'A Literary Masterpiece'

Shantaram 

by Gregory David Roberts (born Gregory John Peter Smith, 1952-) was first published in 2004. Born in Melbourne in 1952 and living in Australia in the 1980’s, “Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and a heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There he established a free health clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger and street soldier. He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time worked over in an Indian Jail.” (Time Out) 

Gregory David Roberts

He also went on to be in a Bollywood film and fought with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan against Russia. This is the third time Roberts wrote Shantaram, having the first two copies destroyed by the prison he was in.

HM Prison Pentridge in Coburg, Victoria, Australia. The prison Roberts escaped from.

Mumbai

Personally I couldn’t’ find the right words to describe Shantaram or give it the tribute it deserves so I found a review which best suits my judgement. “Shantaram is a novel of the first order, a work of extraordinary art, a thing of exceptional beauty. If someone asked me what the book was about I would have to say everything, everything in the world.” (Pat Conroy) 

Mumbai slums - boats like these are probably washed up from the monsoon season

After surviving the events dealt with in Shantaram, he was captured in Germany in 1990 and eventually extradited to Australia. On completing his prison sentence, he established a small multi-media company and is now a full-time writer. He lives in Melbourne.

The slums in Mumbai 

Quotes

“My heart moved through deep and silent water.  No-one, and nothing, could really hurt me.  No-one, and nothing, could make me very happy.  I was tough, which is probably the saddest thing you can say about a man.” 

“Heroin is a sensory deprivation tank for the soul.

Floating on the dead sea of the drug stone, there's no sense of pain, no regret or shame, no feelings of guilt or grief, no depression and no desire. The sleeping universe enters and envelops every atom of existence. Insensible stillness and peace disperse fear and suffering. Thoughts drift like ocean weeds and vanish into distant, grey somnolency, unperceived and indeterminable. The body succumbs to cryogenic slumber: the listless heart beats faintly, and breathing slowly fades to random whispers. Thick nirvanic numbness clogs the limbs, and downward, deeper, the sleeper slides and glides towards oblivion, the perfect and eternal stone.”

The Chillum Pipe (used of smoking marajuana). Roberts mentions the use of this many times.

“If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke.”

“Her heart beating its secrets so furiously that she feared he would hear it.”

“Our breathing was like the whole world chanting prayers.”

“Cruel laughter is the way cowards cry when they’re not alone, and causing pain is how they grieve.”

“Sometimes we love with nothing more then hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all we have — to hold on tight until dawn.”

Michael Kiwanuka - Winner of BBC's sound of 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16424437

Mumbai - the gateway of India at dusk

"In life, as in art, I have been dusted with the perversion brush." GP

Grayson Perry

Last year I was fortunate enough to listen to a talk by Grayson Perry (1960-) entitled “I Believe in Art”, as well as picking up a signed copy of Jacky Klein’s book on him. As I was walking through Tottenham Court Road tube station I came across a poster advertising Grayson Perry’s exhibition at the British Museum. This impelled me to read the book before I go to the exhibition and jog my memory of talk I heard, which was so inspiring at the time.

Grayson Perry rose to fame winning the Turner Prize in 2003. The BBC news article headline simply stated “Transvestite potter wins Turner”. He is a contemporary of the YBA’s (Young British Artists) alongside the likes of Sam Taylor-Wood and Damien Hirst. He has had patronage from major art collectors including Charles Saatchi.

Grayson Perry (as Claire)

The two aspects that make Perry stand out within the art world are that he is a potter and a transvestite. Pottery has unfashionable associations with “decoration, domesticity and craft”. Perry being brought up in a working-class family from Chelmsford, Essex liked the appeal of ceramics as having a “presumed second-class status”. One could say both these aspects play on contradictions, with pottery it is the uncomfortable border between art and craft and the same with transvestism of male and female and also serious and comical. 

Grayson Perry

Perry as 'Claire'

The subjects Perry plays around with are topical and contemporary such as consumer culture, “kinky sex”, teenage crime and the ‘war on terror’. These inspire unexpected or explicit imagery of maimed children, aborted foetuses, swastikas and sadomasochistic porn.

Moonlight Wankers (2001)
Grayson Perry - "This is a piece about masturbation...'Wanker' is normally an insult, and yet most people masturbate. Relax and it can be quite a thrilling and romantic thing. So this pot presents an arcadian vision with people masturbating all over it against the backdrop of a cliched rural sunset."

This dress is part of Perry's embroidery, its called "Claire as the mother of all battles" (1996)

This is a detail from the same dress in which Perry has distorted the human body into a swastika. 

His inspiration is drawn from a wide variety of sources such as the bawdy humour of 18^th and 19^th century caricaturists William Hogarth and George Cruikshank, the literary wit of Aubrey Beardsley combined with predominantly German Expressionism in Berlin in the 1920’s. In Klein’s words, he is “as likely to take inspiration from a Chinese vase or Gothic altarpiece as he is from the menus of local fast-food restaurants or junk mail catalogues pushed through the letterbox.”  

Lysistrata shielding her coynte (1896), Aubrey Beardsley

An Oik's Progress (2004) - see transfers on adverts cut out from newspaper of new electrical appliances 

Baba Yaga's hut (1983) 

"This piece was made after I'd finished college and moved to London. I went through what I called my 'Bilbo Baggins' period..I think because I took acid too much. Baba Yaga's Hut was the zenith of this in some ways. I made it almost entirely from things I found lying around our squat in Camden town."

Baba Yaga is a Russian witch who eats children and lives in a hut standing on chicken legs. 

Vote Alan Measles for God (2007) 

"I wanted it to look a bit like a Third World political banner"

"Ive never seen myself as a potter or as part of the crafts movement. I am a conceptual artist masquerading as a craftsman"

Damien Hirst "If he wasn't an artist, he would be a serial killer."

Perry's personally designed motorbike with the shrine to Alan Measles (his teddy bear and the god of his imaginary world in the box on the back on the bike) 

You can follow Alan on his official website (http://alanmeasles.posterous.com/) or on his twitter (http://twitter.com/Alan_Measles)

Grayson Perry at the British Museum 

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/grayson_perry.aspx

The Rosetta Vase (2011)

“HADDOCK, CHIPS AND MUSHY PEAS”

One Man, Two Guvnors

“Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall (James Corden) becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe (Jemima Rooper), a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from his fiancee’s dad. But Roscoe is really his sister Rachel posing as her own dead brother, who’s been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers (Oliver Chris).

Holed up at The Cricketers’ Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be re-united with Rachel. To prevent discovery, Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.” Source - http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/66256/productions/one-man-two-guvnors.html

Having seen it just last night I would go again in an instant. It was a hilariously funny play with over-accentuation of characters in a pantomime/slapstick style and with at least one joke to make your sides split. At first, there is a lot of excitement over James Corden being on stage, however over the course of the story there is a deep appreciation for the acting of every character in the production. A must see. 

The set design was effective, colourful and very stylized. Being set in 1963 the interior scenes had a backdrop of wallpaper that contained bold print designs typical of 60’s fabrics such as the work of Lucienne Day (1917-2010). The exterior scenes, which occurred outside ‘The Cricketers’ pub within the streets of Brighton, had three levels, meaning three entrances and exits on both sides adding much more depth to the stage.

Lucienne Day, Print (1966)

Interior of "The Cricketer's Pub"

The costume was kept within the period where the men wore suits and the woman in floral prints and big hair. Corden was wearing a three-piece tweed suit with trousers much too short (ankle swingers) and a smart comb over, perfect for his character. The best costume however was for the transformation of a young actor called Tom Edden into an 84 year old, deaf waiter with heart problems and a dodgy pacemaker called Alfie. He was dressed in a typical white jacket, black trousers, shirt and bow tie with wispy white hair and what appeared to be a glass eye.

James Corden as 'Francis Henshall'

Tom Edden (playing 'Alfie' below)

One of the most convincing characters (Alfie, played by Tom Edden)

The music was a large part of the production, used for both entertainment as well as a practical factor. There was a main band called “The Craze”, dressed in tailored purple suits singing comical lyrics in a 50’s rock and roll style, reminiscent of the pioneer Buddy Holly. The curtain would come down and the band would play while the set behind would change again. A number of times other characters would come on and join in with the band bringing their own character to the music. Corden contributed on the xylophone, Lloyd (Trevor Laird) on Caribbean steel drums and Alan (Daniel Rigby) with some sore-looking chest slapping.

The Craze - Benjamin Brooker (Drums), Richard Coughlan (Bass), Philip James (Guitar)

and Grant Olding (Guitar)

BUDDY HOLLY

Grant Olding (Music)

Quotes

Francis Henshall (James Corden)

“There’s so much tossing a man can do”

Stanley Stubbers (Oliver Chris)

“I never understood physics. I spent every lesson in the radiation cupboard trying to make my penis glow.”

Charlie ‘the duck’ Clench (Fred Ridgeway)

“Love passes through marriage like shit through a small dog” 

From left: Dolly (Suzie Toase), Francis Henshall (James Corden), Pauline Clench (Claire Lams), Stanley Stubbers (Oliver Chris), Rachel/Roscoe Crabb (Jemima Rooper), Alan Dangle (Daniel Rigby), Lloyd Boateng (Trevor Laird), Harry Dangle (Martyn Ellis) and Charlie 'the duck' Clench (Fred Ridgeway)

The Pictures

Coming out next week... 

War Horse (2012) directed by Steven Spielberg is released on the 13^th January 2012. Originally written as a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo and adapted successfully as a radio broadcast and a play at the National Theatre, there are high expectations. The story focuses on the relationship between a teenage boy, Albert Narracott (played by Jeremy Irvine) and his horse, Joey, during the First World War. The journey they embark on leads them and the onlooker through the events of the Great War to the middle of No Mans Land. Other members of the cast include Emily Watson (Gosford Park), David Thewlis (Professor Lupin - Harry Potter), and Benedict Cumberbatch (Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy). 

These are some of the photos from the official Warhorse website - http://www.warhorsemovie.com/

Albert (Jeremy Irvine) and Joey

Jeremy Irvine with Steven Spielberg on set

Out now...

The Artist (2011), shot entirely in black and white, is a silent film set in 1927 in Hollywood. It depicts a romance between a declining male actor and a budding Holywood actress during the transition from silent films to the ‘talkies’. This revival of interest in Silent Films has made me go back and see what I can find…

A Screenshot from the film

Un Chien Andalou (Un perro andaluz/ An Andalusian Dog), 1929

I came across a silent surrealist short film made two years after to the setting of The Artist, in 1929, directed by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and the artist Salvador Dalí. The film doesn’t exactly have a plot; there is a staggered chronological order with the only indicators of time being the opening “Once upon a time” and “eight years later”. The film could be considered as a visual dream, jumping from one seen where a woman’s eye is held open by a man, carrying a razor blade to another scene of a of a man riding his bicycle down the street to an even more bizarre scene of ants crawling out from a small crevice in a man’s hand.

The official film poster

The Woman's eye and the man's razor blade

"The legendary shot of the eyeball (actually that of a dead calf) being slit by Buñuel."