Culture

'Spencer’s script never tries to be overly clever or conceptual, instead relying on its innately heartfelt character development and engaging humour.'

'The truth is that travelling to different time periods might even give us a better awareness of the idiosyncrasies of our own era – an era which, for all its shortcomings, could well be the golden age of the television series as we know it.'

"It’s the sort of production that would make even the most timid want to get involved in Oxford drama – and that’s in earnest." Hari Bravery reviews the Trinity Players' recent production of Oscar Wilde's classic farce, 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'

Somehow, “Pentagon confirms UFOs may exist” barely registers as news. It’s a shame, since our cultural obsession with the great unknown of outer space...

"I didn’t sit back and enjoy the show. And I ended up with a lot more opinions than I had ever expected four pieces of 21st-century choreography to evoke." Patrick Gwillim Thomas discusses the Royal Opera House's newest choreography project.

It's fair to say the Friends Reunion was a mixed bag. The best? A heavy hit of nostalgia from seeing the cast reunited. The...

'If I do go to these places, I won’t need to be transported to a fictional world for them to be magic. They’ll be wonderful because I went there, and had fun, and lived a life that is far less exciting than those of the characters, but was good all the same.'

"Spotify promises to ‘soundtrack your life’. We must be wary of how it’s shaping it." Lucy Kelly questions whether Spotify could become the most addictive social media platform.

For a historian who has made every effort to avoid studying the early history modules, Prime Video’s Vikings was perhaps a surprising viewing choice....

Something crawls up my throat, more bitter than honey.

Death comes, and they draw the curtains – Not in Spain. In Spain they open them.

Humour me with golden words...

perhaps next time i will kill the bear

I watched Shrek for the first time when I was two years old. It quickly became a daily habit: my parents would plonk me...

My friend and I arrived about thirty minutes late to see Spiral: From the Book of Saw in the cinema. It didn’t particularly matter....

'Nothing is done by halves in this film, including the emotional intensity; when you’re watching, you feel at all times like you’re stuck in Oliver’s head, forced to hear all of his fifteen-year-old-boy thoughts and schemes. The soundtrack follows all of this perfectly, letting Oliver’s state of mind bleed through into the lyrics, which is the key to what makes Turner’s music so powerful and so fitting to the film.'

'In everything from Little Women to My Brilliant Friend, Lady Bird to The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, women are offered a pretty clear choice: do you want to be sexy, or clever? Do you want to be stimulated, or happy? According to Mortimer, you can’t have both.'

Spring has been extolled in poetry perhaps more than any other season. Since antiquity, poets have associated spring with growth and celebration making their poems are a joy to read this time of year.

"This juxtaposition characterises the genre: bright, happy elements of club hits mixed with a subversive sly irony that comes with introducing darker lyrical and aesthetic elements." Connor Connolly tackles the explosion in popularity of Hyperpop, and its effects on the music industry.

My first experience of reading a bilingual novel was both painful and involuntary. It was that heady World Cup summer of 2018 – the...