I watched my first episode of Skins last January. The series follows a set of teenagers throughout their two years of college, before replacing them after two seasons with a new ‘generation’ of characters. Typically there is much sex, drugs, and partying. Skins has been praised for painting a ‘realistic’ picture of teenagers’ lives, which is… debatable. Nevertheless, I latched on to Season 5, in a sort of unfounded, vicarious nostalgia for the wild adolescence I never had.

It wasn’t just the drugs, sex and rock n roll, though. Season 5 honestly contained some of the most affecting writing I’ve encountered on TV. The series began with the introduction of sexually ambiguous Franky, the new arrival at college, in a sensitive exploration of the bullying of LGBTQ teens, before turning to Mini, who at first seemed to function as a sort of walking amalgamation of every Mean Girl cliché ever, but then deepened into a suppressed portrait of sadness, insecurity and sexual anxiety; as well as Grace, who was everyone’s favourite. I know you’re supposed to disapprove of teen marriage, but the finale where she and her heavy-metal aficionado boyfriend Rich attempt to get married (by forging their parents’ signature on the permission slip you need for underage marriages – look, I never said this show wasn’t ridiculous) was adorable. I am very, very attached to Season 5 of Skins. I suppose there are worse things to be addicted to.

Riding on the waves of those high expectations, I tuned into the first episode of the new season and found that Season 6 is actually… kind of shit. It opens with them going on holiday in Morocco, where the locals function as some kind of vaguely offensive backdrop to the main show constituted by these crazy English kids. Franky is inexplicably femmed up and shouts things like, “Shut the fuck up, you fucking fucker!” at her new boyfriend. This causes Mini to observe cuttingly, “I liked it better when she may or may not have been a lesbian” (ughgh, really?). Mini also starts sleeping with Alo, who has been reduced to a cardboard cutout of his previously hilarious, almost-poignant, stoned cup-pisser persona. Worst of all, Grace dies, in the most supremely pointless of all fictional deaths. Everyone else shares a protracted hallucination that she’s actually woken up from her coma for days.

Whereas Season 5 was neatly drawn and soul-rending, the new series is reduced to a shambolic caricature of itself, although I am given to understand that this happens periodically. They’ve also just introduced a sociopathic gambler who cruises for sexual partners on a Grindr-clone app and seemingly conducts all his life choices by the toss of a dice. Oh, lord.

Upon hearing that Disney had acquired the rights to the Muppets franchise, you could forgive me for expecting yet another reboot in which my childhood memories are blenderized into a consumable morsel of nostalgia ready for the frothing mouth of the Multiplex. Thankfully, there are exceptions to this tragic rule: here’s a film of unquestionable pedigree, reaffirming my conviction that the Muppets are and always will be, no matter the occasional misstep, a source of pure concentrated joy.

With a tone that borders precariously on fan worship, we follow the efforts of Gary (Jason Segel), his partner Mary (Amy Adams) and sentient puppet-brother Walter as they try to get the Muppets back together again. The cast are uniformly great, bringing a refreshing self-consciousness to a screenplay that breaks the fourth wall with such frequency that it forces Kaufman-esque postmodernism to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror. Such meta-referencing is a perfect counterpoint to the slapstick antics, thus forming a sensible stream of continuity between Muppet properties and our real universe. Not to mention the impressively high hit-rate of gags that come from all directions. (In a surprising twist of fate, even a Jack Black subplot is made to seem funny! Will miracles never cease?)

While it may not have the same emotional texture as Up or Toy Story 3, the film still retains a similar style of whimsy and wonder that’s perfect for children and parents alike. Although some of the musical numbers feel rather forced (Call me a cynic, but I’m not sure there will ever be a context in which I need to hear Chris Cooper rap), there’s still plenty of beautifully irreverent songs to complement the witty dialogue throughout. I truly hope Amy Adams and Miss Piggy’s faux-empowerment duet, “Me Party,” becomes an ironic anthem for contented singles everywhere. It’s this universal spirit that’s just so unique; a world free of cynicism, where flesh and blood coexist alongside those of foam and felt, where abject amateurism shares the stage with consummate professionalism. Quite how a band of puppets with ping pong balls for eyes have captured my heart remains a mystery, but they deliver a bear-hug of deadly positivity that’s well worth the ticket price.

Just like Statler and Waldorf on their critical balcony, I may kvetch and quibble over minor details, but when it’s finally time to “play the music” and “light the lights,” I wouldn’t leave my seat come hell or high water.

Age? It’s routed in the kosmische sounds of 70s’ Germany, but there is a lot of great stuff coming out at the moment.

Where? I’ve never heard anything like this. Unfortunately demand far outstrips supply. Most of these songs are released on tape.

Tape? Like cassette tape? It’s not an obsolete format by any means. It’s easy and cheap to produce limited numbers of copies.

How limited? We’re talking anything from one to a hundred copies. The artists run the labels, and tapes are a cheap way of distributing the music all round the world.

Not as cheap as downloads though. True. But the artists all have a sense of love and respect for physical, tangible music – the complete package. 

Check out our selection of five bona fide bangers:

‘Love Triangle’ – HTRK

‘Come Softly’ – Grouper

‘DZAI’ – Lovesliescrushing

‘California Scheming’ – Maria Minerva

‘Cruel When Complete’ – Dome

Hear all these tracks, and more, on the accompanying Spotify playlist.

The album opens with the sound of Alexis Krauss whipping up a live crowd into a shape of energetic excitement; as the other half of Sleigh Bells, Derek Miller, has described it, it is ‘a brass, arrogant, tasteless way to start a record’. It’s also unexpected, much like large chunks of this album will be even to those acquainted with the band’s debut, Treats. The tempo on Reign of Terror is a little slower than said debut but the band are still managing to capture the raw spirit and energy of music in an innovative way.

Much of the beauty of this album is in the layers in the music that were less present in their debut although tracks such as opener ‘True Shred Guitar’ and ‘Demons’ still have the immediacy of earlier tracks of theirs such as ‘Riot Rhythm’.

There’s also a lot of quirkiness, with the almost cheerleader-esque chanting of ‘I’ll break you!’ on ‘Crush’ being an obvious example of this. That track epitomises the contrasts in Sleigh Bells’ music, combining lyrics about teenage crushes and chanting layered over a big distorted guitar sound. Another major influence on this album appears to be the increased input of Krauss, whose pop sensibilities can be seen throughout but particularly on the more ambient tracks such as ‘End Of The Line’. Her breathy, sugar-sweet vocals also lift the album and prevent it from being overly heavy. 

This album is all about Sleigh Bells finding the substance to go with their bolshy, in-your-face swagger that they have naturally. Reign of Terror oozes confidence out of every pore but doesn’t ram it down your throat quite as forcefully as Treats. 

Their unique brand of distorted pop-rock is going to outshine the other male/female band duos around at the moment with this effort. It won’t be for everyone – despite the increased variety and slightly slackened tempo the album still takes a couple of listens to properly appreciate. Outside of the big guitar sounds, the intricacies take time to pick up and appreciate. By doing this though, the band have ensured they’ll have staying power. The viscerality and rawness of their debut wouldn’t have sounded as fresh if they’d simply reproduced it here, but by tweaking their sound a little Sleigh Bells have avoided the ‘difficult second album’ pitfall nicely. 

The Shins’ latest album has been five years in the simmering, and, in the manner of curries, bolognaise sauce and other slow-cooked concoctions, plenty of time has made it rich, tender and absolutely delicious. This is the best album I’ve heard in a really, really long while.

The group are, in some respects, not what they were – they’ve lost longtime members Marty Crandall and Jesse Sandoval, and opted for a new record label (Aural Apothecary, by way of Columbia) – but this should not be cause for concern. 2007’s Wincing the Night Away was characterised by Mercer’s own special brand of instrumentally dense, high-gloss pop anthems: Port of Morrow takes the formula and does much the same thing with even more panache. 

If you didn’t like The Shins before, this album is unlikely to change your mind. But if you do, even a little bit, you can’t fail to appreciate that this album is doing what you liked before, but better. 

Though first single ‘Simple Song’ (currently being played on BBC Radio Two about three times an hour) is an obvious stand-out track, the real corkers are to be found elsewhere in the album. ‘September’ is a pared back example of the band’s sound, with a gentleness and humility that is missing from some of the glitzier numbers, while ‘Bait and Switch’ is a high saturation, high gloss number with armfuls of oomph. 

Much like the work of their New Mexico contemporaries Beirut, these are pretty, well thought-through songs made by ‘real musicians’ with an understanding of instrumentation that goes beyond the classic pop trope of boys with guitars. Mercer’s got the horn, and it shows. 

I’m nowhere near as cute as Natalie Portman, but do believe me when I say (about almost all of the tracks on this release): ‘You gotta hear this one song. It’ll change your life, I swear.’

Motion Sickness of Time Travel is about not having any plan in mind. Just going in and doing what I feel like at the time, and I’ve got pretty good results from it so far.’ And she really has. Picked as one of Cherwell’s best releases of 2011, MSOTT’s Seeping Through the Veil of the Unconscious was written ‘a few days after I graduated from college, in one sitting. My husband, Grant, said I should send it to somebody.’ That somebody was Brad Rose, founder of Digitalis Recordings, who instantly fell in love with the music and commissioned a second album, Luminaries & Synastry.

Evans is set to release her latest album at the end of March on the Spectrum Spools label run by John Elliott of Emeralds. ‘John contacted me out of the blue through Twitter a year ago and asked me to do a record. It’s gone back and forth a few times since then, but now it’s been officially passed off to him.’

The new album is truly epic, spanning two LPs with four half-hour long compositions. Evans has been ‘really wanting to go back to making a continuous jam. It’s me reverting back from the shorter-form tracks on Luminaries & Synastry. It feels like one continuous circuit rather than chopped up pieces of small thoughts. I hope it has more of a flow to it than my other albums did.’ This clear change in musical direction is driven partly by her finding it ‘more enjoyable to go in and record something that is continuous’ and also developing a ‘bigger appreciation for music that is continuous after writing longer pieces’ herself. ‘The new album started out in the same way as Seeping, the tracks were more like songs in the traditional sense of the word, but in the process of filling up the 2LP format, the tracks became much more continuous.’

Evans chose it to be an eponymous release, wanting it ‘to embody what MSOTT is – the MSOTT philosophy.’ The original aim of the MSOTT project was to make her voice sound as beautiful as possible. Although Evans maintains that this intention has not changed, she has clearly become more confident in her compositions. ‘When I first started trying to make more experimental music, my voice was the only instrument I felt comfortable manipulating, but as I’ve got more and more into synthesisers, it’s become a balancing act between which one sounds more beautiful. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to make my voice become the synthesiser.’ The experimentation continues even further, seeing her incorporate ‘a larger variety of instrumentation on the new album, including zither, lap harp, and Max/MSP.’

Rachel and Grant’s Hooker Vision label celebrated its 100th release in October – a serious amount of records in two years. Even so, they ‘try to keep a little bit of quality control. It’s all about amazing music, period. I definitely don’t think the quantity affects the quality, if it’s good quality music to begin with.’ But she does observe that ‘in some labels’ cases there starts to be a flaw in the quality of the output as more is released. We don’t feel that Hooker Vision has gone that way. We are really in love with everybody we release, not just the music, but the people. They’re people just like us. There’s a real network of friends behind the label and we’re making new ones all the time.’

Ultimately the beauty of Hooker Vision lies in the pair’s passion for ‘people to be connected to the artists’ music, even if it’s sold out.’ A trip to the label’s website is a dangerous one, for the entire back catalogue is available for free download. But, for Rachel, availability isn’t everything: ‘as much as I like to have the music out there for people to access, I rarely listen to downloads. We buy just about everything that we listen to. We appreciate the tangible format so much more.’

Being informed that a play is ‘new writing’ is often enough to frighten away the average theatre-goer. Nobody wants to sit through an hour of student drivel performed by a group of amateurish student ‘actors’ when they could sit through an established masterpiece, performed by a group of equally amateurish student ‘actors’.  Yet, ­­I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the four separate previews I was shown, which together make up the OUDS New Writing Festival. Though, of course, I really shouldn’t have been, given that the entries were judged by Meera Syal, no less. As OUDS secretary Mary Flannigan states, the entries display ‘the up and coming talent of Oxford. It’s all very exciting, and is a fantastic opportunity for participants and audience alike.’ Considering also that all the directors are freshers, some of whom have never directed before, it all promises to be something quite different and rather refreshing, especially given the naturally cliquey nature of student drama. 

The four plays I previewed will no doubt all do well, with one or two possessing aspects of brilliance. Robert Williams’ Antarctica was first, and was exactly what one might expect of a piece of new writing to be performed at the Burton Taylor: claustrophobic, uncomfortable and rather bizarre. It centred on the lives of a family inhabiting a snowy wasteland, cut off from civilization, and on the palpable effect of a sinister visitor who arrives by zeppelin and proceeds to wreak havoc on the unit. Ellie Geldard was impressive as the mother, and Simon Devenport’s performance as the stranger will no doubt flourish further under the controlled direction of Giacomo Sain. Next was Oliver Mitchells’ The Tulip Tree, which focused on one weekend of the early life of one Enoch Powell – no ‘Rivers of Blood’ here, just a rather bookish chap yearning after a young lady, with his attempts to seduce her thwarted by an opinionated mother, a second thoroughly unpleasant suitor and an ill advised penchant for Herodotus. New director Charlotte Goodman has done some decent characterization, and Matt Slomka does well to tug at the heartstrings, given that he is playing one of the most despised politicians of the 20th century.The third piece, Schrödinger’s Hat, written by Leela Velautham, concerned Paul Dirac’s struggle to complete The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. While unpolished, much of the acting was still very good, with Charlotte Huber’s bellowing Maria standing out. If director Tom Elliott can extract a similar energy from the rest of the cast, this witty tale will likely prove to be very entertaining indeed. The final play was Kelvin Fawdrey’s Rubber Dinghy, which I intend to see. The writing was impressive, certainly, but most striking was the directorial prowess exhibited by Ben Cohen. The male cast members, Alex Bowsher and Edwin Price, first performed an entirely improvised scene, which was both convincing and entertaining, evincing a real dedication to characterization from both cast and crew. The scene they then performed was black comedy of a very high calibre, featuring a full size dinghy and some beautiful singing by mermaid Eleanor Budge enriching an already exciting performance.

The New Writing Festival is an Oxford staple, but by its very nature promises something different every year. Student theatre can be hit and miss and student written theatre is even more risky, so take advantage of the fact that OUDS (and indeed, Meera Syal) have done all the hard work for you, and enjoy. Whether you see all, some, or one of the plays, don’t miss out on the chance to enjoy decent acting and promising new talent.

Adapted from the Mervyn Peake novels by director Tara Isabella Burton, Gormenghast will be staged in the Corpus Christi auditorium. Previews are always problematic; lack of set, incomplete costume and under rehearsed actors often ensure that even the best examples of Oxford drama fail to shine, and unfortunately, this problem is exemplified by this particular production. The first half sees the retelling of Titus’s life from his birth, by the grown Titus (Charles Macrae) who watches the scenes he speaks of, occasionally interacting and reacting to the on-stage happenings, which was sadly far too reminiscent of GCSE drama offerings for my liking.

Alex O’Bryan Tear as Sepulchrave gave one of the most well measured and committed performances, and was a pleasure to watch.  Sam Young as Prunesquallor, and Mike Crowe as the scheming kitchen boy Steerpike also shone. The portrayal of Titus’s younger sister Fuschia was at points awkward to the point of excruciating, although she did begin to settle into the role as the play progressed.The play itself lacks clarity and focus, and there are a couple of weak performances which sadly detract from its effectiveness overall. There were certainly some interesting aspects of the production, which may well be capitalised on and developed when the play is in its final form. For example, I was informed that many of the characters will be dressed to represent children’s toys as a way of blurring the line between Titus’s retelling of the story and its truth, a point of ambiguity within the book. This visual element I’m sure will add a certain something, along with its eventual location in the Corpus Christi Auditorium, whose stone walls may serve to enhance the fantastical, gothic side of the story and its setting.

Clearly, Gormenghast has several major issues,  some of which will surely be solved by the extra week and a half of rehearsal still remaining. However, the nature of the  adaptation itself, along with some particularly weak acting, means that it may fail to bring out the most important themes within the book, and I suspect the lack of depth will potentially leave the watcher entertained but ultimately unsatisfied.

3 stars