Skip to main content

The Making of Us

Tramway, Glasgow
3 stars
When film and theatre director Lindsay Anderson  allowed his own
cameras to be seen filming the action of Alan Bennett’s 1979 TV play,
The Old Crowd, it caused a tabloid outcry. Anderson had used a similar
device in his film, O! Lucky Man, which ended with actor Malcolm
McDowell seemingly auditioning for Anderson’s previous feature, If…

One is reminded of this stepping into the latest collaboration between
Suspect Culture director Graham Eatough and visual artist Graham Fagen, 
with a major contribution here from film director Michael McDonough.
Commissioned by Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and
co-presented by the National Theatre of Scotland, The Making of Us
opens by having the audience sign a disclaimer that allows them to be
filmed, before we’re ushered into a room that is part film set, part
installation akin to Eatough and Fagen’s Killing Time project at Dundee
Contemporary Arts.

With the cameras rolling, bar-maid Helen encourages punter Jonathan,
played by Ali Craig, to take part in a film being directed by Michael.
Shunted from bar to hotel room to anonymous offices before ending
beside a solitary Beckettian tree, Jonathan appears to have given his
entire life to an all-consuming project we’re all complicit in. With
Eatough and Fagen onstage themselves shifting scenery or else directing
a film crew that is both fictional and actual, on one level this is an
extravagant close up on the tedious glamour of a film set.

More significantly, perhaps, as Lucianne McEvoy’s Helen and Keith
Fleming’s Michael conspire to manipulate Jonathan’s narrative for their
own ends, everything is on show in a series of infinite, Russian doll
style meta-narratives that flag up the endless possibilities of
artifice and truth in a reality TV age.


The Herald, April 23rd 2012

ends



















Labels:




































Comments








Post a Comment













Popular posts from this blog



















Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary




























Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...




















1 comment









Read more




























Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990




























 DISC 1     1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop   2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo)   3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train   4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep   5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra   6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding   7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day   8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold   9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso   10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out   11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D   12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream   13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth   14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds   15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker   16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den   17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By   18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...




















Post a Comment









Read more




























Billy Elliot The Musical




























Edinburgh Playhouse   Five stars     A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other.   Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...




















Post a Comment









Read more