Society Wars

This week on CW, we feature Society Wars [PDF], a new collection of essays from the Institute of Ideas’ Social Policy Forum. Big society, broken society, sick society, stuck society? Who gets to say how we should behave when it comes to what we smoke, drink and eat? Politicians, nudgers, doctors? Should volunteering for the greater good be compulsory? Is living life dependent on welfare actually making people morally and physically sick? Should our schools become ‘engines of social mobility’ or are they ill-equipped to tackle ingrained social inequalities? We will explore further questions along these lines between now and the Battle of Ideas in the autumn.

Meanwhile, Patrick West reviews Dominic Streatfeild’s History of the World since 9/11. And in London theatre, Miriam Gillinson reviews Simon Stephens’ controversial play Three Kingdoms at the Lyric.

19 May 2012

A surplus of subjectivity and conviction

A History of the World Since 9/11, by Dominic Streatfeild (Atlantic Books, 2011)

After the invasion, once it was shown there were only weapons of prosaic destruction ‘the administration decided it was best to assume they had never been there’. The compound where the conventional weapons were stored, in Yusifiyah, near Baghdad, was by-passed by the Americans, and then comprehensively looted by insurgents. One source in the book estimates that of the violence following the invasion, 90 per cent was facilitated by this looting.

One tiny movement

Hitch, Camden People's Theatre, London

‘This is me,’ he says as he stands, stiff and frightened, at the side of the stage. At the beginning, he crouches whilst he talks. As he grows up – this is coming of age story at heart – he stands upright and speaks strongly.

Money’s impossible grip

Crunch, Camden People's Theatre, London

McNair kicks of with an impressively lucid narrative on the history of money and the emergence of currency. With a few deft strokes, McNair describes the transition from stone age transactions (‘Who wants this ‘ere carcass?’), to the first discovery of gold and the eventual adoption of paper money.

Erotic tandems

Snow White, Sadler's Wells, London

By excavating the sexual, the uncanny and the confrontational in the fairytale through a visually spectacular and dense aesthetic, Preljocaj creates a landscape of noir romanticism, albeit one that is humorously self-conscious, toying with the dense, excessive romanticism of Mahler’s symphonies that accompany the piece.

Their own beautiful mess

Three Kingdoms, Lyric Theatre, London

Don’t look at the front of the stage, they seem to be screaming silently. Don’t look for the obvious. Maybe, just maybe, if you look beyond the surface, you might get a little closer to understanding us and discovering the truth.

‘Dialogue is the objective of dialogue.’

Chinese writers and controversy at the London Book Fair

If the exclusion of authors disliked by the Chinese government was a necessary condition for the British Council’s programme to go ahead, so be it. Whether it in fact was necessary is a separate discussion to have; what matters is that some established writers visited from China to exchange ideas about new literary genres, globalisation and e-publishing, and to search for commercial opportunities.

More bewildered than bedazzled

Make Better Please, BAC, London

The actor’s painful catharsis feels too much, though, and a gap opens between the audience and the action. This gap widens, as the warped music envelops us and the actors crack up completely, storming around with strange props, including a massive penis, attached to their flailing bodies.

A foghorn of despair

'Richard III, Globe Theatre, London

Mandarin is quite a hard-hitting language – packed with monosyllabic words – and the cast’s delivery sounds a little monotonous. It’s hard to make out those elegant swoops, dips and swerves in Shakespeare’s text.

Wispy and blank

The Chair Plays, Lyric Theatre, London

It all feels frustratingly and wilfully dry. Bond’s desire to write a highly stylised and starkly symbolic piece has ripped the guts out of his writing. ‘The Under Room’ never throbs with the kind of thick danger that wraps its way around his other, better and meatier plays.

From knock-kneed sweetness to knees-up knockabout

Chalet Lines, Bush Theatre, London

Lee Mattinson’s characters and events are larger than life. Its gags are slick and its sentiment is unabashed. Characters often voice the themes of the play. All this smacks of a writer siding for flair and entertainment over truthfulness. That’s fine; there are good plays like that. But they can’t make nuanced, near-contradictory sociological points.

An attic full of life’s flotsam

Autobiographer, Toynbee Studios, London

Melanie Wilson makes theatre as spa-treatment. Her work seeps through you, washes over you and leaves you refreshed. You exist alongside it, surfing moment by moment, completely outside out of everyday time. Autobiographer is experienced entirely in the present, just as the Floras (and the rest of us) live life.

The thumping excitement only theatre can muster

Misterman, National Theatre (Lyttleton), London

Rain pours from the ceiling. Odd little crucifixes flash up, initially comforting but quickly threatening. Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes and music, outside of Magill’s control, envelops everything. The effects grow bigger, madder and wilder, as Magill loses his grip on his story and his sanity.

Dead inside and deeply frustrated

Long Day's Journey Into Night, Apollo Theatre, London

Many reviews of this show have included the slippy caveat: ‘This is not an easy viewing experience’. This phrase is often slipped in as an afterthought, following a careful exploration of all the cerebral pleasures, to be mined from said misery fest. And yet, what this phrase really means is: most of the audience will not enjoy this.

The ultimate take on pop culture

Polyphonia/Sweet Violets/Carbon Life, Royal Opera House, London

McGregor’s pieces are known for overpowering the audience but, if the works he created so far for the Royal Ballet were oozing with energy, ‘Carbon Life’ bursts with it.

Permanent psychological damage

Big and Small (Gross and Klein), Barbican, London

Cate Blanchett is an incredible force on stage and the production would be so much less without her. She manages to make her character, Lotte (wearing pastel pink, Alice in Wonderland-themed costumes), both bafflingly innocent and wearingly knowing.