1984

Hate to waste good words... I went to see 1984 for the FT but unfortunately they ran out of space for the review. So here's the review anyway, definitely recommend catching it before it closes on Saturday.

1984, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

Three Stars

Big Brother; Room 101; 2 + 2 = 5: the famous motifs within George Orwell’s Newspeaking 1949 novel run the risk of becoming more important than the story itself. Certainly, Matthew Dunster (who also directs his new adaptation in the round at Manchester’s Royal Exchange) is intent on reclaiming Orwell’s original vision of a nightmarish, totalitarian and dystopian Britain from the clutches of reality television shows.

The last stage performance of 1984 - at London’s BAC just before Christmas - involved puppets and was essentially played for laughs, but adaptations are, on the whole, rare. Dunster opts for a traditional retelling, but though he expertly sets up the Orwellian world of never-ending war and total surveillance by Big Brother, to begin with his overall-clad Outer Party members seem as stilted as the society in which they’re subjugated. It isn’t Winston Smith’s (a nicely bemused Jonathan McGuinness) realisation that his job revising history is ridiculous which sets the play alight, but a proper love story.

Winston’s illicit relationship with Julia is perfectly judged: Caroline Bartleet plays this mechanic working on the Ministry’s novel writing machine with jolly hockey sticks charm, which soon gives way to the sexy but pragmatic young woman who is famously “a rebel from the waist down”. It lends this particular 1984 the interesting sense of having two star-crossed lovers at its heart, and their sheer sexuality becomes a form of rebellion in itself.

Their hearts are not just broken, they’re virtually ripped out as Winston and Julia are completely betrayed by the system and each other. It makes for a gruelling second half. Apart from a virtuoso monologue from Paul Moriarty as the rebel Goldstein - so impressive the action is actually interrupted by applause - the rest of 1984 is essentially one long torture scene at the Ministry of Love, to the strains of discordant techno. This is where the perfect casting of a virtually emaciated McGuinness comes to the fore, but the pace slackens through repetition.

But then, perhaps Dunster is right to ram home the point that supposed civilized nations are still using such methods to assert power in the 21st century. It’s the only time this adaptation is as crude as Orwell’s famous idea of a “boot stamping on a human face forever”: for the most part, there’s a lightness of touch and, crucially, humour, here. ‘Doubleplusgood’, as the Newspeak dictionary would probably put it.

The Art Of Coldness

Last week I went to artist Nasser Azam's studio in London for The National. It was near Ottolenghi's shop, but that is a (delicious) aside. Anyway, Nasser is the artist who has painted in zero gravity, and now Antarctica. It was fascinating spending time with him, and it made me realise I really want to buy some art that isn't from Ikea but doesn't cost thousands of pounds. But where to begin?

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Arts & Life
23 Mar 2010

East Goes West

Yesterday, I went to West Didsbury and bought this beautiful ceramic bowl from the very calming Moth, a watering can from GT Blagg, a pair of jeans in the Steranko sale and ate a lunch of delicious French onion soup to a soundtrack of Rolling Stones in Silver Apples. Brilliant. It made me wish I still lived there, instead of Didsbury Village/East Didsbury, whatever I must call it.

It's my firm belief that Burton Road is more interesting in times of recession. As rates go down, interesting independent businesses crop up. And right now, the street is probably as eclectic and vibrant as it's ever been. Even the posh take-away, Sous Chef (which I reviewed for Metro a year or so ago and feared for in a credit crunch way) is still happily preparing good food so you don't have to.

Meanwhile, East Didsbury's newest additions are a bookies, chain restaurant Zizzi and a Wetherspoon. Bit depressing really, although there is a sign in an empty shop window proclaiming the imminent arrival of fashion indie Bond. And there is of course an independent bookshop, a butchers, fishmongers and the brilliant Cheese Hamlet. The excellent Art Of Tea still drags me in for their carrot cake on a regular basis.

But every time I go in there for a brew, I think 'this is just like the kind of place you'd find in West Didsbury'. Which just about says it all.

Walking A Fine Line

The Viva Spanish & Latin American Film Festival is, like In The City and more recently, Manchester International Festival, part of the fabric of Manchester's cultural life. Part of the fabric of my cultural life too - I've covered nine of the 16 festivals for Metro.

It kicked off last night with Solo Quiero Caminar. There was something massively reminiscent about this Spanish/Mexican revenge thriller and it was only after a little Google searching afterwards that I worked out why - it's a loose follow-up to the very similar Nadie Hablara Con Nosotras Cuando Hayamos Muerto, which I saw at the 2003 festival.

The neat twist in Solo Quiero Caminar is that it's the women who are the bad guys. Well, the bad guys are bad guys too - drug dealers in fact - but when one of the four women marries head honcho Felix (for no apparent reason beyond plot development) and immediately works out that he's a wife-beating good-for-nothing, her three accomplices work out a way of fighting her corner. And that's by robbing Felix of nearly all his money via increasingly audacious schemes.

Solo Quiero Caminar is, with qualification, good fun. It has a Reservoir Dogs meets The A Team feel, never takes itself too seriously (which is probably for the best seeing as one of the women has her hand graphically hammered into a pulp) and in Gabriel, the second in command, it does at least have a character searching for some sort of redemption. It's his face on the poster, above.

But it's seriously undone by some really baggy plotting. You never get the sense of why these women robbers turned to crime in the first place, but more grievously, barely anyone is believable. One has a son she clearly loves, but nonsensically drops his essay off to his teacher rather than get the medical help that would probably prevent him from being an orphan. Another gets the angle grinder out to construct a lock-breaking gun that doubles as a bike which she somehow transports to Mexico without anyone blinking an eyelid. I was half expecting BA Baracus himself to pull up in his black van and take her to the gangsters' lair.

Essentially it's ridiculous - but there aren't enough laughs for this to be a satisfying send up of the genre. Instead, it kind of falls between the cracks - not really nasty enough to be really arresting, not gritty enough to feel realistic, and not pacey enough to mask its obvious flaws.

Oddly, almost exactly the same criticisms were made of Nadie Hablara... a film made in 1996 which clearly referenced Pulp Fiction's in the way it sent up gangsters rather than lionised them. So it's slightly depressing that director Agustin Diaz Yanez appears to have learnt little in the 14 years since.

The words on Gabriel's face in the poster above translate as 'love is more dangerous than revenge'. That subtext does exist in Solo Quiero Caminar but only as an afterthought - and actually, more of that storyline may have made this uneven film work a whole lot better.

The Night I Lost My Head

Now, this took me back. Back, in fact, to Jabez Clegg, 2005, where I saw Maximo Park play for the first time. They were about to release their first album, and there was a palpable sense that they were on the cusp of something rather big.

This was despite the venue - which has to be the worst place to watch gigs in Manchester. The sound is terrible, it gets no passing trade and it smells. Fast forward to 2007, and all three of these things came together in a perfect storm. Yeasayer played in the bar room, they had to battle against a metal band practising next door, and there were literally six people there. Including me. They actually had the conversation (we could hear everything) about whether it was worth playing at all. So it was quite satisfying, in a perverse way, to see sold out signs when they returned to Manchester last week to play their rather good new album - which meant I couldn't get in.

But play they did, and it reminded me that for a lot of bands, touring to Manchester is still a big deal. They're often nervous, they sometimes naively mention Manchester United, they always mention The Smiths. Does this happen when bands tour to Norwich? Don't judge me for this, but the only time I can remember any kind of reference to the fine city is when, ahem, Ned's Atomic Dustbin moaned about Norwich beating Aston Villa 3-2 in 1992, hours before the gig.

While I digress, that was one of Norwich's best away performances of the 1990s. Daryl Sutch got the winner, it was great, and I wish it was on YouTube.

Anyway, back to some sort of point. She won't be nervous because she's from Manchester, but I'm looking forward to seeing Lonelady tomorrow. Like Maximo Park, her debut is on Warp. Unlike Maximo Park, there's not much buzz around her. Yet. But Nerve Up is really arresting - there are satisfying shades of early REM in its jangle, and there's a minimalism in the clattering drum machine which makes Lonelady really stand out.

Let's hope there are more than six people there.