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Day: 21 September 2015

Festival: Primavera Barcelona

28th – 31st May

When I turned 15, I was a loud, nasty, discombobulated mess. Primavera turned 15 this year, and by god is it ever loud, but the similarities end there. Primavera has swelled well beyond its pubescent mid-scale festival proportions of a few years ago and is hitting full maturity, with over 200 bands and 190,000 visitors in attendance from far and wide across the globe. And what a place to come to: Barcelona in May, when blue skies are the new normal and God’s thermostat is set just about right between the spring chill and the oppressive heat of deep summer.

Though the festival is all about the music, most ticket holders come for a fully rounded experience of Catalonia, and Primavera’s layout feels somehow like an incredible calibration of city and festival. The music doesn’t start until around 4pm, so for five days, Primavera’s voguish attendees flood the city, streaming out through the festival gates and into Barcelona’s gorgeous placas and ramblas like a colony of well-dressed ants.

You can spot wristbands on beaches, in bars and on public transport, and exchange knowing smiles when the people attached to those wrists spot yours. Spending early afternoons lazing inside the festival walls is also an option—Primavera’s food stalls, particularly the Mexican taco vans and chorizo carts, are unanimously fabulous, mostly set up in a sociable food court area under a huge canopy. The sangria tastes twice as good in the sun, and everybody around looks twice as beautiful.

Primavera is a quietly innovative festival. There is not much of the wild, extroverted hedonism of fancy dress and wacky set designs seen at most rural extravaganzas, but the organisation of the festival, from the set timings to the stage setups to the urban planning of the Parc del Forum, is creative and thoughtful in itself.

Each artist seems to be allocated to a perfectly tailored setting. The spectacular ATP stage, perched on a stone shelf raised above the ocean, is the rightful airing place for the massive soundscapes of Spiritualized, Pallbearer, and Sun O))); with nothing behind you but the sea, the music seems to echo into eternity. Scuzzier, more percussive acts like Ought, Thee Oh Sees and Ariel Pink play host to the Pitchfork Stage, positioned under a massive concrete walkway that creates a cove of distortion. Primavera prides itself on the most diverse and exciting of line-ups, and the highest quality of stage sound engineering to ensure the optimal deliverance of the music.

 

So enraptured was I by my first visit to Barcelona that I almost forgot about the music, but on Thursday afternoon Noah Lennox AKA Panda Bear jolted my auditory receptors back into life with a staggering set inside a giant, pitch-black concert hall. The colossal Auditori RockDeluxe is Primavera’s trophy piece: A gigantic auditorium at the heart of Barcelona’s live music scene, possibly the city’s finest performance venue save for the choirs of Catalan cathedrals.

After two hours inside you forget that it’s still daytime and you exit with virtual jetlag. Panda Bear’s set was a symphonic masterpiece, filling out every corner and crevice of the great theatre in the same vein as the classical performances that often adorn the venue. The visuals were stunning: Noah Lennox stood at his decks dwarfed by a projection behind him that played over and over a loop of a mutating image that felt infinite in its subtle variations on the same pattern, much like the music from his latest album Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.

The sensual imagery morphed from a pair of red lips eating strawberries to neon-painted symmetrical bodies to cherries bursting to jelly beans melting and then everything converged into a giant whirlpool of lysergic colours and then returned back again to the start of the loop. It was totally mesmeric, and particularly fitting when paired with my song of the year, ‘Boys Latin’. You can experience the visuals and get a taste of the live set via Panda Bear’s interactive website.

 

The other set I caught in the auditorium, a three-hour Swans opus, was lacking in any visuals at all—a product of Swans’ brooding, straight-edge approach to live shows no doubt, but something was needed to the divert attention after the first hour, at which point I left. It demanded extreme mental stamina that I couldn’t muster to patiently observe 20 minutes of repetitive (if powerful) stabbing guitar lines unfolding into something more.

 

If the Auditori Deluxe is the trophy piece, the Heineken Hidden Stage is Primavera’s party piece. A renovated underground car park (don’t old industrial sites make the best art spaces?!) is the setting, decorated like a grotto, swathed in a green hue and turned into a sort of demented graveyard of old vintage cars.

The only band I saw down there—because it did get kind of claustrophobic and muggy—was The Pastels, who must have brought their core fan base to Barcelona with them, because out of 190,000 people I did not expect there to be even 50 people who love The Pastels as much as the 1,500 thrilled fans who crammed in to the Heineken Hidden Stage for their show.

 

Saturday night hit new heights. Foxygen as a live act are total theatre. When I saw them at the Ruby Lounge in Manchester during winter, I was unimpressed by the cocaine car crash I witnessed, but this time around it clicked: This is all a hilarious act! (I hope.) The band are incestuous. They either assault or grope each other onstage, sometimes sort of both.

Frontman Sam France’s sheer nakedness is shocking, but you can’t look away: He’s like an inner city kid hung up on disco and coke, with too much money to spend and too much love to give, screaming “WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!” and dancing like nobody’s looking. When you see him in the act you may think of him as a naïve puppy or a petulant child, but just remember the commitment—and the balls—it takes to be doing what he’s doing up there. He’s already had a few onstage accidents from rocking too hard, and he is probably the core reason why this band may be breaking up, but what a ride!

The Strokes capped off a memorable night with their usual set of classics. Noticeably, a lot of songs from their last two albums have already entered into the collective consciousness, proving that The Strokes have never, ever lost their ability to pen a brainworm.

Much more music was to be fawned over, but not in this review.  In probably the best line up I’ve ever experienced, I’ll name-check Run The Jewels, Ex Hex, Mac DeMarco, Caribou, Mikal Cronin, and Sleater-Kinney as further standouts. I’d love to go on but I can hear my exit music playing. Primavera, will you have me again next year?

Name revealed for Manchester’s new public square

After consulting the Mancunian populace for their favourite idea, NOMA’s new public square which is nearing the end of its construction was finally given a name last week: Sadler’s Yard.

In July the Co-Operative Group launched a competition for the public to name the new public realm at the heart of the Co-Operative’s £800 million NOMA development. Having received just under 700 entries the suggestions were judged on their ‘originality and rationale’. David Pringle, the Co-Operative’s Director of NOMA stated, “there have been many examples of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding but this is crowd-naming.”

Proposals included ‘Turing’, a tribute to Manchester’s Alan Turing and his groundbreaking work for modern computing as well as ‘Cotton’, a nod to the city’s history as the epicenter of the global cotton empire during the nineteenth century.

Sadler’s Yard, has been named after James Sadler, a pastry chef and the first man to make a manned balloon flight in Manchester in 1785.

Born in 1753, Sadler became the first Englishman to fly when his homemade balloon took flight from Christ Church Meadows, Oxford in 1784. He went on to pursue another four ascents within a year, the first of which was again from Oxford. An ambitious second in Surrey—it was his original intention to reach France but travelled as far as the Thames.

The final two trips were taken from Manchester, his final being his most successful. He travelled a total of 50 miles and landed in Pontefract, after which he was dragged a further two and in doing so caused himself serious injury.

It is noted that he took off “from a field behind a gentleman’s house” which is today known as Balloon Street situated next to the new square. Sadler passed away in Oxford, 1828 having survived 50 flights, three of which were at royal request.

Director of NOMA at the Co-operative Group David Pringle said: “We are proud of the new name and believe that the people of Manchester will take it to their hearts.

“We are looking forward to the first event in Sadler’s Yard, which is the official launch event in October.  We plan to bring a series of enjoyable and interesting events to Sadler’s Yard from the end of the year and throughout 2016 and beyond.”

Being developed over 10 – 15 years, NOMA is a £800 million city centre scheme spanning 20 acres—a third of a square mile—featuring a multitude of office spaces, homes, shops and leisure facilities across its four million square feet.

New additions to Manchester also include a new £110 million arts ‘neighbourhood’ planned off Quay Street which will be used as a base for the Manchester’s International Festival’s array of productions with the aim to entice as wide an audience as possible.

Sir Richard Leese, Manchester council leader, stated that the new venue would be capable of housing “the Royal Opera House in the morning and Warehouse Project in the afternoon.”

Building work for the new arts neighbourhood is due to begin at the beginning of 2017 in order to open in July 2019 in time for that year’s Manchester International Festival.

Sadler’s Yard will open this October.

Sitting volleyball: Your sporting SOS

Whether you are a Fresher or a returning student, the University of Manchester has countless sports clubs and societies that, between them, can offer you an inexhaustible well of opportunities into which to dip your hand. From September through to June, you will be able to participate in ball sports such as football, rugby or cricket; to try out martial arts or even competitive swimming; there’ll be chances for you to flex your brain within the Debate Society or to demonstrate your interest in student media.

Perhaps you already have an idea of what clubs you will be signing up to, or maybe you are waiting to be impressed at the fairs; but what about sitting volleyball?

What is sitting volleyball?

A high-octane variant of the indoor standing game, sitting volleyball was preliminarily designed and implemented for ex-servicemen and -women who returned from conflicts with wounds that classified them as disabled. Nerve and spinal cord damage and amputations are all catered for in sitting volleyball, because the game only asks that you can do two things: Raise one of your arms, and shuffle on your bottom!

Having been showcased at the 1976 Toronto Paralympic Games, sitting volleyball has since been played as a medal-winning sport. China’s women won gold at London 2012, while the men’s final saw Bosnia and Herzegovina beat previous holders Iran.

In the UK, sitting volleyball is governed and officiated by Volleyball England, who host a Grand Prix series from September to April, with a cup competition played in the final month. In order to increase participation of the sport, Volleyball England ruled that the national level (a step below the Paralympic stage) should be open to both disabled and able-bodied persons to compete. And this is where your opportunity comes in. Of the ten teams regularly registering and competing in last season’s competitions, seven of them are based in southern areas such as Canterbury Wyverns, Essex Pirates and Portsmouth Sharks. The north’s representation came in the form of a team formed in 2014: Manchester Marvels Sitting Volleyball.

Photo: Manchester Marvels Sitting Volleyball

Founded by Manchester-born amputee Paul Ledward and coached by Howard Ainsworth (also the coach of Manchester Marvels Indoor Volleyball, University of Manchester Volleyball, Manchester Metropolitan Volleyball and many more), the club soon gained numbers and momentum in September 2014 before entering and winning numerous matches against teams composed of Team GB’s Paralympic sitting volleyball team. Now entering its second season, Manchester Marvels Sitting Volleyball’s contingent of 15 members is incredibly diverse, boasting a University of Manchester student, three college students and five disabled persons, one of which, Lamin Manneh is a triple amputee ex-serviceman.

Why should you try sitting volleyball?

If you want to try sitting volleyball with no prior knowledge of the indoor/standing format, that is completely encouraged; of the team’s 15 members, only three (including the coach) joined with any previous knowledge or understanding of volleyball rules. By the end of the season, three of the team’s female members (one of which was new to volleyball) were involved in a tournament in which they beat Team GB’s women’s team!

The team is also very keen to increase participation of disabled persons and will hold up no barrier for anybody wanting to give the sport a try. Following a recently-announced Sport England statistic that 17.6 per cent of the UK is classifiably disabled, and only 17 per cent of disabled persons over age 16 play sport for at least an hour a week.

In an attempt to positively tackle this low number, the Marvels worked with Sport Start Cerebral Palsy on June 8th 2015 to deliver a day of sitting volleyball to 92 disabled children, enabling them to try the sport for the first time.

The club was then active at the Wythenshawe Games on Friday the 24th of July working with the community’s children to play sitting volleyball with children both able-bodied and disabled.

For those of you with previous volleyball experience who find yourselves interested in trying a Paralympic sport, rest assured about the team’s conduct and standards. Through well-structured, weekly training sessions, Howard Ainsworth has proven himself a competent trainer, identifying the team’s best hitters, such as Lamin Manneh and Club Welfare Officer Pete Graham and utilizing them in points scoring roles; similarly, founder and Club Chairman Paul Ledward is a renowned blocker and the coach’s latest plans for season two include turning University of Manchester student Shaun Carter and Loreto College attendee Georgina Gledhill into the lynchpins of a two-setter-system.

In order to raise their profile, Manchester Marvels have active and regularly-updated Twitter and Facebook pages, plus their own website, all of which can be found at the bottom; but perhaps the club’s biggest bout of exposure to date occurred last Thursday, the 17th of September 2015 at their current week-day training base, Houldsworth Village, Life Leisure, Reddish. The event? A two-hour training session filmed by the BBC’s DIY SOS, with Nick Knowles himself sitting down to participate.

Lamin Manneh is one of several ex-servicemen and women being housed in Newton Heath’s Canada Street and New Street as part of a large DIY SOS renovation project for their 26th season.

Hoping to create a veterans’ housing community, the BBC team filmed Lamin and the Marvels playing volleyball in recognition of the positive impact that the sport has had on Lamin’s life since his injuries occurred. If you are already a fan of the show, then make sure you tune into the new series for a glimpse of what Manchester Marvels have to offer.

With BBC exposure, a city-wide target audience to penetrate and a growing social media campaign, now is the time to join the North West’s fastest developing sitting volleyball team.

Manchester hosts prestigious humanitarian conference

This week, Manchester welcomed some of the top academics and practitioners from the humanitarian sector to an international conference hosted by the university’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI).

The conference, organised in association with Save the Children, is connected to an 18-month process of debate and consultation, which has involved some 28,000 humanitarians from around the world, culminating at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.

As part of the official preparations for this summit, the conference was held with the purpose of exploring the means by which the global humanitarian system can deliver aid more effectively. Humanitarian crises are now occurring with increasing severity, scale and frequency, yet aid workers face a greater risk of violence than at any other time in living memory.

For the first time since the Second World War, the number of asylum seekers, refugees, and internally-displaced persons around the world has risen to over 50 million, yet in 2013 some 155 humanitarian workers were killed and 134 kidnapped in 251 separate attacks.

With the conflict in Syria and situations in Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan and now the European Union deteriorating, it seems then that the question of the effectiveness of the provision of humanitarian aid has never been so important.

Organised and hosted by the HCRI, this humanitarian conference concentrated on the provision and management of security, on the need to hold the work of NGOs to account, and on the impact that national and international politics have on the organisation and delivery of aid.

Attended by over 200 delegates from both academia and field operations, it was designed to bring together humanitarians from all areas of the sector to produce informed discussion to take to Istanbul, and to build a network of academics and practitioners. The conference also hosted a number of fiction and non-fiction book launches and photography exhibitions by journalists and aid workers.

Notable delegates and plenary speakers included Claus Haugaard Sørensen, Senior Advisor to Jean-Claude Juncker on Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response; Gareth Owen, the Director of Humanitarian Aid for Save the Children; and Marc DuBois, former Executive Director of Medecins Sans Frontiers UK.

The Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute is a University of Manchester research institute which is connected to both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences. It aims to inform and support policy makers and to encourage collaboration and consultation between humanitarian organisations. It hosts a number of events each year, most notably its Speaker Series programme which has previously featured talks from Jane Cocking, the Humanitarian Director for Oxfam GB.

Warsan Shire: provoking empathy

Warsan Shire has been writing about immigration and refugees since long before the majority of the UK registered the true, disturbing realities of the refugee crisis. A crisis that, if we are to judge by the reactions of mainstream media, only emerged at the start of this month. A mainstream media who suddenly jumped into action after the crisis was personified in the viral image of the drowned Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi.

Shire’s 2011 collection Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth is, in the best possible way, unlike anything I’ve ever read. Her writing carries an attractive sense of hyper-realism, cutting to the root of the pain behind her words and making them almost writhe on the page. Drawing on her experiences as a Kenyan-born Somali poet now living in London, Shire often writes about the experiences of female immigrants and refugees, which will strike raw with anyone who has experienced a sense of cultural entrapment or a violent clash in cultural identities.

Although I commend the whole collection and recommend reading it back-to-back to get the full sense of the progression of the poetry and to see how the poems fit together, I have selected two extracts from the prose-poem ‘Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)’. The first is below:

 

I hear them say go home. I hear them say fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this ignorant? Do

they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second; the next you are a tremor

lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency, waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the

apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a

gun. I’ll see you on the other side.

 

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth was released in 2011, but the exact date that this was written is not known; however, it was definitely written before the first few days of this September, when the mass media finally started publicising the refugee crisis, and before the wider UK public began to organise large demonstrations, one of which I attended in London, petitioning David Cameron to allow more than the mere 20,000 Syrian refugees he agreed to over the next five years. Germany had refuged 10,000 people in a single day.

The aggression in this poem is not misplaced and the idea of “I was once like you” shows how we should not dehumanise refugees, since we are not inherently better people for not being born in a war-torn country. Anybody could have been less lucky and anybody could be fleeing their homes. Shire also wrote recently that “you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the boat is safer than the land.”

It is important to remember that the refugees are not just Syrian. According to the UN Refugee Council, Syria is the third biggest source of refugees to the UK, Pakistan is the second and the first is Eritrea. A second extract from ‘Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)’ reads thus:

 

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how

difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates,

past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing,

the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I’ve been carrying the old

anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know

a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with

language I can’t afford to forget.

 

Again, “no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” It is clear that Warsan Shire is a writer of paramount importance when it comes to understanding both the extensive suffering of refugees and connecting with them on a human level, because it is the humanity that is sadly often overlooked.

Famous faces from in and around Manchester

Maxine Peake
The first of our ‘Famous Faces’ was born in Bolton. Maxine Peake’s career has seen her appear on both stage and screen, attracting a large following. She most recently won an award for her portrayal of Hamlet, which is set to be shown in cinemas across the country. Peake is most recognisable for her roles in Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies, the BBC’s Martha Costello, and Veronica in the Manchester-based series Shameless. Her most recent and highly acclaimed role of The Skriker was seen at Manchester’s International Festival.

John Cooper-Clarke
John Cooper-Clarke is widely considered one of the North West’s most unknown gems. Born in Salford, Cooper-Clarke is a performance poet who came to fame during the punk rock era of the 1970s, when he became known as the infamous ‘punk poet’. Clarke has performed on the same bill as the likes of the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, and the Buzzcocks.

He is best known for the rapid-fire way in which he delivers his poems, which are thoroughly laced with wit, sarcasm and politics. He has influenced the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and Kate Nash and still performs to this day. You can see him at the Bridgewater Hall on the 12th of October as a special guest on the Squeeze Tour.

Danny Boyle

The Radcliffe-born film and theatre director’s first job was as an usher at the Bolton Octagon. Since then, he has become the infamous film-maker behind such successes as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and every student’s favourite, Trainspotting. Boyle has said that he is influenced by where he came from, stating that “there is a great sense of perspective you get coming from an industrial area.”

The mind behind London 2012’s Olympic opening ceremony is also now a patron of Manchester’s HOME. It would seem he loves this place so much that he even managed to reference his north Manchester hometown in his Oscar acceptance speech in 2009.

Victoria Wood
A playwright, screen-writer, actress and director, Victoria Wood is hugely popular in the UK. Wood, from Prestwich, boasts a host of awards, having won more BAFTAs than anyone else, and she was also the first woman to be honoured by the Writer’s Guild.

Wood wrote and directed The Day We Sang for Manchester’s International Festival in 2011. She then revised it to be shown at the Royal Exchange in 2014, before the TV adaptation was aired on the BBC later that year. She describes it as “a Mancunian love story set against the background of The Wimpy, The Golden Egg and Piccadilly Gardens with a bit of singing and a few dance numbers.”

Benedict Cumberbatch
It would be very hard to find someone on this planet who hasn’t heard of Benedict Cumberbatch, but a few of you might not be aware that he actually studied here at the University of Manchester. His variety of roles cover film, television, theatre, and radio, and his performances have earned him a total of 29 wins out of an impressive 70 nominations.

His best-known roles vary from his heartbreaking portrayal of our very own Alan Turing, to arguably his most popular role as the modern day Sherlock Holmes. You can currently find him raking in further acclaim as Hamlet at the Barbican until the 31st October.

Where to go – Manchester’s best theatres

Contact Theatre
Sitting right next to Manchester Academy, the castle that looks like it has been time-warped from a Hans Christian Andersen tale is the Contact Theatre. Contact specialises in drama, spoken word, and dance; but what is most impressive is the manner in which their ideals have resulted in some of the most unconventional and experimental work in the province.

Contact Theatre are especially good at getting younger people involved, whether this is through workshops or ongoing opportunities for new ideas. Their talent of attracting young audiences from renowned minority areas is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed, due to the fact that many of these younger members help to create the work that is showcased and celebrated throughout the season.

The Palace Theatre

Known to many as ‘The Grand Old Lady of Oxford Street’, the Palace Theatre was built in 1891 but took a direct hit during the Manchester Blitz. Since then, the theatre has received a major refurbishment, granting the venue better stage facilities yet keeping the iconic red velvet of the traditional interior. The theatre is today owned by Ambassador’s Theatre Group, who also own Manchester Opera House (the Palace’s sister theatre just down the road).

In regard to their programme, their shows gravitate towards the popular end of the scale, showing West End musical classics such as ‘Mamma Mia!’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ but also classical events such as the English National Ballet—particularly popular towards the end of the year.

The Royal Opera House
The Palace theatre’s sister stage, the Royal Opera House has held many guises throughout the years. Dating back to 1912, the prestigious theatre was once a bingo hall; however, today, the venue’s resources match that of any modern venue, allowing them to play host to big shows such as ‘Saturday Night Fever’, ‘Annie’ and ‘Jersey Boys’.

HOME

The newest to our lineup, HOME is the £25 million child of cultural champions Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre. Opened in early 2015, the brand new arts centre has everything from two theatres, two extra cinemas, expanded flexible galleries, world class facilities and a promising programme. The perfect place to go if you’ve got an hour or so to spare.

The Royal Exchange Theatre
Despite the fact that the Royal Exchange Theatre has a grand total of fifty years of top quality productions under its belt, it still remains to this day one of the most consistently popular theatres within our city. What makes this theatre different from the rest is the encompassed steel and glass pod sitting in the middle of the Victorian cotton exchange: The Round.

Most productions are housed there; with audience members predominantly at stage level, there are two viewing galleries situated above, completely surrounding the stage. As well as this, the theatre also has a Studio for smaller productions and a gallery for all of your art needs.

The Octagon Theatre
Over 150,000 people visit the Octagon Theatre each year to relish in productions from ‘The Bogus Woman’ to ‘The BFG’. The family-friendly venue offers a wide range to its audience. Main shows are complimented by music, comedy and talks as well as special events and a valued youth programme.

The Guardian deemed the venue “the most revitalised regional theatre in the country,” despite its arguably small-yet-versatile theatre and studio space. It is clear that this member of Manchester’s best theatres has its best interests locked into its hometown due to the fact that it allows local people to audition regardless of acting experience.

The Lowry Theatre

Despite the fact that L.S. Lowry described himself as “a simple man” the building named after him gloats three theatre spaces on top of an impressive collection of paintings and drawings by the man himself. The first and biggest of the three is the Lyric Theatre, which seats around 2,000 people and has held shows such as the critically acclaimed ‘War Horse’ and ‘Wicked’.

The second of the three is the Quays Theatre, which offers a more intimate performance experience while The Studio is the hub for up-and-coming companies and community productions.

Check the Exec!

The Exec Team are elected directly by the student body, and the most recent elections saw the highest turnout of voters in any Union election since records began, with over 13,000 students voting. This smashed the previous national record held by the University of Nottingham by over 2,000 votes, meaning this year’s Team have the largest democratic mandate ever recorded in UK university history. The Team are based in the Student Voice office on the ground floor of the Union building.

Naa Acquah – General Secretary 

Naa’s election was an historic one, as she became the first female BME General Secretary of Manchester Students’ Union. One of the most eye-catching policies in Naa’s manifesto was the promise to hold monthly surgeries where she will invite students to quiz her on Union policy.

Naa became a viral storm during the election after the release of her manifesto music video, which was a cover of Rihanna’s “What’s My Name?” at various points on campus. On YouTube, the video has racked up over 4,000 views, and may well have contributed to her victory.

You can follow Naa on Twitter @GenSecMcr.

 

Joel Smith – Activities and Development Officer

Joel is embarking upon his second year as Activities and Development Officer, and is looking to build upon last year’s success. He was elected following a record voter turnout for any position at any union ever, with over 9,500 votes being cast. Joel’s brief is to look after over 350 societies in the Union and organise Pangaea.

Joel’s main priorities include getting more people involved in all aspects of Union life, as well as the prospect of a Graduation Ball run by students, and to make it easier to start or join a society.

You can follow Joel on Twitter @ActivitiesMcr.

 

Hannah McCarthy – Campaigns and Citizenship Officer

Hannah is a new addition to the Exec Team, and goes into this year looking to build on the Union’s long history of campaigning. Hannah, who ran on the campaign slogan of “A New Hope”, is aiming to campaign for the university to act in a socially responsible way, by fighting to prevent cuts to student bursaries and encourage the University to pay its entire staff a Living Wage.

Hannah is also aiming to create campaign networks on a national scale to ‘Stop TTIP‘ and ‘Save our NHS‘, as well as increasing student participation in campaigning by organising monthly ‘Campaigning Bazaar’ events outside University Place, and working with the University to have ‘Skills for Change’ as a free elective module.

You can follow Hannah on Twitter @CampaignsMcr.

 

Harriet Pugh – Community Officer

Harriet is in her second year of being a Union officer, and has moved from Education to Community this year. Harriet’s priorities this year concern building stronger relationships between the student body and the wider Manchester population, through a political outreach programme for children in schools.

Harriet is also seeking to build upon Manchester’s proud heritage of co-operative movements by organising a co-op week with trips to and workshops from co-operatively run fashion retailers, record labels, food markets, and more.

You can follow Harriet on Twitter @CommunityMcr.

 

Natasha Brooks – Diversity Officer

Natasha’s main priority is to raise awareness of the importance of diversity consciousness, amongst all students and societies. She is seeking to do this by providing training, both online and through interactive workshops, highlighting diversity issues and preventing such issues arising.

Natasha has also made a manifesto commitment to a monthly Diversity Forum as a way of celebrating the diversity in Manchester and to ensure that collaboration between the equality, international, religious, postgraduate and mature groups and societies is made much easier.

You can follow Natasha on Twitter @DiversityMcr.

 

Michael Spence – Education Officer

Student finances formed the centre of Michael’s election manifesto, and he will work with the other members of the Exec Team to campaign against cuts to student bursaries and additional course costs—such as books and printing.

He will also lobby the university to put more money into suitably furnishing study spaces, such as the Learning Commons, and better integrate Student Reps, giving students more power to shape their courses.

You can follow Michael on Twitter @EducationMcr.

 

Lucy Hallam – Wellbeing Officer

Lucy is also a new member of the Exec Team, and her highest priority is to create a new, comprehensive website where details of all wellbeing services open to students—from yoga to sexual health to counselling—are available in once place: “I want to bring it all together so that every student is aware of what is available to them, and don’t miss out on making their time at university as enjoyable as possible.”

Some of Lucy’s other pledges include free women’s self-defence courses on campus, and campaigning to have microwaves, kettles and toasters across campus, as she sees it as unfair that students should have to pay higher prices for hot food on campus when they can bring their own from home.

You can follow Lucy on Twitter @WellbeingMcr.

 

Jess Lishak – Women’s Officer

Jess is also in the second year in her position as Women’s Officer, and is looking to build upon her successful and high profile work from last year. Continuing from last year will be the ‘Reclaim the Night’ march in February—which had over 2,000 attendees in 2015—and putting on another production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’—which raised over £1,300 for local services providing support for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

Jess is also planning to set up a student shuttle bus service that will run from campus between 9pm and 3am, on the hour, and take students to Rusholme, Fallowfield or Withington. Students can use the service whether they’re returning from a night out or studying late, with proceeds going to fund a dedicated student support worker at Manchester Rape Crisis.

You can follow Jess on Twitter @ExecTeam_Jess.

Corbyn’s challenge starts now

Jeremy Corbyn has inherited a deeply divided Labour party after creating the biggest political earthquake of this century. A clear schism exists between those on the left of the party—some of whom are licking their lips at the prospect of power for the first time in decades—and the groups in the centrist camp who maintain that the only path back to government is the centre ground, many of whom declared themselves unable to serve on Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet mere hours after he was announced as leader.

The task now for the Labour Party and all those who claim loyalty to it is to shape it into a force with enough unity to be capable of governing in 2020. Corbyn’s shadow cabinet appointments have clearly been designed to do this, largely adhering to the principle of a broad ideological tent that he has talked about. However, pockets of contention and disunity exist between camps, stirred by the controversial appointment of John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor.

These do not necessarily have to be a problem for Corbyn, yet. The huge mandate with which he was elected—one larger than Tony Blair’s share of the vote in 1994—means that a plot to topple him from within is unlikely. The danger lies further into the future, with the Scottish Parliament vote the first test of Corbyn’s Labour party in May next year and an EU referendum in 2017.

Initially shaken by seven front-benchers resigning two hours into his leadership, Corbyn has managed to appoint a cabinet that largely reflects the ideological makeup of the Labour party. He has also appointed the first majority female cabinet, shadow or otherwise, that Britain has ever seen, a commitment to equality that we can only hope becomes distinctive of his leadership, and not merely tokenistic.

Hilary Benn, a stalwart of the New Labour era and Lord Falconer, Tony Blair’s old flatmate, remain in their jobs as Shadow Foreign and Justice Secretaries respectively. Rosie Winterton remaining as Opposition Chief Whip has ensured further continuity.

Chris Bryant is notable as Shadow Leader of the House despite refusing the defence brief offered to him due to policy differences with Jeremy Corbyn. Maria Eagle is the new Shadow Defence Secretary, who can, along with her sister Angela, bring valuable experience. This is a shadow cabinet in which not everyone can be expected to toe the party line 100 per cent of the time.

Much has been made of the appointment of John McDonnell, Corbyn’s campaign manager and long term ally as Shadow Chancellor due to his well-publicised left-wing views. While better, less divisive candidates could be found for the job, Corbyn owes his man the spoils of war for now, and to think that before 2020 there will not be a reshuffle would be foolish.

This consensus building is something that has come to characterise Corbyn’s brand of politics despite his polarising views. Indeed, Corbyn has been the first to talk of long-term policy reviews and the need to bring policymaking back to the party’s members. If Jeremy Corbyn can lead the shadow cabinet and a party that works for a common good in spite of its differences, he will certainly be more than halfway towards leading Labour in a serious challenge for power in 2020.

From what we have seen during the leadership contest, the at-times horrific treatment doled out by sections of the right wing press and elements of the political class is going to be a permanent fixture of this leadership. As a result, it is inevitable that the Labour party and Corbyn will struggle to hold back the tide of bilious vitriol that has already begun to flow.

Attacked for his controversial statements, it seems there is a different rulebook for others who wish to call Labour “deranged”, or to suggest that Corbyn’s time is so occupied by left wing politics that he prioritised attending a meeting above seeing his dying mother (Tim Rayment in The Sunday Times 13/09). Even the Prime Minister declared Jeremy Corbyn a “threat to national security,” signalling yet another characteristically cheap Conservative PR move.

It may well be true that Corbyn holds views that some would call extreme or radical, but to suggest that your political opponent is a threat to someone’s family is, even by Cameron’s standards, distasteful.

Perhaps then it is no surprise that Corbyn has avoided, and made no secret of his dislike for, certain sections of the media. There is no love to be found in the right wing press, and so it should not be sought, but this means that other elements of the media are now all the more important. He will then, have to grow a thick skin and formulate a coherent and intelligent media strategy that retains as much control over his message as possible.

Broadcasting will be central to this, and Corbyn would do well to build good relationships with people he is likely going to see more of in the coming years. Not appearing on the Andrew Marr show the day after being elected due to his alleged anger at a Panorama film the week before was a wasteful and almost petulant move.

To Jeremy Corbyn’s credit he has refused to engage in personal attacks or mud slinging, instead remaining calm and collected. This resonates well with a public that has grown tired of endless Punch and Judy politics. An online poll run by the Daily Mail after Corbyn’s victory asking whether he would still be leader at the next General Election resulted in 46 per cent saying they didn’t know. Only 21 per cent said no.

Asked who would make a better Prime Minister, 44 per cent said Cameron, 27 per cent said Corbyn, and 29 per cent didn’t know. As Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, asked in The Guardian on Saturday the 12th of September, if people who are not natural Corbyn supporters are still not sure after such negative media coverage, then perhaps they are willing to give him a chance?

This willingness to give Jeremy Corbyn a chance and the heady optimism that has characterised the mood of his rallies are something seldom seen in British politics, and appear to be a product of the fact that Corbyn’s popularity began at a grassroots level and transformed into a social movement, as well as a political one. This has not been seen for a long time. This support, if properly grown and maintained, will surely go some way to blunting the vicious attacks yet to come from the media and others.

It will not be easy for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. As John Mann MP, University of Manchester alumnus has said, Corbyn’s support among many in the party is very much on a “payment by results” basis.

With Scottish Parliament elections in May next year the pressure will be firmly on to deliver after Labour suffered its worst ever defeat in the General Election this year. Maintaining a unified broad-based cabinet and party will help, but very little will soften the blow of electoral defeat.

Review: Legend

This hyped film broke box office records in the UK and Ireland and catapulted Tom Hardy right into the race of being the potential next James Bond. With his usual witty charm and enthusiasm for trying different accents, he portrays the notorious gangster twins Ronald “Ronnie” and Reginald “Reggie” Kray with strong East End cockney accents.

The biopic is based on the book ‘The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins’ and like most book adaptations with a weak storyline, the film starts with a narrator introducing the story and characters instead of relying on strong visual storytelling. The narrator later proves to be unreliable but for now, Frances (Emily Browning) is the love interest, and later wife, of Reggie Kray. Although she guides the audience through most of the film, her on-screen time is mostly limited to looking at her husband either longingly or disappointedly, the latter more often as the film reaches its end.

The other characters would have had more potential for captivating sub-plots if the focus on the romantic plot had not been so strong. Instead of showing more of the decline of the brotherly relationship and the deterioration of Ronnie Kray’s mental health, the main plot was the predictable romantic relationship of Frances and Reggie which was doomed to fail from the start due to her family’s disapproval and his bad influence on her.

The biopic did not concentrate enough on the rise and fall of the crime empire and the moral struggle faced by the gangsters, who were part of The Firm, the name of the twins’ gang. Due to the success of their nightclubs, they were quickly surrounded by celebrities and aristocrats, the latter of whom were compared to gangsters, since neither worked honestly for their money. Certain scenes portrayed their influence well but they seemed too rushed to leave a significant impression on the viewer.

Characters such as the smart Leslie Payne (David Thewlis) who is the business manager and brain of the planned crimes as well as the detective superintendent Leonard Reap (Christopher Eccleston), who relentlessly chases the gangsters, should have had more screen time. They are the only characters who are unimpressed by the twins’ inability to stay out of trouble and give the film the solid grounding it needs, since the viewer’s attention is constantly pulled from one plot line to another without a guiding thread. More focus on these characters would have given the film grounding and the weak attempt of a surprising plot twist distracts even further from the more interesting relationship between the brothers and other characters.

Frances’ ethereal beauty is highlighted and romanticised, as are the rest of the themes in the film. The East End of London in the 1960s and the gangster life of the brothers are partially shown through her eyes, and seem overtly colourful at first, as a reflection of her fascination with Reggie’s world, becoming less saturated towards the end of the film.

Furthermore, according to The Guardian, the film received criticism from the family of the actual Frances Kray for the inaccurate portrayal of their relationship, especially that rape was used as a plot device which Reggie was never known for committing and which was a weak attempt at giving the audience a reason to stop sympathising with him.

Despite the weaknesses of the film, the portrayal of Ronnie Kray was a strong point. A main character who is homosexual and mentally ill is hard to come by, and Tom Hardy manages to portray him in a very convincing way, although the character is sometimes used as comic relief in certain scenes. Furthermore, the great set design gives the film a smoky atmosphere of nostalgia of a time in London in which gangsters, and not foreign investors, reined in the streets of East London.

2/5

HOME Pick of the Week: Irrational Man

In order to write a film review, it would normally be assumed that a critic has to hold a certain degree of foreknowledge. Having some idea of a director’s style, their techniques or any recurrent themes in their work can only assist in understanding what their new film might be trying to do.

Going into Django Unchained without having first experienced Quentin Tarantino’s early work might leave a viewer feeling downright confused, and similarly, anyone as excited as I am for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, needs to really have seen all the franchise’s preceding films for as to properly experience the plot (perhaps excluding anything a little too Jar Jar Binks-y).

It was therefore with a certain degree of trepidation that I went to see Irrational Man on Saturday evening, a night that will now forever stick out in my memory as the night that I finally lost my Woody Allen virginity. Simply sacrilegious of course, but apart from catching the end of Midnight in Paris on BBC2 late one evening, I have yet to properly experience the charm that I have been told is ever-present in Allen’s work.

Owing to my own ignorance I was therefore forced to take Irrational Man—the latest in Allen’s half-century career in film-making—simply as I saw it, ignoring, as any critic really should, the director’s enormous collection of accolades, acclaim and esteem. It was in this take-it-as-you-find-it sense that the film felt like quite the disappointment. Laboured, unrealistic and, dare I say it, lazy, Irrational Man felt rather like the product of a writer and director drawling towards the latter stages of his career.

The plot is set up in a familiar fashion, Joaquin Phoenix playing a Philosophy professor struggling with depression and failing to discover any meaning in his life or in his budding romance with a twenty-something student of his, played by Emma Stone. Upon overhearing a chance conversation in a diner, Phoenix’s character begins to obsess over the idea of a perfect murder, one that might finally reinvigorate his seemingly joyless existence.

Amid swathes of philosophical discussion on the subject of murder, punishment and morality, the story floats in and out of focus, lightly touching upon vastly complicated ethical issues without any real depth, humour or suspense. Because of my lack of Woody Allen knowledge, I was forced to watch Irrational Man a little on the surface, yet ironically there doesn’t seem to be much else to it.

Once you remove, as discussed by Joaquin Phoenix’s character, the “theoretical world of philosophical bullshit,” there doesn’t seem to be a lot left, aside from some examples of beautifully subtle cinematography and a number of, frankly, unnecessary moments of crude product placement. Parts are well-acted. A couple of mildly funny gags are thrown into the mix and the Woody Allen film-a-year train rolls on.

The saddest thing for me, as I dejectedly made my way home, was that the last film that I felt like watching any time soon was Annie Hall.

2/5