Category: Reviews

By Emilia Brookfield-Pertusini

A honey prickled voice rolls through the chambers of my Koss portaPros during an anticipatory Spring walk in Durham. The Spotify algorithm has decided that me, right here, right now, is the perfect audience for such a tender serenade. ‘Grace Elizabeth Harvey – Familiar’ flashes back up at me. The chords and charmingly brutal lyrics, in spite of the optimism of Harvey’s voice, recall etching  memories of syrupy mornings, sunlight slipping in and out of curtains, after some bleary eyed sleepover of youth, singing whilst waiting for pancakes. This a truly trancentry, transportive experience, against the Medieval, faith woven paths of Harvey’s alma mater  The gentle intimacy of Harvey’s sound is profound, and is apparent within her new single ‘Lullaby for Wasted Time’ (out 4th of April).   

Harvey’s delicate sound is informed by a frenzy of folk artists. The rolling, dreamy guitar resonates and hums with the haze of Nick Drake. The somber dewyness of Leonard Cohen drips against the delicately placed cello and gossamer lyrism. A communion of folk is created by Harvey, staying devoted to her folk roots. Her upcoming tour and EP, ‘Other Faith’ ( 9th of May), is a passage through faith’s many formed manifestations; Harvey’s own faith clearly lies within the grooves of folk LPs.  Faith appears as a confusing gauze, fragile when untangling, trapping in its covetousness. Yet, the apparitional iterations of Harvey’s  music enchantingly unravel the holy, melancholic, and loving underpinnings of faith. The push and pull of faith, and faithlessness, moves Harvey’s music into crushing crocendos, and gentle frolics. 

Adrianne Lenker, a fountain of inspiration for Harvey and the 21st century’s brand of folk, has a conjuring quality about her. Her presence and the ability to melt the world around her, and Big Thief, during performance, possesses a transient magic that illuminates her moody ethereality further. This 21st century iteration of folk, one that is moodier and bolder in its whimsy, has clearly been captured by Harvey, with her new single, ‘Lullaby for Wasted Time’. A beautifully damning lyricism, with crushing dejection, the sentimentality and abandon run clear.  The chords brim and bubble with honesty, meandering, brooklike, into a captivating haze. 

The suspension held in the musicality of Grace Elizabeth Harvey’s song is dazzling. Precious, personal, and relentlessly poetic. The subtle power that spurs Harvey’s creativity relinquishes faith in folks’ new form. So, whether meandering down carpeted avenues sun blinded, or rain shafted, curled up in the intimacy of a morning cup of tea, or simply blessed with a voraciousness for new gems within the music scene, Grace Elizabeth Harvey’s gold-spun rhymes will transport you to a personal poetic elysium. 

By Edward Clark

Jane Remover’s most recent release Ghostholding under side project ‘venturing’, refines her exploration of a rock soundscape. The project follows 2023’s Census Designated, Jane’s foray into post-rock and shoegaze, yet the sound on this release is tighter, Jane’s vocals less distorted, the guitar softer and the melodies more distinctive. On highlights such as ‘Sister’ and ‘Believe’, Jane’s distinct vocal style is placed at the forefront of the mix, accompanied by a relatively stripped-back rock instrumental. There is minimal deliberately harsh drone, a staple of Census Designated, and hardly any of the digitization which defined 2021’s frailty, an album which pioneered a subgenre coined ‘digicore’. In contrast to Jane’s previous releases, Ghostholding is simple yet potent.

Jane Remover’s rise to success followed her pioneering of the electronic, hyperpop-influenced genre ‘Dariacore’ online, after cultivating an audience through releases on Soundcloud. This self-made genre thus influenced 2021’s frailty, a record which embedded Jane’s distinct vocal style in her self-produced, incredibly detailed hyperpop-styled beats. She then progressed away from this genre in 2023’s Census Designated, a pioneering shoegaze and drone-heavy record. Even these songs, however, clearly reflected Jane’s passion for intricate, polished, detail-heavy music. Vocals on tracks such as ‘Lips’ were heavily layered, and crushing guitars, drums and piercing screeches combined to provide a challenging sonic experience. Ghostholding largely reduces Jane Remover’s strong songwriting in this style to its simplest form: a vocal line, guitar, bass and drums.

This stylistic decision does prevent Ghostholding from reaching the almost-metal heights Census Designated did on tracks such as ‘Idling Somewhere’ and ‘Census Designated’, yet instead achieves a stripped-back sound which amplifies Jane’s voice. For example, ‘Sick / Relapse’ is an absolute standout, with Jane’s vocals beautifully harrowing as they provide more clarity in the mix compared to her previous work. When provided the space to breathe, Jane’s emotional vocal tone and the repeated lyrics of ‘everybody’s seen my body’ and ‘everybody’s touched and said they love me’ take centre stage. No matter how the listener interprets these lyrics, perhaps as an exploration of the widespread sexualisation and fetishisation of trans women – Jane being one herself  – or lamenting a personal relationship, the song is incredibly poignant. When the track does build to a crescendo, the guitar solo and heavy drums go further to emphasise the lyrical material of the song rather than overshadowing Jane’s voice. Unlike deliberately intense hyperpop-styled sounds found in her previous work, the electronic noises on Ghostholding appear in moments of levity and beauty. The metronome-like beeping in the background of ‘Sick / Relapse’, alongside a high-pitched twinkling in the background of the instrumental section is beautiful rather than overbearing. These moments remind me of stripped-back highlights previously released by Jane, such as ‘goldfish’ or the single release of ‘Contingency Song’. 

However, not all of the tracks on Ghostholding are amplified by Jane’s simplification of her sound. Where the songs with the strongest melodies are supported by strong and simple guitar lines, others simply become repetitive and uninteresting. Where a less-popular song with a weaker melody still held value in developing the sonic experience of a previous Jane Remover record, songs like ‘We don’t exist’ and ‘Play my guitar’ are more obviously identified as weaker cuts here. 

Interestingly, this release under the ‘venturing’ alias has taken place alongside Jane Remover’s 2025 rollout for her upcoming album Revengeseekerz. However, the sound she has adopted on her singles ‘JRJRJR’ and ‘Dancing with your eyes closed’ is entirely at odds with that of Ghostholding. ‘JRJRJR’ is abrasive and detailed, with a maximalist, harsh electronic instrumental. Unlike the softer and melodic vocals on Ghostholding, Jane’s vocals on the repeated ‘JR’ hook are angry and assertive, underscored by a thumping bassline and a sample of the Pokémon Palkia’s in-game cry. The washed-out guitars of Ghostholding are nowhere to be found. The sound of the follow-up single ‘Dancing with your eyes closed’ is even closer to frailty’s ‘digicore’. Intense, distorted electronic breakdowns are reminiscent of the best on Jane’s debut. The grainy music video, which sees her dancing in a club to the hyperpop banger, only adds to the atmosphere. Both singles appear to be pushing Jane’s intense hyperpop sound further than she has before. 

Perhaps Ghostholding’s deliberate emphasis on a softer and more refined rock sound compared with Jane’s previous work indicates an upcoming shift in the other direction on Revengeseekerz. As Jane has used their alias to ‘venture’ further into rock, they appear to be moving in the opposite direction into the hyperpop sphere on their next release. Jane Remover is not bound by genre.

By Rory McAlpine

What is love? What is this mystifying, often elusive force, shaping and impacting so much of our lives? After Taste, by Katie Procter, is an hour-long performance infused with humour, joy and moments of deeper vulnerability, grappling with this question and offering a moving commentary on love, heartbreak and human connection. 

Juniper (Isabel Bainbridge), in the aftermath of a breakup and with her ambitions to pursue a career as a writer faltering, is feeling lost and lonely in the vastness of the city she has moved to post-university. Her nights see her attempt to fill this void by bringing men back to her room, found on dating apps, club floors, and even introduced by mutual friends. Yet, the sexual encounters that Juniper seeks never come to fruition – instead, she finds herself conversing on love and unpacking its meaning, contemplating on the patriarchy and her struggles transitioning from university life into the world of work. Waking up with the inevitable hangover after these failed flings, Juniper is always met by her best friend Maddie (Robyn Bradbury), whose concern, encouragement and care for Juniper proves to be the much-needed cure. 

Juniper and Maddie are opposites. Juniper’s life is directionless; she feels stagnant, while Maddie, in contrast, is put together, preparing for her morning yoga or discussing the latest health crazes. When Juniper lies hungover in bed, Maddie is bustling around the room suggesting hangover cures and radiating an invasive positivity that initially irritates Juniper but quickly brings a smile to her face. The intimacy of Juniper and Maddie’s friendship is at the centre of the play and is conveyed on stage through not just dialogue but body language, movement and physical touch, with moments of female friendship and care such as Maddie combing through Juniper’s hair or cleaning up her room and bringing her food, taking on the role of a motherly figure. 

Each man brought back to her bedroom exposes Juniper to a different view of love. One awkward encounter ends up with her playing scrabble and discussing the view that love is a talking quota, that your relationship lasts only as long as you have things to say to one another. Another night, an overconfident, narcissistic man talks about how monogamy is outdated, whilst a man with a particularly mathematical mind talks about the probability of finding love in a room full of people. All these conversations ultimately converge on the question of whether they believe in soulmates, and all try to disabuse Juniper of this notion, claiming: No, there is no single person for someone, no fated love in the stars. Yet that is ultimately Juniper’s view of love: the existence of soulmates. 

All these different views of love are brought up when the final man she meets in her room is her ex-boyfriend, and they talk through what led to the disintegration of their relationship, with Juniper subconsciously slipping into conversation the ‘talking quotas’ and mathematical probabilities. Against this backdrop of men that come and go with divergent views on love, there is a constant – interwoven through these episodes is Maddie and Juniper’s relationship. One that is genuine and built not on romantic love but deeper friendship. If one believes in soulmates, Maddie and Juniper exemplify this. This realisation is one that Juniper gradually comes to understand. 

The performance incorporates sparing but thoughtful use of props, lighting, and set. The passing of time is effectively indicated by characters changing the pages of the calendar in Juniper’s room, while scene changes are accompanied by purple lights and pulsating music, marking clear distinctions between different moments. The use of a screen to project a montage of photos and videos documenting Maddie and Juniper’s friendship is a particularly moving moment, intensified by the differing medium. 

After Taste is a delightful original script that holds at its heart the powerful message that life and love are messy and complicated. Yet, we should not allow this fixation on romantic love to cause us to lose sight of the fact that love has many guises and that the love born of friendship can be equal, if not more fulfilling.

By Misty Delembre

It seemed like a fitting Valentine’s Day choice: Secretary (2002), the offbeat, kinky romance that had once felt refreshingly different from Hollywood’s sanitized love stories. I remembered it as tender, strange, darkly funny – a film that challenged normative notions of desire and control, of what it means to be in love and be seen. But on rewatch, there is something near insidious about the way Secretary is able to seduce its audience. It masquerades as a love story. But beneath its neatly tailored surface, something far more perplexing simmers. Steven Shainberg’s film walks a fine line between empowerment and conditioning; liberation and entrapment. It is a film that titillates while making us uneasy, that plays with control while never quite relinquishing its own.

Although this time, I couldn’t ignore the details. The imbalance. The erasure. He is Grey; she is Lee. He is the boss; she is the secretary. He is older, composed, in control. She is younger, uncertain, and  shamelessly desperate to please. It is not lost on me that he refers to her by her first name, while the film never allows us to know him as anything but ‘Mr. Grey’. Even in language, the hierarchy is maintained.

Yet the film romanticises their dynamic as a kind of mutual discovery. Lee, a woman who has spent her life in quiet self-destruction, finding solace in the structure of submission; Grey, a man daunted by his own desires, learning that he can allow himself to indulge. But this concise narrative arc collapses when observed too closely. The truth is in the unspoken details, the ones the film never asks us to interrogate too deeply.

Grey has done this before. Lee is not the first. She is not special. This is indeed a pattern. A hiring practice. A cycle. The film never lingers on the implications of this – the other secretaries who sat at that desk, typed those letters, ceremoniously bent over at his command. Were they discarded when they got too close? Did they leave, shaken, distraught and  ultimately unsure of what had just occurred? Secretary treats their existence as a footnote, a quiet admission that Lee is merely another in a line of women funnelled through Grey’s carefully constructed world.

And yet, the film asks us to perceive this as love. It asks us to believe in the sincerity of their connection, to rally when Lee proves her devotion by sitting, hungry, exhausted, near-delirious, at his desk for days, waiting for him to decide she is worthy of his affection. Her submission, once playful, becomes obscured by undertones of abuse. And while the film frames this as an act of self-actualisation, of agency, I cannot shake the unease. Would this be as palatable if Grey were less conventionally attractive? If his office were not bathed in warm, rich mahogany? If the camera did not romanticise his touch, his control, his power?

The mise-en-scène aids in facilitating this deception. The muted tones of Lee’s home life, occluded thick with repression – soft pastels, smothered under fluorescent lighting – give way to the deep, intoxicating reds integral to her transformation. Lee’s wardrobe transforms from frumpy skirts to fitted, dark-hued dresses, the deep red of her lipstick echoing the welt of a fresh handprint. This is a film obsessed with texture, attune to the unfolding of control. 

The cinematography intently mirrors this descent into submission, shifting from the sterile, detached framing of her early life to the sensual close-ups of her and Grey’s interactions – the tension built in the pause before a touch, the breathy silence that replaces dialogue, the way even diegetic sound seems to hush itself in anticipation. The camera lingers on the sensuality of small movements – the stroke of a hand against skin, the weight of Grey’s gaze. The lighting is warm and intimate, coaxing us into complicity. We are seduced alongside Lee, drawn in by the same slow unraveling of control. And perhaps this is the film’s greatest trick – it somehow makes submission feel like freedom. But whose freedom?

Lee’s submissiveness, for the most part, isn’t framed as a weakness but as a kind of self-actualisation. She does not suffer under Grey’s control; she flourishes. And yet, the film is careful about how it allows Grey to exert that control. Unlike the overt brutality of, say, The Night Porter (1974) or the performative excess of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Grey’s dominance is measured, almost hesitant. His punishments are not arbitrary; they are rituals of structure, discipline, imbued with intimacy. He is not cruel, but he is afraid – his desires are tinged with a hesitant edge, unsettled by the implications of his actions.

It is here that Secretary becomes its most fascinating and most troubling. For all its transgressiveness, the film is not truly radical. It does not upend traditional gender dynamics so much as repackage them in a new and palatable aesthetic. Yes, Lee initiates – she even pushes for more when Grey recoils. But in the end, it is still the man who holds the power – who dictates the terms, who punishes, who ultimately decides when and how the relationship will function. Even the film’s climax – Lee’s days-long protest of stillness, her body growing weaker with each passing hour – reads as both a declaration of agency and a disturbing surrender. And here’s the real provocation: is Secretary feminist, or does it simply disguise submission as empowerment?

It would be easy to frame this film as a story of liberation, of a woman embracing her true desires. But to do so neglects the larger context in which those desires are inherently shaped. BDSM, in its most idealised form, is about mutual exchange, about negotiation. But in Secretary, there is no conversation about limits, no safewords, no clear indication that Lee’s desire for submission is anything but an extension of her lifelong craving for structure and discipline. She moves from self-harm to being disciplined by a man in a position of authority. The film never interrogates whether this is a choice or simply another coping mechanism.

There is perhaps a version of this story where Secretary is genuinely radical, where Lee’s desires are explored with the complexity they deserve. A version that does not gloss over the troubling reality of power dynamics, where Grey is forced to reckon with the fact that he has done this before, and will likely do it again. Instead, we are given a fantasy – a love story built on omission.

Watching Secretary again, I am not sure if I find it beautiful or horrifying. Perhaps both. It is a film that complicates pleasure, that forces us to question the narratives we have been given about power and romance. It is intoxicating, yes. But so is a lie, when told well enough. 

And this, I think, is Secretary’s real legacy – not as a film about love, but as a film about the stories we tell ourselves to make love feel safe. Even when it isn’t.

Image credit: MUBI

By Sarah Humadi

Baker’s cinematography is striking; the muted, industrial landscapes of Brooklyn and commercial Vegas contrasting with pops of vivid neon lights of the strip club, metallic, glittery streaks throughout our star character’s hair, blankets, scarves and scratches of deep red enveloping her when she’s wounded from Vanya’s betrayal – I find myself reminiscing of Edward Hopper’s lonely Americana. Upon my first watch, I’m already comparing particular scenes to Hopper’s works such as his famous Nighthawks, Chop Suey, Morning Sun, Manhattan Bridge Loop. The moments of tenderness and desperation woven into the everyday. Anora’s visuals are enticing, exciting to look at. Baker plays with light and color in a way that captures the isolation of late-stage capitalism—the glow of a strip club sign, the sterile excess of oligarch wealth, the dull flickering of a cheap motel TV. It echoes Edward Hopper’s paintings, which similarly frame the American Dream as a distant, melancholic illusion. But where Hopper’s subjects feel unknowable by design, Baker’s characters are supposed to be fully realized—people we see, hear, and understand. The problem is, I don’t always believe them. And while Anora is gripping, it’s hard to ignore the lingering feeling that its perspective—like Tangerine and The Florida Project before it—comes from an observer, rather than someone who has truly lived these experiences.

Sean Baker has built a career chronicling America’s fringes—trans sex workers, struggling single mothers, and broke motel-dwellers in their passage to survive in a system rigged against them. With Anora, he takes on another precarious life: a Brooklyn stripper on the edge of living a life she’s dreamed of – money, social capital, friends, someone so captivated by her he wants her till death does them part – only to have the dream shattered. It’s devastatingly real and emotionally raw—but I end up asking myself who is telling (or rather showing) us this story?

Baker is an upper-class white man drawn to stories of the marginalized. His intentions seem good—his films rarely feel exploitative but at a certain point, we have to ask: why is Hollywood so eager to give these stories to filmmakers like him, rather than those who have actually lived them?

This isn’t just about Baker. It’s about an industry that consistently funds privileged directors to tell underprivileged stories while sidelining voices from those very communities. The problem isn’t that Anora exists—it’s that someone with Ani’s real-life experiences likely wouldn’t get the same funding, platform, or audience reach.

It’s almost like, ironically, the story of the American Dream is not just told through the plot of the film, but perhaps even more so behind the scenes of its making; it’s people like Ani that rarely, if ever, are recognised for their ambitions/work (to note, we hear little to nothing about Ani’s backstory or ambitions, although this might have been an intentional choice to have her walls up as part of her character) to make it to the top, or at least at the same level as directors such as Baker.

The media we consume shapes how we see the world. If the majority of films about sex workers, immigrants, and struggling single mothers come from a distanced perspective—one that studies rather than lives—then audiences will take that as truth. And while no community is a monolith, there’s something dissatisfactory about an outsider defining the mainstream depiction of these lives.

Image credit: Neon

By Rory McAlpine

Marking 75 years since their inception, DULOG theatre company chose to celebrate this anniversary by bringing the enduringly powerful and beloved Crazy for You musical to life on the Gala Theatre stage. And I choose the phrase ‘to life’ intentionally, for every character and every song performed was a stellar display of creativity, energy, and talent that captivates me throughout the run time. 

We are, on opening, introduced to Bobby Child (Michael Nevin), son of a wealthy banking family whose domineering mother is pushing him to take control of part of the family business, but who dreams of pursuing a career as a dancer. Yet, his attempt to audition for producer Bela Zangler (Ollie Cochran) is comedically unsuccessful, quashing his hopes. At the behest of his mother, and to escape his long-term fiancé Irene Roth (Lucy Rogers), Child heads to Deadrock Nevada with instructions to foreclose on the local theatre on behalf of the bank. However, arriving in Deadrock, Child meets and falls for Polly Baker (Connie Richardson), daughter of the theatre owner who, upon finding out his identity as the banker coming to take her family theatre, rejects his pursuits. From there spirals a complicated and ambitious plan by Child to save the theatre, win the heart of Polly, and break free from the life his mother has pre-determined for him. We watch Child’s elaborate scheme unroll and unravel bringing hilarious and unforeseen effects as his best laid plans inevitably go awry.  

Nevin’s display of acting, singing, and tap dancing as Child is a delight to behold; his exaggerated facial and body movements strike the balance between comedy and believability, and we simultaneously sympathise and find comedy in his plight. The burgeoning romance between Child and Polly is conveyed in many instances through dance and both Nevin and Richardson are talented in infusing their dance with meaning and truth. Despite a lack of words, we can discern Richardson’s growing love for Child constrained by feelings of betrayal by how she moves and dances with him. This ability to so clearly communicate feelings through choreography is credit to both the actors and choreographers. 

Cochran is talented in embodying Zangler’s ‘short fuse personality’, switching from composed suave businesslike to utterly exasperated and enraged when things do not go according to his plan or aims. His character arc from sleazy egotistical producer to local theatre patron occurs in the second act and Cochran’s ability to depict this transformation as a gradual softening of the character is highly effective. 

The show travels between two places: New York City and Deadrock Nevada. Impressive set backdrops denote the change in location, but it is the ensembles that create these places. In New York Zangler’s girls, a group of dancers, exude New York glamour and talent while in Deadrock the rocky cowboys we meet are lazy, easily entertained and, to put it politely, not the brightest bulbs in the box. All the ensembles fully embrace their characters, and their interactions are the catalyst of much of the humour. When the Zangler’s girls are recruited by Child to help put on a show in Deadrock, the colliding of these two works and attempts to organise the cowboys to rehearse and learn to dance is a masterstroke in choreography and physicality. All this, with the Zangler’s girls’ beautiful moves contrasted by the bumbling and shuffling movement of the cowboys. 

With its status as a musical, the role of the orchestra should not be underplayed. Out of sight in the orchestra pit, they flawlessly inject the vibrancy and rousingness characteristic of Gershwin’s scores in their music performance, while also matching the energy of the cast. Additionally, the complicated yet seamless set changes and the use of light and sound to enhance the performance is testament to the hard work of the whole backstage team. 

Arguably one of Crazy for You’s most iconic numbers, ‘I Got Rhythm’, contains the refrain who could ask for anything more? And when it comes to DULOG’s performance I found myself leaving energised with the music still playing in my head and itchy feet that were keen to dance and so I truly, in answer, could not have asked for anything more. 

By Martha Thornycroft 

Despite being nearly seven years behind the trend, I started the New Year reading Rachel Cusk’s Kudos (2018), the third in her Outline trilogy. The three books follow a novelist – Faye – as she navigates life as a divorcée and mother to two boys, whilst simultaneously working and juggling a career with personal demands. What makes the trilogy so interesting, however, is how the narrative voice blends into the background (as evidenced by the title Outline), allowing secondary characters to occupy the foreground and transform the narrative with their distinctive voices. Cusk writes the trilogy in such a way that there is no prescribed reading order. This flexibility means that each novel can be approached independently, allowing you to dip in and out of her novels as you wish. It was for exactly this reason that I reached for the final novel, Kudos, around the 1st of January, knowing my reading would contain some much-needed wisdom, and encourage some self-reflection for the New Year.

Cusk’s language is deceptively simplistic, providing profound insights into the human experience. Flicking through my well-thumbed copies, the many dog-eared pages speak volumes. Her books are eminently quotable and almost every chapter contains a universal truth worth remembering. For instance, in Outline, she writes, ’What Ryan had learned from this is that your failures keep returning to you, while your successes are something you always have to convince yourself of.’ As Alexandra Schwartz writes in The New Yorker, the characters in Cusk’s trilogy ‘swoop from the minute banality of personal experience to touch on the great themes of human life and society and back again.’ For this reason, Cusk manages to subtly capture the essence of what it is to be alive in the early 21st century – an elusive sentiment to define, considering that we are still living in it.

Whilst reading Kudos, I was struck by the honesty and frankness of Cusk’s depiction of Faye’s encounters with the various characters she meets, sharing deeply insightful and unfiltered aspects of their life. It made me question the narrator’s role: is the narrative voice (and Cusk herself) analysing the people she meets, or are these characters, in fact, analysing themselves? On this basis, the narrator (and Cusk) seems to occupy a therapist-adjacent status, not only for the novel’s characters but also for the reader. Cusk’s novels invite introspection, where the characters’ process of identifying their faults prompts us to do the same. There is something cathartic in recognising a shared trait in another person – albeit a fictional character. Frequently, while reading the trilogy, I found myself thinking: “Maybe that’s why I behave like that.” or “I know exactly who this reminds me of.” By relating to Cusk’s characters, I gained a more lucid understanding of myself. Therefore, in this sense, her novels have a dual function – serving as both entertainment and self-help novels.

Why do I think this trilogy, particularly Kudos, is pertinent to 2025? In a year coined ‘202thrive’ on social media, I believe it is fair to say that the social culture of wellness and mindfulness is gaining more and more traction – with myself included. Cusk’s novels offer a more feasible way of actioning that New Year’s resolution of being more introspective or aware of how we interact with others. Reading the Outline trilogy is, in my opinion, the ideal way to have a reflective start to 2025.

By Mopsy Peel

The art of female anger has rarely been a subject for delicate inspection, particularly in film. More often, it is crammed into tight archetypes – shrill, hysterical and unreasonable. Yet in Wicked Little Letters, directed by Thea Sharrock, we are offered a rare portrayal of this emotion as something complex and empowering. Based on a true story, Wicked Little Letters weaves fact with flair, turning an improbable tale of scandal and subversion into a rich exploration of female rage, defiance, and the power of the written word.

Olivia Colman takes the helm as Edith Swan: a buttoned-up spinster of 1920s Littlehampton whose Christian virtue is matched only by her insufferable smugness. She is a figure moulded by propriety – every glance a judgment, every utterance calculated. Yet, beneath the starch and rosary beads simmers an anger that will not stay suppressed. Her weapons of choice are anonymous, venomous letters brimming with blasphemies and insults, mailed to unsuspecting neighbours. These are no simple verbal outbursts to be easily dismissed or forgotten. Instead, they are immortalised in ink, transcending the fleeting nature of spoken anger and embedding themselves in the consciousness of their readers. This transference of voice is a potent mechanism. The letters, read aloud by their recipients, remove ownership from Edith while amplifying her defiance. It is a small yet seismic rebellion against the silence demanded of women in this era. The act is, in its own way, a kind of liberation.

The tradition of letter-writing as an outlet for female emotion is nothing new. For centuries, women have turned to the pen to articulate passions too dangerous or unbecoming to voice. In Edith’s case, her repressed fury at her overbearing family and the suffocating norms of her community spills out in scrawled obscenities. It begins as a small act of defiance but quickly morphs into an addiction. Where others might step outside for a cigarette, Edith retreats upstairs, pen in hand, to unleash lines like “you foxy-arsed old whore,” or, my personal favourite, “you mangey old titless turnip”. 

The film presents Edith’s venom alongside Jessie Buckley’s feisty Rose Gooding, an Irish maid whose presence electrifies every scene she graces. Buckley’s accent dances on the edge of the poetic, rolling profundities off her tongue with an ease that both disarms and delights. Rose is everything Edith is not: brazen, unafraid, and unapologetically alive. Her rebellion is not cloaked in anonymity but lived out loud, an enchanting spectacle of fearlessness in an era that demanded women shrink themselves.

The humour in Wicked Little Letters is an art form unto itself, a tapestry of wit and absurdity woven through its every scene. Anjana Vasan and Lolly Adefope, whose comedic talents are already well-cemented (Adefope especially delighting audiences as Kitty in the BBC show Ghosts), bring a vitality to the film that elevates its mischief. Joanna Scanlan, brilliant as ever and fondly remembered as Terri Coverley in The Thick of It, adds her own brand of comedic gold, her expressions delivering punchlines as sharp as the letters themselves. Together, this trio creates a riot of perfectly timed quips and glorious deliveries, transforming the prim 1920s setting into an unrelenting parade of laughter, their modern comedic genius crackling through the tension of a period drama-turned-caper.

The power dynamics within the film’s domestic sphere sharpen this portrait of female rage. Edith’s family is a depiction of repression: a meek, passive mother and a controlling father whose rigid discipline keeps the household in check. It is no wonder that Edith, faced with such stifling circumstances, finds solace in her ink-stained rebellion. In the film’s final act, Edith is arrested – a culmination of her transgressions. But the moment is far from one of shame or defeat. Instead, it is a release, a shedding of the expectations that have shackled her. As she is led away, there is satisfaction in her eyes. For the first time, she is free, not just from her family, but from the burden of maintaining her mask of propriety.

As the final frame settles, Wicked Little Letters leaves us suspended in a paradox, refusing easy catharsis. Edith’s defiance doesn’t culminate in a tidy reckoning; instead, we feel both relief for Rose’s vindication and quiet optimism for Edith. Bridging these two emotional extremes through contradictory empathy strikes me as both a masterful achievement in writing and a testament to the enduring strength of the theme itself, transcending the situation at hand. Edith’s imprisonment, though a downfall by conventional standards, resists tragedy. Her rebellion is not undone by punishment but crystallised in it. 

This depiction of female defiance is refreshing in its honesty. It does not glamorise or sanitise Edith’s anger but acknowledges it as a natural, even necessary, response to her circumstances. Her letters are not polite cries for help; they are visceral, unfiltered eruptions of a rage long ignored. And yet, they are also an affirmation of agency, a refusal to be silent. Wicked Little Letters invites us to consider the power of words, not merely as tools of communication but as vessels of emotion and rebellion. In Edith’s story, anger is not something to fear or suppress. It is something to write, to read, and, perhaps most importantly, to understand.

Feature Image: Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman in Wicked Little Letters. Photograph: Toronto Film Festival. [The Guardian]. 

By Edward Bayliss

Since he was nine years old, Robert Eggers says he has been ‘obsessed’ with W.F. Murnau’s 1922 vampire horror, Nosferatu. In his years long process of writing the screenplay, one can imagine his rubber wearing faster than his lead. He arrives now on Christmas day, 2024, at one incredibly well researched and well loved iteration of Bram Stoker’s original. This title bears all the familiar Eggers-hallmarks of the folkloric, the gothic, the supernatural, and Willem Dafoe as our wild eyed occultist. The film looks exceptional – its creation of a dim atmosphere of unnaturalness is remarkable, and due credit is owed to DP Darin Blaschke. To use Mark Kermode’s favoured phrase (now especially apt), it’s heart is in the right place – a sentiment with which I think only very few would contend. All this, but my praise comes caveated. Though Eggers’ world creation is ever imposing, there isn’t much in the way of sharp arrest, or sudden stabs to our side. Let it be said, I am not a lover of movies made just of ‘moments’. I do however want to feel the instant chill of putting on cold clothes in the morning, but instead I somehow only get the constant sensation of a loose shoe-lace.

The story of Nosferatu remains almost unchanged from the Murnau original, save some added sexual ornamentation. This is one aspect of reinvention. The traditionally white fanged, bulbous headed vampires with high collared cloaks won’t run. Neither also will their simple object of blood. Instead, Nosferatu here has bloody and bodily lusts, as well as a period accurate Transylvanian outfit.

Bill Skarsgård, originally pitted to play solicitor and husband figure Thomas Hutter, firmly hits the mark as Count Orlok. The original film, being silent, leaves Eggers with a playground of sound to explore. Skarsgård’s voice vibrates with a delicious bass, his training from opera singer Júníusdóttir becoming very apparent as he masters the tones and textures of the undead Romanian aristocrat. The heft of Orlok’s 1590s era authentic cloak plays brilliantly against Lily Rose Depp’s (Ellen) diaphanous night gowns and floral fabrics. Costume designer and longtime Eggers collaborator Linda Muir leaves us very impressed.

The tagline for Eggers’ film reads: ‘succumb to the darkness’. In a film so submerged in shadow, with only a lick of flame or shard of moonlight to illuminate our characters, we can’t help but surrender to the darkness. Pulling at the coattails of Kubrick, Eggers uses as much natural lighting as possible, avoiding VFX at all costs. The quality of the picture is outstanding. Some sequences are slowly unsettling; it feels almost as though it is midnight at midday at Orlok’s castle, recalling some of Magritte’s disorientating works. At the Roma village below, the air is thick with flamelight which sits heavily on smoke, affording a stuffy and full feel to the shot. To set this supernatural fable against such an urgently realist backdrop is a great achievement. Gypsy rites, accents, costumes, and interiors of the period have clearly all been studied meticulously – Eggers uses academic articles to supplement his vision, as well as past productions.

The original Nosferatu plot of 1922 is relatively bare, leaving Eggers opportunity to add some flesh to the bones of the action. We have added intrigue to Lily Rose Depp’s character as she goes more through the catharsis of the sacrificial ‘saviour’ figure. While her writhing and body contortions are striking and seem convincing without the support of special effects, they are too frequent and so dilute their initial shock. Eggers should have exploited the sexual weirdness between the triangle of Orlok, Ellen, and Hutter to a greater degree, this being the location of great narrative potential. Similarly to Ellen’s fits, the menacing silhouette of Orlok is brilliantly conceived at first behind a shifting curtain in the fictional German town of Wisborg, but the motif is repeated too often afterwards. I was never terrified during the screening of Nosferatu, though I didn’t find the appearance of Orlok amusing as critic Peter Bradshaw did. I think he has infantilised the great research and ingenuity of Eggers in his creation of the done-to-death Dracula character.

The camera work is first rate. We skim over seas and mountains, devil-set crossroads and cold stone corridors. The lens is at its best when we follow Hutter on his journey to Transylvania, producing some truly arresting wide angle shots. It feels often like miniature sets are used in tilt shift, especially when we see Orlok’s shadow (again) cast over the roof tiles and spires of Wisborg, adding a kind of fantastical unreality to the image. Eggers had custom lenses fitted to create the Murnau inspired blue tint to much of the picture – one of the main aspects of homage that doesn’t go missed.

This isn’t Eggers’ best work, contrary to what Roger Ebert critic Zoller Seitz would have you think. It lacks the penetration and sheer terror of The Witch, and falls short of the crippling bizarreness of The Lighthouse, but it certainly isn’t half hearted. It doesn’t bite us with the intensity we might want, but certainly it gnaws at our heels with the tenacity and investment of a director who knows his craft.

By Emilia Brookfield-Pertusini

I hate tradition. I possess a bah-humbug approach to these supposedly ‘heart-warming’ events we must trudge through for time’s sake. However, I allow myself three indulgences, exceptions to the rule: 1) re-read The Secret History every December. 2) Listen to the King’s College, Cambridge choir carols on a blistering walk. 3)Watch a theatrical telling of A Christmas Carol. Upon hearing A Christmas Carol was descending upon Durham’s vastly beautiful wintery mood, I couldn’t help but be delighted (my student finance imposed tightfistedness, echoing Scrooge, in my refusal to see The Old Vic’s Carol this year). Upon watching, this elation hasn’t departed. Whilst Walkabout’s production doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat the obvious haunting and wrath that lies within this tale, the delicate adaptation of Dickens’ most recognisable plot, the craftsmanship of the design team, and the bravado of the actors cannot help but bring an audience to smile with pure, innocent joy. Lily Gilchrist and Harry Threapleton, the directors and adaptors, have marvelled in their sharp, poignant, and ultimately Victorian, to its truest sense, production. 

The bustle of the stage works in A Christmas Carol’s favour well. To be moved by a cast, who stop, look at you, extend their arm and holiday wishes, before moving on, retiring in their own magical scenes elsewhere, that you are privy to, is a truly magical voyeuristic experience. All whilst a superbly talented choir is fully incorporated into the momentum of the play, embellishing the scenes with further tenderness. These Victorians manoeuvre around a set, designed by Carrie Cheung and her team, that strikes a careful balance between kitsch Victoriana, and haunting minimalism. With the names of cast members upon gravestones in the corner, and a hearty dinner setup in the other, the balance is struck brilliantly between the two moods of the story and is maintained as audience moves carefully between the two, savouring in each. Charlie (Cara Crofts), our dutiful tour guide of Victorian London encapsulates this boundless energy that possess us during such festivity. The bubbly nature of a character who drives the plot, and encapsulates the cultural artifice that Carol has become, was not lost; this is an actor who understood their role to their fullest potential and brought the Dickensian prose into startling, striking life. The now diffuse and diluted term of Dickensian is often misused, not in the case of Crofts however, who elevated the practical necessity of her character to a person an audience member was delighted to see shepherd us spritely and provide us with brilliantly timed witty asides. 

Wit is often prescribed to Scrooge in order to make the shamelessly brutal character easier to digest. Gilchrist and Threapleton’s adaptation struck a considered balance with Scrooge, allowing Edward Clark to channel the disturbing miser to his fullest, whilst giving the audience moments of comedic breathing space, necessary to hammer home in the absurd, condemnable nature of Scrooge. Clark’s masterful performance delved into the psyche of such a miser at points, humanising Scrooge with pathos carefully being delivered in beautifully fraught and tender moments between Clark and his cast mates. Whilst I have often been considered as someone who enjoys the bleak moroseness that theatre can harbinger, Clark’s performance of a transformed Scrooge was simply too joyous to consider. The beauty of immersive theatre, I believe, lies in the fact the audience become less isolated, both from the actors and their fellow audience members; upon being shook by a contagiously gleeful Scrooge, I couldn’t help but smile, catching the same elation beaming out of Scrooge, and in my shock of being touched by both theatre and character, looked around to witness my fellow travellers through Victorian London beaming in the same manner. The strength of the adaptation of this complex figure, and the magisterial delivery of Clark, was something to behold.

Mark Gatiss remarks on how Carol’s “status as a ghost story has been somewhat undervalued”. This is shocking considering the Victorian preoccupation with ‘the other side’ yet cannot be said about this production; the consideration of lighting (Rory Collins) emulating the haunting necessity of the story thrillingly from the offset, despite not being utilized as fully later on. The introduction of our first ghost, by means of a howling metamorphosing doorknocker, confirms Carol’s status within the ghost story genre, with Raphael Henrion’s Marley being a startingly frightening, yet darkly humorous figure. Despite the script occasionally lapsing into the silliness that often grasps adaptations of Carol, Henrion managed to create a presence that channelled irksome impressions of the lost, tormented souls of Dante’s Purgatorio that Marley should be reminiscent of. The spectral reigns are then taken up by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Nell Hickson), who catapults us through the pangs of Christmas nostalgia with a foreboding deliverance. Her delivery and duplicity came into full force in her scathing departure from a relenting Scrooge, leaving both him and the audiences’ jaw on the floor. Bounding on stage after is Grace Heron as Present, emitting such a warmth onto stage it is hard to believe the phantom categorising of this being. A bountiful harbinger of news, we, like the marionettes cleverly chosen to physicalise the ghosts’ message, are caught up in the rapturous display of Christmas truths, forcing the message of change and charity to the forefront of the production; an understanding of the duality of this character, and the tale itself, was on full display. Finally, Future (Iphis Critchlow), who’s silent existence on stage sliced through the audience, allowed for the spectral potential of the production to be achieved in its completion. Each actor of this sinister quartet played with the audience’s perception of haunting, bring performances that kept the pace of the haunting at a constant revelry. 

The whimsy and magic of the immersive experience embraces the auditorium, handling every aspect with such clear sensitivity. The Cratchits are, despite my fond revisiting of this tale annually, cause for contention; Tiny Tim and his family cawing in mockney Victorian poverty pomp behind him makes one cringe under the amount of Victorian ‘virtuous’ poor narrative and disability fetish typically on display. However, a refreshing, modern consideration for the family were incorporated against the Victoriana. The pity porn was replaced with a quintet of talented actors who handled their roles with care, creating tender scenes; their warmth on stage was something to behold, and the dynamic between Charlotte Walton’s Bob and Scrooge was masterfully handled without the usual retreat into caricaturist workplace abuse. Instead, the ignorant optimism reserved for them was wholly invested into the pompously cheerful Fred (Nemo Royle). Adorned in a perfectly festive turquoise blazer, we were captivated around the dinner table, whilst he stood on a chair, like a true festive host, to address us, his guests, into parlour games; whilst at points the character began to sentimentalise and err on the side of tangent, the gusto of deliverance was to be relished, and an invitation back to his table would be received wholly.

The playfulness of the novella is fully anticipated when, on sofa or on theatre seat, one sits down to watch A Christmas Carol, yet the unbridled, unrelenting imaginative magic is full realised when we’re invited into stand within the tradition of this tale. If only more people could be invited to spend an evening around a Dickensian Christmas tale, then perhaps this tale would not need to be told year upon year, as the cast, crew, and production team clearly understood in their adaptation the unfortunate poignancy of the charitable message, which, as Scrooge does in the final moments of the play, grips you. The combination of theatrical enchantment and spectral illusion ensures that Christmas magic is released upon all who enter into this glimpse of Victorian London. The fun, nuanced, and gripping production affirms why A Christmas Carol is a powerhouse of a Christmas tradition.