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Why can't playwrights feel free to be political?
Guardian Theatre Blog - 2 September, 2010 - 16:32
Athol Fugard is right: too many playwrights are under pressure to give the audience a good night out
In Monday's Guardian, political playwright Athol Fugard voiced a concern that dramatists are "failing to confront issues of injustice, writing instead for attention spans of 10 minutes between adverts". Monday was also the first day of rehearsal for my play Ugly, which deals frankly with the issue of climate change – it's set in a future where food and water are scarce – and is the most political work I've ever done. So part of me wants to disagree with Fugard. Only, in my heart, I think he's got a point.
I don't think there is enough seriously engaged or oppositional theatre being made. But why does it feel so difficult to do political work when we're living through one of the most critical periods of human history? I suspect the answer may have something to do with a desire (of audiences and theatre-makers alike) to look for distraction rather than reflections of our frightening reality. And, I recognise an urge to self-censor, too. I found writing Ugly difficult because, while I've come to a point where I believe that the only way to confront climate change is to work for radical, systemic change, I'm fearful that by admitting this, I'll be closing my writing career down – that I'll be suspected of being too intense, and not a good laugh. I guess other writers may also sense the prevailing mood out there is: "Keep it light: if you must be informed, be ironic, and most importantly be non-committal about everything, other than the fact that paedophilia is evil." Writing Ugly became a battle against those self-censoring urges.
How to talk about issues without preaching? No audience wants to be handed a manifesto when they come to the theatre. But if political theatre doesn't produce some kind of action, what's the point? I had to remind myself that I don't have to have the answers: writing a play is about creating a drama, which in its unfolding makes space for questions. The stage is one of the few places left where it is still possible to inspire challenging and exciting conversation. Writing this play became about attempting to chew on some big questions, while hoping that I wouldn't choke during the process.
But isn't theatre about giving people a smashing night out? Shouldn't writers entertain? Is it possible to do that when you're writing a dark-as-night comedy about – among other things – a disgraced home economics teacher who survives by selling her body and her memories of the meals she once cooked, when food was not scarce? After a lot of soul-searching, I realised the answer is yes. The bar is not lower when we make political work, it is higher. Entertainment and engagement is my aim for Ugly. As for finding hope in all of this? I believe that lies with the audience. One of the things I love about working with Red Ladder theatre company is that their shows always have a forum for discussion after the performance. During these, I hope people will feel inspired to share their thoughts. I also hope that some will feel inspired enough to take those thoughts back into their lives and turn them into action. But, I have no interest in telling people what to do. For me, the show has done its job if it gets people thinking and discussing.
I think Athol Fugard has a good point, for all that he overlooks plenty of examples of provocative and political work. For writers and theatre companies everywhere, perhaps his words are a wake-up call. Not only do we need to do this work, but maybe we need to get better at letting people know about it.
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Five stars in their eyes: can you trust unpaid theatre critics? | Bella Todd
Guardian Theatre Blog - 2 September, 2010 - 14:57
Everyone's a critic these days – so how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? And who is reviewing the reviewers?
A few years ago, at a weird corporate dinner, an actor from a satirical sketch show turned to me and said, "I've always wondered, what exactly are your credentials to review me?" I could have obligingly set out my career path. I could have argued that the qualities qualifying a reviewer to review are as ultimately unquantifiable as hers to sit on stage naked in a bathtub doing impressions of the Queen. I could have reassured her that I made a point of never reviewing people I'd sat with at weird corporate dinners. Instead, in the absence of a critic's exam certificate, I said: "Yes, I see what you mean."
I remembered this while reading the Scotsman's recent article about an apparently suspect glut of four- and five-star reviews at this year's Edinburgh festival, which has led many to pose the question – who is reviewing the reviewers? A new body has now been set up to do just that. Festival Media Network, a trade organisation for independent media covering the Edinburgh festival, hopes among other aims to establish a code of best practice for reviewers, with numbered passes that can be used to verify the holder's membership.
Declaring conflicts of interest, striving for objectivity, promising to post a review within a reasonable timeframe, agreeing on pain of death not to use the phrase "a good time was had by all" – these should be established standards for any reviewer. The only question for me is: why aren't we talking about rolling such a network out across the country?
It used to be that the name of your publication stood your credentials to both artists and audiences. But theatre review websites have proliferated in the past few years, and with them the numbers of critics vying for readers' time and venues' tickets. Culture Wars and the Arts Desk are both staffed by professional critics, some of them ex- or current newspaper writers. Fringe Review, which reviews in London, Edinburgh, Brighton and internationally, uses a combination of theatre practitioners and journalists. Three Weeks, which has also sprouted roots far outside Edinburgh, is a training ground for mostly student writers. Since 2006, something called the Public Reviews has been taking this all to its logical conclusion, on an international scale, by vetting theatre reviews by members of the public.
One member of staff at a small London pub theatre told me she'd had five reviewers call for tickets one week but recognised the name of only one publication. (One, she thought, had said they were from something called "Kangaroo Reviews", suggesting either an Australian zine with a particular interest in the work of Frank McGuinness, or that cash-strapped drama students are getting cockier). Even if a reviewer writes for a well-known publication, there's no quick way of guaranteeing they're an experienced professional rather than a volunteer enthusiast: financially squeezed regional newspapers in particular are supplementing their professional review teams with unpaid amateur critics.
You may be able to tell within the first few lines of a review if the author is someone in whom you would place your trust (basically, don't fork out on a theatre ticket on the basis of one that starts "Walking into the foyer of the theatre, I …" or, possibly, "G'day, Mr McGuinness …"). But the majority of reviews aren't consumed in this way – they reach us stripped down to a line, or simply a star rating, on a piece of promo. How seriously should you take those five stars from the unknown website with no declared policy? Or the solitary star from the person who could, for all you know, be the director's arch-enemy?
The truth is, most of these review organisations aren't out there to wangle free theatre tickets or turn their friends' flyers into minor constellations: they're there to do a useful job. In Brighton, sites such as Three Weeks and Fringe Review have been welcomed with open arms by a fringe that has been underserved by the mainstream press. And their reviews often bring good shows to the attention of high-profile critics. At the moment, it's too easy for more established organisations to turn their noses up and not acknowledge them. So maybe, if amateur reviewers were more organised – even with a formal code of practice – then they could be the ones who benefit most.
Bella Toddguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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The new Stratford theatre: a jam factory full of treasures
Guardian Theatre Blog - 2 September, 2010 - 07:00
The old, three-tiered auditorium reflected the class structures of its age; the new one will, one trusts, be a more democratic space
The old order changeth, and rightly so. The new theatre promises a radical revamp of Elisabeth Scott's 1932 original: a vilified, endlessly adapted building which, even when it opened, was described as a jam factory and a tomb. Early on, when it had an orchestra pit, an old actor famously said that playing on the Memorial Theatre stage was "like addressing Boulogne from Folkestone, though on a fine June night you could distinctly see the front stalls in the distance".
Yet you can't divorce a theatre from its memories; and, whatever its handicaps, the theatre housed great work. I was first taken there, as an eight-year-old in 1948, to see, of all things, Troilus and Cressida with Paul Scofield: good seats, wonderful experience.
Later, having endured the ghastly back-row balcony on school trips, I realised that for a half-a-crown (this was the mid 1950s) you could stand at the back of the stalls. From that perch I was lucky enough to see Olivier's Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, Redgrave's Hamlet and Mark Antony, Ashcroft's Cleopatra and Imogen: life-changing experiences that, I suspect, instilled the urge to write about theatre.
So I have mixed feelings about the old theatre: it may have been a red-brick fortress but it was filled with treasures. Over the years, it's had countless changes at the hands of successive RSC directors, with the stage reaching out ever further into the auditorium. But the action always had to be visible to the upper balcony. Now, thanks to the new architects, all that has gone. Scott's three-tiered auditorium reflected the class structures of an age where the least well-off got the worst deal: the new Stratford will, one trusts, be a more democratic, open space. All we need are the great productions and performances to challenge the ghosts of the past.
Michael Billingtonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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The shock of the new: why novelty is not the star of the show
Guardian Theatre Blog - 1 September, 2010 - 14:02
Critics can go too far in their celebration of originality and unconventional forms of theatre – we end up unfairly focusing on the concept rather than the context
I've been accused in the past of fetishising originality and overusing the word "new" to the point where it loses all meaning. These accusations are probably correct. I love discovering something radically different to anything I've experienced before. An immersive audio encounter with a blind man in a solo submarine in the deepest part of the ocean. A one-on-one encounter on the roof of the tallest building in the world conducted entirely by tracing lines on each other's hands. What's never been done before? What can we do after that?
I refuse to apologise for that, as I believe passionately in the value of constantly reimagining the relationship between audience and performer and the world. I also believe the politics and meaning embedded in the form an experience takes can speak as loudly and as articulately as the content of that work. As such, it is important to explore the forms that live performances can take as well as finding new and interesting things to say. Doing something is, in the end, maybe our most articulate and resonant way of communicating.
But I'm noticing increasingly that the way in which I and others have celebrated this originality can be unhelpful. I worry that emphasising how original something is above all else, though it's an easy way of championing unconventional work, ends up in the end devaluing it. Largely this is because in highlighting its novelty, you often suffocate its context. The work becomes unfairly reframed by what it is rather than what it does. The newness is what is all important, rather than what purpose the artist wants it to serve. Whether it's live-streaming sound into headphones from an adjacent building, reimagining an opera inside an abandoned factory, or climbing up and down a ladder until you reach space – the innovation becomes objectified. It is the show. When in actual fact the show is about the specific relationship between audience, place and artist – structured and facilitated by whatever new thing they are doing.
Commentators latch on to technological or structural similarities between pieces in an implicitly negative way, without taking enough account of why or how that technology is being repurposed or re-articulated. Some artists even get protective of what they see as their creative property; more than once I've heard of artists annoyed because someone else has created a show that uses their innovation or their technology. But the show is not the technology – it is the use to which that technology is put. The artist didn't invent that technology any more than David Hare invented the typewriter. In their defence, however, that reaction is understandable when trying to exist in an environment in which your work is so often reduced to its novel logistics.
Perhaps people, such as myself, who write and think and talk about this kind of work, have a responsibility to articulate what artists are doing more sympathetically – not to reduce projects down to their constituent parts, however easy and enticing that may be. To enjoy the flourishing of new forms and new mediums as much as their first iteration. To understand what something does, as well as what something is. Context as well as concept.
Andy Fieldguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Lost in translation: why have we declared war on foreign dramatists?
Guardian Theatre Blog - 1 September, 2010 - 12:32
Classic plays in foreign languages are being rewritten for modern audiences who have no idea that what they're seeing is quite different from, and vastly inferior to, the originals
Whatever will these silly foreigners get up to next? Did you hear about the Chinese version of Hamlet that gave the play a happy ending? Surely we all know you can't rewrite the classics, and my Chinese example is imaginary. But British theatre commits artistic assault and battery of this kind on an increasingly regular basis. The victims, sprawled in the wings with their scripts torn to shreds are invariably playwrights who had the misfortune not to write in English.
The latest example is Heinrich von Kleist, who has been dead for nearly 200 years, but that's no excuse for the version of his Prince of Homburg at London's Donmar Warehouse. At the end, the audience sees the prince dying in a hail of bullets as the Elector of Brandenburg, a prototype fascist dictator clad in black, supervises his execution by firing squad. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what happens in Kleist's original, in which the final scene is a mock execution. The Donmar's rewrite man, Dennis Kelly, has turned the play on its head, substituting a scene of superficial drama for the original's dream-like ambiguity. For me it spoiled the evening. As Michael Billington exclaimed at the end of his review, "Oh Kleist!".
This kind of sexed-up version isn't a one-off. According to playwright Howard Brenton, audiences can't be expected to sit through classic plays in foreign languages the way they did 30 years ago. He thinks they are right to reject what he dismisses as "library theatre". When Brenton reread his 1982 version of Büchner's Danton's Death, he couldn't make head nor tail of it. "I couldn't believe the audience had sat through it." So his new version at the National Theatre, for the short-attention-span generation, runs for just 105 minutes without an interval. What remains is faithful to Büchner's text, however, so let's be thankful for small mercies; if Dennis Kelly had been in charge, Danton might have escaped the guillotine and lived happily ever after.
Germans aren't the only casualties in this war on foreign dramatists; eminent Russians have also been run over by the National Theatre juggernaut. Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Bulgakov have both suffered at the hands of director Howard Davies and his Australian rewrite man Andrew Upton, whose approach goes far beyond just seeking a modern English idiom that makes theatrical sense. Upton's version of Gorky's Philistines, seen at the National in 2007, changed the story, inserted entirely new speeches and – in my view – destroyed the coherence of the play. "We sharpened up the plot," he told an interviewer. The same ruthless rewriting process was employed in Upton's version of The White Guard earlier this year. Poor old Bulgakov; in his lifetime his masterpiece about the Russian civil war was banned by Stalin – now it's just torn up to suit the tastes of modern London audiences who have no idea that what they're seeing is quite different from, and vastly inferior to, the original.
One can argue that in the theatre anything goes, particularly when the author is safely dead and long out of copyright. But one of the principles that marks off theatre from film is respect for the artistic integrity of the author's text, even when he or she is no longer around to complain. That's why we squirm to think of Nahum Tate reworking King Lear in the 1680s to give Shakespeare's tragedy a happy ending.
Treating foreign works in this cavalier fashion sends the same message as the decline of language teaching in schools; we are increasingly a monoglot culture, treating classic plays in other languages as mere raw material for our own theatre.
If writers feel the urge to improve or reinvent the classics, they can choose to present the work under their own names and with a new title. That's the route chosen by Patrick Marber with Don Juan in Soho and After Miss Julie, and by Moira Buffini when she changed Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide into Dying for It. These adaptations are fine by me; so are Michael Frayn's excellent translations of Chekhov, which don't try to improve on the original. But let's have a moratorium on versions that occupy the theatrical no man's land in between.
John M Morrisonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Can cruise ships keep the theatre industry afloat?
Guardian Theatre Blog - 31 August, 2010 - 12:08
As job opportunities in theatre dry up on land, cruise ships are pouring money into productions out on the high seas
Times are going to be tough over the next few years for those employed in the theatre industry. With severe funding cuts expected from central and local government, falling support from the corporate sector and fewer regional theatre productions, jobs will undoubtedly become more scarce – both for those on and off the stage. Actors, managers and technicians will have to be more imaginative and broaden their horizons in their hunt for work.
Which brings me to cruise ships (bear with me on this). Cruise entertainment doesn't have the best of reputations, but I took my maiden voyage earlier this year and it was a real eye-opener. I was there to review shows on board the Celebrity Eclipse, and both the productions and facilities were extremely impressive. The theatre itself was actually of a far higher standard than many of the West End's crumbling playhouses – more comfy seats, better sightlines, excellent acoustics and high-end equipment.
Celebrity spends up to $1m per show for three 60-minute productions on every ship in its line. Each vessel has a 1,150-seat theatre, employs a cast of 18, plus nearly 40 musicians, a stage crew of six and various other technical crew across the music lounges on the ship.
And cruising is a huge growth area in the entertainment business. Looking across some of the other lines – P&O has its own on-board theatre company with more than 100 entertainers, Royal Caribbean is staging cruise versions of Hairspray and Chicago, and elsewhere there are licensed versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals or other popular shows such as Saturday Night Fever.
And while you're unlikely to see Chekhov on the high seas, some of the smaller lines do stage a little drama – Crystal Cruises has previously put on one-woman shows by Lynn Redgrave and Susannah York. There is huge scope for employment for people in the theatre industry on cruise lines and because it's a profit-making industry – the amount these ships take on their bars alone is quite staggering – the number of openings is steadily growing.
Celebrity, for example, is planning to launch two more of its gigantic luxury ships, each with 1,150-seat theatres and jobs for more than 50 entertainers over the next couple of years. People can be a bit sniffy about working on cruise ships and, to be fair, the performers I spoke to on Celebrity admitted the first time they accepted work on a cruise, they thought it would just be filling in between other jobs. But, they came to love it and now see it as a long-term career choice.
One dancer told me: "I always tell my friends, yes, I could be in the West End, but in the West End I'd be doing the same show for six months, just getting enough money together to live, go to auditions and take classes, and I'm not going to save any money from it. Right now, I'm doing amazing shows, getting free training, saving a lot of money [accommodation is free] and seeing the world."
As opportunities in the West End and beyond get thinner on the ground, other performers, producers, directors, stage managers, even writers may have to think more laterally if they want to stay in gainful employment. And, who knows, the cruise industry could end up keeping theatre afloat.
Alistair Smithguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Why did Edinburgh's comedy award settle for second best with Russell Kane? | Brian Logan
Guardian Theatre Blog - 29 August, 2010 - 12:57
By choosing Russell Kane over Bo Burnham, the judges missed a trick. Isn't it time they rewarded a comic with genuine originality?
Like heavy rain, and terrible flyers, one thing you can rely on at Edinburgh is the comedy award panel failing to reward the standout show on the fringe. Yesterday, Bo Burnham joined an illustrious pantheon that includes (in the last handful of years alone) Doug Stanhope, Hans Teeuwen, and the Pajama Men – which is to say: hilarious, out-of-the-blue, talk-of-the-fringe comedy acts that fail to win (and, in those cases, aren't even nominated for) an ex-Perrier gong.
The gossip earlier in the week was that the judging panel were so unanimous about Burnham's superiority they were thinking of creating an extra award for him, just to level the playing field for everyone else. That seemed crazy – and yet it's something like what's happened in the end. The excellent standup Russell Kane won the Foster's comedy award, with a very good but not great show. And Burnham, who by the judges' admission "electrified" the festival from day one, was given the panel prize, which awards acts who distil that most conveniently nebulous of qualities, the spirit of the fringe.
Maybe it's the happiest outcome. Kane's career will deservedly benefit from the award; Burnham is back off to the States and probably wouldn't. But the result looks like a fudge, and Burnham's consolation prize looks sheepish. On the BBC Review Show last Friday night, and in Prospect magazine this month, the cultural cognoscenti turned their gaze on comedy, and bemoaned a newly professionalised, homogenised artform, in which mavericks are less visible than ever. By relegating to second place a young performer whose intuitive brilliance and originality speak for themselves, the judges missed the opportunity to defuse that criticism.
When I interviewed Kazuko Hohki of the Frank Chickens last week, she reminisced about her 1985 Perrier nomination, when the prize rewarded not only funniness, but innovation. (Imagine, nowadays, a shortlist with the likes of Theatre de Complicite and Frank Chickens on it.) Novelty is still a factor: last year, the award favoured the new and weird (Tim Key) over the dependably funny (John Bishop). This year, the pendulum swings back, to an act whose 2010 show breaks no new ground.
Congrats, all the same, to Russell Kane, a comic who's not afraid to be smart, nor to talk about the real, working-class world from which he hails. But in years to come, if we look back at the Foster's comedy award at all, we'll look at Bo Burnham as (yet another) one who got away.
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What to see: Lyn Gardner's theatre tips
Guardian Theatre Blog - 27 August, 2010 - 11:12
Edinburgh is winding up – but the new school term in theatreland is about to begin. Time to get booking!
The Edinburgh fringe may be in its last gasp, but the rest of the theatre world is waking up again, particularly towards the end of the week, although the new season won't quite get going until the first full week of September. It always feels like theatre's equivalent of the new school exercise book, and there are plenty of treats in store, including the battle of the Hamlets with John Simm in Sheffield and Rory Kinnear in London, and a couple of Master Builders with Michael Pennington in Chichester and Stephen Dillane at the Almeida.
There are two Love on the Doles, too: one opening at the Finborough in early September, and David Thacker's version at the revitalised Bolton Octagon in October. Then there's Complicité in the West End with A Disappearing Number, Andrew Hilton's The Misanthrope at Bristol Old Vic, and Kim Cattrall and Jeffery Kissoon in Antony and Cleopatra at the Liverpool Playhouse. Plenty to look forward to.
This week's London openings include the Matthew Dunster-directed The Maddening Rain at the Old Red Lion; Tiny Kushner – a series of short plays from the author of Angels in America – at the Tricycle; Lorrie Moore's How to be an Other Woman at the Gate; The Remains of the Day at the Union; and Arthur Pinero's 1908 play Thunderbolt, at the Orange Tree. The Royal Court season opens with Bruce Norris's satire Clybourne Park, and the Red Room's temporary venue, the Jellyfish, has Simon Wu's Oikos to be followed in mid-September by Kay Adshead's Protozoa. Simon Russell Beale fans will want to sneak into a preview of Death Trap at the Noël Coward.
Out of London, Willy Russell's Our Day Out returns for a five-week run at the Royal Court in Liverpool, and the hugely successful Proclaimers musical Sunshine on Leith is back at Dundee Rep before heading out on tour. Jamie Glover was once a rather good Hamlet, and now he's turned director for John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father at Salisbury Playhouse. Peter Rowe's Little Shop of Horrors is likely to be great fun at Birmingham Rep, and Claire Sweeney stars in the revival of Tell Me on a Sunday, which goes out on tour from the Royal and Derngate, apparently with a newly penned Andrew Lloyd Webber song.
The Edinburgh international festival continues with Teatro Cinema's Sin Sangre and The Man Who Fed Butterflies, Meredith Monk's Songs of Ascension and Teatro en el Blanco's Diciembre. It's a pity that Jonathan Mills theatre programme opens so late, meaning that it doesn't get the attention it might deserve. That old stand-by Kes opens at the Oldham Coliseum, DC Jackson's enjoyable not-quite-romcom My Romantic History goes into The Door in Birmingham, Carrie's War begins a tour at Malvern, and Richard Bean's The Big Fellah, a story about Irish-Americans and the Troubles, is at the Corn Exchange in Newbury, the first date on a tour.
If the weather takes a turn for the better, the street arts season continues with Mintfest in Kendal, four days of national and international work beginning next Thursday. Do let me know what you've seen and the shows you are really enjoying, and if you have a blog, please link to it. Have a good week.
Lyn Gardnerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Watch my lips: the art of ventriloquism deserves centre stage | David Strassman
Guardian Theatre Blog - 27 August, 2010 - 11:02
Derided as cheap kid's entertainers, ventriloquists are custodians of a venerable art form - and it's time they showed it, writes one of their number David Strassman
"So you're a ventriloquist?" he asked.
"Uh … yeah," I mumbled.
"Right. You do kids' parties?"
All my life, I've been stuck with the label of being "end of the pier"; the cheap entertainer at children's parties, the late-night act greeted by a collective "oh no, not another one" from the audience. It's time the professional ventriloquists working today (can you name more than three or four?) got their act together and moved this centuries-old art form forward.
The trouble is, very few ventriloquists put theatrics and character into their puppets. They talk fast, or sing a song, and basically show off, saying: "Look how clever I am!" Having said that, UK ventriloquist Nina Conti is, in my opinion, the one exception: she is original, theatrical, and innovative in her approach.
Lack of imagination made me challenge the convention. After a drunken but very creative night with a mate, we figured out a way to put radio controlled aeroplane servos into my puppet, Chuck, so he could move by himself. And so a bit of high-tech tomfoolery was born, laced with an element of theatre. Chuck and I have an argument on stage, he sacks me, I leave, and he finishes the show all by himself. I began fleshing out my puppets, trying to introduce elements you might find in a stage play: neuroses, foibles, objectives, and well thought-out lives. Thus, no silly songs or back-and-forth interplays for no reason, but dark dialogue, topics ranging from depression, infidelity, and sexual orientation, to debates on philosophy and war. (During the Bush years, I used my puppets not only to criticise his presidency, but as a therapeutic catharsis expressing my embarrassment at being an American.)
So why do we find the ventriloquist-puppet relationship intriguing? Maybe because the naughty boy puppet who tells a bloke in the front row to get stuffed fulfils our fantasy of wanting to challenge authority.
There's also something genuinely creepy about watching a guy and a puppet, about an inanimate object coming to life. It reminds us all that we talk to ourselves, our inner voice, and we're all only a few thoughts away from going completely mad.
Why has ventriloquism remained on the fringe, relegated to the music halls and variety shows? Because watching most ventriloquists leaves you empty. C'mon, you belly talkers, non-lip movers, multiple-personality puppeteers! Get your act together and think like a playwright; Mamet, Fry, Beckett! Seize your moment or forever close your mouths. And no, I don't do birthday parties.
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The Independent becomes the latest national UK newspaper to back legalisation
Transform: Drugs Policy Reform - 26 August, 2010 - 15:03
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Does the media follow public opinion or lead it? Probably a bit of both, but it is clear that the climate around drugs policy is changing in the public political and media spheres, and the momentum for change is building.
As we described yesterday, quite aside from the unabating stream of supportive op-eds, The Observer, The Guardian and Sunday People, (and the Daily Record in Scotland) have now all recently taken editorial lines in their leaders critical of the drug war and supportive of moves towards the legal regulation of drugs.
Today it is the turn of The Independent in a leading article "Mexico's stark reminder of the cost of prohibition" which details the now familiar horrors of the War on Drugs before saying:
"The President was obliged to send in the troops because the poorly paid Mexican police had been infiltrated by the cartels; even so, reports suggest that in some areas the latter's power is, if anything, growing. By this reading, the violence suggests merely that turf wars are becoming more vicious, for a larger slice of an ever more lucrative market. In short, Mexico and the US are losing the drug war...
Which brings us back to the root of the problem. If Americans lost their taste for drugs, the Mexican cartels would be out of business. That, however, will not happen; indeed the forbidden nature of drugs may make them more attractive. So why not legalise them? The argument has been powerfully made before and will be so again, but probably to no avail. Sadly the barbaric drug wars will continue."
This is backed up by a front page and double page spread, with an excellent opinion piece by Johan Hari; "Violence breeds violence.The only thing drug gangs fear is legalisation" which concludes:
"Yet Mexico is being pressured hard by countries like the US and Britain – both led by former drug users – to keep on fighting this war, while any mention of legalisation brings whispered threats of slashed aid and diplomatic shunning.
Look carefully at that mound of butchered corpses found yesterday. They are the inevitable and ineluctable product of drug prohibition. This will keep happening for as long as we pursue this policy. If you believe the way to deal with the human appetite for intoxication is to criminalise and militarise, then blood is on your hands.
How many people have to die before we finally make a sober assessment of reality, and take the drugs trade back from murderous criminal gangs?"
The Independent editorial's pessimistic appraisal that "the barbaric drug wars" will inevitably continue is misplaced. They will not; no policy as self evidently counterproductive as the drug war can stand the sort of scrutiny it is now receiving for ever. Like the targets of many of the large scale social justice movements of the last century, what once seemed immovable can unravel far more quickly than anyone expects once a tipping point is reached.
Four national UK newspapers have adopted unambiguous pro-reform editorial positions within three weeks. We could be nearer the tipping point than you imagine.This blog has many contributors; blog entries or comments posted to blog are not necessarily the views of Transform Drug Policy Foundation. For official comment or position statements on any given topic, or with any feedback or queries, please contact Transform. Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a registered charity No. 1100518
Categories: News
Noises off: Pros and cons in the job of theatre
Guardian Theatre Blog - 26 August, 2010 - 11:35
Is it possible, or even desirable, to make a living as an artist in the theatre? The blogging community has been chewing it over
Is art a living or a hobby? The debate began over on the Culture Future blog, where Guy Yedwab has been considering how difficult it is to earn a living as an artist. "When people observe that teachers have a lot of trouble making ends meet, it's a social justice problem," he points out. "We don't consider 'teaching' a hobby, largely because it's universally accepted that teaching is a requirement for society ... On the other hand, if we were to find out that futures traders have trouble making ends meet it would not be a social justice problem. They would just go do something else, and we'd probably be thrilled."
This leads him to ask: "Is art a living that people should be able to support themselves on – and thus, the poverty that attends to it is a social justice problem – or is art a luxury and the people who work on it hobbyists?" It's a good question and one that is particularly acute in theatrical terms. After all, theatre is a much harder thing to commodify than many other art forms because its value derives from its liveness, and cannot be reproduced and sold ad infinitum. Therefore the capacity for turning a profit and sustaining a living is even more limited. As the Flux Theatre Ensemble blog points out, monetary worth is never a good way of judging the true value of theatre.
The Chicago-based blogger Don Hall, has a very simple answer to this dilemma. He says, rather loudly: "YOU AREN'T GOING TO MAKE A LIVING AS AN ARTIST IN THEATRE. You can make a living as an artist in commercial voiceover, on camera industrials and commercials, in film or as a teacher, but the only people at 95% of the theatres in Chicago making a living in the theatre are administrative people – not the artists." So in order to make good work, you have to resign yourself to the fact that doing it ain't going to feed you.
Yet perhaps there's an upside to all of this. Blogger and playwright RVC Bard says she is leaning towards Don Hall's position: "And it's not because of little things like reality, probability and so on. It's because not making a living off theatre makes my work better – because real people live in the real world and, as a theatre artist, that's where my focus needs to be. Even if I do something completely surreal and fantastical, the core will be about life as it is lived today. I can't get that if I'm a sort of secular monk who can't be bothered with the lives and concerns of laypeople."
Now it is true, as Guy Yedwab points out in a follow-up post, that maintaining two jobs can cut both ways: just as it can put you in greater touch with the "real world", it can also leave you with very little time to focus on that world. But either way, Bard is surely right to point out the importance of not disappearing completely into the tiny bubble of theatreland.
Anyway, as the global economy continues to falter, the idea of job security in many fields is looking increasingly unlikely. Adam Thurman at Mission Paradox writes: "We are all going to have to work harder then ever to carve a career path for ourselves. So you might as well do what you love." Now this doesn't mean, he says, that you should "get all stupid on me and quit your day job to devote your time to sculpting or writing the next great novel. It's hard to do great art and dodge eviction notices at the same time. But you might as well try to see if you can integrate your art into your life. Maybe it gets to the point where you make a living from it, maybe not."
And perhaps that is the key point: it is perfectly possible to pursue one's creative ambitions in tandem with a bit of mundane wage-slavery. After all, Einstein did some of his best stuff while he was working as a patent clerk.
Chris Wilkinsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
Your questions for Malcolm Sinclair, Equity's new president, please | Laura Barnett
Guardian Theatre Blog - 25 August, 2010 - 15:33
I'm talking to the president of the actors' union tomorrow, and I'd love to know the questions this blog's expert commenters want answered
Tomorrow, I'm meeting the actor Malcolm Sinclair to interview him for a g2 arts profile. Not only because he's taken over the role of Benjamin Britten in Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art at the National Theatre, but also because in July he was voted in as the new president of Equity, the actors' union. Sinclair's appointment may just be ushering in a new era for the beleaguered union: 13 new members have also been voted onto the Equity Council, marking the biggest turnover on the council in recent years. This new council is, apparently, the youngest in recent memory, and contains a majority of women for the first time.
With swingeing cuts looming and debate raging in theatreland about the role and future of Equity, there's a lot I want to ask Sinclair about. But I want to hear from you. There have been some really lively discussions about Equity on the theatre blog recently, several of them prompted by Michael Simkins's interesting postings: from whether Equity's campaign to tackle a plague of rats in West End theatres is just a distraction from the union's own toothlessness, to whether the union's posited introduction of a minimum wage for those working in fringe theatre would be a help or a hindrance.
So what are the burning questions you'd like me to put to Sinclair? Which are the key issues that you think he, and Equity's brand-new council, should be squaring up to?
Laura Barnettguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
Edinburgh festival comedy endorsements are no laughing matter
Guardian Theatre Blog - 25 August, 2010 - 13:41
Aspiring standups are forgiven for cutting deals to make ends meet but the Fosters-sponsored awards face a backlash
With nominations for British comedy's biggest prize, the Edinburgh comedy awards, announced later today, debate over Foster's sponsorship of the gongs is about to reopen. Most people would agree that commercial backing for the prizes is vital to their survival, and that though they have suffered in terms of prestige the awards are still desperately craved by most comedians.
Yet Stewart Lee seemingly spoke for many when he described the awards' new "comedy god" poll – to find the public's favourite nominated act over the last 30 years – as the work of "corporate whores". His email protest accidentally triggered a subversive online campaign that might well see obscure Anglo-Japanese act The Frank Chickens crowned as the Australian lager's comics supreme.
As befits an industry with so many teetotallers, recovering alcoholics and drinkers unwittingly developing a trilogy of future shows on their battles with sobriety, comedy has always enjoyed a close but troubled relationship with alcoholic endorsements. What Leonard Rossiter did for Cinzano's fortunes in the late 70s, Stephen Frost and Mark Arden for Carling Black Label in the 80s and Peter Kay in the recently revived John Smith's ads was reinforce the public perception of the correlation between having a drink – with your mates or possibly with Joan Collins – and having a laugh.
Whether to "sell out" or not is a niggling concern for many Edinburgh fringe comics. Open the festival brochure at random and you'll see an intelligent young standup dimly recognisable as a gormless berk in a building society advert. Few would begrudge a financially strapped comedian the opportunity to earn a living wage, but they have to decide exactly where on the sliding Stephen Fry Scale – from national treasure to inveterate, indiscriminate shiller of product – their own personal brand falls.
Most of the UK and Ireland's growing number of comedy festivals are sponsored by drinks brands such as Carling and Magners. Yet the coalition of the four big venues at the Edinburgh fringe, which half broke away to form the independent Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2008, have yet to find a corporate backer. Perhaps potential partners are mindful that comedians are unpredictable, instinctive troublemakers who will bite the feeding hand if there's a good routine in it. In his current Edinburgh hour Mark Watson, the pear cider pariah for some right-on comedy fans, laments the exposure his Magner's commercial brought him and confesses he never liked the drink anyway.
Comedians have become increasingly marketing-savvy, utilising the internet to engage directly with their following, setting up "secret" gigs for fans, handing out badges at the end of shows and pouring themselves into a multitude of products like books, CDs and low-budget DVDs. In a charmingly old-fashioned step, I've heard several at this Edinburgh explain – semi-apologetically, mid-show – that they're going to be signing and selling these items at the end.
Elsewhere at the festival, however, a curious phenomenon is taking place: blatant product placement. Smack the Pony and Green Wing writer James Henry has spoken out on the implications of this encroaching practice for television sitcom, while the debacle of Pot Noodle: The Musical at the 2008 fringe ought to stand as a warning to any performer about the perils of association with over-processed snack foods.
Nevertheless, Australian Bec Hill's show is sponsored by a mail-order gadget and gift company – perhaps a necessary evil for the upcoming young standup, given that she still works a day job. Her obligatory plug for the firm is overshadowed by an amusing spoof tampon ad she creates – a smart upholding of her bargain that does little damage to her artistic credentials. Still, I found myself wondering if the bendy straw she extols at the top of her show is one of her benefactor's products, which soured things a little for me.
The Brothers Streep are more shameless, tunefully hawking trampolines from their homeland – though quite why anyone in Edinburgh would be seeking to purchase a South African trampoline is beyond me. It's a disastrous partnership, the paucity of jokes in the troubadours' other songs making the one where they sing "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy" stick out like an unironic TV commercial.
Every bit as upfront is Henning Wehn, the self-styled German Comedy Ambassador endorsed by his national tourist board. In years gone by Wehn's shows with Otto Kuhnle came with vouchers for the frankfurter van by the Gilded Balloon, so this is a notable upscaling of his marketing strategy. Delightfully, the backing was secured before Wehn opted to call his show My Struggle, demonstrating either acute short-sightedness on the part of the tourist board or a brilliant wheeze to contravene the notion that Germans possess no sense of humour.
Either way, the message is clear. If you have a big marketing budget and think you'd like to sponsor a comedian, you'll need a thick skin and a robust sense of humour.
Jay Richardsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
Do you remember the first time?
Guardian Theatre Blog - 25 August, 2010 - 11:45
Was there a moment when you fell in love with the theatre, or dance, or the opera?
Idling around on the internet the other night, I found pictures of the 1986 production of Romeo and Juliet at Stratford. What a shock: I mean, they look so... eighties, did the young Niamh Cusack and the young Sean Bean. It wasn't the first time I'd been to the theatre (there'd been trips to the Victoria Theatre in Stoke and indeed, I think by then I had already seen Kenneth Branagh (even younger than Sean Bean) in Adrian Noble's production of Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Hell, I'd been to see David Troughton and Una Stubbs in Worzel Gummidge at the Birmingham Hippodrome). But Romeo and Juliet, was, in all important senses, the first time.
Of course we all fell in love with Sean Bean and Niamh Cusack (Bean looked like a youthful pop star, not that rugged Hollywood villain he's become). It was a production that was immensely of its time: high concept, slick, unabashedly modern. Romeo wore all white, Tybalt all black. There was a red Alfa Romeo (ho ho) on stage. Bean dispatched himself with the aid of a hypodermic needle. The programme was full of essays on teen suicide. I wouldn't say that that evening was born a lifelong passion for theatre – it's been a slow, crabwise journey to get there – but it did do something. It was an experience that was deeply vivid and alive (even if I can't quite summon up a critique of the acting at this distance, as Proust in A La Recherche does when so disappointed by his first experience of seeing La Berma). In some ways, I want all theatre now to contain that vital spark. This was the one.
Do we all have an important "first time" like this? For opera, it happened for me with David Pountney's production of Carmen for ENO in the late 1980s with a sexy, filthy Sally Burgess in the title role (was it set on a Gypsy rubbish dump? I seem to remember piles of refuse on the stage). For the ballet, it was Giselle – I remember being taken by parents and friends of theirs (Sadler's Wells or Covent Garden I can't remember, but I think the former), and being asked in the interval whether I was enjoying myself, to which I violently replied NO – which was the only way at the time that I could say, "Enjoyment's not the word; this is a thoroughly upsetting narrative that is affecting me in ways that I cannot articulate." Didn't go down very well among the grown-ups, but it was certainly an early lesson well learned: art's not quite about enjoyment.
Charlotte Higginsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
Media Review: Prof Ian Gilmore calls for decriminalisation and regulation to be considered
Transform: Drugs Policy Reform - 24 August, 2010 - 17:05
Transform issued a press release last Monday about Sir Ian Gilmore's comments in his final Newsletter as president of the Royal Society of Physicians:
"I feel like finishing my presidency on a controversial note. I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health. Drugs should still be regulated, and the argument for decriminalising them is clearly made by Stephen Rolles in the latest edition of the BMJ."The press release led to a huge amount of media coverage and debate in print and broadcast media over the following days, with Transform at the heart of much of it; having broken the story and with the BMJ piece on Transform's 'Blueprint for Regulation' specifically cited. Amongst the coverage detailed below, especially in the following days, were some very significant developments.
Print coverage on the day included:
- Cocaine should be legal, says top doctor - front page coverage in the Telegraph (mentions BMJ piece and quotes Transform's Danny Kushlick), story also ran on Fox news website
- Legalise heroin and cocaine to cut crime and improve health, top doctor says in the Daily Mail (included quote from Danny and an online poll that asked 'should we legalise drugs in a bid to cut crime and improve health' currently running at 56% in favour, 44% against. Also well worth looking at some of the 284 comments the story attracted - the most up-voted being supportive, the most down-voted against)
- There was also coverage in the Guardian (quoting both Danny and Steve), as well a coverage in the Times, Independent, the Herald Scotland, the Mirror, and many other regional papers.
- The Guardian ran an excellent leader editorial that cited Transform and the BMJ piece 'The War on Drugs: bring out the peace pipe', effectively joining the Observer in its critique of drug war and call for consideration of both decriminalisation and regulation:
Decriminalisation would not be an answer in itself. Legalisation is no quick fix. But prohibition's defenders need to show how, against its dire results, their policy can still be justified."
- Arguably more significantly was the interest of the tabloids: Gilmore had a very welcome opportunity to speak to a wider audience when given space for an editorial piece in the Sun, titled 'treat addicts like patients, not cirminals' (when it first appeared online, missing the point entirely, it was daftly titled 'treat junkies like patients, not criminals' - we are not sure which ran in the print version)
- At the weekend the Sunday People - hardly famed for its progressive position on drug policy - went further, dedicating a two page spread to the drug law reform debate, quoting Transform, listing famous supporters of reform, and detailing Portugal's experience with decriminalisation. Better still, they joined the Observer and Guardian in taking a clear editorial position in favour of reform, their 'Voice of the People' leader column titled 'Time for a new look at drug laws':
If we locked up all dealers and users the market would dry up... wouldn’t it?
Forty years on it is clear that the war on drugs was a naive policy that failed miserably and injured more people than it protected.
The huge profits of the international drugs trade fund terrorism, drive crime, and wreck lives across the globe.
But jailing users does nothing to break the cycle of those who commit crime to fuel their habit.
Now, at last, the Government is looking at the bigger picture and considering radical plans to decriminalise hard drug use. As we reveal today, 12,000 addicts could be moved out of jails and into hospitals to be treated as patients and not criminals.
Top doctors believe it is the only way to cut crime, improve health and save public money. But it will be a hard pill to swallow for the thousands of victims of druggie muggers and burglars who steal to fund their habit.
It’s a bold move. But if Ministers are finally having a “mature debate” on drug strategy they then need to discuss the “L” word. Legalisation. Criminalising some drugs while allowing a free market in others, such as alcohol and nicotine, makes no sense.
Our leaders need to think the unthinkable and consider bringing the entire drug industry, from production to use, out of the shadows and under legitimate controls.
Could we allow adults to buy limited supplies of drugs from licensed and regulated outlets and tax them as highly as possible without creating a black market?
Legalisation may spark an initial increase in the number of adults who use drugs, albeit in safer and healthier circumstances. But should adults be allowed to make that choice – when many already choose to wreck their lives, quite legally, with alcohol?
Tough questions – but the Government must seize the moment and ask them."
OK, so not exactly how Transform might argue it but we have to welcome the fact that this -mostly reasonable- editorial appeared in a national paper new to the reform position and, like the Sun coverage, is reaching much wider audience than the same Guardian and Observer readers, most of whom are already sympathetic to the drug law reform position. The positive tabloid coverage in particular is a sure sign that this debate is moving into the mainstream and moving in a positive direction.
Broadcast media
On the Tuesday the story broke, Steve did 17 broadcast interviews and Danny did 10, in addition to the various interviews Gilmore himself gave, and a further 7 picked up by our colleagues over at Release. Highlights of Transform's coverage included appearances on
- BBC Breakfast TV (live interview)
- SKY breakfast news (pre-recorded interview for news segment)
- BBC Radio 4's Today program (quotes and Today audio clip on BBC coverage)
- 5 Live breakfast (pre-record for new segment), and 5 live morning debate (with David Raynes)
- BBC News Channel (debate with Neil McKeggany)
- SKY lunchtime news
- Talk Sport radio
- BBC Radio Wales (debate with Ian Oliver)
- BBC World Service (international broadcast)
- BBC News International TV (international broadcast - debate with David Raynes again)
In addition there was plenty of blog action around the issue, all attracting many comments (mostly positive) - notably including:
- Fergus Walsh's BBC Blog 'Would decriminalising drugs work?'
- Mark Easton's BBC blog, writing about the 'British System'
- Tom Chivers' Telegraph blog Another top doctor has backed a rethink of drug policy. Maybe it's time to listen
- CNNs Connect the World blog 'should we decriminlize drugs?
- Tory peer Lord Norton calling for Royal Commission on the drug laws 'decriminalising drug use' on Lords of the Blog (a very interesting Lordly debate ensuing)
- Antonia Senior (call for legalisation/regulation in the New Statesman and the Times - unfortunately now behind a paywall),
- Libby Purves, also in the Times (supportive of decrim)
- Paul Thomas in the New Zealand Herald 'drug decriminalisation makes sense'
- James Bell in the Guardian 'why not tax my drug addicts'
Critical voices were, of course, also in evidence but curiously muted - the sense being that the media were struggling to find many. If there were pro drug war op-eds in any of the nationals we must have missed them. There were some quotes in the news coverage, however; In a widely quoted comment by Keith Vaz MP he stated that the legalisation of drugs "would simply create the mistaken impression that these substances are not harmful, when in fact this is far from the truth". This rather facile misconception about what a public health approach to drug regulation would entail is exactly the same one that he carried through the mostly awful 2010 Home Affairs Select Committee report on cocaine.
The Home Office response was even more inadequate, and missed the point to a such a staggering degree as to not deserve or warrant any further scrutiny:
'Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis are extremely harmful and can cause misery to communities across the country. The government does not believe that decriminalisation is the right approach. Our priorities are clear; we want to reduce drug use, crack down on drug related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good.' In a Mirror news piece (nominally about a separate 'legal highs' story that this blog will return too at a later date) we also learn that:
Leading doctors argue prohibition of heroin and cocaine has failed and they should be decriminalised and allowed for use under licence and tomorrow the Government will launch a major review of Britain's drugs laws. Home Office Minister James Brokenshire will rule out new legalisation but call for a more "mature debate" on how to control drugs.You can only laugh (somewhat bitterly) at the Minister's concept of what constitutes a 'mature debate', one in which entire policy arenas he does not approve of are closed down before the debate has even begun. This despite the genuinely mature debate - one in which all options are on the table - that is happening in the real world (note links above for example), and being encouraged by the President of the Royal College of Physicians (not to mention the President of Mexico), and indeed Broke nshires own Prime Minister (albeit a while back). For the record decriminalisation of personal use, certainly non-prosecution of users, was also in the Lib Dem manifesto. They have been strangely and disappointingly silent during all this.There was a predictably critical blog post from Kathy Gyngel from the Center for Policy Studies, but it is a lacklustre and scatter gun affair by her standards (see the comments for some critique of the factual analysis).
Overall - this has been a hugely positive few days for the UK debate. Its always hard to gauge how much impact events like this have; maybe it was just a silly season story on a slow news day. But it feels like part of a much more significant shift in the debate that has taken place over the last couple of years and appears to be accelerating- one in which the law reform arguments are being increasingly well understood for the principled pragmatic position they represent. Even Drugscope, usually very cautious in the debate, this week made a welcome call (in the Times) for decriminalisation to be considered (repeating a call they made back in 2001 but have been very quiet about since).
Small steps as ever, but the direction of travel is the right one.
This blog has many contributors; blog entries or comments posted to blog are not necessarily the views of Transform Drug Policy Foundation. For official comment or position statements on any given topic, or with any feedback or queries, please contact Transform. Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a registered charity No. 1100518
Categories: News
When heckling goes bad | James Kettle
Guardian Theatre Blog - 24 August, 2010 - 16:03
The battle of wits between standup and audience is integral to live comedy – but what happens when it gets out of hand?
There's a great episode of Seinfeld where Jerry gets his own back on a persistent heckler. After his set is continually disrupted by catcalls from a female member of the audience (who, in an absolutely true-to-life scene, tells him after the show that she was helping him and that he should have more of a sense of humour), Seinfeld lives out the classic heckle put-down and goes to harass the woman in her own place of work. It's a wonderful piece of wish-fulfilment that surely resonates with beleaguered comics the world over.
Seinfeld may have managed to vent his frustrations in an elegantly satisfying way, but there are times when the always volatile relationship between comic and heckler can turn nasty. Take the story of UK standup David Whitney, who was involved in an incident with a heckler in Edinburgh that has generated some of the most striking (but presumably unwanted) headlines of the fringe. During a late-night gig at the Canon's Gait, Whitney allegedly responded to interruptions from the crowd by headbutting a member of the audience. Police and paramedics were called, and he's now on bail facing a charge of serious assault.
Things normally go the other way. There are numerous stories of comics being attacked by audience members – in fact YouTube footage exists of one of the biggest draws at this year's fringe, Australian comic Jim Jeffries, being punched in the head onstage at the Manchester Comedy Store. While heckling can be good-natured, it can also carry a latent threat of violence. Edinburgh is also currently playing host to screenings of The Tunnel, a movie about a club run in Greenwich during the 80s by the late Malcolm Hardee. The night was famous for its heckling, but also the willingness of the clientele to lob pint pots at acts who they took a dislike to. Jenny Eclair once said that when you walked onstage there, "your feet would be grinding over broken glass and the carpet would be sticky with blood".
The traditional expectation is that a good comic should be able to fend off a heckler with an acerbic put-down. But that won't work if the punter in question is too drunk to understand what's being said to them, or if they see the put-down as simply escalating the confrontation. Lee Evans once told a story that illustrates the point perfectly: "I once said to a [heckler], 'What are you going to do when King Kong wants his arse back?' He said, 'This!' and hit me in the face." When things get aggressive, we expect the stand-up to retain control, to be above getting dragged into a boozy brawl. But sometimes it does all get too much, and the coolest comic can snap. Even acts as unlikely as Mark Lamarr and Rob Newman have been involved in physical altercations with punters in the past.
While it would be appalling to support any act of violence against members of the public, at least this latest story might put a few more people off heckling. Although it's believed by many to be a staple part of the live comedy experience, heckling is phenomenally tedious (David Baddiel once suggested there had been about five funny heckles ever, which is probably overstating it). Anyway, if heckle put-downs result in funnier material than the pre-prepared stuff, you're probably watching the wrong comic. If an act's got something to say, can't we let them get on with their own material? At least you might increase your chances of getting home with your teeth intact.
James Kettleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
Making a spectacle: design magic at the Edinburgh fringe
Guardian Theatre Blog - 23 August, 2010 - 14:44
With tight budgets and tough logistical challenges, theatre companies could be forgiven for not bothering with inventive stage design. But this year I've seen some real gems
It is a strange thing that, despite being the largest arts festival in the world, the fringe offers so little to see. There are, of course, plenty of shows to watch. But when it comes to the crucial area of design – of creating a visual spectacle – the fringe is distinctly lacking. This should come as no surprise. Most shows that make it to Edinburgh are self-funded and operate on micro-budgets. Couple this with the fact that productions are given virtually no time to get in and out of their space each day, and you have clear constraints on what is achievable on stage. And what isn't.
All of this makes it even more impressive that this year there have been a number of shows which excel aesthetically. Inevitably the fringe's really big productions have brought with them some big production values. In Five Guys Named Moe, Jon Bausor subtly transforms the stage into a giant record player, and The Not-so Fatal Death of Grandpa Fredo at the Traverse has one of the niftiest, most versatile wooden boxes you are likely to see on any stage.
Yet it's the work taking place in smaller spaces that is providing some of the most exciting discoveries. Memoirs of a Biscuit Tin at the Pleasance appears to use every shade of grey in existence to conjure up an abandoned, anthropomorphised house. And it populates the story of the home's missing owner with makeshift puppets formed from standing lamps and picture frames. Also at the Pleasance, Les Enfants Terribles's one-off show The Vaudevillians creates a gothically grotesque Victorian cabaret complete with some impressively conceived Siamese triplets.
The best example I have seen of achieving great things on a small budget can be found in Caroline Horton's one-woman show, You're Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy. The piece, about the life of Horton's grandmother, opens with her struggling on stage under the weight of four unwieldy suitcases. As she tells her story the cases open to reveal various landscapes onto which she paints her grandmother's life – including a field covered in blossom and a Parisian skyline. Most unexpectedly, a final case opens and out spring three brightly coloured balloons bearing a string of lost love letters.
This year's fringe has also provided some innovative approaches to sound design. Keepers, at the Pleasance, is the story of two lonely lighthouse keepers, accompanied by an onstage musician who creates an array of incidental, atmospheric sound effects using a range of instruments and tools at his disposal. Freefall at the Traverse strips things back even further – it has actors creating sound effects using only their voices and a microphone. Yet surely the master of this sort of self-generated soundscape is mime artist Julien Cottereau.
His show, Imagine-Toi, sees him use his voice to create everything from a bouncy ball and an old piece of chewing gum to a terrifyingly huge monster and grunting ogre.
What shows like these demonstrate is that it is quite possible to create remarkable and fully realised worlds not in spite of, but rather because of the constraints under which they exist. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the fringe is currently showcasing a fine range of inventors.
Chris Wilkinsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
What to see: Lyn Gardner's theatre tips
Guardian Theatre Blog - 20 August, 2010 - 16:14
It's time to catch shows soon to close in a rare time with no press openings. And there's still a week of the Edinburgh festival to go
It's a rare week of the year with no press nights – even during Christmas week you can normally find a show starting somewhere. But with the exception of Edinburgh – where Alistair Beaton's Caledonia, the Wooster Group's Vieux Carré and Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus open at the international festival this weekend – it's sparse pickings before the explosion of new-season shows begins after the bank holiday.
If you're in the south west, Nick Darke's The King of Prussia (a huge hit at the Donmar more than a decade ago, and with most of its original cast intact) joins The Red Shoes for Kneehigh's final week at the Asylum in Cornwall, though both appear to be sold out. The company will be taking the latter on tour, calling in at Bristol Old Vic from mid-September. Maria Alberg's revival of The Chairs continues at the Ustinov in Bath. Corrie! is still at the Lowry in Salford and Willy Russell's musical Our Day Out has been revived at the Royal Court in Liverpool. Conor McPherson's Shining City and Moira Buffini's Silence are good at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, and at the Stephen Joseph in Scarborough you can take your pick from The Mikado, Communicating Doors and Caryl Churchill's A Number.
In London, Earthquakes in London is the hot ticket at the National Theatre, although Welcome to Thebes is well worth seeing. It's your last chance for State Fair at Trafalgar Studios. In Edinburgh Ontroerend Goed has been making waves with Teenage Riot, while in London new company Getinthebackofthevan has a response to Ontroerend's Internal called External at the Lion & Unicorn until Saturday. The Red Room is premiering Simon Wu's Oikos at the Jellyfish theatre in SE1 from next Thursday.
There's also still an entire week of the Edinburgh fringe to go. If you want to have fun try some of the following, which run the gamut from fledgling work to the highly polished and which I'm listing in no particular: Operation Greenfield; Ovid's Metamorphoses; The Vanishing Horizon; Lip Service; Keepers; 101; Harlekin; Hot Mess; The Author; Reykjavik; Memoirs of a Biscuit Tin; Speechless; Sub Rosa; Belt Up's Metamorphosis; Bound; Roadkill; Beautiful Burnout; Invisible Atom (which is at Hill Street but not in the fringe programme); White; It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later; Tabú; Apples; Honest; One Step at a Time Like This; Bunny; Do We Look Like Refugees?! and Smoke and Mirrors. You can see all my reviews here, and also follow me and the rest of the Guardian's Edinburgh team on Twitter. Maybe it's not such a bad fringe after all. Keep your recommendations coming.
Lyn Gardnerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Categories: News
US: National Black Police Association Endorses Marijuana Legalization/Regulation initiative
Transform: Drugs Policy Reform - 20 August, 2010 - 15:11
Below is a press release issued yesterday by the US based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition detailing the newly announced support of the National Black Police Association for California Prop 19 ballot initiative that would legalise and regulate non-medical cannabis production and sale for over 21s in the state (details here). This follows the support of California's National Association for the Advancement of Black People backing the initiative last month.
The latest announcement has already been covered in the New York Times , LA Times and others
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 19, 2010
CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media//at//leap//dot//cc
National Black Police Association Endorses Marijuana Legalization
African American Cops Say California's Prop. 19 Will Protect Civil Rights & Public Safety
SACRAMENTO, CA -- A national organization of African American law enforcement officers has announced its endorsement of Proposition 19, California's initiative to legalize marijuana.
The National Black Police Association (NBPA), which was founded in 1972 and is currently holding its 38th national conference in Sacramento, is urging a yes vote on legalization this November 2.
"When I was a cop in Baltimore, and even before that when I was growing up there, I saw with my own eyes the devastating impact these misguided marijuana laws have on our communities and neighborhoods. But it's not just in Baltimore, or in Los Angeles; prohibition takes a toll on people of color across the country," said Neill Franklin, a 33-year veteran police officer and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of pro-legalization cops, judges, prosecutors and corrections officials who have been organizing to support Prop. 19. "This November, with the National Black Police Association's help, Californians finally have an opportunity to do something about it by approving the initiative to control and tax marijuana."
On Thursday, Franklin spoke alongside California NAACP president Alice Huffman at the NBPA conference on a panel about criminal justice issues like marijuana legalization.
Many cops and civil rights leaders are now speaking out against marijuana prohibition because it is not only ineffective at reducing marijuana use and results in the arrest and incarceration of people of color at a highly disproportionate rate, but also because making marijuana illegal has created a lucrative black market controlled by violent gangs and cartels. LEAP has organized a group of more than 30 California police officers, judges, prosecutors and other criminal justice professionals who support Prop. 19.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and its 30,000 supporters represent police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence.
According to NBPA, there are 80,000 black law enforcement officials in the U.S.
For more information, visit http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com or http://www.BlackPolice.org
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11th hour Submissions
iglab - 19 August, 2010 - 11:21
The Submissions deadline for igfest 3 is the 20th of August. That pretty much makes this the 11th hour if you have any games you’d like to submit to this years festival… So all you last chance kids, here is that link http://igfest.org/submissions /team ig
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