April 18, 2009
Orgiastic
After returning from the Isle of Wight, the remainder of the Easter weekend was pretty relaxed, with a bit of socialising and a bit of movie catching up.
At the cinema, Let the Right One In was a satisfyingly unfamiliar take on the well-worn tropes of vampirism, chilly, humane and occasionally quite nasty, well worth seeing though done no favours by the blanket hype that has accompanied its theatrical release here. Do not wait for the slated Hollywood remake, which cannot possibly be anything other than a dismal travesty.
At home, meanwhile, I finally got around to watching Frank Darabont's Stephen King adaptation The Mist, a near-perfect small town horror that builds to a fabulously bleak finish; and Wanted, a trashy, fast-paced comics adaptation that manages to be bad in more ways than you could ever imagine.
And, of course, it was Doctor Who time, David Tennant and Russell T Davies working out their notice in the first of four specials. This was entertaining but flimsy, involving a random bus trip to the desert, red berets, fly people, space-warping stingrays and a Lara Croft impersonator. Roll on the Moffat reign, even if he's saddled with a bloody teenager as the Doctor.
The main cultural event of the week, though, was Jan Fabre's Orgy of Tolerance at the QEH on Wednesday. The last time I saw Fabre was nearly two decades ago, also at the QEH, for the long and incredibly tedious Sweet Temptations. It was about 3 hours with no interval, I think -- although it's possible it just seemed that long -- and the steady clatter of people walking out began within the first 20 minutes and continued throughout. I stuck it out, but pretty much vowed never to see him again. Not that I've had the chance, as his company hasn't visited London since.
Well, a lot has happened in the intervening years and I have a lot more patience for this kind of wilfully avant garde performance nowadays, so when I saw that Fabre was finally showing here again I decided to give it another go. I'm very glad I did.
Very much in the physical theatre tradition of Pina Bausch et al, but with even less actual "dance", this was a loud, rambling, shouty, obscene, crass and often extremely funny assemblage of performances built around the ostensible unshockability of our laissez-faire consumerist society. There were songs, jokes, guns, bigotry, nudity and mind-numbing quantities of mimed masturbation -- honestly, you have never in your life seen so much wanking onstage. Some of the set-pieces worked better than others, and almost all of them -- clearly intentionally -- went on too long, but all in all it hung together surprisingly well, even managing to be a bit shocking in places.
Fuck all of you who just came to see us naked!
Today was sunny and lovely and I did a bit of wandering with a camera; some pics will be along in just a few minutes. Tomorrow looks set to be fine too. I love the spring.
Posted by matt at April 18, 2009 8:03 PM