What will you discover today?

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  Friday 15 January

  Bridgerton, Beauty, and #RelationshipGoals

  It was the distraction that the end of 2020 needed: a mash-up of a Jane Austen novel and the noughties teenage drama Gossip Girl. With all eight episodes arriving on Netflix on Christmas Day, Bridgerton was streamed by 63 million households within the first four weeks. Filled with colour, featuring beautiful people in eccentric costumes, and narrated by Julie Andrews, it is delightfully escapist viewing......

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  Friday 11 September

  Tenet: Trusting the Storyteller

  Tenet is the movie industry’s hope to draw us back to multiplexes and reinvigorate one of our culture’s very own religious gatherings: communal catharsis by way of morality, music, and associated sacred food and drink. It will be up to audiences to decide whether or not Tenet is worthy of this mantle. Christopher Nolan has made a film that brings us to the edge of our understanding. And then it invites us to step over that edge. For this reason, it will surely divide audiences as it already has done critics....

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  Friday 28 August

  Why Does Jacob Collier Make Me Cry?

  I found myself crying at my desk this week. To explain why, I need to tell you about a man called Jacob Collier. A multi-instrumentalist and all-round genius, he found fame on YouTube before embarking on a glittering career. So far he’s won four Grammys and collaborated with a veritable galaxy of stars. He plays with incredible technicality, but it’s matched by a boundless joy. Seeing him perform is like watching Mozart on a bouncy castle....

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  Friday 31 July

  Folklore

  It’ll be fascinating to see what kind of art flows from this strange year. But Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth album Folklore – released last week to five-star reviews – could be one of the first, significant contributions. Though it’s not about the pandemic, it’s emerged assuredly from within it – without the usual pressure of having to write songs to fill a stadium tour imminently. Duly liberated, Swift has created a collection of quietly powerful, stripped back songs, signalling a shift......

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  Friday 17 July

  The Show Must Go On

  What would you do with £1.57 billion? That’s the sum of money the government promised to the UK arts industry last week. It’s good news for venues, performers, and patrons facing an uncertain future in our post-pandemic world. But what will they do with the money?...

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  Friday 29 May

  Normal People, Normal God?

  ‘It’s the most relatable thing I’ve ever seen.’ Such was my housemate’s review of Normal People, the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel, and what finally convinced me to watch it. Twelve half-hour episodes later, I can confirm: she was right. When I was growing up, I inexplicably longed for a film or a book or a TV series that contained no real drama. No deaths, no explosive break-ups, no extraordinary wealth or unbelievable meet-cutes… just something that showed life as it is. Normal People does just that...

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  Friday 8 May

  Tiger King: Who’s Really in the Cage?

  Tiger King is a bizarre show for bizarre times. The ‘true-crime documentary series’ gives a window into the peculiar ‘underworld of big cat breeding’. It opens with the shocking fact that there are more tigers in captivity in North America than in the wild globally. At least, I found that shocking at first. Seven episodes later, someone has lost their arm to a tiger, a man has accidentally killed himself, and ‘Joe Exotic’, the polygamous, arson-committing, country-singing owner of 1200 big cats has run for president before being ...

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  Friday 24 April

  Watching Closely

  ‘Contagion’, a 2011 disaster movie about a viral pandemic, has soared in downloads and rentals. The 1995 film ‘Outbreak’ has seen a similar surge in views. Even tales of zombie Armageddon like ‘28 Days Later’ and ‘World War Z’ are more popular than ever. You might imagine we would be desperate for escapism now, but instead many of us are choosing to watch our worst fears play out on screen. As one BuzzFeed headline despaired: ‘The Only Thing I Want To Do Is Binge-Watch Apocalypse Movies.’...

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  Friday 28 February

  Waitress The Musical: Happy Enough?

  ‘I want to be happy, not just happy enough.’ Such is the exasperated sigh of Jenna, our heroine. She’s stuck. Stuck with an abusive husband, and stuck in a dead-end job. This might appear excessively bleak for what claims to be a romantic comedy, but it’s the opening scene of Waitress, currently showing on London’s West End (spoilers incoming). This is a life of dissatisfaction, of yearning for more....

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  Friday 21 February

  Teen Spirit – The Billie Eilish Way

  ‘Thank you to my best friends Drew and Zoe for keeping me alive to this day.’ So spoke Billie Eilish in one of her five (!) winner’s speeches at January’s Grammys. It didn’t sound like a joke. It didn’t sound like hyperbole. It sounded like the truth. And it is this very truthfulness, combined with a great deal of musical talent, that seems to have propelled Eilish to global stardom at 18, after just one album...

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