Month: November 2023

The Royal Hotel / Hotel Coolgardie

04/11/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh / Amazon Prime

We watch The Royal Hotel in the cinema. It’s fascinating. We know it’s based on a documentary, but how much of it is true? We head straight home and seek out Hotel Coolgardie.

Wow.

Hotel Coolgardie centres on two Finnish backpackers, Lina and Steph. When their wallets are stolen in Perth, they need to work to earn some money. An agency finds them a job serving drinks in a remote mining town. “You have to be able to cope with male attention,” they are warned. They don’t seem to notice the flashing red light. (Or perhaps they just feel reassured by the mitigating presence of a filmmaker.)

The pub is run by an odious landlord, who proudly informs the agency that it’s okay if the girls are inexperienced so long as they’re good-looking, and then takes great delight in bellowing at them when they arrive, belittling them for not understanding the local dialect and for not instinctively grasping the idiosyncrasies of his business. His clientele are heavy drinkers, and lewd behaviour is encouraged. “My customers grow an extra leg when new girls come into town,” he leers, as he puts out a sign announcing their arrival. In the bar, the men discuss who’ll be the first to ‘bag’ one of them. They know they’re being filmed; clearly, they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.

Pete Gleeson’s documentary serves as a salutary lesson: when sexism and xenophobia are normalised, they thrive, especially within an isolated community. Coolgardie is not a safe place for Lina and Steph and, because they’re not willing to play along with the roles they’ve been assigned, they’re mocked and resented by the locals.

Writer-director Kitty Green seizes on the horror elements of this real-life set-up, highlighting the remoteness of the location as Canadian backpacking duo Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) make their arduous bus journey through the empty desert. The Royal Hotel is dirtier and dingier than its counterpart; its customers nastier and more deliberate. The score, by Jed Palmer, ramps up the disquietude, and tension mounts as first Liv begins to assimilate, and then their only ally, Carol (Ursula Yovich), departs, leaving Hanna to face her adversaries alone.

Somehow, Green’s amplification makes the story less menacing. Gleeson’s documentary shows a more nuanced view of the community: we see the men’s vulnerability as well as their defensiveness, the insecurities that fuel their misogyny. This doesn’t excuse them or diminish their threat; in fact, it makes them more frightening because, unlike the cartoonish bad guys in Green’s film, they’re all-too recognisable. In the Royal Hotel, the men are uniformly terrifying; in the Hotel Coolgardie, there is a scale. “Canman” John Joseph Lowe, for example, has a genuinely sweet side. Sure, he’s a rambling drunk who demands too much of the girls’ attention and creeps them out by showering them with unwanted gifts, but he also looks out for them, drives them where they want to go and truly wants to help. On the other hand, “Pikey” – reincarnated in The Royal Hotel as Dolly (Daniel Henshall) – is a terrifying man, spewing hatred towards all women because no one wants to sleep with him. “It’s because I haven’t got a driving licence,” he says. “That’s not the reason,” Lina tells him. Henshall’s Dolly is horrible, but nothing he does is as scary as Pikey’s quiet, all-consuming rage.

What’s more, while Hotel Coolgardie‘s bogeyman is sexism, The Royal Hotel‘s seems to be Australia. The difference is subtly drawn, but it’s there. In the documentary, we see the magnification of a bigoted culture, flourishing in this particular spot thanks to an enabling landlord. In the movie, the implication is that Canada is somehow different, that the problem is specifically Australian working-class men.

Still, I wish that Gleeson had acknowledged his presence in Hotel Coolgardie; there’s something disingenuous in the way the film suggests the women are in real danger, when we know that he’s always there with them, filming everything, reducing their risk. But I still prefer it to Green’s film, which undermines the truth of Hanna and Liv’s situation by allowing them to ‘win’. The coda at the end of The Royal Hotel is far more chilling.

It makes sense to view these two films as a pair. My dearest hope is that the job agency stops sending young women out to places like Coolgardie. It’s not enough to warn them that they have to be okay with male attention. They need to warn the landlords instead: our clients have human and employment rights.

The Royal Hotel – 3.4 stars

Hotel Coolgardie – 4 stars

Susan Singfield

Flip!

03/11/23

Summerhall, Edinburgh

Racheal Ofori’s FLIP! is a fresh and keen-eyed take on the Faust story. Two young graduates, eager to make their mark, are enjoying moderate success on their WePipe channel. Their videos are vibrant and fun, full of silly catchphrases and exuberant dance routines, pragmatic beauty tips and off-the-cuff remarks. They’re enjoying making them – and it shows. For Crystal (Jadesola Odunjo), the collaboration and creativity are paramount, but Carleen (Leah St Luce) is hungry for cold hard cash. She has to be: unlike Crystal, she doesn’t have parents who can bankroll her, and her hard-earned degree doesn’t seem to be helping her to get a decent job.

So when a new app starts to gain traction, Carleen is all over it. FLIP! is hugely popular, its short video format both punchy and easily accessible. Crystal takes a bit of convincing – she’s not keen on the app’s style or ethos – but, before long, the duo are doing well. Until Crystal says something that other users don’t like, and she’s trending for all the wrong reasons…

Carleen is faced with a dilemma: should she stand by her friend and eschew her newfound notoriety, or sign a deal with FLIP! as one of their brand ambassadors?

Under Emily Aboud’s assured direction, FLIP! is a kinetic, engaging piece of theatre, turning an almost empty stage into a convincing digital universe. Aline David’s lively choreography helps to underscore the characters’ youth – their exuberance and naïvety – and both Odunjo and St Luce deliver flawless performances, charting the characters’ respective journeys from dreams to despair.

Because, of course, just as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, every exciting new promise of autonomy and riches soon has the sharks circling, working out how they can exploit it for their own ends. And FLIP! are no exception, cunningly demanding the rights to Carleen’s digital image and then using AI to create content for her. Sure, she’s making money, but she’s no creative control, no pride in her work. The fun has gone – and so has her best friend. But if she reneges on the deal, what then? FLIP! will just use someone else, and she’ll be back in a dead-end job. There’s no way out.

Ofori’s social commentary is sharp and incisive, and we leave the theatre with much to discuss. FLIP!‘s Edinburgh run is over now, but it’ll be at the Soho Theatre from 7th-25th November, so do try to catch it if you’re in London. It’s FLIP!pin’ great!

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Dead Dad Dog

02/11/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

John McKay’s quirkily titled play originally debuted at the Traverse in 1988, before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London – so it’s great to have the opportunity to see it back in its original home. This deceptively simple two-hander takes the form of a series of titled vignettes punctuated by snatches of classic 80s pop songs.

It’s early morning in Edinburgh and ‘Ek’ (Angus Miller) is preparing breakfast and psyching himself up for an interview at BBC Scotland, where he hopes to start a new career. He’s ill-prepared for the arrival of his father, Willie (Liam Brennan), a quiet man in a loud suit. Ek’s surprise is understandable: Willie has been dead for twelve years. He explains that he’s been granted the opportunity to visit Ek so that the two of them can ‘reconnect’. “Heaven,” he tells Ek, “is OK.”

The visit comes with some awkward conditions. Ek and his dear-departed Dad must remain within a few paces of each other at all times (otherwise there are disastrous side-effects). What’s more, Willie can be seen – and heard – by all and sundry. Which is awkward to say the very least. But Ek is determined to attend his job interview anyway, and even goes ahead with a date with his latest crush. A bad idea? Well yes, but this is hardly a realistic story and much pleasure is derived from the absurd comedic situations that the duo are obliged to stumble through.

Both Miller and Brennan offer assured and likeable performances and I love the simplicity of the staging, where one wooden chair is the only prop, pressed into service to represent a whole range of different things. There’s a strangely old-fashioned feel to the piece – so much has changed since 1988 – and sadly, a planned second half, featuring a more contemporary sequel, Sonny Boy, is unable to go ahead due to illness in the cast. (The current foul weather conditions might be part of the problem too.)

This is a shame, because added pleasure would surely stem from seeing how things have metamorphosed over the intervening years. Nonetheless, Dead Dad Dog is an entertaining piece. Liz Carruther’s direction keeps the pot bubbling merrily away and McKay’s script provokes much hilarity (and the occasional touch of pathos) as we go. Fingers crossed we get to see that sequel.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Grandmothers Grimm

01/11/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Grandmothers Grimm, written and directed by Emily Ingram, returns to Edinburgh for the final two nights of its latest tour. Premiered in 2017, this long-running play continues to resonate six years later, drawing in a sizeable crowd tonight at the Traverse.

Revisionist fairy tales are nothing new: like pantomimes, these stories survive because they’re endlessly adaptable. But this production, by Some Kind of Theatre, is more about intellectual property: who invented the stories, who owns them – and who gets the credit.

It’s no surprise to learn that the past was sexist (the present is pretty sexist too). But it is perhaps news that the Grimm brothers’ project – collecting traditional folk tales for a compendium – actually deprived a lot of working-class female storytellers of their living, like a nineteenth-century Spotify. After all, who’s going to pay to listen to an old woman tell them a story if they have ready access to a printed copy of the text? Jacob (Justin Skelton) and Wilhelm (Gerry Kielty) might argue that they never claimed authorship of the tales, readily acknowledging their process, but it was their names on the cover – and their profits in the bank.

Marie Müller (Ingram) opens the play, alone, weaving her narrative with practised ease. This, we understand, is how the stories were traditionally told: a paying audience listening, rapt, as an elderly, peasant woman draws us in. When Jacob and Wilhelm burst onto the stage, accompanied by the middle-class Marie Hassenpflug (Sophie Harris), it’s clear that Old Marie doesn’t stand a chance. She’s displaced, allowed to speak only for as long as it takes for the brothers to transcribe her words.

Hassenpflug doesn’t fare much better. She’s educated so the Grimms are superficially more respectful towards her. Nonetheless, they purloin her stories with a blatant disregard for her authorship; it doesn’t occur to them to credit her (a bit like those celebrity children’s authors, who don’t credit their ghost writers…). Harris imbues Hassenpflug with a fierce dignity, which makes for a stark contrast to the brothers’ pettiness.

Kietly’s Wilhelm is focused on sales. He thinks the stories need to be sanitised so that parents will buy them for their children. Skelton’s Jacob hates this idea: he doesn’t want to create the kind of sappy stories he associates with Charles Perrault. He favours a warts and all approach, arguing that the darkness is what makes the tales. I’d agree with him if it weren’t for the fact that his version of ‘authenticity’ denies the existence of the real originators.

The staging could hardly be more simple: the performance area is almost empty, save for a desk and a couple of books; the only additional props are some feathers, cups and apples. This is no-frills, low-budget, black-box theatre – and none the worse for it. Skelton provides the comic relief, galloping round the stage as a donkey prince, as the quartet bring the various tales to life. It’s deftly done, so that we hear the original versions and then see them warped and changed. The pace never falters.

If The Grandmothers Grimm feels like a natural fit for the Edinburgh Fringe, then it’s nice to be transported back to August on this cold November night.

4 stars

Susan Singfield