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The Natalia Osipova effect comes to the Royal Ballet

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 6:51am

The Russian star's arrival this autumn, following Leanne Benjamin's departure, opens intriguing questions about the company's next steps

A couple of weeks ago, the Royal Ballet announced that principal dancer Leanne Benjamin would be retiring at the end of this season. Despite the fact that Benjamin had enjoyed a much longer career than most ballerinas – she's 49 – the news still came as a shock. It had got to the point where we all assumed she was somehow indestructible (or that she had some kind of portrait tucked away in her attic). Not only did Benjamin look nothing like her age, she appeared to be dancing better with every passing year.

Benjamin herself has said that age (and motherhood) have been liberating for her, giving her confidence in the knowledge that communication with the audience is more important and rewarding than technical perfection. And the deepening expressiveness of her performances hasn't just been evident in story ballets like MacMillan's Mayerling (the work in which she gives her farewell performance in London, in June). Even in non-narrative ballets like Balanchine's Jewels, Alexei Ratmanksy's Preludes or MacMillan's Requiem a profoundly musical and human intelligence now shapes her dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPn1nJMBKZU

As soon as Benjamin's retirement was announced, there was a spate of online chatter about who might be promoted to fill her place. But that chatter took a dramatic change of direction a week ago when the Royal announced that the Russian super-ballerina Natalia Osipova would be joining the company in the autumn.

This was startling news, not only because the netting of Osipova's prodigous talent was such a coup for the Royal, but more practically because she was already a principal with two other companies, the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, and American Ballet Theatre in New York. Osipova also dances a busy freelance schedule, and although it's since been announced that Osipova will re-jig her Russian contract to guest-principal status, and although her appearances with ABT are likely to remain restricted to the company's spring/summer season, it's not yet clear how many shows she will actually dance in London. She does apparently plan to make her home in the city, along with her on and off-stage partner Ivan Vasiliev.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iibl54JatU

However, the fact that Vasiliev himself hasn't been hired by the Royal has sparked another round of speculation as to who might be partnering Osipova on the London stage. Her debut with the company will be with Carlos Acosta, in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, but one other name that's been thrown into the ring is Edward Watson. The pale, lean and wired Watson could certainly spark an interesting chemistry with Osipova's concentrated energy, especially if they're cast together in the ballets of Wayne McGregor (who's made no secret of his admiration for the Russian ballerina and his interest in working with her).

But partnerships can be as unpredictable on the dance stage as they are in real life. When another exotic outsider, Sylvie Guillem, joined the Royal back in 1989 few could have guessed the effect she'd have on Jonathan Cope, as their evolving partnership cracked open the shell of his very English reserve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YSlk9l1qKg

Who knows, now, where the Osipova effect will be directed – towards tall, fair, elegant Rupert Pennefather, perhaps, or towards the demonic virtuosity of Steven McRae? One thing's certain: interesting times up there in the principal ranks of the Royal.

Categories: News Blogs

Children of the Sun – review

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 6:13am

Lyttelton, London

Maxim Gorky takes up where Anton Chekhov leaves off. Written in 1905, shortly after what would become known as Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protesters were shot down by the tsar's troops, this rarely seen play offers a tragicomic picture of a self-absorbed intelligentsia. Although the work is no masterpiece, Howard Davies's production and Andrew Upton's new translation prove it's a fascinating document of its time.

Gorky's focus is on one particular privileged family who, in Bunny Christie's evocative set, occupy what looks like a miniature fortress. Protasov, the head of the house, is a scientist so obsessed with his own experiments that he seems blind to the world around him. He ignores the loss of his wife's love, views the overtures of an adoring widow with amused disdain and scarcely notices that his sister, Liza, is edging towards madness. Although Liza has a paralysing fear of life that makes her reject a persistent suitor, it is she who is the closest to an authorial voice. When Protasov envisions a distant future in which poverty and sickness are eradicated, Liza enquires: "But at what daily, hourly, soul-destroying, inhuman, crushing cost?"

Gorky's crucial point is that Russians want immediate progress rather than utopian dreams. But, although his play satirises the intelligentsia, it doesn't sentimentalise the proletariat. We're offered a vivid portrait of a society in a state of prerevolutionary chaos, and that emerges strongly from Upton's free adaptation. I'm not crazy about his use of four-letter words to lend the play an urgent contemporaneity, and can't really believe that the bookishly secluded Liza would say "Shut up about my fucking nerves." But Upton heightens the Ibsenite notion that Protasov's chemicals are contaminating the water supply and reorders the events of the last act to bring the play to an explosive conclusion.

Davies's production precisely captures the contradictions of a work in which people are absurd without being worthless. Geoffrey Streatfeild as Protasov follows a basic rule of acting by playing the character from his own point of view, as a man who believes his visionary experiments justify his unworldliness. Justine Mitchell as his alienated wife, Emma Lowndes as his truth-telling sister and Paul Higgins as the Hamletesque vet who passionately adores her, also give beautifully defined performances. You won't find here the symphonic beauty of Chekhov. But this is a work that, in its jaggedness and volatility, echoes a fractured society on the verge of momentous upheaval.

• What have you been to see lately? Tell us about it on Twitter using #GdnReview

Rating: 4/5

Theatre

Michael Billington
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Graeme Gilmour obituary

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 5:33am

Sculptor and designer who created memorable installation art on rivers and hilltops, in forests and fields

Since the advent of John Fox's spectaculars of ritual and procession in Yorkshire with the Welfare State International company 45 years ago, much of our most potent theatrical and installation art has taken place in outdoor landscapes, on rivers and hilltops, in forests and fields. The sculptor and designer Graeme Gilmour, who has been found dead aged 48, was at the heart of many such recent adventures.

For more regular theatregoers, Gilmour will be remembered for his brilliant collaboration with the director Phelim McDermott and the designer Julian Crouch on Shockheaded Peter (1998), a "junk" opera and sardonic elegy for dead children based on Heinrich Hoffmann's cautionary tales. It was produced by Michael Morris's Cultural Industry, with jangling music by Martyn Jacques and the Tiger Lilies. Gilmour's contribution as a puppeteer, performer and co-designer of mobile cardboard furniture, trick costumes and an eerie stage environment of doors and shutters was central to the success of a show that originated at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and went on to win an Olivier award for best entertainment and a Critics' Circle gong for best design.

Although Gilmour stayed, on and off, with that show throughout a world tour that lasted several years, Shockheaded Peter still represented a domestication of his work. He belonged outdoors, with Scotland's largest free-standing permanent sculpture, Arria, a giant steel female figure with swooping arcs looming over the M80 in Cumbernauld, that he collaborated on with Andy Scott; or with the now decaying Meg the Horse (from Robert Burns's poem Tam o'Shanter) that he created as part of Scotland's Year of the Homecoming in 2009.

The son of a furniture shop manager, Ewing, and his wife, Molly, Gilmour grew up with his brothers in Ayr and Prestwick in the west of Scotland, dabbling in amateur dramatics before attending Prestwick academy and then, between 1982 and 1986, the Glasgow School of Art, where he studied sculpture.

On graduating, he joined the Welfare State community of artists, building a huge effigy of Saint Mungo for a mammoth lantern parade in Glasgow's year as European capital of culture in 1990, as well as two great Margaret Thatcher floats that sailed poignantly down the Clyde to mark the transfer of the government's capital investment to foreign shipyards. For the capital of culture finale he provided two great expanding pink salmon rising in the night sky over Glasgow Green in a wild constellation of fiery stars and planets – fish out of water with a scintillating message of colour, noise and defiance.

In the following decade, Gilmour was part of a loose collective of sculptors (including Andy Scott and Ewan Hunter), Acme Presentations, who created the annual Shine on Glasgow festivals, climaxing in the raucous, spectacular 1997 celebration of the Scottish Trades Union Congress.

In 1998, he was a key member of the Improbable Theatre and World Famous collaboration, led by Crouch and Mike Roberts, that produced Sticky at the Stockton international riverside festival. This was a huge, weird outdoor installation including a 100ft tower made entirely of sticky tape and a giant insect wrapped in Sellotape giving birth to a host of larval eggs.

Gilmour's trademark became steel-framed structures encased in industrial shrink-wrap and illuminated with lights, fire or fireworks. If Welfare State were known as "engineers of the imagination" then he became a notable technician and head foreman. Much of his work was intentionally fleeting, evanescent, designed to explode or expire at the very moment of its greatest impact.

Although he was a fully signed-up, dedicated Scot – he wore kilts and loved mackerel fishing – Gilmour gravitated naturally towards the artistic community in Brighton, East Sussex, and made his home there 15 years ago. In 2004, he "did a Christo", covering Brighton Dome in shrink-wrap. And he designed three solo shows for his friend and fellow Brightonian, Tim Crouch, each one telling the back story of outsider characters in Shakespeare: I, Peaseblossom, I, Banquo and I, Malvolio. Crouch testifies to the deep creative input of Gilmour's designs, which combined vivid practical density with startling costume: a terrifying severed head for Banquo and a blood-boltered set that was destroyed at each performance; a pair of beautiful fairy wings for Peaseblossom made of clingfilm, coat-hanger wires and the skeleton of a rucksack; and soiled long- johns for Malvolio who appeared with a coronet of flies buzzing round his bald pate.

Gilmour also worked with such inventive theatre groups as Dot Comedy and Spymonkey, and devised a long-range programme of site-specific events in Northumberland over three years, including Out of Water (2008) in the Kielder Forest with Phil Supple.

For the London 2012 festival, he was part of the Brighton-based Millimetre company that built (in a farmyard) the extraordinary one-bedroom boat hotel that is still moored on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank, as though abandoned by a receding tide, a cultural eyrie for writers and composers with peace for contemplation and great views of the Thames.

Although he had latterly turned to computer visualisation, Gilmour's real contribution lay in this continual redesign and enhancement of the landscape, and his work in another part of the woods, as it were, in Dover, led him to directing the choreography of five firework-bedecked boats for the festival A Song for Dover last year.

Gilmour is survived by his two brothers and his mother.

• Alexander Graeme Gilmour, sculptor and designer, born 29 September 1964; died 23 March 2013

Michael Coveney
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Missed a West End show? It could be coming to a cinema near you

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 4:04am

Digital Theatre and CinemaLive have paired up to screen best of British theatre, both new and from the archives, in UK cinemas

Digital Theatre, which makes filmed theatre productions available for download online, is to screen some of its recordings in cinemas around the UK.

The company has partnered with film producers CinemaLive and will present its first series of screenings in September 2013. Titles have not yet been announced, but the focus will initially be on commercial West End productions, some newly recorded and some from Digital Theatre's archive, which includes David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing and David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker in Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

Since the launch of National Theatre Live in 2009, theatre has had an increasingly regular presence in cinemas. In June, NT Live will broadcast its first West End production, The Audience starring Helen Mirren, following the lead of Graham McLaren's production of Great Expectations, which live-broadcast its opening night around the UK, taking around £80,000 at box office.

However, Digital Theatre and CinemaLive's partnership expands the possibilities by offering audiences another chance to catch past productions they might have missed at the time.

Peter Skillman, CinemaLive's director and chief executive, said: "We know how attractive West End theatre productions are to exhibitors looking to bring their audiences must-see event cinema and we are thrilled to be able to satisfy this need."

Founded by Robert Delamere and Tom Shaw in 2009, Digital Theatre now hosts productions from some of the UK's largest theatres, including the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe and the Almeida theatre. It has also launched an iPad app, and hosts the Routledge Performance Archive of audio-visual material that aims to provide insight into key productions.

Delamere said: "It's fantastic to be partnering with an organisation with the reputation and expertise of CinemaLive to bring the best of British theatre to cinemas around the world."

Matt Trueman
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Humans that harm animals should be held accountable | Colleen Boggs

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 12:20am

We are quick to punish animals that attack humans, but what about the reverse such as the Ringling Bros elephant shooting?

Unfortunately, we are all too used to news of drive-by shootings in America. But last week, one incident drew particular attention because the victim was an elephant.

Elvis Presley's hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, was the scene of another performer's injury when an elephant traveling with the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus was shot. PETA has offered a reward for the perpetrators' apprehension, and the police are investigating.

Once the perpetrators of this crime are apprehended, they should be held accountable on the same terms that we would apply if they had shot a human being. When an animal performer injures a human being, we are quick to blame and punish that animal. We don't give animal performers equal recognition as victims of violence.

Thomas Edison electrocuted the elephant Topsy in 1903 because she had squashed three handlers, one of whom had tried to feed her a lit cigarette. Edison electrocuted other animals as well, but filmed Topsy's execution for promotional purposes, to demonstrate the superior power of the electric current he had developed. Even in death, Topsy performed in an advertisement. Although this incident took place a century ago, similar rushes to judgment and calls for an animal's death accompanied the spectacular mauling in 2003 of Roy Horn by tiger Montecore during his Las Vegas performance. Shows such as Fox's "When Animals Attack!" had aired in the years before the incident.

In cases where animal performers commit violence, we are quick to attribute agency to them, but when animal performers are victims, we dismiss them. That needs to change because our own humanity is at stake in how we treat animals. For too long, the discussion about humans and animals has revolved around essential differences. We have tried to define what makes a human a human and what makes an animal an animal. We have tried to determine the "nature" of each, without recognizing their shared culture.

Descartes cut open his wife's living poodle to prove that animals were soulless machines. His celebrated insight, "I think, therefore I am," came at a terrible cost to animals: the flip side of his dictum was that animals think not, therefore they are not of any consequence. Descartes' attitudes are still with us.

Animal welfare groups and animal rights activists have long opposed those attitudes. The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued in 1789 that we were asking the wrong questions about animals: "The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?" Bentham's query gave rise to the contemporary animal movement inaugurated by Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" and represented by PETA. They have argued that animals do suffer, and that their suffering matters.

People who cut open poodles and people who want to protect them against such suffering are very different in their actions, but they both base their actions on animals' nature, making animals' ability or inability to suffer the measure for what they see as being right or wrong. Definitions of human-animal difference or of animals' "nature" insufficiently address the reason these specific violent incidents occur in the first place: circus elephants remind us that human beings and animals participate in the same culture. When it comes to incidents like these, we need to stop focusing on natural differences, and shift our attention to human-animal relationships.

Elephants are not native to Tupelo, Mississippi, nor is their natural habitat the big top. The elephant injured in the shooting was a performer. As all actors on late-night television are quick to remind us, performing is hard work. The animal's shooting is not only a crime, but also a workplace injury. Once we recognize that the elephant is a performer and a worker, we will need to consider the rights his labor bestows on him, and the obligations it places on us. We will also come to recognize that, in the contexts of labor and performance, human beings and animals are not separate from each other.

Donna Haraway has taken up this issue in her recent work. Drawing on the example of sheep dog, she has argued that training creates a bond between dogs and people that reshapes both. She has coined the term "companion species" to explain that our focus on evolutionary difference is misplaced: we are in this together. Human and non-human animals forge bonds through their shared work, and profoundly transform each other.

Clearly, such a transformation has occurred in the case of a trained circus elephant. As victims of violence, such animals should have equal rights. Those rights need not be based on judgments that we make about human and animal nature. The comparison between human beings' and animals' nature has far too long hindered us from recognizing that our relationship to one another shapes who we are, and imposes obligations on us.

We are quick to rush to judgments when animals attack, but slow to see animals as victims of the attacks they suffer. Relationships bring obligations with them. It is time we follow through on our obligations to companion animals. Our humanity depends on it.

Colleen Boggs
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In praise of … Maxim Gorky | Editorial

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 1:20pm

Gorky's work can be both variable and politically crude, but his was an extraordinary and a serious creative life

His long years as a Soviet-era icon consigned Maxim Gorky's reputation to the cold war permafrost for half a century. But Andrew Upton's new adaptation of Gorky's 1905 play Children of the Sun at London's National Theatre is the latest of Gorky's plays to return brimming with new life to the British stage after suffering a long period of condescension. Like his plays Philistines and Enemies, both successfully revived in the last decade, Children of the Sun combines echoes of Chekhov with the rawer political nerve that would ensure both Gorky's later canonisation under Stalin and his subsequent neglect in the west. Aspects of recent adaptations have been controversial, and Gorky's work can be both variable and politically crude. But his was an extraordinary and a serious creative life and it is good to have him edging back on to the collective mental map again. It is surely time that his novels, which were once so popular, got a fresh look too.

Russia

Categories: News Blogs

No point in heckling: standup comedy at the cinema

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 12:00pm

Can the raucous experience of a live comedy club survive when it's shown at the cinema? Brian Logan investigates a new experiment

Friday night at Cineworld Wandsworth, south London, and people are filing in to see the nail-biting psych-thriller Trance and the carnival of pulchritudinous teen flesh that is Spring Breakers.

Not me. Oh no. I'm here to watch a film about other people watching middle-aged men tell jokes about how daft they look wearing Crocs.

Put like that, Comedy Store: Raw & Uncut sounds like a galaxy far, far away from anything you'd normally see at the movies – and not especially alluring. But that's what they said before Met Live, National Theatre Live and their numerous imitators trounced the doubters and proved that broadcasting theatre and opera to multiplexes worldwide was not only big business, it could also change the way we experience live performance.

Now the Comedy Store, Britain's best-known comedy venue, is getting in on the act, broadcasting club-night comedy to the nation's multiplexes. The pilot season of Raw & Uncut saw four nights at the Store made into four feature-length films, screened at fortnightly intervals a couple of months after they were originally recorded.

Speaking via email from India, where he's currently visiting his Mumbai club, Comedy Store supremo Don Ward calls it "a unique and pioneering action". One hundred and fifty UK cinemas have screened the four films, and Ward says they're working out how to expand worldwide. Of the pilot season, he continues: "The response from the public has been excellent, and there is enthusiasm on the part of exhibitors to continue [with] the format."

This is where I'm not so sure. In Wandsworth, the public isn't exactly rushing the doors: I've been forewarned by the publicist that "this cinema hasn't had the biggest take up audience-wise", and sure enough, when I arrive at Cineworld there are only around 25 people in attendance (some 5,000 people bought tickets for the season overall).

The market for NT Live is obvious: the many thousands of people around Britain and the world who would love to see the National Theatre's shows and will never get the chance. But aren't frustrated comedy fans thinner on the ground? Comedy on DVD has rarely been more available, and because of the standup boom of the last decade, more people than ever have the chance to see live comedy in clubs or arenas.

That's not the only problem I see with the format. Inside the cinema, before the screening begins, we weather a humorous advert for a sponsor, which asks us not to heckle the comedians, because they can't hear us. It's a joke, of course, but it nails an obvious flaw. One reason people go to comedy is to be part of a live, communal experience. Here in Cineworld, where there's little attempt at liveness (the gigs we're watching have long since finished), the atmosphere leaves something to be desired. When the film's first comic, Ian Stone, leaves the stage, people can't quite decide how to respond, whether to applaud or not.

Ward insists standup "loses nothing" being screened. I'm not entirely convinced by that either, though it's true that there are some gains. The screening certainly recreates the intimate Comedy Store atmosphere – but with close-ups. And the four standups, plus compere, are all funny. OK, so they're not the top tier of UK comedy, who would presumably prefer to withhold their material for their own DVD releases. But they're capable pros, trading in unadventurous but reliably amusing man-at-a-microphone comedy.

Here, though, is another issue. It's impossible not to notice that every one of the 20 participating comics in Raw & Uncut is a man. And, watching the film in Cineworld, the event comes across as strikingly male (two of the acts – Tom Stade and Jeff Innocent – major in blokey tales of sexual derring-do). Again, Ward refuses to see the problem: when I ask why Raw & Uncut is a woman-free zone, he answers, with breathtaking chutzpah, "There are hardly any female comics on the circuit."

That may not hurt Raw & Uncut's commercial chances, but it surely weakens Ward's rhetoric about doing things differently. The Comedy Store could be right that standup in cinema has a future – but if it's going to capture a wide audience, it needs to think much harder about who it's putting up there in the spotlight.

Brian Logan
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Lesley Manville, actor – portrait of the artist

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 11:00am

The actor discusses the pleasures of anonymity, the tribulations of single motherhood and the lightbulb moment she had with Mike Leigh

What got you started?

I had two starts, really. The first was going to the Italia Conti stage school, aged 15. I'd gone to sing, but one day I found myself doing an improvisation and thought, "Oh God, I quite like this acting thing." The second start was meeting Mike Leigh when I was 22. He showed me I could play people that weren't like me. It was like a lightbulb going off.

What was your big breakthrough?

Making a film called Grown Ups with Mike Leigh in 1980. Both of the pieces we'd worked on together before that hadn't actually come to anything. First tThere was a radio play, Too Much of a Good Thing, about a girl losing her virginity, which got banned initially by the BBC for its realistic-sounding sex scenes. Then And there was a play we did for the RSC that never saw the light of day. But Grown Ups opened doors for me in a major way – I spent the next 10 years working at the Royal Court.

Do you suffer for your art?

Not any more. But I did when my son was young and I was a single mother. A lot of the actors I knew threw in the towel when they became mothers. I couldn't do that financially, and I didn't want to – but I was knackered all the time.

What's the biggest myth about being an actor?

People mistake the fact that we have a nice time at work for it being easy. I spent last week in the dark, freezing, doing hellishly long days. Then there's the fact that people think you're always earning a fortune. That's absolutely not the case – especially in subsidised theatre. Actors often have to turn down a play because they can't afford it, unless they can do a bit of telly either side.

Stage or screen?

Stage is the ultimate test; I like watching established screen actors on stage to see if they can really do it. But it's great to have a healthy mixture of the two. Film is so technical: there's something very particular about the relationship between you and the camera. It took a long time for me to get good on film.

What work of art would you most like to own?

I'm a big fan of Edouard Vuillard, so I'd like anything by him – particularly a painting called Madame Hessel on the Sofa. His work is realistic without being literal: I can really imagine what Madame Hessel is thinking.

Is there an art form you don't relate to?

I have trouble with sheep in formaldehyde.

What's the worst thing anyone ever said about you?

A director once said to me, "I've got no notes for you, except act better."

Do you care about fame?

No. I'd hate not to be able to travel on the tube. I quite like that people tend not to know my name. I remember being at the Cannes film festival for All or Nothing. I looked very different in the film – I had a little greasy bob and no makeup. I went to a dinner after the screening and everyone completely ignored me. I got a real buzz out of that.

In short

Born: Brighton, 1956.

Career: Has worked frequently with Mike Leigh, in his films – including High Hopes, Secrets & Lies and Another Year – and his stageplays. Has also performed at the Royal Court, with the RSC and at the National Theatre; and, most recently, in the BBC TV series Mayday, which is out now on DVD.

High point: "Playing Marlene in Top Girls at the Royal Court."

Low point: "After making Turning down all the work I was offered for a year around 1980. I was on a mission to go in a new direction."

Laura Barnett
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Marc Maron is the latest comedy star to go from podcast to TV pilot

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 9:42am

The route from internet audio show to TV and publishing success is well trodden in the US, but why are so few British comics keen to follow suit?

Last week IFC (the network that produces Portlandia) released the trailer for Maron, comedian Marc Maron's semi-autobiographical sitcom, which premieres in May. Its creator/star also has a book of essays, called Attempting Normal, published at the end of this month. But just four years ago, by his own admission, Maron "had nothing going on". Having made his name in the 90s alternative comedy scene, he had lost touch with his more famous peers, including Louis CK and Patton Oswalt. Twice-divorced and fired from his third radio hosting gig in four years, Maron moved from New York to LA with three cats and few prospects. The 49-year-old's current career revival is all thanks to his hugely popular podcast, WTF, a twice-weekly interview show where he has swapped laughs and neuroses with everyone from Sarah Silverman to Robin Williams.

Now he's following in the footsteps of Scott Aukerman, whose improv podcast Comedy Bang! Bang! was also adapted for television by IFC, and Chris Hardwick, creator of The Nerdist podcast. Not content with one TV show, Hardwick also fronts a post-Walking Dead discussion called Talking Dead, has filmed a pilot for Comedy Central and last month launched the first series of the Nerdist TV show for BBC America. While he gained notoriety presenting cheesy dating shows in the 90s, it took a podcast to give him credibility. And he's not the only one.

Aisha Tyler is probably best known for playing Ross's girlfriend Charlie on Friends, but her Girl on Guy podcast made a wider audience aware of her comedy roots. As a result, she was announced as the new host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? last month and has her own book coming out this summer. Meanwhile, comedian Pete Holmes has parlayed the success of his podcast You Made It Weird into an upcoming sketch show. And although it wasn't true, a recent rumour that 30 Rock actor Alec Baldwin would take over Carson Daly's late-night talkshow seemed plausible thanks to the interviewing prowess he has shown on his own podcast, Here's the Thing.

When podcasts started back in 2004, few people realised their career-boosting potential. Pioneers such as Jesse Thorn and Dan Klass made quality shows that attracted loyal audiences and media coverage. But when I fired up my first MP3 player in 2005, I listened to a lot of podcasts that featured unintended sound effects and prolonged drunken giggling fits. Their creators often described them as "homemade radio shows" and that was exactly how they sounded.

They have become considerably slicker since then. To be a comedian in the US without a podcast is increasingly to be an oddity. It may even be a liability. Podcasts are a becoming an easy way for TV networks to find fresh talent with an established following. The potential for them to be used as a springboard to writing, acting, and presenting jobs is huge.

But they haven't taken off in quite the same way in the UK. Here podcasts tend to be drawn from popular radio shows made by established media corporations (such as Danny Baker's BBC podcast) rather than original, independently produced content. One exception is The Ricky Gervais Show, which Channel 4 adapted into an animated series in 2010. But Gervais had established a career in entertainment long before he hit "record".

So why are up-and-coming comedians in the UK less interested in building a millions-strong audio audience than their US counterparts? Perhaps because we have a more thriving live scene – America has no real equivalent to the Edinburgh festival, and the comparative size of our countries means it's far easier for British comedians to build a following by touring. Or it may just be that we're a step behind. Either way, it's a shame.

Cheaper and easier to put together than a YouTube production (and marginally less likely to attract incendiary comments), podcasts can provide a low-risk, low-cost way to try out new material, and not just for comedians. Releasing chapters of his audiobooks as podcasts helped Scott Sigler become a self-publishing superstar. Perhaps it's time for writers and performers on this side of the Atlantic to take note – and pick up a mic.

Diane Shipley
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The Situation Room – review

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 9:24am

Shoreditch Town Hall, London

"I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy," declared the late 18th-century US president, John Adams. But what happens if other people's sons and daughters are the victims of your politics and your wars? The question is raised in this flawed but intriguing show, created by the innovative young company Oscar Mike, which divides the audience and casts us as the decision-makers on opposing sides during a cold war crisis.

The scenario is that both the US and the USSR are vying for control of a small, oil-rich state that has become politically unstable, and the show plays cleverly on the parallel between video games and military strategy. As tensions rise, the stakes rise, too. Depending on which side we find ourselves on, we're led either by the American Benjamin R Stokely (Simon Carroll-Jones), or the Russian Andrey Sergeyevich Budka (Robert Macpherson), both convincing as loyal servants of their respective governments, and we must make crucial decisions about tactics in an attempt to outwit the opposition. Should we bomb a village in order to save a city? Is violence or bribery the better ploy to get our way?

The piece is good on the murky ethics of intelligence activity. There's a lot of information to absorb, and the audience must keep their wits about them. But the interactive element doesn't quite wash, because the choices offered are always binary. It's fun, but it feels unemotional, and like a game. There's no opportunity for the sides to debate among themselves, which would add a crucial layer as altruism and self-interest collide.

The potential of the piece is considerable, and if the company could find a way to combine narrative with genuine choice for the audience, this could be genuinely exciting. In its current form, though, it sells itself and the audience short.

• What have you been to see lately? Tell us about it on Twitter using #GdnReview

Rating: 3/5

Theatre

Lyn Gardner
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Should Alan Cumming beware the curse of Macbeth?

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 8:03am

Alan Cumming says he has no truck with theatrical superstition – but his producers are taking no chances

There's an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer and the family visit London. Walking past a theatre, they encounter Ian McKellen, currently appearing in Macbeth. Unaware of the theatrical superstition that Macbeth should not be mentioned by name, Homer says the title of the play and McKellen is promptly struck by lightning. As the actor leaves to get ready for the performance, the family wish him good luck – so unwittingly breaking another theatrical taboo. The long-suffering star is promptly hit on the head by falling masonry.

The episode playfully skewers the superstitions of theatre folk, which range from a ban on whistling onstage to never passing another actor on the stairs, or unpacking your makeup box until after the reviews are in. My favourite is the ghost light – the small onstage light that must never be turned off. Its function is entirely practical: to ensure that anyone arriving backstage can see and doesn't accidentally fall into the pit. The more entertaining notion is that it is there after all the actors have left, to appease the ghosts and provide a light by which to stage their own performances.

It's also held to be bad luck to speak the last line of the play during rehearsal. And some actors believe that it's bad luck to put shoes on the table, while others believe it's unlucky to leave them on the floor. (Though in a rat or mouse-infested theatre that might be a wise precaution.)

It's easy to see why some might consider passing a funeral cortege on the way to the theatre unlucky, but other superstitions are baffling. I've no idea why chimney sweeps were once considered such good luck that the great actor Eleonora Duse insisted on one being present during a premiere.

But it's Shakespeare's Macbeth which is most shrouded in superstition – perhaps because of its supernatural element or perhaps merely because of the large number of fights. Some say the curse is a result of the backstage death of the boy actor playing Lady Macbeth during the premiere in 1606. And there have been countless cases of revivals hit by disaster: most recently Jonathan Slinger was knocked off his bike and broke his arm while playing the role for the RSC after dismissing superstitions around the play. Of course it's perfectly possible that as many actors have been injured or choked to death on cucumber sandwiches during performances of The Importance of Being Earnest, but we haven't totted these disasters up as we do with Macbeth.

Nonetheless maybe Alan Cumming, who has just opened at the Ethel Barrymore theatre on Broadway in his one-man Macbeth, had better look out.

Last month he took to Twitter to announce that he has no truck with superstition, saying: "I am going to say Macbeth everywhere, even in the theatre. None of this Scottish play stuff for me." But according to a report in The Stage, the producers have other ideas, and have put up a sign in the foyer asking audiences to refrain from mentioning the title while in the venue. I can understand the superstitions of nervous actors, but nervous producers? Could it be that the move is less to do with genuine theatrical superstition and more of a marketing ploy to drum up a bit of tension and excitement?

Lyn Gardner
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Pulitzer prize for drama 2013 won by Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 6:42am

Ayad Akhtar's debut play, which tackles racism, Islamophobia and sexism, receives prestigious new-writing award

Ayad Akhtar's play Disgraced, which will receive its UK premiere at the Bush theatre next month, has won the 2013 Pulitzer prize for drama.

First produced by Chicago's American Theatre Company in January 2012, before transferring to the Lincoln Center in New York, Disgraced shows a dinner party that disintegrates, as contentious issues of racism, Islamophobia and sexism bubble to the surface. The party is hosted by corporate lawyer Amir Kapoor, a Pakistani-American who has renounced Islam, and his artist wife Emily, whose work is inspired by the religion's aesthetics.

The drama Pulitzer, arguably the English-speaking world's most prestigious new-writing award, is awarded by Columbia University and seeks to honour "a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life". Previous winners include Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park, Tracy Letts' August: Osage County and Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

This year's jury described Disgraced as "a moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage." Akhtar's play beat competition from Gina Gionfriddo's Rapture, Burn, Blister and Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles – currently playing at the Bath Ustinov – to win the $10,000 (£6,500) prize.

Akhtar, 42, has written several screenplays, but Disgraced is his debut play. He said: "It's tough to put it into words. What an honour and privilege it is to receive to win this award. I'm humbled, and I'm also so eager to be here in London on the eve of rehearsals beginning for the new production at the Bush theatre in May. I think I might be dreaming."

Disgraced opens at the Bush theatre in London on 17 May, in a production starring Hari Dhillon and Kirsty Bushell. Madani Younis, artistic director of the Bush, said: "This is a richly deserved honour. When I read the play I was deeply to drawn to it – it speaks of urgent global concerns. I was lucky enough to see the production at the Lincoln Center, and witness the diversity of the audience in New York that it spoke to. I knew immediately I wanted to stage a new production."

Matt Trueman
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Tracy Morgan called 'sexist' at Melbourne comedy festival

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 5:09am

Plus – young comic Jack Carroll wows Britain's Got Talent and commentators debate Margaret Thatcher's impact on comedy

This week's comedy news

The nominations are in for the second biggest prize in live comedy, the Barry Awards at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Previous winners include Daniel Kitson, the Pajama Men and last year, in a double-whammy with his Edinburgh Comedy Award, Doctor Brown. This year's runners and riders are veteran comic Rich Hall, fast-rising South African standup Trevor Noah, and the UK double-act Max and Ivan, alongside Aussies Hannah Gadsby, Michael Workman, John Conway and Kitty Flanagan. The winners are announced on Saturday night. The biggest story at Melbourne, though, is the hoohah surrounding 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan, who was subject to mass walkouts from what the city's Herald Sun called a "sexist rant" of a comedy festival gig. "An unpleasant, graphic, charmless tirade ... sharing his baser instincts in putrid detail," wrote Steve Bennett in an equally appalled review at Chortle.com.

There's nothing base about Jack Carroll, however – apart from the TV show he's appearing on. The 14-year-old Britain's Got Talent contestant this week received the (mixed) blessing of Jimmy Carr, who told the Daily Mirror, "you wouldn't bet against him becoming a star... He knows how to write a one-liner and he's fearless, cheeky and funny." Carroll, who has cerebral palsy, reportedly "stunned" viewers on Saturday night with his comedy routine. Another newcomer(ish) to live comedy is veteran TV producer John Lloyd. The man behind Blackadder, QI and Spitting Image is to debut a solo show on the Edinburgh Fringe, according to Chortle. Announcing the set, which is partly autobiographical, partly based on the book he co-wrote with Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff, Lloyd said: "It's my turn to have a few laughs."

Elsewhere in comedy, Stephen Fry is announced as a guest at the next Establishment Club night at Ronnie Scott's; a painting by the late Beryl Cook of the sitcom character Rab C Nesbitt is expected to fetch £8,000 at auction this week; and Simon Pegg is "set to receive a sizeable payout" as the production house Big Talk, in which he owns a stake, enters sale negotiations with buyers including News Corporation-owned Shine.

In the US, meanwhile, the improviser and comedian Jonathan Winters, mentor to Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, has died aged 87 . On stage, screen and the airwaves, news breaks that Omid Djalili is to star in The Shawshank Redemption on the Edinburgh Fringe;The Tap-esque film by spoof Irish band Dead Cat Bounce, entitled Discoverdale, has won the award for Best Comedy Film at a New York film festival.

Marcus Brigstocke has been given his own standup-and-sketch show on Radio 4, named after his recent tour The Brig Society and a Spinal

Something to look forward to

One of the most exciting new live comedy acts of the last five years has been working on a spoof reality show for MTV, and the trailer has just gone online. Check out this teaser for Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous, the latest offering from erstwhile YouTube sensation turned meta-musical-comedy star Bo Burnham. Burnham has always been hyper-sensitive to artifice and self-projection , and this story of an American teen who turns his own life into a reality show may be the perfect vehicle for his abundant talents.

Best of the Guardian's comedy coverage

• "We wouldn't have Michael McIntyre in residence at the 02 Arena without her" – Bruce Dessau on Margaret Thatcher and standup comedy. • "He is known as a boorish mouthpiece for the frustrations of young men, and he is that, partly" – Leo Benedictus on the questionable charms of Aussie standup Jim Jeffries. • "What is satire if not a marriage of civil disobedience to a laugh track?" Mona Eltahawy puts the hounding of Egyptian comic Bassem Youssef in context

• "A dyspeptic overweight fiftysomething who's spent most of his career failing and spends most of his act talking about it" – Paul MacInnes on furious US comic Eddie Pepitone.

• "Self-consciousness, objectification of women, Top Man trouser sizing, tea, cardigans, cat-sitting..." – Rapper-turned-comedian Doc Brown on his new touring show.

Best of our readers' comments

Bernard O'Leary on Comment is Free became the latest in a long line of commentators, many of them in the past week, to examine Mrs Thatcher's impact on comedy, and to ask where is the 21st-century equivalent of alternative comedy's political rage? Below the line, JFBridge pondered the absence.

In recent years, the TV and media establishments have got increasingly itchy feet about political satire, and most comic programmes now seem to be generic, repetitive panel shows containing public school/Russell Group Uni graduates, who prefer to sneer about the lower classes (in sometimes pretty profane terms) than launch jibes against the political and banking elites, some of them taking advantage of current tax laws to boot …

Even Have I Got News For You? has seemed much more jaded and listless in recent series, and the fact that Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are dullish, diffident public schoolboys with an essentially non-confrontational public image (the total opposite of Mrs T) makes it more difficult for politically inclined comedians and satirists like Mark Thomas and Mark Steel to arouse anger in retaliation … Ironically, the best anger (comic and serious) is usually expressed on blogsites like CiF and the wider net, a lot funnier and mordant than anything on TV nowadays.

"It's not the legendary entrepreneur of erotica who fills the screen," writes David Cox of Steve Coogan's new biopic of Paul Raymond, "it's Alan Partridge." Is Coogan's every role overshadowed by Partridge? WSobchak disagreed:

Not so. Coogan is a truly transformative actor; Paul Calf doesn't have a trace of Alan Partridge. His recent turn as an Irish fish factory owner in Moone Boy was an entirely different character again. The disgruntled constituent he played in In The Loop could be a different actor from the one who plays Alan Partridge. He can play a woman and make you appreciate "her" as a funny woman – not a drag act. As you say, he's obviously a bit like Partridge himself – but if he does something "a bit like Partridge" – and most of his work is – it's not because he's incapable of not doing Partridge. He's one of the few actors who can adopt a character and his own character disappears.

BambooCoffin, meanwhile, saw our correspondent's criticism as quite the opposite, and is clearly counting the days till The Look of Love opens:

If [the film's] biggest flaw is that it is like Alan Partridge, then I'm in!

Brian Logan
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Circuses to be banned from using wild animals

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 4:30am

Government publishes plans to ban use of wild animals in travelling circuses in England from 1 December 2015

Circuses will be banned from using wild animals in their shows under new government proposals that have been published after a long campaign.

Politicians and animal welfare groups have repeatedly called for the measure and in June 2011 MPs overwhelmingly supported a blanket ban, but ministers were initially reluctant to meet their demands due to fears over possible legal action from circus operators.

The government's plan will make it an offence for any operator to use a wild animal in performance or exhibition in a travelling circus in England from 1 December 2015.

The agriculture minister David Heath told MPs: "This 'grace period' is to allow operators of travelling circuses a reasonable period of time to adapt their businesses and organise suitable care arrangements for their wild animals."

Under the terms of the draft wild animals in circuses bill the ban will cover any creature not normally domesticated in Great Britain.

The government has already introduced strict regulations to improve conditions for performing animals until the law is changed.

Tory Mark Pritchard, whose backbench motion in 2011 calling for a ban was passed without a vote in the Commons, welcomed the announcement.

He said: "I am delighted the government have finally decided to introduce a ban.

"This is a victory for animal welfare and common sense – and proves that politicians who have belief, stick to their principles, and persevere despite hostile opposition, can still shape events."

Categories: News Blogs

The National Theatre's pop-up Shed is a model for the South Bank's future

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 2:31am

Haworth Tompkins' bright red timber auditorium learns from the nimble speed and agility of theatre production itself

A startling red box has landed on the South Bank, nestled near the National Theatre right by Waterloo bridge. This is the Shed, by Haworth Tompkins architects, a temporary auditorium for the NT while its Cottesloe (now Dorfman) Theatre undergoes a year-long refurbishment. With four proud chimneys and rough red-stained boarding, it recalls a diminutive Battersea Power Station as if built by Amish barn-raisers.

"We wanted something festive, which would contrast with the brutalist concrete mass of Denys Lasdun's building," says architect Paddy Dillon. "But it should also feel like part of the existing complex." Coming over the bridge, the bright red Shed is an arresting sight, half packing crate, half temple – but it seems a natural addition to Lasdun's National, all bulky chiselled forms. Its chimneys rhyme with the verticals of the theatre's lift shafts, while its cubic mass echoes the monolithic fly-tower behind – as if it had leapt to the ground and daubed itself with face paint to join in some South Bank fun.

The Shed's influences have an appropriately theatrical air: from the red oxide boarding of rural Swedish houses to the 1973 Clint Eastwood film High Planes Drifter, in which the Stranger paints an entire town red and rides off into the sunset. Its makeshift aesthetic is also in tune with the South Bank's palette-clad container restaurants and other temporary flotsam that comes and goes with the riverside's festivals of fun, although this has a noticeably higher quality – plus a £1.2m price tag.

The rough-sawn timber has been carefully sized to match the board-marking on Lasdun's concrete, while the entire thing is lined with acoustically insulating cassettes and naturally ventilated by the chimney stacks: "It's not just a tent," says Dillon. The building occupies the sunken terrace known as Theatre Square, in front of the National's coffee bar, and cleverly stitches itself into the existing structure. A new polycarbonate screen encloses part of the terrace, forming a temporary foyer for the Shed, which is fitted out internally with rough-and-ready plywood furniture and eclectic finds from the prop store.

Inside, the 250-seat theatre is more than a simple black box, with a formal octagonal seating setup (using seats recycled from the Cottesloe) and the raw steel frame left exposed, subtle blooms of rust adding a warm tinge. Basic scaffolding balustrades and cord netting, simple bulkhead lamps and festooned builder's lights add to the provisional construction-site aesthetic – in line with the more experimental productions the space will be hosting.

Haworth Tompkins is a practice well-versed in the ways of the stage, having magically reworked the Royal Court and Young Vic, as well as building two temporary theatres for the Almeida and being involved in an ongoing programme of tweaks to the Battersea Arts Centre. Like its work at the BAC, the Shed is the result of their increasing desire to operate more like theatres do themselves.

"There is a huge gulf between the weighty, ponderous way that buildings are made and the way the theatre works," says Dillon. "We're trying to learn from the quicker, more agile manner in which the National puts on its shows. The Shed was developed more as an event than a building."

The project came out of the practice's long-term £70m NT Future masterplan, which includes a new production building, remodelled workshops and extensive interior restoration, as well as a bid to improve the theatre's relationship with the riverfront. But while the Shed is essentially a byproduct of permanent works, it points to an alternative model for how the South Bank's unwieldy structures can be adapted with light-footed architecture. Unlike the proposed plans for the Southbank Centre next door – which will likely see great glass boxes strapped to the roof and the side of the complex, and the entire undercroft packed with shops and restaurants – the Shed transforms part of this rambling concrete landscape without being fixed in time. It is a model of nimble intervention that its neighbours would do well to learn from.

Categories: News Blogs

How to cut the cost of your gig tickets - video

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 2:30am

How can you buy tickets for sold-out concerts? Which websites give you the best deals? Rupert Jones share his tips for the money-conscious concert-goer

Rupert Jones Ekaterina Ochagavia Alex Healey Michael Tait

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Turkey's historic Emek theatre facing final curtain

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 1:00pm

Campaigners stage protest at plans to demolish historic venue to make way for a shopping and entertainment complex

It is Turkey's oldest and most prestigious cinema, an Istanbul landmark that dates back to the early days of Atatürk's rule – and a centrepiece until recently of the city's international film festival.

So plans to demolish the Emek theatre and turn the space into an entertainment and shopping venue have generated widespread disapproval – not least at the recent film festival, at which film directors, critics and residents came together in a passionate protest against the building project.

In 1924, the theatre opened its doors as part of the Cercle d'Orient complex, a listed art deco building designed in 1884 by Levantine architect Alexandre Vallaury. Despite massive public protest the building was leased to a private developer who plans to turn it into an entertainment and shopping complex. Demolition work started last week.

After a lengthy legal battle a local court approved the developer's plans last December. The company announced plans to move the theatre to the fourth floor of the new building, but critics fear the Emek theatre will effectively be destroyed.

Azize Tan, director of the Istanbul film festival, thinks the demolition of the Emek theatre is a tragic mistake. "The theatre is a symbol for Turkish cinema that we need to protect," she said. She said its closure in 2010 had had a negative impact on the festival. "Every big film festival has its flagship venue. The Emek theatre was ours for 28 years, and there is nothing to replace it with," she said.

The closure of the cinema, which seats 875, also meant a substantial loss of capacity for the festival's organisers. Since 1958, the cinema has been publicly owned and has provided the backdrop for small, courageous revolts: the first big public 1 May celebrations after the military coup of 1980 took place there, it housed leftwing concerts and did not shy away from screening Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ while religious groups protested outside.

"People in Istanbul have a very strong bond with the Emek theatre," said Nil Kural, a journalist and member of the FIPRESCI jury of critics.

"We all discovered our love for films and cinema here."

Many agree. Turkish film-maker Yüksel Aksu said the theatre had been the sole place of his cinematographic education. Addressing the Turkish government, he shouted: "If you cannot conserve this place, you will not call yourself a conservative. You will call yourself barbarian."

The Emek theatre protests are a symbol for the right to decide over the fate of the city whose cultural and historical heritage is increasingly at stake. Many are critical of the unchecked urban development that is rapidly remaking Istanbul, and of ever-larger projects being forced on its residents without any public debate.

Only last week, the government approved a plan widely known as the "crazy project" to dig a canal parallel to the Bosphorus Straits. Meanwhile, whole historical neighbourhoods are being demolished to make room for profitable real estate ventures.

Last Sunday a peaceful demonstration against the demolition of the Emek theatre was dispersed with water cannons and teargas. Greek film director Costa-Gavras, who was among last week's protesters, appealed in a letter to the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to save the theatre. "A prominent theatre, a cultural centre must not be destroyed. It's like erasing a part of our memory and removing a significant place for the future. Therefore it would be a political, social and artistic failure," he wrote.

Tan criticised the apparent lack of transparency. "Both the government and the developers refuse to reveal the entirety of the project. Nobody talks to us," she said.

Nil Kural believes the discussion should not be based on profitability. "The Emek theatre is part of Istanbul's cultural heritage and it should be preserved as such. Why should it have to be profitable? It needs to be supported. Would you close down a museum and turn it into a shopping centre if it doesn't generate enough profit?" she said. She said she was still hopeful the theatre could be saved. "If the government intervenes now, we will be able to get our beloved Emek cinema back."

Categories: News Blogs

Ringling Bros circus elephant recuperates from Mississippi shooting

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 10:59am

Trainer Catherine Carden says her elephant is expected to make a full recovery as circuses offer $34,000 reward for information

Carol the elephant has packed her trunk and temporarily said goodbye to the circus after being shot at a show in Mississippi, prompting a $34,000 reward for information leading to the capture of her assailant.

The Asian elephant was touring with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Tupelo, when she was shot near the shoulder while relaxing in her enclosure. A suspect was witnessed fleeing the scene, and multiple agencies have contributed money in a bid to track him or her down.

Carol, 39, has withdrawn from the circus while she recuperates and is expected to make a full recovery, her trainer and owner Catherine Carden said. Carden was 45ft away from the elephant, in a motorhome with her children, when she heard the gunshot.

"It was like a bomb went off. I've never heard gunfire so loud. It was a huge boom, one resounding boom," she told the Guardian.

"It was surreal, I just couldn't believe it," Carden said of the moment she realised Carol had been wounded. "I saw a hole in my elephant, and a trickle of blood running down her leg, and she was just standing there like nothing had happened."

Carden's mother had raised Carol from calf to cow, and Carden said she remembered growing up alongside the elephant. She praised Carol for remaining calm after the attack.

"She was the only one it seems who hasn't been affected by this. She's healing up just fine."

The bullet struck Carol just in front of the shoulder blade and struck muscle, fragmenting into 5 or 6 pieces. A vet has tended to the wound but was reluctant to attempt to remove the shrapnel. Carden said the hope is that the bullet pieces will work their way free similar to a splinter departing an afflicted finger.

"It's in a really great spot," Carden said. "I mean, if your elephant is going to get shot that's the perfect place. Anywhere else, within 12 inches in a different direction, could have been fatal or lamed her for life."

In the wake of the shooting a number of agencies have posted rewards in a bid to capture Carol's attacker, the amount rising to $33,750 over the weekend. Feld Entertainment, which produces the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus where Carol was performing, posted $10,000, as did George Carden Circus International – the Carden family business.

The US Fish and Wildlife service posted a $5,000 reward and has appealed for information. Tom Mackenzie, a south-east region spokesman for the agency, said it was rare but not entirely uncommon for the agency to post rewards. It had posted similar amounts for information regarding attacks on bald eagles and whooping cranes, Mackenzie said.

The Asian elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and there are believed to be fewer than 50,000 left in the wild.

Carol has entertained crowds across the US during her career, but Carden said the elephant had no known enemies. Although two other elephants in the enclosure escaped unharmed, Carden ruled out the possibility of the gunman having a grudge against Carol specifically.

"She was on the end, she was closest to the road. I just think he had the best shot. She was blocking the other two, I think she just happened to be in front," she said. "I think it was just someone who decided: 'Oh let's see what happens if you shoot an elephant'."

While Carol and her owners wait for news on the gunman, Carden said she had been touched by the messages of sympathy and expressions of hope for a speedy recovery.

"People are sending cards and well wishes from all over the country and the world," she said. "That is amazing. Everybody's just been super supportive and really awesome. It's just been really amazing all the outpouring of love that she got and support."

Categories: News Blogs

Bianco – review

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 10:13am

Roundhouse, London

Ariele Ebacher trips along the tightwire in a red sundress and dark glasses, showing an insouciant disregard for the drop beneath. Soon she is discarding the hat and blonde wig, in a strip that is less of a tease, more of a statement about the need to relinquish all that is inessential in life. It is an ongoing theme in this promenade show, created by the fine Cardiff-based circus NoFit State, in which the performers constantly rid themselves of constricting clothes, trains and frills so they can fly higher and harder. They swoop like human swallows on straps, cloud swing and trapeze.

Given this theme, it is a pity the show constricts itself with a design of four scaffolding towers, which are cumbersome to manoeuvre and slow the action. The interval is unnecessary, too. The show is at its exhilarating best when it is simplest: namely, an exquisitely understated juggling act so fluid that the balls seem like an extension of the juggler's limbs, possibly even a manifestation of his thoughts. The interlude seems as much metaphysical as physical.

There is no doubt about the physical effort and breathtaking grace with which the muscled August Dakteris takes to the air, and director Firenza Guidi frames things well so that wow factor and emotion combine in a stirring, unsettling, fiery conclusion, which has the emotive power of an ancient rite. Sage Bachtler Cushman's dance-trapeze finale has similar impact, combining first-rate skills with a joyful, unashamed pleasure in theatrical tricks as she becomes enveloped in a blizzard of snow.

There is plenty more to enjoy here, although the new-age message ("In the end, we always arrive where we were expected," intones the voiceover) is somewhat wearisome. Clearly, NoFit State is not travelling the country using the rail network as I do. And it is equally daft to get the performers to speak, but then fail to ensure the audience can hear what they say.

Although the show has its frustrations, it has genuine pleasures, too, the kind of quirky playfulness you associate with this company – aerial lampshade is a new discipline to me – and impressive levels of skill. Close your ears to the voiceover (although not the band) and marvel. As the performers soar over our heads, we remain earthbound.

Rating: 3/5

Circus

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On Approval – review

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 10:13am

Jermyn Street, London

I suspect this 1927 comedy by Frederick Lonsdale had its influence on Noël Coward's Private Lives: the clipped dialogue, the dance for two couples and the tiptoeing exit at the denouement are all remarkably similar. But, although this revival by Anthony Biggs is perfectly amiable, it reminds one that Coward was infinitely more perceptive than Lonsdale in his ability to explore the love-hate element inherent in intimate relationships.

Lonsdale sets up the situation quite neatly. The tart-tongued Maria Wislake decides to see whether her spaniel-like admirer, Richard, is suitable husband material by taking him to her Scottish country house for a month. Helen, a young heiress, similarly decides to road-test George, an impoverished duke, on whom she has cast her eye. Confined to rural Scotland, Richard and Helen are rudely awakened to the fact that their likely life partners are, respectively, a bully and a bore. Since those qualities are evident from the first, though, I felt they could all have saved themselves a long journey. Lonsdale's play also ends just when it is about to become seriously interesting with the rejected pair marooned in a snowdrift.

Lonsdale did have a gift for snappy dialogue: at one point a character points out that "a dinner party lasts two hours; marriage has been known to last two years". But his verbal adroitness is not enough to make up for his lack of psychological penetration.

In the end everything depends on the playing, and here there is one genuinely funny performance from Sara Crowe as the rebarbative Maria who persuades you, when she tells the duke that her one desire is to push his nose in rice pudding, that she means business. Peter Sandys-Clarke also does his bit as the self-regarding aristo. However, although it is fascinating to see small theatres exploring between-the-wars commercial hits, this one feels past its sell-by date.

Rating: 2/5

Theatre

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