Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And Streep

So I finally got the chance to see Mamma Mia the other night. It turned out to be the first part of a musical double header because as soon as it ended (not soon enough), I ran down to the new, fantastic Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield to see CSNY:Deja Vu, Neil Young's documentary on his 2006 Living with War tour with his old muckers, Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Mamma Mia.. Let's begin by saying that it's every bit as bad as you've heard. Badly written, barely directed, terrible sets - sure, the Greek island exteriors look amazing but anytime we're indoors, the lighting (to quote Antony Lane) would disgrace a bathroom and behind the actors, out the windows, you could see perfect blue skies that could only have been painted cardboard.

You probably know the story - 20 year old girl lives on the island with her mother (Meryl Streep) and is getting married. She wants to invite the father she never knew to her wedding but she's not sure who it might be so she takes a chance (chance-takea-chance-takea-takea- chance-chance) on 3 blokes that Meryl shacked up with 20 years ago. In 1988, presumably. The fact that the photos of each of the guys back then portray them as hippies and punk rockers goes unnoticed. The 3 lads arrive on the island not realising why they're there. Pierce Brosnan is a frustrated artist/architec type (I think he's an artist - he works in an office with men in suits but he wears jeans so he's definitely not a typical suit type. And he talks about 'drawing the whole island that summer' at one point), Colin Firth is an uptight city banker and Stellan Skarsgård is a sailor free-spirit type. They fumble around, meet their possible daughter and it all kicks off..

And boy does it kick off. No opportunity is missed to throw an ABBA song at every scene.. Which is fine - I love ABBA. So, when our bride-to-be is telling her 2 annoying, shrill, you really wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about inviting her possible fathers, they run around singing Honey Honey. When Meryl is complaining to her 2 annoying, shrill, you wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about her money worries, she runs around singsing Money Money Money. Are you getting it? When Colin Firth is telling the boys about that summer he spent with Meryl, he sings Our Last Summer. And on and on. And on. Oh - and on some more... All the way to Meryl singing The Winner Takes It All at Pierce Brosnan. At him, not to him. Meryl slips into some kind of method-acting madness as she delivers it - I'm guessing it's supposed to be the emotional highpoint of the piece. That's one way of putting it. Pierce looks at her with the tortured expression of a man who knows he's done a bad thing but if he stands still and says nothing, maybe nobody will notice.. Of course at that stage Pierce has already taken a shovel to SOS and the damage has all been done..

In fairness I like Pierce Brosnan and I enjoyed his doomed attempts at singing/shouting/grunting. At the best of times he can't really talk so expecting him to sing 'When All is Said and Done' is a bit much. I suppose it's predictable that I'd say the men come out of it far better than the women. They do, but that's not saying much. Colin Firth is Colin Firth except, I think, his character is gay. The film ends with him dancing in a rain shower with another man and they've both taken off their shirts. Definitely gay, so. Stellan Skarsgård tries his best to stay out of trouble until right at the end when Julie Walters decides she wants a bit of him and chases him around the room singing Take a Chance on Me. In the end Stellan gives in to Julie. But you get the impression that he's only doing it for a quiet life and he'll be on his boat and sailing as far away as possible come first light. We've all been there.

The woman, on the other hand, are just a shrieking mess.. Julie Walters is one of Meryl's mates and she does that annoying Julie Walters thing. You know the one.. I like Julie Walters but, God, she's annoying when she's on auto-pilot. And then there's Christine Baranski who, in fairness, can sing and can dance. The reason you know this is because while everyone else's song and dance scenes usually rapidly descend into some kind of schmozzle where everyone is falling on top of each other, with lots of cutaways to allow the actors to draw breath, Christine gets her own showpiece in the middle where she dances around the beach with a handsome, much younger chap who wants to 'carry on where they left off last night' Because she's so foxy, you see? He's dying for some more.. Seriously, have you seen Christine Baranski? She's a lovely woman, I'm sure and not unattractive in her day, but talk about an unlikely couple.. Anyway, she's very good at the old dancing and as they flew around the beach singing Does Your Mother Woman Know, I had to concede that at least she could sing so I could take my hands off my ears and enjoy her performance. Safe in the knowledge that Pierce and the girls would be back soon murder a few more classics..

Look, it's Mamma Mia. If you haven't seen it you probably don't want to.. If you have, you probably loved it. I didn't love it but I can't bring myself to say that I hated it either. As someone said, it's like going to your child's school play and realising that Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan are in your kid's class. And that nobody's in charge of anyone. It's cringey and hammy and really annoying at times but you know, it's not too long, the island looks nice and, most importantly, ABBA's songs are just indestructible. I mean, they've been subjected to some awful treatment at the hands of the cast but still they come out ok. A little bruised perhaps but they'll be fine!

Here's the best bits. You don't need anymore.



And then there was Deja Vu. So in 2006, Neil Young decides he's sick of the war, sick of George Bush and sick of waiting for someone younger to come along and write some protest songs and cause a bit of trouble. So he goes into the studio, knocks out a record of (it has to be said) fairly average songs including Living with War and Let's Impeach the President, and decides to tour with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Steven Stills to y'know promote peace or some shit..

They invite veteran reporter Mike Cerne, who served in Vietnam and reported from Iraq, along for the ride so that he can show us both sides of the argument as the band leave the comfort of the more liberal east coast and head towards the heartlands where the folks are quite happy with Bush and have no problem living with war. To its credit, the documentary doesn't shy away from showing the reaction of the crowd when CSNY start singing 'Let's Impeach The President' and encourage the audience to sing along. Needless to say there wasn't much peace, love or understanding in the room. It's all in there though and the protesters are given their opportunity to say what they think.. A nice bit of balance I suppose. Even if they're all a bunch of crazy gun-loving lunatics. Whoops - they're goes the balance!

It's a fascinating film. There's so much history between the band that their drama alone makes for a great story. Throw in the war footage and the accounts from various servicemen and women who've been in Iraq and it all adds up to a potent mixture. Sure, it loses its way in the second half but there's lots of ideas and opinions to take in and it's worth seeing if only for the moment when Steven Stills, who like David Crosby really isn't bearing up very well after 40 years of rock and roll, falls over on stage. He doesn't see the cables in all the light and tumbles over while the band play on. He just sits there playing - a bemused womble-like creature in a garish Hawaiian shirt.

Of course, being rock stars there's plenty of opportunity for them to muse on war and peace and generally spout hippie idealism.. At one point somebody talks about how once upon a time you expected to hear protest songs on the radio but now it's frowned upon to criticise governments. Would a song like Ohio get on the radio in 2008? Probably not. A good point for sure, and Neil Young's thoughts on whether a song can change anything suggest a bit of critical self-analysis. It turns out they can't but he's going to carry on anyway. Oh.

The only major clanger is when one of them (not sure which but I don't think it was Neil Young and Graham Nash hasn't lost his Manchester accent so let's assume it was Crosby or Stills) talks about how the band got together back when other guys their age were being sent to Vietnam. He says something along the lines of: "Y'know - it's crazy - we started at about the same time they were starting out and now 40 years later, we're all still going". Well maybe so lads, but I'm guessing the fellas in Vietnam have had a tougher time of getting through the last 40 years than CSNY ever did..

Still - it's a small complaint I suppose. There's nothing new in the film really and it doesn't come up with any new insights. It all boils down to - "War is hell, George Bush is bad but a lot of people are ok with it so what are you going to do?"

Sing and dance, I suppose.. It's what Meryl & Pierce would want..

Confused Men Today

Last week, The Irish Times were making a lot of hay out of their 'Men Today Poll', according to them, the most in-depth look into the health, wealth and sex lives of Irish men today.. Indeed.. I skipped most of it on the basis that I don't really care about the health and wealth of my fellow countrymen and I'm not really sure that you can get much out of these kinds of polls anyway apart from filling a lot of space in a broadsheet..

Anyway, I was killing time on Friday night and picked up a copy of the paper to read while I waited.. And the results of the poll were a little confusing.

Here's the first question about sex and morality:
Compared to 20 years ago, do you think that attitudes towards sex have changed?
Much more liberal 73%
A little more liberal 19%
Have not changed much 5%
A little more conservative 0%
Much more conservative 1% (wouldn't you love to know what this chap was getting up to in the '80s?!

Anyway, that's all fair enough and probably not very surprising. But the next question blew the whole thing wide open:

Do you personally think that it is:
A good thing: 51%
A bad thing: 25%
Neither: 25%

My question here is who are we talking to? Is that question directed at the 73% who thing things are a lot more liberal or the 1% who think that things are a lot more conservative? Surely this questions is redundant and tells us nothing.. As do the next handful of questions that all stem from the answer to the question that precedes it: If it's a good thing it's better for men or women; if it's a bad thing do you think it's worse for men or women etc..

So know we're 4 of 5 questions in to the most in-depth poll on what men think ever conducted in Ireland and we can only take information from one of the questions. And, let's be honest we already know the answer to that one.

Later on it asks whether or not people polled agreed that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting men.
17% agreed
50% disagreed
32% didn't know.

On its own, that's good information.. Then things got confusing with the next question which asked whether they agreed that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting women. I would've thought that the first question answered the second too. In other words, if 17% think the system is better for men and 32% don't know, doesn't that mean 51% think the system is better for woman? Nope it doesn't..

In actual fact the response to the comment that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting women got this response.
35% agreed
31% disagreed
34% didn't know.

How can that be? How could more people not know the answer to the second question that the first? What's the matter with these people? Am I missing something obvious here? And how come nobody asked me?

I know it seems like I'm nitpicking (hey - I never even mentioned the amount of percentages that don't add up to 100%) but if something is being heralded as lifting the lid on what modern Irishmen do and think then don't you agree that the information it reveals should be a little clearer?

Agree
Disagree
Don't Know
Other

Boring

We had the pleasure of babysitting a couple of youngsters at the weekend and in an attempt to provide them with some distraction from SpongeBob, X Factor, eating and generally knocking lumps out of each other, we took them to the fantastic ArtBots exhibition in the Science Gallery..

As you'd imagine, there was lots of cool stuff there to entertain/bore all the adults/children but I'm saying the highlights were: a little contraption that demonstrated how to transform light into sound using eggshells; a Jackson Pollock-inspired 'live painting' that splattered different colours on a canvas depending on the noise in the room - a high pitched squeal led to purple paint being tossed onto the artwork, a low murmur was orange, and so on; A hand held oval thing about the size of a teapot that tilted in your hands to tell you what direction you should walk in. You could instruct it from your laptop where you wanted to go and it would tilt you all the way there. That's what they said anyway. It's not like we could really test it.

But for sheer amusement and relatability (because, as interesting as most of the stuff was, some of it just didn't make practical sense to a lot of punters - or to this punter anyway) the best thing at ArtBots was a robot that could solve a Rubek's Cube in less than a half minute or so. You'd take the cube, mix it up as much as you want and hand it to the robot. The robot picked it up, looked at each side and then solved it. The longest it took was 31 seconds. The fastest was about 10.

We stood and watched it with the kids for about 5 minutes during which time it must have done the puzzle 4 or 5 times. At the end, we asked one of them what she thought of it. Her only comment? "I thought the cube was going to bigger".

Seriously, who'd have them?!

No comment required

Exposures

More Fringe activity yesterday.. We went into town to take part in Exposures, a sort of photographic treasure hunt around the streets of Temple Bar..

It started at 1.30 at the Box Office where we were given an orange envelope and told to go around the corner where we'd receive more information. When we got there we were met by a woman dressed in old clothes and covered in sparkling, silver body paint. She spoke to Helen for a moment about the old days and the crazy things they got up to in the past. It seemed that we were playing a character who used to rule Dublin but had been chased out of the city. We were given a bunch of photographs with writing on them and a disposable camera and we were told we'd 2 hours to complete the task. Our job was to go around the city taking photographs to match the words on the pictures. So one picture said something like:'Tonight's the night, let's take a walk on the wild side'. Another said: 'Be careful - he's in disguise. He could be anyone'. So we had to imagine things around town that we could photograph which might match up to the text. And all of it is some attempt to put together the pieces of who we were in a former life.

I know it all sounds a bit odd but it was terrific. Once you accepted that there was no right or wrong answer and the whole thing was really just an excuse to take some pictures and get creative, it all fell made more sense. Part of the instructions were written on letterheads and business cards. The idea was you'd go to a business where someone would give yo a clue as to what your past was. So for instance, there was a card for a barbers shop that said we had to go there to meet Terrence. We got there and the barber sat Helen sat in the chair and went off to find Terrence. Suddenly a guy who was sitting in the salon reading a newspaper jumped up, ran over to us and told us that we needed to go before they found us. He gave us a clue (which said 'show us where you hid the body') and ran us out of the shop. All of this happened while other punters sat there waiting to have their hair cut. So then we had to go and take a picture of where we might have hid a body in Temple Bar. Ridiculous and a bit strange but, again, if you let yourself fall into it, it was a great laugh. They're were more instructions like that. We went into the ifi where a girl came over to us, told su we shouldn't have come and led us out through a back door. She stuck another piece of paper in our hand that said 'Show us a childhood memory' so off we went to take a picture of some kind of imagined memory from the city.

I don't know if I'm making Exposures sound good or not. But it was. I should say that the reason we were taking photos is that lots of people will be doing the same thing and at the end of the Festival there'll be an exhibition of all the photographs. So basically, there'll be lots of different versions of the same story. Dozens of photographic interpretations of instructions like 'We're at the point of no return' and 'show us where you lost your mind'.

When we finished the task, we brought our camera to another silvery chap in Meeting House Square. He told us to open our orange envelope which contained a jigsaw piece with writing on it and to take it to local pub where everything would become clear. So off we went to the pub where we found a bunch of people with the jigsaw on the table. We added our piece to the puzzle and read what we could of all the pieces but of course, none of it made sense. It was more stuff about how 'once we ruled the streets but after that fateful night we were chased through the park and nobody could tell if the sounds we made were screams or laughter'.

Now I know it all sounds a bit arty and a bit amateur drama and, I suppose in a sense, it was. But as I've said before, it's the Fringe Festival. It's where people with a bit of an idea and some silver paint can get out on the street and make something happen. You might think it's a bit strange and it certainly isn't theatre as we know it but everyday, normal punters are getting out on the streets, being shouted at in hair salons and cinema foyers, imagining a different world and taking pictures of what they've seen. And if that isn't theatre or art I don't know what is.

The exhibition is next weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done. Maybe we'll find out what it all means but I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

No pressure, Theo

I couldn't sleep this morning so I cane downstairs and found myself watching BBC's repeat of last night's Match of the Day. When I was a kid I was a big football fan but I don't ever get to watch much football anymore so it was a bit of a treat to catch some highlights. One of the featured games was Arsenal victory against Blackburn.

In the aftermath of Theo Walcott's 3 goals for England during the week, Hansen and Linekar were assessing the teenager's performance. He didn't score yesterday and he didn't score in his previous game against Newcastle (I just checked - he was on the bench and came on after 72 minutes). Anyway, Hansen was banging on about how spectacular Walcott is and what a great talent and hope for England and blah blah blah...

At one point he said something like 'We talked about him after the Fulham game (I checked - Arsenal lost to Fulham on August 23rd) and questioned whether or not he was good enough for this level but since then he's gone from strength to strength'

Strength to strength? He's played 2 and a bit games since Alan Hansen was saying he wasn't good enough and now he's England's saviour? I assume if he doesn't score for a couple of games he'll be rubbish again. It's tough at the top.

What ever happened to lying and cheating?

There's an ad on the radio at the moment for an insurance company or a bank that promises great rates or dividends to whoever takes up their latest offer. At the end of the ad, the voiceover tell us: 'Trust me, you don't want to miss this offer'.

Trust you? A stranger's voice on a radio ad selling insurance? Sure - where do I sign?

Has you noticed that suddenly everybody wants to be trusted? In an attempt to display some kind of authority, we've all started adding 'Trust Me' to the beginning of sentences/ Some recent examples I've heard..

'Trust me - you'll love the new Batman film'
'Trust me - I know what funny is'
'Trust me - you can totally get away with that shirt'

It's not what they're saying that annoys me - if someone wants to recommend a film, that's fine. But this trust thing is getting out of hand.. You're giving me an opinion but don't start thinking that sticking 'Trust Me' at the start of a sentence makes me feel any more or less inclined to believe you. It's come right on the back of everybody's need for full transparency and honesty with all things. There was a time people were happy to take others at face value. Now, most of us can't get through a sentence without reminding us that they're not telling any porkies. And it's not as if they're revealing anything interesting about themselves:

'Well, I was going to go to Batman tonight, but to be honest, I went to Mamma Mia instead'

'To be honest, I'm going to drink vodka tonight'

'I'm just not sure what I want to order, to be honest'

Sometimes people get it right though. Here's something that a colleague said to me the other day: 'I told my husband I'd visit his parents at the weekend but, to be honest, I can't stand his mother's cooking so I'm going to pretend to be sick.'

There you go - that's more like it. There's a scenario with an expected outcome but I was being let in on a lie that others aren't aware of. So there's a need for a bit of honesty there. Well done her.. Although, at the same time, she should be ashamed of herself! I mean how ban can his mother's cooking be?

I dunno really what my point is. Except that I'd like everybody to give up all the pointless trusting and honesty. Cos it's driving me crazy. To be honest.

Round She Goes

As I said earlier, I went to see Round She Goes, featuring the delightful Amy G and her equally delightful double bass player John, tonight in the Bosco Theatre. And what an odd thing it was.

Amy spent most of the show skating around the stage singing and playing a ukelele while her deadpan bassist watched from the side adding occasional vocals and frequent nods and gestures to proceedings. I've read that she was one of the highlights of La Clique at last year's Festival so she came back this year with her own show in a much smaller venue literally in the shadow of the more glamourous Spiegeltent. So while she was performing her show, the audience could hear all the noise and whooping from the show she used to be in 50 yards away. To say it was distracting is a bit of an understatement. At times it was hard to hear what was going on in fornt of us with all the noise from next door. Still, as she told us, she's not bitter.. Better to be a big fish in a small pond and all that.

But here's the problem with small theatre spaces. When you're seeing someone performing a show at such close quarters, it's hard not to cringe for them. It's the same feeling people sometimes get at the theatre. You're reminded of the ludicrousness of what you're watching. Sure - at the big shows like La Clique, the crowd are pumped up and ready to applaud pretty much anything but in a smaller venue, the audience is a lot more reserved and the performer has to work extra hard to get a reaction. I'm not complaining about the audience - after all I was in it so I'm as much to blame as anyone else, but it seems the closer you are to the act the more distant you become. And that must be dispiriting for someone trying to sing and tell jokes and generally engage a crowd.

Saying that, there comes a point that you've got to put away your cringe factor and just enjoy the performance for what it is. I mean, the songs weren't great, and the comedy wasn't anything special but she had talent, energy and she showed a lot of determination in front of a pretty quiet bunch of punters.. Sometimes a little charm goes a long way. On the plus side, she has a a fantastic voice, could dance pretty well on skates and was prepared to let us see how unpolished it all was. I like shows where it's not obvious where the laughs are. That's not to say it wasn't funny. It often was but she was confident enough to just let the comedy find us slowly. And sometimes it didn't find us at all which is where all the tension lay. I love to see a performer working in those greyish areas. It's a lot more interesting that watching an established stand-up in Vicar Street where the's no need for the performer to work very hard at all. Tonight, there was a lot of talk about how our imperfections make us perfect and while it'd be easy to dismiss that as the performer's lame attempt to justify a poor show, I'm not sure there isn't something to it. This isn't the Theatre Festival after all - it's the Fringe. If artists can't stage a half-baked musical show wearing rollerskates at the Fringe Festival, where can they do it? And surely it's important that they do it.

By the end, the crowd had, I think, let go of themselves and opened up to what she was trying to do and while we weren't exactly screaming for more, I've got to say that I'd go and see her again if she had a new show.

And yes, she played (or maybe she didn't) America the Beautiful on a kazoo. That's all I'm saying. Look it up on youtube. In a way I wish she hadn't. The act she had just done was so energetic and pleasing that an encore performance really wasn't necessary. Still - well done Amy G and John the bass player. They'll probably be off now to another festival and another small room full of people confused and bewildered by what they're doing..

What a strange life it must be..

Fringe

I'm off to see Round She Goes in The Secret Garden tonight. It's our second thing we're going to after the fabulous La Clique last Friday night. Hoping to see another few before it all ends next week.

La Clique was terrific. It's kind of a camp acrobatic freak show of a circus type affair with a little bit or eroticism (naked lady!) and a few hula-hoops thrown in for good measure. Not to mention Captain Frodo the double-jointed rubber man who can squeeze, bend and snap his body through a 10inch tennis racket.. A sight to see. And then there's the hunky guy in Levis jeans and a bath tub who flies around the room. You should go..

Anyway, I'm told that Amy G does unspeakable things with a kazoo in Round She Goes. I hope it's as entertaining as I've been told. I'll report back tomorrow.

Morning in America

I've recently discovered this fantastic website. It's an archive of every US presidential election tv commercial from 1952 - 2004. I'm a nut for this kind of thing. The one above which attempts to discredit Spiro Agnew's nomination is at times funny, shocking and, in a way, frustrating. Agnew ran as VP on the Nixon ticket in 68 & 72. He ended up resigning in 73, a year before Nixon's ignominious departure and the two of them never spoke again. You could run the same ad today about one of the current VP candidates.

I've watched a bunch of them and it's hard to pick a favourite but I've got a soft spot for this one. It's probably one of the most famous ads too although I'd never seen it until recently. I'd heard the expression 'Morning in America' used witheringly in episodes of the West Wing and never really got it. Watching this and knowing what was really happening at the time, it all starts to make sense.. Still - what a great clip - as a romantic ideal it's hard to beat. You can see why it worked. When I was 12 this is what I thought America was like. Paperboys, station wagons, white picket fences and smiling faces everywhere.. It's not really like that, is it?