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THE NEW REVIEW

SUNDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2012

INSIDE 8-PAGE MUSIC SPECIAL

Pages 23-30

WHEN RAWNSLEY MET IANNUCCI

The Observers chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley quizzes Armando Iannucci as The Thick of It returns

Armando Iannucci and Andrew Rawnsley, photographed for the New Review by Suki Dhanda.

THE NEW REVIEW

Contents
AGENDA 3-7
Tom Dixon urges us to see the light Ten best US presidential campaigns Julie Burchill on sapphism Lauren Greeneld on the American Dream

The finest writing every Sunday for arts, science, politics, culture and foreign reportage
FEATURES 8-16 DISCOVER 17-20 MUSIC 23-30
Tom Lamont hangs out with the xx on tour in Los Angeles Plus: Roxy Music revisited, the best new rock biographies, and the soundtrack to DJ Shadows life

Ex-residents of RD Laings Kingsley Hall tell their stories Armando Iannucci talks to Andrew Rawnsley Rowan Moore at the Venice biennale

Robert Provine investigates why we laugh How simulating dementia can help map our minds Facebook and the US presidential election

CRITICS 21-22; 32-38

Kate Mossman on n Lady Gaga in Helsinki inki Philip French loves s Berberian Sound s Studio Xan Brooks reports from Venice ce Rachel Cooke on Artangels latest Mariinsky a Ballets Cinderella Edinburgh festival theatre n Euan Ferguson on the new Doctor Who

BOOKS 39-45

PLUS CHARTS + PUZZLES 46-47 TV LISTINGS 48-54

MULTIMEDIA ONLINE THIS WEEK

Highlights from the architecture extravaganza in Venice www.guardian.co.uk/architecture Portraits of ex-residents of Kingsley Hall from Dominic Moores book observer.co.uk/new-review

Julie Myerson on Ian McEwans spy novel The web pioneer who lost it all A joyful study of female desire Leonardos Last Supper

On the 40th anniversary of their rst album, Roxy Music in pictures observer.co.uk/new-review The full seven days listings

He changed when he got famous - but Free Hugs should be about love, not two guys bickering
Elizabeth Day on why the free cuddle movement ended in tears Observer Magazine pages 22-27

FEEDBACK
African progress
Being a fellow Afropolitan, I have experienced Africans refusing to acknowledge I am African because of my Britishness and Europeans who think I could never be truly British because of my African origins (Our parents left Africa now we are coming home, Afua Hirsch, last week). Regardless, I am proud of my heritage and the continent. Africa, like all continents, still has many challenges to address. One is the tendency to frame Africas problems as largely of its own making due to greed, corruption and lack of intelligent strategy. But we also need to tackle some of the causes of slow progress that originate from outside of the continent, such as unfair global trade rules, damaging subsidies in the west and a global tax system which leaves Africa deprived of billions of dollars in taxes owed by corporations, which could be spent on improving infrastructure, for example.
TwoShillings

Afua Hirschs article brought back many memories of my rst trip to the Caribbean. Im half Jamaican and found it so enriching to see black people in positions of power and beauty seen from a black perspective. Its only once you see it that you realise its lacking in the UK. Its good that descendants are returning to their countries of origin. Perhaps nally, the popular image of Africa as an impoverished land of the hungry will disappear.
melissa_x

with me, I suspect, that it is the little society that counts, especially when authority didnt, couldnt or wouldnt recognise a need. We need to create environments that are child- and play-friendly. In the past 40 years or more, probably 750,000 acres of street play-space has been lost to the parked car. Doesnt that t with the health crisis our kids are facing? There is one acre of playground for every 700 kids under 15, whereas there is one acre of golf course for every 18 golfers. Quite a bit to do, or is it undo?
Jan Cosgrove National Secretary, Fair Play for Children

Hopeful signs
Thanks for a really interesting article (Africa Innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent, last week). I note that quite a few of the ideas harness information and communications technologies (ICT) for natural resource and agricultural development. These link Africas rapidly growing ICT capacity (although from a very low base) with its greatest challenge, the sustainable use of natural resources for rural development that prioritises the poor. Im encouraged!
Nansikom

Lost play space

One of the very rst people to become involved on bombsites in London was the late Janet Dalglish MBE who right up until her death remained determined to provide training and experience for those who work with children in communities (How bombsites are being turned into playgrounds, Observer archive, last week). She was president of Fair Play for Children after the death of Trevor Huddleston and was simply a phenomenon. She would agree

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Culture | People | Politics | Ideas s

THE 10 BEST US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS PAGE 6

DESIGN

Im a typical boy Id really like to own a bridge

Tom Dixons event at London Design festival 2012 is something of a lightbulb moment
This year at the London Design festival (LDF) Tom Dixon wants everyone to see the light. Each year he hosts an event for LDF at the Dock, his west London HQ, which is housed in a converted Victorian wharf building on the Grand Union canal, and this years theme is luminosity. Its a call to arms, a message to remember that lights arent sculptures they illuminate, and we need to illuminate peoples perceptions, he says. We talk about the light ttings, how theyre made, what the inuences are, but weve forgotten to talk about the light itself. Its a mysterious eld full of technical appellations such as lumen and wattage theres a lot of learning involved. I felt people might be interested. The self-taught furniture designer served as Habitats head of design and then creative director from 1998 to 2008. He is responsible for Italian brand Cappellinis famous S chair and his Jack lamp and Plump sofa have become icons of British design. If Dixon is interested in light, chances are the rest of us will be very soon. Hes even excited by the legislation on lightbulbs: Rules, scientic discoveries, they all change things open it up for designers. Hes looking forward to LDF as a chance to open up the Dock to more visitors. The building houses his workshop, a restaurant, a tea shop (Tart, run by his eldest daughter, Florence) and a shop full of beautiful, extend-the-overdraft furnishings.

Light is a mysterious field: Tom Dixon, who is hosting part of London Design festival 2012 at his dockside headquarters. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

Im super-privileged to have a space like this in London so that I can invite a few pals from the Eurozone to show here during LDF, he says. Its dozy and relaxed here most of the time, so its good to get everybody tensed up and ready to perform. LDF celebrates its 10th anniversary

this year, and Dixon feels that the past decade has been good for British design (though he could have done without the revival of baroque ornamentation and the re-emergence of Formica and patterned surfaces). But as the man who has spent his life creating objects of desire for others,

is there anything he wished he owned himself? I dont covet, he says. Im collecting heads at the moment busts, many of them life-size, I have an attachment to them. Id prefer a lovely building to a lovely object. Ive got a water tower across the road. Its a folly, it had no purpose [it was

decommissioned], which I liked. Also, Im a typical boy: Id really like a bridge. Alice Fisher Tom Dixon hosts Luminosity at the Dock at the London Design festival, 1723 September. For more information visit londondesignfestival.com

ON MY RADAR

Sarah Solemanis cultural highlights

Comedy Books Internet Music Theatre Television

Sarah Solemani, 30, is an actress and writer from north London who plays Becky in Him & Her, a BBC3 series about a lazy young couple. A former onal member of the National Youth d Theatre, she studied social es and political sciences at he Cambridge, where she was ghts. a member of Footlights. She has roles in Mrs Henderson Presents, nt The Borgias and Silent elt, Witness under her belt, e and appeared in The House of Bernarda Alba at the Almeida theatre. She ng is currently appearing as Miss Gulliver in Bad Education, on BBC3 m. on Tuesdays at 10pm. Gemma KappalaRamsamy

Bridg Bridget Christie She is my absolute fav favourite standup, n a natural on stage. re I remember one gig where she did a we werewolf impression wit kohl eyeliner. with Ele Elements of her sho stay in my shows min like childhood mind mem memories.

A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792 Ive moved to Newington Green, where Mary Wollstonecraft lived and set up a school, so I reread this. She argues the importance of educating women to become proper citizens of the world. The parallels with the modern day are amazing.

justbanking.org.uk The website of a conference about alternative systems of banking that explains how the nancial sector works. You can click on expert speakers discussing the cost of the bank bailout and why the UK system doesnt leave any room for smaller banks to ourish.

Under-Estimate the Girl by Kate Nash This brilliant, catchy punk song has caused controversy because Nash is changing her sound. Its about breaking rules and not playing safe, which is exactly what shes doing. I dont think it has been ocially released, its just on YouTube.

Olympic Team Welcome Ceremonies, National Youth Theatre Just phenomenal. They had to sing the national anthem and follow certain protocols but the way they did it in punk gear, on stilts, with a chariot broke the mould. Artistic director Paul Roseby should be knighted.

Stacey Dooley Investigates I love this girl. Shes made programmes in some terrifying places, exploring the Congo civil war and sex tracking in Cambodia. Shes got this very natural air with her subjects, never patronising or judging them.

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

AGENDA THE DEBATE

THIS WEEKS QUESTION

Will the Paralympics change attitudes to disability?

EAD HEAD TO HEAD
Alex Brooker, reporter ter for Channel 4s coverage of the Paralympics Jody McIntyre, journalist and author of the Life on Wheels blog

Alex Brooker I genuinely believe the Paralympics will change perceptions of disability in this country, one of the main reasons being that they will take disability to an audience bigger than perhaps ever before. Channel 4 is broadcasting more than 500 hours of live coverage over the next nine days, and millions of people will be watching the Paralympics on TV for the rst time. Couple this with the fact that more tickets have been sold for these Games than any in history close to 2.5m. The Paralympics will grip audiences and the public will get used to seeing disabled people. They will see that they are just the same as everyone else and that even if you are disabled you can achieve incredible things. Sport is a great tool to unite people and as the public get behind ParalympicsGB over the next nine days, more and more misconceptions about disability will change. In the aftermath of these Games, I am certain there will be people who wont look at a disabled person the same way again. Jody McIntyre I think the Paralympic Games are a hugely positive event. It is a chance for disabled people from across the globe to showcase their sporting talents. However, this is not a one-o. The Paralympics, like the Olympic Games, take place every four years and are broadcast to millions of people. Furthermore, you do not have to turn on your television screen in order to get used to seeing disabled people. You can simply step outside your house; people in wheelchairs are travelling around, people with guide dogs, people with missing arms or legs. It is not sporting achievement that will determine the nations view of disabled people as a whole, and nor should it be. Not every disabled person will be a Paralympic champion, but that does not detract from the fact that they are a unique human being, with skills that should be valued, and weaknesses too.

every disabled person and not every disabled person speaks for me. This debate is whether the Paralympics will change attitudes towards disability. I think that it will. There is a dierence between seeing disabled people and feeling condent enough to engage with them. My feeling is that it will encourage the latter. Whether or not it can change plans that a government has put in place, then that is something dierent altogether. The acid test will be how people vote at the next election. If the Paralympics brings attention to the plight of disabled people that claim benets and that motivates people to vote dierently, then your concerns will be addressed. My concern is that you believe that these athletes, who have trained hard for four years, will not have changed attitudes unless it results in a government reform. Thats not why they rst picked up a basketball, put on a running blade or got in a pool. I just hope that this debate doesnt detract from their great sporting achievements. And with the public not only seeing disabled people, but understanding them through the coverage, attitudes will change.
Chinas Lu Dong on her way to winning her heat in the womens 100m backstroke S6 category last week. Emilio Morenatti/AP JM Attitudes towards disabled people have changed, are changing, and will continue to change in the future. However, this is not a process that takes place over 11 days of sporting events. You didnt respond to my point about public transport. This is part of the problem; amid the hype surrounding the Games, real issues that aect disabled people on a dayto-day basis are often ignored. I am going to enjoy watching the Paralympics, as I did with the Olympics. Nonetheless, as long as we live in a society where the interests of an elite minority are placed above those of the majority, there will be discrimination against disabled people, just as there is discrimination against single mothers, teenagers, black people and Muslims. You suggest that the results of the next election will address my concerns. But as is becoming clearer by the day, there is very little dierence between the major political parties in this country. They all support making cuts, which adversely aect the Paralympians of tomorrow. They all support going to war, which disables men and women in other countries. I want to see a future where disabled people have the opportunity to access sport for many years. Not just between now and 9 September.

Unfortunately, we are living in a society in which disabled people are heavily demonised. That is why, when the government makes calls to cut benets for disabled people by 20%, despite the fact that only 0.5% of claims are fraudulent, many sections of the public think it is acceptable.
AB I agree that the Paralympics are

Im disabled and Im not competing, but someone could see me on screen and understand more about my disabilities. I dont believe disabled people are demonised. Unfortunately the system has been abused and it needs rectifying. If that means me lling out some forms, then so be it.

not technically a one-o, but the huge increase in the number of spectators and viewers at home means that, in a sense, they are. Putting it simply, the Paralympics will reach a greater audience in this country than ever before. That is a massive thing, because I disagree with your point saying you can see people missing arms or legs every day. A lot of people will have never seen that many disabled people before and certainly not with the wide range of disabilities to be seen at the Paralympics. Im not saying that sporting achievement will determine what our nations perception of disability is. It doesnt matter whether someone comes rst or last. But if someone is watching that hasnt seen an amputee before and they see them as they are, as any other person, then they will be educated.

Amid all the hype, real, everyday issues aecting disabled people are often ignored
JM As I previously said, the system is being abused, by approximately 0.5% of applicants. That does not call for cuts of 20%. The gures simply do not add up. Is that really a process of rectifying? Many people will see the Paralympics, and that is a great thing, but lets look beyond the glamour of the event, to the actual situation disabled people living in Britain face today. The Games are being held in London, one of the most diverse cities

in the world. So, when considering the transport system that people use to get around the capital, you would think that disabled people are as free to use it as anybody else. In reality, this is not the case. If a wheelchairuser wants to go to Paralympic events, how are they going to get on the tube? Most tube and train stations in the capital are completely inaccessible! I do nd your nal comment somewhat disturbing. I would hope that we can look beyond our own circumstances to appreciate that others face diculties that we may not. I drive a car, but that doesnt mean that I discount those who use public transport to get from A to B. As the government attacks the services of those who need them most, it will certainly not be a situation of lling in some forms; indeed, for many disabled people, it will mean losing vital support that they were once entitled to.
AB I agree that the proposed cuts

will adversely aect more people that they should. In reference to my last comment, which you nd disturbing, I am saying that I am personally happy to have to justify my own claim. I cannot speak for

FROM THE ARCHIVE

6 September 1964
Well, it stands to reason, said one hair stylist in London yesterday. You cant charge a bloke the same for mowing a hay eld as you do for just tidying up his front lawn. Weve got craftsmanship to think of, too. Im a stylist, not a hedge-trimmer. All mens hairdressers seem to be strongly in favour of shorter styles. There is the hard, economic fact that shoulder-lengthers leave a painful gap in trade. And while an up-to-date stylist has a great variety of shorter cuts at his ngertips there is not much you can do with 2ft-long male hair and keep it this side of sanity. For both reasons, they are inclined to be on the side of the headmaster who banished a longhaired one from the boys department. The hairdressers are not entirely sure where some of the bigger style trends have originated. The
LAlexandre hairdresser, 1966. Photograph by Rex Features

Theres a price to pay for looking like a caveman

The growth in shoulderlength locks has led Britains barbers to cut up rough with their hirsute customers
The old barbers-shop joke has now come true. Male clients who come in with shoulder-length hair in one of the several pop group or beatnik styles are being asked to accept a cost estimate by some hairdressers (who themselves got a pay rise last week) before they will tackle it.

immediate postwar crew cut was obviously a gesture to the American GI Then came, partly in reaction, the ashy man-about-town cuts like the District Attorney and Boston, very full at the back, perhaps learned from

Italian lms. The completely uncut look Caveman or Long Back and Sides, as it might be called was the natural choice of the rebel against society, suitable for challenging

conformist parents or headmasters with. After the beatniks had done with it, the Merseyside pop groups took it up, largely as a crib of the all-conquering Beatles. It has not looked back since, though short (and potentially rebellious) hairstyles are still in the great majority. Looking at trends, some senior stylists think the male shoulderlength is with us for another four or ve years. They are racking their brains to think of ways of bringing these clients into the saloon more often than once a quarter. But the more fashionable cuts, said one stylist, will stay at a maximum of three inches on top. New styles will ring the changes on the parting a short one at the front, or at the back, or even diagonal.

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

PEOPLE AGENDA
PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILM-MAKER, 46

Lauren Greeneld
Q&A
The US artist on the lovable billionaires in her new lm, and the state of the American Dream
Your new documentary lm, The Queen of Versailles, follows a billionaire family from Florida, the Siegels, as they build the largest house in America: a 90,000 sq ft palace inspired by the French chateau (and the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas). What was your personal reaction to their plan?

When I asked him how he did it, he said he wasnt going to say because it might not have been legal. I dont know exactly what he did for him but he believed he brought in more than 1,000 votes in Florida, and Bush won by 537, so I believe that.
You mention their openness. Early in the lm, the nancial crisis hits and things start to go badly wrong for the Siegels. Did they attempt to pull the plug on the movie?

Queen of Versailles at the Sundance London festival and I was surprised by the reaction. People really liked Jackie. One of the things that appealed to them was that she was a billionaire without pretensions.
Has your work had an impact on the way that you live your life and raise your kids?

No, that was the thing about David and Jackie: they opened their doors when things were good but they kept them open equally wide when things got dicult and didnt go their way. I think thats what makes people relate to them: everybody is familiar with the way nancial problems can cause a lot of tension in the household, so theyre kind of like everyone else in that sense.
They are strangely sympathetic its hard to believe you can care about people who are building a house with a separate wing for the kids

In a way, my journey was not dissimilar to what I tried to show in the lm. In the beginning I was amazed, fascinated, overwhelmed and horried by this house, but they were so proud of it. In my work Im usually looking for the people, the situations, the characters that reveal our culture and our cultural values. Ive been interested for a while in the connection between home ownership and the American Dream: how the houses got bigger and bigger during the boom, and not just as a place to live but a place to express yourself and your identity, your success.
You met your Queen, Jackie Siegel, in 2007 while photographing Donatella Versace (Jackie was one of her best customers). What made you think she would be a good subject for a lm?

We were just on a family vacation and we were around all this wealth on this trip. We went over to Marthas Vineyard and we were having dinner one night in front of all these yachts, and my eldest son, who is 12, was like, Id love to have a boat like that. What kind of job do you have to do? So my husband said, Well thats probably a $20m boat and youd have to invent this or whatever. Then my little son, whos six, said, Noah, being rich is not important, you just have to have enough money to survive. Its your family and friends who are important and loving the work that you do. So I feel like were having that dialogue all the time.
Does the American Dream create more happiness or misery in society as a whole?

Jackie and David are such outsized characters, almost Shakespearean, yet theres something we can all recognise that weve seen in the crisis or what weve experienced. There are very few people who didnt experience cheap nancing and how

I was surprised by the reaction in the UK. People liked Jackie: a billionaire without pretensions
that changed our behaviour, whether that was spending more on your credit cards or taking money out for your home-equity loan. AO Scott wrote in the New York Times, If this lm is a portrait, it is also a mirror, and I hope audiences nd that.
Its a very American story how do you expect people in Britain to respond?

Jackie told me about the house and I was interested in that, but the other thing that appealed to me was this contradiction within her character. On the one hand, she was living this fantasy life with castles and jets and closets full of fur coats; it was just so big and excessive and exotic. On the other hand, she had this openness I havent seen much from very wealthy people. Often theres a protective veil that comes with great wealth but she had a real accessibility and downto-earth quality that came from her humble origins and also maybe just her character.
Her husband, David, runs the largest privately owned timeshare company in the world. In the lm he claims that he personally got George W Bush elected in 2000 what did you make of that?

Part of the idea of the American Dream is an aspiration to luxury. David Siegel speaks to that so eloquently when hes talking about why people want to buy timeshares: they want to be rich, then the next best thing is to look rich and if you dont want to look rich then you might as well be dead. That is a part of American culture; even in the ghetto there are people buying fancy clothes and fancy cars. I often think of Fran Lebowitz, who said, Americans dont hate the rich because they always imagine they will be rich some day they are impending rich.
You speak with fondness of David Siegel, yet hes currently suing you. Whats happening with that?

My photography is often a sociological look at American culture and its been very well published in the UK. My rst book, Fast Forward, was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are aected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and Ive often felt the reason my work has an audience in the UK is because its everythingthe British love to hate about the Americans. But we showed

The lawsuit is still active and it is a strange situation because Jackie is very supportive of the lm and has come to several festivals with me. I think Davids objection is not really to the lm, because when he watched it he seemed to enjoy a lot of it, but to where it ends. It ends on a really painful moment for him and hed have liked me to continue and to have lmed a triumphant ending. As he says at one point, If I have to live to be 150 to make this work, I will. Interview by Tim Lewis
Lauren Greeneld: I look for people who reveal our cultural values. Larry Busacca/Getty

The Queen of Versailles is out on 7 September

TELEVISION

Is Breaking Bad the best show youve never seen?

on 5USA over Christmas in 2009, and with no warning they could per not have buried it in a deeper hole. Series three and four have never show dcaster been shown by a UK broadcaster. Here ong. Heres why this is wrong.
O OR ORIGINALITY

It has netted numerous awards and nearly 3 million viewers tuned in to the rst episode of series ve when it aired in the US in July, but until iracy yesterday, box sets or piracy were your only options if you live in the UK and wanted to keep up with this underviewed gem of a show. Series four is now available on streaming service Netix, bypassing g traditional broadcasting o entirely. This may be no bad thing. The rst series was aired on FX, where it managed consolidated ratings of a mere 120,000 viewers, and was dropped. Series two was aired in a dead-of-night time-slot

under not for all the family. But at a time when antiheroes are 10 a penny, it certainl ups the ante. You have to certainly marvel that it was ever made. th
PERFOR PERFORMANCES

somehow becomes the conscience of the show is a revelation.

EXECUTION

OK OK, a show in which ich th n the hero learns in th hat the rst episode that ung he has terminal lung can es cancer and becomes cry k a crystal meth cook est in an eort to leave a nest ch egg for his family, and which ts features energetic attempts h to dissolve a body in a bath of acid in episode two, should probably be led

Bryan Cranston plays Walt (far C left), the defeated chemistry te teacher who nds a new life i his death sentence, and he in d does it with extraordinary s subtlety. Walts desperation k keeps us rooting for him l long after weve ceased to s him as a sympathetic see c character. Aaron Paul (left) is terric as luckless addict J Jesse Pinkman, a dropout w few morals and even with le intelligence. How he less

The show is so perfectly conceived nceived that you never see things coming, but they make perfect sense. Nobody acts out of character, despite ending up so far from where they started, and no show not even The Shield mastered the art of the hich cli-hanger quite so well, which iewing makes it perfect for binge-viewing on Netix.
HUMOUR

irrepressible low-rent lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk, left) , who drives a white Cadillac with a licence plate that reads LWYR O UP or the Odd Couple dynamic betwee Walt and his former between stud student Jesse.
CIN CINEMATOGRAPHY

Breaking Bad is the perfect vehicle for pitch-black humour, whether its

Sh Shot on 35mm lm, eac each scene is artfully fram and beautifully framed lit. S Stunning scenes of the vast de deserts of New Mexico are set alongside drab fast-food alon restaurants, building a disquieting mood of suspense reminiscent of a Coen brothers thriller. It simply doesnt look like anything else on TV.
Kathy Sweeney

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

AGENDA XXXXX XXXXXXX THE LIST

The 10 best
US presidential campaigns
As the 2012 race heats up, we look back at some memorable deciders
AS CHOSEN BY ROBERT McCRUM
Nominate your favourites at: guardian.co.uk/culture/ series/the-10-best

Abraham Lincoln 1864

Obama shares with Lincoln a re-election campaign in the midst of intractable domestic problems. In 1864, the lack of success in the civil war dogged his election prospects. His supporters feared he would lose. Sharing this anxiety, Lincoln made a pledge to defeat the confederacy before leaving the White House. This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected, he wrote. Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope that, in the event, was unnecessary. Within a year, he was dead.

FDR 1932
The Democratic nomination was hotly contested in the light of incumbent Herbert Hoovers vulnerability. Franklin D Roosevelt built his national coalition with personal allies such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Kennedy Sr. He went on to win the rst of an unprecedented four terms. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt declared: I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... a call to arms. His inaugural address, given in the midst of the great depression, oered the rallying cry: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Truman vs Dewey 1948

A clihanger campaign immortalised in a newspaper headline. Truman had become president on the death of FDR in 1945, but no one gave him a chance. The New York Times declared: Thomas E Deweys Election as President is a Foregone Conclusion. Dewey, however, was a dreadful candidate stuy, prone to gaes and out of touch. In his nal campaign speech, Truman said: The smart boys say we cant win but we called their blu; we told the people the truth. And the people are with us. The tide is rolling. The people are going to win this election. He was right.

JFK v Nixon 1960

This election was a thriller in which Kennedy, the matinee idol Democrat, was nearly defeated by the brooding gure of Eisenhowers former vice president, Richard Nixon. It was the rst campaign in which the candidates debated on live television. The popular perception among those who had listened over the radio was that Nixon had got the better of JFK. But the TV told a dierent story. Kennedy appeared condent, suntanned and relaxed. Nixon looked shifty and, sweating badly under the lights, cut a sorry gure and came across as a loser. Kennedy won and Camelot was born.

Humphrey v Nixon 1968

Another thriller, with the outcome uncertain long into the morning after the poll. The election was conducted against a backdrop of turmoil that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, nationwide race riots, Vietnam war protests and violent clashes between police and anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey, the Democrats candidate, was the underdog, only closing in the nal days of the race. Nixon campaigned successfully on law and order and ending the war.

Eagleton breaks down 1972

Nixon appeared unbeatable. When George McGovern won the Democratic nomination, high-prole Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey, turned down oers to run as VP. In desperation, McGovern chose Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri. Eagleton had made no mention of his electroshock treatment for depression and frequent hospitalisations. When the press confronted Eagleton with the story, he broke down and was replaced by Sargent Shriver. On election day, McGovern took only one state, Massachusetts. Nixon resigned over Watergate in August 1974.

Reagan v Carter 1980

Jimmy Carter was always a poor bet for a second term, but his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, was widely distrusted as a veteran cold warrior and no one had ever been elected at the age of 70 before. Coming into the nal weeks of the campaign, the outcome seemed nely balanced. The televised debates were essentially a score draw, but Reagan managed to land a punch and show a ash of humour when he twitted Carters penchant for manipulating statistics with the humorous line: There you go again. It was Reagans folksy charm that delivered a landslide to the Republican party.

Clinton v Dole 1996

Bill Clintons second term now looks like a foregone conclusion. The cold war was over and America was prosperous and at peace, with a new generation looking forward to the new century. Bob Dole, a lacklustre candidate, with the nowforgotten Jack Kemp as VP, was a grizzled war veteran whose vulnerability was underlined when he slipped and fell head rst from a podium. Compared with the 50-year-old Clinton, 73-year-old Dole appeared old and frail and the ClintonGore ticket won a landslide. But within a year, the president was ghting for his political life over the scandal of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

GW Bush v Al Gore 2000

After the euphoria of the Clinton years, this was the election defeat Al Gore and the Democrats snatched from the jaws of victory. Though Gore came in second in the electoral vote, he received 543,895 more popular votes than Bush. With no outright winner, and the votes of Florida in dispute due to problems with the paper-based punchcards ballots (creating hanging chads), the unresolved outcome of the popular vote was passed to the Supreme Court. After a month of high political drama, the court ruled (by a margin of 7-2) that George W Bush had won, a low point in the history of Supreme Court judicial verdicts.

Sarah Palin 2008

With no incumbent defending the White House, the McCain-Obama presidential clash was dominated by the spectacle of the Republican challenge imploding and the emergence of Sarah Palin. Her dening moment came with her rst solo appearance. Hardcore Republicans went wild as she teased them with: You know the dierence between a pit bull and an average hockey mum? [pause] Lipstick! For a few weeks, Palin-fever swept middle America. But by polling day, her star was waning and in the end her candidacy probably did more harm than good. Today, Palin has a new political life as a TV commentator and Tea Party darling.

VOLUNTEERING

The arts follow the Olympics lead

On any given night, the audience to cast ratio is around 1:250. The Truman Show concept each audience member is individually propelled through scenes in which they play the star role means the event is as unpredictable for those involved as for the so-called passenger. All cynicism aside, its an emotive experience watching someone arrive at your scene surprised and confused, only to gain an increasing sense of empowerment as you navigate new territory together. You Me Bum Bum Train are still looking for volunteers for this months production: visit bumbumtrain.com
Art of Change: New Directions from China Possibly this summers oddest requests for unpaid help have gone

It wasnt just London 2012 that embraced the cult of the volunteer this summer. Unpaid enthusiasts are becoming a regular feature of cultural events as more and more artists start quite literally crowdsourcing their projects.
You Me Bum Bum Train A cast and crew of more than 3,000 have created this sell-out production in Stratford (to 27 Sept), and none of them are paid a penny. Its a situation that drew the ire of stage union Equity when Bum Bum Train returned for its fourth incarnation this summer, although that seemed to be missing the point: this theatrical ride simply wouldnt exist as an all-professional entity.

out from the Hayward gallery, hoping to ll various roles for their forthcoming exhibition by contemporary Chinese artists. One piece, by Xu Zhen, is seeking volunteer performers to lie still for half an hour at a time in an impossible pose, noting on the application form that it is quite a physically demanding work. If thats not yourskillset, you could always oer your services to artist Liang Shaoji, who makes works with live silkworms and needs recruits to feed them up to six times a day. china.southbankcentre. co.uk
A Ghostbusters fan at Secret Cinema.

Secret Cinema Ever wanted to play a bit part in your favourite lm? Thats one of the options when youre on the crew for Secret Cinema, the underground lm club whose site-specic screenings have evolved into major productions in their own right. At their most recent gig, a month-long run of Prometheus in a London warehouseturned-spaceship, volunteers helped create the set and build props and were much in evidence as boiler-suited employees of Weyland Industries. volunteer@ futurecinema.co.uk

These Associations Tino Sehgals Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern, London, which opened in July, is entirely made up of recruits from the public, a 70-strong crowd who mingle with the visitors and engage them with their personal stories. Participants applied in April and developed their narratives with Sehgal in unpaid workshops. Over the next two months they will work in four-hour shifts, transforming the hall into a space for surprising and intimate encounters with Tate Modern visitors. Theyre not volunteers in the strictest sense: for the mingling theyre actually paid 9 an hour not a bad gig. Emma John

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

AGENDA THE COLUMN

Julie Burchill
Lets get this straight, guys. Were not exploring sapphism for your benet

W
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID FOLDVARI

hen I remember the summer of 2012, Ill think of rain, the Olympics and an epidemic of stage-managed sapphism like no other in living memory. When Gillian Anderson called recently for a more nuanced conversation about sexuality and its uidity, I had to snigger as I recalled how Oscar Wildes boyf once famously described the desire for ones own gender as The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Well, times have changed, and homosexuality at least for showbiz starlets is these days the love that cant stop nudging, winking, smirking, insinuating and straight-up showing o about itself. An actress might dress it up in fancy language, but our singing sisters are predictably far more basic about bisexuality. The pop starlet of the moment, Rita Ora, and yesterdays indie pin-up, Avril Lavigne, were both pictured posing saucily with female friends on holiday this summer. Last year, Cheryl Cole revealed that she had a girl crush on Rihanna before she presented the bodacious Bajan with the Brit award for best international female. To be fair to Chez, you cant say that Rihanna wasnt asking for it; previously RiRi had opined: She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How do you have a face like that, with hair like that and dimples, and a body like that, thats proportioned like that? A quick grapple as the prize changed hands and Rihanna obligingly tweeted: Can Cheryl Cole NOT be so yummy??? Just ONCE!!! Then this summer in Esquire magazine, Rihanna upped the ante or something when she expressed a desire to see the Geordie sexpot getting down and dirty in the course of cleaning up: I would just like to watch her work. Preferably cleaning things on the oor. Picking up stu on the oor. Bending over... shes hot! Shes so beautiful. Would Cheryl be suitably attired or, indeed, wearing clothing of any kind? Oh, as if! And then to show that she was a keen appreciator of female beauty, Rihanna threw in, when Adeles

name came up: I want her. Adele, come on! Perhaps piqued at this curvaceous competition, Cheryl was all over Rihannas BFF Katy Perry the woman whose song I Kissed a Girl sparked a thousand drunken thespian-lesbian displays on The Graham Norton Show a few days later. But just so we are sure of who her heart really belongs to, KP said in a recent radio interview that she didnt know whether she and Ri would ever collaborate musically but were going to have sex. Girls, girls get a room. But would it be a bedroom or a boardroom? Thats the question. How much of this yearning is physical and how much is scal? Ever since the queen of the beat music bi-tries, Madonna, snogged Britney and Christina on the same stage, no pop tart ever went broke by underestimating the liking of your average fanboy for a bit of girl-on-girl body surng. How times have changed! When I left my husband for a girl 17 years ago, the rotter divorced me for unreasonable behaviour. As I pointed out at the time to my lawyer the girl in question being a ravishing 25-year-old heiress Look at her! It would have been unreasonable not to do it. Once, calling a woman a lesbo was the most embarrassing, shameful thing you could say to her. But these days, you can easily imagine a man divorcing his wife for the unreasonable behaviour of not making out with another woman and

There can be no doubt that men get a great deal more out of hetero sex than women do; thats why they resort to porn and prostitutes

letting him watch. And pop starlets are suss enough to know this. Theres the rub, so to speak. If Chez, Ri and KP are doing this to titillate their male fans, theres something somewhat sad and shabby about it. Rihanna is believable as a bisexual; shes just so seriously hedonistic, and surveys have shown repeatedly that the more women like sex, the more likely they are to enjoy it with both genders. Her alleged aair with the model Natasha Burton was written about in the temptingly titled book Low Down Dirty Shame: Sex came up immediately she was a freak... I was on my spiritual journey and sex wasnt a part of my plans. However that didnt stop her... Rihannas erstwhile lover and attacker, Chris Brown, with typical discretion and perception, reacted thus: She is not a lesbian. I should know. And if she was a lesbian, then I would have had a threesome, but I didnt have a threesome, so she cant be a lesbian. And Im not gay, either! There are some men so vile and/or violent that they can easily turn a woman queer, albeit temporarily, and Mr Brown easily qualies as one of them. Rihannas relationship with

her personal assistant Melissa Forde has added more fuel to the freaky re. As in the cases of both the late Whitney Houston and the undeniably straight Oprah Winfrey, a personal assistant is often assumed to be a stars girlfriend, travelling and staying with her in the closest of situations. But it probably helps the tongues of the gossips wag faster if, as Rihanna did, the star in question tweets: Im on my rst date in almost two years along with a photo of Melissa Forde and herself entitled My lover for the night. Followed closely by beautiful is great, submissive is even better. Bawse bitch whos submissive yet the captain of the ship n HONEST hashtag #MarryMe. Its so crass, its class. You cant imagine Cheryl or Katy getting their hands or images dirty to anything like the same degree, and thus their sapphic antics can seem somewhat dead-eyed and desperate. But what if the blu is a double blu ? There can be no doubt that men get a great deal more out of hetero sex than women do; to put it bluntly, thats why they resort to porn and prostitution in a way that women dont need to. Repeated studies have show that to quote one of them most men nd most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not nd most men sexually attractive at all. Thats a lot of sexual shortfall, and whos to say that hidden homosexuality on the part of the female population couldnt be at least part of the reason? What if all those girls pretending to kiss girls to turn on boys are actually double blung and are really doing it in order to turn themselves on? What if all those girls who go to strip clubs with their boyfriends are actually getting more out of it than the men do? And what if all those girls who have threesomes arent doing it to keep their man but to keep their sanity? In this case, the current crop of apparently thespian lesbians are reecting, rather than exploiting, the current mood.

ART

Game for a masterpiece?

Marcel Duchamp once claimed that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists. From 8 September to 3 October, the Saatchi Gallery will house 16 extraordinary chess sets designed by renowned contemporary artists for The Art of Chess, an exhibition that has toured the world and more than tripled in size since rst commissioned by RS&A in 2003. With medicine bottles from Damien Hirst, miniature furniture from Rachel Whiteread, small-scale replicas of Tom Friedmans artworks and new taxidermy-inspired bronze pieces from Tim Noble and Sue Webster, it seems artists master the chessboard in their own signature styles. Corinne Jones

DAMIEN HIRST Mental Escapology 2003

Damien Hirst

TIM NOBLE AND SUE WEBSTER Deadalive (detail) 2011

Photography by Norbert Schoerner

TOM FRIEDMAN Untitled 2005

Tom Friedman, 2005

YAYOI KUSAMA Pumpkin Chess (detail) 2003

Yayoi Kusama, 2003

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

COVER STORY

As The Thick of It returns for what may be the last time, Andrew Rawnsley asks its creator, Armando Iannucci, whether the shows corrosive if hilarious treatment of Westminster goes beyond a joke and risks damaging our faith in politics

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Armando Ianucci, left, and Andrew Rawnsley, photographed for the Observer New Review in London by Suki Dhanda.

rmando Iannucci has a confession to make. The thing is, I dont despise them, he says. Ive always been fascinated by politics. Read up on political history. Love all the election shows. I am a political geek. At the age of 14 or 15, he would take himself o to a public library in Glasgow to read Hansard. I remark that William Hague is the only other person who has ever been heard admitting to the nerdish compulsion to read the parliamentary record as a teenager. Yeah, he nods, wincing slightly. I know. We have met for lunch in a break between nal edits of the new series of The Thick of It, which will begin on BBC2 this week. The hugely acclaimed comedy has achieved the

rare feat of being a hit with viewers, channel controllers, critics, juries of TV awards and the targets of its superbly realised satire. It has not only inuenced how viewing voters think about government, it is also a reference point for how the practitioners of politics perceive themselves. I tell him that, in the 48 hours before we meet, I have heard a Downing Street ocial describe a meeting at Number 10 as like a scene from The Thick of It, and a senior aide to Ed Miliband has told me of a conversation in the Labour leaders oce so surreal it could have been scripted by Armando Iannucci. He has always taken meticulous care to make the show feel real, so he is bound to be tickled by approving notices from his victims. He recalls meeting James Purnell, who was culture secretary at the time, at a

Royal Television Society dinner. They talked about the very rst episode when the cast are in the back of a car feverishly trying to concoct a policy on the hoof. Purnell said: Ive been in the back of that car. When The Thick of It was last on screen three years ago, Labour was still in power and therefore the primary target. The latest and, he reveals to me, probably the last

We all look forward to the Malcolm Tucker moments in the same way welook forward to Darth Vader

series begins by training its sights on the coalition. Peter Mannion, the world-weary, technologically inept old-school Tory played by Roger Allam, channelling a substantial helping of Ken Clarke, is now in charge at Dosac, the Department of Social Aairs and Citizenship. He is in uncomfortable tandem with a minister from the Inbetweeners, as the Lib Dems are called. There is a natural comic dynamic from the two of them trying to look like a public united front but secretly trying to get the credit for whichever policy. Dosacs former Labour boss, the hapless Nicola Murray, played by Rebecca Front, has become leader of the opposition by a quirk of the block vote mechanism that no one understands. The cast may have shued positions, but

the animating spirit of the satire remains the same: the cunning plans of the political class come farcically unstuck in ways that reveal them to be clueless, hopeless and powerless. Iannucci makes viewers wait for the return of his mesmerising monster. It is not until episode 2 that we are reintroduced to Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, the confabulation of all that is most foul about spin doctors. I wonder if his creator ever worries that his most loathsome character is also his most popular. Yes, I do worry. I nd it very worrying. He nds it especially anxiety-inducing when he meets real-life spin doctors because they always talk about how much they like Malcolm and
Continued overleaf

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COVER STORY

Spun and spinner: Chris Langham as the hapless minister Hugh Abbot in series one and Peter Capaldi as the monstrous, foul-mouthed political fixer Malcolm Tucker. BBC, Mike Hogan, Ed Miller

Continued from previous page

how they try and emulate Malcolm. And I think, have we got this wrong? When the production went to lm in Downing Street, some of the inhabitants of Number 10 came out, wanting to have their pictures taken with Capaldi/Tucker. Obviously, we all look forward to the Malcolm moments in the same way we look forward to the Darth Vader moments in Star Wars and Satans speeches in Paradise Lost. But isnt he meant to be a horrible cunt? Isnt that who Malcolm is? So why are all these people saying, Do you know the one I want to be? I want to be the horrible cunt. Doesnt that say something about politics? Perhaps it does. Perhaps it also says something important and not very healthy about the impact of what he puts on our screens. I love The Thick of It, but I tell him that I am also gnawed by a worm of anxiety that there are viewers who will take it not as a satire of some of the worst dimensions of politics but a representation of the totality of politics. When the denizens of his version of Westminster cant

organise a photo opportunity without collapsing into calamity, never mind execute a policy that might improve someones life, what is he trying to say about government to voters? He responds that the show never set out to have an agenda. It wasnt a manifesto. It was entertainment. The principal driver has always been comedic. We see these grand looking buildings down Whitehall. So you assume the people within them kind of know what theyre doing with power. And part of the comedy is going through those doors and discovering that they dont really. Although its a big job, its actually little people. The contrast between the outward pomp and the inner reality also drives the comedy of Veep, his American show screened in Britain on Sky Atlantic. Taking his satire across the Atlantic entailed some risk, I suggest, because Americans tend to idealise their democracy much more than the British. I think youre right. The interesting thing in America is how much they respect the oce even though theyre contemptuous of the oce-holder. A lot of people were

asking, do you think America is going to be ready for this? I thought I was going to get, what brings you here, a Brit, telling us about our politics? As it turns out, the show is another hit. If there was any hate mail from outraged Americans it hasnt got to me probably goes to HBO. Its up for an Emmy and HBO has commissioned a second season. Three researchers were employed in Washington to help with the accuracy, and he worked very closely with the cast to avoid scripting references or gags that wouldnt work for an American audience. After a while the actors stopped saying: We think thats a bit English. Instead, they made a set of noises, an idea started by Julia LouisDreyfus, who plays the title role. She would say, We think thats a bit hawhaw-haw. The position of vice-president, described by one of its real-life occupants as not worth a bucket of warm piss, has all the trappings of high oce and no real power, making it the perfect subject for Iannucci. A running joke has the Veep asking her assistant: Did the president call? and always receiving a negative answer.

Iannucci with his wife, Rachael Jones, at the premiere of Veep earlier this year.

ow did the lad who got his teenage kicks from Hansard turn into our most gifted TV satirist, with shows bathed in praise on both sides of the Atlantic? I wonder if its something in his Italian DNA. Italians have more reasons than most to feel betrayed by government. After mulling on it, Iannucci says he can see how his take on politics might have been shaped by his father. Before he emigrated to Britain, Dad was a journalist in Mussolinis Italy, wrote for an antifascist newspaper and then had to take to the hills and join the partisans, and as soon as the war was over he got out. He found a new home in Glasgow but he wasnt a British citizen so he couldnt vote. I remember saying to him, Are you not frustrated you cant vote in the election? He said, Well, the last election I remember, Mussolini got in. So, you know: what good is your vote? Maybe it was that side. Mum was a rst-generation immigrant. She was born in Glasgow but to an entirely Italian family. So its all Italian blood. Yet his parents never brought us up speaking Italian because they thought its better to feel integrated. As a result, you feel Scottish, but not quite. But neither do you feel completely Italian. Youre always slightly standing back from it and kind of observing. Not sure whether you are inside or out? Yeah, he responds. Just, well, feeling half in and half out. h Now, though, he is most denitely Britis in with the British establishment. He has been begonge with the Order of begonged the British Empi , an irony I want to Empire spend some time teasing him about. You could easily imagine an episode of The Thick of It crafted around the pinnin comedy of pinning this Whitehall bauble on a man who makes his living ridiculi from ridiculing government. Why accept an OB I thought it OBE? would be fu funny. Thats why, he says, a t touch defensively. h Funny how? I just think its hilarious hilarious. He quickly adds: I mean, Im not intending to use it or any anything. So the credits of the new d series dont say Armando Iannucc Iannucci OBE? No, he recoils. I just it think its like I mean either acc you accept awards or you Y dont. You know, either you yo put yourself forward for Bafta Baftas and whatever or you dont dont. M Mmm. You win a Baft Bafta because your peer gro group wants to salute ou outstanding work. You ge get an OBE because an ocial in the Cabinet O Oce has put you on a li list. Someone must h have nominated me, h he protests. Or maybe

some civil servants thought they would have the last laugh on the great satirist by dangling a morsel from the establishments table in front of him to see whether he would gratefully bite. Didnt that occur to him? To be honest, I dont care if they think that. I dont care. I just thought itd be funny and I was looking forward to ringing my mum and telling her. She was proud? Very pleased, yeah. This prompts me to the speculation that he accepted the OBE in part because of the ambivalent feelings about identity we had explored earlier. The honour was a badge of acceptance. He doesnt quarrel with this idea; indeed he eagerly embraces it as a much better explanation than the earlier ones he has oered. Yeah, he says vigorously. My grandfather [on his mothers side] was rounded up during the second world war and put in a camp because he was Italian. So theres that element: have we quite tted in? Do people see us as British? So I can now say, right, OK, there you are, heres a document that proves it, so dont worry. Other than that, I see it as very nice, happy to get the recognition and then put it to one side and dont mention it again. Where would he stop? Is he hoping for a knighthood next? I think that would be taking the joke too far. A question I am keen to get my teeth into is whether the treatment given to politics on British television has gone beyond a joke. He may say he does not despise politicians, he may insist that his agenda is no more than comedic, but I want to investigate whether he feels any responsibility for the fact that so many of the British do hold politics in a deep contempt, a contempt that is often richly deserved but which can also be indiscriminate, lazy and ultimately poisonous for democracy. Iannucci describes himself as a sort of vague, woolly liberal with a small l. Left of centre-ish. Yet the moral we are invited to draw from his work is not at all left of centre-ish. The Thick of It tells us that politics is a profession populated only by fools and knaves. The laughs nudge the viewer to the profoundly serious conclusion that all government is crap. Does he ever worry that, whether he means to or not, his message is basically the same as that of the Tea Party and Fox TV? Wow, he says, taken aback. Im not sure it says government is crap. I think it says the people in government are crap. Does that make any dierence?

Why did he accept an OBE? I thought it would be really funny, thats why, he replies a touch defensively

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Big guns: James Gandolfini in the 2009 Thick of It spin-off film In the Loop, Olivia Poulet as Emma in the new series of The Thick of It and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the title role of Veep. Kobal, BBC/Des Willie

Either way, isnt he guiding the audience to the reactionary or nihilistic view that government is pointless? He approaches the question sideways by explaining how his thinking has developed. The rst series of The Thick of It was very much coming in on the back of Blair and Iraq, and how did that happen? It was driven by an idea of Blair as someone with a domineering, centralised control over government with a group of bully boys, the enforcers, who would visit departments and just tell the minister this is what you say, this is your newest line to take, this is your view. In the second series, I started feeling a little bit of sympathy for politicians. We the people put this pressure on them to be absolutely perfect, to not stumble, to have a fully thought-out, fully budgeted opinion on every topic we throw at them. Not to buy anything, not to have a salary, not to go on holiday, none of that. I actually started feeling sorry for them. Making this latest series has led him to a more fundamental conclusion. This time around Ive kind of come at it with a feeling that the whole system just doesnt work. And its primarily because we have a generation of politicians who have done nothing apart from politics. They do the politics degree, become a researcher, become an adviser, become an MP; theyre in the cabinet by the time theyre 39. True enough. Books have been written about the rise to dominance of a professional political class. Whatever their ideological dierences, David Cameron, George Osborne, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Nick Clegg have this in common: they have spent all, or nearly all, of their adult lives in politics. Despite their lack of experience of anything else, says Iannucci, warming to this theme, the generation we have now running politics has felt all the more the need to interfere in minute detail in the working of every department. So its not just about the big plans like how many hospitals can we aord. Its what kind of books you should be reading, how to do homework. What we have are people with no experience, but trying to micro-manage.

of the military or police or prisons do you know what I mean? I do. Mind you, I have my doubts that government by experts, also known as vested interests, would always prove to be a great experience for the voters. Is he saying that the army should answer only to generals, education policy should be made only by teachers and how we run jails should be the sole prerogative of prison ocers? No, no, no, no, no, he responds. But I think whats happened, as you pointed out, is as they got less and less direct power, weve built up this idea of politicians being these super beings from whom all nal decisions ow, and I just feel that somethings kind of not right. I dont have the solution to it. Its just an observation that I feel it doesnt work. In portraying those who govern us as blundering idiots or amoral schemers, he splices the two strongest traditions of political satire on British television. Yes Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister depicted

This will probably be the last series. Its time to take stock and move on. Im thinking about the power of the internet
politicians as the gulled puppets of wily civil servants. Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn had a great success with that in the 1980s, despite their show being utterly untrue to reality. Margaret Thatcher, the least Jim Hackerish of politicians, was bending the civil service and a whole lot else to her will. The politician as machinating villain inspired the antihero of Michael Dobbss House of Cards, in which a satanic Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart murdered his way to the premiership. Laurence Marks and

POWER PLAYS Six of the best screen politicians

MALCOLM TUCKER (Peter Capaldi) The Thick of It A hyper-aggressive and poetically profane spin doctor conceived as the distillation of all that was most terrifying and loathsome about New Labour control freaks. The latest series nds him in opposition, and being driven mad by lack of power. The Tucker word omnishambles was recently plagiarised by Labour to describe the coalition. BIRGITTE NYBORG CHRISTENSEN (played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, above) Borgen Charismatic, attractive leader of the Moderates who unexpectedly becomes the rst female prime minister of Denmark. As the pressure of power begins to tell, we see her ideals compromised for the sake of survival the betrayal of her oldest friend in politics and the destruction of y her marriage are grippingly dramatised. JOSIAH BARTLET (Martin Sheen) The West Wing A Nobel laureate economist from New England becomes president and brings to f the White House a sense of ising decency, much moral agonising in a liberal kind of way, and a lot of walkingand-talking on the part of his idealistic sta. Popular (it ran for seven years and won a hatful of Emmys) and often compelling drama, but too romantic to be entirely believable. FRANCIS URQUHART (played by Ian Richardson, pictured below) House of Cards Elegant evil personied, the Tory wh chief whip schemes his way to No 10 and is prepared to use blac blackmail and even murder h - he throws a reporter o th the roof of parliament. S Signature catch-phrase Y You might very well th think that; I couldnt po possibly comment beca became very fashionable in real-lif politics and the media real-life for a time. ALAN BSTARD (Rik Mayall) The New Statesman Greedy, lecherous, dishonest, devious, ultra-right-wing grotesque of the Tory backbenches. The crudity of the character (he is the parliamentary adviser to the Young Ladies Recreational Association) and increasingly wild plots made it a show which was often slapst slapstick funny but never e an eective satire on Thatcherism. J JIM HACKER (Paul E Eddington) Y Minister Yes A able, decent, centrist A se secretary of state for the ctitious Ministry of Admin Administrative Aairs, who beco later becomes prime minister, Hacker is manipulated and stymied by his smooth, guileful mandarin, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Margaret Thatcher said it was her favourite programme, but it bore absolutely no relation to the way she ruled. AR

Maurice Gran created the Thatcherite grotesque, Alan BStard for Rik Mayall. While consistently excelling at satirising Westminster, British television has failed in fact, rarely even attempted to dramatise politics as it really is. The Americans had a go with The West Wing. Aaron Sorkins show was too romantic to be entirely realistic a liberal wet dream of an American presidency, as Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described it. Its considerable merit was that it attempted to show politicians and their advisers wrestling with sophisticated policy dilemmas and hard moral choices, sometimes getting it wrong and sometimes right. The Danish political drama, Borgen, recently shown on BBC4, is a classy, gripping and highly textured series that gives an authentic sense of the pressures of running a modern government and how the stress can destroy relationships, even between fundamentally decent people. I ask Iannucci why he thinks British television has not been capable of producing something comparable? Part of the problem, he says, is persuading TV executives to commission anything about politics. I remember when I was getting The Thick of It under way. It was a time when if you said politics to them, theyd say, No, people arent interested. Boring. Wouldnt get viewers. e was fortunate: I think I was quite lucky because BBC4 was just starting and that was seen as being a bit experimental so we could try it. If it didnt work, it didnt work. At least we tried it. And it also meant we didnt have much money, so that aected the style of it, the very fast shooting style. He thinks it may also have something to do with Americans having developed a dierent attitude towards television. They just take it more seriously. It used to be lm was the art form. I think they realise, as TV screens have got bigger, TV is like a movie experience in the home. So now you can actually do more with television, up the game and do more challenging work. Were just beginning in the UK to think weve been caught napping. The next challenge for him is whether there is much more satirical juice to be squeezed out of our political lemons. Fiction now struggles to compete with reality when Boris Johnson makes an arse of himself by getting stuck on a zip wire, Jeremy Hunt almost clouts a bystander with an Olympic bell, the budget unravels over taxes on pasties, David Cameron texts lol to a tabloid executive without knowing it stands for laugh out loud and Francis Maude recommends that people prepare for a petrol shortage by lling up their jerry cans. I put it to Iannucci that it is time to swivel his

guns on to a fresh target, to go after people who really wield great, global, unaccountable power: bankers, say, or the magnates of social media. This suggestion is greeted with a smile: Im thinking that very thought. He goes on to explain: Probably this will be the last series of The Thick of It. The door is left open at the end to come back and do specials. But I feel I have explored every crevice now and its time to take stock and move on. Im thinking about the power of the internet. This sounds like an excellent idea. Who, after all, has the more power: a British cabinet minister or the emperors of Google? Exactly, he nods. Microsoft, Google, Facebook: you have these twentysomethings who have a way into billions of households. Its what we were talking about earlier: wheres the power gone? The power is gravitating towards these companies. He reveals that he has already done a script for HBO for a show set in Silicon Valley. Im also interested in that personal thing of what it does to you when youre 25 and youre a multibillionaire and everyone in the world knows who you are. Im glad to hear this. It is long past time that the over-revered, underscrutinised, vastly rich and powerful spiders of the web felt the business end of a sharp satirical stick. I cant think of anyone better to wield it than the brilliant geek from Glasgow. Series 4 of The Thick of It begins on Saturday at 9.45pm on BBC2

hat is a speech, I remark, which would be welcomed with loud applause by many Tories. Absolutely right, they would cry: lets have much less government, sack most of the civil service, roll back the meddlesome state. He again protests that this is not his agenda. Theres an alternative view. The machinery of government can work, but what you [the politician] need is not to feel that you are infallible. Its all right to take your time and actually listen to people with more specialist knowledge. Because the other thing thats weird is that someone could be running, say, the health service for 18 months and then overnight is in charge

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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ARCHITECTURE
Al Aire (Between Air), a living hydroponic installation by SelgasCano in the Spanish pavilion.

Spain Mon Amour, the work of ve established Spanish practices presented by architecture students. A visitor to the Nordic pavilion examines Content Box by the Stockholm-based co-operative Combine. Photographs by David Levene

Building a brighter future

This years architecture extravaganza, curated by Britains David Chippereld, shows how architects are not lone visionaries but do their best work in collaboration with others. Rowan Moore reports

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he Venice Architecture Biennale is the worlds grandest celebration and showcase of the design of buildings. Which, as architecture is both an art and a business, means it hovers between being a cultural festival and a trade fair. And as architects can have a very high opinion of the importance of their work, their exhibits can collectively resemble a set of competing pitches in the trading of rival forms of genius. Successive directors of the biennale a new one is appointed each time are conscious of this. Part of their job is to set a theme for the whole event, which is essentially an enormous set of exhibitions and debates, and they like to invent ones which stress that architects are not always egomaniacs but have a responsibility to wider society. Less Aesthetics, More Ethics was the ocial title some years ago. In 2010 it was People Meet in Architecture. This year the British architect Sir David Chippereld is in charge. Its a sign of his international status, which for years outran recognition at home, and which won him

commissions such as the recreation of the Neues Museum in Berlin, home of the bust of Nefertiti, out of the bombed ruins of its old building. For years he seemed too intellectual, too serious for Britain. His native country, however, has caught up recently, with a knighthood, a royal gold medal for architecture and regular appearances on the Stirling prize shortlist, including this year with his Hepworth Gallery in Wakeeld. Under Chipperelds direction there is a strong British presence among the exhibitors, though not to the point where he could be accused of chauvinism. They are there on merit, running from galactic names such as Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster to the young practice Aberrant and the critic Justin McGuirk. Collectively they form a varied and surprising bunch with a taste for playful-but-serious provocation: the spirit of Danny Boyle passes through, one is tempted to say. Chipperelds theme is Common Ground, by which he means that architects are not lone visionaries but work in collaboration with each other, with builders and clients, with future users and the general public. Common Ground sounds like People Meet in Architecture, in

that it stresses the non-egomaniac side of the profession. It could be mushy, one of those titles that means anything to anyone, but there is cohesion to this years biennale. The event makes sense. Its serious but also engaging. It is, as always, vast. Part occupies the 16th-century corderie of the arsenal of the Venetian republic handsome rope-making workshops hundreds of metres long. Here, architects invited by Chippereld and his team present a series of installations. Part occupies the biennale gardens which, created in 1895 for the Biennale of Art, are almost exactly as old as the modern Olympics and embody the same ideals of international exchange. (The architecture biennale, rst held in 1980, is relatively recent.) The gardens form an unusually leafy part of Venice and house individual pavilions of dierent countries, a somewhat Eurocentric selection which reects the leading nations of the world a century or so ago. Each country mounts its own display, following the overall theme more or less closely. There is also the padiglione centrale (central pavilion) where, as in the arsenal, the director selects the exhibits. Other shows in various o-site locations, including by countries not blessed with pavilions in the gardens, complete the picture. It is by nature a baggy, sprawling thing, exhausting if attempted in one go, which always invites comparison with the really quite nice city in which it is located. As Venice is a permanent exhibition of architecture, the biennale has to nd a way to compete. Highlights include the recreation of a Caracas

caf by Urban-Think Tank and Justin McGuirk which serves actual Venezuelan food. This is a way of bringing people into an exhibit about the Torre de David, an unnished banking skyscraper now made into an informal vertical community by squatters, in order to demonstrate how an unplanned piece of city can work as well as one made by architects. The simple device of the cafe means you can experience something of the place, rather than just look at pictures. It also deservedly won the Golden Lion prize for best project. A dierent form of common ground is oered by Folk in a Box, a small structure about the size of a confessional, inside which you nd yourself as an audience of one and in total darkness knee to knee with a musician. The woman ahead of me in the queue came out weeping, and while my heart was a little harder it was still an intense experience. Another version again is the display by the Chilean practice Elemental, which describe its attempts to improve the copper-mining town of Calama, a place of exceptional climatic and social brutality. Yet another is the construction site, with its collaboration of many people in a shared purpose, here represented by the reconstruction of a rough-hewn house in India. Common ground is not always a peaceful place, as the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron demonstrate with their exhibit about their plan to build a concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, on top of an old warehouse in Hamburg. It is currently stalled in mid-construction. Eschewing usual public relations bromides, Herzog and de Meuron bravely paper the walls with newspaper articles

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

The Torre David/ Gran Horizonte cafe installation by Urban-Think Tank and Justin McGuirk, winner of the 2012 Golden Lion prize for best project.

A stued rabbit from Oslo-based Haugen/Zohars Adaptation exhibition in the Nordic pavilion. Photographs by David Levene

at the Venice biennale

that chronicle the early hopes for the project and the escalating rows and budget overruns. Models of the hoped-for building hang in the space and you are left to draw your own conclusions. Commonness extends to the past. Nicholas Hawksmoor, nearly three centuries dead, features in beautiful photographs by Hlne Binet. The Britons Caruso St John pay tribute to inspirations including Sir John Soane. There is an exhibit about Mario Piana, who, by restoring some of Venices crumbling buildings, played a vital but invisible role in the history of architecture. The Swiss Valerio Olgiati has invited other architects to contribute images that inspired them, which are laid out on a table. The collaborative group Fat (Fashion Architecture Taste) shows a large white model of a fragment of Palladios Villa Rotonda, as part of its Museum of Copying. Copying, Fat argues, was always an essential part of architecture, and the myth of the utterly original genius is therefore suspect. The Villa Rotonda is possibly the most copied building in the world. If Fats model, which is shown together with its mould, has a touch of the Rachel Whitereads, thats probably ne too. All of which the relative humility, the willingness to acknowledge others makes an obvious comparison with the recent past. Not long ago, the singular and spectacular were celebrated and masterpieces were commissioned from international stars, nanced with the ample spare cash sloshing around the world. Often these works would be used to distract us from more substantial issues, such as exactly where this money was coming from and where it was going. Now, as we all know, some of this money didnt really exist at all, and in few places are the architectural consequences more conspicuous than in Spain. There, a succession of monuments, retrospectively preposterous, has been beached by lost funding. There were also some very ne buildings in the boom years, but their architects are now mostly unemployed. An exhibit at the biennale commemorates this, with a series of black, tomb-like objects containing nice white models of what was once possible in Spain. Now Norman Foster chooses not to stress the sci- trophies he designs for Russian oligarchs, but has entered the common-ground spirit by inviting thousands of images from architects, critics and others and displaying them in a dizzying, multi-screen environment that ashes Egypts Tahrir crowds and developing-world shanty towns past your eyes, along with more peaceful public places and notable works by Foster and other architects. The link is not always obvious how exactly does this glass atrium connect with that Indian street? Its also like HSBCs advertisements were international and corporate and caring and global but it shows an altered mood. It has become a truism, this transition in the world of architecture from selsh icons to something more caring, and one that is not entirely true. There is still plenty of appetite in many places for ashy spectacle, and I doubt if architects have collectively become radically nicer or were all unrelievedly selsh before. A complicating exhibit in this respect is one by Renzo Piano: he shows the Shard from many viewpoints. Its clearly a work of the icon era but Piano shows it as part of the common ground of London, almost as a piece of folk art, and its not obvious that hes wrong. But there is an atmosphere of generosity in Chipperelds biennale that should be appreciated. Theres also patience and care, exemplied by the returning popularity of crafted and handmade objects, such as a very large city plan hand drawn by the South African Jo Noero, or a long scroll in the British pavilion with a detailed image of an imagined Sino-English townscape. The mood is calmer, slower and more spacious than in previous years, and the architects involved seem to be quite happy not to be engaged in frenetic rivalry for totems of status. The national pavilions are more of a mixed bag. Some of the better moments are provided by the legacy of the Soviet Union, with an intriguing exhibit in the Russian pavilion of the closed, secret cities dedicated to military, space and nuclear technology. An Estonian space in the arsenal reveals a 3,000-seat concert hall, built when Tallinn hosted the regatta of the 1980 Olympics, which is now abandoned. The British pavilion, the result of a complex interaction between Britain and other countries, is too elaborate for its own good, but it has several gems. These include de Rijke Marsh Morgans proposal for oating houses, based on Dutch examples. It remains to be seen how substantial will be the mood of common ground outside the biennale. A cautionary exhibit by Rem Koolhaass practice OMA shows Architecture by Civil Servants, from the 1960s and 70s, when it was still common for cities to have large in-house architectural departments. Their works were not always awless but they display a public spirit that is now threatened. Prominent among OMAs examples are the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall, currently due to be submerged by shops. One can at least hope. Chippereld shows an attractive, thoughtful attitude to doing things that certainly should be more widespread. It also happens to make a more enjoyable and accessible biennale than many. They can be opaque aairs, not to be recommended to non-specialists, but this one is worth the detour.

The mood is calmer than in previous years, and the architects involved seem happy not to be engaged in frenetic rivalry

Online
To see a group photograph of all the key players in British architecture gathered in Venice, go to observer.co.uk/new-review

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Drugs, wild parties, therapy and mystics: ex-residents recall a radical experiment in anti-psychiatry
In 1965, the psychiatrist RD Laing opened Kingsley Hall, a residential centre that aimed to revolutionise the treatment of mental illness. Five decades on, those who lived and spent time there look back on an era of drama and discovery

KINGSLEY HALL REMEMBERED Former residents revisit their experiences

BY SEAN OHAGAN PORTRAITS BY DOMINIC HARRIS

he maverick psychiatrist RD Laing once described insanity as a perfectly radical response to an insane world. In 1965, having served as a doctor in the British army and then trained in psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London, Laing formed the Philadelphia Association with a group of like-minded colleagues. Their aim was to bring about a revolution in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. We aim to change the way the facts of mental health and mental illness are seen, a later report-come-manifesto explained. This is more than a new hypothesis inserted into an existing eld of research and therapy; it is a proposal to change the model. From 1965 until 1970, as radical ideas and hippie ideals blossomed then died in cities across the globe, a former community centre in Powis Road in the East End of London became the unlikely setting for Laings most radical experiment in what came to be known as anti-psychiatry. We have got Kingsley Hall and I have moved into it, Laing wrote to his colleague, Joe Berke, when he was granted an initial two-year lease. Others will be moving in in the next two or three weeks... I take it you will pass the word around to relevant people. THIS IS IT. The relevant people in question were other psychiatrists who shared Laings radical vision and their patients, though even the terms psychiatrist and patient would be upturned in

the next few years at Kingsley Hall. At Laings insistence, the sprawling house became an asylum in the original Greek sense of the word: a refuge, a safe haven for the psychotic and the schizophrenic, where there were no locks on the doors and no anti-psychotic drugs were administered. People were free to come and go as they pleased and there was a room, painted in eastern symbols, set aside for meditation. There were all-night therapy and role-reversal sessions, marathon Friday night dinners hosted by Laing and visits from mystics, academics and celebrities, including, famously, Sean Connery, a friend and admirer of Laings. Play was encouraged as was regression through therapy to childhood. (Laing believed that all so-called madness began in the connes of the traditional family structure.) The rst, and subsequently most famous, resident inmate, Mary Barnes, regressed to infancy for a time, smearing the walls with her faeces, squealing for attention and being fed with a bottle. She later became an renowned artist, poet and, in 1979, the subject of a play by David Edgar. More controversially, several patients and workers were given high-grade LSD, which was still legal when Kingsley Hall opened, supposedly to release their inner demons or buried childhood traumas. At least two people jumped o the roof of the building. Its reputation, too, attracted drifters and dropouts and, at least once, the house was raided by the drug squad. It was a place that was very much
Continued on page 16

Resident, 1967-68
Pamela Lee lived in another community house after leaving Kingsley Hall. She now lives in lives in north London and likes to make ceramic cats in a day class at the Mary Ward Centre Pamela was outstanding in a way, [because she was] totally normal, remembers fellow resident Dorothee von Grie. She had this bourgeois furniture it was so ordinary that it was such a contrast. According to Francis Gillet, she used to live on a bowl of brown rice and miso per day. I was just 10 when my father died and 17

PAMELA LEE

when my mother died. My sister had left for London. I didnt really have any family at all. I had such a chaotic time in that period in London: so many addresses there were 30 places in one year. It wasnt my choice: I just used to get turned out of places. I went to a psychiatric hospital because I had a relationship with this guy I met, a medical student. He invited me back to his parents and I think I was very, very nervous at the time and shy. His parents thought I wasnt very healthy. I remember walking down the street when I was with him, and I felt on top of the world. I was imagining that all the people must be looking at me, thinking how wonderful and happy I was. But then it ended, and it was like the

end of my life, it was so awful. I went to the doctors and I said, Can you send me to a convalescent home, I just cant feed myself, and they sent me to a mental hospital. It was very dictated to you what you could do: I was so disappointed. I had picked up this book years before [Laings] The Divided Self and I realised that somebody really understood; it was amazing. So I phoned up and got an

I was given some LSD. I used to smoke cannabis, but I was a bit nervous about the acid

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Resident 1966-70

FRANCIS GILLET

Francis Gillet lived in Kingsley Hall as an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic. Afterwards he lived in various other community houses. He now lives in sheltered accommodation in Oxford I was a compulsive overdoser. If you showed me a bottle of pills, Id swallow them all. Part of the problem was and Ive been reecting on it lately I was too young. I had too much life to live, and it was going to be so dicult to live it. I saw the road ahead as very long and very dicult, and it was. I mean, now Im nearly 65, I dont think that way because there isnt so long to go and a lot of the hard works been done. At the time I was at Kingsley Hall, the view really was that, if you had

Ronnie said, Go mad, young man. I took him at his word and went as mad as I possibly could
schizophrenia, it was no good talking to you because you would never get any sense out of a schizophrenic its all nonsense that comes out of their mouths. And I pretty much subscribed to that view. Ronnie [Laing] said, Go mad, young man, and I did. I took him at his word, and I went as mad as I possibly could, and at no time did he try and stop me. There were some very crazy people at Kingsley. There was one man who set up the dining table in the upstairs garden area, arranged it all for a dinner party and dressed up in white robes. I woke up one

morning and there was the dinner table all laid in the garden and a man in a white robe gabbling to himself. But I dont think any of them were spotted by neighbours walking on the roof, as I was once. Yeah, [once] I leapt o the roof. I didnt go the full drop. I

leapt into a junkyard, which was full of old washing machines and Hoovers and things people had thrown over the wall. I got a crash fracture in my spine that still causes me problems today. Ronnie used to keep acid in his fridge. It was pure stu, Sandoz laboratory grade,

the real McCoy, and he wasnt shy about sharing it around. He believed it was a kind of spiritual laxative, which I think is probably quite an accurate description of it. And I do remember him handing it to me: I thought, This is the apple from the tree of knowledge, and if I take this its going to be a long road back from where Im going, but I did take it. Ronnie did believe you would be able to ush demons away with it. I wouldnt disagree, I think its an interesting thing. [Then there was] the DMT Dimethyltryptamine or triptamine. Its rened from a plant in the Amazon jungle and we had it shipped in from California in a briefcase. I took it once, and it changed my life for ever. Just once really blew my mind, and I never really thought the same about anything again. A group of us at the Hall were interested in taking it. As soon as they injected it, we collapsed on to a bed; we couldnt stand up. We were in a small room. I had a vision of myself as a dead Jew being bulldozed into a mass burial pit at Auschwitz. It was an intensely strong experience. It was the end of life, the end of existence. I felt very dead at that point. [Another time], I remember meeting Sean Connery. He was at the height of his James Bond fame then. He came to a party with Ronnie, and the two of them started Indian wrestling while we stood around and drank. They went on and on wrestling each other in the games room. They decided to see which one was tougher James Bond or Ronald Laing. So that was all a wild party, but the next day he turned up at teatime and sat down, had a cup of tea and made it quite clear to us that he had been young once and he hadnt had much himself and he could see himself in us and that kind of thing. He actually came back to thank us for having the party the night before. He was very humble and very nice.

Resident, 1966-67
Jutta Laing was RD Laings girlfriend at Kingsley Hall and became his second wife in 1974. They had two sons and a daughter, but divorced in 1988. She now lives in north London where she teaches yoga
I came here because I wanted to get out of Germany. I had ve names of people I might contact and I picked out RD Laing at random and called him. He invited me for lunch, and thats how we met. He had left his wife and his children, and, although some people like to believe I took him away from his family, thats not true at all because he had already had a liaison with someone else before me. I worked freelance with Gallery Five cards and doing illustrations for Harpers Bazaar and I did very well, but my life in Kingsley Hall and my life with Ronnie became predominant. It was a run-down place to live in, partly because there were quite a few very psychotic people living there who never washed or cleaned their rooms. Some people used it as a commune. A few hippies gravitated towards the place because it was

JUTTA LAING

It wasnt comfort, Kingsley Hall, thats for sure. But it was an extraordinary group of people
interview I think it was in Harley Street with Ronnie Laing, and he told me about this place [Kingsley Hall]. And thats how I got there. It was like someone actually understood. Yes, I was really very impressed with Ronnie. I remember that the people around us [local residents] didnt actually like us very much. There was a very negative feeling towards us not a very good community spirit. We were so isolated from the people around us, because if, they saw us, they would just ignore us. They really didnt like us at all. I was given some LSD when I was there. I used to smoke cannabis, but the acid I was a bit nervous about. I dont think I actually took it. I remember we used to eat together. The food wasnt that good, actually. very cheap to live there. Living there we had very little [free] time; we were always a group of people, maybe three, four, ve people, looking after someone who had completely lost it, so they wouldnt harm themselves. For everyone who lived there, Kingsley Hall was an intense period, and my life with Ronnie was intense in the sense that a lot of people wanted to meet him. There were always visitors from all over the world. Ronnie was one of those people who you either loved or misunderstood. Some people thought he was crazy himself. Hid did drink a lot but he wasnt a drunk. He was exceptionally alive and very charismatic. [The anthropologist] Francis Huxley labelled him a shaman. It wasnt comfort, Kingsley Hall, thats for sure. But it was an extraordinary group of people. I live a quiet life now and have for quite a long time. I cant say I have found the peace I am looking for.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Memories of the place can be contradictory y yet vivid and moving

Continued from page 16

of its time, says the photographer wn Dominic Harris, who has tracked down several former colleagues of Laings d and their patients, all of whom shared es the turbulent, exciting and sometimes apy. tragic experiment in communal therapy. And it attracted maverick doctors, he hippies, people running away from the es, draft, people trying to nd themselves, t as well as the seriously mentally ill. It ng was a time when everything was being d challenged and people were allowed ey to be free in all kinds of ways. Kingsley a Hall is seen as a very dangerous idea now by the medical establishment, but, cial back then, it was part of a greater social ority, upheaval where denitions of authority, family, sexuality and illness were all being questioned. Harris rst became aware of Kingsley Hall, which is just around the corner from his studio in Bow, when he read Jon Ronsons book, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, in which Laing, who died in 1989, makes a eeting appearance. Intrigued, Harris contacted Joe Berke, who put him in touch with a patient. Step by step, he tracked down other Kingsley Hall residents, visited them, photographed them and interviewed

A radical moment: Kingsley Hall residents, 1965; Helen, a patient playing guitar on the roof; the incredibly charismatic RD Laing. Photographs by former resident Dorothee von Greiff

them. The result is a self-published photography book, The Residents, which includes Harriss intimate portraits, pictures of the surviving but now disused house, as well as personal testimonies of those who were there. A lot of people, particularly Laings former colleagues, were initially a little bit suspicious of my motives, says Harris, but the patients were all very forthcoming. They havent really

had a chance to tell their stories before as most of what has been written about the place concentrates on the incredibly charismatic gure of RD Laing. Nobody else has really had a voice. That is what the book is about in a way, letting the overlooked have their say. Laing is the underlying gure in the project, but its not about him. Hes the dead presence, the long shadow. Over two years, Harris managed

to track down and meet 13 of the reputed 130 people who passed though Kingsley House in the ve-year period. Their memories of the place are often impressionistic and contradictory, yet vivid and moving. They are all, to varying degrees, survivors of a radical, some would say irresponsible, moment when everything even the denition of insanity and, by extension, sanity seemed up for redenition.

The Residents is available as a signed limited edition of 100, or as a 5 digital version for iPhone and iPad, from dominicharris.co.uk. The book and portraits from The Residents are part of the group show Voice of the Grain at Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1,from Wed to next Sun Book testimonies have been edited for this article.

Resident, 1966-67

DOROTHEE (DODO)

Dorothee von Grie came to London after nishing art school in Germany to nd herself. She visited and lived in Kingsley Hall for the experience. An accomplished photographer, she took many pictures while she was there which largely remain unseen (see a selection above). She went on to study Tibetan Buddhism and now lives in north London I was always looking for something in Germany, in my environment; I couldnt nd it. Germany was very controlling always and I rebelled and I didnt want to rebel. I just wanted to live and to be myself. This incredible freedom in England and then in Kingsley Hall was just mindboggling. Germany was so backwards: psychology didnt exist or therapy, I mean that was something for loonies. [At Kingsley Hall] it was open doors and no medication. That was totally revolutionary, that was the whole idea and it was incredible. That was in the Sixties, the big revolution, and for me Ronnie Laings skill was to hold up the mirror. He was a shaman, he had an incredible gift just to listen, to be in the present, to tune into the other persons world and experience, and I had never met that before. One memory: Mary Barnes had her room and one bathroom upstairs. When she was in the bath, it sounded like a

Visitor 1966-68 Resident 1968-69

JAMES GREENE

James Greene, nephew of the author Graham Greene, was initially a patient of RD Laing. He then started training as a psychoanalyst. Greene informally oversaw the running of Kingsley Hall. He went on to become a translator of Russian poetry and a playwright. He lives in north London Ronnie helped me to become a therapist. It was totally unorthodox but he didnt believe in formal training for therapists if he thought you were a suitable person to be a therapist, f*** the training. He didnt believe in the labels, patient versus helper; there was no demarcation. The best thing that one could say about him is that he was a kind of shaman. If hed stuck to being a shaman, OK, but he was also working ocially as a psychoanalyst. You cant really combine these two roles and he was full of contradictions. The people involved with him suered as a result One patient had been in a mental hospital: John Woods, I think. His label in orthodox psychiatry was paranoid schizophrenic. He had some fantasy about some young woman and he couldnt write letters to her himself so he dictated them to me. When it turned out this woman wasnt interested, he assumed wrongly that I was preventing her from coming to visit him. He thought I was a black magician and was controlling her. Then living in there became quite scary. There was a chapel in the building, with a huge crucix, and he burst into my room early one morning holding it. I thought he was going to attack me with it but he wanted to exorcise me. Eventually, I did something that was against the whole ideology of the place: I tried to have him sectioned.

Ronnie was a magician, a shaman. Such a place cant exist without such a key gure
whale, she had so much fun and made these incredible sounds and the bathwater came schlepping down the steps to her room. It was always quite a special day when she had her baths. I was a helper: I cooked, I [helped] Jutta. But after a year I started to hear voices. It was hitting me. And then black magic came into the house, this dark energy. It just happened, and it wasnt discussed. It was like a hippopotamus trampling through the house. It was so spooky I cant tell you. Before Ronnie and Jutta broke up, which was a very, very dramatic time for the whole community, and Ronnie had his breakdown when everything fell apart, Kingsley Hall had already sort of subsided.

But there was usually a continuity of meetings, music, getting together, rebirthing and so on. [At one point] I came back from a trip to Germany and there was a meeting going on at the house among various members and it seemed to me like everything

had broken loose. I mean, Ronnie was furious and roaring like a lion in pain. When Ronnie left that was when the disaster hit, because Ronnie [was] a magician, a shaman and an incredible being. It was a total downer. Ronnie was holding the place together. Such a place cant exist

without such a key gure, it cant. I was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism and [went on to] travel with my Tibetan teacher to Tibet and India. I mean, I couldnt have gone on living in Kingsley Hall. It was 24 hours it was non-stop and as I told you I was getting loopy.

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Discover
Science | Technology | Nature

THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY WE LAUGH, PAGES 18-19

John Naughton
Is Facebook the real presidential swing state?

THE NETWORKER
MAKING A HASH OF IT? A Mitt Romney supporter in Tampa ashes a poster containing the Republican presidential candidates Twitter hashtag. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty

K, heres the statutory health warning: for a long, long time, people have been saying that the next US presidential election will be the internet election. And thus far, all those predictions have turned out to be wrong, at least if one interprets them as claims that the outcome of the election is eectively determined by online activity. The inspiration for all this speculation about the political impact of the net is an older communications technology television. In the 1950s, people speculated endlessly about that mediums impact on politics, but it was only in 1960, with the famous televised debates between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon, that speculation hardened into certainty: TV was the key factor in presidential politics. And that was the conventional wisdom for the next three decades, until the web turned the internet into something that ordinary people began to use. For at least a decade since, people have been seeking an analogous tipping point for online media. Some argued that Barack Obamas mastery of social networking in 2008 was critical in ensuring his election. Sceptics countered with the view that the impact of online media paled into insignicance compared with the damage the Republicans inicted on themselves by nominating Sarah Palin

as John McCains running mate and aspiring vice-president. So will the 2012 election provide the tipping point, the moment when the internet plays a decisive role in inuencing how people vote? Given the penetration of the network into daily life, its obviously implausible to maintain that it isnt having some impact on politics. The yawning gap that existed in the 1990s between cyberspace (where people do social networking) and meatspace (where they go to polling stations and vote) has clearly shrunk. But by how much? Judging by current online activity, if the internet decided the outcome

Judging by current online activity, if the internet decided the outcome, Obama would win by a mile
Obama would win by a mile. His Facebook page, for example, has more than 28m likes and had more than 1.7m people talking about it when I last checked. Romneys page has a mere 5.5m likes (but more than 2m people were talking about it). On Twitter, Obama is way ahead by all the signicant metrics: followers (19m to Romneys 954,000); number of followers added in past 24 hours (46,000 v 13,000); mentions (59,000 v 29,000); retweets (25,000 v 6,600); retweeters (22,000 v 5,000). I could go on, but you get the picture. Last week also saw a revealing contrast between the two camps. Romneys crowd put everything into an intensively scripted, 1980s-style rebranding of their candidate, using all the tired old tricks of Mad Men and old media. Obama, in contrast, just turned up on Reddit.com and did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, which brought the site to its knees. If you dont know about Reddit then I suggest you take a look; then ask yourself how many contemporary British politicians you can think of who would dare to do an AMA session on it. (My answer: one John Prescott.) The big question is whether Obamas online dominance will make much dierence. My hunch is that it wont. This is not because the net isnt important, but because of the peculiar

nature of this election. According to a recent poll, most voters have already made up their minds and only about 6% remain undecided as to how they will vote in November. One analyst, Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, thinks that the election will be decided by just 4% of the voters, in six states Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado. Thats 916,643 people, or fewer than half the number of people who paid to get into a Houston Astros home game last year. Most of these undecideds are not interested in politics. But they are almost certainly among the 164m Americans currently on Facebook, which is why one commentator, David Talbot, has dubbed it the real presidential swing state. The thing about Facebook is that many users reveal ne-grained information about themselves home town, age, education, preferences, friends. People who are uninterested in politics are unlikely to be swayed by overtly political messages, but they might be amenable to messages from their Facebook contacts. So, voters in swing states such as Ohio or Florida who have liked a Facebook page describing Romney as a vulture capitalist might suddenly nd themselves getting messages from friends reminding them that they buy stationery from Staples, a successful company that Romney invested in. Even in a networked world, all politics will ultimately turn out to be local politics.

Help us turn data into beautiful works of art

Data: with every call, tweet and purchase we create it, websites and governments harvest vast amounts of it and, in the spirit of open, much of it we can download ourselves, but can we comprehend it? What we need are visualisations, ways to help us make sense of this information that throw up new patterns, linkages that help us better understand such phenomena as drone strikes in Pakistan, life expectancy by tube stations and who won the most Olympic medals sorted by GDP. All these are examples from the trailblazing data site of our sister paper, the Guardian, and now the Observer is teaming up with tech curators 3beards to put on an event for all budding data artists. It is billed as an art meets tech hackathon and we are aiming to bring together data-savvy artists, musicians and creatives to work with coders and developers to create imaginative and visionary ways of rendering data. The event is inspired by the work of Scottish cellist Peter Gregson, who has long been integrating technology into his work. His latest project, The Listening Machine, is an algorithm that scans the Twitter feeds of 500 people, analyses their sentiment and meaning and creates a continuous e. piece of music in response. Such ideas are the kind of hybrid, cross-pollinating r. concepts we are hoping for. As 3beards Bryce Keane says: There are absolutely no limits for this and were encouraging artists and hackers to get as creative as they want. They might want to use crowdsourcing to gather 700 interpretations of love and visualise it into a collage, take data from bus delays and output them into varying decibels, or even survey the attendees on the night and make a word cloud of their fears. The event takes place at Mozillas London space, from 7pm on Friday 14 September running non-stop to 8pm S on Sunday 16 September. There will l be lots of help over the weekend to turn your crazy concepts in pixels, music, lights, into sc sculpture or whatever yo you fancy. You just ne need a laptop and some am ambitiously hare-brained id ideas. The results will not on only go live on the web, th will also be exhibited at they th Whitechapel Gallery on the the ni night of the 26 September at one of 3beards Digital Sizzle nights. Artists, creatives, coders and hackers who want to be involved should go to http://sizzle6hackathon.eventbrite. co.uk/ or email hello@3-beards.com. Ian Tucker

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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DISCOVER PSYCHOLOGY

Funny peculiar: the truth

Plato saw it as a tool to topple the mighty. It often accompanies gruesome acts of cruelty. Most of us will use it to win friendship and love. So what lies behind the spontaneity of laughter? Robert Provine, in an extract from his book, Curious Behaviour, explores the psychology of a GSOH

onsider the bizarre events of the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). What began as an isolated t of laughter in a group of 12-to 18-year-old schoolgirls rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter propagated from one individual to the next, eventually infecting adjacent communities. Like an inuenza outbreak, the laughter epidemic was so severe that it required the closing of at least 14 schools and aficted about 1,000 people. Fluctuating in intensity, it lasted for around two and a half years. A psychogenic, hysterical origin of the epidemic was established after excluding alternatives such as toxic reaction and encephalitis. Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Contagious laughter in some Pentecostal and related charismatic Christian churches is a kind of speaking in tongues (glossolalia), a sign that worshippers have been lled with the Holy Spirit. Before looking askance at this practice, consider that it was present at the historic Cane Ridge revival of 1801, in Kentucky, and part of an exuberant religious tradition in which the Shakers actually shook and the Quakers quaked. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, did some of his own quaking and shaking. Those experiencing the blessing of holy laughter spread it back to their home congregations, creating a national and international wave of contagious laughter. Contrast, now,

Laughter is more about relationships than humour: its about an in-group feeling, not comedy
the similarity between the propagation of such religious anointings and what was called the laughing malady puzzle in Africa. They are strikingly similar, tap the same social trait, and are an extreme form of the commonplace, not pathology. Laughter yoga, an innovation of Madan Kataria of Mumbai, taps contagious laughter for his secular Laughing Clubs International. The laugh clubbers gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises, seeking better tness and a good time. Katarias revelation was that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter no jokes are necessary. Meetings start with unison laughter exercises, moving on to more unusual variants. This selfdescribed laughing for no reason produces real, contagious laughter and is fun for the self-selected participants, but its claimed medicinal benets remain a matter of conjecture. Rather than dismissing contagious laughter as a behavioural curiosity, we should recognise it (and other laughrelated phenomena) as clues to broader and deeper issues. When we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group, creating a crescendo of jocularity or ridicule. The use of laughter to evoke laughter is familiar to viewers of television sitcoms. Laugh tracks (dubbed-in sounds of laughter) have accompanied

many sitcoms since 9 September 1950. On that evening, The Hank McCune Show a comedy about a likable blunderer, a devilish fellow who tries to cut corners only to nd himself the sucker rst used a laugh track to compensate for the absence of a live studio audience. Although the show was short-lived, the television industry discovered the power of canned laughter to evoke audience laughter. The music recording industry recognised the seductive power of laughter with the distribution of The Okeh Laughing Record, which consisted of trumpet playing intermittently interrupted by highly infectious laughter. Released shortly after the rst world war, it remains one of the most successful novelty records of all time. Acknowledging the commercial potential of this novelty market, jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Woody Herman, as well as virtuoso of funny music Spike Jones, all attempted to cash in with laugh records of their own. Classicists may add that performers in the Athenian Theatre of Dionysus scooped everyone by more than 2,000 years, when they hired people to cheer or jeer to inuence the audience and judges of their tragedy and comedy contests. The innovation of laugh tracks in early television shows kindled the fears of some cold war-era politicians that the pinko media was trying to surreptitiously control the masses. Psychology researchers jumped on the new phenomenon of canned laughter, conrming that laugh tracks do indeed increase audience laughter and the audiences rating of the humorousness of the comedy material, attributing the eect to sometimes baroque mechanisms (deindividuation; release restraint mediated by imitation; social facilitation; emergence of social norms, etc). Decades later, we learned that the naked sound of laughter itself can evoke laughter that you dont need a joke. Recorded laughter produced by a laugh box, a small, batteryoperated record player from a novelty store, was sufcient to trigger real laughter among my undergraduate students in a classroom setting. On their rst exposure to the laughter, nearly half of the students reported that they responded with laughter themselves. (More than 90% reported smiling on rst exposure.) However, the eectiveness of the stimulus declined with repetition. By the 10th exposure, about 75% of the students rated the laugh stimulus as obnoxious, a reminder of the sometimes derisive nature of laughter, especially when repetitive and invariable. It is unpleasant to be the recipient of a scornful ha. Court fools, presidential aides and corporate administrative assistants learn early in their careers that it is safer to laugh with the boss than at him or her. Plato and Aristotle correctly feared the power of laughter to undermine authority and lead to the overthrow of the state. Then, as now, politicians days are numbered when they become regular fare in comedy. In our politically correct, feel-good, be-happy time we are shielded from and underestimate the dark side of laughter that was better known to the ancients. If you think laughter is benign, be aware that laughter is present during the worst atrocities, from murder, rape and pillage in antiquity to the present. Laughter has been present at the

Women laugh more than men in conversations

HA!

Speakers laugh more than their audience

HA!

We are 30 times more likely to laugh in a social situation than when we are alone

HA!

Laughter is an involuntary response and just the sound of laughter is enough to prompt it spreading

HA!

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

about why we laugh

Laughter is an instinctive behaviour, produced and recognised by people of all cultures

HA!

An outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanzania in 1962 resulted in 14 schools being closed

HA!

entertainments of public executions and torture. On street corners around the world, laughing at the wrong person or at the wrong time can get you killed. The publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper triggered calls for the death of the cartoonists and a worldwide murderous rampage that left many dead and injured. Although radical Islam is most in the news, all monotheistic religions ruthlessly suppress humorous challenges to their spiritual franchise. The killers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, were laughing as they strolled through classrooms murdering their classmates. Laughter accompanies ethnic violence and insult, from Kosovo to Abu Ghraib prison. Laughing with brings the pleasure of acceptance, in-group feeling, and bonding. But laughing at is jeering and ridicule, targeting outsiders who look or act dierently, pounding down the nail that sticks up, shaping them up, or driving them away. Being laughed at can be a very serious, even dangerous business. aughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you know where to look. Learning to read laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary and hard to fake, providing an uncensored, honest account about what people really think about each other, and you. Laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logs) during a one-week period. Smiling and talking were also recorded to provide contrasts with laughter and with each other. The presence of media (television, radio, reading material, etc) was noted because it serves as vicarious social stimulation. The sociality of laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around others than when they were alone laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects not exposed to media stimulation. People are much more likely to smile or talk to themselves than they are to laugh when they are alone. Although we probably laugh or smile more when we are happy than sad, these acts are performed primarily in response to face-to-face encounters. You are least likely to laugh, smile or talk immediately before bedtime and after waking, circumstances with reduced opportunities for social interaction. These data provide solid grounds for a behavioural prescription: if you want more laughter in your life, spend more time with other people. If no friends are physically present, you can dial them up on your phone. Even solitary television viewing may not be as socially impoverished as suggested by its detractors, and has something to oer the recluse: the people in the box. Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter by anonymous people in public places. My colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred. Contrary to expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed banal remarks such as Look, its Andre, Are you sure? and It was nice meeting you too. Even our greatest hits the funniest of the

1,200 pre-laugh comments were not necessarily howlers: You dont have to drink, just buy us drinks, Shes got a sex disorder she doesnt like sex, and Do you date within your species? Your life is lled with a laugh track to what must be the worlds worst situation comedy. Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone not comedy mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter. Laughter is more about relationships than humour. Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario of stand-up comedy in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a laughing audience. Comedy performance proves an inadequate model for everyday conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach) are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.

really feel about each other and you. Laughter is a particularly informative measure of relationships because it is largely unplanned, uncensored and hard to fake. Men and women mindlessly and predictably act out our species biological script. A man surrounded by attentive, laughing females is obviously doing something right, and he will comply by continuing to feed his admirers whatever triggers their laughter. Such good-humoured fellows dont need a big supply of jokes their charisma carries the day. Laughter is not, however, a win-win signal for males and females; if it is used carelessly, you can laugh your way out of a relationship or a job.

Any health benets of laughter are a popular myth; it is nothing more than a vocalisation

HA!

Men are the best laugh getters and this is apparent when joking rst appears, at six years of age
Gender determines the proportion of speaker and audience laughter. Whether they are speaker or audience (in mixed-sex groups), women laugh more often than men. In our sample of 1,200 cases, female speakers laughed 127% more than their male audience. Neither males nor females laugh as much with female speakers as they do with male speakers, helping to explain the paucity of female comedians. On average, men are the best laugh getters. These dierences are already present by the time joking rst appears, around six years of age. Based on this evidence, it is no surprise that your school clown was probably a male, a worldwide pattern. Laughter is sexy. Women laughing at men are responding to more than their prowess in comedy. Women are attracted to men who make them laugh (ie, have a good sense of humour), and men like women who laugh in their presence. The next time you are at a party, use laughter as a guide to what people

Laughter usually follows comments in conversation rather than intentional jokes

HA!

ROBERT PROVINE Man of mirth

Robert R Provine is a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland. A leading expert on behaviour, he has written more than 50 articles on developmental neuroscience and neural mechanisms from studies on more than 30 species. He is perhaps best known, though, for his work on humans; he has spent two decades writing extensively about laughter, culminating in his rst book, Laughter: A Scientic Investigation, published in 2000. Having come to the realisation that capturing laughter in a laboratory condition was futile, Provine instead gathered real-life data from public places, observing more than 1,200 exchanges and making a note of when the unsuspecting participants laughed. Provines latest work, Curious Behaviour: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping and Beyond, investigates a wider range of human behaviour. This has led to even more bizarre experiments, including the acoustic analysis of atulence, counting the hiccups of embryos and even tickling chimpanzees.

he asymmetrical power of laughter and comedy for men and women is noted by comedian Susan Prekel, who bemoans that men in her audience will nd me repulsive, at least as a sexual being. In contrast, male comics do very well with women. Laughter and humour are highly valued in the sexual marketplace. In 3,745 personal ads published by heterosexual males and females in eight US national newspapers on 28 April 1996, men oered sense of humour (or humorous) and women requested it. Women couldnt care less whether their ideal male partner laughs or not they want a male who makes them laugh. Women sought humour more than twice as often as they oered it. The behavioural economics of such bids and oers is consistent with the nding that men are attracted to women who laugh in their presence. Without such a balance between bids and oers, there would be no market for laughter and humour, and the currency of these behaviours would decline. Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not consciously knowing what we are doing. Consider the placement of laughter in the speech stream. Laughter does not occur randomly. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker may say You are wearing that? Ha-ha, but rarely You are wearing ha-ha that? The occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and questions suggests that a lawful and probably neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter in speech. Speech is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure. The relationship between laughter and speech is akin to punctuation in written communication. I call it the punctuation eect. The orderliness of the punctuation eect is striking because its involuntary (we cannot laugh on command). If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely, consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, test the proposition of punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the placement of ha-ha laughs. Its a good thing that time sharing by these airway manoeuvres is neurologically orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and laugh. This is an edited extract from Curious Behaviour: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping and Beyond, by Robert Provine (Harvard University Press, 18.95). To buy a copy for 18.95 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

19

DISCOVER NEUROLOGY

Vaughan Bell
How simulating dementia can help map our minds
Electrodes inside the skull can temporarily mimic brain disease and so allow us to nd out more about the way we work

ON SCIENCE
SECOND THOUGHTS An implanted grid of electrodes can not only record the brains activity it can alter it, too. University of Utah Department of Neurosurgery

he rst person electrically stimulate the brain of a living human during surgery was the 19th-century British neurosurgeon Sir Victor Horsley. The operation was to treat a deformation called an encephalocele, where the bones of the skull do not close properly in the womb, causing the brain to protrude from the head. Horsely applied a weak electrical current to the surgically exposed brain tissue, making the patients eyes swivel to the side, which told the surgeon that the out-of-place area was the top of the midbrain normally a deeply embedded neural structure essential for directing vision. The technique was later picked up to treat epilepsy as it became clear that removing the part of the brain that triggered seizures could be an eective treatment, even if identifying it could be tricky. Small, clearly identied points of damage or localised tumours could often trigger seizures but sometimes the errant waves of epileptic activity would start far away from the original point of visible injury. Horsley used the electrical stimulation technique while patients were awake to nd the sensitive area and remove it. Not bad for 1886. Although initially invented for medical reasons, this surgical technique began to throw up some curious scientic data. In the 1930s

the Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Peneld asked patients undergoing epilepsy surgery if he could perform brief experiments while they were being operated on. He found that stimulating parts of the brain could cause a range of reactions from tingling to weeping to a desire to move providing crucial evidence that activity in specic brain areas could trigger surprisingly complex behaviours. People with epilepsy have remained an important part of our quest to understand ourselves as they have regularly volunteered to take part in neuroscience experiments while undergoing open-brain operations. Even though these experiments are a relatively brief pause in the procedure, they still require people to oer some of their time while their skull has been opened and their brain exposed, and we know much more about the brain thanks to their generosity. As surgical techniques have moved on, so has the science. The starting points of some seizures are not easily located in the relatively short period available during surgery. To compensate for this, neurosurgeons have taken to implanting electrodes in the brains of people with epilepsy before the skull is replaced and the skin sewn up, which allows the medical team to record brain activity as the patients go about their daily life. One form of this in brain recording, known as electrocorticography,

involves surgically inserting a grid of electrodes over the surface of the brain. This has allowed neuroscientists to measure the brain at work in the real world via cables that go from the brain into a small digital recorder. A study published last year in the Journal of Neurosurgery mapped the main language areas of the cortex, the brains outer layer, using an implanted electrode grid and a simple word task that took an average of just 47 seconds. More than 100 other studies have used this technique with similarly impressive results. One innovation is particularly mind-boggling. After years of using implanted electrode grids to read from the brain, neuroscientists have begun to use the electrodes to write to it in other words, to alter the function of the brain through the same electrodes that record its activity. By having a grid of electrodes in place, says Matthew Lambon Ralph, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Manchester University, it is possible to probe many dierent regions rather than just one. The precision is such that the Lambon Ralph team and a team at

One innovation is mind-boggling: neuroscientists can now write to implants in the brain
Kyoto University Medical School, led by Riki Matsumoto, have used an implanted grid to temporarily simulate characteristics of a brain disease called semantic dementia. Like Alzheimers, semantic dementia is a degenerative disorder, but one in which brain cells that specically support our understanding of meaning rapidly decline. Studies of patients with semantic dementia have taught us a great deal about how memory is organised in the brain but the disorder is swift and unpredictable, and a method that can mimic the eects while recording directly from the cortex is a powerful tool. The technique is safe and reversible, as we know from a simple version that is often done pre-neurosurgery to ensure that no tissue that supports

key mental functions is removed during the operation. Using it as a way of briey simulating more complex cognitive diculties is an exciting development. Stimulation is injected in one part of a grid and the evoked response across other grids is measured. Its a direct measure of functional connectivity, explains Lambon Ralph, highlighting how these sorts of studies can allow the brains function, in terms of thinking skills, to be closely linked to its physical connections. The research was presented at the British Neuropsychological Society spring conference by UK-based team member Taiji Ueno. The main ndings are still being prepared for peer review but the use of implant grids in neuroscience research is sure to become more common as the surgical procedure becomes more widely used. These procedures are only done for medical reasons, and researchers get no say about how and on whom they are performed. But, as ever, patients have been generous with their time. From 1886 until now, these exciting discoveries have been made possible by people on the operating table. Phosphate Oce (Casablanca), Cadi Ayyad University (Marrakech), and Chouaib Doukkali University (El Jadida). The fossils were unearthed in the northeast Ouled Abdoun basin. Dental and cranial morphology, including details of shapes, sizes, proportions and symmetry, reveal important derived similarities shared only with other early genera of Proboscidea and reversed in later descendants. Other characters of E azzouzorum are reminiscent of groups that existed prior to the origin of the proboscidean line. Although it lacked a trunk and didnt look much like its later descendants, it did have an enlarged rst incisor, the precursor to a tusk. This new species is signicant for several reasons. First, it suggests that the elephant order originated earlier than previously thought and helps to date an important step in the placental tree. Second, it represents a major evolutionary leap at the beginning of the Eocene including a large body size and lophodonty, that is, the appearance of ridges on teeth perpendicular to the jaw. An estimated 5kg body weight makes it the size of the largest living hyrax, a creature 18in to 20in long. Finally, it lls a gap in the fossil record, providing evidence of a transitional stage between modern African ungulates and condylarth-like mammals, that is, earlier placental mammals that were common to the Paleocene. Quentin Wheeler

NEW TO NATURE
No 82 Eritherium azzouzorum
The three living species of the order Proboscidea, the savanna and forest African and Asian elephants, surely rank among the most bizarre and extraordinarily derived placental mammals. They are, however, relics of a long and once species-rich lineage. Thanks to a recently discovered fossil, we now know that this evolutionary march to the elephants began in Africa at least 60m years ago. Dr Emmanuel Gheerbrant of the Musum National dHistoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris has reported the discovery of an extinct species in Morocco, Eritherium azzouzorum, that pushes the oldest record of a proboscidean back by ve million years. The previous record was held by an extinct member of another genus found in the same region, Phosphatherium, that is believed to have been a dogur re sized, amphibious, plant-eating creature s. that looked much like a hippopotamus. The discovery of E azzouzorum, known from partial fossils of 15 f individuals and consisting primarily of we er parts of skulls, jaws and upper and lower teeth, was made possible by a Francon Moroccan agreement that included, in addition to the MNHN, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Rabat), Chrien

Pushing back the fossil record: parts of the skull, jaw and teeth of Eritherium azzouzorum.

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Critics
TELEVISION
Euan Ferguson
Doctor Who BBC1 Citizen Khan BBC1 Murder: Joint Enterprise BBC2 Bad Sugar C4
Its remarkably seldom that a pocket cartoon can change any aspect of your life. But many years ago a man called Peter Birkett drew, for Punch, a simple cartoon featuring two Daleks confronted with a staircase. The caption was simple. Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the universe. From that moment I was not only unafraid of Daleks but found them actively absurd. As all good gags do, this one took a while to lter into the wider world, but within a couple of years it was the wisecrack of choice in those sophisticated circles wherein Daleks were deemed worthy of mention; and even after the chaps behind Doctor Who grew chary of the giggles and gifted Daleks with the ability to levitate, they remained, to my now adult eyes, resolutely silly. So it was something of a coup for the team behind the present Doctor, mainly writer Steven Moat, to have recaptured for me, through simple dramatic air, a frisson of remembered fear: hairs on the back of the neck reacting to the sight of anodised parking cones in a way they hadnt for a good 30 years. Its the hive mind that terries, of course, the same premise used to equally daunting eect with the Borg of Star Trek; that and the urgent rising electronic anger of the voices. As the Doctor, with his whizzily oppy hair and stoic mania, stood before the Dalek parliament summoned there to help save his rst-sworn enemies from, essentially, another planet theyd built and lled with other Daleks deemed even by Daleks to be far too mad, angry, hate-lled and unnecessarily violent for, yknow, normal Dalek life (come on, keep up, Stephen Hawkings already on the last paragraph) the rasps and parps and whirrs rose and growled and coalesced in their evil thousands, ashing layers and tiers in the vast stadium around his bemused blinks, like an Olympics opening ceremony gone spectacularly wrong. Not only did I forget to look at Amy Ponds miniskirt, I forgot to look for the stairs. It was that exciting, that frissoning. Yet more well-deserved chops to Moat and co, and to stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan for helping suspend our disbelief through another hour of wonderfully silly, gripping and, on occasion, genuinely tremulous family entertainment, those last two words meant well rather than cynically. And there was much sly wit, not least from newcomer Clara Oswin, a terric Jenna-Louise Coleman, who oh its all too complicatedly cosmic, man, but basically shes a pretty young girl who doesnt know shes a Dalek. And she worries, once, that Gillans Amy may have been sundered by the Dalek hive and in the process of metamorphosing, because she sounds always so angry. Amy hears, and snaps caustically out of her stupor. Well. Somebodys never been to Scotland. There were more laughs, more wit, more nuanced and believable human humour in any three minutes of this everyday tale of time-travellers besting rusting aliens with a sonic screwdriver and a miniskirt than in the full halfhour of Citizen Khan. Sadly. The BBCs rst Pakistani-Muslim comedy came much hyped, and with many hopes, and was insultingly bad. Insulting to some who make a ne amateur hobby out of being insulted and who have complained about stereotyping, but thats what bad comedy does, good people. But more insulting to those,

LADY GAGA LIVE, PAGE 34

Film | Music | Art | Theatre | Dance | Radio

Still angry after all these years

building that unnavigably foetid mess of a car park/shopping mall smack in the middle of its history and thus making its inhabitants want to kill each other all the time as it diverted other, nastier, eyes towards the hitherto unregarded yet undeniably rugged contours of an Amaretto bottle. Filthy, harsh, beautifully unpredictable, scarily well acted by Karla Crome and Joe Dempsie, it left a bad taste about humanity and justice, and a sweet raving taste for more of this stu from Mr Larsen or anyone else who wants to twist, bash and pleat the dough of crime staples into darker and more dangerously cinnamoned delights. It was absurdly hard not to love any minute of Bad Sugar. As hard as it would surely be not to love Olivia Colman, Julia Davis or Sharon Horgan if you met them in real life, and as hard as it would surely be not to rabbit-punch the next man who ever says that women cant do comedy. Spritzy, bitchy, gloriously knowing, this Downton/Dynasty/ Brideshead/Triangle spoof would, in an ideal world, warm the cockles all the coming autumn. Every minute, all performances, encapsulated not just the dirtier sensibilities of our times but the pitch-perfect timings and pouts and moues of the very very best of, say, Not the Nine OClock News. Its such a shame that, in comparison, Citizen Khan has chosen to echo the very very worst of On the Buses.

Matt Smith in Doctor Who: another hour-long plot of wonderfully silly and, on occasion, tremulous family entertainment.

It was a something of a coup to recapture a frisson of fear at the sight of anodised parking cones
including the above, who believed its billing under the slot comedy. It was comedy from the early 70s, taking the rip out of Birmingham Pakistanis Dads selfaggrandisement, meanness and dodgy taste in brown ties, Mums houseproud status-paranoia, the overarching family hypocrisies but written and performed by Muslims of Pakistani origin, chiey the otherwise talented Adil Ray (Why? Why, Adil?) and thus OK. Except it wasnt, because it a) did rather fall back on stereotypes, in roughly the way anything scraped

SCENE OF THE WEEK

Much will have been written elsewhere Op about the Paralympics 2012 Opening on Ceremony (C4),, so I wont go on. Just (C4) two things when was your wow wo moment? And when can we get a sense of perspective? For me, the lump me in the throat came watching that band th of wheelchaired wheelch athletes carrying c the Paralympic Paral ag. Wheeling Wh their ch chairs with one ha the hand, other doing the agag-holding, and, at the a slope and slopes turns you turns, could see some twitches of struggle, imbalance, some echoes of pain. I was shot back to a day in 1999. About to enter Kosovo, from Albania, naively unheeding of the danger thanks to the laughing companionship of a woman named Marie Colvin, I came across the remnants of a refugee march over the mountains, eeing Kosovo. One mother walked uphill beside her teenage son, shot in both kneecaps, on two dodgy crutches. The plastic of his handles was blisteringly hot. She had used, she said, two full bottles of water to keep the handles slick, cool, and save her sons palms. Humankind was not made to propel itself manually. Every day for the next 12 we should remember this, and wonder, and stop bitching about the bloody ad breaks.

from the nether regions of a barrel, held aloft and then dropped, falls back into the bottom of the barrel, and b) was stone-faced unfunny. By the time of the gear stick joke my features had assumed those of a gargoyle. All around the country, and particularly around Birminghams Sparkhill, you could hear people waiting to laugh, with the frustration of a sneeze which wont come. If they made a similar programme today about, say, Bermondsey whities, utterly ignoring all the suss, wit, learned subtleties, cross-pollination, angst and kindness in favour of nonjokes about tripe, Mother Browns skirts and the robbing of prize marrows from dodgy allotments there would be, frankly, bemusement. Unless it was actually funny, which redeems much. Which this wasnt. How can the same corporation produce both above programmes? One can only imagine the execs raising glasses of no in a tapas bar after a lengthy week at White City. Dr Who? Yeah, again, its great, lovely stu, onward and upward. You? Citizen Khan. Its great, its the rst-ever actually, its a crock. But it ticks the boxes. Cheers, BBC. As far from box-ticking country as you could get was the nest thriller of the week, Murder: Joint Enterprise, the rst venture into this country from The Killings director Birger Larsen. He and writer Robert Jones didnt give us a cohesive time line or narrative, or a awed alcoholic antihero, or bells or churches or stilettos. Instead they gave us, through a series of retrospective monologues from the protagonists the lairy ex-squaddie, the confused asthmatic detective, the dodgy tramp of a sister a mesmerising hour which still lingers. It will also have averted as many eyes from Nottingham goodness, how the local council must have hated this programme, but then it shouldnt have ruined its own city by

A stunning ensemble dance work driven by one of Edgar Varses musical masterpieces

& Guests Continu

Sasha Waltz

UK PREMIERE

Fri 28 Sun 30 September

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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Film
FILM OF THE WEEK

In search of the perfect scream

Peter Stricklands thriller about a home counties sound engineer hired by a 70s Italian horror studio is a triumph
Philip French
Berberian Sound Studio
(92 mins, 15) Directed by Peter Strickland; starring Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Antonio Mancino, Fatma Mohamed

One of the most remarkable British movies of the past couple of years, Berberian Sound Studio is a psychological thriller set entirely in the Kafkaesque oces of a sleazy Italian lm company in the 1970s. It brings together a gifted trio of independent British lm-makers: producer Keith Griths, who has been behind a dozen or more daring, obeat pictures, including most recently the Cannes Palme dOr winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives; the cinematographer Nic Knowland, whose numerous credits since the late 1970s include Tony Palmers Shostakovich biography Testimony and the Quay brothers Institute Benjamenta; and writer-director Peter Strickland, a truly European director

who made his feature debut in Hungary three years ago with Katalin Varga. The low-budget Katalin Varga, shot in Romania in Hungarian, tells the story of a peasant woman embarking on a Virgin Spring-style revenge trip around the Carpathians after being banished from her native village. The most notable feature is its complex soundtrack combining electronic music, an indecipherable chorus of human voices, and slightly heightened natural sounds of wind, water, thunder and the rustling of grass and leaves. This is important because in Stricklands second lm, Berberian Sound Studio, the protagonist is a shy, nondescript British sound expert, and he has two cinematic predecessors. In Francis Coppolas The Conversation (1974), Gene Hackman played a San Francisco surveillance expert hired to make secret recordings of conspiratorial lovers, who gets out of his depth and descends into paranoia. In Brian De Palmas Blow Out (1981) John Travolta had one of his best roles as an ace sound-eects man working on a lowbudget horror ick in Philadelphia who stumbles across a political conspiracy. He ends up recording the screams of a dying woman and uses them to dub a slasher lm. Coppola and De Palma were of course inuenced by Antonionis Blow-Up (1966), and Strickland refers specically to Ingmar Bergman and

David Lynch in Berberian Sound Studio. The short, balding Toby Jones, one of the cinemas nest character actors at work today, plays the middle-aged Gilderoy, a home counties dork from Dorking brought to Italy to construct a soundtrack. His speciality, according to a persuasive clip were shown, is providing the natural sounds of winds, birdcalls and rippling brooks for British natural history lms. Theyre narrated by plummy-voiced actors with snatches of Vaughan Williamss The Lark Ascending in the background. The Berberian Studio specialises in something dierent: the stylish, sadistic, sexually explicit horror movies of the 1970s known as giallo because of the garish yellowcovered paperbacks from which they were adapted; these were especially associated with such directors as Mario Bava, Luciano Ercoli, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento. Gilderoys encounter with a sullen, aggressive, dark-haired beauty at the reception establishes the unwelcoming, mysteriously foreign nature of the place, as well as his identity as an innocent, unworldly mothers boy. He starts o making the rst of many unsuccessful requests for his airfare, a decreasingly unfunny joke as the movie goes on. The prissy Gilderoy is at rst surprised and intrigued by this giallo world. We see the graphic red and black credit titles of The Equestrian

Only through his eyes do we experience the outrageous horrors for which he must provide sound eects
Vortex depicting satanic scenes preceding the outrageous movie that the menacingly amboyant, ashily dressed and extravagantly coied producer Francesco Coraggio and the director Giancarlo Santini have made. But only through Gilderoys eyes do we experience the outrageous horrors (rape, mutilation, torture and terror) for which he must provide

sound eects as well as recording the dialogue and screams of the attractive young starlets in their cramped sound booth. He keeps in touch with Dorking through his mothers letters of village activities, and is attered by the signicance attached to his contribution by his new employers and the attentions of the attractive actresses. His absorption in special eects (sizzling fat to accompany a red-hot poker penetrating a nuns vagina; a crushed marrow to capture the nal sound of a plummeting body) keeps their true nature at bay. But gradually the deference of producer and director turns into contempt, especially when they take personally Gilderoys criticisms of the studios penny-pinching equipment, and when he dares to impugn the

AND THE REST By Philip French

Total Recall
(118 mins, 15) Directed by Len Wiseman; starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel, Bill Nighy

Paul Verhoevens 1990 Total Recall, based on Philip K Dicks short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, was a lively dystopian sci- thriller set on Earth and Mars run by an authoritarian government that exaggerated the inuences of a rebel force in order to remain in power. Directed by Len Wiseman (best known as a special eects expert and as director of the dismal Underworld vampire lms), this remake is a dull movie. It largely sticks to the originals plot but is set entirely on our planet, now run as the United Federation of Britain, with two chief centres a version of London and, on the other side of the globe, the Colony, which is little dierent from the polluted Los Angeles of Blade Runner. The two parts are connected by a lift that goes through the Earths core. Colin Farrell is an unsatisfactory replacement for Arnold Schwarzenegger as the married proletarian who discovers hes really a former government agent who became a subversive freedom ghter and was given a new memory. The chief clue to his former identity is that he reads a tattered James Bond paperback on the bus to work. The 1990 version was witty and quirky, much of its charm coming from Arnie. It had a formidable villain in Michael Ironside and two really sexy women in the shape of Sharon Stone

Nothing to see here: Jessica Biel and Colin Farrell in Total Recall. Rex Features

and Rachel Ticotin. Wisemans lm is (after 20 minutes of scene-setting) one long, repetitive chase with occasional pit stops. The special eects are unremarkable too, and lack the impact of the Verhoeven lm.

Michigan, where the kids drift around, full of unresolved purpose, dropping in on parties, talking, dossing down in school gymnasiums, sleeping over at friends houses. Their paths cross as they drink, share splis, exchange painful condences, have little misunderstandings and experience minor epiphanies. Its a ritual, a rite of passage. The most interesting of the girls is an attractive blonde with a lovely smile and studs all over her face who is going to start the new school year dancing in a street parade. The most engaging story involves a shy, ungainly Chicago University senior, about to drop out after being jilted and taking up with identical twins. One of them has a crush on him, though he cant nd out which one. Its an unsentimental debut of some promise and it has the ring of truth.

through a wedding photographers lens, but it eventually gives up the pretence after zombies take over the grand hotel where the event is being held. Its a tiresome gore fest, much of it played for easy laughs. The makers think theyre being sophisticatedly ruthless. Theyre merely childishly heartless.

Cockneys vs Zombies
(88 mins, 15) Directed by Matthias Hoene; starring Michelle Ryan, Georgia King, Alan Ford, Honor Blackman, Richard Briers

tearaways, who come to the aid of the grandfather rst by robbing a bank, then by battling against the zombies. Its a ragged lm, indierently acted, but not dislikable and occasionally quite amusing, as when West Ham zombies confront zombies from Millwall. The big attraction, however, comes from seeing the senior citizens recover the Churchillian spirit of the Blitz. Theyre led by Richard Briers clutching his walking frame, Dudley Sutton in a wheelchair and Honor Blackman supported by hip replacements, all gleefully wielding automatic weapons.

[Rec] Gnesis
(80 mins, 18) Directed by Paco Plaza; starring Leticia Dolera, Diego Martn, Ismael Martnez

The better of the weeks two zombie movies begins in Nigel Kneale fashion. A pair of hard-hats accidentally open a vault under an east London church that was sealed during the Great Plague in 1666 and release a force that rapidly spreads to create an implacable horde of esh-eating monsters. Their appearance coincides with a threat to close a local old peoples centre, the Bow Bells Care Home, run by the grandfather of three East End

A Few Best Men

(96 mins, 15) Directed by Stephan Elliott; starring Xavier Samuel, Laura Brent, Kris Marshall, Olivia Newton-John

The Myth of the American Sleepover

(96 mins, 15) Directed by David Robert Mitchell; starring Claire Sloma, Marlon Morton, Amanda Bauer, Brett Jacobsen

This mosaic movie is a slow-moving, mumblecore version of George Lucass dynamic American Grati and tells a similar, very American story of how some middle-class teenagers spend the last night of summer before moving on to a new school or going to university. The setting is a suburb of Detroit,

In Jaume Balaguer and Paco Plazas nt [REC], an intrepid reporter went out on he a nocturnal assignment with the local h re brigade and ended up with her unter cameraman covering her encounter y with an apartment occupied by he zombies. It came at you with the r ferocity of a Spanish inquisitor ent. brandishing a torture instrument. t [REC] 2 took up where the rst ce. ended and proved commonplace. This third instalment, a solo eort by Paco Plaza, starts with the world being observed

The most dislikable collection of friends in literature are Bassanio and his coarse, sponging chums in The Merchant of Venice. I was reminded of them last week when recalling wo that the worst of the lot the witless, anti-semit anti-semitic Gratiano was played in the Al Pa Pacino lm version by Marsh Kris Marshall. A specialist in such roles, Mars Marshall virtually reprises his Gratia as one of three loathsome Gratiano Lon Londoners who create havoc w when they accompany their b friend to Australia to be best b men at his wedding. Hes best t marry the daughter of a to
Laura Brent, Olivia NewtonJohn and Rebel Wilson in the excruciating A Few Best Men.

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Our monthly section featuring the biggest names in pop and more

Music
omy Madley Croft doesnt leave proper ngerprints, and what whorls and ridges the 23-year-old has on the tips of her ngers are so ne they cant be detected by the special machines at US border control. It means that having landed at Los Angeles airport with Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith this trio of Londoners forming a remarkable British band, the xx Croft is pulled aside for a long and joyless conference with immigration ocials. The three musicians, all 23, are groggy after a ight in from Sydney, but only Sim and Smith get to drive away to their hotel. Faint ngerprints. Its a weirdly appropriate impediment for Croft, guitarist and singer in a band such as this. The xx make electronic-edged

IN SEARCH OF THE XX FACTOR

Since their stunning 2009 debut, the xx have kept their lives out of the spotlight. But for how much longer? With a hotly tipped new album imminent, Tom Lamont joins them on tour in LA

music thats ghostly, low key, as spare and enigmatic as their curious name. The trio are notoriously reticent, hoping in their promotional commitments to make minimal personal impression; and in the three years between releasing a ne rst album and putting out, this month, a second, theyve done so impeccably. Tracks from their self-titled debut, winner of the 2010 Mercury Prize, are used all over, and their new album, Coexist, deserves to become another cultural xture. You will denitely be aware of the xxs stu. You might not be totally sure who they are, though, these cat burglars of British pop here, there and everywhere without leaving identifying marks. In the courtyard of their hotel in Hollywood, the band go unnoticed.

They are left alone to blink and wince their way into West Coast time. Beers and coees are ordered; notes are compared on a wicked, composite jet lag that has built up over close-packed tour dates in Europe, Japan, Australia and now America. Oliver Sim, the bands bass player and co-vocalist, 6ft 2in with a backward whip of hair, is coming to terms with it being the mid-afternoon. At 10am on a Sunday the bands plane left Sydney, spent 13 hours in ight and landed in LA at 7am... still a Sunday. Sim wonders if the experience counts as time travel. Should he have written himself a note? Dont watch the in-ight Jennifer Aniston movie. Jamie Smith, multitasking percussionist and producer, is not so

bothered by his extreme tiredness. Being not so bothered is Smiths default position on a great many things. His woolly brown hair shaped into a drooping qui, hes been sitting poolside all morning, snatching sucks on cigarettes before the waiters can tell him no, and thinking about reworking some incidental music for the bands gig tomorrow. It will be at the Fonda theatre in Hollywood, the xxs rst US show in over a year, and a sell-out. Croft, pale-skinned with a distinctive forward swoop of black hair, has by now been freed from the airport to join her bandmates. She had to wait for an hour to get her passport back, she tells me, listening all the
Continued overleaf

The xx in Los Angeles, California (l to r): Jamie Smith, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim. Photograph for the New Review by Jamie-James Medina

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

23

MUSIC INTERVIEW

They dont like to let people close, or to be kept, showily, at a distance

Continued from page 27

while to another passenger being bullied by guards because he wasnt carrying the right form. I felt quite upset by it, she says. I guess I guess unnecessariness gets to me. That is it, the xxs ethos, if it had to be formalised. Unnecessariness gets to them. They dont seem comfortable taking praise, or giving interviews. (Were very private, Croft tells me. We like our personal space.) They socialise sensibly: karaoke, ideally, and nothing much stronger than Newcastle Brown Ale. Theyre in their early 20s though are mistakable in manner for people much older, as long as you allow the odd generational giveaway, like Sims reference to Pokmon trading cards, or Crofts habit of making statements with the rising lilt of a question, or the fact that millennial popstar Daniel Bedingeld was a young hero of Smiths. The trio dress in black, always have, and it seems to me symbolic of their aversions. They dont like swank. It should all make their next 48 hours in Los Angeles interesting, because in this most unnecessary of cities, swank is close to a religion. Before the xx depart, Smith will nd himself high on a stage in an openair nightclub, being showered with confetti and enclosed by writhing go-go dancers. A local promoter will give them, of all things, a box of pornography. Croft and Sim will sing while standing on a giant chessboard. LA, acknowledges Sim, is the place that pulls the trio furthest from their comfort zone. Certainly its a long way from where everything began. Putney. heir rst album might have sounded so spacious, so uncomplicated, because when the band rst started writing it they hardly knew their instruments. Sim got a bass on his 14th birthday, by which time Croft was teaching herself the guitar. Theyd been friends since before they could talk, near-identical looking toddlers rst plonked down to play together in a sandpit. They grew close in that way early-introduced kids do, unquestioningly and by increment, day after day in each others company. They went to the same primary school then the same secondary, Elliott school in Putney, south-west London.

Romy knows everything there is to know about me, says Sim, but at 14 it took time for them to admit to each other theyd been ddling with instruments; writing snatches of music; even (behind closed bedroom doors, Sim living with his mum in a Fulham council at and Croft ve minutes drive away) singing. They decided theyd form a boy-girl duo, and their voices paired brilliantly, hers high and airy against his rich lower register. We learned to talk together, says Croft. I dont know why our voices t so well, but maybe thats it. They performed their rst gigs, aged about 16, to a CD drumtrack. Their school had for a while been an incubator of young British bands electropop outt Hot Chip formed there in 2000 and pupils tended to be musical. A friend that Croft and Sim had made in the playground, Jamie Smith, started coming to their shows. He was tiny (Croft towered over him) but Smith had from a young age been DJing at local clubs, a great fan of the

Daniel Bedingeld gave him a new track hed made. Any good? I ask. Smith grimaces and shakes his head
electronica-tinged hip-hop of RJD2. Sim and Croft asked Smith to improve their drumtrack, and later he joined the band. Inspired by RJD2, Smith decided hed try to perform the electronic component of the music live, tapping away on a touch-panel MPC sequencer with clawed ngers, playing it like a compact, percussive piano. By 2006, Baria Qureshi, another schoolfriend, had joined as keyboard player and the band had a name, bashed out among a urry of ideas on a home computer. Were those lower-case letters to represent kisses, chromosomes? Whatever: under the blinking cursor of a Microsoft Word document they liked the way the xx looked written down. When the quartet left school they were taken on by Caius Pawson, a young music impresario whod founded a small label, Young Turks. He signed them up and became their manager. Pawson, today, winces at me. We are in a nightclub in north Hollywood

Sams a young spirit. We complement each other, for sure, both in our work and on an everyday level
Aaron TaylorJohnson, 22, on life with his wife, the artist Sam TaylorWood Observer Magazine pages 16-20

where Smith is shortly to do an hourlong DJ set. Its a side project away from the band, billed under his stage name, Jamie xx. All the cool little gigs Jamie does for 30, Pawson says, pained, and I bring the journalist to this one. Its an extraordinary occasion. The danceoor has its own swimming pool. Tins of Stella, here repackaged as a luxury import, are selling for 8. Smith will get his own dancers, and a bouncer. Just let me know who I should protect, the bouncer keeps saying, and he stars in an ideal moment of farce when Smith moves up to the DJ booth to perform. The set is about halfway through, a confetti bomb going o to mark a high point and the go-go dancers now sharing their podiums with punters brought to a frenzy by Smiths manipulation of Kanye West and Adele. Pawson goes to the bar to get his artist a drink. Dont let anybody into the booth, he instructs the bouncer, who nods. And when Pawson returns the bouncer wont let him in. The next day Smith gives a rare roar of laughter when I tell him this. We are now in a residential tower block, a few streets north, where the xx have been booked to play an afternoon warm-up gig: four quick tracks on a rooftop, their audience made up of competition winners. The block has hosted popstars before, and one of its apartments is today serving as a dressing room. Its here that a war-chest of pornographic DVDs has been left, also condoms, with a note inviting the band to dig in. There are dumbbell weights in the room, should they want to use them. Does somebody actually live here? asks Sim, staring at a wall-sized mural that says ROCK-A-HOLIC in the style of the Hollywood sign. The LA strangeness is mounting. This morning when the band went on a local radio show there was concern, expressed by the shows production sta, that it would be somehow insensitive to mention the date of their new albums US release, 11 September. (Early September was the eventual compromise.) Outside, on the tower blocks roof, the band have just done a soundcheck and discovered theyll be performing in a part of the building normally reserved for residents games. Pieces pushed to one side, the xx will gig on a giant chessboard for the rst time in their careers. Croft is actually more concerned about a red velvet rope that has been strung between the audience and the performance space. Doesnt it look a bit starry? She and Sim have a muttered discussion, too, about whether they should wear sunglasses for the show. On the one hand, they dont want to look distant. On the other hand its pretty sunny. It makes me think of something Smith told me, another bouncerrelated anecdote from the night before. The over-zealous minder had kept smacking o peoples hands as they reached out to Smith in his booth. I didnt really want to shake their hands, conceded Smith. But I didnt want them to be knocked away either. Its the kind of contradiction the xx are faced with often, as they worry out the kinks and complications of growing renown. They dont like to let people close, but nor do they like being kept, showily, at a distance. Smith oers up another odd moment from last night. In the VIP area after his set he was approached by a gure he recognised. Daniel Bedingeld. He gave me a new track hed made, says Smith. Any good, I ask? Smith grimaces, and shakes his head. Oh well: its a measure of how esteemed he is, anyway, that old heroes seek him out as someone to impress. In the bands time o between records most of 2011 Smith remixed an Adele single and Gil Scott-Herons Im New Here album, both successes, and hes been courted to produce for others since. He mentions a collaboration with a US star which ought to be fascinating if released. The once-admired RJD2 even sent Smith a crate of new music not long ago, possibly looking to work together. Any good, I ask? Smith grimaces, and shakes his head. This is his way, gru and honest. Should one of my questions

Hello California: above, the xx perform a warm-up set for 98.7 FM radio on the roof of the Hollywood Tower; above left: taking a break in their hotel bedroom; above right, onstage at the Fonda theatre. Top photograph by Jonathan Leibson/ Film Magic, others by Jamie-James Medina

misre (and, boy, do they misre under this kids inscrutable stare), Smith stays silent, just letting it pass. In a moment of unusual personal candour, he tells me how he met his Italian girlfriend over drinks in a bar, and adds with a strange sort of pride that he didnt ask her for her phone number. Smiths instinct is for passivity, and perhaps this is what makes him such a ne producer. I work with talented people, he shrugs. Im just their tool. Outside, the rooftop show under way, the xx play through a couple of numbers from their new album and a couple from the old. Afterwards there is an attempt at an onstage radio interview, and Sim hugs himself, embarassed, taking a hit for the team by answering questions on behalf of the others. At one point the interviewer pings a rogue inquiry at Smith, whos hiding among the big chess pieces at the back. Sim has to step in and translate his friends silent answer, a vague upper-body twitch. That means yes, says Sim. Afterwards, backstage, the band seem relieved its over and in a good mood. Tonights gig at the Fonda theatre will be more demanding but the afternoon set with its small audience has

reminded them happily of early gigging days, when they played in pubs and clubs to crowds of a couple of dozen. This was around 2008, when they were working up songs for a possible album and Pawson had installed them in a small rehearsal room in Putney. Womblike, Sim once called it. They were still living at home at the time, Croft tells me, and when I think about it from a parents perspective we could have been doing anything. You know: were o to rehearse now, bye! Luckily we were doing something. They were perfecting their debut, xx, released in summer 2009 to kickstarting critical acclaim. The band began a tour, which gradually extended as their fanbase grew and eventually lasted about 18 months, on and o. A lot of jet lag and Jennifer Aniston lms, plus some emotional times along the way. Diculties had developed with the bands fourth member, Qureshi. She has a place here, Sim told the NME at the Mercury announcement ceremony in 2010. Shes part of the album. But Qureshi was no longer part of the band, ejected in October 2009 after a particularly trying few days at a New York music festival. There were problems that came to light because we were at such close quarters, Sim tells me. Croft, at the time, likened the rift to a divorce. They had to grow up in a lot of ways during that rst tour. Most of us go through the bueting half-romances of early adulthood with a bedroom to

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

MUSIC
tower block for the Fonda theatre, she makes herself useful, steaming the creases out of a top for Croft to wear, keeping everyones spirits up with chat. Having somebody special along for a show, Croft tells me privately, makes it new. Like the cheesy bit in a rock movie, I suggest, when the singer sees someone signicant in the crowd and does it just for them. Yeah, always, she says, smiling. If someones there that means something to me, its all I can think about on stage that person. We are talking, alone, on a balcony jutting o the tower. In front of us are the Hollywood hills, the iconic sign looking haggard and sad. Behind us is the freeway, the 101, enduring LAs frightening evening rush hour. Crofts voice is almost lost to the noise of trac as she talks about her father, who died in early 2010 during the bands rst tour. The xx were in Paris when they heard, and rushed back to London. After that, says Croft, everything kind of went on pause. Gigs were cancelled. Everyone waited on Croft. And then there was a point where I was asked: What do you want to do? What she tells me next surprises me, because Ive skimmed through thousands of words on the xx by now, and Ive read their back-stories many times. The band volunteer so little about themselves, though, there are inevitable gaps, and signicant ones. Croft tells me she had lost a parent before. My mum died when I was 11, she says. And I felt quite sad about myself feeling this way, but [when my dad died] it wasnt a new feeling. It was something that I was familiar with. So Croft returned to work quicker than even she can believe, looking back. Within days of the bereavement the band were playing a planned show at the Shepherds Bush Empire. My dad was always there, carrying my amps, driving me around, and I knew that he would have wanted us to carry on. After Shepherds Bush, the xx recommenced their tour. Has she written about this stu ? A couple of songs, says Croft, but just for myself. My dad was such a fan of music, Id love to write something in tribute to him. Thinking about it, she adds: Though maybe its somewhere that would be quite dicult to go, every night on stage. Separately, both Croft and Sim speak about the depersonalising eect of having a calendar that maps out, day by day, show by show, a great chunk of the near future. Its another unsettling form of time travel, and an awful thing, says Sim, to see on a screen in front of you. It might be why theyve tried to scatter this new tour with plans, targets. Theyll soon play an arena in Antwerp, to test their intimate sound on a bigger stage. On his own, Sim has written a song, not right for the band, that he hopes Beyonc might consider if he can work up the courage to ask. Smith has plans to build a new instrument, like his beloved MPC sequencer but iPad-like and see-through, colourful graphics conjured with the same nger taps that make his music. Croft, I sense, simply aims for a less lurching tour than the last. Right now I can see what Im doing until next year, she says (and from LA the band will y to Seattle then through Canada and on to New York, eventually to the UK and Mexico and back to the US), and during that time theres no room for disasters, or life, or anything else like that to happen. Awful, in a way. And in a way, Im sure, a relief. t the Fonda theatre, later, the band perform, and I try to look out for Croft looking out for her girlfriend. I want to glimpse the singer as she pares down a capacity crowd to one. But Im a distance away, and theres a lot of stage smoke, and anyway the shows too absorbing to maintain professional scrutiny for long. Soon Im listing and hollering with

The xx sing mainly about matters of the heart but their lovelives away from the mic are not clear
everyone else. Nodding, too people do a lot of nodding at the xx gigs. Group conrmation: oh this is good. But an LA crowd will demand its swank, and bands playing the Fonda tend to put a little extra zing into their shows. When rapper Azealia Banks performed here, she did so dressed as a pink mermaid, nally lost to view under an industrial dump of balloons from the eaves. Before that, Kasabian in town, their frontman did muscle poses before strolling into the crowd. The xx dont do this, nor shower the Fonda with balloons. Yet the production of tonights show is unprecedentedly ambitious. The trio perform in front of magnicent new laser lights, tinged pink and gold, that shoot out from the rear of the stage. They play most of the show backlit, and its almost a shame the band cant see themselves as the audience do, framed by these powerful lights. Im certain theyd approve, because Croft and Sim and Smith are left shadowy, indistinct, really only silhouettes. Coexist is out on 10 September. The xx play Bestival on Saturday

retreat to, a duvet to crawl under, but the xx went through it all in minivans and departure lounges with an entourage. Smith tells me about a DJ set he was doing, somewhere on the tour, when a girl in the crowd approached him with a folded-up note. He was young, and had no clue what to do with it, so he put it in his pocket. Only after much jokey persuasion from those around him did he nally open it, in the cab on the way back to the bands hotel. It might not be too late to follow it up... The note said: Why dont you play some decent music?

For Croft and Sim there was a more brutal lesson. The rst piece Dazed [& Confused magazine] did on us, Croft once explained, they outed us in the rst line. Ever since, the pair have not spoken with ease, if at all, about their sexuality. Softening, in 2010, Croft gave a short, intimate interview to the online magazine Tourist in which she and her girlfriend at the time, an art student based in London, talked about love. What does it feel like, they were asked, to be in a long-distance relationship? Like when youre eight, the rather beautiful answer, and you want it to be your birthday. Sim has kept consistently zipped. Is there anything you want to say to your gay fans? he was once asked by New Gay TV, and seeming to think about it, Sim replied: Hot Chip are amazing. The xx sing almost exclusively about matters of the heart (Missing, a track on Coexist, might be the most aching lament on romantic separation Ive heard) but their love-lives away from the mic have never been very clearly outlined. I get the sense, speaking to Sim, that he quite enjoys the mystery he inspires. On stage he sways and leers, all eyes and attitude. Exactly as a good frontman should, he makes you bloke in the crowd, neck craned feel many degrees less masculine because you havent got a

guitar and a catalogue of tortured love songs to growl through. Ostage this persona vanishes and he is bouncier, camper, more smiley than people would think. His speech is peppered with assertive, accented yeahs, almost used as punctuating stops. Its something Ive noticed rappers do, a statement of sureness and muscularity. Sim, chatting to me after the rooftop set, does it with a ower tucked behind his ear. Does he thrive on the ambiguity that surrounds him? Its kind of a double thing, he says. I enjoy not knowing everything about a musician I like. At a time when you can nd out a popstars favourite animal, I think its more exciting not to know. Part two, he says, is simpler: I just dont want to tell everyone everything. If you took anyone o the street and asked them to share as much as we get asked to share, theyd say no. I dont think thats abnormal. He nds it abnormal, actually, that other bands agree to share so much. Croft has come to be more open. She is in a long-term relationship with fashion designer Hannah Marshall, and this week has arranged for her girlfriend to join the band in LA. When I meet her, Marshall is a bright, quick-smiling 30-year-old with unusual sheared hair. While the band prepare to leave the

The crescent of butterscotchcoloured sand loops at the southern tip of 11kms of lagoon
Anna Stothard nds a Moroccan oasis Observer Magazine pages 64-67

EXXTRAORDINARY How the band came of age

2000 Childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim start at Elliott school in Putney, south London. Here, they meet fellow pupils Jamie Smith and Baria Qureshi. 2004 Croft and Sim begin writing songs and eventually gigging as a duo: Croft on lead guitar, Sim on bass, both singing. 2005 Qureshi (keyboards) and Smith (percussion) start performing with the band, by now called the xx. April 2009 Formally signed to Caius Pawsons Young Turks label, the xx release a debut single, Crystalised. August 2009 Their debut album, xx, is released. The Observer calls it utterly electrifying. It goes on to sell more than a million copies worldwide. September 2010 xx wins the Mercury prize, beating nominees including Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal, Corinne Bailey Rae, Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling. The album has the most amazing sense of mood and atmosphere, says the Mercurys chief of judges, Simon Frith. December 2010 The bands lengthy tour ends and they take some time o. 2011 Under his stage name Jamie xx, Smith releases Were New Here, a remix of Gil Scott-Herons Im New Here. May 2012 The band perform new tracks at small London gigs. They begin another tour that takes in Spain, Japan, Australia, the US and the UK. July 2012 Angels, the rst single from new album Coexist released. TL

The xx in 2009, including Qureshi, just before the release of their rst album. October 2009 Qureshi is asked to leave, owing to personal tensions that developed within the band when they were touring. May 2010 The rst song from xx, Intro, is used by the BBC for its election coverage.

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

25

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Beyond the glam: the band that broke the sound barrier
On the 40th anniversary of Roxy Musics debut album, Simon Reynolds reassesses their journey, marked out in a new box set, from aural insanity to elegant perfectionism
The Perfect Guitarist for Avant Rock Group Original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty scary, stable, tricky Roxy 223 0296 Musician wanted advert, Melody Maker, 1971 heres a certain sort of glamrock fan who never ceases to be blown away by the fact that Bowie played a character, the imaginary rock star Ziggy Stardust. That same certain sort of glam fan never stops being thrilled by the nerve and verve of Roxy Music giving a credit on their debut LP to the person who did their clothes, hair and makeup. Supposedly this was a dissident blow against rocks antifashion stance. Cutting through the stale dope-smoke fug of the hippie hangover, Roxy were the rst true band of the 70s. But they also prophesied the 80s, their celebration of posing and artice anticipating postmodernism, the new romantics, the Face, pop video and selfreinventing superstars like Madonna. Which isnt untrue, but isnt the whole truth either. Its hardly the case that Roxy or Bowie invented the idea of image or were the rst rockers to have close relationships with designers and stylists. Most 1960s British bands took an interest in clothes and hair. Nor were Bowie or Roxys Brian Eno the rst amboyantly androgynous gures in rock. On the record sleeve and in the promo lm for Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby?, the Stones wore womens clothing four years before Bowie put on a frock for the cover of 1970s The Man Who Sold the World. Still, it is true that around 1970-71, rock got awfully drab looking, with countless denim-clad blues-bore and boogie bands, dressed-down singersongwriters and country-rock outts, and virtuoso players too wrapped up in their endless soloing to bother with stagecraft. Everything went at, recalls Phil Manzanera, the guitarist who responded to Ferrys avant rock ad and eventually got the job. A lot of musicians were getting strung out on heavy drugs, he tells me. They were out of it, so they werent even bothering to wear kaftans or other hippie stu, which had been stylish in their own way. Then, with the emergence of Roxy Music and Bowie in 1972, suddenly there was colour and exoticism and the spirit of rocknroll again. We supported Bowie at the Greyhound in Croydon in June 1972: Bowie in his full Ziggy Stardust gear and us in all our regalia, performing to just 150 people in this little upstairs room. It was a tiny stage but it had theatrical lighting, so you had to wear make-up because thats what theatre people do, otherwise you look washed-out. John Lennon once quipped that glam was just rocknroll with lipstick. Glam historians tend to emphasise the lipstick at the expense of the rocknroll; they focus overly on the gender-bending rather than the genre-bending. In Roxys case, the attention paid to the groups fashion world connections, pop art allegiances and other extra-musical credentials threatens to overshadow their achievements as a rock band. In truth, Enos feather boas, Bryan Ferrys gaucho look of 1974 they havent aged that well. Its hard to believe that wearing a white dinner jacket was ever a big deal. Even the celebrated covers of the rst ve albums, with their lingerieclad models, look cheesy and chauvinist these days (apart from the still-edgy sleeve of For Your Pleasure, a perversely stylised shot of Amanda Lear walking a panther). The music, though, remains timeless in its weirdness and wildness. What gets swept under the carpet by the rst true band of the 70s argument is that the Roxy Music of the rst three albums is a post-psychedelic outt: as much progressive rock as glam rock. Manzanera recalls listening recently for the rst time in ages to The Bob (Medley), the six-part song-suite on 1972s Roxy Music, a sort of minimovie concept piece about the second world war. This guy is remixing our debut LP in 5.1 surround sound, so I was listening to The Bob and I was laughing. Its pure prog. The whole of that rst album sounds so weird. Its such a mishmash of stu. Roxy just wouldnt get signed today. Those who view Roxy as pioneers of surface-deep postmodern pop regard the band as radically opposed to the earthy earnestness of what was then known as the underground: longhaired, beardy bands like Soft Machine Rex corridor of horror. Even in hindsight, he recalled that Roxy didnt think we were as commercial as what other people were doing When we started, I think we thought wed be a kind of art-student band, and thats as far as it would go King Crimson were one polar extreme, Bowie was the other and we were in the middle. I was astounded when we had a hit record. More than half the band Manzanera, Eno, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson came from experimental music, trippy-proggy or heavy rock backgrounds. We had some weird things that other bands didnt have, like someone playing oboe, Manzanera says of Mackay, who was classically trained and whose interest in the avant garde later resulted in the ne book Electronic Music. Manzaneras previous band were Quiet Sun, an outt inuenced by Zappa, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, while drummer Thompson worshipped Led Zeps John Bonham. A fan of minimalist composers like Steve Reich, Eno was a non-musician who supplied Roxy with irruptions of abstract synth and tape eects: things that were part of experimental electronic music, recalls Manzanera, but we used them in the context of songs. The songs themselves werent exactly conventional either. Some, like The Bob or If There Is Something were more like several songs joined together. Others, like the rst two singles, Virginia Plain and Pyjamarama, would be judged unnished by the standards tories of hit factories like the Brill building or Motown. Neither has a chorus, just a rse single verse melody repeated. This minimalist aspect to sic Roxy Music came from one tley of the motley crews few assions: shared passions: the Velvet ound. Underground. But there were rges also upsurges of maximalism, acid rock ashbacks like nd the second half of In eam Every Dream Home a he Heartache, with its rumming phased drumming ously and gaseously g billowing guitar. s That was my o chance to vent my chedelia, inner psychedelia, era Manzanera laughs. re Even more far out e is the title track/ nale to For Your Pleasure, especially
Reptilian vibrato: ry Bryan Ferry in 1976. gel/Redferns Jorgen Angel/Redferns

Musical collision: Roxy Music, backstage at Crystal Palace, 1972: (l-r) Andy Mackay, Graham Simpson,

The rst album sounds so weird. Roxy just wouldnt get signed today
Phil Manzanera, Roxy guitarist
and Family who played the college gig circuit, recorded sessions for John Peel, appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test and got written up in Melody Maker. But Roxys earliest champions were, in fact, John Peel, who invited them to record a session for his show, Melody Makers Richard Williams, who got the hype ball rolling, and management company EG, whose other clients included King Crimson and ELP, and who hitched Roxy up with Island Records, the leading progressive label of the era. At one point Ferry actually auditioned to be King Crimsons singer. And before Manzanera got the gig, the groups guitarist was David OList, formerly of the Nice, the original prog band. Early on, Ferry went along with the progressive scenes disdain for chart pop, declaring: Were not a singles band, really. I certainly dont want to nd myself sliding down the Slade/T

its hallucinatory extended coda of pointillistic piano trills, like the Milky Way going down the cosmic plughole. The product of the strong bond Manzanera formed with Eno, For Your Pleasure is comparable with Hendrix circa Electric Ladyland or Tim Buckleys r th Starsailor in its use of the studio and canv recording tape as a canvas for sound painting. In late 1973, look looking back at the rst two Roxy albu not long albums after he was pushe out of the pushed band, Eno enthuse about the enthused musics insanity t element of the clumsiness and grotesqueness, the terric tension, caused by t group the juxtapos juxtaposing things that didn naturally didnt sit togeth together. Even after Eno departure, Enos Manzane continued Manzanera to pursue the absurdism and studio-bon studi experime experimentation on the thi album, third Stranded. A Amazona, for instance, is split apart by an indescribably strange indescrib guitar solo midway m between a re storm and a gigantic bub machine. bubble It sounds li the work like of several g guitarists but

its just Manzanera playing through a complex relay of distortion, repeat echoes and vari-pitch, using a specially built contraption that worked just once. That rst and only take is what you hear on the album. Amazona was the rst song on a Roxy album for which Manzanera received a credit. Because music publishing operates according to an antiquated, pre-rock conception of composition that rewards those who write the top-line melody and lyrics, most Roxy tunes are credited solely to Ferry. It goes back to Tin Pan Alley and the 1930s, says Manzanera. Enos synth part on Ladytron, Andys oboe parts that came from them. Each member was contributing to the music and to all the arrangements. I like to think that we produced the musical context for Bryan to put his vision into. But thats not reected in the publishing. Its all the more unfair because, according to Manzanera, from about halfway through For Your Pleasure and onwards, the band would write the music rst all the music, including the solos. Then Bryan would listen to it and try to write a top-line tune and words. When it worked, it was absolutely brilliant. Because none of us knew what the song was going to be about until he recorded the vocal.

FOR OUR PLEASURE From avant garde to Avalon

1970 Bryan Ferry loses his job teaching ceramics to west London schoolgirls due to o-curriculum record appreciation sessions. 1971 Ferry places ads seeking musicians including a perfect guitarist and wonder drummer - for a new band, and Roxy Music (named after the cinema med and dance hall chains) are formed with Graham Simpson, Andy Mackay, Paul
Thompson, Brian Eno and David OLick. Phil Manzanera, the bands roadie, soon replaces OLick. 19 1972 The band sign to Island Re Records and release their selftit titled debut album. Simpson lea leaves the band, whose lineup rem remains unstable throughout their car career. The debut single, Virginia Plai charts at No 4 before they Plain, have played a single gig. 1973 Second album, For Your Pleasure 3 (left), is released, with Ferrys girlfriend, model Amanda Lear, on the cover. Brian Eno leaves the band owing to musical dierences with Ferry, who also reportedly felt upstaged by Enos amboyant stage costumes. Stranded is released, with Ferrys girlfriend, Playboy playmate of the year Marilyn Cole, on the cover. 1974 The band release their fourth S album, Country Life, cracking the US charts. 1975 The fth album, Siren (left), once again features Ferrys girlfriend on the cover: this time the then unknown Texas model Hal Jerry Ha l. 19 1976 Roxy Music split. Ferry re releases two solo albums while Ma Manzanera reunites with Eno, as 80 on the acclaimed 801 Live. 801, 197 1978 Roxy reunite with dierent me members and a more polished sou for Manifesto, which has a sound mix reception. mixed 1980 Flesh + Blood goes to No 1 in the UK 0

26

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

NEW TALENT MUSIC

One to watch Angel Haze

Phil Manzanera, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry and Paul Thompson. Michael Putland/Getty Images

Imagine, youve been working on Love Is the Drug for absolutely ages, with no idea that its even going to be called Love Is the Drug. Then Bryan turns up, and he sings it, and were like, bloody hell, weve got a single.

ather than the players backing their singer/leader, then, it would be more accurate to say that Ferry fronted them: many of Roxys greatest songs would never have been written in the absence of what had been generated rst by the musicians. Which is not to downplay the importance of Ferrys completion role. Strandeds high point, Mother of Pearl, would be a fabulous instrumental but it would not have a fraction of its emotional power without Ferrys words or his incredible vocal performance, where every line, every word even, is delivered with a deranged archness of emphasis, suusing the entire song with bitter, poisoned campness. In purely musical terms, Ferrys greatest invention is his voice on the rst two albums, the reptilian vibrato that paved the way for neurotic new wave mandroids like Gary Numan and Devo. As much as the jarring and jolting music, Ferrys grotesquely stylised singing contributed the aspect of insanity

Flamboyant: Eno. Michael Putland/Retna

that Eno valued in early Roxy. Theres no doubt that Roxy was Ferrys baby. He formed the group and formulated its overall vision and framing. But, curiously, what becomes apparent as you follow the bands arc through the eight albums (plus one double CD of B-sides and outtakes) corralled in the new box set, The Complete Studio Recordings, is that as Ferry gradually asserts total control over the band, the music becomes less characterful. The individuality of the players, that strange mish-mash/ mismatch Manzanera speaks of, starts to fade, and so too does the collective character of Roxy as an entity set apart

chart, with the band now pared down to Ferry, Mackay and Manzanera. 1981 The band cover Jealous Guy in memory of recently murdered John Lennon. It becomes their only No 1 single. 1982 Eighth and nal album Avalon (right) restores the bands critical acclaim and continues their commercial success, hitting No 1 and remaining on the album charts for over a year, with Ferrys

girlfriend (and soon to be wife) Lucy Helmore on the cover. 1983 Ferry breaks up the band, whose members pursue solo careers. 2006 Amid much speculation of a reunion, Brian Eno collaborates with the band on a few tracks. These however are eventually released on a Ferry solo album, Olympia. 2011 Ferry is awarded a CBE.

from the landscape of pop. This smoothing-out begins to set in circa 1974-75 with Country Life and Siren. Its in full swing with the reformed Roxy of Manifesto and Flesh + Blood, where Roxy are playing the game of pop according to the radio and danceoor rules of the disco/new wave late 70s and early 80s. And playing it well: theres no denying the grace of Oh Yeah and Over You, and the shimmer and shiver of Same Old Scene. The same syndrome aects the lyrics: the verbosity and over-ripeness of the early albums goes, but so too does the imagistic vividness, the unclassiably mixed emotions. Songs like Mother of Pearl had masses of words, recalls Manzanera. In Roxys rst ve years theres a lot more witty metaphors and wordplay. But it got more serious gradually, and by the end you had a bunch of haikus, virtually. By Avalon and its big single More Than This, the sound is all patina, glistening with professionalism and perfectionism. The words sketch the barest suggestion of mood; the voice, once so blood-curdling and startling, has become a debonair croon, evoking just a faded and jaded gentility. Ferry has not just annulled the personalities of Manzanera and Mackay, who might as well be session players like the other hirelings credited, hes erased himself too. Immaculate background music, Avalon could be seen as Ferrys own version of ambient music: an I can do that too riposte to Enos reputation as doyen of the cutting edge. A triumph, in its way, but also a tragic inversion of everything that made Roxy so arresting. Roxy Music: the Complete Studio Recordings, 1972-1982 is out now on Virgin Catalogue

ast month, it was a track called New York that, to employ the technical parlance, blew up the internet. The artist responsible is 21-year-old Angel Haze, who raps so deftly, ferociously and with such menace that ow seems too mellow a word for her delivery. It means no ones arguing with its boast, a refrain of I run New York. I will say to anyones face I am the best out there right now, she declares. I put everyone in my school on to Nicki Minaj before she blew up. I was obsessed with her and I was like, If shes the best female rapper then Ive got to be better than her. Theres no one out there right now who can beat me. After the braggadocious calling card that was New York, Haze released an EP online: the acclaimed Reservation is titled with her Native American heritage in mind, but also serves as a statement of arrival: That was my way of introducing myself Ive made a reservation here already. Shes been proved right. Three weeks after Reservations release she had her pick of the major labels. Ever pragmatic, Haze signed with Universal, based on their statistics, their success rate and the fact that I got a pretty damn good deal outta them. Haze has said she wants to be thought of as a rock star rather than a rapper, because rock stars get to do whatever they want. They dont have all this stigma attached to them that you have to be a thug, you have to have been shot, you have to be so hard that no one ever suspects youre gay. As a female rapper, you have to sell your body, you have to be attractive, you have to be promiscuous. You never see any female rock stars being told, Take o your clothes, be sexy. I want to have that type of freedom but still be able to say whatever I want as a rapper. Inevitably, shes attracting comparison with both her idol, Minaj, and contemporaries such as Azealia Banks. Guys pit female rappers against each other because female rappers are a lot more interesting than guys. Thats why they have this all-male clique thing going on. I specically told my manager, Dont get me any meetings with any boy groups I want to stand on my own, hold my own. Born in Michigan, Haze was raised in the Greater Apostolic Faith, a church she describes as a cult. The family left when she was 10 and her mother was convinced that she and her older brother were going to be killed by God as punishment. My mum was like, Secular music is a way you can guarantee your space in hell, but when I got to 16 she let us do whatever we wanted. She promptly gorged herself on pop culture (my iPod had the most songs in it, ever), but has now gone from consuming everything to listening to virtually nothing. I dont need to have my system inltrated by anyone, she explains. My sound is mine and as I advance it I dont want anyone else to come in there and mix themselves up with me. She shows me her phone as proof: the only other music on it is newly crowned R&B superstar Frank Ocean. Like Ocean,

Angel Haze: No one can beat me right now. Portrait by Katherine Rose for New Review

If Nicky Minaj is the best female rapper then Ive got to be better than her
Haze has been frank about her sexuality, describing herself as pansexual. Love is boundary-less, she asserts. If you can make me feel, if you can make me laugh and thats hard then I can be with you. I dont care if you have a vagina or if youre a hermaphrodite or whatever. She concedes that her progressive thinking is not really an accepted position in the industry shes chosen. But you have to be fearless. People are going to hate you and theyre going to love you with a passion you cannot imagine. Im feeling the love right now and Im feeling the hate too, it comes hand in hand. But, she says with a smile, Im happy more love than hate. Hermione Hoby

A ZooNation and Sadlers Wells co-production

The critically-acclaimed smash-hit returns!

##### #####
Sunday Telegraph
The Independent

ZOONATIONS

GLORIOUS. The music and dancing are superb: this show has wit, heart and magnificent energy The Independent #### Zany and zippy, hilarious and heartwarming. A WINNER The Times

THU 20 SEP SAT 13 OCT

Online
See more images of Roxy Music at observer.co.uk/new-review

Rhik Samadder

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

27

MUSIC LIVES

The seasons 10 best music books

Some of rocks biggest names are about to bare their souls in print. Kitty Empire introduces them and, with Michael Hann and Jude Rogers, previews the mustreads, from Prince to Peter Hook, and Mick Jagger to Morrissey
lame Bob and Keith and Patti too. If it werent for the runaway success of Dylans Chronicles (published 2004), Richardss Life (2010) and Just Kids by Patti Smith (also 2010), the shelves this autumn would not be heaving under the weight of recollections by rocks big beasts. Between now and Christmas, autobiographies are expected from Neil Young and Pete Townshend, Rod Stewart and Peter Hook, not to mention the biggest beast of them all, perhaps Steven Patrick Morrissey. In between, we have high-prole biographies of Leonard Cohen and Led Zeppelin, an appreciation of Prince and an account by Mick Jaggers accountant. Rarely

have the half-remembered recollections of artists, many au fait with recreational chemistry, been more in demand. The celebrated memoirs of Dylan, Richard and Smith ramped up expectations for the rock autobiography. Pre-KeefnBob, rock memoirs were specialist titles, sold in comfortable numbers to fans, music journalists and sensation-seekers. Then, perhaps, they radiated out to the wider circle of autobiography junkies. There were small publishing sensations in the biographies of excess, like those of Mtley Cre, which harked back to the original Viking rock myth anthology, Hammer of the Gods, in which Led Zeppelin allegedly did rude things with sh.

But these three very literary books broke out of their reservation with elan, escaping into the wider-reading wild. It helped, of course, that Dylan was an enigma who remained an enigma even when setting the record straight; it helped, too, that when Richards was commenting on the size of Jaggers member, his own memories of discovering the blues in bombscarred postwar south London were so beautifully drawn. With Smith, you got the bang of a poet and a famous artist for your buck. Mystery currently surrounds Morrisseys autobiography, one of the most highly awaited works in any genre this year. The singer has been alternately stoking appetites

for his book and doing himself down, certainly in an interview with Radio 4s Front Row last year. I am not that interesting, he reckoned. Elsewhere, more questions are about to be answered. Pete Townshend was researching childhood sex abuse for this memoir when he was arrested on child pornography charges in 2003; lets hope Who I Am will explain. Leonard Cohen, the poet laureate of the blackened heart, was nearing retirement age when he found that his former manager had been helping herself to his money; Sylvie Simmonss book goes into considerable detail. Weve chosen a cross-section of the most intriguing titles; expect to receive more than one of these for Christmas.

IM YOUR MAN: THE LIFE OF LEONARD COHEN

by Sylvie Simmons (Jonathan Cape, Nov) The publishers say: Sylvie Simmons draws on Cohens private archives and a wealth of interviews with many of his closest associates as well as professors, Buddhist monks and rabbis, to share stories never before revealed... What to expect: Semi-authorised examination of the life and loves of the septuagenarian Montreal poet and reluctant troubadour. Juicy bits include the huge loss of assets to his former manager. Sample quote: To have been redeemed from depression in his old age only to have to spend it in an eternity of legal and nancial paperwork was a cosmic joke so black as to test even Leonards famous gallows humour. KE

UNKNOWN PLEASURES: INSIDE JOY DIVISION

by Peter Hook (Simon & Schuster, Sept) The publishers say: Joy D Division changed the face o music. The meaning of of m music. W What to expect: Above a guilt about the suicide all, o singer Ian Curtis of a wonder at how he and managed to be so many dierent things to so many dierent people. The current feud between Hook and Bernard Sumner simmers throughout, with frequent airings of what Hook views as the guitarists meanness. As is to be expected from a northern man of a certain age, the past is viewed as another country they did things better there, pet. Sample quote: A lot of people say Atmosphere is their favourite Joy Division song, but its not mine; it reminds me too much of Ian, like its his death march. MH

WAGING HEAVY PEACE: A HIPPIE DREAM

by Neil Young (Viking/Penguin, Oct) The publishers say This is a great say: roc memoir that rock tak takes its place alo alongside those of Bob Dylan C (Chronicles) and Ke Keith Richards L (Life). W What to expect: E Eschewing a g ghost writer, mos Americanas most eminent C d d Canadian opens a rare window into his closely guarded personal life as well as his cars, train sets and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Many have commented on how his tone is up close and personal. He says: Writing a book is not that dierent from writing songs. It just doesnt have a melody. KE

TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT: THE POWER AND EXCESS OF LED ZEPPELIN

by Barney Hoskyns (Faber, Sept) The publishers say: unique look at the A h history, adventures, m myths and realities of t most legendary of this b bands. W What to expect: An oral h history of the band that requires a passing familiarity with their story before you embark on it, since you cant rely on someone who was a teenage groupie at the time to give all the relevant context. The overwhelming theme is that Jimmy Page was an unspeakable tosser ent and drummer John Bonham was a violent alcoholic. In a nutshell: youth, success, drugs, death, fall, redemption. Sample quote: If, as the driver of the thing, you are a complete shitbrain, its likely everyone else is going to be a complete shitbrain. And when you lose the plot, theres an awful lot of people who want to lose the plot with you. Because its fun and glamorous and all that. MH

MICK JAGGER
by Philip Norman (HarperCollins, Oct) The publishers say: This revelatory tour de force is ample tribute to a awed genius, a Casanova, an antichrist and a god. What to expect: A well-researched, bootlicking romp through the life of the neverto-retire rock star by someone who has already written three (well-received) Rolling Stones biographies. This frontmanspecic study burrows into Jaggers high-prole love aairs and controversial behaviour but suggests he was more interested in social advancement in the 60s than being outrageous. Norman also knocks his subject for not pursuing lm roles or politics, while presuming he has talent for t latter. the Sampl quote: Sample Loo Looking at tha craggy that co countenance, one tr tries but fails to im imagine the vast ca carnal banquet on which he has gor gorged, yet still not sated himself. JR

IN THE PLEASURE GROOVE: LOVE, DEATH & DURAN DURAN

by John Taylor (Sphere, Sept) The publishers say: A f fascinating, irresistible p portrait of a man who d danced into the re a came through the and o other side. W What to expect: Pseudy, b booze-soaked/drugcaked memoir of 80s excess by the bass-playing pop heart-throb, now a sober father of three. Theres juicy stu about the Everests of cocaine available when Duran Duran recorded down the corridor from Bob Dylan and Bryan Ferry, plus eyebrow-raising details from their rst US tour legal ages of consent in each state were added to the top of daily itineraries. Taylor has already said that Nick Rhodes wont be reading it, but Simon Le Bon says hell do the audiobook. Sample quote: Behind the party face, I was caught up in a vortex of fear, arrogance, loneliness and extraordinary popularity. JR

PRINCE: A CELEBRATION
by Matt Thorne (Faber, Oct)

The publishers say: Will stand for years to come as the go-to book on the Great Man. What to expect: An exhaustive tome on the enigmatic star by a novelist with a lifelong Prince obsession. This is Thornes rst foray into long-form pop writing: he is better known for co-founding the New Puritans literary movement and 2004s Booker-longlisted novel, Cherry. Sadly, Prince doesnt grant Thorne an interview and his absence is felt throughout. But Thorne scours the archives regardless, interviews collaborators forensically and philosophises earnestly. Sample quote: My interest is in the giant super-narrative that [Prince] diligently adds to a work of art that remains narrowly focused on the same subjects and emotions that have driven him since day one love, sex, rebirth, anger. JR

MORRISSEY: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

(Penguin, Dec) The publishers say: Nothing. But Morrissey was quoted last year saying he hoped his autobiography would be an instant Penguin classic. What to expect: One of the most celebrated wordsmiths currently working in the English language waxes eloquent. Two hundred thousand droll, mordant mots. Six hundred and sixty pages of recordsetting; alternately self-deprecating and spiteful. An extract was published in a Tate St Ives exhibition book in 2009 in which the young Morrissey and friends are spooked on a moor. He says: I see it as the sentimental climax to the last 30 years. It will not be published until December 2012, which gives me just enough time to pack all I own in a box and disappear to central Brazil. The innocent are named and the guilty are protected. KE

WHO I AM
by Pete Townshend (HarperCollins, Oct) The publishers say: In Incredibly, as a man w has achieved who so much, this truly u unique story of a ambition, relentless p perfectionism and r rocknroll excess w will be regarded as o one of his greatest achievem achievements. What to expect: One of British rocks most reective stars, Townshend has literary chops as well, having worked as an editor at Faber in the 80s. Expect a pretty brutal analysis of the Whos music, and some account of his arrest on child pornography charges in 2003, which he claimed was research on his own childhood abuse for the purposes of this book. He says: Writing is my principal daily occupation. Rocknroll is a tough career, however cynically or comically it is portrayed by its detractors. I am lucky to be alive and to have such a crazy story to tell, full of wild adventures and creative machinations. KE

COAL TO DIAMONDS
by Beth Ditto (Simon & Schuster, Oct) The publishers say: Beth Dittos unapologetic, startlingly direct and poetic memoir is a hypnotic and inspiring account of a woman coming into her own. What to expect: Squirrel-eating. But more than that, how a southern girl broke free from expectation and discovered the transformative powers of punk rock, the grammar school of mists, and got the hell out of Arkansas. She says: My life was supposed to be simple and non-negotiable: birth, church, work, marriage, kids, death. But along the way something happened. My memoir talks directly to disenfranchised, misunderstood kids everywhere. KE

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MUSIC

Soundtrack of my life DJ Shadow

Josh Davis, alias DJ Shadow, used to spend hours hunting down unusual sounds in the basement of Rare Records in his native Sacramento, California. The shop was immortalised on the cover of his debut album, 1996s Endtroducing, an instrumental hip-hop record made entirely from samples. Sounding like nothing before, it showed there were few limits to the music that could be made by one man and his record collection. Since then, Davis has continued to innovate, most recently releasing tracks from his archive in partnership with lesharing service BitTorrent. Its his attempt to negotiate the world of digital music and get paid. (A more conventional 16-track overview of his career, Reconstructed, is released tomorrow.)Some say if youre a true artist you shouldnt worry about money, he says.But food isnt getting cheaper.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Mother Popcorn, James Brown (1969)

Everything I love about music stems from James Brown. If you grow up on rocknroll you might idolise Chuck Berry, but for me its James Brown because he laid the foundations not only for funk but for hip-hop as well. I rst heard this in the late 80s. There was a used record store in my home town and I can remember my rst trip there, a digging trip, meaning I was now spending my paper-route money not on new hip-hop records but old soul records and rock records. I would buy James Brown records sight unseen. By around 1987, I was starting to nd old records around the same time that

hip-hop artists I liked were using them for samples. I remember nding the 45 of I Know You Got Soul by Bobby Byrd concurrent to it being sampled by Eric B & Rakim. I started to think: if Im nding Isaac Hayess Hot Buttered Soul in my dads collection, and Public Enemy are using it on Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, Im kind of on the same wavelength. So maybe I should start making my own beats.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME OF LISTENING TO THE RADIO AS A KID

Al-Naaysh (The Soul), Hashim (1983)

I rst heard this on the radio in the mid-80s. Trying to nd rap on the radio at that time was frustrating, especially outside of New York or LA.

But there were a couple of clued-in DJs on a Bay Area soul station called KSOL and I learned their schedule they were on during lunch hour and Friday and Saturday nights until midnight. I was 12 or 13 at the time and in junior high school. I was a typical Californian kid who grew up collecting comics, but by 1985 I was hawking them so I had money to buy hip-hop records. That was the turning point. I became a collector and I wanted everything. There are no embarrassing old photos of me trying to be a B-boy because I couldnt aord the clothes. I also needed to survive at school I didnt want to get beaten up. The other kids were mostly into rock or metal, so there were lots of Metallica fans in jean jackets, as they were a big local band. But I did have my two or three friends who liked hip-hop and we stayed in touch for years.

THE RECORD THAT CONVINCED ME MY PARENTS MUSIC WASNT SO BAD AFTER ALL
Triad, Jeerson Airplane (1968)

This was written by David Crosby and rst recorded by the Byrds but the Jeerson Airplane version is sublime. Being a young hip-hop fan growing up in California, I initially rejected 60s rock as my parents music. My mother was at the airport greeting the Beatles in 1964 [on their rst US tour]. Like any kid, I couldnt stand the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or any of their ilk because they were what had come before, so they were to be rejected. My parents divorced when I was young and my dad ended up with the more adventurous parts of their record collection, everything from Lou Reed to Isaac Hayes to old jazz artists and a lot of blues. I really wanted nothing to do with any of that until about 1987 when I started hearing pieces of old music in hip-hop records at the time and began to decipher where it all came from. Now, subsequently, Ive come to appreciate a lot of it in its own right, because its great.

THE RECORD THAT MAKES ME PROUD TO BE FROM CALIFORNIA

Let Me Ride, Dr Dre featuring Jewell and Snoop Doggy Dogg (1993)

This sounds like home to me, in a way that hip-hop from New York never did. The Dr Dre and Snoop records from this period are the sound of LA in the early 90s, when there was an earthquake and a riot every other week. It was a really strange time for California and their music was the soundtrack of that upheaval. Any time a piece of music is so pervasive and so emblematic of a region, it sinks in and becomes part of your DNA. I was reminded of this when I saw them play at Coachella earlier this year. It was great hearing them play those songs in California, hit after hit, with all the security guards dancing they were my age and I know what those records meant to them.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT

Work, Live & Sleep in Collapsing Space, Kuedo (2012)

Its important to pay attention to whats happening now. I remember reading an interview with John Peel in about 1987 when he said: I dont understand why everybodys still listening to Led Zeppelin when we have good music coming out now. New groups wont make it if everyone is talking about the past. That stuck with me and I told him that when I met him. I probably spend $50-100 a week downloading new music. Theres a constant turnover of dierent names to keep up with and before long you have a full hard disk. I discovered Kuedo online and Ive listened to this track constantly for the past month its a bit electro, a bit dubstep, a bit a lot of things, but I can relate to anything with an 808 drum machine on it. As a DJ, Ive struggled with the idea of being a vinyl purist when theres now great music out there thats never existed on vinyl. Some older DJs can be a bit Music used to be so much better back then. But the one constant for me is the pursuit of new music, nding things to inspire me, to get me excited. Interview by Gareth Grundy

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VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Pepping up the old Palazzo

At the age of 69 the Venice lm festival needed a facelift. A new artistic director, a faster pace and a mood of optimism are providing it, writes Xan Brooks
As bets the most venerable event on the movie calendar, the Venice lm festival requires constant maintenance to keep it aoat. The walk to the Palazzo del Cinema leads along a tranquil green canal and past faded mansions before depositing us in the midst of a building site, ringing to the din of drills and hammers and the incessant beep of reversing lorries. Inside the screening rooms it is hushed and reverent. Outside its bedlam; an ongoing work in progress. Alberto Barbera, Venices new artistic director, likens the festival to an old lady in need of freshening up and is promising a major makeover: less glitz, more substance and a greater emphasis on emerging talent. And yet even Barbera is not quite the new broom he rst appears. He directed this event for three years in the late 90s before being ousted when Silvio Berlusconi came to power, and now he bounces back like some avenging angel. In Venice that lush, dripping museum in the guise of a city the past is forever on hand to gatecrash the present. The 69th edition kicked o on Wednesday night with the world premiere of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, directed by Mira Nair from the Mohsin Hamid bestseller. The lm itself is a 21st-century ri on the Horatio Alger story, and stars the British actor Riz Ahmed as Changez, a Pakistani immigrant who strikes gold on Wall Street. Changez loves America but he hates it too startling himself by smirking at the TV screen when the planes hit the World Trade Centre. Hes not so much reluctant as befuddled and conicted, torn between Lahore and New York City. If Barbera intended to open the festival with a bang, Im not sure The Reluctant Fundamentalist quite delivered. What should have been a portrait of violent cultural ambivalence becomes, instead, a study in nervous equivocation. Nairs lm irts with danger but shies away. It handles the plots unstable nitroglycerin with lengthy tongs and peppers its turbulent, globalised terrain with

Mira Nair, director of The Reluctant Fundamendalist, anked by the lms stars, Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed, in Venice last week. Photograph by Max Rossi/Reuters

Toby Jones as Gilderoy, the innocent abroad in Berberian Sound Studio. Articial Eye

integrity of their artistic vision. Jones, Strickland and the cinematographer Knowland brilliantly capture the hermetic atmosphere of a place where its impossible to tell day from night. A pervasive mood of exploitation and corruption seeps from the lms being made into the relationships between everyone involved in their making. First gradually, then suddenly, Gilderoy becomes a part of this nightmare factory and its product. Hes unable to distinguish between the vicious fantasies he himself has helped create and so-called reality, and we come to realise that his carefully protected home counties existence is itself an idyllic fantasy. Strickland is clearly making a moral judgment on lm-making and popular

culture, but its more than a little ambivalent, and hes also fascinated by the process of creation, representation and self-deception. There are wonderfully funny scenes and rather beautiful moments like the one in which Gilderoy proudly exhibits his skills by creating the sound of a UFO with a wire brush during a candlelit power failure, a sequence that resembles a painting of an 18th-century scientic experiment by that master of light, Joseph Wright of Derby. If you sit through the nal credits youll read that Suzy Kendall, one-time wife of Dudley Moore, is listed as special guest screamer. Kendall appeared in several 1970s horror icks, most famously Dario Argentos seminal giallo classic, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970).

away on a motorway overpass. Staggering away from the screening, I knew exactly how she felt. Theres not much warmth in The Iceman either, which casts Michael Shannon as real-life maa hitman Richard Kuklinski, trundling through 70s New Jersey with murder on his mind. Ariel Vromans lm is dogged, ecient and overfamiliar a retro arrangement of sideburns, glitterballs and roller-rinks. But Shannons menacing, monolithic presence is mesmerising. By the end of day one, the festival has found its rhythm, and the screenings start blooming all over the site. Theyre playing in the hangar-like expanse of the Sala Darsena and in the theatres inside the brutalist marble casino next door. To queue for one is to miss the others and to miss the others means potentially missing the best. Taking a gamble, I skip Ulrich Seidls Paradise: Faith in favour of Ramin Bahranis At Any Price but alarm bells are ringing barely 10 minutes in. The lm is a cut-price East of Eden, as at and featureless as the Iowa plains.

Not even the sight of Zac Efron toiling to shrug o his High School Musical image by shooting out shop windows and having sex with Heather Graham inside a grain silo can provide a distraction. The script feels synthetic, genetically modied, and the corn is as high as an elephants eye. As the weekend blows in, the delegates gather for the morning screening of Bad 25, Spike Lees boisterous if uncritical tour of Michael Jacksons 1987 album. They come out humming Smooth Criminal and The Way You Make Me Feel, and an elderly Italian gent aects an apologetic moonwalk on the walkway outside the Palazzo. All at once their spirits have lifted. While the jury is still out on the success of Barberas leaner, tauter festival, a mood of optimism dominates the site. The coming days bring Paul Thomas Andersons The Master, Harmony Korines Spring Breakers and Terrence Malicks To the Wonder. One has the distinct sense that the future of Venice 69 will be a few shades brighter than its past.

PHILIP FRENCHS CLASSIC DVD

Liberal senator at a grand villa in the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney. The setting is as beautiful as the goings-on are clumsy and grotesque. When embarrassment fails to be funny, it ends up as truly excruciating, and such is the case here. The saddest casualty is Olivia Newton-John as the brides depressed mother who gets high on coke provided by the British best men.

Revolution: The Directors Cut

(Hugh Hudson, 1985, BFI, 12)

Samsara
(102 mins, 12A) Directed by Ron Fricke

Shot in 70mm over a period of ve years in 25 countries by Ron Fricke, the man who photographed Koyaanisqatsi and directed Chronos and Baraka, this is a compilation, or collage, of beautiful and striking images put together for suggestive and meditative eect. There is no commentary but there is music, some specially commissioned, and a concept devised by Fricke and producer/co-editor/co-writer Mark Magidson, turning on a variety of opposites growth/decay, wonder/ disgust, tradition/rootlessness, purpose/futility, faith/disbelief. Much of the stop-motion or undercranked camerawork is designed to make crowds into seething anthills and to emphasise the absurdity of repetitive work, and its rather trying. Still, there are so many remarkable images that there is something every few seconds to provoke or please. I was reminded, however, of a line by the New Yorker writer Peter De Vries: On the surface he may seem deep. But deep down inside, hes shallow.

Aft After the critical and po popular success of Ch Chariots of Fire and Gre Greystoke, Hugh Hudsons car career suered a major set setback with the failure of Revolution, his bigbudget epic about the American war of independence as experienced by a fur trapper (Al Pacino) forced into military service to protect his son, a middleclass rebel throwing herself into the revolutionary cause (Nastassja Kinski) and a sadistic English sergeant major (Donald Sutherland). While expressing my admiration for its ambition, its designers and some individual scenes, my initial review was generally unfavourable. But when the lm appeared on TV in the early 1990s I suggested that the time is ripe for reappraisal. Seeing Hudsons directors cut, which involved some re-editing, a changed nal sequence and, most importantly, the addition of a commentary spoken by the Pacino character, I wrote a reassessment that was published in the programme of the 2008 Dinard British lm festival, which featured a Hudson retrospective. I described Revolution as profound, poetic and original among the great movies about the experience of individual citizens living in times of dramatic social change. This review is included in the booklet accompanying the handsome dual format DVD/Blu-ray version of the lm.

Bad 25 is screened, and an elderly Italian gent aects an apologetic moonwalk outside the Palazzo
so many helpful narrative signposts that we are never able to veer into the rough, let alone meet the beasts that live there. The whole thing is too damn well-mannered for its own good. Betrayal, if anything, runs too far in the other direction. Kirill Serebrennikovs tale of middle-class adultery and the carnage that follows is purely (and often brilliantly) brutal. The script thrums with incoming violence, painting inner-city Moscow as a hell of howling trac and jangling shopping carts. In the meantime the heroine (Franziska Petri) is coming apart at the seams. She eats mouthfuls of dirt. She licks at the beard trimmings she nds in the sink. At one stage she breaks into peals of hysterical laughter, checks herself, and then faints dead

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Mark Kermode
A biopic of the French star Claude Franois, who wrote one of pops standards, captures his pomposity and charm
The mark of a decent pop biopic is that it should make its subject intriguing even if the viewer has little or no knowledge of (or, indeed, interest in) the music. Something of an icon in France, cheesy, smooth chanteur Claude Franois is viewed as little more than a pop footnote in the UK, the answer to that always taxing pub quiz question: Who had a European hit with the French-language song

DVDs ON DVDs
Florent-Emilio Siri attempts to portray the man behind the mask, albeit with the broadest of strokes, despite an earnestly over-extended running time (nearly two-and-a-half hours) that may stretch the patience of even diehard fans. Skipping nimbly through all the traditional biopic milestones (conicted childhood, unappreciative father, early faltering showbiz steps leading to sudden success and equally sudden disillusionment), Cloclo owes a debt to Kevin Spaceys underrated love song to Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea, in both tone and delivery. At the heart of its appeal is a wonderfully mercurial performance by Jrmie Renier, unrecognisable from previous roles in lms such as the Dardenne brothers gems The Child and The Kid With a Bike. Capturing both the charm and the creepiness of Franois, Renier makes the part his own strutting like a peacock, popping like a cork and hung in the manner of one for whom fame has become comme dhabitude. Billed as a lovable romantic comedy set against a charmingly obeat angling backdrop, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011, Lionsgate, 12) does a pretty good job of lleting the satirical sociopolitical guts from Paul Tordays source novel. While the book was essentially a satire on media spin with nods toward the philosophical aspirations of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Lasse Hallstrms more lightweight and upbeat lm (from a script by The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy) resets its sights on a pair of starcrossed lovers attempting to dream the impossible dream. Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt are very likable as the mismatched sheries expert and millionaires aide who become emotionally entangled while attempting to make salmon run in an environment not known for its enviable shing conditions. Despite

The chanteur who did it his way

that later formed the basis of the English-language standard My Way? His death at the age of 39 in a Spinal Tap-style freak bathroom accident in 1978 provoked outpourings of public grief and adulation in Franoiss home country reminiscent of those that attended Elviss premature death in America the previous year. Now, with the brashly colourful Cloclo (2012, StudioCanal, 12), director

Wonderfully mercurial: Jrmie Renier as Claude Franois in Cloclo. Picselect

Jrmie Renier makes the part his own, strutting like a peacock, popping like a cork
Kristin Scott Thomass bristling presence, those in search of coarse sport may be disappointed, but as the cinematic equivalent of tasty tinned tuna its palatably bone-free. It would be nice to report that Glenn Closes awards-courting turn as a woman passing for a man in Albert Nobbs (2011, Entertainment One, 15) was enough to carry this tale of a 19th-century Dublin butler with a lifelong secret. Having rst parlayed the role on stage in the 80s, Close is comfortable in her characters clothes, as is her similarly cross-dressing support, Janet McTeer. The problem is the lm itself, which is inert and, frankly, somewhat fusty. No matter how potentially fascinating the lives of its central characters may be, this never exudes much in the way of cinematic brio. The end result is altogether more admirable than enjoyable, a shame because theres an eye-opening lm lurking in the background, unable to break through the dour period fug. In cinemas, Piranha 3DD reminded us that screen stereoscopy was, is and always will be a crass gimmick beloved of carnival hucksters and schlocksploitation hacks. On DVD, the two-dimensional Piranha DD (2012, EIV, 18) loses the one reason for its miserable existence a rubbish titular pun leaving foolhardy punters with nothing more than some lame gore, softcore T&A and stunningly unfunny celebrity cameos from the likes of David Hasselho, Christopher Lloyd and Gary Busey to see them through. Blu-ray viewers are treated to the reinstated 3 double-dee gag, although anyone who wants to sit squinting at a TV just to see body parts coming out of the screen deserves a headache, frankly. For the record, all the best gags are ripped o from Shivers, Teeth and The Stewardesses.

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Art

Ship shape: Lindsay Seerss lm lls porthole shapes in the upturned hull of the Tin Tabernacle. Elsewhere (right) Seers makes uncanny additions to the grade II listed building. Photographs by Karen Robinson for the Observer

All at sea on Kilburn High Road

The transformation of a quirky chapel into the setting for a disorienting lm about a sailor has magical results Rachel Cooke
Lindsay Seers: Nowhere Less Now
Tin Tabernacle, London NW6; from Saturday until 21 Oct

Last Thursday I had a small adventure, the kind of thrill a big city can often throw up, if only you put in a little forward planning. It wasnt a promising morning: a soft rain was falling, and the sky was old-knicker grey. Nor was my destination exotic: Kilburn High Road, a relentless drag of kebab shops and charity shops. When I arrived at the precise spot, a dilapidated construction known as the Tin Tabernacle, I could nd no way inside. But then salvation! Someone showed me a bell, high above my head, and soon after ringing it, I walked into one of the most marvellous spaces Ive seen in a long time. For me, this was love at rst sight. The Tin Tabernacle was built in 1863 by a developer called James Bailey. I say built, but this is pushing it, really. Unlike Baileys other projects he specialised in the terraced houses

THREE MORE TO SEE

Also opening this week Whitstable Biennale Whitstable, Kent; until 16 Sept Renowned platform for emerging artists on the Kent coast. Dont miss Mark Wallinger: Site Baltic, Gateshead; until 14 Oct Numbers loom large in a powerful, beautifully ordered show. Last chance to see Yoko Ono: To the Light Serpentine, London W2; until 9 Sept One of the summers talking points draws to a close.

you can still see in this part of northwest London today this one came straight from the pages of a catalogue. Made of corrugated iron, it was a at-pack church of the same ilk as the sweaty God boxes that were delivered to distant outposts of the Empire. It cost less than 1,000 and was intended only to be temporary. In the fullness of time, or so Bailey believed, the local Congregationalists would raise enough money to build a chapel all of their own. In the end, though, this never happened, and the tabernacle lived on. In 1947 it was taken over by the Willesden & St Marylebone Sea Cadets, the charity that remains its custodian; the building is now grade II listed. This applies only to the exterior, which is a pity, for its the interior that makes the eyes pop. In the 1950s the inside of the tabernacle was transformed by a group of local men so as to resemble the inside of a Royal Navy ship. There are portholes and rigging, a boatswains store and a wardroom, and a proper bridge, complete with wheel and a full set of engine order telegraphs. Also, smack in the middle of the main deck, is a 1943 anti-aircraft gun. Not that I knew any of this at rst. For the next few weeks the Tin Tabernacle is home to an installation by the artist Lindsay Seers (a commission by Artangel, the remarkable charity which seeks to take art out of the gallery and into the world), and its part of her design that visitors nd out the peculiar nature of the building little by little. In the beginning I saw only the wardroom, with its tiny bar and a sign that urges ocers to check they are correctly dressed. This is where you wait before the show begins, and its adorable. Seers works in lm, constructing complex narratives that are mostly ction but which have their roots in autobiography. When she started talking to the people at Artangel they took her to the tabernacle on a kind of blind date, and Im guessing that, like me, she fell hard in love. For her, though, the building has an extra resonance. Seerss great great uncle, George Edwards, who was

born in 1866, was a sea cadet who joined the merchant navy and sailed to Zanzibar, where he was involved in British eorts to dismantle the local slave trade. Look at the walls of the tabernacles wardroom and its possible you will nd a photograph of George. You cant miss him. He has a distinctive appearance. His eyes were dierent colours. Seerss lm, Nowhere Less Now, is shown on two screens, one at and round, the other spherical. In the ickering gloom you think, of course, of lenses, of Georges eyes. But these screens also put you in mind of human eggs (his condition, heterochromia, was genetic), and of portholes. The narrative is multilayered, and stable as quicksand. It looks back to Georges life onboard HMS Dragon, but also forward to a future in which

It takes a moment, then, to notice what the dark previously concealed: that Seers has made her own additions to the folk-art interior of the tabernacle, and that youre sitting in what appears to be the upturned hull of a ship. Knock its sides with a knuckle and you will hear the stark clank of metal. The disorientation doesnt end here. Afterwards, free to explore, I wandered into a tiny side chapel. It has a medieval altar and a lectern whose base is wait for it a

cloven hoof. The eect was uncanny. Outside, the trac rumbled; Kilburn could not be more landlocked if it tried. But in the strange quiet of the Tin Tabernacle I was lost at sea, overwhelmed by a briny wave of doubt and confusion. Laura Cumming is away Lindsay Seers, Nowhere Less Now, 8 Sept to 21 Oct; 7/5. Tickets must be booked in advance at artangel.org.uk

As the lights come up, youre still puzzling things out (a feeling that will last for days, and probably for ever)
photographs have been banned (those lucky enough to be in possession of a photograph must gaze on it in secret, gathering with others in a temporary structure not unlike the tabernacle). Seers also travels to Zanzibar, where George eventually drowned, and to Dar es Salaam, where she nds another church of corrugated iron. Unanswered questions hang heavy in the air. What compelled Georges wife, Georgina, to wear a dress of such strange, Masonic design? (Seers lms herself in something similar, with macabre results.) What happened to Seerss stepsister, who went missing as a child? And was it her uncle who carved his name on a huge baobab tree on Cemetery Island, or some other sailor called George? After 20 minutes the lm ends. Too soon. As the lights come up, youre still puzzling things out (a feeling that will last for days, and probably for ever).

A stumbling batsman, a misguided colleague and a player taking a dive

You are the Umpire Sport page 20
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Pop
THE LIVE REVIEW

Gaga takes fans to heaven and hell

As the divas latest extravaganza reaches the UK this week, expect alien holograms, medieval castles and machine-gun bras. Though sometimes you just long for jeans and a T-shirt
Kate man Mossman
Lady Gaga
Hartwall Areena, Helsinki

Its show-and-tell time with the Finnish division of Gagas Little Monsters. Anyone who throws a particularly original gift on stage last night at the same venue there was a giant used tampon gets to meet her after the gig. She bends down to receive a Barbie doll, bites its head o and tears a pink plastic thigh from a hip socket: Come on, you little slut! Twenty fans are selected each evening from within Gagas latest innovation, a walled enclosure at the front of the stage known as the monster pit. Its reserved for the kids who spent the night outside in sleeping bags; the ones who fail to get in hover beyond the fortications like lepers outside a medieval castle. Theres one of those too 50ft high with ashing neon lights, a sort of Disney-meetsRick Wakeman aair. It takes seven hours to construct every day. The Born This Way Ball, which started its European leg in mid-August after trawling Asia and Australia, is a kind of allegorical, mock-medieval mystery play that turns into a story about an alien (Gaga) persecuted by a giant hologram (also Gaga) whose name is Mother G.O.A.T. The plot is playfully designed to fold in on itself if you analyse it: straight after Bad Romance Gaga declares that when shes extracted enough art, music and love from us all, shell come back and invade planet Earth as your pop singer!

The most amazing thing this woman could do right now would be to play her piano in jeans and a T-shirt. Until she does, her baroque fantasies continue to roll out with wit and an incredible lightness of touch. Costume changes (there are 18, from a repeat of the meat dress to the alien carapace she wears for Government Hooker) are much quicker than on the Monster Ball tour. A giant vagina appears for Born This Way and is quickly dragged, deating, back into the castle. Even the shows sexy heavy-metal aesthetic is mainly a chance for her to turn herself into a motorbike, arms for forks, and glide around the stage face-rst with a female dancer on her back. You really appreciate how stupid this ongoing Gaga versus Madonna debate is too. She performs

The Gaga v Madonna debate is stupid. Shes not copying Madonna she has virtually eaten the woman
Americano, a steaming, Latino melody, wearing a machine-gun bra and being caressed by half a dozen nearnaked dancers. Gaga is not copying Madonna she has virtually eaten the woman and is throwing up a wonderful, projectile, multicoloured arc of the stu night after night, for all to see. Much of the two-hour show whirls by with the same pure physical energy Oklahoma! or South Pacic must have had 60 years ago. There are very few close-ups of her face for the rst half which will annoy millions of people but you see something bigger in the sharp elbows and thrusting determination of the tiny gure on

stage. Dissolving herself into the chorus of dancers for Telephone and Bad Kids, Gaga is upholding her promise of hard work in exchange for adoration. Shes always talked like some weird public servant I promise to sing and dance my ass o for you all night long and at times is frankly exhausted tonight, breathing raggedly into her mic. Not that you worry for her, really. Can popstars even have breakdowns in a post-Gaga age? Britney was shocking to watch because her face said everything was ne when you knew that it wasnt; Amy was shocking because her face showed that everything was wrong. But Gaga is a robust, cartoon embodiment of all human emotion, good and bad. Shes at her warmest tonight singing a new song about suicide; Princess Die runs through various fantasies Ill do it in the swimming pool so everybody sees before concluding that no deaths as stylish as that of another dead blonde whose rich boyfriend proposed with the paparazzi all swarming around. You wonder how itll go down at Twickenham on Saturday. And whether a depressed teen at her feet would fully grasp the songs intended irony. A Little Monster drifts across the car park shes about 18 and shes lost her friends and her ride home. Did she enjoy the show? The meat dress was dicult for me, she says thoughtfully, because I could actually smell it. Look, the point with Lady Gaga is she can be everything you love most in the world, and the next minute she can be everything you hate. At that moment I hated her. She sounds almost irritated. Then again, shes been awake since 6 oclock on Monday morning, and its now 2am on Wednesday. The Born This Way Ball is at Twickenham Stadium, London next Saturday and Sunday; Manchester Arena, Tuesday 11 Sept; and the Aviva Stadium, Dublin on Saturday 15 Sept
Lady Gagas Born This Way Ball: I promise to sing and dance my ass o for you all night long. Yoshika Horita

CD REVIEWS

Eight legs good for Baltimores beastly beatniks nouveaux

CD OF THE WEEK Animal Collective
Centipede Hz
(DOMINO)

How many Animals does it take to form a Collective? Two, ocially. This minimum quorum has ensured maximum wriggle room for such an expanding, contracting band of psychedelic brothers, originally from Baltimore. They go by aliases Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin, Geologist and dont always all turn up; all of which just adds to the Collectives burgeoning myth. Theyre prolic too. There have been non-AnCo solo releases from both Bear and Tare in the months between

the bands breakthrough 2009 album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the imminent release of Centipede Hz; not to mention a visual live album, ODDSAC, one EP, two cassette-only giveaways and a non-album single and a live installation at the Guggenheim. Merriweather was the record that made great swaths of casual listeners sit up and notice the busy, woozy music wafting up out of the US underground. It might not have been the new weird Americas Nevermind (the Nirvana album that sent grunge into the mainstream) but it broke the Billboard top 20, topped many an album-of-the-year list and made Animal Collective the most name-dropped beatniks nouveaux in many a straight record collection a totem band, like a Radiohead bigger on hallucinogenics, chanting and camping

Animal Collective: like a Radiohead bigger on hallucinogenics, chanting and camping out. Getty Images

out. Im going hiking, states Amanita, the closing track on Centipede Hz. Are you coming hiking? One of the autumns key releases, Centipede Hz probably brings AnCo another molecules width closer to the mainstream; retaining all the dislocation that their fans treasure but remapping it on to more recognisable instruments. It sees all four Animals back on board for the rst time since 2007s Strawberry Jam, allowing this determinedly oversaturated band to cram yet more sound

and rhythm on to each track here. Someones even smuggled a kids choir into Father Time, then disguised them. The fundamental idea that runs through Centipede Hz is one of radio signals lost in space, the crackle and blooping that has enamoured the audiophiles of the perverse since radio began. Guitarist Deakin sat out Merriweather. His return is most explicitly felt when he sings Wide Eyed, a burbling song that comes pretty near to pop music, albeit pop with some Dr Who

sound eects from the 1980s. More holistically, much of Centipede Hz was demoed with all four men in the same room, playing quaint indigenous instruments (drumkits and guitars). On recent records this far-ung band had le-shared digitally processed snatches of sound with each other, pinging them between Portugal (Panda Bear), LA (Avey Tare) and DC (Geologist). Animal Collective have usually been at their most collective when vocalising, chanting together in formations that recalled the Beach Boys underwater. Here, though, the impression of all animals melting into one is less marked, with Avey Tare yelling a lot of lead vocals. Where Merriweather was amniotic, Centipede rocks a little harder. AnCos febrile music hinges on a galumphing sense of abandon, but the textures of Centipede amp up the raucousness. Amid pell-mell songs such as standout Todays Supernatural there is rarely a pause to draw breath on this ne follow-up; one in a hurry, as bets its many pairs of legs. Kitty Empire

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

FESTIVAL

Back to school with Beckett

The Irish writer spent his formative years in Enniskillen, an inspired choice of venue for a celebration of his work, says Clare Brennan
Happy Days: International Beckett festival
Enniskillen

The rst multi-arts Samuel Beckett festival ended with neither a bang nor a whimper but on a soaring high note from the throat of mezzosoprano Ruby Philogene. Her French and German song recital (perfect lieder phrasing, in the view of one specialist critic) concluded with a set of spirituals speckled with piquant jazz inections. Beyond the walls of Castle Coole the sound of the standing ovation joined the swelling echoes of applause that reverberated for ve days round the hills of Fermanagh and began with the renowned Irish author Edna OBriens remembrances of Beckett as both friend and writer. Five years in the brewing, the festival was set up by Sen Doran, previously artistic director of festivals in Perth, Australia, Wales and Belfast. He rejected Dublin and Paris, the cities most obviously associated with Beckett, in favour of the island town where the playwright/poet/novelist spent his late teens as a pupil at Portora Royal School. (Oscar Wilde was a boarder there before him.) Here, Becketts tastes in music, art and literature developed. Also his sporting talent: he is the only Nobel laureate featured in Wisden, the cricketing bible. A waterlogged pitch prohibited the planned match, but at the rugby club an old-boys team mustered. During what may loosely be described as the warm-up, Becketts school-team successes were narrated. One spectator wondered, after the manner of some early viewers of Becketts plays: Are they just going to talk or are they going to do something? A glass of port later they did. Looking back over a richly diverse programme, two events encapsulate its range and quality. One is Robert Wilsons staging of Becketts 1958 play, Krapps Last Tape. The other is a reading of his three last prose pieces, Stirrings Still (1986-89), by Adrian Dunbar and Anna Nygh. Just as Beckett hews words from silence, so American director/ performer Wilson sculpts movement against light. Both strip away excrescences, uncover core elements and build of them a pattern striated with repetitions. What is left is so

Sculpting movement against light: Robert Wilson in Krapps Last Tape. Brian Morrison

Becketts sporting talent developed here too: he is the only Nobel laureate in Wisden
absolute it can seem abstract yet can become, if you allow yourself to feel it and not just think it, the concrete expression of our shared experience of the mystery of consciousness faced with death. Paradoxically, Wilsons technologised production and technically strict performance style jagged, nonnaturalistic movement and vocal eects free Becketts work from the preconceptions that so often dene it. (Speaking of denitions, artist Joseph Kosuths installation on the denition of nothing was vertiginous in its sly examination and undermining of the possibilities of meaning.) Purists found Wilsons extended, non-verbal opening with thunder and rain eects hard to take. Others, though, seeing the work for the rst time, found it deeply moving, as did I. (Interesting to compare this with the lm of John Hurts intensely naturalistic Krapp; shown as part of Atom Egoyans Steenbeckett (2002) installation.) Stirrings Still involved a journey

both physical and metaphysical: a dawn voyage on Lough Erne to the monastic ruins of Inishmacsaint (Island of the Sorrel Plain). Here, feet planted in wind-stroked grasses, lichen-stained stones behind them and a cloud-scudded sky above their heads, Dunbar and Nygh read. The clarity and simplicity of their voices made these last writings as real as the chill of the morning breeze. The contrast with Wilsons work could not have been greater. Yet both performances were identical in their integrity of intention and execution; both utterly true to Beckett. Such scrupulous sincerity is the keynote to Dorans programming. More perfect partnerships, this time musical ones. Listeners were transported along Schuberts Winterreise (Winter Journey Becketts favourite work). Julius Drakes piano was more duettist than accompaniment to tenor Ian Bostridges dramatic rendering. Doran wittily scheduled the performance for 18.27, the year the song cycle was composed. Similarly, Gavin Bryarss Sinking of the Titanic went up, so to speak, at 19.12 and was followed by the world premiere of his setting of four Beckett poems for two voices and strings, an instantly classic match. Delivering an impromptu closing speech, prizewinning author, local resident and festival participant Carlo Gbler said this festival was embedded in the fabric of the town the entire built environment was made to sing. In the ruins of Portora Castle, where Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh spoke of the conict in his homeland to the Northern Irish artist Rita Duy, the harmonies between the place and the experiences of the participants resonated movingly. Becketts basic ethical message was identied in a talk by John Calder, his publisher and friend: One thing we can do is help somebody else. Here, encounters with Becketts work brought people into deeper contact with themselves and with one another. Each had something new to oer, whether experts (such as his friend and biographer James Knowlson) or rst-time discoverers (such as the tiny tots vocally engaging with Theatre Clastics riveting puppet version of Act Without Words I, who gave the surrounding adults a vivid lesson in how to respond to this silent piece). Such sharings made this festival a true celebration of the man it honours. May it be the rst of many.

ROCK Ry Cooder
Election Special
(NONESUCH)

ROCK Cat Power

Sun
(MATADOR)

INDIE Two Door Cinema Club

Beacon
(KITSUNE)

INDIE The Vaccines

The Vaccines Come of Age
(COLUMBIA)

WORLD Sta Benda Bilili

Bouger le Monde
(CRAMMED)

JAZZ Ben Webster/Stan Tracey

Soho Nights Vol 2
(RESTEAMED)

A lot of people recoil from overtly political songs. Ry Cooder (slide guitarist, Buena Vista Social Club major-domo and custodian of Woody Guthrie before he was fashionable) doesnt care. The rst world is in dire straits and its all the fault of Republicans architects of Guantnamo and unfeeling people who tie their dogs to the roofs of their cars then drive o (Mutt Romneys Blues). Going to Tampa is a sniggering country tune that imagines a National Rie Association woman talking dirty to a Tea Party man; Cold Cold Feeling encapsulates the loneliness of President Obama as an embattled blues. KE

An unusual blend of anticipation and anxiety precedes any new Cat Power album or performance. Fragility and selflaceration have informed her most powerful music (and agonising gigs), but it will be a relief to most that Sun glows with hard-won contentment. Musically its closer to the bluesy alt-rock of 2003s You Are Free than the Memphis grooves of 2006s The Greatest, but aided by woozy, expansive production many of these songs shimmer with warmth and light. Theres a brittleness here too though; Power ends, not with the blissed-out Nothin But Time but the abrasive, street-smart Peace and Love. Ally Carnwath

Danny Boyles decision to hand one of the songs at the Olympics opening ceremony (Calibans Dream) to Two Door Cinema Clubs frontman Alex Trimble suggests that the Northern Irish trios time has come. In truth, while their second album is polished, thanks no doubt to U2 producer Jacknife Lee, there is nothing to distinguish Two Door Cinema Club from several other excitable indie-disco bands. Their debut, Tourist History, was endearingly odd but, Sun aside, Beacon is prosaic and frenetic, its tireless synths and dgety guitars unable to camouage the groups dearth of ideas. Paul Mardles

The second album from London four-piece the Vaccines starts o promisingly enough, No Hope recalling the Libertines jangle of If You Wanna from last years debut, with the twist that frontman Justin Young appears to have incorporated a Bob Dylan twang into his delivery. But from then on there is little to set them apart from the retro-indie pack. Aftershave Ocean nods to Ash; I Always Knew is a breezily unmemorable study in surf-pop. Solace arrives with Teenage Icons chorus (Im no teenage icon/ Im no Frankie Avalon), but last years talk of them kickstarting a new era is as baing as ever. Phil Mongredien

Kinshasas troupe of disabled musicians have indeed moved the world with their trajectory from street scuers to international stars, a feat celebrated here on Apandjokwetu. Recorded in a studio rather than in the zoo gardens, this second outing presents a richer, more percussive sound, albeit one still shot through with zinging tin-can guitar. Its lilting, layered vocals and loping grooves are anchored in the conventions of Congos 1980s soukous, though theres an expedition into swamp blues on Djambula. The edginess of their debut still lurks below the polished vocal harmonies. Neil Spencer

The empathy between these two sounds so deep that they could have been playing together for years. But Webster, veteran tenor saxophone star of the Ellington orchestra, and idiosyncratic British pianist Tracey had only just met when this was recorded at Ronnie Scotts in 1964. Its a musical dialogue sometimes in accord, sometimes argumentative, but never dull or routine. Webster must have played Chelsea Bridge thousands of times before, but rarely more sensitively accompanied. This is Vol 2, but it was actually recorded three years earlier than Vol 1. Theyre both classics. Dave Gelly

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

35

Edinburgh theatre & dance

A few waves can speak volumes
A French drama about silent film-makers is memorably eloquent. And Lucrece dazzles as cabaret
Susannah Clapp
Les Naufrags du Fol Espoir
Lowland Hall, Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh

The Rape of Lucrece

Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

Mies Julie
Assembly Hall, Edinburgh

We have waited 48 years to come to the Edinburgh international festival, said Ariane Mnouchkine. Audiences have waited too, and it has been worth doing so. Les Naufrags du Fol Espoir, the latest enormous creation of Mnouchkines inspiring Thtre du Soleil the company founded in the early 60s and based in a former munitions factory beyond the Bois de Vincennes east of Paris is a tale of utopian visions and wrecked dreams. Half written by Hlne Cixous, and devised by the company, it springs from a posthumously published story by Jules Verne and features lm-makers, archdukes, voyages to Patagonia, voracious lovers, idealists, assassinations, bounty-hunters who make necklaces out of human ears, deaths in snowy wastes and theatremaking. It is magnicently plural. Mnouchkines own theatre-making is like no other. In Edinburgh, as always, the audience is involved in the show before it begins. En route to the auditorium you pass through a plywood proscenium arch and see behind a lace curtain the cast getting ready: chatting, combing swatches of false hair, reading (Dickenss Les grandes esprances), having a back massage, applying eye liner, grinning at the gawpers behind the lace. This is no mere amuse-bouche: watching artice build, observing the mechanisms, is fundamental to a show that the audience sees through several pairs of eyes. A young woman, perched high on a ladder between stage and audience, watches a piece of family history

Absorbing, revealing, provoking: Thtre du Soleils latest creation, Les Naufrags du Fol Espoir. Photograph by Murdo Macleod

unfold. Its 1914 and the owners of a small restaurant have rented their attic to a group of leftwing lm-makers. Restaurateur and his sta observe and are caught up in the making of their silent socialist tale, whose every eect is openly manufactured: the weather is created by sprinkling snow on a cap, or tugging at a scarf to show a character whipped by wind. Members of the cast play two, often three parts, frequently switching gender. Their own love lives interrupt those of their characters. Thtre du Soleils own composer plays the onstage music man: his towering soundscape, shifting from La traviata to cabaret to Carmina Burana, is the yeast of the action. Meta-theatre, you may think. Well yes, but its better than that. Here is the paradox. The heart of the show is its most obviously articial part: the silent movie, with its declamatory language (seen in surtitles), its worldwide leaps of action, its wobbly gestures, its simplicity. But here is the Mnouchkine genius. This improbable articial thing, a thing made up in front of your eyes, takes on its own life

and becomes not only absorbing but revealing and provoking. Melodrama becomes heartfelt; silence becomes eloquent. When characters debate the principles of their utopia, they do so exactly, ercely, resoundingly. It seems that the more transparent you make things, the greater the transformations you can work. At times the action rolls across the vast stage as easily as if the actors were made of water; at times it freezes into detailed tableaux who would think that, on so wide a stage, faces peeping out of portholes would register so vividly? The groupings, set against huge cloudscapes, are never simply picturesque: they wire you into the action. The cast spring together round the prow of a ship as if they really were going to cleave the waves with the strength of their idealism; when news breaks of the assassination of Jean Jaurs, the socialist hope, everyone is pushed back to the edges of the stage as if humanity were about to be driven asunder. As indeed it was. Camille OSullivans rendering of The Rape of Lucrece is an astonishing leap

At times the action rolls across the vast stage as easily as if the actors were made of water
by the RSC. Against large and beautiful tarnished panels, to the intermittent accompaniment of Feargal Murrays insistent thrumming piano, OSullivan creates a dark and dazzling cabaret: she scorches a path through the congested passages of some of Shakespeares most stately verse and tells the story as if it were her own and now. George Galloway would, I think, agree that what happened to Lucrece was not unrequested insertion but rape, even though she had entertained her attacker earlier in the evening. The consequences were momentous. Having denounced her assailant to her husband, she committed suicide and precipitated

the downfall of a Roman dynasty. OSullivan strides on in a black greatcoat, her hair scraped back; she peels down to a white shift and lets her hair tumble loose while describing the rape. She commands the lighting, which dims with the undulations of her wrist. She moves almost undetectably from song to verse to tranced recollection. She comes close to the audience as if she were going to share a secret. She suggests the enchantment of Lucreces beauty for her attacker, stroking the air as if caressing a body. She makes unforgettably plain the violence that has been wrought on her: her blue blood changd to black. This is the second time in this years festival that an Irish actor in big black boots has taken a non-dramatic text and staged a mesmerising monologue. First Barry McGoverns Watt, now OSullivans Lucrece. That is almost a theme. OSullivan should take her recitations of sexcapades further: imagine what her velvety voice might make of Keatss The Eve of St Agnes. August Strindberg always had at least one foot in the she was asking for it camp: his 1888 Miss Julie can make hard (and unconvincing) watching. Yet Yael Farbers radically remade, sell-out version of the play, Mies Julie, makes it teem with new and terrifying life. Transposed to modern-day South Africa, the action is set in the kitchen of a farm on the 18th anniversary of the rst post-apartheid election. The farm workers are celebrating; the febrile white daughter of the house is mad with unhappiness; in the corner, a young black man sits polishing his masters boots. His mother (a clever remodelling of the thankless part of a ancee) has had her ngerprints erased by years of domestic service and so cannot prove her identity to vote. There is drought. A fan casts shadows; the guttural music of a Xhosa musician stalks the action; and Miss Julies fragile birdcage swings in the air. Every generation has neglected its children. Years of damage have rotted relationships and a country. The violence and desire between mistress and servant has never been more furious, steaming or convincing. Though part of the fringe, this production could belong to the international festival; in March it will be staged at Londons Riverside Studios.

DANCE

The slipper doesnt t

Cinderella herself is heartstopping, but tutti-frutti styling does her no favours, says Luke Jennings
Cinderella/Mariinsky Ballet
Festival theatre, Edinburgh

Alexei Ratmanskys Cinderella, created for the Mariinsky Ballet, was rst performed in St Petersburg in 2002. At the time, Ratmansky was a little-known gure: a Bolshoi-trained dancer who had worked for several western companies and was launching his career as a choreographer. A decade later he is the worlds most inuential ballet-maker, credited with revitalising classical dance through a series of highly individual productions. His particular gift has been for breathing vivid new life into neardefunct works. The Bright Stream and The Flames of Paris were half-

remembered Soviet pieces until reimagined for the Bolshoi by Ratmansky, and his Nutcracker for American Ballet Theatre shook the dust o a work many considered irrecoverably stale. What he brings to such productions is a classically trained eye, a musically sophisticated ear and an antic, postmodern sensibility which delights in the clash of idioms. All of this is evident in Cinderella. Its an uneven work which shows evidence of the choreographers struggle to reconcile highly diverse elements. In Cinderella herself, danced on last Thursdays rst night by Diana Vishneva, we have a traditional, lyrical ballerina heroine. The dropcloth and steel-framed set suggests that she lives in a tenement distant echoes of West Side Story but her two sisters and stepmother (a wonderfully

She gazes at the stars rather than his face: Diana Vishneva as Cinderella and Igor Kolb as The Prince. Robbie Jack

If shes in love, its with the music and her dreams. The prince looks like a bit of an afterthought

demented Ekaterina Kondaurova) are gures from modernist pantomime. The Prince (Igor Kolb), meanwhile, is a white-suited loner who occupies a kind of neo-masque realm which vanishes, like an architectural caprice, to perspective innity. Over the course of the past decade Ratmansky has made a virtue of this tutti-frutti styling, but in this early, evolutionary piece you can see the joins. One experiment which quickly zzes out is his use of men to dance the roles of the Four Seasons. Dressed in uorescent costumes with fright haircuts, they are presumably intended to represent time and change, but merely look odd. The court dances are formally accoutred but the choreography, all dips, hip rolls and camp, penguin-like eccentricity, is similarly gratuitous in its strangeness. Its as if Ratmansky is trying to compensate for the sugared romanticism of the story, and of the sweetness and virtue of his heroine. If so, you sense the same struggle in Prokovievs score for the work, in which sombre notes of warning are detectable behind the yearning lyricism of the foreground. Conducting, Valery Gergiev teases out every tonal and chromatic subtlety; the result is

complex and bittersweet, with a lovely sad shimmer to the strings. On stage, the evening is Vishnevas. She is not, here, a naturalistic performer. You wouldnt hire her for her housework vague, distasteful dabs at the furniture and her chion skirt and unravelling cardigan represent gamine chic at its most rened. This is a grand Mariinsky ballerina giving us poverty and loneliness, but at the same time she and her dancing are quite heartstoppingly beautiful. Whimsical knots of petits sauts unravel into high, silky extensions. Her arms are in perpetual motion, articulating with soft, undersea ow as her legs trace Ratmanskys oblique, o-classical geometry. He likes to play with changes of direction, and Vishnevas steps are stated with steely precision before melting, exquisitely, into reverse versions of themselves. But if her Cinderella is in love, its with the music and her dreams. Kolbs prince, ardent though he is, and victorious in his struggle against sexual tempters of both genders, looks like a bit of an afterthought. When they dance together in Ratmanskys nal, beautifully conceived duet, she gazes up at the stars rather than his face. But then, under Gergievs baton, Prokovievs music doesnt promise happy ever after.

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THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Radio
Spill the beans
Family secrets come out, internet trolls are unmasked and a vintage bluesman rolls on Alex Clark
Womans Hour and Mens Hour: Secrets Special R4/5 Live Do You Know Who Wrote This? R4 The Island R4 Hoboing with Honeyboy R2
My apologies if it sounds prurient, but it pays to come clean: when Jane Garvey and Tim Samuels cleared their throats to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, I was hoping for something a bit juicier than a) an inability to use chopsticks and b) a penchant for laser hair removal. Admittedly, the latter is more intriguing than the former; I leave you to guess whos guilty of what. It was fortunate, though, that when Radio 4s Womans Hour and 5 Lives Mens Hour came together for a bank holiday special that was broadcast simultaneously on both stations, the guests were rather more forthcoming than the hosts. They included Carol, who asked an aunt whether anything interesting had ever happened in the family only to be told, then, of course, theres the murder; Joan, whose account of discovering that she was adopted only when her mother was on the point of death was profoundly moving; and Cath, who married and had four children before deciding that she was ready to come out. In a slightly bizarre move, Samuels also took to a mobile confessional a black cab, in fact to tease out a little male candour. Suce it to say that the responses he elicited did not touch on quite such weighty topics, though I suspect this says as much about the contrivances of programme making as it does about the intensity of mens emotions. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all came when the magician Paul Daniels from the north Kent coastline by a mere 300 yards, and in The Island Sara Parker recorded their stories. Jeans husband Ron is not an islander, though few, surely, would begrudge him swampy status: his unmarried mother was sent away to give birth and he was meant to have been adopted until his grandfather heard that he was a boy and called for him to be brought back. Ray worked in the steel industry until a friend of his was crushed to death; Glenn until the mill he worked in was closed down. Now Glenn is a security guard; when he patrols the silent steelworks, he says, its heartbreaking. But as he also says, from the midst of his tightly knit family, on an island that hes never once wished to leave, its not all doom and gloom. Glenn would probably not have enjoyed the transient life of David Honeyboy Edwards, the Mississippi blues guitarist who was the subject of Gianluca Tramontanas compelling documentary Hoboing with Honeyboy. Edwards died last year, at the age of 96, by which time hed settled down in Chicago; much of his life, though, was spent riding the boxcars, an eye out for groups of just-paid workers in need of entertainment. Among the many treats in this look at the world of Robert Johnson and Son House is Honeyboy explaining how to elude the ticket collectors by hiding away in the mail carriages. Wonderful. Miranda Sawyer is away
Go online for this weeks games reviews

David Honeyboy Edwards, the subject of a compelling Radio 2 documentary. Redferns

the last of a series of celebrity guests that included footballer and one-time gambling addict Dominic Matteo and novelist Jill Dawson revealed himself to be a devotee of Womans Hour. You could almost hear Garvey falling o her chair. There was a brief mention of the dangers of over-sharing in the age of

Imagine what would happen if a veracity virus were to spread to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

social media, a theme expanded in Jonathan Myersons amusing play Do You Know Who Wrote This? Imagine, if you will, what might happen if the mothers on a discussion forum Chatmums, in this instance were suddenly stripped of their anonymity; and what further mayhem might ensue if the veracity virus were to spread to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even shock! newspapers themselves. You imagined right. Its not pretty. Over on the Isle of Sheppey, the Seager family were celebrating at mum Jeans 80th birthday party; among the children, grandchildren and other relatives present were sons Glenn and Ray. The Seager family are swampies, natives of the small island separated

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

37

Classical
Three into two does go
A new double bill of operatic love triangles united Scotland, Wales and Thomas Hardy in a great week for British composers Fiona cks Maddocks
In the Locked Room and Ghost Patrol
Traverse theatre, Edinburgh
Ruby Hughes as Ella in Huw Watkinss In the Locked Room at the Traverse, Edinburgh. Clive Barda

Suolk Villages festival

Stoke by Nayland, Suolk

Death is constant but love is a traitor. This truth acts as a dark motif for the double bill of opera premieres at the Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, part of a urry of new works which close the 2012 festival and launch Scottish Operas 50th-anniversary season in bracing style. Bravo to them. Elsewhere, understandably if drearily, you can barely move for revivals. (ENOs The Magic Flute, back this month for its last outing, has made more comebacks

than Marlene Dietrichs legs.) The words quoted above come from Ghost Patrol by Stuart MacRae (b 1976) and novelist Louise Welsh, but could equally apply to In the Locked Room by Huw Watkins (b 1976) and poet David Harsent. If at rst glance these two co-commissions with Music Theatre Wales appear similar, each using small forces, each with a contemporary setting and circling around a love triangle which ends in death, the comparison should not be laboured. Welsh-born Watkins and Scottishborn MacRae, who between them have studied with almost every top British composer, thus covering all stylistic eventualities, have refreshingly dierent musical personalities. In the Locked Room, an updating of a Thomas Hardy short story (An Imaginative Woman), takes place in a rented holiday cottage by the sea. Lonely Ella reads poetry while her high-nance husband Stephen talks into his smartphone. The houseowner, Susan, refers to a locked room, used by the poet whose work Ella is reading. A grand obsession leads to grave consequences.

The ight attendant arrived and George Wright took out his gun, hidden in the hollowedout Bible
Michael Finkel on the hijacker who went on the run for 41 years Observer Magazine pages 28-35

Harsents text, his second for Watkins, is spare and lucid. Having worked with composers over many years, notably Harrison Birtwistle (The Minotaur, Gawain), Harsent has honed a gift for brevity. He constructs dialogue of rhythmic immediacy, mostly using words with one syllable. He comes and goes but the room is his is characteristic. Watkins responds with lightly woven, clear textures, each instrumental colour audible, from the ominously pecking cello and solo woodwind at the start to the more sustained, inky colours when the locked room is rst mentioned. The music gathers momentum but remains transparent to the delicate ending. Ruby Hughes, Hkan Vramsmo, Paul Curievici and Louise Winter were an excellent and credible cast. In Ghost Patrol MacRae uses the same palette and an equally sparse and punchy libretto, but opts for close-knit musical argument and a constantly simmering orchestral style, using electronics, pre-recorded chorus and inventive aural eects: violins in eerie, double-stopped harmonics, the double bass creating percussive menace by bouncing the wood of his bow. You can hear Birtwistles inuence in the high woodwind laments, but more as homage than imitation. The plot explores loyalty and betrayal via two ex-soldiers with a shared secret. A thief in the night, Sam (Nicholas Sharratt), breaks into a gastropub, only to be confronted by

Alasdair (James McOran-Campbell) whom he recognises as well you might, given his striking near nakedness as his former commanding ocer. Sam falls for Alasdairs girlfriend Vicki (Jane Harrington). The past catches up, fatefully. Her folk-like threnody about a girl mourning the loss of her menfolk shot dead by soldiers had powerful expression. The cast here, too, was strong. Both works were conducted skilfully by Michael Raerty. Directors

The festival is still a fairly well kept secret. What concert? asked the harassed waiter in the pub next door
Michael McCarthy (In the Locked Room) and Matthew Richardson (Ghost Patrol), and designers Samal Blak and Ace McCarron created nimble productions using modest resources. Players from the orchestra of Scottish Opera rose to the challenge of becoming ne solo instrumentalists in the small ensemble. Catch this thought-provoking double bill on tour to Glasgow, London and elsewhere from now until mid-November. British composers have had a blazing week, all told. Two premieres

by Errolyn Wallen, Principia and Spirit in Motion, caught the mood at the Paralympics opening ceremony, with help from Holst, Ian Dury, Beverley Knight and Handel. The Proms celebrated Alexander Goehr at 80 and Oliver Knussen at 60. Howellss Hymnus Paradisi was given an overdue Proms premiere well, I say overdue; I would have held it back another century but many were in rapture. Brittens Peter Grimes, conducted by Edward Gardner and with Stuart Skelton in the title role, is being spoken of as a highlight of the season. As I heard it to an accompaniment of satnav directives and trac reports I am not, call me purist, best placed to review it, only to report its signicance. With chance synchronicity I was driving towards Brittens own county Suolk to hear music by the composer he revered. Bachs St John Passion was a focal point of this years Suolk Villages festival, now marking its 25th anniversary with a Bach Day, but despite its longevity still a fairly well kept secret. What concert? asked the harassed waiter in the pub next door as the clock ticked towards the mighty O Mensch! lift-o. Founded by Peter Holman, a pioneering early music man best known for his Parley of Instruments, the self-funded festival takes place every August bank holiday and specialises in baroque repertoire, nurturing student performers (among them the trumpeter Alison Balsom) and engaging top players. Holman, directing from the harpsichord, inspired a lithe and enjoyable performance of the St John Passion in German, using the 1725 version and its additional arias. If the soloists, led by tenor Daniel Auchincloss as the Evangelist, proved more streamlined than the chorus (women extremely good, men enthusiastic), this merely added a sense of authenticity which Bach might have recognised. Earlier the same day, harpsichordist Steven Devine gave an intimate, honest account of the Goldberg Variations which grew in boldness as he progressed. After the harmonic fantasy of No 25 (adagio), he leapt up several gears for the last ve variations, driven by motoric urgency, manic trills and virtuosic arpeggio gures. As Bach said, in words always worth repeating, all you need do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. As the nal aria sounded, quiet and unadorned, you could see that Bach, as ever, had embodied mystical formula in practical advice.

CLASSICAL RELEASES
Schubert
String Quintet, Op.163 Arcanto Quartett, Olivier Marron (cello)
(HARMONIA MUNDI)

Zelenka
Sonatas Ensemble Marsyas/Huggett
(LINN)

Respighi
Violin Sonatas/Five Pieces for Violin and Piano Tanja Becker-Bender (violin), Pter Nagy (piano) (HYPERION)

The Arcanto Quartett, founded in 2002 and consisting of four ne soloists Antje Weithaas and Daniel Sepec (violins), Tabea Zimmermann (viola) and Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) brings dazzling invention to music of all kinds. For Schuberts Quintet theyre joined by cellist Olivier Marron, an ideal partner. Can the market bear another recording of a work so popular as to be almost hackneyed? Yes, when the playing has the detail, the muscularity, the daring and sparkle displayed here. Tempi are brisk but not rushed; vibrato is kept under tight rein and the slow movement sings tenderly rather than sobs, making it all the more expressive. The outer movements shine in perfect but vigorous ensemble. Fiona Maddocks

The trio sonatas for wind by the Dresden composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) were one of the great discoveries of our generation in baroque music, sumptuously recorded by Heinz Holliger and friends, dense in their argument and detail. Now here they are again, but with the perky sounds of original oboes and a burblingly virtuosic bassoon. The lively Ensemble Marsyas are joined by violinist Monica Huggett in the third of the set, full of literally breathless counterpoint, while at the end is a beguiling single slow movement that leaves us up in the air, as if I had finished this review with a question mark. Nicholas Kenyon

If you were to listen to this disc blind I dont think you would identify the composer as Italian. The young Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), a contemporary of Puccini, looked north over the Alps for his musical inuences, writing rmly in the Austro-German tradition and with an astonishingly assured Brahmsian sweep. At 19 he was already an accomplished violinist, giving the instrument long, singing lines in his Sonata in D, which Tanja Becker-Bender exploits to the full here. The 1917 B Minor Sonata is an altogether more intense aair, with a complex harmonic structure beautifully delineated by Pter Nagy. Stephen Pritchard
To buy any reviewed CD go to observer.co.uk/ music/reviews or call 0330 333 6841

38

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Books
Totally Wired The spectacular fall of a web pioneer, page 41

Trust McEwan to keep you sweet

Stick with this playful Russian doll of a novel and the rewards are immense, writes Julie Myerson
Sweet Tooth
Ian McEwan
Jonathan Cape 18.99, pp336

Its more than 20 years since Ian McEwan published The Innocent, a tale of a gauche young Englishman failing miserably (and dangerously) as a cold-war spy in Berlin. But I am still haunted by its grim geography the dark corridors and lifts, the memorably claustrophobic apartment, the protagonists awkward sexual awakening and, of course, that terrifying evocation of exactly how it might feel to dismember the freshly dead. McEwans latest novel may be set in 1972, with the cold war shuing through its nal lacklustre phase, but it could not be more dierent in tone or intent from The Innocent. Where that novel felt stark and dirty and real, Sweet Tooth is playful, comic, preposterous even. But its impossible to ignore that its protagonist is a young and fairly gauche English person female this time failing miserably (though perhaps not so dangerously) in her job as a spy. Serena Frome blond, rather gorgeous and rhymes with plume graduates with a third in maths. A speed-reader of novels, she toys at rst with an English degree but is persuaded by her mother that its her duty as a woman to grapple instead with numbers. At Cambridge she falls, in an equally dutiful, quasisomnambulant way, into an aair with a much older, much married history professor and nds herself being groomed for an interview with MI5. When the professor dumps her literally in a layby o the A45 she is devastated. She starts working for MI5 anyway but is disappointed to nd herself doing mere grunt work as junior assistant ocer in a grubby little oce in Curzon Street. Continuing in her spare time to work her way through the cream of contemporary ction (in paperback: she cant aord hardbacks) shes startled to nd herself summoned upstairs to face a roomful of men: We understand youre rather well up on modern writing literature, novels, that sort of thing bang up to date on, whats the word contemporary literature... yes, awfully well read and quite in with the scene. Happy to let them think shes in with the scene, Serena accepts an exciting mission. She is to immerse herself in the work of a young novelist called TH Haley, then meet him and assess whether or not he should be oered the chance of a stipend enough to keep a chap from having to do a day job for a year or two, even three. A struggling novelists dream, in other words. Codenamed Sweet Tooth, this is MI5s way of covertly recruiting writers and journalists to bang the drum for its own causes. But the recipient must never know where the money is coming from. And, meanwhile, the men upstairs take care to stress that what theyre looking for is the sort who might

McCarthy by some decades). Even worse, an up-and-coming publisher in Bedford Square by the name of Tom Maschler is mad about it and wants to publish straightaway. And thats just the beginning. This is a great big beautiful Russian doll of a novel, and its construction deft, tight, exhilaratingly immaculate is a huge part of its pleasure. There are stories within stories, ideas within ideas, even images within images: a taxi that Serena and Haley take late one night has on the screen that divided us from the cabbie an advertisement for a taxi like this one. I admit that, as I continued to read, I was nagged by cavils. Was Serenas rather blu narration convincingly feminine? Was it amusing or irksome to have Amis pre, Amis ls (sharing the stage with Haley while he reads from The Rachel Papers) and Maschler stalking its pages? And did the story really amount to anything more than a clever boys jeu desprit, an in-joke for the already in enough literary world? Well, McEwan answers all these questions (and more) so convincingly, so surprisingly, and with such a sense of joy and relish, that by the end Id completely changed my mind. In fact, the novels last few pages, with its delicious (and, you realise, blissfully

By the end I had completely changed my mind. The last few pages moved me almost to tears
earned) twist, moved me almost to tears. But you have to hang in there. You have to concede in the words of a critic who praises Haleys dystopian masterpiece that you are in his hands, you know he knows what he is doing and you can trust him. Because this isnt really a novel about MI5 or the cold war or even despite the rather obviously ladled-on research about Heath and Wilson and miners strikes and the IRA the 70s. This is a novel about writers and writing, about love and trust. But more than that and perhaps most incisively of all its a novel about reading and readers. Its about our own peculiar responses to ction, to the strange, slippery magic of narrative. Its about how all any of us ever really want from ction is my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form. Sweet Tooth is a comic novel and a novel of ideas, but, unlike so many of those, it also exerts a keen emotional pull. Its nal moment amounts to a question aimed at Serena. And it says a great deal about how vivid and alive she had become and how much I now cared about her that, although I could guess what her answer might be, I really wished I could hear her say it. To buy Sweet Tooth for 12.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Spooky: McEwans gauche young spy is female this time.

Zave Smith/Getty

spare a moment for his hardpressed fellows in the Eastern bloc... isnt afraid to talk publicly about writers in prison in Castros Cuba but that theyre emphatically not interested in the decline of the West, or down with progress or any other modish pessimism. Its at about this point admittedly a full third of the way through the novel that McEwan really starts to have fun, and, as long as you can see through the somewhat dreary, understated, Tinker Tailor-ishness of the spying game, so do

you. Serena reads Haleys short stories which, with their insistent themes of sexual jealousy, obsession and betrayal, resemble McEwans own early oeuvre and is entranced. She then meets the man and, making the age-old readers mistake of feeling she already knows one corner of his mind, falls for him. As a irtatious aair turns into something that feels a lot like love, she becomes less and less comfortable with the enormous lie shes being forced to live. Meanwhile, Haley, freed from the

grind of a day job and able nally to concentrate on his art, manages to produce the most modishly pessimistic novel imaginable, a story of a journey a man makes with his nine-year-old daughter across a ruined landscape of burned-out villages and small towns where rats, cholera and bubonic plague are constant dangers and neighbours ght to the death for an ancient can of juice. Serena reads it and groans. This is hardly what MI5 had in mind (despite the fact that it pre-empts Cormac

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

39

Books
WOMEN

Through the labyrinth of lust

Katherine Angel puts her own sex life on the page in this fragmentary, giddily joyful study of female desire, writes Olivia Laing
Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Dicult to Tell
Katherine Angel
Allen Lane 15.99, pp368

Katherine Angel (inset, below left) unwraps the question of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire. Getty Images

It is fatal, Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of Ones Own, to be a man or woman pure and simple. This phrase, repeated several times, might be thought of as the guiding sentiment of Unmastered, Katherine Angels provocative and profoundly personal investigation into female desire. Angels mission is to nd a way of both inhabiting and writing about sexuality that oers a release from the corseting hand-me-down strictures of how a woman should behave. Desire, after all, is a form of hunger, and as such incompatible with the notions of abstemiousness and passivity that continue to burden the female mind. Unmastered is constructed as a series of numbered aphorisms. Sometimes no more than three words occupy the page (Am I pornography?). Its a model thats found favour with a range of writers on sexuality, especially the transgressive kind, from Susan Sontags seminal essay Notes on Camp to the cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaums Humiliation. This laying bare of language is matched by Angels radical unveiling of her own sexual life: the antics of what she beautifully calls the lubricious body. She describes in graphic terms the act of sex, of touching and being touched, of having

her breasts admired, of being tied to a bed with a belt by an unnamed lover. Its hard to overestimate the riskiness of these passages, their courage and their exquisite sensuality. Angel deploys a range of voices, from the poetic (a deep juddering pleasure, a ferrys heavy murmur) to the frank (Fuck me. Yes, fuck me!). Theres a voyeuristic thrill to the exposure, a swell of reciprocal pleasure, but the real joy lies in the artfulness with which she uses these intimate episodes as a way of unwrapping the larger issue of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire. Angel is an academic at Warwick University, a researcher in the history of female sexual problems. As such, her investigations, while almost painfully intimate (one chapter is given over to the experience and aftermath of an abortion), occur within what is emphatically a larger conversation. She uses pared-down, poetic fragments from a multitude of fellow explorers among them Woolf, Sontag, Susie Orbach, Havelock Ellis and Michel Foucault as a way of building up a working map of sexual desire. It quickly becomes apparent that to be true to ones sexuality means crashing up against pretty much all the forces invested in telling us what a woman should and shouldnt do. Does revelling in the pleasures of penetration automatically mean inhabiting the traditional female role of reassuring men, inating them with a sense of their own potency? Is this

a compulsion to be what the other person wants?, Angel asks herself of her own desires. I lock him into his masculinity. I am anxious to protect it, for it pains me, it pains my femininity, to see it fragmented. And, at the same time: I am so fucking hungry! In her quest for sexual freedom, Angel more than once experiences feminism as an oppressive as well as a liberating force. In one amusing, troubling scene, she attends a lecture by the venerable sex researcher Shere Hite in which Hite and an audience member agree that lesbian porn using dildos should be boycotted. Later, she falls foul of another speaker at a feminist conference for raising the question of whether erotic images of

Days after reading, its images linger in the mind: eating macaroons after an afternoon of bondage
female submission are automatically pathological evidence of patriarchal oppression. On the other hand, she also challenges a male academic she nicknames Mr Pornography (he has probably watched more pornography than anyone, anywhere) on his proporn stance, pointing out that despite

his celebration of its democracy and inclusiveness, it still radically fails to represent the nature, range and realities of pleasure in women. Despite this latter comment, Angels assumptions about sexuality tend toward the heteronormative and can on occasion feel a touch coercive. A statement like: I was weaned on this the hypostatised, brutal man; the yielding, deferring woman. So, by the way, were you might be true in terms of the dominant culture but elides entirely the subtle shadings of sexual dierence. This is particularly odd when so few of the writers she draws upon (Sontag, Woolf, Orbach, Foucault) can be categorised as entirely heterosexual. Nonetheless, Angel makes a persuasive case for the idiosyncrasy of desire, its obstinate individuality. Caught between oppressive forces, her escape is by way of the sensual body itself. As such, Unmastered is a giddily joyful book, thicketed with exclamation marks. Days after reading, its images linger in the mind: an erotics that encompasses eating macaroons after an afternoon of bondage, or seeing a dead fox on the southern underbelly of Peckham Rye, a restful body of red, a serene splash of white. In its richness and its exultant tone, Unmastered frequently recalls another statement from Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own: Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poets heart when caught and tangled in a womans body? Woolf was talking about the fantastical gure of Shakespeares sister but she might have found a more cheering answer here, in this elegant and uplifting journey through the labyrinth of female lust. Olivia Laing is the author of To the River (Canongate 8.99). To buy Unmastered for 11.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

MEET THE AUTHOR Deon Meyer

Born in 1958, Deon Meyer is one of South Africas top thriller authors. A former brand strategist for BMW motorcycles, he started writing fulltime in 2008. His novels, which he writes in Afrikaans, are translated into 25 languages and have won him awards from around the world. His latest, 7 Days, stars his recurring character Detective Benny Griessel. What gave you the idea to have Griessel racing against time to solve an old case, after the police are told they will be picked o one at a time by a sniper, every day until the murderer is arrested?

I could nd a story that suited him. By then I had already created him as a bit of a cliche, so I had to work with that I had to put a new and exciting spin on the typical cliche of a drunk cop. I thought: lets put him through the wringer. So his wife in Devils Peak says he has a choice if he wants to get his family back he has to stay sober.
Did you always want to write thrillers?

not as sexy a place as Scandinavia. Peoples perception of it is often contaminated by the bad news they see on television and in newspapers its never a fair reection of the real South Africa.
You write that Colour, everything revolved around colour, all the time, every which way you looked, it was there. Are your books a true reection of South African society?

I mostly follow the dictum conict is the mother of suspense, so Ill be looking at as many sources of conict for the protagonists as possible within the parameters of verisimilitude. The cold case was the basis of the book; the sniper developed as a way to ratchet up the tension, and the pressure on Griessel. And as a novelist I am fascinated with the deadline, with the role of time as a mechanism to increase the tension.
Some might say that Griessel, your troubled but brilliant alcoholic detective, is a bit of a cliche. Was that a worry?

I always wanted to write, but I never thought in terms of genre. I always thought in terms of story, and still do. For me, the most important thing is to try to tell an entertaining story let other people worry about what genre it is.
Why write in Afrikaans, when your English is so good?

No its ction. You amplify, you magnify, to serve the story. Crime ction can never be a panoramic window on society, it can only be a small window with a restricted view.
As an Afrikaans writer, do you feel pressure to represent all sectors of South Africa?

Afrikaans is my mother tongue. I nd writing dicult enough in my own language. English is a second language, so to nd the exact right word is just that bit more dicult. I work through the English translation very thoroughly, though, to make sure its a perfect reection.
Your books are huge in South Africa and you are now becoming a bestseller in Europe as well. Is South Africa taking over from Scandinavia as the new home of crime ction?

I dont feel obliged to do it. Everything is in service of the story and there are certain realities in the police force, they have people of all ethnicities working together, so just to have black or white cops would not be credible. Its all about verisimilitude. You have to create a world thats believable, thats close enough to the truth to be believed. Interview by Alison Flood 7 Days is published by Hodder & Stoughton (16.99) on 13 September. To buy a copy for 13.59 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop. co.uk

When I rst wrote him, in Dead Before Dying, he was never supposed to become a major character. He was supposed to be the comic relief in a fairly dark book, but he had the knack of walking on to the page and making things happen. At the end of the book I realised I had to bring him back, if

That would be glorious but I dont think its going to happen. South Africa is just

40

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

Books
TECHNOLOGY
Totally Wired: On the Trail of the Great Dotcom Swindle
Andrew Smith
Simon & Schuster 19.99, pp416

> > Chris Langs tearjerking

two-part drama A Mothers Son is all too believable

Television, page 48

The fall of geekdoms Gatsby

John Kampfner is entertained by a cautionary account of a self-destructive internet pioneer and exhibitionist
In the late 1990s, easy cash and irresponsibility became an art form. It was the time of the dotcom boom when a small number of clever, usually irreverent and often dysfunctional people invented great things and became billionaires overnight. Some became mainstream corporate bosses; others would disappear o the map. One of those who made silly amounts of money and then blew it all was Josh Harris. Harris was one of the early pioneers (bathos intended) of Big Brotherstyle reality television. His career culminated and collapsed in 2000 with the lming of his life, and that of his girlfriend, in a real-life internet show called We Live in Public. Everything they did, from sex to cooking dinner, was lmed and made available for anyone to see. He wanted to conceive a child online. Think about it, wouldnt you enjoy sex more if you knew you were being televised? Eventually his girlfriend, Tanya Corrin, became fed up with him, walked out and tried to get the rights to the hours of digital performance art. This was the merging of counterculture and cyberculture. This was New Yorks Silicon Alley at its peak of bling and hedonism. Harriss parties were chronicled in magazines around the world. An earlier project involved inviting around 100 people to his warehouse apartment, so big you could line up several double decker buses in it, for a collective social experiment in wired living. It was busted on millennium night by anti-terrorist cops fearing it might be a suicide cult. You might wonder why Harriss life story requires a book. But when I nished reading Totally Wired, I understood why the cultural journalist Andrew Smith had written it. This was a slice of life never to be repeated. Smith followed Harris for years, eventually catching up with him in Awasa, an Ethiopian town where he had gone to hide from the cacophony he had engendered in New York. The thing about life in deep Africa is that every day is a life-and-death experience and your senses get sharp, Harris tells Smith. New Yorkers think the

Always on: Josh Harris and his girlfriend Tanya Corrin during the We Live in Public project. Photograph: David Rentas/Rex/New York Post

Harris preferred to host endless parties, interviewing people about foot fetishism for his online show
worlds ending if they cant get dinner reservations at the right restaurant. Smith traces the start of the internet generation, providing fascinating passages about some of the forgotten individuals (such as the 1960s military programmer JCR Licklider Lick to his friends), and the startups that quickly went at. The rst people to recognise the social power of the online idyll were the former ower children, he writes. The book is peppered with enjoyable anecdotes. The rst online business transaction,

he notes, is said to have involved a quantity of dope shipped between students at MIT and Stanford circa 1971. By the mid-1990s, irrational exuberance had taken over, from the party-goer, to the nerd, to the investor, to bankers such as Alan Greenspan. The rst initial public oering of shares was Netscape. And it went completely wild. From that point there was no going back. In 1997 Wired, the bible of the emerging online community, declared: Were facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environment for the whole world. Nasdaq, the US technology stock index known aectionally as Nazz, couldnt stop rising. Some rms were valued in multiples far greater than their worth. As they partied and saw their fortunes soar, one chief executive warned his colleagues: This wont last for ever, enjoy it and remember it!

Then came 2000 and the dotcom crash. Some retrenched, survived and went on to thrive. Others, like Harris, did not. He insisted his corporation, pseudo.com, was actually fake. He could not, would not, allow his mind to enter the grown-up business world. He preferred to host endless parties, interviewing characters about foot fetishism for his online show, and persuading the French champagne industry to sponsor a happening entitled The End Is Near. Smith describes him as a modernday Gatsby. Harris likens himself to a Warhol of the web. His friend and fellow indulger, Jason Calacanis, said of him: Hes one of the 10 most important people in the history of the internet and nobody knows who he is. Unlike Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk, with the world at his feet, Harris threw it all away, and seemed happy to. I wasnt sure in the end if I admired him for his refusal to be boring or was to create two new symbols, since discontinued. How was one to distinguish between short and long vowels? The scribes of Norman Britain came up with the silent e, to turn hop into hope for example, and with letter doubling, to turn hoping to hopping, or met into meet. Later, writers settled on spellings that indicated the etymology of words, so that debt spelled det, dett, dette, and deytt in the 13th century acquired a b in acknowledgment of its origin in the Latin debitum. Sometimes, spellings came about more whimsically: Caxtons Flemish assistants introduced the h in ghost from their own language, though they failed to get ghoos (goose), ghoot (goat), or gherl (girl) to stick. Objecting to what he saw as the many illogicalities in British English, Noah Webster set about creating a more pleasing, American orthography color, center, defense, and so on. All Crystals explanations make sense, and are highly entertaining to read, but as they accumulate they are likely to leave readers feeling that they are no closer to the key to improving their own spelling. There are so many

if I scoed at his self-indulgence. I suppose the answer is a bit of both. This was an age of excess and innocence unleashed by the breaking of nancial and communications barriers. Even the Clinton administration, which bought into the optimism of the moment, was worried by the loss of state control. It was the rst government to try to establish surveillance over all electronic trac, via a so-called clipper chip, which was seen o technically by the cyber geeks. Now, more than a decade on, the authoritarians are far more successful in watching, listening and following us online. The internet is much more sober now. John Kampfner is author of Blairs Wars and Freedom For Sale. To buy Totally Wired for 15.99 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk exceptional cases. Is a long vowel never followed by a double consonant? No: droll, all, small, and, if youre from the south, class and grass. Can a short vowel be followed by a single consonant? Yes: criminal, typical. Does spelling always respect etymological origins? No: the spelling of island is based on a mistake. And the rules can be hard to grasp: if a Latin prex ends in s, and the root word begins with s followed by a consonant, there is no doubling: so, ascribe rather than asscribe. Got that? Nevertheless, Crystal must be right in saying that children will learn spelling more easily if they understand contexts and etymologies. He dislikes lists, and is hard on Dr Seuss too: names such as Wumbus, Wump, and Zlock serve to bae, he argues. But he is tolerant of indeed, enthusiastic about textspeak. One supposes that the proofreaders tried to be particularly vigilant when working on this book. I spotted only one error: a missing question mark on page 259. Nicholas Clee To buy Spell It Out for 10.39 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

LANGUAGE

Youd better mind your Ps and Qs and the rest too

Spell It Out: The Singular Story of English Spelling
David Crystal
Prole 12.99, pp224

The heroine of Ian McEwans new novel, Sweet Tooth, is Serena Frome. Rhymes with home? No: McEwan intends you to pronounce her surname as you do the Somerset town rhymes with room. Nomenclature in Great Britain oers many such traps. Beaulieu, Cholmondeley, Knollys (pronounced like Knowles), and the particularly teasing Featherstonehaugh (pronounced like Fanshaw): they appear to be designed to mock the ill-bred, ignorant or foreign. Pity the tourist in Oxford who pronounces the g when asking for directions to

Magdalen College! However, these eccentricities, while symptomatic of the way our spelling has developed, are comparatively trivial examples of the idiosyncratic nature of the entire spelling system if system may be used of such a haphazard phenomenon of the English language. David Crystal, author of this sprightly survey, would challenge the word haphazard. A prolic author and editor of language books, he can write with authority on trends in the spelling of rhubarb (rubarb is gaining ground, he reports), and indeed on the history of the spelling of any tricky word you care to mention. For him, the patterns are clear. The rest of us may often remain puzzled. Crystal begins his story with the arrival in Britain of Christian missionaries, who rapidly discovered

English orthography: for David Crystal, the patterns are clear. Roger Bamber/ Alamy

that they had at their disposal only about half the number of letters required to denote the sounds phonemes of the Germanic tongue of the natives. That, in a nutshell, is the problem of English spelling, he writes. For example, what were the monks to do about the sound th? The eventual answer lies of course in the letters I have written, but the scribes solution

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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Evenings 7.30 Mats. Tues 3 Sat 4 www.the-mousetrap.co.uk The Threesixty Theatre 08448717693 KENSINGTON GARDENS

FINAL WEEK! THE WIZARD OF OZ Starring Des O'Connor

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tue-Sat7.30, Wed/Sat 2.30, Sun3 25 Day Seats from 10am in person

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

By CS Lewis Adapt. by Rupert Goold FINAL 3 WKS - ENDS 9 SEPT Mon,Wed,Thu 2.30,Thu-Sat 7.30 Sat 3, Sun 12 & 3.30 www.lionwitchtheshow.com Trafalgar Studios 0844 871 7632

New London Theatre 020 7452 3000 / 0844 412 4654

THEATRE GUIDE
Adelphi 0844 811 0053 Final Weeks Must End 22 Sept AMBASSADORS 08448 112 334

WAR HORSE
Cambridge Theatre 08444124652 WINNER 7 OLIVIER AWARDS Roald Dahls DOMINION 0844 847 1775 GIELGUD 0844 482 5130

PRINCE OF WALES: 0844 482 5114 Good seats still available this week

HER MAJESTY'S 0844 412 2707

25 day seats available from 10am Warhorseonstage.com

MAMMA MIA!
MOVING TO THE NOVELLO THEATRE FROM 6 SEPT www.Mamma-Mia.com QUEEN'S 0844 482 5160

SWEENEY TODD
Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Wed & Sat 2.30pm Aldwych Theatre 0844 847 1712

STOMP
Mon, Thu-Sat 8pm Thu, Sat & Sun 3pm, Sun 6pm

WE WILL ROCK YOU

by QUEEN & BEN ELTON Mon-Sat 7.30, Mat Sat 2.30 Extra show last Wednesday of every month at 2.30 www.wewillrockyou.co.uk

CHARIOTS OF FIRE
***** 'A Magnificent Triumph' Mail on Sunday Mon-Sat 19:45, Wed & Sat 15:00 chariotsoffireonstage.com AIR COOLED THEATRE

MATILDA THE MUSICAL

Tue 7, Wed-Sat 7.30, Wed & Sat 2.30, Sun 3 www.matildathemusical.com

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS Eves 7.30, Mats Tue & Sat 2.30 www.ThePhantomOfTheOpera.com

YES, PRIME MINISTER

Vaudeville Theatre 0844 482 9675 NOEL COWARDS

Nol Coward Theatre 08444825141 A Resounding Triumph" IoS

RSC Julius Caesar

Prince Edward 0844 482 5152

LES MISERABLES
WINNER! 2012 Olivier Audience Award Eves 7.30, Mats Wed & Sat 2.30 www.LesMis.com Savoy Theatre 0844 871 7687

DRURY LANE 0844 871 8810

TOP HAT
"A musical like this comes around once in a lifetime." Sunday Tel Mon-Sat 7.30, Thur & Sat 2.30 Extra Tues matinee from 11 Sep www.tophatonstage.com AIR COOLED THEATRE APOLLO VICTORIA 0844 847 1696

SHREK THE MUSICAL WICKED

WickedTheMusical.co.uk Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Wed & Sat 2.30pm Criterion Theatre 0844 847 2483 Londons Funniest Comedy FORTUNE 0844 871 7626

LYCEUM 0844 871 3000 book online www.thelionking.co.uk Disney Presents

VOLCANO
NOW SHOWING 5 WEEKS ONLY! VICTORIA PALACE 0844 811 0055

The 39 Steps
Mon-Sat 8pm, Wed 3pm, Sat 4pm

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Tue-Sat 8, Tues & Thurs 3, Sat 4 www.thewomaninblack.com

GLOBE THEATRE
Performances Monday - Sunday 020 7401 9919 shakespearesglobe.com

THE LION KING

This week: Tue-Sat 7.30, Wed, Thu & Sat 2.30 / Sun 2.30 matinees recommence 9 Sep Groups 08448717644 / 02078450949

JERSEY BOYS
Winner Best Musical! Oliviers Tue-Sat 7.30,Tue&Sat 3pm,Sun 5pm

BILLY ELLIOT
THE MUSICAL Mon-Sat 7.30, Thu & Sat 2.30 Billyelliotthemusical.com

SOUL SISTER
Now Showing 5 Weeks Only!

Books
ART

> > Stetsons, scheming and

sibling rivalry Dallas is back after a 21-year hiatus

Television, page 50

Leonardo and the art of seating arrangement

A ne analysis of the Last Supper invites us to look afresh at a faded masterpiece, writes Peter Conrad
Leonardo and the Last Supper
Ross King
Bloomsbury 20, pp352

The friars in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan ate their frugal meals in penitential silence: small talk was forbidden, and at best they were permitted to listen to a stern reading from scripture. But, on the painted wall behind their communal table, a less inhibited group drank wine, feasted on a fatty dish of eel with orange juice drizzled over it, and noisily argued and expostulated as they did so. Bernard Berenson, scrutinising the mural, forgot the sanctimonious setting and described the 13 painted gures as rowdy Italians carousing in a cheap restaurant that didnt bother to give its customers cutlery. What a pack of vehement, gesticulating, noisy foreigners they are, he snied. He was referring, of course, to the company in Leonardos Last Supper, in which the 12 disciples protest a little too vociferously when Christ announces that one of them will soon betray him. Despite the snobbery it reveals, Berensons fastidious remark pays Leonardos conversation piece a ne compliment: it reanimates a work that had faded before its restoration in 1999 to a ghostly smear on the convent wall, and restores its polyphonic soundtrack. Other paintings of the last supper, for instance those by Castagno or Ghirlandaio, make it a solemn and meditative occasion, as Ross King says a moment of communion before the arrest of Christ and a preparation for the symbolic restaging of that meal which occurs whenever mass is celebrated. Leonardo stays close to the

Leonardos Last Supper: The perspective is hieratic as well as linear, whimsically altering scale. The Gallery Collection/Corbis

agitation and puzzled astonishment that convulses the company in the Gospels, which is why he took as his models for the apostles the old men he saw gossiping and grousing on benches in the streets of Milan. Their uproar, however, is soundless. Leonardo called painting dumb poetry, by which he meant that it was a form of sign language like that used by those who cannot speak or hear. In his most intriguing works, facial expressions and gestures tease us with riddles. Why is the Mona Lisa smiling? At whom or what is the archangel pointing in The Virgin of the Rocks? What meanings are semaphored by the hands of the apostles, upraised in shock in The Last Supper, or by Christs hands, laid at on the table as if ready for the stigmatising nails? And what thoughts are concealed behind those faces? King asks all the customary iconographic questions, and helps us to imagine what the mural must have looked like, with its modulations of colour or transitions

of light and shade, before it began to moulder and before the philistine friars carved a hole in it to make room for a doorway. He pays deserved tribute to the spatial logic of the composition, organised to illustrate the laws of divine perspective. The vanishing point is the face of Christ, who is unperturbed by his imminent sacrice; Leonardo hammered a nail into the plaster to mark the centre where all sightlines would converge, so that the saviours forehead is pricked by a hole that eerily anticipates the crown of thorns. But all is not orderly serenity. King also detects a delight in visual paradox that he calls hocusfocus, a reminder of Leonardos skill as a magician, a trickster who amazed courtiers by turning white wine into red and designed ying machines that deed gravity. The perspective is hieratic as well as linear, whimsically altering scale: Christ is a giant compared to John, who sits next to him, and as tall as Bartholomew and Philip, even though

Leonardo knew that creativity ghts a losing battle with destruction. Art cannot outwit nature
he is seated and they are standing. What King doesnt explain is the rugged waste behind Christs head, as alien as the rocks among which the Mona Lisa so mysteriously sits. Though Kings Leonardo is pious and orthodox, I cant help suspecting that this landscape like the oods and storms and elemental upheavals Leonardo sketched glimpses a

nature as godless as Darwins. The myriad-minded Leonardo couldnt stick to a single project for long; ideas interested him more than their execution, which may be why he didnt bother about ensuring that his paint adhered to the damp plaster on the refectory wall. During the three years he spent on The Last Supper, he maddened his employer, the warlord Lodovico Sforza, by making fanciful detours. King follows him down many of these speculative trails, and too much of his narrative potters around on the periphery. He gets back on course when lling in the murals sorry afterlife, or rather its long decomposition. With bitter humour, King describes recent attempts at restoration as gruesome cosmetic surgery, followed by a rush to the emergency ward. First comes a spa-style treatment of wax injections and invigorating rubdowns, after which the painting is put on a lifesupport system of heat and moisture monitors, along with batteries of diagnostic tests. We are left with a cadaver, brightly rouged and smeared with lipstick to simulate life. King wants to believe that great art lasts for ever, so he argues that The Last Supper has enjoyed, like Christ, a kind of resurrection in Warhols silk screens or the cloned version that Peter Greenaway manufactured with an inkjet printer. But I wonder if Leonardo didnt intend it to decay. He knew that creativity ghts a losing battle with destruction and that art cannot outwit nature: what better way to illustrate those morbid truths than to produce a miraculously beautiful painting that almost immediately begins to revert, like the bodies and minds of all who look at it, to unformed chaos? To buy Leonardo and the Last Supper for 16 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

TRAVEL

Colombia from cocaine to cocktails

Short Walks from Bogot: Journeys in the New Colombia
Tom Feiling
Allen Lane 20, pp266

Do they have skyscrapers? a London acquaintance innocently asks Tom Feiling, recently returned from Colombia. Short Walks from Bogot sets out to unravel Colombias complexities for those who have little conception of the country beyond cocaine, violence and the execution of footballer Andrs Escobar by drug barons following his own goal in the 1994 World Cup. In 2010, Feiling a documentary maker who has worked for a human rights organisation in Colombia and written a well-received book, The Candy Machine, on its cocaine trade returned to Bogot, drawn by a Newsweek portrait of a country on the rise after years of civil war. This country has moved from terrorism to tourism, the strong-arm then president lvaro Uribe had announced, and Feiling reasoned the expected ood of visitors would need a primer. Starting in the potholed capital Bogot, he sets o on a series of excursions to areas beginning to open up after years of conict. Along the way, he takes in the incredible variety of Colombias geography, from lush tropical valleys to mountain ranges, coastal swamps and deep jungle. He also charts the sharp divisions among its 46 million people the white-skinned

10% who control 80% of the countrys wealth, the mixed-race 40% who spend their lives working as hard as they can, and the darkest-skinned half of the population, who live in poverty in isolated rural regions or the slums that ring large cities. We have rst, second and third worlds living side by side, a Colombian friend tells Feiling. As would-be builders of the Colombian state found in the 19th century, making sense of this diversity is no easy task. Looking back to the birth of the nation, Feiling highlights Britains key role in the then Spanish
Flying the ag: Colombia is beginning to open up after years of conict.

colonys battle for independence in the early 1800s. The South American rebels appealing for military support in London were at rst so impoverished they had to clothe volunteers in uniforms cast o by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic war but as Simn Bolvars struggle became a cause celebre, their new troops were soon dressed in strikingly luxurious uniforms based on those of the Royal Artillery. Short Walks from Bogot is inevitably dominated by more recent history: the almost 50-year-old conict between the

Farc and the Colombian state, inamed by both rightwing paramilitary groups that sprang up in the 1990s, and the billions of dollars of US aid secured by the government to ght narcoterrorism. Excellent chapters trace the murky dealings between the conicts main players and follow ex-Farc guerrillas to a town in the hot, swampy Magdalena delta, resulting in a grim humour (in 2010 counter-insurgency troops decorated a 50-metre tree with Christmas lights to encourage guerrillas to hand in their weapons over the festive season). Some of the best sections of the book illuminate the lives of ordinary people desperate for stability. Feiling is instinctively sceptical of privilege the Facebook-using, cocktail-drinking young people of Bogots rich suburbs and western backpackers get short shrift. But he paints sympathetic portraits of Colombianos such as Pedro of the indigenous Nukak people, chased from his nomadic jungle lifestyle by guerrillas. Short Walks from Bogot doesnt oer light beach reading for Colombia novices, but those who persist will nd important insights into what Feiling calls the most obsessive and introspective of all countries. Rachel Aspden To buy Short Walks from Bogot for 16 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

43

Books
GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH
The Hive
Charles Burns
Jonathan Cape 12.99, pp80

> > Just the right side of

gung-ho and very engaging: The Bletchley Circle

Television, page 51

THE NEW READING

Ebooks, Kindles and the web

Drudgery, drugs and dread its a Dougs life

At last, its here: the second volume in the trilogy that began with Xed Out. And things are really getting weird now. Remember Doug, the aspiring young performance artist who, in Xed Out, appeared to be recovering from some kind of head injury? At the end of that book, we left him in a strange netherworld (he entered it through a hole in his bedroom wall). It was inhabited by one-eyed green worms who live in a giant hive, and spend their time transporting around a precious cargo of giant white and red eggs. Was this a dream, or a hallucination? Naturally, Burns still best known for his teenage horror story, Black Hole was not telling. We would just have to wait. Two years on Xed Out was published in 2010 and things are no less clear. Doug (or Nitnit, as he

Why genre ction is an e-readers best friend

In 1997, crime writer David Hewson published a novel called Epiphany. A literary thriller with a time-shifting narrative, it got good reviews and sold well. A few years later he wrote Native Rites, a more conventional horror story with a straightforward plot. This sold far fewer copies and was remaindered within a year. But Hewson had a soft spot for Native Rites and eventually decided to self-publish it as an ebook. He did the same with Epiphany. To his surprise, Native Rites has been the bigger hit, outselling Epiphany by three to one. Musing on why, Hewson posits a theory: is e-reading better suited to simple, linear narratives than it is to complex, more literary ction? Hewson knows his research is far from scientic there could be plenty of reasons for the disparity in sales but I think hes on to something. Partly this is about how we use e-readers. The Kindles portability makes it an
Crime writer David Hewson thinks simple narratives are better suited to e-reading.

Doug has terrible nightmares: a girl rips open her own belly and a piglet emerges from the wound
is known in this netherworld) is still trapped in the hive. He works in its library and spends his days delivering comic books to the women who are known as the breeders. As he does this lowly work, he tries to ignore the terrible smell that permeates some of the hives corridors, and the fact that the breeders can be heard crying in the dead of night. Strangely docile, he is the polar opposite of Tintin, the energetic hero whose name is his own in reverse. Meanwhile, back in the real world, he continues to tell a still unidentied (and increasingly disgusted) young woman about his absent girlfriend, Sarah, and her menacing ex-boyfriend the people, we assume, who are responsible

for whatever it is that nally shattered his life. Sarah, he reveals, made him dress in his dead fathers clothes, fed him opiates and, as he slept o the drugs, photographed him. When Doug is not talking, he mostly sleeps. But he has terrible nightmares: a girl rips open her own belly and a piglet emerges from the wound. The Hive is even more disorienting than the book preceding it and that was dizzying enough. I truly have no idea, yet, what is going on. But the feeling of dread Burns evokes is

quite something, especially when you consider that it is Herg whose drawings these strips rst call to mind. The repetitions in the book, and its powerful imagery (the signicance of some of which is not yet clear), combine to create a feeling that Doug is on the edge of revealing something truly terrible. What will it be? Has it to do with those monstrous eggs? And how on earth will Burns tie up all these carefully planned loose ends, given that he has promised us just one further volume? (The third book will be called

Sugar Skull, for the macabre sweets Doug/Nitnit is forced to buy in The Hives very last frame.) Ive honestly no idea. All I can tell you is that I fear it will be another two years, at least, before we nd out. Charles Burns might be the master of all that is creepy in comics, but he isnt, by any stretch of the imagination, fast. Rachel Cooke To buy The Hive for 10.39 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

ideal travelling companion. Perhaps stressed-out commuters are more likely to opt for an easy read than someone at home in an armchair. But Hewson suspects it is also the devices themselves. As he puts it, e-readers turn novels into a continuous scroll. They favour fast-paced narratives with a clear beginning, middle and end. Anyone whos used an e-reader will relate to this. Theres something about having fewer words to a page, the instant page-turning, the percentage bar (37% complete 84% complete) that encourages you to hurtle through an ebook. I nd Im less likely to linger over a sentence, or turn back to something in a previous chapter. As genre ction continues to dominate the ebook charts, it seems that with e-reading, the medium is shaping the message. Anna Baddeley

CLASSICS CORNER
The Drowning Pool
Ross Macdonald
PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS 8.99

PAPERBACK OF THE WEEK

Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order
Philip Coggan
PENGUIN 10.99

Literature & Spoken Word

Writing that breaks the

Few private eye novels would open, as The Drowning Pool does, with a poisonpen letter quoting from Shakespeares sonnet 94 (Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds), but in Ross Macdonalds Lew Archer series urbane literary allusion is par for the course. Macdonald, whose real name was Kenneth Millar, published his rst Archer novel in 1949, after completing a PhD on Coleridge at the University of Michigan. The Drowning Pool, set in California and rst published in 1950, is Archers second outing and the most formally assured of the series. After investigating an anonymous note accusing the wealthy Maude Slocum of adultery, Archer dives deep into a case that turns murderous when Maudes domineering mother-in-law, Olivia (She had enough ego to equip a dictator and leave enough over for a couple of gauleiters), is found dead in her swimming pool. Is oil magnate Walter Kilbourne, desirous to drill for black gold on the Slocum estate, responsible or is the killing merely a domestic spat gone wrong? Macdonald unfurls his plot with the unforced majesty of an incoming Pacic tide, though it is in his laconic descriptive prose that he equals Chandler or Hammett. His evocation

Last splash: California is the setting for Ross Macdonalds noirish murder-mystery.

of Kilbournes shadowy efdom The place was as noisy as a funeral parlour at midnight, and I liked it just as well in the LA hills testies to a prescient postwar cynicism about American corporatism, while his description of a clubs faded grandeur echoes with chiastic irony: The photographs that lined the panelled walls were signed by all the big names and the names that had once been big. A noirish, centrifugal amorality pervades Archers world and The Drowning Pool does not conclude nicely or neatly. Yet this narrative ambiguity arms the complexity of Macdonalds ction, for as Archer observes bitterly at the denouement: The happy endings and the biggest oranges were the ones that California saved for export. Lucian Robinson To buy The Drowning Pool for 7.19 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Our parents thought debt was new and shameful. Our great-grandfathers would rather have been seen in a bawdy house than in a bank. Times change, but not so very much. Philip Coggans text is a traditional one: in the midst of life, we are in debt. Owing money isnt a sign of extravagance and turpitude but a basic fact of modern living and one we need to understand before it changes for ever. Coggan briskly punctures what a predecessor called the myth of lost economic virtue, the idea that in a golden past books were always balanced and nobody individuals, families or nations spent a penny more than they legitimately earned. He shows how money has turned from something mined and solid to metaphysical magic and numbers on a screen. He ips some current shibboleths: we have lost condence in bankers, but bankers have also lost condence in us. If cash is a paper promise, most loans are contracted with ngers rmly crossed. Our present mess has a long and complex history. Crucifying a few bankers wont solve it. This is the perfect book for anyone young enough to think that Bretton Woods is a conservation project by

tree-huggers or that the gold standard has to do with Olympic qualifying times. Coggans wise and clever account starts in antiquity and works up to the present. It tells the Oz-like story of how the mighty dollar became (literally) as good as gold, deposing Keyness barbarous relic. Its central understanding is that all economic thought is relative not just in terms of competition between nation states and ideological blocs, but within them, too. Accepting JK Galbraiths point that it is a prerogative of the rich to nd social virtue in whatever suits their immediate needs, Coggan acknowledges that a consumer doesnt see the world in the same way as a nancier, and that how one interprets the economic realities of the moment depends absolutely on where one stands in the economic nexus. Man crucied on a cross of gold, the pound in your pocket, the eurodollar market, the unlamented ERM, Ireland, Iceland, Greece its all here. Brian Morton

This autumn hear authors discuss new ction, plus great thinkers and world leaders share their views.

BOOK NOW 0844 847 9910 SOUTHBANKCENTRE.CO.UK

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

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Charts + puzzles
FILMS
Top 10 DVD & Blu-ray rentals at lovelm.com
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Safe House (pictured) Director Daniel Espinosa 21 Jump Street Christopher Miller, Phil Lord The Descendants Alexander Payne The Woman in Black James Watkins Man on a Ledge Asger Leth Lockout James Mather, Stephen St Leger The Vow Michael Sucsy Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Guy Ritchie Headhunters Morten Tyldum The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel John Madden

READERS CLUB
E Extra is a membership s scheme for readers of th the Observer and the n Guardian that aims to bring people closer to our journalism through live debates, visits and via special oers on cultural events. Heres an update on current activities.

JOINED-UP THINKING
12 September, is a rare opportunity to see more than 150 works in a spectacular show that includes work by pioneers such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Extra members can enjoy an afterhours private view of the exhibition on 5 November and join one of the guided tours in the evening. The evening will start with a short talk by the Guardians art critic, Jonathan Jones. Tickets cost 10. After their successful appearance at the Jubilee Pageant earlier this year, the Academy of Ancient Music conclude a major European tour with a performance of Handels most jubilant music at Londons Barbican on 26 September. The programme includes The Music for the Royal Fireworks, the Coronation Anthems and the Water Music. There will also be a performance of two of the most famous choruses from Messiah. Extra members get a 30% discount on any pair of tickets. Caryl Churchill, one of the UKs most inuential playwrights, returns to the Royal Court theatre with her rst new full-length production in six years. Directed by James Macdonald, Love and Information is a fast-moving kaleidoscope of more than 100 characters trying to make sense of what they know. Extra members can save 5 on the top two ticket prices (normally 28 and 20).
Book tickets and nd out more about Extra oers at guardian.co.uk/extra

The Observer is the national media partner for this years Riba Stirling prize, the UKs most prestigious architecture award. On 25 September, the nominees on the shortlist will take part in the Observer/Riba Stirling prize debate at Riba in Portland Place, London. The event, chaired by the Observers Rowan Moore, costs 8 for Extra members (normal price 12). The winner will be announced at a special event in Manchester on Saturday 13 October. Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian AvantGarde, which opens at Tate Britain on

Connect: 1 A species of rose with Flush and an American rodent. 2 The Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean with Al Martino and Sinclair Lewis. 3 A Lancashire landmark with Hard Times and Canary Wharf. 4 A Derbyshire landmark with Sir Walter Scott and a rook. 5 An American whiskey distiller with a pantomime and James Bond.
ANSWERS ON PAGE 47

MUSIC
Top 10 world music albums
1 Somewhere Over the Rainbow (pictured) Israel Kamakawiwoole Area 52 a Rodrigo y Gabriela & Cuba He is Number 1 Malawi Mouse Boys Folila Amadou & Mariam Fatou Fatoumata Diawara Tassili Tinariwen The Ravi Shankar Collection Ravi Shankar Live in Detroit 1986 Fela Kuti Dust Peatbog Faeries A Retrospective Pink Martini

MY SUNDAY IN A PICTURE
Pat Seymour, Ponteland, Northumberland Enjoying the lake. If youd like to contribute a photo of your Sunday, email a hi-res image to: readers. newreview@ observer.co.uk

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

BOOKS
Bestselling graphic novels at play.com
1 2 3 The Walking Dead: Vol 16 (pictured) Robert Kirkman The Boys: Vol 11 Garth Ennis Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 Joss Whedon, Andrew Chambliss League of Extraordinary Gentleman Alan Moore Green Lantern: Brightest Day Geoff Johns Scott Pilgrim vs the World Bryan Lee OMalley Avengers: X-Sanction Jeph Loeb Barry Sonnenfelds Dinosaurs vs Aliens Grant Morrison Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection Gail Simone Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Archives Arnold Drake, Paul S Newman, Len Wein

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ACROSS

*1 11 13 14 15 16 18 19 22 24 28 30 31 32 33 34

Timely precaution (13, 4 words) Strong home-brew, not bad in a saki mixed before noon (8) Jocks hanging border given the thumbs-down, we hear (4) Wind in sequence overturned perennial (8) Sepia container, trendy then drum rolls? (6) Scottish isle ay denied short stops (6) Whist excursion, for crying out loud (8) Divine sun outside in Cannes, but with half of us inside (5) Take that (last one going to head)! It could render you senseless (5) Very sorry journey ends prematurely in story (8) Lecturer on ancient Greek capital such should not be hurried (6) Take a turn off for commuters short cut? (6, 2 words) White crystalline mineral: see iron mixed with it (early English cladding) (8) Group with common purpose housed in pueblo compound (4) Jewellers mineral, quartz-like, I tackle as of old in washing trough (8, 2 words) Bamboos requiring little depth with calm sea round rippling (13)

2 Reggae dance: special skills being given upward jerk, not constant (5) 3 As regards clue coming up this ones a belter! (6) 4 Might such frontal markings represent Sakti? (5) 5 Memorable colt ridden by Kate (6) 6 Opponent of dualism in chair uneasily creating consonance? (11) 7 Riparian? Steersman goes into one, both losing heads (6) 8 Hardened clay, fired, seen in e.g. azulejo (7) 9 Batting twice bags duck it does stick out somewhat at the top! (5) 10 Scotch has to fill a chap with a hint of uplift (4) 11 Asthmatics stand-by: nutty pralines, hard inside (9) 12 Self-confidence shown by e.g. American leaping over bar (9) 17 Mouldy game I found in store (7) 20 Addict run aground and abandoned, one taken in (6) 21 Liqueur: take sample from costliest regardless (6) 23 Left in place sacred to Muslims, wherein blacks predominate (6) 25 Male for head left off helmet? Hes belted! (5) 26 Stand? Eton turns to pop superstar with this (5) 27 Mandarin (of a kind) one in this country has reared ( 5) 29 Make down payment on what goes into strong ale (not by round) (4) The Chambers Dictionary (2011) is recommended.

PICTURE THIS

What topical event links the three pictures above? Answer below

SUDOKU CLASSIC

KILLER
18 21 8 19 12

BRIDGE BY OMAR SHARIF

When journalists take on one another there is always a little more at stake. The following hand from a pairs event at the Memphis Nationals saw just such an encounter.
6

2 3 5 8 9 5 4 1 3 5 2 6 6 8 1 5 1 4 6 3 7 1 8 9 2 6
Fill in the blank cells using the numbers 1 to 9. Each number must appear just once in every row, column and 3x3 box.

21

20

11

Dealer East

14

13

23

13

17

15

20

23

--AJ973 AKJ4 J543

23 15

23

23

19

Both vulnerable A J 10 4 3 2 K2 Q973 K Q976 10 8 4 6 10 9 8 7 6 K85 Q65 10 8 5 2 AQ2 East Pass Pass Pass South Pass 2H 3NT

Was there a defence? Yes. West must shift to a low heart at trick two. Now declarer unblocks the club king, but when the spade ten is led from dummy East must cover at once. (If not, declarer cashes three spades ending in hand and squeezes West). Declarer does better to play the ace then jack of spades, covered, on which West pitches the nine then jack of hearts!

10 4 3 2 2 Q97 -- --A7 KJ4 J54 8 Q6 10 8 5 AQ

Declarer now advances the diamond eight, which West must duck as East discards a club. If declarer does not cash his clubs next, before playing a second diamond, West locks declarer in dummy with a diamond. If declarer cashes both clubs rst, West has an entry to his partner. Incidentally, East must keep both his high hearts, or in the above ending declarer plays repeatedly on diamonds. When West locks declarer in dummy with the diamond queen, South cashes the spade ten and exits with a heart. He covers Easts card and collects two club tricks from West.

97 10 8 -- 10 9 8 7

West 1H Pass All pass

North 1S 3S

Normal Sudoku rules apply, except the numbers in the cells contained within grey lines add up to the gures in the corner. No number can be repeated within each shape formed by the grey lines.

SOLUTION NO. 3438

Everyman No. 3437 winners

Richard Ellis, Millbrook, Cornwall Ian Small, Norwich Vanda Rosen, London SW19 Hugh Campbell, Belfast Monica Ford, Dorchester

I N T E G E T R

N A E I

1 Dog: pet dog of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; prairie dog. 2 Spanish Main: hit single Spanish Eyes; novel Main Street. 3 Blackpool tower: character Stephen Blackpool; in borough of Tower Hamlets. 4 Peveril castle: novel Peveril of the Peak; alternative name for a castle in chess. 5 Jack Daniel: Jack and the Beanstalk; latest incarnation Daniel Craig. Picture puzzle Plymouth couple Colin and Vanessa Steer found a medieval well hidden beneath their sofa after investigating a mysterious dip in the oor.

S T E N C H T L R R E A D Y S E B P E S P O T T E R S R I V MA R C H I T C S T H E E N T E E E F P A R A S O L O O T A N UMB E R T I E G T R O U G H

U B S R O D U N G O H R T A D O C W E N

AMU A T A A DM O R D

L E T A R N C E C A E N T I E R S E N E R R S G ON E A T U P I P C K Y

JOINED UP THINKING

With Four Spades down two on diamond rus, North-South had done well to reach Three No-trumps. Journalist number one led a top diamond, then shifted to a club. Journalist number two ran the spade jack to make his contract. Note that even if East covers the rst spade, taking declarers easy entry from his hand, declarer can win and next run the diamond eight, and West cannot keep South out of his hand. If necessary, South can unblock dummys heart king under the ace.

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

47

8 3 7 6 1 2 4 5 9

6 4 9 8 7 5 1 3 2

1 5 2 4 9 3 7 8 6

5 9 8 3 6 7 2 1 4

2 6 4 9 5 1 8 7 3

7 1 3 2 8 4 9 6 5

4 8 5 7 3 9 6 2 1

3 2 6 1 4 8 5 9 7

9 7 1 5 2 6 3 4 8

5 1 8 4 7 6 9 2 3

7 4 3 1 9 2 5 6 8

2 6 9 3 5 8 7 4 1

8 2 5 9 6 7 1 3 4

1 9 6 5 4 3 2 8 7

3 7 4 8 2 1 6 9 5

6 3 7 2 1 4 8 5 9

4 5 1 6 8 9 3 7 2

9 8 2 7 3 5 4 1 6

Istanbul is currently the capital of the chess world as the biennial Olympiad revisits the city that hosted it 12 years ago. Battle began on Tuesday and well catch up with it next week. But today we look ahead to Fides next big event, which will be in the centre of London at Simpsons in the Strand: the establishment which, 161 years ago was graced by the Immortal Game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The inaugural tournament of a grand prix cycle which will take in London, Tashkent, Lisbon, Madrid, Berlin and Paris after which the (quite separate) knockout world cup will be played in Troms it is the brainchild of Andrew Paulson, the American-born entrepreneur and polymath whose recently formed company Agon has gained the rights from Fide to organise the world championship cycle for the next few years. I met Paulson recently at his oce just a stones throw from the very centre of British government and in a fairly informal interview began by asking what it was like to negotiate with Fide. Paulson, who has a massive media presence in Russia, has surely dealt with some tough people in his time and he said that he had developed real personal aection for the Fide ocials with whom he had worked for months: though he did compare himself to Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, ground in the jaws of overpowering machinery. He has also met many players and enjoyed a level of passion which took him back to his teenage years. The basic question for anybody who takes on world chess is how they intend to make it work. After a number of major sponsors who have gone to the wayside over the years, Paulson talks of sustainable sponsorship and of curating a group of six companies, all class leaders. To do this you obviously have to give value for money and he wants to make chess a spectator sport. This would involve online viewing both live and in highlights packages on a number of dierent platforms and could involve parallel commentaries for dierent levels of players and/or language groups and an interactive element. Its a bold vision and London will be the pioneer. The auditorium at Simpsons has been designed by the media company Pentagram and from 20 September to 3 October it will host Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov, Wang Hao, Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko, Ruslan Ponomariov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Lenier Domnguez, Anish Giri and Rustam Kasimdzhanov. This is a mouth-watering prospect, especially given that the group is so bellicose. Organisers often fret about draws and Paulson mentioned them too. Its true that tournaments years ago like Reggio Emilia were suused with too much goodwill for their own good. But that

era is long gone. The grand prix cycle will feature Soa rules, precluding all draws until the death except by repetition: but, Im pleased to say, not the controversial football scoring system (3, 1, 0). Todays players ght, especially the 12 in London. And there is plenty to look forward to in the capital in coming months too, with Malcolm Peins fourth London Classic in December with Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Michael Adams and Judit Polgr conrmed; and next March the Fide candidates tournament. Simpsons has seen wonderful chess over the years and we start, briey, with the Immortal Game itself, a friendly played on 21 June 1851 during a break in the rst international tournament. Its of its time and Im just going to give the superb denouement.
Lionel Kieseritzky (Black)

Adolf Anderssen (White to play)

Black has just played 20 ... Nb8-a6 but may well have resigned when White announced the mate, which is: 21 Nxg7+ Kd8 22 Qf6+! Nxf6 23 Be7 checkmate.
David Howell (Black)

Daniel King (White to play)

This is from a tournament in Simpsons in 2003. King opened re with: 21 Nf5! gxf5 22 Re3 Nd4?! 22 ...f4 23 Rh3 Qe7! 24 Nxe7+ Rxe7 25 Rxa4 was best when at least Black can keep on ghting. 23 Rg3+ Kf7 24 Rg7+ Ke6 25 Qxf6+! and Black resigned in view of 25 ...Qxf6 26 Nxc7 mate.

SUDOKU SOLUTIONS

Monday 3 September
PICKS OF THE DAY
DRAMA COMEDY DRAMA

> FULL TV AND RADIO LISTINGS FOR TODAYS TV SEE BACK PAGE

RADIO

Hunderby
Sky Atlantic, 10pm
As Julia Daviss spoof gothic melodrama continues, Helene tries to adjust to life as the wife of wet pastor Edmund, but nds herself blamed for Mother Mathildes declining health, a rumour doggedly fanned by evil housekeeper Dorothy. MB

Craven: Looking for Mr King

Radio 4, 2.15pm
Maxine Peake plays savvy DCI Craven, investigating the murder of a businessman who, the police discover, was having an aair with his partners wife. Months go by with no leads until the victims wife, nds a business card in her dead husbands trouser pocket bearing the name of Lionel King. Written by Amelia Bullmore, this is an intriguing drama that explores personal weaknesses and unfullled dreams. Stephanie Billen

New Tricks
BBC1, 9pm
Old School Ties. A Jack-less team reinvestigate the disappearance of PE teacher Jason Bowe after the remains of a body are discovered near the public school where he taught. Someone who preferred to keep to himself in the sta room, Kiwi Bowe formed close relationships with several of his pupils. But could his behaviour really have rattled someone enough to kill him?

FILM

Arachnophobia
BBC1, 12.15am
(Frank Marshall, 1990) Produced by Steven Spielberg, this ecohorror ick reworks Jaws inland as a family man GP (Je Daniels), an insect exterminator (John Goodman)and an obsessive scientist (Julian Sands) unite to take on a horde of deadly Latin American spiders that threaten a California township. Goodman and Sands are over the top, but Daniels is delightful as the doctor with the eponymous fear of spiders. The opening sequence in the Venezuelan jungle is eerily beautiful, and the picture was clearly playing on American fears of immigration and Aids. Philip French

SPORT

ART HISTORY

CHOICE

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
Day ve sees the swimmers launch a thrilling day of competition. ParalympicsGBs six-time gold medallist Sascha Kindred competes in the mens 200m individual medley SM6, while Ellie Simmonds and Natalie Jones contest the womens 200m individual medley. Elsewhere, the sevena-side football team play Ukraine and the womens 1500m T20 and the mens 100m T12 heats begin. Will Carpenter

The Treasures of Ancient Rome

BBC4, 9pm
In the rst of this interesting new series, Alastair Sooke scrutinises the warts n all realism of Roman artists and explains how Romes rst emperor, Augustus, used art as a tool to forge his dominion.

A Mothers Son
ITV1, 9pm
The inhabitants of a quiet East Anglian coastal town are stunned when a local teenage schoolgirl is murdered, including the newly merged family of Rosie (Hermione Norris), her two children, her new husband Ben (Martin Clunes) and

his two teenagers. When Rosie notices stains on trainers hidden under her sons bed she suspects it could be blood. With both the eldest boys acting suspiciously, could someone in the family really be involved in the murder? The rst of a moving, all too believable two-part drama by Chris Lang. With Paul McGann, Norriss fellow Spook Nicola Walker and Alexander Arnold. Well worth watching, it concludes powerfully tomorrow. Mike Bradley

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 99838222 9.15 Rip O Britain. New series. The consumer aairs show returns. 5016241 10.00 Homes under the Hammer 13357 11.00 Escape to the Country 3053390 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 116222 12.15 Bargain Hunt 6176222 1.00 News; Weather 67339 1.30 Regional News 30344319 1.40 Doctors. Mrs Tembe and Rob compete in the cookery nal. 71105222 2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2579883 3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R) 7480574 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4064390 4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5535932 4.10 Wingin It (R) 3408086 4.30 Sam & Marks Big Wind Up (R) 12 5.00 Newsround 2892241 5.15 Pointless 2113970

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for children 9.20 Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (R) 4781067 9.30 Large Family (R) 9807086 9.40 Koala Brothers (R) 1424222 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1420406 10.00 Octonauts (R) 7979154 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2109512 10.30 Driver Dans Story Train (R) 9258970 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2035241 11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 3222 11.30 News 4951 12.00 Daily Politics 47241 1.00 My Life in Books (R) 95951 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R) 9554390 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2591222 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7870116 3.45 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4853864 4.30 Flog It! 2546951 5.15 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2111512

I ITV1
6.00 Daybreak 469970 8.30 Lorraine 3510970 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 3222816 10.30 This Morning. Hermione Norris chats about A Mothers Son, which starts tonight at 9pm. 83222 12.30 Loose Women. New series. Chris Moyles guests. 40593 1.30 News and Weather 71111883 1.55 Regional News 78595222 2.00 Dickinsons Real Deal (R) A modern oil painting makes a good price in Peterborough. 85086 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show. New series of the chat show. 2593 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda Bellingham. New series. The host embarks on a culinary adventure across the UK. 1628 5.00 The Chase. Quiz. 4609

I CHANNEL 4
6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) 3915593 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25436116 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the mens SM6 200m individual medley and the mens S7 100m freestyle. 88902715 12.00 News 2580609 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 GB v Ukraine in the mens seven-a-side football. 2625086 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Wheelchair basketball: Britains men face Japan; the women take on Canada. Sitting volleyball features GBs men v Germany at 2.00. 3922067 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5474116 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9174883 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 The womens SM6 200m individual medley. 1548241 6.30 Hollyoaks (T) The Savages pick up the pieces after Dodgers shock announcement. 67 7.00 News (T) 6680

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7284845 8.00 Fi and the Flowertots (R) 3389574 8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 8208244 & 5394203 8.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6946357 8.45 Bananas in Pyjamas 6934512 9.00 Abbys Flying Fairy School (R) 9118680 9.15 The Wright Stu 71617319 11.10 Robsons Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 5085574 12.05 The Family Recipe (R) 11255135 12.10 News 11247116 12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4435425 1.15 Home and Away 6942777 1.45 Neighbours 6941048 2.15 NCIS (R) 4415661 3.15 Back to You and Me (2005) 58090512 5.00 News 1026628 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1485883

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 The Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 Radio 1s Stories Night Time with the xx 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Rock Show with Daniel P Carter 2.00 Charlie Sloth 4.00 Dev RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Paul Jones 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Big Band Special 10.00 Out of the Shadows 11.00 Jools Holland 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams 12.00 News 1.00 BBC Proms Chamber Music 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 51 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (1/) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 70. Celebrating 70 years of Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. 10.00 The Lebrecht Interview: John Adams 10.45 The Essay (R) (1/4) 11.00 Jazz on 3 12.30 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today (5/6) 9.30 Head to Head (4/5) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal. By Paul Auster. The author assesses his life, jumping backward and forward in time as various themes intersect. (1/5) 10.00 Womans Hour 11.00 Journey of a Lifetime 11.30 Everyone Quite Likes Justin (1/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 The New Elizabethans (56/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Coming Out (R) (1/5) 2.00 The Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: Craven: Looking for Mr King. By Amelia Bullmore. DCI Craven takes on a new case when a body is found in a local beauty spot. See picks, above. 3.00 Round Britain Quiz. New series. (1/12) 3.30 The Food Programme 4.00 Mr Jupitus in the Age of Steampunk 4.30 Beyond Belief (6/9) 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 Just a Minute (5/8) 7.00 The Archers. Mike feels torn and Lily speaks her mind. 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution. Crime drama set in the 16th century during the dissolution of the monasteries. (1/10) 8.00 The Speaker 8.30 Crossing Continents (R) (8/9) 9.00 Material World (R) 9.30 Amanda Vickery (R) (5/6) 9.59 Weather 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (1/10) 11.00 Word of Mouth (R) (7/8) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (1/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Phil Williams 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport: The Monday Night Club 9.00 5 Live Sport 9.30 5 Live Sport: The Tuers and Vaughan Cricket Show 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

6.00 News (T) 77 6.30 Regional News (T) 57 7.00 The One Show (T) Matt Baker and Alex Jones host. 3970 7.30 Fake Britain (T) Police ocers pursue an identity fraudster. Dominic Littlewood looks into fake baby-carriers. 41 8.00 EastEnders (T) While Ale is left to sort out a problem, Kat has some time alone during which she struggles to resist her lovers charms. 9390 8.30 Panorama: Dial 999 and Wait? (T) Claims that cuts in public spending in the police, re and ambulance services are aecting response times. Declan Lawn reports. 8425 9.00 New Tricks (T) See picks of the day, above. 1222 10.00 News (T) 145593 10.25 Regional News (T) 496999

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 19 6.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) Danny Mills, Ze Salmon, Cheryl Baker and Richard McCourt compete. 99

TV CHOICE

7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) New series. Richard Wilson takes on Annette Crosbie. Catherine Southon and James Lewis advise the pair. 3680 8.00 University Challenge (T) Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge v Magdalen College, Oxford. 7932 8.30 Lorraines Fast, Fresh and Easy Food (T) Lorraine Pascale makes strawberry cakes, a slow-baked leg of lamb and a crusty loaf. 6067 9.00 Horizon: How Small Is the Universe? (T) Scientists discuss their attempts to nd the universes smallest object and explain why their studies may lead to the discovery of miniature black holes. 9864 10.00 James Mays Things You Need to Know (T) The host unearths facts about the science of speed, including why the moon doesnt fall from the sky. 17512 10.30 Newsnight (T) 898845 11.20 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse (T) (R) Maria Connolly, a nurse from Preston, vists Mexico. Last in series. 952777 12.20 Richard Hammonds Crash Course (R) 4614013 1.05 News 3.20 Rugby League 5060100
4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools: Spark 58297 5.00 Schools: Children of World War Two 31162 5.30 Schools: History Hunt 75487

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

10.35 Citizen Khan (T) Mr Khans chance to meet the bigwigs of Sparkhill Business Association is jeopardised. 787609 11.05 Gavin & Stacey (T) (R) Dave is unhappy about Nessas plans to let Smithy see the baby. 738609 11.35 The Lock Up (T) (R) Sgt Dave Porteus helps a woman who has tried to kill herself. 664262 Arachnophobia (Frank 12.15 Marshall, 1990) (T) See picks, above. 301162 2.05 Sign Zone: Engineering Giants: Ferry Strip-Down (R) 5053520 3.05 The Riots: In Their Own Words (R) 8344891 4.05 Britains Heritage Heroes (R) 38471075 4.35 News

8.30 Coronation Street (T) Tommys exhaustion places him in peril. Tracy shocks Steve and Michelle by revealing she has a new job at Devs kebab shop. Karl begs Stella to take him back. Paul admits that he always hated the vase. 3593 9.00 A Mothers Son (T) See choice, above. 6390 10.00 News (T) 11338 10.30 Regional News (T) 621845 10.35 Land of the Dead (George A Romero, 2005) (T) Horror starring Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Simon Baker. 87446135 12.15 Jackpot247 10180988 2.20 Champions League 8155365 2.45 Nightscreen 452742 4.35 The Jeremy Kyle Show (R) 7993839 5.30 News 99013

10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the Paralympics action. 719999 11.15 The Girl Who Became Three Boys (T) (R) Over the course of several months, Gemma Barker, 21, currently serving 30 months in prison for fraud and sexual assault, invented and impersonated three dierent boys. Under these guises, she seduced two girls. 514796 12.20 The Good Wife (T) 4609181 & 5349013 1.50 Revenge 9442520 2.30 Happy Endings 9755988 2.50 St Elsewhere (R) 2562723 3.40 Eating for Two (R) 79305384 3.45 School Disco (R) 79395907 3.55 Deal or No Deal (R) 6874926 4.50 Make Do & Mend (R) 96041384 5.15 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 6671384 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1394162

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 1.55pm-2.00 ITV Wales News and Weather 6.00-6.30 Wales Tonight 8.00-8.30 Time of Your Life 10.30-10.35 Wales Tonight S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 12noon Bla Bla Blewog (R) 12.15 Ben a Mali au Byd Bach O Hud (R) 12.25 Cwm Teg (R) 12.30 Bach a Mawr (R) 12.40 Wibli Sochyn y Mochyn (R) 1.00 Penawdau Newyddion 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 Y Sipsiwn Romani Heddiw (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 3.00 Cyw (R) 3.30 Nodi (R) 3.40 Tomos ai Ffrindiau (R) 3.55 Rhacsyn ar Goeden Hud (R) 4.15 Octonots (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Ben 10 5.55 Bernard 6.00 Ffeil 6.10 Rownd a Rownd 6.35 Pobol y Cwm 6.35 Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Ffermio 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion 9.00 Coo Gyda Dai Jones (R) 10.00 Sgorio 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion 11.05 Ralio+ (R) 11.35 Hwb (R) 12.40-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm New Wales 11.05 Citizen Khan 11.35 Gavin & Stacey (R) 12.05 The Lock Up (R) 12.45 Arachnophobia (1990) 2.30 Weatherview 2.35 News BBC2 WALES As BBC2 BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 1.30pm-1.40 Reporting Scotland; Weather 6.30-7.00 Reporting Scotland 10.25-10.35 Reporting Scotland; Weather BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 10.00-10.30 Burnistoun 11.00 Newsnight Scotland 11.20 The Great Scottish Run 12.10 James Mays Things You Need to Know 12.40 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse (R) 1.35 Richard Hammonds Crash Course (R) 2.25-2.30 News

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Dont Tell the Bride 8.00 Small Teen Turns Eighteen 9.00 Our War 10.00 The Revolution Will Be Televised 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Our War 1.25 See 10pm 1.55 Dont Tell the Bride 2.55 See 8pm BBC4 7.00pm News 7.30 Metal: How It Works 8.30 Only Connect 9.00 The Treasures of Ancient Rome. See picks, above. 10.00 If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home 11.00 The Shock of the New 12midnight Metal: How It Works 1.00 Only Connect 1.30 Bomb Squad Men: The Long Walk 2.30 The Treasures of Ancient Rome MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 10.55am Never So Few (1959) 1.20 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Grand Designs Australia 10.05 Stalked 10.40 Embarrassing Bodies 11.45 One Born Every Minute 12.50-1.55 Grand Designs Australia SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 11.00am Best of Oops TV 12noon Stargate SG-1 2.00 Raising Hope 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 The Middle 5.00 A League of Their Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 The Simpsons 8.00 A League of Their Own 9.00 Ross Kemp: Extreme World 10.00 Road Wars 11.00 Cop Squad 12midnight An Idiot Abroad 1.00 Caprica 1.55-4.35 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05 Sell Me the Answer FILM4 11.00am Singin in the Rain (1952) 1.05 7th Cavalry (1956) 2.40 Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958) 4.30 Those Magnicent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) 7.05 Picture Perfect (1997) 9.00 Transporter 3 (2008) 11.00 Pretty Bird (2008) 12.50 The Warlords (2007)

48

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

TV CHOICE
10.00 Celebrity Wedding Planner (T) Neighbours star Ryan Moloney teams up with former castmate Mark Little to plan a wedding for a British-born Chinese couple. The brideto-be is hoping for a whimsical occasion, but gets a shock at her hen party. 5277067 11.00 Celebrity Big Brothers Bit on the Side (T) The companion show. 8932845 12.00 The Hotel Inspector (T) (R) 4020013 12.55 SuperCasino 57641520 4.05 Sons of Anarchy 94095549 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85714297 & 32570617

8.00 Paul OGrady: For the Love of Dogs (T) New series. The comedian follows the work of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in London. In his rst week, Paul helps with the arrival of a litter of puppies and meets a bull terrier found in a park. 4086

TV CHOICE

6.00 Regional News (T) 45 6.30 News (T) 25 7.00 Emmerdale (T) Amys fragile relationship with her mother takes a blow when Kerrys ex-boyfriend shows up. 5338 7.30 Coronation Street (T) Tommy pushes for extra shifts with the security rm, despite being exhausted, so that he can clear his debt as soon as possible. Another episode at 8.30pm. 39

7.30 PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) The swimming includes the nal of the womens freestyle relay, while the womens T54 400m race on the track is expected to be a clash between Britains Jade Jones and Chantal Petitclerc of Canada. Mickey Bushell is among the favourites in the mens T53 100m at 8.03. Plus the concluding wheelchair basketball group matches, Lee Pearsons bid for equestrian gold and table tennis. 798154

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Romeo drowns his sorrows. 1482796 6.30 News (T) 1473048 7.00 Worlds Scariest Near Misses (T) (R) Real-life stories of people who have stared death in the face. They include a pilot who lost a wing when his aircraft collided with another and a ski-base jumper who broke every bone from her hips down in a stunt. 5278796 8.00 Frontline Police (T) Rav Wilding accompanies Essex police on a drugs raid, but the operation turns into a chase when the suspect escapes. Paramedics rush to help an unconscious man, an emergency unit struggle to get a woman to the police station and a trac stop catches a motorist three times over the limit. 5254116 9.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) The nal week. 5267680

Tuesday 4
PICKS OF THE DAY
INTERVIEW DRAMA RADIO

The Newsroom
Sky Atlantic, 10pm
The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate. Will and the sta stage a mock debate for a pair of Republican Party ocials; Lisa goes oscript and Neal embarks on an undercover assignment as an internet troll. MB

The Life Scientic Richard Dawkins

Radio 4, 9am
Jim Al-Khalili talks to the professor of evolutionary biology about his outspoken hostility towards religion. Dawkins reasserts the ideas that formed the basis of his 1976 book The Selsh Gene, while defending his most recent polemic The God Delusion, in which he warns of the dangers of religious indoctrination undermining scientic truth. A fascinating subject but you want Al-Khalili to tread less carefully with his famously antagonistic interviewee. Kim Salmons

Voices of a Generation
Sky Arts 1, 8pm
Actor Michael Gambon reects on his humble youth in Dublin, during which he trained as a toolmaker before he discovered a passion for acting when he was 18 and joined an amateur drama group. With almost no experience, he got a lucky break courtesy of Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre for its rst season and thus began a glittering career.

FILM

Total Recall
ITV2, 10pm
(Paul Verhoeven, 1990) To coincide with the release this week of the remake starring Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale, heres the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of Philip K Dicks classic sci- story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale set in a dystopian future. Arnie is suitably bemused as a brainwashed labourer on Earth who rediscovers his past as an antiauthoritarian rebel on Mars and goes on a vengeful rampage with Rachel Ticotin at his side. Fast moving, darkly comic, extremely violent, with special eects that stunned audience in the 1990s. Philip French

GENRE

CHOICE

SPORT

The Great British Bake O

BBC2, 8pm
The nine remaining bakers prepare desserts. They begin by creating tortes (look out for Brendans clementine and chestnut creation) before attempting creme caramel and the perfect layered meringue. Five million viewers cant be wrong.

Accused: Tinas Story

BBC1, 9pm
In a week brimming with good drama the last Accused stands out as the highlight. Prison ocer Tina Dakin (a bravura performance by Anna Maxwell Martin, above watch out for her again on Thursday in ITV1s The Bletchley Circle)

stands silent in the dock, awaiting a verdict. Cut to some months earlier and we see her show new inmate Stephen Cartwright (Robert Sheehan, continuing his role from last week) to his cell at the young oenders institution where she works. She can tell that something isnt right. Now she is on trial for taking the law into her own hands. Good support from Ewen Bremner and John Bishop (above). A very high standard. Mike Bradley

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
Young Sports Personality of the Year 2008 Ellie Simmonds takes centre stage today. The 17-year-old is back in action in the womens 50m freestyle S6 heats. Meanwhile on the track, David Weir continues the defence of his 1500m T54 crown, as the competition reaches the semi-nal stages. Will Carpenter

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 99732094 9.15 Rip O Britain. A high-street store that is letting customers down. 5910013 10.00 Homes under the Hammer (R) 39346 11.00 Escape to the Country 3957162 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 576452 12.15 Bargain Hunt (R) 6070094 1.00 News; Weather 53926 1.30 Regional News 30231891 1.40 Doctors. Jas is drawn into a love triangle. 71009094 2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2473655 3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R) 7384346 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4968162 4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5439704 4.10 Wingin It (R) 3475758 4.30 Trade Your Way to the USA (R) 346 5.00 Newsround 2796013 5.15 Pointless 2017742

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for children 9.20 Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (R) 4685839 9.30 The Large Family (R) 9874758 9.40 The Koala Brothers (R) 1328094 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1324278 10.00 Octonauts: Creature Reports (R) 7873926 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2003384 10.30 Driver Dans Story Train (R) 9152742 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2939013 11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 1920 11.30 News 8549 12.00 Daily Politics 78384 1.00 My Life in Books (R) 51568 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R) 9458162 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2495094 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7774988 3.45 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4757636 4.30 Flog It! 2440723 5.15 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2015384

I ITV1
6.00 Daybreak 623920 8.30 Lorraine 3414742 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 2571128 10.30 This Morning. With Home and Away star Emily Symons. 23013 12.30 Loose Women. Carol Vorderman talks about learning to y. 73094 1.30 News and Weather 71015655 1.55 Regional News 78499094 2.00 Dickinsons Real Deal (R) An unusual vinaigrette is popular in Slough. 28742 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show. Todd Carty and Marcus Brigstocke guest. 9891 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda Bellingham. The presenter travels through Hampshire, where she visits the Watercress Line steam railway. 8926 5.00 The Chase. Bradley Walsh hosts. 8704

I CHANNEL 4
6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) 3819365 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25330988 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the womens S6 50m freestyle and the mens S9 400m freestyle. 88979487 12.00 News 2477181 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 Athletics: the mens T12 400m and T11 200m and the womens T35/T38 4x100m relay. 2692758 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Basketball: womens quarter-nals. 3826839 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5378988 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9078655 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the womens S60 50m freestyle and S8 100m backstroke plus the mens S9 400m freestyle. 1442013 6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Esthers eagerness to avoid punishment has dire consequences. 29 7.00 News (T) 7075

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7188617 8.00 Fi and the Flowertots (R) 3283346 8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 7557556 & 5298075 8.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6913029 8.45 Bananas in Pyjamas 6838384 9.00 Abbys Flying Fairy School (R) 9012452 9.15 The Wright Stu 71504891 11.10 Robsons Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 5989346 12.05 The Family Recipe (R) 11159907 12.10 News 11141988 12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4339297 1.15 Home and Away 6846549 1.45 Neighbours 6838520 2.15 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (R) 4319433 3.15 Love Will Keep Us Together (2010) 58994384 5.00 News 1913100 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1389655

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 The Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 The Review Show with Edith Bowman 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Mike Davies 2.00 Nihal 4.00 Dev RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Jamie Cullum 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Nigel Ogden: The Organist Entertains 10.00 David Frost: Hollywood Greats (1/5) 11.00 Mark Radclies Music Club 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (2/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2011: Verbier Festival and Academy (1/4) 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 54 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (2/5) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 71. Live from Londons Royal Albert Hall, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra makes its Proms debut under music director David Robertson in a performance of works by Brahms, Schoenberg and Gershwin. 10.00 A Movement Beyond Dance (R) 10.45 The Essay (R) (2/4) 11.00 Late Junction 12.30 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 9.00 The Life Scientic (5/11) See picks, above. 9.30 One to One (5/11) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (2/5) 10.00 Womans Hour 11.00 Saving Species. New series. Brett Westwood reects on this years summer, one of the wettest on record, and discovers which species it has aected. (1/24) 11.30 Soul Music (2/5) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 Call You and Yours 12.45 The New Elizabethans (57/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Coming Out (R) (2/5) 2.00 The Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: Brief Lives (4/6) 3.00 The Kitchen Cabinet 3.30 Costing the Earth (4/9) 4.00 Word of Mouth (8/8) 4.30 Great Lives 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 6.00 News 6.30 Thom Tuck (R) 7.00 The Archers 7.45 Dissolution. Matthew Shardlake arrives at Scarnsea monastery with orders to investigate the killing of Robin Singleton. (2/10) 8.00 And Now an Urgent SOS Message 8.40 In Touch 9.00 Inside Health (10/17) 9.30 The Life Scientic (R) (5/11) 9.59 Weather 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (2/10) 11.00 Jacks Return Home (2/4) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (2/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Phil Williams 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 8.30 5 Live Sport 9.30 5 Live Golf 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

TV CHOICE

8.00 Holby City (T) Mo (Chizzy Akudolu) and Jac are divided over a medical dilemma involving a Jehovahs Witness who insists on having a bloodless operation. Hanssen has closed the non-referral scheme after the death of Michaels patient and wants answers from all involved. 4029 9.00 Accused (T) Last in the series. See choice, above. 1365 10.00 News (T) 116487 10.25 Regional News (T) 160988 10.35 The Lock Up (T) Sgt Grunner deals with a detainee known to have a heroin problem. This time, he loses consciousness in his cell. His life is in the hands of the custody nurse. 243758 11.15 Citizen Khan (T) (R) Mrs Khans mum jeopardises a big chance for Mr Khan. 463015 Forces of Nature 11.45 (Bronwen Hughes, 1999) (T) Romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Aeck and Maura Tierney. 704100 1.30 Sign Zone Toughest Place to Be a Miner (T) (R) 14582 2.30 Countryle (R) 15785 3.30 Horizon (R) 10230 4.30 News

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

6.00 News (T) 839 6.30 Regional News (T) 891 7.00 The One Show (T) Matt Baker and Alex Jones host. 4365 7.30 EastEnders (T) Shirley is convinced that Phils concern for her is fake. She pushes everyone else away, leaving nobody to help when she is in a dangerous situation. 425

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 181 6.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) Ze Salmon, Cheryl Baker, Danny Mills and Richard McCourt are split into pairs and tasked to create a menu from ingredients including chicken, minced lamb, pasta and couscous. 433 7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) Fiona Phillips and Richard Madeley compete as the series heads to Cornwall. They receive expert advice from Charles Hanson and James Braxton before an auction in Bude. 3723 8.00 The Great British Bake O (T) See picks of the day, above. 2471

6.00 Regional News (T) 907 6.30 News (T) 87 7.00 Emmerdale (T) Amy realises that the only way she can get away from Kerry is by leaving the village. So she swiftly arranges to stay in London with Hannah for a while. 9433 7.30 Youve Been Framed! (T) (R) Clips include the worlds heaviest ice-cream sandwich, dogs dancing on ice and a tug of war involving tractors. 471

9.00 The Midwives (T) Midwives based in Manchester who care for women in the days after they have given birth. Diane Davies tries to contact a woman who has gone missing after being discharged. Farhana Faruque looks after a single parent who has only recently found a place to live. Last in the series. 9907 10.00 The Rob Brydon Show (T) Ronan Keating talks to Rob. Neil Morrissey and Jason Manford show o some of their lesser-known talents. 48655 10.30 Newsnight (T) 250433 11.20 Iceland Erupts: A Volcano Live Special (T) (R) Learning how the countrys scientists monitor volcanoes. 314365 12.20 News
4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools: Empire 38650 5.00 Schools: True Stories 30872

8.00 Unforgettable: The Sweeney (T) Get yer strides on for a look back at the 1970s police drama that starred John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Featuring contributions by Waterman himself, as well as Thaws widow Sheila Hancock and Ray Winstone. 6297 9.00 A Mothers Son (T) Concluding the two-part drama starring Hermione Norris, Martin Clunes, Paul McGann and Alexander Arnold. After the murder and the discovery of the trainers, Rosies distress starts to aect her family life. 6433 10.00 News (T) 35181 10.30 Regional News (T) 675636 10.35 You, Me and Dupree (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2006) (T) Comedy starring Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, Seth Rogen and Michael Douglas. 24862433 12.35 Jackpot247 79387766 3.00 Golden Balls (R) 6914501 3.50 Nightscreen 512501 5.30 News 93056

7.30 PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) The athletics nals include the mens T36 400m. The schedule on the track ends with the mens T54 1500m at 9.36, as David Weir hopes to win another gold medal. At the Aquatics Centre, in the mens S7 50m freestyle, veteran swimmer Matt Walker is looking to get his hands on a rst individual gold medal at his fourth Paralympics. Plus the womens quarter-nals in the wheelchair basketball. 208487 10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the days sporting action. 155549 11.15 Rude Tube: Rude Tunes (T) (R) Celebrating those who nd stardom by posting their musical videos on the worldwide web. Including rappers, a U2 cover and a psychedelic video. 274636 12.20 Seven Dwarves: The Wedding (T) (R) 4923691 1.15 Boxing 59292 1.45 Sailing 58563 2.15 Volleyball 5021921 3.10 The Grid 62521501 3.35 Ironman 2012 89750872 4.00 Kick Boxing (R) 39379766 4.10 FIA GT1 Championship 6154899 5.05 British Formula Ford (R) 6642872 5.30 Brief Encounters of the Sporting Mind: Sheepdog (R) 2475679 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1361834

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Brax is left for dead. 1386568 6.30 News (T) 1360520 7.00 Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads (T) (R) Lisa Kelly and GW Boles negotiate a perilous route of narrow tunnels and crumbling clis in the Peruvian Andes, while Hugh Rowland transports concrete aggregate to a site that is located 14,000ft above sea level. 5172568 8.00 Worlds Craziest Police Pursuits 3 (T) High-octane special showing what happens when bad motorists turn into fugitives from the law, with real-life car chases. 5158988

TV CHOICE

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 7.30pm-8.00 Wales This Week 10.30-10.35 Wales Tonight S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 12noon Pentre Bach (R) 12.15 Octonots (R) 12.25 Wm (R) 12.35 Peppa (R) 12.40 Sam Tan (R) 1.00 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 Ffermio (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Cwm Rhyd y Rhosyn (R) 3.35 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.50 Ben a Mali au Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.05 Ribidires (R) 4.20 Wm (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Ir Eithaf (R) 6.00 Sgorio 6.10 PNawn da Bawb 6.20 Ffeil 6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.30 Penawdau Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion ar Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Sion a Sian (R) 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 9.00 Doctor Doctor 9.30 Tair Chwaer (R) 10.30 Straeon Tafarn Y Llew Coch, Dinas Mawddwy (R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 11.05 Sgorio (R) 12.10-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Rhod Gilberts Work Experience 11.05-11.45 The Lock Up BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm Weatherman Walking (R) 7.30-8.00 Meet the Watkins BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 8.00pm-9.00 River City 10.35 Holby City 11.35 The Lock Up 12.15 Citizen Khan (R) 12.45 Forces of Nature (1999) 2.25-2.30 Weatherview BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 10.00-10.30 Comedy at the Fringe 11.00 Newsnight Scotland 11.20 The Rob Brydon Show 11.50 Iceland Erupts: A Volcano Live Special (R) 12.50-1.00 News

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Total Wipeout 8.00 Snog, Marry, Avoid? 9.00 Dont Tell the Bride 10.00 Bad Education 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Bad Education 1.00 Dont Tell the Bride 2.00 Snog, Marry, Avoid? 3.00 Our War BBC4 7.00pm News 7.30 Great British Railway Journeys 8.00 The Last Explorers 9.00 The Man Who Discovered Egypt 10.00 Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies 11.00 Madness on Wheels: Rallyings Craziest Years 12midnight Inspector Montalbano 1.40 As 7pm 2.10 The Last Explorers MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.10am Only the Valiant (1951) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Secret Eaters 10.05 Coppers 11.05-12.15 Big Fat Gypsy Weddings SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 10.00am Lie to Me 11.00 Lie to Me 12noon Oops TV 1.00 Stargate SG-1 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 The Middle 5.00 A League of Their Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 The Simpsons 8.00 A League of Their Own 9.00 Strike Back: Vengeance 10.00 Airplane II: The Sequel (Ken Finkleman, 1982) 11.40 The Top Ten Show 11.50 Brit Cops: Zero Tolerance 12.50 Road Wars 1.50 Sun, Sea and A&E 2.45 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05-6.00 Sell Me the Answer FILM4 11.00am Written on the Wind (1956) 1.00 Cry Havoc (1943) 2.55 First Men in the Moon (1964) 4.55 Cocoon (1985) 7.10 Bedazzled (2000) 9.00 Dear John (2010) 11.10 Chain Reaction (1996) 1.15 Monsoon Wedding (2001)

TV CHOICE
9.00 Person of Interest (T) The machine directs Reese toward Megan Tillman, a doctor seemingly devoted to her job. However, despite working 80 hours a week, she also appears to be dabbling in New Yorks nightlife and may have attracted a dangerous admirer. Jim Caviezel stars, with guest Linda Cardellini (above). 5161452 10.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) The latest action. 5171839 11.00 Celebrity Big Brothers Bit on the Side (T) The CBB companion show. 8836617 12.00 Banged Up Abroad (T) (R) 3718495 1.00 SuperCasino 22767698 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75569018 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19848501 4.45 Michaelas Wild Challenge (R) 73141230 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85781969 & 32547389

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

49

Wednesday 5
PICKS OF THE DAY
FAMILY HISTORY COMEDY RADIO

The Revolution Will Be Televised

BBC3, 10pm
The Chipping Norton witch hunt begins; Dale Maily spends the day at the Boat Race in a bid to understand what it means to be British; and James and Barnaby have a date with George Osborne. Very funny. MB

Hy-Brasil
Radio 4, 11am
Written and narrated by Paul Evans, this is a tale of one mans journey to the tiny, mist-shrouded, mythological island of Hy-Brasil, which sits rumour has it o the south-west coast of Ireland. Only visible for one day every seven years, its existence was rst recorded on a map in 1385 only for it to disappear again in 1872. Evans takes us on a voyage of discovery in a beautiful, haunting piece of escapism. Kim Salmons

Who Do You Think You Are?

BBC1, 9pm
Singer Annie Lennox, whose grandmother was only three when her father died, researches this side of her family on visits to Aberdeen and Ban. A tale of tangled relationships, illegitimacy and poverty.

FILM

Enemy of the State

BBC1, 11.15pm
(Tony Scott, 1998) As a tribute to Scott, the British director who died late last month, the BBC is showing this entertaining hi-tech thriller giving prescient warning against oppressive surveillance and the abuse of state powers. John Voight plays a National Security Agency director wholl stop at nothing to further legislation giving his spooks unprecedented licence. Jason Robards, Will Smith and Gene Hackman get in his way, and the result is ashy, fast-moving fun in the Tony Scott-Jerry Bruckheimer style that began in 1986 with their rst collaboration Top Gun. Philip French

DRAMA

SPORT

Mrs Biggs
ITV1, 9pm
When Charmian Powell (Sheridan Smith) meets a young Ronnie Biggs (Daniel Mays) on a London commuter train, her head is turned by the tousled conman, an event which leads her to embark on a rollercoaster ride which will culminate in his conviction for taking part in The Great Train Robbery. The 1960s may be fashionable, but not everything has to be accompanied by jokey music. Worth a look, though.

CHOICE

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
Wheelchair racer and double-gold medallist David Weir embarks on the defence of his 800m T54 title today. The accomplished 33-year-old, who won four medals at Beijing in 2009, will be hoping to add another gold to his impressive collection. Elsewhere, another Beijing gold medallist, Liz Johnson, competes in the heats of the womens 100m breaststroke SB6. Will Carpenter

Dallas
Channel 5, 9pm
Following a 21-year break, the Texan soap opera relaunches with Changing of the Guard. The old guard are still in evidence, just, and tonight we meet a shiny younger generation who have inherited all their parents character traits. JR (Larry

Hagman) stares mutely out of his rest home window, while his son, new-look nemesis John Ross (Josh Henderson, above), charges about Southfork taunting Bobbys son Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe). Bobby (Patrick Duy, above), meanwhile, has a new wife Ann (Brenda Strong) and a sad secret. Plus Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) is running for state governor. Stetsons, scheming and stormy sibling rivalry irresistible. Mike Bradley

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 99709766 9.15 Rip O Britain. A way to cut the cost of car insurance is put to the test. 5987785 10.00 Homes under the Hammer 33501 11.00 Escape to the Country 3924834 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 101358 12.15 Bargain Hunt 6047766 1.00 News; Weather 24853 1.30 Regional News 30208563 1.40 Doctors. Jas starts her new job as a waitress. 71076766 2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2440327 3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R) 7351018 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4935834 4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5406476 4.10 Wingin It (R) 3362230 4.30 Jedwards Big Adventure (R) 308 5.00 Newsround 2763785 5.15 Pointless 2084414

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies/CBBC Programmes for children 9.10 Uki (R) 9193414 9.20 Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (R) 4645211 9.30 The Large Family (R) 9761230 9.40 The Koala Brothers (R) 1395766 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1384650 10.00 Octonauts: Creature Reports (R) 7840698 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2070056 10.30 Driver Dans Story Train (R) 9129414 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2906785 11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 1105 11.30 Daily Politics 11259 1.00 See Hear 22495 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R) 9425834 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2462766 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7734360 3.45 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4724308 4.30 Flog It! 2417495 5.15 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2082056

I ITV1
6.00 Daybreak 594308 8.30 Lorraine 3481414 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 1812540 10.30 This Morning 29414 12.30 Loose Women. Stacey Solomon and Joe McElderry meet the panel. 86785 1.30 News and Weather 71082327 1.55 Regional News 78466766 2.00 Dickinsons Real Deal (R) The deal of the day in Lancaster is a selection of gold sovereigns. 88330 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show. Robert Bathurst and Gerard McCarthy join the host. 3196 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda Bellingham. The host visits the Mortimer Country food fair in Herefordshire. 2211 5.00 The Chase. Quiz show presented by Bradley Walsh. 7785

I CHANNEL 4
6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) 3886037 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25390360 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming: the mens SM8 200m individual medley, S10 400m freestyle, the womens SB6 100m breaststroke and the womens S9 50m freestyle. Plus athletics. 88873259 12.00 News 2444853 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 Table tennis. 2589230 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 The mens wheelchair basketball, plus wheelchair rugby. 3886211 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5338360 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9045327 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Mens SM8 200m individual medley, S10 400m freestyle, SB5 100m breaststroke. 1419785

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 7.35 Thomas & Friends (R) 7168853 7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7155389 8.00 Fi and the Flowertots (R) 3250018 8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 1852768 & 5265747 8.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6800501 8.45 Bananas in Pyjamas 6805056 9.00 Abbys Flying Fairy School (R) 9089124 9.15 The Wright Stu 71571563 11.10 Robsons Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 5956018 12.05 The Family Recipe (R) 11126679 12.10 News 11101360 12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4306969 1.15 Home and Away 6806921 1.45 Neighbours 6805292 2.15 Numb3rs (R) 4386105 3.15 Mind over Murder (2006) 58961056 5.00 News 1980872 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1356327

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 The Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 The Ocial Chart Update with Greg James 4.30 Greg James 7.00 Huw Stephens 9.00 Matt Edmondson 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 Huw Stephens 2.00 Benji B 4.00 Dev RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Mike Harding 8.00 Jo Whiley 9.30 Listen to the Band 10.00 David Frost: Hollywood Greats (2/5) 11.00 Trevor Nelsons Soul Show 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (3/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2.00 Afternoon on 3: Prom 53 (R) 3.30 Choral Evensong: From Neresheim Abbey 4.30 In Tune 6.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (3/5) 7.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 72. Live from Londons Royal Albert Hall, John Adams conducts his opera Nixon in China with a star-studded cast, the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra. 10.45 The Essay (R) (3/4) 11.00 Late Junction 12.30 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Midweek 9.45 (LW) Daily Service (3/5) 10.00 Womans Hour 11.00 Hy-Brasil See picks, above. 11.30 Brian Gullivers Travels (4/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 The New Elizabethans (58/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 The World at One LW: 1.45 Live International One-Day Cricket: England v South Africa: The fth ODI at Trent Bridge. Includes Shipping Forecast at 5.54pm. FM: 1.45 Coming Out (R) (3/5) 2.00 The Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: The Meaning of Love. Romantic comedy by Anna Symon (R) 3.00 Money Box Live 3.30 Inside Health (R) (10/17) 4.00 Thinking Allowed 4.30 The Media Show 5.00 PM 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 When the Dog Dies (R) (5/6) 7.00 The Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Mark delve deeper into the mysteries of Scarnsea monastery. (3/10) 8.00 The Education Debates (3/3) 8.45 Four Thought 9.00 Costing the Earth (R) (4/9) 9.30 Midweek 9.59 Weather 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth. By Ian McEwan. Serena is reeling from the news of Tonys death. (3/10) 11.00 Political Animals (4/4) 11.15 Before They Were Famous (4/4) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

TV CHOICE

6.00 News (T) 501 6.30 Regional News (T) 853 7.00 The One Show (T) Matt Baker and Alex Jones host. 6766

8.00 The Flowerpot Gang (T) Anneka Rice, Phil Tufnell and Joe Swift (above) help create a life-changing space at an east London housing estate. In the past children there have been unable to play outside because of anti-social behaviour. Now the team are re-opening and transforming one of the spaces in the hope that it will bring the community back together. Last in series. 5414 9.00 Who Do You Think You Are? (T) See picks of the day, above. 5650 10.00 News (T) 561785 10.25 Regional News (T) 693018 10.35 The National Lottery Draws (T) OJ Borg hosts. 246292 10.45 Not Going Out (T) (R) Lucy falls for the lead guitarist when Tim becomes part of a band. Jealousy Lee decides to follow his friends example. 520650 Enemy of the State (Tony 11.15 Scott, 1998) (T) Thriller starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight. A chance encounter with an old friend plunges a lawyer into a deadly game with agents of the government. See picks, above. 49086476 1.25 Sign Zone The Tube (T) (R) 4889612 2.25 When I Get Older (R) 5092419 3.25 Doorstep Crime 999 (R) 62584070 3.55 News

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 143 6.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) Cheryl Baker, Richard McCourt, Danny Mills and Ze Salmon have to cook marinated poussin in under an hour. 495 7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) Anton Du Beke and Arlene Phillips search for protable antiques, from West Yorkshire to Blackpool Tower, before nishing in Liverpool. 4308 8.00 Restoration Home One Year On (T) Caroline Quentin discovers how two properties fared since she last visited: the St Thomas a Becket church in Somerset and Stanwick Hall, a mansion in Northamptonshire. 3056 9.00 Vexed (T) The detectives probe a jewellery robbery. Jack is distracted by an unexpected invitation. Phil Davis, Frances Barber and Patrick Baladi guest. Last in series. 3292

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) The upbeat mood of Darren (Ashley Taylor Dawson) and Nancy (Jessica Fox) is cut short by some devastating news. 563 7.00 News (T) 6056 7.30 PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) The swimming involves the nals of the mens S2 50m backstroke and the womens S9 50m freestyle. In the athletics, there is the womens T11 100m nal and the womens T37 200m nal. Shelly Woods is fancied to challenge in the nal of the womens T54 800m. Plus news from the days events, with wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball and Paul Efayena in the powerlifting. 637747 10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) An alternative review of the days action. 680037 11.15 Married to the Moonies (T) (R) An insight into the Unication Church, a religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. 401872 12.20 The Shooting Gallery: Real Lives (T) 8228803 1.15 Wheels 4696186 1.20 Green Day: 360 Sessions 1006148 1.50 Spotlight: Ones to Watch Behind 1233902 2.05 Enemy Lines: Axis of Evil (2006) 761506 3.40 The Silent City (R) 79323780 3.50 Body Building (R) 24808235 3.55 St Elsewhere (R) 4820186 4.40 Deal or No Deal (R) 5314612 5.35 Quick Bakes with Eric Lanlard (R) 2443070 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1338506

7.30 Coronation Street (T) Stellas mother Gloria (Sue Johnston, above) arrives in Weathereld from Spain. She is upset to learn of Karls aair and engineers an encounter between him and her daughter. 105 8.00 All Star Mr & Mrs New series. Patsy Palmer, John Prescott and Nicky Byrne are joined by their partners Richard, Pauline and Georgina to nd out how much they really know about each other. The couple who give the most correct answers to a series of questions win 30,000 for a chosen charity. Phillip Schoeld hosts. 7722 9.00 Mrs Biggs (T) New series. See picks of the day, above. 9124 10.30 News (T) 40230 11.00 Regional News (T) 146853 Memphis Belle (Michael 11.10 Caton-Jones, 1990) (T) War drama with Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, John Lithgow, Harry Connick Jr, Tate Donovan and Billy Zane. The nal ight for the crew of an American B-17 bomber threatens to be the most hazardous they have ever undertaken. 931259 1.00 Jackpot247 93322 3.00 The Jacket (John Maybury, 2005) 716341 4.40 Nightscreen 5392490 5.30 News 82167

TV CHOICE

10.00 The Boss Is Back (T) Gerry Cottle reects on the lessons he learned in a 2001 episode of Trouble at the Top, about his bid to launch the Chinese State Circus in Britain. 44056 10.30 Newsnight (T) 792211 11.20 The Midwives (T) (R) Midwives who care for women in the days after they have given birth. Last in series. 856143 12.20 News
4.00 BBC Learning Zone: Schools Making Media 60167 4.30 Schools Writing for Walford 85815 5.00 Schools Compose Yourself 31506 5.30 Schools How to Write 88341

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 10.45 Popir Gath (R) 11.00 Byd Carlo Bach (R) 11.10 Holi Hana (R) 11.20 Heini (R) 11.35 Sam Tan (R) 11.45 Abadas (R) 12noon Octonots (R) 12.15 Y Diwrnod Mawr (R) 12.30 Nodi (R) 12.40 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R) 1.00 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 3 Lle Gwyneth Lewis (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Octonots (R) 3.45 Nodi (R) 3.55 Tomos ai Ffrindiau (R) 4.10 Y Clwb (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Angelo am Byth (R) 5.40 Stwnsh y Gemau (R) 6.00 Ffeil 6.10 Rownd a Rownd 6.35 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.35 Penawdau Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion ar Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Byw yn yr Ardd 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 9.00 Or Galon: Bugail y Stryd 9.30 999: Ambiwlans Awyr Cymru (R) 10.00 Gwefreiddiol 10.30 Yn Fyw O Acapela Calan ac Aron Elias (R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 11.05 Doctor Doctor (R) 11.35 Dos i Gwcio (R) 12.107.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.45-11.15 Swansea: Living on the Streets (R) BBC2 WALES As BBC2 BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 1.30pm-1.40 Reporting Scotland; Weather 6.30-7.00 Reporting Scotland 10.25-10.35 Reporting Scotland; Weather BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 2.15pm Wild Walks (R) 2.30 Politics Scotland 3.30 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4.15-5.15 Flog It! Torquay 1 (R) 11.00-11.20 Newsnight Scotland

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Top Gear 8.00 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989) 10.00 The Revolution Will Be Televised 10.30 Family Guy 10.50 Family Guy 11.15 American Dad! 11.35 American Dad! 12midnight The Revolution Will Be Televised. See picks of the day, above. 12.30 Bad Education 1.00 Our War 1.55 The Comedy Marathon Spectacular 2.55 Dont Tell the Bride BBC4 7.00pm News 7.30 The Sky at Night 8.00 20th Century Battleelds 9.00 Storyville: The $750 Million Thief 10.20 Africas Magnicent Beasts 11.20 I Love Special Olympics 12.20 The Sky at Night 12.50 See 8pm 1.50 As 9pm MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.30am The Belles of St Trinians (1954) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 24 Hours in A&E 10.05 One Born Every Minute 11.10 Embarrassing Bodies 12.15-1.15 24 Hours in A&E SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 1.00pm Stargate SG-1 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 The Middle 5.00 A League of Their Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 The Simpsons 8.00 Emergency 9.00 A League of Their Own 10.00 An Idiot Abroad 11.00 Cop Squad 12midnight Road Wars 1.00-2.00 An Idiot Abroad FILM4 11.00am Danger Within (1958) 1.00 Kim (1950) 3.15 Blithe Spirit (1945) 5.10 The Outrage (1964) 7.10 Clueless (1995) 9.00 Role Models (2008) 10.55 Midnight Express (1978) 1.25 The Ice Storm (1997)

50

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

TV CHOICE
7.00 Secret Interview (T) Hairstylists Marcus Martinez and Kayla McFarlane face bizarre challenges: trying to stay calm with incompetent trainees, dealing with highly demanding clients and attempting to create a hairdo for a bride-to-be while her wedding party causes chaos. Celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke is secretly watching their every move and will oer one of them a job. 5132940 8.00 Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (T) Which of the nominated celebrities has proved least popular with the voting public? 5118360 9.00 Dallas (T) New series. See choice, above. 52794747 10.15 Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (T) The number of remaining housemates is whittled down. 7464871 10.45 Celebrity Big Brothers Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis and her panel are joined by tonights evictees. 9011211 11.45 Cricket (T) Highlights from Trent Bridge of England v South Africa in the nal match of the ve-game series. 9017495 12.45 SuperCasino 57694612 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75529490 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19815273 4.45 Michaelas Wild Challenge (R) 73118902 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85741341 & 32507761

6.00 Regional News (T) 969 6.30 News (T) 921 7.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie decides to put an end to her problems with Robbie and plots a way to get him out of her life. 8414

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Brax is rushed to hospital. 1346940 6.30 News (T) 1337292

Thursday 6
PICKS OF THE DAY
CINEMA COMEDY RADIO

2 Broke Girls
E4, 9pm
Tonight Caroline discovers how ludicrously disorganised Max is about everything. Meanwhile, satyrical chef Oleg has fallen in love with Sophie. Has the potential (and the scriptwriters) to make a great movie. MB

Two Episodes of Mash

Radio 4, 11pm
Diane Morgan, Joe Wilkinson and David ODoherty transfer their surreal comedy show from Radio 2 to the more posh environs of Radio 4. Using the elevation in their fortunes as their focus returning again and again to the traditions of Radio 4 the comedy trio also draw inspiration from some unlikely sources including The Bible, the insect world, trousers that can be ripped o and jilted brides. Kim Salmons

Screenwriters
Sky Arts 1, 8pm
Gladiator, Hugo and Any Given Sunday writer John Logan dedicates large parts of his life to each script, so it is crucial that he is fascinated by its main character: You work on these things for years, so if you arent interested in your protagonist, youre f**ked. No punches pulled.

FILM

Gone Baby Gone

BBC1, 11.20pm
(Ben Aeck, 2007) This excellent thriller set in a largely IrishAmerican suburb of Boston begins with a blue-collar couple, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, operating a small-time private investigation agency, hired to assist the police in their search for a missing child. Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (author of a series featuring Kenzie and Gennaro), who was raised in this area, as was director Aeck, whose brother Casey plays Kenzie. The supporting cast (Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan) could not be improved on. Its release was delayed because of the Madeleine McCann abduction. Philip French

SPORT

HISTORY

The British
Sky Atlantic, 9pm
The rst of seven programmes charting how a small group of islands becomes a superpower, this lm substitutes experts with national treasures. Thus, as well as factual content we get the likes of Helen Mirren, Russell Brand and Meera Syal opining about what it means to be British an interesting new approach.

CHOICE

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
In another jam-packed day of British swimming action, James Crisp opens proceedings in the Mens 200m individual medley SM9 heats, followed shortly afterwards by fellow Beijing medallists Claire Cashmore, Stephanie Millward and Louise Watkin in the womens parallel event. Athletics coverage includes Kyron Duke in the mens shot put F40 and Bev Jones in the womens discus F37. Will Carpenter

The Bletchley Circle

ITV1, 9pm
Something very good is happening in the ITV drama department and this tale about former Bletchley Park code-breaker Susan Gray (Anna Maxwell Martin, above, on excellent form) is further evidence of its continued success. The story is set in

1952 and it follows four ctional women whose work at Bletchley helped break vital secret codes used by the Germans. Susan, Millie (Rachael Stirling), Jean (Julie Graham) and Lucy (Sophie Rundle) have all returned to their normal lives, but when Susan identies a hidden pattern in a series of murders, she enlists the help of her colleagues to track down the murderer. Just the right side of gung-ho and very entertaining. Mike Bradley

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 99776438 9.15 Rip O Britain 5954457 10.00 Homes under the Hammer (R) 22612 11.00 Escape to the Country 3991506 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 543728 12.13 News 2419167 12.15 Bargain Hunt (R) 6014438 1.00 News; Weather 13964 1.30 Regional News and Weather 30275235 1.40 Doctors. Conclusion. Mrs Tembe discovers a dead body at the Mill. 71043438 2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2417099 .05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R) 7311490 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4902506 4.00 Shaun the Sheep (R) 5473148 4.10 Wingin It (R) 3339902 4.30 Roy (R) 970 5.00 Newsround 2730457 5.15 Pointless. Quiz show with Alexander Armstrong. 2051186

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies Programmes for children 9.30 The Large Family (R) 9738902 9.40 The Koala Brothers (R) 1362438 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1351322 10.00 Octonauts: Creature Reports (R) 7800070 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2047728 10.30 Driver Dans Story Train (R) 9196186 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2973457 11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 5506 11.30 World News 1815 12.00 Daily Politics 70186 1.00 My Life in Books (R) 11506 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R) 9492506 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2439438 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7701032 3.45 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4784780 4.30 Flog It! 2484167 5.15 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2059728

I ITV1
6.00 Daybreak 801506 8.30 Lorraine 3458186 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 4676952 10.30 This Morning 95896 12.30 Loose Women. Hollywood actress Emma Thompson joins Andrea McLean, Lisa Maxwell, Carol McGin and Sherrie Hewson for more topical debate. 61815 1.30 News and Weather 71059099 1.55 Regional News; Weather 78433438 2.00 Dickinsons Real Deal (R) 21001 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show 9457 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda Bellingham. The presenter travels through West Sussex, visiting a vintage vehicle fair, getting hands-on experience at a farm, and attending a Mediterranean festival at West Dean. 8964 5.00 The Chase 1070

I CHANNEL 4
6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) Highlights. 3853709 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25367032 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Day eight of the Games, including swimming, athletics, table tennis and sitting volleyball. From 12.05 athletics, wheelchair basketball and 5-a-side football and from 1.00 further coverage of athletics, wheelchair basketball, 5-a-side football and wheelchair tennis. Paralympics coverage continues on More4 88833631 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5305032 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9012099 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Coverage of the rst of this evenings swimming nals at the Aquatics Centre. 1486457

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! (R) Programmes for children 26762964 7.45 Make Way for Noddy (R) 7115761 8.00 Fi and the Flowertots (R) 3210490 8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 9652380 & 5232419 8.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6877273 8.45 Bananas in Pyjamas 6872728 9.00 Abbys Flying Fairy School (R) 9056896 9.15 The Wright Stu 71548235 11.10 Robsons Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 9273815 12.10 News 11178032 12.15 Celebrity Big Brother: Live Eviction (R) 4366341 1.15 Home and Away 6873693 1.45 Neighbours 6872964 2.15 Numb3rs (R) 4353877 3.15 Expecting a Miracle (2009) 58938728 5.00 News 1957544 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1323099

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 The Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 7.00 Zane Lowe 9.00 In New DJs We Trust 10.00 Nick Grimshaw 12.00 The Residency: Chuckie 2.00 Toddla T 4.00 Dev RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Bob Harris Country 8.00 Radio 2 In Concert: Best of Hyde Park 2011 9.30 Benny Goodman: King of Swing (3/6) 10.00 Brian Johnsons Rockers and Rollers (2/6) 11.00 Steve Lamacqs Rock College 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (4/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert 2.00 Afternoon on 3 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (4/5) 7.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 73. Live from Londons Royal Albert Hall, Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. 9.30 Hungarys Soul: Liszt and Gypsy Music (R) 10.15 BBC Proms 2012 11.45 Late Junction 12.30 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Frys English Delight (4/4) 9.30 Twin Nation (R) (4/5) 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (4/5) 10.00 Womans Hour 11.00 Crossing Continents: Linda Pressly examines the issue of military service in Israel and the drafting of ultra-orthadox Jews who have previously been exempt. (9/9) 11.30 Dancing with Mountains 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.45 The New Elizabethans (59/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Coming Out Rosie (R) (4/5) 2.00 The Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: A9. By Helen Cooper. (R) 3.00 Open Country (10/11) 3.27 Radio 4 Appeal (R) 3.30 Book Club (R) 4.00 The Film Programme 4.30 Material World 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 Just a Minutes Indian Adventure (R) 7.00 The Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution (4/10) 8.00 The Report 8.30 In Business (8/9) 9.00 Saving Species (R) (1/24) 9.30 Frys English Delight (R) (4/4) 9.59 Weather 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth. By Ian McEwan. Serena receives her rst serious assignment. (4/10) 11.00 Two Episodes of Mash. New series. Surreal comedy sketches, performed by Diane Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. (1/4) See picks, above. 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal (R) (4/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Sam Walker 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 10.30 Tony Livesey 1.00 Up All Night

7.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie lures Robbie to the stables. 9099 7.30 Tonight: Whatever Happened to Summer? (T) Jonathan Maitland meets individuals and business owners who have been left counting the cost of being one of the wettest summers on record. 167 8.00 Emmerdale (T) Declan is furious after watching the footage. 5419 8.30 The Corrie Years (T) New series. Focuses on controversies, from Leanne Barlows days as an escort to John Stapes aair with teenager Rosie Webster. 7254 9.00 The Bletchley Circle (T) New series. Drama about four ctional ex-Bletchley Park operatives who team up to solve murders.See choice, above. 1709 10.00 News; Weather (T) 37983 10.30 Regional News (T) 860439 10.35 The Jonathan Ross Show (T) (R) Chat show, with guests Mo Farah, Plan B, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Gareth Malone. 950525 11.35 Poms in Paradise (T) (R) A paramedic, shop owners and a professional diver talk about their lives. 550419 12.05 Jackpot247 27828533 3.00 Tonight (R) 62470823 3.25 Nightscreen 3315939 4.35 The Jeremy Kyle Show (R) 7824755 5.30 ITV Morning News 82610

9.00 Good Cop (T) Sav is stalked and threatened by Callum Rose, who seems to know a lot about him. Crime drama starring Warren Brown and Michael Angelis. 9341 10.00 News; Weather (T) 203475 10.25 Regional News (T) 128506 10.35 Neighbourhood Watched (T) Housing ocer Cat Towl is shocked to discover a dead tenant in one of her ats. 105148 Gone Baby Gone (Ben 11.20 Aeck, 2007) (T) A private eye searches the Boston neighbourhood where he grew up to nd a missing four-yearold girl. Drama starring Casey Aeck, Morgan Freeman and Michelle Monaghan. See picks, above. 446983 1.10 Holiday Weatherview (T) 4575649 1.15 Sign Zone: Panorama (R) 95484 1.45 Countryle (R) 382755 2.45 Land of the Lost Wolves (R) 373007 3.45 Doorstep Crime 999 (R) 74991 4.15 News 23012945

8.00 Wartime Farm (T) New series. Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn try to re-create the experience of British rural life during the second world war, including having to endure the restrictions placed on farmers by Winston Churchills government. 4419 9.00 Hilary Deveys Women at the Top (T) The formidable former Dragons Den entrepreneur explores why so few women are appointed to the highest positions in the business world. 7983 10.00 Mock the Week (T) Satirical panel show. 40457 10.30 Newsnight (T) 201761 11.20 The Rob Brydon Show (T) (R) With guests Ronan Keating, Jason Manford and Neil Morrissey. 130419 11.50 James Mays Things You Need to Know (T) (R) The Top Gear presenter explores Charles Darwins theory of natural selection. 552877 12.20 News (T) 2959007

7.30 PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) A busy evening at the Olympic Stadium includes: the nal of the womens T34 200m, mens F44 discus nal, womens T44 200m nal, womens T12 200m nal, mens T36 200m and T36 800m. At 9.46 attention turns to David Weir, as he seeks to retain the T54 800m title he won in Beijing, followed by the showpiece of the evening the mens T44 100m nal which is likely to be a battle between South Africas Oscar Pistorius and American Jerome Singleton. Elsewhere, theres mens seminal wheelchair basketball action, and Great Britain take on France in the wheelchair rugby qualiers. 179525 10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) The comedian presents an alternative review of the days Paralympics action. 122815 11.15 Rude Tube: Ultimate Champions (T) (R) Alex Zane showcases the bizarre champions of the online universe. 927612 12.20 David Blaine: Drowned Alive (T) (R) 7577115 1.15 Googlewhack Adventure (R) 766216 3.10 Stalked 62565945 3.35 This Is Me (R) 79319587 3.40 Time Team (R) 6880587 4.35 Deal or No Deal (R) 7822397 5.30 Quick Bakes (R) 2339823 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1232378

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 ITV1 WALES As ITV1 except 10.35pm Face to Face Gerry Keighley 11.05-11.35 Paul OGrady: For the Love of Dogs S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children (R) 11.25 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R) 11.35 123 (R) 11.50 Peppa (R) 12noon Marcaroni (R) 12.15 Octonots (R) 12.25 Bla Bla Blewog (R) 12.40 Nodi (R) 1.00 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 3 Lle Donna Edwards (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Nodi (R) 3.40 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.55 Cwm Rhyd y Rhosyn (R) 4.00 Dwdlam (R) 4.15 Ben a Mali au Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Bywyd Cudd Sabrina (R) 5.55 Tim Talent (R) 6.20 Ffeil 6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.30 Penawdau Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion ar Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Cefn Gwlad Ymryson Aredig Cymru (R) 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 9.00 Bois y Caca 9.30 Ralio+ 10.00 Y Lle 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion 11.05 Dim Byd/Mwy: Sheri Nefyn (R) 11.35 Dos i Gwcio (R) 12.10-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Baker Boys (R) 11.35 Neighbourhood Watched 12.20 Gone Baby Gone (2007) 2.15-2.45 Sign Zone: Panorama (R) BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm Sport Wales 7.30-8.00 Scrum V Classics (R) BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 12noon Politics Scotland 12.30-1.00 Daily Politics 7.00 Coast (R) 7.30-8.00 The Beechgrove Garden 11.0011.20 Newsnight Scotland

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm The Worlds Strictest Parents 8.00 Dont Tell the Bride 9.00 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 10.00 Wilfred 10.20 Pops Greatest Dance Crazes 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Family Guy 11.45 American Dad! 12.30 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 1.30 Wilfred 1.50 Dont Tell the Bride 2.50 The Comedy Marathon Spectacular BBC4 7.00pm News 7.30 BBC Proms 2012 9.25 The Toilet An Unspoken History 10.25 The Treasures of Ancient Rome 11.25 Only Connect 11.55 The Evolution of the Origin of Species Creation (2009) 2.35 As 9.25am 12.55 MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.30am The Black Swan (Henry King, 1942) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Gok Cooks Chinese 8.00 Grand Designs 9.00 Thelmas Gypsy Girls 10.05 The Closer 11.00 Father Ted 12.05 Thelmas Gypsy Girls 1.10-2.05 The Closer SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 1.00pm Stargate SG-1 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 The Middle 5.00 A League of Their Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 The Simpsons 8.00 Sinbad 9.00 An Idiot Abroad 10.00 Trollied 10.30 Trollied 11.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 12midnight Road Wars 1.00-2.55 Sun, Sea and A&E 2.55 Lie to Me 4.35 Airline 5.05-6.00 Sell Me the Answer FILM4 11.00am Aleksandra (2007) 12.50 Very Important Person (1961) 2.45 Ivanhoe (1952) 4.55 Singin in the Rain (1952) 7.00 Failure to Launch (2006) 8.50 Tony Scott Interview 9.00 Top Gun (1986) 11.10 Domino (2005) 1.35 Loving Memory (1971)

TV CHOICE
8.00 The Kings War on Witches: Revealed (T) Exploring King James Is attempts to stamp out witchcraft and satanism in England and Scotland, which led to hundreds of women being tortured and executed in the 17th century. 5185032 9.00 The Hotel Inspector (T) Alex Polizzi returns to the African Queen, an eight-bedroom oating hotel on the River Thames, three years after she rst tried to help owners Andy and Bonny Cowley revive its fortunes. The couple had previously run a successful hotel on the Isle of Wight, but their new venture was struggling to attract guests. Last in the series. 5105896 10.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) Highlights of the housemates past 24 hours. 5108983 11.00 Celebrity Big Brothers Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis looks forward to tomorrow nights grand nal. 8863761 12.00 SuperCasino 3174649 3.55 HouseBusters (R) 75423262 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19882945 4.45 Michaelas Wild Challenge (R) 73185674 5.10 Nicks Quest (R) 85645113 & 32401533

6.00 News (T) 235 6.30 Regional News (T) 815 7.00 The One Show (T) Daily magazine show. 7631 7.30 EastEnders (T) Phil worries about Shirleys increasingly volatile behaviour. 159 8.00 Waterloo Road (T) Tariq behaves strangely as the day of his kayaking time trial arrives, but it isnt until he gets in the water that his true intentions become clear. 6877

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 877 6.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) The three remaining contestants are sent to Canary Wharf in east London to work with Allan Pickett, head chef at French restaurant Plateau. 457 7.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) TV presenter Michael Aspel takes on Sherlock actress Una Stubbs in a search for antiques in Norfolk. 8099

6.00 Regional News (T) 631 6.30 News and Weather (T) 983

TV CHOICE

6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Maddie pushes Esther to breaking point. Not on C4 HD. 525 7.00 News (T) Not on C4 HD. 2411

TV CHOICE

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) April criticises Biancas relationship with Heath. 1313612 6.30 News; Weather (T) 1304964 7.00 Frontline Police (T) (R) Rav Wilding goes on a drugs raid with Essex ocers. 5109612

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

51

Friday 7
PICKS OF THE DAY
MUSIC COMEDY RADIO

For the Win

BBC3, 10pm
This irreverent new sketch show follows the lives of four friends who hang out at the For the Win cafe. Sam faces the consequences of trying to bring back the bumbag, and Lizzie has relationship problems. MB

More Music Breakfast

Classic FM, 6am
Classic FMs 20th birthday celebrations begin with this programme presented by Tim Lihoreau and guest Nick Bailey, the rst presenter to be heard live on the channel, and continue with the Classic FM Hall of Fame at 9am and birthday requests at 1pm. At 8pm the partying culminates in The Full Works concert, which celebrates music made famous by the station. Kim Salmons

Prom 75
BBC4, 8pm (Radio 3, 7.30pm)
Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall opening with Joseph Haydns 104th Symphony, which was written while the composer was staying in London, followed by Richard Strausss Alpine Symphony.

FILM

Family Business
Channel 4, 12.30am
(Sidney Lumet, 1989) On paper it must have looked great a caper movie featuring Sean Connery, Dustin Homan and Matthew Broderick as father, son and grandson. But the result is a sentimental mess touching every ethnic base as Irish-Scottish crook Connery (married to a Sicilian) joins his reformed son Homan (married to an orthodox Jew) in a heist at a New Jersey laboratory planned by Homans son Broderick, an MIT graduate student determined not to be the white sheep of the family. A sententious, overly serious piece, it ends with everyone singing Danny Boy at a wake. Philip French

SPORT

REALITY

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
There are 15 gold medals on oer on the penultimate day of swimming, with ParalympicsGBs Jim Anderson and Sascha Kindred in the 50m freestyle (S2) and 50m buttery (S6) respectively. Plus Louise Watkin, Lauren Steadman and Claire Cashmore will battle it out in the womens 100m freestyle (S9). On the track, Richard Whitehead and Micky Bushell go in the opening rounds of the mens 100m T42 and 200m T53 respectively. Will Carpenter

Full Metal Jousting

History, 9pm
Sixteen American men in high-tech armour face o in a jousting competition just like the chivalric sport indulged in by knights of old but this time instead of a ladys favour theyre after a prize of 25,000. Injuries and hospitalisation are common as competitors level their lances and hurtle towards their rivals in a bid to unseat them and become the last man standing.

CHOICE

Parades End
BBC2, 9.30pm
False rumours begin to circulate about Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch) lurid tales of debauchery and his having shared a mistress with his former colleague MacMaster (Stephen Graham) which

lead to tragedy at Groby, his family estate. His truculent and allegedly pro-German wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) nds a new admirer who proves a distraction as the war continues and Christopher is shellshocked at the front in France, however it is rapidly becoming clear that she harbours a genuine aection for the last decent man in England. What will happen when Valentine (Adelaide Clemens) moves to London? Mike Bradley

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 99663910 9.15 Rip O Britain 5921129 10.00 Homes under the Hammer 53755 11.00 Escape to the Country 3895378 11.45 Cash in the Attic (R) 860303 12.13 News; Weather 2313939 12.15 Bargain Hunt 6901910 1.00 News; Weather 44007 1.30 Regional News and Weather 30179007 1.40 Doctors. Mandy is exposed to a familys secret when she helps an old friend clear out her house. 71930910 2.10 Only Fools and Horses (R) 2304571 3.05 CBBC: Marrying Mum and Dad (R) 7215262 3.35 Splatalot (R) 4806378 4.00 Who Let the Dogs Out? (R) 620 4.30 Blue Peter (R) 804 5.00 Newsround 2707129 5.15 Pointless 2028858

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies Programmes for children 9.30 The Large Family (R) 9705674 9.40 The Koala Brothers (R) 1259910 9.50 Dirtgirlworld (R) 1255194 10.00 Octonauts: Creature Reports (R) 7704842 10.05 Kerwhizz (R) 2934200 10.30 Driver Dans Story Train (R) 9163858 10.40 Waybuloo (R) 2940129 11.00 In the Night Garden (R) 7991 11.30 World News 8620 12.00 Daily Politics 43769 1.00 My Life in Books (R) 42649 1.30 To Buy or Not to Buy (R) 9396378 2.15 Weakest Link (R) 2326910 3.00 Wanted Down Under (R) 7605804 3.45 Hairy Bikers Best of British (R) 4688552 4.30 Flog It! 2388939 5.15 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (R) 2946200

I ITV1
6.00 Daybreak 474194 8.30 Lorraine 3425858 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 3925264 10.30 This Morning 32378 12.30 Loose Women. With last years X Factor winners Little Mix. 99649 1.30 News and Weather 71946571 1.55 Regional News; Weather 78320910 2.00 Dickinsons Real Deal (R) 18194 3.00 The Alan Titchmarsh Show 6262 4.00 My Tasty Travels with Lynda Bellingham. The actress explores the Cotswolds, making a sherry trie for 70 people at the home of the Pudding Club in Chipping Campden, and acting as a judge at the Badsey Flower Festival 5397 5.00 The Chase. Quiz show hosted by Bradley Walsh. 9484

I CHANNEL 4
6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) 3740281 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW 25261804 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring swimming, athletics, table tennis and 7-a-side football. 88800303 12.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring wheelchair basketball at the North Greenwich Arena and wheelchair rugby at the Basketball Arena 2523674 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring seven-a-side football, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball and table tennis. 3757755 4.20 Come Dine with Me 5209804 4.55 The Simpsons (R) 9909571 5.25 PARALYMPICS 2012 Featuring swimming and seven-a-side football. 1453129 6.30 Hollyoaks (T) Mercedes clashes with Nancy after returning from her trip to Dubai with Riley. Not on C4 HD. 587 7.00 News (T) Not on C4 HD. 8755

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 7.35 Thomas & Friends (R) 7020649 7.50 Make Way for Noddy (R) 1733620 8.00 Fi and the Flowertots (R) 3114262 8.15 Peppa Pig (R) 8901692 & 4206084 8.35 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6843216 8.50 Bananas in Pyjamas 8656533 9.00 Abbys Flying Fairy School (R) 9950668 9.15 The Wright Stu 71442007 11.10 Robsons Extreme Fishing Challenge (R) 9240587 12.10 News Lunchtime 11072804 12.15 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 4260113 1.15 Home and Away 6777465 1.45 Neighbours 6776736 2.15 Numb3rs (R) 4257649 3.15 Elevator Girl (2010) 58825200 5.00 News 1924216 5.30 Neighbours (R) 1210571

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 6.30 The Chris Moyles Show 10.00 Fearne Cotton 12.45 Newsbeat 1.00 Scott Mills 4.00 Greg James 6.00 Radio 1s Dance Anthems with Greg James 7.00 Annie Mac 9.00 Pete Tong 11.00 Skream and Benga 1.00 Radio 1s Essential Mix 3.00 Annie Nightingale 5.00 Rob da Bank RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.30 Chris Evans 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00 Steve Wright in the Afternoon 5.00 Simon Mayo 7.00 Desmond Carrington: The Music Goes Round 8.00 Friday Night Is Music Night 10.00 The Radio 2 Arts Show 12.00 Huey Morgan 3.00 Richard Allinson RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30 Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: John Adams (5/5) 12.00 News 1.00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert: 2011 Verbier Festival and Academy 2.00 Afternoon on 3. Prom 57 (R) 4.30 In Tune 6.30 Composer of the Week: John Adams (R) (5/5) 7.30 Proms 2012: Prom 75. Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. See picks of the day, above. 9.45 St Vitus Dance (R) 10.30 Proms Plus 10.45 The Essay (R) (4/4) 11.00 World on 3 1.00 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 The Reunion Poll Tax (R) (3/5) 9.45 (LW) Act of Worship 9.45 (FM) Book of the Week: Winter Journal (5/5) 10.00 Womans Hour 11.00 Hearing Ragas (4/6) 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours (60/60) 12.57 Weather 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Coming Out: Bankruptcy (R) (5/5) 2.00 The Archers (R) 2.15 Afternoon Drama: A Cold Supper Behind Harrods. By David Morley. Fifty years after the end of the second world war, three veterans meet to record interviews for a documentary. 3.00 Gardeners Question Time 3.45 HitchHikers Guide to Europe On the Road (2/3) 4.00 Last Word (3/13) 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.30 The News Quiz (1/9) 7.00 The Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Dissolution (5/10) 8.00 Any Questions? 8.50 A Point of View 9.00 Friday Drama: An American Rose. Charlotte Jones drama tells the true story of the tragedy that befell Rosemary Kennedy, sister of former US president JFK. (R) 9.59 Weather 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Sweet Tooth (5/10) 11.00 Great Lives (R) (6/9) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News 12.30 Book of the Week: Winter Journal. In the nal edition, the writer examines his 64-year-old self and looks forward to the life he still has left to live. (R) (5/5) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 10.00 Victoria Derbyshire 12.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 2.00 Kermode and Mayos Film Review 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 7.45 5 Live Sport: International Football 2012-13 10.00 6-0-6 11.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

8.30 Miranda (T) (R) In a bid to make the most of being young, free and single, Miranda books herself into a hotel. 3200 9.00 In with the Flynns (T) Liam starts boozing every night with brother Kevin in a bid to escape his humdrum lifestyle. 9113 9.30 Mrs Browns Boys (T) (R) Agnes goes on a diet. 93246 10.00 News; Weather (T) 449113 10.25 Regional News (T) 597484 10.35 Would I Lie to You? (T) (R) Team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are joined by Bill Oddie, Frank Skinner, Jon Richardson and Sarah Millican on the comedy panel show. 240910 11.05 Come Fly with Me (T) (R) Taaj Manzoor bumps into actor Rupert Grint. 589533 11.35 The National Lottery Friday Night Draws (T) 441194 11.45 EastEnders (T) 205620 1.45 Sign Zone: The Hairy Bikers Bakeation (T) (R) 841156 2.45 Land of the Lost Wolves (R) 832408 3.45 News 56809953

11.05

Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta, 2009) (T) Premiere. An awkward 16-year-old meets the girl of his dreams and embarks on a series of elaborate misadventures to be with her. Comedy starring Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday. 214262 Its All Gone Pete Tong (Michael Dowse, 2004) (T) 34717 2.00 News 82779

12.30

10.00 News; Weather (T) 62281 10.30 News; Weather (T) 592587 10.35 International Football Highlights (T) Moldova v England. Action from this evenings World Cup Group H qualier at the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau. 492303 Captivity (Roland Joe, 11.35 2007) (T) A successful model is captured by a sadistic madman and subjected to a series of twisted torments in his underground lair. Horror starring Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies. 736674 1.00 Jackpot247 21907088 Columbo: Troubled 3.05 Waters (1975) 686750 4.45 Nightscreen 2862822 5.30 Morning News 19601

10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) The comedian presents an alternative review of the days Paralympics action. 568465 11.15 Derren Brown: Hero at 30,000 Feet (T) (R) The showman takes a member of the public on a journey to achieve his aspirations and face his fears, culminating in a life-changing trip on board a plane. 571674 Family Business (Sidney 12.30 Lumet, 1989) Crime comedy starring Sean Connery and Dustin Homan. (T) See picks, above. 794601 2.25 My Name Is Earl (R) 7670663 & 7765069 3.10 Happy Endings 26042330 3.30 The Confession (R) 79214088 3.35 Trip to Yatkumchatka (R) 79213359 3.40 St Elsewhere (R) 2595345 4.30 Deal or No Deal 7890798 5.25 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 2996156 5.50 The Treacle (R) 2326359

TV CHOICE

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Programmes for children 9.40 Popir Gath (R) 9.55 Oli Dan y Don (R) 10.10 Cwm Teg (R) 10.15 Y Teulu Mawr 10.30 Yn yr Ardd (R) 10.45 F-F ai Ffrindiau (R) 11.00 Twm Tisian (R) 11.05 Holi Hana (R) 11.20 Sam Tan (R) 11.30 Ty Cyw (R) 11.45 Abadas (R) 12noon Cei Bach (R) 12.15 Nodi (R) 12.30 Octonots (R) 12.40 Cwpwrdd Cadi (R) 1.00 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 1.05 Heno (R) 1.30 Byw yn yr Ardd (R) 2.00 Prynhawn Da 2.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 3.00 Cyw: Igi, Tigi, Bip a Bop (R) 3.30 Bach a Mawr (R) 3.40 Cwm Rhyd y Rhosyn (R) 3.50 Nodi (R) 4.00 Heini (R) 4.15 Ben a Mali au Byd Bach O Hud (R) 4.30 Awr Fawr Cyw 5.30 Stwnsh: Newid Byd (R) 6.00 Dan Glo 6.30 Pobol y Cwm (R) 6.30 Penawdau Newyddion 7.00 Heno 7.30 Newyddion ar Tywydd 7.55 Calon 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Gyrwyr Gwaethar Byd 8.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 9.00 Sam ar y Sgrin 9.30 Straeon Tafarn Dyryn Arms, Cwm Gwaun (R) 10.00 Cyngerdd Elin Fur (R) 10.55 Penawdau Newyddion ar Tywydd 11.05 Gwefreiddiol (R) 11.35 Y Lle (R) 12.40-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 except 10.35pm Match of the Day Wales: Wales v Belgium 11.15 Would I Lie to You? (R) 11.45 The National Lottery Friday Night Draws 11.55 Come Fly with Me (R) 12.25 EastEnders 2.20 Weatherview 2.25 News BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 7.00pm-9.00 Scrum V Live: Cardi Blues v Edinburgh BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 8.30-9.00 Grand Tours of Scotland BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Pops Greatest Dance Crazes 7.10 Doctor Who 8.00 Great Movie Mistakes 9.00 Russell Howards Good News 10.00 For the Win See picks, above. 10.30 EastEnders 11.00 Bad Education 11.30 Chris Ramseys Comedy at the Fringe 12midnight Family Guy 12.45 The Revolution Will Be Televised 1.15 For the Win 1.45 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 2.45 Bad Education 3.15 As 12.45 BBC4 7.00pm News 7.30 Meeting Bryn Terfel 8.00 BBC Proms 2012. See picks, above. 9.45 Here Comes the Summer The Undertones Story 10.45 Punk Britannia at the BBC 11.45 So Hard to Beat 1.00 See 9.45pm 2.00 As 10.45 3.00 Meeting Bryn Terfel MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.15am Ladies in Lavender (2004) 1.15 Time Team 3.20 Deal or No Deal 4.20 Paralympic Games 2012 5.25 Come Dine with Me 6.25 Paralympic Games 2012 7.30 Jamies 30 Minute Meals 8.00 Grand Designs Orphan (2009) 11.25 Embarrassing 9.00 Bodies 12.30-1.35 Come Dine with Me SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 3.00pm Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 Best Of: The Middle 5.00 A League of Their Own 5.30 Futurama 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Futurama 7.00 The Simpsons 7.30 Raising Hope 8.00 The Simpsons 8.30 Spy 9.00 Trollied 9.30 Stella 10.30 An Idiot Abroad 11.30 Dog the Bounty Hunter 12.30 Road Wars 1.00-2.00 An Idiot Abroad FILM4 11.00am 7th Cavalry (1956) 12.35 Carry On Constable (1960) 2.20 Blowing Wild (1953) 4.05 Reach for the Sky (1956) 6.45 Planet of the Apes (1968) 9.00 District 9 (2009) 11.05 Pans Labyrinth (2006) 1.20 Young Frankenstein (1974)

52

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

TV CHOICE
9.00 Celebrity Big Brother: Final (T) Brian Dowling returns to the podium for the nal night of the competition, as the remaining housemates gather to discover who has been voted the winner. Last in the series. 5082991 11.00 Celebrity Big Brothers Bit on the Side (T) Emma Willis is joined by a panel of guests to look back at the latest series of the all-star reality contest, and talks to the new champion. Last in the series. 8767533 12.00 SuperCasino 3134021 3.55 Motorsport Mundial 75490934 4.20 House Doctor (R) 19786717 4.45 Michaelas Wild Challenge (R) 73089446 5.10 Wildlife SOS (R) 85612885 & 32478205

8.00 EastEnders (T) Shirley (Linda Henry) battles with her demons. 1465

7.30 Live International Football (T) Moldova v England (Kick-o 7.45pm). Adrian Chiles presents the opening World Cup Group H qualier for both sides, staged at the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau. With commentary by Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend, and analysis by Lee Dixon and Gareth Southgate. 759397

TV CHOICE

6.00 News; Weather (T) 397 6.30 Regional News (T) 649 7.00 The One Show (T) Chris Evans and Alex Jones present the magazine show. 8945 7.30 Cash Britain (T) Soaring gold prices create a lot of work for the pawnbrokers, and a woman selling jewellery to help her daughter with heating bills gets a surprise. 533

6.00 Eggheads (T) (R) Quiz. 939 6.30 Celebrity MasterChef (T) The contestants face their nal task cooking a twocourse meal to be judged by former nalists Andi Peters, Christine Hamilton and Dick Strawbridge. 991 7.00 Live Athletics 2012 Diamond League: Brussels (T) Gabby Logan presents coverage of the 14th and nal event of the Diamond League series in a programme featuring a host of Olympians including Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. 56842 9.00 Gardeners World (T) Monty Don oers advice on vegetables to sow at the start of September which can then be cropped in winter, while Carol Klein explores how daisies bring colour to autumnal gardens. 7755 9.30 Parades End (T) Christopher becomes the subject of rumours, but as the gossip spreads, a tragedy occurs. See choice, above. 68620 10.30 Newsnight (T) 57303

6.00 Regional News (T) 465 6.30 News and Weather (T) 945 7.00 Emmerdale (T) Katie is furious that Robbie has been allowed to stay at Home Farm, realising her eorts to set him up have been in vain, but theres an unexpected outcome when Declan asks her to marry him. 7723

7.30 Paralympic Games 2012 Tonight Day Nine (T) Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan introduce the concluding coverage on day nine of the Games, featuring athletics at the Olympic Stadium, swimming at the Aquatics Centre and wheelchair basketball at the North Greenwich Arena. 611303

6.00 Home and Away (T) (R) Alf helps Lottie decide whether to stay in Summer Bay. 1217484 6.30 News (T) 1208736 7.00 Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads (T) Lisa Kelly and GW Boles transport a pair of fragile dinosaur statues. Meanwhile, Hugh Rowland is also hauling a delicate cargo, but refuses to compromise his aggressive driving style. 5003484 8.00 Dallas (T) (R) New-look version of the soap, following the glamorous lives and vicious feuds of Texas oil dynasty the Ewings in the 21st century. The series begins with Bobbys son Christopher preparing to marry his ance Rebecca. 5089804

Saturday 8
PICKS OF THE DAY
MUSIC CHATSHOW RADIO

The Jonathan Ross Show

ITV1, 9.55pm
Ross irts with singer Cheryl Cole and chats to Jesus Christ Superstar composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. MB

Blasphemy and the Governor of Punjab

Radio 4, 2.30pm
On 4 January 2011, Salman Taseer, a selfmade millionaire and governor of Pakistans Punjab, was assassinated by one of his own security guards. In this dramatised documentary, Owen Bennett-Jones presents testimonies by those who knew the man renowned for having demanded the pardon and release of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Kim Salmons

Last Night of the Proms

BBC2, 7.30pm/BBC1, 9.15pm
Violinist Nicola Benedetti and tenor Joseph Calleja join the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, under Jiri Belohlavek, to perform operatic arias by Verdi, Massenet and Puccini, the Bruch Violin Concerto and a choral work by Delius. At 9.15pm the concert switches to BBC1 for a rousing nale which will include music by Richard Rodgers, Shostakovich, John Williams and Dvorak, as well as the traditional Last Night anthems.

FILM

Things to Do in Denver When Youre Dead

BBC1, 12.20am
(Gary Fleder) This stylish, very dark thriller centres on handsome, Armani-dressed Andy Garcia, an ex-convict trying to go straight. But business is going badly and hes blackmailed into carrying out that inevitable last big job for Denvers crime supremo, the paraplegic Man with the Plan. To execute the bizarrely motivated scheme he hires a colourful collection of former cellmates. Very much school of Tarantino (Christopher Walken plays the crime boss, Steve Buscemi is Mr Shhh the hitman), with strong ensemble acting, an uncommon setting and memorable dialogue. The title comes from a 1991 Warren Zevon song. Philip French

SPORT

CHOICE

DRAMA

The Thick of It
BBC2, 9.45pm
In the rst of a sparkling new run of Armando Iannuccis witty Westminsterbased political satire, MP Peter Mannion (Roger Allam, above) has taken over at DoSAC as part of a coalition government. Today sees the launch of digital youth

Doctor Who
BBC1, 7.35pm
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. When the Time Lord comes across an unmanned spaceship hurtling towards destruction, it seems that only he can save the doomed vessel and its unexpected cargo of dinosaurs.

policy Silicon Playgrounds, dreamt up by junior minister Fergus Williams (Georey Streatfeild), an event somewhat stymied by the last-minute announcement that the PM wants technophobic digitard Mannion to launch it, rather than Williams. Chaos ensues. Next week we reacquaint ourselves with Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) and Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), as they languish in Her Majestys Opposition. Achingly funny. Mike Bradley

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
A thrilling exhibition of sporting action comes to a close as British medal hopefuls Dave Weir and Shelly Woods compete in the mens and womens marathons. In the seven-a-side football, the classication matches are followed bythe medal matches and the Paralympic Games reach an exciting nish with the gold medal match in the wheelchair rugby. Will Carpenter

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 6937934 10.00 Saturday Kitchen Live 30311 11.30 Lorraines Fast, Fresh and Easy Food (R) 3381 12.00 News; Regional News and Weather 7059330 12.15 Football Focus. A review of last nights World Cup qualiers. 6978682 1.00 World Class 66446 1.30 Homes Under the Hammer 52971 2.30 Bargain Hunt (R) 14773 3.30 Cash in the Attic (R) 2393205 4.15 Escape to the Country (R) 2053682 5.00 News; Regional News and Weather 2685953 5.20 Formula 1: Italian Grand Prix Qualifying Highlights. Jake Humphrey introduces action from the session at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, where the 13th round of the season is set to take place. 5467798

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies Programmes for children 7.30 Project Parent (R) 44224 8.00 The Scooby-Doo Show (R) 8026779 8.20 Dennis and Gnasher (R) 1759446 8.30 The Slammer (R) 65156 9.00 12 Again (R) 56408 9.30 Incredible Edibles (R) 84779 10.00 Cop School (R) 26330 10.30 Richard Hammonds Blast Lab: The Experiments (R) 9973330 10.35 Splatalot (R) 4995408 11.00 Prank Patrol (R) 7224 11.30 Diddy Movies (R) 7267392 11.45 MOTD Kickabout (R) 7295175 12.00 The Sky at Night (R) 7048224 12.20 Coast (R) 2391717 12.30 The Big Circus (1959) 35944175 2.15 A Man for All Seasons (1966) 914021 4.15 Flog It! (R) 2051224 5.00 Wartime Farm (R) 1682

I ITV1
6.00 CITV: Mini CITV 5081156 7.25 CITV 99472514 9.25 News 4588972 9.30 The Jeremy Kyle Show USA 6419779 & 3493069 11.20 The Real Housewives of New York City 3740330 & 573243 1.15 News and Weather 67748175 1.20 Columbo: Double Exposure (1973) A lm-maker uses subliminal messages to lure a rival to his death. Crime drama starring Peter Falk and Robert Culp. 87212934 3.20 The Living Daylights (1987) James Bond helps a KGB agent with knowledge of a secret arms deal to defect to the West and protects him from an assassin. Action adventure with Timothy Dalton and Maryam dAbo. 95826040 5.55 Regional News 737330

I CHANNEL 4
6.00 Channel 4 Presents Nathan Stephens Warrior (R) 5089224 6.05 PARALYMPICS 2012 (R) 3717953 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW Featuring javelin thrower Nathan Stevens. 25238576 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Jonathan Edwards and Daraine Mulvihill introduce this mornings coverage on the penultimate day of competition, featuring swimming and athletics. 10900885 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Georgie Bingham and Arthur Williams present further live coverage, including 5-a-side football, wheelchair rugby, swimming, sitting volleyball and wheelchair tennis. 8236822

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 8.05 The Adventures of Bottle Top Bill (R) 9849311 8.25 Angelina Ballerina 3184021 8.45 Rupert Bear (R) 6736972 9.00 Bananas in Pyjamas (R) 6566175 9.10 The Mr Men Show (R) 6546311 9.25 Roary the Racing Car (R) 6541866 9.40 Jelly Jamm (R) 5040446 10.00 Power Rangers Samurai 6625663 10.35 Batman: The Brave and the Bold 7667885 11.10 Animal Rescue Squad (R) 26202750 11.25 Celebrity Big Brother: Final (R) 54882243 1.25 Coroner Creek (1948) 28539972 3.10 Back to the Secret Garden (2000) 60021069 5.10 Jesse Stone: Benet of the Doubt (2012) 99607935

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 7.00 Gemma Cairney 10.00 Vernon Kay 1.00 Huw Stephens 4.00 Radio 1s Dance Anthems with Danny Howard 7.00 Trevor Nelson 9.00 Westwood 11.00 MistaJam 1.00 Diplo and Friends 3.00 Friction 5.00 Seani B RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.00 Anneka Rice 8.00 Sounds of the 60s 10.00 The Jon Holmes Situation (6/6) 1.00 Pick of the Pops 1967 and 1977 3.00 Shaun Keaveny 6.00 Liza Tarbuck 7.30 Proms in the Park 10.30 Dave Pearce: Dance Years 12.00 Bob Harris Sunday 3.00 Richard Allinson RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 7.00 Breakfast 9.00 News; Summer CD Review 12.15 Inspired by Birds (R) 12.15 News 1.00 The Early Music Show 2.00 BBC Proms Chamber Music PCM8: Pierre-Laurent Aimard. (R) 3.00 Saturday Classics 5.00 Jazz Record Requests 6.00 Words and Music (R) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012. In his nal concert as chief conductor, Jiri Belohlavek leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the traditional Last Night of the Proms festivities. 10.30 Hear and Now 12.00 Georey Smiths Jazz 1.00 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 News and Papers 6.07 Open Country (R) (10/11) 6.30 Farming Today 6.57 Weather 7.00 Today 8.51 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.00 Saturday Live 10.30 Punt PI: A Very Strange Stash. New series. Steve Punt turns private investigator once again to solve another selection of unusual cases. (1/3) 11.00 The Week in Westminster 11.30 From Our Own Correspondent 12.00 News 12.01 (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 Money Box 12.30 The News Quiz (R) (1/9) 12.57 Weather 1.00 News 1.10 Any Questions? (R) 2.00 Any Answers? LW: 2.15 Live International Twenty20 Cricket England v South Africa: England v South Africa. From the Emirates Durham ICG. FM: 2.30 Saturday Drama: Blasphemy and the Governor of Punjab. See picks, above. 3.30 Soul Music (R) (2/5) 4.00 Weekend Womans Hour 5.00 Saturday PM 5.30 iPM LW: 5.40 iPM 5.54 Shipping Forecast FM & LW: 5.57 Weather 6.00 News 6.15 Loose Ends 7.00 Prole 7.15 Saturday Review 8.00 Archive on 4: A Brief History of Blame 9.00 Classic Serial: The Grapes of Wrath (R) John Steinbecks novel dramatised by Donna Franceschild.(1/3) 10.00 News and Weather 10.15 The Education Debates (R) (3/3) 11.00 Round Britain Quiz (R) (1/12) 11.30 Poetry Please (R) (2/8) 12.00 News and Weather 12.30 If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This (R) (3/3) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 Weekend Breakfast 9.00 The Danny Baker Show 11.00 Fighting Talk 12.00 5 Live Sport 1.00 5 Live Formula 1 2.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 3.00 5 Live Sport: International Football 2012-13: Scotland v Serbia 5.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 6.00 6-0-6 7.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 10.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

6.35 All New Total Wipeout (T) Another 20 foolhardy Brits y to Argentina to have a go at the obstacle-packed qualier in a bid to make it through to the next two heats and hopefully into the nal. 205779

6.00 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (T) (R) Famous faces embark on the heirloom-hunting challenge. 96514 7.00 Dads Army (T) (R) The platoon launch a daring bid to rescue Walker and Godfrey from a stricken pumping station. 2311

8.20 The National Lottery: Secret Fortune (T) Quiz show hosted by Nick Knowles. 583359 9.15 Last Night of the Proms (T) Jiri Belohlavek takes to the podium to conduct the concluding section of this years Proms nale, with audiences around the UK joining the live celebrations. See picks of the day, above. 324359 10.45 News; Weather (T) 339576 11.05 Live at the Apollo (T) (R) Rich Hall guest-hosts the stand-up show recorded at Londons Hammersmith Apollo and featuring Mark Watson and Andrew Maxwell. 412224 11.50 The Football League Show (T) Highlights. 458601 Things to Do in Denver 12.20 When Youre Dead (Gary Fleder, 1995) See picks, above. (T) 702847 2.15 News 5825199

9.00 QI XL Imbroglio (T) (R) Stephen Fry hosts an extended edition of the quiz with guests John Bishop, Frank Skinner, Sean Lock and regular panellist Alan Davies. 327601 9.45 The Thick of It (T) New series. Armando Iannuccis riotous political comedy returns. See choice, above. 957156 A Single Man (Tom Ford, 10.15 2009) (T) The nale to the Proms season, live from the Royal Albert Hall, in which violinist Nicola Benedetti and tenor Joseph Calleja join the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Jiri Belohlavek. Continues on BBC1. 958392 Harper (Jack Smight, 11.50 1966) (T) Detective thriller starring Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall and Robert Wagner. 759243

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

7.35 Doctor Who Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (T) The Doctor is asked to intercept a pilotless spaceship heading towards Earth. Matt Smith stars, with Riann Steele (above), Sunetra Sarker, Rupert Graves, and Mark Williams and David Bradley (both from the Harry Potter lms). See picks of the day, above. 839494

7.30 Last Night of the Proms (T) Katie Derham introduces the nale to the 118th season of Henry Wood Promenade concerts, live from the Royal Albert Hall, featuring, among others, violinist Nicola Benedetti (above) and tenor Joseph Calleja. Continues on BBC1 at 9.15pm. 44682

6.10 News and Weather (T) 776595 6.25 New Youve Been Framed! (T) A fresh selection of comical clips. 317866 6.55 Fool Britannia (T) Hiddencamera show. 941972 7.25 Red or Black? (T) Cricketers Mark Ramprakash and Kevin Pietersen, daredevil motorcyclists and acrobats take part in challenges as eight contestants compete for places in the nal four. Continues after The X Factor. 273330 8.10 The X Factor (T) Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger, Tulisa and Louis Walsh continue their search for a pop star in the rst of two editions this week as more solo singers and groups, from the talented to the tuneless, set out to impress at the auditions. 288392 9.10 Red or Black? (T) The four remaining contestants face further challenges. 312779 9.55 The Jonathan Ross Show (T) See picks, above. 576040 10.55 News and Weather (T) 655392

6.30 News; Weather (T) 791 7.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 Day 10 (T) Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan introduce live coverage of the nal evening of action in the London Games, including athletics, wheelchair basketball, swimming and table tennis. The athletics begins with Nathan Stephens in the nal of the mens F57/58 javelin, along with the possibility of Hazel Robson in the womens T36 100m nal. The evenings schedule on the track builds to a climax with the nal of the mens T53/T54 4x400m relay, before the likelihood of a battle between Oscar Pistorius and Jerome Singleton in the mens T44 400m nal. 6204088 10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) The comedian presents an alternative review of the days Paralympics action. 328363

TV CHOICE

7.00 Cricket on 5 England v South Africa. Mark Nicholas presents action from the opening Twenty20 match of the threegame series at the Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground. 43101224 8.05 News (T) 5248069 8.10 NCIS (T) (R) A lieutenant apparently commits suicide by jumping from an aircraft carrier, and Ziva and McGee are dispatched to inform the widow, only to discover that she has been murdered. 8815156

TV CHOICE

11.15

11.10

The World Is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999) (T) James Bond is assigned to protect an oil heiress from an infamous terrorist planning to destroy a pipeline. Spy adventure with Pierce Brosnan, Robert Carlyle and Sophie Marceau (above). 45230156

The Buttery Eect (Eric Bress, J Mackye Gruber, 2004) (T) A college student discovers he can travel back in time to his troubled childhood and change future events. Supernatural thriller starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. 30138576

1.30 The Store 49002 3.00 In Plain Sight (R) 5919422 3.40 Nightscreen 893147 5.30 Morning News 68052

1.25 David Blaines Street Magic (T) (R) 9987267 2.10 Happy Endings 7642880 2.30 This Is J03 (R) 1694880 2.35 Hollyoaks (R) 43581606 4.45 Deal or No Deal (R) 5251199 5.40 Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard (R) 2362151 5.50 The Treacle People (R) 2386731

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES, YORKSHIRE As ITV1 S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Clwb Cyw 9.00 Stwnsh 11.00 Y Ty Cymreig Sir Drefaldwyn (R) 11.30 Sioe Dinbych a Fint/12: Digwyddiadau (R) 12.30 Tir Cymru Ol Gwaith (R) 1.30 3 Lle Donna Edwards (R) 2.00 Un o Bob Tri (R) 3.00 Sgorio Y Seintiau Newydd v Llanelli 6.00 Y Clwb Rygbi Gweilch v Ulster 8.45 Newyddion a Chwaraeon 9.00 Noson Lawen Uwchaled (R) 10.00 Gwyl Gobaith 2012 (R) 11.00 Y Clwb Rygbi Gweilch v Ulster (R) 1.45-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 4.15pm Celebrity Antiques Road Trip 5.15-6.00 Escape to the Country Herefordshire Cutdown BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 11.05pm Sportscene: Scotland v Serbia 12.05 Burnistoun (R) Two brothers run into trouble while clearing out their familys loft, and an instructional DVD demonstrates how to punch people. Sketch show with Robert Florence and Iain Connell. 12.35 The Football League Show 1.05 Things to Do in Denver When Youre Dead (Gary Fleder, 1995) Thriller. 2.55-3.00 Weatherview BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 12.20pm Wanted Down Under 1.05 The Big Circus (Joseph M Newman, 1959) Drama starring Victor Mature. 2.50 A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) Oscar-winning historical drama. 4.45 Flog It! (R) 5.30 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip 6.30 Celebrity Antiques 7.30-9.00 BBC Proms Last Night Celebrations in Scotland. A concert from the City Halls in Glasgow, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Great TV Mistakes 8.00 Top Gear 9.00 Our War: three episodes. 12midnight Family Guy 12.45 American Dad! 1.30 The Revolution Will Be Televised 2.00 Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live 2012 2.55 Great TV Mistakes BBC4 7.00pm Africas Magnicent Beasts 8.00 She-Wolves: Englands Early Queens 9.00 Inspector Montalbano 10.45 Storyville: The $750 Million Thief 12.05 20th Century Battleelds 1.05 The Sky at Night 1.35 SheWolves: Englands Early Queens 2.35 Africas Magnicent Beasts MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 8.55am The Morning Line 10.00 River Cottage Bites 10.10 Time Team 1.25 A Place in the Sun 2.00 Channel 4 Racing 4.30 River Cottage Bites 4.40 A Place in the Sun 5.15 Location, Location, Location 7.25 9/11: State of Emergency 9.00 9/11: The Lost Tapes 10.00 9/11: The Firemens Story 11.05 Bin Laden: Shoot to Kill 12.45 The 9/11 Hotel 1.50 9/11: State of Emergency SKY 1 Broadcasts 24 hours 10.00am Soccer AM 12noon-2.00 Dog the Bounty Hunter 2.00-5.00 Road Wars 5.00 Best Of: The Middle 5.30 Futurama 6.00 Terra Nova 7.00 Modern Family 7.30 Futurama 8.00 The Simpsons 8.30 A League of Their Own. Three episodes of the sports quiz. 11.00 Gattaca (1997) 1.05 Stella 2.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 2.50-4.20 Airline 4.20 Gadget Geeks 5.10 Crash Test Dummies FILM4 11.00am Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958) 1.00 Guess Who (2005) 3.05 Breakfast at Tianys (1961) 5.20 Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) 7.05 St Trinians (2007) 9.00 Transporter 3 (2008) 11.00 Oldboy (2003) 1.25 Willard (2003)

TV CHOICE
9.10 CSI: Miami (T) A woman is found dead on the beach, raising fears that serial killer the Miami Taunter is responsible. Stars David Caruso (above). 2701309 10.05 NCIS Judgment Day Part One (T) (R) In the rst of a two-part story, the entire team is put in danger while hunting for the killer of a former NCIS agent. Part two follows. 8509427 11.05 NCIS Judgment Day Part Two (T) (R) Gibbs and Franks take matters into their own hands to catch the killers. 8475137 12.05 SuperCasino 38325557 4.00 HouseBusters (R) 19733625 4.25 Divine Designs (R) 19745460 4.50 County Secrets (R) 50563712 5.00 Hanas Helpline (R) 17760286 5.10 The Milkshake! Show (R) 85689557 5.35 Thomas & Friends (R) 32210267 5.45 Roary the Racing Car (R) 35855151

The Observer | 02.09.12 | THE NEW REVIEW

53

Todays television
PICKS OF THE DAY
MOTORING DRAMA

> FULL TV AND RADIO LISTINGS THE WEEKS LISTINGS START ON PAGE 48

RADIO

Strike Back: Vengeance

Sky 1, 9pm
As the shooting, shouting action drama returns, the permanently bristling Scott is sent to Mogadishu to retrieve a kidnapped British diplomat and a junior attach. MB

The First Time: With Tori Amos

BBC Radio 6 Music, 12 noon
Twenty years have passed since the American singer-songwriter released her rst solo LP Little Earthquakes. Since then she has gone on to create 17 more hit albums and is currently working as a classical composer. Amos talks to Matt Everitt about her life and career and how her Methodist upbringing in Maryland impacted on her music. An insightful and intelligent interview with an unconventional talent. Kim Salmons

Crash Course
BBC2, 7.15pm
Richard Hammond presents a new series in which he travels across America, stopping to drive some of the countrys largest vehicles, beginning at Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, where he takes the controls of an M1A2 Abrams tank.

FILM

The Wizard of Oz
Channel 5, 4.50pm
(Victor Fleming, 1939) L Frank Baums classic childrens story has been lmed several times since its publication in 1900, but it is the 1939 lm of Dorothy Gale being swept away by a tornado from the impoverished monochrome Kansas to the magical Technicolor world of Oz that has become beloved and legendary. Made in chaotic circumstances (ve directors and a dozen writers worked on it), it ended up close to perfection with Judy Garland heartbreakingly courageous as Dorothy. The Harold Arlen/EY Harburg score is one of Hollywoods greatest though amazingly Over the Rainbow came close to being dropped. Philip French

DOCUMENTARY

Countryle
BBC1, 7.30pm
Matt Baker and Helen Skelton head to Oxfordshire, where Matt discovers what is being done to halt the decline of the local hedgehog population, and she visits Chastleton House, where the rules of croquet were rst established. Plus, the winners of this years photographic competition are decided invariably a dicult choice between cute and clever.

CHOICE

SPORT

Inspector George Gently

BBC1, 8.30pm
Gently With Class. The year is 1968 and the social landscape is being shaken to its core, with tremors rippling out even as far as Northumberland, where this week Gently (Martin Shaw) and his bolshie sidekick John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby)

must kowtow to their social betters when a young girl is found dead in an upturned Austin A40 registered to local nobs the Earl and Countess Blackstone (a disastrously badly cast Roger LloydPack and Geraldine Somerville). At rst it appears that the incident may have involved the chinless heir-apparent, but his mama simply will not hear of it. Accents all over the place as usual, but gripping nonetheless. Mike Bradley

PARALYMPICS 2012
Channel 4/More 4, from 9.15am
Today has golden potential for ParalympicsGB as they look to defend their team sprint cycling title at the Velodrome. At the Olympic Stadium, Stefanie Reid, Aled Davies and Shelly Woods are all gunning for gold in their respective nals and in the pool ParalympicsGB start the defence of their 4x100 freestyle title. Will Carpenter

TERRESTRIAL

TODAYS RADIO

I BBC1
6.00 Breakfast 89124869 7.40 Match of the Day (R) Including highlights of West Ham United v Fulham. 8857289 9.00 The Andrew Marr Show. Michael Wilshaw and Nicola Benedetti guest. 61840 10.00 Sunday Morning Live. Samira Ahmed hosts. 93376 11.00 Country Tracks (R) 24640 12.00 News 6104531 12.10 Live Formula 1: Belgian Grand Prix. Coverage from Spa-Francorchamps of the 12th race of the season. 58244482 3.15 A Question of Sport: Gold Medal Winners Special (R) 966937 3.45 Ocean Giants (R) 754314 4.45 Songs of Praise. Aled Jones visits Greenwich, Londons newest royal borough. 5738686 5.20 The Indian Doctor (R) 1784555

I BBC2
6.00 CBeebies Guess with Jess (R) 8691579 6.10 Louie (R) 8675531 6.20 Wibbly Pig (R) 8604043 6.30 Dipdap (R) 2742821 6.35 Chuggington (R) 8819444 6.45 Rastamouse (R) 8839208 7.00 CBBC: Roar (R) 16227 7.30 Copycats (R) 95734 8.00 Deadly Art (R) 4894005 8.15 Paradise Cafe (R) 8269482 8.40 Wingin It (R) 9506208 9.00 Who Let the Dogs Out? (R) 23956 9.30 Junior Bake O (R) 59869 10.00 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites 48550 11.30 The Great British Bake O (R) 21192 12.30 A Tale of Two Cities (1958) 47362043 2.25 Coast (R) 59165802 2.30 Escape to the Country (R) 2313647 3.15 Burghley Horse Trials 2012 187173 5.15 Oceans (R) 634111

I ITV1
6.00 CITV Mini CITV 4116289 7.20 CITV 4877173 8.25 Dinner Date 9144043 9.25 News 4719840 9.30 House Gift (R) 6640647 10.25 Theres No Taste Like Home (R) 6218734 11.25 The Hungry Sailors (R) 6285208 12.25 News and Weather 2594802 12.30 The X Factor (R) 5412840 1.35 Britain Then and Now (R) Londoners throw a street party. 4227772 2.30 Columbo. A radio host kills one of his employees and thinks that he has the perfect alibi. Peter Falk stars, with guest William Shatner. 78545227 4.25 Doc Martin (R) Martins parents come to stay. 2799444 5.30 The Talent Show Story (R) The changing role of the talent-show host. 642753

I CHANNEL 4
6.00 C4 Presents London Dreaming (R) 5210192 6.05 PARALYMPIC GAMES 2012 TONIGHT (R) Highlights. 3948821 7.00 PARALYMPIC GAMES BREAKFAST SHOW A look ahead. 25469444 9.15 PARALYMPICS 2012 Swimming heats, including the mens SM7 200m individual medley, the mens 4x100m freestyle relay and the mens S14 200m freestyle. Athletics: the womens F42/44 long jump, the mens F42 discus and the semi-nals of the mens T11 1500m. 10131753 1.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 The cycling reaches a conclusion. Plus mens ve-a-side football, with Great Britain v Argentina, table tennis and action from the equestrian events. 9998550

I CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Programmes for children 7.55 Little Princess (R) 7231753 8.10 The Adventures of Bottle Top Bill (R) 3336482 8.25 Angelina Ballerina 3331937 8.40 Rupert Bear (R) 6975869 8.55 Bananas in Pyjamas (R) 6954376 9.15 Mr Men Show (R) 6776550 9.30 Roary the Racing Car (R) 1698208 9.45 Jelly Jamm (R) 1686463 10.00 Power Rangers Samurai 6856531 10.35 Batman: The Brave and the Bold 7898753 11.10 Looney Tunes (R) 85921579 11.20 Celebrity Big Brother (R) 5032482 12.15 The Slipper and the Rose (1976) 19029937 3.00 Belles Magical World (1998) 95452482 4.50 The Wizard of Oz (1939) See picks, above. 41874555

RADIO 1 97.6-99.8 MHz 7.00 Gemma Cairney 10.00 Sara Cox 1.00 Huw Stephens 4.00 The Ocial Chart 7.00 BBC Radio 1s Teen Awards 10.00 Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw 12.00 BBC Introducing 2.00 Friction 4.00 Dev RADIO 2 88-91 MHz 6.00 Good Morning Sunday 9.00 Steve Wrights Sunday Love Songs 11.00 Weekend Wogan 1.00 Elaine Paige on Sunday 3.00 Johnnie Walkers Sounds of the 70s 5.00 Paul OGrady 7.00 Tim Rices American Pie Texas (R) (18/52) 8.00 Gene Krupa (R) (1/4) 8.30 Sunday Half Hour 9.00 Russell Davies 10.00 Clare Teal 11.00 The David Jacobs Collection 12.00 Janice Long 2.00 Alex Lester 5.00 Vanessa Feltz RADIO 3 90.2-92.4 MHz 7.00 Breakfast 7.00 News 9.00 Sunday Morning with Rob Cowan 12.00 Private Passions (R) 12.00 News 1.00 The Early Music Show 2.00 Sunday Concert Prom 50: Collins/BBCSO/Vanska (R) 4.00 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 68. Organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter in the second of two concerts exploring the music of Bach. 5.15 New Generation Artists 5.45 Proms Plus 6.30 Choral Evensong (R) 7.30 BBC Proms 2012: Prom 69. Riccardo Chailly conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of Messiaens 1964 memorial to the dead of two world wars: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. 10.15 World Routes 11.15 Jazz Line-Up 12.30 Through the Night RADIO 4 92.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz 6.00 News 6.05 Something Understood 6.35 On Your Farm (2/9) 7.00 News 7.07 Sunday Papers 7.10 Sunday 7.55 Radio 4 Appeal 8.00 News 8.07 Sunday Papers 8.10 Sunday Worship 8.50 A Point of View (R) 9.00 Broadcasting House LW: 10.00 Live International One-Day Cricket: England v South Africa: From Lords. Including Shipping Forecast at 12.01 and 5.54. FM: 10.00 The Archers 11.15 The Reunion (3/5) 12.00 News 12.04 Just a Minute (R) (4/8) 12.30 The Food Programme 1.00 The World This Weekend 1.30 No Triumph, No Tragedy (2/3) 2.00 Gardeners Question Time (R) 2.45 Witness 3.00 Classic Serial: The Grapes of Wrath (1/3) 4.00 Book Club 4.30 Poetry Please (2/8) 5.00 The Lifecycle of a Bullet (R) 5.40 Prole (R) FM & LW: 6.00 News 6.15 Pick of the Week 7.00 The Archers 7.15 Alex Horne Presents 7.45 Comic Fringes (3/3) 8.00 Feedback (R) 8.30 Last Word (R) 9.00 Money Box (R) 9.26 Radio 4 Appeal (R) 9.30 In Business (R) (7/9) 10.00 The Westminster Hour 11.00 The Film Programme (R) 11.30 Something Understood (R) 12.00 News and Weather 12.15 Thinking Allowed (R) 12.45 Bells on Sunday (R) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 World Service RADIO 5 LIVE 693, 909 kHz 6.00 Weekend Breakfast 8.30 SportsWeek 9.30 Double Take 11.00 5 Live Sport 1.00 5 Live Formula 1 2012 Belgian Grand Prix 2.30 5 Live Sport 4.00 5 Live Premier League Football 6.03 6-0-6 7.00 5 Live Sport: Paralympics 10.00 Stephen Nolan 1.00 Up All Night

6.00 News (T) 43

TV CHOICE

TV CHOICE

6.30 Britains Hidden Heritage (T) Paul Martin explores the extensive archives of Berkeley castle in Gloucestershire, where in 2004 seven lost Vivaldi arias were discovered among the old documents. One of the works is performed here for the rst time. Clare Balding discovers how Country Life magazines 115-year-old photo collection has helped restore the most unlikely of country house interiors. Charlie Luxton praises the BT Tower in London (above). Last in series. 43685 7.30 Countryle (T) See picks of the day, above. 98937 8.30 Inspector George Gently (T) See choice, above. 44802 10.00 News (T) 125531 10.25 Match of the Day 2 (T) Premier League action: Liverpool v Arsenal, Southampton v Manchester United and Newcastle United v Aston Villa. Colin Murray hosts. 4478260 11.35 In with the Flynns (T) (R) Liam tries to earn extra money with personal training lessons, but the scheme backres when a client wants more from him than just a better body. Will Mellor stars. 612005 12.05 The Sky at Night (T) 4982574 12.30 Sign Zone: The Dark: Natures Nighttime World (R) 56721 1.30 Holby City (R) 78390 2.30 Good Cop (R) 62203 3.30 The Riots: In Their Own Words (R) 74048 4.30 News

6.15 Swimming with Crocodiles (T) (R) Part one of two. Ben Fogle travels to Botswana to join a pilot research study of Nile crocodiles, which are responsible for many human deaths every year. 625463 7.15 Richard Hammonds Crash Course (T) See picks of the day, above. 442260 8.00 Top Gear (T) (R) James May and Jeremy Clarkson travel to Beijing to learn about Chinas car industry. Richard Hammond immerses himself in the world of Nascar at a race in Texas, while the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster is tested. Matt LeBlanc is the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. 2005

9.00 Toughest Place to Be a Nurse (T) Maria Connolly, a nurse from Preston, spends two weeks at a hospital in Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, a city at the centre of a drug war that has claimed over 50,000 lives. Working with local nurse Pablo Vasquez, Maria has to treat patients with gunshot and stab wounds. Last in series. 2869 10.00 The Best of Men (T) (R) Factbased drama about the birth of the Paralympics in 1948. Eddie Marsan, Rob Brydon and Niamh Cusack star. 70598 The Edge of Love 11.30 (John Maybury, 2008) (T) Factbased period drama starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy. 818753 1.15 News

6.25 Regional News (T) 673192 6.45 News (T) 359260 7.00 Coronation Street (T) Hour-long episode. Ryan takes the keys to the factory with the intention of stealing money for a drugs x. 3111 8.00 The Cube (T) (R) Double Olympic champion Mo Farah takes part in the game show. 9531 9.00 The Last Weekend (T) As the gap between Ians perception and reality grows, so does his manipulation of Ollie. Rupert Penry-Jones, Shaun Evans, Genevieve OReilly and Claire Keelan star. Last in series. 9395 10.00 News (T) 397821 10.15 Harrys Mountain Heroes (T) (R) Five soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan take on a climb to the summit of Mount Everest with the support of Prince Harry. 591227 11.45 Premiership Rugby Union (T) Coverage of London Wasps v Harlequins, Saracens v London Irish and London Welsh v Leicester Tigers. 330314 12.40 The Store 55358241 2.45 British Superbikes 3005951 3.35 Motorsport 3547280 4.25 Nightscreen 6511390 5.30 News 40574

6.30 News (T) 55 7.00 PARALYMPICS 2012 (T) The athletics nals include the mens T44 200m at 9.30, which is expected to feature a battle between South Africas Oscar Pistorius and Jerome Singleton of the USA, while Britains David Weir is one of the favourites in the mens T54 5,000m. Plus the womens T12 100m, the mens T36 100m, the mens T53 400m and the womens T37 100m. There are also nals in the pool: the womens S12 100m buttery, the womens S8 50m freestyle and the mens 4x100m freestyle relay. Plus GB v Poland in the mens basketball. 6435956 10.30 The Last Leg with Adam Hills (T) The comedian presents an alternative review of the days Paralympics action. 260821

6.55 News (T) 4802802 7.00 Cricket (T) Action from Lords of England v South Africa in the penultimate match of the ve-game series. With Michael Vaughan, Georey Boycott and Simon Hughes. Mark Nicholas hosts. 5361314 7.55 John Barrowmans Dallas Dreaming of Bobby (T) (R) Part one of two. The host takes a look at the new version of the 1980s drama, which starts on Wednesday at 9pm. He begins by touring the Ewing home and chats to Patrick Duy. 8040840 8.30 Shooting JR (T) (R) John Barrowman discovers if the oil barons son John Ross Ewing (played by Josh Henderson) lives up to his dads reputation. He also meets Linda Gray and Larry Hagman. 1034647 9.00 Celebrity Big Brother (T) The latest events. 5207208

TV CHOICE

11.15

Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010) (T) Premiere. Comedy drama with Craig Roberts, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine and Noah Taylor. A 15-year-old boy determined to lose his virginity before he turns 16 becomes infatuated with a classmate. 594376 Water Lilies (2007) 9941203 2.30 Veronique (R) 1832048 2.35 Hollyoaks (R) 26217715 4.40 Ultimate Frisbee (R) 66393048 4.45 St Elsewhere (R) 6866224 5.30 Quick Bakes with Eric Lanlard (R) 2504135 5.40 Freshly Squeezed 1490390

1.05

REGIONAL VARIATIONS
ANGLIA, BORDER, CENTRAL, GRANADA, WESTCOUNTRY, ITV1 WEST, ITV1 WALES, MERIDIAN, TYNE TEES and YORKSHIRE As ITV1 S4C DIGITAL 7.00am Clwb Cyw 9.30 Y Clwb Rygbi (R) 12.15 Ralio+ (R) 12.45 100 Lle (R) 1.10 Perthyn Ceri Griths (R) 1.35 Cefn Gwlad Canada Part One (R) 2.35 Ffermio Dyddiadur Fferm Trefere Fawr (R) 3.05 Prynhawn Da 4.05 Rownd a Rownd (R) 4.30 Rownd a Rownd (R) 5.00 Hwb. Nia Parry, Matt Johnson and Ed Holden present the show for people learning Welsh. 6.00 Newyddion ar Tywydd 6.05 Pobol y Cwm 8.00 Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol Dathlu 50 (R) A special edition from Zion Chapel in Aberystwyth marking the 50th anniversary of the programme, with singing conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes whose father Arwel conducted in the rst episode. Plus, recollections from previous presenters, and the announcement of the hymn competition winner. 9.00 Gwyl Gobaith 2012 (R) 10.05 Newyddion ar Tywydd 10.20 Un o Bob Tri (R) 11.20 Y Fenai (R) 12.20-7.00 Diwedd BBC1 WALES As BBC1 BBC2 WALES As BBC2 except 6.15pm Scrum V 7.007.15 Coast (R) 11.30 Scrum V (R) 12.15-2.00 The Edge of Love (John Maybury, 2008) Fact-based period drama starring Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller. BBC1 SCOTLAND As BBC1 except 3.15pm-3.45 The Beechgrove Garden (R) 10.25 Sportscene 11.10 Match of the Day 2 12.20 In with the Flynns (R) 12.50 The Sky at Night 1.10 Weatherview BBC2 SCOTLAND As BBC2 except 12.30pm River City (R) Iona nds Big Bob collapsed on the oor. 1.30 Escape to the Country (R) Two keen walkers want to downsize to the Yorkshire Dales. 2.15-3.15 Flog It! (R)

DIGITAL
BBC3 7.00pm Formula 1 Highlights 8.00 Great TV Mistakes 8.10 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 10.00 Family Guy 10.45 Bad Education 11.15 American Dad! 12midnight Our War 1.00 The Comedy Marathon Spectacular 2.00 The Revolution Will Be Televised 2.30 Bad Education 3.00 As 1am BBC4 7.00pm Himalaya with Michael Palin 8.00 The Thirties in Colour 9.00 Creation (2009) 10.40 Darwins Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species 11.40 Paul Simon: Live in New York 12.40 Imagine 2.10 As 7pm MORE4 Broadcasts from 8.55am 11.20-4.45am Four in a Bed 2.00pm-4.45 Come Dine with Me 4.45 Deal or No Deal 5.45 Wars of the Roses: A Time Team Special 6.50 The Tallest Tower: Building the Shard 7.55 River Cottage Every Day 9.00 One Born Every Minute 10.00 Father Ted 11.10 Embarrassing Bodies 12.15 One Born Every Minute 1.15 Father Ted 2.25 Embarrassing Bodies SKY 1 2.00 Futurama 3.00 Modern Family 3.30 The Middle 4.00 Modern Family 4.30 The Middle 5.00-6.30 The Simpsons 6.30 Raising Hope 7.00 Sinbad 8.00 Terra Nova 9.00 Strike Back: Vengeance. See picks, above. 10.00 An Idiot Abroad 11.00 Brit Cops: Frontline Crime UK 12midnight Emergency with Angela Grin 1.00 Raising Hope 1.30 99 Most Bizarre 2.30-3.00 Dog Squad FILM4 11.00am Babys Day Out (1994) 1.00 Charlottes Web (2006) 2.50 Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) 5.00 Bandslam (2009) 7.10 Failure to Launch (2006) 9.00 This Is England (2006) 11.05 Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) 1.00 Candy (2006)

54

THE NEW REVIEW | 02.09.12 | The Observer

TV CHOICE
10.00 9/11: Escape from the Impact Zone (T) The stories of people who survived the 2001 terrorist attacks on New Yorks World Trade Centre. Five of them recall how they managed to escape the tower. 3735840 Reign over Me (Mike Binder, 2007) (T) Drama with Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith and Donald Sutherland. 16461918 1.15 SuperCasino 54911319 4.00 HouseBusters (R) 19964593 4.25 House Doctor (R) 19983628 4.50 County Secrets (R) 50794680 10.45