WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb
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Rising to the bait
An outstandingly original film addresses burning issues of class conflict head on, says MIKE QUILLE
RITA DI SANTO points out the social experience of exploitation and oppression that inform the popular winners at this year’s festival
PETER MASON is tickled by a new book and exhibition that mine the rotten anachronism of the monarchy for laughs
A Nazi zeppelin whodunnit, death amidst detoxification, a twistaholic’s delight, and noir fiction for criminals
STEVE JOHNSON salutes the mellifluous tones and clear-minded political message of a uniquely relevant Birmingham-born singer-songwriter
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
ESCHEWING the straightforward narrative arcs of social realism employed by a Ken Loach or a Mike Leigh, in Bait director Mark Jenkin’s Brechtian approach never lets us forget we’re watching a film.
That sense of confronting material reality is there in the hand-processed images, scratchy and lined and a soundscape that engages yet disturbs.
The dialogue, recorded and then dubbed, imbues the uncomprehending, Pinteresque conversations — clipped and occassionally comic — with an eerie sense of alienation, abetted by moments where the plot runs ahead of itself.
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