Do This Or Regret It: My Weekly Dose Of Capital Culture
Thursday again, time for another dose of Capital Culture. Open wide!
ART: Live Weekends: Shunt, ICA ,23 – 27 February (FREE)
Another live weekend at the ICA - this week curated by the inimitable Shunt collective and breathing out to fill a full 5 days. Expect live art, performance, music, films, installation, workshops, theatre and parties. Expect tattoo parlours, pheasants and sewing machine races to passionate love bullets. Expect sonic shivers, vibrant ruffles and suffocating skittish shadows. Expect the unexpected – essentially what you’ve come to expect from the master curators of mischief.
MUSIC: Gold Panda, XOYO, Tuesday 1st March, 8pm
I first came across Gold Panda via Health – specifically his glorious remix of Before Tigers. Look it up – it’s a seriously lovely way to spend five and a half hazy minutes. It’s the type of track the induces intense nostalgia, for memories you’re not sure you ever took part in the creation of (I’m pretty sure I’ve never witnessed disco-horses galloping underwater). His debut album, Lucky Shiner, is equally soaked in splendour. A good friend scathingly reported that it was “great if you liked young men mumbling lullabies over lo-fi samples made in their childhood bedroom”. That’s exactly what I like. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
FILM: True Grit, On General Release
True Grit follows an unlikely trio – a preening Texas ranger, a mumbling US Marshall and a determined 14 year old girl – on a cross-country man-hunt for a murderer. In true Coen Brothers’ style it’s irreverently violent, lyrically entertaining and incredibly well executed. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Jeff Bridges on top whiskey-swilling-grumbler form. The pearls-and-twin-set -pair next to me were less impressed, announcing that Bridges should work on his elocution. Although I can appreciate their frustration, I’m not sure enunciation was a top priority for wayward wild-west assassinators.
THEATRE: Frankenstein, National Theatre till 2nd May
Another of my theatrical highlights of the year has arrived. Written by Nick Dear, directed by Danny Boyle and with music provided by Underworld – this promises to be a suitably spectacular interpretation of Shelly’s gothic classic. Interestingly, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller will alternate the roles of Viktor Frankenstein and The Creator – although (interestingly) The National are declining to share who will play who throughout the previews or on press night. With Boyle at the helm – and a 15 certificate – this may well be a noisy, beat driven blood bath. But I would not necessarily class that as a negative thing. Particularly if Benedict Cumberbatch is involved.
WILDCARD: Lucha Britannia, The Resistance Gallery, Friday 25th February, 9pm
The Resistance Gallery is an arts and performance space that specialises in the subversive. Under the banner of ‘Resistance Rising’ their curators bellow a sub-cultural call to arms. With Lucha Britannia however, the Resistance Gallery have surpassed themselves. Their previous programme of anarchic art looks frankly pedestrian in comparison. A heady mix of hardcore Mexican wrestling, cabaret siniestro, comedy and neo-burlesque – Lucha Britannia looks unmissable. Smother yourself in deep heat and enter the ring: resistance is futile.
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