Culture

Thursday, November 11, 2:00 pm, picture this: bustling isles, shuttering cameras, and sales of thousands of dollars happening on the spot. A promising opening...

"In 2017, two of the most popular singles in America were bilingual: ‘Despacito’ and J Balvin’s club classic ‘Mi Gente’ which gained incendiary power thanks to a Beyoncé cameo. In both cases, the English-speaking singers made notable effort to acknowledge the dominance of Spanish-language pop by singing in Spanish. Indeed, despite the commercial benefits that these artists certainly received perhaps the most important outcome of their success is their cultural impact."

"The lyric ‘you took my weed and two years of my precious time’ makes me laugh each time I hear it in the song ‘leave my mind’ – ironically, the song can quite easily leave my mind as soon as I’ve finished listening to it."

I wrote Quartet over a year and a half ago in early 2020, sitting down for an hour every morning to chip away at it as my way of getting through a term in lockdown. Having handed over my script to the trusted hands of Alex Foster (director) and our stunning actors, I was itching to find out how Quartet has developed.

As a show with only two characters, the use of four actors in this production was truly innovative. It was able to showcase their talent in the best possible way, highlighting the actors’ strengths while elevating the characters to a level above how they have been traditionally interpreted on stage.

It is a poignant exploration of how couples in failing marriages perpetually struggle to see eye to eye and are so often operating, portrayed quite literally here, on differing temporal planes.

suspense, tackling intense themes of mental illness, sexual violence, and survival that may be difficult for audiences to process. Though the scenes do not explicitly depict such situations, it is a credit to the performances by the cast and crew that the effect of these moments linger long after you leave the Playhouse. 

"We met upstairs at the Jericho Tavern, Willie having taken some time out from watching the football at a pub down the road. Donning a tiny beanie, a different colour of which he’s worn at each tour date so far, and with a feather earring dangling from his left ear, he bears all the hallmarks of an indie songsmith - albeit, one who doesn’t take themselves too painfully seriously."

Poetry as a digital experience is how I first came to know verse. I pored through the endless bank of videos on Button Poetry’s...

When I think of stage classics, productions like Les Miserables, The Lion King, and Wicked come to mind.  These are all shows which hold...

No Time to Die has emerged from all of its production chaos triumphant, dusting itself off and adjusting its shirt cuffs with all the effortless sophistication of its protagonist.

'It is lovely to see theatre reset after so long, but it is inspiring to see it revive and attempt to do better.'

Mila Ottevanger explores the less than triumphal return about the Oscars of fashion, and what the lackluster exhibition and red carpet say about the...

I read How to Kill Your Family while at home during the vacation and given my own parent’s unnerved curiosity as they scanned the book’s title, I can understand the necessity of the dedication to Mackie’s parents: “I promise never to kill either of you.” 

"Of all the books that explore the question of how and why we learn, I find that Frank Herbert’s Dune offers an unsettling, prescient answer to this question."

"What do Charles Dickens, Alice in Wonderland and Kilburn-bred rapper M Huncho have in common? Quite a lot, as it happens."

"These songs hugely contrasted with the dark, depressing songs produced by American grunge artists such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and were generally more upbeat, optimistic and catchy. Damon Albarn of Blur said in a 1993 interview that: “If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge!”."

Is the cinematic experience in danger of decline?

The device of the camera itself is one which creates an uneven power dynamic between the viewer and the camera’s subject.

“I’m a superhero,” cries Polka-Dot Man in the third act of the film. “I’m not just a superhero movie,” screams The Suicide Squad for the entire 2h12m runtime. James Gunn’s movie perfectly captures the essence of his source material, while also challenging  the conventions of Marvel/DC films. Gunn  has done this in a year that has seen Zack Snyder’s Justice League released while demands continue for #ReleaseTheAyerCut, but he has risen above these controversies and put his stamp on the project. And so, The Suicide Squad comes as an entertaining breath of fresh air.