Art Attack
What better way to close the Arts section for the year by showing you what Newcastle University’s very own budding artists are up to
It’s almost that time of year again - when the Fine Art building and the Hatton Gallery is miraculously transformed into a huge exhibition space where this year’s 43 students make and curate their Degree Show exhibitions.
Throughout the year final year students have been showing off their work in our ‘Showcase Space’ and very soon you can experience the work for real.
The show runs for 3 weeks and the opening night on Friday 30th May is an exciting opportunity to see some top quality art work in an informal, friendly environment where everyone is welcome.
A bar runs for the evening, followed by a prestigious after show party at the BALTIC.
Students have been working consistently throughout the year to fund the event.
Every aspect of the exhibition must be financed and organised and the students have done a considerable amount so far to raise money.
This money funds everything from painting floors and walls to collating specialised exhibition catalogues and advertising the show.
Through a variety of events including auctions, gigs and a contemporary art stall at BALTIC, thousands of pounds have been raised to ensure this year’s show will be as professional and successful as it has been in previous years.
Our Fine Art department prides itself on its focus on the individual. Students are not restrained by medium and in many cases the work embraces an innovative interdisciplinary approach which will add a very contemporary feel to the show.
Our professor of Art History, Dr Frances Spalding explains, the work “licenses individual expression, yet also breeds alertness to cultural shifts, contemporary issues and global concerns.”
The mixture of styles, scales and materials combine to provide an exciting array of work from what could be the artists of tomorrow.
Emma Cummins
Ian McDiarmid – the Bee’s Knees of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
Review by Christine Coles
The actor, Ian McDiarmid is best known to millions as the evil Emperor in Star Wars, but to the theatre–going public this is the man who has created some of the greatest theatrical events in modern theatre, his more recent portrayals have included Pirandello’s Henry IV, Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman, and in 2006 he revised his role as Teddy in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer for which he received a Tony Award.
In Robert Holman’s new play, ‘Jonah and Otto’, the clergyman, Otto, 62, (Ian McDiarmid) and the hoody, Jonah, 26, (Andrew Sheridan) meet on warm summers evening and a bizarre relationship develops.
“Robert’s play deals with guilt and how people try to keep the lid on it”, said Andrew Sheridan.
The central theme running throughout the play is that Otto knows what he is and for Otto this knowledge is so very disquieting. The expected reality of such self-knowledge would be the avoidance of discussion with anyone else, but not in the world of Robert Holman. The drama evolves as a growing and peculiar bond develops between the two characters.
For the actor, Ian McDiarmid, “the play was about emotional bonds”. He said, “Doing a play is a scary thing, so actors have to come to terms with the fear and use it positively. It is wonderful to do a play with such richness.”
The play is slow to start and audience connection with the two characters, initially at least, is not easy. I needed to read the script twice and see the production a second time to gain full connection with the magic of the live performance. This is due in part to the script and also to the direction. There is unevenness in the writing of the two parts and when I asked the writer about this, he said, “Otto is the more hidden of the two characters, which allows for a particular revelation later on in the play”.
Mr McDiarmid’s portrayal of the character Otto seemed strangely edgy in the first scene because at this point in the play there is no reason why the audience should understand this edginess. This statement does not diminish Mr McDiarmid’s considerable achievement in portraying the tetchy, self-loathing clergyman and it is the ever questioning Otto who claims the centre stage of this production, even though the thinness of the script sometimes left Mr McDiarmid seemingly like a lion walking a tightrope.
The part of Jonah is certainly more deftly written and allowed for a superlative performance from Mr Sheridan.
However, there remains at the heart of this production a problem with the plausibility of the dramatic construction. The leap that needs to be made by the audience is a significant one. Playwright, Robert Holman said he hoped “the play was rooted in realism, but finds his writing turning more towards life as he would want it to be, rather than it actually is.”
During scene three, Jonah undresses the sleeping Otto and dons his clerical garb, (shirt, suit and shoes). The unfortunate Otto sleeps on, now divested of most of his clothing whilst Jonah places the older man’s feet into trainers and reunites him with his clerical collar. This disrobement of Otto had a surreal, almost dance-like, quality and was a better piece of theatre than early reviewers had indicated. So with Ian McDiarmid now resplendent in blue boxer shorts, Otto awakes and the real character of Otto starts to be revealed. The scenario left me pondering - what was the playwright trying to say? Was this something about our perception of those around us, the character and identity presented often only being skin-deep?
Presented in the intimate space of The Studio at the Royal Exchange Theatre, this play provided good moments and gentle humour. It was an intriguing two-hander.
I also could not help noticing that Ian McDiarmid, for a man in his sixties, has remarkably good knees!
