Exhibition: Reinventing a venue

My Body's an Exhibition
Wild Card: Christopher Matthews / formed view
Sadler's Wells, London • 25-26.Jun.21

Sadler's Wells was essentially turned inside out by London-based choreographer and artist Christopher Matthews, as visitors were taken on a journey through every corner of the venue, confronted by more than 20 works using video, sound, installation art and live performances. Matthews' cites Janet Jackson as inspiration (the title comes from her 2008 track Feedback). So the entire interactive experience plays on pop culture and the idea of cutting loose on a nightclub dance floor. It's a celebration of diversity, confronting lines we draw around gender, sexuality, ethnicity and style.

archive/photo/copy

Matthews' most uncanny trick here is to draw us into each setting as both spectator and participant, particularly with a clever use of space, light, music and snippets of voice recordings. While observing bodies in motion, we are encouraged to engage with our own senses and physicality, with Matthews getting us in the mood by calling us "sexy" and "hun" in the signage that directs us up and down stairs, through backstage doors and into the main performance spaces. Early on, archive/photo/copy is set out as a series of collages juxtaposing photos of body parts, taken from Sadler's Wells performance posters, an opening challenge to see physicality through new eyes.

My body's no.1

Among the installations is the short film Star Factory (top), which choreographs a group of women in a nightclub restroom as they make themselves ready for public consumption. Entering the Sadler's Wells stage from the back, we share the cavernous space with the world premiere of Matthews' My body's no.1, in which two male dancers gyrate atop plinths, balletically interacting in unexpected ways. It's a fascinating mixture of evocative imagery, from go-go dancers to statuary. 

Dance Triptych (1/3)

In the auditorium, the film Dance Triptych reveals Songhay Toldon performing on an empty stage in a remarkably expressive, free way - a performer euphorically cutting loose at a club. There are also two video pieces each by Fenia Kotsopoulou and Nasheeka Nedsreal, finding mesmerising ways to challenge the way we perceive gender, bodies and movement. 

#lads

Another live performance is #lads in the Lilian Baylis Studio, in which Matthews again deliberately queers masculinity as two people in tracksuits take turns striking arched poses on the floor, while the other takes photos on a phone or occasionally joins in, accompanied by a responsive sound mix. There's one other live performance, Quartet by Phoebe Berglund, which moves around the lobby space with playful synchronised choreography.

With this one-of-a-kind exhibition, Sadler's Wells is reinventing the way it can use its various spaces to explore deeper ideas about dance. And in allowing the audience to roam through the back hallways, dressing rooms and rehearsal studios, we also become more intimate with the venue and its history.

Critical Week: School daze

Well, Britain didn't reopen as planned on Monday, as the mishandling of new variants meant any lightening of regulations has been delayed. Thankfully, the accelerated vaccination programme seems to be making headway, so fingers crossed for any steps we can take back to normality. Cinemas, theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs particularly depend on this. In the meantime, big films are beginning to appear again, some with enormous press screenings. This past week's main offerings included the teen comedy-horror mashup Freaky, an uneven but witty concoction in which serial psycho Vince Vaughn swaps bodies with cute high schooler Kathryn Newton. And those vrooming speedsters were back on the Imax screen for F9 (aka Fast & Furious 9), which is an unusually joyless instalment in the saga but pushes the spectacle to new (ahem!) heights.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Supernova • I Carry You With Me
The Man Standing Next • Bare
ALL REVIEWS >

Smaller movies this week included Harvey Keitel as Lansky, a finely made but familiar biopic tracing the fascinating life of the notorious gangster. The intriguing but never quite provocative The God Committee stars Kelsey Grammer in a serious role, exploring the people who decide who receives an organ transplant, and who doesn't. From Spain, the silly animated romp Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds brings the 1980s 2D cartoon characters to 3D imagery, with mixed results. And the horror comedy Vicious Fun is a snappy and rather cartoonish play on horror movie tropes, centred around a film critic.

Coming up this next week I have Channing Tatum as George Washington in the action pastiche America: The Motion Picture, Timothy Spall in The Last Bus, the fantastical romance Jumbo and the shorts collection Upon Her Lips: Heartbeats. I'll also be heading to a West End theatre to finally catch Everybody's Talking About Jamie ahead of the movie adaptation in the autumn.

Stage: Music and comedy all summer long

Cabaret Lounge
Summer 2021 • Above the Stag, Vauxhall
For full listings, visit: CABARET LOUNGE

At the launch of the summer season at Above the Stag Theatre's Cabaret Lounge, attendees were treated to a delicious array of performances, a sampling of events to come over the next few months. The lounge is a glittering space (literally, glitter covers almost every surface, including the grand piano) that has a terrific sense of intimacy as the audience sits at tables with continuous service from a friendly bar staff, and the performers are close enough to almost touch, pandemic restrictions notwithstanding.

Performances at the launch represented a sampling of what's on offer, so check out the website for full details. They're listed here in the order they'll be taking over the stage...

With her powerful voice, Nicole Faraday (My Life in Song, 25th June) is adept at belting out big songs. And there's a honeyed quality that adds subtle texture at every step, especially when she delivers a number from her idol Karen Carpenter. Simply gorgeous. The launch event was hosted by the sparky, mischievous Ada Campe (Jollies, 26th June), whose fabulously funny personality is infectious. She's riotously enthusiastic, and skilfully dives into her nutty songs with an engaging cheekiness. And then there's Helen Anker (The Essence of Audrey, 27th June and 4th July), who brings Audrey Hepburn vividly to life. Her casually open-hearted storytelling is funny and riveting, as she shares anecdotes and trivia. Stories about making Roman Holiday are hilarious, and her stripped-back rendition of Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's is powerfully moving.

The lounge is programmed by Tim McArthur, a cabaret star in his own right, and he has a few nights of his own, taking to the stage in conversation with the likes of journalist Matt Cain (27th June) and iconic comic Helen Lederer (4th July). He's also hosting Secret Star (8th July), a wonderfully queer spin on The Masked Singer featuring West End stars in silly disguises. The engaging couple Chris Hamilton & Shimi Goodman (What a Time to Be Alive, 3rd July) are a pianist and actor-singer who delight in deconstructing pop songs into a range of random genres. And it helps that both are hugely talented, having a lot of optimistic, jaunty fun as they talk about their life together and their love of music. Sitting at a piano, Stefan Bednarczyk performs the songs of Noel Coward (10th July) with an easy authenticity, playfully getting into character to tell musical stories about unexpected romance.

Also at the piano, Ian Elmsie sings numbers from his musical Old Boyfriends (15th July), exploring deeper ideas about love. They're funny and romantic, and very involving. For a sassy change of pace Flat and the Curves (18th July) is a massively entertaining group of women who delight in performing hysterically rude songs. Their operatic ditty about porn is a deadpan delight. And their Abba-style song about how a visit to Ikea can devastate a relationship is priceless. With a mixture of performance art and old Hollywood glamour, Keith Ramsay (Eve: All About Her, 23rd July) offers fascinating, darkly meaningful music and storytelling. Haunted by the ghost of Judy Garland, he's utterly mesmerising. And finally, Rhys'Pieces (Queefy, 4th August) offers a stunningly original take on lip-synching, blurring genders as a hot muscle man dancing acrobatically in a skimpy leotard and thigh-high stilettos. His performances are full-on, seriously cool and evocative too. And his chatter in between numbers is charming.  

Meanwhile in the theatre space, CONTACT: STORIES OF DIVISION AND UNITY is a series of plays running through the summer exploring a range of buzzy topics like conversion therapy, social media shaming, first love and much more.

Critical Week: Put that thing down

As Britain enjoyed a sunny heatwave, we were clobbered with the news that pandemic restrictions won't be further lifted on 21st June as planned: we have another month to go before things will get back to a semblance of normality. Most things are open now with distancing regulations, which means that press screenings are few and far between (literally!). I only had one this week, a special celebrity packed screening of the sequel Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, introduced by the always lively Salma Hayek in person. The film is messier than the first one, too busy and distracted to really hold together, but it has quite a few hilarious moments along the way. Meanwhile, Disney is bypassing cinemas with Pixar's latest minor masterpiece Luca, a gorgeous story about friendship and the importance of diversity set on the sunny Italian coast (and under the seas around it). 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Luca • The Reason I Jump
It Must Be Heaven
Summer of 85
Truman & Tennessee
ALL REVIEWS >

The rest of the films I watched this week were an eclectic mix: Untitled Horror Movie is a computer-screen based comedy-thriller that's very well put together, with a terrific cast, but isn't very scary; from Brazil, Half Brother is a naturalistic, moving drama about two people finding themselves; and premiering at Tribeca Film Festival, Pray Away is a straightforward, expertly shot and edited doc about gay conversion therapy, as seen through the eyes of the people who ran those programmes and are now trying to make amends.

Finally, I revisited Stephen Frears' 1985 classic My Beautiful Laundrette, starring breakout young actor Daniel Day-Lewis. I'm hosting a conversion with the film's writer Hanif Kureishi on-stage before a screening of the film on Friday night at BFI Southbank as part of the London Indian Film Festival. It's a remarkably timely story about connections between communities, adeptly touching on ethnicity, culture, class and sexuality. And it's depictions of right-wing bigotry are eerily current.

Coming up this next week are the latest entry into the Fast & Furious franchise, F9: The Fast Saga, as well as Isabelle Huppert in Mama Weed, 1980s-set horror comedy Vicious Fun, the action thriller Unchained, the Argentine comedy thriller Rock Paper & Scissors and the Roma drama Carmen and Lola.

Stage: Dare to shine

Topsie Redfern’s Crystal Balls
by Sarah Chew & Nathan Kiley
dir Sarah Chew
music Connor Fogel
with Nathan Kiley, Connor Fogel
Above the Stag, Vauxhall 30.May.21 
Two Brewers, Clapham 28-30.Jul.21

With his own distinct style of drag, Nathan Kiley takes a remarkably moving look at his identity in this involving cabaret show. Not only does he shine as his colourful alter-ego Topsie Redfern, but he pointedly reveals the fact that Nathan and Topsie are actually one multi-faceted person, blurring the lines we have come to draw between drag artists and their backstage selves. So while the show is a little rough around the edges, and gets perhaps too pointed here and there, its open heart is in the right place. And Kiley has something important to say.

At the start, the lively and hilarious Topsie takes the stage alongside pianist Connor Fogel to sing a few songs and indulge in some goofy jokes. Both the music and the patter are packed with sharp references to the iconic musical Chicago, in which Kiley made his West End debut playing Mary Sunshine. And the story begins that will string everything together: about a crystal ball left to him by his grandmother, who went by the name Madame Olga and was a fortune-teller to the stars of her day, including some icons who have inspired Kiley as an LGBTQ+ artist.

Kiley makes running references to his shininess, his lifelong penchant for flamboyant showmanship which he says his father could never quite see. The set list is a terrific collection of silly songs, big numbers from musicals (including Mary Sunshine's A Little Bit of Good), an enormous-voiced operatic burst from Carmen, 1980s pop and an Irish folk song. The range of songs is remarkable, eclectic but never haphazard, and always accompanied by a meaningful connection. And as he recounts his quest to learn more about Madame Olga, Kiley veers off on observant sideroads to describe sparky stories from his childhood, adolescence and adult life. 

With his relaxed, chatty personality and endearing nervous energy, Kiley knowingly tells stories as both Nathan and Topsie, zeroing into the dualities he sees everywhere he looks. Astute observations abound, such as noting that Topsie's oversized charisma is a result of him compensating for feeling like an outsider as a young gay boy, or connecting the crystal ball with the drag art of reading people. Stories weave in many more ideas, always circling back to the idea of how perilous it feels to live in hiding, pointedly calling out racism, sexism and homophobia.

Over the course of the show, Topsie gives way to an unapologetically honest and bare Nathan, a gifted young man who realises the importance of engaging with himself and his past while pursuing his passions and finding love in the people around him. And he teaches us that shininess is a blessing, not a curse.

30.May.21

Critical Week: Rock the block

With summer weather finally arriving in Britain (we basically skipped spring this year), it's tricky for us to go back to the newly reopened cinemas or spend time outside in the sunshine. But it's been too long since we were able to watch movies! My screenings this week included In the Heights, the film of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical celebrating New York's Caribbean subculture. It's exuberant and fun, and has a terrific cast. But the songs felt a bit thin to me. And both Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are back for a third go-round with the supernatural in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, a genuinely creepy thriller about demonic possession based on a true story. That narrative is somewhat watered down by rather a lot of effective movie nonsense.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Sublet • The Father
The Dose • Ellie and Abbie
To the Ends of the Earth
ALL REVIEWS >

The British comedy-thriller School's Out Forever is a fresh but over-violent take on the genre, as teens go into military mode following a deadly pandemic. From Australia, Ellie & Abbie (and Abbie's Dead Aunt) is a charming romantic comedy about teen girls in love, with an added witty ghost. Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman's It Must Be Heaven is a serious charmer, a surreal trip from Nazareth to Paris to New York packed with witty and very pointed observations. From Japan, To the Ends of the Earth is an offbeat and very likeable odyssey for a confused young TV host on location in Uzbekistan. And the riveting Swedish documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World follows the life of actor Bjorn Andresen following his explosion onto the world scene in Visconti's Death in Venice.

This next week I have a screening of the sequel Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, plus review links to watch include Disney's animated adventure Luca, Willem Dafoe in Lansky, the spy thriller The Serpent and the comedy Untitled Horror Movie.

Critical Week: Let your colours burst

Pride month kicked off this week, and I had my first few LGBTQ+ movies to watch. Showing at San Francisco's Frameline, Being Thunder is a remarkable documentary about Sherente Harris (above), a two-spirited Native American teen from Rhode Island who is challenging artificial gender roles. It's a gorgeously observant film worth looking for. Offbeat indie comedy-drama The Carnivores takes a loose, skilfully improvised approach as it tells the story of two Texan women with dog and relationship issues. And from Chile, My Tender Matador stars the great Alfredo Castro as a crossdresser who befriends a revolutionary in the Pinochet-era. It's moving and beautifully thought-provoking.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Quiet Place Part II • After Love
My Tender Matador • The Carnivores
Undine • I Am Samuel • Gunda
PERHAPS AVOID:
Introducing Jodea • Gully
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Closer to the mainstream, Flashback is a swirly thriller starring Dylan O'Brien in his meatiest role yet, although the supernatural elements kind of blur everything. An edgy drama set in inner-city Los Angeles, Gully features another terrific role for Kelvin Harrison Jr, although the movie is too fragmented to ever come into proper focus. The micro-budget comedy Introducing Jodea has some charm as it tells a story in the movie industry, but the cast and crew reveal their inexperience. And finally, I indulged myself in Friends: The Reunion, a couple of hours of shameless nostalgia that felt a bit contrived and over-structured. It was fun to see these six iconic actors in their less orchestrated reactions and interactions. And the celebrity fans were fun (Gaga! Bieber!), although they highlighted a number of recurring cast members who were oddly missing.

Films to watch this coming week both in cinemas and on screener links include Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, Aussie romcom Ellie & Abbie (and Abbie's Dead Aunt), horror comedy School's Out Forever, Spanish romance Carmen and Lola and Hungarian drama Treasure City.