East End Review

Tag: Megan Carnegie Brown

  • London Film Festival – a focus on East London

    72-82
    Ten years of supporting artists: documentary 72-82 about arts organisation ACME

    London’s expansive and diverse cultural landscape has been inspiring filmmakers for decades. The programme of the 58th London Film Festival is no exception, with its twelve-day programme featuring more than ninety UK productions, several of which take place in the East End.

    Snow in Paradise is centred on the real life experiences of co-writer and co-star Martin Askew, a white, working class Hoxton boy who turned his back on his gangland roots to convert to Islam in 2001.

    Following a drug deal gone wrong, the central character, played by Frederick Schmidt, is forced to deal with the consequences amidst the changing landscape of the East End’s underground culture. A directorial debut for accomplished editor Andrew Hulme, it was nominated for two awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

    Hulme explains his desire to depict “a guy who embraces what is, in the Western World, quite a castigated religion. I felt that Islam is misportrayed in the media. People are really bored with seeing Muslims as terrorists. We wanted to be a little bit more complex and portray a different side.”

    William Raban, one of Britain’s leading experimental filmmakers, returns with 72-82, an hour-long feature documenting the first decade of the arts organisation ACME. Working exclusively with archive material from ACME, it shows the crucial impact the organisation had in supporting and providing housing for many London artists, including Richard Deacon and Helen Chadwick.

    In addition to music from David Cunningham, the archive footage is brought to life by voices of the artists involved. The director will be taking part in a post-screening Q&A at the BFI Southbank on 13 October at 9pm.

    Cinemas in Hackney will be taking part in the festival, including the Hackney Picturehouse, Rich Mix and the Rio cinema. For the full programme and to book tickets see below.

    BFI London Film Festival
    Until 19 October
    www.whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online

  • Oxjam to ‘take over’ Dalston and Shoreditch this month

    My Panda Shall Fly
    My Panda Shall Fly

    The Oxjam festival will be returning this month to Dalston and Shoreditch with a programme of established as well as up-and-coming artists who are set to perform in some of East London’s favourite venues.

    The Oxjam Dalston Takeover is to be held on the weekend of 11–12 October, with forty artists participating across six venues.

    Birthdays, Dalston Roof Park, Total Refreshment Centre, Shacklewell Arms, Power Lunches and The Nest are all involved, with headlining acts such as Landshapes, My Panda Shall Fly and We Have Band (DJ Set). Later on, Jane Fitz will be taking revellers into the early hours at Total Refreshment Centre with a selection of underground house.

    Meanwhile Oxjam Shoreditch Takeover will be hosting its annual party on Sunday 19 October. Shutterbug off Rivington Street will be hosting Shoreditch’s only open house party, hosted by electronic music maestros DJ Tayo and Ben Gomori.

    With its recording studios having accommodated the likes of Radiohead, Strongroom Bar is a good fit for new and established guitar-based talent, headlined by new-wave pop rockers The Fuse. One of the quirkiest venues taking part is Paper Dress Vintage on Curtain Road, where singer-songwriter XSARA will be playing a set tinged with jazz and blues influences. Joining her will be rising star Josh Savage.

    Great Eastern Street’s The Old Blue Last will be presenting an array of musical talent including Brighton group The Arts Club, former Basement Jaxx vocalist’s outfit Them and Us, poetic political commentary from Kieran Leonard and the punk rock outfit Katalina Kicks.

    For a dose of hip-hop, rap and R&B, Bedroom Bar on Rivington Street is the place, with a line-up of Vaitea, Tinyman and Alim Kamara, while Trapeze on Great Eastern Street will play host to an ambient, acid house and deep house extravaganza.

    Tickets for both the Dalston and Shoreditch Oxjam Takeover can be bought online at WeGotTickets, Resident Advisor or the Oxjam website, with all proceeds from wristband and ticket sales going to Oxfam.

    Oxjam Dalston Takeover
    11-12 October
    www.oxjamdalston.co.uk

    Oxjam Shoreditch Takeover
    19 October
    www.oxjamshoreditch.tumblr.com

  • Ghost from a Perfect Place – review: ‘Just the right level of dystopian horror’

    in Philip Ridley's Ghost from a Perfect Place
    Scarlett Brookes, Florence Hall and Rachel Redford star in Philip Ridley’s Ghost from a Perfect Place

    Ghost from a Perfect Place is a play that transcends the era in which it was written, swirling images from the past with forewarnings for the future.

    Controversial when first staged in 1994 (the Guardian’s Michael Billington famously slated it as “pornographic”), the Arcola’s gutsy twentieth anniversary production is by no means a walk in the park.

    Playwright Philip Ridley draws us instantly into the East End’s insalubrious past, when former gangster Travis Flood arrives on the doorstep of grandmother Torchie Sparkes. “Don’t you know who I am?” he cries, his silk suit and white lily at odds with the flaking flat.

    Over tea and biscuits, Torchie, played daintily by Benidorm’s Sheila Reid, entertains Travis with stories of her tumultuous past, lacing them with nostalgic snippets from back in her heyday. The entrance of her bombshell granddaughter Rio cranks up the pace as we are thrown into the inner workings of her girl gang, The Disciples.

    Somewhere between The Bangles and Macbeth’s Witches, the gold-lamé clad trio make for fascinating viewing. Rachel Redford plays one of Rio’s loyal followers, Miss Kerosene, like a woman possessed, searing with energy and anger.

    Much of the second half hinges on the power struggle between Travis and the girls, who fashion a world devoid of men in order to survive. Michael Feast is every bit the suave old-school mobster in his rendering of Flood, with an uncanny likeness to Michael Caine.

    Out of his depth he may be, but Travis is guarding a secret toxic enough to topple Rio from her lofty throne. Layered between Ridley’s lyrical, effervescent prose, it is the bearing of this fact gives the play its enduring significance.

    Director Russell Bolam injects Ghost from a Perfect Place with just the right level of dystopian horror and fashions the most violent scenes to leave a formidable visual imprint on the mind of the audience. However it is Ridley’s script that deserves the most applause.

    The master storyteller uses each character to conjure fantastical images of lives lived and dreams dreamt, as if the stage were filled with far more than just five characters.

    Ghost from a Perfect Place is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin St, E8 3DL until 11 October