Archive for October 19th, 2006

Looks like Lyn Gardner agrees that Punchdrunk is a cool night out here is her 5 star review from this mornings Guardian

Punchdrunk’s latest piece of immersive theatre takes you to places you have never been before. Step through the doors of 21 Wapping Lane – a vast disused warehouse in the original Tobacco Dock – and suddenly London is very far away. Behind these doors lurks a strange parallel universe, a secret deep-south bar where the blues – the devil’s music – is played, and a place where a preacher raises hell, and Faust raises the devil.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,1925545,00.html

Wander through the labyrinth of rooms over several floors and you may stumble across some true wonders: a high school Walpurgis night hop in full swing, a tiny candlelit chapel where the coffin of Gretchen’s baby is surrounded by lilies, a bar where Mephistopheles gives Faust a rejuvenating potion and he first spots Gretchen amid the orgy of churning witchy flesh. The performers appear and melt back into the shadows as if by magic.

This is not so much a performance as a puzzle, and you have to work quite hard to unlock it. Those who like to take their theatre sitting down and in easy-to-consume, bite-sized narrative chunks, or anyone with a fear of the dark, may find the evening makes them both frustrated and anxious. Following the show can be like chasing a dream that keeps dissolving and slipping out of sight.There are two sensible approaches: You either treat the entire thing as a huge installation, wandering where you please and delighting in the sheer inventiveness and detail of the design (a noose hanging on a wall, a room full of strange spices, dead leaves and voodoo dolls, a forest of fir trees) and occasionally stumbling across actors. Or you can identify one of the protagonists – perhaps Gretchen or Faust – and follow them as they lead you on a merry dance throughout the building and enact key scenes.Either approach requires stamina, a stout pair of shoes and the ability to use your own imagination to fill in the gaps. But if you put in the graft – and go on your own, not in a gaggle or a gang – the rewards are greater than anything Mephistopheles could ever offer.

Until November 18. Box office: 020 7452 3000

Top PR’s View’s on Madonna

The London Paper: Wednesday 18th October 2006 by Mark Borkowski

It appears she has broken every rule in the PR book, every rule in the bible of of dos and don’ts built up over decades of celebrity disasters.
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In 1925, the German government issued an order that all police officers in Berlin should wear bulletproof vests in the city. This was not a welcomed decision as the police felt it would increase insecurity amongst existing officers and any would be potential converts to the force.

In an attempt to avert argument, the government brought in none other than Jim Moran to create a publicity drive to turn the unwelcome decision around. Moran, in his inimitable style, came up with a stunt that both stunned and entertained not only Berlin, but the whole of Germany. The German manufacturer of the bulletproof vest that had been commissioned by the government, made a second to none vest for a this very special stunt. Moran sent out a series of invitations through local and national newspapers, to a “public shooting”.

The Berlin Police held that the vests were indestructible, incapable of penetration by a bullet. In response, Moran offered a reward of 1 million U.S. dollars to anyone who managed to kill someone wearing the vest. His invitation extended to anyone over the age of 21, who could bring their own gun, or use a special military gun. The whole of Germany was talking about the event, and the bulletproof vest company was inundated with photographer and journalists. The Berlin Police department changed their opinion about wearing the vests and they became the talk of the national police force. Strangely enough, Jim Moran didn’t received one offer from anyone to take up his unconventional challenge.