T4 on the Beach – 4/7/2010

Review by Tina Hart

At the scandalous hour of 6.45am on Sunday I dragged my pasty legs and puffy eyes aboard a coach to Weston-Super-Mare ready to hit the annual coastside tune-fest that is T4 on the Beach.

Well… wow. As one of the privileged, able to mill around backstage and hang out in the golden circle, I have to say that in addition to being overly excited about the sand and songs, I was quite surprised at how ‘really’ sexy everyone was. My top hotties of the day include a topless Jason Derülo, stunning Esmée Denters and JLS (swoon) but I digress slightly…

Kicking off the festivities on the main stage was the Pineapple Dance Troupe, with their devilishly short shorts, cropped tops and toned tums, followed by the national treasure that is Dizzee Rascal ‘bringing the sunshine even though it’s a bit cloudy’ courtesy of the mental Bonkers. At this point I was pretty sure I’d be deaf by the end of the day as the screams of nearly 47,000 people erupted into the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. Nonetheless, my inner 17-year-old came out and I joined in.

Ellie Goulding was next up and looking very glam as she sailed through Starry Eyed and Guns and Horses. It was getting windier and greyer as we were told that some ‘guests with high hair’ were going to appear later…

Tinie Tempah and Labrinth sent the crowd absolutely wild with the bass bumping Frisky (I was troubled by how many young’uns were singing to this one) and Pass Out. I couldn’t help but be distracted by Labrinth’s strange choice of attire which looked like a denim catsuit. Â

Looking fly in a smart shirt and low slung jeans was Professor Green, who performed his current hits alongside Ed Drewett and a pretty brunette (although not Lily).  Also accompanied by a pretty brunette was swaggerlicious Chipmunk who was joined by Esmée Denters for their smash single Until You Were Gone.

After tearing myself away from the main stage, I walked past JLS as they arrived backstage and I nearly passed out – they really are the fittest boy band in the universe. I then bumped into the lovely Ollie and Merveille aka JJ and Thomas from Skins as we wandered across site to check out the other two stages and myriad of amusements.

On the T4 Sessions stage I caught a bit of funky house guru, Donae’o and then had to wait too long for adopted-presenter-for-the-day Gok Wan re-doing an interview with a beehived Diana Vickers, so I returned to the main area to find the highly anticipated N-Dubz had arrived backstage and were having their pictures taken with the Skins lot.

Both pulling some wicked moves on the main stage were Jason Derülo who went shirtless at the end of his set (swoon) and a very trim Alexandra Burke singing her upcoming summery single, RedOne-produced Start Without You.

I then missed out on Jedward, where Edward took a tumble on stage and after soldiering through the performance, ended up in hospital.

Across the way at the Rimmel Celeb Disco JLS were causing a mini stampede, so I went in the other direction to find DJ Ironik on the Sessions stage showcasing his new single, Falling in Love, with singer Ny. Proceedings were running late here so I had to sacrifice Plan B and Skepta to head back for N-Dubz.

The sky was very grey but dressed in black and white, the trio raised the tiring crowd with their medley of hits and got us singing Number One acapella which sounded amazing.

Diana Vickers stood in for the absent Faithless and belted out pop-rocky Once and her new single The Boy Who Murdered Love.

My new favourite pop-dance tune is Dynamite by Taio Cruz. He went all out on his set with flags, dancers and tons of confetti and streamers and kept the crowd singing along during a spurt of rain during Break Your Heart.Â

I was told off for putting up my umbrella so got drenched whilst dancing to Kelis with her timely new single, 4th of July (Fireworks).Â

The heavens dramatically opened and I got absolutely soaked witnessing the mighty JLS wrap up the day on the main stage. Ab-flashing, flips and frenzied screams galore, the UK’s favourite boy band showed off their skills to perfection. Number-one-bound single The Club is Alive got the soggy crowd jumping and the guys braved the pouring rain like true professionals.

Despite the weather I had an awesome day, topped off by chatting to Skepta backstage. He finally broke the mainstream top 20 on Sunday with Rescue Me (which we’ve been waiting for since April), charting at number 14.

All in all T4 on the Beach was an epic day out and the line up really did feature the cream of the pop crop this year. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to see everyone because of scheduling clashes across the three stages but like me, if you missed it, you did miss out but I’m sure we’ll be catching up with the highlights on TV.

Scissor Sisters @ iTunes festival

Review by Laura Wozniak

After popping into Abbey Road studios for an exclusive Roll Deep/Professor Green/Tinie Tempah showcase, I rushed off to Camden to see the mighty Scissor Sisters at the opening night of the annual iTunes festival.

During their up-beat 90 minute set, frontman Jake Shears and the gang jumped around to their hit singles Laura, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing and Filthy/Gorgeous, and tested out material from their new album – which didn’t really get the reaction I was expecting. Maybe this was because these iTunes gigs are free, so the majority of the crowd were punters like me who thought ‘free ticket – yeah why not?’.

Despite this, you couldn’t fault the band for the enthusiasm, Jake in particular was buzzing. He created a good party atmosphere and put us girls to shame with his impressive hip swinging!

Download their new album ‘Night Work’ for 10 credits (£7.99)

Splice – Exclusive Sarah Polley interview

by Andy Gibbons

When I was in the US recently I got the chance to speak to Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley and Delphine Chanéac, the stars of upoming sci-fi / thriller / horror Splice. I’ll post the rest of the interviews over the next couple of weeks but let’s kick things off with Sarah, who plays a scientist who makes a fateful decision…

Tell us a bit about Elsa…

Elsa and Clive, who she’s married to, are two geneticists who decide to make a creature that’s a hybrid out a human and animal DNA. They call her Dren and they raise her as a child but of course the experiment gets out of control.

They both make some rather questionable decisions during the films. Did you find it hard to have much sympathy or empathy for them?

Well she’s certainly one of the most ruthless, manipulative, complicated characters I’ve ever seen but I think she’s also someone who is full of life and had a real joie de vive. She’s passionate about her work but she’s also someone who’s incredibly damaged by her childhood – she’s running away from that so I tried to focus on that to remain empathetic to her in some way. When I see the movie there are definitely moments when you lose your capacity to empathy for her but I think, as an actor, it’s important to remain empathetic to the character you’re playing.

The world she operates in is a very technical one. Can you tell me a bit about the research you did to help get under her skin and how much of the technobabble you actually understood?

I spent some time in a lab with a geneticist named George who was really, really helpful and was a consultant on the film. I read a lot about it but there’s only so much you can absorb as an actor with no science background but I thought it was really important for us to at least understand the basic science behind what we’re saying dialogue-wise. We’ve all seen movies where the actor clearly doesn’t understand the corporate speak or the science speak so I kinda wanted to avoid that but I can’t pretend to fully understand the science that’s for sure.

From your perspective how much do you think we see on screen is science fiction and how much could be science fact?

I think its science fiction in that I don’t human beings would be allowed to do something like this – I think right now scientists and geneticists are so closely scrutinised, monitored and regulated. I think the science probably could take us there but I’m not sure that it would ever be allowed. I do think however that there’s an allusion here to Big Pharma (the company Elsa and Clive work for in the film) and the profit motive and I do think science like this should happen in a public system that is heavily regulated and monitored and where there is no profit motive. But even then I hesitate to claim that this could actually happen.

Biotechnology and genetics is an incredibly contentious field – has this film affected your perspective on the subject at all?

Well I think generally I’m someone who doesn’t have huge amounts of fear or scepticism about medical science research. I’m not a religious person so for me something like stem cell research is extremely important and could save millions of lives so I’m generally someone who doesn’t have a lot of scepticism about these things. Although I know some religious people who think stem cell research is really important too.

Can I ask you a bit about Delphine and how you and she worked on the relationship between Elsa and Dren?

She’s a magnificent actress and to get to work with someone so compelling and dynamic and so expressive without words, it helped me and Adrien so much in terms of being able to be in the scene and not working with a tennis ball which a lot of actors have to do when they make like this.

You mentioned Adrien. Can you tell me a bit about the relationship you formed playing Elsa and Clive?

We did spend some time together beforehand and the great thing about Adrien is that he has a great sense of humour so we were able to laugh through most of the film which is always a relief with a film like this which can get quite intense.

Splice is very much a pet project for writer / director Vincenzo Natali. Could you feel the passion in him day to day?

Yeah, absolutely. Vincenzo has been thinking about this movie for many years and so was so thrilled to be getting to make it. Visually he’s just one of the most staggering filmmakers out there so to get to watch him with this scale and this palette was amazing.

Some people will call Splice a science fiction, some will call it a thriller while Delphine has described it as a love story. Where do you stand?

I think it’s so many things. I think it’s a drama, I think at times it’s a black comedy, I think it’s science fiction, I think its horror. It’s not a film that easily categorised in many ways. I think the thing that really defines it for me is how shocking it gets. There are moments that shock audiences and cross boundaries I haven’t seen before.

Splice opens across the UK on July 23rd