If you’ve ever self-consciously done a google search for a Glee re-make, this is the album for you.

New York duo A Great Big World’s debut album Is Anybody Out There is a crippingly cringey, poptastic assembly of piano ballads and up-beat, big chorus numbers. And yet, like Glee revisions of pop classics, it’s annoyingly enjoyable.

It’s got violin quivers, outstanding voices and harmonies, and songs about coming home and being with the people you care about. It’s made for end of school graduation videos, camp fires and the X Factor finals. Yuck. I want so much to turn it off and hate it, but it’s difficult.

And I’m not the only one enjoying it. Their up-tempo, piano driven single ‘This is the New Year’, was the theme song for ‘I Used to Be Fat’ on MTV, played on One Tree Hill and Good Morning America, and was performed on a certain high-school drama about teenagers who like to sing and dance. I’ll let you guess which. But the talent of A Great Big World is most present on heartwrenching piano ballad ‘Say Something’. It’s simple, but classic, and incredibly beautiful.

This is not an original, clever or especially interesting debut. Actually, it’s pretty boring and incredibly repetitive, safe and inoffensive. But I can’t help but think that it is, well, nice.

Having eagerly pinned it down at Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange, the opening track alone made this LP worth my investment. For any who have yet to encounter Outstanding by the Gap Band (otherwise known for their magnum opus Oops Upside Your Head, and whose lead vox Charlie Wilson can be appreciated in Kanye’s Bound 2), be forewarned that its riff will circulate your subconscious on that endless conveyor belt usually reserved for the Call Me Maybe du jour. Fortunately, this offering comes guilt-free for any stalwart of funk and soul music, and has since been sampled by Biggie, Ashanti and Ice Cube among others. It fits into a 9-track compilation from British record label StreetSounds, purveyor of urban club and dance music for a mighty six years between 1982-8. Its impressive output featured staples of the 80s scene, from Luther Vandross to Cheryl Lynn, Janet Jackson to Zapp. As for Edition 3, gems that surface under the needle include Richard Jon Smith’s Baby’s Got Another, Kashif’s I Just Gotta Have You and the B-Side finale Steve Arrington’s You Meet my Approval. Yet the real triumph of the StreetSounds compilation series lay in its knack for collating tracks that, in a pre-playlist epoch, transition as seamlessly as a concept album; you’ll be hard-pressed to leave before the full duration is over.

The first thing that hits you when you hear the new mixtape from Pearls Negras is their furious energy. This trio of 15 year-old girls comes from one of the toughest and roughest slums in the world – Vidigal in Rio de Janeiro – and their punchy lyrics combined with insistent rhythms speak to a restless emerging audience in Brazil. The fusion rap/hip-hop/baile funk tracks spring from the growing social unrest in the city soon to host the Olympics; a city famed for its violence, poverty, social inequality, and cultural blaze.

But this mixtape’s lyrics, sound and video stand apart from Rio’s mainstream. The video to ‘Pensando em Você’ was shot in the square of the slum where they all grew up, and features their friends breakdancing in the background. Their lyrics jump from drug trafficking and gun violence to one night stands and adolescent crushes, to messages of social disaffection directed at the Brazilian President herself in ‘Mr President’. The sound is one of seething anger, rebelling against the misogyny so typical in Brazilian baile funk. This is paired with tribal rhythms, overlaid with samba percussion, and thrown over driving hip-hop beats by British producers David Alexander and Jan Blumentrath, working for British label Bolabo. The new mixtape ‘Biggie Apple’ is a delirious 21-minute blast of energy, representing the ignored voices of the favela. “Tu não quer saber de nada, tu só sabe de você” they accuse – “you don’t want to know, you just care about yourself” – in one of their strongest tracks, ‘Bata Dois.’  

The sound is remarkably strong, and even if you don´t understand the rapid-fire Portuguese lyrics, you can feel the frustration of Brazil’s disaffected youth. The tracks definitely come bursting with all the energy of a generation wanting change. Change has come pretty quickly for this trio though – in May they will be leaving their hometown for the first time to board a plane to come to the UK. They’re certainly getting their voices heard now.

Wild Beasts’ fourth (that’s right, fourth!) album opens with a burst of dramatic choir singing, with Hayden Thorpe’s voice breaking the exciting yet dreamlike synth background with his usual astonishing vocal range. Thorpe’s vocals are a key part of any Wild Beasts record, and he goes from strength to strength across the album, veering from thoughtful on lead single ‘Wanderlust’ to lascivious on ‘Nature Boy’ to gentle on ‘Mecca’ and mournful on ‘Dog’s Life’.

Synths shimmer and gleam in instrumental patches, illuminating the dreamscape of Wild Beasts’ active imagination. This glittering brilliance is most obvious on ‘Dog’s Life’, one of the highlights of the album. Beginning softly, it suddenly flickers into life about halfway through with a space-age riff to make Buzz Aldrin weep.

The album is their longest yet, which in itself is a statement about the band’s attempts at maturity. There was a time for ‘Brace Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants’, and it was a great time, but a 12-year-old band needs to be a bit less silly. In fact, the album’s few weak moments come when Wild Beasts take it all a bit too far. The synths in ‘Palace’ are a bit too 80s, and the song tends towards the over-the-top, camp dramatics that let them down on 2011’s Smother.

The range of emotions present in the lyrics is impressive as well. While meaning is deliberately and carefully made difficult to discern, ‘Nature Boy’ appears to be the story of a man whose wife is sleeping with someone else – “your lady wife around his lips”. ‘Daughters’ is a fine feminist anthem if a little condescending, with Thorpe telling us all about how “Jesus was a woman”. The indescribably tender ‘Mecca’ is the best song on the album, and is completely open to interpretation. It’s a toss-up as to whether it’s love (“we move in desire”), alcohol (“just a drop on the lips/and we’re more than equipped”) or something harder (“we didn’t reach a high/it was always inside”) being moved into a religious context as Thorpe croons that “we’ve a Mecca now”. Maybe it’s all three. Maybe it’s none.

It’s been five years since we’ve had a good album from this lot, but I’m pleased to say they’re back out of the wilderness.

In order to maintain a secure phone connection with Rae on the other side of the world, I’ve had to scour my entire college for the best signal. I have settled, at 10 on a Friday morning, in a lonely, unfurnished prayer room- myself now anxiously praying that no one intends to use it for the next hour.

As soon as I’m put through to Rae, though, my worries pretty much evaporate. As she answers the phone, she informs me between hysterical laughter and audible wretches that I’ve caught her in the middle of a “potato related catastrophe”. In the sweltering Tasmanian heat, a tin of potatoes has split and started rotting from the bottom up. 

We get down to business despite this, and in the heat of the moment, I admit to her that I started writing to Channel 4 when the series first aired. I wanted to thank them for showing the teenage audience a funny, likeable character whose mental illness did not define them. Ironically enough, I tell Rae, I didn’t send it for fear of people thinking I was being obsessive or overly keen.

“When I hear that I think, ‘Yes!’. That’s exactly what we wanted to achieve.” Rae practically beams at me down the phone, apparently not judging my enthusiasm. “It gives me so much real pleasure that that’s been my contribution to the cannon, as it were, that people felt they could say ‘I felt a bit like that’.”

“I get it from all generations.” She continues, “Up until recently, my mum worked at the lottery counter at Morrison’s. She had a really old woman as a regular, who once day came up to her saying ‘Your daughter’s series…’  My mum immediately thought- Oh shit! Given that the series is about masturbation, drugs, raving, self harm and all that. And then the old lady says, ‘It’s brilliant, it happened in our day and nobody talked about it! We need to talk about it!’”

Clearly Rae appreciates that people can identify with her work. I ask why she thinks her story is so relatable. An anorexic person feels the same kind of thing as someone who is very overweight- the emotions are very similar. Someone with OCD can relate to somebody with depression. The point is they are living with something that eats into their joy, eats into their lives, and eats into their time.”

Witty and very much with it, despite it being pretty late where she is, Rae jokingly points out her Freudian repetition of the word “eat”, saying that if she noticed it, I definitely should have.

The book My Mad Fat Teenage Diary is, ultimately, nonfiction, and its sequel My Madder, Fatter Diary has just been released, with the second TV series to air on Channel 4 this month. Readers can expect a different feel from this book however, Rae tells me.

“I underestimated the task in hand emotionally in writing this one. It’s a lot, lot darker, but still very funny. I talk about quite deep serious stuff and go into detail more, things that are only alluded to in the first book. Non fictional characters that are still in my life, I have to think about quite deeply. Ones that are not in my life but I still care about quite dearly are also a task.”

The TV series, however, is generally a more fictionalised version of events.

“Apart from me and my mum, all characters in TV series are fictional- you can’t stick to reality. If the real Battered Sausage [a character’s nickname in the book] did something in TV that he didn’t do in real life, he’d be very angry at me!” Rae tells me. “The fictional TV Rae does stuff that I’ve done and stuff that I haven’t done, but never anything that wouldn’t do.”

One of the more notable inventions of the series compared to the books is the addition of a closeted gay character, Archie.

“I gave Tom Bidwell [TV series writer] the bare bones and he ran with it,” Rae explains. “Archie was important, because it’s less difficult to be gay these days, but you still need to come out to your friends. It’s about exploring labels, exploring how we see people after we have information about them that we didn’t previously know. Does it change what we think about them? Should it?”

Speaking of the stigma faced by people who, for whatever reason, have ever had trouble “fitting in”, Rae bursts out, “I just want to throw a bomb into everything and say ‘Fuck this! Fuck your labels!’”

Among other things to be bombed in Rae’s world is body prejudice. Discussing the story of an overweight teenage girl, Rae states, “Let’s not delude ourselves that people aren’t nasty to fat people- they bloody are. There are different standards of beauty around the world. And if you don’t ‘fit in’, you’re not ‘healthy’ in the mind. Actually, not fitting in can be an absolute sign of your absolute mental health.”

The issue of fitting in was a big enough one during Rae’s 20th century teenage years – but how has that changed since the arrival of technology?

“I think the internet is one of these insane things that can be an enormous comfort and a dreadful curse. Bullies can follow you everywhere. I knew physically where my bullies were, I could work out routes to avoid them. I knew where they were, most of the time. These days, that’s gone.”

We soon divulge from such serious considerations, and end up bonding about how medieval literature makes us both feel sad inside and a mutual love of Caitlin Moran. Rae’s been incredibly warm and welcoming, and I can certainly see consistencies in her humour and that of her on-screen persona.

At the end of our conversation, Rae confirms beyond any doubt her awesomeness as a person. “My mum always said I wasn’t allowed to try for Cambridge… But Oxford, that’d be fine. After this, I can see why she said it!”

Naww, how sweet. After having such an entertaining hour with Rae and getting stuck into the new book, I can’t wait to see what her new series will bring.

Say the word “Brecht” in thespian circles and it’s often immediately followed by faux-sage nods and vacuous allusions to “alienation” and “the fourth wall.” On arriving at this preview I was already prepared to play the part, my mind replete with hastily consumed Wikipedia articles on epic theatre and the Berliner Ensemble which I hoped could be regurgitated in some semblance of informed coherence. I needn’t have worried: the cast I encountered in Magdalen’s Oscar Wilde Room were not concerned with such facade.

The scope of this play is its most thrilling characteristic, as it oscillates wildly between incredibly bleak human tragedy and guffaw-inducing satirical comedy. This heady mix had me transfixed even in the three short scenes I was party to, memorably at the point where the terror and panic of violent revolution was juxtaposed with an awkward proto-chick flick proposal scene.

The use of masked silhouettes and puppetry, as well as a klesmer-style score (composed by Roddy Skeaping), add an aura of mystique, absurdity, and tradition which help to reconcile the polarising emotional shifts.

In a play this all-encompassing, much is demanded from the actors. Luke Rollason (playing the male lead Azdak) and Constance Greenfield (playing Grusha) stand out as particularly impressive in a uniformly strong cast. What strikes you is the open atmosphere in rehearsals; everyone has thought deeply about their role and those of their colleagues and Lazar has encouraged these thoughts to be shared regardless of your importance in the plot. It’s being done exactly in the spirit of the collaborative ensemble acting which Brecht himself did so much to develop.

In short this play has the potential to make you howl with both laughter and tears, the term “emotional rollercoaster” doesn’t really seem to do it justice, and in realising this potent combination Screw the Looking Glass look set for yet another hit. This is not to be missed.

Improvised comedy is a medium that’s fluid, spontaneous, off-the-cuff. In short, the exact opposite of a polished, carefully wrought Jane Austen novel. Austentatious first brought the two together during their smash 2012 debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Each audacious performance attempts to recreate a Jane Austen novel on stage, based entirely on suggestions from the audience. The cast of six are an eclectic mix of comedians, actors, and skilled improvisers, with experience as voice artists, members of The Oxford Imps, and writers for QI.

To start us off I ask the actors why they think improvised comedy and Jane Austen go so well together. For Andrew Murray, semi-finalist in the comedy competition So You Think You’re Funny, the answer’s obvious: “Austen is, genuinely, one of the funniest writers of all time. She’s got perfect timing and these days could have comfortably filled the O2.” Rachel Parris, ex-Oxford Imp, agrees about the timeless aspect of Austen’s writing: “the world she created is so recognisable that you can take it anywhere: when the improv takes you off to space, or to a gothic cathedral, or under the sea, the Austenian style still shines through.” Amy Cooke-Hodgeson, who recently appeared in the Olivier award-winning production of La Boheme, thinks the world she created is so recognisable that you can take it anywhere: “when the improv takes you off to space, or to a gothic cathedral, or under the sea, the Austenian style still shines through.”

Being in the show has gone from high to high, and Cooke-Hodgeson has loved every minute. “The show’s popularity has grown so quickly we have to keep pinching ourselves that we’re on a UK tour. There’s obviously the benefit of wearing pretty costumes and probably best of all, everyone in the team is a friend as well as a colleague.”

Cariad Lloyd, who has appeared in The Now Show agrees about the friendliness of the cast: “Doing the shows, I am very blessed to work with some hugely wonderful and absolutely hilarious people. At every show I stand at the side of the stage trying not to laugh my head off. It’s very nice to work with people you think are immensely clever, nice and talented.”

For all their nicety, there’s surely an element of risk involved in improv? I can’t resist asking if anything’s ever gone horribly wong. Cariad Lloyd agrees heartily: “Oh things go wrong all the time! Names get said wrong, characters get confused, plots get over plotted, but that’s the fun of improvisation – it’s a challenge and one the audience enjoy watching us struggle with”.

Rachel Parris qualifies: “Not completely wrong… We have had one or two that we felt didn’t go as well as we’d like. Sometimes things just take a turn for the weird, and you have to work hard to pull the narrative back on track, but usually it’s fine!”

Cooke-Hodgeson explains one recipe for disaster, “It is sometimes tricky when someone suggests a title of a real book written by someone else – we’ve had titles from Shakespeare, the Harry Potters, and Bronte.”

At least those titles are specific. For Parris, “The most tricky ones are the vaguest ones: things like ‘Wit and Vivacity’ or ‘The Grace of a Lady’ – it gives us very little to go on. The best ones are things with a clear, exciting idea: some of my favourites have been ‘Double-O-Darcy’, ‘Darcy and Bingley: Forbidden Love’ and ‘Mansfield Shark’.

Joseph Morpurgo, who has enjoyed two sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, remembers a particularly awkward audience suggestion: “Someone submitted one once in what I can only presume is a dead language.”

It sounds like a challenging career. So what can budding improv-comedians do to improve their chances at making it big time? Morpurgo thinks it’s as easy as one-two-three: “Get as much experience as you can, persevere, enjoy it.”

Amy agrees that experience is key: “Watch lots and do more! Improv is a constantly evolving art form and just when you think you’ve got the hang of it, you realise there’s loads more to learn and be better at. The best way of being better is to watch as much of it as you can and do as much of it as you can.”

Lloyd believes that even if you’re aiming for fame and acclaim, there’s no such thing as starting too small. “The only way to get better at this is to do it, rehearse with your group in whatever space you can find, and then put on shows. Our first show was to twelve people in a room that held fifteen.” And most importantly, have fun along the way – “you don’t need to rush at it, just enjoy making stuff up with people who inspire you.”

Austentatious is touring the UK all year, and will be in Oxford at the North Wall Arts Centre on Friday 4tlh April at 8pm.