Review: control

Drugs and drink didn’t kill Ian Curtis. It was guilt. That is the implication from Anton Corbijn’s new film about the Joy Division front man.

For Curtis, born in Maccasfield in the late 50s, Joy Division was a tool to express his loneliness and depression, allowing him to pursue his fascination with self-abrogation in the most dramatic of ways when he committed suicide at the height of his, and the band’s fame in 1980.

For people who have never heard of Joy Division, simply by listening to Curtis’ dark, broody and isolationist lyrics in Love Will Tear Us Apart – the most famous song in the band’s two album repertoire – will explain the man’s cult following for generations of lost romantics.

Control is a depressingly grave biopic of Curtis. It is a cheerless arresting 2 hours, portraying a troubled genius, whose deep baritone voice reverberates in the film’s ample performance scenes and which underscores the feeling of impeding tragedy from the very start.

For Joy Division fans, Sam Riley (24 Hour Party People) as Ian Curtis won’t be up to the job, but the superb performance of Samantha Morton (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) as his homely and naïve wife, Deborah, will go some way to make up for the disappointment.

In Deborah Curtis’ book, Touching From A Distance written before the film came out, she hints the singer always harboured desires to commit suicide. And this is skilfully evident with Matt Greenhalgh's screenplay which occasionally inter-splices images of the couple’s drying rack - the eventual modus operandi of his death.

Despite the film’s annihilist nature, there are points of humour, injecting relief; particularly when the charismatic Manchester impresario Tony Wilson signs a contract with Joy Division in his own blood. This amusing nod to history, backed by the scene of the Sex Pistols’ legendary gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, will go down well with die-hard fans.

Control is Corbijn’s first feature film, and its stylish finish is clearly due in part to his background directing music videos for U2, Nirvana and alike, as well as his work as an acclaimed black and white photographer of musicians which has spaned three decades.

In Control’s case filming in black and white was perhaps the obvious choice for Corbijn, considering the sad nature of the movie. But at times colour, particularly with the rare landscapes, or for a flavour of Deborah’s floral dresses would have been appreciated.

The film, possibly overly sympathetic to Curtis, avoids pandering too much however, and is a gripping interpretation of his sorry and romantic life. One that will be watched by Joy Division’s fans and new-comers alike; who will all tap their fingers lachrymosely to its fantastic score, from start to finish.

UK: MP's facebook closed down

Steve Webb, Lib Dem MP, had his facebook account closed because the social networking site thought it was a fraud.

His profile with 2500 friends was deemed a fake and only reinstated after he contacted the host and a group - Steve Webb is real - was set up.

Read Odds and Sods
Steve Webb’s website

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US: States reject - safe-sex is no sex

Sex education relying on preaching the virtues of abstinence is being shunned by states, amid growing realisation that it doesn’t work.

The news from the Washington Post proves the US isn’t falling headlong into Christian fundamentalism quite as quickly as sections of the Euro press would have us believe.

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Review: Cloud Nine

Watching Cloud Nine I was reminded about what Noam Chomsky said about nonsense, he called it “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”.

By using this set of incomprehensible words, the great linguist was trying to show how language can be grammatically correct but meaningless.

Nonsense, is in fact, an established genre of writing. It deliberately fuses order and chaos to present a confusing world that is humorous precisely because it appears to make no sense. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a prime example, as is Dr Seuss and countless other pieces of children’s literature.

Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine certainly isn’t for children but it is nonsense all the same. The play’s two acts are set in Victorian colonial Africa and 1970s London, between the two periods the actors change roles but the characters remain the same, having aged little over the intervening 100 years.

In act 1, men play women, women play boys and white men play black men. It is a deliberate attempt by Churchill to highlight the constraints of Victorian society through confusion. The result is undeniably funny, but disturbing, especially when the play points a comical finger at the issue of paedophilia.

Churchill has been writing plays since the 1950s but it was Cloud Nine, first performed in 1979 that really established her. She has since gone on to write numerous radio and television plays for the BBC and is now considered one of Britain’s foremost dramatists.

The Almedia’s adaptation of Cloud Nine is well acted, particularly James Fleet (Four Weddings and a Funeral) who plays Clive, a colonial old boy in act 1, and Cathy, a 5-year-old girl in act 2. Joanna Scanlan (Girl with a Pearl Earring) is also as Clive’s mother in law, and then in the later act, his daughter.

As the play canters into act 2 it becomes less confusing and more approachable, adopting a rhythm that eases the audience out of mysterious colonial Africa into the recognisable settings of a London park. This is in part testament to the director, Thea Sharrock - returning from her much applauded direction of Peter Shaffer’s Equus at the Gielgud Theatre. Throughout, she keeps the dialogue tight and the scenes seamless; getting the best out of the difficult cross gender roles that work well in making us question our assumptions on relationships and sex. Even the issue of colonialisation, sitting uneasily among the other themes is provokingly explored.

Good acting, directing and script, why then was Cloud Nine such a let down? Perhaps the set, which is basic, could have been better put together. Or the play itself could have spent more time bedding in the context. Or simply, because it is nonsense.

Cloud Nine, Almeida Theatre, until 8 December.