Róise Goan is the director of ABSOLUT Fringe. A graduate of Trinity Drama and Theatre Studies, she has worked as a director, actor, producer and screenwriter. She was appointed this year to the Board of the Abbey Theatre. Celebrating her 3rd year at the helm of Dublin Fringe Festival, TN2′s Liza Cox talks to her about the programme, what to expect and the unique nature of the job.

Man of Valour is an extraordinary one-man show, with Farrel Blinks, a Walter Mitty-esque civil servant, as its hero. He’s crippled by social anxiety, haunted by demons, and given to wild flights of fantasy. The Corn Exchange have convincingly created a whole world using little dialogue and no props; clever use of lighting and audiovisual projection (by Aedín Cosgrove and Jack Phelan, respectively) combined with Paul Reid’s incredibly versatile performance are more than sufficient substitutes.

So effortless does Reid’s mime appear, so fluid his transitions between characters, so assured his every movement onstage, that it’s easy to forget, drawn in as the audience is, just what a remarkable physical performance it is. Reid’s energy is irrepressible, the momentum relentless, and although he manages to make it all seem quite natural, he is drenched in sweat by the end of the show. It’s this energy, and the versatility of his performance, that makes the play so compelling. He remains entirely in control of his range of characters and invisible props throughout. Reid manages to convey an impressive range of actions, from his mundane routine at the office and flat to an underwater chase, and fantasy midair combat scenes with himself.

It would be almost unbearably bleak at points, but it’s tempered by the humour running throughout. Reid had the audience breaking out in laughter from start to finish, in tears at points, and jumping to their feet by the end. The team behind Man of Valour, director Annie Ryan, writer Michael West, and its star, Paul Reid, have created a truly innovative show which is at once mime and action-movie, blending existential anxiety with slapstick humour. “World-class” is a fair assessment – catch it before it sells out.

Liza Cox

September 8th – 24th, The Beckett Theatre.

http://www.fringefest.com/event/man-of-valour

London based producers Dark Sky are one of the hottest bass outfits around at the moment, having released single ‘Leave’ on renowned label Ninja Tune as well as remix projects for everyone from Alpines to Jamie XX, I caught up with Tom Edwards, Matt Benyayer and Carlo to get their views on the UK bass and EDM scene.

How do you approach making a track? Is it a collaborative process or do you tend to work on material individually and try and bring it together? ‘’ It can be difficult, however we are not always working as a threesome, we often start the ‘sketches’ or demos on our own then meet up and decide which one have the potential to develop further. There is no set routine to our creative process – when we all come together some arguing does usually occur, but three different opinions in one room makes that inevitable. We have learnt to compromise a lot on certain elements; each of us will take turns on writing elements which we hope leads to a sound that is diverse but also grounded with some continuity and signatures from past compositions. Three sets of ears can be invaluable when a second opinion is required or one of us feels like we are getting lost. A track isn’t complete until all three of us are happy with it. ‘’ What direction do you think bass music in the UK is taking at the moment? ‘’I think the UK is taking a very open stance approach to bass music fusing lots of elements from the past with modern day production techniques. It is constantly evolving at a very fast rate.’’

Do you consider live performance to be an integral part of Dark Sky or would you be just as happy producing music and never playing live? ‘’Yes we consider live performance an integral part of the future for us, we are currently working on establishing a setup that works for us and will be reliable enough to tour with.’’ Okay but the show in Dublin is going to be a DJ set, do you have any plans to take your live show on the road? ‘’Yes that’s the plan, at this stage it’s just about finding a setup that is convenient enough and small enough to pack into a van and travel around with.’’

What do you listen to outside of electronic music? ‘’Disco, Jazz, Hip Hop and Folk.’’ Would you say that the bass scene is grounded in London or are there influences coming in from other cities? ‘’There is definitely a strong presence in London but other cities are very hot on the radar such as Vancouver, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Nottingham, Leeds and Dublin.’’ Yeah the UK scene seems to be evolving at a faster pace than ever before, it seems there’s a new subgenre emerging every few weeks. What do you tip as being big in a years’ time? ‘’It’s quite hard to predict but I can see a resurgence coming in music based around the 115-125 bpm mark.’’ What kind of tools are you guys working with in the studio at the minute? ‘’Currently we’re using Ableton 8, a pair of Samson Rubicon monitors a Korg MS2000 synthesizer .‘’ You’ve remixed some pretty big names, who was your favourite to work with? ‘’Probably the Kelis vocals, they just seemed to work really well with anything we put them through.’’ – Keith Grehan.

Dark Sky play the Lost Society September 23rd, tickets are E10

http://soundcloud.com/dark-sky

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Featuring the voices of: Amy Poehler, Will Arnett and Mirai Shida

Running time: 94 minutes (Japanese with English subtitles)

Rating: 2.2

By Robert O’ Reilly

Arrietty, the new film from Studio Ghibli (whose previous efforts include Howl’s Moving Castle and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away), is perhaps not up there with the Japanese animation studio’s very best work but it’s still a pretty decent effort nonetheless.

Super 8

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler

Running time: 112 minutes

Rating: 2.1

By Robert O’ Reilly

J.J. Abrams follows up his 2009 hit Star Trek with this Steven Spielberg produced sci-fi nostalgia-fest, a sure-fire hit with adults and kids alike. Although Super 8 is not likely to top any Oscar winning lists, it’s an audience-friendly, wholly entertaining romp, the type of movie that only Hollywood seems to be able to do just right.

Director: Eric Lartigau

Cast: Romain Duris, Marina Fois, Niels Arestrup

Running time: 114 minutes (French with English subtitles)

Rating: 2.2

By Robert O’ Reilly

Partner in a Parisian law firm and living in bourgeois luxury with his wife and two cute kids, Paul Exben’s (Romain Duris) life seems to have everything going for it. However, all is perhaps not as it seems in Paul’s comfortable-on-the-surface lifestyle, as he begins to suspect his wife of having an affair with one of their neighbours, a freelance photographer.

Director: Daniel Monzón

Cast: Alberto Ammann, Luis Tosar, Marta Etura

Running time: 113 minutes (Spanish with English subtitles)

Rating: 2.2

By Robert O’ Reilly

The day before he starts his new job as a prison officer, Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann) takes a tour of his new employee space and has the misfortune of being trapped in a jail cell while a full blown riot breaks out among the other inmates.

Bobby Fischer Against the World

Director: Liz Garbus

Running time: 90 minutes

Rating: 2:1

By Robert O’ Reilly

Originally made for the HBO television network, Liz Garbus’s documentary biopic about former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has proved so popular with viewers and critics alike that it has now been given a full cinema release. Tracing the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of arguably the greatest chess player of all time, Bobby Fischer Against the World just might be the best documentary you see this year. Showing an avid interest in the game from the age of six, Fischer went on to win eight United States Championship titles before becoming the youngest ever chess grandmaster. His best-of-24 title match against Russian world champion Boris Spassky in Iceland in 1972, became a media circus and seemingly much more than just a battle between two beautiful minds, as both players became pawns in a political game between the two governments of the Soviet Union and the United States, who viewed the match as a clash of Cold War ideologies.

After winning the coveted world title at the tender age of 29, and apparently with nothing else to achieve in the game of chess, Fischer completely lost interest in playing the ‘game of kings’ and his life started on a downward spiral from which he never recovered. Suffering from paranoid delusions and heavily influenced by anti-Semitic literature and cult religions, Fischer disappeared off the world’s radar until he reappeared in the early 1990’s, a young Hungarian girl coaxing him out of retirement. However, his Lazurus-like reappearance ended in disaster for the former champion, as his rematch win against his old nemesis Spassky in the former Yugoslavia broke a U.S. embargo, the American Government threatening him with a hefty jail sentence if he tried to get back into the U.S. A heavy-set, heavily-bearded Fischer ultimately found a home in Iceland, the site of his previous world title win but he soon isolated himself from the general public by openly criticising Jewish people and generally behaving badly.

Using captivating stock footage and heartfelt interviews, the documentary paints Fischer as pretty much a complete recluse whose only real love in life was the chessboard. His incredible talent at playing chess came at a cost however, as his obsession with the game led to him not being able to develop any meaningful relationships in his life, including with his parents who both eventually neglected him. Viewers who might be put off by the idea of a documentary about chess in the first place should definitely give this film a chance, as it’s a wonderfully engrossing biopic that is both highly gripping and expertly edited. Almost flawless in execution (the film is only slightly hampered by Garbus’s excessive use of music from the period in question, which often doesn’t fit in with the film’s tone and gives it the feel of an episode of Reeling in the Years), Bobby Fischer Against the World is not just a documentary about chess, but a marvellously executed story of a man whose mind eventually cracked with the strain of being a true genius.

The Tree of Life

Director: Terence Malick

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn

Running time: 139 minutes.

Rating: 2.2

By Robert O’Reilly

Often nicknamed cinema’s invisible man, Terence Malick is renowned for taking massive gaps between his output as a director, having only taken the helm on five movies in a 38 year career. With only a six year hiatus under his belt (his last film was the critically derided but somewhat underrated The New World), Malick is back in the director’s chair once again with The Tree of Life.

The story centres around a family trying to come to terms with the vastly changing landscape of 1950’s suburban America, particularly focussing on eldest son Jack (brilliantly played by Hollywood newcomer Hunter McCracken). He struggles, along with the rest of his family, including easygoing mother (Jessica Chastain), to cope with life under their extremely domineering, company executive father (Brad Pitt), who rules the family with an iron fist. Most of the film is told in flashbacks from the point of view of the now-grey-haired Jack (Sean Penn), who appears disillusioned with his suit and tie job in a high-rise office building. Jack reminisces about his loss of innocence and attempts to come to terms with his childhood regrets.

Perhaps if this storyline was filmed by Steven Spielberg or Clint Eastwood, one would expect the film to be a dramatic, emotional tearjerker attempting to tug the heartstrings of the audience. However, despite The Tree of Life sometimes doing that very thing at certain moments, the film often veers off into some very strange territory indeed. Including footage of CGI dinosaurs and the director’s take on the beginning of the universe, Malick’s latest opus comes across as a top-notch drama crossed with a Discovery Channel documentary. While both of these elements are certainly interesting in and of themselves, together they just don’t seem to gel and it’s quite possible that at certain points in the film the viewer might think that they are actually watching two different movies that have been spliced together as a filmmaking experiment. Take one large dash of Stand by Me, sprinkle it with a reel or two of 2001: A Space Odyssey and up sprouts The Tree of Life.

Much maligned for the overuse of voiceover in 1998’s The Thin Red Line, the director is up to his old tricks once again, with several characters conveying their views on the non-diegetic soundtrack. While sometimes this works pretty well, Malick’s dependence on it to explain parts of the story can start to grate on the nerves after a while. The acting is of the highest calibre throughout the film, with particular kudos going to Pitt for maybe his most mature performance to date and Chastain as his frustrated wife is in fine form too.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, with swirling camerawork seemingly searching the very heavens themselves for answers to the meaning of life is splendid at all times and Alexandre Desplat’s original score is both subdued and soaring, complimenting the film beautifully at every juncture.

Although Malick should be commended for attempting what is certainly a very ambitious undertaking, the different branches of The Tree of Life simply don’t add up to an altogether satisfying experience.