Let's Talk About...

And how to do it right on television.

The spark for this discussion was finally getting around to watching (most of) the first season of a recent, highly acclaimed drama series upon repeated recommendation by a number of friends.

Friends, I'm afraid I was disappointed.

That's not to say there was nothing good about the show: there was plenty to like, and I do think that I now understand its huge popularity (though I'm still at a loss to explain why so many people have bothered to read the dreadful books on which it's based). Unfortunately, the bad parts were so overwhelmingly bad that they got in the way of any enjoyment I might have derived from the show, and ruined it enough so that I decided I couldn't really be bothered to give up my time to anything more than the first season.

There was a lot that annoyed me about the series as a whole: it's very clear to me that it suffers from being made in separate chunks, made in different places and directed by different people, leaving some strands of the show brilliant, and others pretty abysmal. But what I think got on my nerves most of all was its semi-pornographic nature. Now, I'd like to think that I'm not a prude - if anything, I generally think we need to be more open and honest about a lot of things. But, like everything in film and television, sex scenes really do need to justify their existence. If they don't serve an important plot function or help to explain a particular character, then they shouldn't be there. We don't really need to know what every single character gets up to in the bedroom, any more than we need to know about their toilet habits, or what they eat for breakfast every morning. If you need to be explicit to make a point, I have absolutely no problem with that. I do have a problem with including sex and pornography for its own sake. I think it too easily becomes degrading and objectifying. In this particular case, the sex scenes were pure titillation - preposterous scenarios designed to satisfy the fantasies of extremely immature (mostly male) minds. In case you haven't guessed it yet, I'm talking about Game of Thrones.

What got me particularly interested in this subject, however, wasn't just how badly it's done in GoT, but the contrast between this and another of what Emily Nussbaum here describes as "sophisticated cable drama[s] about a patriarchal subculture", which according to her has become "television's most esteemed category" of programme. Yet despite the similarities which Nussbaum points out, Game of Thrones has a very different attitude to sex to at least one of its bedfellows (bad pun intended). The other series I've been catching up on lately is a period drama set in the build-up to the sexual revolution, and taking sexual politics as its main theme. In terms of subject matter, this is a series which features a hell of a lot of sex, maybe more than anything I've ever watched before. Arguably, the whole show is about sex, and it comes in all shapes and sizes: between married couples, extra-marital affairs, sex between singles, straight, gay, lesbian, sex as part of happy, equal relationships, sex as a power-trip, sado-masochism, prostitution, voyeurism, male and female masturbation, rape, sex for emotional, social and business manipulation, sex at work, at home, in hotels, in cars, in public, and even some very vague hints at paedophilia. But in this case, what we see is only what we think we see. The series seems to truthfully reflect its 60s setting by not shoving all this in our faces: everybody knows what's going on, yet everyone turns a blind eye to it. As a result, the most explicit thing in five seasons so far is a shot of Roger Stirling's backside as he stands naked at his bedroom window in the middle of an acid trip. Yep, you got it. This one's Mad Men.

At it's best, Game of Thrones is every bit as exciting, politically-charged and non-gender-biased as Man Men. As far as I can tell, everyone's favourite characters - without exception - are the Stark family and Tyrion Lannister. By quite a long way, the most interesting plot strand is that concerned with the interaction between the Starks, the Lannisters, and King Robert Barratheon. These sections of the series have the feel and pace of a Shakespearean history play: Ned Stark and his sons distinctly remind one of Harry Hotspur and the rebellious borderland Percys. In fact, the series was almost certainly a major source of inspiration for the BBC's recent Hollow Crown film trilogy. Eddard Stark is probably Sean Bean's best ever performance; Robb, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow are also well-written and well-acted. Being me, of course, one of the things I like most about this plot strand is the strength of its female characters. Fantastic performances are given by Michelle Fairley as Catelyn, Ned's wife, and Maisie Williams as Arya, their tomboyish daughter. Even Queen Cersei (a Lannister, not a Stark), isn't bad. I found her character just a little bit one-dimensional: it's easy to see why she's as cold and cruel as she is (an unloving, drunken husband, and an uncaring, aggressive and honour-obsessed father are both major contributing factors), so we do have some pity for her, but I think she is still a little too easy to hate - she doesn't seem to have any "good" side to her to balance out the negatives, which could easily have been achieved, for example, by making her care more about her own children than she apparently does. Nevertheless, she's a lot more interesting than her brother/lover Jaime, who is like a doubly vacant version of Shrek 2's Prince Charming, without any of the comedy value.

Elsewhere, however, it all falls to pieces. The Targaryen siblings are both pretty awful. Harry Lloyd gives a consistently poor performance, and having seen him do a fine job in other things, I can only assume that this is because of the uninteresting and unchanging nature of his character, Viserys. For his sister Daenerys, at least, there is an attempt at some kind of a story arc, but it's an incredibly unsatisfying and unconvincing one, and Emilia Clarke's performance is only a little better than Lloyd's. Both of these characters feature in some of the stupidest sex scenes - in fact, some of the stupidest scenes full stop - in the whole series: what can sadly only be described as sexual fantasy episodes for little boys who know nothing about the real thing.

The first of these occurs between Daenerys and the slave/prostitute Doreah, bought by Viserys to teach his sister how to please her husband in bed. Yeah, it's actually that bad. The scene takes the form of one of Doreah's sex "lessons" and, while nothing is shown explicitly, it ends with Daenerys getting altogether rather to into it. So, not only do we have the sexual trafficking of women and the idea that it's a wife's job to get things right for her husband going completely unaddressed (to be clear, I'm not suggesting that they should have introduced a load of anachronistic feminism, but it might have been interesting, you know, to have a realistic portrayal of how the women felt about this, rather than ending up with Daenerys apparently quite happy with her lot and in love with her brutish husband), but we also get the additional treat of classic fake lesbian titillation. Great.

The second involves the same slave/prostitute, this time engaging in "real" sex with Viserys himself, who now reveals the real reason that he bought her - for his own pleasure, of course. At least this time we're clearly supposed to dislike Viserys, and Doreah shows that she actually has a personality and some interests - she wants to learn about history and dragons - but this scene ends in an unbelievably absurd exchange: as he "has his way" with her, Viserys recites the full names of all of the species of dragon that ever existed (now supposed to all be extinct, but judging by several lingering close-ups of what look like dragon eggs, quite obviously not), and she actually seems to get off on this. Of course, by now we know something about her taught artifice and how she seeks to please, so this might even be slightly plausible if it had been him that wanted to witter on about dragons whilst having sex. But it's not. It's Doreah that brings up the subject, and Doreah who wants to know all about it while Viserys, on the other hand gets bored and frustrated by it. He's not really interested in talking. So yes, I guess we're supposed to believe that she's genuinely enjoying that. Mmmkay....

And it gets worse. The little moment between Doreah and Daenerys isn't the only fakey lesbian sex scene in the series. In fact, the next one's even more explicit. Another of the worst performances in Game of Thrones comes from Aidan Gillen as Petyr Baelish. Again, a surprise, since he's been brilliant in other things (notably Russell T. Davies's groundbreaking Queer as Folk - incidentally a series which is very explicit and still good). Maybe it's an accent issue? In any case, Petyr owns the brothel where this second scene takes place, which again takes the form of a "lesson" (I mean, seriously? People will buy this stuff more than once?), this time taught by Petyr himself. Instead of being involved in the action himself, Petyr passively observes as two of his whores pretend to pleasure each other. Instead of getting fed up with this, however, much like Daenerys, they seem eventually to come not only to enjoy each other, but also to enjoy him watching them - at least, that's what I took away from Ros's invitation to him to come and join them. Somewhat ironically, he declines. Apparently he's above such base desires.

Game of Thrones fans and creators justify all this by calling it "sexposition", defining this as a way of explaining characters' motives against a background which will supposedly hold the viewers' attention better. Wikipedia describes it as "a live-action equivalent to fan service", a manga/anime practice of giving the fans exactly what they want. Basically then, as I understand it, the whole thing is about a) a lack of confidence in the plot to be engaging in its own right, or b) patronising the viewers by assuming that they can't cope with any complex intrigue without having something less intellectual to keep them watching, assuming that they will switch off if their every desire isn't gratified. And I think they might actually even be kidding themselves that this is an original idea. It's like the TV equivalent of buying Playboy "for the articles". Personally, I think it's far more apt to switch serious viewers off than making anyone more interested. It distracts from the plot and frankly, just gets bloody boring. The impact and shock value of sex scenes diminishes in direct proportion to their increasing abundance and gratuity. And it's the same with the violence in Game of Thrones: far too much of it is excessive and implausible, straying into Sweeney Todd territory. There's a fine line between being either terrifying or intensely sexy, and just being laughable. "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step," as Napoleon had it. The more explicit a film or television programme becomes, the more it draws attention to its own artifice. All filmmakers should have learned this lesson from Jaws years ago. To give a more specific example of the failure of showing too much, there's a sex scene between Ros and Theon Greyjoy, where Theon supposedly pulls out of Ros to reveal a completely flaccid penis. Luckily for the programme-makers, the particular group of viewers that the sex scenes are aiming to please probably wouldn't even know how stupid this is. But seriously, if you can't even do it right, what's the point?

All that said, none of this would bother me so much if there was at least some element of realism in terms of the characters' experiences of these episodes. What makes these scenes so close to pornography is not their explicitness, but actually how narrow, controlled and sanitized it all is. You might, for example, have some justification for showing sex with prostitutes if it was intended to show the repugnance, the griminess and seediness and dangers of life as a medieval sex-worker. Okay, so I know this isn't the real Middle Ages and that it is self-consciously a fantasy, but I did get the sense that they were aiming for at least some degree of historical verisimilitude elsewhere in the programme. The glamorization of the sex industry is bad enough in contemporary settings, but does anyone seriously think any women enjoyed a life like that back then, when it invariably meant living with hatred, ridicule and the constant threat of pregnancy, disease and death hanging over your head? Unless, unbeknownst to me, there are actually antibiotics and advanced birth control in the pseudo-medieval Game of Thrones universe? Medieval women only chose this line of work out of desperation - that means that those seeking it out ought to look filthy, haggard and malnourished. But in the end, it's just decoration: it's not really trying to tell us anything at all about outdated patriarchal systems.

By complete contrast, one might very easily argue that a show like Mad Men would be completely justified in having some explicit sex scenes. Sex itself is really important to the plot, and to the development of each of the characters. We are presented with 1960s New York: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yet the series insists upon discipline with this, helping to make the show seem more convincingly of its time. But more than this, it knows that it doesn't need to be explicit, because it has confidence that its plots and its characters will be interesting and engaging enough without dumbing things down - without cheating. It also respects its audience enough to credit them with wanting to watch something intelligent rather than something obvious, knowing that if they're looking for the kind of gratification Game of Thrones provides, then they're really missing the point of the show itself.

Sexual excess in Mad Men goes hand in hand with heavy drinking, chain smoking, drug-taking, extravagant spending, and obsessive careerism, all of which are used by characters in an attempt to fill the gaping holes in their lives and hearts. Inevitably, of course, all of them completely fail to do so. Crucially, then, Mad Men shows us the lack of fulfilment that comes from the instant gratification of every lust and desire, explaining why this is not a good way to live, where Game of Thrones seeks only to give in to them, to provide that gratification to its characters and its audience. Where one gives us motivations and consequences, the other only uses sex as a backdrop for discussing unrelated motives and concerns. One presents us with a sordid world without ever itself being sordid, while the other becomes sordid by its presentation of a world that ought to be so, in a way that seems glorified, santized and pornographic, bankrupting sexual exchanges of any personal or emotional resonance. Nevertheless, while it shows us the damage that carelessness causes, Mad Men is rarely judgemental of individuals. Having "good" or "bad" characters is much too simplistic for this show (which, I might add, isn't always the case with Game of Thrones). Instead, we're asked to understand the personal and social pressures and conflicts that influence each of the characters - to judge the world they inhabit, rather than them per se. For whether individuals act conventionally or fight back and try to resist, the expectations that society has of them remain a significant influence over their behaviour in every part of their lives. There is no such thing as an isolated event. Game of Thrones understands this in a political context, but not in a personal or sexual one.

More F Words: Film Franchises and Fighting the Power, The Hunger Games and The Dark Knight Rises

As waves of disillusionment and frustration have swept over a world in economic crisis, it should hardly be surprising that at least two of this year's highest grossing films have been explicitly political in content. More remarkable, however are the corners from which this social commentary has emerged: one a children's film, and the other a comic-book superhero film.

Politics aren't new to either of these genres, of course. In the world of superheroes we've already seen ideologies clash in Watchmen and the damage done in the Middle East by the American arms trade in Iron Man. Claims have also been made for political agendas in a whole range of children's films, provoking both condemnation and praise. For many years numerous kids' films have arguably taken the side of the underdog against greedy, authoritarian or conservative baddies (see, for example, Monsters Inc., or The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and more recently many have begun taking environmentalist stances (see Wall-E or Happy Feet). Nevertheless, it's still relatively rare to find films in either category that engage openly and directly in complex ways with social and political issues - after all, what both obviously share is a tendency towards the fantastic, stories that aim at least in part for a kind of escapism. Perhaps Batman was an odd choice for Chris Nolan, perhaps children an odd choice for Suzanne Collins. Nevertheless, the massive success of both movies has proven them risks worth taking.

After enduring Chris Nolan's first two arduous attempts at a Batman film, actually enjoying The Dark Knight Rises was something of a shock for me. I've frequently expressed my feelings towards both of these earlier films, but for your benefit, here's a summary of what's been said in more detail elsewhere. With its barely coherent structure and paper-thin characterisations, Batman Begins is, in my opinion, the epic low point of in the career of an otherwise exciting, original and intellectually stimulating director. Only marginally less disappointing was The Dark Knight, which at least had two or three memorable characters and something vaguely resembling a plot. Heath Ledger's Joker was definitely well worth all the hype, with the late actor giving one of the most breathtaking performances I've ever seen in a movie. Still, the rest of it was rather slow and dull: I think I'd happily have cut every scene that he wasn't in. Harvey Dent/Twoface was okay I guess, but wasn't really given adequate time to develop as a character. The ending felt cheap and tacked on, and the inclusion of two baddies left a film which might otherwise have had some potential looking just as bad as Spider-Man 3 (and before you argue with me, that film did have its moments - The Sandman was a brilliant, very much underrated character). As a result, I don't really know why The Dark Knight Rises worked out so well by comparison, but it definitely did.

I'm probably going to upset a lot of people by suggesting that even The Dark Knight Rises isn't perfect, much as I enjoyed it. The whole business with Ra's al Ghul was still unnecessarily complicated and confusing, without really adding anything to the story. I didn't like Liam Neeson in the first film and I didn't like him any better in this one. Nor did I care particularly for Marion Cotillard as Miranda/Talia. I didn't buy into her mini-affair with Bruce that seemed to blossom out of nowhere. True, both she and others amongst our hero's friends had been pushing for it for quite some time, but Bruce in his turn had repeatedly expressed his lack of personal/sexual interest in her, and furthermore, his growing feelings for Selina Kyle were by that point already fairly obvious. Yes she had done charity work and yes she was involved in his business projects and yes, perhaps she knew him better than most people, but until that one scene with the rain, there was absolutely no chemistry between them.

Bane was by far the most interesting character, and Tom Hardy's easily the best performance in the film. Much like Shadow in American Gods, I had heard of men who were barrel-chested before, but until seeing this film, I'd had no image to accompany the metaphor. I do worry about these actors and what they're willing to do to their bodies for the sake of an acting role, but I suppose it's none of my business really. I have heard the complaints about him being difficult to understand, but I didn't really have a problem with this myself. Personally, I found his voice far less irritating than Christian Bale's stupid bat voice. Admittedly he toned that down for this film, but it was utterly ridiculous in the first two and, which annoyed me even more, he still used it when talking to characters who knew his secret identity. I've also heard the claims for Michael Caine being the best thing in it. He's good, and there are some incredibly touching moments, but I still liked Tom Hardy more.

So on to what is probably the most fascinating thing about this film. Claims have been made for The Dark Knight Rises following a specific political line from one end of the spectrum to the other. Interpretations of the film's "message" vary wildly depending on who's doing the interpreting, with some critics angrily disparaging what they see as little more than propaganda, whilst others eagerly approve of a story they believe is sympathetic with their own views. The best course seems to me to be to take Nolan at his own word, and hold back from making rash claims that the film means one thing or supports another. Says Nolan,

We throw a lot of things against the wall to see if it sticks. We put a lot of interesting questions in the air, but that's simply a backdrop for the story. What we're really trying to do is show the cracks of society, show the conflicts that somebody would try to wedge open. We're going to get wildly different interpretations of what the film is supporting and not supporting, but it's not doing any of those things. It's just telling a story. If you're saying, 'Have you made a film that's supposed to be criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement?' – well, obviously, that's not true... If the populist movement is manipulated by somebody who is evil, that surely is a criticism of the evil person. You could also say the conditions the evil person is exploiting are problematic and should be addressed... I've got all sorts of opinions, but this isn't what we're doing here. I love when people get interested in the politics of it, when they see something in it that moves them in some way. But I'm not being disingenuous when I say that we write from a place of 'What's the worst thing our villain Bane can do? What are we most afraid of?' He's going to come in and turn our world upside down. That has happened to other societies throughout history, many times, so why not here? Why not Gotham? We want something that moves people and gets under the skin.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/christopher-nolan-talks-the-politics-of-the-dark-knight-rises-and-more-from-the-films-press-tour-20120724?page=3

Much like Watchmen, then, The Dark Knight Rises represents a clash between extreme versions of opposing ideologies. Abstract theories and beliefs become embodied by particular characters, who come into physical as well as intellectual conflict with each other. Nolan's films have never really been particularly concerned with character - as a director, it's clear that he's far more interested in ideas and pushing them as far as they can go. This does land him in trouble sometimes, of course - sometimes stories suffer through insufficient or unbelievable characterisation. It is worth noting that this isn't the case with all ideas men - Ridley Scott, for example, in Prometheus, or even Watchmen itself. Nevertheless, The Dark Knight Rises is probably far less culpable of this than most Nolan movies. But if we understand his characters as essentially allegorical, things begin to make more sense: the Joker is Chaos, Two Face is Chance or Fate, Bane is the Angry Mob, Catwoman is Disillusionment, having given up on ideologies and people alike, Talia is the Extreme Revolutionary who believes that everything must be overturned before any good can be done, and Batman himself is a kind of conservative notion of Justice, working from within the system to better it. We're not asked to support any of these, but simply to observe and come to our own conclusions. The Dark Knight Rises is ultimately a non-judgmental film, showing us all perspectives and leaving us to decide for ourselves what we think.

The Hunger Games is probably my favourite film released this year. This summer I devoured the book in maybe two or three sittings, in between handing in my dissertation and revising for an exam on Joyce's Ulysses - it was that important to get it read. As I touched on in my last film post, this movie does something different to most literary adaptations, in that rather than attempting to translate the book faithfully onto the screen, it acts as a kind of companion piece, giving us a different perspective on the action and story. Not only does this mean that readers of the novel can't be disappointed by the film being unfaithful, instead being treated to something new that engages them in different ways, but it also makes perfect sense cinematically. The Hunger Games is a fantastic example of self-reflexive cinematography. Because the film is about a hyped-up on-screen entertainment show, we effectively come to share the perspective of the Panem audience of the games themselves. The film pulls us in, manipulating us just enough to make us engage with the games on their own terms, making us complicit with Panem's whole horrific social system and the murder of its children disguised as public entertainment. Much like Panem's citizens, we find ourselves rooting for particular characters, hoping they'll survive - that they'll win - which effectively means that we're hoping that the other kids will die. And, at times, we may even catch ourselves being secretly pleased when one of the "career tributes" gets their comeuppance. But just before we can get in too deep, we're pulled back up, reminded that these are children, reminded how awful the whole thing really is.

Another element of the story that's unique to the film is the "behind-the-scenes" view we get of Haymitch wining and dining Panem's rich and powerful to persuade them to send expensive gifts of food and medicine to his "mentees" in the arena, scenes which remind us of big business deals that happen every day - that could almost be something out of Mad Men. Haymitch has to become an ad-man of sorts, fighting for business against stiff competition. This, I think, serves to make things even more real, bringing the story even closer to the world we know. We also get to look in on the games-makers, designing and creating obstacles and monsters to make the games tougher for the contestants and more exciting for the viewers. This is where we really begin to understand the contest as a game. The games-makers behave almost like computer-games designers, thinking up ways of increasing the difficulty in each "level" of the game, testing "players'" skills and eventually making them fight super-creatures like end-of-level "bosses". Even the little medical and food packages sent in by sponsors will seem vaguely familiar to gamers, closely resembling the first aid kits, "extra lives" or "1ups" that you might collect in a video game world.

A lot of people have argued that the basic concept behind the story just isn't plausible enough, insisting that parents would never willingly give up their children to fight to the death, or if they were forced to, that other people wouldn't watch it or participate in it. Honestly, I think this is a very naive, overly optimistic view of human nature. The horrible truth is that it's no leap to imagine a world like that at all. In fact, I'd argue that all of the essential components of The Hunger Games to some extent already exist in our world today. In this country, mothers and fathers are already quite happy for their sons to join the military at the tender age of 16: an age considered too young to drive, to young to marry without consent, to young to smoke or drink, yet old enough to go out and fight and kill other people, some of them perhaps just as young as they are. 16 is the upper age limit for Hunger Games "tributes" (a term which encapsulates the seductive language already used to political effect in times of war - words like sacrifice and heroism, and the notion that these people are fighting and killing on our behalf, in our name, in order to protect us all), and is the age of both Katniss and Peeta when they take part. Elsewhere in the real world, much younger children are often kidnapped and forced to fight in wars that they cannot possibly understand. All over the world, footage of war zones is beamed directly into the homes of anxious audiences and, while we're perhaps supposed to be appalled by this violence, these days it's never very long before real and terrible wars become sources of fun and competitive gaming. Meanwhile, reality TV shows command ridiculous amounts of attention, and are often highly competitive, evoking visceral emotional responses in their viewers. Though it's not considered socially acceptable any more, public executions and fights to the death between adults or between men and animals have, historically, been treated as sources of public entertainment, drawing a crowd in much the same way as  reality TV contests and event films like The Hunger Games do now. A relative minority of us with consciences would probably like to think that we're past all that now, but you only need to look back to the execution of Saddam Hussein and how the video footage went viral to realise that this is simply not the case - so much of the world is still baying for the blood of whomever its been told to hate. Consequentially, I don't think it's at all difficult to imagine these things colliding and merging to create the kind of terrible monstrosity that Collins has imagined. And as she's said herself, most of her ideas came from watching television.

Nevertheless, it's not quite all misery and horror. Mostly, but not all. Both the film and the book leave us, crucially, with hope. The film features an important discussion of this between President Snow and Seneca Crane that doesn't appear in the books, in which Snow explains just how powerful this can be. I'm not going to spoil anything for those who haven't read the sequels yet, but rest assured, the hope that Katniss's defiance gives to the people of Panem becomes a pivotal part of the story. Unlike The Dark Knight, The Hunger Games does seem to have something of a moral and political message. It serves to show us that we can effect a change: that none of us is truly powerless, and that we always have a choice. In order to do this, it must first convince us of the necessity of acting and speaking out before it's too late, and the film achieves this by showing us just how bad things can get when we don't. To recycle one of my favourite quotations (generally attributed to the philosopher and political theorist Edmund Burke):

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Interestingly, although the real source of this is disputed, there is something that Burke definitely wrote which perhaps fits The Hunger Games even better:

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

There's Snow Such Thing As Magic

Steven, Steven, Steven. Just this once, can everybody not live, please? I'm getting sick of all this magic, jiggery-pokery, resurrection of the body business. Everyone made a joke out of it with Rory, which you played along with, and it was all fun and games for a while. But it's getting out of hand now. It isn't just a question of avoiding death altogether. Of course, that's what any good adventure story is about - a lot of near misses. No, the problem with you is that you do go there, repeatedly, and then pretend like it never happened. Please remember that half of your audience are children, and a good number of them will have experienced bereavement. If you can't bring yourself to desist then I think you should see a specialist, because quite frankly, it's becoming deeply irresponsible.

To be fair, this year's Doctor Who Christmas special wasn't one of the worst. Despite the fact that Richard E. Grant and, as fewer people seem to have noticed, Ian McKellen, were a bit wasted in it, I actually mostly enjoyed this episode. The Tim Burton-esque Snowmen and evil snowflake faces were cool, Jenna-Louise Coleman surpassed expectations, and the whole thing looked very very twinkly and beautiful, and was all rather fun.

My favourite thing about the episode was the Victorian detective trio, Strax, Vastra and Jenny. I've long been thinking that Madame Vastra deserves her own spin-off series - the new Doctor Who spin-off for grown-ups. After all, it's not like you'd have to try very hard to make it about a million times better than Torchwood. The addition of Strax has now, I think, perfected the team. Anyone who hasn't watched this yet, do it now! It's so funny it hurts.

I was also very pleased to hear that this episode is heralding a long-term change in the Doctor's appearance. So look forward to frock coats and silly hats galore! Costume in general was a strong point of this episode. The detective team looked pretty awesome, and I absolutely I loved Clara's outfits. But, unfortunately, this leads me on to one of my biggest problems with both this show and the series set to follow it.

When I saw in the trailers what looked like the Doctor picking up a Victorian companion, I was ridiculously excited. Finally, I thought, a companion who isn't just a regular eighteen to twenty-five year old from modern-day Britain! Here's someone with an interesting back story, someone who'll shake things up a bit, add a bit of extra comedy as they try to adjust, and maybe even teach the kids (or even the adults) a bit of history. Back in the long-forgotten days of Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, Doctor Who was actually conceived as a fun way of teaching history and science to children. Over the years of what has now become known as "Old" or "Original Who" there were companions as diverse as a crazy savage warrior lady from another planet, a robot dog, a fellow Time Lord, people from the past and the future - even men who weren't romantically involved with anyone else aboard the TARDIS. But what did you do? You went and ruined it at the last minute, by making Clara and Oswin the same character and, quelle surprise, looks like she's going to be reincarnated as - yes! - a 21st century gal. And of course she got to kiss the Doctor too. Great.

If this was all - if it was just another boring contemporary of mine - then I'm sure I could forgive you. But you just couldn't leave it at that. No, you had to add Clara Oswin Oswald to the pantheon of your ridiculous mythical, magical companions for which literally anything is possible. River Song has been the most irritating example of this so far, but even back into Russell's time, there's been an abundance of stupid plot lines that basically make the whole universe revolve around a particular companion: ooh Rose looked into the heart of the Tardis, ooh Donna is magically linked to the Doctor through the Doctor-Donna Tardis magic business, ooh River is the Doctor's wife and has a time head and has become a Time Lord just because Amy spent time on board while she was pregnant, ooh Rory is an Auton that got magicked back into a real person, and ooh Captain Jack can't die. At least the Doctor responded more appropriately to Jack's predicament. Back then, he was horrified and disgusted by the idea of a person coming back to life. It was wrong, disturbing, Jack was a universal anomaly. Until he wasn't, and resurrection became a Doctor Who norm, even for not particularly significant characters, like the father in last year's Christmas special.

Now, I'm all for pushing boundaries and breaking the mould, and I believe that the only point of having a formula is to see how far you can take it. But rules are still important. Without them, you've got nothing - no plot, no suspense. It stops being clever and interesting and novel, and starts being boring and stupid and just plain unbelievable. If every character is essentially invincible, why the hell should we even care anyway? There's no point at which we're left guessing, at which we're sitting on the edge of our seats flinching even though we know that it will probably be all right in the end because that's the way these things work, because we absolutely know already that nothing can ever happen to these characters. And if it does, it's ok, because we'll still see them again soon, in some form or another. Worse still is that all of this has begun to efface character development. It was ok with Rory, because we already knew who he was before you started killing him all the time. But Clara - well, we know very little about her yet, except that she can't die, and it looks it may well stay that way. Instead of writing characters, you've started writing walking plot points, people who are only interesting for what they do or for what happens to them, rather than for who they are.

I'll give you this, at least: I found this episode less uncomfortably misogynist than things have been for a while. Last year's Christmas special was one of the worst for that, with all its patronising "weak" and "strong" nonsense. Both Amy Pond and River Song were such blatant fantasy figures and you always denied the charges so fervently that it never really seemed worth arguing the toss. I mean, a kissogram? For real? You basically put a stripper in a family show. It's not ok. And all we ever got in return was a stomach-churningly awkward public riposte at the Baftas - not from you, naturally, but from your mate Benedict. The sexism for you is obviously so ingrained that you don't even notice it. Clara - at least so far - seems slightly refreshing. And even if you manage to mess her up, at least we've got Vastra and Jenny now. So, for the present at least, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's hope that Clara Oswin Oswald remains more than just a pretty face.

F Words: Film and Feminism 2012

So I've made a New Year's Resolution to get back into the swing of regular blogging again but, in the Dickensian spirit of never leaving till tomorrow what you can do today (this is the first quote in the literary diary I got bought for Christmas), here begins my return. What better way to start than with two of my favourite subjects?

Despite seeing the release of a Bond film (this one unusually lacking in a significant “Bond Girl”), a Twilight film, and multiple superhero films, 2012 has actually, I think, been an exceptionally good year for women in film. We've seen the rise of one of the best actors currently alive in Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in four films this year; we've gratefully devoured two major kids'/young people's films starring female protagonists (The Hunger Games and Brave), both of which have actually managed to attract boys as well as girls to see them; and we've been treated to two different versions of the Snow White fairy tale, each in their own way working to reshape the Grimms' and Walt Disney's canonical vision of passive, deathly beauty. Of course, it's a long time since Disney films have been quite so repressive, and this year's feature Brave is a perfect example of how far the company has come over the last 75 years. Perhaps less overtly "feminist", but nevertheless significant, were this year's Spider-Man reboot, which takes Peter Parker back to his pre-Mary Jane days, and Ridley Scott's Prometheus, a prequel of sorts to the Alien franchise, well known for dealing with the issues of sex, sexuality and motherhood in fascinatingly weird and nightmarish ways. Interestingly, this is arguably true of another contemporary film franchise, the final part of which was also released this year, though the Twilight series' attempts at female representation are rather less progressive or exciting than in any of the films I'm going to explore here.

So first off is, of course, The Hunger Games, the movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins' gripping novel which follows the story of one young woman's struggle to survive in a blood-thirsty dystopian future, where a sinister, dictatorial government uses reality TV to control ordinary people's lives - and deaths. The film plays an interesting game by standing apart from the book, working more as a companion piece to, than a visualised version of, the material in the novel. There is a change in perspective - we're no longer seeing solely through the eyes of the main character, Katniss, but instead are granted a kind of omniscience, at times being placed amongst the people of Panem who form the audience for the Hunger Games itself (provoking an interesting and often disturbing kind of self-reflection in the cinema audience - how far are we as viewers drawn into and manipulated by the games themselves?), and at times being allowed a more exclusive behind-the-scenes insight into the game-makers' work. I'll explore this more later in another article. For the purposes of this review, however, what's most exciting about The Hunger Games is that it manages to maintain its focus on a central female character without forfeiting half of its potential audience. Both The Hunger Games books and films have been an incredible cultural phenomenon because they've proven that boys as well as girls can enjoy books by and about women and girls. Furthermore, the franchise's success amongst girls and young women has also proven that girls don't necessarily want to read about girls being stereotypically girly. Katniss is bold and powerful, a fighter to the death. Whilst it may be the influence of her semi-maternal, protective instincts that initially land her in the Hunger Games arena (and later lead her into a partnership with the youngest Hunger Games participant, Rue), she proves herself as capable of being cold and calculating, when necessary, as any of her rivals, shooting another participant and manipulating the hapless Peeta's emotional attachment to her in order to win viewers' sympathies. She's a first class hunter, having been used to acting a sort of dual mother/father role at home, and stands up to authority by refusing to collude in the "game" that she is forced to play, forming a last minute suicide pact with Peeta and thus denying the games-makers their all-important winner. Katniss has mixed motivations, defies expectations, and is just about as complex a character as could be hoped for. Furthermore, the film features a whole range of other distinct, individual female characters, from Effie Trinket to Katniss's sister Prim, all of whom interact extensively with other female characters, meaning that the film easily passes the Bechdel Test.

Another of the highest grossing films this year was Pixar's Brave which, even before its release, managed to generate a lot of attention from feminist bloggers and critics. In terms of positive representation, the film definitely lived up to expectations. Based on a story idea by Brenda Chapman (who also co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay), Brave features three significant female characters, including its protagonist, the headstrong teenage princess Merida, and is principally concerned with Merida's refusal to marry or be "ladylike" and the conflict this creates between her and her mother. On the whole, I really enjoyed this film. With its sublime highland scenery and Merida's breathtakingly gorgeous hair, Brave is certainly a visual feast. I also loved the soundtrack so much that I had to go straight out and buy the CD. "Learn Me Right" even managed to slightly soften my general aversion to Mumford & Sons, who, I think, profited by a little much-needed edge acquired from singer Birdy. Nevertheless, there did seem to be something missing from this film. Perhaps on some level this is an unfair judgement. By any normal standards it was still fantastic, but unfortunately all other Pixar films have been so utterly extraordinary that this seemed to be a slip in both comic and emotive standards for the studios. For me, Brave achieves neither the heart-stopping emotional rollercoaster ride, nor the side-splitting hilarity that we've come to expect of the geniuses at Pixar. The script seemed weaker, the characters less engaging and entertaining, the resolution a little too easy and predictable. And perhaps most problematic of all was that, to any die-hard Disney fan, it all felt a little too familiar: the plot of Brave bears a striking similarity to that of 2003's Brother Bear, which happens to be one of my favourite Disney films.

It seems appropriate at this point to express some disagreement with claims that have been thrown around that this is a bold new step for Disney as a whole. It's may be the first Pixar film to concern itself primarily with a girl (although arguably Boo is at the centre of Monsters Inc., even if she doesn't talk, and there's no denying who is everyone's favourite Finding Nemo character), and it's certainly the first to be so centrally interested in a female-female relationship, but as to Disney films in general, it's been a rare thing for quite some time now to find one that doesn't feature a dynamic, active heroine, usually with at least one significant female friend. Looking back over the years, Disney's very first full-length animated feature was, after all, a retelling of an age old story about a fraught relationship between a (step)mother and (step)daughter in which conflict is resolved with the help of a little magic and transformation. While it may be difficult to argue the case for Disney's Snow White as an aspirational figure, the studios' choice to bring to life this classic fairy tale paved the way for numerous later retellings of other tales, often primarily concerned with young women, and growing gradually more irreverent over the years. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel and The Frog Prince have all been given animated make-overs by Disney, and all feature female protagonists and additional female characters. Each of the Disney heroines I grew up with in the nineties - Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Esmeralda, Meg, Mulan - openly stand up to authority and defy the sexist social expectations that threaten to constrain them. Whilst it's true that few Disney films foreground female-female relationships, it's not true at all that these are absent or even obscure in the Disneyverse. Aurora lives with three female fairies, Cinderella has her helpers in lady mice and her fairy godmother, Ariel has sisters and comes up against a female villain, Belle talks to female teapots and wardrobes, Pocahontas has her best pal Nakoma as well as the wise old Grandmother Willow to refer to, and Mulan has her mother and bolshy granny to contend with. So, does Brave actually break any new ground? Is it really brave or bold? Well, yes. There is something that's crucially different about Brave to all but two other Disney films that I can think of: Brave is about women, but it isn't a love story. Though there have been a number of Disney films that focus more on male-male friendship or male-male familial love than on romantic love (Brother Bear, Toy Story, Cars, Monsters Inc., The Fox and the Hound, The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh, The Emperor's New Groove, Treasure Planet, etc.), the only other female protagonists in Disney films who don't become romantically involved with other characters are Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch, and in both cases, these are children who are far too young for that sort of nonsense. In this regard, Brave is still covering relatively untouched ground.

Two more fairy tale films were released this year concerning mothers and daughters, both retellings of the Snow White story. The first of these, Mirror Mirror, is a comic romp, which sees the (not so very charming) prince fail to match up to "Snow" either in intelligence or in fighting skills. At the time of release, the irreverence of this version, with its campy comedy and gaudy spectacle, elicited mixed reviews. For my part, I loved it. It definitely places Snow White and the Wicked Queen right at the heart of the tale where they belong, directing the action of the story between them. Both characters were better developed and far more engaging than in most versions of this story. Comic and sinister in equal measures, Julia Roberts really brings the royal stepmother to life. Lily Collins, too, definitely makes Snow White her own. Mixing knowing confidence with youthful naivety, she is both old-fashioned fairytale princess and 21st century teen. I liked the choice to make the magic mirror speak as a reflection of the queen herself, which both emphasised the character's cruelty and vanity, and served to make her more responsible for her own decisions, rather than putting her at least partly under the magical influence of another. One of the most notable changes to the story is that the Queen's transformation into an old woman is left till right at the end of the film. Turning up at her stepdaughter's wedding, the Queen is immediately identified by Snow White, who refuses her gift of an apple. This is a huge and positive change from the Grimm brothers' tale, in which Snow White is fooled a total of three times by the disguised Queen before her eventual "death". The first two times, she is rescued by the dwarfs, who paternally chastise her for her foolishness. Once dead, her cold and coffin-bound body is claimed by a creepy necrophiliac prince, who accidentally reanimates her by dislodging a piece of poison apple stuck in her throat as he carries her off. Here are no magic kisses.

This leads me on to the main problem I had with this film, which is the scene in which the dwarfs insist that she "prepare" for her first kiss by dressing up and having her face and hair done. Quite aside from the fact that it's difficult to see what this elegant, intelligent heroine sees in the stupid, irritating and easily led prince at all, this was probably the least credible and most annoying part of the whole film. Not only was the dolling up a pointless exercise as far as the hypnotised prince's appreciation was concerned (Who exactly was she trying to impress? Her stepmother's pet dog?), but also the implication that all of that stuff is important, that it is in these shallow things that the magic of a kiss lies, was extremely frustrating - both sexist and materialist. That, and of course the fact that, as most of us know, first kisses are typically awkward and spontaneous - I'd argue that it's the unexpected rush of the moment that makes a first kiss special, something that is all too easily ruined by meticulous planning.

Overall though, Mirror Mirror was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the Bollywood-esque elements that director Tarsem Singh brought to the film - lively dancing, vivid colours and highly stylised visuals - and I also felt that it largely succeeded in its effort to break down the misogyny of earlier versions of the story. This is something that probably can't be said for the second Snow White film this year, Snow White and the Huntsman, which, as the title suggests has been turned into a bizarre kind of romance. Beautiful as this film looks, it unfortunately stars the vacuous Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame. Nuff said.

Stewart's other starring role this year was in the final part of the Twilight series, a franchise which attempts to tackle sex, motherhood and teenage anxieties about these. It does so, however, in a much less progressive, less successful, and more obvious way than either Alien or Prometheus, films I'm much more interested in here. Like Alien, Prometheus features alien impregnations and births, a psychotic robot, and presents women as the tough survivors of an alien holocaust, still left fighting after all the men have been picked off. This film is, however, very different in tone from its predecessor, expanding the reproductive horror of Alien into a more general meditation on the nature of creation and destruction, be it biological, mechanical or artistic, human or divine.

As its title might suggest, Ridley Scott uses Prometheus as a space in which to explore much more philosophical and theological musings than we're used to expect from this franchise. Essentially, Scott creates an alternative religious history in which our gods through the ages are actually alien beings, responsible for the creation both of humanity, and the alien monster which now threatens to wipe it out completely. Something happened to make these alien gods regret their decision to father a new species. By subtle implication, we can hazard a guess at this being the crucifixion of Christ, interpreted here as an alien ambassador who promised a return to the home planet for us all, provided we behaved ourselves. The subsequent torture, ridicule and murder of Jesus alerted our alien fathers to our violent and dangerous natures, and the threat that we posed not only to each other, but even directly to them. The day of judgement was nigh, coming in the form of a hideous and indestructible alien monster which would destroy and devour us all, until it all went horribly wrong, and most of the creator aliens were themselves wiped out. Meanwhile, we see a similar story mirrored in our own creation of intelligent androids, which turn on their human masters in both Alien and Prometheus. Peter Weyland, founder of CEO and Weyland Corp, responsible for funding the exploratory mission which provides the story for this film, is portrayed as the ultimate in irresponsible creativity, favouring his robot "son" David (perhaps named after the robot child David in A.I., with his Pinocchio-like insistence that he is a real human boy) over his barely acknowledged human daughter, and insisting on the forward march of technology, science and discovery, with little regard for the potential risks or human cost incurred. As this brilliantly conceived teaser trailer shows, Weyland has begun to regard himself as a god, making him a classically ambitious over-reacher figure - a modern Prometheus, if you will (which, incidentally, is also the subtitle of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), ultimately destined for doom and downfall.

It's not all gods and robots though - in fact, we might understand this male creative impulse as a direct response to the mystery of the female body's innate creative power which, with aliens that look like this and this, comes across as a powerful and terrifying threat to male authority. Men seem to both be repelled by, and long for, the ability to do what almost any woman can do without even trying particularly hard, but as in Frankenstein, this usurpation of biological creation lands everyone in serious danger. Where in Alien we witness a literal male pregnancy, Prometheus is more concerned with other, less invasive methods of bypassing women in the creation of new life. That said, this film does still feature a horrific alien pregnancy, but this time it's a barren woman who is the victim, and this time, she survives, using a surgical machine to cut the hostile foetus out of her body before it can burst through itself. Here's where a comparison with Breaking Dawn becomes interesting. While Bella Swan/Cullen insists on suffering the monster child to tear its way out of her womb, loving the freaky blood-sucking monster that emerges and being "saved" from apparently inevitable death by being herself transformed into a blood-sucking monster by her blood-sucking monster husband, Dr Elizabeth Shaw (interesting sf trivia: this is also the name of a UNIT member in Doctor Who) does the sensible thing and gets the hell out. Like Ripley in Alien and Aliens, Shaw is resourceful, and she survives. Ripley, Shaw, and Meredith Vickers (Weyland's daughter, in charge of the mission in Prometheus) share a distrust of aliens, androids, and the greedy determination of the men around them, relying on their own wits and instincts to get by. In contrast to to the male-headed organisations that gladly put people at risk for financial or scientific gain, Vickers is willing to die for the sake of saving humanity, just as Ripley puts her own life on the line to rescue Newt in Aliens.

In general, Prometheus is not quite as tight or tense as either Alien or Aliens. Partly it suffers from a second-rate script, which never seems quite clever enough for the big ideas it seeks to convey, and scripting stands out as more of a problem in this film than in the earlier ones because the story requires that little bit more exposition. Apart from some fairly clunky and pedestrian dialogue, however, this is definitely a film worth seeing.

Finally, a couple of other significant characters deserve a mention here.

The first is Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man. Despite the ridiculous way she dresses for lab work, Gwen is probably the most interesting female character in any of the numerous superhero films I've seen since the release of Spider-Man back in 2002. What's great about Gwen is that she is actually shown to have her own life and ambitions which are independent of her involvement with Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Gwen is not just Peter's equal - she's easily smarter than he is. Gwen is top of the class at school, and has managed to land herself a proper job at the most exciting and innovative scientific organisation in the city. Peter, meanwhile, sneaks onto a guided tour that she leads around the Oscorp building, and makes friends with Dr Curt Connors by passing off his father's formula as his own. Unlike Mary Jane, Gwen has Peter pretty well sussed from the start, and immediately guesses the reason that he starts pushing her away at the end of the film, but she doesn't insist that he comes back to her - if he doesn't want to see her, then she doesn't want anything to do with him either. Not only this, but The Amazing Spider-Man also presents us with a much more knowing, kind and intelligent version of Aunt May than do Spider-Man or either of its sequels. While we're still a far cry from equal rights and recognition for women in the super-hero world (take a look at Black Widow in this year's Avengers Assemble for a classic example of a token sexy super-heroine), The Amazing Spider-Man at least makes a damn good effort.

The second is Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings Playbook. What this film lacks in a good title, it more than makes up for in content. It's a genuinely touching and entertaining little gem, sad and funny and beautiful, and nothing like as cynical and Oscar-grabbing as you might expect a film about living with mental illness to be. Bradley Cooper is brilliantly compelling as Pat Solitano, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a violent incident involving his wife and her lover. Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver are also completely convincing as Pat's dysfunctional father and long-suffering mother. But, as ever, Jennifer Lawrence utterly steals the show as the woman who turns Pat's life around, teaching him to love himself and aiding him in his search for a silver lining. Lawrence's spellbinding performance makes us laugh and cry by turns. This is an actress fast proving the depth and range of her abilities, and I for one can't wait to see where she goes next.

So a good year for film, a good year for women. Stay tuned for another 2012 review, where I'll discuss the the complex political aspects of some of this year's best movies.

Cropredy Cut-Down

This time last week I was getting ready to head over to the Cropredy Festival. I'd never been to a folk festival before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. In the event, however, what surprised me most was less how much I enjoyed it and more the eclectic mix of music I discovered there - it was only about half actual folk stuff, if that. I won't go over everything and everyone I saw, but here's a quick summary of the highlights.

Day One we missed most of the first act (Fairport Acoustic), but things really picked up as the afternoon wore on into evening with Bellowhead followed by Squeeze. Interestingly, Bellowhead were actually one of the few bands that played proper folk tunes, but their style of doing so was so exciting and innovative, that they were one of my favourite acts. Almost more an orchestra than a band, there are currently eleven members of the group, who play everything from fiddles to saxophones, bagpipes to mandolins, cellos to frying pans. The result is this fantastic, loud, feel-good sound.

Even hearing recordings, it's almost impossible not to want to sing and dance along. Seen on stage, the whole thing's even more exciting, with every performer absolutely bursting with energy and enthusiasm, and just generally seeming to enjoy themselves at least as much as the audience always do. Bellowhead have quite deservedly become five times winners of Best Live Act at the Radio 2 Folk Awards. For me, they were definitely the best discovery of the weekend.

Bellowhead were swiftly followed by the act I'd most been looking forward to, Squeeze, who didn't disappoint. Largely dispensing with the banter more typical of this kind of festival, Glenn Tilbrook, Chris Difford et al belted out one hit after another. I was a little disappointed that they didn't play what would probably have been the most appropriate song, given the gorgeous weather we had the whole time, but I'm going to put it here anyway for the hell of it.

That said, it was hard to be bothered about anything at all in the middle of such a fantastic set. Tilbrook's brilliant voice hasn't faltered a whit in 30 odd years. What's more, he did a great job up on stage in spite of some kind of foot injury - Chris Difford mentioned it on stage, but I also spotted him walking around on crutches at the festival the next day.

Also, I just had to post this because I loved his guitar so much - it's like Auntie Mabel's plane from Come Outside:

Oh, and I got myself one of these, too:

On the Friday, these guys were my favourite of the new bands:

Very, very pretty and melodic. I enjoyed Tarras so much that I went to see them do an extra couple of songs at a tent in the corner of the field to go out on BBC Radio Oxford. If you were listening to that, and you heard some jingly bells in amongst the clapping, that will have been my bracelet.

Naturally though, the best part of that day was watching Richard Thompson be amazing on his own. What that man can do with a guitar, and make it look so effortless.......I seriously think it might be magic. I'd never seen anything quite like it.

After he'd been on for a while, things changed a bit when he pulled out the electric guitar and was joined by some familiar Fairport faces.

And despite some obvious irony, Richard and his daughter Kami singing A Heart Needs a Home was lovely. I can't find a video of the performance, but here's the song (as performed by Kami's mother in 1975) anyway.

The evening ended with Joan Armatrading, a nice mellow way to finish off before heading home to bed.

I can't actually find footage or even a picture of it anywhere, but she did a really interesting thing sometimes with her guitar, where she had it sort of fixed to a stand so she could play it for a bit and then leave it and walk around and then go back to it again.

Another good part of Day Two was buffalo burgers from the Native American food stand. For some reason it wasn't one of the more popular ones. Shame for them, but fortunately for me it meant that we got delicious food without having to queue like everyone else. 

Day Three I'm sorry to say I was probably paying slightly less attention to bands on earlier, particularly Brother and Bones, although what I did hear as I was nosing around the stalls and things sounded pretty good. I also remember thinking these guys sounded lovely...

I'm not really all about the Morris dancing, but I expect other people had fun with Morris On. Big Country apparently had some hits in the 80s, but none of our party had ever heard of them before, and I wasn't particularly impressed. The lead guy looked a bit like he'd really really like to be Paul Weller, but didn't really sound anything like him. Dennis Locorriere I thought talked a bit too much, and wasn't really as funny as he seemed to think he was. Again, I wasn't too bothered either way by any of his stuff. By far the best part of this day was Fairport Covention at the end. Being probably more of a granny than the many many people there who were old enough to be my grandparents, I got too tired to stay till the very end, which unfortunately meant that I missed this:

That said, I saw plenty of wonderful stuff before I went, so I can't complain at all. Most of the original line up of Fairport came out to join the current members, along with some of the younger musicians that played and sang earlier in the festival.