The Hills are Alive

Welcome to Issue 4 of Viva Lewes, which, you may notice, is the first to have a cover. Our first cover star is the incredibly talented Matilda Leyser, who is doing amazing things with ropes on Tuesday 31st January at the Gardner Arts Centre (see page 16). For that matter this is also the first issue to have page numbers: we want to stress that rather than a website, Viva Lewes is a webmag, with a fresh new edition every week, to keep you up to date with all the events, happenings and issues in this remarkable town and its district. We’re still in a prototype stage – soon the contents page will jump you to any destination you want to go to and you will be able to flick immediately to which day you are interested in… bear with us on those. Remember, use the scroll bar to navigate sideways, and keep sending in any criticism, ideas, contributions and photographs to info@vivalewes.com. Enjoy the week ahead and, as Ms Leyser might say, hang loose.

To receive a free weekly edition of Viva Lewes in your inbox every week, please click here.

• Art: Crypt Gallery; Thebes Gallery
• Beer: Kiss Ale launch
• Books: The Trouble with Tom
• Classical Music: Nicholas Yonge Society
• Dance: Matilda Leyser
• Film: The Constant Gardener; Flightplan; Lassie; Mrs Henderson Presents; Brothers Grimm
• Folk: Mat Green and Andy Turner
• Talk: Siegfried Sassoon
• Photography: Magali Nougarede, Simon Dale
• Restaurant review: The Golden Galleon
• Rock: The Seratones
• Travel: Amsterdam
• Walking: Lewes to Glynde

Contact Viva Lewes

Editorial (alex@vivalewes.com)
Marketing (nick@vivalewes.com)
Design & Technical (dave@vivalewes.com)

The dark flowers of Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry (see page 15) bloomed amid the horrors of WW1

Art - Young Gifted and Colourful

There is a persistent rumour going round that the Lewes District Council is going to cut its funding to the Crypt and Thebes galleries in Seaford and Lewes. They are still to remain galleries, it seems, but are set to become purely commercial concerns, run by the council but up for hire by private punters. This would presumably put an and to the occasional exhibitions the council run to support the local artistic community, such as the Lewes prisoners’ exhibition in the Thebes (see issue 2) and the work of the students of the Seaford Head Community College, on at the Crypt until Feb 4th. Even though the latter might not consistently provide work of the standard usually on display in the Crypt, it would be a great pity to deny these students the chance to see their work exhibited.

There’s a lot crammed into the small space on offer: Pippa Mason’s blonde pop art (self?) portrait, surrounded by ‘kiss me’ Love Heart sweets stands out, as does Hannah Jackson’s cubist face with its Jack Daniels label background.

Folk Music - Mat Green and Andy Turner

Folk at the Oak tonight showcases Mat Green and Andy Turner, founder members of Oxfordshire’s finest folk band Magpie Lane, and passionate purveyors of traditional English dance music from the 18th and 19th century. Mat Green is on fiddle, which he plays in a quintessentially and eminently danceable English style. Andy Turner is one of the most respected anglo-concertina players in the country, and contributed four tracks to the recently released Anglo International CD that also features the likes of John Kirkpatrick. He is also a fine tenor. Their set is interspersed with trad sing-along songs, with an occasional surprise thrown in – the odd Hank Williams number has been known to make an appearance.

This isn’t cutting edge stuff then, but the duo has earned a great live reputation, and there’s a raunchiness and wildness to their performance, which may surprise you. If the ‘f’ word scares the hell out of you, stay away; if you’re interested in sampling the very essence of English folk music for an evening, give it a try.

Cinema - The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener is an important movie directed by Fernando ‘City of God’ Meirelles, based on a novel by John Le Carré. It is at the same time a love story, a political thriller, a murder mystery and a (fictitious) exposé of both the British Government’s and a multinational drug company’s dodgy dealings in Africa. Ralph Fiennes plays a rather stuffy civil servant who falls in love with feisty student Rachel Weisz. He is posted to Africa: they get married so she can go with him. Pretty near the start of the film her butchered body is found on a bleak roadside and Fiennes starts finding the action man within him as he investigates why she was murdered. Was she having an affair with an African colleague? Had she got too close to a multinational drug company’s amoral methods of testing out drugs on unsuspecting African villagers?

The movie manages to be poignant and exciting, thought-provoking and beautiful. It is wonderfully shot and leaves you gasping for breath. Unfortunately, it is deeply flawed, relying on too many clunky plot-shifting devices which leave you thinking ‘that would never have happened!’ But you can’t have everything.

Classical Music -The Nicholas Yonge Society

Art - Tone and Motion

Cinema - Flightplan

Jodie Foster plays a bereaved widow flying from Berlin to New York with a recently deceased husband in a coffin in the hold and a tired six-year-old daughter in the seat next to her. She falls asleep, and when she wakes up her daughter is gone. But where? She is nowhere to be found. When she tells the crew, nobody ever remembers having seen the little girl - she is not even on the passenger list. Foster, an aeroplane engineer by trade starts to career around the innards of the plane while the passengers and crew, including the irritating Sean Bean as captain, get more and more alarmed. So far, so Hitchcockian.

Jodie Foster is a very talented actress, and for an hour Flightplan is a taut, well-filmed, disturbing movie. But like most flights, it drags on too long and its denouement is frankly absurd: Hitchcock was the master of smoothing over implausible cracks; this film suffers from a bumpy landing which leaves you wondering whether you should have gone by train.

Rock/Pop gig - The Seratones

The Seratones are an unashamed covers bands that thrash out blokey numbers from the sixties through to the present day. “We don’t do much slow stuff,” says Dan, the drummer. “We’re very upbeat.” So when they choose a Stones number, it’s Jumping Jack Flash not Angie, when they choose a Beatles number it’s a Hard Day’s Night, not Something. Oasis? Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, of course. Blur? Parklife. Craig on electric guitar and Tim on bass share the vocals, delivering a bit of urban wit and repartee on the side. The band are in their mid thirties, and their set encompasses material culled from the charts throughout their life. “We go right up to the modern day,” continues Dan, who cites John Bonham and Buddy Rich as his drumming influences.

It won’t be subtle and it won’t be sophisticated. It will be better enjoyed with a couple of pints down you. Expect The Who, expect the Stereophonics and expect U2. They even cover The Kaiser Chiefs. We predict a riot.

Cinema - Lassie

Charles Sturridge’s warm-hearted remake of the classic 1955 movie Lassie Comes Home (a film which rather gives away the punch line, we always thought) turns that timeless old-timers’ lament on its head: they do make them like that any more. Saccharine-sweetness is more palatable when the American accents are removed: Lassie is moved back to the original British setting of Eric Knight’s novel. During WWI a Yorkshire pit is closed, a hard-up family sell their dog to the local land-owner in order to survive; a young boy is left broken hearted. The landowner moves to Scotland; Lassie escapes, and embarks on a 1,000 mile journey back home. On the way Lassie shows the cunning of a fox, the heart of a lion and the directional sense of a satellite tracking device.

The cast, including Peter O’Toole, Edward Fox, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Jemma Redgrave and Kelly MacDonald make this film a rarity in film history, a sequel which is better than the original. Watch it, and weep.

Pint-to-pint Walk no 3
Lewes - Glynde

The Gardners Arms offers the best range of well-kept real ales in Lewes. Choose one of these, drink it, and turn right into Cliffe High Street, crossing over South Street and up Chapel Hill to the golf clubhouse. From here there is an interesting view of the town. Resist any urge to drop into the bar: instead, hop over the style to your right, and walk along the path to the top of the hill keeping the golf course to your left, and the valley to your right. When you reach the crest of the hill follow the path veering right towards Mt Caburn, the highest point around. This was the site of an Iron Age Fort until the Roman occupation; it is said that a giant named Gil used to walk these slopes, hurling his hammer down the hill. There is also rumoured to be buried treasure here: a golden suit of armour and a silver coffin.

Take in the stunning view; turn back the way you came, then take the path to your right which leads down into Glynde, past the cricket field, and over the bridge. The Trevor Arms awaits you, with a full range of Harveys draught ales.

Cinema - The Brothers Grimm

In reality the Brothers Grimm were two scholarly 19th century siblings who collected German folk stories and brought to the world the likes of Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Hansel and Gretel. In Terry Gilliam’s mad world, they turn into a pair of fraudsters who set up as Napoleonic-era ghostbusters in French-occupied rural Germany, faking and exorcising supernatural demons to make a quick schilling from gullible villagers. When they are rumbled by a French general they are sent on another assignment as punishment - a haunted forest which horses won’t enter, where the trees are alive and in which children keep disappearing. The trouble is this time the forest really is haunted, and the brothers, played by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, have to dig deep into resources they never knew they really had to sort out the situation.

The film is over-acted, over-plotted, and over the top, but essentially likeable and zany enough that you come out with a smile on your face. But be warned, you will never go into the woods again. Ish.

Cinema - Mrs Henderson Presents

A widow, Dame Judi Dench, inherits a derelict London theatre, the Windmill, in the pre-war years. She hires a producer, Bob Hoskins, to run raunchy vaudeville shows. They aren’t very popular. The theatre isn’t making any money. What can be done? Dench has a radical answer: get the performers to do their act naked. Of course, in stuffy old 30’s England, this creates a lot of conflict. With Stephen Frears directing what is in effect a true story, you know what to expect in this rose-tinted period piece. At times it’s twee, at times it’s plain silly, but it’s always likeable and it leaves you with an immense pride in the pit of your stomach as the show goes on despite Nazi bombs dropping on London. The Windmill was the only theatre to run throughout the war and for a long time afterwards boasted on a sign outside - We Never Closed.

It still hasn’t, actually: and nudity is still on the bill. Nowadays the Windmill is a lap-dancing club.

Literary Club - Max Egremont on Sassoon’s War Years

The poet and memoirist Siegfried Sassoon’s defining years were those he spent fighting on the Western Front, when his patriotic fervour was swept away, where his poetry developed that menacing edge, where he wrote of ‘mud and rain and wretchedness and blood’, and ‘mangling cramps and bullets through the brain’. Max Egremont, who is delivering this talk on Sassoon’s war years, has just written an important biography of the poet, which has brought to light the content of a number of hitherto unseen letters and diaries recently released by Sassoon’s son George.

He will tell of how Sassoon, angered by the death of his brother Hamo at Gallipoli, threw himself into acts of valiant foolhardiness against the Germans, winning the MC for an attack on an enemy trench and earning the nickname ‘Mad Jack’ from his troops. But how the sickening misery of trenches and death, particularly that of his friend David Thomas, led him to reassess his take on the conflict; so much so that a protest pamphlet he penned was read out in Parliament in 1917. Sassoon’s poetry should be read and re-read, not just for its considerable artistic merit, but lest we ever forget the horrors of the ‘Great’ war.

Pelham House
(t) 01273 488600
(w) www.pelhamhouse.com

Physical Theatre - Matilda Leyser

Matilda Leyser is one of the few people who can say, when you ask her what she does, ‘I’m an actress-aerialist’. Trained in aerial circus skills, but also as a dancer and actress, Matilda manages to make dangling on a rope (and a cloud swing, and a vast sky-sized curtain) look artistic and meaningful. “It’s all about mixing strength with fragility,” she said of her work, in a recent interview in Stage Magazine. Or, as her website puts it, ‘aerial work can dramatise many of the metaphors through which we describe our life on the ground.’

Matilda has made her idiosyncratic form of art into something of a success story: this is the fourth time she has UK-toured a new project, and in recent years she has appeared at the Royal Opera House and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. ‘Line, Point, Plane’, which incorporates original musical and lyrical compositions, is influenced by Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky’s 1926 art theory treatise Point and Line to Plane. Tarzan swinging on a vine it ain’t.

Beer -Harveys Kiss Ale

Harveys Brewery originally brought out Kiss Ale to celebrate the return to Lewes of Rodin’s statue ‘The Kiss’ in 1999, an event that did much to establish the town’s burgeoning reputation as a venue for events of national importance. The ale proved so popular that the brewery decided to offer it every year, throughout the month of February, to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It is the palest ale made by Harveys – and is rumoured to be paler than ever this year – but at 4.8% packs something of a punch.

It is made using Maris Otter barley with a (romantic) marriage of local and continental hops and uniquely, a pinch of pinhead oats* in the mash. It has a sweet, nutty taste. You’ll find it on draught in the Swan, the John Harvey and the shop on the Cliffe, as well as various Harveys pubs outside Lewes. Rodin’s The Kiss is still on view in the Tate Gallery in Pimlico in London.

*Viva Lewes does not believe in making smutty puns of the type that might connect the romantic image of the beer and the word ‘oats’.

Photography - Magali Nougarede

Magali Nougarede is a French-born Brighton-based photographer who specialises in the cropped portraiture of female figures. She came to the fore in 2000 with her photo essay Toeing the Line, which studied the cultural identity of old-aged pensioners in Eastbourne, typically by cropping out their faces and filling the square-formatted frame with their (clad) midriffs. The art is in the detail: look closely and you’ll see that though the liver-spotted hands are relaxed and dignified, the cuffs of the jacket are frayed and the purse they are holding has seen better days. More recently Nougarede has exhibited her follow-up Crossing the Line, which juxtaposed young girls and old women to show the difference in aspirations caused by the onset of age.

Nougarede has exhibited both sides of the Atlantic, and is represented in the States by the Rosenberg and Kaufmann Gallery in New York. Her new body of work, exhibited at the Gardner until March 19th, results from a number of chance encounters with local residents on the English South Coast and the French Cote d’Albatre.