Not another Booker Prize Shortlist piece

It's a strange fact of publishing that the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize receive far more column inches than those which sell millions more copies. It's something I mused upon here. Odd that there should be such a disconnect between the books widely read and the books which are critically acclaimed.

Odd because it's not quite the same in other creative disciplines. Poker Face by Lady Gaga (last year's biggest selling single in the UK) is generally recognised as a brilliant, inventive song. This summer's must-see, most popular film - Inception - was also garlanded with praise by the critics.

Perhaps it's because literary fiction is quite literally a different genre to the multimillion selling epics Ken Follett writes - like comparing classical with rock'n'roll. And only rarely (on the Mercury Prize shortlist) do classical and rock'n'roll end up competing with one another. Last time they did, the late composer Nicholas Maw was up against Badly Drawn Boy. No, um, prizes for guessing who won that one.

Having said all that... linked below are my thoughts on that Booker shortlist. Andrea Levy is the only author on this shortlist who can say she's truly a popular author as well - and for that reason she is a rarity, and I hope she doesn't win. Because surely the Booker Prize's true function is to shine a light on excellence that might otherwise go widely un-noticed. Tom McCarthy's C is by no means a rollicking story. Piecing the narrative together is hard work. But like a record which suddenly reveals its glories ten or 20 listens in, it's worth it because he aims for something completely original. OK, so that also makes it maddening. But it's the ambition which is so important if we're not to stumble into an age of bland, repetitive art.

Although admittedly, last week McCarthy said "all art is repetition". True. But then, he also said "if the novel is a car, then the engine is poetry". I rather like that.

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Arts & Life
13 Sep 2010

Is anybody out there...

Where do you go to get your critical arts comment in 'the regions' these days? It's obviously something us ex Metro types discuss at regular intervals nine months on. The answer is sketchy, a mish-mash of favoured blogs and the odd well considered review in The Guardian. The honest truth is that I'd do more critical arts commenting on Manchester's scene myself if I genuinely felt that the voice of one person posting on Blogger was going to be important stuff. No-one really cares what Ben East thinks, but when Ben East is writing for Metro, or the FT, they might.

But it's an interesting time of flux for regional arts journalism - reflected by two recent pieces that attempt to get to the heart of the issue. Kate Feld's excellent article on Creative Times (full disclosure: I've done some work for them too) suggests that the local blogger does have merit in that they are fresh, immediate and accessible. Lyn Gardner in The Guardian thinks that the web offers space for theatre criticism in every city and region, alongside professional reviewers. Although this is at the bottom of a piece which tries to argue that their reviews aren't London-centric.

The key is the phrase 'professional reviewers'. Did I count myself as one at Metro? When I was reviewing four shows a day at Edinburgh, absolutely. And Kate's admission, that blogs are often 'unpolished to readers weaned on national arts criticism', is my major problem. We all have our favourite writers on newspapers - and some we hate - but they are filtered through the reputation of the publication. Odd really: A.blogger and Lyn Gardner might write exactly the same thing, but you read Gardner and parrot Gardner's views at dinner parties because she's paid money to have them. A.Blogger is just A.Blogger. He says, blogging.

Still, Lyn Gardner is not going to write about everything in Manchester and you have to wonder, what with cut backs aplenty, who is? It's got to the point where the galleries are essentially producing their own arts website to publicise, and critically appraise, their own shows - because they can't just hope someone out there might write about them. Creative Tourist (who I also have written for) is this interesting solution - and the quality is high, because they've employed quality journalists (and me) to write for them, without telling them what to write.

Kate's solution is a Manchester aggregator, where blogs from across the city are published on a single curated site which could, in the end, form a print version. I like this idea (and this isn't a plea to be included - I'm the flakiest of bloggers) simply because it promotes the idea of writing for a purpose, for an audience, rather than for yourself. That makes it sound awful: "I write because I must be heard!" But it would encourage better, critical comment on the city's arts scene if people knew their work was being read and enjoyed - and also, you'd hope, encourage people to go and see the gig/show/art in question.

All of which has encouraged me to write about Dutch Uncles and FUC51. So watch out for that, in a bit...

Studio time

Last week, I spent an intriguing day at the rehearsals for the 2010 JD Set. This year, the idea from the musical strand of the Jack Daniel's brand is to take three classic albums, get bands in the studio for a week to rework them, and then play the results live at a special gig a month later.

Each city has a different album, and different guests. So London had the likes of Shortwave Set reinterpreting tracks from The Human League's Dare, and Glasgow will have Malcolm Middleton taking on Madonna's greatest hits (let's hope they haven't been intimidated by Glee). But Manchester is where it really all made sense, simply because the assembled musicians rehearsed music from a great Manchester band: the Buzzcocks.

On the day I was at the studio, the gauche frontman of the excellent Dutch Uncles, Duncan Wallis, joined forces with The Whip for Nothing Left, from Buzzcocks' breakthrough 1978 album Love Bites. It was a pretty straight retelling, the propulsive drumming from Mike Joyce given an added resonance by the knowledge that post-Smiths, he was actually in the Buzzcocks line-up for a short period.

In fact, Joyce was like the father figure here, making sure everyone was in the right place and knew what they were doing. And that was the striking thing: everyone really did seem to know exactly what they were doing.

This was unexpected. When Tim Burgess from The Charlatans came by to lend his distinctive vocals to The Answering Machine version of Just Lust - also on Love Bites - he did so with lyrics printed out on a sheet of A4. The young Manchester indie band, bless them, were children when Some Friendly was released (incidentally, Burgess's floppy hair seems to be referencing those glory days, just in time for the record's 20th anniversary on May 17) and looked slightly nervy. So to see both parties nailing Just Lust on the first take was really impressive. In fact, the only reason they did it again was so it could be filmed.

Talking of filming, here's a clip of The Whip doing Ever Fallen In Love with Mike Joyce on the Tuesday - the obvious track to cover maybe, but I quite like the way they've tweaked it into a kind of dreamy ska anthem.

Mike Joyce and The Whip: Falling in Love from Jack Daniel on Vimeo.

Anyway, it all bodes well for the Band On The Wall date on May 27 - you can apply for tickets from the JD Set website, and from what I saw, it should be a great night.

Caribou at Deaf Institute

Once upon a time, Caribou was Manitoba, a stage name for the chilled out, slightly incidental electronica of Dan Snaith. That was before, quite ridiculously, punk singer Richard "Handsome Dick" Manitoba objected - Snaith memorably suggesting it was "like The Smiths suing John Smith".

But the name change seemed to fire up Snaith, his records as Caribou more song-focussed than ever. There were Krautrock and psychedelic influences. In fact, I was so impressed at the tuneful 1960s guitar pop of the lead single for 1997's Andorra, I interviewed him about it for Metro.

His new record, Swim, also reveals that he's honed his sound even further - it's much more dancefloor focussed. The stylish European electronica of opening track and lead-out single Odessa is reminiscent of a really good Kings Of Convenience remix - there's a fragility to the voice hugely reminiscent of Erlend Oye.

In the main, it works live, too. What really impresses at a completely rammed Deaf Institute is the percussion: propulsive loops are layered under the work of a live drummer who rightly shares the front of the stage with Snaith. It's not all about the beats; Snaith employs nostalgic sounds from acid house, techno and even disco. Indeed, Caribou are far better when they don't try and be a rock band (there are two guitarists lurking in the shadows) and slather the slower tracks in feedback.

The only problem, really, is Snaith's voice. Even on record it feels weak - although the vocals themselves are crucial to giving Caribou humanity. Live, it's even thinner. Suggestions that Snaith gets some training are unlikely to meet appreciative ears, but he's proved that he enjoyed tweaking his sound throughout those ten years. Now for the most critical tweak of all: himself.

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.