3rd Week on the Fringe

The riots subsided, and banality came back to the lives of us all. Phew, we thought. Back to the nine to fives, the weekly shops, the Libya conflict and the Murdoch affair. And back to Camden for more shows. On Monday I went to a play, or two plays in one, which was at 4:30 in the afternoon. Are you serious? Who's going to go to the theatre at 4:30 in the afternoon? Well actually a great many people, thanks to rising unemployment, perhaps.

So begins Frozen Moment, KU MA Showcase of New Work. That's a title that gets straight to the point, right. We had two plays, a lightly humorous school-based play and a heavy and dramatic domestic play. Review here. I left the theatre a bit dazed and went to Sainsbury's, as you do. "We apologise for delays at the checkout due to a high volume of customers. Thank you for shopping at Sainsbury's." Great. Didn't matter, I was still trying to work out what had happened in that play.

I had two days off, which I mostly spent reading Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci and Derrida's essay on Artaud, and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. All research for Thursday's show, Beings, a butoh dance. Hands down, most outrageously different show on the Fringe. The five audience members sat there gawping at this curious performance, review here. Nice people too, this butoh company. They talked to us for as long as they could. Went to a metal bar with Bella after that, and just about caught the last tube home.

The last show show of the week was more geek-comedy. Met Alex en route to the Theatre by chance, and happily abandoned her in the pub when the time came for the show. Needless to say, geeks are not for everyone. Rob Deb was an excellent geek though, review here. A pretty funny guy, self-deprecating as one must be when your past-times involve staring at a screen updating your collection of potions, and preparing to battle some wizard.

Got out of Camden early that night, back to the Marquis for Cinthya's leaving party. Before long though, Dave was puking in a bush and they both had to go. We weren't far behind. Went home, intended to go to a party but the enthusiasm slowly wained as the sofas became more confortable. Plenty of music though, and Adventure Time. In case you're wondering, Albert never showed up.

One more Fringe week remains.

Bel Ami: The Musical. White Bear theatre, Kennington. 28-July

The Nineteenth century's Parisian Belle Époque seen through the eyes of Guy de Maupassant, the author of the novel Bel Ami, has a dark side. Political scandals, debauchery, back-stabbing, and the odd token accordion. 'Blessed are the crafty,' as they say.

Appropriately enough, the theatre in the White Bear is the back room of the pub, so a certain inherent seediness is already present. We're led to our seats through a Parisian café-bar, our opening scene, the cast frozen as still as the furniture holding cigarettes and small French beers.

Into this world steps poor Georges Duroy, a man struggling to find his place in an intimidating Paris. With encouragement from a growing number of friends, all he can do is embrace this malicious bourgeoisie, and ride this wave of decadence to the top of society.

This tale of assent is carried with song, an array of compositions to meet every mood expressed, and a moustachioed waiter looking on with a wry grin, occasionally compelled to contribute the odd saxophone solo. From burlesque and back-room romps, to heartbreak and fear of death, the songs convey more than the dialogue, upon which the narrative merely floats. At each turn, Georges exploits the situation for his own ends, befriending powerful women whilst remaining childishly innocent and, without the story really forcing him, he nevertheless becomes more wicked as time goes on.

As a result, our hero can be slightly hard to understand, as are our seductive selection of Parisian beauties who all fall for him but remain equally scheming. It is the elderly characters, despairing over heartbreak and getting old, putting the trivialities of life into perspective, that relate to the audience the most.

Above all, however, this is an opportunity to indulge in the romantic past of a city bursting with character, to embrace a particular mood conveyed with elegant songs and absorbing choreography. Bel Ami - The Musical leaves aside more serious reflections into a society preoccupied with power, gossip and success, in favour of an overall atmosphere and an abundance of style.

Reflections on a 2nd week reviewing the Camden Fringe

There's not been much to talk about this week that hasn't involved 'wanton thuggish violence', the disorder of a feckless sick portion of our otherwise squeaky clean society. Yup, war reigns, bankers bank, Murdoch's still alive, Cameron's at the helm, energy prices rise, so do train fares. The bloody unemployed! They cause us such trouble.

Which reminds, I'm working for free, no income whatsoever, reviewing theatre. I'm am also a sponger, planning on pushing out a kid to double my benefits. Playin' the system, yeah that's me.

All that aside though, to be away from the 24hr rolling news, watching inflammatory rhetoric spill into my room, was needed this past week. The theatre, ladies and gentlemen, was the place to be. Of course I couldn't go if I didn't get free tickets.

Alas, I only had shows on Monday and Sunday. Monday, last Monday, the 8th: I got housemate-James on board and we went Central way. James had a mocha for the first time, 'twas a day packed with adventures like that. Walked from Oxford Street up up through Regents Park, big park, to Chalk Farm. Had some great chips in Chalk Farm and went to the Roundhouse to watch Stand-Up Comics. Review here. Marianne and, eventually, Alex, joined us. Pretty enjoyable show - sitcom through and through.

Went to the pub afterwards, where the news was on. And shit, things had kicked off. If you recall Monday night was the night of London's youth terrorise the communities aaaahh. Watched that over a couple of beers, excellent TV. Then headed home and watched it for most of the night on TV. Compelling television, these guys must have been behind it... They're so good at television. The aforementioned Chalk Farm soon enough had become a bomb-site war-zone. Pretty quiet in Brockley, all in all. Only the foxes roamed the streets, and the locals were reading Dickens by candlelight.

So uh, didn't do much theatre-wise until the next Sunday. On, I think it was, Thursday I worked out how to get my laptop to 'wake up' and automatically start playing Radio 4. This was one of many life-changing experiences of the past week. That and the home-cooked chips I made.

Oh, Thursday night. Pub crawl with the housedwellers. Fine times in Brockley, half a pint in each pub bound towards New Cross. Painted the town red, although it was already pretty red after the riots anyway. An extra coat is all we contributed.

On the way home I bust into a Sports Direct and nicked a ping-pong ball.

On Sunday Chris and I saw two plays. Princess, review here; and the First Supper, review .... .... .. here. Both were pretty good. Princess, heavy, intriguing, true story about a girl waiting for her husband-to-be to return after jilting her. Good use of sound. And The First Supper, really funny. Silly sketches, frozen peas.

And that was it. Two more weeks to go. Or as they say in French - deux more weeks to go.

Allons-y.

Small collection of riot-related material

NEEEENAAAAAWWWWW!!

examples of good writing about riot things sprouted up in the last week.

Right what have we got here? Everyone know what you're going to get in the mainstream press: empty condemnation, populist rhetoric etc. You might get a whiff of discussion in the Independent or Guardian about what could be some causes, but that's just the same shtick as usual, now being proven correct. Politicians and the majority of mainstream media depoliticise things like this or politicise it into rhetorical corners. Likewise the kids involved don't politicise it, they embody it, as James said. Social media, hailed as the lubricant of the Arab Spring, condemned as the lubricant of the "England Riots," contains not only impetus for collective action, but is also the most important opinions. People on the ground or at least closer to it than the stratospheric Conservatives or the media elite. Individuals and small collectives, a mess of eccentric discussion. Here's some tingz I've come across.

East London poet Raymond Antrobus has had a pretty creative blast with the riots, mediating sentiments and pictures. I found this articulate short essay by Anthony Anaxagorou on Raymond's blog. He fears not only the Right's response to the riots, but also the Left's. (As the Right wait earnestly to slam the Left's sympathetic mothering of looters, 'Britain's ethnic citizens' get caught in a sort of possessed middle-ground - "They're our vehicle for change!" "No, they're ours!"...)

And a poem by the guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqusuhaPeDQ

Someone commented on Anaxagorou's essay saying that the 'Black leadership' and thus community should not seek vengeance for the 'righteous kill' that was the shooting of Mark Duggan, a 'parasite and a blight to the Black community.' This reactionary mentality is prominent right now, and the appetite for looking beyond simple punishment/deterrent is low. Strangely enough, its George Osborne who says today that this is about more than police numbers, they're 'deep-seated issues'. What's more scary, the usual Tory lack of understanding with punitive moralising, or the usual Tory lack of understanding with a social rehabilitation programme?

One thing can stuck from Anaxagorou's message and the response was an exhaustion with the educated armchair lefties, who are always harping on about revolution but maybe found themselves asking where the police is on Monday night. A few days go by and the intellectuals come out of hiding and start writing articles to enforce a political agenda, or so the caricature goes. I may be in this group, may be not. I do like a mocha, it's true.

But: we also cant find jobs, we know how our 'overseas student' friends are treated, we've had the police squaring up to us at protests, we get treated like shit by the Jobcentre, the benefits people, with their ineptitude and scorn, we care when our libraries close and we notice when milk goes up 3p, even through we don't have milk in honey and ginger tea. It's been a monumental time to be a student, as the political laboratory has revolved around the university, the distinction between labour and learning. So, with a highly relevant position, after all, the University for Strategic Optimism's Dr. Sofia Himmelblau writes a very popular and much debated article, lambasting the divisive tactics of the post-riot self-righteous, which mark line between citizens and non-citizens and opportunistically exploit it while the media are onside.

Dan Taylor, on it before most, wrote a typically insightful commentary on the politics of riots, after standing by an increasingly battered Currys in New Cross. Poverty, discrimination, police violence and boredom on the one side, contempt on the other:

White middle-class pundits pass judgement. I want a fuckin satnav: young and old, men and women, a community comes together in looting. Big society? We’re all in it together, so hand me that toaster.

Keeping with white middle-class pundits for a moment, William Wall, Irish writer, came up with a small article linking the riots directly to neoliberal theory. This day has been coming. The state functions to '[facilitate] the accumulation of wealth.' Cue privatisation, the 'looting of the public sphere,' and increasing wealth divides. Here we don't have citizens and non-citizens, a la Dr. Himmelblau but consumers and, I'd add, non-consumers.

Meanwhile, back to the street. One man conveys some very apt sentiments. 'This is not a movement, this is a cry for help,' says he. And one frustrated woman laments the kids inability to understand what they're doing and act in a more appropriate way. "If we're fighting for a cause let's fight for a fucking cause!"

Sorry I don't know how to embed videos.

Darcus Howe, not shocked, calls it an insurrection, talking to a pretty bewildered and patronising BBC Newswoman. Which beings us to the media's gesturing, and the 'neutral' BBC, who's own particular social position has been exposed, speaking as they have for the appalled middle-classes.

Also on the BBC, a report about one man, a pharmacist, who, like many other unfortunate people, have had their shops looted. In that pity voice the reporter adopts for stories you are meant to feel bad for (picked from from voice-cupboard for such occasions as: plight in Africa, Japan explosion, Haiti earthquake, Thailand tsunami, New Orleans hurricane, and now = hapless shopkeeper) we are told that his 'livelihood' has been wrecked. All his stock is gone, his windows are smashed. His family business, over. Hold on, it's fucking Boots!

Stories of the Reeves furniture store are few and far between, which we can be grateful for. But at the same time, family businesses are also few and far between. And the banks aren't lending so we can't expect much more. Most places are wealth-accumulator-factories run by fat-cat capitalists, as John Hutnyk would put it.

John has had an ongoing commentary on the riots, particularly in sections of 11 notes. He covers a lot of stuff. Political agendas, wealth divides, police behaviour, media reportage, and more about insurrections:

Cut through this phantasmal comedy and it’s illusions of civic responsibility, morality and myths of political representation – contemporary Capital is nothing less than theft and plunder and should be hounded into the annals of history.

So I'll refrain from having my own rant, there are plenty out there put far more forcefully, cleverly and poetically than I could.

But, briefly: our society rewards greed. Success = financial success. To 'achieve' is to have money. To have money is to be able to 'get what you want'. Lots of kids went out and did just that. And they've been rewarded with world-wide fame. Where social mobility is inhibited and opportunities are low, this is some achievement. To try to understand what brought about these riots is not to excuse it. The myopic reaction that simply condemns is a sign that those in power are scared about what we might find if we do try to understand. It's far simpler to make it all about kids in tracksuits. It's recognisable, it's safe. Kids in tracksuits have given us grief since we were kids, now they're world famous, and we hate them.

So out come the racist jokes, the ill-thought-out petitions, the political empty gesturing, the reactionary righteousness of a country which has learnt to think about things with Murdoch and the Daily Mail as tutors.

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Update: A bunch more links of stuff from Yu-Mei's pleasant little blog

http://blog.toomanythoughts.org/2011/08/linkdump-perspectives-on-london-riots.html

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key words of the week, from all sides of a debate which everyone apart from looters is allowed to have.

looting

wanton

orgy of violence

sick

pockets

insurrection

lack of identity

lack of respect

opportunism

copycat

bad parenting

cuts

youth centres

community

society

education

police brutality

not enough police brutality

politicians return from holiday

excuses

reasons

game-changer

mindless thuggery

victims

perpetrators

benefits

black people

fire!

water cannon

martial law

copycat

moralising

causes

normal life.

Reviewing reviewing

Reflections on a week of Camden Fringe.

It's fringe month! The world amass in one place: the media flock, industry collides with culture, the whole city is a stage. Well, yeah that's Edinburgh Fringe. How about Camden?

A couple of weeks ago I managed to steal the opportunity to review the Camden fringe. Four shows a week, or thereabouts, all free. Offbeat theatre, tiny stages in pub backrooms, curious comedy, one man shows, and my routine of arbitrarily selected performances to get myself to and comment upon. And no payment, such is the climate.

Bring it on, I thought. The summer is a hole in existence. Everyone has their head in books, or staring at walls making logical constructs, or working (some people do that too). I am condemned to a cruel freedom. Cafe-hopping, reading philosophy with no academic purpose, like in the olden days. And not even a rejection for the jobs I suck-up to. No mail for you today sir, says the postman as I peer into my mailbox.

So to be at Camden by Six p.m. on the Monday, I could just walk from home, which is down Brockley way. Make a day of it. But do you remember the weather that day? Monday to Wednesday: heatwave. So I went to Charing Cross, walked from there. Still a hefty, heated walk.

First show, stand-up comedy. Now I haven't been to much stand-up, especially of the club/pub variety. Ricky Gervais in a massive theatre, it's another world. Even so, somewhere in the depths of my being is a sense of humour, deep deep down. It was James W. Smith, exploring the comic potential of language. Review here.

I sat there alone, amongst giggling groups with pints of beer. Going to a comedy show alone has a certain feel to it. I felt thoroughly professional. Afterwards I got another drink and made some notes on a bench outside. 'Twas a pleasant eve, weather-wise, and Camden was a-buzzin'. And this is where it differs from Edinburgh: the small smattering of people who had been in the audience were gone, somewhere else; I sat on the bench as was joined by a builder, from North somewhere, here on building business, a traveller by heart, tried marriage - can't do it. Camden, full of life, but same as usual - this is not "Fringe Town". The Camden Fringe is a subtler affair, almost subcultural.

The next day I was free, apart from a Nyx meeting. Nyx 6, the Monster edition is coming along nicely, keep your eyes peeled. And this may just rear it's monstrous head.

Wednesday, back to Camden. Another long walk, another theatre above a pub. Ah, but a delightful show - The Shoemaker's Wonderful Wife, highlight of my fringe thus far. Review here. I happily descended the stairs afterwards, following, not stalking, a girl who was also alone. Was she a reviewer like me?

"What did you think?" I asked when we got to the bar.

"Oh, no thanks, I'm fine," she replied.

"Uh, no I mean, er, what did you think . . . of the show?"

"Oh yeah, really good. I know someone in it."

I case you hadn't guessed, she must have thought I'd said "Do you want a drink?" Great, rejected when I wasn't even trying.

We chatted a bit and I missioned on, that reviews not gonna right itself.

Then no plays till Saturday, I relaxed. My dad visited. Cue Chinese restaurant, Holiday Inn, quite bad breakfast and free Independent newspaper, another meal out, and I'm back in Camden for Saturday's shows. Two this time.

At Mornington Crescent I waited for Chris, "Be there in 5," says the message. What am I to make of this? 20 Minutes till the show starts, five minutes to get there, and Chris' notorious punctuality. I waited 15 minutes, sent directions on a text, and bounded round to the Sheephaven Bay, just in time to grab a beer.

All these shows start a bit late, so Chris squeezed in having only missed a couple of minutes. It was poetry. And it was OK. Review here.

Not a long show, but maybe that's OK. We went out and got a beer. Chris and his Wind-up pal Billy moved on and I went and got some chicken wings. It rained. There was a rainbow. Came back and got a whiskey for the next show. This theatre is literally a conservatory. And not exactly soundproof either. So, under difficult circumstances we had a pretty mediocre show. Review here.

Afterwards I chatted for a couple of hours to a girl from Singapore, student of York Uni and periodical Londoner, and had more whiskeys. With the chairs on the tables throughout the pub, like some barren forest, we were finally chucked out. So it wasn't the best night, performance-wise, but was saved by the good company.

Another week on the fringe awaits. With London's suburbs erupting, this could get messy.

Bad wisdom - aphorism 21

"The moment is a black hole, towards which the whole of history collapses."