Category: Blogs about Art

Funny and bleak in equal parts: Stoppard does Chekhov in the West End

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So Lol went to see the Donmar production of Ivanov the other night. It was brilliant all round – incredible music, set design and performances. The translation was as witty as ever (and being a massive Stoppard-obsessive this came as no surprise).

The only slight quibble on people’s lips was the way that Stoppard had thrown in a bunch of oddly modern phrases. Being as the setting was meant to be the late 1800s, it did seem strangely anachronistic to hear Brannagh and co. saying things like ‘Going like the clappers’ and ‘knackered’. There were lots of phrases which upset the purists in the audience – as though Stoppard was trying to ‘dumb down’ the words of Chekhov.

It got me thinking though – if you translate Russian into English, does it matter whether you change the language to that of the modern day? Surely if we’re being pedantic, they ought to be speaking Russian anyway??

Either way I really recommend seeing it – not if you’re feeling remotely depressed though. Although it’s funny, It’s not the most uplifting of night’s out.  

Danny the Champion of the Film Festival….early review of Slumdog Millionaire

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Last night was the premiere of Danny Boyle’s new film. I (Lol) knew nothing about the story in advance, but I’m pleased to report that it was one of his best yet. Shocking, funny, romantic, gut-wrenchingly sad, but incredibly uplifting. I’m a big ‘Boyle’ fan but this is definitely one of my favourites. Beautiful cinematography, and as usual the music is a huge part of the experience. It’s always the soundtracks which stand out in Boyle’s films, more than any other British director, and this is no exception. Oh, and I won’t spoil it but there’s a wonderful moment early on in the film which has distinct echoes of ‘that’ toilet moment in Trainspotting.

As it was the closing night of the London Film Festival, Danny was there to introduce it and said one thing which was really interesting. He said until recently, the big movie distributers had basically disregarded the film, to the point where it was going to sink without a trace. But then the Toronto Film Festival happened, it went down a storm there, and everything’s all changed now… it’s all, according to Danny, down to the power of film festivals. Which makes the film even more compelling as the story of an Underdog, or Slumdog, shining through.

Go and see it as soon as you can.

 

Go to Work on an Oeuvre: Final thoughts on copywriting novelists

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Winston Fletcher is quoted as saying in John Tylee’s article (Go to work on an Oeuvre) that there is a ‘fundamental difference between copywriting and writing novels.’ Indeed, most creative directors generally hold that novel writing and copy writing involve totally different skill-sets. This may be true, but there are also many similarities.

Someone once told me that writing a billboard is a little like writing a telegram. Every word costs something – it costs a lot in terms of your audience’s attention span. It’s just the same with books. As a novelist you need to write with just the same economy and precision in mind. Keeping your reader’s attention is just as important; you can lose them at any second. Especially difficult are the first 40 pages. I guess that’s the equivalent role of the headline. If you haven’t drawn them in by then, you’ve lost them for the rest of the story.

Sometimes people ask if I’d like to just do novels full time. Apart from the fact that I’d go mad being completely isolated at home every day trying in vain not to procrastinate (e.g. rearranging sock drawer, wanting to clean behind radiators), I think I’d miss the excitement and the immediacy of advertising. One of the things that advertising has going for it is that you generally see your work come to fruition sooner than with novels. Books can take years to get from submission to publication. An ad campaign can sometimes be turned around in a matter of months – (weeks in some cases; and days if you’re working with The Sun), although admittedly some ads can take years to produce when they get clogged up in the research process.

Generally speaking though, being a copywriter is the easiest way to find yourself an audience in the absence of a publishing deal. OK so your name may not be at the bottom of the poster, but at least you’ve reached out and achieved ‘mental rental’ with someone you never met. You’ve still made them laugh, made them stop and think on their way to work. Whatever anyone says against this job, there is a kind of romance in that.