Being Human

At some point I should blog about recently turning 41 and the way my birthday slipped past me like a ship in the night; or the superb season four finale of Doctor Who; perhaps the MIAF program, launched last night, which Alison has already blogged about in generous detail; or this year's MIFF program, which I've now finished digesting which means I can map out my film viewing for the next few weeks.

But no.

Instead, I'm going to alert those of you who don't already know about it to a fantastic new-ish (it aired in February) TV program from the UK that's sure to whet the appetites of anyone who's A) ever lived in a share household, B) wants to know what out gay actor Russell Tovey (Rudge in the film of The History Boys, and Midshipman Frame in Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned) is up to, career-wise, and C) like myself enjoys sinking their teeth into genre shows with a supernatural bent.

Readers, meet Being Human.

In February, the show's pilot screened on BBC Three, to much acclaim and fanboy slavering. Then in April, a six-part series was commissioned, to be screened next year.

But what's it all about, I hear you ask? Let me quote from the media release:

Starring Russell Tovey, Andrea Riseborough and Guy Flanagan, the pilot of Being Human followed the lives of three flatmates – a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost – in a witty, sexy and extraordinary look at the friendship between three 20-something outsiders trying to find their way in an enticing, yet complicated world.

I've just finished watching the pilot episode, which has utterly captivated me. It's not without its faults, but overall it's extremely engaging. The characters are well drawn and extremely sympathetic, and the premise for the show's drama is strong and consistent. If you'd like to see what I'm talking about, I've posted the first part of the pilot episode below; you can find the rest of it on YouTube, here. Enjoy!

Burn, heretic, burn

So, at the massive Catholic mass that officially opened World Youth Day in Sydney yesterday, Our Glorious Leader KRudd said:

"Some say there is no place for faith in the 21st century. I say they are wrong. Some say faith is the enemy of reason, I say also they are wrong. They are great partners, rich in history and scientific progress."

Yeah, right, Kevin. Tell that to Galileo.

REVIEW: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

1927 is an English cabaret company, whose acclaimed Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is currently being performed at the Malthouse Theatre here in Melbourne. The show, an inspired blend of silent film homage and delightfully gothic spoken word, is a singular delight, and one I strongly recommend for film buffs and theatre afficianados alike.

The concept of the show is deceptively simple: two performers (writer/director Suzanne Andrade and Esme Appleton, both appropriately dressed in Louise Brooks mode) perform on stage against a backdrop of scratchy, flickering silent film-inspired projections by Paul Barritt, to a live piano score by Lillian Henley. I say deceptively simple, because the timing required to make the show work - for voices to speak in unison and for performers to match their movements to the images and sets projected on and behind them - clearly requires significant labour.

There's a wonderful, playful sense of the grotesque permeating the show, as well as a clear love of the tropes of silent cinema and the entertainments of the day. From a Perils of Pauline like moment with a character tied struggling to a train track (perfectly evoked with the simplest of animation) to the chilling yet hillarious image of a menacing army of gingerbread men, the visions presented by 1927 are twisted, grand and glorious. Nor are all their stories firmly rooted in the past; as references to Mr Squiggle, and another story in which the bored children of the upper middle class play act being homeless crack whores, delightfully illustrate.

From unexpected lunacy (a piano-playing proboscis monkey) to menacing and monstrous children whose macabre games shatter the fourth wall, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a thorough delight, whose any major fault is that it ends so soon after it begins. I highly recommend that you visit the Malthouse post-haste before its all-too-brief season ends on July 13.

Love, Life and Art: The films of Derek Jarman

Derek Jarman on the set of 'Caravaggio'

Derek Jarman was a true renaissance man.

Through his books, his paintings and especially his films, the English artist and activist was an eloquent and passionate spokesman for gay rights at a time when Britain’s conservative government, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was doing its best to stamp out gay culture forever.

In 1988, even as an entire generation of gay men were being ravaged by the AIDS crisis, Thatcher’s government introduced a notorious piece of legislation, Section 28; which forbade ‘the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.

But instead of silencing gays and lesbians the introduction of Section 28 galvanised them; uniting a community that until then had largely been divided along gender lines, and prompting the largest queer rights demonstrations the UK had ever seen.

It was in these turbulent times that Jarman’s creativity was at its peak, as a new documentary about his life and work, to be shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival later this month, so aptly demonstrates.

Derek, directed by Issac Julien and narrated by the Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, is a fitting and long overdue testimony to Jarman’s life and prolific output. (By the time he died of an AIDS-related illness in 1994, just a few short years after being canonised by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Jarman had made more than 50 short films and features.)

“You were the first person I met who could gossip about St Thomas Aquinas and hold a steady camera at the same time,” Swinton says in voiceover in the documentary, in an open letter to Jarman, with whom she worked on a number of films.

“I thought it would be good to hang out with you for six weeks: I guess we had things to say. Our outfit was an internationalist brigade. Decidedly pre-industrial. A little loud, a lot louche. Not always in the best possible taste. And not quite fit, though it saddened and maddened us to recognise it, for wholesome family entertainment.”

Jarman’s feature films may not have been considered ‘wholesome’ in their day, but the director’s unique blending of his artistic sensibility and overt gay sexuality has ensured that they will long be remembered and celebrated.

In works such as Edward II (about the openly gay English king of the same name, adapted from the play by Christopher Marlowe, a gay contemporary of William Shakespeare) and Caravaggio (a biopic of the bisexual 16th century rogue and artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) Jarman’s unique aesthetic is lucidly and beautifully displayed.

Caravaggio was a poet of the low-life who employed pimps and prostitutes as the models for the saints and angels he painted so lovingly; an artist whose work captivated the Italian society of the day even as his unconventional life shocked and scandalised them. As Jarman told the English newspaper The Guardian in 1986, “[Caravaggio] burnt away decorum and the ideal...knocked the saints out of the sky and onto the streets...his St John pictures are a succession of male nudes - straight forward physique photographs.”

In making Caravaggio, which is released on DVD this week, Jarman strove to capture the Italian painter’s innovative style as much as he sought to explore his unorthodox life. The film is shot in the way Caravaggio would have painted it, with lovingly lit scenes in which the painter’s works come to life on the screen; and narrated by Caravaggio himself (played by Nigel Terry) as he lies on his death bed, reflecting on his art and recalling his ménage à trois with the bare-knuckle boxer Ranuccio (Sean Bean) and Ranuccio’s girlfriend, the prostitute Lena (Tilda Swinton).

The deliberate inclusion of anachronisms - courtiers in doublets pounding away at upright typewriters, the sound of a train passing through a medieval city – ensures the story’s twined themes of creativity and passion are eternal.

Even as he himself was dying, Jarman found time to reflect on these themes anew, and their relevance to his own rich life.

“I am tired tonight. My eyes are out of focus, my body droops under the weight of the day, but as I leave you Queer lads let me leave you singing,” Jarman wrote in his 1992 autobiography, At Your Own Risk. “I had to write of a sad time as a witness – not to cloud your smiles – please read the cares of the world that I have locked in these pages; and after, put this book aside and love. May you of a better future, love without a care, and remember we loved too. As the shadows closed in, the stars came out.

“I am in love.”

Derek Jarman’s films Caravaggio and Wittgenstein are out now on DVD through Umbrella Entertainment.

Isaac Julian’s documentary about Jarman, Derek, screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival later this month.

This article originally appeared in MCV #391 on Thursday July 3.

La Mama reaches halfway mark

La Mama is a little over half way to reaching its fundraising target of $1.7 million required to secure the purchase of their Faraday St home in Carlton after receiving generous donations of $350,000 from Jeanne Pratt of The Pratt Foundation and $250,000 from the Sidney Myer Fund.

La Mama’s Artistic Director Liz Jones said, “We are absolutely thrilled to receive such generous contributions from two of Melbourne’s leading philanthropic Funds. These financial contributions provide us with more hope that we will reach our target at this crucial time however we still need to raise another $700,000 to secure the purchase of our Faraday St home by settlement day Tuesday 2^nd September 2008. A lot of people in the community think that La Mama has already been saved but we unfortunately still have quite a way to go.”

The Minister for the Arts, Lynne Kosky MP, recently announced that the Victorian State Government will contribute $150,000 to La Mama’s cause. With the generosity of over 300 friends of La Mama and industry members, the deposit of $170,000 was raised and paid on May 27, 2008.

La Mama has also received very promising responses following discussions with The Melbourne City Council and a number of other philanthropic organisations and is still optimistic of receiving significant contributions from these sources.

However, as there remains a considerable shortfall to reach the target required within a short timeframe, La Mama still requires all the financial help available.

La Mama, has occupied the iconic building in Faraday St in the heart of Carlton since 1967. For the last 40 years the building has been rented from a local Melbourne family. The matriarch (and much-loved La Mama supporter) Rose died late last year and the Executors of her Estate notified La Mama that they wanted to sell the building offering La Mama first option. Recently the Executors of the Estate accepted La Mama’s offer of $1.7 million.

Founded in 1967 by Betty Burstall after she visited La Mama in New York, La Mama has been an incubator for many big names in Australian theatre with its alumni including national treasures such as Jack Hibberd, David Williamson, Cate Blanchett and Richard Frankland to name a few.

To make a donation or for more information on how you can help secure La Mama’s future please contact Liz Jones on tel. 03 9347 6948, mobile 0412 909 077 or liz@lamama.com.au. Donations are fully tax deductible.

And in other cinema news

According to his page on the Internet Movie Database, Scottish actor James McAvoy is set to play Bilbo Baggins in the screen adaptation of The Hobbit to be directed by Guillermo del Toro. Anyone heard anything more concrete on this?

Why I want to see THE DARK KNIGHT more than ever

Why? This review by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone:

"The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It's full of surprises you don't see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams."

That's why.

Look: Who's back

Under the guidance of writer/producer Russell T Davies, Doctor Who is queerer than ever, says Richard Watts.

In 2003, when the BBC announced that Russell T Davies, the creator of Queer as Folk, was to be put in charge of a new series of Doctor Who, few would have expected that the revived science fiction series about an alien wanderer in time and space would become one of the most lauded television programmes of the 21st century.

But not only did the new Doctor Who become a runaway success – inspiring two spin-off series to date in the child-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures and the far darker, adult-oriented Torchwood; as well as generating critical and popular acclaim – it’s also become one of the most inclusive television programmes ever made in terms of representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and gender-fluid characters on-screen.

Anyone who has watched the last three seasons of Doctor Who will be familiar with some of the elements Davies has brought to the show; most notably the roguish, sexually-omnivorous Captain Jack Harkness, a Time Agent turned conman from the 51st Century, played by openly gay actor John Barrowman.

According to Davies, the inclusion of Captain Jack (first introduced in the 2005 story ‘The Empty Child’) was a deliberate attempt to subvert the usual depiction of bisexuality on television.

“I thought: ‘It’s time you introduce bisexuals properly into mainstream television,’” he recently told the New York Times. “The most boring drama would be – ‘Oh, I’m bisexual, oh my bleeding heart’ night-time drama. Tedious, dull. But if you say it’s a bisexual space pirate swaggering in with guns and attitude and cheek and humour into primetime family viewing - that was enormously attractive to me.”

Such characters aside, what’s the attraction of a programme like Doctor Who for lesbian and gay viewers? According to occasional MCV contributor and Sensis film critic Tim Hunter, it’s the titular character’s outsider status.

“It’s about the fact that he seems like an outsider from the rest of society. As a 13 year old boy who hadn’t quite come to terms with his sexuality yet, I just found that quite appealing,” Hunter says.

“The reason Doctor Who as a character has gay appeal is because he doesn’t necessarily identify with regular people; and I think a lot of gay men growing up tend to identify with that, because they too, including myself, feel like we’re outside of society; not quite the same as everyone else. The Doctor is like that too, but he embraces it … and I think there’s a lesson there for gay men; that being different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And I think that’s become even more [pronounced] in this new series that Russell T Davies has been doing,” he concludes.

As well as introducing queer characters such as the omnisexual Captain Jack and the transgendered ‘last human’, the Lady Cassandra, Davies has also injected a gay sensibility into the programme; typified by the 2007 Christmas special, Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned.

The movie-length episode, which screens on ABC 1 this Sunday night, features gay icon Kylie Minogue in a story which references such camp delights as 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure and the 1997 film, Titanic, leavened with a healthy dash of science fiction.

“Kylie is probably my favourite guest we’ve had. Having her on the show was amazing. Just having her working with us was brilliant,” an enthusiastic Davies told Welsh newspaper the Swansea Evening Post earlier this month.

As well as La Minogue, Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned also stars out gay actor Russell Tovey (best known for his role as the sports-loving Rudge in the film The History Boys), and features a subplot involving marriage rights for androids: a clear reference to the on-going debate around same-sex marriage.

Gay and lesbian characters also feature regularly in the programme’s fourth season, which starts on the ABC next week; a situation which has some fans up in arms about what they describe as Davies’ “gay agenda”.

“[I]t’s completely over-egging the series to have throwaway gay references all over the place just to give the show a PC, all-inclusive feel,” rants poster ‘Spud McSpud’ on the pop-culture website Ain’tItCoolNews.com. “[Davies] seems to want to portray in new Who the idea that there are gay/bi people in every walk of life, everywhere you go!”

Not everyone is so opposed to the regular representation of same-sex attracted characters on Doctor Who, however.

“[Davies] takes Doctor Who and pushes the envelope the whole time, not in terms of taste and decency but in terms of ideas and emotional intelligence, the size of feeling and epic stroke of narrative breadth,” Jane Tranter, the BBC’s head of fiction, told the New York Times last week.

No-one at the BBC had a problem with Captain Jack, or with any of Davies’s plotlines, she added.

“How ridiculous would it be that you would travel through time and space and only ever find heterosexual men?”

Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned screens on ABC 1 this Sunday June 29 at 7:30pm. Season Four of Doctor Who commences the following week.

This article originally appeared in MCV #390 on Thursday June 26.

Doctor Who Season Four Finale - SPOILERS!!!

This pic is a promo image for the final two-parter for the current season four of Doctor Who. Fanboy heaven or what?

Circus Oz 30th Birthday Bash

Last night saw saw the opening night of the 30th Birthday Bash for Circus Oz; the latest show under the company's Leunig-inspired big top in Birrarung Marr. A 30th birthday is no mean achievement for anyone, let alone a circus company which prides itself on its committment to social justice as much as daring and jaw-dropping physical feats, which is why last night's show was such a delight.

Even occasional first night nerves resulting in dropped juggling clubs and missed tumbles (of which, to be fair, there were only a few) and a couple of events that, placed back-to-back, saw the pace of the show drop off slightly, couldn't detract from the atmosphere or the spirit of the night, helped along by a jovial and noisy crowd packed under the canvas to witness an array of predominantly new acts.

Having spoken last week with Circus Oz's Artistic Director Mike Finch, I know the temptation was there to present a 'greatest hits' package; but instead, thanks to new funding which enables the company to now hold an extended circus lab development each year, there were heaps of new acts, brought to life by a range of new performers. There were also some spectacular old tricks slipped into the show as well; including the group bike, and a wonderfully-reworked contortion act, and a simply fantastic inverted routine in film noir style, in which a tough guy walks into a bar, sits at a table, pours himself a drink and soliliquizes - all performed suspended upside down from the roof.

Other highlights included some superb clowning and juggling routines; a breathtaking and beautiful Frankenstein-inspired act performed on aerial straps; a joyous jumble of kangaroo-clad acrobats aboard the teeterboard; the addition of inline skating for the first time in a Circus Oz show; and the most outstanding chair-balancing act which morphed into a magnificent, achingly beautiful static double trapeze routine: truly the highlight of the show.

If you've never seen Circus Oz before, this is definitely a production to see: a marvellous modern circus show that will thrill, amaze and entertain in equal measure. And if you have seen the company before, what better time to go back than for their 30th Birthday Bash?

Bravo, Circus Oz!