Monday 13th October 2025
Blog Page 965

What’s in Cherwell’s (Film and TV) stocking?

Tesni Jones
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What’s in Cherwell’s (Film and TV) stocking?

Bored of the reruns of It’s a Wonderful Life and know all the lines from Elf off by heart? Take inspiration for an alternate Christmas day from these less traditionally festive Christmas films.

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone – U

Perhaps it’s the ugly jumpers, perhaps it’s the scene with Ron and Harry playing chess which reminds us of Christmas games with the family, or perhaps it’s the image of Hagrid dragging a Christmas tree around a snowy Hogwarts which is cemented in the psyche of all young adults come Christmas time. The first Harry Potter outing is definitely a discerning choice for opening the presents under the tree.

Paddington – PG

Featuring a Christmas tree in the last scene, Paddington is a wonderful film regarding events throughout 2016.  It perfectly encapsulates fears of immigration, the breaking up of family due to tensions between parents and children, and shows the danger of wanting power, all through a cuddly bear having adventures in London. Perfectly suited for the midmorning Christmas Crossword when you’re reflecting on the year’s events.

Iron Man 3 – 12

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the horrifically awful cracker jokes and disappointing ‘banter’ from your younger brother. Similarly, Iron Man 3 is included on this list as a film (again set at Christmas time), which was once good but now is happily forgotten amongst the much better Marvel films. Perfect to watch whilst cooking your Christmas dinner, i.e. when you are half distracted from the plot holes.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – 15

Shane Black’s murder mystery is set at Christmas in Los Angeles. This cult classic, loved a lot by a few, is your Christmas afternoon traditional game of charades, where your indie cousins who inevitably love it force it upon the younger generations. This quirky noir film is a must watch for those who have not seen it, with the added bonus that you can call it an education in film, making you that annoying hipster once everyone’s returned from the Christmas vac.

Die Hard – 18

Christmas Eve. Alan Rickman. Violence. Guns. Sassy Dialogue. The only film to watch once the younger siblings go to bed. Make it even more interesting by introducing a fun drinking game, a sip of prosecco for every bullet fired and a small Christmas port every time the camera focuses on Bruce Willis’ disgusting feet.

‘Love Actually’ ten years on: irrelevant ephemera or pertinent modern fairy-tale?

Manish Binukrishnan
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‘Love Actually’ ten years on: irrelevant ephemera or pertinent modern fairy-tale?

Coming to Oxford without having watched Love Actually, I felt trapped in a serious social paradigm. Having only just caught up on seven series of Game of Thrones in hope of boosting my small talk repertoire, I was dismayed to see that it wouldn’t be enough. Thankfully, I was given respite by the multiple Michaelmas viewings of Love Actually, and no one was able to discover my secret. Indeed, whilst the secret is now out, I write this in the hope that exam stress and high levels of alcohol consumption will help obfuscate this glaring tragedy from my peers come Hilary term.

Nonetheless, watching Love Actually ten years too late does offer a unique perspective. For example, since their performances in the film, many of the core actors have diversified their roles. Whilst those who watched Love Actually at its release (which was probably none of us) may have envisaged Liam Neeson as a surly heartthrob, after watching Taken 1,2,3 and 50 other carbon copies, it was somewhat jarring for me to see him change his weapon of choice from a pistol to a phone and defend his child, not from the threat of criminals, but the perils of love.

However, whilst I may have felt some initial confusion at Liam Neeson’s appearance, this was by far outweighed by my pleasure at seeing different actors coming together for the rom-com. I’m used to Alan Rickman killing Dumbledore, Thomas Brodie-Sangster solemnly guiding Bran Stark, and Chiwetel Ejelfor tackling far more serious subject matter. Viewing them all together with their inter-weaving storylines brings a sense of relatability to the concept of love, and reinforces the film’s idyllic charm.

Such motifs are further highlighted by the various narratives which help to illustrate the universality of romance and its problems. Seeing Hugh Grant’s charming and affable Prime Minister tackle his own romantic complications truly brings it home that anyone can find love. As someone whose previous rom-com repertoire was exclusively comprised of Mean Girls, I certainly could have done with taking lessons from Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s character (Sam) before I spent five weeks flailing around in Michaelmas Term.

In my opinion, the film also stands out for its wit. Being the jaded film critic that I am now with my vast 18 years of experience, by not relying too heavily on contextual jokes it enables even a quasi-millennial like myself to empathise with timeless jokes like “the first lobster” in the Nativity play and our relatable friend the “cock-blocktopus”. These comedic moments help transcend age groups and tie together multiple generations who have all had to suffer through tragedies like this.

Of course, the film does have its flaws, and no amount of timelessness will fully obscure them. A lot of moments feel a little far-fetched, whether it’s Colin Firth’s Jamie simply asking a girl to marry him outright, or Sam somehow managing to evade countless airport security and so on. However, to be brutally honest, at a time like Christmas, as I try and put off worries about collections, my career and basically everything in life, it’s nice to suspend some belief and watch an uplifting modern fairy-tale like Love Actually. Whilst I don’t think I’ll be buying multiple copies anytime soon, I look forward to a lifetime of Love Actually themed Buzzfeed quizzes incorrectly diagnosing me on the basis of irrelevant facts.

Nativity in art: El Greco, La Tour and Spitzweg

Ewan Davis
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Nativity in art: El Greco, La Tour and Spitzweg

Following on from last weeks entry, this week we take a look at 16th, 17th and 19th century European depictions of Christ’s birth.

Adoration of the Magi and The Adoration of the Shepherds, El Greco 1568 and 1614

el-greco

In the case of El Greco, the nativity offers us a fixed subject, through which we can see a transformation in style. Being such an important and famous religious story, the Nativity is often painted several times by many painters. El Greco painted an ‘Adoration of the Magi’ scene in 1568, and then later completed an ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ scene.

The first of these, now residing in Mexico City’s Soumaya Musuem, is much more conventional, with clear inspirations taken from El Greco’s Cretan early years, but already beginning to take inspirations from the western works that he would have seen on moving to Italy in 1567. The Kings around Jesus, and Mary herself are relatively accurately proportioned,  with their poses being natural, or at least make sense perspectiveadoracion_de_los_reyes_magos1ly. The almost unidentifiable animals in the background of the scene, (perhaps horses, perhaps camels) begin to give a hint at the bizarre and extremely distinctive style he would later adopt.

The second possesses a style  much more recognisably that of El Greco’s. Influenced by the Mannerist artists he surrounded himself with on moving to Italy, his exaggerated forms, although stationary, appear to dance due to the intense attention El Greco pays to sculpting muscle and limb.The bold colours are amplified by the dark backgrounds, with general contrast being used to create a drama, accentuated by the dramatic light appearing to emanate from the Christ Child Himself. The painting itself is a smaller version of one that El Greco painted to be placed above his own tomb, showing the importance the image held for him.

Nativity, Georges de La Tour 1644

georges_de_la_tour_001Like El Greco, La Tour painted several nativity scenes, each in his instantly recognisable style. One of the first examples is the ‘Nativity’ (1644), an intimate and realistic depiction of Jesus in his manger, surrounded by those who assembled at his birth. The shadows and highlights are realistically rendered with the intensity typical of the Baroque. The colours, like Greco’s, are rich but act in a way that creates a warmth rather than a active vibrancy. The only light source in the painting is admitted from a candle almost entirely concealed by a hand, so it initially appears the source of light is Christ himself. This seems to be La Tour allowing the picture to possess both a realism, and religious symbolism. He uses the same technique in a painting also featuring Christ, a year later, ‘The New Born Christ’ (1645-48).

Flight to Egypt, Carl Spitzweg 1875-1879

die_flucht_nach_aegypten_spitzweg

Painted between 1875 and 1879 Spitzweg depicts the flight Joseph and Mary made with the newly born Christ, to Egypt. He was most well known as a painter of ‘genre’ scenes, scenes that focused on the everyday life of ordinary people. However, he was also a Romanticist combining dramatic landscapes with the small lives of the average people he depicted. This painting is typical in all these respects, reducing Jesus and his family to the bottom third of the canvas, with the rest being taken up by the dramatic cliffs on either side of them. There is no heralding of angels, no halos, but instead three apparently mortal beings surrounded by what appears to be inhospitable nature. This paradoxically gives the ordinarily-depicted family, a power and importance, as they have the means and bravery to journey through such a landscape.

Jewish Society refutes claim Oxford University ‘no-go zone’ for Jewish students

Jack Hunter
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Jewish Society refutes claim Oxford University ‘no-go zone’ for Jewish students

Oxford University Jewish society has rejected claims made by Baroness Deech that the prevalence of anti-Semitism is transforming some of the UK’s leading universities into no-go zones for Jewish student.

However, they did thank the former Principal of St Anne’s College for her support regarding the University’s handling of alleged anti-Semitism in Oxford University Labour Club (OULC).

Deech, who was a former proctor at Oxford University and the independent adjudicator for higher education before retiring in 2008, told the Daily Telegraph that institutions may be failing to combat hatred against Jews because they are “afraid of offending” their potential benefactors from Gulf states.

Oxford University Jewish Society said: “We believe that the University of Oxford is far from a no-go zone for Jewish students. We have a large, growing and active Jewish society, with regular educational events, orthodox and progressive services and weekly Friday night services and dinners, which have occasionally had as many as 130 people in attendance.

“To call Oxford University a ‘no go zone for Jewish students’ would be totally untrue, given our vibrant and thriving Jewish student life on campus, and we would always encourage Jewish students to apply here.”

In the same interview Deech also accused Oxford University of “kicking out into the long grass” complaints about anti-Semitism within the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC).

Earlier this year OULC’s co-chair, Alex Chalmers, resigned in protest at members who he claimed had “some kind of problem with Jews” and sympathised with terrorist groups like Hamas.

His resignation sparked an intervention from the Universities Minister Jo Johnson who urged the proctors to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism.

Deech claimed that the University had failed to act on the issue, despite proctors having been handed a dossier containing the testimonies of several members of OULC, including allegations that members frequently used the term “zio” and other cases of anti-semitic behaviour.

She commented: “Those students never got a proper reply. It is very disappointing, the university said they noted the Baroness Royall report [into anti-Semitism]. But they haven’t actually done anything. They have not opened an investigation into any individuals.

“I find it personally very difficult, I’ve been at Oxford for 45 years or something, and I owe my career to Oxford, but I can’t believe that my own university is not setting up an investigation and being pro-active about this.”

In May, Baroness Royall’s inquiry into anti-semitism in OULC found no evidence of “institutional anti-semitism” in the club, but reported individual incidents of cultural discrimination.

The Oxford Jewish Society welcomed Baroness Deech’s comments concerning failures of the University in dealing with allegations of anti-Semitism. In a public statement, they said: “We expected more from the university and the proctors in support of Jewish students. We too are concerned that, nearly a year afterwards, little to no action has been taken, and we thank Baroness Deech for her support in this regard.”

Oxford University said it was “surprised and disappointed” by Baroness Deech’s remarks, and insisted that it was committed to tackling harassment and discrimination in the University.

In a statement, the University said: “A representative of the University met personally with Lady Deech to brief her on the background to the issues she has raised (…) as a result of it, Lady Deech is fully aware that when people come forward to the University with a complaint that they have been a victim of anti-Semitic behaviour we will investigate it fully. Where offences are found to have been committed, they are considered grounds for severe disciplinary action.”

OULC told Cherwell: “OULC has put in place the measures recommended by Baroness Royall’s report and has conducted a review of the complaints procedure within the club. Our actions, as a student organisation, are constrained by existing university and party disciplinary procedures, which we cannot comment upon. OULC condemns all forms of racism and discrimination, and seeks to be as inclusive a club as possible.”

In her interview with the Daily Telegraph, Baroness Deech referred specifically to SOAS, Manchester, Southampton and Exeter whilst claiming that the UK’s leading universities have become unwelcoming to Jewish students.

She said: “Amongst Jewish students, there is gradually a feeling that there are certain universities that you should avoid, definitely SOAS, Manchester I think is now not so popular because of things that have happened there, Southampton, Exeter and so on.”

Spokespersons and Jewish societies from each of the universities in question have since released statements strongly denying the claims.

SOAS said it “does not permit the expression of anti-Semitic or other views that are illegal or incite racial hatred”.

Meanwhile a spokesperson for Exeter University told the MailOnline: “It is untrue to say that the University of Exeter is not a welcoming place for Jewish students. The University of Exeter is an inclusive and friendly environment where all students are welcomed from all backgrounds.

“Anti-Semitic and racist behaviour in any form is not tolerated by the University. Exeter University not only has a thriving Jewish society, but teaches Jewish studies, the history of the holocaust and has a Jewish chaplain, as part of its multi-faith team.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Southampton University said that the University is “home to a supportive, friendly and inclusive community that welcomes staff, students, alumni, collaborators and visitors from a wide variety of backgrounds”.

OULC and SOAS have been contacted for comment.

Can Labour win the Copeland by-election?

Maxim Parr-Reid
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Can Labour win the Copeland by-election?

1982. That was the last time a governing party gained a seat in a by-election. Sitting governments nearly always suffer swings against them in mid-term contests, especially unpopular ones. Be it in Witney, Richmond Park, or Sleaford—the Conservative vote has declined in every one of these seats. Brexit in 2016 will not be to Theresa May what the Falklands War was to Margaret Thatcher in 1982—leaving the EU as we well know will be a much longer process than the recapture of Port Stanley. The Falklands War was manna from heaven for the Conservatives—Brexit may yet turn out to be a poisoned chalice for the party. It may be well over a decade after the initial vote to break with Brussels that the UK actually extricates itself from the EU.

The Conservatives may be happy to rally around that rather hackneyed platitude of “Brexit means Brexit”, but platitudes do not win by-elections. Although a part of the country voted Leave, this fact alone doesn’t necessarily endear it to abandoning the Labour Party. After all, Copeland and the adjoining seat of Workington (both coastal seats in Cumbria) have been won by Labour at every General Election since before World War II. It would be truly momentous if, after six and a half years of being in government, the Conservatives managed to wrestle this West Cumbria seat from the Labour Party, even a Labour Party presided over by a man who has taken the party to its lowest poll rating since 2009. A Conservative victory in Copeland therefore, would be a political earthquake.

Be that as it may, these are not normal times. The old certainties in politics (insofar as they existed) are gone. Copeland’s (soon to be former) MP Jamie Reed resigned after much outspoken criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership (although he maintained that his decision to resign was unrelated to the leader). Another, anonymous, Labour MP has hinted that Reed may be one of “a dozen” to quit the party. Even if the Labour Party can “hang on” (to use Jeremy Corbyn’s own words), Corbyn’s ability to lead it will be impossibly weakened. There is no guarantee at the moment that the party will “hang on” in Copeland.

The very sort of people who voted for Brexit (Copeland had an estimated Leave vote of 62 per cent) seem to be diverging from the North London-based leadership of Labour. For Labour’s bastion of the adjoining boroughs of Camden, Islington and Hackney and the MPs representing the areas (who also happen to dominate the Shadow Cabinet) is worlds away from industrial Cumbria.

Though both areas form a bedrock of Labour support (having been dominated by the party since the 1930s), seats like Copeland are but distant outposts for a party that has appeared to retreat to its urban crucibles in recent years. There’s every chance after the shock result of the EU referendum, that voters in Copeland will turn their back on the Labour Party after 81 years. The very fact that this by-election result is in question is itself remarkable. In years gone by, Labour would be assured of a thumping victory in a mid-term by-election in a hitherto stolidly red seat like this one—no longer.

The party is under threat from all sides. For the Conservatives, Copeland’s voters are the sort of people who have been drifting away from Labour ever since its 1997 landslide—in the intervening 19 years seats like this have become far closer between the two main parties. The old mining vote in seats like Copeland is slowly eroding, while the Conservatives dominate the rural hinterland of this seat where Labour come nowhere near (as is the case in all of rural Cumbria and Northumberland).

The Liberal Democrats too (whose leader Tim Farron has carved out a fortress in another neighbouring seat—Westmorland and Lonsdale) could challenge Labour here. Buoyed by recent post-Brexit bounces in Witney, Richmond Park and even Leave-voting Sleaford (where Labour fell from 2nd to 4th place), the Liberal Democrats will surely look to make a breakthrough among the 38 per cent of voters in the seat who voted Remain. UKIP’s leader Paul Nuttall (a native of Cumbria’s neighbour to the south, Lancashire) may also see this as a unique opportunity to enter Parliament and demonstrate that the party is in rude health despite its main objective of securing a vote to leave the EU being achieved. Labour must contemplate, with some equanimity, the serious danger of haemorrhaging votes to not one but three parties in this once rock-solid seat.

Review: D@tes

James Lamming
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Review: D@tes

Every successful sketch show needs comedy glue. In many cases, this glue is provided by a fantastically talented cast of professional actors, or a particularly dynamic duo. Just think of The Armstrong and Miller Show or A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie, where the principal pair’s wit and confidence creates a sense of unity across a range of seemingly unconnected sketches. On the other hand, Rebecca Heitlinger’s new sketch show D@tes, written for an inexperienced student cast, uses a different kind of comic glue–a single theme. There is little interest in character development or overarching plot, instead, each sketch satirises modern dating in a hilarious, irony-laden way. Last night’s charmingly witty performance paid testament to how successful this novel approach can be.

Staged in the cosy Burton Taylor studio, the show’s first night had sold out impressively early, despite boasting the late start time of 9:30pm. The performance began well, if a little nervously, with a sketch about an amusingly mismatched 21st century couple. Rebecca Heitlinger, both actress and writer, was confident from the off, parodying the hipster craze for “quasi-vegetarianism”, although the sketch took a turn for the bizarre with some jokes about Jews and ethnic minorities, somewhat confusing the audience. However, this did prove that the show would not shy from at times controversial material, with later jokes involving Nazism, Nuremberg and Donald Trump, although I would not be surprised to see jokes about the Paris and Nice tragedies excised from future performances after drawing audience gasps. As with any show, a few of the later sketches did not quite catch on with the audience; some seemed rather laboured, while others could have done with being a little more laugh-out-loud funny, rather than merely ironic. One potentially brilliant sketch, focusing on a man who goes on a date after waking up from a year long coma, was somewhat ruined by a few niche jokes about Taylor Swift’s cultural image. Although I may just be desperately behind on celebrity gossip, I was left racking my brains in search of any Swift related news I might have stored up, but to no avail. It was a shame that such a brilliant idea went to comparative waste.

Despite these hiccups, the show had two veritable masterpieces. The first was the well-publicised ‘Tudor Tinder’, a polished sketch in which a noblewoman browses Tinder portraits (literally) for Earls and Dukes in search of a potential suitor. The piece was full of wit and satire, such as when Lady Anne (Sophie Stiewe) exclaimed, “Finally I can stop being the property of my father—now I can be the property of another man!” In a similar vein, the sketch is at times socially incisive, drawing out shocking similarities between the 21st century and the Tudor era in terms of sexism, and mocking the shallow nature of Tinder itself. Alex Matraxia excels as the suave and sophisticated matchmaker Count Tinder, and the scriptwriting is Heitlinger at her best: concise, witty, and meaningful.

The sketch which unexpectedly drew the most laughs from the audience featured a translingual date performed entirely in German. Thankfully, hilarious English subtitles were projected onto the wall behind the actors. The subtle miscommunications and Heitlinger’s character’s tendency to slip into a clichéd essay style had the audience howling with laughter to such an extent that the German conversation was soon drowned out. Instead, the audience stared at the wall in anticipation of the next mistranslation, and the entire sketch was perfectly acted by the enthusiastic Heitlinger and the bemused Stiewe. Overall, the first night of Dates was a great success. As with any piece of student comedy, a few sketches missed their mark and on occasion the acting was a little rough around the edges, but both the cast and the script produced moments of laugh-out-loud comedy gold while maintaining a meaningful commentary on the perils and pitfalls of 21st century dating.

Oxford food scientist creates ‘perfect’ cheese and crackers recipe

Felix Pope
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Oxford food scientist creates ‘perfect’ cheese and crackers recipe

Oxford food scientist Charles Michel, who previously has worked in Michelin starred restaurants, claims to have devised a formula for the perfect cheese and crackers.

The formula utilises a five layer process to create an ideal taste, sight, and sound profile.

Michel, currently chef-in-residence at the Department of Experimental Psychology’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory, used cheeses created by Blur bassist Alex Jones on his West Oxfordshire farm and Jacob’s cream crackers for his ultimate cracker.

The recipe employs unusual ingredients such as honey, prosciutto and Marmite to include all five tastes: salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.

Apparently the layering and exact measurement of each ingredient is key to achieving a perfect balance of tastes.

The cheese ought to cover 72 per cent of the cracker’s surface and be served at no less than room temperature, however no mention of the ideal type of cheese is made.

Commenting on his research, Michel said: “Cheese and crackers are such a timeless combination, I jumped at the chance to work on coming up with a science-based formula for it.”

Michel’s exact formula begins with the ‘sonic layer’.

He commented, “Sound is the forgotten flavour sense; the sound made by a food really can make it taste better, so a cheese and cracker pairing must have both soft and crunchy components. Therefore, an additional layer of a contrasting texture on top of the cracker enhances our pleasure.”

“Adding Umami-rich elements to cheese will increase the deliciousness and mouthfulness. In small quantities, strong-flavoured, Umami packed foods like anchovies, prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and Marmite, will perfectly complement your cheese and cracker pairing.”

After the Umami stage comes the ‘sweet layer’, which involves adding sweet elements like honey or dried fruit in order to “balance the taste equation to maximise flavour enjoyment”.

Next follows the ‘cheese layer’ which must “perfectly cover the cracker’s surface by 72%”.

Michel said, “When served on a Jacob’s Cream Cracker, the slice should measure 5.5cm, by 1cm thickness. Cheese should be served at no less than room temperature (16-20 degrees) so that the texture and flavour intensity is at its best.”

“Smell is probably the dominant component of flavour, and depends mostly on the quality and freshness of the ingredients. It is commonly known that “we eat with our eyes first”, so food must look good to be enticing, and is a determining aspect of the enjoyment of the overall experience—so make it colourful and artistic.”

Recipe: Chanukah doughnuts, a user’s guide

Rachel Korn
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Recipe: Chanukah doughnuts, a user’s guide

As most people will tell you, it’s a tradition to eat foods involving oil around Chanukah. The festival is based around the fact that after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Greeks in the Hellenistic period, there was a miracle where the oil to light the menorah (big spiritual candelabra) lasted eight days from one small jar. Everyone tends to go for doughnuts and latkes because they taste by far the best, so those two foods have become a well-established part of the tradition.

Ingredients:

  1. 6oz flour
  2. ½ tsp salt
  3. 1 tsp baking powder
  4. 2oz margarine
  5. 1oz sugar
  6. 1 egg
  7. 2 tbsp milk
  8. Red jam
  9. Oil

Method:

1 – Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder together.

2 – Rub in the margarine then add the sugar. Mix in the beaten egg and milk to make a light dough.

3 – Roll out the mixture and cut out little circles.

4 – Dollop jam on half, then put the other half on top to make spheres.

5 – Fry in really hot oil in a pan or a deep-fryer for about 7 minutes, then dip in caster sugar.

And don’t worry if your cooking skills aren’t quite up to scratch—there are always shop-bought alternatives! The bakeries in Hendon and Golders Green almost entirely turn over to doughnut production in December—you can’t move for places selling doughnuts at this time of year. Jam, chocolate, custard, fresh cream, and even weird fillings like apple or marshmallows in some bakeries. And, crucially, all deep fried (none of that Krispy Kreme nonsense). Main Chanukah recommendation to anyone new to this: classic jam doughnut covered in sugar from Grodzinski’s. Can’t be matched.

The return of the epic

Emily Beswick
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The return of the epic

“It is a curse having the epic temperament in an overcrowded age devoted to snappy bits,” wrote J.R.R Tolkien prophetically in 1944. The author of The Lord of the Rings never experienced the world of the five-second snapchat or 140-character tweet, but his words seem to resonate on an extraordinary level today.

One of the chief reasons why The Lord of the Rings is so loved—and cursed by some—is the sheer length of the text. Tolkien’s blend of breath-taking fantastical scope with a reverent attention to detail is something that J. K. Rowling has recaptured in more recent times. The irresistibility of the Harry Potter and Middle Earth universes lies in the minutiae of invented languages, species and landscapes which form an epic, self-contained realm of imagination. Paradoxically, the richer the fantasy world, the greater opportunity there is for sequels: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story this year have both grown out of storylines unexplored in the ‘original’ stories.

As the big screen leads, so the small screen follows. Game of Thrones undoubtedly echoes the epic visual fantasy of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, but the television format also lends itself to even greater possibilities. The TV box set is the ultimate visual epic, as a potentially limited three-hour film can be spun out into a twenty episode series—or longer. There are even fewer constraints on the number of plot digressions and red herrings, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in a slow-burning narrative.

And so to music. Much is often made in music journalism columns of the imminent “return of the album”, after the dark years of 89p iTunes downloads. Yet I think there is a case for designating 2016 a vintage year for albums, and especially for long, epic quests of albums that require at least an hour of listening. The name of the 1975’s I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it is a portend of the album epic to follow: frontman Matt Healy challenged listeners to “sit through an hour and fifteen minutes and seventeen songs… it’s quite an emotional investment.” A diverse range of genres is traversed, but at a remarkably languid pace only possible in an album with so much sonic space. Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo is a similarly sprawling affair, while Beyoncé’s Lemonade weaves together both visual and musical strands into a cultural event of unparalleled scale.

Meanwhile, my favourite album this year, Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings, is an unexpected double album that recounts Lambert’s emotional response to her recent divorce from fellow country music star Blake Shelton. Instead of a vengeful tirade against her ex, Lambert produces a poignant self-examination, dividing the twenty-four songs into the exterior and interior of her personality: “the nerve” and “the heart”. The stages of pain, acceptance and finally release are documented not as an assured process, but as a slow, uncertain journey of false starts and dead ends. Time is used on these lengthy albums as a tool for self-reflection and growth.

To return to Tolkien, the “snappy bits” he criticised back in the 1940s were part of the growing influence of American popular culture in Britain, which many believed was threatening our national identity. Indeed, the epic has always had a sense of nostalgia about it, hearkening back to an era where we had time to absorb culture at a slower pace. Lord of the Rings always seems to come back into fashion when this feeling is felt most acutely: the novel was reprinted and rehabilitated in the 1970s, as a reaction against technological revolution took hold.

In 2016 there is a lot to be said for escaping the instantaneous gratification of clickbait and Facebook with stories which require time and commitment. Perhaps one of the most radical cultural acts you can do nowadays is shut yourself away from the rest of the world and read Lord of the Rings.

Review: Dreamgirls

Sam Purnell
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Review: Dreamgirls

When I first got the tickets to the West End revival of Dreamgirls, I was unsure whether it would live up to the masterful performances of Jennifer Holliday in the 1981 Broadway Premiere and Jennifer Hudson in the 2006 film. However, after the first five minutes of the show, I knew I would be in for an amazing night.

My main reason for wanting to see the show was Amber Riley, and I believe many in the audience shared this desire, since they erupted into applause every time she came on stage. Despite being too ill to perform on the two previous nights, Riley’s vocals were breathtaking. She effortlessly belted out some unbelievable notes and accented her character with a poignant depth. Her version of the show’s most famous number, ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’, was the clear highlight of the show. Coming just before the intermission, she poured so much raw emotion into the song that the audience was caught between tearing up and jumping to their feet to applaud this sublime performer.

Although Riley’s Effie White was clearly the star of the show, the rest of the cast held their own, particularly Liisi LaFontaine. LaFontaine displayed her vocal mastery in both the powerful songs and the more intimate, raw ones. Her duet with Riley, ‘Listen’, was unforgettable; the two vocal powerhouses complimented each other faultlessly. Other notable talents in the cast were Ibinabo Jack’s Lorrell, whose bubbly personality brought a grounding element to the trio, and Joe Aaron Reid’s Curtis, the perfect villain in the story with an effortlessly smooth range.

Some technical faults, such as lighting errors and awkward song transitions, did unfortunately weigh the production down at times. However, the audience’s attention was quickly diverted by the spectacle produced by the staging. The costumes were another highlight of the production, particularly the array of sparkling and elegant gowns.

There was a truly touching moment in the curtain call, as all three Dreams took their final bows together. This nicely tied up the main theme of the show—the women’s relationships with each other—and brought an empowering closure to the performance. During the curtain call, it was easy to see that the entire cast was in love with the show. Their joy was infectious as they danced together when the curtain fell one last time. The audience couldn’t help but be swept along in this elation, the entire theatre giving a very deserved standing ovation to the cast.

The production was still in its previews, officially opening on 14 December, yet it was almost flawless at this early stage. It certainly surpassed my expectations; Riley’s vocals will stay with me for a long time to come. If the show can fix its few remaining technical issues, I have no doubt that it will quickly become a runaway hit.

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