takes on the traditional holiday postcard included a series of works with brightly coloured text describing how the traveller felt at famous landmarks, ‘At the Taj Mahal his mind wandered to what he would have for dinner that night’. Another series featured the outlines of countries like Japan and Germany, made of old postage stamps.
But the exhibition went beyond the theme of travel, featuring everything from an appliqué sequined typewriter, to onion shaped blobs of swirly acrylic paint. The postcards weren’t even necessarily confined to the wall. It is an interactive exhibition in every sense of the word: the curator urged me to take the postcards off the wall to have a closer look. 3D offerings, like intricate paper cut outs of trees, were placed on large concrete blocks in the centre of the gallery.
This is a community gallery, with artists, volunteers, and even visitors (as I found out when I was asked to give feedback on the lighting), having an impact on what is on show. The anonymity of the works and the varied experimentation with form made for interesting viewing, and it’s a great place to pick up original Christmas presents.
Isabel Roth
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Accidental Death of an Anarchist @ The New Theatre
Accidental Death of an Anarchist takes a satirical approach to the political problems of 1970’s Italy. The play centres on the death of the character Salsedo, a suspected anarchist whose suspicious death in police custody is subject to an investigation. The character is found dead having jumped or been pushed out of the police station’s fourth floor window. An inquest takes place which attempts to determine whether death was caused by suicide or assassination.
The play opens with the scene of the fourth floor police office where Salsedo fell to his death. Inspector Bertozzo interviews a crazed man, known as the Maniac, and discovers he had been arrested many times for impersonation. After causing chaos, the Maniac is told to leave, but returns soon after to look through confidential police files. The Maniac later disguises himself as a Judge and deals with the inquest himself, outsmarting Inspector Bertozzo and causing many problems within the police who were involved with the incident.
The play was mostly enjoyable to watch, but the ambiguity in the first act dragged, particularly with moments of too much anger from the police officers, which was meant that some of the comic moments were lost. The performance was more enjoyable in the second act, where a greater range of expression was used to illustrate anger and frustration, other than simply shouting. The Maniac performed the role very convincingly, meaning that the humour created by this character was always well received by the audience.
Becky Newberry
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The Impossible Prison @ Nottingham Contemporary
The Impossible Prison is an eerie exhibition created as part of the Nottingham Contemporary’s ‘Histories of the Present’ series. The art is displayed in the cells of the prison and is based around the ideas of Michel Foucault, who set up the Prison Information Group in the 1970s which aimed to give prisoners a voice. Foucault was also very interested in the architecture of prison and how more aesthetic ceils could create a more tranquil ambience. His ideas on how prisons should be run was the inspiration for the sixteen artists featured in this exhibition.
The art on display ranges from films and sculpture to watercolours and deals with the idea of prison: on the physical space and the idea of surveillance cameras and war encasing and consuming people. This sense of confinement runs through the display. Artelier Van Lieshout’s Dormitory of cartoon like figures in what looks like wooden coffins stacked on top of each other, conveys the mass confinement of dehumanised bodies. Harun Farocki also addresses this sense of detention by focusing on a ‘life missed’ - on what goes on outside of the prison while the people inside sit and watch life go by. Other artists focus more on how the prisoners deal with life in a cell; Vito Acconci deals with insanity and endurance in his films which are also designed to create an unnerving atmosphere.
This exhibition, apart from making me anxious and hesitant also made me almost svmpathise with prisoners. You forget about their crimes and instead witness the insanity and utter boredom they face when confined in these gloomy oppressing prison cells. It also made me see art in a new light; this exhibition shows how a space can completely change an art work and give it new meaning. I would thoroughly reccommend going to see this exhibition - although it is slightly unnerving it shows a contemporary spin on art.Katie Balcombe
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Look back in Anger @ New Theatre
Many will be familiar with John Osborne’s iconic 1956 play and its introduction to British theatre of a new wealth of material, told in brutal honesty as never before. The context out of which it sprung is a key moment in our recent history - post-war Britain in depression, the sudden move away from class and gender distinctions, and the disillusioned youth of this frustrated state.
James Lewis’ adaptation certainly captures the realism of Osborne’s play, contributed to both by the impressive and highly appropriate design and the consistent believability on the part of the cast, who are onstage and in character whilst the audience enter. However I am still trying to decide whether something really crucial is lost from Osborne’s original through the elimination of the brilliant final act, and the moments which tie the piece together. Despite a somewhat self-conscious beginning, David Nertherton successfully develops Jimmy into a really infuriating and unpleasant Angry Young Man – uncomfortable to watch and therefore a convincing portrayal. But had we had the chance to view the added depth given to his character by the ‘replaying’ of the first act in the third, with Helena replacing Alison, and Jimmy’s ultimate reconciliation with his wife, perhaps the production and its characters would have reached a fuller development, giving the audience more to take away from the experience. Admittedly, it is a long script and 52 years after the initial controversy surrounding the play, there is now perhaps less of the thrill and urgency intrinsic to the play that would allow the full script to maintain engagement.
As I have mentioned, the cast do not convey significant conviction until the scene in which Alison falls and hurts her arm. From this point on however they relax into the changes of pace and volume, and allow the silences to play out more confidently, engaging with each other, and the audience, with more dynamism. The directorial interpretation of Cliff, given an endearing portrayal by Douggie McMeekin, is enjoyable and apt: ineffectual yet well-meaning, soft, sensitive and bumbling; the classic underdog. Victoria Auckland gives a suitably flouncy depiction of Helena, with a comfortable stage presence that serves occasionally to tie the action together. Christey Nethercott’s Alison, although not persuasive at first, invokes in us appropriate levels of empathy and frustration through an increasingly confident involvement with her character. It is not an edge-of-your-seat evening, but a well-designed and eventually confidently and feelingly depicted production, demonstrating a thoughtful perception of the protagonists and the relationships between them.
Emily Shirtcliff
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Nature’s Pretenders @ The New Theatre
‘Lucid dreaming is the ability to become conscious or self-aware in your dreams. It is the ability to be able to realise that you’re dreaming; to have control of them and so do anything because none of the boundaries of reality apply’.
Before the car crash David was always quick to scoff at the ‘airy fairy’ ideals of his Emily; his girlfriend. But losing Emily completely destroys this confidence in his belief system, and he turns to Lucid dreaming as a means of escape.
What was interesting about ‘Nature’s pretenders’ was that although the play dealt with the philosophy of dreams, most of the acting took place in reality. Through David’s friends; writer and director Adam Wood offered a constant questioning of David’s sanity, and the reasoning behind lucid dreaming. According to Wikipedia lucid dreaming ‘has been researched scientifically and is well established’. Therefore the interesting question for me was ‘has David really discovered the revelation of lucid dreaming, or are his dreams simply a product of his mental breakdown?’
I really enjoyed the comedy scene, showing the dynamics of David’s friendship group before the car crash. The role of Tess played by Rose Eccleshare as the crazy girlfriend who introduces the idea of lucid dreaming particularly aided the comedy. As well as getting several laughs from the audience, the scene served to make the contrasting tensions between David and his friends later on all the more felt. In Adam Woods’s exploration of grief it was evident that every member of the group was affected differently. This switch of emotions was played well by the cast
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The use of props and images was also particularly well done. It was much more effective to combine images and voiceovers to illustrate the car crash; and the subsequent recurrence of this in David’s dreams, through a projector screen. This helped to maintain the division between the dreamlike quality of David’s experiences and the reality he faces as his friends question him. Due to this the single dream scene between Emily and David actually on the stage was much more climatic. Using a water basin onstage was clever. Wading through the water to greet one another actors Charlie Eccleshare and Jenni Herzburg added a natural sound effect to the atmospheric background music, which heightened the reality of David’s dream. It also meant that the street in David’s dream had materialised alongside the set designed living room. So that whilst David’s body could have been sleeping there on his sofa, what he experiences with his mind has become the greater reality.At the start of the play David says “we are nature’s pretenders, we go to university, we get a job and we retire, what makes us think we have more to life than that?” Ironically Wood shows that when we have love we have ‘more than life’. On her death David discovers life is about Emily, and what he has is the choice to live in reality without her, or in a coma dreaming with her.
Anne Moore
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Aladdin @ The Nottingham Playhouse
For the first time in more than ten years, I spent Saturday night at the pantomime…and I think I had forgotten what to expect from this slightly embarrassing landmark of English culture. Given that it is still fairly early in Panto-season , I had assumed the audience would be sparse and mostly consisting of the reluctant local press writers who’d drawn the short straw (this was not the case at Impact – I fought tooth and nail for those tickets…). The theatre however was packed with a very vocal audience of all ages – something that the quick-witted cast drew on in their (frequent) ad-libbing.
One of the most immediately striking elements of this production is Tim Meacock’s beautiful design. Aided by a substantial budget no doubt, Aladdin is a visual feast of stunning costumes and really decadent scenery. Every aspect of the production embraces what it unashamedly is and pulls off a slick and confident evening of glittering spectacle, cringingly contrived humour and every expected panto device dutifully yet creatively present. The cast are tight and energetic, with particular recognition of Nathan Dowling (Wishee Washee) and John Elkington (Abanaza), who alongside Kenneth Alan Taylor (Widow Twankey) often carry the pace and comedy of the production between them. The dancers are fantastic, the traditional cheesy pantomime songs are updated with the unmistakable High School Musical influence, and the title role is played, true to convention, by an energetic thigh-slapping blonde in fishnets (my date’s critical summary: ‘Aladdin’s got great legs’).
I think that Saturday night was probably untypical of the whole run in that it was the opening of Taylor’s 25th Pantomime at the Playhouse – as writer, director, and in his signature role of Dame. Taylor deserves due credit for his creativity and talent in masterminding the show, as well as his undeniable stage skills and enthusiasm for engaging the crowd. There was amongst the audience an obvious fondness for Taylor, (which I sadly did not get, being the ignorant student from the South) as well as anticipation for both classically manufactured jokes and unscripted hilarity – and on neither count were we disappointed. However after the 17th time we were commanded to ‘do the Time Warp, again’, the show ran on to a total of three hours and three acts – dare I say it, Taylor’s incessant unscripted reappearances onstage were occasionally tiresome. One thing to be said for the many, many intervals is that with a Gin and Tonic downed in each one, my date and I loosened our vocal chords sufficiently to really do justice to those all-important ‘He’s behind you’s!’.
Aladdin is a colourful and fantastically brash production, and with an audience as enthusiastic as that of Saturday night, it cannot fail to be highly enjoyable. So go to the pantomime this Christmas – leave your shame at home and revisit your childhood - embrace the glitter, the embarrassing jokes, and the occasional thespian ego - because it’s just really good fun.
Aladdin is showing at Nottingham Playhouse until January 24th 2009.
Emily Shirtcliff
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Absurd Person Singular @ Theatre Royal
Arriving at the Theatre Royal, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this play. I looked around the foyer and quickly realised that I was surrounded by audience members easily old enough to be my grandparents. I began to think that perhaps the revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1972 play; “Absurd Person Singular” would be rather dated affair in comparison to his more recent productions. However, my fears were swiftly alleviated as hearty laughter filled the theatre proving that great comedy clearly spans the generations.
Set on three successive Christmas Eve’s this nutty play documents the changing social rankings and marital turbulences of three couples in the 1970’s. The three acts weave together a string of stressful Christmas gatherings, starting with the Hopcroft’s drinks party; an event of desperate ingratiation and social climbing. The audience is privy not to the action of the party in the living room, but only to the hidden backstage panic (and relative privacy) of the kitchen where the couples reveal the flaws that their public personas would not allow to be exposed. Through this focus on off- stage action, Ayckbourn shrewdly draws upon his audience’s imagination to fill in the blanks. Dick and Lottie are spoken of frequently and are the life and soul of the party but remain a mystery of the off stage action and are never introduced. This clever use of absence throughout the play creates enigmas that force the audience to participate in the action through use of their own inventiveness.
The play gets darker as it progresses but never loses its charm. Calamity is made all the more poignant through its juxtaposition with comedy and farce as Eva’s endeavour to gas herself in the oven is misinterpreted as an effort to clean it by her oblivious guests. By the third act social mobility has been fully exercised and a complete reversal of roles has occurred. An unexpected gathering is set at the previously socially superior Brewster – Wright’s home to reveal a lonely marriage and an emaciated, alcoholic wife. It culminates with the now unstoppably successful Sidney Hopcroft calling the shots as he screams “Dance, dance, dance!” from a table top, orchestrating the absurd flailing movements of the others like a puppeteer. It is brutal, painful and poignant and induces a guilty feeling in an audience who recognise the cruelty in their own laughter but just can’t help it.
Annie Herlihy
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Olympus Photo Safari Exhibition @ View from the Top
The problem with reviewing art is that it’s so subjective; I could tell you, for example, that the new exhibition at View from the Top is mostly made up of National Geographic-style close ups of birds and nature and the like. Then again, you might like that sort of thing. I don’t.
There are, however, some beautiful images in amongst the plethora of frogs and parrots; a ballerina collapsed on the floor of a dilapidated house, or an image of an old man struggling down steps towards his wife, who is waiting patiently in the middle distance. These are about more than being just technically good: they tell a story, they draw you in. Unfortunately, images like this are few and far between here.
This might have something to do with the nature of the exhibition; it’s a collaboration of over a hundred photographers worldwide, who all contributed photos to an online forum and were able to vote for their peers’ images. In theory, this is pretty exciting – bringing artists from all different backgrounds and cultures together. In practice, you end up with images side by side that are radically different in subject matter and quality. Maybe that’s the point – there were five or six images that I loved; for someone else it will be a different five. Pick’n’Mix exhibition anyone?
Esther Croom
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Famous Last Words: An Eyre Of Controversy
Impact’s Ben Griffin gets all scandalous as he attends a Q+A with the director of ‘Notes on a Scandal’ Sir Richard Eyre. Critically acclaimed playwright, accomplished filmmaker and the recent recipient of an honorary degree straight from the halls of Nottingham University, Sir Eyre (did we mention he’s a ‘Sir’?) talks underage sex, Dame Judi Dench’s bondage pranks and the definition of ‘buttock-cleft’.
Notes on a Scandal covered a few touchy issues. Just how difficult is ‘difficult’?
Underage sex is very, very difficult. I had to have long conversations with L.A. Lawyers over what could and couldn’t be shown. In one talk I was asked to define the term ‘buttock-cleft!’ In certain states you have to be over 21 to have sex, and by definition, shooting sex is difficult.
You obviously made the work your own. There was a bit in the film not included in the novel where a character laments the state of Charlton Athletics’ football team.
Of course, he’s a Spurs fan - which one would define as a total loser. I’m sure the author Zoe Heller doesn’t mind as she was handsomely paid in the royalties. I do recommend her novel – a classic case of unreliable narrator.
There’s a rumour floating around that Dame Judi Dench is a notorious prankster. How did you cope?
Yes, she has a wonderful sense of fun. Once, filming in North London, our producer spied a bondage shop and told Judi. She thought it would be a good idea to put herself in one of those adult ads you see in payphones. She’s larky. The actress Lauren Bacall was appalled at her nude scene in the film, but seriously, no other actress in the world could play her parts.
What have you got in the pipeline?
I just finished work on ‘The Other Man’ with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney and its playing at the London Film Festival this Friday, and this November I’m directing Carmen at the Met theatre in New York. The life of a freelance is completely ridiculous. All I know is I have a definite job next year.
Are you free to choose what to work on?
God no. After theatre work I went back to freelance and get offered odd things. I’m known as a director who likes actors – doesn’t really say a lot. Though I get good support from ageing actresses because they know I’ll be nice to them.
Do you have a preference between film and theatre?
It’s hard not to sound soppy but I do love theatre and seeing the faces of the audience live. Film is such an industrial process you have to make sure life is preserved. Film lasts forever – like a tombstone. The world is obviously divided into rich and poor, but more specifically into people who enjoy their job and people who don’t. I’m lucky to enjoy doing what I love and then receiving extraordinary praise and awards. It’s so unfair isn’t it? But the downside is people will pelt you with rotten fruit if you mess up.
In July you received an Honorary doctorate from Nottingham University. Can you explain the significance?
I am incredibly grateful. Nottingham is my heartland and as someone who didn’t do particular well in my studies I am genuinely flattered. Now I walk around Nottingham and although the landmarks have changed the heart is still the same. I am here today because I wanted to give back. Today at the University I was conducting a workshop on utopia. We separated into lots of little groups and all had to form bonds with common interests. Films are the sums of their parts and a lot like building utopias. I’m lucky to live in a world where you can create an ideal world, and will continue making films as long as they have me.
Finally, have you got any advice for budding filmmakers or playwrights?
As Ken Loach says: ‘work in the theatre’! Films are dependent on the writer. It’s just not true that film is a director medium; all films start with the script. It’s so hard to get directing jobs whereas all you need to write is a piece of paper.
Ben Griffin
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Annual Open 2008 @ Nottingham Castle
Just climbing the steps to this exhibition of local art gives a taste of what to expect from the Annual Open. Sitting alongside the classic aesthetic of the 17th century mansion that houses the Nottingham Castle Art Museum, between ornate windows that provide glimpses of the city, hang the dreamlike photographs of 2007 Annual Open solo exhibition prize-winner Rosalie Wiesner. Bathing dark spaces in artificial light, the former Nottingham Trent student‘s photographs offer a tantalising mix of fantasy and reality. ‘It’s Almost Always Fiction in the End’ features images of exotic Middle Eastern buildings, lit up with harsh security lights, imaginatively presented on light boxes.
The theme of old juxtaposed with new continues into this year’s exhibition. Despite the modernity of the works on show, the Annual Open has been part of the museum’s programme for 130 years. This year it features ceramics, painting, sculpture and jewellery by 263 artists from all over the East Midlands. Artists are invited to submit work with the incentive of a cash prize and the chance to have, like Wiesner, a solo exhibition at the Castle.
An innovative take on photography is achieved this year by intricate inkjet prints of woodland set against an autumn sky by both David John White and Peter Jackson. Elsewhere there is artwork with a local flavour, including paintings of a twilight Nottingham skyline, and warts and all (quite literally) sculptures of two elderly ladies reading the local paper. Comedy comes in the form of Guy Brown’s ‘School Chaise’, a standard looking orange plastic school chair ‘stretched’ to look like an institutional chaise longue. It was artistic seating too that clinched the top prize: a hanging wreathlike sculpture made of sourdough by Robert Flack, which looks like a kind of angel’s perch.
Elsewhere in the museum, you can browse the Victorian Long Gallery which houses works by such masters as LS Lowry and Richard Parkes Bonington; this seems a sharp change in pace. However the Annual Open has pervaded even this space in the form of 2006 prize-winner Simon Withers’ ‘metahang’. Turning 11 paintings back to front, Withers invites us to question what we expect from an art exhibition.
Isabel Roth