The Varnished Culture's Thumbnail Reviews
Regularly added bite-sized reviews about Literature, Art, Music & Film.
Voltaire said the secret of being boring is to say everything.
We do not wish to say everything or see everything; life, though long is too short for that.
We hope you take these little syntheses in the spirit of shared enthusiasm.
Valley of the Dolls (Jacqueline Susann, 1966)
In 1945 Anne Welles is a prissy but astonishingly beautiful young woman who will do anything to get away and stay away from her small home town. She trips in, all nice and fresh, to New York and immediately gets a job with a marvellous legal firm that specialises in managing movie stars’ contracts. Her new friend Jennifer North is astonishingly beautiful too but most importantly she has SENSATIONAL KNOCKERS. Everyone admires her boobs. The brain dead but astonishingly beautiful singer she marries wants to drink from them (vomit). The sensitive upright senator she is later engaged to calls them ‘my babies’ and fondles them when Jennifer is in a hospital bed (Double vomit). Anne and Jennifer are friends with Neely O’Hara who is not astonishingly beautiful but freckly and pert and is an astonishingly fabulous singer.
Anne compromises her way through life, ignoring the wise advice of her boss Henry Bellamy, the best character in the book, although he is not astonishingly beautiful. Henry tells the reader what is wrong with Anne’s latest mad idea. He tells her not to touch his younger business partner, the fickle but astonishingly beautiful Lyon Burke. We know she cannot resist Lyon. No-one can, that’s the problem. The only advice Anne does accept from fatherly Henry is financial. So she becomes fabulously rich and stupidly unhappy..
Meanwhile Jennifer is using her chest to full advantage in risque European movies (those French!) and Neely is degenerating into Judy Garland.
The book was (allegedly) shocking for the time, given its characters’ relatively loose morals: no-one had sex or took drugs in 1966, apparently. The ‘dolls’ of the title, are, famously, ‘pills’. These chicks do take a lot of uppers, downers and sidewaysers, even judgmental old Anne in the end, but the title seems misplaced: this reader expected much more stuffing of the face with drugs. It’s certainly a page-turner, pacey and absorbing. Not Dostoyevsky (but it’s got boobs).
Barbie (2023 Dir. Greta Gerwig)
Not the least weird thing about the ‘Barbie’ film is the casting. Margot Robbie is just not…Barbie enough…but she does invest the role with a certain joie de vivre and that’s something. Our Barbie (‘Stereotypical Barbie’) lives in a lovely dollhouse world where all the Barbies party and sort of wander about doing physics and stuff. The Kens don’t do anything and are deeply stupid. (Our Barbie’s Ken’s job is not surf lifesaver, as so many people mistakenly believe. His job is ‘beach’). Fittingly, Ken is played by Ryan Gosling, but it might as well have been Ryan Reynolds or any one of the interchangeable Hollywood Ryans. As in most fairytales, our heroine has to leave her custom-made paradise to go find herself – in this case, the plastic Barbie counterpart who is being played with ‘in the wrong way’ in the ‘real world’. When a character commences an earnest explanation of how this existential difficulty can work, he’s quickly stopped because no-one cares. To undertake her journey, Barbie has to visit Weird Barbie (played by Kate McKinnon as Zoey Deschanel in a Phyllis Diller wig and unfortunately not really weird or interesting at all). Barbie has to choose between shoes (one will take her to enlightenment and one will keep her in ignorance) and arrives with Ken in the real world where even the beachgoers of Miami laugh at them. Barbie is disappointed to find that the perfect female empowerment promised by Barbies has not come about. But not before she sees a billboard picturing Miss Universe contestants and exclaims, “The Supreme Court!” Ken on the other hand is delighted to learn about the patriarchy and he brings it back to Barbieland along with some ideas about the importance of horses in men’s lives. So far, so entertaining. Unfortunately, for this viewer at least, at this point the film collapses into ugly boy stuff as the Kens turn the pink into brown, ride horses, chase cars and fight. Isn’t this a chick flick?
The nod to 2001 (in which several celluloid baby dolls get their heads smashed in by enraged small girls) is clever. Rhea Perlman appears as a character straight out of “The Matrix” or “The Simpsons”. However, the main reference seems to be “Elf”, in which Buddy has to go on the same sort of journey. Indeed, Will Ferrell is in Barbie, as the CEO of Mattel, but he has little to do. He does have one good line, “what do we think when I say ‘sparkles’? That’s right, female empowerment”. Of course, there is an impassioned speech about how hard women have it. It is a good speech, no question, and the otherwise passive audience did chortle with agreement. But it was rather trite and is given by a Mattel employee and Barbie-butcher Gloria (America Ferrera) who seems to be in the movie to speechify only, while her bratty, sullen, know-all tween daughter Sasha (played by Ariana Greenblatt) doesn’t need to be in it at all. The feminist point could have been made in a less expository manner. For example, one of the strongest moments in the story occurs when Barbie and Ken are stared at by men in the real world. Ken remarks that all the staring is non-threatening, but Barbie says that she can “feel the violence”. She also remarks that she would never wear high heels if her feet were flat (human). Ironically, back in Barbieland, the Barbies use their feminine wiles to trick the Kens. Ultimately everyone agrees to give equal rights to everyone.
The script seems underdone, lacking the interest and depth it could have had. It tries to tick all the boxes – teen girls, disgruntled women, people who want to see Ryan Whatsits dance, Will Ferrell fans, Margot Robbie apologists, etc. The product placement is tedious for those who don’t know their Mattel world. Worst of all, much of ‘Barbie’ looks ugly. Barbie’s clothes are disappointing. Her hair? All over the place. I wanted to comb it.
Oppenheimer
(Directed by Christopher Nolan) (2023)
On 16 July 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated, at a test site named “Trinity”, in New Mexico, USA. It went so well that, on 6 August 1945 at 8.15 am, the US tried it on an actual city: Hiroshima. A blinding flash shot over the city, and then some 100,000 people were vapourised. The morning turned dark; a priest, Father Kleinsorge, wandered in the garden of his mission, dazed and bleeding, to see his housekeeper, Murata-san, crying out “Shu Jesusu, awaremi tamai!” (‘Our Lord Jesus, have pity on us!’).*
Of course, President Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima (and Nagasaki, three days later) was justified (arguably justifiable) by calculations that an invasion of Japan would cause even more death and destruction than the atomic bombs (not forgetting the fire-bombing of Tokyo). We suspect the Japanese soldiers, and perhaps citizens, would have fought like cornered cats: nevertheless, was any thought given to a blockade to bring about a fairly peaceable surrender?
Whilst, as Tom Waits sang, there is no Devil, it’s just God when drunk, we fear God has got onto the harder stuff. Now a junkie, She makes it her enigmatic aim to devise novel ways for humankind to self-immolate. The Manhattan project scientists had a notion that setting-off an atomic bomb might cause a chain reaction that would ripple well beyond the target; much like the boffins at the hadron collider project feared they might create an Event Horizon, or the tech-heads who speculate about where Artificial Intelligence might end up.
I’m writing this review in the Christopher Nolan film style, viz., it’s all over the place, like fissile isotopes. The moral issues of bombs are worth discussing but unlike most moral issues, these ones pose real issues. Nolan’s vivid film uses brilliant but flaky atomic physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (22/4/1904 -18/2/1967) to present but not resolve some of these issues. Played staringly well by glassy-eyed Cillian Murphy (Montgomery Clift would have been the perfect choice, but was unavailable), in the manner of a Gaelic midfielder who has just learnt he’s been cut from the team, the eponymous hero is a masochistic martyr and mystic, well described by a colleague as “not only self-important, but important.”
We track through the dimensions in a dazzling but migraine-inducing shower of sparks and splinters, as the director splits the atoms of linear time and narrative continuity. Here’s Oppy being ridden by his girlfriend (played by Florence Pugh, who has nothing to do but strip or put her head in the bath) whilst reciting the Bhagavad Gita, in Sanskrit, yet: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”, a glorious mis-reading. Or there, chalking university blackboards and bothering Albert Einstein (Tom Conti). Or everywhere, developing the atomic bomb and agonising over whether it is a sign of moral turpitude. We doubt that President Truman (an unrecognizable Gary Oldman) really said of Oppy ‘Don’t let that cry-baby into this [Oval] office again,’ but you get the gist.
“Robert, your bomb may stop the Japs, but mine will stop the Russkies.”
The development and final testing of the bomb are thrilling, brilliantly done. The use of sound – the overt emphasis on vibration – is very clever, and the soundtrack complements this. The pre-war and wartime competition to get there first, the internal debates and wrangling over scarcity of materials, security, military and political interference with science, and so on, are wittily done, and for the most part, refreshingly-free of agitprop. Where the film begins to founder is in the overlong aftermath, when Nolan delves into the humiliating stitch-up to which Oppy was subjected in the hot part of the Cold War, when he lost his security clearance, along with a few friends. This is the most conventional and least impressive part of the picture, albeit that the villain of the piece, Lewis Strauss, is portrayed with customary force by Robert Downey Jr.
Time to bash a Republican
This not a black and white matter (although Nolan often can’t decide when to add colour to his set pieces, which go from b/w to many hues for no apparent reason): By the time Strauss raised doubts about Oppenheimer, the Cold War was at full pitch: Klaus Fuchs (also at Los Alamos) had leaked atomic secrets to the Russians and was arrested in 1950; Oppenheimer, though not a card carrying Communist, was certainly a fellow traveller and no Republican; and there was personal animus, for the haughty professional physicist, progressive, and lapsed Jew, from the amateur-scientist, conservative Jewish banker who happened to head the Atomic Energy Commission, and was charged with developing thermonuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. Regrettably, we do not get a very nuanced treatment of this episode, which was, at the time, highly partisan and highly political. One hoped for better. This does not include the way Edward Teller is framed in the film (played with verve by Benny Safdie). Teller was a brilliant physicist and ‘father’ of the Hydrogen Bomb, which was opposed by Oppenheimer (and others). He was certainly not a warm and lovable human being, but he is shown to have had a sense of honour; after he gives rather equivocal evidence to the security hearing, Oppy shakes his hand, much to the disgust of wife Kitty.
The performances are fine. Matt Damon as Brigadier General Leslie Groves is particularly good. Emily Blunt has a nice way with a martini-soaked sneer (we liked it when, introduced to the modest and countryfied Trinity site where they were to live whilst the Manhattan Project was completed, she said “All that’s missing is a saloon“) but she had the burden of being a 1950s wife, with not much to do, and this was replicated in her role as well. Small key roles were nicely done: Those mentioned above; plus Casey Affleck as a soft-spoken but chilling security man; Kenneth Branagh as an avuncular Niels Bohr; Jason Clarke as a zealous investigating counsel; Matthias Schweighöfer as the suavely sinister Werner Heisenberg.
In the final analysis, as JFK, who gets a brief mention in the film, used to say, Oppenheimer is a worthy film well worth watching. Cut some speeches and staring. And let’s dig deeper into Oppenheimer the Man. A brief exegesis on fission and fusion wouldn’t go astray either, for those of us who skipped physics and chem. in school.
[*John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946), p. 27.]
The Guns of August Revisited
(By Barbara W. Tuchman, 1962)
Tuchman’s classic history of the stirrings of WWI deserves a fresh look, when one compares some of the events leading to and culminating in August 1914 with some of the events leading to and maybe culminating in August 2023:
1910: Edward VII dies / 2022: Elizabeth II dies. A comet appears in both years (“When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” – “Julius Caesar”)
“All the old buoys which have marked the channel of our lives seem to have been swept away.” (Lord Esher, 1910).
Meanwhile, in the years 1910 to 1914, Germany peers at the ‘weak link’ of France/Belgium, who refuse to play ball, and the threat of an Anglo/Russian alliance. Wilhelm II is enraged by both, and says “I could not be played with. Whoever in the case of a European war was not with me was against me.”
2014/15: A Crimean ‘skirmish’ (2014/15), whereby Putin invades Ukraine on a campaign of annexation.
July 23, 1914: Austria-Hungary gives an ultimatum to Serbia in the wake of the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand.
January 2022: Russia gives an ultimatum to NATO members states and others to “end NATO enlargement, compromise the sovereignty of other states, and curtail US and Allied ability to cooperate, conduct exercises, or deploy forces anywhere near Russian borders, establishing a de jure sphere of influence” [International Institute for Strategic Studies, 25/1/22].
August 1914: “War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use…General staffs, goaded by their relentless timetables, were pounding the table for the signal to move lest their opponents gain an hour’s head start. Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible for their country’s fate, attempted to back away but the pull of military schedules dragged them forward.” (Tuchman).
Recession and foreign trade embargoes loomed in both years.
24 February 2022: Russia invades Ukraine. Like Germany in 1914, it has become “a nation fed on the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute.” Morale, that old-fashioned concept, still holds true.
There are stirrings of other times as well. NATO mismanagement of Eastern European membership looks a bit like the Treaty of Versailles. The Ukraine adventure, with its pile-on of countries busting to test their new-fangled weapons, is our Spanish Civil War. Hopefully we don’t see an incursion into Poland; or Georgia or the Baltics, for example.
“No worries” – In 1914, The Kaiser told his embarking troops, “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” Mr. Putin seems to have had the same optimism (or insouciance?) for a quick result. Of course, if there is an escalation beyond the current fracas, that might be resolved more quickly than is comfortable.
Tuchman wrote of the brink of the Great War: “In Whitehall that evening, Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomised the hour, ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'”
She Said
(2022)
Yes, it’s all ‘She Said’ in this tedious, overblown 90 minute polemic from director Maria Schrader. Anything ‘he says’ is misogynistic and stupid, ipso facto, because the speaker is a man. The scene is set early on with gratuitous Trump-bashing. Then whispers about Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behaviour are heard and leapt upon voraciously by our female reporters (they are, apparently, the only ones doing a real job apart from, possibly, Anderson Cooper who is also on to it, (no surprises there)). Everyone’s aghast. The ‘casting couch’ is such an evil and new concept (but only to be expected).
Weinstein is a grub and not the only one in Hollywood, true. But the utter glee and self-aggrandisement with which Meghan Twomey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) (the real life New York Times journalists behind the original exposé) pontificate and air-punch when they get hold of a minor celebrity who will talk (sorry Ashley, sorry Rose) is simply wearisome. There’s some mysterious thing going on with Saint Gwyneth Paltrow whom the writers want to name as a complainant but just can’t quite.
The music, the physical trembling with emotion, the portentous voices and the meaningful looks are risible. We see our heroines juggling massive workloads and new babies. Post natal depression gets a moment, as do nasty men in bars. Male lawyers are dumb and must be countered with smug eye-rolling. A male editor is ok, as long as he is black and restricts his input to, “You go get ’em!” and “we’ve got a deadline!” Patricia Clarkson looking fabulous (is that ok?) trails about, supporting our reporters in a soft voice. If she’s embarrassed, Carey Mulligan should be hiding under the bed in shame. Miss this dross and watch her in Never Let Me Go and a truly powerful feminist story which leaves this weak entry for dead, “Promising Young Woman“.
She Said tries to be All The President’s Men but it is so, so not. She said. Me Too.
“It’s on record Bernstein! I mean, Twomey…”
Good
(written by C. P. Taylor (1981); Directed by Dominic Cooke, Harold Pinter Theatre, London, 25 June 2023)
Regarding the grand achievements of the Third Reich, “As with Stalin’s Great Terror, only a madman could guess what was on the way. Even the perpetrators had to go one step at a time, completing each step before they realised that the next one was possible.”* In “Good,” A liberal German Professor of literature (NOT Victor Klemperer), named John Halder, becomes involved with the Third Reich’s war machine and the Final Solution. Halder, a ‘good man,’ shows all the moral courage of Albert Speer and all the sense of duty and honour of Reinhard Heydrich. Mere cool intellect does not confer simple warm human decency or tough adherence to tradition and principle, something the old religions used to try to drum into us.
In this production, each incremental step to the Holocaust is shown: Hitler’s election; the Berlin University book burning; exploitation of the assassination of Ernst vom Rath and subsequent Kristallnacht; War and Shoah. Throughout, Halder’s development (or descent) is accomplished because, pace Hannah Arendt, the emptier the vessel, the easier to fill with poison. The play takes no baby-steps: we hurtle towards the denouement at a frenetic pace, as Halder engages with multiple characters – his best (only) friend (a Jew), his demented mother, his wife, his lover, various Nazi apparatchiks. These exchanges chop and change every few seconds, or so it seems, but we did not find this overly confusing, albeit the whole piece is overly talky. Halder was played by David Tennant in an excess of intensity: whilst impressive, a bland and unemotional reading would have been more apt. The sundry supporting roles were played by Elliot Levey and Sharon Small, very well indeed, although an ominous and silent figure joins the stage at the finale. The set is claustrophobic and stark, a cornered wall with apertures for ovens to accommodate books and other things for burning.
©JOHAN PERSSON
The dramatic theme is sledgehammered in up front by Halder, at dinner in Frankfurt, telling friend Maurice how Goethe ignored a begging letter from Beethoven. This becomes the trope for Halder’s moral decline, particularly his failure to secure Maurice’s exit visa from an increasingly anti-Semitic nation. It is a poor start in a play about morality: how about explaining that Goethe was ill to almost the level of mortal danger when the letter arrived? But let that pass. At first, Halder meets his friend’s fear of the Nazis with skepticism (“just a balloon they throw up in the air to distract the masses.”) Then Halder joins the Party (it’s just easier). The characters emblematize the febrile atmosphere of Nazi Germany, to a point where they seem one-dimensional when in such a world of State-sponsored insanity they actually are forced to be. Music, that great mnemonic, accompanies the inside of Halder’s head as he heads down the well-intentioned stairs to Hell, leaving dying Weimar (jazz), passing by unfashionable Catholicism (Schubert, Chopin) and arriving with a thud at Wagner (an obvious but silly conceit).
For advancement, vanity, and an easy life, Literature Professor Halder starts by shoveling books into the furnace, and finally channels his inner Mengele and Eichmann at Auschwitz, where an old friend turns up. Clive James, reviewing the TV drama “Holocaust” in ‘The Observer’, 10/9/1978, whose comment is quoted above, said further: “There is no hope that the boundless horror of Nazi Germany can be transmitted entire to the generation that will succeed us. There is a limit to what we can absorb of other people’s experience. There is also a limit to how guilty we should feel about being unable to remember.” This sums up the difficulty of dramatic renderings of insane epochs such as the Third Reich or the Great Terror (or for that matter, the Spanish Inquisition, the Reformation, the Apartheid, the Katyn massacre, Srebrenica, The Troubles, etc…) – they stretch the limits of our credulity; they stretch the limits of our ability to process the truth. For these and other reasons discussed above, Good is not Great (and in fairness, could probably never hope to be).
Edge of Reality
(Created by Paul Grabowsky, Adelaide Festival Centre, 14 June 2023)
Elvis Presley and Cabaret? But of course! If you Can Dream, avoid that Kentucky Rain, have a Little Less Conversation, perhaps have you Always on Our Mind, and do it My Way, it could work. And this night, it kinda-did, care of Paul Grabowsky’s absolutely clever re-working of the arrangements of the King’s greatest hits (and some lesser mortals), with a terrific jazz/rock/fusion band (piano, guitar, cello, clarinet, trumpet, fiddle, drums, glockenspiel?) and starring celebrated Australian vocalists Joe Camilleri and Deborah Conway, Edge of Reality is a unique tribute to Elvis Presley that the King would have liked, although some of his fans would not..
Elvis would have asked for the songs to be sped-up, but we liked most of the arrangements (see below), which Conway and Camilleri sang lustily and with affection (though not always to the requisite note or lyric). At one stage, early in the evening, Conway tried a dramatic riff of the King, in his Vegas cups, complaining about the press reporting him as “strung out.” As that soliloquy was neither developed, nor reflective of the sad truth, it stuck TVC as passing strange. But let that pass.
Conway sang great versions of “Burning Love” and “Hound Dog” and then Joe gave us a smoking version of “Mystery Train,” (one for aficionados) and then “True Love Travels on a Gravel Road” (one for gnostics). At this stage, one wag in the crowd shouted “Where’s Elvis?“, to which we wanted to reply in the words of Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black: “Elvis isn’t dead. He just went home.” But before he went home:
There was Deb Conway with a jaunty version of “Don’t Be Cruel,” and a great cocktail-lounge version of “Love Me Tender.” Then a real highlight: a saxophone duo leading into an almost unbearably slow, dark, weird and wonderful version of “Edge of Reality” by Camilleri, worthy of Peter Gabriel in his most imperious mood, and then Conway gave us a jazzy Copacabana version of “That’s All Right.” Joe weighed in with a truncated “In the Ghetto,” a funky “One Night With You” and then Deb attempted “Unchained Melody” which would strain anybody. Joe then did a slow-hand version of the classic “Always on my Mind,” and Deb did the classic “Suspicious Minds” to a great rocking beat, but surprisingly sexless (is is misogynistic to complain that a lass can’t sing the songs of the quintessential lad? Discuss). And the mangled line “Let’s not let a good thing die” was itself mangled.
But the encore was a great hard rocker, “Viva Las Vegas” and then Elvis left the building. A very worthy effort!
Continue Reading →Eurovision 2023
Ah Eurovision! How we love you – always oozing zeitgeist. As the fashion of 2023 is virtue-signalling, so Eurovision 2023 is all woke and everything. But not even the po-faced killjoys of intersectionality politics can strip the time-honoured Eurovision Song Contest of its retro, delusional charm and Martian qualities. No! Though it nods to the real world, Eurovision will never be mainstream or proper. It is…Eurovision…
So the 2023 Grand Final (in Liverpool, England because the 2022 winner Ukraine is at war) started true to form with an inexplicable number featuring Cousin-It ‘dancers’ in ghillie-suit-womble ensembles, a bit like those giant vertical mops that escape from the carwash in that tv ad. For some reason they were joined by a man in a very stupid pink fur Gilligan hat. They, and several other apparently hilarious types hopped about to third-rate hip hop music for 2 or 3 hours. Awful. Excellent! Nil points! Following that nonsense there was a flag parade studded with random and spontaneous songs by various previous contestants including the large, threatening, gyrating Ukrainian person with a star headdress that everyone remembers (Verka Serducha, Ukraine) from 2007 (the fear, if not the details) and babooshkas on guitar.
When the hosts, a medium size woman no one knew, a tiny Ukrainian chick, an immense English woman called Hannah and a lackluster Graham Norton informed us, to our horror, that there were no less than 26 acts to follow, we heard the gasps around the world as viewers wondered just how many tequila shots a human can take. Oddly, the nameless woman and the little Ukrainian disappeared early on, returning now and then, apparently to assist poor Graham who was clearly uncomfortable and stunned, staring abjectly at the camera while Hannah towered over him, mugging and cackling like Kamala.
We shall mention at this point (because it doesn’t fit anywhere) that the Australian ‘hosts’ Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasy (with groovy pink hair) were also out of their depth and, despite their determined cheerfulness, rather unnecessary. The ‘interview’ toward the end of the show, when the anonymous woman said how grateful they all were to Myf and Joel for being there and Myf and Joel replied that they were so grateful to be there, was even more cringeworthy than Joel’s drooling all over Marco from Italy.
Now, a reminder of our voting systems. We award points out of 5 for how an entrant’s song might manage when let loose into the real world bare-naked; and we award Euro-points out of 5 for the ineffable “Eurovisionness” of each act. In particular, points are traditionally awarded for: 1. Dry ice 2. Contortionists 3. Bad Dancing 4. Any item of Clothing being Torn Away 5. Dwarves 6. Angel Wings or Mock Flying 7. Clowns 8. Piano as Furniture 9. Bearded Ladies 10. Puffs of Smoke. This year though, having watched the whole ghastly thing, we see that we need to start oozing the zeitgeist too. Dry ice and puffs of smoke are now compulsory for every Eurovision song and not even worth mentioning. Let’s see, as we trawl through all 26 of these magnificent offerings, what might replace them.*
Let us dive into the treacle and garum that is Euovision 2023!
AUSTRIA. Teya and Salena lead us all in snoring through “Who the Hell is Edgar? [Allen Poe]”, prancing about in front of a huge typewriter in awful bomber jackets , stringy corsets and loose pants. Not the worst song of the evening (frightening, we know) and the only vaguely literary (or even literate) entry. 1 point for the song and 2 Euro-points for ugly outfits and guitar girl dancers.
PORTUGAL. Mimi Cat, a blonde woman in an awful floofy red dress and long pink gloves grinned her way through some sort of anti-sultry cabaret mess-up. It’s best lines, ‘”I’m crazy. Completely senile”. 0 for the song, 3 for how awful it all was.
SWITZERLAND. “Water Guns” by a pretty boy, Remo Forret in sheer black. A dreary ballad slightly enlivened by sprinting and interpretive dance with stretchy strings and strobe lighting. “I don’t wanna be a soldier, soldier”. A generous 1 for the song and 3 Euro-points for obvious reasons.
POLAND. By Sir Terry Wogan’s beard! this was terrible. Does Blanka think she is hot or what? No wonder she warbles thinly about being “Solo”. The retro video effects were not the last of the night. Unfortunately, neither were the winking or the hair being blown all over the face by a big fan. 0 for the song but 3 for how Eurovision can turn a girl’s head.
SERBIA. At this point we streamlined the first part of our scoring system, only noting the score for a song on the rare occasion it rated more than 0. Things were looking that bad for the actual ‘music’. The vague resemblance of this stinker to “Fade to Grey” was as good as it got. Another pretty boy, this time lying in a ‘”technological flower'”(his words) in a New Romantics outfit while whining quietly, “consensus is burning” opened the number. Robot dancers jerked and a final screen read “ENERGY DEFEATED”. Horrendous. Worthy of 5 Euro-points right there.
FRANCE . La belle Francois can always be relied upon for providing the snore of the evening – sung in French of course. A Lady Gaga type. ‘La Zarra’ in a sparkly dress “inspired by the Eiffel Tower” (overpriced, outdated and useless) topped a great platform thing with a flat biscuit perched jauntily on her curls. She appeared to be tied to a pole, which would explain the whining. Too dull for even more than 2 Euro-points.
CYPRUS. Now this is cheating. Some tanned Australian guy called Andrew Lambrou, whose grandparents were from Cyprus does publicity on a beach, puts on earrings and wanders onto a stage in Liverpool warbling “Break a Broken Heart” (which as an English speaker he must know makes no sense). Not a bad voice, but a wretched song, Andrew. You get 2 Euro-points only for water effects and bare feet, surfer boy.
SPAIN. Blanca Paloma (where have we heard that name before?) got talked into wearing a burgundy lolly wrapper as a one-shoulder corset accessorised with liquorice straps around the arm. And baggy white pants. That, and the women reaching out to touch her through string curtains hurt our eyes in the proper Eurovision way. The red and black theme, ullulation, clapping and silhouettes were perfectly in keeping with every other dull act in Eurovision night 2023. As Paloma sang, “may your eyes like the sun illuminate me at night”. Cosmology is different in Spain. It was a complete mess apart from Blanca’s white platform shoes (platforms were a feature of the show). The song was called “Eaea” which describes our feelings too. 3 Euros.
SWEDEN. OK, this poor skinny woman (Loreen, a previous winner) was attempting a Cosplay show between two light boxes and got stuck. We gave her 1 point for her energetic song, “Tattoo” which reminded us at times of that other Swedish number, “The Winner Takes it All”. (Near the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s famous Eurovision win. Funny that). Her hideous rat-coloured stringy snake costume was designed by Bjork while watching aerobics on Channel Druid. Loreen looks a bit like Patti Smith and she gives good hair so all that adds up to 4 Euro-points.
ALBANIA. Albina and Kemedi Family represented Albania this year. Well, at least the family were proud of Albina and waved their hankies to show it. What is Albanian for ‘Kudos’. ‘Theresas’? Well, Theresas to Mum or the aunty who ran up Albina’s space suit from a desert planet and wrote the immortal lines, “They’re falling apart. Forgetting they have a home. Kids at the table”. Bless. So dull that they wasted all that potential for just 2 Eurovision points.
ITALY. Surprise! A chap called Marco in leather pants and a spangled vest smouldering away Italian Variety Style. ‘Due Vite’ was the song. We were distracted from Marco’s not too bad voice by the backing dancers bouncing up and down on trampolines in silhouette. Marco sang “And still I don’t know your desert that well”, “And we screwed away another night outside a club” before falling to his knees. 3 for that, Marco. Very good.
ESTONIA. We at TVC want Estonia to win so that we can see Eurovision in its flesh in Tallinn. Alas, that wont be happening anytime soon. Our hearts sank as Alika tripped onto the stage in some weird convoluted periwinkle number with strings, a cut-away leotard, an oversized jacket, draggy skirt pants with a side train and I don’t know what else. She did have a self-playing piano and she did some finger gymnastics which is always good. Her voice was better than the peculiar get-up suggested, so she gets 1 for the song and 2 Euro-points.
FINLAND. Finland, Finland, Finland where I do not want to be if this lot are indicative of its artist class. Kaarija, an odd looking man with odd hair regaled us from a wooden crate with “Cha Cha Cha”. He croaked his way through the metal bit to the dance mix. The segue didn’t hurt because we were distracted by his neon green puffer sleeves and black spiky plastic pants. There was more bondage with big rubber strings (pink this time), gorilla walking and a human centipede. Kaarija tried his hardest for Euro-points – silhouettes, a large shadow, strobes and a lizard tongue effect. “I’m staying on this bar stool until I slide off’ he said, along with thousands of tequila sozzled viewers from Brussels to Bondi. 1 for the not totally tuneless song and 5 Euro-points for the totally revolting style. Eurovision as its best – we thought…but wait, Germany is yet to perform its usual drivel and this year there’s Croatia….little did we know…
CZECHIA. What a shame Turkiye and Eswatini aren’t voting tonight. Vesna, 6 fresh-faced women in pink culottes with one long plait each (which is all they can afford in Czechia) meandered about out of synch, declaiming “My sister’s crown don’t take me down” and “We’re not your dolls”, the latter accompanied with marionette actions. They finished with fists raised for the sisterhood. 1 for the song. 3 Euro-points but sister, it was dull.
AUSTRALLIA. A competent band from Western Australia, Voyager, were too stylishly kitted out in glitter-check. The song began with the lead singer in a car**, a keyboard for passenger. A nicely incomprehensible start with a touch of the European incel about it, but it wasn’t enough. Nor was the long hair and fan action. Just not enough Eurovisionness for Euro-points. 2 points for “Promise”, their anthemic number. Is this ultimate failure – points for a song but no Euro-points?
‘oh, what a feeling: Voyager!’
BELGIUM. Gustaph, an ageing Boy George in pink, white platforms and a big dumb white hat of the type Pharrell Williams like to torture us with, sang “Because of You” quite nicely, all things considered. He was careful to make a great show of diversity, including drag video and a contortionist in white and pink with a tail and pom-pom. Surprisingly we will give Gustaph 2 for his song but, not surprisingly, only 2 for Euro magic because it was a bit try hard (see Germany – every year).
ARMENIA. Like many of the lasses in 2021, Brunette has been practising being Ariane Grande in her bedroom. She warbled away about her ‘Future Lover’, or herself or someone, being “abandoned far away, far away you are” before changing to an elfin hip-hop karate dance number without any singing (if you could call it that anyway). Still, she had long laced boots and thought she was the sexiest thing since Blanka; that’s worth 1 Euro-point.
MOLDOVA. Pasha Parfeni is a sort of earth father hippie crouching Japanese Buddhist Moldovan guy and that’s what you get on stage. His singers wore tall Indonesian style hats. There seemed to be a mystic marriage. Pasha’s flautist was a dwarf in a mask with ear feathers, so 4 Euro-points for that. Curiously we didn’t hate the song and gave it 2. Perhaps for authentic insanity and self-absorption.
UKRAINE. The two guys of Tvorchi were next with Heart of Steel. Actually not a bad song, and we give it 3 points, despite all the sentimental nonsense, the yellow and blue, the glitter gloves, the Earth balloons, the wave effects and over the top retro screen effects. We felt a Daft Punk- Kraftwerk-in-a-cathedral-from-Tron vibe.
NORWAY. Alessandra wore a hideous Anne Boleyn in space outfit whipped-up by Albina’s mum with a steamer for a hat and a cape. She hired bad barbarian folk dancers, gave them light sticks and told them to screech a lot. Despite all her sins we give her 2 points for ‘Queen of Kings’ and 1 Eurovision point.
GERMANY. Germany Germany Germany. Germany has a lot to answer for, and their androgynous (they wish) metal band Blood and Glitter (stupid name of the night) is not the least of it. I can’t read my own writing – was their song called “Lord of the Zop”? Probably not, but it scarcely matters, you so do not want to Google it. A skinny type in a red alien spider outfit with one leg (the outfit, not the skinny type – but see later) screamed at us a bit and a keyboardist hung backwards from his instrument. The skinny type intoned, “We’re so happy we could die”. There was a pyramid. That was the level of it. The skinny type did have Bowie tones to his voice and it wasn’t bad if you like metal, so 1 for the song and 3 Euros, although they don’t deserve it.
LITHUANIA. The only act which we awarded nil points for the song and nil points for the magic Eurovision factor. Is that a win or a fail? Monika Linkyte has a not bad voice which was wasted on a dreary song called “Stay’ and a badly made red frilly dress. She did wear good platforms and kept it all woke with African gospel style singers. Still tho. Dull dull dull.
ISRAEL. The peculiar Noa Kirel mugged her way through the dramatic ditty ‘Unicorn’. Unfortunately, Noa and her (apparently many) supporters were given to making the ‘Loser’ forehead sign, mistaking it for a unicorn horn. More Ariane Grande. “Do you wanna see me dance?” Christ no. But Noa did anyway, on the floor, straight off the pole. Noa is up there with Blanka and Brunette in the would-be sex kitten stakes. Unfortunately her half-closed and wonky eyes made it difficult to distinguish her winking and ‘come hither ‘ looks’ from tics. Voice ok but a bit shrill, so you know how many points we allow for that song. 1 Euro-point for the cargo pants coming off and the plastic underwear.
SLOVENIA. Until we saw Croatia’s entry we didn’t think the Balkan states could get it wronger than this. 5 or 6 mop-top boys dressed and coiffed like the Monkees cavorted around delightfully mugging, winking and casting sexy looks at the camera. They sang, or their name was, Carpe Diem (I really cant care enough to look it up) and they finished with big letters – JOKER OUT. 1 Euro-point for the sheer nastiness of the concept.
CROATIA. Yes, Eurovision, save the best for second to last. Don’t try to tell us that the order is random!! We didn’t come down in the last fake fire rain shower. This one is as bad as it can get and thoroughly deserves its 5 Euro-points because they meant it. Apparently these chaps are a real band with real followers and everything. 5 guys dressed in quasi-military uniforms and marched around large wheels shouting ,”Mama bought a tractor” and “Mama kissed a moron” for our edification. They then tore off their skirts to show us their baggy white underpants. It was discordant, ugly, out of date, bewildering, bizarre, ghastly and pure Eurovision.
UNITED KINGDOM. Mae Muller told us “I Wrote a song” but it must have been quick because she spent ages getting her face photographed and the images blown up as big as Hannah. The song she wrote we’ve already forgotten, although it seemed to wander off into rather poor rap. The dancers in ugly red and black costumes (of course) cavorting in front of huge projections of Mae’s face never will be forgotten at TVC, as long as there are tv adverts for cheap lipstick to remind us. 1 Euro point for Mae’s giant face.
While we waited for the pretend votes to be pretend totted-up they threw more stuff from previous contenders at us in a confused and confusing medley known as “The Liverpool Song Book”. The UK Star Man guy from 2022 (Sam Ryder) cheered us all up a bit with a rousing ditty featuring good-looking people missing body parts and Roger Taylor on drums. A really depressed chap called Mahmood waded through “Imagine” as if he were in a hostage video, which he might have been come to think of it, given how bad a song that already is. Netta, the scary Israeli winner from a few years ago wore spider legs like wings – in fact the only wings of the night! A greasy-haired woman called Sonia slumped on a chair and tried to drown herself in 3 inches of water; reminiscent of Ute Lemper, except miserable. For the finale, Duncan Laurence (he’s Dutch or is that Netherlandish now?) wearing funereal garb, lead the whole solemn crowd (including a white-clad Ukrainian choir) in “You’ll Never walk Alone”, which apparently has something to do with a Liverpuddlian disaster. There were star-lights and staunch looks and everything. Moving? Nup.
Then there was the voting. The jury first. “Hello Liverpool! Thank you for a beautiful evening! Our twelve points go to – OUR NEIGHBOUR!” Then the public vote, which we suspect is largely imaginary. There was suspense, but the favourite won. Sadly, Eurovision 2023 was not a winner. Mostly dull. Mostly harmless. But we’ll be watching next year because it is…irresistible.
Jimmy Carr – Terribly Funny
(Thebarton Theatre, 22 April 2023)
For the better part of 2 hours late on Saturday night, comedian Jimmy Carr entertained a packed theatre with his urbane brand of dark, un-PC humour. His promotional statement: “Jimmy’s show contains jokes about all kinds of terrible things. Terrible things that might have affected you or people you know and love. But they’re just jokes – they are not the terrible things.” It takes a certain courage to make jokes about rape, paedophilia, poor parenting, and death, but generally he gets away with it, and he is well onto the next bon mot before some in the crowd have stopped wincing.
In sum, Carr’s act is pure filth. But there is no malice in him, and he is terribly funny. What more can you ask?
“Having political correctness at a comedy show is like having health and safety at a rodeo.”
Victor Churchill
(953 High Street, Armadale (Melbourne), April 2023)
Originally opened in 1876 as a butcher shop in Sydney, Victor Churchill eventually expanded to Melbourne; specifically, Armadale, to which TVC Ubër-ed in the pouring rain. Featuring an artisan butchery and grocer, we came for dinner, at the curved marble dining counter.
This is the place for former President George W. Bush (“I’m a meat guy”), but there are plenty of nice alternatives, including one of our starters, delicious oysters naturale with caviar, trimmings, and lemon.
TVC’s ‘meat guy’, meanwhile, channelled W’s successor (entering Air Force One, he said “Let’s see how you guys do a burger”) and savoured a classic standard, Steak Frites with black market flank steak – sublime.
Wine and service excellent. Not far out of the CBD, Victor Churchill Melbourne is a must stop for hungry carnivores.
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