"This week's theme ... my sex tape."

Radio

""Well, from WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass. Each week, of course, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of stories on that theme. This week's theme ... my sex tape."
--Ira Glass, Host

Not really. It's a parody. But a very good one. The music utilisation is particularly forensic. [via]

galleries, project spaces and the purpose built Print Room

Plug! I'm unable to attend due to work commitments, but I promised to post this press release. Local art lovers should notice the participation of the Ceri Hand Gallery ....



THE MANCHESTER CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR
27 – 30 October 2011

The third edition of The Manchester Contemporary takes place from 27 to 30 October 2011 in Manchester’s Spinningfields district. Exhibiting work by internationally presenting artists alongside those that are new and emerging The Manchester Contemporary brings together by invitation 10 of the UK’s leading commercial contemporary art galleries alongside a purpose built Print Room and a series of information and project spaces.

Over four days visitors will have the opportunity to view and purchase works by critically engaged artists and learn more about them, their work and the process of collecting contemporary art at the North West’s leading contemporary art-fair.

The Manchester Contemporary will welcome the following galleries and their artists:

Arcade, London
Bureau, Manchester
Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool
Cole, London
Man & Eve, London
Mermaid & Monster, Cardiff
Seventeen, London
The International 3, Manchester
Workplace Gallery, Gateshead
WORKS|PROJECTS, Bristol

A new addition to the fair in 2011 is The Print Room. Here visitors will be able to view and purchase a wide range of limited edition prints. Works for sale by artists from The Manchester Contemporary exhibitors will be complemented by prints from a selection of other invited organisations. In addition, a series of information and project spaces will include presentations from artist-led spaces, artists’ agencies and partners of The Manchester Contemporary.

Launched in 2009, The Manchester Contemporary is committed to encouraging and developing a market for critically engaged contemporary art in the region.

Once again, Manchester gallery The International 3, has been selected to take the role of curatorial co-ordinator for The Manchester Contemporary art-fair. The International 3 has been charged with bringing together galleries and projects that give art enthusiasts, buyers and collectors the opportunity to access world-class contemporary art.

Paulette Terry Brien and Laurence Lane, co-directors of The International 3 added:

“We are pleased to welcome back to Manchester some of last year’s exhibitors whilst new participating galleries, project spaces and the purpose built Print Room demonstrate our ambition for The Manchester Contemporary to continue to grow as a critical mass opportunity to view and purchase high-calibre contemporary art.”

Details of the artists exhibiting at The Manchester Contemporary will be announced shortly.

To book free tickets for The Manchester Contemporary visit www.themanchestercontemporary.co.uk

a reminder of Elizabeth I

John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is a (so far) atypical selection for the Arden Early Modern Drama series because it’s one of the few plays by a contemporary of Shakespeare which is still performed with great regularity, enjoying over forty commercial productions between the mid 1940s and late 80s (with countless others since). Which is doubly unusual given that most of Webster’s plays are lost, with only a couple of others including the equally popular The White Devil and a smattering of collaborations still available.

Which isn’t bad considering he was largely a part-time playright, with recent research uncovering evidence of a second life working in his father’s coach-building business. It’s also interesting that his authorship of the plays isn’t questioned even though he arguably received a less distinguished education than Shakespeare in a school run by his father’s firm. But as editor for this volume Leah S. Marcus demonstrates, he was not a man intellectually punching above himself, it was simply that his priorities were differently weighted in comparison to his colleagues.

Marcus offers a few conclusions as to why the play was so popular then, and continues to be so now. She talks at length about the nostalgic element, of Malfi as a reminder of Elizabeth I during the Jacobian period, her more unsavoury personality traits all but forgotten. There’s also the darkness of the plot, the clandestine marriage eventually destroyed by the lycanthropic Ferdinand and the details of the murders, not least the poisoned bible. More recently it is it’s capacity, like the best plays, to feed into contemporary allusion, even evoking the Holocaust in the 1940s.

But mostly it’s simply that it’s a damn good play. It’s based on historical sources, developed heavily from the life of a Duchess of Amalfi, an Italian Renaissance figure who also married and had children in secret, only to be captured and disappear as they attempted to flee to Siena once they’d been found out. Though Webster embellished the story somewhat (see above), there’s something very seductive about witnessing such an unbelievable story within a theatrical setting. This is a Hollywood narrative at its finest, but in the early 1600s.

The main documentary texts referred to are included as appendices, though like Shakespeare, Webster had a magpie approach to his writing and the text is filled with allusion and laced with elements of Delio and Donne (post conversion) Unlike many Arden editors, Marcus has decided to leave much of this discussion to the textual notes which makes for a much more focused and readable approach both there and in the introduction (which have sometimes, in other volumes, become bogged down with such things).

As ever, one of the more interesting passages concerns the text. For very tangible reasons, Malfi has two first quartos, an A and B. Printer Nicholas Oakes had quite happily prepared the text and was merrily knocking out editions when Webster happened to pop in to his shop to see how things were going. The firstly the playwright noticed a “Hymne” not by him had been added and there were a range of textual errors. Once the work began again, the “Hymne” had become a “ditty” with a disclaimer pointing to it not being Webster's work and a range of other corrections applied.

That printing and the further three are also inextricably linked to the production history, since each contains information about the locations of the various shows and actors involved. These also mirror theatre history as boy casting gives way to actresses with Q3 showing Mary Betterton as (perhaps) the first time a female played Malfi (opposite her husband as Bosola, Ferdinand’s spy). As was the fashion, Q4 was heavily truncated close to the Restoration, and three other adaptations followed, with only the full text returning to rotation in the last century.

Sadly, not as much room is dedicated to the more contemporary productions though there are some useful the photographs of Judi Dench and Helen Mirren at the RSC in 1971 and Royal Exchange Manchester 1980 respectively, the costume of the latter heavily influenced by Elizabeth I. Nevertheless, this is another well turned out edition from Arden and for once we’re able to easily experience the play for ourselves. This useful 1972 BBC production has been uploaded to YouTube and I can also recommend this previously review Stage on Screen version.

The Duchess of Malfi (Arden Early Modern Drama). Edited by Leah S. Marcus. Methuen Drama. 2009. RRP: £10.99. ISBN: 978-1904271512. Review copy supplied.

Universal theories of Doctor who? #1

TV Let's re-interpret this scene from Utopia in PC terms ...



The universe is a hard drive. The Doctor is disk defragmentation software. Captain Jack is creating bad sectors.

the mass of companions and stories and just general stuff

TV As erstwhile Doctor Who writer Robert Shearman tweeted earlier “Looking forward to seeing Doctor Who tonight. Oh, hang on, it's finished. Well, bugger.” Well yes, indeed. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be a Doctor Who night, even if it’s just in the form of a list of content culled from a different website and so here we are.

Some of you will have noticed that when writing about the series, I tend to let the TARDIS Index File provide the expositionary background to stories of the past. It’s also a useful aid-memoir whenever I’m pointing out just how derivative a given new episode is or crew details when I’m being lazy (unless it’s got them wrong).

But the TARDIS Index File isn’t just about the odd synopsis and biography. It also offers entertainingly thorough articles about various aspects of Who arcania and I thought it would be worth gathering a number of these entertainingly thorough articles about various aspects of Who arcania in some sort of list. Five of them. Here they are.

(1) UNIT Dating Controversy

Might as well start with the big cahoona. The controversy surrounding exactly when the stories featuring UNIT are actually set has gained prominence again recently thanks to an in-joke during The Sontaran Stratagem ("the 1970s, or was it the 80s?") and a whole documentary with Toby Hadoke in the added value material on the Day of the Daleks dvd (material from which has subsequently been added to this very entry). Quite rightly, the TIF simply offers the “facts” though the section marked “minor dating problems” has anything but. So messy is this discussion, chronologist Lance Parkin agnostically gave it a whole other section in his book Ahistory. Personally I go with the view that they’re set at roughly the time when they were broadcast and any inconsistencies can be put down to this being a fictional universe with a whole set of its own problems. You can hardly complain about video phones in the 70s if the planet is also being invaded by Cybermen.

(2) River Song

Fittingly this entry’s been in a constant flux since the character’s debut in The Silence in the Library, with whole chunks being shifted about on a weekly basis (you can imagine what happened when it was revealed she was a Time Lord), but has finally settled down a bit thanks to the montage below from Doctor Who Confidential and a similar timeline in Doctor Who Magazine. If you need the order of events sorted out in your head, these are the places to look.



(3) Aliases of the Doctor

One of the questions which is still being asked is about when the Doctor will tell River his real name. Clearly it means the characters going to be back again next year. She’s the wacky nu-nu-Who equivalent of the Brigadier (or the Master). But what this article demonstrates is that even across the spin-off media, the franchise has been surprisingly consistent in the Doctor not using his real name. He’s told other companions before, but they’ve not been able to pronounce it. My favourite nugget is: “when the Doctor spoke his real name aloud in the novel Vanderdeken's Children it was not written in the prose, but represented by "—" instead.” The article also includes every time he’s used his other regular nom-de-plum “John Smith” and goes some way to explaining the Theta Sigma business (the nickname he was given at school).

(4) Eighth Doctor

Anyone who thought the life of the McGann version began and ended with his hour on television in 1996 is likely to look at this entry and boggle at the mass of companions and stories and just general stuff, but there were nine years between the tv movie with the Pertween logo and at least three different licensees generating stories. The best way to deal with the Eighth Doctor stories is to treat each media as self contained chunks which for me is the BBC Books, the comics and then the audios, a topic I’ve inevitably already covered in some depth here. One point of interest is that it assumes that when the Time Lords are talking about the Doctor in The End of Time, he’s in his Eighth incarnation.  Although it’s implied in Rose he’s recently regenerated I’ve never been entirely convinced Eighth would be capable. My assumption has always been it’s the Ninth Doctor who was in the Time War. Ah, Mr RTD Russell Davies person and your ambiguous writing …

(5) Regeneration

One of the reasons to love Doctor Who is that even one of its hard core bits of mythology happened due to the requirements for a change in casting and has never been inconsistent from year three. Can someone decided to regenerate or do they need to be in mortal danger? What’s with all the volcanic light these days? This entry offers few proper answers other than whatever makes for a good story. Not much more to add other than to suggest you seek out the section about I.M. Foreman which is pretty mind blowing thanks to the imagination of author Lawrence Miles who should definitely be coaxed back for another one in the anniversary year.  It wouldn't be the same without him.

More soon.

a chicken and egg scenario

Books Here is the story of Philaster. Look away now if you don’t want to know the result. The titular young Sicilian prince has usurped from the throne by “the king of Calabria” but continues to abide in court where he resists the urge to retake the crown. Arethusa is in love with him, and a page acts as a go-between, but Philaster through misunderstanding and distrust decides she’s being unfaithful with the page and stabs the both of them. But this being a tragicomedy, they both live and it’s revealed that the page was a girl all along and marriage and geographical recovery ensue.

I can’t believe it’s not Shakespeare, which it isn’t. It’s John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, writing at the same time as the Bard and it’s suspected giving the crowd what they want in the Jacobian period when the master’s work flow had slowed to a couple of plays a year. The blurb on the back of this Arden Early Modern Drama suggests this is a “Hamlet rewrite” but as its editor Suzanne Gossett identified, “the play is built from plot elements familiar from Hamlet, Othello, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Pericles” as well as a number of plays by the same authors.

A modern comparison would be Miami Rhapsody or Far From Heaven which attempt to mimic the film-making styles of Woody Allen and Douglas Sirk respectively. But the approach is also positively post-modern even at the level of speeches, some of which are so suggestive of Cymbeline that there’s been some chatter over the years of which play influenced which, a chicken and egg scenario which can never be entirely resolved. Nevertheless it’s another work which ignorance has left sorely neglected, despite the participation of a Shakespeare collaborator.

Gossett employs a four pronged attack in attempting to rescue the play from obscurity. First there’s the usual contextual business and this case parallels with the politics of King James’s court. James’s rule over England and Scotland is paralleled in the Calbrian King and though the writers are generally thought of as royalists, it’s impossible not to see them suggesting that their new king was something of the usurper. Another strand of Philaster shows the king attempting to find strategic marriages for his children and that also reflects James seeking a union and so alliance in Spain.

Next there’s a short investigation into the form and style of the play. Fletcher claimed that tragicomedy “wants deaths, which is inough to make it no tragedie, yet brings some neere it, which is inough to make it no comedie”, which is a fair description of some of Shakespeare’s “problem” plays, especially Measure for Measure, which should also demonstrate the difficult of keeping within that tone. In Philaster, that’s communicated through pathos and melancholy, that life’s too short (even shorter then) and that happiness is relative.

This (too) soon this gives way to the usual production history, the transformation of Philaster into a ladies play during the restoration period due to the unusual number of female roles (making the page’s role a twist in plain sight), its three adaptations undertook at a time when these authors were better thought of than Shakespeare and most interestingly its single broadcast performance in the US as part of a public radio series created by directors and writers blacklisted by UnAmerican Activities Committee of the House of Representatives.

The final sections deal with the play's wayward textual history. Ironically, like Hamlet, the play has a substantially corrupted Q1 and more substantial Q2 (which forms the basis of this edition) and a Folio (although that was printed fifty years after the play was written) and debate rages about how the first printed quite got into that state (censors? rewrites?) and yet why it contains better stage directions than Q2 (readers copy?). Side by side passages of both are included in the appendices so we can to make up our own minds. Or at least have a go.

Philaster (Arden Early Modern Drama). Edited by Suzanne Gossett. Methuen Drama. 2010. RRP: £11.99. ISBN: 978-1904271734. Review copy supplied.

On another: 'Tales of the Unexpected'.

TV As you can see, this is where the rot really began to take hold in regards to Torchwood's season one. There would be a few semi-positive reviews to come, including, unbelievably, Cyberwoman, but this was the moment when I realised the show's potential to go off the rails leading to this evisceration during that year's annual review on this blog.

As I said then: "it's possible to suggest that this format simply doesn't satisfy because predominantly the secondary goal is far less interesting than the proposed original. In Ghost Machine the alien dongle's power is explained in the opening ten minutes as is the initial mystery of who is in Gwen's vision and the secondary goals of where it came from and Owen wanting to avenge the rapist are not strong enough to carry the rest of the episode"

But it's true.  I did watch the thing.  Then watch it again shortly afterwards.  I was deranged.


Last night I did something that I've never done before.

After watching The Ghost Machine, I sat down to write a review and as usual checked Outpost Gallifrey [which is now called Gallifrey Base -- future Stu] just to see what the general fan reaction had been, especially since I'd the closing minutes with my head hidden under a pillow trying to block out all sound and vision. I clicked across to the ratings forum and began to read overwhelmingly positive reviews. Third time lucky, some said, better late than never said others. The little bar charts were showing high ratings and I began to wonder what I'd missed. I turned off my computer, and watched the episode again. And although I could see the second time around that there were things to admire it was still a fundamentally disappointing experience.

Tonight I sat down for the fourth time trying and write a review and found myself looking at the screen, and the little curser blinking in and out. As the minutes passed by, something dawned on me. I didn't know what to write. I actually have writers block. I'm so indifferent about the episode that I simply can't craft that indifference into words. I actually wrote down some notes on viewing the episode the second time around and considered simply posting them, but they're really not that interesting. On one line I've written enigmatically 'director Colin Teague'. Yes, and? On another: 'Tales of the Unexpected'. And finally Jack's closing dialogue: 'A million shadows of human emotion - we've just got to live with them...' which looks good on paper but didn't quite work on screen.

The search for Bernie worked quite well. And I continue to enjoy the performances and some of the writing was very good indeed. But eventually I realised that this was the most exciting moment....



And there's not much more you can say about that really ...

PS ... other than that Jack's line was the worse piece of dialogue on television that year ...

"other people's thinking"

That Day

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Thanks Steve. For everything. Now I know what to do.

"was never displayed in a single English tube station"

Commerce The Awl has a massive post charting the copyright snarl up surrounding "Keep Calm and Carry On". That's all worth reading, but in typical style they've also included a section explaining the origin of the original poster:

"The Keep Calm and Carry On poster was designed and produced by the British government in 1939 in advance of the war, but it was never displayed in a single English tube station or tobacconists or newsagents. Not one ordinary citizen ever saw it in the street before or during the war.

Of the 2.5 million posters originally printed, only a handful survived the war; all the rest were pulped. Exactly two copies are known to have made it into private hands. One of these is owned by Wartime Posters of Warrington, Cheshire. The other is Stuart Manley's."

The examples on the post of posters that were actually utilised demonstrates that sometimes someone can create something and not see its potential value.

exhausted children and their squalid living conditions

Fashion This afternoon I visited the International Slavery Museum at the Albert Dock for their new exhibition, White Gold: the true cost of cotton, which investigates the "abuse of labour rights in the cotton industry, primarily in Uzbekistan, one of the largest cotton exporters in the world".  As the exhibition partner Environmental Justice Foundation explains on their website, the country achieves its industriousness by making cotton picking a compulsory activity, with a third of the country's population indentured into farming the crop.  That includes children who from a young age are brought into the fields by teachers to work long hours with little food and essentially no pay. These are very much the conditions Dickens was highlighting a century ago in this country, still existing elsewhere in the modern world.

The exhibition itself is brief, filling just a small display area at the back of the museum and mostly consists of giant photographs of the children at work and an award winning film (which is embedded above for anyone who isn't in the area).  But nothing else is required.  The shots of empty classrooms, exhausted children and their squalid living conditions are more than enough for me to question the very clothes I'm walking around in, wondering where the cotton in my t-shirt has been sourced.  The problem is, as a flow diagram in the exhibition demonstrates, although the country of origin is still on the cotton when it is being traded, the yarn spinners source from a range of countries so by the time it reaches the shops and then us it is almost impossible for us to find out.

"And no one said something."

Film Sometimes, just sometimes. Kirsten Dunst gives an unexpectedly unvarnished interview about the Cannes incident in which she registers her surprise at the reaction of her fellow cast members:

"The way she sees it, the incident was a perfect storm of unstable elements, with her caught haplessly in the middle. She blames the journalist, the British film critic Kate Muir, who opened the floodgate – and the floodgate itself for opening so readily ("Lars always likes to stir things up"). But she also seems narked with her other cast members, who simply sat by. "That's what I don't understand. There were a lot of us sitting there. There was Stellan [Skarsgård], John [Hurt], Charlotte [Gainsbourg]. And no one said something. No one wanted to help. I was the only one to lean in to Lars and get him to stop." She rolls her eyes. "And, of course, I'm the one person that people would love to rope into that situation. They'd love to mess with me."

Here it again in case you missed it. Just keep watching her face. I think we've all been in that moment when you're desperate to say something to a friend as their mouth is engaging more than their brain but know that it would just make matters worse.  We all just sit there smiling but in way that attempts to be supportive without looking as though we're actually agreeing with whatever nonsense they're spewing ...



She's right when she says "So then I become the story. It becomes, 'Oooh, look at Kirsten's reaction!'"

belter on the Bannerman

TV Deep breath. The final three stories, final six episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures were always going to be a difficult watch simply because it’s impossible to quite believe that the vital, vibrant star running about on screen, still saving a fictional universe, can’t any more. A perfect tribute, they’re gifted to us through a quirk of budget and scheduling and should have been part of a typical length season and would have done if Lis hadn’t been taken from the real universe so soon.

Phil Ford’s Sky is doubly melancholic because it's pinioned around the introduction of its titular tweenager to the gang, a sign of the production team realising that with the show entering its sixth year and its young cast ageing, the bottom end of its target audience is starting to lack a character to identify with.  To that end, Sky is well thought through, an alien child who, like Luke way back when, and like the clever children watching, only has a superficial understanding of the world and a questioning nature.

Parents will no doubt smile at just how many questions Sky asks. Everything is new to her, even pizza, which also makes her the cunning new addition to Sarah Jane’s gang who’re now somewhat versed in the kinds of excitement that can fall to Earth. She’s excellent companion material because her entire existence built on the five Ws, an exposition sponge who genuinely doesn’t know anything rather than seeming so for the benefit of the audience (even though that’s exactly what she’s for).

Sinead Michael is very good as Sky, catching the wild-eyed innocence of someone who's burst up to the age of twelve within the space of a couple of hours. She's very reminiscent of similar figures in all the kids dramas I grew up with in the 80s, even with a hint of the Why Don't Yous during the Davies era of that show. Some have already signalled their annoyance which seems a bit heartless given her limited screen time. Her rawness is part of her charm, surely?

It would have been nice to see how Sky might developed over the longer term with the Ranipedia as her big sister. When Trojan companion Katarina was fatefully brought in as a successor to Vicki and Susan on 60s Who as a change from those two futuristic girls it rapidly became apparent that because she was so lacking in understanding of the basic essentials of modern life that she was impossible to realistically write for. Everything had to be explained to her. Hopefully Sky will be a faster learner.

Sky's introductory story was a superior example of SJA, with pantomime villains, massive wars occurring elsewhere in the galaxy and the Chandras representing Earth’s bewildered if very human reaction. In my experience of having worked in a local authority call centre, there do seem two types of people. Those who’ll phone at the first hint of trouble and those who simply put everything down to being just one of those things, or that someone else has phoned already or just assume the council won’t do anything anyway.  Or is that four types?

Aptly, given Sarah Jane’s address, Sky was like a free jazz cover version of Delta and the Bannermen, but with a baby bio whose nature was to die and destroy a civilisation rather than save her own people simply by living. There’s also an inadvertent similarity with Melody Pond who was equally bred to kill and also aged through a comparable burst of energy which also saved poor Sinead from being covered in green splatter or some such.

Of the two episodes, the first was perhaps the more enjoyable simply because of the reactions of the regulars to the baby. For all the spin-off fiction written about Sarah Jane, only a single short story (Lily in this anthology) even hints that she might have a grandchild and so otherwise this is the first time we’ve seen Ms. Smith with a baby and quite rightly she’s not sure how to handle it. As I think has already been said, before Luke came along she’d not thought of having a family; now she’s fostering another one.

Ford’s writing of Clyde and Daniel Anthony neatly observed the difficulty of keep a baby happy, especially a baby you’ve suddenly been given the mission of keeping occupied and who you don’t really know. We always resort to humour though in my case it never works, so intimidating are my unfortunate features. Fortunately his mime routine was hilarious, even if jokes went over the poor little thing’s head. We all thought it was funny though. Russell. Ha!

Incidental pleasures also included Floella Benjamin giving her best performance as the familialy named Professor Rivers, now mildly channelling Lee Evans in Ford's co-written Planet of the Dead and Peter-Hugo Daly as the fan of The Archers turning what could have been a one note character into a tour-de-force, a Pigbin Josh for a new generation. That’s something I will miss about The Sarah Jane Adventures, the layering it often gives to characters that other kids series might otherwise bland out or stereotype.

Then we have the sub-Rani (the other one) majesty of Miss Myers, another in SJA’s list of arch-milfers along with Mrs. Wormwood and Ruby White. As is usually the case with these villainesses, Christine Stephen-Daly gave it some real shoulder pad and was entirely in the spirit of the piece even if hers was not the kind of character for whom its entirely possible to communicate emotional depth, just one moment of vulnerability hinted at a motherly connection.

Researching that paragraph, I was astonished to learn that before appearing in most of the UK’s sort of soap operas like The Bill, Holby, Cutting It and Casualty, Stephen-Daly was in one of my favourite films, indeed the film about film school students which was one of the reasons I studied my post-grad in film, Love and Other Catastophes along with Radha Mitchell. That information’s by-the-by but it does give me a reason to watch that again, if only so I can try and spot her.

The climax was pure Classic Who, companions shutting down nuclear reactors without any technical knowledge whatsoever (I’d be worried if colour coded fuel rods really how it works especially given the lack of interest from other government authorities) and a stand off between the Sarah Jane and the villain. Notice that Sky has the choice as to whether she should fulfil her utility made for her. Before that moment hadn’t she decided to become a suicide bomber?

Whatever weighty themes that might suggest are probably unintentional but with The Sarah Jane Adventures we can never be sure.  What we can be sure of is that the final scene offered another example of the show looking to the future with a reappearance of The Shopkeeper, hinting perhaps at an arc plot that's now another loose end that may never be resolved.  In my imagination he's a renegade from The Trickster's lot in the same way the Doctor ran away from the Time Lords.  But now we'll never know. Sniff.

This was a strong opening for this short series and a great introduction to a new character.  Writer Phil Ford's work on the series has gone from strength to strength and his script for next week's episode looks like another belter on the Bannerman too (sorry) (I’ve been trying to work that since the start of writing this).  Just one more story after that and it's gone.  But we'll always be fond memories, which Sky has now added to.

“motif complexes” and “free floating narrative elements”

Books The Arden Shakespeare third series edition of The Taming of the Shrew offers two plays for the price of one. As well as the text printed in the First Folio edited to Arden’s usual standards, Appendix 3 features an unedited facsimile of The Taming of a Shrew, the anonymous play, often mentioned in critical studies but rarely published. It’s the ur-Hamlet or Hamlet Q1 of Shrew, a work which simultaneously aids and infuriates our understanding of the Folio text, and a prop which has recently helped the play’s feminist credentials as it eases into the modern world.

Perhaps recognising the weight of feminist criticism which already exists in relation to the play, Hodgson instead spends much the pagination investigating both plays as part of a tradition of Shrew narratives. Jan Harold Brunvand recently carried out a study of these tales (similar to Vladimir Propp’s classification of fairy tales) listing a wide range of “motif complexes” and “free floating narrative elements” of which The Shrew matches at least eleven, suggesting Shakespeare was calcifying a story which already had a strong oral tradition.

Like the Hamlet texts, critics have become very exercised over the years as to whether one is a rewrite of the other, the extent of Shakespeare’s involvement in A Shrew and the implications that in terms of attribution in contemporary written records. The mention in Henslow’s diary could relate to either play, which has implications when dating The Shrew whose writing has variously been put somewhere across over two decades, only recently having settled somewhere in the late 1880s thanks to textual similarities with the earlier histories.

As is often the case in this Arden third series, editor Barbara Hodgdon is reluctant to make sweeping decisions simply there isn’t enough evidence either way. The easy option is that it’s an earlier play, which a young Shakespeare still learning the ropes as a kind of script doctor gutted, improved and readied for his new company. There’s certainly enough textual similarities to suggest that. Another suggestion is that it’s an early play by Shakespeare which he later extensively rewrote. The rather more murkier idea is that it’s a memorial reconstruction.

But like the various iterations of Hamlet, the theatrical history of The Shrew is intertwined with A Shrew, because of the implications it has on the famous final scene in which the shrew, Katherina, apparently does an unheralded about face and falls in line withthe tamer, Petruccio. For some feminists that makes the play as misogynistic as The Merchant of Venice is anti-semetic and for decades has created fundamental issues for some directors and actors on how to portray that speech as part of the character’s logical trajectory.

Which is where A Shrew comes in. The Shrew’s folio edition already includes an “induction” in which a drunk, Christopher Sly is tricked into believing himself nobility and The Shrew becomes a theatrical fantasy being performed for him after his indiscretions with a hostess. A Shrew extends Sly’s contribution across the play, the drunk and attendant lords commenting on the action, the final scene giving way to a coda that concludes this parallel narrative, the Pyramus and Thisbe conceit from A Midsummer Night’s Dream spread across a whole play.

These framing scenes are now often included in modern productions, in effect of nullifying Katherina’s about face as the fantasies of Sly or at least the slightly nefarious writer of this play within a play. This has the effect of, as Guardian critic Michael Billington suggests, transforming “(a brutally sexist polemic) totally offensive to our age and society” into “just a play”. You could also argue that it ruins the verisimilitude of the characters but since Shakespeare’s characters perennially address the audience, that’s less of a concern than it might be.

But in illuminating these issues, Hodgdon underlines that Shakespeare’s plays, far from being static entities, become transformed through interpretation and that even The Shrew which has received acres of negative criticism across the years, can become a feminist symbol and even critical of the male psyche depending on the staging. What Shakespeare himself was implying we’ll never know, but considering his facility with writing strong female roles (including Katherina for the most part), thanks to the induction, it seems to be men who are the butt of this joke.

The Taming of the Shrew (Arden Shakespeare. Third Series). Edited by Barbara Hodgdon. Methuen Drama. 2010. RRP: £9.99. ISBN: 978-1903436936. Review copy supplied.

“Go on, tell me your theory!”

“Do we think next week's big reveal will be that the Doctor was a ganger all along? I confess I'd be a tad disappointed if so as I thought that from the beginning and I'd like to be proved wrong.”
“God I bloody hope not. That would be weak. Only Miracle Day would be worse. I do have a theory about all the eye-patches ....”
“Go on, tell me your theory!”
“The eye patches are way for people to see The Silents somehow.”
“Oh now that /is/ good. Eye patches to see the Silents. Definitely I can get behind that.”

TV  Looks like Moffat got behind it too. Hello. That’s an exchange from some emails I’ve been swapping with a friend this past couple of weeks (I know! Emails! Like it’s the early noughies!). She’s speaking (typing?) first above and was somewhat correct about it being some sort of shape-changer that explains the Doctor’s lack of mortality, but the metal option instead of the Flesh. The eye-patches were my guess after seeing the front cover of the Radio Times and the Doctor with his Andrew Ridgeley hair wearing one. Unless he’d gone evil, i thought, it had to be a handy device of some sort. That and cunning tribute to dear Nicholas Courtney.

The Brig is dead. Long live the Brig. Moffat’s killed the Brig. Everyone dies, of course, and within the story it is Alistair helping his friend one last time, from beyond the grave, reminding him of his own potential mortality. It’s a sweet scene, beautifully acted by Matt in one of those moments when we can see the weight of the Time Lord’s years on his shoulders. Lived too long and all that.  This being Doctor Who, what's to stop Eleventh skipping back to before his friend died and having a chat?  He knows Churchill died.  He's still friends with him.  The Brig is dead. Long live the Brig.

As the past three and a half stand-alone episodes flew by, two elements of the pre-publicity indicated that Steven Moffat had something of a challenge ahead. Firstly, the first forty-five minute timeslot for a finale. Secondly, the photography of the beardy Doctor and Churchill. Not only was the man going to have to tie-up all of those loose ends, he was apparently creating a whole bunch of others. How was he going to cope? Firstly, by not explaining everything. Secondly, by once again packing in so much detail, that there was barely a moment for us to stop and think. This is where the budget for the past four episodes went.

Apart from everything considered below (seriously, your screen is about to be drenched in over-analysis) (find an umbrella), this was one of the best directed of the season, with Jeremy Webb matching Toby Haynes's lustrous work from the opening few episodes. The final push in through the Testicle's eye to the Doctor dancing recalls the magic of silent cinema and if some of the green screen work doesn't quite convince (around Lake Silencio and at the top of the pyramid) thanks to the magic of high definition television, it's that HD which makes this approximate something made on a vast Hollywood budget.

It’s customary now for Moffat to reveals the new status quo and then explain how the Doctor and his friends got into what’s usually a fine mess. The time imprinting on itself is one of the wildest and even if it is more interested in the visuals than anything approaching logical progression, my assumption being that whatever is left of the web of time is, similar to the survivors in The Waters of Mars, consolidating what is there so that it made sense (unlike Torchwood's End of Days when such time intrusions were incongruous). Not sure why you’d need clocks if there’s no such things as time, though, other than because the narrative required it.

As we wait to see which other authors than Dickens might fall down BBC Breakfast's plug hole (Timelash’s HG Wells would have been apt) we're confronted by another of Moffat’s flashback structures, as The Wedding of River Song becomes a clip show full of scenes we haven’t seen yet. This could have created problems up front because although the change in history was exciting and well executed and all of that, it means that the episode becomes pinioned on exposition rather than an emotional journey. The Doctor is telling us and Ian McNiece (who’s given up pretensions to properly mimicking Churchill) about stuff which has already happened.

Moffat counteracts that by creating tension in between by having the pair chased by The Silents, and mimicking the audiences reaction to the Doctor’s filling in of the narrative gaps by showing them experiencing similar. He also sends the Doctor on another one of his quests around the universe filled with brief encounters with unusual people, references to companions of the recent past that sound weird coming out of this later Doctor’s mouth, poignant death and inserting as many jokes as possible at the expense of poor Dorium’s severed head. Some people create whole planets seeking questions. Others ask craniums in boxes.

During all of this, I couldn’t help but watch the counter on my PVR counting upwards, time slipping away. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and all the while we’re still not anywhere near the character whose name is in the title and we’re still catching up with whatever the Doctor’s been doing between episodes and the events leading up to the trip to America. That was, distracting, clearly, and my own fault and I’m sure stopped me from becoming as involved in the episode as I should.  That's the problem with series with complex mythology.  A lot of waiting involved.  We're the fans who waited.

"Isn’t he rushing this?" I wondered. There’s a two episode version of The Wedding of River Song, with the Doctor’s quest in the first half and the frozen time in the second, a two episode version which might have mimicked The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang rather too much but would at least have given us a moment’s breather. But why should we have those anyway when the thing’s designed to be watched and watched again allowing us to savour every moment? As Moffat himself says, the first broadcast of anything is merely a publication date these days.

Luckily Amy in a business suit wearing an eye-patch broke the reverie which admittedly set me off in a whole other direction which I don’t think we need to go into here. The episode turns from being the Doctor dragging us through his adventure to the Doctor being dragged through the adventure by Amy. A business suited Amy wearing an eye-patch. “Hello Amy.” “Hello.” “I like your business suit.” “Thank you Stuart. Do you like my eyepatch?” “Is it made of metal?” “It has electronics.” “I like electronics.” “What else do you like?” “I …” I’m sorry, what was I saying? Oh yes, exposition, no emotional journey. We’re back on the emotional journey.

How old are the Ponds supposed to be now and where does this version fit in with the pair we saw last week, Amy a cosmetics model?  Never mind River Song, their linearity is all over the place now too.  There have been plenty of references to the three having travelled for "so long" so unlike the Davies years, they're no longer adhering to calender years.  But their reunions are always special and like The God Complex harked back to The Eleventh Hour with Amy drawing her memories.  Nothing of her family though it seems.  Remember how tethered Terran families used to be in nuWho?  This is quite a change.

It’s in this section that Moffat reveals how much faith he has in his audience and how often we deny him. How many times have you read online these past few weeks that the writer had lost it because Amy seemed to accept the loss of her baby too readily? Her revenge demonstrated that the Doctor’s influence doesn’t always halt a character’s moral ambiguity (as we’ve also seen with Captain Jack). Will this become an issue of the Ponds reappear or will it simply be put down to the alternative Amy having developed a slightly different personality, albeit with all the same memories? The closing scene keeps that question hanging.

Neat reference to the many deaths of Rory, though as Moffat I think pointed out in an interview he's only really properly died once in cold blood in Cold Blood.  Another parallel with The Pandorica Opens but with Rory unable to remember Amy this time, rather than the other way around.  This Radio Times interview also reminds us that he's never had an action figure, which is odd considering last season Rory was briefly made of plastic and dressed a Roman Centurian which should have made him a prime candidate.  He's had his face scanned.  I second his campaign.  Centurian Rory limited edition by next Christmas please.

There’s also his daughter’s hasty marriage, another example, like River’s parentage, of Moffat deliberately not flouting our expectations and carrying on with whatever he’d been hinting, marrying and then killing the good man (almost). In these scenes Alex Kingston neatly captures a River in transition, still experiencing some of Melody’s psychosis but also utterly in love with Doctor. Not quite matured and contrasted nicely by the older version who pops in at that climax to see Amy, now well versed with the none-linearity of their family ties (explaining also why River paused in A Good Man Goes To War, remembering to say Rory, instead of simply, Dad).

Yet the character still doesn’t feel parked. Her diary is filled with pages covered with adventures, and although we know who she is now, it's unlikely this will be the last we see of her. She’s the Brigadier, Iris Wildthyme and indeed Captain Jack of the Moffat era, popping into the Doctor’s story when he needs a hand or simply being infuriated. We still don’t know the details of her incarceration. If she’s so good with that lipstick she can run a train through the pyramids with the agreement of Cleopatra, how and why did she let herself be captured? To suit causality? Her attempt to save the Doctor leading to the destruction of the time having taught her a valuable lesson?

She’ll be back even if we’ll never really know what goes on in the evenings. The climax resembles The Parting of the Ways, a kiss saving a companion (at least on an personal level) and the universe, also continuing the love conquers all theme of this series becoming literally all. Is employ the Testicle a cop out after all that build up? I’m not sure. In the vein of so much else in this past couple of series, when we rewatch episodes again, it’ll be with a different understanding of events and it’ll certainly lessen the impact of watching the Doctor being shot in The Impossible Astronaut and make Amy’s cries seem all the more cruel.

But it isn’t a deus ex machina, it is the Doctor taking advantage of what’s available to cheat death, or at the very least give the web of time (and in that moment The Silents etc) what it craves. It is also another example of the Moffat time paradox formula, of the Doctor utilising iinformation about his own future, in order to create that future. But that’s the brilliance of Moffat’s scripts. It prompts these questions, as in Let’s Kill Hitler, about narrative construction and plausibility.  Nevertheless, it’d be nice to see something new in the next series, for the story arc not to be about that.

As with last year, questions are left hanging, and in this case the one question which has been so fundamental to the series, it’s in the title and again, not shocking anyone in its content. I don’t think. Doctor who? Spin-off writers have offered their own answers, with talks of looms and The Other and whatnot even producing alternative origins when required, but Moffat’s having none of that. Time can be rewritten and he has become a good man going to war against the Cartmel Masterplan. Dare he really offer the answer, the ultimate answer? Given that the next series begins next autumn and may finish in 2013, the Doctor’s 50th, he might just. Ooh.

Season Six has been another vintage year and another which  has taken risks with the format. The gap in the middle was a brave move but one which, thanks to the experimental nature of this back six has paid off. The Doctor’s Wife was the stand out episode, with the Curse of the Black Spot the disappointment, but none of them have been awful, even that had Amy dressed as a pirate. “Hello Amy. I like your sword … I …” Sorry, again. It’s going to be hellish long Who free year through to next autumn (barring Christmas) with no more Sarah Jane and Torchwood looking doubtful. I might have to resort to watching K9. Checks Amazon. How much?

(he's a Christian, she's a Muslim)

Books Another act of publication charity, the Arden Early Modern Drama’s edition of Philip Massinger’s The Renegado sees the play housed alone for the first time since 1939 (according to the publication history at the back), the previous two most recent appearances a collected works in 1976 and as part of anthology of “Three Turk Plays” in 2000. It’s also a play which lacks a performance history without any revivals since the English Civil War apart from a Read Not Dead reading at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2003. If ever there was an example of why Arden’s work is so important it’s this.

As editor Michael Neill indicates, the play's obscurity is surprising considering the resonance it would have to contemporary audiences. In Tunisia, Vitalli a Venetian gentleman disguised a merchant is searching for his lost sister Paulina, whom he believes has been captured by the pirate Grimaldi, the renegade of the title, and then sold on to a local harem. While the harem owner wrestles with his lust for Paulina, a local princess falls for Vitelli and after their forbidden love is discovered (he's a Christian, she's a Muslim), they’re imprisoned and only the harem owner can save them all.

That’s an over simplification of what is a complex mediation not just on the nature of belief but also how Jacobian Britain was viewing the Muslim world, Massinger commenting on the orientalism of his contemporaries by adding to a list of what would later be termed “Turk” plays set in Turkey and the surrounding area, but tweaking expectations slightly by injecting the kind of tragicomic elements inspired by the work of his sometime collaborator John Fletcher (who also worked with Shakespeare latterly in his career).

As illustrated by the engravings taken from some of the books that may have been Massinger’s sources of the play interspersed throughout the introduction, this is very much the period when contemporary understanding of the Muslim world was of “them” being “bonded”, and “us” being “free”. But the playwright tellingly includes a Jesuit character, and in a positive manner, which would have been provocative at a time when anti-Catholicism was clouding King James’s decision to secure a Spanish match for his son, indicating that religious oppression took many forms.

In explaining all of this (and much more), Neill shows what can happen when an editor feels less tethered to what’s previously been written and unlike so many Shakespeare editors who sometimes become apologists for their new theory. After about five years of research (according to his preface) you can see the words bursting from him like John Peel or Lester Bangs unearthing a lost musical classic. This is as much advocacy as criticism as he demonstrates that in this case obscurity and mediocrity are not interchangeable.

The Renegado (Arden Early Modern Drama). Edited by Michael Neill. Methuen Drama. 2010. RRP: £10.99. ISBN: 978-1904271611. Review copy supplied.

actually this isn't a show for the kiddlywinkles

TV And you thought I'd forgotten.  Back we go to 2006, when Torchwood was still shiny and new and offered a Cardiff full of possibilities and I wasn't trying to over-think every review.   It's surprisingly positive again, even though Day One has a litany of problems, not least that the main peril and all the deaths were as a result of Gwen's clumsiness which is hardly the greatest foundation when building audience empathy for a character. Rees still lives also, even if Miracle Day knocked all sense out of him.

Like second albums, the second episode of any serial is always tricky, since it needs to stand shoulder to shoulder with the hopefully high quality opening, consolidating the style of the show without that opener's probable high budget and not be a disappointment. Arguably Doctor Who only hit its stride in its second story (which works for both the old and new series) whereas something like say I don't know, Buffy, spluttered out The Witch, a body swap episode which still seems like a bizarre choice all of these years later. Torchwood's Day One mostly worked although certainly didn't benefit from being in a double bill with Everything Changes. I wonder how many people were still getting over that climax as the meteorite was plunging into Cardiff.

Despite appearances, I'm really not sure how 'stock' (to use a word I picked up from a documentary about Metallica) the whole 'sex crazed alien possesses human because the orgasm is addictive' actually is. What it did manage is to demonstrate that actually this isn't a show for the kiddlywinkles - the explosive coitus scene in the toilet and the subsequent hilarious riff on onanism are probably the filthiest seen so far in the Doctor Who universe - and you thought Jabe calling Rose a hooker in so many words or Jackie accusing The Doctor of grooming her in a chatroom was wild. No dancing around the subject here -- expect at least one of the tabloids to nickname the show Touchwood tomorrow. I can imagine some would suggest all of these things are fairly gratuitous, especially later when said alien seduces Gwen, but so what? There's no reason that science fiction shouldn't take a metrosexual attitude to this stuff, rimming the edges of taste and decency. The key here was making the possessee a pretty ordinary girl and present the two new sides of her personality fighting it out for supremacy of her body (all every metaphoric) - immediately creating some sympathy for her rather than just titillation.

Again, Gwen was at the centre of the episode and in the companion role of asking many, many questions. For some reason this seems less invisible than nu-Who although understandable in character context - she's a police officer and so naturally asks many questions. But it's good that they're willing to let her make mistakes and all the apologizing for releasing the alien seemed absolutely right. Cleverly too, the ratio between her Torchwood life and the time she spent outside was almost the complete inverse of that in the 'pilot' demonstrating how much of her time this new job in 'special ops' will take. My only problem with Chris Chibnall's script was that it seemed too quick at times to go for the laugh, although I loved all of the stuff related to Gwen researching the life of this girl she wanted to save. And at the end, answering the question which had been nagging throughout - what will her role be in Torchwood. Her interaction with the other characters was well executed too, particularly with Jack.

It's good to see him developing shades to his character. I think a fair comparison would be Batman, the essentially good man who doesn't quite understand sometimes that his methods aren't always ethical. He's still the same man that faced up to the Daleks, but there's a weariness to him. If he can't die, how long has it been for him since The Parting of the Ways? And why did he go from apparently caring for humanity to this? I love that despite his vulnerability he does have a weakness - I think it's going to be that he never seems to be able to find answers to why all of these things keep happening to him - The Doctor's hand being his only real link to his old life - much like the TARDIS console for Pertwee.

Of the other characters Owen's cock sure and a touch undimensional at the moment (he reminds me a bit of Danny from Hustle) and neither Toshiko or Ianto have been given enough to create definition yet, although I'm really surprised and pleased that the former has such a central role - she was certainly one of the three good things about Aliens of London. I'm imagining that the series will go the route of placing each character at the centre of a story throughout the series so they'll all get their chance. I fear however, that Gwen's boyfriend isn't long for the Whoniverse. Although RTD said that he'd never kill off a Rose because Doctor Who is essentially optimistic, Torchwood doesn't have that 'all life is important' edge. The dustpile count at the sperm clinic shows that there will be many victimfull crimes and Mickey Mark Two is just too nice and loveable to survive.

I forgot to mention The Hub, an amazing piece of design, so unlike the expected gleaming metal and fiber-glass, presumably contrasting Torchwood One on purpose. I can't wait for the expected moment when the railways is back in action as the team head up to Scotland, to see the weird guy (The Brig?). Its geography isn't entirely clear at times though - perhaps this is intentionally - it means that new rooms can be bolted on when needs be. The problem with that approach is revealed during action sequences - such as the fight scene between Jack and the girl, the proximity of the exit wasn't clear and neither was the depth of security. It really is a prop fest though - there are more bits of the last two series of Who here than at the exhibition on the Wirral. Has anyone noticed any bits of Auton?

I seem to have drifted from reviewing the episode which I'm sure is another byproduct of this being part of the double bill. As I write this, first comments for both episodes are flying in and I'm really surprised at how balanced the positives and negatives are. I really hadn't imagined fans would be this divided. But I really don't think that having these two episodes as a double bill helped either of them, especially with their tonal differences. This had a much slower pace - despite all the dashing around in cars and smashing into flats with guns - it was almost languid as long scenes explored the events and how some of the characters felt about them. The scene in which the staff speculated on Jack's origin was all good stuff and vitally reveals that conflict should ensue simply because they don't know who he is and actually what he's capable of.

The series needs to be careful about this though because no matter how enjoyable that dialogue is you need to keep forward momentum and it certainly shouldn't feel as though an action sequence is being thrown in because it hasn't happened for a while which is something most shows in this genre can be accused of. I think it got away with it simply because everything is so new, but as we become more accustomed to the characters and formula predictability factor will increase. Day One's surprises were far less potent than Everything Changes and I'd say we need at least one really good revelation per episode to keep us interested. Still a very strong second episode, well paced, devilishly sexy and funny - and importantly with heart. We cared about the fate of the girl because Gwen did - even if, perhaps, a little too much at times. It made for a great trailer ..

But see the whole thing was slightly marred by the bloody presentation from BBC Three. How big is their DOG/logo and why were they running it through this of all things? I mean it's not as huge as Five Life's but it's still pretty obtrusive, blocking whole heads and eyes chunks of Cardiff indiscriminately. I can't be the only one who was distracted by this thing. Oh and then there was the wonking great blue banner appearing at the end of the episode telling us what was on next just in case we'd missed the anouncer (apparently mainlining ritaline) or the buffers, spoiling the end of both episodes. And what was with knocking off the titles of the first episode and sticking them at the end of the second. Give us a breather! I barely had enough time to go for a bathroom break before the second episode had started. This is the first time most people would be seeing these things and I do wonder how many of the negative comments which have appeared on-line have been from people who've not been able to give it their full attention. Looks like I'll be recording it on Wednesday instead then.

PS. Amazingly, BBC Three's DOG is even more offensive now, the big neon pink abomination. At least it's in the corner of the widescreen rather than stuck somewhere in the middle.

instead of a big dark blur, we see a big bright blur

Art This lunch time I attended the press preview for the Abandon Normal Devices arts festival which is happening in Liverpool this weekend. Work commitments and other things will prevent me from attending anything so I couldn’t help but be disappointed that I won’t be able to see the Pigs Bladder Football (in which the sports implements are being cultivated organically) or the Primate Cinema in which is apparently a hospital drama designed especially for chimps and the dozens of other events which have been programmed.

What I was able to see was a preview of FACT Liverpool’s new show, run in conjunction with AND, and in particular installation artist Kurt Hentschlager’s ZEE 2008/2011 or ZEE for short. ZEE is, well ZEE’s um, to be honest ZEE’s almost impossible to describe without resorting to film references and cliché, apart from to say it’s one of the most exciting installations I’ve ever “seen”. Hentschlager favours “immersive and overwhelming experiences” which fits in well with the Abandon Normal Devices since in this case the normal devices abandoned are our senses, particularly our eyesight.

The pre-amble is pure Jurassic Park. Assuming the public iteration is similar, you’re first handed an information sheet which under normal circumstances might as well be described as a spoiler sheet which gives an impression of what ZEE will be like. We’re told that this is a gallery filled with fog, with zero visibility and a rope to keep us supported and orientated. The rope also has instructions for use. The general advice is to keep moving but there are also safety instructions on what to do in the case of an emergency, especially a personal emergency.

Which then leads to a disclaimer form with a list of disorders and diseases which discount entry to the space:

Photosensitive epilepsy
Asthma
Breathing of heart problems
Abnormal (high or low) Blood pressure
Migraine or headaches
Ear or eye diseases
Claustrophobia
Anxiety
And I am not pregnant.

As you can imagine by this stage I'm brimming with worry, fear, anxiety and genuine excitement, all of which are also printed on the faces of the press people in attendance. Even though we’ve been given a basic idea, there is still a genuine sense of curiosity about the fine mess we've gotten ourselves into. Seriously, if you want to visit and don’t want to have the process spoiled for you stop reading here because the movie references and clichés are about to start flying.

After the forms are signed we're led back into The Box screen were the original AND presentation took place for a further briefing and the creation of a register since during each session or visitation into the space the staff have to count us all in and count us back out again. Then Hentschlager himself also intones some further safety warnings in a manner that suggests he's something of a showman on the quiet, knowing that the best way to build up the tension is to give his audience every opportunity back out.  It works.  By now anxiety has turned to dread. I'm sitting with the palm of my hand over my mouth, my skin crawling.

The corridor at the side of the main space has been turned into a couple of white rooms or staging areas. In the first, the register is read out again, we agree that we’re all present again, and then we’re led into the next which is already filling up with the smog, though it resembles smoke more, as though the room next door is on fire. If this was Outbreak or some kind of space exploration piece this would be very much the decontamination chamber and the very last chance for us to walk away. But the temptation is too great. With this much build up, with all the forms, we have to know now whether any piece of art can live up to this hype.

The door opens and we’re led into main room which is filled with the fog and our hand is placed on the rope and told to walk forwards. Within seconds the world as we know it is gone, replaced by a white void. The 9/11 reference is inescapable, the moment in the streets of New York after the towers fell and the air was filled with dust, but also if we’re being less reductive, The Fog, The Mist, Silent Hill or the remake of The Fog. This initial sensation is similar to Gregor Schneider’s Kinderzimmer which was at the Whitworth in Manchester in 2009, but instead of a big dark blur, we see a big bright blur.

What I gather must be a light show then begins but this isn’t some pyrotechnic display. Somehow abstract images are being created by messing with the natural functions of our eyesight so that we effectively have a kaleidoscopic effect directly in the retina. It’s impossible to photograph because a machine can’t easily simulate the effect and the photograph in the gallery leaflet (see above) just looks like a scene from one of the aforementioned films with a street level weather pattern in the title.  Every now and then the ghostly figure of the person in front of me appears but they're turned into something other, frightening, in the chaos.

As I walk forward, my hands initially clasping the rope for dear life, the colours change, from one shade into a multitude, the full spectrum. I keep thinking about 2001: A Space Odyssey and wondered what Kubrick and Clarke would have made of what amounted to their stargate sequence turned into an "ultimate trip” (as the movie poster described it) which anyone (disclaimers accepted) could undergo. I imagine if a György Ligeti soundtrack had been applied with its monosyllabic minimalist chant the anxiety levels would have been even higher.  But the artist wants to calm us so simply offers a simple, almost imperceptible accompaniment.

The optimal length for a visit is apparently twelve minutes. I left after seven although it felt much longer, impossible as it was to time the circuits. Everyone in the group was smiling.  It was generally impossible to know what to say, so unlike anything else was the, yes, experience. Indeed the main topic of conversation was exactly how we would describe it, something I think I've entirely failed at here. If you are in Liverpool and don't suffer from any of those ailment and aren't pregnant, this is just something you're going to have to try for yourself.

Abandon Normal Devices is at FACT Liverpool until 27th November.

from tone meetings to read-throughs to the shooting process

TV You will have heard the news that Doctor Who Confidential has been axed by BBC3’s channel controller Zai Bennett as part of the BBC’s massive budget cuts as he concentrates on the post watershed slot at the expense of the early evening. It’s not that much of a surprise.  Confidential was always something of a luxury item. What other show has its own weekly spin-off documentary making of series with episodes the same length as its progenitor? The real surprise is that it was a Three commission in the first place and came out of that channel’s budget and that it could be axed on their say-so. Hay-ho.

Twinned with the kids show, Totally Doctor Who, a sort of specially themed Blue Peter, Confidential had a crucial role back in 2005 when the show returned to the screen. Then just half an hour, it not only gave an insight into the creative decision behind the return of the series, it also included sections dedicated to illuminating parts of the show’s history for younger viewers with clips and interviews with older Doctors, companions and creatives. The Doctor himself might have been circumspect about his past in the actual programme but that was front and centre in Confidential, giving the classic DVD a helpful sales boost.



For fans whose first inclination of the work which went into the making of Doctor Who was the book The Making of Doctor Who by Terrance Dicks, they must have looked on at this glut of information with envious eyes, amid their giddy absorption of the minutiae of modern television production, from tone meetings to read-throughs to the shooting process to the creation of digital special effects. This was a televised media course about our favourite franchise and in a few years there'll doubtless be many fans who go into television production simply because of Confidential.



As the show matured and gained an extra fifteen minutes, Confidential branched out from simply reporting the production of a given episode into exploring aspects of fandom itself, with Maggot from Goldie Lookin Chain showing us his toy collection and a crash course in Trok. The apogee of this approach was the episode twinned with Blink, which made up for the lack of David Tennant in the actual episode by having the actor interview the writers and other uberfans about the series, including a tour of television centre with Steven Moffat, both standing on the site of so many childhood dreams with misty-eyed nostalgia.



At no other time have the people listed in the credits of a television series gained quite so much media exposure.  Personalities like Ed Thomas, Neil Gorton, Phil Collinson, Julie Gardener, Louise Page and latterly Piers Wenger and Beth Willis as well as the two showrunners, the writers and directors all became as much a part of watching the show as the cast. When the show was originally on, few people outside of the hardcore fanbase or Doctor Who Magazine readers generally knew or even cared that Ray Cusick designed the Daleks or that Eric Saward was script editor.  Now we could see second assistant directors going about their business.



The focus has narrowed as time’s gone on, with much more footage of pre-production and shooting days rather than post. There’s little or nothing about music composition now, or editing (perhaps because of the generally tighter schedule) and plenty about the writing with even Neil Gaiman reading out scenes and deleted scenes from the TARDIS set. Confidential’s clearly become a fixture on set with cast members greeting them on mass as “Confidential” which can be quite charming as the lead time between interview and messing about in front of one camera and the process of dramedy on the other narrows.



But as the series has reached its fifth and sixth years, it’s obviously become more and more difficult to find new things to cover. The latest innovation A Day In The Life has been fascinating as we see what the caterers and focus pullers actually do, and the complexity of directing. Increasingly cast members and creatives have been taken on trips tangentially connected to the series as a way of adding context (notably to Venice for an episode shot in Croatia doubling as Venice) and a noticeable increase in the number of montages when Confidential possibly had less access than usual or the episode didn’t lend itself to a more thorough exploration.



It’ll be sad to see Confidential go especially in this transitional moment when new executive producers arrive. It will at least mean that the likes of Doctor Who Magazine regain their status as the primary way fans will gain a sense of the production of the series though a question mark now hangs over how the making-of element of box-sets will be handled and what will fill the gaps on the official website where off cuts and preview materials would be. Perhaps Confidential will continue in a different capacity, still around on set, but able to give their material more focus without a timeslot to fill. Either way, thanks for the memories, Zoe and everyone. Cue montage:

"an eclectic mix of cutural events"

Plug! An email from Creative Tourist about a new festival a few stops away on the train:

I wanted to let you know about The Manchester Weekender 14-16th October, organised by www.creativetourist.com, it’s an eclectic mix of cutural events: billed as 48 hours of art, culture, music, film, food, literature, walks, politics, poetry, photography, theatre, spectacle and games all wrapped up into a single weekend, it includes events as diverse as Jarvis Cocker ‘In Conversation’, a cultural fitness bootcamp, underground walking tours, several international critically acclaimed artists and numerous events, all over the city, for children and families.

You can find out more at http://www.creativetourist.com/the-manchester-weekender-2011.

I'll miss everything, of course, because I work at the weekend but I knew some of you would be interested.

some much needed panto

The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s most innovative of plays, both in structure and content. Unusually for a play of this period, the story is structured into two distinct sections, with the tragic action of the first three acts giving way to romance in the final two fitting perfectly into the two halves required in modern theatre presentation. The other is the inherent ambiguity of Hermione’s mortality with Shakespeare leaving it up to the reader or theatre company to decide whether Leontes’s wife dies, returns as a ghostly apparition and is then magically recreated via a statue Pygmalian-style at the end or if she lives, is squirrelled away only to return at the end and given the aspect of a statue so as to draw out Leontes understanding of what he lost.

As John Pitcher explains in his introduction to Arden third edition, as is typical with pre-contemporary critical reactions to such things, the general impression was that both of these elements were “failures” on the part of Shakespeare rather than artistic choices. Theories developed suggesting that he rewrote parts of it leading to inconsistencies of tone or mistakes (see also Bohemia having coast), or that someone else had a hand in it, actors or impresarios before its first publication in the Folio or that the great man just didn’t know what he was doing. In reality he was experimenting with form testing classical genre rules in his contemporary drama and leaving the motivations of his characters and explanations for parts of the action deliberately empty to increase audience interest.

The appearance of a bear at mid-point is an especially bizarre inclusion, even if as Pitcher notes it does introduce some much needed panto at one of the play’s darkest moments. It’s not inconceivable a real bear appeared at that point, but the editor suggests that this isn't simply the kind of act of frippery classical playwright Horace grumbled about when his work was disrupted in the middle by the unheralded inclusion of some boxers or bears to keep the less high-brow audience members happy. Shakespeare actually uses the word “bear” plus its derivations, rhymes and synonyms throughout the play to underscore the themes of birth, rebirth and endurance so the appearance of the animal also becomes an on stage visual reference to that.

All of which indicates The Winter’s Tale deserves to be produced more than it is. There are difficulties. The change of setting in the middle brings a whole new collection of characters and set requirements and although some doubling up can be done, it’s rarely done satisfactorily with such unlikely scenarios as the actress playing Hermione doubling up as her daughter Pardita messing up the mechanics of the final scene in which both characters are required on stage. There are plenty of songs, all printed in the appendices here with sheet music, and although they’re easily cuttable (deliberately so according to some critics) the tone of the Bohemian section loses some of its whimsy. There’s a lengthy scene in the middle of the play, Act 4 / Sc 4, which can become rather drawn out if not treated properly.

But as I saw in a rousing production at the RSC in 2009 and as Pitcher convincingly demonstrates with other exmples it can be done and was, even a few years after Shakespeare’s death. Then it was a very commercial play, pastorals being all the rage, which is one of the reasons the playwright challenged himself to write one. It’s only later that it fell out of fashion for many of the reasons already discussed (that bear!) only really finding favour again early in the last century. What the play could do with is an excellent new celluloid version (something Pitcher suggests he’ll discuss the medium then doesn’t – a rare error). Modern film is used to mixing genres, contrasting distant locales, showing lost children growing in an instant and would finally have magical the capacity to bring Hermione’s statue to life.

The Winter's Tale (Arden Shakespeare.Third Series). Edited by John Pitcher. Methuen Drama. 2010. RRP: £9.99. ISBN: 978-1903436356. Review copy supplied.

"a collection of holiday tunes"

Music Zooey and M (or She & Him) have an acoustic charity Christmas album out this year:

"A Very She & Him Christmas is a collection of holiday tunes from Zooey Deschanel (She) & M. Ward (Him). Inspired by seminal holiday albums by the likes of The Carpenters, Vince Guaraldi, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley and more, She & Him have set out to create an intimate holiday recording of Christmas classics that helps bring new emotions out of old songs."

The track selections don't stray anywhere outside expected norms, but this will do until Laura Marling decides to have go.

yes, as in the modern Bury St Edmunds

Arden’s Early Modern Drama series applies the scholarly approach they’ve brought so successfully to Shakespeare to a collection of plays published between the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, plays which may have influenced and been influenced by him. They recognise that an emphasis on Shakespeare in recent times has somewhat eclipsed other great works from that period and offer a chance to approach these texts in a form which has been analysed with Arden’s usual editorial zeal.

Everyman and Mankind, two anonymous miracle plays from the late 1400s, are perfect examples of that ethic. Neither plays has gone unpublished before but in each case the editors Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen (the latter co-author on the recent RSC Complete Works) have returned to the available copies of the texts only glancing at later interpretations when absolutely necessary. Though the spellings and punctuation have been modernised as per Arden’s usually editorial standards, both have the atmosphere of looking backwards into a forgotten time.

Both offer their only challenges. The only existing historic copy of Mankind is an incomplete manuscript held by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Pages are reproduced and to my untrained eye they’re in gobbledygook and to make matters worse the first of the two transcribers wrote in very tight lines so as to save paper. There are four quarto editions of The Summoning of Everyman (to give its full title) in existence but only two are relatively complete and of the others only fragments exist and all differ wildly in content, sometimes words, sometimes whole lines.

Given this is my first experience of either play, I can’t intelligently analyse the editorial choices though it's interesting to read that thanks to one of those fragments of Everyman, the Q2, having only recently having been discovered, they’ve used it in conjunction with Q1, to produce a brand new variant of the play, somewhat different to that seen in other editions which rely almost exclusively on Q3. That fits in well with the rest of Arden’s recent mission to fight against orthodoxy and offer an alternative.

But what of the plays? As was usually the case in pre-Reformation drama, they feature an archetypal figure experiencing some kind of symbolic trial explaining the ways of God to man. Mankind is tempted by the vices of New-Guise (the fashion), Nought (nothingness) and Nowadays (living for the moment) and ultimately seeks mercy from a character called Mercy for succumbing to their charms. Everyman is visited by Death (yes, the Death) and we witness their earthly belongings deserting them as they're ultimately tested for their worth and face the grave.

Mankind was as far as can be ascertained from the text, written and performed by the monks at the abbey of St Edmund in Bury (yes, as in the modern Bury St Edmunds) and toured within the South East region between King’s Lynn and Cambridge and may have been bankrolled by the ten nobles very specifically named in the text. Perhaps more interestingly, since it shows that English-language remakes are not a new phenomena, Everyman is a translation of a Dutch play, Elckerlijc, its satire blunted slightly to remove material critical of the Catholic faith.

Neither sounds particularly entertaining and in truth it’s impossible not to look at either of them without a certain detachment, especially if you’re the kind of person whose unlikely to draw solace from a story developed from the Book of Job just as Mankind is. We’re also used to symbolism, themes and allegory being buried deep within our dramedy, a characters we can somewhat identify with emotionally wrestling with the implications (thank to the reformation). Morality plays turn that notion inside and symbolism, themes and allegory are given character names.

But in parts they are incredibly funny. Mankind in particular was kept out of production for many years because of the lewdness of its language, one song in particular as scatological as a gross out film comedy, indeed more so because the participating audience is dragged into the mess. The writers understood, even at this early stage, that the best way to carry a message is through a mix of humour and drama and you can see the roots of how Shakespeare also would later include comedic scenes even in his blackest of tragedies.

The introduction is relatively short but that just reflects not only the brevity of the plays themselves – neither is much more than nine hundred lines each and feature continuous action – but also the relatively negligible critical and performance histories. Brusher and Rasmussen make light work of revealing how the medieval mind would approach both plays and what they might draw from the text. There are no deep psychological discussions of the characters since their characterisation is less important than the effects they might have on the audience.

Just as useful in production terms are the staging discussions in the back which attempt to define just how large a cast both plays would require. Anyone who’s seen the underrated film about a troop of medieval actors The Reckoning (starring Paul Bettany) might have some idea of the conditions in which these plays were produced but it’s fun to see the mechanics of how certain characters must have been doubled up simply because it means a performer would have to sit out much of the show which is hardly cost-effective.

Perhaps that’s one of the only frustrations of finally greeting these plays. The Shakespeare effect means that neither is readily available in a modern professional recording. I like to hear these words performed and I’m not sure I did Mankind justice reading it out to myself (I certainly lost much of the sense). There is a copy of the 1955 recording of Everyman featuring Burgess Meredith (as mentioned in the Arden introduction) available on Spotify (link) but the treatment of the text is ponderous with only a couple of the actors properly catching its satirical tone.

Either way, Arden Early Modern Drama’s Everyman and Mankind is an illuminating read and a reminder of just how much drama developed even in the hundred years leading up to Shakespeare’s birth. Plus its impossible, just now and then, not to wonder if he read these words himself. When in Everyman, Fellowship says “In faith, Everyman, farewell now at the end. / For you I will remember that parting is mourning”, it’s impossible not to hear Juliet’s line to her Romeo: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Everyman and Mankind (Arden Early Modern Drama). Edited by Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama. 2009. RRP: £10.99. ISBN: 978-1904271628. Review copy supplied.

darkness, death and drashigs

TV Lovely’s not really a word that’s often used to describe Doctor Who, largely because there’s rarely anything to describe as lovely what with all the darkness, death and drashigs, but it suits Gareth Roberts’s Closing Time perfectly so I’m going to use it. That was lovely. A love letter to the Russell T Davies era and the kind of welcome alternative that only Doctor Who could offer from the surrealist trilogy of the past few weeks, it seems designed for those viewers who’ve found themselves a bit alienated recently and much prefer the Doctor teaming up with his old friends to fight Cybermen. Lovely.

The problem with lovely things, of course, is that they can become dulled by too much analysis of the kind which usually clogs up this weekly column. At university I had to write an essay about whether Amelie “conformed to the standard conventions of femininity in film” with reference to “the psychoanalytical theories contained in Freud’s Oedipal complex” and “elements of Lacan’s theory of the mirror phase in the development of human sexuality” and I’ve not been able to watch it since because I discovered that far from offering a brew of female empowerment, she’ll still ended up only being fulfilled at the end by the love of a man. Now I’ve spoiled it for you too.

Let’s tread carefully then and try not to refer to anyone who does their best work when sitting next to someone lying on a couch. Pre-publicity including Gareth Roberts’s interviews have suggested this is the first stand-alone episode. It depends upon your definition. It fundamentally has a different plot to next week, but the reason for it's existence, the Doctor making a final domestic stop before confronting his demise in an unseen gap somewhere in the teaser for The Impossible Astronaut places it firmly in the main story arc for these two seasons. We’re at episode twenty-five of a twenty-six part story (give or take some specials). Plus there’s the final scene. Stand alone episodes aren’t what they used to be.

As though to echo his first adventure in this new iteration at the end of his life, the Davies episode Closing Time most resembles is Rose. Except when the shop worker enters the shadows to be menaced by an old monster this time, the Doctor’s not there to hold her hand and whisk her away, too busy reacquainting with Craig. Like Rose, the threat is secondary, a way of bringing the Doctor and his companion, sorry, partner, closer, then romance, now bromance, and like Rose, it’s up to the partner to save the day as the Doctor stands on hopelessly trapped within the arms of his adversary.

Which also means that like Rose, the highlight is the screwball, and as with its antecedent, The Lodger, that zinged. Much of the episode is about Craig’s Mindy dealing the Doctor’s Morkishness, the alien qualities which he now finds rather charming if a bit frustrating with all the baby talk (lovely) and the shadows which have crept into his deep-set eyes. With two hundred more years on him since they last met, this Doctor even seems to have a clearly understanding of humanity than his old friend and the best scenes are when the Time Lord is instructing the human on looking after his son or aiding in the investigation.

Like the Davies era, this is also an episode which freely embraces pop culture.  Does mentioning Star Trek rule out a crossover now?  Best not tell IDW who now have the rights to both and were probably planning a crossover comic as we watch, the crossover Davies himself dreamed of back in the days before Enterprise was cancelled and Trekkers didn't have to wait years for a new instalment.  The shoe is firmly placed on the other foot.  Enjoy too the gentle satire on the show's main ratings rivals on ITV back when the show was a summer series, the Doctor slightly more pleasant in his approach to the karaoke Sauron and his hoards than Marina Hyde.

Parenthood has been a strong running theme through this past couple of years, people without them, people becoming them, and once again it’s parental love which wins through just as it did a couple of weeks ago in Night Terrors. Not having been a parent, this will be one of those moments in which my experience will be different to others, not having heard the sound of my own child in distress. But I know from my own experience what your parents are capable of and how they’ve always been there for me. That’s not a conversation we’ve ever had. When did they learn how to be such good parents? When I first cried? I cried a lot when I was a baby apparently. Still do.

Roberts etc are quite ambiguous as to the nature of these Cybermen. The design suggests some more marooned Cybus industry models ala The Next Doctor but with breast plates largely blown out they could just as well be renovated Mondasians. But it’s the nature of the story that, like the Autons who weren’t even named in Rose, such exposition isn’t included. Apart from all the cybermat fun (who’s attack run was also similar to the severed hand of the shop dummy) they might as well have been any number of other monsters. Their final end is almost perfunctory, the Doctor recalling his methodology from The Age of Steel, a feedback of emotions, the new gold to the chest.

Now do you see what analysis does to an episode like this? Enough! What next? Right, the actors. Hate James Cordon as much as you like when he’s not acting, but he’s simply marvellous as Craig, the sort of character who’s quite rare in television Who, of the kind which seems to have wandered in from a Cold Feet-style comedy drama and probably has given the actor’s previous work in Fat Friends and Gavin & Stacey.  Even in the "pervert" scene (for want of a better description) he doesn't overplay the moment, caricature it.  For a brief moment we were back in one of Donna's misunderstandings and that's high praise indeed.

Linda Baron was in Fat Friends briefly too, but this franchise knows her best as Captain Wrack in that last couple of episodes of Enlightenment and the singer of The Last Chance Saloon in The Gunfighters. Glancing across her CV, she’s bestrode British television with appearances in most popular drama series, sometimes as a regular which accounts for why she fits so well in here. A woman who offered one of the campest performances of the eighties, doesn’t exactly dial it down here since hers is, if we must continue the Rose analogy, the Jackie Tyler role of cluelessly introducing a vital piece of information without quite realising it.

Matt carries his weariness well. How do you play a character who’s physically the same but a couple of centuries older than in his previous appearance. You sag your shoulders slightly, perhaps droop your eyelids a bit, offer a bit of forced jollity. This is the bedside confession to Amelia from The Big Bang stretched out across a whole episode and you can see the thought processes of a man who’s already resigned himself to his fate linking in seamlessly to the opening of this season, helped by the explanation of where the Doctor’s now iconic stetson came from. Older Eleventh Doctor has feet of clay but he retains his smile.

Clearly his best moment was when seeing Amy and Rory. Hiding back, trying to remain unseen, he somehow manages to make the character suddenly become very small, not least because not for the first time Pond is towering over him. Given her previous employment, it's just right that Amy should have become a cosmetics model with a brightly metafictional advertising slogan. There’s a running theme this series of episode titles turning up in the actual scripts, and here it is again in a knowingly modified form. But I’m analysing rather than reviewing again.  Is there a difference?  I'm beginning to wonder.  Sorry. I’ll stop.  Steve Hughes’s direction was proficient wasn’t it?

Oh sod, I can’t hold it in any longer. That final scene. THAT FINAL SCENE. Even if its surprise existence was rather ruined by the cast list in the Radio Times. The fact of River Song’s appearance in the astronaut suit is a shock to no one other than that it is actually River Song and that her confession that she killed “a good man” wasn’t a clever misdirect but for once actually the truth. As far as we can tell. Unless there’s another astronaut in the drink with her. You have to love Doctor Who’s ability to leap from a fairly straightforward domestic romp (stop it) straight back in the mythology with what amounts to a teaser for next week.

Stand alone or not, Closing Time is a brave choice for a penultimate episode, especially considering the sheer weight of mythology which is currently in a holding pattern. Funny when it needs to be, heartbreaking too, it’s a demonstration of just how carefully though through even the pacing of the season has been. The forums are already filling up with people criticising it for not being the epic lead in to the finale but sometimes drama needs to be unexpected, needs to try something weird just to stay fresh and Doctor Who’s no different and if you don’t realise that by now … well … you’re just not paying attention.

Next week: Two years plus worth of mythology tied up in forty-five minutes. No, this is where it gets complicated.