'A Raisin in the Sun' - Play review

A Raisin in the Sun is a play co-produced by Eclipse Theatre Company, Sheffield Theatres and Belgrade Theatre Coventry, directed by Dawn Walton. It tells the story of financial and social strife in an African-American family in civil-rights era South Side Chicago who hit upon a small fortune in insurance money after the death of the family patriarch. A Raisin in the Sun plays through this week, finishing with a Saturday matinee and evening performance, at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, before continuing its tour in the Liverpool Playhouse, Watford Palace Theatre, Albany Theatre and Belgrade Theatre throughout March.

One of the things slightly mesmerising about this production from the very opening is its very intense attention to high naturalism. The whole play takes place in the kitchen/living(/bed)room of the Younger family's Chicago apartment and, though scene changes eventually break the unity of time afterwards, the first scene tracks the Younger family's morning routine from sister-in-law's groggy waking up and cooking breakfast (irl, with a cooker on stage) to elder-brother's reluctantly leaving for work as a chauffeur. The effort the cast go to in maintaining this illusion is very impressive and the work pays off as a very immersive and invested portrait of home life. Furthermore, it's a very relatable portrait of home life, which makes this naturalism a very important frame of reference for a 21st-century, English (largely white, in Southampton) audience to contextualise the social issues of the play in what might otherwise feel like a different, incomprehensible world; by giving the audience something they recognise and partake in daily the play can then make direct comparisons between the audience's experiences and the Younger family's.

Singing the Praises of a University I'm not Going to

Since the introduction of fees for university and the massive spike in the number of students being admitted to university there's always the thought at the back of one's mind at extravagant open days that universities have interests besides the advancement of the next generation. Of course whatever the motive the education is likely to be first-rate - what better advertisement for Cambridge's £21,000 course than the prestige afforded its alumni? However, having accepted my offer for Birmingham fairly secure that that institution values paper over linen I feel the need to publish praise for another institution which very clearly honestly believes in the enrichment of its alumni.

This morning I received a letter from Queen Mary, University of London, congratulating me and formally offering me a place. It would have been a nice touch if that's all it was, just the thought of sending a physical letter beside the automatic email from UCAS. QMUL went a step further however, which fully cements in my mind the idea they are wholly committed to the betterment of human intellect, society and culture.

'Deadpool' - Film review

Deadpool is the latest Marvel (/Fox) comic book movie, set in the X-Men universe as opposed to the MCU, about the merc-with-a-mouth Wade Wilson and his alter-ego Deadpool (duh). It's directed by Tim Miller (my heart bounced for a moment thinking it was directed by TJ Miller) and stars Ryan Renolds in the eponymous role, and is all-round just a really really brilliant movie.

First and foremost, Deadpool is the most loving and perfect pastiche of the superhero genre I've yet seen. It has the love of both the insider and the outsider: of the insider to stay true to what the fans and lover of the genre really want to see in their movies, and of the outsider to find and poke fun at those oft-ignored cliches of the genre which get repeated year-on-year. It was slightly unsettling watching the trailers before such a movie, here's roughly what to take away from those: -

X-men Apocalypse: They're the four horsemen of the apocalypse! It's the end of the world! WE WILL TEAR DOWN EVERYTHING THEY HAVE AND BUILD A NEW WORLD!
London Has Fallen: This is the most secure event IN THE WORLD! 6 of the world leaders are dead AND THE PRESIDENT IS UNACCOUNTED FOR!!!
Triple-9: They want us to do one last job - this has to be the BIGGEST ONE EVER! Let's get the Triple-9! All the cops in the city come running IT'S A CODE TO DIE FOR

'Spotlight' - Film review

Spotlight is directed by Tom McCarthy and tells the true story of investigative reporters (going by the name 'Spotlight') uncovering the covering up of child abuse by Catholic priests in Boston. It stars some big-name established actors such as Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci. There'll be a fairly interesting comparison to make on the finer details of investigative-reporting true-stroy film-making, as tomorrow I'm going with my brother to see Concussion, a film in the same genre about a cover up in the NFL.

A solid true-life conspiracy thriller.

One of the odd things about Spotlight is an interesting decision which turns into a questionable decision, or rather a questionable decision which turns into an interesting one: starting sort of in medias res, besides the 30 years earlier prologue. This creates some quite strange pacing for the first quarter of the film. To begin with it has the effect of thrusting you straight into the action with a little bit of intriguing confusion, wondering how you got to the point you're at at that moment, but then this creates a dip of slow pacing as everything has to be explained. However, this is then turned around again as a benefit to the film, as everything is explained and you begin in medias res, as it leads to some of the most naturalistic exposition I have ever seen in film. The characters and situations are so well arranged to have characters with a reason to be imparting the valuable information - the lull in pacing is worth it for making this excellent feat of writing possible.

Just to see if I Could

Wednesday afternoon, my interview at Queen May, University of London, afterwards a brief meet up with a Symonds friend, who goes to UCL, and her QMUL boyfriend. The interviews were meant to be only 15 minutes, by the time the academic felt he'd got enough from me the taster drama workshop had already started. I apologised meekly to the practitioner and put my stuff to the side and joined the circle, the Scottish girl I befriended on the day whispered to me 'that was a long time!'

20 minutes of rambling on about everything that excites me about the English language, literature and drama - finishing reading Barack Obama's fascinating, inspiring biography; ordering The Travels of Ibn Battutah on Amazon the night before; discovering the musical Hamilton and the cultural/historical significance of conflicting musical styles. I couldn't tell if I was able to properly communicate my tremendous excitement to the interviewer, but whatever, it was enough, however truthful and accurate it was. It took QMUL just over 24 hours to get back.

Maybe I'm more inspired by Alexander Hamilton than I would have otherwise realised. Though I hadn't heard the lyrics of the musical nor had I really known that much about the ten-dollar-founding-father before, the past few months have been a slow revelation of this Hamilton-fire-burning desire to explode up and out. 'Imma get a scholarship to Kings college / I shouldn't brag but dag I amaze and astonish' - 4 Russell Group universities, some of the best in the country for English and/or drama. Maybe he and I have something in common, even if it is just to his fictional representation.

'Bridge of Spies' - Film review

Bridge of Spies is a cold-war period drama/political thriller directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance. It tells the story of a New York insurance lawyer encumbered with defending a Soviet spy as a formality, a representation of democracy when the death sentence is a foregone conclusion. However, Tom Hanks, being the paragon of justice that he is, decides, hang-on-a-minute, this man does deserve fair representation, and his pursuance of justice takes him to D.C. and eventually beyond to the Soviet East Berlin to a politically charged prisoner negotiation.

Found a tagline better than 'the stakes have never been higher'

The first impressive feat of Bridge of Spies is world-building. This may be a surprising accolade seeing as it's based on a true story, but the past very often seems like a different world - not just the past of a no-longer extant country like the GDR, but even the past of a place more familiar like the US. One of the film's many tag lines was 'the stakes have never been higher' and Spielberg does an excellent job of presenting this alien, polarised world. Nowadays we live in a (largely) international world, Bridge of Spies comes with the stark reminder that less than half a century ago this was a hugely different case.

'Taxi Tehran' (Discover Tuesdays) - Film review

My local Picturehouse cinema is a nice little building on the quay called Harbour Lights. Along with every other cinema in the Picturehouse franchise they run a weekly event called Discover Tuesdays, which is basically giving screening to arty/foreign/eye-opening films which aren't on the new release ordinary programme, as a chance of experiencing something different. It's basically right up my street in terms of what I'm trying to achieve this year, though a little steep, I highly recommend it.

Including a poster with other peoples' reviews on it, scandalous.

Taxi Tehran is a Life in a Day-style rolling-camera film from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. The premise is that Panahi has somehow procured a taxi (in the Iranian capital Tehran), with almost the entirety of the film's footage coming from an 'anti-theft' camera he installed on the dashboard, recording the conversations and interactions he has with the various friends, family and customers he picks up over the course of a few hours. The action feels so real it's risky saying it merely 'feels' real and wasn't in fact just candid-camera recording, though one of the first passengers plants the suggestion that at least some of the action is scripted and staged by asking (in Persian) 'I'm in a film aren't I?'

'The Hateful Eight' - Film review

The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino's eighth movie, starring Samuel L Jackson, that guy from Lie to Me and Channing Tatum. It tells the story… well that's a little bit complicated actually.

What's cooler than being cool?

What makes a synopsis so difficult is this film is very, very long - almost 3 hours in fact. To sum it up in any sort of concise fashion: it's two bounty hunters (one of whom is a black Unionist cavalier) taking a wanted murder (Daisy Domergue) alive to Red Rock, an outpost in Wyoming some time after the American Civil War, when a blizzard descends and they have to seek shelter. On the way they pick up a Confederate captain (who proudly calls himself a rebel warrior) who claims to have been called on to be sherif of Red Rock. The troop of 4, that's 4/8, find shelter in the form of a haberdashery, where the other 4/8 are also sheltered, including a Confederate general and a travelling hangman, who happens to be due to hang Domergue when the bounty hunters and sherif bring her to Red Rock. However, with the 8 shuttered in against a storm, a spat of murders makes the bounty hunters realise that transporting Domergue may have more complications than expected… As you can see, it's hard to sum up.

'Reservoir Dogs' - Film review

Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut in 1992, and I'm basically watching it because I'm going to see The Hateful Eight today so needed to get in the right mood for it. It's on Netflix, something I noticed when I was searching for my Netflix film to watch this week and thought it made sense considering my plan of action today - so basically if you're in the UK and have Netflix you can go and stream it too.

Reservoir Dogs tells the story of a group of career criminals caught up in the aftermath of a botched heist, trying to figure out who set them up in a secluded warehouse. Besides the prologue with Tarantino's signature brilliantly natural and ever-engaging dialogue writing, the film plays to something that would be a staple throughout Tarantino's career (or at least the ones I've seen: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight), the non-linear storytelling beginning in medias res, in this case with a high speed getaway with a bleeding co-thief in the backseat - heart-racing stuff right from the get go. This film is bloody brilliant, and I hugely enjoyed it. There wasn't a single moment when the energy dropped or when things were uninteresting.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year, new…

No hang on, I'm still me. In the millisecond between 2015 and 2016 nothing really changed - a few cells may have died here and there, some other may have meiotically or mitotically divided, and some nerve impulses strained against the alcohol littering their phospholipid to get the image of the 00 on whatever London building it was to my conscious mind. Apart from that, the only thing that's changed is the date.

There was a soppy-woppy Facebook status at some point on the 31st of December 2015, however, which said something important, an artificial change. Nothing changes on new year's, nothing except that which we change for ourselves, and for what better reason than none at all? For what better reason than a number on a clock dragging humanity one year farther from our Palaeolithic caves and limping somewhat reluctantly into our past's future? Other than destiny, the future is just the change we make for ourselves.

Gap Year Reading - Part 1

I feel a little foolish taking a gap year, but then I know how to justify myself to myself. In my A2 year of college I was in the region of 70% sure that I wanted to go to university and excel in my field (English or Drama), about 20% sure I wanted to go to drama school and train as an actor, with 10% not sure if any of it was right at all. I could have applied in my A2 year, my mum says I should've. I can't change the past, however I can now know that what I want to do is go to university and pursue my loves: English and Drama, together as a joint degree. I was mostly sure when I should've been applying, but that 30% was enough of a risk for 3 years of my life and a debt which in all probability I could never repay.

In a way, this gap year is two-fold useful to me: for one, the way I did things means I had time to not make the wrong decision, and for the other, I wouldn't risk having done the right thing and always having wondered if I shouldn't have done something else. Taking time out to make decisions can be an important decision in itself, and if that means taking a whole year out, then so be it. Then again, a whole year is no trifling matter - in fact, it's a 19th of my entire life so far, and that slice of life being on the 'now' end of what I'm living makes it quite ominous, but I'll be damned if that means I'm going to waste a year. I am now set on my course, and this gap year I'm going to make all about giving myself a greg grounding for my study of English and Drama.

I said in my essay 'Reading and the Riptide' that reading books is like a Fibonacci spiral, each one connecting to many more, and each of those to many more again, exponentially expanding one's consciousness and understanding. I still stand by that assertion and by that logic I thought the best possible place to start my gap year preparation would be the local library. My plan is to get a hugely wide base of understanding to build up from, starting my experience horizontally as it were before building up vertically to more specific knowledge.

'Orpheus' - Play review

Little Bulb's 'Orpheus' is continuing its tour at the Liverpool Everyman from 20-24th and Birmingham Repertory Theatre from the 28-31th of October. If you can catch it there then I highly recommend you do and you can find links to tickets on the Little Bulb website here.

Little Bulb Theatre's production of 'Orpheus' is a reimagining of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Persephone in the style of the European cabaret of the 20s and set to an eclectic soundtrack of club jazz, mock-opera and the music of Django Reinhart. If that sounds like a mad mix that's because it absolutely is, and it's a bloody spectacle to behold.

From Little Bulb Theatre's website

The production is a co-production between Little Bulb and the Battersea Arts Centre and following the tragedy in March it's wonderful to see work of such colour and optimism still emerging from there. Every moment of the play burns with such vivacity which keeps the mostly wordless plot and the cabaret-inspired frame narrative so enthralling that as an audience you barely notice any time pass. It was a tenet of Nietzsche that Greek tragedy should be a living consolation in its ability remove the audience entirely from reality, and that is entirely the world created here. The story itself has practically no words besides Persephone's song and the narration of the host - and Eugenie Pastor's Yvette Pépin is so emphatic and passionate that one can't help but be totally involved in the tragedy, as she herself is so hyperbolically affected by the story she is telling one can't help being dragged into that world of heightened emotions and tragic fates.

'Avengers: Age of Ultron' - Film review

Well here we are, a year and 10 months later - my 100th published post on Under a Blue Pen! Yesterday I published my 50th review of a Shakespeare film, which is also quite a big number, but for my 100th I thought I'd do something special, something that really gets me enthused and excited: a superhero movie. And what better review to mark this momentous milestone than with the MCU's recent blockbuster spectacular, 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'.

This is a big picture. If you open it in a new tab, it's even bigger (and HD).

According to Cineworld, in the UK alone 18,400 people looked at cinema booking for 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' in last 24 hours alone. After the monumental success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, the extraordinary first ensemble Marvel film, 'Avengers: Assemble' and the unexpectedly spectacular epic which was 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', Joss Whedon's latest entry to the MCU and to the Avengers saga manages to continue the legacy, deftly channel the meteoric energy blasting through from the rest of the series which began so long ago and not fail at throwing all of the right punches.

'Radiant Vermin' - Play review

Wow, my 13th play review. This blog's really going somewhere now. Did you know it's been 40 days since the last day with no viewers? Even when nothing gets posted, astounding. Many apologies for the something of a hiatus that's occurred since my last blog post. In the past six days I've made over 300 revision cards for biology - hard work, y'dig. Last Thursday, almost a week ago, was a nice break from all that, a trip up to London with a friend to see Phillip Ridley's new play at the Soho Theatre in London. Now I'm not one for laughing at theatre - I can appreciate things are funny and be amused by them, but I'm much less inclined to actually vocalise it - not one for crying at theatre either. Not that 'Radiant Vermin', a play about a horrendously ethically-challenged couple who realise that killing homeless people magically furnishes their new dream home however they wish it, made me cry at any time, but dear lord did I laugh.

Hm, it matches the colour scheme of my blog quite well.

One of the main reasons I'm fixated on going to drama school in London specifically is the vividness of the theatre scene in London, and the three London theatre trips I've been on in the last three weeks (this, and school trips to see Ivo van Hove's 'Antigone' at the Barbican and 'A View from the Bridge' at the Wyndham's) have really helped to cement that impression. The Soho Theatre is just such a great venue, for quite the opposite grounds that the Barbican and Wyndham's theatres are - it's such a modern venue that it has no pretences about being anything other than a theatre.

Reading and the Riptide

Spring is here! A-spu-ring is here! Life is textbooks and life is highlighters… okay that doesn't quite scan actually. I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring - I do - don't you? 'Course you do. Tom Lehrer references aside, spring is lovely, and spring is most definitely here, as I can finally sleep with the window open, after so long of being unable to over the long and vicious winter we've had. As the Easter 2-week holiday finally arrives, it's time to revel in the new pleasantness replacing the horribleness, time to take something of a breather from the tumultuously busy last few weeks of the 'spring' term and put one's feet up in the only way A-level students know how to:

Yay.

Ruminating briefly on George Orwell's essay 'Thoughts on the Common Toad', which argues that the innate joy of witnessing nature reincarnate itself at this time of year can be enjoyed despite human goings-on, it seems this new seasonal refreshing burst of life has some joy to offer, even with the triple-threat of looming A-level exams, the looming decision of which HE path I want to take, and the looming possibility that in a month's time the votes will swing in UKIP's favour and the whole country will be bolloxed up and I'll likely have to leave the country. Not because I'm of foreign birth and would be deported, mind, it'd just be too awful to stay here.

Now there is this well-earned break, during this period of reincarnation and rejuvenation, it's possible to reflect on what has been and what is to come.

'A View from the Bridge' (Ivo van Hove) - Play review

Sorry the writing of this review is somewhat delayed, I was in my college's 48-hour film competition so didn't have the time until today - luckily with some jigery-pokery of my blog's schedule I could queue in a few reviews I've already written to give myself enough time. Phew. It's been a busy week, after an equally busy week which was last week, when I saw Ivo van Hove's 'Antigone' on Tuesday, and a few weeks ago I saw another version of 'A View from the Bridge' at the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre. I recommend reading at least the latter-mentioned review for comparison. But without any further ado…

A grainy image looking down on the Wyndham's Theatre from the Grand Circle.

I've never actually heard of the Wyndham's Theatre before, which is probably a bad thing for an admiring actor. I've seen it referenced in The Stage before, but couldn't relate the place to the name - anyway, it's a lovely building. Hugely ornate the point of decadence - but in a building of culture, why not have decadence? As with a lot of London theatres the raking of the seats is exceptionally steep to get as many patrons as possible into the space allowed, so, a word to the wise, don't choose a seat in the Grand Circle (or God forbid the Upper Circle or Balcony) if you have vertigo, as the drop is sickening. Well, do, just don't look down, as the perspective on the stage from up there is, while slightly alienating due to distance, certainly remarkable, and the emotion transmits across the space just as well in this production in any case.

'Antigone' - Play review

I studied 'Antigone' last year for my Drama and Theatre Studies AS. Studying something in a vacuum makes it disgusting. There were no productions of 'Antigone' on while we were studying it, or it least no trips organised, so I was disgusted by 'Antigone'. Shortly after my exam there was a production of it on at the Theatre Royal, Winchester, but again, I was too disgusted, I couldn't go. I didn't fail my exam or anything, I got an A, it's just that the play became a piece of educational material and no longer a work of literature. So when a trip was organised for a group of ASs to go and see Ivan van Hove's 'Antigone' at the Barbican I immediately signed up - I'm going to see 'A View from the Bridge' on Tuesday* so I'd like to see what the director's style is and how his works compare. Oh my, I wrote 8 pages of notes.

I couldn't get a picture of the set. Here is a ticket.

The first thing to discuss would have to be the venue. In December I went to the Barbican with a friend to watch the RSC's 'Henry IV Part One', and decided that getting a seat in the front row of the circle would be better than a back row in the stalls for the same price. The view was good from up there looking down on the action, and being at the front, however having that cavernous space (for the Barbican theatre is cavernous in size) in front of you when watching a play is somewhat isolating, you feel very much separate from the action, no matter how good it is. The stalls however are an entirely different story. Even row P, where we were sat, felt intimate to the stage. It's a sensation almost unique to the Barbican: the stalls sweep around in such a way that you feel almost deindividuated in the vast space, part of one body which is the audience as opposed to one that is yourself, it's a truly magical theatre, the effects created by the architecture are fabulous. Entering at ground level and descending two flights of stairs to the stalls, then looking up to the circle, upper circle and gallery above you, you feel very much the scale of the theatre space, like a theatrical ant's nest, or underground beehive, again, magical. I've been reading a lot of Nietzche's tragic theory recently and the Barbican seems the perfect place to stage a tragedy, as you are immediately swept up into another world, that being the world of the story.

'A View from the Bridge' (Everyman Theatre) - Play review

The Everyman is specified in the title of this as I'm going to see another 'A View from the Bridge' in a few weeks at the Young Vic, the one starring Mark Strong as Eddie and directed by Ivo van Hove, who also directed the version of 'Antigone' which I watched at the Barbican last night. It's been slightly over a week since I saw this 'A View from the Bridge' at the Everyman Theatre as I had a very busy week this week - I might even write a blog post to relate it as a lot went down, as it were. Luckily for myself, as I have 4 reviews to write today/this weekend, I only wrote 4 pages of notes during the performance, so this review shouldn't take so long (oh gosh writing up 'Antigone's going to be a slog). But without further ado - a review of 'A View from the Bridge' at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.

A lovely view of the bridge.

The party I went with were all A-level drama students, studying the play as the A2 paper involves writing a section of the play as if you're directing it. The trip was optional - as mentioned previously we're also going to see Ivo van Hove's production next Tuesday - it was just for the most enthusiastic students to get a more well-rounded view of possible interpretations of the play. That being said, reception of the play was quite varied within the group. I was personally in the camp who had been pleased by it, there was also a camp whose opinion could be described with the sound 'meh', and a camp whose opinion approached middling disdain.

'Consolation' (for S. Davies)

Though the two of us are separate
And c'mitments keep us far away,
Filial love is intimate
On any sharéd day.

Though th'working week may inspire rage
And Solent waters do the same,
Distance is but a temp'ry cage
And time a temp'ry shame.

This time for you is hard I know,
And myriad choices plague your thoughts,
Let it be known that I and Joe
Wish to make your terrors nought,

So, please remember that you needn't be afeared -
You have my little brother Joe to keep your family near.

Tom Hiddleston at the Nuffield

[Important note: my memory is not perfect and I cannot write in shorthand, only note-form. Speech in 'inverted commas' is not a direct quote but a loose quote formed by filling in prepositions, etc, skipped out in note form and may not be exactly what was said. Imagine Capote's 'In Cold Blood', basically.]

This post is long overdue, I'm sorry guys, but what can I say, I'm a busy person. The real rush to finish this comes as I'm going to another Q&A with author A. L. Kennedy on Monday 16th (of March) and will most definitely want to write about that as well, and I don't want to confuse anyone with the order of things. So the particular evening I'm talking about was a couple of weeks ago, the 22nd of February to be exact, and I apologise for the lateness, but I made 6 pages of notes so don't expect any less than if it had been yesterday.

I'm very proud of the Nuffield Theatre as it's the first theatre that I felt a real part of, and intend to work there in the future, and intend to return to as a professional actor to perform on that stage. The Nuffield is undeniably going places, and I'm fortunate that it took me into its heart - especially since I'm from the Isle of Wight, a different county. The Q&A comes just a few weeks after the news that the Nuffield won 'The Stage's regional theatre of the year 2014; it felt special to be in a celebrating theatre with a pair of very successful men talking about their industry.