So it Goes...

I had originally planned to spend the afternoon with a friend but with his final get-out calling to him I found other ways to entertain myself instead. Carting around my suitcase and two bags I power-walked from the infirmary to the Underbelly to catch the well-reviewed show, 'So It Goes'.

edinburghshowcase.britishcouncil.org

Family seemed to be a running theme with all of the shows I managed to see this year but in this one in particular, we were thrust into a world of family relationships that seemed all too familiar. The piece is based on a story following the journey of Hannah, mourning the death of her father. As she struggles to speak about her grief in the 7yrs that follow, she instead turns her focus to moping on the sofa and nights out on the town until finally she finds a way back to her mother. It was the second show I caught at the Fringe this year to avoid speech entirely, leaving a magnified emphasis on the visuals - which were bursting with originality and symbolic of the inability to see black and white at times of emotional difficulty.

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Facial expressions were at their best in this one, there was plenty of energy despite the subject matter and lack of dialogue. The show also featured lots (And lots) of whiteboards as important parts of the story were written for the audience to see - allowing us into our protagonist's world (and I applaud them on managing to write upside down)!

theartsdesk.com

We were drawn in with a high energy beginning, with enactments of memories of dad running everywhere, to work, to the shop, around the park. Dad loved to run. And our girl loved dad.

Line drawings were a huge part of the character of this show. Not only did it act to aid scene changes, explain narrative or act as scenery - it also had a kind of symbolic nature, representing the many childlike emotions that can present post-trauma. There was also something harrowing about seeing the solitary word 'cancer' written on one of the cards aided by an x-Ray like drawing of dad's insides. Despite the impact of the negative, these drawings also suggested a childish quality in our characters that gave them life and enabled us to really feel sympathy for them.

eastendreview.co.uk

I particularly enjoyed the club scene, with buckets of energy from our two actors (and buckets to catch the amount of sweat produced too), and with line drawings to represent the crowd and drinks - it was as clever visually as it was emotionally climatic. This was the moment for me that made the most sense when it comes to mourning - as we turn our energy to losing our minds and finesse the art of distraction. It's a routine I've practiced and one I could really connect with.

So it Goes... was brutally powerful. I am very much a woman of words and I find it much easier to write them down, rather than share them with anybody out loud. The show was a perfect embodiment of grief, of memory and of moving on. It was warm, it was fragile and it was human, which made it a hit at the Fringe this year and I hope on bigger stages to follow.

Find out more about the story behind the show here: http://www.ontheruntheatre.co.uk/#!current-production/cb3i

Dreams of A Life

We all dream of that life we wished we'd have led, we all dream of becoming someone better, or wealthier, but film-maker Carol Morley takes that dream one step further. She assumes the dream of Joyce Carol Vincent, a lady found dead in her flat having laid there for three whole years. Morley turns this hopelessly sad situation into a film about a young woman with lots of friends and lots of dreams, with vibrancy and life seeping through the screen.

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It is at heart, an art-film with an essence of docudrama to fill in the gaps of Joyce's story where there is no record. We do not meet her family. We do not know the whole story. In fact, there is a total lack of any solid evidence of how Joyce spent her time and how troubled she really was. Yet, amidst such a lack of information about her, we are presented with a film that is full of character and one that acts as a respectful memorial to her life.

Carol Morley 's affection for the story is evident in her production. The careful casting of the beautiful Zawe Ashton and the genuine shock of the contributors we meet along the way, on hearing about Joyce's fate almost draw us to keep watching. We want to know what they wish to know, how this beautiful, apparently life-loving girl, came to be forgotten.

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The aesthetics were perfect - shadowed rooms in which Joyce always carried a glow. SFX of dripping taps and old 80s music adding character even to stone walls. We have all had moments in our lives where we pretend to be happy, where we tell others (and ourselves) that we are fine, but there is a deep wound that Joyce was hiding and although we're never quite sure which of her experiences hurt her most, we cannot tear our eyes away from trying to work it out. We watch her miming to her beautiful reflection in the mirror, we hear recordings of her singing. Joyce is living and breathing in the film, without ever actually being there. As an audience we want to save her, to reach into the screen and to be her friend, for the story not to be real. We want her to be remembered and Morley in this, does beautifully. 

We find ourselves stunningly moved by a news article that we may have perhaps glanced over before. Suddenly the story is a life, and the life is one we care about.

theartsdesk.com

I can't say much more, but the intimate and tragically beautiful dramatisation of Vincent's life, carried by the painful interviews of those who knew her, is just a wonderful and respectful memorial, to a young woman who met with tragedy. It is one of the most incredible factual films I've seen in the last few years, particularly surprising as there is, as the situation suggests, a significant lack of fact. I feel as though we pay our respects to Joyce and many others like her we will never know about, when we watch this film.

Joyce Carole Vincent

Mwathirika

threeweeks.co.uk

My last trip to the Fringe in 2011 took me to an incense-infused-caravan, with pillows as seating, to a performance by The River People with some of the most captivating puppetry I'd ever seen. I'd never really cared for shows about puppets but their performance of Little Matter opened my eyes to just how magical it can be. The storytelling really spoke to me and it remains one of the greatest theatre productions I think I've seen.

threeweeks.co.uk

Little Matter's magic then took me to the Little Angel Theatre in East London where I found puppetry tackling stories of the holocaust (Buttons) and of a charming relationship between man, woman and fish, accompanied by the diagnosis and subsequent journey of discovery brought by Motor-neurone disease (Cell) - also at this year's fringe.

This year, I was back in Edinburgh again and I quickly sought out my next magical puppetry experience - I found it at C Nova.

aroundyou.com.au

'Mwathirika', (meaning 'victim') was marketed as an Indonesian puppet show following two village families during the Indonesian genocide, in association with the British Council. It was the first time I'd seen child puppets and they got the physicality just right. Immediately some kind of maternal instinct kicked in as I watched the relationship between two young brothers fluctuate between self-pitying tantrums and complete idolisation in mere moments. With no dialogue to drive the story, all eyes were drawn to navigating our own individual journeys through the performance and these boys were central to it. You can't help but be charmed by the childish laughter and playful skipping of main character 

theaustralian.com.au

We watch as a nation is ripped apart and friends are isolated by an unjust regime. Children lose a father. A father shows his love for his daughter. Soldiers play the puppeteers of a nation as they themselves are puppets to a regime. A girl tries to help a friend and a boy is left alone.

heraldscotland.com

The Indonesian theatre company had mastered puppetry, with vocalisations of excitement and child's play spot on, as they even operated puppets with their toes.! I was transported. I was there with them. My heart wrenched for them. During the show the boys' father is arrested under the regime and they are left alone. At this point the pain that they feel is thrust into the hearts and minds of the captured audience. As they shiver, starve and cry, lose all hope - every ounce of humanity in you is reaching forward as if to scoop them up. It continues scene after scene, aided by projections of an endless tally chart and the execution of less animated movement, prolonging the feeling of an eternity of suffering. 

theaustralian.com.au

As the youngest child is left alone, the young girl from next door makes touching attempts to cheer him up as she wheels over in her wheelchair and gives him her music box. This was another first for me, seeing a puppet in a wheelchair and not thinking twice about it because it was choreographed so superbly. There were moments of audience participation, of light and dark and of a fairytale filled with hardship, loss, love and and friendship and it was captivating to watch the wooden puppets come alive as children. 

The performance almost had a heartbeat of it's own, you could tell the puppeteers were invested in their story and why not. I feel drawn to learn about Indonesian culture in a way I haven't been since the magnificent documentary 'The Missing Picture'.

I think you can tell, I was suitably impressed and for one evening of an unbelievably busy week, whilst my friends were off drinking, I found myself transported deep into the beautiful heart of an injured Indonesia and found triumph in facing it head on. I even got to get acquainted with one of teh characters!

The Fringe did it again, it holds the gold medal for puppetry for 2015 and I can't wait to see what it has in store for me next year! 

Follow Papermoon Puppet Theatre's work here: http://www.papermoonpuppet.com/

Reclaiming Vietnam

By this point in the week I was more than a little worse for wear, speed napping whenever I found myself in low light. It was in this tragic state that I accidentally stumbled into Reclaiming Vietnam and happened across my second one woman show of the week.

Bacchic - windsorexpress.co.uk

The first one woman show I ever saw was 'Bacchic' back in May 2008, and although it boasted aerial acrobatics - I was not a fan of the Euripides-based story (nor can I even remember it). This time, I had allowed myself to be more open. Kim Chinh's story was different, she was about to express her own autobiographical story.

As is common at the Fringe you find yourself with tickets to shows you have heard nothing about. You have no idea of what to expect and only have the title of the piece to guide you in your estimations. I had expected to be met with a journey through Vietnam, to learn about the war and to see how it had injured its people. Instead I was thrust into the world of an American and her extended family. Not what I had expected but I ran with it.

edinburghfestival.list.co.uk

Kim began with telling us what she thought about Vietnam and how she dislikes being called Vietnamese. She calls Vietnam backwards, claiming 'I am American' - almost undermining her journey towards loving it before it even really begins. It meant I wasn't really sympathetic with her from the outset, I was annoyed by her for a bit. Why does she hate being Vietnamese? But what was unclear and a little annoying at the beginning did slowly begin to make sense as the piece continued.

It was a piece less about reclaiming her heritage, than forgiving her own family for abusing her trust. She enacts in depth her encounters with three of her cousins as she faces them and tells them that she remembers what they did - they had abused her and molested her and she wanted them to know she had not forgotten. It suddenly became a very personal journey across a backdrop that provided the distractions of war and worry, allowing her childhood abuse to go unnoticed.

reclaimingvietnam.com

I do still struggle with solo shows, interactions with others is part of human nature and body language suggests more about these journeys than a single person can ever give on their own. It was also a little disconcerting to see her confronting her past, but not really confronting her past. It was almost her having discussions with herself in the mirror, rather than her facing up to the men who had betrayed her trust. But then simultaneously, for those more intimate family moments I almost understood it - how can you possibly reenact those intricate and fragile moments of confrontation? I do however, feel it would have been beneficial to share her journey through Vietnam with her travelling partner in the flesh and allow us a break in a rather challenging journey.

reclaimingvietnam.com

The one thing the show achieved was that it did not paint our protagonist as a victim, she was self-aware and looking for answers and at no point did we blame Kim for her past - as is common in cases of abuse. But sometimes this almost worked against her, she would take us back to those moments of fun and lightness. She was dealing with the heavy bits and then distracting us, which perhaps has been the way she herself has moved on from it leaving you to question whether or not she has totally dealt with it or not. But this is less the question I left asking myself. The show was just a little misleading. It led us down the alley of discovery in Vietnam but was cloaked in another story of healing, leaving the Vietnam part, a little unresolved for me.

edinburghfestival.list.co.uk

Much of the piece was mimed. The motorbike Kim sped through Vietnam on, the phone she would call her cousins with, and so on. I'm almost sure that this was due to the artist having a small budget (I mean she'd already flown over from the US for us). But I think that solo shows need that extra aesthetic. I always certainly feel as though I need more to make up for the lack of other actors onstage. The show would certainly benefit from that when touring again.


Perhaps what makes the piece is the fact that the story is true, which perhaps suppresses our verdict as critics and instead opens our hearts to the human at the core of the piece. Not only is it extremely brave, but extremely affecting too, encouraging us to confront our demons and make peace with those things holding us back. Kim grasps her own truths and thrusts them in front of a public audience bearing all for us to judge. As a solo show, it offers a unique portrayal of a woman that has felt alone in her struggle for a long time, as well as offering up her strength in confronting it. Kim is certainly an inspiring woman and despite the reservations I had about the piece, that was the one thing I could not fault.

Kim spoke about her piece to blogger Gareth Vile here: http://vilearts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/kim-chinh-talks-dramaturgy-reclaiming.html 

The Red Lion

southbanklondon.com

As I took my seat in the Dorfman Theatre, taking in the authenticity of Anthony Ward's set with its muddied walls and dirtied showers, it felt strangely familiar. The yearning I had to get myself back into one of those changing rooms - to struggle to pull my socks over my shin pads, bang my boots, to sit on one of those old battered benches - was pulling me in. The nostalgia was hitting me big time.

nationaltheatre.org

Daniel Mays lured us in further with his spectacular bitching about the state of the turf - especially around the goal-line - about referees, about pitch misconduct (we all have a story about the time THAT ref heard us call him something we shouldn't). Mays had energy like you wouldn't believe, commandeering the stage like he'd trodden its boards a thousand times. He had grit and ownership - everything a manager normally possesses - minus the chewing gum.

The first half allowed us into this male world, seething with homoeroticism that is all but celebrated yet confidently exercised. The youngest of our three man cast was Calvin Demba - playing a wayward young kid with talent on a ball and a few secrets in tow. It wasn't just a game for him, football was the place he was in control, the bit of turf he owned and the place he shone beyond his usual parameters. If there's anything I recognise, its that. That feeling you get on the pitch where everything else drifts away and for 90mins you control your own destiny. Even if it's just in your own little sunday league bubble, it's yours and you're in charge. Even on those misty winter mornings in the playground, with visible breath, wearing just a cotton school shirt and freezing my tits off - because yes, I have those. I wanted to get out on that field instantly. I was getting restless in the theatre. I felt Jordan's frustration, his worries about his knee injury, his aggression at being asked to cheat. His awkwardness at getting his kit off for a massage from another man - not that he was the only one to strip of course, all three of our men had their moment. For an actor I've only seen as a gobby little bad boy in Channel4s Youngers (which I actually loved btw) - I was suitably impressed with his command over his character. I'm quite excited by where he might go next, he's definitely one to watch.

Our cast weren't left to make drama where it wasn't written - Patrick Marber's script provided an authentic peek into a world any footballer would recognise. The line 'your sorry soul is always there to pull you back', 'he's man marking you' sticks out as one of the best. Some lines came off as a bit OTT and cheesy, but if you've ever been in a changing room it's exactly the kind of fearless prose that eeks its way into every conversation pre and post match.

Once again I was left to admire the set during the interval, where stage hands delivered scatters of ankle tape, mud and a worn-kit, filling the room with the musty smell of sweat and TCP. Even attention was given to the clock on the wall, showing that match time was over as the light outside the windows had shifted around the set. I longed to be there for real, unwinding after a game, nursing swollen ankles, with the stench of wet boots unavoidably seeping from the car boot. Again though I was awoken from my dreaming and given a story of three men who lived and breathed their club - albeit in their own way.

nationaltheatre.org

The second half was the time for our oldest cast member Peter Wight to really come into his own. The club was all Yates had, a club built on fairness and support - contradictory to Kidd who would do anything to get ahead. Whether it's three points on match day or £3000 through a dodgy transfer he was always looking to maximise potential for his reputation at the club. But our Yates was having none of it, even if it meant getting his hands dirty in the process. And dirty he did. He fights to mentor young Jordan facing direct opposition from May's character, Kidd and this time, the score line didn't matter. The most intense match was going on inside the changing room - which is why the play gets away with never showing any character playing football. The drama is already there.

nationaltheatre.org

Yates wins our hearts with his passion but by the end we're not sure who has it right. All three men have lied in the name of the sport they love BECAUSE they love it. It's hard to hate anyone by the end. We have an odd sort of hero worship going on - or maybe we just empathise.

The finale of the piece was unexpected. As Yates becomes the last of the three to get his kit off, we watch as he once again abides by the routine the audience has accustomed to. Alone in the changing rooms he plugs the plug in the wall, unreels the extension cable - but this time he keeps going. He unreels it long enough to walk it into the shower room - without the club he has nothing left - and his final moments are driven home by the sharp reality of just how much the beautiful game means to people. Even our rivals conclude that they are in fact both the same.

Marber's script gave us all of passion-filled cliches we expected but it gave us something else too. A feeling of integrity amongst the lies and an empathy for anyone who puts their heart and soul into football, on and off the pitch. It was empowering and the first thing I did when I got home is get my kit ready for training. It seems so many of us escape to this muddy-walled changing room, and The Red Lion only made me realise how much I rely on it for sanity. A beautiful ode to a beautiful game with a soft spot for anyone who immerses themselves in club life and football fanaticism - even the groundsman with the dodgy goal line!

A Sinner in Mecca

Parvez Sharma's A Sinner in Mecca - described as a hajj of defiance, screened at this year's Sheffield DocFest earlier this year, to a full house.

theguardian.com

Sharma had a lot to live up to following his previous film 'A Jihad for Love' where he documented the lives of gay, lesbian and transgender Muslims, who choose to remain faithful to Islam, and some in countries where many would choose to flee. Sharma decided it was time to fulfil his Hajj, only he had a secret, Parvez Sharma is a gay man, which carries with it more than the threat of being caught with a camera, but also the threat of death. Sharma confesses, 'I was done coming out as a gay man, I needed to come out as a Muslim' and that is exactly what A Sinner in Mecca set out to do - all-be-it rather indignantly. The 79min film is almost entirely shot on an Iphone, with various rules in place that would make it difficult to film on anything less discreet.

outlandic.com

However, if the aim was to prove himself as a Muslim, to come out devout to his faith, I felt that from start to finish the film was riveted with skepticism and tied together only by a slightly biased reaction to an only partly-authentic journey. Of course I expected him to be on his guard, he was filming and hiding the fact he was a gay man. Sharma has even received personalised death threats following the world premiere of his film in Canada. He does however, hold some form of a grudge against the faith that has caused many to shun him, or at least against the misinterpretation of that faith.

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For example, the Saudi shopping malls, the litter covering the streets of Mecca, the air-conditioned corridor that represents the journey between the desert hills of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah. Sure, that's enough to cause us all to question the authenticity of the pilgrimage. However, it was the way in which Sharma proceeded to sacrifice a goat despite his ill-feeling, to judge a father for teaching his children to throw an incorrect number of stones at 'the devil', to question what the hajj has become in order to cater for the millions of pilgrims each year. He even captured what should have been, and is for so many Muslims, the holiest moment of the Hajj, by touching the Kaaba and with iPhone in hand it felt like the least sincere moment of the film. It felt like an intrusion of the faith of those around him and as though he had no care for it at all. The film was still more important. It was his own Hajj of defiance against those other Muslims who judge him for being gay, and he was judging them right back. He too was measuring his fellow Pilgrims' 'Muslim-ness' to use a term I've seen in conversation. It was Sharma's skeptism towards this, his constant awareness of it, and his need to tell the camera of it, that actually persisted to convince me that Sharma was not proving his faith in his religion, but more disproving it. How can he comment on the sacredness and sanctity of the Hajj if he spends most of his time moving from socket to socket to charge his own iphone, to ultimately, make a film - which was the predominant reason for going after all. Perhaps that is why filming is prohibited in the first place - as the holy city is a place of spirituality, and capturing it as a mere visual image to show family and friends, or to fulfil a predetermined conclusion (or at least partially determined) is not a true reflection on the holy city, nor on the sacredness of the Hajj. Of course, I will never know or be able to form my own opinion on this, I cannot see it for myself, I am not a Muslim. So instead, Sharma is the best hope we have.

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I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with him in places. Walking up and down an air-conditioned corridor is a far cry from what it is supposed to represent, and the litter within the holy city does beg to ask how holy a city it is if men will drop their litter on its grounds, but we've seen the aftermath of music festivals and street marches of only a few thousand, Mecca must welcome millions to its streets.




The personal journey was present at times. There were moments where Sharma found his sprituality, or at least recognised the value of being a part of a world-wide Muslim community coming together. It was hugely powerful to witness these moments in him and I felt that I learned much more about 'coming out as a Muslim' when he allowed himself to fulfil his emotional potential within his surroundings.

The film has reached much critical acclaim, and I feel as though I am in no place to revere it as anything less than the powerful documentary they claim it to be. It suffered from poor sound quality at times with a high pitched repetitive recurring sound that seemed to find its way into the mix often but considering it was filmed on an Iphone, I couldn't fault it any further. Although I would question the legitimacy of its narrative voice, I highly disagree with the amount of hate mail that has been directed at him for portraying his own journey, particularly when it comes to his sexuality. This is after all, Sharma's story and not one that should represent the Hajj of any other pilgrim. It's nice to know though, that wherever hate mail exists, there is someone there to fight Sharma's corner... it seems that his coming out as a Muslim has seen him welcomed after all. But at what cost? He spends 80mins telling us he was losing his faith rather than strengthening it and hen concludes that by the end he is a better Muslim - how'd he work that one out? He's no better than those who judge him. He almost makes it worse for himself, framing himself as a kind of martyr, 'Islam is at war with itself and I have fought hard not to be a casualty' he says.

You can catch 'A Sinner in Mecca' on Netflix and it's definitely worth a watch. It really is a conversation starter, and a film that really gets you thinking about self-discovery. It's a rather intrusive 80min portrayal of the Hajj and its pilgrims and an equally judgemental narrative but worth a watch all the same, even if only to disagree with Sharma.

The Divide

'The Divide' is more a collage of story and opinion than a structured documentary with a conclusion as to how we solve the issue of economic inequality. Inspired by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett's book 'The Spirit Level', which examines the road to social equality, common misconceptions and the general outcome of those misconceptions - The film is perhaps a little more abstract.

Director / Producer Katharine Round shared; 'I didn't want to be overly demonising of those at the top' and that instead 'I wanted to get into the psyche of how their social position made them feel'.

So, it was never intended to necessarily to provide answers to the growing economic disparity, but more to identify how the social position we find ourselves in, can begin to determine our outlook, our confidence and our self-belief.

The film focusses on two nations, the UK and the US, which to me seemed at times a limiting choice. If we are to truly examine economic inequality then I think contributors needed to vary more drastically in location. I would at least like to know the reasoning behind selecting contributors from these two countries alone. However, with it's intended audience, perhaps it was to ensure that we could identify with the struggles on screen.

There were a few stand out stories for me, but I think also that there were too many contributors to really identify with. Although the idea was to arrange evidence on various levels of the social ladder, it made it hard for the audience to truly connect with any individual. There were moments that inspired some emotion in me, but I cannot recall their names, so perhaps the idea was not that we relate with a single stand out character, but instead relate to a part of the story in all of them.

I know there have been times in my own life where I have identified with feelings of being on top, and perhaps more frequently, being at the bottom. Round shared, 'If you're at the bottom of the pile, you're more likely to suffer depression' and I did, when I was struggling to earn enough money to live in the UK capital. It's a time where you're not quite sure if you're ever going to get the wage you need, and a time that forces you to make decisions that strain every other part of your identity; relationships, hobbies, dreams - they're all put on hold until you've earned enough to pay the rent. I identify with that, but I also identify with the part of me that will one day want to provide for my family, to provide safety and security and be happy in my career, with a fair wage. The film managed to capture both ends of the spectrum without, as Round intended, demonising either.

The film gives a very real analysis and although I really would have liked to draw some conclusion from it it was interesting and fulfilling nonetheless. We are all aware that social inequality exists, that economical disparity is growing and 'The Divide' successfully drew our attention to those characters that made the facts we read so often, come alive.

Visit the website for information on taking action: http://thedividedocumentary.com/take-action

Meru

Meru premiered at Sheffield DocFest this year over in the Library Theatre to a sizeable audience. I'd seen jeopardy in the trailer but it was nothing like the feeling I got from the real film. The trailer gave away nothing, the film evolved into more than a tale of rock climbers becoming an epic adventure for all of us left watching through our fingers.



Director/Producer team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and husband Jimmy Chin couldn't have written the story that unfolded. They captured some incredible footage up on the mountain, footage that could only be achieved by expert climbers who doubled up as spectacular photographers. We were immediately captivated by the friendship, expertise and adventure of our three main characters and all through the lenses of a 5D and a handicam! (eat that camera snobs).

adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com

The film captured moments of immense jeopardy. We see fingers and toes suffering trench-foot, we watch high-winds bombard a tent suspended 16,000ft in the air, we watch our friends as they suffer huge physical and psychological knock-backs and battle immensely dangerous surroundings. It really is an incredible portrait of human achievement, championing the height of what we can achieve through such devotion, spirit and perhaps a little insanity.

theclymb.com

Vasarhelyi revealed that husband Jimmy had reservations about featuring as a character in the documentary due to his own modesty but she had managed to convince him that he was an integral part of the sensational story of man vs. mountain. Thank goodness that she did! Jimmy soon became the loveable character among the trio, cracking jokes at times of uncertainty and proving forever the optimist. She did however pass on the revelation that Jimmy regretted swearing on camera –no judgements passed at all though Jimmy, have no fear there!

merufilm.com

Of course there’s Renan, a man who left his heart at the top of a mountain and couldn’t rest until he’d climbed to claim it back. He showed remarkable human strength and determination, t was like watching a Hollywood movie at times. Lastly, there’s Conrad, the daddy of the group. A man who is highly respected in his profession and highly regarded by the cinema audience too. He is quick to warm to and without giving away the final moments of the film, proves to be a gentleman. He is a man that pushes ego aside and strips himself right down to reveal a genuine wanderer with a firm heart and incredible talent. He humbles us further with the fact he submitted Everest without Oxygen just 3 months after the Meru climb!

merufilm.com - Jimmy Chin Photography

The film took 7yrs to make, throwing out two previous versions and finishing just 10 days before the film’s Sundance submission deadline. Co-director Jimmy insisted also that authenticity was essential in the edit, down to the very music tracks they would listen to on their Meru climb – proving pricey at the stage of music rights clearance. The story that was finally told at Sheffield’s Library Theatre deserved the big screen it featured on. It is expertly edited to tell aspects of a story that sees accidents, near-death escapes, incredible resilience and a rather beautiful bromance that saw me in tears. (Although at the moment of Ramon’s neck crack it did feel a little like we’d switched genre to a horror, prompting an outbreak of gasps from the Sheffield audience). Despite this, the film really is a story of man vs mountain that leaves us rushing to get our crampons on and resembles much of what we consider a part of the human story.

merufilm.com - Jimmy Chin Photography

Meru is released in UK cinemas later this year and I highly recommend it, particularly to any adventurers, climbers or outdoor athletes!

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

showroomworkstation.org.uk

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners was screened at Sheffield DocFest this morning as part one of a series set to broadcast in July this year.

The first 15mins of the film are entirely presenter-led. With PTCs and tireless cutaways of archives at Kew it felt more like a virtual lecture than a TV programme but 20mins in, it began to find it's feet a little. Although now we moved on to a slim and organic portrayal of idillic travel locations as our presenter and historian, continues to recount the evidence he has found, instead of actually showing it to us. I felt we lost a lot of the impact of the history, as it was lost in shots of nothing. We had no proof to anything Olusoga was telling us, despite him telling us he'd seen it.

bbc.co.uk

Credit where credit's due, the shots were nice. The "pin-pointing" on the maps showed exactly how common British slave owners were and that captured me greatly in that, 'it's close enough to Google Maps for mere echoes of past ghosts to be affected'. The musical score (particularly as we move to Barbados) was emotive and we finally began to meet the ghosts of the history that should have jumped right at us, given the title, from the very beginning. We were finally given the chance to explore physical history when we are presented with shackles and chains that provoke a rightly emotive reaction from Olusoga. I also got the snippet of archive that I had been waiting for.

epicworldhistory.blogspot.com

It's a tough subject to crack, and only towards the end did I feel engaged with the subject matter and actually pick up the names of some of these forgotten slave owners I was promised in the title. Here, about 40mins in I felt really engaged. There were contributors to shift the focus away from Olusoga, there were historical locations and specific figures to learn about. It finally emerged from lecture and became a story, it became television!

Overall the first 20mins of the film struggles, and I fear it might lose viewers on it's BBC platform. There is a greater need for archive, historical relics and locations given it is just that, 'history'. Overall, it had it's moments of revelation and some nice cinematography. There is one statement that sticks in my mind from the film being that we 'turned widows into slave owners and ordinary men into tyrants' and I feel that this is a history we (Britain) must accept and hold ourselves accountable for. I just felt that the film didn't quite achieve the impact it's title suggests. Overall, quite ironically, it remains my most forgettable film of the festival.

Born Naughty

'Born Naughty' seemed just the kind of easy-watch television I was looking for. That was until I started watching. Either the edit selection was shoddy, or the director had no idea what they were looking for, as shots were all similarly awkward. The main coverage was as expected but wherever there was an edit to cover, only aided by voiceover, the shots showed awkward contributors leaving their houses and harsh sound quality differences in ill-fitting flashbacks.

dailymail,co.uk

The voiceover script was great at pointing out the obvious and at times, was a little assuming and cringeworthy. I'm not sure if it was the delivery or the script itself, but either way, lines such as, 'the family, who are now hungry for answers' after an intro about poor Bobby's life-affecting eating habits, just didn't work with the tone of the series. It was supposed to be an investigative medical format in which the aim was to help the families, not laugh at them. More than once were these quite serious issues put down to poor parenting and to mum being called lazy by grandma, and there really is no need to put that comment on every title sequence! The series so far has not captured the medical responsibility at all, nor the doctor/patient understanding. It's more of an 'us' and 'them' feel, gathering evidence in family homes and keeping their findings from them until the big reveal, pinning all their hopes on one moment. Professionalism and sensitivity, if there was any, were not reflected in the edit, jazzing it up with flashbacks and poor audio mixing, and I found it distracting.

radiotimes.com

In episode 2 it wasn't just poor edit selection either, we were being told one thing and shown another. We could pick holes in our 'experts' opinions because we had been present at times when those traits had not appeared on camera. Like when Jessi-Jai, a young girl with speech problems was miraculously saved by losing her dummy. On first visit, when Dr Ravi met her, she was sociable and imaginative, even sharing eye contact. On the second visit she instead did things her way, avoiding interaction. From minute to minute we as an audience were being pulled through a non-existent, inconsistent narrative of edited codswallop, that could potentially even be quite damaging to both contributors and viewers. Parents have the carrot of a cure dangled in front of them for the whole production, only to have their dreams realised, or destroyed right at the end. It's just not ok, I could barely watch. The children themselves were the redeeming ingredient in this horrible mix of opinions and experiments.

Completely insensitive, poorly scripted and inconsistent. Come on Maverick, you can do better than that.

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

'Light Shining in Buckinghamshire' was a bit of an odd one for me. It was hard to allow myself into a character's life when the character kept changing from preacher to parliamentarian, from army man to squire and landowner. With a sizeable cast there was absolutely no need to multirole, which confused the audience, amidst middle English language and inconsistent costume. 

nationaltheatre.org.uk - photo by Marc Brenner

nationaltheatre.org.uk - photo by Marc Brenner

The set was interesting, I'll give it merit where due. The elaborate royalist banquet table, complete with candelabras and fresh flowers in one scene. Wooden floored manor house the next. Earthy common land by the end. Regardless of whether its symbolism was intended, it represented for me, the fall of the royalist system, into parliamentary England absent of feudalism, for a time. It showed men working the land as men continue to work away at the very foundations of our country's leadership - particularly of late.

marcbrenner.co.uk

londonist.com

But props and costume were odd for me. I was always told if you're going to go period, you need to do it wholeheartedly. And I believe that's right. It's confusing and off-putting for characters to be wearing roughs, sacks and rags within the same scene as PVC raincoats and hoodies. The same inconsistency was apparent in the prop selection. Wooden crates and quills one minute, flasks and plastic cups the next. Which period are we in - or was that the point? Perhaps the choice was a conscious one, to include these modern reminders to drive the message home that the politics of change are ever constant, particularly after the recent election. I just thought that it wasn't particularly well executed and it instead came across as a lax attempt from the costume and prop designer. I found myself noticing how a red plastic crate didn't belong in the scene and it was off-putting enough to draw me away from the dialogue.

nationaltheatre.org.uk - photo by Marc Brenner

The cast was filled with strong onscreen characters, who thankfully claim the same calibre of talent onstage. Leo Bill, Adelle Leonce and Joe Caffrey were characters to highlight with a challenge coming form younger cast member Joshua James, whose energy may have convinced a passionate atheist that god was within. His command of the stage was wonderful to watch. I'll also give particular mention to Ashley McGuire who managed to evoke tears within herself, amidst a rather frantic scene. There was certainly some good inner character work going on in that head of hers. But despite our characters best efforts, we were still lost in a slightly aimless narrative of middle English parliament, telling of rebellion, rather than enacting it.

nationaltheatre.org.uk - photo by Marc Brenner

I also noticed that on stage right (and more than once) did the gathering of cast members appear on a single level, in a straight line - not nearly the calibre of positioning seen before at the Lyttleton. But it was the script I felt that let us down the most. The cast did their best with what they had and poor production choices in multi-rolling and inconsistent aesthetic, just made for a more average NT production than the stage is used to. It gained something back from me with some fantastically arranged choral music, with additional original musical-glas FX from Helen Chadwick and I wholeheartedly stand by for Joshua James' next stage appearance.