Thursday, December 22, 2016

Assassin’s Creed – the Macbeth family hunt for the Golden Snitch (in cinemas from 1 January)

When it comes to computer games, I suppose I got stuck back in the 1980s with Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg and Elite as well as text-based adventure games like Lord of the Rings and Hitchhikers Guide. Not to mention Pokemon which is more of a fitness regime than a game. So I’ve no particular skill at shoot-em-ups and before heading to the cinema, no notion of the ‘universe’ that the Assassin’s Creed series of video games revolved around, nor any idea about the gameplay.

While Rogue One was (understandably) missing a scroller at its start, Assassin’s Creed introduces a few concepts to any bewildered audience members before the action starts.

The Assassins fight the Knights Templar. In this episode of ill will, they’re searching for the golden snitch Apple of Eden, a metal ball that contains genetic code. Much of the action is centred on Spain and jumps between 2016 and 1492. Callum Lynch (played by Michael Fassbender) has escaped death and finds himself incarcerated in a scientific research institute. With a blood line that connects him to Aguilar de Nerha in the fifteenth century, Lynch is strapped to a gigantic robot arm – the Animus – and forced to relive the genetic memories of his predecessors to identify the location of the much sought-after Apple which can apparently eliminate violence from the gene pool.
“Violence is a disease like cancer, and like cancer we have to control it one day.”
Given its video game heritage, the filmmakers have cleverly bridged the divide by including various game elements in the big screen production. What feels like a ‘loading screen’ appears to announce a time-shift. The camera follows a soaring eagle that glides into the new location. The ghostly projections that the institute’s staff see while Lynch is exploring his predecessor’s life feel very computer generated. Though the producers stopped short of putting an Assassins vs Knights Templar scoreboard up in the top left of the screen to capture the body count.

While the science is fairly mystical, the fighting scenes stick to physical combat. Very physical. Superhuman jumps are another stylised trademark of the film, with Fassbender demonstrating extreme parkour as he traverses across rooftops with fellow Assassin Maria (Ariane Labed). Coping with the perhaps understandably stilted dialogue – “We work in the dark to serve the light: we are assassins” – Fassbender sweats, bleeds, grunts and dashes about like a member of a secret cult on a mission.

It’s quickly obvious that scientific endeavour is not immune to the evil desires of powerful organisations and the kind of clearly wicked men who sit playing the piano while watching recordings of themselves delivering speeches to the UN.

The father/son relationship of disappointment and surprise within the Lynch family is mirrored with a similar relationship between visionary father Alan Rikkin (Jeremy Irons) who wants to perfect humankind and daughter Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) who is the brains behind the science and the more idealistic of the pair (and also played Lady Macbeth opposite Fassbender last year). Charlotte Rampling plays the chief of the Elders, a powerful woman with an air of mystery who is unfortunately underexploited in the script.

Director Justin Kurzel creates a world without brash colours, and his brother Jed Kurzel scores its musical background (throwing in some electric guitar amongst the orchestral manoeuvring).

There’s an abundance of stone buildings, smashed glass, jumping through holes in roofs, furious fighting and spilt blood, while there’s absolutely no glamour, other than the architecture and Marion Cotillard’s nurse’s uniform. If you’re going to convert a game into a film, then that’s in essence what needs to be captured. And capture it they have. Apparently 80% of the action was live rather than CGI, though it’s clear that nearly every scene will have involved green screen or digital manipulation of the set and background to enhance the scale.

There is little of intellectual merit in Assassin’s Creed. No one leaves the cinema pondering the nature of violence and underground power structures that control the globe. No one will weep at the cutthroat success of the Assassins as compassion fatigue sets in very early. No one will have a pain in their side from laughing: I don’t recall a single funny line (other than Fassbender asking what is going on at just the point I wondered the same). No one will rush away to the history books to find out more about the Spanish Inquisition. No one will even ponder that the Assassins are no less evil than the Knights Templar. Though audiences will step out into the bright corridor outside the cinema screen and ask each other why the writers lost the will to add a proper fight scene into the final five minutes of the film.

Assassin’s Creed is a video game that has been squeezed into a virtual reality time-travelling regression machine and borrowed its chase sequences (though only one motorcycle) from the Jason Bourne franchise with a very small sprinkling of Highlander and Dan Brown.

It’s essentially a fantasy adaptation. Relatively pointless. But it’s one that will appeal to hard core gamers who appreciate that elements of the Assassin’s Creed world normally restricted to their PC and console screens has exploded into their local multiplex. And while it won’t push you back into your cinema seat or make you grip the armrest until your knuckles go white, it probably will spawn future cinematic releases to explore other time periods through the eye of battling descendants.

Assassin’s Creed opens in Movie House cinemas (and others) on 1 January.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Searching for the ‘Collateral Beauty’ in a Christmas turkey film (Movie House from 26 December)

The set-up for Collateral Beauty is that a New York advertising agency is facing tough times with a major client on the brink of walking away and the two partners need to make some decision. Trouble is that the one with the controlling share is grieving for his child who died two years ago and only seems to appear in work to set up crazy domino chains.

Whit (played by Edward Norton) together with colleagues Claire (Kate Winslett) and Simon (Michael Peña) decide to stage an intervention. Three local actors (Keira Knightly, Helen Mirren and Jacob Latimore) are engaged to interrupt the life of Howard (Will Smith) and either knock him back into the real world, or give them the evidence they need to prove that he is not competent to vote with his 60% share of the business.

Three advertising abstractions – love, time and death – are at the core of the plot and Howard’s sorrow. But these are also crucial issues with which Whit, Claire and Simon are coping badly in their own personal lives.

The scheming Helen Mirren and in-your-face Jacob Latimore are two of the most interesting characters in the film which often seems to rely on tears rather than solid acting to manipulate an emotional response.

It could be a great short story and the twist near the end shows signs of a polished script. (The final twist spoilt the ending for me.) The parallel suffering and symmetry mean that it could be adapted for theatre where the plot holes would easier to forgive. The soundtrack is light and the film enjoys some very classy cinematography. However, there are a great many things that don’t work about this movie.

The hefty cast is so star-studded that it becomes very distracting every time another well-known face pops onto the screen.

It’s set at Christmas time, but that has no bearing on the plot.

Movie plots are full of coincidences. But this one requires a bicycle to be abandoned, a subway to be caught, and a particular exit to be used … a feat that local mentalist David Meade might even struggle to implant in Howard’s mind.

The translation from script to screen is very unsubtle. Howard’s penchant for cycling against the flow of traffic wears very thin. If the dominos are supposed to be a metaphor for life-long journeys that cannot be changed or controlled then the mundane filming of the multiple sequences of collapsing plastic pieces fails to ignite much imagination.

The concept behind the film’s clunky title is poorly explained within the film and that it underlines its weakness. Beauty may indeed exist in the deep pit of loss that grieving parents find themselves trapped in. But when did ‘collateral’ seem like an appropriate word to prepend to the title. ‘Broken Beauty’ might have worked better.

It’s not Ghost. It’s not Crazy People. And it’s no Love Actually. Instead Collateral Beauty is a Christmas turkey of a film that needs to be seen to fully explore how such a great slate of actors could create such a weird movie. And that’s clearly why it has been released and will be successful at the box office. So many cast members will attract their following to cinemas. Hopefully they’ll find some ‘collateral beauty’ amongst the dominoes.

Collateral Beauty will be screened in Movie House cinemas from Monday 26 December.

A darker, sinister bouffon Santa - TGI Christmas (Black Box – 20 and 21 December)

After being treated to a great playlist of Santa tunes, the lights dimmed and the audience looked out at the simple tree, chair and fireplace on the Black Box stage for Amadan’s annual TGI Christmas show. Lulled into a family Christmas spirit with a superb reading that built up the anticipation, we wondered from where would the performer enter? When would we get our first glance at Jude Quinn’s red-suited creation? The answer was both obvious and totally unexpected when it came.

In silence, punctuated by increasingly loud waves of giggles, we grew to appreciate some of the struggles facing Santa as he moves around delivering presents.

While “he was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf” and definitely had “a little round belly, that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly”, this was also an adult and sophisticated Santa. A darker, sinister one who can brutally judge the quality of hospitality left in a living room. A person who can perhaps distinguish bad from good better than he can discern naughty from nice. The UK government might describe him as creating a ‘hostile environment’.

Mischievous, curious, absurd, vain, rude, at times perverse, and only ever a tiny bit remorseful for the misery he creates in the supposed season of cheer.

For the most part it’s a one man show – with some help from Lunchbox Theatre – but when you’ve got a whole captive audience to play with, you’ve more than enough to create a tableau or two across the front of the stage. Costumes can be provided!

With a loooong stare or a gesture, Quinn – who trained at the Lecoq theatre school in Paris and is a master at the bouffon style of physical performance – confidently wields the power to freeze an audience member to their seat and leave their mates cowering. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we soon all know a treat is in store when the light comes on over the audience.

The musical cues and track choices add to the layers of physical and emotional comedy being created on stage. Quinn has a remarkable ability to minutely control his movements and to change his shape inside a costume, at one point making it look like two different people are controlling the two sides of his body.

The final lipsynced medley boosts Quinn into the premiere league of silent Stars in Their Eyes performers, as he morphs through the shape, gender and movements of so many well known artists in a routine that is highly synchronised with the shifting music tracks. (His Mariah Carey is amazing!)

Ultimately this is a Santa who is generous with his gifts for all the audience.

Thank F#ck It’s Christmas is probably the best lit shows I’ve seen in the Black Box, truly converting the Cathedral Quarter venue into a blacked off theatre space. This fourth annual version of the production is a fabulous showcase for Jude Quinn and Gemma Mae Halligan’s talents and their Amadan company.

The swear word in the title is the warning that the show has a sharp edge. But a style of comedy that attracted a wide age range to the performance I attended. When Band Aid sang “It's Christmas time; there's no need to be afraid” they certainly didn’t have Jude Quinn’s Santa in mind!

Tickets are still available for the Wednesday 21 December performance. Laughter guaranteed at the Black Box where doors open at 8pm.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Rogue One: hope rewarded with a fine space opera with familiar cameos and a gutsy heroine

A child hides in a ‘priest hole’ as her father is taken away to work on an evil Imperial weapon of mass destruction. Next seen fifteen or so years later, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) has been tracked down by the Rebels who want to use her to find her father and disrupt his contribution to the Empire.

Soon Rogue One is bouncing between locations at a frightening rate, introducing characters from the (space) opera-sized cast who look familiar from TV drama before disposing of them with the flick of a switch on consoles that are so low tech that they use cathode ray tube displays.

And so they escape from somewhere, they find someone, they fly somewhere, they break into someplace else and they climb up and up before experiencing dangerous passage over wire mesh walkways. Harrison Ford isn’t in this one so it doesn’t risk crossing over into the Indiana Jones franchise.

Expect to see a family being torn apart, rivals engaging in low trust co-operation, reunions, death, grief, revenge, a sprinkling of stardust and faith in the force. Remarkably, the gutsy heroine isn’t forced to immediately fall into the arms of her ambiguous sidekick Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) and is the leading character

Plenty of humour is squeezed in amongst the death and destruction. Even some of the dialogue feels knowingly cheesy. Every film in the ever-expanding franchise needs a droid, and K-2SO is a fine addition to the small fleet of metallic friends. He’s a little too honest and could well be related to Marvin the Paranoid Android, minus the depression.

I’m no fan of Star Wars, but Rogue One is a pretty decent science fiction film, with space ships fighting, alien races, lots of running, and a universe dominated by English speakers. It tips enough of a nod to the more loveable Star Wars films with cameo appearances by any number of spoilerific characters.

There are lots of familiar craft and paraphernalia. It turns out that Storm Troopers come in more than one colour and uniform. I bet the doll merchandisers are pleased with that creative decision!

The plot essentially ensures that it is a standalone cast in a complementary storyline that explains some of the background in the original crawler text without messing with the canon.

Whether or not a by-product of the 2D production that was later upgraded to 3D for people who like to wear glasses, there is a consistent visual style to the film that overuses shadows and keeps a very small depth of field to allow only a single actor to be in focus while blurring out everything else around them, even people quite nearby.

You’d swear that many of the ships floating in space were models made of 1980’s Lego bricks of the exact shade of stone grey. The musical score is big, bassy and brassy right from the star, with fervent strings and drums beating to build up the tension.

If you’re following Northern Ireland politics and the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal, some of the lines of dialogue feel like they should be appropriated for a local parody:
Orders? When you know they’re wrong you might as well be a Stormtrooper!

So I’m still in command? … Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director.

By the end, rather a lot of 'hope' has been thickly spread in a not so subtle pointer to the title of Episode IV: A New Hope.

Compared with last year’s offering Episode VII: A Force Awakens, the plot of Rogue One is much less derivative of the original movie (Ep IV). While it avoids the tedium of flying deep into a huge space ship, dodging left and right, many of the battle scenes feel like they have jumped out of video games and onto the cinema screen. (Though later this week it’s the turn of Assassin’s Creed, a film that is based on a video game franchise.)

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Pony Panto - edgy, energetic, and exciting festive entertainment (The Mac, until 23 Dec)

The Ponies were in good form when they bolted from their stable and leapt onto The Upstairs stage in The MAC on Friday evening. Pony Panto has been growing for many years, building up from an intimate show for the company’s friends and followers to what has become a less extreme and more mainstream yuletide performance that regularly sells out.

After a dark opening that reflected much of the year’s news agenda, matters livened up on the Cathedral Quarter stage with many old favourites returning to the programme: high energy dance routines, live music from the Brothers Scullion, quick costume changes, a VIP seat, audience participation galore, a dance-off as well as different performers guest starring during the run.

‘Love’ was the theme for 2016, and there was a lot of it about … except in the hearts of some frightened audience members who worried that they’d be next on stage. (Though if you enter into the spirit of the on-stage challenges, there’s not much to be feared, and often the audience shock the cast with their talents and creativity.)

There’s always a heavy sprinkling of diversity in Pony Panto but Mary Nugent stole the show this year with her banterful exchanges with the mistress of ceremonies and dancing as part of the troupe proving that celebral palsy and a wheelchair don’t impede, but perhaps even enhance, participation and performance.

Live-drawing artist-in-residence Melanie perched up in an eyrie at the back of the stage, projecting her superb sketches onto the wall. With a reputation for being raucous and rude, the edginess of previous Pony Pantos was a little blunter this year. But this safety created space to savour the company’s new takes on line dancing and roller disco, routines which combined comedy with intelligence.

If you want to let your hair down, laugh out loud at a well choreographed evening of dance-enhanced sketches and music, then check out Pony Panto at The MAC. Most of the remaining shows in the run are already sold out. However, if you hurry there are still some tickets available for the final two shows at 7pm and 9.45pm on Friday 23 December.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

The Gingerbread Mix Up (Lyric until 7 Jan) loud & musical, full of bangs, screams & audience participation

When you open up a Christmas show to audience participation and pantomime responses then you have to be ready for anything. And the cast of The Gingerbread Mix Up in the Lyric Theatre coped well this afternoon with the occasional underage and perhaps over-caffeinated heckle from the stalls as they romped through the high energy, festive three-hander.

Martin Murphy’s show is loosely based on the story of Hansel and Gretel, with the woodcutter chopping out a number of characters (including himself) and removing a lot of the original scenes!

Primrose is a sneery, stroppy, selfish monster of a twelve year old who (without intervention) might grow up and find a job as a wicked witch. Her parents – particularly her Mother – conspire to abandon her in the middle of a forest. The wicked witch’s grammar-obsession cat Pardon lures her back to a cottage constructed from gingerbread and confectionery where the not-totally wicked witch dreams of cooking up something special for dinner.

Rosie Barry stomps around the stage as Primrose in her tunic wowing the kids in the audience with her cheeky retorts and lippy language. Despite being twice the age of her character, she has the headphones-on-engrossed-in-a-3DS-screen look down to a tee and even throws in a Pokemon reference.

Christina Nelson is the comedy queen rocking her Dame Edna glasses and outfit as Primrose’s Mum before transforming into the witch. Her feet bounce over the stage as her whole body expresses the emotion of any particular line. With an outrageously detailed costume and props that fly in and out, she’s the driving force of the performance.

Kyron Bourke plays the father and the witch’s cat Pardon. He stole the show in the Lyric’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf last year with his revolutionary piano playing and magical rendition of December Moon. While The Gingerbread Mix Up is punctuated with songs composed by Ursula Burns, none particularly showed off his husky vocal talent. (At times this afternoon, the backing track overpowered the micced up performers in the sound mix.) It’s a shame that the gingerbread cottage didn’t have a piano in a corner that would have allowed the cat to croon a soulful song or two.

The set is craftily shared with the Lyric’s adult-oriented Christmas production, The Nativity … What the Donkey Saw, and gradually reveals itself to the audience, starting with some incredibly precise lighting in the opening minute. Effort has been put into adding puppet characters that dance along in the background of some songs and a comedy bunny motorcycle courier who delivers telegrams to prod the action forward. The matching fabric across furniture, fittings, costumes and accessories in the opening scene is typical of the detailed design behind the show.

There’s an odd lack of symmetry – perhaps a final scene cut? – that means Primrose’s parents and Kyron Bourke’s ‘Dad wig’ don’t reappear in the second half. It felt like a lost opportunity to link Pardon with the animatronic cat that sat in the first scene’s set so cutely scratching its nose.

But the kids in the audience won’t notice any of that and will be gleefully shouting at the stage even when it’s not clear quite what the appropriate encouragement should be.

Suitable for children of play school age and over, The Gingerbread Mix Up is loud and musical, full of bangs, screams and enthusiastic audience participation. It’s playing in the Lyric Theatre until 7 January.

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Competition: Enjoy the “Spirit of Christmas Past” at Cultra this Sunday

Competition over - congratulations to Roger! Enjoy the day.

Want to win a family pass to enjoy the Spirit of Christmas Past that will be wafting across the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra this Sunday? There will be seasonal smells, Christmas fayre, a magic show, as well as brass bands and carol singing around the Christmas tree between 11am and 4pm on Sunday 11 December.

You can visit the Christmas Market to pick up a gift or two or some ready-made decorations. Witness Santa on Trial for theft in the Omagh Meeting House.

Or settle back to hear renowned Charles Dickens expert Leon Litvack recreating the magic of A Christmas Carol, with a dramatic reading in Victorian costume. Catch the Magician conjuring up his magic.

And then step back in time and discover how seasonal decorations transformed people's homes and be inspired with some decorative ideas for your own home.

Children can write their letter to Santa who will be taking time out of his busy schedule to warm his toes in front of the fire … though that’ll need to be booked in advance since there’s only so long Santa’s toes can survive before they’ll go as red as Rudolf’s nose! But the bearded gentleman does promise to appear at the end of the day to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas.

During Advent, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum are hosting all kinds of other seasonal festivities, including Christmas Evenings on Friday 9 and 16 December with brass bands, making cinnamon toast over an open fire, decoration making and Santa.

To enter to win a family ticket for Sunday 11 December, simply email alaninbelfast+cultra@gmail.com before 2pm on Friday 9 December and leave a name and contact number so the promoter can get in touch with details about the ticket. One winner will be randomly selected from the entries.

Good luck!

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

The Coming War On China - a disturbing and uncomfortable watch (ITV 6 Dec 2016)

John Pilger’s authored documentary The Coming War On China invites audiences to rethink their worldview and consider whether they’ve been looking at the wrong aggressor across the Pacific Ocean. Could concern about Chinese airstrips being built on disputed islands in the South China Sea be as a result of focussing western gun sights on one small area and forgetting to pull back to see the full picture of what’s been happening in the region over the last sixty or more years? Is China “wilfully misunderstood” by the west?

The two hour film will be shown tonight (Tuesday 6 December 2016) on ITV and was previewed last night in cinemas across the UK. (I saw it in a temperature-challenged Queen’s Film Theatre.) The narrative builds up a picture of historical US misuse of the South Pacific for military gain before focussing on its continuing build-up of bases around China.



It’s an odd mixture of archive footage, photographs, contemporary footage and pieces to camera by Pilger. The Star-Spangled Banner appears twice, confronting the patriotic untruths that the film-maker wants to overthrow.

The first ‘chapter’ could have been a documentary in its own right, looking back at the ‘Bravo’ nuclear bomb testing in the Marshall Islands that destroyed one island and irradiated thousands of people on others. Just as animals were strapped to the decks of moored navy vessels during explosions to gauge the effect of the blasts, local people were not evacuated from nearby islands – in fact they were told that the US were there to improve the habitability of the region – and were later even ferried to live on ‘safe’ islands were everyone would suffer from thyroid cancer while being measured as guinea pigs in a long-running study.

Monetary compensation – blood money – was woefully inadequate and poverty remains as rife as the ill health that blights these tortured communities. Yet the US defence industry’s rape of these islands continues today with a missile test site with its $100m missiles and a lush green golf course importing workers each morning from a neighbouring ‘slum’ island across the bay with 12,000 people crammed onto a one mile strip that has lacked a working sewage system from the 1960s.

Maps flash up on screen to show the location of the thousand or so US military bases outside the North America landmass. US officialdom disputes whether a couple of hundred troops in a US conclave is a ‘base’ when it’s built onto the side of another nation’s existing base. But the war on words is clearly a mere smokescreen.

The second part of Pilger’s film reconsiders the relationship that Mao Tse-tung desired with the US, pointing to evidence that he sought to be a friends of the US, cooperating rather than being an enemy. But the legacy of the “yellow peril” communist-fearing foreign policy is still felt today.

(Chinese) experts contend that in the past China built a wall to keep barbarians out while the US sought to convert people around the world to their way of thinking. The market economy in China is one where billionaire capitalists cannot control the politburo policy like they can in the US. Yes they want to prevent the US dominating Aisa Pacific, but China doesn’t want to run the world. While there’s an absence of American talking heads to back up this alternative world view, and it’s poorly balanced with some gentle criticism of China’s record on gender discrimination, oppression of political opposition and an increasing class poverty gap, the new narrative is engaging.

A further chapter examines resistance to US military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa, South Korea’s Jeju and its return to five locations in the Philippines. Pilger argues that the US is intimidating China and is acting as the aggressor and escalator of conflict in China’s back yard. Would the US appreciate a military build up off its western seaboard?

Pilger says that “nuclear war is no longer unthinkable” and later asks experts to outline the devastating effect of thousands of tons of smoke entering the upper atmosphere and triggering a nuclear winter that would cease crop growth for several years. He asks how the process can be stopped before it starts a war? Scenes of Trump speaking about China at the Republican National Convention are not encouraging. Can ordinary people act as an alternative superpower, swapping their normal silence for loud shouts that call for reason and abeyance?

The Coming War On China is a disturbing and uncomfortable film to watch. It educates about US abuses of power and challenges viewers to think for themselves whether the history and analysis that they are fed daily by western society are complete and accurate. Some of Pilger’s contentions will be quickly disputed and no doubt knocked over. But the thrust of his line of reasoning bears examination.

Saturday, December 03, 2016

The Nativity … What the Donkey Saw (Lyric Theatre until 14 January)

For the second year in a row, the Lyric have revived an old friend as the festive show for grownups to play alongside the family-centred one. Originally written in 2004 – the Grimes and McKee version that is – The Nativity … What the Donkey Saw has been sanded down and Trumpified to restore its contemporary feel amongst some of the stories that have dominated the news in 2016.

Whilst never terribly irreverent, there’s a little monkeying donkeying around with the Gospel storyline as the early chapters of Matthew and Luke are meshed together. Love blooms between Mary (played by Kerri Quinn) a young apprentice carpenter Joseph (Terry Keeley) who comes in each day to order his sausage roll in a bap from her Centra deli counter. [A Jew eating pork is just one of the anachronisms in the show.] With Caesar J Trumpius calling for a census to collect taxes (except from himself), the young married couple buy a budget donkey with a mind of its own and make the tiring journey to Bethlehem.

Despite the publicity photographs, there isn’t a tea towel in sight amongst the costume changes that come thick and fast. Alyson Cummins’ static wooden set is busy with a hotel bar, the stable, and a mezzanine garden all squeezed onto the stage along with the musical director Peter McCauley who is penned off in a corner to provide live accompaniment and a foil for the cast.

The show is driven by fourteen songs – including The 12 Days of Christmas, I wish it could be Christmas everyday, Fairytale of New York – with the lyrics amended and even some comedy actions added (“When a child is born”) to fit the on-stage story. The five cast members all have good voices, croon in tune and create remarkably good harmonies. Belfast theatre really has upped the quality of singing this Christmas. They may be available for weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs once the run is over. Deborah Maguire’s choreography gives the routines a sense of class, and the boy band number is scarily convincing.

Kerri Quinn gives Mary an injection of chutzpah while Terry Keeley’s Joseph is never really allowed to escape the script’s ‘nice but dim’ characterisation. The Wise Men – complete with their much needed “healing antiseptic uncture” – work better than the County Antrim-soundin’ shepherds in thon field wae their knees a-knockin’.

The Nativity is written by Conor Grimes and Alan McKee. The lispy archangel Gabriel isn’t the only character whose accent and mannerisms are familiar from their previous shows. But the pair don’t hoard all the best lines and avoid the temptation to make the show revolve around them. Tara Lynne O’Neill provides a great source of laughs playing six male characters (including a glitzy present-bearing gangsta rapper) with raised eyebrows, false moustaches and a sense of comic timing.

There’s no attempt to moralise or in the retelling of the story, other than to book ahead and get confirmation of your room reservation. Whether you’re sober or have had one too many Shortcross Gins in the Lyric’s new bar, there are plenty of laughs throughout the show and it’s a particular delight that The Nativity is a Troubles-free zone. Local mentions aren’t totally absent: the Continental Market at the City Hall gets a gentle slag. The performance also sticks to vernacular rather than swearing, and limits itself to a light smuttering of innuendo in a single cock-fighting storyline. My twelve year old enjoyed the show: that’s a serious recommendation from the ever-cynical youth of today.

The Nativity … What the Donkey Saw runs in the Lyric Theatre until 14 January 2017.

Thursday, December 01, 2016

Pinocchio – conjuring up a tale of the unexpected for audiences in The Mac (until 1 Jan)

Cahoots NI went back to the original 1881 story of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi to conjure up this year’s Christmas production that runs in The MAC until 1 January.

Right from the start there’s magic in the air as snow falls on the gathered carollers. While the story takes ten minutes to get into its stride, the pace picks up as puppet Pinocchio (Max Abraham) emerges from a log on Geppetto’s (Bob Kelly) carpentry bench. At times the story is told through mood and music as much as dialogue and lyrics.

The orchestra are concealed behind a couple of upstairs windows in the set which switches from house to streetscape to courtroom in the blink of an eye. It’s like* Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In with panels and doors opening and closing to reveal characters. (*But only if you’re old enough to remember!)

Nearly 150 years old, the story is still contemporary with child trafficking, insecurity, shame, con artists and a prescient line – probably written many months before the worst of the EU referendum and US Presidential campaigns – reminding the audience that “a lie can travel half the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”.

Every time a page in the script story is turned, there’s another surprise, another jump to an unexpected situation. Where else in Belfast this Christmas would you see someone juggling two knives and a lettuce, a woman being stretched and a young puppet being shrunk?

This is no Disney story. A naïve Pinocchio descends into darker and darker places before his rebirth and eventual transformation. An upbeat final song recaps the Pinocchio’s journey and finally shifts the mood into the light.

The choreography is tight throughout and cast members’ laser-like eyelines keep you focussed on the action (or where the director wants you to be looking). The sleight of hand and misdirection even continues as fog rolls out across the stage and props appear during scene changes.

The pelt-covered Jo Donnelly (Cat) and Hugh W Brown (Fox) inject mischief and attitude into their ‘decent criminal’ roles, while Sean Kearns was described as “the goodest baddie ever” by one youngster attending the opening night as The Great Rocombollo transforms from being moderately nasty at the start to being positively sinister by the end.

Audience participation is minimal. The show is aimed at six years and above, with young children in the audience loving the music while the magic kept the interest of the older ones. Large scale tricks are incorporated into the story (cast members appear and disappear like money in your current account) and even the small effects work effortlessly (like Pinocchio’s telescopic nose and the donkey ears).

Everyone sings in tune. Pinocchio’s young stripy-legged friend Candlewick is played by Philippa O’Hara who sings, tap dances and contorts her way into the audience’s hearts, particularly when she takes a feisty friend-forever turn after the interval. But the emotional content is provided by Charlotte McCurry whose voice angelically reverberates around the auditorium as she periodically sprinkles magic dust over Pinocchio’s wobbly state of affairs.
“The choice is yours Pincchio, always”
There’s a quality to the production which is rich with layered sound effects, bird like shadows cast against the set, costumes that are quirky and otherworldly, and props with more than a hint of steampunk. While you can’t have a spinning piano and Kyron Bourke’s spine-tingling singing every December, the creative team of Paul Bosco Mc Eneaney (director), Charles Way (script), Garth McConaghie (music) and Hugh W Brown (lyrics) have crafted an enchanting world for this Christmas Belfast stage.

Pinocchio is a Cahoots NI production (sponsored by Phoenix Natural Gas) and runs in The MAC until 1 January.

Chi-Raq - Spike Lee’s satirical musical about deprivation in gangland Chicago (QFT until 8 Dec)

The film’s title Chi-Raq is a portmanteau of Chicago and Iraq that sums up the gang violence in parts of Chicago’s South Side. It’s also the nickname of the part-time rapper and full-time gangster Demetrius Dupree (played by Nick Cannon). His rival is Cyclops (Wesley Snipes) who sports colour-coordinated sequinned eyepatches.
“Guns have become part of America's wardrobe.”

A shooting at Chi-Raq’s gig shocks his partner Lysistrata and is quickly followed by a case of coitus interruptus when her house is burnt down in the middle of the night. But it’s only when a child is shot dead in the street during a shootout that she finally wakes up to the appalling and needless loss of life.

Teyonah Parris oozes confidence in her role as the leading protagonist. Inspired by Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee’s sex strike, Lysistrata’s solution is to sign up women in the rival gangs to a policy of “no peace, no pussy”. Their plan is to (sexually) starve the warring men into negotiation and a cessation of hostilities. The oath they repeat starts:
I will deny all rights of access or entrance
from every husband, lover or male acquaintance
who comes to my direction in erection …

Director Spike Lee not only grabbed Aristophanes' Greek comedic play Lysistrata and pulled it kicking and screening into modern times, substituting rhyming rap for the Greek poetry to create an anti-gun crime musical. It’s an unpredictable and unconventional offering with a pumping soundtrack, humiliation of the military, and a narrator in a succession of loud three piece suits (who else but Samuel L Jackson!) who turns to face the cinema audience to keep them up to speed with developments.

It must have been a hair-raising pitch to the funders and production companies. But Amazon Studios signed up and Chi-Raq is the first original feature film they have released.

The script is laden with puns and laced with innuendo and sass. It’s not subtle. The imagery is rich in boobs and bums (and that starts with the men). Text messages flash up on screen to give a flavour of reaction to events, barely visible long enough to read in any detail. The pumping bass totally overpowers some of the lyrics and dialogue, but the story is simplistic and often visual rather than burdened with a need to hear the words. It’s a musical, so expect a song and dance even at little Patti’s funeral, though it’s marred by the appalling creative decision to include tinkling more appropriate to a piano bar.

Cinema doesn’t have to be easy. It doesn’t have to be palatable. Yet there is definite discomfort watching death being used as a vehicle for entertainment and I’m still not convinced that the excuse of Chi-Raq being satirical fully absolves the writers from the crass suggestion that sex is the most powerful weapon available to the black womenfolk in Chicago. Perhaps if it had been funnier, but with the tone remaining so serious for much of the movie it was frustrating. Yet for all its flaws, it’s a creatively clever film with stacks of ambition that plays with form and boundaries.

Homicide is more prevalent in Chicago than the death of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the US government invests in the economic development of Iraq to help its recovery, this musical satire questions why there is no similar investment in homes and jobs in Chicago. Spike Lee’s message is to “Wake up” to the reality and not to wait for someone else – like the state – to do something about it.

Chi-Raq is being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre between Friday 2 and Thursday 8 December.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The Light Between Oceans - a long and windy masterclass in emotional blackmail

In the film The Light Between Oceans, WW1 veteran Tom Sherbourne seeks work as a relief lighthouse keeper off the coast of Western Australia to replace an incumbent who ultimately doesn’t return to work.

Local girl Isobel lost two brothers in the war. The remote, rugged, chiselled Janus Rock location attracts Tom. But it’s his remote and rugged, chiselled chin that catches Isobel’s eye and she quickly woos him and soon has a rock on her finger.

Two traumatic miscarriages inside two years take their emotional toll on the couple. Yet when the ocean offers up a baby (and a dead man) in a wooden rowing boat that drifts towards the beach, Isobel convinces Tom to suppress the incident in his lighthouse log and take the chance to save a life. The couple keep the child as if it was their own.

Yet one family’s blessing is another family’s grief and Tom’s guilt leaves a trail, allowing the ethical dilemma to begin to be explored. No number of good choices and virtuous motivations can make amends for the original crime.

Alicia Vikander shows a mastery of the role of steely sea siren, luring the silent lighthouse keeper onto the moral rocks. Her grief is convincing and her emotional range is superb, so much wider than the introvert played by Michael Fassbender who is caught in the darkness between the rotating beams of light he operates. In the second half of the film, Rachel Weisz plays the mother of the washed up baby, a role that is superficial and far too shallow.

Running at 133 minutes long, the film is constructed of four half hour episodes followed by a fifteen minute epilogue. The scenery is bleak, the wind constantly howls, and the music is designed to hug at your heart strings and open up your tear ducts. Yet Derek Cianfrance’s masterclass in emotional blackmail was ultimately desensitising and the slow-paced melodramatic film failed to cast its spell over this audience member.

The Light Between Oceans is still being screened in many local cinemas.


Doctor Strange – full of chuckles but comic book tale fails to re-orientate to the big screen

“People used to think I was funny.”

“Did they work for you?”

Once Doctor Stephen Strange’s over-confident and over-accessorised ego has been massaged by a near-fatal car accident, he runs out of medical options and heads to the mystical east and Kathmandu to prove his once girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) wrong when she said “Some things just can’t be fixed”.

And so Benedict Cumberbatch encounters the winking ‘Ancient One’ (a rather attractive, bald Tilda Swinton” who introduces him to the precarious path of re-orientating his spirit to better heal his body. He goes from cockiness through training to discovery, revelation, doubt and adaptation, all the while retaining his existing ability to bend the rules to suit his purpose as the infant warrior finds himself rapidly over-promoted in a war-torn world.

Falling into infinite Mandlebrot fractal multiverses, some CGI sequences in Doctor Strange worked better (the mini-hands) than others (the neon ones). Michael Giacchino’s music score – like his ‘chosen’ relic – wouldn’t be out of place in a Superman movie, though the pitchbend when the surgeon begins to doubt is beautiful, if short.
“It’s too late, nothing can stop them”

“We have to run”

Sadly, this gravity defying, perspective bending, mystical tale is never graduates beyond its comic heritage. The light-hearted tone throughout renders the dialogue flippant and it jars on screen in a way it wouldn’t on the page of a Marvel magazine.

The time bending ending is Doctor Who-esque with the Little Prince acting out 50 Shades of Death on his very own Asteroid 325 and could have come straight from the pen of Russell T Davies. Director Scott Derrickson has created a new franchise that is sure to be popular at the box office and full of chuckles but only offers a mostly harmless form of meaningless entertainment.

Monday, November 21, 2016

NI Opera’s Don Giovanni - a murderous predator runs amok in a watertight performance

When the curtain rises, I’m never quite sure what set to expect at an NI Opera production. Salome was based in a deep south drug baron’s ranch; Turandot in a Chinese sweat shop producing baby dolls.

For this weekend’s performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the sleazy lothario and serial abuser (played by Henk Neven) was pitched on board a cruise ship, and the women and men caught up in the debauchery of the occupant of cabin 666 were trapped at sea with no escape.

Donna Anna (Hye-Youn Lee) avowed revenge against the person responsible for murdering her father. Another passenger Donna Elvira (Rachel Kelly) became reacquainted with the lover who abandoned her. Below decks, waitress Zerlina (Aoife Miskelly) was pregnant and about to get married when she entered the magnetic sights of predator Don Giovanni to be his next “little recreation”.

John Molloy played Leporella who was Don Giovanni’s servant (or steward). His early scene set the comedic tone that bubbled under the more serious depravity. Illustrating the scale of his boss’s lust using a scrapbook of mug shots and flags was a fabulously pantomime-esque device. And the Trump-like wig that was used in the Don Giovanni-Leporella swap scene was more contemporary than the original spring 2015 Danish production could have imagined.

Being an opera, the action came thick and fast with a murder and blood on the ship’s floor within the first ten minutes. Scenes cleverly switched between a promiscuous corridor of cabins at the front of the stage and the enormous space behind which doubled up as a sun lounge, ball room, and bar amongst other locations. The production’s sense of comedy extended to Annemarie Woods’ set which gradually exposes new and ever more elaborate revelations until its finally watery end. And the inclusion of a comedy dancing biscuit – or was it a clam – was both baffling and hilarious.

The principals were well matched with no one performer overpowering the many duets. Aoife Miskelly probably delivered the most consistently interesting performance. The musical mix between orchestra and cast was much better balanced than previous productions I’ve reviewed, with the Ulster Orchestra delivering a well-defined and fast-moving score that accompanied rather than dominated. While diction was good, vibrato and the muddiness that results from the depth of stage meant that, even though the performance used an English translation, considerable chunks might as well have been sung in Italian. For sake of accessibility – a key tenet of NI Opera’s philosophy – surtitles must surely be built into the set and staging of future large-scale performances.

The one weakness of the staging was the lighting which – other than the sun-soaked deck side scene – was gloomy and left many performers singing key scenes in each other’s shadow, particularly with the peculiar side lighting that dominated the front-of-stage corridor scenes. The Grand Opera House’s policy of allowing late admissions to the auditorium (five or ten minutes after the performance had begun) was disruptive and the ushers’ torches would have been less distracting and helped the production if they’d been trained on the stage rather than pointed at the already seated audience.

While I loved the gruesome re-imagining of Turandot with its huge set and large scale cast, Don Giovanni wins my vote for favourite NI Opera production. Creatively, Oliver Mears demonstrated a control of music and staging that delivered an entertaining and watertight performance. NI’s loss will be the Royal Opera House’s gain when he moves to become their Director of Opera early next year.

Photo credit: Robert Workman 

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Bastard Amber - a celebration of understated strength & control (Liz Roche Company at Lyric Theatre)

“The stage is any bare place close to a wall”

The set was crisp and unfussy. A rectangle of sturdy wooden beams hung over the dance floor, with small phrases in white text occasionally projected against them. Three rows of vertical translucent screens were raised and lowered to different heights to change the audience’s perspective. To one side sat the band (fiddle, bass guitar, electric guitar and drums/percussion). To the other a small dais with nautical objects and empty bird cages. The lighting was similarly subdued, quite possibly using the eponymous Bastard Amber gel that casts a warm light.

Now when I gush in a review about the set and the lighting it’s often a sign that the human performance was less notable. Nothing could be further from the truth with Liz Roche Company’s mesmerising seventy minute Bastard Amber on the Lyric Belfast stage last night.

Inspired by W.B. Yeats’ poem Sailing to Byzantium the eight dancers made their highly choreographed performance look easy under the golden light. With the full ensemble on stage, they could move with smooth precision even while whirling around in seemingly chaotic motion, yet never colliding or looking where they were going.

Gender and age was of no consequence or barrier to the moves. Dancers could become as weightless as a bird gracefully perched mummy-no-hands-style on the shoulder of a colleague. Seemingly every ten minutes another beautiful tableau would be created: a dancer lying prostrate on the floor wrapped in silver and gold tinfoil, wriggling like a wave. Liz Roche’s choreography formed and deformed shapes. A circle of eight effortlessly careered around, loosing one dancer into the middle without breaking step or losing its fluid movement.

Ray Harman’s music was often tonal, sometimes discordant, with live looping of riffs and falsetto harmonies layered over the top to create hypnotic sequences that enhanced the dance and evoked the feel of Yeats. Catherine Fay’s finely tailored costumes – elegant tops and light trousers used a Moroccan colour scheme that blended into the light and the foil props.

The final sequence was performed against a setting sun. The pursuit of perfection included three pairs of dancers mirroring each other’s movements before the ensemble built up flat shapes with their hands, arms and heads, meticulous yet apparently effortless tessellation.
“… Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.” (Yeats)

As a two left footed and eleventh-hour observer of the local dance scene, I’m often encouraged to “just feel the dance”. It’s mentally exhausting to sit and watch dance shows, trying to figure out the storyline or the reason for the sequence of emotions being portrayed. Theatre has a plot. Even foreign-language opera has characters and clues that allow a narrative to be pieced together. But dance is so much more abstract. A show’s title or a one sentence blurb is sometimes the only clue to the inspiration. The skill is often hidden: the easier a move looks, the more talent is being concealed.

After last night’s show, someone described it as “exquisite”. Bastard Amber’s combination of live music, skilled movement, the set and lighting created a superb spectacle that celebrated understated strength and control.

Bastard Amber was commissioned by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival and Kilkenny Arts Festival. It’s tour will shortly visit Letterkenny (Tuesday 29 November) and Limerick (Friday 2 December).

Photo credits: Luca Truffarelli

Thursday, November 17, 2016

C.S. Lewis Festival (Friday 18-Tuesday 22 November)


In a city which has more festivals than weeks of the year, it’s the turn of the C.S. Lewis festival which runs in and around east Belfast between Friday 18 and Tuesday 22 November.

The diversity of Clive Staples Lewis’ life and interests – academic, author, theologian, soldier – gives the festival scope to dip into WW1 as well as celebrate his faith, literature and its many adaptations. Some highlights below. The full programme (PDF) is available on the East Side Arts website.

Friday 18 November

Jon Kennedy will answer the question: How Saintly Was C.S. Lewis? (Spoiler alert: not terribly!) 2pm in Belmont Tower (Belmont Road). Free.

Saturday 19 November

Maria Connolly will perform her story White Witch which explains how Jadis, the evil Queen of Narnia, came to earn her title. Original music played live by Ursula Burns. The programme suggests it’s suitable for daughters of Eve and sons of Adam aged 8+ and their parents! 2pm in Linen Hall Library. £5 adult / £2 child.

Walking on Water: Faith, Art and Risk. An evening of words, music and discussion with singer/songwriter Jamie Neish, cleric and poet Steve Stockman and novelist Jan Carson. They’ll explore how faith and religious experience has influenced their artistic practice. 8pm in Canteen Kitchen Café (Belmont Road). £8 (food can be booked for extra)

Sunday 20 November

St Mark’s Dundela are holding an open service at 10.30am with parish communion and a celebration of the life and witness of C.S. Lewis. It’s the church in which Lewis was baptised. Holywood Road. Everyone welcome.

The C.S. Lewis Nearly True Tour blends the historical fact and hysterical fiction to explore C.S. Lewis during this one hour walking tour with a difference. Fake facts and true stories to shed light on the history of Lewis. Leaving Campbell College at 12.30pm, 2.30pm or 4.30pm. £5 per person or £18 for family of four. Dress for the weather.

Willowfield Parish Church are also holding a special evening service to celebrate the life and witness of C.S. Lewis. They’ll use imagery from The Chronicles of Narnia along with prophetic Biblical writings during the service. 5.30pm. My Lady’s Road. Free.

Monday 21 November

The Inklings (including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) met in an Oxford pub. The Monday Club sees Danny sitting alone in the pub in which he used to “put the world to rights in a drunken stupor” with six other shipyard colleagues. A locally made film (review) which remembers Belfast fondly and celebrates the character of its people. Followed by Q&A with director Brian Mulholland and actor Derek Halligan. 7pm in Strand Arts Centre. £5.

This House believes that God is about as real as Narnia. That’s the topic up for debate on Monday 21 November in Union College Chapel behind Queen’s University. C.S. Lewis was president of the Oxford Socratic Society which debated religious and philosophical topics. Rev Chris Hudson, Jennifer Sturgeon, Shane McKee and David Capener, chaired by William Crawley. 7.30pm. £8 (£4 student).

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Luck Just Kissed You Hello - masculinity explored under the shadow of death (Outburst Festival)

Around a hospital waiting room table sit twin sons (one gay, one transgender) along with a substitute son of a dying man. They’re arguing about who deserves to deliver Big Ted’s eulogy and what they should say. The fractious debate is as much about their own insecurities as the old man’s lasting legacy on their lives and loves.
“You’re remembering it wrong; take the tin foil off your windows.”

Into this emotional and pressurised environment Gary, Mark and Sullivan bring their differing recollections of a particularly traumatic childhood experience. As they piece together the jigsaw of memories, the emerging picture threatens to undermine their long-held impressions of each other and their father.

Carl Kennedy’s sound design for Luck Just Kissed You Hello manages to keep the sound of intensive care constantly in the background without becoming obtrusive. Low frequency rumbles and John Crudden’s flickering lighting introduces flash back sequences that introduce some variation to the three-in-a-prison-cell plot. (Very effective embedding of lights in a prop for a later scene.)

Writer Amy Convoy plays Mark (who left home many years ago as Laura) who is faced with the dilemma of whether to sign an organ donation form as his father’s daughter and stated next of kin. At first he sees little reason to betray his own identity and to betray his memory of his father who lies nearby in a coma.

The weaving together of different characters’ dialogue works effectively and the early parts of the hospital room conversation emphasises the closeness of the twins with its verbal table tennis rallies, unison delivery of lines and finishing of each other’s sentences. Director Caitriona McLaughlin has created space for some laughs alongside the angst. The choreography blurs and perhaps becomes too repetitive, no longer distinctive, as the play enters its final half hour.

Will O’Connell plays the business man brother whose birthright has been usurped by his twin’s swap from Laura to Mark. The tension of death exposes fears and vulnerabilities amongst family as much as it binds people together. While the muscular Sullivan has stepped into the role of son vacated by the absent twins, he is unsettled by the emergence of skeletons buried beneath his own marital bliss.

Ultimately the play only brings about a fulsome resolution for its central character. This is Mark’s story. In the end Gary and Sullivan are ancillary members of the cast, with an equal share of the lines, but no inherited closure in what might well have been a contrived and saccharine solution. The final monologue contains an ambiguous – nearly outrageous – phrase (“I am his only legacy”) which I still can’t quite resolve and made me want to heckle at the time.

Confronting queer mental health issues, family friction and betrayal, Luck Just Kissed You Hello is a production that explores different models of masculinity and is well worth seeing at the Lyric Theatre (Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 November as part of Outburst Queer Arts Festival) before it continues its tour of Donegal, Limerick and Dùn Laoghaire.

Images: Hot For Theatre

The Innocents – faith waivers as new life emerges in a post-WW2 Polish convent (QFT 18-24 Nov)

A junior doctor working in Poland steps into the breach to medically care for a group of nuns living in a convent at the end of WW2. Persecuted by Germans, repeatedly raped by Russians, one novice eventually asks for help and introduces a communist French Red Cross worker to the multiple pregnancies being hidden within the thick stone walls.

Lou de Laâge plays the junior doctor Mathilde Beaulieu (based loosely on the experiences of Madeleine Pauliac working in Poland) who must secretly break her organisation’s rules of medical engagement to intervene while the nuns disguise their impending motherhood while continuing to lead lives of poverty, chastity and obedience. Agata Buzek plays Sister Maria who acts as the main go-between and speaker of French, perhaps the wisest and most resourceful in the holy order.

There are many inescapable parallels set up between the religious and medical vocations. Just as the nuns attempt to hide new life from the outside world, Madeleine tries to conceal her extracurricular work from her gruff colleague and bed-warmer. Mother Superior (Agata Kulesza) must be obeyed and not questioned, just as the chief of the medical mission blindly follows orders. But those who know best are not always acting in the best interests of the most vulnerable.

The suffering of women during and after conflict is often underreported. The Innocents tells one such story, warts and all. The countryside is snowy and desolate, the convent dull and grey, the habits black and white. The absence of colour and the minimal musical scoring allows director Anne Fontaine to keep the focus on the warmth of the women who dominate the 115 minute storyline.

The nature and outworking of faith is explored along with the role of obedience, obligation, fulfilment and happiness. It’s a story of building and losing trust – alas through shared traumatic experiences – and of overcoming shame and roadblocks in order to search for ways to adapt faith to new circumstances.

There is hope and new life, but also unexpected darkness and needless death. An unexpectedly rich and thoughtful film.

The Innocents is being shown in the Queen’s Film Theatre between Friday 18 and Thursday 24 November.



Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2016 - theatre, talk and film (until 19 Nov)

Every year Outburst Queer Arts Festival throws up some surprises. 2014’s play Damage by Patrick J O’Reilly still rattles around my brain. This preview is finally being posted mid way through their tenth festival which runs until 19 November and has a theme of ‘Home’.

Other People – Tuesday 15 November at 8.30pm in Queen’s Film Theatre – Chris Kelly’s film based on his own experience sees comedy writer David (played by Jesse Plemons) who returns home to care for his mother. His conservative father refuses to acknowledge his sexuality, leaving David a stranger in his childhood home.

Luck Just Kissed You Hello – Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 November in Lyric Theatre – Another coming home performance. Change is all around. Leaving home as Laura, but returning as Mark for the imminent death of his father. Sitting in the shadow of his hospital bed, two siblings remember their father’s looming presence in their childhood. But their memory is challenged by a friend who has a different impression of what was happening.

There’s a Bishop in my Bedroom – Wednesday 16 November at 7.30pm in The Barracks – If the quality of Richard O’Leary’s renditions at Tenx9 is anything to go by, his storytelling about sex education in a Catholic secondary school in 1970s Cork and falling in love with a Bishop in 1990s Belfast is sure to engage and challenge.

Multiple Maniacs – Friday 18 November at 9.30pm in Queen’s Film Theatre – While the main John Waters event has long since sold out, a restored print of what’s described as his “most outrageous and transgressive film” is being given a rare screening. A treat for fans of Waters, though probably quite shocking for everyone else!

Shoot the Sissy – Saturday 19 November at 4pm in Black Box – Performance artist Nando Messias responds to the shootings in Orlando and asks “Do queer lives matter?” in this “beautiful freak show … of carnivalesque contortion and florid fantasy”.

Full programme on the Outburst Arts website.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Tim McGarry Goes Over the Top - a funny yet at times tender exploration of 1916 and 2016

“If we don’t learn our history we might forget why we hate each other”

Can we laugh at history? In a town that celebrates the Titanic, its construction and ambition though not its sinking, can it not be appropriate to smirk at the absolute absurdity of events, even when they were deadly? On an island that builds mythology around history and struggles to distinguish truth from fable, don’t we owe it to ourselves to unwrap the events of the past and better understand them in any way we can?

Tim McGarry has been doing just that in his Goes Over the Top stand-up show that has toured Northern Ireland this year.

In amongst much material covering contemporary events ran a thread of historical reflection at events across the island and in the trenches of northern Europe during 1916. The same hand gestures and passionate delivery that were applied to jokes about the Royal Family or the First and deputy First Ministers were employed when McGarry cast his biting wit over historical remembrances.

As evidenced by the three series of Radio Ulster’s The Long and the Short of It with Tim McGarry examining historical events alongside “vertically challenged Orangeman and historian” David Hume, the comedian can hold his own in a debate over history.

I was in the audience for the 11 November show in Belfast Waterfront Studio, and the Remembrance Day date added a tender poignancy to some of McGarry’s material. While it was never going to be complete or thorough, the overview of events felt more truthful and less one-sided than some other performances I’ve witnessed this year.

While no doubt a result of my lack of appetite for history, McGarry’s descriptions of the scale of the losses at of the first day of fighting at the Somme struck home along with his explanations of the relative size of gun-running to arm the Ulster and Irish volunteers prior to war breaking out.

Aside from the history, we laughed at Nama, Panorama, Charles and Camilla, corgis, the main five parties, the PSNI and national anthems. With a skilled sense of timing and the patience to pause and wait for a laugh to erupt in one corner of the audience and ripple around the room, McGarry is a much more confident (and experienced) performer than his Ballymena warm-up Paddy McGaughey.

There are just two more dates on Tim McGarry’s (1916) Goes Over the Top tour: Friday 25 November at 8pm in The Burnavon in Cookstown and Saturday 26 at 7.30 in The Old Courthouse in Antrim.