Culture

"There is a euphoric wonder spun when artists like Billie Eillish and Dua Lipa emerge with albums so assured and confident that they immediately dominate over experienced, veteran creatives, or when debut works with less than universal acclaim are celebrated by the niche who wish to state, ‘I liked them before they became cool’. The artistic debut has always acted as a magnet, in the sense that critics seem to take pleasure from attempting to be the first to celebrate new voices in the field."

"You might have made some mental goals before midnight, or contributed some flimsy ambitions to a conversation about self-love, or maybe even written a list in your notes app (that vast, interminable junkyard), but the chances are you have, or will, fall behind. I will be the first to say that I lasted an embarrassing three days on a goal to exercise daily."

"But when I talk of Bogarde ‘telling the story of himself’ through his performances, I’m not just talking about a few quirked eyebrows and suggestive comments. What shines through in so many of his films is compelling bitterness. Within the Wildean wit and affable flamboyance was a cold, grudge-bearing streak: he had a number of fellow actors and directors  whom he inexplicably viciously turned against, including John Mills and Richard Attenborough. On film work, he stated flippantly but firmly in a letter to film critic Dilys Powell, "I detest the job and most of the time I detest the people.""

Blackfishing is a word that though more or less unknown little more than five years ago, has now become part of everyday speech. While...

The well-established mix of humour and honesty that Sex Education brings to these themes is a refreshing approach, and enables an exploration of a huge variety of sensitive issues regarding sexuality, as well as more light-hearted everyday adolescent dramas.

A hero, vested with the authority of the law, doggedly pursues every lead that comes their way. With methodical tenacity, they unravel a web of lies to uncover the moral transgression at the centre of the plot. Truth is established, the guilty are punished, and order is restored. Details vary, but a basic structure persists: the detective drama formula has long been a mainstay of television.

CW: sexual assault. For musical theatre purists and sceptics alike, Steven Spielberg’s reboot of West Side Story remains a hard sell. According to the naysayers,...

In the maelstrom of reinterpretations of misunderstood Homeric women and Greek tragedy revivals, the show’s lyrics stand out for consistently centring the core themes and questions asked by the ancient texts themselves.

Netflix’s popular and influential show Sex Education has received great acclaim for its honest portrayal of sexual interactions between secondary school teens. However, its...

COP26 has brought forth a multitude of images which embody the climate crisis: koalas clinging to rescue workers in Australian forest fires, polar bears...

There is a certain magic in the escapism that art offers, in our ability as humans to completely fall into worlds and emotions that...

Beth Simcock’s bright and colourful large-scale work The Zodiac lights up the exhibition space at Oxford’s Modern Art Gallery. A recent Ruskin graduate and one of...

Kid A and its sister album Amnesiac helped introduce electronic instruments to alternative rock, and were a risky sonic departure from Radiohead’s guitar-based and immensely successful OK Computer....

"Clocking in at just under thirty minutes, this cycle was so absorbing that I nearly forgot the other songs with which the concert began."

As Steve Jobs once said, ‘you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards’. Never have more inspirational words been...

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.

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...

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.”