Welcome to Avenue Q

By
May 13, 2012
The Lowry

Avenue Q

In the year that Jim Henson’s Muppets got their big screen revival and Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey – the story of Kevin Clash, the man behind the infamous puppet – hits UK screens, it seems appropriate that the award-winning Broadway puppet musical Avenue Q should embark on its first UK tour.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Broadway smash hit, imagine that the muppets from Sesame Street grew up, discovered booze, sex and swear words, and sang about it. The show follows the trials and tribulations of young Princeton, fresh out of college with no idea about the world, and the residents of the rundown estate of Avenue Q.

The show is hilarious, the songs are as catchy as they are rude, but best of all it is heartwarming, and a clever homage to the man who reinvented the sock puppet into one of the world’s best-loved characters all those years ago.

It is easy to see the links with childhood favourite Sesame Street, from the two room-mates – the uptight, closeted Rod and the sweet but bumbling Nicky – to the loud, overbearing Trekkie Monster, the innocent Kate Monster, and the washed up janitor Gary Coleman. Avenue Q even teaches important life lessons through some of its brilliant songs, including “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and “The Internet is for Porn.”

However, the true brilliance of the show may lie in the production techniques; each puppet is either controlled by one or two people, and many of the cast play two or more characters, often conversing with themselves on stage.

The actors perform alongside the puppets, giving a personality and expression to their furry exterior. It is an incredible feat, one that should be admired.

It is hard to pick out anyone in particular who shone brighter than the rest; whether it was Sam Lupton as the preppy straight-faced Princeton and the overly camp conservative Rod, or Katharine Moraz as the sweet Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut (I’ll let you work out that one).

Chris Thatcher played some of the best characters, from the perverted Trekkie Monster to the bumbling Nicky.

Out of the human cast (the ones who don’t have a puppet on their arm), it was probably Matthew J Henry as down-and-out Gary Coleman who had the audience in the most giggles.

The true joy of Avenue Q is that it is as funny as it is sweet, as camp as it is ridiculous, as controversial as it is innocent, but really there is nothing quite like watching puppets talk about sex, booze and masturbation in the form of song.

Avenue Q was on at the Lowry Theatre between Tuesday 8 May and Saturday 12 May. More details of the tour can be found here.

Have One On Us #6: BrewDog Manchester

By
May 12, 2012
Have One On Us
2 Comments

We’re only just recovering from the almighty hangover we acquired following the BrewDog launch night last Thursday, so apologies for the delay in sharing our thoughts with you.

To open, a rather grandiose statement that is nevertheless absolutely true: without BrewDog, the microbrewing revolution would not have progressed at the same pace these last few years, and as a result the state of Manchester’s bar scene would be very different.

The explosive growth of the company has inspired individuals across the country to try their hand at brewing, and as craft ales have grown in both popularity and quality an increasing number of establishments have started serving them.

Take Font, for example. What was once nothing more than a venue providing students with £2 cocktails to get them pissed now has one of the best stocked bars in the city. Other similar tales are not hard to find.

Why? Because craft ales are suddenly big business, with a large part of the credit due to BrewDog taking them mainstream.

This raises an important question: is there a place for a BrewDog bar in Manchester? If everywhere from the dives to the pubs to the bars already serve BrewDog, can a dedicated venue truly offer a unique experience?

The answer, we’re happy to report, is “yes.” What helps is BrewDog’s choice of location. Initially planning to setup in the Northern Quarter, the company shifted its focus to Peter Street, an area that has fallen on hard times after once having plenty of (admittedly awful) drinking establishments. Which Sam can attest to, having once worked in Brannigans, where she was made to dance to “Don’t Blame It On The Sunshine” at four in the morning – wearing a papier mache comedy head, no less – before cleaning the bar. BrewDog’s arrival could well spark positive revitalisation.

Whilst the exterior might put you in mind of an All Saint’s shop, and give rise to fears that this is little more than a fancy spot for trendy arseholes, inside the aesthetic is kept pleasingly simple, with good use of wood and glass and extra illumination coming from raw light fittings, which gives an industrial rough-around-the-edges feel to the place.

Seating is sparse, and includes a handful of wooden benches that reminded us of secondary school science class, and the music is kept quiet, creating the perfect ambience for conversation. The bar staff were friendly and attentive, clearly clued in about what they were selling and happy to dish out samples.

The place was quiet when we arrived post-work but soon became busy. We dubbed the press wristband we were given the “booze band,” and endeavoured to take full advantage of the free drinks it entitled us to. If you happen to come with someone for whom good quality beer is not a big deal, then there is a range of good quality spirits, ciders, and wines available. But, of course, the main attraction is the extensive range of BrewDog’s own beers.

The brewer has a well-deserved reputation for quality, with Punk one of the best flagship brands offered by anyone anywhere in the world, a sharp fruity burst of pure flavour. Dead Pony Club is a new pale ale that clocks in at just 3.8% yet still offers a firm, robust taste. Zeitgeist is a deep, smoky black lager. Riptide is a rich, chocolatey stout. IPA is Dead Galaxy is like a supercharged version of Punk. Hardcore a wonderfully malty, bitter ale with notes of caramel and toffee.

We were also lucky enough to sample BrewDog’s fifth anniversary beer Dog A, which clocked in at 15.1% and combined chocolate and coffee with Naga chilli. We went out on Tokyo, which we’d been meaning to sample for some time. Given its high percentage, it was no surprise the evening ended in a blurry haze, but we had a great time reaching that point.

Reading the notes we’d made the next day – hastily scrawled sentences that were barely legible and of no great use when composing this piece – was a fun experience. The message was simple enough: not only do BrewDog do an incredible job with their beers, they also get their bars right too.

We’d wholeheartedly recommend making your way down to BrewDog one night. You’ll need to make sure you’re rather flush when you do, though, as the prices are a little on the steep side. That being said, you do have to pay for quality, and more often than not it really is better to spend £20 on a few good beers, as opposed to many mediocre ones.

The One Where We Went to See Friends at the Academy

By
May 9, 2012
Academy, Music

I had a bit of a moan in my SFTOC post about delayed running times. I guess this is a little “square” of me. After all, “it’s rock ‘n’ roll, man.”

If a train I was expecting to catch were to run 45 minutes late I would complain loudly, possibly in writing (well, maybe I’d compose a passive agressive tweet). But artistic tardiness I’m expected to take with good grace because, as everyone knows, creative people can’t possibly be expected to be punctual too.

The band were meant to come on at 9:30pm and, not being too bothered about the support act, that’s what time I showed up. The audience were a mixed bag; half second year undergrads, half responsible-looking over thirties. As 9:30pm came and went the rag-tag audience were treated to a half hour of various band members and roadies tooling around with the main keyboard.

Wires were disconnected before being reconnected to sockets and heads were scratched in confusion. The undergrads sipped on blue VK’s and waggled their arses to retro house filler tracks. The over thirties chatted politely before fixing their increasingly impatient gazes upon the people ineptly trying to reconnect the non-functioning instrument.  At two minutes to 10, someone had a flash of inspiration and replaced the broken keyboard with one that worked. Genius.

I guess I was just tetchy because it was a week night and I had work in the morning. I wanted to see the gig and get home in time for a brew and an episode of South Park before bed. As you creep closer to thirty things like a brew and an episode of South Park before bed become increasingly important to you. It’s not Friends’ fault I work a nine-to-five.

Anyway, Friends.

Friends are a five piece band from Brooklyn, who are currently on a UK tour. They are comprised of lead singer Samantha Urbani and her childhood friend Lesley Hann on bass, percussion and backing vocals, with  Nikki Shapiro on guitar, percussion and the ill-fated keyboard, Oliver Duncan on drums, and Matthew Molnar playing second keyboard, percussion and bass.

Given the shaky start the band and the audience took a little while to warm to each other, but once the gig got going there were moments of magic. “I’m His Girl,” released last October as part of a double A side,  was one such instance.

The song is about being in a loving relationship but still being individual and independent. It’s catchy and has the feeling of an anthem to it. It’s something you might sing when you are on-top-of-the-world in love and every girl in the Academy was dancing like it was written about her and her man.

There are R&B influences to Friends. Their music is bright and funky with Urbani at times channeling the spirt of Debbie Harry. Percussion-fuelled and dreamy, “Friend Crush” saw her sashaying around to the twangy top-noted melodies, and was a high-point of the 40 minute set.

Urbani’s a great frontwoman, drawing the crowd into her performance with Monroe-like purrs and whoops as she slinks about the stage like a veteran disco cat. You can imagine groups of kids playing jump-rope (as they might say in New York) and chanting Friends lyrics. However, Hann’s moody backing vocals and the group’s penchant for raw percussion stops their sound from becoming overly saccharine.

All in all, worth getting home slightly too late for that before-bed brew.

Sounds From the Other City

By
May 7, 2012
Music, Salford
2 Comments

Sounds from the Other City is a one-day independent music festival set up by Maurice and Mark Carlin seven years ago after they decided they wanted a platform for promotors to showcase the best new artists emerging from Manchester and beyond.

Having established its pedigree by hosting ‘career-changing performances’ from  Marina and the Diamonds, The Ting Tings and The Whip, I felt that this year I needed to check it out.

For me, listening to new music and planning who I want to see is all part of the fun of going to a festival; I’ve even been known to go as far as colour-coded spreadsheets. So, true to form, in the run up to SFTOC I listened to as many of the artists as I could, devising a list which included Verity Susman, New Hips, Withered Hand, Au Palais, Butcher The Bar, Molly Nilsson, The Kites of San Quentin, Ghost Outfit, Easter, Keep Shelly in Athens, Walls, and (finally) Maria Minerva.

Well, that was the intention; my meticulous list-making failed to take into account the effects of numerous beers, delayed running times, bumping into friends, and generally everything else that happily goes along with being at an all-day event.

I began in St. Phillip’s Church, on time to watch Withered Hand, but because the venue was already running half an hour behind schedule, I saw the whole of Dancing Years and only half of the act I’d come to see.

No matter though, for Dancing Years provided an excellent and unexpected performance. “Father” won the award for best song of the half hour set, with the line “Father I know I’m not the best son, because I always make a mess” holding poignant resonance beneath the church’s stained glass depiction of the crucifix. I managed to catch the first half of Withered Hand, but had to leave before  ”Love in the Time of Ecstasy,” in which Dan Wilson is at his lyrical best.

I headed over to the cavernous, grungy Islington Mill to see Au Palais, who are a two piece from Toronto (via London). Their music is electronic pop with dark overtones and sinister, nonchalant vocals. I felt that they would have benefitted from a later slot; the crowd were really getting into the title track of their latest EP Tender Mercy – a subtle onslaught of a song that just keeps pushing – and had they been on at 10 rather than 5, the crowd’s Red Stripe bop would have turned into fully fledged shapes.

Speaking of beer (and at Onward, Manchester we so often are), Islington Mill had a lot to offer. The selection behind the bar was respectable, and in the courtyard there was a stall featuring some gems from Dunham Massy, amongst others. I really appreciate it when venues give a bit of thought to what punters are drinking, and it cheered my boozy heart to sip on quality real ale while getting down to some top music.

After Au Palais there was a break in my schedule, and it was time to replenish my energy levels with food. So it was on to one of Salford’s best kept secrets, the Kong Won Express.

To call it a restaurant would be a bit of a stretch. The neon pink interior could only hold twenty-five covers max and the colour co-ordinated plastic chairs don’t really lend themselves to a fine dining experience, but trust me, this is the best Chinese food to be found in Greater Manchester. I shared the Four Treasure Rice and Szechwan Pork and Pancakes. Both were succulent and well-flavoured and the knowledge that they deliver to my postcode can only be bad for my overall health.

Refuelled, it was on to The King’s Arms to catch Molly Nielson. I arrived a little late, weighed down with a happy belly, and clearly half of Manchester wanted to hear Molly’s dreamy, DIY, bittersweet stylings. I had to do some quite shameless queue jumping in order to get into the gig, but it was worth the sideways glares and quiet grumbles to hear “Hotel Home” live.

Having sated my appetite for what could good-naturedly be described as 90s instructional video music, I walked back down Chapel Street and stopped off at the New Oxford to sample its wide selection of draft beers.

As someone who falls into the category of festival spreadsheet fanatic, and who likes to know exactly what she’s going to listen to and when, I sometimes have to remind myself to freestyle it a bit. And for the most part, it’s generally a gamble worth taking.

The New Oxford was playing host to a selection of spoken word performances, and I arrived just in time to catch Les Malheureux (Sarah-Clare Conlon and David Gaffney) perform a series of short stories that comically twisted subjects from potato smiles to class divides to dress down Fridays and set them to honky keyboard music against a backdrop of PowerPoint projections. It was a thoroughly funny half hour and I was very glad I caught it.

Post-Les Malheureux I tottered down to the Creation Cafe, along the way taking in the disparity between recently installed blue-stripped pavements scattered with sleek geometric benches and the burnt out offices and bricked-in pubs of Chapel Street. I arrived in time to watch the crowd raucously jigging to the last couple of Frazer King numbers before settling into the set of Crumpsall four-piece Easter.

From there it was back toward the city centre and The Black Lion for Walls, who I saw  supporting The Field at the Deaf Institute last year, but who are well worth watching again. Unless, that is, they keep you waiting for over an hour.

Of course you can’t expect a festival with no less than 18 stages and more than 80 acts to run without any hitches, but by this point I’d been drinking since 2pm and was beginning to flag. I listened patiently to Dam Mantle, an accomplished Burial-inspired techno artist, and waited another half hour for Alessio Natalizia and Sam Willis to connect an infinite number of wires, as well as check instruments and projectors before they began their set. Two tracks in though I realised that it was time to call it a day.

I headed back downstairs, just in time for the main bar to call last orders. I bought one more drink and stood about, sipping on end-of-the-night pints and swapping notes on who had seen what with friends before slipping off into the night, and the chaos of Manchester city centre on a bank holiday weekend. It had been a good day.

X-Men: Regenesis, part three

By
March 4, 2012
Comicbooks

Starting with issue #260.1, Christos Gage took over X-Men Legacy from the title’s long-serving writer Mike Carey, who has probably done more for the franchise than anyone since Grant Morrison exited New X-Men back in 2004. Gage’s first issue suffered from a few problems: the need to establish the cast of characters he’ll be using going forward got in the way of the story’s structure to some extent, the writing occasionally lapsed into cliche, and at times it felt as though he was trying a little too hard to make an impression. However, three issues in and he’s definitely found his voice. If Uncanny X-Men is a traditional superhero comic and Wolverine and the X-Men is overblown fun, X-Men Legacy looks set to be the soap opera book, following on in the grand tradition established by Chris Claremont, and that’s as good a function as any for it to serve in an already crowded line.

The current storyline sees the team pitched against Exodus, who – like many superhero villains – has been defeated so often and so decisively that it’s difficult to take the declarations of his supposedly unstoppable power seriously. As tends to be the case when he appears, he plays the role of self-anointed mutant saviour (despite the fact that he’s never done one thing to actually help the species), and Gage does a good job of rehabilitating him, making him interesting to old and new readers alike. On art, David Baldeon is well suited to the material; his facial expressions could benefit from a little more emotion and variety, but he’s certainly one to watch. The buzz around this one is growing, and I’m only too happy to validate it.

X-Factor has for years now been Peter David’s corner of the X-universe, with the writer (almost) free to do as he pleases, consistently taking unpromising characters and making the reader care about them. His stint on the title has had its ups and downs, with some story arcs more successful than others, but he’s built up a loyal audience, which is why X-Factor has avoided cancellation despite being a low seller. When the X-Men brand undergoes one of its frequent relaunches/reshuffles, David generally pays lip service to it, and that was certainly the case in They Keep Killing Madrox, the tale running through issues #229 to #232. Unfortunately, the arc fell a little flat, despite having such a wonderful name.

The positives: well, Emanuela Lupacchino is a spectacular superhero artist, and will propel herself to the A-list sooner or later if she maintains the high standard of these issues. On the writing side, by this point David has full command of his characters, and has worked hard to develop a unique voice for each and every one. That sense of identity is really beneficial in a team book setting, where even the best writers can sometimes struggle to differentiate the voices of each individual. On the downside, in this arc his pacing and structure isn’t always effective. Issue #230 is the only one that features all of the book’s extended cast, and yet barely features Madrox at all; when read in one go, the effect is particularly jarring, as the flow of the main story grinds to a halt so that the other characters can stand around and argue a lot, before the final page then introduces two major new additions who don’t feature at all in #231 and #232. It’s possible that the Regenesis initiative interrupted David’s intended narrative to some extent, and the work that eventually surfaced was subject to a few last minute changes. Even so, at four issues the story feels overlong and inconsequential, as though the book is treading water ahead of whatever comes next. That will be the real test for X-Factor, and it will need to justify its place in the line once more.

And finally, there is Uncanny X-Force. Disappointingly, I appear to have jumped on at the wrong time. Issue #19 was essentially a postscript to the critically acclaimed Dark Angel Saga, and in the last three issues Rick Remender has been telling the story of Otherworld, a magical realm based on Celtic and Welsh mythology. The mix of this fantastical element and the title’s modus operandi of grim and gritty, violent antics has proven interesting but ultimately unsuccessful, and a large part of the problem has been Greg Tocchini’s art. To be charitable, his work could be described as an acquired taste; his influences are clearly more interesting that your average comicbook artist, touching upon impressionism and other staples of art history. Taking a less generous stance, one could argue that the work featured in issues #20 and #21 had no business being published, given its lack of clarity and detail. Issue #22 is fortunately a vast improvement, and if he could raise the bar just a little and then operate at that standard consistently, he’d be one hell of a talent. He was presumably chosen for this story arc because of the almost dream-like qualities Otherworld is supposed to evoke. However, when he’s called upon to deliver a particularly gory scene in issue #22 (spoiler: one of the characters loses their face) he can’t pull it off. His style simply doesn’t suit the hyperviolence that is supposed to be a part of the book’s high concept.

As for the story? Well, it has been underwhelming so far, to be honest. The setting and stakes aren’t particularly interesting; Otherworld rarely crops up in the Marvel universe, and most of the individuals who inhabit it are so minor it’s hard to care about their fates, or else they’re C-level superheroes that, regardless of the outcome, will crop up in someone else’s story in a few months time, ostensibly unchanged by the events of this tale. Like X-Factor, Uncanny X-Force seems to be killing time, and hopefully the next arc will be a return to form.

So in summary: X-Men Legacy stands out as the best of the satellite titles; it doesn’t quite achieve the same level of quality as Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine and the X-Men, but it’s up there. As for X-Factor and Uncanny X-Force, wait and see: the talent involved with both titles have delivered in the past, and hopefully the next storylines will be an improvement over the current ones.

The Trouble With Trof

By
February 21, 2012
Manchester
2 Comments

In which we consider the increasing homogenisation of Manchester’s bar scene.

At the start of the year it was announced that Zecol, the company that operates the Trof chain, had taken over The Green Room and Albert Hall Brannigans, two sites that had fallen into disuse some months earlier. In an interview with Manchester Confidential, Zecol managing director Joel Wilkinson spoke of the company’s plans: “We need to decide on the look and feel we’re going to give the place, although it won’t be radically different to the rest of the Trof bars.”

Little over a month later, a similar story emerged. The success of Black Dog Ballroom has prompted the owners to take over the vacant Pure Space site on New Wakefield Street. Ross Mackenzie, one of the two men behind the Northern Quarter venue, has already suggested that the new venue will seek to replicate the original, with his long-term goal involving establishing the brand across North England.

These developments raise an interesting question: can this kind of homogeneity really be a good thing for the city?

The success of the likes of Trof and Black Dog strikes me as a double-edged sword. The fact that these businesses are expanding is good news for the city economically (and any development that helps create new jobs should be celebrated); however, as far as Manchester’s social scene is concerned it does nothing to improve choice: we simply get an almost identikit version of an established brand popping up in a new location. More of the same, in other words. The Northern Quarter Black Dog serves its purpose and its clientele just fine; is it really necessary to open another one just a 20 minute walk away?

Similarly, does the city centre really need FOUR Trof venues if each one is going to be utilising the same approach and aesthetic? Is it not in danger of becoming a Wetherspoon’s for the alternative set?

I’m aware than an argument could be made that these companies are taking over failed sites, revitalising venues that weren’t able to remain open in the current climate. Which is a perfectly fair point. However, Trof and Black Dog grew to thrive because they brought something new to the table, offering a different kind of night out and unique selling points that pack the punters in. The pair stand as proof that new ideas can succeed. If there’s room in the city’s social scene for popular outlets to expand, surely there’s room for original concepts to take off? In particular, the success of the likes of Black Dog and Port Street Beer House against a difficult economic backdrop suggests that there is.

The Green Room and Space are fantastic venues, and the news that both will soon be back in commission is most welcome indeed. Here’s hoping that Trof and Black Dog show a willingness to try something new and take a few risks, rather than simply resting on their laurels.

2012 in film: part one

By
February 12, 2012
Cinema

Shame


An unflinching look at sex addiction starring Michael Fassbender as Brandon and Carey Mulligan as his damaged, destructive sibling. Set in a nightmarish New York geared toward making sex as cheap and easily accessible as possible, this is a difficult film filled with grim, explicit scenes. What drives Brandon relentlessly toward fulfilling his desires is never fully explained, though a troubled childhood is hinted at with the gorgeously simple line “we’re not bad people, we just come from a bad place”. Instead, Brandon’s sexual compulsion is portrayed in dark tones, exposing the desperation of an addiction that is on par with substance abuse.

Highlights: The running scene and Mulligan’s rendition of “New York, New York”.

An Education


Carey Mulligan stars as 16 year old school girl Jenny, who is on course to win a place reading English at Oxford when the charismatic yet disreputable David offers her a lift in his Bristol sports car and a way to break the monotony of suburban lower-middle class life. The title’s double entendre is played out over the proceeding hour and a half, as Jenny becomes submerged in David’s murky world of lies and deceit. The film is based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber, which are given a cinematic makeover by Nick Hornby. It is at times a little predictable and maybe a touch sentimental, with easily drawn characters, but it works well as a coming of age film and serves to fill a couple of satisfactory hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Highlights: To be honest I won’t remember this film forever, but it did reacquaint me with the work of Lynn Barber, who is a very good interviewer and feature writer and not at all forgettable. So in my opinion the best part of An Education is reading Barber’s interview with Marianne Faithfull afterwards.

The Artist


The Artist tells the story of silent movie actor George Valentin, whose fame is on the wane, and Peppy Miller, who is a rising star of the newfangled ‘talkies’. This is a heartwarming story told with artistry, a lightness of touch and universal appeal. It’s not particularly surprising that it has been nominated for eleven Oscars, and it is the simplicity of the story and the sincere performances of Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and John Goodman that make this film genuinely memorable. However, it seems a little excessive to nominate The Artist for eleven awards when a film as well-crafted and adrenalin-filled as Drive has barely scraped one. While The Artist has much to recommend it – it is beautifully shot, well-performed, artistic, accessible – a friend made a good point when asking “would this film have rated as highly were there spoken dialogue?” and I’m not sure it would have. Still, certainly worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.

Highlights: The smartest dog you are ever likely to see on screen.

War Horse


Ah, War Horse. I was desperate to see this film from the moment I read this illustrated review on The Hairpin. For those of you who have been living under a rock War Horse is the tale of a plucky and courageous horse called Joey and the people (mainly men) who fall in love with him, set during WW1. Directed by Stephen Spielberg for Disney, this film has the schmaltz factor turned up to eleven and I’m not ashamed to say I cried on several occasions. If you love shots of horses running through fields, being brave and watching grown men struggling to conceal their amorous equestrian inclinations then you’ve struck gold with War Horse.

Highlights: There are so many fantastic moments it’s hard to know which to rate highest without giving the ending away. The goose is pretty cool though.

Drive


Telling the story of an unnamed Driver (Ryan Gosling) who quietly falls in love with his neighbour, Irene (Carey Mulligan), who is unfortunately married to an unsuccessful criminal. When the Driver attempts to help him out things go disastrously wrong, and he finds himself in over his head with some dangerous characters.

Driver appeals on several levels. It is a cool sensory feast, beautifully styled with an excellent soundtrack and some breathtaking stunt driving. Gosling’s central figure is a classic strong silent type; a version of John Wayne reimagined by Quentin Tarantino. I defy men (and women for that matter) not to form a little crush on Gosling in this role. Whilst not perfect – it’d easy to pick a few holes in Drive’s plot – this a really enjoyable, heartbreaking, exhilarating romp of a film and deserves to have received more recognition from the Oscars than a single nomination for its sound editing.

Highlights: There was nearly another score for Drive and it’s really worth a listen. You can find here. And if you fancy getting your hands on a shiny scorpion jacket of your very own you can do so here.

Blue Valentine


If you’re feeling particularly disenchanted with love this Valentine’s Day, then Blue Valentine – with its bleak, harrowing depiction of a relationship in its death throes – might well be the film to reassure you that you’re better off alone. Or you can watch it with your partner and argue over who fucked it more, Ryan Gosling’s Dean or Michelle Williams’s Cindy.

The story of their relationship is told via flashbacks to their early days, showing us how they initially bonded and fell in love alongside their final moments following a visit to a tacky love-hotel. Whilst the film is difficult to watch in places, it’s a beautifully told story with some touching moments and leaves you with plenty of food for thought afterwards.

Highlight: Dean serenading Cindy with the song “You Only Hurt the Ones You Love” outside a discount wedding shop. The same song is played again over the credits.

2012 in literature: January

By
February 8, 2012
Literature, Manchester
1 Comment

As is customary in January, I’ve found it hard to settle into a book for any significant amount of time, flitting from one piece of literature to another on whims, leaving a good few in progress even though I was enjoying them. Give it another month and maybe I’ll have found my focus.

I started the year finishing off Moneyball, Michael Lewis’s fantastic book about Billy Beane, the general manager who revolutionised baseball by focusing on approaches to talent spotting and team selection than no-one else put any stock in. His methods helped transform the Oakland Athletics from an unsuccessful outfit to regular playoff contenders; interestingly enough, the success of his methods – not to mention of Moneyball – led to other individuals adopting them wholesale, and in recent years Beane’s team has struggled.

The story that unfolds is far from a conventional sports narrative, however, and the way Lewis tells it is somewhat out of the ordinary too. Rather than following a linear path, Lewis jumps back and forth, sometimes without warning, and allows himself any number of diversions and meandering interludes, all the while crediting the reader with enough intelligence to keep up. Some of the most illuminating passages involve Beane’s new guard clashing against baseball’s old guard, be it coaching staff, scouts, or sportswriters, all of whom are strongly resistant to the new ideas of the upstarts. Prior knowledge of baseball is not necessary to enjoy Lewis’s account.

I also picked up Everything’s Fine, the promising debut from Manchester’s own Socrates Adams. Literature that is actually laugh-out-loud funny is a rare thing indeed, yet Adams delivers in spades on the humour front. Which is a good job, really, because the focus of the story – a man named Ian’s workplace-based woes and general failure to function as proper adults are expected to - does not allow for much light to filter in, his dream of a holiday to the French alps notwithstanding.

Adams seems to have found his particular milieu, marrying mundane slice of life material with surrealism and the odd shock tactic, as well as social commentary that may or may not be earnest. It’s an effective blend, and certainly a unique one – it seems safe to say I’ll read nothing quite like Everything’s Fine again this year. The simple conceit does become ever-so-slightly stretched at points, tasked with carrying an entire novel (well, novella might be more accurate), but that doesn’t detract too much. Given its subject matter, it’s likely that a good few of you will readily be able to relate to the trials and tribulations of Ian. If nothing else, it’s worth reading because it’s likely to be the only time you experience a narrative in which a length of pipe is the most sympathetic character.

I rounded off the month with Stephen King’s Misery, the tale of Paul Sheldon, a writer famous for a series of bestsellers starring Misery Chastain. When Paul suffers a car crash, he’s rescued from the wreckage by Annie Wilkes, who just so happens to be Misery’s biggest fan. Problem is, Paul killed her in his last novel, and Annie’s grasp on sanity is tenuous at best…

Misery is a gripping, ambitious tale, one that King uses to explore what it means to be an artist, how possessive and demanding fans can become, and whether or not releasing a work of art commercially means it belongs to the public as much as the person who created it. In one glorious passage, Sheldon ponders to himself:

“It was crazy. It was funny. It was also real. Millions might scoff, but only because they failed to realize how pervasive the influence of art – even of such a degenerate sort as popular fiction – could become. Housewives arranged their schedules around the afternoon soaps. If they went back into the workplace, they made buying a VCR a top priority so they could watch those same soap operas at night. When Arthur Conan Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, all of Victorian England rose as one and demanded him back. The tone of their protests had been Annie’s exactly – not bereavement but outrage. Doyle was berated by his own mother when he wrote and told her of his intention to do away with Holmes. Her indignant reply had come by return mail: ‘Kill that nice Mr Holmes? Foolishness! Don’t you dare!‘”

The passage continues, and is a wonderful, profound ode to the all-consuming effect art can have on us, how passionate a person can become over a fictional character, and why we’re willing to invest so much of ourselves into worlds that do not exist. As it turns out, it’s only easy to dismiss King as populist fare if you’ve never read one of his better novels. I’ll certainly be seeking out more.

Currently reading: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Jacobs Beach by Kevin Mitchell, Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past by Simon Reynolds, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Next on the agenda: Finishing all of the above and reading The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai for February’s book club.

How goes the novel?: After a strong first week, things ground to a halt. It’s currently ‘on the shelf’ as I ‘concentrate on other projects.’

X-Men: Regenesis, part two

By
January 31, 2012
Comicbooks

So, time to catch up with Regenesis, which by now has had plenty enough time to make its mark. It’s fair to say the relaunch has offered its share of both good news and bad news. First, the bad news: Marvel still insists on publishing superfluous titles that have no compelling reason to exist, and in fact serve to dilute the entire line. New Mutants and Generation Hope are not bad comicbooks, but their existence seems predicated on the knowledge that completists will likely pick them up, rather than any pressing creative or artistic need to tell a story. Ultimately, it’s serviceable genre fare that I’ve already stopped purchasing.

X-Men doesn’t deserve to get off so lightly.  Victor Gischler – who has proven elsewhere that he is a perfectly talented writer – has been dragging out a story for four issues that could’ve been wrapped up in two. It got off to a bad start by utilising the ‘superheroes fight following a misunderstanding, then team up to take on the bad guys’ template that is as old as the genre, and thus overused to such an extent that the only suitable reaction is a cataclysmic yawn. Meanwhile, the plot is all-too-familiar: an upstart nation gets its hands on advanced technology (in this case, Sentinels), ostensibly in order to better protect its borders from international threats, but in reality to go on the offensive. What would be fine as a b-plot (or even c-plot) seems interminable at this length, and I won’t be sticking round for future issues.

Fortunately, the good news is that the two flagship titles have been excellent. Wolverine and the X-Men has given the line a shot in the arm, with Jason Aaron seemingly having no interest in the “grim and gritty” storylines that have come to define the franchise (all death and dystopian futures). Instead, he’s penning a silly little action book of the best kind, one that embraces the more ridiculous and outre genre conventions and ramps them up to 11. To this end, the villains of the first arc were the latest version of the Hellfire Club, a collection of prepubescent sociopaths with too much time and money on their hands and an intense hatred of mutantkind. Moving at a brisk pace, the hero of the piece turns out to be teen anarchistic and reluctant member of Wolverine’s Jean Grey School for Higher Learning Quentin Quire, a Grant Morrison creation whose sensibilities mesh perfectly with Aaron’s. Fantastic stuff.

The first Uncanny X-Men story arc was no less impressive. Kieron Gillen – who cut his teeth writing the Britpop-inspired Phonogram – writes an excellent Cyclops, and it should be interesting to see how his X-Men team (which comprises several individuals of morally dubious character, including Magneto) manage to co-exist. Their role is twofold: to help humanity, but also to show them how powerful mutants really are, and what a bad idea it is to mess with the species. It’s an interesting setup, helped by the fact that they were pitted against Mister Sinister, with Gillen successfully redefining the role and purpose of a villain who has for too long been shrouded in pointless mystery and ambiguity. On art, Carlos Pacheco is on top form, turning in his most impressive work in recent memory. The two should be commended for embracing the superhero team book template and making it seem vital again.

So in summary: seek out the first three issues of both Wolverine and the X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, and skip the other three titles I’ve discussed. Next time out, we’ll look at whether X-Men Legacy, Uncanny X-Force, and X-Factor are worth a read.

New Year, New Post

By
January 28, 2012
Manchester

Okay, so given that we are in the home stretch of January it’s probably a bit late for us to be doing a ‘new year post,’ but considering that we’ve been less consistent than we’d have liked in updating our blog we figured that a catch up, ‘we’re back’ kinda post was in order.

The tail end of 2011 was a bit hectic, and in between various trips across the country, Christmas, work and the party season (and to be completely honest some general laziness) we lost our way as far as Onward, Manchester was concerned.

But new year, fresh start and all that. So in 2012 we hope to keep on writing about our Manchester-based exploits, the issues we care about and our day-to-day craic for anyone who cares to read about it. Rather than have ‘resolutions’ (if we’d had any we’d have given up on them by now anyway), we have things that we’d like to do in 2012, which coincidentally is the Chinese Year of the Dragon.

We want to continue the festival precedent that we set in 2011 by attending ATP in March and Primavera in May/June. Festival-type events are something this city has done really well in recent years; Eurocultured, Sounds From the Other City, Carefully Planned and FutureEverything are all on our 2012 to do list.

Over the winter it has been really cold and often we’ve found we’d rather be sat in with a boxset than out getting cold and wet. This seems to have had some positive effects on our respective bank balances as well as ensuring that we finally finished off The Sopranos (ending = awesome) and made a respectable start on The Wire, which has taken us a stupidly long time to get round to watching.

This year we want to continue with the box set drive, partly because we’re getting really bored of the bland Come Dine With Me repeats, Master Chef semi-finals and rubbernecking documentaries that seem to be the mainstay of all the major channels at the moment. Whilst TV definitely provides some thought-easing, head space of an evening, there’s no reason that space shouldn’t be filled with something that is both well crafted and entertaining. So we’ve got Mad Men, Deadwood, Homicide: Life on the Street, Bored to Death and 30 Rock on our list so far, but any other recommendations would be very welcome.

Eating well is also high on our list of priorities this year; both in terms of looking after ourselves through the food we eat (sounds boring I know) and also in eating lovely food out. We stumbled upon this Gold List of places to eat in Manchester so we plan to work our way through them as well as adding recommendations of our own. Hopefully it’ll be delicious and fun!

We both have things that we’d like to individually achieve (Sam: swim 5k for Marie Curie, get involved with feminism in Manchester; Kristian: write his first novel before the end of the year) but that’s all we can think of for now.

Happy (belated) New Year!

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