Squaremeal •

The Light Bar, London - Restaurant Review

A former power station in the shadow of Amazon’s London HQ, handily between Shoreditch High Street and Liverpool Street stations - the scene is potentially set for a gimmicky, opportunistic joint targeting commuters and serving unimaginative cocktails to weary City workers. Thankfully the Light Bar defies expectations, and offers, put simply, very good food and drink. Servers are eager to help navigate the difference between ‘starters’ and ‘small plates’ and how many of each to order...
The Local España •

Everything you need to know about Carnival in Cádiz

The coastal city of Cádiz hosts carnival or carnaval, like many other cities in Spain and around the world, for a week starting from the weekend before Ash Wednesday. While most Spanish carnavales ended on February 14th, the event in Cádiz, along with Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s equally famous carnaval, continues until the following weekend (the 18th). Cadiz’s version of carnival also distinguishes itself from other Spanish iterations through its notable focus on humour and political satire, making...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: PICTURE PERFECT CHRISTMAS SHOW, National Gallery

Ever wanted to step inside the world of one of the National Gallery's paintings? Immersive theatre company Boo Productions may have the answer. In what is surprisingly the gallery's first time hosting theatre, the somewhat blandly titled Picture Perfect Christmas Show takes as its inspiration the Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp's idyllic oil snowscapes. Writer-director Francesca Renèe Reid and composer Edward Court pluck their protagonists, the steadfastly heroic Frederik (Ciarán McCormack) and...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: THE NATIONAL, All Points East

In their first UK festival performance since before the pandemic, American soft rock quintet The National have shown themselves to be capable of a competent return to form. Their particular brand of soaring choruses and stomping refrains is reminiscent of a brooding film soundtrack, and is a perfect fit for the atmospheric twilight surrounds of East London's Victoria Park. The National have a knack for never letting the theatricality of a live performance undermine the music itself...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE, Arcola Theatre

The stated goal of an opera festival such as the Arcola's Grimeborn is to put a new spin on the classics in order to introduce them to new audiences, and in this respect The Magic Flute seems to pose more adaptational challenges than most. Mozart's elaborately plotted Singspiel concerning Prince Tamino's fish-out-of-water immersion in a fantasy land of seductive Egyptian cults, demons, and vengeful queens resists straightforward transferral to a modern setting, but this is what Opera Alegría ha
The Indiependent •

‘Eiffel’—Romantic Biopic Of Tower Architect Falls Flat: Review

This new romantic epic telling the story of the Eiffel Tower’s architect and the woman who inspired him is well told, but falls short of being profound. From the opening shot of a bearded, brooding architect gazing over the Paris skyline, to the balcony of the structure which has just redefined that skyline for eternity, it is clear that the Eiffel of the title refers to Gustave Eiffel the man, not his famous tower. Martin Bourboulon’s new French-language drama resists...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE at Royal Opera House

Mozart's Così fan tutte has always been a work that tells us about ourselves. The tale of two hapless lovers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, and their attempts to prove that their girlfriends, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, will be faithful in their absence (and to win a bet against their friend Don Alfonso, who believes the titular adage "all women act like that") is a timeless parable of attitudes towards gender, how we ought to conduct ourselves in relationships, and what aspects of ourselves we present...
Cherwell •

Leader: BeReal has the potential to change student social media usage for the better

If there’s anything that defined my teenage years and early adulthood, it’s Instagram. I try as hard as I can to resist the shallow stereotypes associated with people and especially women who avidly use social media, but when the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook coincided neatly with my entry into secondary school, it’s difficult to deny the influence it’s had over the last decade of my life. We experienced in real time the development of Instagram from place where Year Sevens deposited photos as mundane as...
Cherwell •

On breakups: Dumping exes and expectations

In a perverse way, I think I was excited for my first break up. I grew up on a cultural diet of Elle Woods turning her heartbreak into a career-defining moment, of tabloids eyeing celebrities’ post-divorce glow ups, of Taylor Swift lyrics dwelling on and romanticising her relationship mishaps until they become something iconic. I knew it would be sad, that there’d be some slamming doors and some nights cursing my ex’s name in the early hours of the morning, but I also somehow imagined breaking up...
The Indiependent •

Book Review: The Best of the West End // Charles Duff

Like so many other art forms in the 1950s and 1960s, the post-war British theatre was in a state of flux. The upper-class comedies of manners of Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward were giving way to the kitchen sink dramas of Pinter and Stoppard, and the core of theatre in London was shifting from Shaftesbury Avenue to the ‘angry young men’ of the Royal Court. In the newly reissued 1995 book The Best of the West End, it is the aim of the actor, critic and theatre historian Charles Duff to reassess...
FabLittleBag HQ •

Navigating your first period

When will I get my first period? If you’ve recently begun puberty, you might be wondering when your first period might be. Menarche (the technical term for your first period) can come at any age between around eight and around 16, and typically around two years after you first start puberty. In this article, we discuss factors which might affect when menarche comes for you, and how you can be best prepared for this important event.
BroadwayWorld.com •

BWW Review: THE PARADIS FILES, Southbank Centre

Plays, musicals and operas which focus on women from history have become pleasingly commonplace over the last few years, but new touring opera The Paradis Files not only tells the story of a forgotten female contemporary of Mozart, but also puts her disability front and centre. Graeae, the theatre company behind the opera, aims both to address the problem of disabled representation, by spotlighting the so-called 'Blind Enchantress' Maria Theresia von Paradis, and to make the theatre a truly inc
Cherwell •

Review: Intimacies, after Vallotton

In 1890s Paris, Swiss-French artist Félix Vallotton’s striking, monochrome woodcut series known as Intimités captured all the illicit affairs and longing glances of his aristocratic belle époque subjects. Put simply, his work explored the ways in which they related to one another, and the nature of intimacy itself. Ever ambitious in its approach to what art and theatre can be, Oxford production company Paper Moon aims with its new exhibition Intimacies, after Vallotton not only to apply Vallotto
The Isis •

Frozen In Time: A Classicist’s Portrait of Interwar Oxford | The Isis

In one of the more blatantly cliché moments of my life, I watched the 1981 TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s iconic Oxford interwar novel Brideshead Revisited. Notwithstanding the fact that Oxford only features in the first four episodes, it remains that for many of us, Brideshead played a part in shaping our perceptions of life at Oxford. Daisy Dunn, author, critic, and an Oxford Classics graduate (St. Hilda’s, 2005), counts herself within that number – “you think, ‘it’ll be so idyllic’”…
The Indiependent •

Live Review: Gang of Youths // O2 Academy Brixton, London, 15.03.22

Gang of Youths’ recent Brixton show, the finale of a five-month run of UK and Ireland shows for the Australian quintet, starts with a rather jarring transition. After strong support from Sunderland native and self-styled ‘future of all things guitar’ Tom A. Smith, and Charlie Collins’ ethereal, country-infused vocals, the main set began with a haunting xylophone melody from percussionist Donnie Borzestowski, instantly lulling the expectant crowd...
Cherwell •

In Conversation with Katie Melua

Where do we come from? I mean, where does it all come from, all this? – the books that we read or skim; the computers that we frantically tap; the cultural values that press upon us in every decision we make? Some would posit the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as the progenitors of our western society. Stories of names like Cleopatra, Socrates and Caesar abound in British accounts of ancient history, at least. However, Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, points to...
BroadwayWorld.com •

BWW Review: MIMMA, Cadogan Hall

When it comes to a topic as over-saturated in theatre and in culture more generally as the Second World War, there is something to be said for productions that take a new approach. The members of the Italian resistance against Mussolini who came to London in hope of safety in the years preceding the conflict may not be the first wartime narratives that spring to mind, but the new British-Australian musical Mimma, performed for one night only at Cadogan Hall, puts them front and centre in its depiction...
Cherwell •

In conversation with the Oxford Opera Society

Of all art forms, opera is the one that can perhaps feel the most overwhelming to the uninitiated — there are the venues in every major city that make you feel as though you’ve stepped back into the 1800s, the convoluted tales sung in a foreign language, and, above all, those eye-watering ticket prices. Enter Opera Scenes In Concert, a performance somewhere between a concert and an acting showcase, featuring composers from Handel and Monteverdi to Rimsky-Korsakov and Offenbach, as well as nearly
Cherwell •

'Mortality and the human condition' - Review: Wednesday, Death Meditation

Like many students at a loose end during the first lockdown, Shaw Worth joined an online yoga class. However, unlike many others, he stayed in that class, and has now written and directed a one-act play, Wednesday, Death Meditation, performed at the BT Studio throughout 4th Week, using yoga as a device to explore issues of mortality and the human condition. The play has a bipartite structure, centring around a suburban yoga class, followed by a much darker conversation between yoga teacher Sand
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