With the word “magic” in the title, “The Magic Flute” 
is bound to be an exciting adventure. The famous tale 
by composer Amadeus Mozart details the love story of 
Tamino, a young traveler, and Pamina, daughter of the 
Queen of the Night, and the trials Tamino has to endure 
to rescue Pamina and be together. What made this 
performance magical was not fairy queens or enchanted 
trials, but the expert blend of cultures, stories and 
realities.

The Isango Ensemble, a collection of South African 
performers of all ages, is a unique group that reimagines 
Western theatre classics in a South African context. 
Blending cultures, races and experiences, the group 
presents innovative works that transform a famous 
classic into a seemingly entirely new story. They 
bring their works of cultural fusion all over the world, 
including a variety of people into the conversation. Their 
production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” was one of 
their many ingenious inventions of taking a while known 
classic and making it almost unrecognizable in the best 
possible ways. 
Milling around the Power Center stage before the 

show, the cast chatted with each other, looking out into 
the growing house, making the audience feel comfortable 
in their unexpected, un-operatic surroundings. The 
actors doubled as the musicians, with the music director 
taking on just as big of a role onstage right next to them. 
Everything about this performance was exposed: 
the wings and the roof of the stage were uncovered, 
there were barely any props, all the trials that Tamino 
went through were portrayed by actors shaking sheets 
with Sharpie letters on them. Yes, having the set of an 
internationally touring show consist of bedsheets was 
a bit perplexing. But in the context of the show — with 
dustbins for drums and recycled bottles for sounds — it 
made perfect sense. The set let the performance speak 
for itself
This version of the famous opera was unexpectedly 
humorous and playful. Papageno, Tamino’s sidekick, 
stole the show with his hilarious side comments and 
facial expressions. The Spirits were portrayed as a version 
of The Supremes, dancing in different sixties inspired 
costumes and hyping up the playful, snapping trio image. 
Papageno even made a reference to Gloria Gaynor and 
her famous song “I Will Survive.” All of these little quirks 
made the show accessible and interesting. It drew the 
audience in and made us feel like we were a part of the 
show ourselves.
The most compelling part of this show was the 
beautiful blend of cultures. Languages blended together 
seamlessly, weaving in and out of dialogue and song. But 
no matter what language scenes were done in, everything 
was still understandable. If one actor began speaking in a 
different language, not only would that actor still succeed 
in getting her point across, but the scene partner would 
pick up the slack and her reactions would explain the 
scene.
These intercultural conversations that the Isango 
Ensemble perpetrated are what push theater to progress. 
Just performing the same shows the same way does 
nothing to enhance the narrative. Innovation and 
creativity leads to discovery, all of which is presented in 
the works of the Isango Ensemble.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, October 24, 2019 — 5

While nothing of the type quite exists, the closest 
thing to a surefire formula for a successful TV show 
is following a group of absurd characters with hefty 
delusions of grandeur. From David Brent and Michael 
Scott in both versions of “The Office” to Jimmy Shive-
Overly in “You’re the Worst,” we love characters 
whose egos are only eclipsed by their incompetence. 
BBC Three’s “People Just Do Nothing,” in its five 
short seasons, perfected this formula yet remains, to 
this day, criminally underappreciated compared to its 
inspirations.
This “Office”-style mockumentary centers around 
Kurupt FM, a pathetically small pirate radio station 
based out of Brentford in West London. Run by “MC 
Grindah” (Allan Mustafa) and “DJ Beats” (Hugo 
Chegwin), the illegal setup has an operating radius 
of about two blocks, but doesn’t stop the pair from 
deluding themselves that they take over the London 
airwaves every time they play. Other staff include 
“Steves,” a stoner who displays infrequent flashes of 
remarkable intelligence and Decoy, the straight man 
to Grindah’s overall outrageousness.
Despite the fact that each of these characters are 
noteworthy on their own, they are eclipsed by one of 
the most absurdly funny characters ever to grace a TV 
screen: Chabuddy G (Chabuds to his mates, Charlie 
to his colleagues), portrayed by Asim Chaudhry. 
Also known as “Brown Casanova” and the “Mayor 
of Hounslow,” he is a potent combination of Alan 
Partridge and the aforementioned David Brent/

Michael Scott all rolled into one. A self-proclaimed 
“entrepreneur,” he provides most of the “resources” 
to the Kurupt FM crew as well as his own products, 
including a vodka made of window polish which he 
markets as “Polish vodka” as a legal loophole.
Perhaps the show’s biggest asset is the chemistry 
that the cast has built up over the years. Before the 
show even piloted, most of the actors on the show 
worked together on a YouTube sketch series which 
parodied the underground radio stations that 
permeated the grime/garage scene in the UK, a scene 
which many of the actors were themselves a part of. 
As Sam Wallaston of The Guardian points out in an 
interview with the cast, the show is both a parody and 
a homage to that world, down to the “music samples 
and trainer [sneaker] brands,” not to mention the 
glorious array of tracksuits.
While the relatively niche aspects of the music are 
important to the show, the charm comes from the basic 
fact that most of the characters are blithering idiots, or 
at least they seem to be. Apart from Chabuddy G, it is 
difficult to tell just how self-aware the characters are. 
Grindah tries to convince us that his daughter with 
his girlfriend Miche (Lily Brazier) appears mixed-
race (despite both parents being white) because he is a 
quarter cypriot, when it is clearly obvious that Decoy 
(who is Black) is the actual father. Miche, a hairdresser, 
herself tries to convince herself that it is her destiny 
to become a celebrity and that her boyfriend (later 
husband) is actually more than a musically hopeless 
MC. Yet at the end of the day, don’t we all have our own 
hopeless delusions about who we are and who we will 
be? As the Kurupt FM crew show, maybe that’s fine 

‘People Just Do Nothing’:
Mockumentary perfected

DANA PIERANGELI
Daily Arts Writer

TV NOTEBOOK

Isango Ensemble’s fresh
take on ‘The Magic Flute’

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor

Harry Styles’s “Lights Up” marks a two-
year gap between the releases of his last two 
singles. His presence never evaded the public 
eye, but the tribulations and subtleties of his 
personal life was never at the forefront. He 
coasts along in interviews with a sheer cheeky 
charm that never conveys too much and seldom, 
if ever, brands the gossip magazines you find 
at the grocery store. An artist to his very 
core, he captivates us in grand, eye-catching 
statements. Blooming from the teen heartthrob 
image of One Direction, he shed the wrapping 
but wore the attention on his sleeves. These 

were the sheer Gucci sleeves he co-hosted the 
Met Gala with this spring, the unrecognizable 
fervor he brought to the role of British soldier 
Alex in Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” the 
melodramatic, spiraling six-minute lucid dream 
of his 2017 single “Sign of the Times.”
“Lights Up” is a move no different. Clocking 
in at less than three minutes long, it is literally 
half the length of “Sign of the Times.” The 
’70s-inspired rock balladry makes way for a 
soulful airiness, a melange of synth, guitar, 
keys and choir music that sparkle with sweat. 

The lyrics pour out in abstracts, “I’m sorry by 
the way / Never coming around / Be so sweet if 
things just stayed the same,” a seemingly hazy 
cliche. But with a release on National Coming 
Out Day, “Lights up and they know who you 
are / Do you know who you are?” plays out a 
grander proclamation. 
Regardless of whether the fan speculations 
hold true, Styles furthers the idea of a coming-
out statement in the “Lights Up” music video. No 
formal narrative or symbol congeals the overall 
plot; instead, glimpses of a glimmering, sweaty 
Harry Styles grace the screen. Set completely 
in the dark, it shines in bursts of green, red 
and white lights that alternate and illuminate 
Styles’s journey throughout the video. The 
images feels otherworldly as Styles traverses 
through them effortlessly. At the 
very focal point, he is entangled 
within 
a 
throng 
of 
sensuous 
admirers of all genders. They 
glisten under a pale neon-green 
light, pressing their barebodies 
against Styles’s as he sings. Other 
images fill in gaps between this 
scene, namely one of Styles seated 
back-to-back on a motorcycle with 
an anonymous chauffeur and one 
of him partially submerged in 
water while wearing a sequined 
suit, reflected over a version of himself in boxer 
shorts.
The significance behind these images and 
the video are dubious, but they are imbued in 
an ether of sensuality. They oscillate between a 
desire for exploration and a visible frustration 
on Styles’s face in some cuts, culminating to 
an unconventional, almost strange aura as 
we struggle to pinpoint the ramifications of 
Styles’s situation. But for a song that questions 
if you know who you are, such imagery seems 
appropriate.

Harry Styles ‘Lights Up’

DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer

Since its release at the close of September, Ryan 
Murphy’s “The Politician” has gotten its shine from six 
days to Sunday. And rightly so — the writing, while a 
bit ham-fisted even for the Netflix generation’s answer 
to “Bonfire of the Vanities,” dives head first into the 
kinds of topics that can easily veer into trivializing 
and exploitative landscapes with aplomb. It does so by 
immediately going for the jugular, hitting you upside 
the head with the bluntness of its message in the most 
camped up, almost-derisive fashion, discrediting 
itself and rendering all defenses null before it actually 
starts to hit home. The tangled relationship between 
emotional centeredness and youthful ambition, 
the ever-climbing bar for achievement cloaked in 
little more than sheer existential dread, what it 
means to be your “authentic self,” the simultaneous 
condemnation and idolization of extreme wealth 
and all the particulars of loneliness, anxiety and 
depression (especially in reference to queerness) are 
baked into a televised sheet cake both indelicately and 
with great care.
The real storytelling jewels, however, lie in 
the show’s visuals. The dichotomy of reality and 
the common portrayal is co-signed by an endless 
cornucopia of truly fabulous backdrops. The makeup 
of each scene — how every room is decorated and 
the way the architecture helps inform the space, the 
personal styling of each character and how it betrays 
their intentions, while placing them neatly into the 
overall visual narrative — lifts an immense amount 
of weight. It’s a classic Ryan Murphy spectacle with 
every still, but the ideas expressed are so clear and 
immediate that there isn’t any real margin of error. It 
serves as a reminder of just how much can be said of 
oneself when you dress with intention.
Not everybody gets to be Gwyneth Paltrow, 
trimming her hedges in a poppy red Carolina Herrera 
gown and matching crochet gloves or a downtrodden 
Lucy Boynton furiously practicing her serve in the 
middle of the night in tennis whites, complete with a 
bold-striped cashmere sweater that says TENNIS on 
it (and neither are necessarily intended as realistic 
options). Embodying a character can afford the 
opportunity to escape from the mores of commonly 
accepted personal styles and the wider norms that 

inform them. The characters of “The Politician” 
succeed so thrillingly in their personal style because 
they poke fun at their identities, at the pomp and 
circumstance of getting dressed for a particular role 
and all that comes with it. The downright comedic 
drama that comes with their wares doesn’t exist off-
screen, but a touch of self-awareness and a willingness 
to subvert our chosen roles can go a long way.
I find gender so interesting because it completely 
eludes me. When I think of myself in my own private 
headspace there is no underlying status that feels like 
home, and I think a very large part of why I, along with 
many members of the queer community, so prefer 
to be alone is because that untetheredness becomes 
real when you’re around other people. To defy 
something so ingrained in how people conceptualize 
themselves and go about their life, or even to feel like 

what you project doesn’t quite fit, is to be forced to 
think about all of the different places it’s steeped in. It 
is to be conscious of it, all the time, and every choice 
in how you represent yourself can quickly feel like a 
negotiation as a result. As hard as anyone can try, there 
is no vacuum you can self-actualize in. We are raised 
through a series of negotiations between who we are 
and what we’re born with, and pursuing concepts, as 
opposed to perceptions, is one way to create a home 
within yourself. It’s a way to put yourself in the driver’s 
seat, to self-satirize, to navigate the social pressures 
we inevitably adhere to in some way or another with a 
little bit more agency.

Velveteen Dreams: ‘The
Politican’ & embodiment

SAM KREMKE
Daily Style Columnist

STYLE COLUMN

ERSKINE RECORDS LIMITED

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

To defy something 
so ingrained in how 
people conceptualize 
themselves and go about 
their life, or even to feel 
like what you project 
doesn’t quite fit, is to be 
forced to think about all 
of the different places it’s 
steeped in

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

ISANGO ENSEMBLE

Lights Up

Harry Styles

Columbia Pictures

Blending cultures, races 
and experiences, the group 
presents innovative works 
that transform a famous 
classic into a seemingly 
entirely new story

VICELAND