Sunday 11 June 2017

Review of A Clockwork Orange (performed by The Actor's Wheel) at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth, June 10th, 2017

The moment the lights went up on this show last night, I said to my friend Mark 'I will not be able to write a review for this; I simply will not do it justice'. To prove myself wrong, here is the review I said I could not do. It was simply a genius piece of acting from all involved that I felt could not go unmentioned.


I may not know how to start a review in a way which does justice to its subject, but when deciding how to open this adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, director Kevin Johnson has hit the nail squarely on the head.
From out of the darkness comes a chorus of the versatile and pervasive question ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’ which returns countless times throughout to remind a viewer of the power of every choice the main character, Alex, makes. This opening is haunting, not just audibly through its canonical repetition, but through the use of light – another device which is used to spectacular effect throughout – which mimics Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. At first, I feared this performance may be too heavily reliant on song, turning Burgess’s masterpiece into a modern-day Sweeney Todd, but as the initial dance sequence wanes, the old recognisable moloko bar comes into focus, and our ‘humble narrator’ steps forward to begin his tale. What follows is an inventively choreographed amalgam of ballet, street dance, traditional theatre, and a mind-blowing utilisation of the stage.

Much like at Stratford-upon-Avon’s RSC Theatre, moveable boxes are employed to mimic walls, beds, and benches, but The Actor’s Wheel take this technique to another level. These boxes become cars, with the addition of ‘street-lights’ and ‘bridges’ (handheld torches and boxes) being passed overhead; they become plinths on which items stand to signify different locations, from the minimalist home of Professor Alexander and his wife, to the rich glamour of the Cat Lady’s abode. But most remarkably of all, they are climbed over and through and around, carried and slept in by Alex as he is stripped and examined and subjected to the processes of life in prison and the correctional facility. And where boxes will not suffice, the cast become props themselves, moving Alex through the space with often complex manoeuvres. Picture frames also play a significant role, illustrating the media presence, as scenes are often visibly ‘framed’ to be reported or printed for mass consumption, or the authorial presence, as Alex is ‘framed’ for his crime, the picture frame transformed into a set of handcuffs.

Yet, none of this would’ve been quite as affecting, firstly, without the contrasting medley of classical music and ‘grime’ (to quote Kevin Johnson) which gives each scene its character and provides the soundtrack to Alex’s life. Certain actions and scenes indeed benefit from and work with the music to give them added power, so that every punch, kick, and sexual thrust becomes a violent work of art, occasionally dealt in slow motion in homage to Stanley Kubrik’s film adaptation. This marriage of sound and vision all leads to the final scene of the first half. Already frightening as a tableau of illuminated cables raying out from a restrained Alex, screaming and gagging with his eyes held wide open, this scene strikes the nerves still further thanks to the strength of the orchestral music used in his torturous conditioning.

Central to this, of course, is Ashton Corbin, who has fully immersed himself in the character of Alex. The necessary depiction of his suffering affected me deeply due to its sustained realism, the mob violence, perpetual gagging, and quiet sobbing evincing sympathy for a character who is indeed a victim of social conditioning and the lack of free will in the societal system. Corbin balances this with a rough boyish swagger expressed in such a realistic fashion, and the ‘nadsat’ mentality and lingo which trips from his tongue like a native language so that, by the end of the night, I was blurry-eyed with reluctance to see his contented upturned face disappear as the lights went down.


A viewer may struggle to keep up with who is who as the demands of a large cast assign actors several roles, but the same personality is rarely seen in the same actor twice. Their unique chemistry with Alex helps differentiate the various roles, particularly in the case of Millicent Flavin whose fragile mentality as Alex’s mother never once trespasses into the quietly professional Dr Branom. Plus, the incorporation of sexual and political humour into several interactions, and the casual manner of Alex’s interspersed narration, prevents this from becoming an entirely serious, on-edge performance. For the virgin viewer of anything related to A Clockwork Orange, this rendition by The Actor’s Wheel most assuredly stays true to its source material, giving the occasional wink to Kubrik in the process, and thus provides the comprehensible best of both worlds. 

Sunday 4 June 2017

A Review of 'Beans and Other Poems' by Mark Jones

I was given this quirky little collection of poetry to read by my friend and fellow Plymouth poet, Mark Jones, to whom I promised I would write a review. I hope I can do it justice.


Before even passing the cover, any reader can take a guess at what they're in for: a bizarre blend of poems which refuses to take mundane topics seriously, and having been labelled 'surrealist', it's little wonder why. Perusing through this pick 'n' mix of poetry, you are greeted with something different with every turn of the page, from the comically blunt and witty to the absurdly self-expository. It is, admittedly, a bit hit-and-miss as to whether you get Jones's obscure concepts - 'Love in the form of croquet balls' may be something we'll never quite understand - but his word choices are often some of the most fitting you'll ever encounter. 'Terror at 10:27pm' provides you with 'nasal ambulance calls', while the titular 'Beans' recreates the humble can of beans as erupting with 'volcano juice'. 
He deals with things we, as humble humans, encounter on an almost everyday basis - aside from sultana siblings and robot tomatoes, maybe. Food, if you couldn't already guess by the title, is a notably dominant theme in this volume, presented in often spasmodically rhymed stanzas. This does let down a few of the poems by interrupting the apparently uniform rhyme scheme, while other times a cheeky forced rhyme pushes things back into recognisable form, evident in poems like 'Seagull' and the unexpectedly witty 'Power Danger' ('Ranger Danger' maybe?) 
One thing a reader will soon become aware of, however, is that Mark Jones has instated himself as the King of the deprecatingly terse sentence, reducing the versatile burger to an 'Artery clogging/Weight gainer' and the loathsome seagull to a 'High flying shitter'. He's certainly not messing around. With wit-laced gems like 'Save the Eggs for Later' and 'Spoonsmith', this man's unexpected humour is one to look out for. A little awkward, but full of confidence – and certainly better received than the flatulence one might expect from consuming this volume’s namesake.

To anyone wishing to check out more from Mark Jones, you can follow this link to his Facebook page, Jonesthepoet.

Friday 2 June 2017

A Timid Tongue in Budapest

Came back from a trip with the University's History department to Budapest on May 27th and wrote this 3 days later in response. The lemonades were possibly the best I'd ever had, the currency is in those ridiculously huge notations, and I am still surprised so many places speak English.

Feels like an ordinary city,
a flight that goes for ninety minutes 
lands you on common ground.
In the darkness,
one street to the next is familiar,
a Tesco glaring its beacon of homely light
in what you must keep telling yourself
is a foreign night.
And soon, buildings rise up,
rustic and molded,
unchanging in the morning sun,
so you come to realise you are in fact
'somewhere else'.
Tables spill out onto pavements,
tongues spill out the language of goulash -
but also more fish and chips than you expected.
There is a clear market for your
hard-earned ridiculous currency
in eating with the locals,
from a menu labeling the Hungarian specialties 
which you never manage to try,
sold by a waiter whose tongue is braver than yours.
There is a clear market for your
hard-earned ridiculous currency
in trinkets, resplendent with gem stones,
unpriced to build up attachment to what translates
to a twenty-quid bracelet -
this wrinkled vendor knows 
your girlfriend's expensive taste better than you.
Pretty soon you must abstain or starve.
Away you go, to the open plazas punctuated by
historical full stops on horseback,
and more Gothic facades than a nineteenth century estate agent.
There is no escaping the past here
in a city occupying a perilous position of reluctant modernity,
such that few buildings dwarf you to any great height
and drivers won't stop for a red light.
You wander in amazement,
knowing these walls didn't survive the war,
the aged lost to a gruesome recollection of the Holocaust
in a monochrome TV set.
Their hand touches your shoulder
as you sip fruit-laced artisan lemonades,
wishing they were this good back home -
even wishing this was home.
But your tongue is not brave enough,
even to catch your bilingual waiter's attention
so he can part you with more cash
and set you free into this isolated colourful war-zone.

Thursday 1 June 2017

Always, Forever, Eternally

I haven't got any updated material from university to add here so I thought I'd just throw an old piece of poetry your way. I cannot remember when or why I wrote this one, but I still like it, even after 2 years. 


Ever and always we find ourselves wanting
What can’t and never will be;
Forever wishing with our religion
What can’t, will be, just for us.
In loneliness we pray death resurrect,
Can’t and refuse to be alone;
In fear we beseech war make peace,
That what destroys can rebuild again.
Ever and always we hide in dark places
Away from what is and now will be;
The scars forever burn in memory

Of what will now always be.